Updated
Summary
The mayor of Uvalde has just issued a statement indicating that the police chief was sworn in as a member of the city council today. According to Texas officials, the Robb Elementary School teacher did not leave door propped open before the Uvalde shooter entered. Every Republican in Congress, and more importantly, every Republican on the Supreme Court seems to believe that to honor a sentence written by James Madison in 1789, children must die. They tell us that it is Constitutionally impossible to control the sale of firearms and ammunition in the 21st century. Former Trump White House staffer Peter Navarro has been subpoenaed by Attorney General Merrick Garland`s Justice Department to provide evidence to a criminal grand jury that appears to be investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Clarence Thomas should be subjected to a code of ethics — so says a federal judge who was appointed by the same president who appointed Clarence Thomas and was confirmed by the Senate one week after Clarence Thomas.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Ayman. And that special is going to air in this hour tomorrow night. I`m looking forward to it. That was really a great report on it. Thank you.
AYMAN MOHYELDIN, MSNBC HOST: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: Thank you, Ayman.
Well, we have some breaking news from you all day right now. This is stunning. Absolutely stunning news.
Yesterday afternoon, on our special Memorial Day coverage, I was anchoring from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. And we reported to you then, that Peter Arredondo, who was the commanding officer in the school, for those 78 minutes for when the police were doing nothing. He is the chief of police of the school district of Uvalde, that very small five-person police force that he commands.
He was also three weeks ago, an elected to the city council in Uvalde. He won an election three weeks ago to the city council in Uvalde. He was scheduled to be sworn in as a member of the city council today, at a city council meeting in Uvalde.
And yesterday, we reported to you, that that meeting of the city council for today was canceled. That was the end of the story. For today, as far as we knew.
And now, tonight, the city council, the mayor of Uvalde, a Republican mayor of Uvalde, has just issued a statement, indicating that no, they did not have the city council meeting. But, but, the police chief was sworn in, as a member of the city council today. And that that happened while he has been hiding out from investigators, who were trying to get more information from this police chief who has been AWOL for two days. But he did get sworn in tonight as a member of the Uvalde City Council.
And here is the written statement produced by the Republican mayor of Uvalde tonight. This is from Mayor Don McLaughlin, you remember him as the man who angrily called Beto O`Rourke son of a bitch when Beto O`Rourke questioned him, and Governor Abbott`s at their completely false we now know, completely false conference, that they held the day after the mass murder of those 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde.
Here is that mayor`s written statement tonight.
Uvalde City Council members were sworn in today as per the city charter. Out of respect for the families who buried their children today, and who are planning to bury their children in the new next few days, no ceremony was held.
Our parents deserve answers and I trust the Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Rangers, will leave no stone unturned.
One answer that the parents deserve is where is Peter Arredondo? Where is he? Why is he not cooperating with the investigation of what he did in that school, where those children were killed?
The Republican mayor of Uvalde knew where Arredondo was at some point today, and did not help the authorities get in contact with him, so that he can answer that question that he is refusing to monitor. It is a stunning shocking performance, by all layers of government and Texas, all layers, from the city of you about, to the state house, to the governor.
And tonight, exactly one week after the disastrous bad police work, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas, where 19 children were shot to death, and bled to death from the full lower their classroom, along with two of their teachers. No one involved in that disastrously bad police work, has been fired. No one. No one has resigned. No one.
And the police chief in charge in the school that day has gone AWOL except to get himself sworn in today, secretly sworn in, secretly, as a member of the city council.
[22:05:03]
They did it as a secret, and made it public after they did it.
Our lead off guest tonight, Tony Plohetski, an investigative reporter with “The Austin American-Statesman” will join us in a moment is now reporting the chief of the Uvalde school district police department, Peter Arredondo, has not responded to the Texas Rangers in two days for a follow-up interview from his initial statement immediately after the mass shooting.
No one has been fired and no one has resigned for making false public statements, or for supporting false public statements and relaying false public statements by Texas authorities, after that mass murder. Governor Greg Abbott, made this fall statement in his first visit to you all day, the day after the mass murder of those children and teachers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R), TEXAS: But the reality is, as horrible as what happened, it could`ve been worse. The reason it was not worse, is because law enforcement officials did what they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: That was a lie. And Governor Abbott now says, that he was lied to by those law enforcement officials. And he is livid, livid. That was his word, livid about being lied to. But not livid enough to fire whoever lied to him.
