mass murderer. this is "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews up in new york. let me start with the horrifying news about what happened tuesday aboard that german airliner that crashed in the french alps, according to prosecutors, you're looking at a man who committed mad murder, based on the analysis of at the voice recorder, investigators believe that the co-pilot andreas lubitz deliberately crashed the plane after the senior pilot left the cockpit to use the bathroom. he's alleged to have purposely locked him out and calmly steered the plane to its destruction. >> he pressed the button for a reason that we cannot seem to understand. but we'd like to analyze it by some kind of deliberate action

and willingness to destroy the plane. he voluntarily deliberately allowed the plane to descend, to lose its altitude. it's really abnormal. he had zero reason to do so. there was zero reason to prevent his pilot from returning to the cabin, zero reason for not responding to the air control trafficker who was warning him about the descent, zero reason for retiesing to type a code or alert signal to the rest of the planes in the region. we begin with katy tur and bill neely. that was certainly definitive. it's not explainable by any rationale. a guy who wanted to kill everybody on the plane. that's the way he explained it. >> reporter: yeah, that's the way it's being seen right now. the german officials, lufthansa

official wouldn't go so far to say that on camera, but that's certainly how people are feeling, this guy deliberately flew this plane into a mountain and deliberate will i killed 149 other people, including children. there were two babies on that flight, 16 school children from one town here in germany, including two of their teachers. it's a serious state of mourning here, and now a very serious state of shock. we know about the co-pilot. he was german, fluent in english. friends said he had dreams of flying since he was a little kid. he started training in 2008, got his co-pilot's license in 2013, just a year and a half later after only 630 hours of flight time, officials say that he deliberately crashed that plane into the side of a mountain. investigators are trying to figure out exactly why he did this. there's no clues as to what his motivations might be. people we have spoken with and been able to hear from haven't said he seemed unusual in any way.

he was nice, polite, seemed like he was having a good time with his job. investigators are seen here in his hometown taking out boxes of evidence from his parents' home, including escorting an unidentified person outside of that home. and also evidence from his apartment in dusseldorf. what i'm finding particularly curious right now though, chris, is we have only one confirmed picture of this 27-year-old. what 27-year-old do you know that doesn't have a number of pictures from facebook or friends that post of him? that's certainly an unusual thing. there will be a lot of questions as to who this guy was, and certainly why in the world he would deliberately do this and killed 149 other nent people. the voice recording for those last moments, when you apparently hear the pilot on the plane banging on the door, trying to get in and the screams of the passengers on board is

chilling, to say the least. chris? >> let's go to bill neely. it seems if you have eight minutes to contemplate your death, which these passengers did, it was quite a horrendous ending for these people. >> reporter: an absolutely horrendous ending. a guy who in total silence deliberately programmed not just his own death, but as you said, the death of his colleagues and you have his trusting passengers. and where, really, chris, do you begin to explain all this? maybe we can begin with 9/11, not just because in that case it was guys who deliberately drove their planes in that indicates into buildings, bud also the irony that the very safeguards that were introduced after 9/11 to prevent such mass murder have in fact enabled this guy to commit mass murder. so axes were taken out of the palace, and closed doors and codes. this guy overwrote those codes

to prevent his pilot getting into the cockpit to prevent him from committing mass murder. it's absolutely stunning. one of the most stunning developments we've ever seen in aviation history. why he did it is still unclear. apparently authorities in the u.s., spain, france and germany have ruled out a terrorist motive, but what on earth drove him to do this, as katy says, we simply don't know. >> we can rule out there was no religious or zealotry because of in, because unlike the egypt air crash, where that pilot killed -- there was no reference to god, nothing to suggest any self-martyrdom, but what about the six months he took off because of the burnout? was that some kind of psychological breakdown? what was it that caused him to quit his training program?

