tv Alex Wagner Tonight MSNBC November 30, 2022 9:00pm-10:00pm PST
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we really leverage the economic opportunities between our two countries. little will be known about the relationship and potential, but it is our job to further regardless of our gender. >> yes we are meeting because we are prime ministers, of course, but as she said we have a business delegation with, us and we have a lot of things in common but also a lot of things we can do much more together. >> mike drop. we applaud these world leaders for calling out sexism when they hear it. now let's let them get back to important business of running their countries. and to that report, or you can take a hike. and on that note, i wish you all a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks that nbc news, thanks for staying up late. i will see you at the end of tomorrow.
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>> today was a landmark day for democrats, of course. these are the leaders of the democratic party in the house of representatives from the year 1827 to the year 2000. you will notice that a lot of them look a lot alike. but in 2003, democrats elected california congresswoman nancy pelosi as their leader of the house, she was the first woman to lead either party an either chamber of congress. and today, democrats elected new york congressman hakeem jeffries as their leader of the house, he is the first black person to lead either party and either chamber of congress. yes, it is frustratingly slow progress, but it is still progress and that should be celebrated. that alone, saying hakeem jeffries, that makes one for the history books. and it was also a landmark day for congress, because today after years and years of litigation, democrats in the
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house committee finally got their hands on former president trump's tax returns. you might remember the president trump refused to publicly release his tax returns, breaking a precedent followed by literally every other modern president. go back to 2019, the democrats in the house committee, they requested trump's returns to make sure that he was complying with federal law, and that the irs was treating president trump like they treated everybody else. and now today, after all of that time, democrats in the house finally have them. we have no idea what the committee plans to do with them, or whether any of the details would be public, that with republican set to take control of the house come january, whatever decision that the committee makes, it will have to be a quick one. again, that alone might be a big deal day for democrats in
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congress. today is also a day to remember, because today the house january 6th committee interviewed its final witness. republican speaker of the wisconsin state house, rob and vice. robbyn vos himself is an interesting character. he claims that president trump called him this year, the year 2022, in july, to try to get him to retroactively overturn the results of the 2020 election in his state. there is obviously a lot to unpack here, like how deeply concerning it was that he was trying to overturn the results as recently as four months ago. i think that the biggest deal here is that the january 6th committee is done. or at least they are done with the investigative and evidence gathering part of their work. the committee anticipates that they will release their final report, the culmination of all of that work before christmas, which is pretty soon. having an authoritative historical record of exactly what happened last year, that matters a ton.
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it is not just history that the committee has left to right, there are also actionable decisions that the committee has to make. such as whether to make criminal referrals. for example, there are five republican lawmakers who refused to comply with the committee's subpoenas. jim jordan, scott perry, andy biggs, mo brooks, and of course, republican house leader kevin mccarthy. it is a live question about which of them, if any of them, the committee might refer for criminal charges for the lack of cooperation. then there is the potential that the committee's a myth criminal referrals for perjury or witness tampering. when asked by politico today if he believed any particular witness had committed perjury, the chairman of the january replied simply, stay tuned. he also told politico today
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that we should not expect this all to come out in jobs and drabs, but rather as a massive evidence dump at some point in the holiday season. buckle up, we are incognito, we are in new territory here. this is the moment, right now, where the january 6th committee decides how to pass the baton to the department of justice. yesterday, the department of justice secured to suggest a conspiracy convictions against members of the oath keepers militia for their role in the january 6th attack. those convictions, the first seditious conspiracy convictions in decades, they could carry up to 20 years in prison for each of the oath keepers convicted. those convictions are proof that the department of wisconsin can win accountability from individuals on behalf of the larger conspiracy. that is certainly a very compelling backdrop as the doj
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and merrick garland received this beaten for the january 6th committee. if they do decide to submit criminal referrals, those would go through the department of justice and merrick garland. he wouldn't then have a decision to make. should those matters be handled individually, or should they be handled with the newly appointed special counsel, jack smith. he was overseeing the larger investigation into trump and his role in january 6th, and the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. then either garland or jack smith will have an even bigger decision, will they prosecute? this is no longer a hypothetical. it's no longer academic. the ball is in the doj's court. i want to turn to matt miller, former chief spokesperson for
