one is admittedly a matter of mild personal embarrassment, but two, two means that this is a problem for me, one for which i have no defense. merry christmas. that's going to do it for me for now. now it's time for "the last

word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> i'm busy taking a photograph of this split screen right now for my year end collection here. rachel, i got a serious news hour to do here and -- >> sorry. >> -- that's the perfect start. hey, thank you very much for changing the way i think about tesla. it's a chinese car company, isn't it? i haven't framed that correctly until you reported on that tonight. >> the biggest tesla factory anywhere in the world is in shanghai. it makes roughly half the teslas that are made anywhere on earth and he started building a $200 million battery factory down the road from there. tesla and elon musk personally have no more important stake anywhere in the world than what they have in china. elon musk is acting in his own

company's interests. the thing he most wants to do is keep the government of china happy and get things from them for himself and so to have him essentially solo driving the bus when it comes to the behavior of the united states congress, which is what happened around this government shutdown, it just doesn't feel like a very american story at all. >> yeah. rachel, tonight we have congressman glenn ivey, member of the house ethics committee, and he has been on this program while the gaetz investigation was underway. it was, you know, a careful discussion, so much that he could not say. with the report out tonight, i think he can get into more detail obviously with what that investigation was about as you covered so well in your hour. >> thank you, my friend. >> rachel, thank you for another great year on television and i will see rachel in the new year. well, the house ethics

committee today released the report unlike any in the history of the house ethics committee. the ethics committee unanimously believes that former florida republican congressman matt gaetz raped a 17-year-old girl in florida. the committee "found substantial evidence,"" substantial evidence of that rape. that victim is named in the ethics committee report as victim a. as reported previously on this program by an attorney for a teenager who was paid to have sex with matt gaetz, that teenager witnessed matt gaetz having sex with the 17-year-old minutes after matt gaetz entered a party and immediately upon meeting the 17- year-old. the committee report says the

committee received testimony that victim a and representative gaetz had sex twice during the party, including at least once in the presence of other party attendees. victim a recalled receiving $400 in cash from representative gaetz that evening which she understood to be payment for sex. at the time she had just completed her junior year of high school. victim a acknowledged that she was under the influence of ecstasy during her sexual encounters with representative gaetz at the july 15th, 2017 party and recalled seeing representative gaetz use cocaine at that party. last month elon musk was part of a group on donald trump's plane who convinced donald trump to choose matt gaetz to be attorney general of the united states of america. in that passage of the ethics committee report, matt gaetz is

described as committing state and federal crimes, the state and federal crime of using cocaine, the state crime of rape of a 17-year-old girl in a state where the age of consent is 18 and elon musk said gaetz will be our hammer of justice. elon musk wanted the first man in the history of the house representatives described as a rapist in a house ethics committee report to be the attorney general of the united states of america. when donald trump made the most inappropriate choice of attorney general in history, donald trump said matt gaetz "distinguished himself in congress." well, he certainly did. he is the only member of congress in history to have been unanimously ajudged by the house ethics committee which includes five republicans and

five democrats to have "violated house rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges and obstruction of congress." matt gaetz obstructed this house investigation in every way that he possibly could, which is one of the reasons the investigation took as long as it did. matt gaetz resigned from congress and believed that that tactic of resignation would prevent this report from ever becoming public and the republican speaker of the house who presents himself as the most pious christian who has ever served in that position did everything he possibly could to suppress this report

about matt gaetz and prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use. speaker mike johnson didn't want you to know about any of that. >> when it comes to the floor and it's a vote before the body, they will hear my preference on it. my recommendation is to vote against the release and so we'll see how that shakes out. >> that's what speaker mike johnson got every republican in the house except for one to vote to suppress this report so that you could never see it. speaker mike johnson and donald trump and elon musk did not want you to know that there was a house ethics committee report already written that says, "representative gaetz used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions." speaker mike johnson, donald trump, and elon musk did not want you to know there was a house ethics committee report that was already written that

said, "representative gaetz engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl." they wanted him to be the attorney general of the united states. the house ethics committee report is as much a report on donald trump as it is on matt gaetz. the house ethics committee report represents the indisputable proof beyond a reasonable doubt that donald trump has the worst moral and professional judgment in the history of the presidency for staffing the federal government. donald trump wanted an attorney general who committed rape in florida according to the house ethics committee, donald trump wanted an attorney general enforcing laws against the use of cocaine in this country, who was a cocaine user himself according to the house ethics committee. not every member of the house ethics committee agreed that this report should be released after matt gaetz resigned from congress, but a majority of

them did finally agree to release the report which means that at least one, possibly more than one, republican on the committee voted to release the report. every republican on the committee agrees with every word of the findings in the report. that's the important part of this. all five republicans on the house ethics committee agree with every finding, every accusation made about matt gaetz in this report. the committee asked matt gaetz to provide them any evidence that could possibly convince them that he did not do what witnesses accused him of doing in this investigation. he provided no evidence at all, none, to the committee to change their minds and even attempt to change their minds about what they were finding.