>> reporter: there are reports in one british newspaper "the daily telegraph" quoting a father of a friend of his, that he actually was suffering from depression at that point and needed to get away from his training. now, that is one report, it's been unconfirmed, and of course there aren't any members of his family around to answer those kids of questions. as katy said, you know, it's not just that there's only one photograph out there of him. there are a lot of unanswered questions about who this guy was, as every in these cases, he appeared perfectly normal to his friends and to people in his flying club, but obviously after today's revelation, it's quite clear he was not a normal co-pilot. >> i wonder why people always say that. maybe that avoids them having to say -- anyway, thank you so much bill neely at the crash site. i want to bring in seth

kaplan and clint van zandt, a former fbi profiler. clint, my hunch immediately was egypt air. that's because we've been through one of these cases where inexplicable behavior by a co-pilot tunneled out to be explicable. he wanted to kill himself and everybody on the plane. what did you come up with? >> well, number one, we know that's happened about half a dozen times in the last 20 years where we believe a pilot, a co-pilot has intentionally crashed the plane. let's talk about depression. 9% of americans, according to cdc, experience depression of some time. that's reflected within the 30,000 americans again that commit suicide every year, but you know, most people who commit suicide, they'll go off in a corner, run their car off the bridge, but there are those few, chris, who rage against a world. those are the ones that commit

violence in the workplace, they come in and shoot everybody. or they come into a school and they're angry at the world and going to take it out on everybody. that's what the fbi, the germans and french have to consider as they do this psychological autopsy on this guy, trying to find out what made him tick so terribly as he did two days ago. >> the egypt air pilot who committed that mass killing was angry because he had just been fired when he took off on that flight, or basically taken off that course. there was an immediate motive that egypt air was pointing to rather than religion, but this is something we've gotten used to martyr/suicide -- murder/suicide, but this is going to be one that will puzzle us for a while. what did you make of the fact that they took off from the training, apparently because of the some sort of breakdown? >> again, as 27 if you're experiencing depression, other psychological problems, that can be evidenced at 27, but this is somebody who wanted to fly his

entire life. he finally got the chance to do it, so what is causing that depression? that's something that the authorities are looking at, chris. that's why today they're carrying out boxes of evidence from two different residences. they're going through ever electronic record, every paper record, every friend, every family member. they're trying to create this wiring diagram, both of his life and inside of his head to try to understand what made him go bad like this. >> chillingingly, the french prosecutor described the co-pilot as nonresponsive, but could be heard breathing up to the end, even as the senior pilot is heard pounding on the door to get back in. let's watch this door. >> translator: he's knocking. he's asking to be let in, zero response from the co-pilot. we hear human breathing within the cabin, and we hearing this breathing up until the final

point of impact. which we assume means that the co-pilot was living, was alive in the cockpit. zero distress signal, zero signal of urgency, zero help me or s.o.s. >> let me go to seth kaplan. i've been in a lot of little planes with one 350i89 sometimes. it's bothered me that one person controls whether i live or die, but in this case you have a big jetliners, and according to the procedures in france or germany, one person can lock themselves into the cockpit, right? we can't do that here, there will be a flight attendant there, at least. >> exactly. that's what was happening in many if not most parts of the world. somewhat belatedly, lufthansa tonight has changed their procedures, in some cases gotten out in front of the regulators, and said we're not going to wait. this morning in the same pressure conference, your katy

tur asked the ceo of lufthansa, why don't you do this? he, what you could call of a dismissive way, i don't see would you we should need to change it because of one incident. if there was ever once incident that would force you to change that, this would be the one of. lufthansa now joined considerable canada's regulator has put this in place, air canada earlier in the day, even before that said it would do it on its own. common sense, certainly now in retrospect, that if you at least had somebody else in the cockpit, though we can't say for sure this could have been prevented, it certainly would have been another redundancy, somebody could have tried to talk the guy out of it or tried to fight with him on open the door and let the pilot back in. >> we're going to show you the tape after this, but i understand it's fairly easy to do what that man who killed everybody on tuesday wanted to

do. it's fairly easy, apparently to override the system, to lock the door, to keep the person from getting in, even if they notice the combination, et cetera, et cetera, it's not that hard tore a killer of the entire airplane if you seek to do that. is that right? >> it's almost as if you picture a hotel lock, right? you have the bottom lock, you know, where the maid can get in and a series of other locks. now, to be clear, you mentioned earlier, egypt air -- the thing about that, and the one thing that, again shows us it's not to say that this necessarily would have been prevented in the past, egypt air happened in 1999. there was one two years before that, silk air from jakarta to singapore. in those cases, that was pre-9/11, less secured doors, but still doors the good guys, so to speak, outside the cockpit was not able to penetrate. hard to say for sure there was anything that could have prevented this, but surge if after all the psychological screenings, you still end up with something in the cockpit