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the justice department during the obama administration. thank you so much for joining me. given everything that's happening here, this kind of moment we are in, which is not an interest in them, but this limbaugh, the key moment when the j six committee handed over to the doj. how do you think that the seditious conspiracy conviction that the doj received yesterday, how does that inform all of this. when we look at all of other targets in terms of january 6th criminal investigations and prosecution? >> it was a historic victory for the justice department, when that they deserve real credit for. there was real, internal debate inside of the doj about whether they want to bring these charges, or just stick with lesser charges like they had brought against other january
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6th defendants. i have no doubt that that's a call ultimately went up to the attorney general, and that merrick garland made the decision to make the gamble, take the risk, to bring these serious charges. and take the real risk that they might lose in court. that ended with three of the defendants, but knowing that they had serious charges, and ultimately were proven correct with two of them. that is a real market for history, and i think it puts the wind in the departments sales. if you're the department of justice, and you have just come through this tumultuous period where you have investigated hundreds and hundreds of individuals, and brought hundreds of charges, and taken a number of them to trial now. you have other seditious
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conspiracy trials about the start. the investigation is underway. there's a way to feel like the last couple of years, you have had this -- you've been through a major amount of work, and have had tremendous accomplishments. i've a feeling that the last few years are going to look like nothing when compared to the years they have ahead of it. not just the regular january 6th defendants that are facing trial, but the big question about what this department does about the former president donald trump. that is leaving aside the mar-a-lago investigation, which
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is an entirely other thread. for all of the work that we've done, they really haven't done anything went compared to the work they're doing over the next couple of years. at the same time, they find a hostile house of representatives interfering in their investigations and prosecutions every way that they can.
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>> how does the handshake work in this instant? the findings and the department of justice. there is some reported tension in terms of the sharing of transcripts. that tension seems to have gone away, or minimized. if the january 6th committee makes criminal referrals, is that something to the department of justice is going to have to then move forward with? to what degree is the january 6th committee's assessment here, and their referrals, how much
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does that matter in terms of the doj's next move? >> the department will make its own assessments about whether that any criminal statutes were violated, and whether that can sustain any charges in court. they do take these referrals very seriously. whenever the department gets a referral from congress, they assign that case to prosecutors, and fbi agents who look at the evidence and decide whether it's enough to warrant charges. in any case they get a referral, let's say if they do get referrals, we don't know if they do, but it's likely that they will. those will all be assigned to somebody in the department that will look through with every potential defendant and decide whether or not the law was broken. i think that one of the tricky things about these referrals from congress is that the department has now bifurcated the january 6th case with the appointment of jack smith, the special prosecutor. he's the u.s. attorney for donald trump, and will handle anything that involves donald trump, whether it's the mar-a-lago case, whether it's january 6th charges, and then
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all of the other january 6th defendants, the ones that were at the capitol anyways, they continue to be handled by the u.s. attorney's office for d. c.. in some ways, those cases are of course going to intersect with each other, and you're going to have this overlap where i think that some of them will be investigated by the u. s. attorney's office, and some will be investigated by the special prosecutor. they will obviously have to work with each other inside of the department, and ultimately float the recommendations up to the deputy attorney general and the attorney general. >> how will that work if they made criminal referrals for members of congress? you mentioned the five republican congressman that did not cooperate with the committee. and is that fit in with jack smith, or how does it not fit in? how does that separation work? >> i suspect that if they do get referrals from members of congress, the justice department will be very hesitant to look at criminal charges for them. they will probably look at this as some sort of internal matter for congress, that if congress really wanted to take action against the house, for not supplying -- they could've pursued charges. and so i think that while they may look seriously at criminal specific animal, and so far as so much of the work was made public. these hearings were prime time televised events, we have talked a lot about them on this show and this network. the american public has calcif convi that there is probably a fair amount