And in situations like this, governors usually get their information from the highest ranking law enforcement official, employed by the governor. And that is Steven McCraw, the head of the Texas State Police, historically known as the Texas Rangers. Abbott did not appoint him, he inherited him, but Abbott has to fire the power to fire him, has the power to far Steve McCraw immediately.
Steve McCraw could have the decency to resign after failing the people of Texas, by helping to pass a law in false information about the mass murder.
In a moment, we will be joined by another Texas reporter, who obtained information today, indicating that Steve McCraw`s attempt to blame a teacher, for leaving a school door open, is not true.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVEN MCCRAW, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY DIRECTOR: The exterior door, suspected of what, what we knew the shooter entered, was propped open by a teacher. 11:28, the suspect vehicle crashes into a ditch, previously described, the teacher runs the room 1:32 to retrieve a phone. And that same teacher walked back to the exit door, and the door remains propped open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Our other lead off guest tonight reporter, Guillermo Contreras, of the “San Antonio Express News”, is reporting that Don Plenary, an attorney representing that teacher, who remains unnamed, says, the teacher closed that door after she re-entered the school and immediately called 911 as soon as she heard shooting. Her lawyer said, she remembers pulling the door closed while telling 911 that he was shooting. She thought the door would lock because that door is always supposed to be locked.
Plenary added that the teacher even remembers pulling and holding on to the door which has a horizontal push bar while on the phone with 911. The law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said surveillance video and audio verifies that the teacher removed the rock, keeping the door open then, closed it. She slammed it shut, said the source, who requested anonymity because the source does not have authority to speak with the media, the source said, investigators are trying to determine if the door was unlocked earlier or if it`s lock was not working because the gunman used the same door to get into the school.
On a recording obtained by ABC News appears to show 911 dispatchers alerting police on the scene, that the dispatchers were getting phone calls from children inside the school.
Plenary added that you do have a child on the line. Room 12. Are we able to — is anybody inside of the building?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DISPATCHER: You do have a child on the line. Room 12. Are we able to — is anybody hidden inside the building?
Child is advising he is in the room full of victims. Full of victims at this moment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: As the evidence in this case shows us once again, police training does not work. Police training does not work, especially when police officers field threatened in anyway, including just if their authority is threatened. Police officers feel threatened when — with death, when they did for 78 minutes in that school in Uvalde, that`s when their training does not work.
[22:10:06]
And even when police officers feel that their authority is being threatened, or questioned, their training does not work, as in the murder of George Floyd. If police training works, George Floyd would be alive today. If police training worked, we don`t know how many of those 19 children at Robb Elementary School would be alive today. If police training worked, we don`t know if one or both of those teachers at Robb Elementary School, without blood to death in the floor, would be alive today.
Police training does not work, and when police officers fail, because they violate their training. There reflects, universally, is to cover up their mistakes. And that is what we have seen since the first day of the police response to the mass murder in Uvalde.
That`s what we saw on the second day, and only because reporters and the families and you`ve all day kept pressing for the truth have we begun to discover, just discover the holes in the police story. There are surely more to come. The police were never ever going to reveal their mistakes. Never. They never do.
Peter Arredondo hiding out and refusing to cooperate with the investigation is actually not unusual in police work. Police officers who know they have made mistakes, always refused to cooperate in an investigations, and they lawyer up as quickly as they can. Always. That`s what they do.
And governors like Greg Abbott, do nothing about it. No one gets fired. No one is forced to resign.
The mayor of Uvalde, that mayor, who you remember, called Beto O`Rourke a sick son of a bitch right there, just for questioning Greg Abbott about this, the day after the mass murder. That mayor has done absolutely nothing to reveal the truth of what`s happened in his city.
And today, he did nothing to reveal the truth about where that police chief has been hiding out, who he helped swear in as a city councilor today. That is what the Republican mayor of Uvalde did.
