Updated
Summary
The Texas cover-up is now scheduled to last at least six months. All government officials in Texas now are relying on district attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee to make it impossible for anyone to obtain any more information about what happened inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. It is election night with primaries in Maine, South Carolina, North Dakota, and Nevada. New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a statement after yesterday`s hearing of the January 6th committee, saying that Trump raised cash from misled donors. Donald Trump is already a defendant in civil lawsuits that could bankrupt him again, and those lawsuits are being helped tremendously by the January 6 committee investigation.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: I`m just going to have to get used to it, Rachel. This is fun.
Rachel, we have some breaking news here. Court schedules an initial appearance of January 6th case of Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Brian Kelley. His initial appearance is scheduled for Thursday at 1:00 p.m., exactly the same time that the January 6th hearing begins. So, histories moving fast on the subject.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST, “TRMS”: And the question remains in Michigan politics as to whether being arrested for his purported role in the crimes of January 6th is going to boost him — boost his chances in that Republican primary, since apparently participating in that particular crime is a — is a — is a badge of honor? I don`t know — it helps you, somehow?
O`DONNELL: We will await Republican voters judgment on that. And, Rachel, I have to agree with you, completely, about a point you made, midway through your hour, about this whole question of, will the January 6th Committee send criminal referrals to the Justice Department?
The attorney general said I am watching the hearings. I am watching every minute of them. If I don`t watch them live I play them back later. And he said, at the same time, what he called the January 6th prosecutors —
MADDOW: Yes!
O`DONNELL: — are watching.
(LAUGHTER)
O`DONNELL: Every sentence has been referred to the Justice Department in real time.
MADDOW: I mean, honestly, what we could do, just to make sure every T is crossed in every I`s dotted, we could just read the transcript hearings into the FBI tip line every night, just to see if that helps, if that formalizes the process. But the idea that there has to be some sort of written letter that conveys to the Justice Department, the idea that a crime might have been discovered I think, is getting way more ink than it deserves.
O`DONNELL: Yeah, they`re getting the message.
MADDOW: Yeah, indeed. Thanks, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you, Rachel. Thank you.
Well, the prosecutors are watching, and not just January 6th federal prosecutors. New York Attorney General Letitia James issued this statement after yesterday`s hearing of the January 6th committee. The new details revealed tonight related to January 6 are disturbing. It`s my duty to investigate allegations of fraud or potential misconduct in New York. This incident is no exception.
Now, that refers to multiple elements of fraud that were discussed in yesterday`s hearing but including and perhaps most importantly, the possible financial fraud of Donald Trump raising money on the false pretense that the money would be used to legally contest the outcome in the presidential election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): We`ll also show that the Trump campaign used these false claims of election fraud to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from supporters who were told their donations were for the legal fight in the courts. But the Trump campaign didn`t use the money for that. The big lie was also a big rip off.
AMANDA WICK, SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL: My name is Amanda Wick and I`m senior investigative counsel with the House Select Committee to investigate the January attack on the United States capital. Between election day and January 6, the Trump campaign sent millions of fundraising emails to Trump supporters, sometimes as many as 25 a day. The emails claimed the, quote, left wing mob was undermining the election, implored supporters to quote step up to protect the integrity of the election and encourage them to, quote, fight back.
But as the select committee has demonstrated, the Trump campaign knew these claims of voter fraud were false. Yet, they continued to barrage small dollar donors with emails, encouraging them to donate to something called the official election defense fund. The Select Committee discovered no such fund existed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: So using interstate communication, Donald Trump raised money based on a lie for a fund that did not exist our first guest tonight, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe says the big rip-off was itself a prosecutable instance of wire fraud violating 18 USC 1343. The penalty is up to years in the federal slammer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WICK: The claims that the election was stolen were so successful, President Trump and his allies raised $250 million, nearly $100 million in the first week after the election. On November 9th, 2020, President Trump created a separate entity called the Save America PAC.
[22:05:00]
Most of the money raised went to this newly created PAC, not to election related litigation. The select committee discovered that the Save America PAC made millions of dollars of contributions to pro-Trump organizations, including $1 million to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows` charitable foundation, $1 million to the America First Policy Institute, a conservative organization which employs several former Trump administration officials, $204,857 to the Trump Hotel Collection, and over $5 million to Event Strategies Inc., the company that ran President Trump`s January 6 rally on the ellipse.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats which is what they`re doing.
