Summary:
After power outages, Texas faces food and water shortages. Donald
Trump is facing criminal investigations in the wake of the Senate
acquittal.
Transcript:
LORELLA PRAELI, PRESIDENT, COMMUNITY CHANGE ACTION: Like in 2010, Chris,
right before I came on to your show when I was still undocumented, I
watched from the Senate gallery as the DREAM Act was called for a vote. The
Democrats have the majority in the Senate, and yet they failed to get the
votes to overcome the filibuster. We lost that vote and with it, we lost
our hope for stability, for protection for deportation, for a path to
citizenship for 2 million young people in this country.
We cannot have a repeat of 2010 and as the president begins to lay out his
framework for this next recovery and jobs bill, there is this procedure
that he can use to make sure that he comes through --
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: I have to --
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: On reconciliation. I`m sorry to cut you off. I got to hand pass the
baton to Rachel Maddow.
Lorealla Praeli, thanks so much for making time tonight.
That is "ALL IN" on this Thursday night.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW starts right now.
Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thank you, my friend. Much
appreciated.
And thanks to you at home for you joining us this hour. Happy to have you
here.
So, we landed a car on Mars today. Breathtaking feat of American ingenuity
and exploration, just a stunning example of what is possible when Americans
put their heads to the to do something truly grand, just an American feat
of brillo and engineering and ambition, it made your heart sing.
To see the team celebrate at the Jet Propulsion Lab, to see those first
pictures being beamed back from the surface of Mars, where we have our
rover now. It`s just amazing. We`re going to have more on that later in the
show tonight.
But meanwhile, here on earth today, same day, same country, we still have
not figured out how to keep lights on. Hundreds of thousands of people
still in the dark tonight in the great state of Texas suffering what has
been a days` long, slow-rolling disaster caused by a big and very cold
winter storm that has pounded most of the country, and it is bad in a bunch
of places and a whole bunch of states.
But the situation in Texas is just a catastrophe, not only because of the
weather, but because of the mix of the weather and Texas` inability to
prepare for it and inability to handle it. Against the cold temperatures,
demand for electricity is way up so people can heat their homes, but the
energy supply in Texas is simultaneously also way down with Texas`s non-
winterized, non-insulated, largely unregulated, very fragile energy
infrastructure, proving itself once again to be incapable of operating in
the cold, incapable of generating anywhere near enough power to light up
the state when demand is high.
That has left millions of Americans in Texas without power for days. No
power, of course, means no heat. That has created dangerous conditions for
millions of people. As of tonight, dozens have died in Texas. The
electricity part of the problem is starting to resolve now, although still
tonight the number of Texans without power remains in the hundreds of
thousands, some of them for four straight days now.
Even with improvements, they may not last with many very cold temperatures
in the forecast. Texas regulators are warning they may again have to kill
power in parts of the state, parts of the state that have power now may yet
lose it, as regulators turn off some neighborhoods, some places that have
power, again. They`re anticipating have to do that to keep further strain
off the unstable, unsupported grid in that state.
Texas grid managers saying now if that does happen, they`ll try to limit
power disruptions this time to no more than 12 hours at a time. But on top
of what everybody`s already been through, knowing now may yet have the
lights go off again is just -- beyond words.
But this catastrophe with the power in Texas, it is not a problem that can
get fixed with the flip of a switch. The knock-on effects of depriving
millions of people of power for days on end, those are baked in now. And
it`s going to take a while to get all of those.
It starts with water. Tonight, more than 14 million people are under a
boil-water notice in the state of Texas. And part of Texas, the facilities
that treat the water, that clean people`s water lost power. Because of that
and storm-related issues, that means that 14 million people in Texas don`t
have clean drinking water tonight. That`s basically half the state of
Texas.
And not having clean drinking water is a very dangerous, very unsustainable
problem. Being told to boil your water when you might not have electricity
to power any means of boiling the water is, of course, ridiculous. It`s
insult on top of injury.
It turns out people in Texas with dirty, undrinkable water coming out of
their taps right now in some ways are the lucky ones. One Austin resident
telling "The Wall Street Journal," quote, I`m, like, great. You`re telling
us to boil water but nobody`s talking about the fact that I know one person
who has water and I`m driving to that person`s house right now to get some.
What water are we supposed to boil?
People in Texas have been bailing water out of swimming pools. They can
find pools that aren`t frozen, they`re bailing water out of swimming pools
to fill their toilets. They`ve been melting snow on outdoor fire pits
because the only fire they have is the frozen stuff that came out of the
sky.