Can you imagine a real mayor anywhere in America, any Democratic mayor in America, the mayor of New York, the mayor of Boston, the mayor of Houston, the mayor of Dallas, any mayor? Anywhere? In a real city being silent for a week? About the facts and the truth of what happens in a mass murder in the school, an elementary school in his city? That`s what that mayor is doing in Uvalde.
No one has been fired, and no one, no one, has had the decency to resign, after failing, failing, to protect the lives of children and teachers in an elementary school.
Joining us now, Tony Plohetski, investigator reporter for “The Austin American-Statesman,” and Guillermo Contreras. staff writer for “The San Antonio Express News”.
And, Tony, you broke the news about apparently Arredondo being sworn in today as a city council. What can you tell us about that?
TONY PLOHETSKI, THE AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, I was increasingly curious about how this was all going to happen and frankly was suspicious that perhaps he would be sworn in in a private non- public ceremony. And the reason I thought that is because the mayor has been saying for days, that he supported Pete Arredondo, Chief Pete Arredondo, that he believed that he was duly elected to the city council. And so therefore would not be standing in his way to be sworn in.
But at the same time, we knew that the city charter required those officials to be sworn in today, today was the deadline. And so, I have been asking the city all day, what is the truth here? What is the information?
The city has consulted with an outside PR, representative, in San Antonio, and so I asked her point blank. Earlier today, is he going to be sworn in in a private, non-public ceremony, and just before we went on the air, we did receive a statement confirming and in fact, I called her on the landline, just to say, want to make absolutely sure I understand your statement.
And she confirmed that yes, all of the city council members were sworn in today. And that Pete Arredondo is among them.
[22:15:02]
O`DONNELL: So, Tony, just to tell you what I`m seeing from this distance, at what you are reporting — the mayor, and everyone involved in this, including the outside PR representative who the taxpayers of Uvalde are paying for. All those people, and Arredondo engage in a cover-up yesterday, publicly issuing the lie that the city council meeting would be canceled. And then in effect suggesting, that nobody would be sworn in today, and that the lie was that nobody would be sworn in.
They didn`t want anyone to know that this was happening until after the fact. And what you are reporting now is, it was not publicly revealed until they had already done it.
PLOHETSKI: That`s exactly right, and let`s face, I mean, had Pete Arredondo gone to any sort of public gathering, one of the reasons that there was so much interest, and one if this was going to happen is because the hope is that we would have the opportunity to ask him in the moment to please walk us through and put us in your shoes, walk us through what your mindset was and that timeframe last Tuesday, that tragic timeframe last Tuesday.
Explain to us what was going through your mind. How were you making the assessments? To treat this as a police call, a barricaded subject, instead of an active shooter?
And so, certainly, reporters are going to be there on behalf of the people of Uvalde, and frankly, on behalf of the people of this country, who wants answers from him. And the reality is, he is the only person who can truly answer for himself, and explain for himself exactly the calculations he was making.
O`DONNELL: So it`s not just the people of Uvalde, and the people of this country who want answers, it`s state police investigators who want answers from him, right now. And have wanted them for the past few days. The FBI wants answers from him.
Everyone, illegal authorities want answers from him and he is on the run in effect, hiding out, AWOL. And for the first time in American history, we have a city who has decided to swear in a city counselor, while that city counselor is in effect, on the run from the law, hiding from the state police.
Is there some other way we should be characterizing this, Tony?
PLOHETSKI: I mean, I think it is absolutely fair to say that there are many people, and many entities, who wants answers immediately. It is also there to say, that based on the reporting that I have been doing here in Texas, with law enforcement sources, no one at this juncture is ready to do flare him a criminal defendant, a criminal suspect. But certainly someone who is in the position to provide essential answers to essential questions that, frankly, could help law enforcement develop new policies, or procedures moving forward.
But I got to, Lawrence, go back to the people who deserve the answers most. And those are the family members who have lost children, who have lost loved ones in Uvalde, who are entitled to the truth, a full truth, and many of them have said that as they go about trying to make sense of something that is so unimaginable. The only way that they can really go about the process of doing that, is with a full accounting, a minute by minute accounting, of what happened that day.