WICK: The evidence developed by the select committee highlights how the Trump campaign aggressively pushed false election claims to fundraise, telling supporters it would be used to fight voter fraud that did not exist. The emails continued through January 6, even as President Trump spoke in the ellipse. Thirty minutes after the last fundraising email was sent, the Capitol was breached.
(CHANTING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: In yesterday`s hearing, Trump Attorney General William Barr said that he told Donald Trump that his claims of election fraud were completely false and just nutty and Donald Trump never argued with him about the facts of the election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: I was somewhat demoralized because I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has, you know, lost contact with — he`s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff. On the other hand, you know, when I went into this and would, you know, tell them how crazy some of these allegations were, there was never — there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts are.
In my opinion then and my opinion now is that the election was not stolen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Professor Tribe will tell us in a moment if being detached from reality is a viable criminal defense for Donald Trump. “The Washington Post” is reporting today new details of what was said in the dramatic meeting in the Oval Office on Sunday, January 3rd, during which the that the then leadership of the Justice Department along with members of the White House counsel`s office threatened to resign as a group if Donald Trump installed an obscure Justice Department Republican environmental lawyer as the new acting attorney general.
That lawyer Jeffrey Clark was in the meeting in the Oval Office promising the president that if he became acting attorney general he would send a letter to elected officials in Georgia and other states won by Joe Biden telling them the lie that the justice department had found fraud in the presidential election in that state and urged those states to illegally submit a slate of Trump electors to the Electoral College.
The best line in the meeting was delivered by Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue who rushed to the meeting dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and crushed Jeffrey Clark. According to “The Washington Post”, Donoghue told Donald Trump, quote, he`s never been a criminal attorney. He`s never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. He`s never been in front of a grand jury, much less a trial jury.
Clark objected. Well, I`ve done a lot of very complicated appeals and civil litigation, environmental litigation and things like that, Clark said, according to Donoghue`s deposition. That`s right, Donoghue said. You`re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office and we`ll call you when there`s an oil spill?
At the end of the meeting, Trump decided not to make Jeffrey Clark the acting attorney general, saying: I appreciate you being willing to suffer the abuse but the reality is you`re not going to get anything done. These guys are going to quit. Everyone else is going to resign. It`s going to be a disaster, the bureaucracy will eat you alive and no matter how much you want to get things done in the next few weeks you won`t be able to get it done and it`s not going to be worth the breakage.
Clark was shot down by other lawyers in the room when he tried to discuss what authority Vice President Mike Pence would have on January 6 in counting the Electoral College votes. But that wasn`t the end of that idea. Attorney John Eastman pushed the idea in the White House of having Mike Pence reject the electoral votes from key states won by Joe Biden.
The January 6th Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney released a video today previewing testimony to the committee about John Eastman.
[22:10:08]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): President Trump had no factual basis for what he was doing, and he had been told it was illegal. Despite this, President Trump plotted with a lawyer named John Eastman and others to overturn the outcome of the election on January 6th. To give you a sense of the gravity of these issues, here is a clip of one of president Trump`s own White House lawyers Eric Herschmann, who talks to Mr. Eastman the day after January 6th.
ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: It was the day after Eastman — I don`t remember why he called me and he — or he texted me or called me want to talk with me and he said he couldn`t reach others. And he started to ask me about something dealing with Georgia and preserving something potentially for appeal, and I said to him, are you out of your F- ing mind? Right?
I said — I said I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth for now on, orderly transition. I`m going to scream — I said, I don`t want to hear any other F-ing words coming out of your mouth no matter what other than orderly transition. Repeat those words to me.
And actually, eventually, he said, orderly transition. I said, good, John. Now I`m going to give you the best free legal advice you`re ever getting in your life. Get a great F-ing criminal defense lawyer, you`re going to need it. And then I hung up on him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now is Professor Laurence Tribe, who has taught constitutional law at Harvard Law School for five decades. He has written extensively about the law, including American constitutional law, the most frequently cited treatise on the U.S. Constitution.
Professor Tribe, an honor to have you joined us once again.
I want to begin where we just ended with Eric Herschmann`s advice to John Eastman. How good a criminal defense lawyer do you think John Eastman needs?