that shouldn't be there, you would want that one more redundancy of somebody else, even if it's a flight attendant, giving you a chance of preventing what happened. >> last question -- clint, if that pilot had had a gun, would that have helped? i know that was a controversial debate, but if he had a gun, could he have shot his way into the cockpit? >> i think that's more television that should shooting -- i thought about that today, but i don't think so. >> why do you say it's television? because people will say that's one option we didn't have. >> yeah, you notice, for the fbi, when we breach a door, we've got a special shotgun round that we used on the lock, because we know the clanses are a handgun round will bounce off and come back at you. >> you could punch rounds through -- >> that wouldn't do any -- no, i i'm talking about -- i'm just wondering if we don't have any fail-safe -- >> there any way a different situation could have prevented

this going the way it did. >> it's almost like the broader gun control debate. is the gun more likely to do some other kind of harm. yeah, the main thing that could have changed it would have had -- good to see just as after 9/11, the world changed quickly and we game smarter dish. >> anybody gets sxlasant, the current protocols and procedures didn't work. they thank you, seth kaplan, thank you, clint. coming up, the big question -- would could it happen here? what savedguards do we have in place? that's the big question looking forward. barney frank is with us, he talks about his life in politics and the changing attitude in this country towards gays. boy, that's been changing.

new polls on the race just out today. jeb bush and scott walker may still be the favorite, but can someone else like cruz break through? god help us, we'll be right back with the strategy for the big hitters in this fight. stunning new revelation about the people we count on to keep us safe. drug enforcement agents held sex parties with prostitutes who were themselves hired by drug cartels. the fact that our agents are on the take down there? this is "hardball," the place for politics. my mouth is getting healthier. my teeth are getting stronger. this crest toothpaste is superior in five areas. great checkup. progressive insurance here and i'm a box who thrives on the unexpected. ha-ha! shall we dine? [ chuckle ] you wouldn't expect an insurance company to show you their rates and their competitors' rates but that's precisely what we do. going up! nope, coming down. and if you switch to progressive today you could save an average of over 500 bucks. stop it.

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home. we'll be right back.

welcome back to "hardball." the tragedy on board germanwings flight 9525 this week shines a light on the glaring difference in policy and protocol. in the u.s. here at -- another crew member such as a flight attendant must go in the cockpit at that point, so there's always two people there in the cockpit. that's not the case in germany. in a news conference today, the ceo of lufthansa was asked about that issue by nbc's katy tur. >> there are regulations in some parts of the world, including the one i assume you are coming from, the u.s., but only a small number of airlines in europe, as far as i no, but for sure none of the big airlines we work with. >> reporter: reg gull to do that

in the future? >> i don't see any need to change our procedure, this is a single occasion, but as i mentioned, we will get together in the various experts in the lufthansa group airlines in the authorities with our german government to see if our procedures can be refined, but i think we should not now jump into short notice activities. rather, we should refrain from that. >> reporter: so you're confident in your pilots? >> i wish you understand my german, because i said twice, and i repeated in english without any doubt, my firm confidence in the selection of all pilots, in the training of all pilots, and the qualification of all pilots and work of our pilots has not been touched by this single tragedy. don't met with this guy. this asp the company reversed their position. they now say they will require two crew members to be in the cockpit.

i'm joined by -- i want your thoughts, both, wide open. why did this happen? >> i'm amazed that that reaction would come out of the anyone in an official position after this has happened. >> he's a red light guy. he doesn't have the authority to change the problem. that's the problem. >> those of us in the industry want to vomit when he hear a story like what happened. it's just unconscionable. the entire thought pattern that we can hire people with 650 hours and have vetted them well enough to be in the right seat of an airliner is just ridiculous. >> so this kid should not have been in there. >> no, not in my pin. >> john, what do you think about this, a problem of recruitment? vetting? this kid, had relieved himself for six months during training,

