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tv   Alex Wagner Tonight  MSNBC  May 5, 2023 1:00am-2:00am PDT

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this patient speaks to while they are at the hospital or while they're at their doctor's office, has to report as well. and so, one patient, who may not even have a complication at all, is all of a sudden responsible for three or four complication reports that they will then use in an annual abortion complication report, to prove that abortion is dangerous. >> yeah, just reading from your reporting, sue, a pseudonym for emergency medicine physician and other texas doctors, had been required to submit patients private medical information in a state run website without their knowledge or consent a, hearing to mandate that forces them to report women suffering from abortion complications, even when they are not. really report on section of texas all is 28 medical issues as abortion complications. doctors are required to tell the state about any women to report one of these issues when cheat happens haven't portion k consent. as abortion complications doctors are required to tell the state about any woman who develops one of these issues if she happens to have had an abortion at any point in her life, meaning they don't have to
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have actually had an abortion. thanks so much for coming on. >> thanks, chris. >> that is "all in" on this thursday night. alex wagner tonight gens right now. good evening, alex. >> it's such an essential conversation you're having, chris. there's been a flood this evening with major developments related to the mar-a-lago classified documents investigation, and there's brand new reporting regarding financial payments made not to clarence but ginni thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice already under fire. and we're going to get to all of that today. but first there is this. do you remember during the peak of the pandemic when people would bank pots and pans from their windows and cheer for essential workers every night at 7:00 p.m.? this is kind of like that but only for maga die hard.
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since august almost nightly trump supporters have met outside the d.c. jail, and at 9:00 p.m. the january 6th defendants inside the jail, they flicker their lights on and off, and that's because they're signaling it's time for everyone inside and outside to sing the star-spangled banner. ♪ the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night ♪ ♪ that our flag was still there ♪ >> "the washington post" reports they do that on most nights. former president trump even recorded and used these guys as like a backup choir. he then proceeded to play it on stagehand orheart in advance of
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his first campaign rally in texas. all of it amazing on its face, but even more amazing when you realize who these backup singers are. "the washington post" identified some of the men in the video. we're not going to go through all of them. but just a sampling this is jonathan melas. he's awaiting trial. they identify mellis as this man here from the video on january 6th where he's beating police officers with a stick. and this is the guy who appears to be leading the song ryan nichols also awaiting trial. here you can see him on january 6th as identified by the justice department assaulting police officers with a chemical spray. mr. nichols is also famous for this. >> i'm telling you what i'm hearing that pence. is that true? i'm telling you if pence caved we're going to drag [ bleep ] through the streets.
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you [ bleep ] politicians are going to get dug through the streets. >> the department of justices have charged more than 1,000 people with crimes related to january 6th. and even now two years later people are still being arrested. just this week they arrested a man alleged to have setoff this explosive device. as you can see the explosive was thrown into a tunnel packed with police officers who were defending the capitol. they're jammed in there like sardines, so these individual ares are a hugely important part of getting accountability for what happened that day. a lot of these crimes were incredibly violent. but as violent as january 6th was, as much as the mass of people each seemingly had their own vendetta that day, what is increasingly apparent a lot of these people may have been --
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that is not to say some of them weren't violent. >> january 6th will be a day in infamy. >> that was joseph biggs and in that video he seems he could be any random january 6th rioter, but the truth is he was not. joseph biggs was a leader, one of the leaders of the far right group the proud boys. today biggs and three other members of the proud boys were convicted on federal charges of seditious conspiracy for their role in january 6th am. these proud boy leaders could face a maximum of nearly 50 years in prison and they were also found guilty of other felonies. to understand the government's case here it's important to note just how key the proud boys were to the capitol that day. "the new york times" spent months building on the work of online sleuths and watching hundreds of hours of video to
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identify who in the crowd that day were the proud boys. this is footage of the very first breach, the first time rioters got past police barricades. it looks like chaos, it looks like a mob just overtaking the police. but take a look how "the new york times" traced the role of the proud boys and one of their leaders, again, joe biggs, in that first breach. >> in what is likely deemed as a tipping point, a protester named ryan sansell talked to joe biggs and immediately confronts the police. biggs and other leaders were gone. samsel told the fbi biggs encouraged him to confront the police, something biggs denies. they start removing barricades and urge others on. a chain reaction has been
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setoff. the attack on the capitol has begun. >> now, it was initially pretty hard to identify all this movement as coordinated in part because for the most part the proud boys dressed as to what one of them refer to as normies, regulars in the crowd. but once "the new york times" id'd these gays, they noticed a pattern. the proud boys would rile up the crowd at one of it key inentry points to the capitol, remove whatever barriers in that crowd's way whether that meant literally moving barriers or using chemical spray so crowds could push past them. when they met too much resistance, they'd back off and move to another entry point. here they are making the second breach of the day on the east side of the capitol. >> for hours hundreds of protesters have remained behind the barricades. but within minutes of these proud boys arriving the police will be overrun.