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of pressure on the doj to do something here. back at the mueller investigation, where nothing effectively amounted to done an incredibly important work, and if we never saw crimi keeping people from getting important jobs. their work has been important, important for history, but it will also be important if they lead to criminal charges. i suspect that they've uncovered evidence through the investigations that the department did not have. we see the department very much wanting to get a hold of the transcript of their interviews, and so they want to get their hands on some of that evidence. i think that will see serious investigations grow out of the committee's wo former presidents in has criminal liability directly flows from the january 6th commi turned up. and they made public in those interviews, the prosecutors were watching, it the at i suspect was watching very closely. >> matt miller, former chief spokesman for the justicetchingr closely. >> matt miller, former chief >> matt miller, former chief spokesman for the ju go for a run. go for 10 runs! run a marathon. instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette. ♪♪ over the last 100 years, lincoln's witnessed a good bit of history. even made some themselves. makes you wonder... what will they do for an encore? ♪♪
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braced for a coast to coast rail strike. today, most of america's trains are not running. the rail companies and unions are trading accusations and congress is under pressure to step in. >> when president bush's point man, republican transportation secretary andrew carr went to capitol hill, asking for
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congress to order in the strike today. democrats, who controlled the house and senate bulked. >> we have to act in america's interest quickly. >> my fear is that we have a contrived national emergency. >> you're coming here and telling congress to shut down the collective bargaining process. >> no, i'm asking congress to meet its responsibility for the national economy. >> as nbc nightly news from june of 1992. railroad workers across the country went on strike, and that had major implications for the national economy. president george w. bush was pushing congress to help and that strike by passing a bill that would allow congress to force the railroad workers back to work. you heard in that clip has some democrats opposed forcing into
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the strike out of fear that it would hurt railroad workers. in the end, congress passed that bill to end the strike. it passed with bipartisan support in the house and senate with just a handful of pro labor democrats voting against it. one of those democrats was delaware senator joseph r. biden. today, president biden finds himself in a very different position. on the verge of yet another railroad strike, cataclysmic and economic effects. the biden administration is asking congress to step in and force those workers to accept a deal that they previously rejected. if a deal is not reached, it could mean disaster for an economy that has already been hobbled by supply chain issues resulting from the pandemic. complicating all of this is the fact that the railroad workers demands are basically pretty unreasonable.
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the chief demanded these negotiations for the railroad companies to provide them with paid sick leave, something that other industries already get. they get zero paid sick days for short term illness. the deal being pushed by the biden administration would provide them an additional day of sick leave to use if they're sick. the reason they don't want to offer more six days is because they have a much more small workforce to fill those vacancies. they have implemented reforms the dramatically reduced its workforce, while at the same time, boosting profits for shareholders. the new york times reports that it -- the number of employees plunged by a third over the past decade. expanding the companies profit margins and pushing its stock up over 300%.
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in the meantime, employees are still human beings who get sick. this is how railroad workers describe the situation to the pro labor news organization, more perfect union. >> we are considered essential, and we don't have a single paid six-day to use when we are off. we were considered essential, and now it seems like we're expendable. >> we're coming to work sick and exhausted, we return the work 14 hours and longer every day. >> we have lost two members in the past few weeks, and they might have been here today with us if they were able to rest and reset. >> today, the house of representatives passed a bill to force an end to the strike, but also passed a subsequent bill to provide railroad workers with seven days of sick days. they need 60 votes to pass, but a coalition of democrats say that any bill passed by the senate needs to include seven days of sick leave for rail workers. what can the biden
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administration do to avert national catastrophe? joining us now is secretary of transportation, pete buttigieg. thank you so much for joining us. i want to get right to these bills that we have, passing to the upper turn -- that this bill should not pass without 60 days of sick days for rail workers? >> the position of the administration is that we will enact this tentative agreement and avoid the possibility of a rail shutdown. i want to make sure that it's understood from a transportation perspective that a rail shutdown would not just shut down trains, it would effectively shut down the country. there is no [inaudible] within a matter of days, you could see for example chlorine not reaching water treatment plants, and people in american cities being told that they have to boil water or use bottled water. we would see the auto industry
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effectively shut down. potentially a couple days within some facilities, because they don't have that many parts on hand. we estimate about six or 700 workers being laid off within two weeks of a rail shutdown taking place. it would only escalate from there. it's clearly important to the national economy that that shut down does not happen. >> what will have in terms of what passed today in the house, soon after and very swiftly after speaker pelosi brought it to the floor. it's a resolution that and acts that tentative agreement that the labor and company leaders reached at the table a couple of months ago. there were 12 unions party to that that their leaders agreed to. only eight of those unions acted to ratify the deal, which is why we're in this precarious situation right now. bottom line, we have to make sure that something gets to the presidents desk quickly. while the cut off date is december 9th, you will begin to see a lineup of hazardous
