Updated
Summary
New reports coming out detailing the failures of the Uvalde police during the Robb Elementary school shooting where Chief of Police Arredondo waited for more than an hour while the children were bleeding to death. And the cover up by the authorities involving the governor all the way down to the school superintendent. Virginia Thomas emailed Arizona legislators, lying to them about their legal powers and urging them to violate the law to overturn the presidential election in Arizona. Did last night`s hearing help Georgia district attorney, Fani Willis` criminal investigation of Donald Trump`s interference in the presidential election in that state?
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: You can see the lineup there including our special coverage. I will see you. You can always find me, 6:00 p.m. eastern. You can find me online @AriMelber or arimelber.com and you can find me covering the hearings at 6:00 eastern and then Rachel will be here.
Most importantly, you might say, at 8:00 p.m. along with Lawrence and Chris and everyone else covering the hearings Monday night. And speaking of Lawrence O`Donnell, well, I`m handing it over to him. Good evening, Lawrence.
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Ari. And thank you for, I don`t, know it might be the best news of the week, but they`re keeping the colors of Air Force One. And no thank you, by the way, for reminding me of the Trump shuttle, which I flew on a few times.
MELBER: Did you?
O`DONNELL: I`ll never forget — I`ll never forget the first time stepping into that —
MELBER: What did you — was it hot inside?
O`DONNELL: The gold — the fake gold faucets in the restroom of the airplane was just so perfectly Trumpian. But, you know, because it was a struggling airline and kind of going out of business from the start, the fares were really low. You know, desperately trying to get people like me who could barely afford to fly at the time on to the Trump shuttle. It was, you know, it was pure Donald Trump.
MELBER: Memories.
O`DONNELL: Yesh. Thanks, Ari.
MELBER: Peace.
O`DONNELL: Thank you. Well, the most important news of the day by which I mean, the most important news that was revealed today, and not last night at the hearing, is that Clarence Thomas now appears to be the most corrupted member of the United States Supreme Court in the court`s history because Clarence Thomas`s wife definitely is the most corrupt spouse of a Supreme Court justice in history.
And she may also be a criminal, possibly guilty of federal and state crimes. “The Washington Post” reported today that Virginia Thomas used interstate communication to urge members of the Arizona state legislature to commit a crime, the crime of election fraud, in a federal election. That news exposes a Supreme Court justice`s wife as possibly guilty of state and federal crimes.
And in any other era, that would be the only news of the day, that would dominate all television news coverage, and it would be giant front page headlines all over the country tomorrow morning. But in this era of rampant Republican criminality led by Donald Trump and including everyone from Trump all the way down to the hundreds of people who have then arrested by the FBI for acting as Donald Trump`s agents at the capitol on January 6th.
A Supreme Court justice`s spouse, for the first time in history, being suspected of state and federal crimes has to compete with all the other Republican madness that has been unleashed in this country since Donald Trump became a politician.
And the Republican madness that was a pre-existing condition to the Trump cancer on the Republican Party. And that is the Republican Party`s decades long relentless determination that America`s mass murders should always be the best equipped mass murderers in the world. And so, a Supreme Court justice`s wife, possibly committing crimes, will not be our lead story in this hour tonight.
The condemning revelations in last night`s hearings by the January 6th committee will not be our lead story tonight, even though it revealed Ivanka Trump to be the most disloyal presidential daughter in history, when she testified against her father, the most criminal president in history.
We will get to all of those things, but we will begin and end tonight with guns. At the end of the hour, we`ll be joined by David Hogg who is leading the second “March for Our Lives” demonstration in Washington. As a high school senior in 2018, he was one of the leaders at the largest march in Washington history against gun violence, particularly mass murders in our schools, after he survived the mass murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
We begin tonight with the gun that murdered, as we now know, in some cases, actually decapitated 19 children who bled to death on the floors of their classrooms along with two of their teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. And the Texas cover-up that that gun has now created.
The mass murder in Las Vegas who killed 60 people, 60, from his hotel window was a big fan of the very same weapon.