because he couldn't hack it, burned out, whatever the phrase was. there was something going on with this guy that wasn't copacetic with what was going on. >> that's a -- the pilot in charge of training should have realized that, but i want to correct something -- it's the fact that we have the extra person in the cockpit when we're making the change, those are company policies. the faa only requires that one pilot be in the cockpit and he dons the mask. there doesn't have to be by regulation -- >> who unlocks the door to come back? >> usually it's a latch electronically if they can't reach it. >> nobody on the other side locking the door? >> the door lox automatically when you close it. >> and open it with a combination? >> a combination when they want to get back in. but remember, when we put the door in, it was meant to keep the bad guys out. the bad guys, through

threatening, intimidation or any other reason could attain that code. so the pilots need a way to deny access if they think there's a bad person on the other side of the door. that's why they have the ability to override that code from the cockpit. >> so if the guy who went to the bathroom has a knife around at his neck, and the pilot inside, the pilot who is still at the helm, he says wait a minute, there's something wrong, i'm not going to let you back? >> correct. >> dodds any that would improve the way we do it right now? >> well, i certainly don't want to change the process with the door. you know, we've had it just in the u.s., a number of cases where the door has denied some person that was having problems from getting in the cockpit. i don't want to change that. we need to find a way to make sure our pilots receive the scrutiny that's required, and not go overboard with the scrutiny. you know? that's insulting to most pilots

and most people. so we need to find a balance. that's going to take mental health professionals to figure out what we need to do. >> how do you react back in 1989 when that egypt air guy, for whatever combination of reasons, he was praying 13 times to god as he brought that plane down, fighting the whole time with his senior 350i89 to bring the plane down, and he succeeded. what did you think when you heard that? wait a minute, what's going on here? we have guys who want to kill everybody on the plane, including themselves? we have to find a way to keep them out of that cockpit. >> that's right. the second person in that case, in what you just cited, the second person was unable to do it. what makes us think that the flight attendant we put in the cockpit will have any greater success than the captain did in that case. >> here we are, i have jay back here. will we live in the world where we have one person deciding whether the whole plane gets killed? >> that happens to be in the world we live in. we're dealing with human beings, and some are psychotic.

i really believe the only way around this is to give a lot more attention to the hiring process. the whole purpose of a pilot having excess hours in order to fly an airliner is not just so he can get flying skills. it's also so we can vet him, see him in other situations in smaller aircraft to prove himself. >> if there's anything dangerous, the guy will show up? >> hopefully. >> boy, this is tough stuff. you guys know your stuff. thank you for your expertise. up next barney franks will join us, out with a new book about his life and politics. a good friend of mine. i hope we sell some books. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

i just want to thank the people in this room who -- who made this possible for me. what i thought was going to be a

very tough time turned out to be a surprisingly easy one. >> back to "hardball." that was an emotional barney frank, thanking supporters after he became the first member of the u.s. congress to come out closet back in 1987. now the 16-term former congressman out again with a new book, called "frank, a life in politics." an account of his very public career in politics, as well as the personal burden he carried for as long as a closeted gay man. i'm joined now by barney franks. how is the book tour going? >> well, it's -- the publisher was afraid i was overdoing it, chris, you would know from your

>> let me ask you about in 2020, we were back in fp, a human rights campaign events, and i'm straight, but i was stirred by the fact that you went up to a big crowned, and you said very optimistically keep hope, because things are changing. you saw that back 15 years ago. i've always remembered that. >> absolutely. in fact, you know, you got the first indication when i did come out, and people you know, they want, you know, you better ask people what they think, and here's the statistic that really had an impact on me. 44% of the people in the district i represented said i would get hurt, because people knew i was gay. only 22% of them was personally upset, and 22% wouldn't have voted for me if everybody else had died. i realized at that point fewer people themselves were prejudiced than thought they were supposed to be. as more of us became honest about who they were and dealt with the stereotype.

that's where i got 9 confidence that we were going to beat this thing. >> i'm just guessing here, but you never faced any problems as a kid for being gay, anything like that? it wasn't like a bullies situation? >> no, i didn't tell anybody. i was otherwise pretty normal, liked loud music, sports, and as i got older you know, the stereotype of the elegantly dressed, well mannered gay man. -- i didn't have to. >> no. this -- how about politics today? do you think -- that thing on the ballot in ohio, was that recent history that it could be used as a wedge against democrats? >> you're absolutely right. nothing in our lifetime -- i

believe of significance, has flipped so soon. but notice it's the republicans who are afraid of t you're absolutely right. mitt romney, after massachusetts decision said we could have same-sex marriage put all his energy trying to destroy same-sex marriage so he would have a platform to win the republican nomination as a man who stopped same-sex marriage. instead we're in a situation now where republicans are hoping -- and you know this -- they want the supreme court to say that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. they know if they respond to their base, to their primary voters and come out against same-sex marriage, they could hurt the general election. >> what about this thing signed by mike pence, a republican colleague out in indiana, that says you can be a bartender or hotel clerk, and if a gay couple comes up, if they come up and you don't like their order yenation, their identity, you can refuse service. to me that's against the civil rights law.

