Summary
We learned today about another taped phone call that a grand jury in Georgia is surely considering as that grand jury decides whether Donald Trump committed election crimes in Georgia. Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump decided to falsely blame two black women for Donald Trump`s losing Georgia, knowing that to name the women publicly would provoke death threats from dangerous armed Trump supporters.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Rachel.
And while you are working, we were working. Well, I was there in the first hour the coverage, we have some real big breaking news from the United States Senate. They have voted to advance the gun safety legislation in the Senate tonight.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Oh, wow.
O`DONNELL: It is minimal legislation by anyone`s score. But it is the only legislation that has moved through there they are in the last 30 years. Fourteen Republican senators voting for it, including Senator McConnell, and John Cornyn, after he got booed in Texas this weekend, for exactly this.
MADDOW: Wow.
O`DONNELL: After Republican state convention in Texas.
So, something is definitely going to happen and everyone who was advocating for this cause we`ll go back to work advocating for more, as soon as this passes. But it is a very big moment in the history of this subject, in the Senate tonight.
MADDOW: Yeah. Literally, it`s been decades of nothing. And this may be a small something that it is not nothing. And that is big news when it comes to that issue.
Thank you, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Rachel, you`ve worked too hard. Get out of here. I`ll take it for the rest of the day.
MADDOW: Bye.
O`DONNELL: Thank you, Rachel.
Tonight`s other breaking news is that the January 6th Committee has secured the Cooperation of a documentary filmmaker who has 11 hours of Trump family interviews on video, recorded between the crucial months of September 2020, before the presidential election, and January 2021.
We don`t know how far into January 2021 that video goes. It may include January 6th. It does include comments from Donald Trump on video.
That is the breaking news tonight. January 6 committee will be in possession of all of that video. We don`t yet know how it will fit into their hearings.
Donald Trump has a problem with religious people. He doesn`t understand them. He doesn`t understand that some of them, some of them, actually tried to live by and uphold the principles of their religions. Donald Trump has not had one religious moment, not a flash of religion in his adulthood. But since he entered Republican politics, he has been surrounded by religious people, or people who publicly claim to be religious.
Most of the publicly religious people around Trump could not take seriously the words, so help me God. Those are the words at the end of the oath of office that everyone working in Congress takes, same oath that everyone working in the White House stakes.
For four years, Donald Trump watched every one around him in Washington, working with him, violate that oath to support and defend the constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. He watched Republican members of the House and Senate violate that oath repeatedly. He watched everyone working for him in the White House, violate that oath in various ways.
And so, imagine Donald Trump`s shock when in two separate phone calls, Russell Bowers, the extreme conservative speaker of the House in Arizona, told Donald Trump that he would not do anything illegal for him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Did you tell the president in that second call that you supported him, that you voted for him, that you are not going to do anything illegal for him?
RUSSELL BOWERS (R), ARIZONA HOUSE SPEAKER: I did, sir.
SCHIFF: You had told President Trump you would not do anything illegal for him?
BOWERS: I did, both times.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: January 6th happened because people like Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows and John Eastman, and others, were all too eager to do whatever Donald Trump wanted, legal or not. When Rudy Giuliani first told rusty powers that thousands of people voted illegally, Rusty Bowers asked him to prove it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOWERS: He said that they did have proof. And I asked him, do you have names? For example, we have 200,000 illegal immigrants, some large number, 5, 000 or 6,000 dead people, et cetera.
[22:05:07]
And I said, do you have their names? Yes. Will you give them to me? Yes.
The president interrupted and said, give the man what he needs, Rudy. He said, I will. And that happened on at least two occasions that interchange in conversations.
SCHIFF: So, Mr. Giuliani was claiming on the call that there were hundreds of thousands of undocumented people, and thousands of dead people, who had reportedly voted in the election.
BOWERS: Yes.
SCHIFF: And you ask him for evidence of that?
BOWERS: I did.