O`DONNELL: The other thing that those people and the people of Texas deserve is Arredondo`s resignation, that is according to the Texas own approach to school shooting situations. Which says, as first responders, we must recognize the innocent life must be defended, a first responder unwilling to place the lives of the innocent above their own safety should consider another career field.
That is in effect direct order by the roles and customs of police work in Texas for Arredondo to seek another career field.
Guillermo Contreras, your reporting was the kind of hottest news we had for this hour, as recently as a half hour ago. And that is the story of the backdoor of that school, which authorities try to tell us, was left open by a teacher. The police approach to this from the start, appeared to be blame a teacher, concentrate blame on a teacher, for leaving a door open, and try to ignore how many minutes those police were in the school without doing anything.
What`s the new information you develop today on this?
GUILLERMO CONTRERAS, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS STAFF WRITER: Yeah. So basically the commander, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety might have left the impression that the teacher just left prop the door open, and left it open.
And so, during my reporting today, I come across the lawyer who represented the teachers, and they are adamant that the teacher had prompted open, but immediately upon running the gunman is coming towards a school, removed the ratchet and place there, and grab the door, and shut it.
So — my sources have confirmed that in fact, the video does show her shutting the door, and that there is audio, you can actually hear it slam. Now, there is apparently investigations to the possibility that it didn`t lock. That maybe the automatic locks on it were not working.
O`DONNELL: And so, this teacher has a lawyer representing her now who was communicating with you about her story, her identity hasn`t been revealed obviously for her own safety and privacy. It`s completely understandable. But this lawyer`s account of it, lines up with video and audio evidence that one of the investigators involved in the case has also, the results of that, he has also shared with you.
CONTRERAS: Yes exactly. The timeline fits. The lawyer said that for the most part, the timeline that Steve McCraw, the director of DPS, gave fits with the account of this teacher has provided him, except the particular part where it was left with an impression that she had totally left the door open. That was not the case.
O`DONNELL: One of the things I notice, Guillermo and Tony, in both of these elements of the story is that they both contain elements that are very, very important to Texas politicians. Guillermo is reporting on what is the Rafael Cruz area of concentration, which is of course we can only have one door for schools, and all of the doors, although the door should be locked. And if this door was mishandled by a teacher, well that gets Senator Cruz off the hook, because a teacher to blame for ruining Senator Cruz`s perfect idea for defending schools.
And, Tony, this notion that the good guy with the gun, you just need teachers armed with guns, and people in the schools aren`t with guns. And the gunman coming into the school won`t be able to do anything. That is, of course, counter dramatically by having 19 armed police officers standing in that school, and being there for almost an hour doing absolutely nothing.
Do either of you get the sense, Guillermo, do you get the sense that there is a political defense built in to the way that these stories have been told so far by law enforcement?
CONTRERAS: One of the things I`ve noticed is that it seems like there is little bit of, kind of politics in terms of trying to protect who said what. You have for instance, the mayor, recently saying that the lieutenant governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, had said that he hadn`t gone the full story. So there was a statement saying that, from the mayor, saying that he did get the full story. And now we are having him in today`s statement that, he misled — that the mayor misunderstood what Governor Dan Patrick said.
So we have, that`s another playing in the background, whereas we have these officers, generally have worked together in that Uvalde area. You have this dynamic of cooperation, and they are kind of tiptoeing around each other because now you have to look at the actions of officers that they once cooperated with, work on investigations with, on other cases. So, you have those kind of interagency kind of politics in play.
O`DONNELL: Tony, what about you? Are you seeing political dynamics in a way that this is being handled by the authorities?
PLOHETSKI: Well, I can tell you that Texas Democrats will tell you that this is all about changing the subject, and scapegoating.
[22:25:00]
That they feel like that while we are talking about whether or not the door was closed, or left open, or how it was closed, or not, that we according to them are completely missing the boat around what they want the state lawmakers to be talking about. Which is, what steps can be taken to stop something like this from happening again, with regard to raising the age of purchase for these types of firearms, universal background checks.
So I think it is deeply frustrating to them that there are all of these side conversations, changing account, changing narrative, that is really, and I think their fears, moving the conversation I least for now, further away from what they see as the overriding cause to what happened one week ago today.