[22:05:01]
The Daniel Defense, DDM V7 rifle, which the murderer in Uvalde bought when he turned 18 for $1,870. That`s what he used to decapitate children. That`s what doctors who saw the bodies told us, that some of the children were decapitated by that weapon. It has a family name on it. The company that makes those rifles is probably named after its founder, Marty Daniel.
So, the Daniel family name is right there now in the autopsy reports of mass murders. That name got there because shortly after the company was founded 20 years ago, Mr. Daniel won a $20 million contract with the United States military to produce those war weapons for U.S. Special Forces.
So, those guns might not exist today, if Marty Daniel didn`t get that government contract. One agenda item that should be on the legislative discussions, lead in the Senate now by Senator Chris Murphy, is limiting all governmental purchases of assault weapons to companies that do not sell to the retail market, companies that do not make their weapons legally available to 18-year-old mass murderers.
If you want to sell weapons to the United States military or to police forces in the United States, then you cannot sell those same assault weapons to the public. That should be in law in this country. Last night, in the January 6th committee`s hearing, we saw an awe-inspiring depiction of police heroism, unlike anything we have ever seen before, personified by Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards.
She described engaging in hours of hand-to-hand combat that she was not trained for as a Capitol police officer. And those hours of hand-to-hand combat occurred after she had already been knocked out in earlier hand-to- hand combat at the very beginning of the invasion of the capitol. There was nothing Officer Edwards would not do to defend that capitol. There was no attack where she would not fight to defend the capitol.
She knew she was not equipped for the fight. She did not have a shield. She did not have any tools to protect herself, but still she fought. She did not think, I`m going to wait for the National Guard to show up. I`m going to wait for better equipped riot police to show up. She did not wait for anything or anyone.
She fought Donald Trump`s supporters for hours in hand-to-hand combat while Donald Trump cheered them on. I think we know what Officer Caroline Edwards would have done if she were in Robb Elementary School that day. I think we know what other capitol police officers would have done.
What Chief Pete Arredondo did was wait, wait for an hour, over an hour, while children were bleeding to death on the floor. Wait for better equipment, safer equipment. Wait for shields, and wait for officers who were willing to do what he was not willing to do, and what he did not do, and which he never did.
What happened inside that school is now a full-blown Texas cover-up, including everyone from the governor down to the superintendent of schools in Uvalde, who in classic cover-up style, shows to have his first press conference after the shooting yesterday, on the day that he knew the coverage of the January 6th committee hearing would smother everything that happened in Uvalde yesterday.
Hal Harrell is the superintendent of the school district there, who has the power, along with the school board, to fire the chief of the school police force, Pete Arredondo, who has a grand total of five police officers, under his command on that tiny police force dedicated to nothing but policing the schools.
When the superintendent took his first question yesterday, it was very clear that, he was going to play his part in the cover-up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: My question really, is do you still trust your police chief to handle responses and his duties?
HAL HARRELL, SUPERINTENDENT, UVALDE SCHOOL DISTRICT: That falls in line with some personnel and I`m not going to comment on — I cannot comment on —
UNKNOWN: It`s not asking about personnel — it`s asking do you — what is your feeling? It`s not — it`s not a personnel, do you have confidence in his abilities?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: He`s lying. Nothing prevents him from answering that question. Absolutely nothing. Here is NBC`s Morgan Chesky.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN CHESSKY, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Can you confirm if Mr. Arredondo is still a district employee? And if so, have you communicated with him at all?
[22:10:03]
HARRELL: That`s a personnel question. I`m not going to be able to answer that in a public forum.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: That is another lie. Superintendent Harrell can answer the question and is refusing to answer that question because he is playing his part, at least for now, in the cover-up. Governor Greg Abbott publicly complained about being lied to on his first day in Uvalde, the day after the shooting. The “Texas Tribune” now reports that Chief Arredondo briefed state officials, these state officials who then, of course, briefed the governor. The “Texas Tribune” reports, quote, “Abbott, on Wednesday, declined to identify who had misled him, saying only that the bad information had come from public officials.”