the committee's report notes had under florida's statutory rape law it is a felony for a person 24 years of age or older to engage in sexual activity with a 16 or 17-year-old. a person charged with this offense may not claim ignorance or misrepresentation of the minor's age as a defense. there is no criminal defense for matt gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl in the state of florida. the 17-year-old girl told the committee that she did not discuss her age with matt gaetz. the committee found that matt gaetz attended sex and drug parties with joel greenberg who the committee reports "pleaded guilty to six charges, including sex trafficking of victim a." sex trafficking of that 17-year- old girl. so matt gaetz's former best friend and frequent group sex partner, joel greenberg, is in

prison tonight because of what he did to victim a and donald trump wanted matt gaetz to be attorney general of the united states of america after what he did to victim a according to the house ethics committee. elon musk wanted matt gaetz to be attorney general of the united states after raping victim a according to the house ethics committee. one of the women, young girls really, who matt gaetz paid for sex told the committee under oath, "it's frustrating to know i lived the reality that he denies." there has been some sloppy reporting today about exactly what matt gaetz denies. in fact -- and this is really important -- matt gaetz has not denied today a single factual assertion in the ethics

committee report released today. in the past matt gaetz has issued blanket denials, but we didn't really know what those denials were about, just blanket denials, and those blanket denials should no longer be applied to the ethics committee report by anyone in the news business. the ethics committee report is specific with specific incidents. matt gaetz did not deny today after this report came out that he used cocaine. matt gaetz did not deny today after this report came out that he raped victim a. he did not deny that today. now that we have the facts, matt gaetz is not contesting as of tonight a single fact in this ethics committee report, not one. he has tried to suggest that

you can't rely on the testimony of people who are taking drugs. today matt gaetz posted this deflection saying, "i'm accused of being at some party five years ago. here is the gate log for that home in the community that checks dls for entrance. i'm not on the log. the other attendees are, but people who said they were on drugs say they remember me there. do they also remember seeing jimmy hoffa there? here's what that post does not say and this is important, trying to trick you with that. that post does not say i was not there. he could have said that, but he didn't and then matt gaetz wants us to doubt the memories of people who are on drugs which according to the ethics committee report includes matt gaetz. in fact, matt gaetz as of now is the single biggest drug user

in the house of representatives in history according to the house ethics committee, the biggest drug user the house ethics committee has ever investigated is matt gaetz. matt gaetz, an out of control criminal drug user according to the house ethics committee report wants you to doubt the memories of girls who say that he paid for sex while he was taking drugs with them. denying specific allegations in the ethics committee report is something matt gaetz has decided not to do today. the report says the record overwhelmingly suggests that representative gaetz had sections with multiple women at the party, including the then 17-year-old for which they were paid. victim a acknowledged that she was under the influence of ecstasy during her sexual encounters with representative gaetz at the july 15th, 2017

party and recalled seeing representative gaetz use cocaine at that party. victim a told the committee she was certain of her sexual encounters with representative gaetz on that night. the ethics committee report describes matt gaetz's written answer to the committee about the question of having sex with victim a this way. representative gaetz generally denied engaging in sexual activity with a minor, but refused to answer specific questions relating to his interactions with victim a. refused to answer specific questions relating to his interactions with victim a. i wonder why. matt gaetz refused to testify to the house ethics committee. matt gaetz defied the subpoena to testify to the house ethics

committee. innocent members of the house and senate are very eager to testify when they are subjected to ethics committee investigations. they do not defy subpoenas to testify. the ethics committee obtained under oath testimony against matt gaetz and matt gaetz has refused to answer any specific questions about any of that under oath testimony about him. matt gaetz was the first big loss after the election for donald trump and elon musk. he was their first big loss, but the five republican members of the house ethics committee and the five democratic members of the house ethics committee conducted a thorough investigation that saved this country from having to endure a matt gaetz as attorney general of the united states. when republican members of the united states senate, some of them, a few of them, made it clear that they wanted to see