O`DONNELL: And, Tony, quickly before we go, any indication how long chief Arredondo is going to remain AWOL?
PLOHETSKI: The only person who can answer that is him. Certainly again, we are making every effort to reach him, to talk to him. We want to hear his story, if he or his representatives are listening tonight. I want to hear his story. We all do.
And again, I think that in terms of the clarity of what happened and the decisions that he made, that he is the best and really only person who can walk us through that. So that the public and then decide for themselves, you know, account for what happened.
O`DONNELL: Tony Plohetski and Guillermo Contreras, thank you both very much for your important reporting on this tonight, and for joining us. We really appreciate it.
PLOHETSKI: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
CONTRERAS: Thanks for having us.
O`DONNELL: And coming up, what Republicans in Congress and those Republicans on the Supreme Court do not understand, and do not know about the Second Amendment. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:31:23]
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Every Republican in Congress, and more importantly, every Republican on the Supreme Court seems to believe that to honor a sentence written by James Madison in 1789, children must die. They tell us that it is Constitutionally impossible to control the sale of firearms and ammunition in the 21st century because 233 years ago James Madison wrote, “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Our next guest William Hogeland, writes, “The sentence is weak, the weakness is deliberate. Madison couldn`t afford, on the one hand, to let the amendment seem to contradict the hard-won federal military power in the Constitution`s main body. He couldn`t afford, on the other hand, to underscore too strongly for the states` comfort the overwhelming nature of that federal power. The amendment gestures vaguely at state sovereignty in a way intended to make little practical sense.”
Joining us now is William Hogeland. He is the author of “The Wild Early Republic Trilogy” which includes the Whiskey Rebellion, Declaration, and Autumn of the Black Snake. Bill, thank you very much for joining us. I will confess to the audience, Bill is a dear friend, who helps me disguise my lack of authority in matters involving history by letting me cheat onto his.
Bill, I have been so fascinated. This piece you wrote is a ten year old piece. Written in reaction to a mass murder at that time. Re-reading it now, ten years later, it is so striking that the weirdness of the Second Amendment, beginning with this fact you point out, that it`s the only one that has this preface to it. The others are all just straight ahead. They`re as clear as the Ten Commandments. The Second Amendment gets quite tricky.
WILLIAM HOGELAND, HISTORIAN: Yes, it is unique. And it`s unique throughout the Constitution, too. Not just of the amendments and it`s really — while it may not be unique that that strange awkward, you know, being necessary to phraseology is not unique and all of the founding documents. It is used inappropriately in the Second Amendment from a grammatical point of view. And it`s not used anywhere else in the whole documentation of the founding of the country in such an inappropriate and awkward manner which is just — as you just said like weird.
And you know it wouldn`t matter. Yes, I wrote that piece ten years ago, it`s quite painful. I mean I even thought about not re-posting it, thinking what if — you know, what does all this talking do really? I think we are all at a place like that right now.
But it is — it wouldn`t matter if it were just some cork of the founding moment in which, certain amount of disingenuous and politics found its way into our founding national law.
But this is a crisis that we are in, regarding gun violence and this amendment plays directly into it and fights about quite directly into this crisis.
And so it`s a very painful thing to look at and try to understand. But every single time, some horrific event occurs like these mass shootings, and this is now going back more than ten years, of course.
[22:34:55]
HOGELAND: There are these arguments about what the Second Amendment means. And we have people on the right and people on — you know, gun rights people and gun control people and people who overlap arguing about what it means. Whereas, I think really, if you look at it in historical context and in grammatical context. I mean, this is kind of potentially slightly creepy to say — it doesn`t really mean anything.
O`DONNELL: And you make the point, that that was Madison`s intent. He needed to put something there, basically, to hold the country together. There is a group of people, who weren`t so sure they wanted this whole thing to be a country. They were interested in maybe it being something more like the European Union, this kind of collection of friendly neighboring states that didn`t really function as a country and he wanted that strong national government and this was one of those trick pieces that would kind of bolt it together.
HOGELAND: Yes, and I lay it off on Madison particularly in the essay and I think I can stand by that to a great degree. But it wasn`t of course, just Madison who was on that side of wanting a strong national government.