Governor Abbott could help expose the cover-up by telling us who those public officials are. Governor Abbott could fire those public officials, but Governor Abbott wants the cover up to continue five more months until election day, November 8th, in Texas. And so, Governor Abbott is not going to fire anyone, that he says he is livid at, that`s his word, livid, livid for lying to him.
The worst police work imaginable occurred at that school and no one has been fired and no one has had the decency to resign. Brilliant reporting by David Goodman in “The New York Times” is piercing the cover-up. He reported yesterday that Chief Arredondo had no radio with him when he went into the school. Some of the children, and at least one of the teachers, were still alive when Border Patrol Officers, without any help from Chief Arredondo, finally rushed into the classroom, and instantly killed the mass murderer.
“The Times” reports, quote, “Xavier Lopez, 10, was one of the children who died after being rushed to a hospital, whose family said he had been shot in the back and a lot of blood, lost a lot of blood as he awaited medical attention. He could have been saved, his grandfather, Leonard Sandoval said. The police did not go in for more than an hour. He bled out.”
According to transcripts of police body camera recordings obtained by “The Times,” Chief Arredondo knew that not everyone in the classrooms was dead. While they were waiting outside, Arredondo said, “We think there are some injuries in there.” “The Times” describes what it calls a cascade of failures. A cascade of failures inside the school, including the fact that police radios don`t work inside the school or don`t work well enough for good communication inside the school.
It is impossible to think of a more profound level of incompetence than Chief Arredondo, allowing the school police force to be equipped with radios that do not work, the only place they really have to work, which is inside schools in Uvalde. He should be fired for that incompetence alone. Even if there were no school shootings in Uvalde.
School police radios, that do not work inside schools, is the fault of Chief Arredondo. It is the fault of the superintendent, Harrell, and every member of that school board. The complete failure of police communication that day inside the school is the fault of all of those people and that is why there is a cover-up.
Everyone involved in the cover-up is at fault and has something to hide. After David Goodman`s piercing of the cover-up in “The New York Times” showing that Chief Arredondo was at fault for more than just waiting outside the classroom, the “Texas Tribune” published, suddenly, the first interview with Chief Arredondo since the shooting.
It was a defensive interview with Chief Arredondo`s criminal defense lawyer, George E. Hyde, participating in the interview. The chief was not asked why he has a criminal defense lawyer now. Some of the interview was conducted by phone. Some in written answers, and all with the guidance of Arredondo`s lawyer.
Arredondo said he was not aware of the 911 calls because he did not have his radio and no one in the hallway relayed that information to him. He said he never considered himself the scene`s instant commander. I didn`t issue any orders, Arredondo said. I called for assistance and ask for extraction tool to open the doors, but Arredondo had also asked for keys that could open the door.
Unlike some other school district police departments, Uvalde school district officers don`t carry master keys to the schools they visit.
[22:15:00]
They don`t visit schools; they police those schools. And 19 children are dead because it never occurred to the chief of police of the schools that school police should have master keys to all of the classrooms and all of the schools.
A school police chief must be fired just for that. And Arredondo is telling about 30 different keys were brought to him during the hour, keys that didn`t work on the classroom door. And then, the Border Patrol officers obtained the key that did work, according to Arredondo. Without any input from him, they, then, rushed into the classroom, and killed the mass murder.
The “Texas Tribune” reports, quote, the day after the shooting, Arredondo and other local officials stood behind Governor Greg Abbott, and the public safety director, Steve McCraw, as they held their first major news conference to address the slaughter.
Now, Arredondo is refusing to communicate with any of those people who he stood with that day, refusing to communicate with the State Department of Public Safety and their investigation. Quote, “After McCraw said at a press conference on May 27th that Arredondo made the wrong decision, the police chief no longer participated in the investigation to avoid media interference, Mr. Hyde said.”
So, there is Chief Arredondo`s criminal defense lawyer, somehow trying to blame the media for Arredondo no longer participating in the police investigation of what happened at that school. It is a secret investigation. Obviously, Arredondo`s criminal defense lawyer has advised him not to answer any questions in that investigation. And that`s why he`s not answering questions.