I mean, this is Houston, Texas, America`s fourth largest city. People are
waiting in line with buckets at a local park to fill them up because
someone found out there was still water coming out of that one spigot.
The entire city of Austin is under a boil-water notice. Thousands of people
have dry taps. Austin officials have told people in that city to be
prepared to be without water potentially for days. One Austin resident
telling a local NBC affiliate that she stockpiled water last week just in
case, filled up one of her bathtubs. But now, she and her family are down
to the end of that stockpiled supply, just a half case of bottled water
left for the family.
She said, quote, if we knew this was going to be one day or two days, that
would be one thing. But not knowing and the possibility of extending longer
makes it pretty hard to deal with because we do not know what to plan for.
And beyond individual households in Austin, it`s not just households that
use water, the crisis also is now a huge problem for the city`s hospitals.
Last night St. David`s Hospital in Austin had their water cut off. The
hospital had to transfer dozens of patients to other hospitals last night.
They discharged some other patients, just told them to go home.
The CEO of the hospital says they need water to supply the boiler in that
hospital. The boiler heats the hospital. So, losing water was the first of
their problems. Losing water also meant they couldn`t find boiler, which
meant the hospital was also losing heat.
Today, the hospital brought in a water truck to feed the boiler and to feed
the toilets so they can flush. I mean, this is just a slow-rolling,
unmitigated disaster in Texas right now.
This was southwest Houston today, people waiting in line for hours in the
cold to get propane. This was a line outside a fast-food restaurant in
Austin. People don`t just need propane. They don`t just need water. They
need food.
Fast food restaurants open, this is kind of line you`re getting. A line of
cars stretching all the way down the block. Grocery stores have been with
people. Some grocery stores were closed for days because they didn`t have
power.
Freezing temperatures and rolling power outages have thrown a monkey wrench
in the supply chain for everything. One Austin resident telling the Texas
"Tribune" about her recent trip to target. Quote, the store was out of
meat, eggs, milk almost before I left. Lines were wrapped around the store
when we arrived. Shelves were almost fully cleared for potatoes, meat, eggs
and some dairy.
She said her neighbor went to that same store two days later, but it was
completely out of food. There was no sign that more shipments were on the
way, no employees restocking shelves.
People living in one of the largest states in the country are living with
no electricity, no heat, no water, scrounging for non-potable water and for
food. This has been going on for the better part of the week. It was not in
the -- in the midst of that, it was not until yesterday that the Republican
governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, held a public press conference to talk to
the people of Texas about what`s been going on, what the state is trying to
do to fix it.
This is how the "Texas Tribune" summed up what Governor Abbott said at the
press conference. Quote, Abbott provides few details on when Texans`
suffering will end as state`s crises mount.
Today, Erin Banco at "The Daily Beast" reporting that the federal
government had sent Texas 60 industrial-sized generators to help alleviate
the strain on the electrical grid, but she reported that as of this
morning, those generators were, quote, sitting in a staging area in Fort
Worth, waiting for delivery instructions. Same with 10,000 gallons of
diesel fuel to fire those generators, sent to Texas by the federal
government. Quote, FEMA officials are waiting after are instructions from
Texas officials as to where to send it.
While they wait, the federal government has been trying to help. The Biden
administration has declared a state of emergency in Texas and a state of
emergency in Oklahoma and Louisiana now too. They`ve also been hard hit by
the storms.
The president has authorized FEMA to provide hard-hit states with
generators and supplies. He says they`re ready to fulfill additional
requests for assistance.
In Texas specifically, besides those 60 generators that were reportedly
sitting in a warehouse in Fort Worth, FEMA has already sent Texas hundreds
of thousands of liters of water, tens of thousands of blankets, and
hundreds of thousands of meals.
This is a crisis that is absolutely still ongoing.
Joining us is Bob Fenton. He is the acting administrator of FEMA in the
United States. I appreciate you taking time to help us understand what`s
going on right now. Thanks for taking the time to be here.
BOB FENTON, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, FEMA: Thank you for having me on, Rachel.
MADDOW: First, let me know if you need to set me straight, if I`ve said
anything that`s wrong here or that`s out of date or if my reporting is
misconstrued anything. Second of all, I`d like to hear in your words what
the scale of the FEMA response is right now.
FENTON: Well, thank you.