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material shipping, including things like chlorine. that could start as early as this weekend or next week if there's no resolution. >> mister secretary, given the stakes here, i think that we can all appreciate the urgency of getting something done. i'm having a hard time understanding where you guys are positioned vis-à-vis senate democrats. i know you and the labor secretary are meeting with senate democrats tomorrow. is it your -- will you be reintroducing senate democrats to pass this with or without the extended sick sleeve to seven days? >> the president believe in paid leave for all americans, whether they were committed in railroads or anywhere else, we have been pushing that from day one. if you look at what is going to be able to get to the presidents desk and make it through the senate, it's pretty clear that the simplest and most straightforward way to do it is to enact the tentative agreement that labor leaders and company leaders reached. that's something that needs to move very quickly, because we don't have a lot of time to lose. what i will be doing tomorrow
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with the senators is making sure from the transportation perspective that they have an understanding of the things that would begin to happen, ever from our ports, to the point where ships could no longer arrive there. to our farms, auto factories, water treatment plants. >> it sounds like the tentative agreement, the one that is separate from the extended six leave of seven days. you knew what was in this deal for weeks, where are you dismayed or at all disappointed that there is not more sick leave built in? it's currently a single day of paid sick leave for rail workers who, if you believe the testimonies we just played, have a fairly difficult working condition. >> they do. they have been under a lot of pressure. they feel that it's difficult to ask sick leave, paid or unpaid, because of the scheduling they're subjected to. that's a legitimate concern. one of the many things that the union leaders and company leaders balanced when they reached this tentative deal.
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what this deal has is a 24% pay increase over five years. that is retroactive. bonuses that i think come to about $5, 000, and this added paid -- which i want to distinguish is a day of personal leave which is added to what the workers now get, which is as i understand, it typically up to between three and 12, depending on their seniority and which union there with. these are legitimate concerns that they have about being able to have any of that flexibility. those are among the different things that labor leaders and company leaders weighed as they came to this tentative agreement. now that it's on the table, and that the house has taken that step to advance, we really need the senate to act quickly and get a bill to the presidents desk, knowing that it is not perfect, that none of the parties are completely dissatisfied, or got everything that they want in this compromise, and in this negotiation. but also, as has happened i think 18 times in the past, with congress. just using its authority, we have to make sure there is a
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solution that does not risk ending the economic growth that we're seeing in america, and sending us in the other direction. >> secretary pete buttigieg, we've talked a lot about the rail workers, but what about the rail companies? part of the reason we're in this predicament is because in the 1990s, they instituted these reforms that dramatically trimmed workforces and increase profits. is there something needs to be done there? should there be some kind of reform that congress should be asking of the rail companies so that they can manage their industry the way that many other industries manage, which is giving employees paid sick leave? >> there are a couple things that you need to look at. first of all, across the transportation sector, you see workers coming under enormous pressure under these models
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that a lot of the companies have adopted. we are seeing variations of this, whether we are talking about airline pilots, whether we're talking about workers in rail, where you have fewer and fewer workers, less and less cushion in terms of availability, and what that means is more overtime, like slick ability, and being able to use downtime or preplanned unpaid or paid. that's one of the quality of life issues that is really been on the minds of railway workers. the other conversation that we want to have that we have been having since we got there, and that we're not going to relent on. the idea for every american worker to have paid leave. [inaudible] just about every other policy created for the worker. we think that needs to be happening in this sector and in every sector. >> i want to turn the page to something that is decidedly
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happier news, and just get your reaction to the passage of the respect for marriage act, mister secretary. your feelings about that momentous occasion. >> look, obviously it is very good news to see those rights established, senate democrats and a handful of senate republicans who are willing to vote for that. i have got to say, i received that we mixed motions. just seeing that as fundamental as my marriage, coming up for political debate in the first place. the american people are there, 70% of americans now agree that a marriage, like my marriage to my husband, is as valid to anybody else. it deserves to be protected anybody -- this should not be as hard as it was, but i applaud the leadership of senator baldwin, senate democrats, and those republicans who crossed the aisle to do so. there is a part of me that really wishes it could've been 100 to nothing, i'm not that naive about why that wasn't the case, but our marriage is -- and my husband wrote eloquently about this on medium.