SCHIFF: And did he ever receive -- or did you ever receive from him that evidence either during the call, after the call, or to this day?
BOWERS: Never.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Without evidence of any wrongdoing, in the election at all, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and others continue to urge the Speaker Bowers to change the results of the presidential election in Arizona by convening the legislature to then replace the Biden electors with Trump electors, and deliver our zone has 13 electoral votes to Donald Trump. Speaker Bowers explained that he did not even have the power to do that, according to Arizona`s Constitution, and he didn`t have the power to call the legislation into session, for any reason at all.
According to the Arizona Constitution, it would take a two thirds majority vote to have a special session in the legislature and, of course, Democrats wouldn`t vote for that, so it was possible.
Rusty Bowers could have left it at that. He could`ve said that the Giuliani and Eastman plot was procedurally impossible in Arizona, and not pass judgment on it. But he saw it as more than that. He saw it as a violation of his oath of office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOWERS: I took an oath. I swore to the Constitution to uphold it, and I also swore to the Constitution and the laws of the state of Arizona, and this is totally foreign as an idea or a theory to me. I will not break my oath.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Religion does not strengthen adherence to the oath of office. That has been proved countless times over the centuries.
Many atheists have demonstrated profound devotion to the principles in the oath of office. For Rusty Bowers, his religion seems to have strengthened the oath`s grip on him. He said, today, that he believes the Constitution itself was a divinely inspired. That was his phrase, divinely inspired.
He believes that the God he prays too had a hand in writing the Constitution or guided the hands that wrote the Constitution. And so, to violate the constitution for him, is not just violating the laws of man.
Donald Trump doesn`t understand people like that. He doesn`t understand people who actually take their religion seriously, and try to live by their religion. He only understands Republicans who exploit religion, politically, the way he does.
Rusty Bowers` testimony today help establish that Donald Trump knew that what he was trying to do was illegal. That`s why Rusty Bowers told him he would not do anything illegal for him. Something Mike Pence never had the courage to say to Donald Trump.
Mike Pence was the most flagrant of all Trump enablers in his public religious pomposity. He has spent a career being publicly religious.
Publicly, Mike Pence, always reaches to the effect of the preacher, giving a Sunday morning ceremony. But, Mike Pence`s religion never stopped him from lying for Trump and publicly supporting and enabling all of Donald Trump`s lies, every single one of them, until 1:00 p.m., on January 6th, when the Trump mob was already attacking the capitol.
And throughout the January 6th Committee`s investigation, Mike Pence, unlike rusty bowers, has never wavered in his abject fear of testifying under oath. Rusty Bowers told the committee today that angry Trump supporters, with guns, came to his house, to happens all the time. They`re not content to just harass him. They also harass his neighbors.
Speaker Bowers explained why he has no regrets about doing the right thing, and he explained it in words, that Donald Trump cannot possibly understand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOWERS: It is painful to have friends who have been such a help to me turn on me with such rancor.
[22:10:08]
I may, in the eyes of men, not hold correct opinions, or act according to their visions or convictions, but I do not take this current situation in a light manner, a fearful manner, or a vengeful manner. I do not want to be a winner by cheating. I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to. With any contrived to desire towards the front deflection of my deep foundational desire to follow God`s will, as I believe he led my conscience to embrace.
How else will I ever approach him in the wilderness of life knowing that I asked of this guidance only to show myself a coward, in defending the course he let me take, he led me to take.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Leading off our discussion tonight, Barry Berke, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Donald Trump`s first impeachment trial, and chief impeachment counsel during Trump`s second impeachment trial. Also with us, Neal Katyal, former acting U.S. general, and an MSNBC legal analyst.
Barry Berke, you have so much experience in jury presentations, and this strikes me as a jury presentation, and when you think about the jurors that you don`t yet have, you can sometimes get a feel for jury, and think, you know, you`ve got some on your side, you kind of know who they are. But when you think of the jurors out there in the American public, who the committee doesn`t yet have, it seems that Rusty Bowers today was at their best reach yet, their best attempt to reach the jurors who they don`t yet have.