What`s happened is a weather event started late last week that caused
significant impacts to the roadways and then this last weekend started with
cold weather and another event that has continued to last, and having
single-digit temperatures along the Texas area and most of the state,
including the Southern Plains and now moving up to the Eastern Seaboard.
So there`s a number of states affected, in addition to Texas, but Texas is
one of the worst because it`s so far south, when you look at the building
codes down there, it`s really not made for temperatures that we see that
are this low that happen that often. Last time this happened is over 50
years ago.
So, in addition to the cold temperatures that`s causing significant impacts
to individuals and collateral effects to the water systems, to the fuel
systems and what we`re doing now is responding to those to help Texas out.
The president, as you said, issued an emergency declaration this weekend
that authorized us to direct the federal government to support the state of
Texas`s needs it may have and we do have a lot of resources down there. We
have a large warehouse in the Texas area already but we`re sending stuff
over from Atlanta, and energizing a lot of our contractors and working with
a lot of different groups that would bring assistance to the area to help
those that are in need.
MADDOW: I know that the president`s emergency declaration allows FEMA,
which is you, to coordinate disaster relief for all 254 Texas counties.
When it comes to coordinating the relief, is it most -- is FEMA focused
mostly on direct aid to people who most need it, the things that I just
described, water, blankets, food, that sort of thing, or is your
coordination of relief also about working with Texas power generating
facilities and water treatment plants and other systems operators to get
the systems back up and running?
FENTON: Well, we`re there to support the state of Texas. They set the
priorities where they want us to focus our resources and where we can
provide assistance. So in this case right now, we`re providing resources
directly to individuals through shelters, warming stations, whether that be
water, meals, blankets, cots, those kind of things.
In addition to that, you talked earlier about the generators, we`re
providing to pump stations or other critical infrastructure to get those up
and operational, and we`re bring fuel in and other things. In addition to
that, we provide funding to Texas to help them bring in resources.
So we could do help in all aspects from individuals to government entities
to assist the state in helping the private sector if they need help to get
their equipment up and running or resources need to be brought in that
aren`t there right now.
MADDOW: Administrator Fenton, I`m going to ask you just to tell me bluntly
just in human-to-human terms. Is the response working right now?
I`m worried when I see reporting like we saw from that report at the "Daily
Beast" today that FEMA has succeeded in getting generators into Texas but
they were sitting in a staging area this morning while we`re seeing the
human suffering in Texas because people don`t have access to power, they
don`t have access to all the things that are made possible, including heat,
by access to power.
Is this -- I understand the scale of what you`re describing as the effort
here, but is it working or are there problems here?
FENTON: Well, this is a significant event to have single-digit temperatures
to hit an area in the United States that`s not used to seeing that
temperature over a prolonged period of time, it`s impacted many that are
not ready for this type of event. So it`s impacted a number of people
across not only almost every county in Texas has been impacted in this
event, which is 20 million something plus people plus other states are
impacted by this.
And what`s happened is there have been secondary events. Not only the cold,
and Texas has tried to respond by putting up heating stations and opening
shelters, by working to assist improving communications and those kinds of
things. But then you start to have the secondary events of water line
breakages, whether it`s in homes or main line breakages, which is now a
collateral effect that we`re dealing with. And up talk about the boil water
notices and the need to provide water which is almost like a second event
that`s happened and it still cold and this is going to happen through the
weekend.
So, we are working together with Texas and the local governments to provide
resources they need. Individuals need to continue to heed the warnings of
local government officials. Don`t expose yourself to the cold for long
periods, check on friends and family and make sure that they get to warming
stations if they need to. We need to make sure we don`t lose any more lives
here and we need to make sure that we start re-energizing the critical
infrastructure to freeway power because that`s eventually going to make
things better.
As we do that, there`s going to be significant damage from this event from
those pipelines that we`re going to have to deal with for weeks ahead and
make sure we`re providing such water and other commodities to help those
that need it most.
MADDOW: Well, I hear you on the scale of the response and what`s needed in
terms of the people of Texas needing immediate relieve after four days
shivering in the cold. I hope the scale of the response can quickly start
to reach the scale of the need.
Robert Fenton, acting FEMA administrator, thanks for helping us understand
tonight and Godspeed to you and your colleagues.
FENTON: Thank you, Rachel. (INAUDIBLE) to everyone in Texas, we`ll be there
to help them through this.
MADDOW: All right.