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our marriage is filled with taking care of two amazing children, it is filled with getting scrambled eggs, and getting the kids dressed and out the door in time to make it daycare. making sure bath time goes all right, and handling the dogs and kids so that our plans and bills, and jobs, just like everybody else's marriage. we should be treated just like everybody else's marriage. that common sense principle carried the day in the senate, we hope it becomes law. i appreciate everybody but making that a reality. >> that university -- we hear you, we see you, secretary of transportation, pete buttigieg, secretary thank you very much for taking some time to chat with me tonight. we really appreciate it. >> thank you, same here. >> coming up, new reporting alleges a secret influence
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campaign targeting some conservative justices on the supreme court. former supreme court clark listened marie joins us to talk about ethical guardrails. next, election day with more than three weeks. it results in a couple of battleground states. still in dispute as of today, more details after the break. my father didn't know his dad. she knew that i always want to know more about my family history. with ancestry i dug and dug until i found some information. i was able to find out more than just a name. and then you add it to the tree. i found ship manifests. birth certificate. wow. look at your dad. i love it so much to know where my father work, where he grew up? it's like you discover a new family member. it's the greatest gift. now on sale at ancestry. welcome to my digestive system. it's pretty calm in here with align probiotic. you see... your gut has good and bad bacteria.
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midterm election has pretty much settled in most states across the country, unless you're living in arizona. the states county board of supervisors has refused to solidify the counties election results as of monday, which was the statewide deadline. that's because it is republican-led, and they don't trust the vote tabulation machines, or the states process for certifying them. now they are facing lawsuits seeking to force the board to do its job. the board of supervisors has perhaps 1% -- decided to fight these suits. since the county attorney wanted no part of any of this, the board voted yesterday to hire an outside lawyer. they picked the guy who represented the cyber ninjas, the group that ran the botched audit of the maricopa county 2020 election results. they picked the cyber ninjas guy. the problem, he's not interested in the job. he and another attorney
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democratic -- was underway new york city. bill clinton was the presumptive democratic nominee who is running among other things on abortion rights. while he was in new york, clinton was also running literally, he was jogging. >> as he left this morning, clinton was convicted by a man from operation rescue. posing as an autograph seeker. he tried to handle until what appeared to be a four month old fetus. clinton recoiled but continue to great passerby anyways on his morning to the park. >> the idea abortion activists that puts clinton last day that was under the fight is hardly blue. look did not act alone, there were two reverence who helped him pull off this stunt. blue and two other opponents, the reverend roberts shank and the joseph for men were later arrested and charged with transporting a fetus to new york, removal of human remains from the place of death, an improper disposal of a fetus. it was a crazy gruesome bit of a theater that grabbed public attention. but 30 years later, one of those reverence, robert shank, is still making headlines. earlier this month, reverend schenck told the new york times that as head of an evangelical group he was behind a wine and
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dine's game to gain access conservative supreme court justices in at an effort to advance abortion interests. the goal he said at the time, was to embolden the justice, to lay the legal groundwork for an eventual reversal of roe v. wade by delivering unapologetically conservative dissent. basically to target the justices and social settings as a way of convincing them to take fairly unprecedented and broadly unpopular positions, and this case, checking down roe. now whether reverend schenck's scheme worked, we don't know, but this is how he did it: what we would attempt to do is match couples, our couples, to justice couples, so kind of feel a personality types, interests, age, station and life and so forth and -- and try our best to be matchmakers. try to pair up couples where we thought there was a good prospect for a meaningful
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friendship to develop, and this particular couple really had an innate capacity for understanding human behavior, what bothered those justice couples they interacted with what their needs were, and they responded to those needs. >> that couple he's talking about here is donald and gayle right. the shanks scheme, the rights apparently became close friends with justice alito and his wife. they got access to other justices as well, in fact when donald wright died in 2020, his family posted these pictures online. but as of chief justice roberts, justice of antonin scalia. and then there is that particular one with justice scalia inside alito's chambers. the rights of the leaders were in the right donations to the supreme court historical society. a nonprofit organization that was apparently used by shank as a vehicle to gain access to the supreme court.
