All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 01/06/15

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN. JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am not doing this. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, you are. It`s part of the job. HAYES: Joe Biden was bidening, the donors were scootering (ph), senators were exchanging hog castration devices on the Hill. Welcome to your 114th Congress. REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), CHICAGO: This House will continue to be led by a proud son of Ohio. HAYES: Tonight, the Republican mutiny that almost managed to topple John Boehner, as the president throws his first brush back of 2015. Then, Steve Scalise takes his spot in leadership as a Republican David Duke problem persists. Plus, the new mini-scandal over Chris Christie`s offensive holding in Dallas, and inside the underage sex scandal that has famed attorney Alan Dershowitz proclaiming his innocence from the rooftops. ALAN DERSHOWITZ, ATTORNEY: I don`t even know who she is. HAYES: ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening, from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Within hours of the very first day of the brand new Congress, President Obama promised his first veto with the Keystone pipeline legislation, and Speaker Boehner faces Republican mutiny on whether he should keep his job. Welcome to the 114th Congress. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) REP. ALAN GRAYSON (D), FLORIDA: A national poll asked the following questions, what do you have a higher opinion of, Congress or hemorrhoids? Congress, 31 percent, hemorrhoids, 53 percent. HAYES (voice-over): America didn`t much care for the old Congress. GRAYSON: What do you have a higher opinion of? Congress or dog poop. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will the gentleman suspend? GRAYSON: Congress, 40 percent, dog poop, 47 percent. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will the gentleman suspend? GRAYSON: Yes. HAYES: But it`s a new year. The country has elected a new Congress and today was its very first day. It`s a day of new beginnings, a day where the gallery is full, cute kids are in abundance, and Joe Biden gets to be Joe Biden. BIDEN: Best guy in the United States Senate. Hey, everybody. Come on over here, son. How are you? UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Charlie. BIDEN: Charlie, how are you doing, man? I need a hug, kid. Come on. (CROSSTALK) OK, up there. OK. And you guys want to get sworn in? HAYES: So maybe this Congress will be better than the last one. After all, the 114th Congress is the most diverse Congress in history. It`s 80 percent white, 80 percent male and 92 percent Christian. First order of business for the most diverse Congress in history, electing a speaker. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John Boehner, once again, facing a built of a revolt as he speaks a third term in that role. HAYES: The seriousness of the task weighs heavily on many. And as lawmakers begun to cast their votes, it became clear that John Boehner had some challengers. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gohmert? Gohmert. Yoho. Yoho. Clawson of Florida. Senator Rand Paul. PELOSI: The Honorable John Boehner. HAYES: John Boehner won this one, but he had to fight off a serious insurrection, 25 members of his own party declined to vote for the guy nor any defections of speaker in recent memory. That`s 13 more than the second highest in two decades, John Boehner in the last Congress. So, here`s where we`re at with the 114th Congress. The new speaker if the old speaker, the speaker`s party is at odds with him, still. And the guy who spent $13 million to give Republicans full control of Congress was back again to watch it all play out. Sheldon Adelson was on hand after the 2012 election and he was there for today`s big show. If things keep going his way, maybe they`ll build a Jerry Jones style owner`s box for him in the House gallery so he can watch his teams play. BIDEN: Come on. Bring the team up. HAYES: So, on this day of fresh starts and new beginnings, it`s already looking like dog poop -- GRAYSON: Dog poop -- HAYES: -- has nothing to fear. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Joining me now, former governor of Vermont, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, Dr. Howard Dean. He`s also an MSNBC contributor. So, if you look at it numerically, oh, he lost 25 votes. But, historically, this doesn`t just happen. Everyone falls in line. They vote for the speaker. Plus, I thought this was really interesting, there were three freshmen Republicans today and they show up on their first day, they`re just elected, and they vote against the speaker. I mean, that -- you know, that takes some guts. HOWARD DEAN, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: That would be charitable. It takes some guts. You know, they`re intellectually challenged on that side of the aisle. I wish I could be more nice about it. But that`s like odd group of people. HAYES: Or their principle, right? I mean, so let me give the best- case scenario here. This is all tactical, right? You`re -- basically, you`re showing up, day one, look, we`re not going along to get along. You`re sending this message. You`re going to have to deal with us. You`re going to have to listen to us. The tail is going to wag the dog again. And maybe from a negotiating standpoint, that`s a good opening bit. DEAN: Three people, freshmen, voting against a speaker is not going to have any effect about what goes on. But it does say something about the people who are so determined to get their own way that they don`t give a damn what the hell happens to the country. I mean, the idea was and this is what the Republican is, that we`re all going to try to work together now that we`re in charge. That`s what they need to do. If they don`t do that, they have no shot in 2016, no matter who they nominate. HAYES: Right. DEAN: So, these 25 people, basically, are saying we don`t care about the Republican Party. All we care about is the right wing agenda that we`re here to set out and we`re not working with anybody. I think that`s not such a good start. HAYES: There was this -- DEAN: And it