Leading off our discussion tonight is J. David Goodman, Houston bureau chief for “The New York Times.” Thank you very much for joining us tonight and thank you very much for your breakthrough reporting on this. You have obtained copies of transcripts, apparently, of what can be heard on the police body cams inside the school. What are the most important things you`ve learned with that?
J. DAVID GOODMAN, HOUSTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, thanks for having me. I mean, the most important thing that I learned, and this is all, it should be said, come together over the last, you know, more than two weeks of reporting on what took place there during that hour and 17 minutes, between when the gunman began shooting inside the classroom, and when the police actually went in and stormed the classroom and killed him.
What we learn from these transcripts, which we were able to review, was that not only did they learn, towards the latter part of the protracted police response that there were injured inside the classrooms. But very early in that response, one of Arredondo`s own police officers came into the school and told them that his wife, one of the teachers inside the classrooms, had been shot.
And he knew this because she, in fact, called, or in fact, they talked — I`m not sure who called who, but they spoke on the phone. And she relayed to him that she had been shot. And so she was still alive, telling her husband from inside that classroom that she was alive. And he relayed that information to officers at the scene.
And so from very early on, several people there, supervisors, we`re aware that there were at least this injured teacher, and possibly others in there. And later on, they say they`re heard on the body camera footage, via the transcripts that were able to review, that there were injured inside.
O`DONNELL: So, and also on the tapes, the transcripts of them, we hear Arredondo saying that people will be asking about why they`re waiting so long.
GOODMAN: That`s right. That was a striking thing in the review that I was able to do, was that this is about an hour into the police response. And he appears very cognizant of the fact that they are not going in quickly. And what he goes on to explain is that they were working to save the lives of other children in that school.
And so, they felt, and they made this determination very early, Arredondo did, that they had cornered the gunman inside these two connected classrooms, and that they could then keep him there and sort of transition into a posture of saving the rest of the children, and not going in immediately into those classrooms.
And that was really the fateful decision. That comes really minutes after the gunfire begins inside the school. And it sets the stage for the rest of the event.
[22:19:56]
O`DONNELL: But to be clear, there is a mass murderer, who is locked in a classroom. He is locked in a classroom. At that point, he`s a danger only to the people who are on his side of that lock, which is two adjoining classrooms. He`s killed most of them or had shot most of them already. The other 500 kids in the school are not under any threat from him at all, as long as he is locked in that room.
And Arredondo wants to take credit for the 500 who survived by running in the school, in areas that were not even in any way exposed to this possible gunman.
GOODMAN: One of the things that he says in his defense to that point is that the walls of the school are thin and that these, you know, AR-15 style rifle bullets could pierce them. And so, he feared for the safety of those other children.
But I do want to clarify that while early reporting based on statements from officers indicated that the door was locked, investigators now are less certain that those doors were in fact locked. And that`s something that they`re looking at.
And so, Arredondo made — spent a lot of time looking for the keys as he has explained to the “Texas Tribune” and as the recording show, he really was focused on getting keys to get into that door, probably to get it too much more easily and surprise the gunman.
But it`s not entirely clear whether they tested that door or when they tested it to find out that it was locked. After they initially approached the door in the early minutes of the siege, they`re shot at and they backed away.
And there was about 40 minutes in which the gunman is inside the room, and the police have gone back some ways down the hallway. They`re pretty far away from this classroom and they don`t try the doors again for those 40 minutes.
So, it`s not clear if they know at that point that they`re locked. They`re assuming that the doors are locked because they really should in a classroom like this. But the one thing that our investigation also unearthed is that investigators went back into the school and tested the locks in other classrooms and found that those classroom doors in Robb Elementary School didn`t reliably lock, and couldn`t be a locked quickly in an emergency.
And that was a very disturbing fact that we learned in this reporting, that the teachers had he knocked on into this classroom, it was very likely he might have gotten into very easily into another one.
O`DONNELL: Wow! So, tonight, we are left with the possibility that I`m sure you will develop, as your investigation goes on, that Chief Arredondo spent an hour searching for keys to a door that might not have been locked. That`s the way we will leave it for this week on how Arredondo handled the situation inside the school.