the house ethics committee report before voting on matt gaetz's confirmation, matt gaetz's confirmation did not have a chance. so donald trump had to drop the matt gaetz nomination because even without the house report being made public everyone knew. every republican in the house of representatives, including speaker mike johnson, knew how bad matt gaetz was and they knew how bad that report was going to be and as bad as any of you might have thought matt gaetz was, today's ethics committee report and victim proved to you matt gaetz is even worse than that. leading off our discussion tonight is democratic congressman glenn ivey of maryland, a member of the house ethics committee and a former

federal prosecutor. congressman ivey, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i want to thank you again for joining us prior to the release of this report to talk about what was happening in the ethics committee, with the ethics committee in the extremely limited ways you were allowed to do that. you did it masterfully at the time i have to say, but i'm glad we can now have a freer discussion of this evidence. for you, especially as a federal prosecutor, what was the most critical evidence that you saw in this investigation? >> well, quite a bit of it. i think the staff did an outstanding job, as they always do, of pulling evidence together for us. the testimony that you just referenced a moment ago was very powerful. there was also, you know, text information that was exchanged between some of these witnesses, among themselves and with mr. gaetz. there was also financial

records that corroborated what they'd said as well. so we had a range of information that the staff had gathered. we got some from the department of justice and some from other sources, but mainly it was the committee getting the information on its own accord. so i thought that it all came together in a very powerful way. certainly the testimony of victim a i thought was eye opening we'll say for sure. >> for you as an evaluator of evidence, you found that testimony convincing. >> yeah. i think it was, you know, very powerful in its own right and as i mentioned, you know, it was consistent with other statements that were given by other witnesses, text messages, bank records not all directly on some of the allegations you spoke of, but the totality of the circumstances i thought

supported our findings of substantial evidence of those violations. so i think it all came together in a good, positive way. >> as you went through this investigation, by the way, thank you for the descriptions of what the delays were about in this investigation. that's something we on the outside couldn't know without seeing everything you revealed in this report, which i urge people to read, available at the committee website. as you were coming to the committee's decision about how to write this report, was there general agreement about the evidence with democrats and republicans? there's no dissenting in the report about the evidence. >> yeah. i can't get into the internal deliberations still even at this point, but i think you're pointing to the dissent that raised issues about jurisdiction and objections to

releasing the report in general, but they made it clear they weren't disagreeing with the factual finding. so i think even though there was some disagreements about whether the report should be released as you saw in the dissent, there were no at least written objections to the factual findings as they were contained in the report. >> when you looked at this evidence with your experience as a federal prosecutor, did you see anything in this evidence that could explain to you why federal prosecutors did not prosecute matt gaetz? >> i'm not exactly clear on what their decision making process was and, you know, they have internal processes, too, that they don't necessarily publicize and i think there's also the open question as to

what state investigators and prosecutors might do at this point, too. i don't know if they've made decisions on this one way or the other, but there's a lot of evidence there of substantial misconduct, certainly ethics committee, house ethics violations, and criminal violations i think certainly pry prima fascia evidence as well. that's why we decided to release the report to make it generally available to the public. the public can see it and draw their own conclusion and prosecutors and investigators at the state and federal level can do the same. >> so because he resigned, the committee never addressed the issue of what should be the penalty for this? this reads like a report that would have recommended the expulsion of any member

described to have engaged in this conduct. >> well, i mean, you know, it's certainly very powerful evidence of very serious misconduct. i don't want to jump and say that that would have been the conclusion we certainly would have reached. that would be speculative, but i will say this. i think it's important that we put that out so that -- put the report out so the public can see it, also so that our colleagues can see it and those of you who have been following this over the years can get a sense of what the evidence was as we found it. some people might disagree with how we connected the dots, but the key point i think at this juncture is they can make their own conclusions now and decide for themselves as to what they think the evidence shows and whether they think, you know, criminal violations should have been prosecuted or the like. >> just want to add this note that the republican chairman of

the committee added a note at the end of the report saying that in effect he didn't think it should be released because it was a fascinating line, he said basically because of some precedent in the past, but at the same time he was identifying that there does exist precedent for releasing reports like this even after the member has resigned. >> yeah. i mean there's at least four of those, you know, that have been identified that i'm aware of anyway. i think the first one we dated back to was 1987, most recent i believe 2011, but those were all in the house. those were all investigations and reports that were released after the member had resigned or left the congress for one reason or another. i believe there was an example of that in the senate as well. so it doesn't happen often and i don't know that it should happen often, but when you have

these types of violations of this magnitude, the nature of these i think elevates this to a point where i think the public had a right to know about it and certainly our colleagues should have known about all the contents as well. so i thought that that supported the decision to make it public in this instance. >> congressman glenn ivey, thank you for joining us this night. thank you for your work on this report. thank you on behalf of the people who get to read it for voting for this report to be released. >> i do want to thank my colleagues and especially the staff. i thought even when we disagreed, we did it without being disagreeable and we've done that the two years i've been on the ethics committee. >> thank you very much. coming up, senator sheldon whitehouse is a member of the senate judiciary committee where matt gaetz's confirmation hearing would have been held if