doesn`t help them any because nobody is going to pay any attention to them. HAYES: Well, and you know how Boehner is going around threatening his retribution for people who voted against him, which also makes sense. DEAN: I`ll tell you, Chris. There`s the real problem for Boehner is if they keep doing that, he`s going to have to go get 25 Democrat votes and move his entire legislative program to the left in order to do that. That`s what these guys are doing when they`re voting against him. HAYES: That is the big question. The open question I think in this Congress is there`s two ways this goes. One is everyone works in lockstep in the House and Senate, right? They move through a Republican agenda. They pass this stuff that the president then has to veto. DEAN: There`s certainly going to be some of that. HAYES: Right. But then the big question is, do you end up in a situation where he`s facing such revolt all the time that on must-pass legislation, he has to go get Nancy Pelosi. DEAN: We`ve already seen that, too. The only way he kept the government open the last couple of votes, big votes with the last Congress, was to actually go and get about 125 Democrats and let 80 of his own people walk. That is not conducive to long life as a speaker. HAYES: Right. We see the number tick up. He survived again. There was something today that is a little bit buried that I think is just fascinating. I keep marveling over the kind of disconnect between what people voted for in the fall, and what his agenda is going to look like. Buried in the House rules that are going to be voted on tomorrow is a procedural change to change a routine way in which different accounts of Social Security, there`s Social Security disability insurance, there`s Social Security for seniors, right, in which those accounts are moved around. And basically, it`s opening up a procedural opportunity for Republicans to attack disability insurance. DEAN: This is incredibly complicated. What they did basically is make it harder for them to make an allocation. HAYES: Right. DEAN: Because they can`t move money around by a vote without the Senate and the president and so forth and so on. You`re going to see a lot of this stuff. There`s a much more dangerous one coming. They`re about to use the rules to use something called dynamic scoring. This is supply economics at its worst. What`s led to the enormous Bush Democrat -- deficits, enormous Reagan deficits. It`s phony economics. What they do is they spend, this is a typical Republican. They cut taxes and they spend money and the budget balance gets worse. And dynamic scoring means they can invent growth down the road. HAYES: They can say because we cut taxes. DEAN: And spend the money now. And that`s going to be -- this is a bad change that you talked about because it`s going to hurt people on disability. HAYES: Right, they`re coming after it. DEAN: What they`re really going to do is wreck the finances of the nation, which should be the fourth time Republican administrations have tried to do this. And that`s really dangerous. HAYES: I think one of the most fascinating things is, are we going to see government spending go up again, because one of the kinds of myths of Washington is Republicans are for balanced or for lower governments -- DEAN: They`re not. HAYES: It`s never been proven to be the case, historically. DEAN: That`s the Tea Party exists in part because George W. Bush creating this enormous deficit. HAYES: And they were the effective in 2010 and 2011. DEAN: Right. HAYES: I think that`s all out the window. Howard Dean, always a pleasure. Glad you`re here. DEAN: Thanks, Chris. HAYES: All right. So the very first item on the brand new Senate majority leader to-do list is a bill authorizing the very controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Well, that hit a major snag today, when in the first moments of the new Congress, the White House announced if the Keystone bill passed, the president would veto it: (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: You and the president have been fairly down beat on the Keystone pipeline. The governor is moving ahead with the legislation. Have you taken a fresh look at this? JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I mean, not really. The fact that this piece legislation is not all together different than the legislation introduced in the last Congress, and you`ll recall that we put out a statement of position indicating that the president would have vetoed had that bill passed the previous Congress. And I can confirm for you that if this bill passes this congress, the president wouldn`t sign it either. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: This evening, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responded, saying the veto threat won`t necessarily stop Congress from sending President Obama the bill. Today, efforts to move forward on that Keystone legislation were delayed by Senate Democrats. An objection from Senator Dick Durbin forcing the cancellation of a hearing on a pipeline tomorrow, giving us an indication of what this Congress is going to be looking like for the foreseeable future. Joining me now, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, my boss at "The Nation", where I am editor-at-large, she`s editor and publisher. Great to have you here. KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, THE NATION: Thank you, Chris. HAYES: So, this is the big -- I mean, we saw a very different -- I felt -- Barack Obama post-midterm in the last few months. He just seemed to not care anymore with the politics. VANDEN HEUVEL: Liberated. HAYES: Taking action where he could. You know, damn the consequences. Sort of recognizing there (INAUDIBLE) Do you think -- the big question is does that carry through this time? VANDEN HEUVEL: I think so. I think we`ll see it in terms of protecting his agenda and priorities. We may not see it on some budget items. But I think on Keystone, you saw the first skirmish today. The president will veto. And he needs to because this is going to be the first of many environmental climate-related bills. The next one up will be how to take authority away from the EPA on power plants. Basically, the bottom line, Chris, is this is a Congress