>> it is, and by the way, the supreme court said it has to be that in general, if you have a religious objection to an antidiscrimination law, you can act on it. what if you're a wedding planner and a divorce the catholic comes in who hasn't gotten an anullment. that's a violation if you are a very devout catholic of that rule. what if you are a muslim who owns a store, and a woman comes in in short shorts? can you refuse to serve her? seriously, this isn't -- you can't have it for gay people only. i don't think america wants that. look, if you specially want to discriminate fine, if you don't like me, i don't want to see you, but if you have a license to run a business and all the support that you get, then the obligation is to serve who is well behaved. >> you disclosed you were gay in an interview with "the boston globe." here's how you described it back in '87. >> i've been asked the question, it seemed to me the only reasonable thing to do was to

give a direct answer. >> how do you feel, having given a direct answer? >> well, in one sensei kind of a relief. >> there was a sense of that's not hanging over me anymore. on the other hand, i feel a little funny. it's a little late in life to become any kind of a sex symbol. >> in your book you where this -- until then, i hadn't realized the full effect on my personality of lives in the closet. simply true, i was nicer. >> that's what they told me. i know there's some people in your line of work who i sometimes talk back to, who think of me -- maybe they should say less mean. i was imposing a terrible toll on myself. some people say you have a great career, you don't need a private life. the opposite is true. as your career gets better, you enjoy this public appeal, and then you go home alone and

you're angry at yourself, and that's the worst kind of anger, because you can't put it off on anybody else. there's no question that i was -- i had a quicker temper, i was unhappy. if you're unhappy, we know that boils over into everybody either. i do believe i just became nicer. one quote, my husband jim told me one day that he ran into one of the republicans when we were doing the financial reform. he said i figured you were in town, barney was a lot nicer to me than usual. >> wow. we miss you. do you miss congress? >> i was burned out. people said were you driven out by the rancor? as you know, i'm good at rancor. that's easier than tough legislating. i did enjoy it while tiffs there, but i just wore out. i didn't have the -- i did not have the emotional energy anymore. >> who is the replacement part for barney frank? anybody.

>> yeah, there are several, but if i name one, then i'll leave out a bunch. i think in general people underrate 9 members of congress. >> thank you, buddy. go out and buy this book. straight and gale people, this is american life in politics. >> thank you, you did a great job. that's a profound thing. i thought what you did was very useful. >> thank you very much. up next, the big fight on the right between the establishment jeb bush and the new kid scott walker and the disruptor. i think he is a disruptor. ted cruz. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics.

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jeb bush remains the front-runner, according to a new poll out earlier today from suffolk university. bush is the likely the first choice december 119%, which means 81% are not for a guy they no, rand paul with 7% they find fascinating, and donald trump 6%. are you crazy?

jeb's front-runner -- there is a desire among conservatives in the gop for anyone but bush. since walker has established himself as a threat to bush, there's a target on his back as well. "the washington post" wrotes he wants -- e.j. writes the cruz strategy -- the position and best-selling author who has 2k0e68d a significant following on the right. they're also -- if cruz pushes them aside, he could go on after walker and then bush. for mo i'm joined by the round table joan walsh, michael duffy, editor with "time," and harold ford, harold is a hard name to pronounce, democrat first, harold, this thing on the republican side is fascinating.

people tell me there's at least four republican parties, the evangelical wing, geographically and the libertarian wing, the hawk crowd, the establishment crowd, is this going to be like brackets in march madness, you can keep going as long as you do well? >> that's a good analogy. if you look at both polls walker only bout -- i think for jeb he's got to figure he's not going to poll above 23, 24%, he can lang in there until the end. but 1234r89 that isn't enough, because that means somebody else has 40. >> it just means others will drop out. i read what e.j. said about the cruz strategy and that's a lot of f's and what-cans. >> i thought you said wet cans. >> those too. >> if he's able to hang around long enough, he'll have the money to do it.