BARRY BERKE, FORMER HOUSE IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY CHIEF COUNSEL: Lawrence, I couldn`t agree with you more. Today was a wake up hearing. The election officials and workers, they`re the lifeblood of our democracy. And officials we heard from today, they wanted Trump to win. They just wanted him to win fair and square.
So, they were giving cost of those Americans want to believe the president when he says something, when he says the election was stolen.
And he, today, and the other officials who testified, who also wanted Trump to win, they set, wake up to those Americans. These were lies. They were lies told to you to try to steal the election, to defraud and the country. And they may have succeeded, but for the courage of these workers.
So I think from a trial standpoint, for the American people, today spoke to those who want to believe Donald Trump. And they saw the harm that he caused, both personally, but also to our democracy and our system of government.
So, it was a definite "wake up, America" to those who may not yet be there.
O`DONNELL: Neal Katyal, the witnesses prior to the election workers at the end where people who began their testimony by saying they voted for Donald Trump, the Republicans, they wanted him to be president. And then, Rusty Bowers put it in terms of that Donald Trump would never understand, which is he didn`t want to win by cheating. And as you looked at the flow of the evidence today, what was your reaction to what you consider the highlights of it?
NEAL KATYAL, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Lawrence, welcome to the next installment of the Barry and Neal show. We like to be doing this with you again.
And to me, the thing that stood out was the committee`s evidence today that Trump had directly involved himself on the false electors plot, not just what you are highlighting in your lead up, which was Trump knew what he was doing was illegal, or that Trump had fantasies about winning the election, whatever that ended up in the world of reality knew that that wasn`t sure. The evidence today that Trump was actively manipulating governments after the election, that he had called the RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel, outlining the false elections to her.
Trump even got John Eastman, the kind of legal architect of this nonsense, on the phone, with the chair of the RNC about this. And so, to me, there`s lots of evidence over the hearings that even against other people, but today was really focused on Donald Trump`s act of wrongdoing.
That`s what the Justice Department is looking to. But it`s also what Trump himself is looking to because he`s been trying to set up his subordinates like John Eastman to be the fall guy, and that`s a lot harder, given the testimony today.
So, today, you had these Republicans, like Rusty Bowers, calling the president a liar, and then, you`ve got the secretary of state for Georgia, Raffensperger, who is portraying Trump as a malicious pusher of these lies himself.
You know, my favorite moment in the hearing was Raffensperger saying, look, I called Trump, I told him I could send him a video link to show that these claims of election fraud were bogus.
[21:15:08]
And Trump`s reply was, hey, I have a much better video for you to look at.
Now, there`s only two types of ways I have ever deflected from Trump, that he asked me for money, and the type that reminds me to update my antivirus software. But, Trump was all in with peddling this election nonsense. He was a peddler-in-chief, that`s what the hearing show today.
O`DONNELL: One of the things about the time limit that the committee has imposed on itself is it forces the committee to focus on what it considers to be the most important evidence of the most important evidence. So, for example, the Raffensperger phone call, which I think we all think is the most important exhibit that exists in the case, the state that goes on for over an hour. They just isolated certain pieces of it, and each piece they isolated, they really want us to concentrate on.
I want to take a look at this piece that is often ignored, when we talk about this phone call, in these discussions on television. And this is when Donald Trump is saying to Raffensperger, you have to worry. You have to worry about maybe you having in criminal exposure here. Let`s listen to this.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: It`s more illegal for you than it is for them, because you know what they did, and you`re not reporting it. That`s -- you know, that`s criminal -- that`s a criminal offense. And you can`t let that happen, that`s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that`s a big risk.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Barry Berke, what is that we`re listening to?
BERKE: That is evidence of a crime, Lawrence.