Let`s now go to Texas, to Harris County. Harris County is the largest
county in Texas and the third largest county in the United States. Harris
County includes the great city of Houston, and they did have some good news
today.
The county of -- Harris County went from having 1.4 million people without
power yesterday to having 20,000 people without power today. A large-scale
restoration of power in Harris County.
And having the majority of power restored for the county is a good step but
the county`s top elected official is warning tonight, quote, the lights are
on for now in most of Harris county but we are not out of the dark. She
says most of us are still under boil water notices, we are facing another
freeze tonight, meaning Thursday night and we are dealing with shortages
and price gouging. Take steps to keep your family safe.
Joining us is Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who is the top executive in
charge of a county of over 4.5 million people. I`m told Judge Hidalgo just
got off the phone with the governor of Texas.
Judge, thank you so much for taking time to be here tonight. I know you are
in the middle of it. I appreciate this time.
JUDGE LINA HIDALGO, HARRIS COUNTY, TX EXECUTIVE: Thank you.
MADDOW: I just spoke with the FEMA administrator live just moments ago. He
talked mostly about the scale of the challenge, expressing confidence that
FEMA can scale up to support Texas as a federal partner basically in this
response. I still feel like the need that we are seeing in Harris County
and across Texas is far outstripping the scale of the response in terms of
government efforts, federally, statewide, locally. It just seems like it an
overwhelming crisis.
How are you feeling tonight and what are you hearing from the governor?
HIDALGO: It absolutely and has been an overwhelming crisis. I just actually
recently got updated numbers on the hypothermia deaths, just the tip.
Iceberg, but seven very sad stories just here in the county as the fog of
war settles a little bit and we get details.
We`ve seen cascading impacts, you know, water, carbon monoxide poisoning,
pipes bursting, roofs caving in, hospitals with low water pressure, all
kind of issues. And so, we -- you know, take care of ourselves as best we
can locally. We`ve got committed and creative emergency response
professionals.
But part of my discussion with the governor is how we can together advocate
for an emergency disaster declaration for the federal government and that`s
the discussion I had today with the White House as well, as FEMA, is this
far beyond the ability of local governments, for example, to adequately
recover from.
MADDOW: Houston is one of the places where I should mention, hospitals have
been hit. I`ve read reports about pipes bursting in multiple Houston
hospitals. As they struggle without heat, without water. Obviously, the
idea of having no water pressure, no ability to flush toilets or run water
to clean anything in a hospital is a nightmare scenario.
What can you tell us about that status in Harris County and the
circumstances of your hospitals right now?
HIDALGO: So we lost power very early Monday morning, about 1:00 in the
morning. That meant many of the generators that keep that water pressure
going were down. That then allows bacteria to seep in the water causing
boil water notices.
Right now, as about an hour ago that I got my briefing, we have 222 cities
and municipal utility districts within Harris County under boil water
notices. That`s about 3.3 million people who cannot drink their water. As
the roads become less impassable, at least they can try to go out and
purchase it. But again, we`ve got a lot of grocery stores that are not
operating.
Many folks of course have missed a whole week`s work, even amidst a
pandemic. And they`re facing all of these same cascading effects. Right
now, the main concern is the water situation.
MADDOW: In terms of Harris County`s power supply, obviously, we did see big
progress of the electricity coming back. But you were among the most
prominent voices in the state warning that even in a big, well-resourced
county like Harris County, that is not getting the county out of the dark.
That there may be additional power cuts, that the long-term turnaround in
this water crisis that you`re describing may take quite a bit of time, even
as the power is back on.
For people who have friends and loved ones in Harris County right now, in
and around Houston, in that part of Texas, what should they expect in terms
of ongoing hardship these next few days? It`s going to be another hard
freeze tonight.
HIDALGO: We have to acknowledge the good news and being down to 22,000
homes without power is great. But I also am not in the business of raising
false hope. The challenge was that the state agency, this ERCOT, did not
have enough power generation to sustain the crisis. Their power plants came
offline with the cold.
We`re about to see cold -- that extreme level of cold again. And so they
may buckle again under that weather. We`re about to see high demand again.
They may buckle under that high demand.
That is not an expectation that we have, but I at least want to leave that
possibility open that there may be some hiccups as these folks that very
much failed for several nights get everything together. And I don`t want
folks to be, you know, extremely alarmed if there are some smaller outages
as we get out of this.