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it's their play book in action again. one of the team antagonizes the officers at the front while another clears away the barricades. >> oh, so you want to throw it. >> the momentum tips. the crowd easily breaks through the police line and sweeps through the next barrier. as proud boys take down fence after fence. >> over and over again the proud boys use the same tactics, rile up the crowd, remove the barriers, allow the crowds to push through. "the times" reports that the proud boys were critical players in five major advances to breach the capitol. they were using the crowds as a tool, and it worked. and that is why today's conviction was so important. these weren't random members of the mob. they were the leaders of it. and it turns out one of the
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things we learned in this trial is that not only was the mob a tool of the proud boys, butternally within the far right group itself, the leaders of the proud boys were using their lower level members, the lower level proud boys as pawns as well. here's an example. during the trial a now former proud boy, a witness who cooperated with the government, he testified that he was surprised when the group's leaders like joe biggs, when they marched about 200 proud boys away from trump's speech and towards the capitol. but when rioters burst through the barricades minutes after proud boys arrived, he realized this may have been the plan all along. quote, i was putting two and two together and saying this was it. the fact the proud boy leaders were using their own members as pawns isn't just interesting, it is also important legally speaking. one of the guys who was convicted today, the former chairman of the proud boys, a man named enrique tarrio, he
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wasn't even in washington january 6th. tarrio was kicked out of the city by a local judge days earlier for a separate legal matter, but today the jury still found mr. tarrio culpable. and when you zoom out and look at not just the proud boys but the bigger picture for january 6th that verdict, that call is important, that you didn't have to be at the capitol itself riling up the crowd and directing troop movements. you didn't have to be there to be gelt of sudig s conspiracy. today's ruling marks the third group convicted of seditious scon conspiracy charges related to january 6th. ten convicted between the proud boys and oath keepers plus another four who pleaded guilty, so 14 total. the proud boys leaders used their members as pawns who in turn used the crowd as pawns. and now leaders of the proud boys are being held to account, but there is still one major leader who is missing here, the person who sits at the top of
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all of this. >> the proud boys, stand back and standby. >> during the trial the department of justice alleged the proud boys saw themselves as donald trump's army, quote lined up behind donald trump and ready to commit violence on his behalf. so now that this is done, now that these middle managers of the mob are facing what could be the rest of their lives in prison, what happens to donald trump? >> after three trials we have secured the convictions of leaders of both the proud boys and the oath keepers for seditious conspiracy, specifically conspiring to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power. our work will continue.