I`ll tell you, my day job is a criminal defense lawyer, as you know. And I can`t help watch this without that hat on. And there`s so much focused on Donald Trump`s state of mind. That`s a threat to election officials, to try to affect official proceeding. That is defrauding the United States, all the sorts of evidence you see.
You saw a trifecta of evidence today. Georgia, damning evidence. That is a clear piece. Arizona, which became much more clearer today than I think it had been. And then, as Neal rightly says, the fake electors in Trump`s role, directly in it.
You know, as a defense lawyer, I know as a trial lawyer, I got to tell you, you start seeing evidence like this, it`s overwhelming. You start telling your client, maybe, you should think about a plea. And there`s a lot out there today, a lot.
O`DONNELL: So, Neal, there is -- the president of the United States, telling this Georgia official, that`s criminal -- that`s a criminal offense. This is the guy who runs the U.S. attorney as the boss of the federal prosecutor in Atlanta. If you are on the Raffensperger end of that phone call, you have a right to worry that Donald Trump might be sending federal prosecutors after you.
KATYAL: Exactly, Lawrence. I mean, the evidence today was so bad against Trump. I think even Barry Berke couldn`t get Trump off at this point, you know?
So, I think, you know, that basically, you see an abuse of power, and Trump runs the entire prosecution arm of the United States government. The idea that he would go and threaten people, and using the power of his office to try and compel the sort of an election result is unforgivable. It`s the most grotesque of his power.
And the other thing that struck me, Lawrence, about the hearings. We`ve talked about this a little before, but it really started today. Where is Mike Pence in all of this? I mean, Pence was really the subject of all of Pence peddling and lying strategies, his aides have all testified, Pence`s aides.
But where is he? And this is one of the most important moment in the history of the republic, and Pence is AWOL. One answer maybe the other half of the hearing today, those election workers, those brave workers, who were in fear of their life.
Because if you ask yourself, why is Pence not testifying? Maybe it`s a similar thing. I mean, after, all Trump`s already threatened once on January 6 with his life. Pence has to be thinking, if I testify, what`s in the world is Trump going to do to me?
And I think that`s why Congress has no choice but to subpoena him, because we really should have Pence. The criminal case against Trump `s is ironclad, but Pence is still a missing piece in the full story. We should hear from him directly.
O`DONNELL: Neal Katyal and Barry Berke, thank you very much for starting us tonight. Always appreciate it. Thank you.
Coming up, our next guest is one of the people who voted to convict Donald Trump, for causing the insurrection at the Capitol in the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Senator Amy Klobuchar joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:24:13]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: The numbers are the numbers, the numbers don`t lie. We had many allegations and we investigated every single one of them. In fact, I challenged my team, did we miss anything?
They said that there was over 66,000 underage voters, we found, that there was actually zero. You can register to vote in Georgia, when you are 17-1/2, you have to be 18 by election date, we check that out, every single voter.
They say that there was 2,423 non-registered voters. There were zero. They said that there was 2,056 felons. We identified less than 74 or less, that we`re actually still in felony sentence.
Every single allegation, we checked, we ran down the rabbit trail to make sure that our numbers were accurate.
SCHIFF: So there is no way you could recalculate it except by fudging the numbers?
RAFFENSPERGER: The numbers were the numbers, and we cannot recalculate because we had made sure that they would have checked every single allegation.
[22:25:04]
We had many investigations. We had nearly 300 from the 2020 election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now is Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota. She`s a member of the Senate Judiciary committee and she is the chair of the Senate rules community.
Senator, I just want to open it to your reaction to this, two hours and, more than two hours of testimony today.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): What a day, Lawrence. To hear the words, really all of the witnesses.
You see as you pointed out earlier in the show, Republican elected officials that were supporters of Donald Trump, who just felt like they were not going to violate the law. I think my favorite words were those of the Arizona speaker of the house, who said, I do not want to be a winner by cheating. I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to.