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and that access came with instructions. mr. schenck gave his stealth missionaries close instruction and justices were more likely to let their guard down at the historical society annual dinners because they assumed attendees had been properly batted. this was a well planned, well financed strategy to gain access to some of the most powerful people in america. shank understood that understanding politicians could be kicked out of office, or lose the election, but supreme court justices, they had a lifetime tenure. and a man, was a strategy affective! shenk says that when he was told to -- now casually as that they in advance the courses in the landmark 2014 case bburwell v. hobby lobby stores, inc. that justice alito offer that decision leads to the information to his bodies. now alito has denied this but to some degree weather alito leaks in the decision is actually the most staggeringly most inappropriate thing here. what schenk story reveals eight establishing network of people that want to access supreme court justices in service of
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their own ideological missions, those people can indeed buy access to supreme court justices. and maybe even further those ideological admissions, or maybe get some is insanely useful information as it pertains to the ideological missions. and so far, no one is stopping us. the writer still involved with the supreme court historical society, as a 2020, one gayle wright is -- in the set as a sort of honor from -- donie to five $25,000 on any given year. and can you blame her? it's a strategy to lobby some of the most influential people in the country has worked this well, why stop now? joining us now is melissa murray, she's a professor of new york university school of law, co-host of the legal
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podcast a must close sense, strict scrutiny and msnbc legal analyst. it's great to see you, thank you for coming on the show! >> thanks for having me. >> this is -- a lot to sow why this isn't headline news like across the country and -- it is shocking, and it is unacceptable if you believe in the independence of the judiciary. how can this be going on? >> well that is the question, and everyone has been talking about the reported lake and liberals versus hobby lobby decision, but that's not really the story. that is burying the lead. the real story is this coordinated highly finance campaign to get access to these justices naturally they were successful. they got access to some of the most conservative justices, and we don't know if it shaped the outcome in any decision, but we do know that they had unprecedented access. does not just reporting in the new york times, there was also reporting earlier this year in rolling stone and politico that talked about these individuals going to chambers at the supreme court to pray in chambers with some of these justices. this is a highly coordinated campaign, it should be investigated, it is highly unusual. this is the highest court in the land. they should not be happening. >> it's making decisions for the -- like huge decisions that affect millions and millions of americans with no oversight. and i guess i wonder, the federal judiciary, there is a code of ethics that judges have to comply with.
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in congress, there's a code about that box that they have to comply with. i -- adhere to. why -- what is the likelihood that any kind of code of ethics can be imposed on supreme court justices? >> well this is part of the constitutional design of the supreme court and is this kind of constitutionally ordained. it's meant to be an independent judiciary that is unbiased, and bought by either of the political branches. for that reason, it's sort of stand-alone in a lot of ways. so congress could make rules but they can never really enforce them. the court itself is a south policing organism and the fact that it is policing is one of the reasons why this campaign of incredible influence could be so successful because it makes the court permeable and
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acceptable to these kinds of address because there is no oversight. >> what if john roberts -- this is his court. >> i see this mark on your. faith >> is not a smirk. >> the smile, that knowing smile. what happens? here he is a person that is tasked overseeing this investigation into the leak of the dobbs opinion, right? if anything can happen with that, is anything going to happen with the news about what's happened and burrell the hobby lobby? do we have any hope that he cares enough about this to actually do the work that he is supposed to be doing? >> the one thing that we know is that when the story broke last weekend that this was really the beginning of john roberts is horrible, terrible, no good very bad day. this is the last thing that
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this chief justice wants. he's a conservative to be sure but as the chief justice of the united states, he is the institutional steward of this court. he cares deeply about the court's legitimacy. frankly, this court legitimacy has been in tatters since the dobbs decision. people believe that the court is highly politicized. they believe that the dobbs decision was not a function of law but rather a function of the change personnel on this court. that's in one year, from being a 54 bear conservative majority to a 6 to 3 conservative super majority. and he knows that. so he could not have been hat happy about this. whether he can actually take steps to do something, whether he can police this conservative seniority that he is not in leading the head of, that's a different story entirely. we've never seen him you know basically huddled in the face of bets on doing what they like and not with the chief justice wants. >> we talk about justice is being bet on doing what they like, i mean the impunity in which justice alito appears to have been operating, not only this purported a legit leak of the 2014 hobby lobby decision, but potentially they jobs like. i mean i think everybody thinks