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>> our work will continue. joining us now senior editor at law fair who's been covering the proud boys trial from day one and was in the courtroom today. also with us tonight mary mccord, visiting professor at law at georgetown university law center, and co-host of the msnbc podcast "prosecuting donald trump." mary and roger, it's great to see both of you. mary, i'd first like to go to you on the novel legal theory sort of being tested here to secure a convictions on a very old charge. what did you make of it, and why is it important? >> well, i think all three of these trials, the two oath keepers trials and the proud boys trials have been important because it showed what the department did i think what it was correct in doing, which was a conspiracy to use force to hinder or delay the operation of u.s. law, that u.s. law being the constitutionally and
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statutorily required meeting of the joint session of congress to count the electoral college ballots, to actually certify the election. this was used to undermine the peaceful transfer of power. it's an old statute. it's been around a long time, so it's not so much it's a novel legal theory. it's the federal government has not been very successful in the past when it's used this charge particularly against what i would say -- refer to as domestic extremists. the government has had more success when it's used as charge against islamic extremists, but not against those anti-government, oftentimes anti-semitic, anti-government, anti-other and want to overthrow the government for a variety of reasons, in this case, of course, it being the reason to keep former president trump in office. i think it was very important that the department use this charge even though other charges
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it brought and obtained guilty convictions -- guilty verdicts on are also 20-year offenses. so it's not like this charge is a, you know, a dramatically longer period of incarceration for which these defendants now could be sentenced. other charges have serious 20-year charges just like seditious conspiracy. but it's important because it really described what they did, so really hats off to the department for building those cases. >> yeah, and roger, i would go to you. in terms of the novelty i think what i was most focusing on is this notion you don't have to be at the capitol that day to be guilty of seditious conspiracy because the concede from the justice department was, look, you could have directed the mob and lower level proud boys to be used as pawns, as tools in the effort to carry out this seditious conspiracy. this was an uphill climb in some respects for the doj given its history mary so eloquently laid
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out. what was the outlook in the courtroom through this extended trial? >> well, there was some concern about enrique tarrio, the top defendant in a way, the national chairman of the proud boys at that time could be convicted and whether the jury would think, you know, conducting -- the fact he was involved throughout all of this certainly puts him in a different situation. but you had his involvement in really creating a chapter, a special chapter that was created on december 12th, the day after you remember donald trump called everybody to washington with the famous december 19 tweet, "will be wild." he starts the chapter the next day. it's a highly secretive chapter. it's devoted to january 6th. he appoints the leaders. the leaders hand select ten
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people each, and as it gets closer and closer to january 6th, there are more and more references in the encrypted telegram chats to the capital, to violence, to maybe we ought to raise some bail money. and then on the day of the event he's in baltimore, yes, but he's on parlor as the riot is taking place saying things like "proud of my boys," "do what must be done," "don't effing leave," "1776." he says something to the effect that washington, d.c. doesn't exist anymore, it's now the people of the united states, come and take it. and then most damaging of all he writes a telegram chat to the
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governing body of the proud boys called the elders and says make mow mistake, we did this. so that's how you build a conspiracy case. >> that's how you build a conspiracy case. mary, how do you see this ruling potentially affecting a case the doj may be building on january 6th? >> viewers can think of a drug conspiracy. oftentimes he's not the one selling the drugs but conspiracy is about an agreement to violate the law, so tarrio certainly didn't mean to be there. so as far as the special counsel's investigation and jack smith, obviously this is going to be something that, you know, makes them i think feel emboldened, that their -- whatever they decide to do, whatever they think there's evidence to support in terms of