Or the election worker, Ruby of Georgia, who felt you can tell how she loves serving her democracy, and how her life and her daughter Shaye`s life ruined because of she became a target of lies.
All of this part of Donald Trump`s conspiracy, to make up that the election was stolen and the fact that these Republican elected officials, Democratic elected officials are testifying, I would think the word today is, with such emotion, about what they had been through, and the personal anguish that they felt, moves people in a different way than just the facts.
The facts matter, or we wouldn`t be having this hearing. But it`s also the personal and people had a look within themselves to why they ran for office, why they serve our country. And I think you heard the answer today. They took an oath to the Constitution. And they are taking it seriously. Something clearly Donald Trump did not do.
O`DONNELL: Let`s listen to what Rusty Bowers described as Rudy Giuliani`s theories of the case.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLI)
SCHIFF: At some point, did one of them make a comment that they didn`t have evidence, but they had a lot of theories?
BOWERS: That was Mr. Giuliani.
SCHIFF: And what exactly did he, say and how did that come up?
BOWERS: My recollection he said, we got a lot of theories, we just don`t have the evidence. And I don`t know if that was a gaffe, or maybe he didn`t think through what he said. But both myself and others in my group, the three in my group, and my counsel, both remember that specifically, and afterwards, we kind of laughed about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Kind of laughed about it I`m sure is understatement.
KLOBUCHAR: Well, when I heard here, Lawrence, was a lawyer, Rudy Giuliani is a lawyer. And basically, he has admitting that he didn`t have evidence, and he is pursuing cases in court. You can see what the problem is here.
And you also know that the White House lawyers, the Trump campaign lawyers, all rejected this. Eastman, Giuliani, Ginni Thomas, there was a group of them that were off on their own, that were pursuing what was clearly illegal.
They were telling the speaker of the house to come up with a fake list of electors in Arizona, and he said no. Donald Trump himself, we all heard it, even if you didn`t believe anything anyone said today, and I believe you, you can believe everywhere they said. But we heard him say himself looking for those votes, saying you`ve got to be able to find those votes, the 11,780 votes. Interesting, he picked that number.
We know what he was up to. It was a conspiracy, and yet people working with him to try to flip the election illegally. And I think one of the things we know is that there is a lot going on leading up to January 6, and as we now know, there is a lot happening after January 6. It didn`t begin there. It didn`t end there.
O`DONNELL: As chair of the rules committee, you are heavily involved in that transition of power especially inauguration day on January six, and we learned today that Senator Ron Johnson tried to hand a list of fake electors, some fake electors to Mike Pence on January 6th. He denied it, saying that his chief of staff reached out to Pence`s staff, but then, he also said that`s chief of staff did the right thing, by trying to get these fake electors delivered to the vice president.
What is your reaction to that news tonight?
KLOBUCHAR: This was new news to me. As you know, chair of the rules committee, we`d have our hearings on security. I`ve had many hearings with Senator Blunt on threats against election officials. I had never heard this before.
He basically was saying then that he`s handed an envelope, or his chief of staff, someone is handed an envelope. His chief of staff directly called vice president`s office, who rejects getting these electors. But basically, Ron Johnson says I don`t know where we got.
[22:29:47]
Why would you hand to the vice president of the United States, or plan to hand to them, an envelope that you don`t even know where it`s from, but you think it contains fake electors? I think that this alone, to me was very shocking, because I know Wisconsin is a state that believes in fair elections. They have stood up for fair elections over time. They are my neighbors, and they have a very high election turnout.
You have senators like Tammy Baldwin over there, but I can`t believe that he would do this. And I think we need to look into this more as well.
O`DONNELL: Senator Amy Klobuchar, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you, it`s great to be on, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, there`s another Georgia phone call Donald Trump needs to be worried about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Anyway, but whatever you can do, Frances, it would be -- it`s a great thing. It`s an important thing for the county, so important. You have no idea it`s so important. And I very, very much appreciate it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: A former Georgia district attorney will join us next to discuss the criminal grand jury investigation of Donald Trump in Georgia. That`s next.