Now, the broader impacts we are helping to address as best we can, we`re
working with our community partners, it`s all hands on deck. So I do think
that things are looking up -- they`re definitely looking up, I know folks
have been concerned. It has been a catastrophic, just tragic few nights and
days for the community and we just need to recognize that like with any
disaster, recovery takes a while. It`s not perfectly smooth and there`s
going to be some setbacks on the way to that progress.
MADDOW: Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in
charge of the largest county in Texas. God bless you and your colleagues. I
know that it has been a bunch of sleepless nights already and will continue
to be as you try to address this crisis. Stay in touch with us and let us
know what we can do in terms of getting the word out to the national
audience. Good luck.
HIDALGO: Thank you.
MADDOW: All right. I`ll tell you, my colleague Lawrence O`Donnell is going
to have much, much more on the situation in Texas in the next hour,
including -- and over the course of the night tonight at MSNBC, we`re
staying on this.
One of the things that is very worrying in Texas, even in places where
we`re seeing the power come back on is the crushing emotional blow it`s
going to be when after the power finally comes back on in a lot of places
today and tonight, it may yet go down again with this fragile grid in Texas
and more very cold weather coming in overnight tonight. That is going to be
difficult, but this water -- the access to clean water issue is going to
take a long time to dig out of, and it`s very, very dangerous.
Keep Texas in your prayers tonight.
All right. Much more to come tonight. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: His name was Carmine Galante, but his mob nickname was "The Cigar."
He was apparently almost never seen without a cigar clamped between his
teeth. That was his mafia handle, Carmine "The Cigar" Galante.
And In the 1970s, Galante rose through the ranks, kind of killed his way
through the ranks to become at one point the de facto chief of the Bonanno
crime family. Galante was implicated in multiple murders and in drug
trafficking on an enormous scale. In one of his drug related trials, they
had a hard time keeping a jury on the case after individual jurors kept
getting phone calls threatening their lives.
The jury foreman somehow ended up falling down a long flight of stairs and
breaking his back. On top of all the other crimes in which he was
implicated and for which he was convicted, perhaps the best window into
Carmine Galante`s approach to his upward mobility in the mob is the fact
that upon being released from federal prison after a 12-year stint that
ended in the early `70s, one of Carmine Galante`s first acts when he got
out of prison after 12 years was that he blew up a mausoleum containing the
remains of one of his mob rivals, a guy who had died the previous year
while carmine was still locked up.
See, Carmine was in prison, so he never got a chance to whack the guy while
the guy was alive. So once Carmine got out of prison, he whacked the guy
anyway at the cemetery where he already laid dead. He blew up his
mausoleum. Better late than never.
That was 1974. I think five years later, in 1979, Carmine "The Cigar"
Galante was eating in the back patio at a place called Joe and Mary`s
Italian American restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn. He was eating a meal
with two other guys from the Bonanno crime family.
And on that hot day in July in Bushwick, Brooklyn, at that nice restaurant,
enter guys in ski masks carrying multiple guns, and Carmine Galante and the
other Bonanno crime family guys who are eating with him, all three of them,
get killed in a massive hail of gunfire at this restaurant in Brooklyn.
Carmine Galante was photographed dead at the scene of the crime with a
cigar still clamped between his teeth.
The man ultimately prosecuted for his murder, I kid you not, his name was
Whack-Whack. His name was Bruno Indelicato, which means the guy didn`t even
need a nickname. His mother probably named him Bruno Indelicato
specifically to make it too superfluous to even consider nicknaming that
young man.
But the mob in the `70s didn`t care. Bruno Indelicato was called Whack-
Whack, and he was charged and convicted of Carmine Galante`s murder and the
murder of the other two Bonanno crime family guys who are at the table with
him at that day at that restaurant.
Each of those three murders was treated as a constituent element of Bruno
Indelicato`s ultimate conviction on racketeering charges. What is
racketeering? Right?
It means basically not just crime but crime as part of an organized
enterprise. That`s why they use it against the mob so much, considerably
tougher penalties for crimes that get prosecuted under that racketeering
umbrella.
Here`s the thing, though, Mr. Whack-Whack, Bruno Indelicato, had a really
good lawyer at the time who eventually argued in his case, as it`s made its
way through the court system, that although this looked like a an
incredibly black and white case, literally, this is Whack-Whack puts on a
ski mask and shoots the cigar at an Italian restaurant in Bushwick, right,
it doesn`t sort of get more black and white in that in terms of mob hits.