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charges against donald trump and who's in his inner circle, i think they're going to feel the department is coming off three successes in a row on seditious conspiracy charges as well as successes in so many other cases and that, you know, the story that is being told repeatedly to juries is something that juries are listening to, and they are returning the verdict that is supported by the evidence. so what judge smith is, you know, looking at beyond, of course, trump's and those in his inner circle's involvement, and as you said sort of using the people and the mob as his pawns is how much the fraudulent electors scheme played into this alleged assault on the capitol. because there's much evidence about trump knowing about the scheme to send-up false slates of electors, electors from the states trump did not win, several different swing states and then put the pressure on mike pence -- and this is
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kriltically important -- to actually either count those votes or reject those votes completely, something mike pence told him repeatedly he did not have the ability to do. yet former president trump went out to the public repeatedly and told them he does have the power to do this, it's time for them to use courage. and in many ways what the former president did was sick this mob on mike pence that day. we know the former president was watching television, watching the attack on the capitol, knew mike pence had barely gotten out of the senate chambers and down the hallways and away from the crowd and knew the crowd was chanting hang mike pence and erected a gallows on the grounds. so these were all things jack smith and his team are going to be looking at trump's knowledge of all of this as he was in many ways as you indicated sitting at the top. >> using the crowd as a tool. for people not in the courtroom trump's name was invoked a lot
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by both the prosecution and the defense. can you tell us more about that? >> yeah, you sort of alluded to in your opening. yeah, he was part of each side's narrative. for the government, of course, it really began with the september 29th, the presidential debate stand back, standby, which had an enormous impact on proud boy recruiting, and then there was the tweet as i mentioned december 19th that triggers the creation of this -- of this mosd, it was called the ministry of self-defense, that was the special chapter to approach january 6th. the defendants also at least two of them in particular really blamed trump for the event. and the claim was this wasn't a
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conspiracy. the proud boys basically reacted to a spontaneous riot the way a thousand or 2,000 other people did and that the person to blame was trump. so at 12:17 p.m. trump says you need to fight like hell or you won't have a country anymore, and 36 minutes later the barricade falls. so he's saying, well, it's not the proud boys arrived at that barrier 200 of them three minutes before the barrier fell, it's that there were all these people from the ellipse gradually getting there, too. so, yeah, he was in both narratives. and they're not mutually exclusive theories of what happened. it doesn't have to be -- it's not binary. a lot of causes went into he
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instigated the proud boys to do what he did, and he ins tugrated other groups, but the proud boys -- the proud boys did the jury found in a conspiracy. >> donald trump loves having his name mentioned perhaps not this much. thank you for joining us tonight and your coverage throughout this trial. mary mccord, please hang back if you can. we have a very big story coming up i'd love to get your thoughts on. when we come back yet another story tonight involving secret money being funneled to both ginni and clarence thomas. and no, this is not the story you woke up to this morning. it is new. stay with us. but up next new details in the mar-a-lago classified documents investigation. there are reports of an insider cooperating witness. there are alleged gaps in the security footage, and now prosecutors are asking questions about trump's relation to a new
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saudi financed golf league. all of that is coming up next. e. ♪ ♪ away suitcases are designed with 360-degree spinner wheels. ♪ ♪ so you can go with the flow. ♪ ♪ (woman) oh. oh! hi there. you're jonathan, right? the 995 plan! so you can go with the flow. yes, from colonial penn. your 995 plan fits my budget just right.