[22:31:06]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: We learned today about another taped phone call that a grand jury in Florida -- in Georgia, I`m sorry, is surely considering as that grand jury decides whether Donald Trump committed election crimes in Georgia.
A week before Trump`s now famous phone call from the White House to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger when he asked secretary Raffensperger to find him 11,780 votes. Donald Trump was taped, making a phone call to Frances Watson, the chief investigator for the secretary of state`s office.
Donald Trump made that call, the day after White House chief of staff Mark Meadows made a surprising visit to Georgia, to try to change the outcome of the election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Chief of staff Mark Meadows took the extraordinary step of showing up at a signature audit site in Georgia, where he met with secretary Raffensperger`s chief investigator, Frances Watson, who is supervising that audit process. Behind me is a photograph from that visit.
Third, the day after Meadows` Georgia visit, he set up a call between President Trump and Frances Watson. On the call between President Trump and Georgia investigator Frances Watson, the former president continued to push the false claim that he won the state of Georgia. Let`s listen to that part of the conversation.
TRUMP: You know, it`s just, you have the most important job in the country right now because if we win Georgia -- first of all, if we win, you`re going to have two wins.
They`re not going to win right now. You know they`re down because the people of Georgia are so angry at what happened to me. They know I won. Won by hundreds of thousands of votes, it wasn`t close.
SCHIFF: And in this next clip, he told the state law enforcement officials that she`ll be praised if she found the right answer.
TRUMP: But hopefully, you know, when the right answer comes out, you`ll be praised. I mean, I don`t know why, you know, they`ve made it so hard. They will be praised.
People will say great. Because that`s what it`s about, that ability to check and to make it right. Because everyone knows it`s wrong, there`s just no way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now is Gwen Keyes Fleming, former district attorney for the Dekalb County, Georgia. Thank you very much for joining us tonight to give us this perspective on it.
I know you`re friends with Fani Willis in the neighboring county, who`s empaneled the grand jury to consider all of this evidence.
But in yourself, if this had happened in your county and, for example, this phone call that we just heard with Donald Trump speaking earlier than we realized in Georgia, on tape, would it be striking to you that the officials in the secretary of state`s office, decided that they had to tape their phone calls with the president, even before the president called the secretary of state?
GWEN KEYES FLEMING, FORMER DISTRICT ATTORNEY -- DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA: Well, I think it`s interesting that they did, because now, there is that tape out there that could be used, possibly as evidence in either the prosecutor`s case in chief, her primary case. Or it can be used as supporting evidence to establish some other crime.
And I think in answering that question, the key thing is, whether that call was received in Fulton County, or whether it was received in a neighboring county. Every prosecutor has to prove jurisdiction, has to prove venue. And so that will be the key question as to how the information surrounding that call would be used by Fulton D.A.
O`DONNELL: I know people watching this hearing today were shocked by what happened to Shaye Moss and her mother, election workers in Fulton County, doing their job, attacked publicly by Rudy Giuliani, attacked by Donald Trump, and then their lives being completely taken away from them, by the kind of Trump mob in Georgia. What should prosecutors be looking at in Georgia, in relation to that behavior?
[22:40:01]
FLEMING: Again, as I was watching the testimony, that was some of the most heartbreaking testimony that I had heard. And obviously, this is a very serious case, where lives have been lost, and it really brings home how personal this all is for so many that lived through it.
From a prosecutor lens, one of the things that I think Miss Willis and her team would be looking at is to whether, what has been described, or what she can find through the grand jury process would rise to the level of the terroristic threats charge.
Again, there -- it has to be corroborated. It has to involve threats of violence, and with the intent to terrorize somebody. There are even provisions in the law that allow for terroristic threats that are communicated either through tweets or some sort of computer means, to be considered as well.