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the house ethics committee report released today says there is substantial evidence that representative gaetz used cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana. at least two women saw representative gaetz using cocaine and ecstasy at

different events. even more women understood him to regularly be using ecstasy and today matt gaetz said, "don't believe anyone who takes drugs." he really said that. joining us now is democratic senator sheldon whitehouse of rhode island, chairman of the senate budget committee, a member of the senate judiciary committee where matt gaetz's confirmation hearing would have taken place and he's a member of the senate finance committee. senator, what is your reading of this ethics committee report? >> well, i think matt gaetz was spared a brutal day in the senate judiciary committee by getting out. it's pretty stunning, but before you even got to all these really extraordinary findings, you had a guy who donald trump was proposing to be the top prosecutor for the united states of america whose only experience with criminal

investigations was to be the subject of them. before you even get to the conduct, that alone should have been disqualifying. so to your earlier point, the reflection of this on the judgment of donald trump is perhaps the most remarkable part of this whole story setting aside all the grim and salacious details. >> yeah. senator, that extends to other trump nominees, pete hegseth for defense, tulsi gabbard. this unbelievably crazy nomination was made by the same person who is making these other nominations. >> yeah. and some of the other nominations are extremely, extremely troubled and the best defense that the republican senators have right now is to say well, even if we know who you are, even if you've been paid a settlement, even if you're willing to come in and

meet with us, we're not going to believe you until you release your name publicly. we're going to pretend that you're anonymous when they know perfectly well from having seen what happened to dr. blasey ford, what happened to the two poll workers who giuliani sicced the flying monkeys of the far right onto, i mean there is a really terrorizing aspect to what happens when you come forward and so that's the best they've got is to try to make witnesses go away on the theory that they'll be terrorized and have their lives ruined if they tell the truth. that's no way to run a nomination hearing. >> senator, i'd like to squeeze in a commercial break here. when we come back, i want to talk about the other big and important report that came out today from the senate judiciary committee about the supreme court's cult of misconduct as the report describes it. we'll be right back with

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the supreme court has allowed a culture of misconduct to metastasize into a full blown crisis that has driven public opinion of the court to historic lows. that scathing line is the first finding of the senate judiciary committee report titled "an investigation of the ethics challenge at the supreme court."

the 93-page report completes a 20-month investigation by the senate judiciary committee. the committee credits propublica for leading the way with reporting on the supreme court which provoked the committee's investigation, but the committee's report has revealed more unreported gifts to supreme court justice clarence thomas from his most reliable patron, billionaire harlan crow. the committee's report says since his confirmation to the supreme court in 1991, justice thomas has received millions of dollars of gifts from nearly all of whom met thomas after he joined the court. the number, value, and extravagance of the gifts accepted by justice thomas have no comparison in modern american history." senator sheldon whitehouse is back with us. senator, i know this report has been important to you. the report also makes the point

chief justice roberts ' 10ed unwillingness to implement the only viable solution to the court's ethical crisis is an enforceable code of conduct. that's something you have been lecturing us on for a while now. >> yeah. this is a really good report. i want to salute chairman durbin for pulling it all together. over the time that this ethics mess at the supreme court has unraveled, it's come out in individual episodes and individual hits, this gift here, this secret trip there, this payment to somebody's wife, this payment for tuition. this report steps back and takes a look at the entire program which i call the billionaire gift program and it points out that there aren't a whole lot of billionaires involved and they're all right wingers. it points out there are only three justices involved and

they're the three farthest right wingers. it suggests a motive, which is that some of them were thinking about leaving the court because it wasn't lifestyles of the rich and famous enough. so in came the billionaires to provide them with the lifestyles of the rich and famous and then you see the same players turning up over and over again. so little leonard leo who was sort of the mischief elf of this whole billionaire gift program turns out at the koch brothers event with scalia, in the painting with harlan crow and justice thomas, the fishing trip on the airplane with justice alito. so you begin to get the sense that there's a lot more to this than individual episodes. it is actually a plan and a program that the supreme court, at least these justices, were very, very aware of and witting