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there is some brand new reporting tonight on the justice department's intensifying investigation into donald trump's potential mishandling of classified documents down at
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mar-a-lago. according to "the new york times" federal prosecutors have obtained the confidential cooperation of a witness who worked at mar-a-lago as part of special counsel jack smith's probe. specifically smith is investigating whether trump ordered classified material moved in a storage room on the premises as federal investigators attempted to retrieve those boxes. the report cites multiple people familiar with this inquiry. the doj has been interested in mar-a-lago surveillance footage that captured balks of these documents being moved around and now we're learning again according to reporting from "the times" that investigators are looking into the handling of that surveillance footage itself. to get to the bottom of what happened the doj has apparently issued a wave of new subpoenas and gotten grand jury testimony including testimony from two of trump's long time allies who appear before the federal grand jury today. matthew who's a cheap operating
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officer of the organization and his son, and matthew jr. who's the trump organization's corporate director of security, those men are among the trump world figures who may have insight into the handling of that mar-a-lago surveillance footage. now, the reason for the new interest for that camera footage is this. back in october "the washington post" reported that walt nauda told investigators last spring trump himself directed mr. nauta to move boxes of documents. they're now attempting to learn more about the movement of those boxes. one person told "the times" that prosecutors have also questioned a number of witnesses about gaps in the security footage. gaps in security footage that may be key evidence as to whether trump tried to hide balks of government records from
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the government. so, yes, that would be interest to investigators. and according to "the times" a previously subpoena to the trump organization sought records pertaining to mr. trump's dealings with a saudi backed professional golf venture known as liv golf, which of course is holding saudi tournaments at trump's golf course. joining us now is mary mccord at the institute for constitutional advocacy and protection and co-host of the podcast "prosecuting donald trump." let's first start with the notion the doj has a cooperating witness. how meaningful is that and the search they're currently undertaking to find out what went down with the security footage. what do you make of that? >> well, this is a story it seems every day there's new developments here. and certainly in any
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investigation like this the department would be looking for cooperators, not just one but preferably more than one. and it does seem from this reporting they've got someone who's got some information, an employee at mar-a-lago, and that's really key because, you know, they need to get inside, you know, that building and figure out what was happening when because i think one of the things that's most significant about this investigation is the potential for obstruction of justice charges. and i've said all along if this was just about classified documents being taken to mar-a-lago and being promptly returned after they were discovered i don't think we'd even be talking about a criminal investigation. what seems in many ways to be the most significant information here is what kind of actions did trump potentially order after he was subpoenaed to try and make sure that the documents that the government was looking for did not get turned over to the government. and i think this new reporting
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about seeking the business records with respect to the saudi golf tournament businesses, you know, this makes you also think that the government is, again, trying to figure out why was trump trying to obstruct, what was he worried about, right? and so i think that's getting again to his motivation. >> i mean are we supposed to infer from that that potentially the government thinks that the saudis were a reason why trump may have been holding onto these documents? >> so, you know, it's still so early to tell. there could be all kinds of reasons for that subpoena, even things that we haven't even considered. but one of them i think could be either is there something that at its worst is there something trump wants to share with a foreign government, and that goes to the heart of the mishandling of classified information and the vulnerability of information being shared with people and governments who are not entitled
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to be in possession of it, information that could call grave and in some cases exceptionally grave harm to national security. one thing is is there a risk that some information might have been things the saudis would have wanted to know? but there's less extreme examples, too, which is that there could be something in there about the saudis heepted to hide to protect them. there's so many possibilities here, but i think my best guest is it's going to summon the motivation for what appears to be efforts to obstruct, efforts including misleading or even lying to his own attorneys. >> the fact that they are involving trump organization officials in the search for this may -- again, we don't know, but is that suggesting trump directed officers of his organization to potentially tamper with the surveillance footage that would have showed the boxes being moved around? there are so many questions.
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mary mccord, we have to leave it there, but thank you for sticking around for double duty tonight. i sincerely appreciate it. >> my pleasure. coming up, we're going to bring you not one but two new bombshell stories today about payments benefitting justice clarence thomas and his conservative activist wife. it is all happening all the time everywhere all at once, and it's up next. once, and it's up next.