But his lawyer was good enough to complicate the circumstances considered
by the law to a considerable and lasting extent. His lawyer used that crazy
case to force an entire 12-judge panel of the federal appeals court in New
York, the Second Circuit, to reckon for the first time in that case, in
Bruno`s case, with the real specific legal definition of racketeering.
Racketeering had been used in the law for quite some time but it was that
case that led to the first legal live tested specific rigorous definition
of racketeering under U.S. federal law. That lawyer for Bruno, Mr. Whack-
Whack, the lawyer for him who turned that gangland, blood bath case into a
legal landmark that still matters today, that changed forever the way
racketeering is used in the U.S. federal law, he`s still around.
That lawyer as a prosecutor and then as a defense attorney litigated dozens
of high profile crime cases, including some of the highest profile cases in
the worst of the mafia wars in New York City. As a prosecutor, he ran both
the appellate unit and criminal unit at SDNY in two different stints in
that storied U.S. attorney`s office. He ran both of those divisions at
SDNY.
With all of that experience as a prosecutor, he`s now one of the highest
profile, big deal, white collar defense lawyers at one of the fanciest law
firms in New York, a firm called Paul, Weiss, and that lawyer just got a
new job.
"The New York Times" reporting tonight that earlier this month, he was
sworn in as a special assistant D.A., which seems like an unlikely title
for a guy with that kind of pedigree and that kind history, but that`s what
he is now. He`s sworn in as special assistant D.A. at the state
prosecutor`s office in Manhattan. He has taken leave from his very fancy
private firm and instead taken a temporary gig to assist prosecutors in
that office.
He has upended his whole life in private practice, put everything in on
hold. He`s been sworn in with a special status. Also, he can work with
state prosecutors in New York on precisely one case. And that one case is
the investigation under way in that office of the Trump Organization.
This is the ongoing criminal investigation of former President Trump and
his business. It reportedly includes allegations of tax fraud, bank fraud,
insurance fraud. It started with an investigation related to the hush money
campaign finance felonies for which Michael Cohen went to prison and which
led prosecutors to describe President Trump as individual one, an
unindicted coconspirator.
That investigation by state prosecutors has since reportedly expanded today
include wider allegations about basically the president and his company
allegedly keeping two sets of books for various Trump properties, including
Trump Tower so they could, according to investigators, potentially defraud
tax authorities and defraud banks and defraud insurance companies by using
two different sets of books with two different sets of valuations for all
the Trump major properties.
"The Times" reporting tonight that the case has recently generated more
than a dozen new subpoenas. This is also the case that produced subpoenas
to financial firms for personal and business records and tax records
related to the former president. Lower courts have ruled those subpoenas
are valid and should be enforced and the state prosecutors should get
access to those documents. Both CNN and "The New York Times" are reporting
in depth tonight on the mystery surrounding what`s happening with those
subpoenas and what`s happening with that case in the United States Supreme
Court right now.
This New York state investigation of President Trump is one of two live
criminal investigations that he`s facing that we know about. One of them is
the criminal investigation that has just been opened into his conduct in
Georgia, in terms of him pressuring Georgia state officials to basically
corrupt the election outcome in that state.
The other is this New York investigation into potential financial crimes,
tax fraud, bank fraud, insurance fraud. Well, those New York prosecutors
need the president`s financial records in order to press this case, and
they say they need his tax records in order to press this case. They have
issued subpoenas for those records. Lower courts have said they should get
them, but since October, they`ve been waiting on the Supreme Court, the
United States Supreme Court to find out if they`re getting those records
that have been subpoenaed.
Lower courts say they should. The Supreme Court is just sitting on it. The
Supreme Court somewhat inexplicably sitting on this request to deal with
that matter for four months now. It is an unusual and as yet unexplained
delay from the Supreme Court that is having material consequences for what
seems like a very live, very active, and newly ambitious investigation a
criminal investigation of the former president in New York, even as that
New York prosecutor`s office drafts in new, serious outside fire power to
assemble that case against Mr. Trump, the Supreme Court is sitting on the
documents that they need for their investigation.
Meanwhile, the wheels of justice do keep turning. This, for example, is a
peek at the FBI`s main Twitter feed even just tonight. The FBI multiple
times per day now is churning out new basically digital "wanted" posters
for people captured on tape taking part in the violent sacking of the
Capitol by a pro-Trump mob that mounted that assault on the U.S. government
on January 6th. They put out new pictures, new basically "wanted" pictures
every single day.