J. David Goodman, we are relying on you because we don`t think there`s any other way through what`s going on in Texas and other reporters. We do not expect anything from the governor all the way down to the school superintendent and everyone else. So, thank you very, very much for your invaluable concentration and reporting on this. Really appreciate it.
GOODMAN: Thanks for having me.
O`DONNELL: Thank you. And coming up, what`s Merrick Garland going to do now? He was presented with a vast multipart conspiracy reaching from the president all the way down to the violent mob, Trump mob at the capitol, trying to overturn the presidential election.
And today, “The Washington Post” revealed that the wife of a Supreme Court justice used interstate communications to urge Arizona state legislators overturn the results of the presidential election in that state. How many federal and state crimes did Virginia Thomas commit? That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:25:00]
O`DONNELL: And now Merrick Garland is on the verge of becoming the most important attorney general in history or the worst attorney general never convicted of a crime. Two of Republican President Richard Nixon`s attorneys` generals were criminals actually and convicted of crimes.
If you need an easy history lesson on that, watch Sean Penn playing the criminal attorney general John Mitchell, in Starz network series “Gaslit|” with Julia Roberts brilliantly playing his wife, Martha Mitchell.
Last night`s hearing of the January 6th committee seemed aimed at Attorney General Merrick Garland laying out a multipart criminal conspiracy, led by Donald Trump from the White House, to commit the crime of election fraud in overturning the results of the presidential election.
The hearing was also, no doubt, helpful to District Attorney Fani Willis and her staff in Fulton County, Georgia, who are investigating possible election fraud crimes committed by Donald Trump in his attempts to overturn the results of the election.
In that state, we will be joined later in this hour by a former district attorney general in Georgia, who knows Fani Willis well to get her reaction to what was revealed in last night`s hearing that might be helpful in the Georgia investigation.
And, as if what the January 6 committee handed to Merrick Garland last night wasn`t enough for the attorney general to consider for criminal prosecution, “The Washington Post” today delivered the wife of a Supreme Court justice to the doorstep of the Justice Department for criminal investigation by reporting that Clarence Thomas`s wife used interstate communication to urge state legislators in Arizona to violate the law and overturn the results of the presidential election there.
On November 9th, which is two days after, we at MSNBC and NBC and all the other networks called the presidential election for Joe Biden, which itself was almost a week after Donald Trump`s favorite TV network, Fox, was the first to call Joe Biden the winner in the state of Arizona.
Virginia Thomas e-mailed Arizona legislators, lying to them about their legal powers and urging them to violate the law to overturn the presidential election in Arizona. Her e-mail said, “Article two of the United States Constitution gives you an awesome responsibility to choose our states electors.”
[22:30:00]
She is wrong. It`s past tense. The United States Constitution gave state legislatures the responsibility of choosing presidential electors over 200 years ago. But all 50 state legislatures — all of them — have passed laws delegating that power directly to the voters of the state. And so there is no state legislature in the country that any longer holds the authority to choose presidential electors.
Then Virginia Thomas asked the legislators to commit a crime. “Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our constitution, then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of electors is chosen for our state.
The Republican state legislature in Arizona did not do that because they all knew they would all be guilty of the crime of election fraud and they would be subject to both state and federal prosecution.
Joining us now is Barry Berke. He served as chief impeachment counsel during Donald Trump`s second impeachment trial and special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Donald Trump`s first impeachment.
Barry Berke, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I want to begin with this news of the day about Ginni Thomas. Laurence Tribe, Harvard Law professor, has said this looks like possible criminal activity to him. What is your reaction to it?
BARRY BERKE, FORMER HOUSE IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY CHIEF COUNSEL: Absolutely. It`s part of a piece. As someone who`s not only involved in the second impeachment — but I represented Pennsylvania in connection with the 2020 election — it is part of efforts to have state legislatures overturn the will of the people who voted for Joe Biden and replace it with their own will after the states had already certified. It was clearly wrong, improper and violates the law. And it`s part of a piece of what we saw about Donald Trump last night.
So, I think the questions are clearly raised. Did this violate the law? Did she know what`s she was doing? Did she have criminal intent? The same questions that are going to be asked now about Donald Trump.