if walker is his most formidable opponent right now, you have to think that as people learn more and more, he may find some slippage along the way. >> i think it's already happening. >> i'm most concerned about him. >> do you think he can be the nominee? >> he's going to be the gnome fee. it's just amazing how much money he's raising. >> does not john connelly spend like $100,000 per vote. >> in this race money means the most. >> how many ads do you have to run to get somebody to vote for you. people don't vote for ads, do they? >> no, but you can take a lot of the other opponents out, and go after the other side too, earlier. >> he can do what romney did. just destroy the other guys. >> and let them destroy themselves. there's going to be a lot of room on the right. ted cdc is formidable, both hitting bush, but also scott walker. scott walker maeve peaked.

he's had a bad few weeks. it seems like he was not ready for the spotlight. >> don't make the george shultz mistake. >> i have made that mistake and i've admitted it, but i really think if you watch him -- he just flip flopped again on immigration. >> i think walker looks good. he looks tough. >> i think he's an impressive guy, sounds like an important city councilman when he talks. it's heart to imagine as more and more issues come to the forefront, i think that helps bush more. we're going to slow our wr5u89 from parts of the middle east, ultimately these candidates will have to answer those serious questions. >> we have a history in this country going center right, center left. we go close to the center. it seems like we're like the french that way, we don't go crazy, but every once in a while we do.

when you're watching these fireworks, could it be a year they go wild, wacko crazy and go with somebody like cruz, because they're so rangery at obama, so crazy they don't think they can beat hillary? >> he's trying to unify the two wings, the government hating and the social conservative. not clear that will work or that gets him to where he needs to go. >> that's a good corner to have on the market. 20%, 30%. >> unlike walker, cruz is a good performers. he's going to be extremely interesting to watch. these polls don't have much predictive power at this stage, but there is one factor, and that's chris christie coming in under trump. how much longer does he have? >> i'm appalled that trump is doing anything. what percentage, congressman, i'm going to be very forward now, what percentage do you think is nut world crazy, so angry at the world they'll vote for anybody, like voting for trump, cruz?

>> i think it varies by state. in iowa that number could be as high as 30%. >> last word. 20%, 25%. >> how many crazy left winger. >> same. >> fewer. >> that's a nice well-rounded answer. the roundtable is staying with us. up next another terrible headline about in time sex parties with d.e.a. agents and prostitutes, being paid for by the colombian drug cartels. this is "hardball," the place for politics. and ladders... awwwwwww!!!!! they have all those warnings on them. might as well say, "you're going to die, jeff". you hired someone to clean the gutters? not just someone. someone from angie's list. but we're not members. we don't have to be to use their new snapfix feature. angie's list helped me find a highly rated service provider to do the work at a fair price. come see what the new angie's list can do for you. there's nothing more romantic than

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love this story. the great dean smith is still giving back to his beloved university of north carolina. the hall of fame basketball coach died last month. today we learned smith in his willed left $200 to every player that earned a letter to him ever, so they could go out to dinner on him. smith coached for 36 years. those checks went out to 180 of smith's former players. what a guy. we'll be right back.

we're back with the roundtable. joan, michael, and harold.

this is a terrible story. according to a justice department report released today from the u.s. justice department, several agents with t drug enforcement administration, that's the dea, reportedly had sex parties, that's the phrase, with prostitutes hired by drug cartels in colombia, that's the country. the new report outlines the shocking behavior of u.s. law enforcement agents while serving overseas. the dea is cited in the report for attempting to stonewall, even, the investigation. punishment for some of the agents include suspensions. get this, boy, did they get hit hard. two to ten-day suspensions for this. one of the most serious allegations is about the supervisory special agents, or ssas, three dea ssas in particular were provided money, expensive gifts, and weapons from cartel members. so, joan, this isn't just about sexual misbehavior. >> no. >> it's not about, you know, not upholding the dignity of your office. it's about taking stuff, like sex workers -- >> it's about corruption. >> -- from cartels and saying, what are you doing tonight? >> and it's about no chain of command, no obvious repercussions. they charged them.