What the weird phrasing — you know, there are many other versions of that same idea. It goes back to English Constitutional Law, to some degree, the right to bear arms, and so forth but nowhere is it put so strangely.
And I think what Madison and others were busy doing is the sort of throwing, I guess I would say a sock in a way to the anti federalists, those who had objected to the ratification of the Constitution and we`re sort of threatening a potential do-over.
And in that sense, it`s a sock, you know. It`s a vague gesture at the idea of the importance of militias that is contradicted in the main body of the Constitution by the federal power over the militias which is what the anti federalists were objecting to.
So we end up with this weird two-part thing that doesn`t really hang together despite Justice Scalia`s claim that grammatically it hangs together perfectly. And you know, he wrote the opinion in the Heller case that tells us what it means from the Supreme Court. So I guess we could say, we know what it means, because we know what the Supreme Court says that means. But that didn`t make a lot of sense, grammatically or historically.
O`DONNELL: What is it like for you, having studied history as closely as you have to have to read the work of the amateur historians on the Supreme Court like Scalia on something like this?
HOGELAND: It`s painful, and I think — I think people who are, you know, far better versed in history than I am find it painful that the opinions and also some of the discussion during — the discussion during presentation of argument, too that goes on among the justices, and this just goes across the spectrum to some degree, the political spectrum where they just make statements about history, that are you know, commonly — just common errors. And just kind of general broad sweeping statements. As if they were supposed to be.
As if the justices were supposed to be historically astute, or grammatically astute. Maybe they are not really supposed to be up on that stuff. But they put themselves in that position. And then it can be quite painful to read the things they say.
O`DONNELL: William Hogeland, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thank you for enlightening me over the years. And if you want to sound wicked smart at your next dinner party. Follow William Hogeland on Twitter and you can have all sorts of gems to bring to it. Bill, thank you very much. Really appreciate it.
HOGELAND: Thank you Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, we learned today that Trump White House staffer Peter Navarro has received a subpoena to provide evidence to a criminal grand jury convened by Attorney General Merrick Garland`s Justice Department to investigate the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Congressman Eric Swalwell will join us next.
[22:38:31]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Former Trump White House staffer Peter Navarro has been subpoenaed by Attorney General Merrick Garland`s Justice Department to provide evidence to a criminal grand jury that appears to be investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Navarro revealed today that he received a subpoena from the Justice Department.
The revelation came in a frivolous lawsuit filed today in federal court in Washington against the January 6 Committee by Navarro, which also has subpoena pending against Navarro which Navarro has been resisting on a false claim of nonexistent executive privilege.
The frivolous nature of Navarro`s lawsuit is obvious in the passage, for example, where he complains about “two FBI special agents banged loudly on my door in the early morning hours”. Sorry Pete, that`s what FBI agents do for a living.
Joining our discussion now Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California who served as a House impeachment manager in the second impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. He`s a member of the House Judiciary Intelligence Committee. Congressman Swalwell, what do you make of Navarro`s subpoena for a justice department grand jury?
REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Lawrence, it`s clear that this investigation is beginning to surface as they would call it. Meaning, you know, through a subpoena like this, they are showing progress. They are seeking to prove a conspiracy by linking co-conspirators to their conspiratorial acts.
And look, we know that this crime started at the very top when Donald Trump propagated the big lie, aimed a mob at the Capitol, and then had others lined in cover up for him so it would be very fitting if that`s what the prosecution ended by going to the very top where it belongs.
[22:44:55]
O`DONNELL: Speaking at Harvard`s commencement this weekend, Attorney General Garland kept stressing to the students that the fight to preserve democracy will be inherited by them. They can only inherit that fight if Merrick Garland is part of winning that fight.
SWALWELL: That`s right and everything is on the line, Lawrence. I promise you, these guys, they learned their lesson once when they transferred power. It was not a peaceful transition, it was a violent transition. And their aim — the Trump, the MAGA Republican aim, is to never again have to transfer power.
And that`s what will happen if they win the midterms in the House and the Senate. And they are doing that also across state houses.
This investigation is important because it`s happening now and it shows when there is an honor system, when there`s a rule of law, that you can find the truth and hold people accountable, which is the opposite of a cronyism, corrupt system that we had under Donald Trump.