O`DONNELL: So, the January 6 Committee, apparently has come between Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka, who last night, we saw in her testimony that she agreed with the attorney general William Barr, that what Donald Trump was saying about the election was — in Barr`s word — BS, said it was crazy stuff.
So she agreed that her father was lying about the election. Donald Trump today says Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at or studying election results. So there he is, claiming that his daughter doesn`t know what she`s talking about.
That was a pretty powerful moment it seems for people who were considering what did Donald Trump know and when did he know it, and by the way, what did his daughter know? And when did she know it?
BERKE: Absolutely. I had two reactions to that. One, yes — for her and all the other people who spoke about their private conversations with Donald Trump, telling him this was all made up, these were bogus claims — which we knew he actually believed. But the hardest thing to prove in a criminal case or even a congressional hearing is someone`s intent.
And showing how he reacted by live witnesses who heard it, who believed it, from the attorney general to Ivanka Trump is devastating proof of his intent. As was his inaction during January 6. It showed that`s what he wanted, it was proof of his intent.
The second piece that made me so happy is subpoenas are being enforced. When I was there for both the first and second impeachment, we had these subpoenas but we could not enforce it with the Trump Justice Department.
What you are seeing is, because Steve Bannon was held in contempt, Ivanka Trump, attorney general Barr, all these aides, they did not want to be held in contempt. So, they showed up and told the truth which is why this hearing is so powerful and so damning of the former president.
And that`s why we are seeing something that is truly important for our nation and the future of our democracy.
O`DONNELL: What do you make of the decisions Merrick Garland is facing now? Possibly, by what the January 6 Committee is revealing. And then also, the Ginni Thomas case?
BERKE: Well, criminal cases are much harder than congressional hearings. You have to have evidence and prove what is going on, at times, in peoples minds.
I would say, starting with the former president, the evidence is mounting against it. Now that you have his direct clear aides and the entire leadership of his Justice Department were threatening to resign, because they said there was no fraud in Georgia — the same place where he asked the secretary of state to just find the votes he needed to win. This is evidence of a crime.
And in the first impeachment, we used to say, no one is above the law. And I can tell you, my clients, any other regular person would be prosecuted for this. And there would be evidence to convict.
[22:34:53]
And what has changed with this hearing is all OF THIS evidence of what was going on in his mind, that he knew this was made up, that he knew these claims that caused the insurrectionists to invade and attack the Capitol to try to prevent the election from being stolen, which he was falsely claiming, that is now setting up as a real crime that can be proven with witnesses who are on record.
So, I think the Department of Justice and down in Georgia, they now have a lot more to work with to show what they need to show to a jury to convict Donald Trump for the crime.
O`DONNELL: Barry Berke, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate.
And up next, we will turn to Georgia. Did last night`s hearing help Georgia district attorney, Fani Willis` criminal investigation of Donald Trump`s interference in the presidential election in that state? That is the question, next.
[22:35:39]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: It may be that for district attorney Fani Willis` investigation of possible election fraud by Donald Trump in Georgia, the most important word in last night`s hearing of the January 6 Committee was, “bullshit”. That`s what Trump attorney general William Barr told Donald Trump about claims of fraud in the presidential election according to William Barr`s under oath testimony shown in the hearing last night.
There was also testimony from campaign officials, including the most skilled election analysts in the Trump campaign, who told Donald Trump that he lost decisively to Joe Biden. That means, when Donald Trump was calling the secretary of state of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger and asking him to find 11,780 votes, Donald Trump already knew that Mr. Raffensperger would have to commit elections fraud to create the votes Donald Trump wanted in Georgia.
Joining us now is Gwen Keyes Fleming, former district attorney for Dekalb County, Georgia. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. I know you are longtime friends with Fani Willis. I will not ask you to say what she would do or what her reaction would be to the hearing last night, if she was watching.
But as a prosecutor yourself, familiar with Georgia law, and familiar with the Raffensperger phone call, which we have all heard, at least as evidence, in this case. Did you hear things in that hearing that could be helpful to a Georgia investigation?