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in 2002 it was a $500 honorary membership to a club, $1,200 tires and a $5,000 education gift for mark martin. we're going to come back to that last one in just a second. in 2013 it was a $500 stained glass medallion from his alma mater at yale law school, in 2016 it was a bust of frederick douglas valued at $1600. those were some of the gifts he listed in public disclosure filings over the years while keeping with disclosure laws. while some of those reportedimes could raise items on their own, they're not even the most interesting part of thomas' disclosure form. for that you have to look at what he's missing from those forms. in the last month propublica has reported on a litany of items for trips and payments on real estate that justice clarence
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thomas accepted as gifts from texas billionaire and republican megadonor harlan crow, gifts justice thomas routinely failed to report. if you add up all the dollar amounts from propublica's reporting the gifts amount to more than $1 million, and none of it showed up on the disclosure forms over the years. today propublica is out with new reporting about more money, this time tuition money crow paid to schools on behalf of justice thomas' relatives or relative. in the late 1990s justice thomas took custody of his grandnephew a man named mark martin, at that time a child. in the early 2000s he decided to send him to private high schools and harlan crow stepped in to foot the bill. crow paid tuition at two different schools though the duration and total sum of those payments remains unclear. in a statement to propublica
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another long time friend of thomas' says harlan crow paid two years worth of admission to those schools which would amount to about $100,000 of undisclosed tuition gifts. while nbc has not independently verified this reporting crow responded to propublica with a statement about how he supported tuition for many kids, and he did not deny the reporting. now, crow wasn't the only person who offered thomas tuition money. remember there was that 2002 financial disclosure form where clarence thomas reported a $5,000 gift for mark martin's education. that gift was from the owners of a florida based pest control company. as propublica reports thomas was very careful in accepting and disclosing that contribution. according to two journalists who wrote a biography of thomas, at first thomas was worried about the propriety of the donation. he agreed to accept it if it was
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donated into a special trust for mark. and yet when it came to harlan crow, a multibillionaire with an avowed and articulated interest in swinging the judiciary to the right, justice thomas stayed silent. and then there is thomas' wife ginni. tonight "the washington post" is reporting that ginni thomas received tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work in 2012 as directed by federalist society leader leonard leo. "the post" says leo instructed the pollster to use that money to pay ginni thomas. this was the same year leo's non-profit filed an amicus brief to the supreme court in a landmark voting rights case. in all kellyanne conway's polling company paid ginni thomas and her consulting firm $80,000 between june 2011 and june 2012 with another $20,000 to come before the end of the 2012. in a statement to "the post" he
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said in part it is no secret that ginni thomas has a long history of working on issues within the conservative movement, and part of that work has involved gauging public attitudes and sentiments. we're going to have a lot more on the implications of all of this coming up next. s of all of this coming up next. there is a better way to manage diabetes. the dexcom g7 continuous glucose monitoring system eliminates painful finger sticks, helps lower a1c, and it's covered by medicare. before using the dexcom g7, i was really frustrated. all of that finger pricking and all that pain,
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so call now for free information. before today propublica had already revealed the previously in disclosed luxury vacations
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and private jet travel and real estate businesses that were benefitting justice clarence thomas and his family and were paid for by texas billionaire harlan crow. today they added to that estimated list $1200,000 in private tuition. and just for the record the justice who accepted without disclosing more than $100,000 to pay for school tuition is presumably weighing in at some point on a case challenging president biden's plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt because as even clarence thomas can tell you tuition can be really quite expensive. joining us now the host for the amicus podcast and -- who among many other titles is a former supreme court clerk. thank you so much for being here. the idea that at one point thomas discloses this $5,000 gift from the owner of a pest
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control company and chooses not to disclose what could be a $100,000 gift from a billionaire conservative activist to me -- and i'm not a lawyer -- seems like some consciousness of guilt. >> indeed that's what lawyers call a bad fact, but really, alex, i think it shows what the bigger problem is here because so much of what the justices can do in this space is voluntary. and so he could make the choice to disclose one thing and not another and then argue, well, i'm not really required to make all of the disclosures that other federal judges are. i mean, it's very clear if he were a lower court judge he would have had to reveal all of this, so this has really broken open the problem with the system because judicial ethics it's two things. it's disclosure and then qualification based on what you disclose. but if you don't tell us what the bad facts are, if you don't