LAURENCE TRIBE, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: An F-ing great defense lawyer and even that wouldn`t be good enough because all of this focus on how they really believed their own lie is just completely bogus. Detachment from reality of the kind that attorney General Barr seems to have been you know detected on the part of the former president is a disqualification from the presidency but it is not a defense to a criminal charge.
Even in those very rare cases where delusion can be used to disprove intent, there is a doctrine known as willful ignorance and we saw Barr describing that perfectly when he said that the president — then president didn`t seem to care about the facts. Every time, you know, that we`ve heard in the J 6 committee hearings that every time Trump would say, but what about this, what about that, what about these boxes, they would explain to him patiently the people around him his own team his own staff, we`ve investigated that, Mr. President. There`s nothing in it. It`s all B.S. It`s nonsense, but it didn`t matter.
The other very broad and very fundamental point is that you have to look at the specific crimes which the president said to have been guilty, things like fomenting a violent insurrection or seditious conspiracy, or pretending that there is this nonexistent organization, in order to raise a quarter of a billion dollars, from gullible people.
All of these crimes, some federal, some states, some violations of the law of Georgia, because they included trying to get Raffensperger to manipulate the vote. All of them, however well-motivated — they certainly don`t seem to have been well motivated — they give the president the benefit of the doubt.
Suppose it was noble. Suppose he really believed he was Emperor Nero, or George Washington reincarnated, or Abraham Lincoln, and He — every vote that was not for him was a fraudulent vote and it was in the best interest of the United States — it wasn`t selfish for him to hone hold office. His ends might have been okay, that we doubt it. But the means were criminal.
The way these laws are structured, they don`t allow self help. For example, the laws against corruptly obstructing a congressional proceeding, a crime punishable by 20 years in prison, as I recall — suppose you think the congressional proceeding is a bad idea.
[22:15:06]
They are going to count votes for somebody that you don`t think really won. You go to court. They did that, 60 times, they kept losing.
But what you don`t do is encourage people to put up a gallows for your own vice president. What you don`t do is gleefully watch while there is a violent mob squeezing people, nearly to death, and leading a guy like Sicknick, a day later, to die of stroke. What you don`t do is make phony certificates. What you don`t do is say that I`m going to take the law into my own hands.
The obsession with whether he was well-motivated is beside the point. He probably wasn`t what it is beside the point. He was using illegal means — criminal means — to achieve whatever ends he wanted to achieve. It is the criminal means that I think require him to get and F-ing good lawyer.
O`DONNELL: Well, let`s go to the $250 million raised under false pretenses, demonstrably false pretenses, they weren`t used in any way to legally challenge the election. We saw Donald Trump prosecuted in a civil matter by the New York state attorney general involving Trump University. And he settled that fraud for $25 million.
Do you see this possible 250 million dollar case as a criminal fraud case or as a civil fraud case? And might that be the approach that New York`s attorney general is taking? A civil fraud case.
TRIBE: Well, New York`s attorney general can certainly go after him for civil fraud, but it would be very strange for the United States Department of Justice, which has the statute of 18 USC 1843, making that kind of wire fraud a federal crime, punishable, in this case, also by 20 years in prison.
It`s very odd for that not to be prosecuted. It`s an obvious crime — I can`t imagine the defense. Oh, I thought that we had this organization, that didn`t exist. We really can`t claim that. We can`t simply make up an alternative universe, climb into it, and say that I`m comfy there, and therefore that I`m immune to prosecution.
That`s not the way the law works. It`s not the way a legal system could possibly work, if it`s going to protect us from this kind of a blatant takeover, the attempted overthrow of government, the first time in 246 years that a sitting president of the United States tried to overthrow the United States government.
Come on, that`s not something that you can answer by saying, hey, I didn`t know what the hell I was doing, I`m delusional, I`m an egomaniac. Yes, we know, Mr. Former President, you are an egomaniac. That`s not a defense in a criminal law courts in this country.
O`DONNELL: Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, thank you very much for your guidance once again tonight, we always appreciate it.
TRIBE: Thank you, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, Donald Trump is already a defendant in civil lawsuits that could bankrupt him again. And those lawsuits are being helped tremendously by the January 6 committee investigation.
Congressman Eric Swalwell has filed one of those lawsuits and along with MSNBC`s Ja`han Jones.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:23:20]
O`DONNELL: Prosecutors are not the only lawyers watching January 6 committee`s hearings looking for evidence, there is a small army of lawyers who have already made Donald Trump a defendant in civil lawsuits who are also looking for evidence to use against Donald Trump in the January 6 committee hearings.