GWEN KEYES FLEMING, FORMER DEKALB COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I think, certainly. And your previous guest talked about it. Every prosecutor has to be able to establish the intent to commit the crime that is listed. And in this particular case, an understanding of what was known to be true and what was known to be false is going to be critical, particularly if the prosecutor is looking at crimes like false statements, false swearing, having an elected official violate their oath of office by pursuing or trying to certify false elections.
All of those things will go to establish the former president`s state of mind. And particularly, if and when we get to the point of a jury being able to hear evidence that the courts had indicated there was no fraud — that the attorney general at the time said there was no fraud, that the Department of Justice officials, White House staff, the Department of Homeland Security all said that there was no fraud — and others, including within the former president`s own family, found that to be true. Then I think that would play into how a jury would evaluate whether the prosecutor will satisfy the requirement to establish the requisite intent.
O`DONNELL: Did we see last night what could be a parade of prosecution witnesses in a case, if it comes to a point where Donald Trump, for example, was accused of election fraud in Georgia where you would, as a prosecutor, put William Barr on the stand? And say, what did you tell him about this? Would that be part of the evidentiary base of a prosecution?
FLEMING: I think that`s all within the district attorney`s discretion. One of the rules of prosecution is that you want to keep it simple. But in a matter such as this, where the prosecutor has indicated that she`s looking at RICO or racketeering charges, that allows you to broaden the scope and be able to tell the whole story.
So it`s really a question of how much evidence Fani and/or her team think might be necessary to establish any of the charges that she thinks she has sufficient evidence to move forward on.
I think one of the other things that her team and others may be looking at is the notion of if there was a seven-point plan that might establish or lend itself to establishing the elements of the conspiracy or some of the other underlying predicate acts for a RICO charge.
O`DONNELL: Gwen Keyes Fleming, thank you very much for joining us tonight. You are giving us the feeling that if there is a prosecution in Georgia, we might have seen some of the witnesses in that case last night.
Thank you very much for joining us. Really appreciate it.
FLEMING: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
O`DONNELL: And coming up, David Hogg is a remarkable young man who I met and you all met on this program and elsewhere in tragedy. He was one of the powerful voices who emerged to give words to this countries anguish when he survived the mass murder at his Florida high school in 2018.
[22:44:53]
David Hogg is now a Harvard student trying to save children and all of us from the next blast of an AR-15. David Hogg will join us next.
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[22:49:46]
O`DONNELL: In March 2018, David Hogg and his high school classmates brought 800,000 people to Washington for the first March For Our Lives, a month after David Hogg survived the mass murder at his high school in Parkland, Florida where 14 children and three educators were murdered by a 19-year- old who legally purchased an AR-15 to shred the bodies of the people he murdered.
Tomorrow David Hogg will be doing it again, as one of the leaders of another March For Our Lives here in Washington D.C. and around the country.
Joining us now is David Hogg, cofounder of March For Our Lives. David, thank you very much for joining us.
It is so sad to be back here in Washington. I was here when you did the march the first time. And it was one of the most moving moments of my experience in Washington. And certainly nothing else like it. There was no other demonstration I have seen here that was like it.
What has changed for you since then? What will be different tomorrow, if anything?
DAVID HOGG, CO-FOUNDER, MARCH FOR OUR LIVES: I think the movement has grown larger than ever before, you know. I think that and a combination of the fact that the NRA and the gun lobby is at its weakest position ever. You know, we`ve tried their solutions time and time again. We`ve tried adding just more mental health funding. We`ve tried adding more, quote-unquote, “good guys with guns”. And we`ve seen how they failed in Texas. And we saw how they failed and had deadly consequences at my high school as well, in Parkland, Florida.
What`s different about this time is I`ve never had so many gun owners and Republicans, both Republicans of prominence and everyday Republicans, reach out to me and say, David, you know, I don`t agree with you on everything. But I do agree that we need to do something and find common ground here. I think that`s what makes this time different.
O`DONNELL: So, tomorrow it`s 12:00 noon at the Washington Monument and around the country in other cities.