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that if there's someone that's like this thing, it was probably justice alito at this point. do you concur with that? >> well i think if past is prologue and if the first leak was attributable to justice alito, then it stands to reason why people would think that he's also responsible for the second link, but i would underscore the leak isn't the problem. the problem is that this is a justice who said to the wall street journal, nearly questioning the supreme court's legitimacy crosses a line. but praying in your chambers with people who have a real business before the court does not cross a line. that takes incredible cheat to look the people of the united states in the face and say, you can't question this court and you can't question what we do even though what we are doing crosses so many lines. >> and what do -- when you hear the reporting about what's happened in the 2014 hobby lobby decision, i mean we know what's happened with dobbs, do you feel like there are other decisions the court has made that should be we visited to see if any untoward was happening behind the scenes? >> again, this campaign of influence i think puts a
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question mark over everything. everything has an asterisks, like who's lobbying the court? we don't know if this campaign of influence was successful in changing the minds of any justices and it seems clear that the justices whether they were really successful in getting access to -- these are already died in the rules conservatives, justice thomas, justice scalia, justice alito, we don't know how much influence it had beyond these three. but the fact that the highest court in at the united states it's being talked about in this way, that is the problem. the quite depends on being understood in its illegitimate in the eyes of the public. it has no army to enforce this 's decision, it cannot withhold finding the way that congress can. in order to the courts and decisions that have any force in american life, we have to believe that this is a quite that is legitimate. >> yeah, and to that point
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exactly, we are not talking just about the mingling at a reception. we are not even talking about just the praying in the justices chambers. we are talking about trips to jackson hold to visit these donors, the vacation homes, we are talking about special invitations offered by justices on the supreme court to these wealthy donors. i mean the back and forth between this group of basically wealthy activist, and supreme court justices, during moments and where the supreme court is here in cases in derek really influencing them and part of their sort of ideological crusade. shocking breach of ethics that the justices have to understand how just destructed that is to the legacy of the court. >> so it's not even that. it's not something that these people are wealthy and they
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have access, but for most ordinary americans, the work of the quite was incredibly inaccessible instilled a pandemic when the courts began live streaming audio of all arguments. otherwise, just go down, there it's a waiting line to get in, unless you knew the justices -- >> right. >> and they would give you the seats, no one has this kind of access to the court. the east donors did, and that is the part that is really unfortunate. for most of us, if you want to influence the courts, you write a lot rubble article about it, and hope someone reads, it and they. don't you write it and the kiss briefing you have someone reads it and you know what side it. you don't buy a building across the street from the supreme court, which is what this reverend did. he was over $30 million for this purpose of changing the course of american politics and part of that project was influencing these justices and to do that, he bought a building across the street from the court. he got access to courts employees. this isn't what ordinary people do if they want to be heard by the courts. >> this is not how justice works. >> it's not. >> i was gsay meli at nyu school law and>> we will. what'd you get, ryan? it's customized home insurance from liberty mutual!!! what does it do, bud? it customizes our home insurance so we only pay for what we need! and what did you get, mike? i got a bike.
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again tomorrow. now time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening lawrence! >> good evening. >> i hope you don't mind the invasion of privacy when i was just walking by your studio. i grabbed a little picture that i tweeted of you and your guest. which was basically a triple vision shots of the alex wagner show to camera monitors, you know show itself. >> it's show business here. >> it isn't like one of those artistic moments i couldn't couldn't pass up. >> lawrence, nice to be passed by the studio, just come on in. >> no, no, no, no, no -- [laughter] you are busy, you are working, no. >> there's always a seat for you my friend. >> okay, we'll do it! >> my! >> thanks alex! th
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