they found over and over, what they would do, they would find out what was going on, but charge them like conduct unbecoming, not sexual misconduct, which could get them thrown out. they consistently undercharged them when they weren't just brushing it under the table and made it very hard to get the details. >> what's more bothersome to me is that it was paid for by the people that we were supposed to be ensuring by the people that they were not transporting drugs and weapons through this country. this could be treasonous. >> that's what i thought. >> and law enforcement officials not policing their own. last week we talk about the secret service agents who drove into the white house and their punishment was a night off. this is important, because this was in a justice department ig's report. that's one of the toughest igs in the country there is. >> this is one time i may be rooting heavily for jason chaffetz, the oversight

committee. he said he will have hearings on these incidents. >> the punishment is totally unacceptable. they gave them essentially a three or four-day weekend off. that is not appropriate punishment. they put national security at risk and they should be fired. >> well -- >> he's right! >> he's absolutely right. >> we may be on the jason chaffetz team tonight. >> in short, i agree with him. >> how does oversight work on this? how do you get the agency to get its act together by calling hearings? will that do it? how do you fix that? >> i'm a believer of you holding people accountable, and be fired. we have to learn how many times it's it happened, if it's happened more than one on this dea's charge's watch, that person would have to be relieved of his duties. how can you finance the enemy and i just find that incredulous. >> and what happens in honor. and of course, when the treasury

department had the secret service agents, there was a certain notion, these guys are treasure men. they're the guys who fight counterfeiting and stuff like that. they're serious people. moving them over to the department of homeland security weaken that branch? >> of course, because it made them into this giant, you know, agency, where almost no one is accountable at all. this is not the first time that u.s. agents traveling overseas have run into this problem, or that the dea has. >> corrupted? >> yeah, there will be a point in whatever hearing happens or whatever defense is mounted, that this was part of a covert operation. you just know, that will be. >> we're not only going to get in trouble with i many comment on that. thank you, joan walsh, as always. harold ford, thank you very much. we'll be right back. i'm going to learn how to pronounce that. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. the name your price tool. she's not to be trusted. kill her. flo: it will save you money!

the name your price tool isn't witchcraft! and i didn't turn your daughter into a rooster. she just looks like that. burn the witch! the name your price tool a dangerously progressive idea.

let me finish tonight with this story about the dea. i don't know about you, but i was aghast when i heard that special agents of this country's drug enforcement agency were getting prostitutes money, gifts, and weapons from the colombian drug cartels. aren't these people sworn to be out there fighting the drug cartels? aren't they supposed to be risking their lives to taking down the people shipping drugs into this country? and here we are, getting a strong, credible allegation that they are on the take from the very cartels they were sent down there to fight and hopefully destroy. and what about the punishments being handed out here? two to ten-day suspensions for taking, quote, money, expensive gifts, and weapons from drug cartel members and for attending, quote, sex parties

with prostitutes funded by the local drug cartels for these dea agents at their government-leased quarters over a period of several years. the article reporting on this in politico refers to all of this as stunning, and i agree. and if this story turns out not to be true or the dea will turn out to be very, very corrupt. why would you give a two to ten-day suspension for taking gifts, prostitutes, or whatever from the drug kings. why would you keep people in such roles where they have actually been sent to fight the drug trade. this may be a case where the congress feeds to assert its constitutional role of oversight. there's something wrong here, either in the reporting or the reality. if this story is true as reported, it's horrendous. the only question then is, why did they bury the lead. this isn't about sex parties, it's about who paid for them. it's not just about screwing around on the job, it's about screwing your country. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now.

>> tonight on "all in." >> he's knocking, he's asking to be let in. zero response from the copilot. >> the germanwings crash becomes criminal. mass murder now suspected as cockpit audio suggests the co-pilot deliberately crashed into the alps. we'll have the latest on the stunning developments from france. then, mapping out the middle east after saudi arabia begins dropping bombs on yemen. plus, shades of rodney king. a police beating caught on dash cam in suburban detroit. >> i didn't do anything. >> the man in that video joins me tonight. and it is a bathroom fad causing headaches for sewer systems across america. >> and you can see, those are all wipes, right? >> wipes just get everywhere. >> an "all in" investigation into america's newfound love affair with moist personal wipes. >> disgusting! that is so disgusting! "all in" starts right now.