In an article for MSNBC, Ja`han Jones who will be joining our discussion in a moment, says Trump may literally have to pay for his election lies. The article reminds us that Donald Trump is already a defendant in federal court, in Washington, being sued by members of the Capitol police for inciting the violent attack on them. Similar lawsuits were filed by members of Congress including Congressman Eric Swalwell who will be joining our discussion.
Ja`han Jones reports yet to be named civil suits could be on the horizon if people targeted by Trump`s election lies look to sue in light of the committee`s findings. That could include anyone from the Fulton County, Georgia, election workers who faced death threats after Trump spread lies about criminality in their office, to Dominion Voting Systems, the company that`s face baseless allegations of election fraud from Trump and his campaign officials.
If Donald Trump loses these lawsuits, he could be subjected to judgments against him for hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, and that could completely wipe him out financially. A federal judge handling these cases, Amit Mehta, has already said in a ruling that Donald Trump is not immune from these lawsuits.
[22:25:01]
Quote, the complaints contain numerous examples of the president`s communications being understood by supporters as direct messages to them and, in the case of the January 6th rally, as a call to action.
And joining us now are Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell in California who served as a house impeachment manager in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, he is also suing Donald Trump for his role in inciting the January 6th attack. And Ja`han Jones, writer of the “ReidOut” blog. His latest is: Trump may literally have to pay for his election lies.
Congressman Swalwell, the evidence since your case was filed, has developed very much in your favor, including much of what we heard in the January 6 committee from people who actually attack the Capitol, saying on video that Donald Trump sent them there to do that. That is your essence of your lawsuit.
REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Lawrence, Donald Trump looks guilty after all of this evidence not more innocent and I enjoyed Ja`han`s blog piece, and we filed our lawsuit right after the impeachment trial after we had very little evidence because we had no cooperative witnesses. Now because of the January 6 commission, because of the Department of Justice`s hundreds of indictments and what we have learned from those defendants, and because of lawsuits in New York, as well as what`s being investigated in Georgia, Donald Trump right now is going into a season of legal reckoning, and there are storms that are really bring right now in strengthening that they hit him, both criminally and civilly.
I brought my case civilly to do mine in small part, to bring accountability to the person who started the insurrection and I hope as far as accountability, it ends with him being held accountable.
O`DONNELL: Ja`han, left out of your introduction is your early days at MSNBC where you spend sometime working with us here at THE LAST WORD, so I want to thank you for helping us out once again tonight, because it wasn`t until I read your piece this morning, that the civil suits even occurred to me. I`ve lost the ability to hold everything in my head at once now. Having been very alert to the civil suits in the past, it was so important for you to remind us, that this evidence that is being displayed every day, and every one of these hearings by the January 6 committee, goes directly to Congressman Eric Swalwell case, and to other similar cases.
JA`HAN JONES, MSNBC`S “THE REIDOUT” BLOG: Yes. Well, first of all, thank you for having me back, Lawrence. I love working with you for the first time and it`s great to reunite.
But just let you know, I wrote that piece from a place of empathy. I truly understand what I believe is a justifiable public obsession with whether Trump will face criminal charges for his conduct on and in around January 6. What we know is that those criminal charges are not the extent of punishment we can as a public, level against Donald Trump, as you mentioned there are several civil cases against Trump currently.
Representative Swalwell`s party to one. We know that the NAACP, LDF has filed a civil suit against Trump as well, stemming from January 6. And so, as you mentioned earlier, this has the risk bankrupting Trump, and they really should.
In addition to that, you know, we kind of nodded to the yet to be named lawsuits that I believe should be filed against Trump for what I believe is, him terrorizing and him sticking his mob of psycho frantic followers online to whether that is Ruby Freeman, or Ala Schmidt, the Philadelphia commissioner, who testified yesterday, about the threats that he received after Trump targeted him online. These are people who have just caused to run Trump`s pockets to use the colloquial term, for all of his terrorism that he inflicted upon them, knowing that the lies he was praying around election fraud relies.
I think the past two days, of January 6 hearings, were just essential. The abundance of evidence we have, that Trump was a loser, and he knew himself to be just loser, as he was telling the world otherwise.