HOGG: Yes. So, tomorrow we are marching — it`s crazy, because it`s just been nuts the past two weeks, with our incredible team at March For Our Lives. But we are marching tomorrow in Washington D.C. at the Washington Monument. And we are marching in over 450 cities across the country and the world.
As Democrats, as Republicans, as gun owners and non-gun owners, recognizing that as a country, we do have our differences. We do have things that we disagree on. But that`s part of democracy. That`s part of our, you know, representative system of government.
But let`s focus on what we can agree on and get any action so that we can even just stop one Parkland from happening or one shooting from happening.
Because again, no law is perfect. But here`s the reality, Lawrence. The shooter at my high school — he was a criminal, obviously. But he was not a mastermind. He was a 19-year-old that was able to go out and buy, legally obtained an AR-15, the same way that the 18-year-old was in Texas and the one in Buffalo as well.
These are not masterminds. These are barely adults with hatred in their hearts. And they aren`t mentally ill. They are racist. They are self- described fascists like the one in Buffalo. And hatred and racism are not mental illnesses.
O`DONNELL: So Senator Murphy is working to get something.
HOGG: Yes.
O`DONNELL: He, like you, would like to do a lot more than whatever he will be able to come up with in a compromise. How do you explain to kids your age — college students and to high school kids who are hoping to get protected by your efforts — that you won`t get everything you want, you won`t get that much stronger a feeling of protection even after getting something in legislation.
HOGG: It`s really hard to describe. Because I think about having to describing it to young people, like I was, when I was 17 years old. I think about young people like Martin Luther King III daughter, Yolanda, you know, who marched with us and spoke in 2018. The last time I saw her, you know, she was a little girl. Now she is talking about getting — how her friends are getting their learners permit.
Unfortunately, these kids that have grown up in this generation are now becoming part of the mass shooting generation of adults that are coming into adulthood. And I think the way that we described that — and I couldn`t describe it any better than Yolanda did earlier today , which is essentially that this is the first part of a marathon.
We`ve got to get through this, but recognize that it is a marathon. It is not a sprint. It`s going to take time to get there. But I believe that we can. And that`s why we can make this time different.
But focusing on what we can agree on — Americans across the country are marching with us tomorrow — gun owners, Republicans, Democrats, focusing on what we can agree on to get any form of action because that`s what we do agree on is we need to do something. And for people that that resonates with just text “march” to 954954 — and once again that`s “march” to 954954 because we`ve got to get action. I think all of us can agree on that.
O`DONNELL: You published an op-ed piece that`s on the Fox Web site.
HOGG: Yes.
O`DONNELL: And so there you are, you are attempting to reach people who normally would reject your message.
HOGG: Right. Absolutely and, that`s what I`m trying to do. You know, the reality is, we all have the same enemy in this country. Gun violence, period. None of us — no matter how Republican or Democratic we are, none of us want our kids to be dying in their schools or communities on a daily basis, or our loved ones in their grocery stores or anywhere for that.
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And I think my intention of writing that op-ed in Fox News — which was not made lightly, to be clear — was that we need to figure out what we can agree on. Look, Lawrence, I got — the movement needs to get ten senators that are not Democrats.
We have to figure out what little we can get done so that we can, even if it just stops one more Parkland from happening. The main message that I want to drive with that op-ed and what I want to drive with this march is like I can respect that people disagree with me. I can`t accept that we can`t do anything to save our kids. And that`s what we need to be driving on.
Every time these things happen, the politicians in Washington need to realize that Americans actually aren`t divided on this. We agree, we want action. The people who are actually divided on this are 100 senators in Washington who can`t put their politics aside and get something done to save our kids. Because the kids that are dying every day, Lawrence, they are not Democrats or Republicans. They are honorable students and t-ball players, just like every other kid. That`s who we are fighting for.
O`DONNELL: David Hogg, thank you for marching to save all of our lives. Thank you for your work, Thank you for joining us.
HOGG: Thank you, and realize that this is just the beginning. So, stick with us.
O`DONNELL: That`s it for now. We`ll be right back, one more segment.
Thanks.
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O`DONNELL: And that`s tonight`s LAST WORD.
“THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE” starts now.