of and it puts the chief justices and the judicial conference's failure to get in there and clean it up in i think a rather different and more damning light. >> what could the chief justice do? >> oh, we just did my report about two weeks ago. every single supreme court, all 50 states and the district of columbia, have figured out how you take the system and figure out a way so that the supreme court justices can be reviewed when there's a challenge to their ethical conduct. it's really simple. you have an inbox where ethics complaints can go. you have people who screen to take out the crazy ones. you have staff lawyers who investigate and that's really the key here. there's no investigation. you don't do fact finding if you're in the supreme court. everybody else does fact finding, not the supreme court. they won't have it. they when you've done your fact

finding, you have independent experts like other judges who compare what the facts are to what the ethics rules require and draw a conclusion about whether the rules were broken or not. no piece of that exists at the supreme court. every other supreme court in all 50 states and the district has that model and you can actually get a result from a complaint if there is, in fact, an ethics violation and with the supreme court they just pretend that nothing happened. they don't find real facts. they don't make real statements. everything about it is a botch from a point of view of rule of law. >> senator sheldon whitehouse, thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> thank you. coming up, today 37 federal death row inmates found out that they would spend the rest of their lives in prison. that's after president biden commuted their death sentences

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the death sentences of three other federal death row inmates who were guilty of terrorism and mass murder. the president issued a statement saying, "make no mistake. i condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss, but guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the senate judiciary committee, vice president and now president, i am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. in good conscience, i cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that i halted." president biden spoke to pope francis, an ardent opponent of all uses of the death penalty. last thursday the white house has announced during that call president biden accepted the pope's invitation to visit the vatican in january. that will likely be president biden's final foreign trip

before leaving office. joining us now is e.j. dion, opinion columnist for "the washington post" and also a government professor at georgetown university. e.j., it's fascinating to see the way joe biden's evolution on death penalty issues mirrors public opinion. he was supportive of the death penalty in the 1990s when it was at a pretty high level of support. it's diminished over time. his support for it has now all but evaporated. >> and he really does follow where the public was. way back in the mid-1960s a plurality of americans opposed the death penalty and then we have a crime wave that made people angry and made them

distrust the criminal justice system. so opposition to the death penalty dropped from around 47% back in 1966 all the way down to 13% in 1995. only 13% of americans opposed the death penalty then and then something happened. the crime rate started dropping and just to give you a sense of that, in 1991 the murder rate was 9.8 per 100,000. last year it had dropped to 5.7 and this year it will probably drop a little lower. americans got more confidence in the criminal justice system and they were willing to rethink whether putting someone to death is actually the best response to murder. it doesn't bring the dead person back. i think the other thing that's happened is that a lot of religious people, including abortion opponents, have taken the words right to life seriously and said we want to

hold this across the board and you mentioned pope francis, the american catholic bishops who are very conservative on a lot of stuff, as we both know, had urged biden to take this step. i felt one of the most moving statements in response to this came from a retired police officer named donnie laverio and his partner brian hurst was murdered by one of the people whose sentence biden commuted and he said he agreed with this, that he would find no peace by having the perpetrator put to death and he made a point of saying this is consistent with the faith that both the president and i share. so i think you have some developments, sort of ethical thinking on the one side and the reaction to the drop in the crime rates.

>> yeah. commuting the death sentence does leave each of these prisoners in prison for the rest of their lives. >> exactly right. i think it's very important in the whole death penalty -- you and i have followed the death penalty debate all our lives really -- and what you found even at the height of the death penalty is that there were a lot of people who could say all right, if it's really life without parole, if there's no possibility that someone will be let out, that is a just and legitimate punishment. biden underscored that these folks will still be in jail for life. they will pay a big price for these horrible crimes and i think that's consistent with a certain ethical sense americans have about this. >> thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> very good to be with you, lawrence, on what i think is a good night for christmas.

>> thank you very much, e.j. >> peace on earth. >> thank you. tonight's last word is next. breathe, ahhhh! what is — wow! sinex. breathe. ahhhhhh! can neuriva support your brain health? mary. janet. hey! eddie. no! fraser. frank. frank. fred. how are you? support up to seven brain health indicators, including memory. when you need to remember, reas americans, . there's one thing we can all agree on. the promise of our constitution and the hope that liberty and justice is for all people. but here's the truth. attacks on our constitutional rights, yours and mine are greater than they've ever been. the right for all to vote. reproductive rights. the rights of immigrant families. the right to equal justice for black, brown and lgbtq+

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>> mike johnson's leadership.