right now, Republican Congress, working for the oil companies, the coal companies, deniers, leaving our children, grandchildren voiceless. The president saw his poll ratings go up. Let`s not forget at the end of last year, when he seemed liberated, as a second term president on immigration, on normalizing relations with Cuba, speaking on a free Internet -- HAYES: On the China climate pact, it was sort of amazing. VANDEN HEUVEL: I think it`s a win-win, politically, and policy. But I do think there are going to be trade-offs. We`re going to see probably a trade deal, which is NAFTA on steroids which privileges corporations over ordinary people. We`re going to see some game-playing with some of the budget. I think tax reform is tricky. And infrastructure -- HAYES: Tax reform -- when you say tax reform on K Street, you just get this light in the eyes of every lobbyist. Oh, really? We`re going to do tax reform? Let me tell you some reforms I want. VANDEN HEUVEL: Working people have gotten shafted enough by Wall Street tax reform. If you really want to see tax reform which will benefit those who have benefitted from the recession, 95 percent of income gain has gone to the top 1 percent. So, I do think it`s going to be a mix bag, but I do think the president has seen the power of the veto and has used it wisely. Yes. HAYES: We`re going to see those veto threats. The point we made to the top there about the environmental is so important, because that is something -- again, when I talk about this disconnect, what was the campaign about and what are they going to do. They ran a lot of ads on Keystone. So, I think there`s a pretty good small d democratic case. We ran on this, we`re going to try to pass its. They didn`t run a ton on the EPA. But that is something they are going to be attacking. And the veto is going to be this line of defense. VANDEN HEUVEL: You know, Chris, we know -- listen, on so many issues, we can`t let an obstructionist right wing or a highly centrist Democratic Party define what is politically permissible. It is time to be bold, passionate, push the limits of the debate, particularly on the economics of this. But let`s have a great, green jobs deal. Let`s put out there what would appeal to millions of Americans because you`re so right, the disconnect between what`s going on inside the Beltway, what went on during the election, what millions of people really seek from a Democratic Party that could regain its identity. I mean, the attack on Social Security you and Governor Dean we`re talking about, if the Democratic Party stands for anything, it shouldn`t be just for defending Social Security. It should be what Senator Warren and Senator Brown speak to, which is expanding economic security, retirement security. HAYES: Senator Warren today tweeting about this rule change which I think we`re going to talk about tomorrow because I think the vote is going to do that tomorrow on this sort of -- on the disability fund. But that`s -- you know, these are the signals now that we`re going to get. We all know that they`re going to go after the Affordable Care Act. But all of the other stuff, we`re going to see it filter through. And how up front they are about it I think to me is going to be one of the big questions. VANDEN HEUVEL: Very important. And I think we`ll see it, Alan Grayson laid out some of it earlier. But Senator Warren has the clarion call. And I say that in 2015, she leads the way to take back the Senate in 2016. The map will be better. She is someone who can do that effectively. HAYES: Katrina Vanden Heuvel, always a pleasure. VANDEN HEUVEL: Thank you. HAYES: Hey. This is the 150th anniversary edition, right? 1865? (CROSSTALK) HAYES: A hundred fifty years, man. That`s really something. I`m very excited. VANDEN HEUVEL: Thank you. HAYES: We can do a lot of fun stuff on that this year. All right. What does it say about house Republicans after they decide to keep one of their colleagues and leadership even though he spoke to white nationalist groups founded by David Duke? We`ll talk about that, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: And, now, time for an important, nonpartisan public service announcement with an eye on 2016. Jeb Bush launched a new fund raising organization today. He did it by posting a video on Instagram and Facebook. This is a video of him walking down a city street in lightly falling snow talking about his PAC. Here`s the thing, that video was shot on a phone on portrait phone, which is wrong. There`s a very easy fix on this technology blunder. You just turn the phone sideways so it`s in landscape mode, like this, see how much better this nice, wide screen, horizontal video is? So, remember, folks, when shooting video on your phone, turn it sideways. That goes for everyone, not just you, Jeb Bush. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: John Boehner`s re-election keeps the Republicans leadership team intact. That means Steve Scalise, the number three Republican in the House, appears poised to survive his brush his political death upon the revelation he had spoken to a white nationalist group in 2002 founded by a former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. That`s a great file photo. And civil rights icon and Georgia Representative John Lewis wants Scalise to apologize directly to Congress, members of the Congressional Black Caucus are stopping short of calling for Scalise to resign. One member told "BuzzFeed", "If something else comes out, it`s over." The White House said yesterday the House GOP`s decision to keep Scalise in its leadership is telling. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) EARNEST: Who they keep in leadership is saying a lot who they are, what their values are and what the priorities of the conference should be. Mr. Scalise reportedly described himself as David Duke without the baggage. So, it will be up to Republicans to decide what that says about their conference. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: It`s easy to forget in 2015, when a prominent political figure David Duke used to be. A one-time Democrat who switched to the Republican Party in 1998 subsequently won on term as Louisiana state representative. Duke did remarkably well in runs for Louisiana senator and governor in the early 1990s, forcing a runoff in 1991 gubernatorial election and winning more than 60 percent of the white vote. He spent the last couple of decades running for office, books, serving prison time for tax and mail fraud, and spotting racist and anti- Semitic theories. Though, I should note, like everyone else in America, David Duke insists he`s not a racist. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BILL O`REILLY, FOX NEWS: Don`t sit here and tell me you`re not trying to promote the cause of white people, because you are. DAVID DUKE, FORMER KU KLUX KLAN MEMBER: Look, I am absolutely -- I love my people, my heritage. I want to preserve my heritage like every people does. O`REILLY: Preserve your heritage? What does that mean? DUKE: How about European heritage? O`REILLY: What does that mean? DUKE: Look, I`ll tell you what? You don`t know what European heritage is? You don`t know what Mozart is, and Bach and Beethoven? You don`t know? O`REILLY: They`re people. They come from different countries. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: That`s a great clip. All right. Here`s the thing. Now, we think of David Duke as a fringe figure because he is. But he was not a fringe figure. In Louisiana Republican politics in the early 1990s, as the Scalise episode illustrates. When we take a look at what David Duke campaigned on in its heyday, many of those positions entered the mainstream of the Republican Party. It`s a point that Duke himself made during a 1992 debate with now Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DUKE: My past is cause for the first time in America real debate on the affirmative action issue, on forced bussing, what it`s done in public education, what has happened in terms of the welfare system, the old legitimacy, the problems that are going on in our society. And I bet it has. MODERATOR: These are issues that Republicans are talking about all of the time. (CROSSTALK) DUKE: The Republicans are talking about it more now that I was successful in using them politically. And everybody has got to acknowledge that fact. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now is Philip Bump, political reporter for "The Washington Post." It`s kind of amazing to go back into that period in American politics. Where this very racialized language about welfare and dependency, at one point, David Duke is saying that people on welfare should be given birth control, right? That, through a sort of different rhetorical approach, it funnels pretty squarely into a lot of Republican Party politics particularly in that period of time. PHILIP BUMP, THE WASHINGTON POST: It`s absolutely true. I think it`s important to remember what was happening in Louisiana at that moment. It was just starting to transition from heavily Democratic to a heavily Republican state. It was in this moment of trying to figure out what its political identity was, which was like much of the Deep South, was a reaction to the changing nature of race in the United States. David Duke was an opportunist. He was also someone who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He comes on board. He wants to run for office, and he takes advantage of a moment to say, hey, what I believe in is having our state take care of itself, which was sort of a transitionary point between that argument in the 1960s, and the argument we`ve seen more recently. HAYES: And as for Scalise, it looks like he`s going to survive this politically, although to me -- it`s somewhat of black eye for the Republican leadership. I mean, they`re just going to basically going to say, hey, look, mistakes happen. But one thing I just want to be clear on. There`s this guy, Kenny Knight, right, who`s sort of Duke`s lieutenant, right, who`s also a neighbor of Scalise, who set up this talk. The idea that Scalise had no idea who Kenny Knight was or who he worked for, it just doesn`t really seem plausible to me. BUMP: Sure. I mean, you have to take someone at their word. He says, you know, that this is a situation. HAYES: Well, let`s just remember the context. BUMP: Sure, right. HAYES: David Duke is a famous guy. Kenny Knight is his neighbor. Steve Scalise is not an idiot. I`m pointing all three of those things out. BUMP: No one was under any misapprehension of what David Duke was at that point in time. It was clear that Steve Scalise himself was under misapprehension of what that was. It was by all accounts from a standard in 2015, national politics was a bad decision to go to that conference by the standard of what he was trying to do and raise his profile in the state at that point of time. Perhaps he saw it was a risk worth taking. HAYES: These are some of the sort of the bills that Duke has sort of proposed when he was state rep. Repealing affirmative action programs, stricter public housing guidelines, eliminating minority set-asides. You know, those all become particularly the 1990s when the sort of affirmative action wars really heat up, those all become mainstream planks of Republican Party politics. BUMP: Well, I mean, you know, some of what he said, although a less extreme version of it, when you watch him combating Edwin Edwards in that 1991 race, he`s fighting over welfare and what is happening with welfare recipients. And that evolved into a centrist position for President Bill Clinton a few years later, right? I mean -- HAYES: And so, he`s leading the edge of the kind of political discourse that takes the whole country in a certain direction. BUMP: Exactly. HAYES: But not singlehandedly. BUMP: No, absolutely. Again, he`s an opportunist. He also was an ecologist at that point because he blamed Edwards for ruining the environment of Louisiana. He was glomming on to what Ronald Reagan said in his first inaugural about government got too big. He was cobbling together these various things to make his argument. It just so happens that what he grabbed onto is a thing that actually was very e effective for Republicans moving forward. HAYES: So, Scalise now is surviving leadership. I saw one quote from someone off the record about the thing that`s going to do him in, he has a hard time raising money when he goes to New York. Is this sort of smooth sailing? It`s like, no harm, no foul here? BUMP: I mea, the way politics is now that you have your team, and I think Steve Scalise is part of the Republican team. If they want to give money to the Republicans, Steve Scalise will still be able to raise money. I don`t think he`s going to be doing a lot of high-end donations on Fifth Avenue. But I think he will be relatively effective because people are so partisan that they`re sayings we`ve got your back. HAYES: Yes. And I think the big question to me, always, of course, is, it was said in the "BuzzFeed" piece today, which is -- are there any other shoes to drop. I think he`s got two strikes. And there`s one. I mean, just politically. I`m not saying morally or any other way. But politically, you`ve got to think of anything else comes out and leadership is going to have a problem. BUMP: No question. No question. HAYES: Thanks so much. All right. Chris Christie`s little trip to Texas to watch his Dallas Cowboys play the Detroit Lions on Sunday might be turning into an even bigger controversy than the awkward menage hug thing he had happening after his team`s win. That`s next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: All right. So, last night, I defended Chris Christi`s hug in the box of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on the narrow grounds of the legitimacy of Christie`s Cowboy fandom, which seems to me squarely abide by the eternal rules of a sports fandom. But I think the deeper reason a lot of people criticize him or even cringe when they saw it wasn`t because it shows a Jersey boy rooting for the Cowboys. Because there was something kind of odd and uncomfortable about this typically combative man, a governor of the state of New Jersey, a guy with a lot of power, up in the owners box, hugging Jerry Jones, having been flown out by Jones, put up on a hotel, and dubbed, quote, "part of our mojo" by Jones who wants Christie there all the time for good luck. I mean, this is an elected official on all expenses paid trip courtesy of a very powerful and very wealthy man. I don`t know, maybe there`s some sort of conflict there? Well, leave it to David Sirota to find it. He`s pretty good at finding that stuff, reporting in "The International Business Times" that, quote, "government documents show Christie personally pushed the Port Authority to approve a lucrative contract for a firm part-owned by Jones in 2013. And here we come to eye. If you`re a big public official like Chris Christie, you do not go around accepting gifts worth thousands of dollars from big, powerful, influential business people, because even if there isn`t a quid pro quo, it still looks bad. It`s also, presumably why the New Jersey`s ethics code has, quote, "adopted a zero tolerance policy for acceptance of gifts offered to you that are related in any way to your official duties." Though, according to the head of the state`s ethics commission, also a former lawyer for Chris Christie, the governor is under the same code allowed gifts from personal friends. And ethics laws do not define who can be considered a personal friend. Now, having defended Chris Christie on one set of grounds and attacked him on the other, let me conclude tonight by defending him again. The other Christie news today is that he was overheard saying Philadelphia Eagles fans are the worst in America. Now, that`s impolitic of the governor of New Jersey, but this is one of those political scandals that comes from accidentally telling the truth. And if you don`t believe me, just ask Santa Claus. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Lawyers for the family of Tamir Rice said today they`re, quote, "cautiously optimistic" about a decision by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson to change who has jurisdiction over the investigation into the shooting death of 12-year-old Rice by Cleveland police. Jackson announced Friday that Cleveland Police Department, which had been investigating with help from the state is now handing the case over to the Cayahoga County sheriff`s department. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR TAMIR RICE`S FAMILY: We are curiously optimistic that it would be a thorough, fair investigation into the death of Tamir Rice. And we sincerely hope that it answers some questions that these parents have about the untimely death of their child. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Tamir Rice was shot in a public park on Nevember 22 by police responding to a call of a person pointing a gun. The child had a non- lethal pellet gun and while a 9-1-1 caller told dispatchers the gun they saw was, quote, "probably fake," that characterization was reportedly not passed on to the responding officers. The entire thing was captured on surveillance tape, which you see here. And the tape, at times, seems to tell a very different story to the initial account of the Cleveland Police. For example, while police said the officers saw a few people sitting under the pavilion where Rice was playing, the tape clearly shows him sitting there by himself. There he is at the table shortly before police arrived. Police have said the 12-year-old was ordered three times to show his hands. The video shows one of the officers firing at Tamir within two seconds of pulling up in a patrol car. Now, that doesn`t contradict the claim from police. They say the commands were given as they drove on to the scene. But it certainly doesn`t look like 12-year-old Tamir Rice had allowed time to comply before he was shot dead. Also, it emerged later, the officer who fired those shots, Timothy Loehmann had been deemed unfit for duty in 2012 by a small suburban police department where he worked previously. According to the Northeast Ohio Media Group, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson said he asked the county to take over the investigation of Rice`s shooting because he lacks confidence in Ohio`s state attorney general Mike DeWine to handle it fairly. Jackson specifically cited DeWine`s investigation of another case, this one back in 2012, in which a police chase ended in the fatal shooting of an unarmed couple. The mayor criticized DeWine at the time for failing to uphold due process in that investigation, and like the Tamir Rice case, that investigation was also ultimately handed over to the Cuyahoga County prosecutor who did successfully obtain grand jury indictments for six of the officers involved. At their press conference today, the Rice family reiterated their calls for justice for their son, while their lawyers questioned what investigators had accomplished in six weeks adn three days since he was killed. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WALTER MADISON, ATTORNEY FOR TAMIR RICE`S FAMILY: We also, as part of this new investigation or the transfer of this investigation, want to know what has been done in those six weeks and three days. And in the spirit of transparency, on the heels of all of these grand jury decisions that have disappointed the nation, I believe this family is entitled to an answer. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now is Walter Madison, attorney for the family of Tamir Rice. Mr. Madison, I have to say I`m a little confused by all of this. Jurisdictionally, what is going on? You have the shooting. There has been, my understanding, a Cleveland police investigation in tandem with some investigators from the state of Ohio attorney`s general office? Is that correct? MADISON: That`s not correct in this particular instance. That occurred before. What you have here is the Tamir Rice incident occurring November 22. And we got six weeks and three days. And that inaction is the thing that breeds the doubt and fear in the minds of the Rice family. And we simply think that in the spirit of transparency, there ought be some answers to what has actually occurred. HAYES: So when you say inaction, though, does that -- I mean, what has been going on in this month plus. I mean, what is you`re understanding? Has the Cleveland police been collecting evidence? Have they interviewed the two police officers in some sort of formal setting? What actually is the status of an investigation such that it exists? MADISON: Well, that`s an excellent question. And I think that someone from the city should answer. We have no idea what has been done or not been done in six weeks, three days. I can`t imagine a scenario where anyone would need six weeks and three days again to make a decision that we`re not the proper individuals to be investigating this case, in particular, when the city acknowledged in 2012, from that day forward, all use of deadly force investigations will be handled by an outside agency. So they set the framework up for two years ago. I don`t understand how six -- it would take the amount of time we`ve had since November 2 to take some action. HAYES: So, I should also say that this is a police department recently cited by the Department of Justice for sort of systematic bias in many ways, a lot of really disconcerting revelations in that report, including -- and I`m reading here -- deeply troubling to us was that some of the specially trained investigators who were charged with conducting unbiassed review of officers` use of deadly force admitted to us they conduct their investigations with the goal of casting the accused officer in the most positive light possible, that`s reading from a DOJ report on the Cleveland police Department. So do you have faith in the new entity, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff`s Department that is now going to be taking over this investigation? MADISON: My faith is not an issue. What`s an issue is showing improvement at this particular time. The patternistic behavior in general is not my business, that`s the police department`s business to manage. But when that patternistic behavior affects the life of my -- of Tamir Rice, my family -- the clients, their child, I think it becomes our business. And those questions and those issues that have been pointed out become very, very salient in the minds of the Rice family. HAYES: There`s been obviously a lot of national attention on the various means by which these investigations are undertaken, is it the family`s position that they believe there is sufficient evidence just based on the video for some kind of criminal charges here? MADISON: Any person in America will, if there`s probable cause to say -- or if you could answer the question, is it more or less likely a crime occurred here, they will be arrested and they will have to go into the grand jury with the label of being the accused. And that changes the complexity and the composition of a grand jury proceeding. When you`re the accused, only you can wave your right to go to the grand jury, and more than likely in 99 percent of the instances you do not appear in the grand jury. So you`re not able to walk in there and provide exculpatory information and testimony that`s self-serving. When you`re just a witness, because you haven`t been accused, you are able to be presented to the grand jury at the discretion of the county prosecutor or the district attorney, depending on the jurisdiction, and you may say whatever it is that you`re -- that you can recall about the circumstances. So, I don`t expect any person to not have self-preservation in mind first and foremost. But I think the label of being the accused is the one safeguard that differentiates these police -- deadly force cases with police officers from the civilian. And we just don`t believe that that -- the mechanism is fine, but the inputs in that fashion causes the breakdown. HAYES: Walter Madison, thank you very much. All right, it`s a story that reads like the script to a Hollywood legal thriller, one of the most famous lawyers in America is defending himself after a woman claimed she was forced to have sex with him and others, including Britain`s Prince Andrew when she was 17 years old. That story is ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Tennis star Serena Williams did something I`ve never seen before, and didn`t even know was possible. After losing the first set of her match during the Hopman Cup in Australia yesterday, she asked the ball girl for a beverage. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SERENA WILLIAMS, TENNIS WORLD NUMBER ONE: Is it illegal to order an espresso? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Courtside, she said I need an espresso. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, that`s great she`s got a sense of humor about it, anyway. WILLIAMS: I`m tired. (LAUGHTER) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I`ve never seen anything like this before. This is one the funniest things I`ve ever heard. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Black? WILLIAMS: Black, as black as it gets, thanks. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: It worked. She rallied, won the match tweeting later, "hey, everyone, I keep telling you I am like you, a normal, average human being. I do need a coffee or esspresso, too. Going for one now." Hey, whatever works. No judgment here. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Alan Dershowitz, one of the most famous lawyers in the country, former Harard law professor so tenacious you would never want to go up against him in court, now finds himself accused in the filings of a lawsuit of which he is not named as a defendant, of engaging in sex with an underaged girl on more than one occasion. Now, Dershowitz vociferously denies these accusations. Here he is with Matt Lauer on the Today Show this week. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MATT LAUER, TODAY SHOW ANCHOR: What is your response? ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR: Totally false and made up. She claims I had sex with her on Jeffrey Epstein`s island. The records will show I was on that island once with my wife, my daughter, a prominent Harvard business school professor, his wife, in-laws and children. I was never out of the sight of my wife. She claims I had sex with her on Jeffrey Epstein`s ranch in New Mexico. Records will show I was at the ranch once with friends, with my wife and my daughter for about an hour. The house wasn`t complete. Epstein wasn`t even in it. There are no girls around. She claims I had sex with her on the airplanes, manifests of the flights will show I was never on the airplanes. LAUER: Did you ever meet her? DERSHOWITZ: No, no. I don`t even know who she is. No, I`ve never seen her. I`ve never met her. I don`t know who she is. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Now the allegations against Mr. Dershowitz center around his relationship with a man he just mentioned just then, Jeffrey Epstein. The story of Jeffrey Epstein reads like a Hollywood film about a rich and powerful villain. As noted by The Washington Post, quote, "as part of a 2008 plea deal with prosecutors, Epstein spent 13 months in jail on a state charge of soliciting prostitutes. According to unsealed documents pertaining to that deal, Epstein was the subject of a federal investigation probing allegations that the powerful figure abused dozens of underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion. Now Epstein pleaded to one count of procurement of a minor for prostitution and one count of offering to commit prostitution. Some of the alleged victims are now suing federal prosecutors, claiming the prosecutors violated the law by not fully consulting with them before that plea deal was finalized. And the expanding lawsuit has added allegations by a woman called JaDe doe number three for the purposes of the lawsuit. As described by New York Magazine, quote, "Jane Doe number three alleges that between 1999 and 2002, she was sexually abused by Epstein who also pimped her out to his rich and famous friends." Now, as you may have already noticed from the headlines of these reports, Prince Andrew, along with Alan Dershowitz, is among the people now being accused of having had sex with Jane Doe number three. Buckingham Palace has issued a statement to the media calling the accusations, quote, categorically untrue. This is the first time in the years-long Epstein saga that Dershowitz and the prince have been accused. And let`s stress, these are just allegations from a lawsuit that is not against these two men. Now, Epstein, the man at the center of all, the one who did the jail time, who is now a registered sex offender, raised in Coney Island, became a math teacher at a wealthy private school when one of the Wall Street dads at the kid of a school said he was so smart, he shouldn`t be teaching, he should work on Wall Street. Epstein did that and not only became successful, but acquired a legendary status, the subject of media fascination, like a New York Magazine profile which predated the 2008 bombshell allegations and the subsequent plea deal. He`s pals with Nobel Prize winning scientists, CEOs, socialites, Donald Trump. He grabbed the world`s attention when he flew former President Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker to Africa on his private Boeing 747. And that is just a slice of the life of Jeffery Epstein. We`ve reached out to Mr. Epstein to respond to these latest reports. While we have not received a response, his lawyer issued a statement Today Show, quote, "these are stale rehashed allegations that lawyers are now attempting to repackage and spice up by adding the names of prominent people. The allegations, which are outlandish on their face and discredited by the evidence remain in the civil case in which Mr. Epstein is not a party." Now the lawyers for Jane Doe plaintiff have now as of today sued Alan Dershowitz for defamation. And Dershowitz is taking legal action of his own. Way back in the 2003 Vanity Fair profile of Mr. Epstein, and the person who wrote that has a story to tell about what writing that profile was like. She will be right here at this break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: All right, joining me now as promised is investigative journalist Vicky Ward. She author of the Liar`s Ball, past contributor to Vanity Fair where she wrote about Jeffrey Epstein. Her latest piece about him was just posted on the Daily Beast. You should definitely, definitely give that a look. Great to have you here. VICKY WARD, JOURNALIST: Thanks, Chris. HAYES: OK, so you`re writing for Vanity Fair. You`ve got this assignment, it`s 2002? I think? WARD: 2002. HAYES: Right. Why was -- why did people want to profile Jeffrey Epstein? Why did Graydon Carter ask you to profie Jeffrey Epstein in 2002? WARD: So Jeffrey Epstein lived in this enormous house on the Upper East Side of New York. And he was gossiped about, but he actually had a very low social profile. But people did talk about these kind