And the president`s culpability for that grotesque crime remains at center
stage, particularly as more and more of his followers get arrested and
charged every day, so many of them telling the court after they`ve been
charged the reason they were there is because they thought the president
was telling them to be there, right? He stays at center stage as long as
people are getting arrested as long as the FBI keeps asking the public for
more and more help finding these Trump rioters so they can get arrested.
As "The Daily Beast" reports today, President Trump is telling people at
Mar-a-Lago now that he`s worried he`s going to be investigated and sued for
the rest of his life. We reported earlier this week on the first civil
lawsuit brought against the president for the January 6th attack, a suit
brought by Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the Homeland
Security Committee.
I say it`s the first lawsuit brought against the president for the event of
January 6th. I can tell you right now it will not be the last.
Joining us next, I`m here to say for the interview tonight, is the very
high profile, very accomplished outside counsel who was brought in to help
coordinate the impeachment trial of the president for the January 6th
attack.
His name is Barry Berke and he joins us for his first television interview
since this all went down. I`m really looking forward to talking with him.
That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: At the conclusion of President Trump`s second impeachment trial,
the House impeachment managers took a team photo. Lead manager Jamie Raskin
is there on the far right side, along with the rest of the team who
recognized, Ted Lieu, David Cicilline, Madeleine Dean, Congressman Castro,
Delegate Plaskett, Congressman Swalwell, Congressman Neguse in the back.
We know all their names and faces.
Take a look at the very tall guy in the back. That is another member of the
team, who is not a member of Congress. That is Barry Berke, chief
impeachment counsel to the House managers. He helped craft those gut-punch
legal arguments that you heard them all make. You might remember he played
a similar role during Donald Trump`s first impeachment trial with the House
Judiciary Committee.
Joining us now for "The Interview" is Barry Berke. This is his first
television interview since the trial resolved.
Mr. Berke, thank you so much for this time. It`s a real pleasure to have
you here tonight.
BARRY BERKE, : Rachel, it`s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
MADDOW: I want to give you a chance to sort of set the record straight and
help us understand from your perspective the import of the trial.
Obviously, the president was acquitted. There were 57 votes to convict him
and they needed ten more than that to get a conviction.
But all these Republican senators who voted to acquit him basically
explained that they voted to acquit on a technicality, they didn`t believe
they had jurisdiction to vote to convict him. That`s I think the American
takeaway, he got let off on a technicality but he did it.
Is that how you saw it from inside the process?
BARRY BERKE, FORMER CHIEF IMPEACHMENT COUNSEL: I saw it very differently,
Rachel. I understand why you say it that way. But remember, the issue of
jurisdiction had been resolved, so that for the jurors to say they`re
relying on jurisdiction was for them to violate their oath.
I was in that Senate chamber every single day and our goal was to try a
case like we were prosecuting a violent crime and I felt with our
extraordinary House managers, our incredible lead manager Jamie Raskin, we
proved that case. We proved with overwhelming evidence that former
President Donald Trump inflamed his base over time by telegram lie that the
election was stolen and rigged, he incited them by telling them to Stop the
Steal, which was something he said they made up, he made it up.
He then encouraged violence leading up to the day of January 6th so he knew
when he used those words of violence, he would be setting them on a violent
path, which they did. And when they started to attack the Capitol, our
elected officials, the brave officers, he further incited them by repeating
the lie, further attacking his vice president who was subject to their ire
(ph), and he did it repeatedly.
I looked at those jurors, all 100 of them, and I saw they were fixated on
the evidence. And I believe in my heart if the jurors had the courage to be
true to their oath and vote true to their conscience, we would have
convicted by a large margin.
MADDOW: The issue of the president`s culpability is still banging around
like a live wire right now. There`s going to be -- it looks like -- it
looks like there`s going to be a 9/11-style, truth-finding commission in
Congress to try to get to the very -- the core foundation of the factual
evidence here.
There`s also the question, as you just described it, you said you
prosecuted this essentially as a violent crime. There is still a live
question as to whether or not there is enough evidence to look at this as a
potential criminal act by the president that should be handled in a court
of criminal law. That was raised, in fact, by the Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell.
How do you feel about that?
BERKE: I feel there is certainly evidence that should be the basis for
investigation of the president`s conduct. He had knowledge throughout and
he -- most crimes at the heart have lies. When you talk about the New York
investigation, bank fraud, insurance fraud, tax fraud, those are all lies.