O`DONNELL: And, Congressman Swalwell, it is the civil cases that prompted to say at the beginning of his post presidency, that he was going to be a defendant for the rest of his life, because in these civil cases, if they are successful, Donald Trump will be in court for the rest of his life, biting the payment of the judgments in various ways as those judgment chip away at him.
[22:29:33]
SWALWELL: Lawrence, when it comes to accountability for Donald Trump, whether it is as a political candidate, a government leader, or a civil litigant, I have found you have to keep this guy on his heels.
When he is on his heels, that is when he is held accountable, that is when he is at the weakest. And you see in a number of settlements that he has made, he came into office settling the fraud that he committed at Trump University, if you remember.
But when he is leaning in, as he did with the Obama administration and declared red lines, and declared during the 2016 Russian interference campaign, that the election would be rigged. The Obama administration flinched and did not declare what Russia was doing. He did the same thing to Bob Mueller. He leaned in, created artificial red lines, said don`t go after my finances, and created an artificial deadline, and they closed the investigation.
So you have to aggressively pursue justice with Donald Trump. And that is why I called this the season of legal reckoning because you are starting to see these different pursuits that are going to keep him a — you know, really a legal terrorist on his heels and that`s where he belongs.
O`DONNELL: Congressman Eric Swalwell, thank you for joining us tonight. And Ja`han Jones, thank you for re grabbing my attention to this story this morning, really appreciate it. Thank you both.
SWALWELL: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, the cover-up now has a schedule. Six months — that is how long the district attorney in Uvalde promised to keep secret everything that happened inside Robb Elementary School. That means Governor Greg Abbott can make it all the way to election day, without the failures of the police who he praised becoming public. That is next.
[22:31:38]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: The Texas cover-up is now scheduled to last at least six months. All government officials in Texas now are relying on district attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee to make it impossible for anyone to obtain any more information about what happened inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas when an 18-year-old, who legally purchased his weapon of war, murdered 19 children and two teachers.
There is no prosecutable crime for the district attorney to investigate because the person who committed the crimes of murder and attempted murder in that school was killed in the school by the police. So in fact the district attorney has absolutely no investigation to conduct.
But she is going to pretend to conduct an investigation for at least six months, she announced today. Five months is all Governor Greg Abbott needs to keep the cover-up going until Election Day. Six months from now will be mid December and the district attorney will, of course, then say that she doesn`t want to release any information about the murders as the Christmas holiday approaches to protect the families from that information. So she will delay her release of that information about the case until at least January of next year.
The district attorney has no legal power to prevent anyone else from making information public. But the mayor of Uvalde is now happily hiding behind the district attorney saying, the Uvalde County district attorney has requested the city to not release any city records related to the Robb Elementary School investigation.
Notice that the district attorney requested the city to not release the records because the district attorney cannot order the city to not release the records because she doesn`t have that power.
The district attorney`s announcement today about what`s she was doing did not include a single reference to investigating any crime. The district attorney said, “I requested all resources available by state and federal disaster victims services to assist my office in providing needed services for the families and victims of Robb Elementary School.
Why didn`t the district attorney tell the governor the day after the shooting to not discuss it publicly? Why didn`t the district attorney tell the state police officials during the week after the mass murder to not discuss it publicly? The district attorney stepped in only because every time the police talked about what happened in school the story got worse for the police.
Absolutely nothing, no legal principle of any kind, prevents the chief of the school police force, Pete Arredondo, from publicly discussing every minute that he spent in that school for over an hour not saving lives.
An assistant — an assistant in the office of chief Arredondo`s criminal defense lawyer issued a statement to the news media today saying, “After conferring with legal counsel, our client has considered your offers and has elected not to make any further comment at this time.”
Our next guest Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez is the only state official who has been trying to find the truth and tell the truth about what happened at Robb Elementary School.
[22:39:43]
He told the “San Antonio Express News” that the head of the state police, Stephen McCraw told him that as many as 13 state police officers were inside the school during the hour when the police did nothing to save children and teachers who were bleeding to death on the floors of their classrooms.