O`DONNELL: Congressman Eric Swalwell, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
SWALWELL: My pleasure.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, Clarence Thomas should be subjected to a code of ethics — so says a federal judge who was appointed by the same president who appointed Clarence Thomas and was confirmed by the Senate one week after Clarence Thomas. That is next.
[22:46:08]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Today Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said, “Ginni Thomas communicated with the White House about overturning the election. Clarence Thomas was the only justice to vote to keep White House messages about January 6th secret because he alone decides if he recuses from cases. That`s the ethics crisis at the Supreme Court.”
Exactly one week after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed by a vote of 52-48 in the United States Senate, federal judge Reggie Walton also appointed by the first President Bush was confirmed unanimously by the same senate. The next President Bush George W. Bush appointed Judge Walton to his current position as a federal district judge for the District of Columbia.
In a conference in Chicago, while speaking on a panel titled “Democracy and the Courts”, Judge Walton said, that it is quote, “unimaginable that we have a segment of our federal judiciary that is not subject to an ethics code”. He meant of course, the United States Supreme Court, the only federal judges not subject to an ethics code.
Later in an interview with the “Washington Post”, Judge Walton said, I think all judges should be subject to a code of ethics. The only federal judges not subject to a code of ethics are now conducting a secret investigation of the leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe versus Wade. CNN is reporting that the judges not subject to an ethics code, are quote, “taking steps to require law clerks to provide cell phone records and sign affidavits”, three sources with knowledge of the efforts have told CNN.
The investigation was ordered by Chief Justice Roberts, and is being carried out by the court`s marshal`s office, which has never conducted an investigation of any kind in the history of the court.
Joining us now is Emily Bazelon, staff writer, at the “New York Times” magazine, and is the Truman Capote fellow for creative writing in law at Yale Law School.
Emily, thank you very much for joining us tonight. So, Judge Walton said the thing that judges don`t usually say about other federal judges especially the Supreme Court. Someone has got to keep an eye on Supreme Court justices.
EMILY BAZELON, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: Right, I mean in some ways this is an incredibly obvious point. They have enormous power if they are unaccountable and are not bound by a code of ethics, then trouble arises. And we have seen that lately in allegations about Justice Thomas and Ginni Thomas. It has risen on other occasions as well and it just makes a lot of sense for the court to impose this code of ethics on itself and figure out a way to enforce it.
O`DONNELL: And the idea that Justice Thomas can already have ruled on communications with this White House when his wife was involved in communication with the White House is shocking enough. But not to announce that he won`t do it again, not to — not to come out and say I will not be part of any of these cases. As far as I know, unprecedented conflict of interest for Supreme Court justice to have.
BAZELON: Right, I mean I suppose if he said now that he wouldn`t do it again, it would be admitting that there was something wrong with his earlier vote and so one can imagine that that is part of why he is loathed to do it.
But it has I think struck a lot of people that have to this involvement of the justice in a case in which you know, his wife clearly had strong personal interests. It just seems really fishy.
O`DONNELL: Well it`s pure and utter and rank corruption. That is what it is. And there is nothing else the Supreme Court can pretend it is. And yet they will apparently make the effort to pretend that it is something other than pure corruption for Clarence Thomas to rule on cases involving his wife.
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BAZELON: I think that Chief Justice Roberts has really tried to move away from kind of purely defensive posture on this. The court has his name on it. He has a sense that its judicial (INAUDIBLE) is important.
But we are also talking about here about institutional hubris. There is just a way in which when a set of people gets to make their own rules and it is better if those rules don`t prevent them from doing what they want to do that`s a lot of reason not to change it, right.
There is a lot of tradition here. And I think people on the court, if there are people on the court other than Roberts who might want to address this, we are not really seeing that come to fruition.
O`DONNELL: Emily Bazelon, thank you very much for joining our discussion tonight.
BAZELON: Thanks for having me.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
Tonight`s LAST WORD is next.
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O`DONNELL: Tomorrow night at this hour, MSNBC will be presenting a special program, “FIELD REPORT WITH PAULA RAMOS”, that will focus on Latino voters in the upcoming 2022 election.
That is tonight`s LAST WORD.
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