of amazing parties that he had with these academics, with all of these billionaires and these girls, but no one knew how he funded this extraordinary lifestyle with the plane. And then, suddenly, he popped up above the radar. He flew Bill Clinton to Africa, as you said, on that plane. It was reported in the sort of society gossip columns. And I think Graydon Carter, my boss, actually was trying to do me a favor. At the time I was pregnant with twins, couldn`t fly -- I wasn`t really allowed to fly. And he said, OK, here`s a story that`s sort of on your doorstep, should be nice and easy, this mysterious Gatsby-type figure. No one knows how he really made his money. You know, why do all these people hang out with him? HAYES: So, he`s got all of these famous friends. No one knows how he made his money, but people became enamored of him. He`s throwing these parties and there`s also this talk about this girl -- I mean, you had Donald Trump even saying on the record, like how do you girls? He likes them young, kind of like half jokingly. WARD: Yeah, no. And when I interviewed -- you know, they all came out for Jeffrey. I mean, he was -- he didn`t want to be seen controlling the piece, but he tried to control the piece. He was on the phone all the time. I would be called out of the blue by Jimmy Cain, then running Baer Stearns. I was called up by Ace Greenberg, I was called by Leslie Wexner, Marshall Rose asked me to come and meet him in his office. You know, the movers and shakers all wanted to say how clever Jeffrey Epstein was, what a great philathropist he was. And some of the actual academics even said to me, oh, and he gives these amazing parties with these very pretty girls. They were kind of naive. And Prince Andrew is there. HAYES: Prince Andrew, so, just to be clear here -- and, again, we -- you know, Prince Andrew denies these allegations, Alan Deshowitz not only denies them, he`s seeking legal recourse for them. But just to establish the basic facts here, they were both friends with Jeffrey Epstein, right? I mean, that should be clear. They hung out with him. WARD: Absolutely. HAYES: And Dershowitz, did he talk to you for the piece? WARD: Dershowitz absolutely talked to me for the piece. And in fact I remember the quote, you know, one of his quotes very well, because he said, you know, I`ve now written I think it was 20 books. And I make sure that the first person who proofreads every book is Jeffrey Epstein. And by that point, it sort of stayed in my mind because Jeffrey Epstein had been talking to me. He always wanted to talk off the record. And I was not impressed by this man`s intellect. And I kept thinking, what am I missing here? But what did start to happen, Chris, was that there was an underbelly. You know, as I started to dig, you know, his friends would have me believe and Jeffrey would have me believe that he was the money manager for these very rich men, men like Leslie Wexner, but, actually, what I began to find was the story took me to jail outside of Massachusetts where I interviewed a man called Steven Hoffenberg (ph) who at that point in time had perpetrated probably the biggest Ponzi Scheme in history. It was pre- Madoff. And he had a very different story to tell about his working relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And I -- you know, he`s was a convicted... HAYES: This was someone convicted of fraud. AWRD: He was a convicted felon. So I`m going -- I`m sitting there in jail talking to this man in an orange jump suit. And he says, well wait a minute, let me tell you the real story how I picked up Jeffrey Epstein after he had been forced to leave Bear Stearns. Let me tell you some real stories. So I thought, you know what, he`s a convicted felon, can`t believe everything he says, right? But I`m definitely going to go away and not necessarily take what all of these rich, powerful men tell me at face value. And I then did with a lot of digging. And we did find documents that certainly, you know, suggested that Jeffrey Epstein was not what he would have had the rest of world believe professionally. But there was another them to his biography, and that was the girls. HAYES: OK. Right, so I want to talk about the girls. And it was suggested that we had this guy who is this kind of -- you know, he`s called the Talented Mr. Eptsein, I think - it`s like this kind of crazy Jekyll and Hyde with the Nobel Prize winning scientists, academics, ex-presidents, famous people, movers and shakers, glamorous. He`s got his own island. He`s got his own mansion. He`s got his house. No one knows how he makes his money. And then there`s the girls. What did you... WARD: And then there`s the girls. And this is when -- you know it`s interesting because at the time I was pregnant and you don`t -- and we were moving very quickly and we wanted to get the story and you don`t always see things that you see later on. And I was going back and looking at all of my notes. And I now see that he was never that bothered actually by the sort of the financial stuff that I uncovered and put to him, but he was very bothered about the girls. And he would say to me, well what have you been finding out about the girls? What have you been finding out about the girls? And obviously at that time, he wasn`t under investigation. We didn`t know what we know now -- I mean, he`s now a convicted sex offender. But then we didn`t know -- but what I actually had found was this very brave family, a mother and two daughters, who were prepared to go on the record about alleged molestation that had happened to one of them when she was only 16. And you know I had her sister sort of crying in my living room. And they told me the whole story. And they also told me how frightened they were to go on the record. HAYES: And it did not ultimately make it into the piece. WARD: And it did not. And I was very up set about it. HAYES: Well, you`re now here telling it and it looks like you were prophetic in your reporting. Vicky Ward, thank you very much. WARD: Thank you. HAYES: All right, that is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END <Copy: Content and programming copyright 2015 NBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2015 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.>