So, she needs to look and see whether there`s sufficient evidence to hold the president accountable in the first incident -- the former president accountable in the first instance. Or, whether she thinks it`s more prudent to be able to bring that information in, to tell the whole story, as part of the road to RICO charge. And we`ve talked about how putting the various potential crimes together, whether it`s forgeries, or alleged forgeries from fake electors, whether it`s influencing witnesses, whether it`s false swearing, in terms of, again, making false statements to public officials, all of this could be part of a very -- possibly, a very strong RICO case. And that`s the strategic decision that she and her team will have to make.
O`DONNELL: Let`s listen to how Shaye Moss described these threats.
SHAYE MOSS, FORMER GEORGIA ELECTION WORKER: Yes, a lot of threats, wishing death upon me. Telling me that all be in jail with my mother, and saying things like, be glad it`s 2020 and not 1920. Yes --
SCHIFF: Were a lot of these threats and vile comments racist nature?
MOSS: A lot of them were racist. A lot of them were just hateful. Yes, sir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Should the FBI and federal prosecutors be investigating those death threats?
FLEMING: I think that`s something that needs to be considered. Again, I`ve been a public servant for 24 years. My father was a public servant. He served as a Tuskegee Airman, to see people who put their lives on the line, now, to be able to serve the public, and then get treated in that way is very disturbing. And I certainly hope that something can be done.
O`DONNELL: Gwen Keyes Fleming, thank you very much for your contribution to our understanding of this tonight. We really appreciate it.
FLEMING: Thank you for having me.
O`DONNELL: Coming up, the election lies and Donald Trump threatened the lives of election workers, as you just saw. Arizona secretary of state Katie Hobbs, who has received death threats herself from the Trump mob, joins us next.
[22:43:21]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump decided to falsely blame two black women for Donald Trump`s losing Georgia, knowing that to name the women publicly would provoke death threats from dangerous armed Trump supporters. Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, told their stories to the January 6th Committee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUBY FREEMAN, FORMER GEORGIA ELECTION WORKER: There is nowhere I feel safe, nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States to target you? The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American not to target one.
But he targeted me, Lady Ruby, a small business owner, a mother, a proud American citizen, who is standing up to help Fulton County run an election in the middle of a pandemic.
MOSS: I don`t want to go anywhere. I second guess everything that I do. It has affected my life in a major way, in every way, all because the lies. For me doing my job, the same thing I`ve been doing forever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now with Arizona secretary of state Katie Hobbs. She is running as a Democrat to be the next governor of Arizona. Secretary Hobbs, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I know you have been threatened also by the Trump mob because of your work in overseeing the election in Arizona. But you ran for office. You knew you were running into a life of public criticism at times, not supposed to be violent, not supposed to be life-threatening, but to see this happen to election workers is just a horrifying thing. Did election workers in Arizona have similar experiences?
[22:50:00]
KATIE HOBBS, ARIZONA SECRETARY OF STATE: I don`t know that they faced as extreme attacks as we saw from the testimony today, and the clips that you just played. What I do know is that what this shows is that the people who lost are willing to do anything to overturn the election. And do anything to anyone that gets in their way, even if it means putting them in harm`s way, as this showed.
And this is posing a serious threat to the future of elections. It`s just one of the threats that we are continuing to face from the former president`s lies. Losing qualified election workers because of this heightened threat environment that they`re now operating in.
O`DONNELL: Let`s listen to what Adam Schiff said about that, and what Shaye Moss told him about exactly that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIFF: In addition to the personal impact this experience has had on you and your family, one of the things that I find most disturbing is how these lies discourage longtime election workers from continuing to do this important work.
Tell us, if you would, off the other election workers shown in that State Farm Arena video, and their supervisors. How many are still election workers in Fulton County?
MOSS: There is no permanent election worker or supervisor in that video that`s still there.