We saw at this trial that the president was prepared to lie in order to
interrupt our democracy, to try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
He was prepared to lie in order to further incite an insurrection. So, I
think all that conduct would be fair game.
And I`ll say this, Rachel, I do think that in our country, we generally
give the benefit of the doubt to a former president and maybe if they
engage in wrongdoing, we should not prosecute them after they leave office.
I think given the president`s extraordinary conduct is unconscionable
behavior in causing over 140 police officers to be injured, people killed,
our elected officials en masse so close to being in harm`s way that he has
lost that benefit of the doubt.
So, I think you will see the commission look more deeply at some of the
evidence that we have gathered but did not present at trial because we
didn`t need to. I think you will see the criminal investigations go on
about this, and looking to his conduct on January 6th. And I think the
other criminal investigations related to his seeking to intimidate and
threaten Georgia election officials to find votes that didn`t exist, the
lies that would be the basis for a crime for anyone else if they did it in
connection with bank loans or other financial transactions.
I do think this trial opens that whole Pandora`s Box for president Donald
Trump because he engaged in conduct where he misused his power in such a
forceful way and the harm was so great. And I walked the halls of the
capital every day to the Senate floor and pass the victims of his attack
and people who suffered and are still suffered and people who committed
suicide because they were so traumatized by trying to defend the Capitol.
This is all because of one man.
So I feel that I was part of something that was a great success, I`m very
proud to have worked with our house manager and lead managers to prove
beyond any doubt that president Donald Trump instigated this insurrection,
he did it for his own personal benefit to try to prevent the peaceful
transfer of power and did it despite the great harm he was causing and with
knowledge he was causing it.
So, I think this changes everything. So, while we did not have all the
senators who voted I think the way they knew they should have voted, I
still think this will have a huge effect on the future of Donald Trump and
the future of the Republican Party and, again, I was humbled to have been
part of it.
MADDOW: Yeah, this idea of the impeachment trial and the evidence you
collected, including some of it you did not present, being a sort of
Pandora`s box for the future of this president, I think, cannot be
overstated.
Barry Berke, chief impeachment counsel to the House managers, during
President Trump`s impeachment trial -- Barry, thank you for your service
and thank you for helping us understand it tonight. It`s nice to see you.
Thank you.
BERKE: Thank you so much, Rachel. Nice to see you.
MADDOW: All right. Much more ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: To make this work, NASA scientists had to send the "Perseverance",
a Martin rover basically the sizes of a Mazda Miata, they had to send it
300 million miles through space. That was the easy part.
The spacecraft carrying the rover was going about 12,000 miles an hour when
it got to the Martian atmosphere, then in the span of just a few minutes,
perfectly time, it had slow down from 12,000 miles an hour to a snail`s
space so it wouldn`t bullet into the surface of Mars and explode on impact.
It worked, it made that descent all while enduring temperatures of more
than 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit, the equivalent of traveling through molten
lava. Then it had to stick the landing, which is no small thing when you`re
trying to park this thing from 300 million miles away in an ancient lake
bed littered with cliffs and craters and sand dunes and all sorts of other
things that could trip it up.
NASA scientists figured out a way to make all of this happen. They freaking
did it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Touchdown confirmed. "Perseverance" safely on the
surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking the signs of past life.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Now that "Perseverance" has landed safely in its new home. It`s
going to search for evidence of ancient life on Mars. It`s going to collect
samples that will eventually be returned to Earth by the 2030s. Start
getting ready now.
The "Perseverance" is equipped with instruments that will attempt to
convert Martian carbon dioxide into oxygen, which could, of course, be a
game changer in terms of future human exploration of Mars.
The Perseverance also traveled all the way over there with a little
helicopter tucked under its belly. If everything goes as planned, that
little chopper will take part in the first powered flight on another
planet.
We can send a rover to a planet 300 million miles away and land it like a
feather. We can create oxygen over there. We can fly mini helicopters in
the Martian sky that work for us and send us things.
We can`t provide water and power to people in Texas when it`s cold. It`s an
absolutely flabbergasting day in the news today.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: That`s going to do it for us tonight. Tomorrow, something to watch
for, tomorrow, the United States of America will officially rejoin the
Paris Climate Accord. Back to the land of the living.
We`ll see you again tomorrow.
Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL."
Good evening, Lawrence.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END
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