Quote, “He told me, there was enough people and equipment to breach the door,” Gutierrez said, “even as officers continued to wait for more than an hour and some of the children inside the two locked classrooms called 9-1-1 for help. Gutierrez said officers in the hallway at one point had as many as three ballistic shields before finally breaching the door to the classrooms. There was enough material in that room to stop this threat he said. And it didn`t happen.`
Nora Lopez, the executive editor of the “San Antonio Express News” described the stonewalling and harassment that reporters in Uvalde are facing from police. Quote, “They keep threatening to arrest us, but so far they haven`t. It`s been really hostile. There is the concern that they are violating our constitutional rights because we have the right to news gather. I believe that this is bordering on official oppression in stopping us from talking to people.
They are also discouraging families from talking to us because they`re hustling them along. Even families who have agreed to talk to the media. They are basically saying, no you shouldn`t. You need to move, you need to just move along quickly.
That`s my biggest concern, that they are actually now stopping people who want to talk to us from talking to us.
And joining us now is Nora Lopez, executive editor of the “San Antonio Express News” and president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Nora Lopez, I have to say, I`ve never seen or heard of anything like this in the aftermath of a case like this.
NORA LOPEZ, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, “SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS”: I totally agree, Lawrence. And thank you for having me on today.
But yes, this is — I feel like I keep saying these words, “unprecedented, unbelievable, unacceptable,” honestly. How this has unfolded. My 30 plus years as a journalist here in Texas, half of it as a police reporter. I`ve never experienced anything like the stonewalling that we are getting in the aftermath of the shooting.
And it seems like everyday we learned one other new little tidbit that is different or that has changed or that, you know, puts a different light on the situation than what we were first originally told.
So yes, it`s been very frustrating and very disconcerting.
O`DONNELL: So the district attorney has now seized control of information. Everyone is hiding behind her. But the interference that you are getting as reporters is more than that. There are people getting in your way just on trying to cover events like funerals.
LOPEZ: Yes. Although, to be honest, that has stopped I think in large part it stopped because we were being harassed, in particular, by police officers from other jurisdictions, who had come in to assist the local PD because, you know, there was a lot of media in town and there was just a lot of tension.
And they were the ones who were being particularly obstructive to us and covering our sightlines. Most of them have already left. And we did get an apology from the Uvalde city manager and things have gotten just a little bit better. But I feel like the damage has been done. And I feel like they have created this chilling effect.
And the families are still afraid. They are afraid to speak up and talk to us. And that`s a real shame. Because our role as the media, is to get at the truth. And to talk to these families, to talk to the survivors to talk to the families who lost loved ones, so that we can begin to understand just the real impact and the unimaginable loss that this incident has caused to this community.
O`DONNELL: And some of those families have unique information about what happened inside the school.
Norah Lopez, thank you for joining us tonight. We are going to stay with the story. We really appreciate your help. Thank you.
LOPEZ: Sure thing.
And joining us now is Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez, who represents Texas 19th district which includes Uvalde. Senator, you have been through it every day. And it doesn`t get better in your attempts to clarify what has happened inside the school. What is the latest you can tell us about what you know in terms of, certainly, with the state police — the head of the state police told you, about what was going on during that hour?
ROLAND GUTIERREZ, TEXAS STATE SENATOR: Lawrence I had been reporting for at least a week now that there was between two and 13 officers to different people on TV media. Yesterday, one of the print media, the “San Antonio Express News”, Brian Chasnoff wrote a story where he reiterated what I had been talking about that there was between two and 13 officers in that hallway at any given time. There were DPS troopers because those are the guys who are accountable to us.
[22:44:54]
GUTIERREZ: This morning, I wake up to a DPS spokesman that says that my report is false and essentially I`m lying. Over the course of the day, they begin to that back because I was able to proof that they — that indeed I did have these conversations.
And so they took it all back. But I think it`s very despicable that we are living in a moment now where our head law enforcement agency is calling a sitting senator a liar.
And then not even taking his tweet down, by the way, by this person. This person should be fired, quite frankly. But this is the state of affairs in Texas. The story is they intend to make it shrouded. They intend to keep it cloistered for the next six months, all for political reasons.
The people of Uvalde deserve the truth and I will get the truth no matter what the consequences are.
O`DONNELL: Yes. I mean I read all that stuff about the state police officials and you and countering on you. But it was all nonsense because they gave up in the end.
And it sounded a lot like the way they were shifting their story in the first week each day, although today they were doing it at high speed. The district attorney saying, absolute total silence for the next six months and we know she means more than six months because she even said at least six months, six months would put us right on Christmas eve so she`s going to delay it longer than that.