SCHIFF: And did you end up leaving your position as well?
MOSS: Yes, I left.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: What is that going to mean for future elections?
HOBBS: Well, it means that we are losing a huge amount of experience and expertise in the administration of elections. And I believe that that is exactly what these people want. They want to undermine the integrity of our elections, and make it easier to install their loyalists in all these positions, whether it`s appointed positions, overseeing elections or elected offices, to be able to overturn future results if they don`t like them.
O`DONNELL: We had more testimony about Arizona today in the hearing than we have had before. What did you learn about what was happening in your state, as a result of this hearing today?
HOBBS: Well, I wasn`t aware of the exact nature of the pressure that was put on Speaker Rusty Bowers, that we heard him testify to today. And what it really highlighted for me is the lengths that these folks are willing to go. And they put this pressure on particularly Republicans. I did not experience the same kind of thing in my position, to choose loyalty to their party over our country.
And this continues to create a threat for us across the country because they are continuing to try to use this kind of pressure, either you are with us, or you are out.
I mean, look at how Liz Cheney has been ostracized from the party. That`s the tactics they`re using, and people are giving in to that.
O`DONNELL: Arizona secretary state Katie Hobbs, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
HOBBS: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: It is election night in Georgia again. Steve Kornacki will join us, next.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: It`s election night with primaries and runoffs in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. That means it`s time for MSNBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki. Steve, what`s the headline?
STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the headline in Alabama is that saga, the soap opera of Mo Brooks and Donald Trump has come to an end here. Brooks losing the runoff to the U.S. Senate in the Republican side in Alabama.
Remember, Brooks, the congressman, originally had Trump`s endorsement. Donald Trump then withdrew his endorsement. Brooks made it into this run off with Katie Britt. He then publicly appealed for Trump to reconsider, and re-endorse him. Trump responded to that by endorsing Katie Britt.
Katie Britt, the former chief of staff to Richard Shelby, the Republican senator who is not seeking reelection. Britt, obviously, in a state like Alabama now the clear favorite to win this seat in November.
On the house side in Georgia, a couple of runoffs here. Two of note in particular. In the 6th district, you see here Jake Evans, he had the endorsement of Donald Trump, crushed in his Republican runoff against Rich McCormick. Also in the 10th district, Vernon Jones, a former Democrat, endorsed by Donald Trump, crushed again by Mike Collins in the Republican run off for a House seat here.
Worth noting, though, both of these victorious Republicans who beat the Trump-backed candidates in Georgia they did run on very Trump friendly platforms. Collins for instance saying that the election in 2020 was stolen from Donald Trump and that Donald Trump was the rightful winner of Georgia in 2020.
Also in Virginia, we are going to talk a lot about this, this November, the battles are now set in two house races here that could determine -- help determine control of the house in the second district.
Democrat Elaine Luria, she`s going to be running for reelection. She found out her opponent tonight. It is Jen Kiggans, national Republicans very much wanted Kiggans, a navy veteran in the Virginia Beach area to win this primary. They got their wish.
[22:59:49]
KORNACKI: And the other closely watched race in Virginia this November, bellwether, it`s going to be in the 7th district. The Democratic incumbent here is Abigail Spanberger. She flipped this seat in 2018. She`s going to have to defend it against Yesley Vega (ph), one of several Latina women to get Republican nominations for the House now in the 7th district of Virginia, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: So Steve, what do we see in the pattern of Trump-supported candidates?
KORNACKI: It`s interesting, because you look at Georgia, and you could say the headline election in Georgia, or primary election was obviously, the gubernatorial primary a few weeks ago. Trump`s, you know, went after Kemp, got crushed; went after the secretary state, got crushed. His candidates lose tonight, but like I say, the winning candidates were running on pro Trump messages, so harder to read into that.
O`DONNELL: Thank you, Steve. Steve Kornacki gets tonight`s LAST WORD.
"THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE" starts now.