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tell us what the potential conflicts or actual conflicts are, then we can't have an intelligent conversation about disqualification and about whether there's fairness really in the system. >> yeah, dalia, to tali's point there clearly are problems. harlan crow was asked by the dallas morning news whether he'd be friends with clarence thomas if clarence thomas weren't a supreme court justice, and he said it's an interesting good question, i don't know how to answer that, maybe not, maybe yes, i don't know. i mean there you have the man potentially admitting that he's only doing this for clarence thomas because he's a supreme court justice. this seems problematic as well. >> it's problematic in the extreme, and let's also note that harlan crow is asked how did you become friends with clarence thomas after he was already on the bench, and crow literally says i was flying
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around on my plane and we came simpatico. it's clear it's about him using his immense resources to buy access and he cops to that. it's just to keep hearing him say, no, we're dear, dear friends, we're dear friends when they are not lifelong friends. this is someone who's curried access and favor and someone else who's been the beneficiary of that. and even though they may be dear, dear friends today it doesn't change the fact the relationship is predicated on one person wanting something and another person being a justice on the u.s. supreme court. >> yeah, i've got to ask you, tali, because you clerked the idea a supreme court justice is riding around living the life of insane luxury that is unfathomable to even a lot of very rich people on a trip to the caribbean, this is sort of the person for whom clarence thomas was a legal guardian, mark martin, he recalls riding
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jet skis off the side of the billionaire'suate. roughly 20 years ago they went on a cruise in the russian baltics, toured in had helicopter and visited the palace. we're talking about a level of -- i'm not going to say corruption though that is the word i just said, but a level of gift giving that exceeds like the wildest dreams of many. you know what it was like on the court back in the day. would this be even imaginable. >> absolutely not, alex. as clerks we get the window into their lives for a year or two, and there are public servants who are living the lives of public serve wants. i remember when justice o'connor missed her flight once and had to move quickly in the line to get rebooked on another flight, just the things on part of daily
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life. >> she wasn't flying private with a billionaire. >> indeed, no. and, you know, the thing is if you're going to conduct yourself this way, you're going to have this friendship, you know, it's -- as they're calling it, you have to own it. you have to put it down on that piece of paper that is available online for everyone to look at so that we can figure out are there some cases that justice thomas should just be sitting in because of whatever label you want to put on it whether you want to say friendship or something else, and, you know, you use that language of consciousness of guilt. it's the culture of secrecy that i think is really the problem here. i mean we actually have a pretty good framework for how to do this. you know, first find out what's up and then talk about what to do about it. but if you're not even going to be open about it, then how can we have faith? >> and i think people presume guilt when there's so much secrecy. i have to ask you, dahlia, the
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idea leonard leo, the head of the federalist society, is effectively asking an organization he's only affiliated with to make secret payments to ginni thomas via kellyanne conway smacks the worst corruption that we have in this country. how do you read the sort of underground pipeline of cash being funneled not just to clarence thomas but to ginni thomas? >> i mean, alex, i have to say i thought i was incapable of shock and i thought this morning's revelations about the school tuition were pretty shocking and then to get this blockbuster reporting from "the washington post" that puts the lie to the notion that leonard leo and the federalist society and the groups he's involved with are just benign debating societies, that they're just friends with the thomass, i mean this is kind of the whole enchilada splayed
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out for all of us to see. and as you say it's not just he's say no mention of ginni on the paperwork, again an admission he knows that would be wrong, but to have this organization that's funneling money through kelly conway through ginni thomas and then this organization is filing amicus briefs in shelby county that comes down 5-4 with clarence thomas a deciding vote, this isn't a debate society, this isn't just an organization that's trying to shape or reshape the federal courts. this is an organization with a huge sprawling network of front groups and influence peddlers that is quite literally trying to buy the courts to reshape democracy itself. this is really a five-alarm fire, and i think we should stop calling it an ethics problem. this is way beyond an ethics problem. >> yeah, the supreme court is in crisis, i will say it. that is what is happening right
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now. it's great to see both of you guys. i'm sorry it's under these current circumstances. thanks for your time tonight. we will be right back. for yourt we will be right back.
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that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. after months in a courtroom several members of the proud boys have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. we will have

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