Will the district attorney be able to keep everything secret that happened in that school for the next six months?
GUTIERREZ: Well, it`s evident from her statement that she sure is going to try. These families deserve more. They are very angry. They deserve to know the answers as to why their own law enforcement didn`t act appropriately, why the state troopers didn`t act appropriately.
I still don`t know what her position is. Because she hasn`t made any formal statement. I`m not seeking anything about the issues of criminality. I`m not seeking to find anything about co-conspirators although I think you and I could probably ascertained that there were none.
I`m not — I don`t want to look into social media threats or anything of the like. I simply want to know where law enforcement was situated at the scene and why they did or did not act. That`s all I`m asking.
And as long as Greg Abbott and his Republican D.A. are seeking to keep this secret from us, we will never know the truth and it`s a shame, it`s a shame that we are dealing with that in 2022, in the state of Texas.
O`DONNELL: It is very clearly a cover-up stretching from Uvalde from the district attorney all way to the governor. We are going to stay with it.
Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
GUTIERREZ: Thank you, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
It is election night in four states. Tonight, Steve Kornacki will join us next with the highlights.
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O`DONNELL: It is election night with primaries in Maine, South Carolina, North Dakota, and Nevada. Let`s go right to MSNBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki at the big board. Steve, what can you tell us?
STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBCNATL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Lawrence, a Republican incumbent member of congress Tom Rice is on the brink of losing his seat right now. You can see he is getting blown out in the seventh district of South Carolina in the Republican primary.
This is the state legislator Russell Fry who is leading him. The significance of this race, Donald Trump is backing Fry. Why? Because Rice was one of those very few House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump.
This was the first time a Republican House member who voted to impeach Trump was facing Republican primary voters with — against a candidate backed by Trump.
And here is the result here. Fry is blowing out Rice. There are very few votes left in this district. The only question here is, there`s a 50 percent rule, you`ve got to get over 50 percent to avoid a runoff.
We are just making sure there are no extra votes anywhere here that can bring this number down, but Fry is blowing out Rice and Rice looks very much like he is going to lose his job tonight in this primary.
The other test of Trump`s strength in South Carolina, the first district, Nancy Mace, Republican opposed by Katie Arrington, Trump backed challenger. You see close to 80 percent of the votes in. Mace is leading here by eight points.
She just got a very big boost a few minutes ago. Buford County a big part of this district. We were waiting on results from there. We don`t have all of them, but Mace is leading in Buford County. So that is significant for her. And one other development tonight to tell you about in Texas tonight, Lawrence. I do just want to mention this because this is a landmark potential victory for Republicans in south Texas. Heavily Hispanic south Texas, the Rio Grande Valley, there`s a special election for the House going on tonight. You can see the Republican candidate here Mayra Flores, is leading right now with 51 percent. This is a district that is more than 80 percent Hispanic. They voted for Obama, for Hillary Clinton, by more than 20 points, we talked about this region of Texas heavily Hispanic shifting towards the Republican Party.
We are seeing another chapter next to it potentially written tonight. Big implications in Texas going forward. And nationally too, potentially.
O`DONNELL: Steve Kornacki, thank you very much.
Tonight`s LAST WORD is next.
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O`DONNELL: On Saturday 40,000 people gathered for gun safety in a March For Our Lives event in Washington D.C. I was at that even covering that event.
And in then dozens of cities across the country, including Austin, Texas. Among those who joined the March For Our Lives in Austin was the family of Jackie Cazares and Annabelle Rodriguez, 9 and 10 year old cousins who were among the 19 children and two teachers murdered at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas.
Here is some of what Jackie Cazares` older sister Jasmine said on Saturday.
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JASMINE CAZARES, SISTER JACKIE WAS KILLED IN UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING: The morning of the 24th, I usually run into my sister in the restroom. We usually bump into each other brushing our teeth. But I woke up a little late that day, so I didn`t see her. Never got to say good morning.
And I think it`s going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I`m doing this for you sister. If you can see me, I`m doing this for you. You will be remembered. I promise you.
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O`DONNELL: Jasmine Cazares gets tonight`s LAST WORD.
“THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE” starts now.
STEPHANIE RUHLE, MSNBC HOST: Tonight, new details on the pressure campaign to overturn the 2020 election, as a possible —