he later served as a top deputy for attorney general janet reno, he was special counsel to ted kennedy and served as the president's advisor on civil rights issues. he was also director for civil rights at the department of human health services. tom, you will find, is passion ate and committed to equality and justice for everyone. tom, more than anyone i know, makes every single day in his life matter, whether it's focused on anti-bullying work, voting rights, disability rights, housing rights, the eighth amendment, immigration, hate crimes or human trafficking. tom cares about all of those issues to his core and he works every day to make the world a better place. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome assistant attorney general tom perez. (applause). >> good morning, it's an honor to be back here. i got to spend some time last night with my brother who lives down the road apiece, his daughter is a sophomore in high school, she asked me if i wanted to go golfing at the presidio, i said i can't walk that much, i just had my knee replaced. melinda has been an incredible partner, it's a p

deaths were simply the result of a mass suicide the federal authorities under then attorney general janet renoheatedly denied that they were responsible for starting the fire but despite the official government line of denied denied denied evidence eventually came to light that proved their culpability first of all and for a video shot by the f.b.i. flying over the compound in the days leading up to the massacre showed automatic gunfire being directed from the tanks to. for any shots were fired from the compound furthermore visual evidence showed a tank deliberately running over one or more bodies of sect members despite the overwhelming evidence it took six years for the f.b.i. to even admit that their explosive munition started the fire and to this day there's a total lack of accountability for these crimes the f.b.i. stonewalled an investigation that led to a whitewash of the government's actions at waco interestingly enough the f.b.i. official accuse the block in the investigation thomas kelly was later tapped to serve as the lead investigator for the joint congressional intelligence panel

deaths were simply the result of a mass suicide the federal authorities under then attorney general janet renorepeatedly denied that they were responsible for starting the fire but despite the official government line of denied denied denied evidence eventually came to light that proved their culpability first of all and for a video shot by the f.b.i. flying over the compound in the days leading up to the massacre showed automatic gunfire being directed from the tanks before any shots were fired from the compound furthermore visual evidence showed a tank deliberately running over one or more bodies. of sect members despite the overwhelming evidence it took six years for the f.b.i. to even admit that their explosive munition started the fire and to this day there's a total lack of accountability for these crimes the f.b.i. stonewalled an investigation that led to a whitewash of the government's actions at waco interestingly enough the f.b.i. official accuse the block in the investigation thomas kelly was later tapped to serve as the lead investigator for the joint congressional intelligence pan

deaths were simply the result of a mass suicide the federal authorities under then attorney general janet renorepeatedly denied that they were responsible for starting the fire but despite the official government line of denied denied denied evidence eventually came to light that proved their culpability first of all and for a video shot by the f.b.i. flying over the combat in the days leading up to the massacre. or should automatic gunfire being directed from the tanks before any shots were fired from the compound furthermore visual evidence showed a tank deliberately running over one or more bodies of sect members despite the overwhelming evidence it took six years for the f.b.i. to even admit that their explosive munitions started the fire and to this day there's a total lack of accountability for these crimes the f.b.i. stonewalled an investigation that led to a whitewash of the government's actions at waco interestingly enough the f.b.i. official accused of blocking the investigation thomas kelly was later tapped to serve as the lead investigator for the joint congressional intelligence p

would like to assassinate, with me at the top of the list, and there was rosie o'donnell [laughter] janet reno hillary clinton. i don't know how i ended up on the lesbian list, but i am happy and proud to be there. that is a joke. [laughter] any time i tried to talk about this, it is obviously not a pleasant thing to talk about. i am happy to hear about this lawsuit. i have been a huge fan of chris for a long time. please, read his books. pass these books around. this man is our -- [applause] he is our 21st century noam chomsky. no not thatam is not still in the 21st century. of course an honor to sit here with daniel ellsberg, who always think about the other day. i don't know if you've seen the documentary "hearts and minds" about the vietnam war. it is a great documentary. they won the oscar for best documentary. when they went to collect it, they read from a telegram from the north vietnamese, thinking americans, which of course in these days, you'd never think of such a thing. in the way things are conflated now, that you'd be reading something from al qaeda or whatever. in this movie, da

that night attorney general janet reno, who had approved the fbi raid, said it was intended to preventfrom being harmed by david koresh. >> at the time we made the best decision i think we could based on everything that we knew. based on what we know now, it was obviously wrong. >> reporter: there were aftershocks. to extremists like timothy mcveigh, waco was a call to arms. he would bomb the federal building in oklahoma city, exactly two years later, killing 163 people. >> his feeling was, this is a war between the people and the government. the government won waco but we won bigger at oklahoma city. >> reporter: remarkably, neither clive doyle nor sheila martin blame the fbi. to them the fire, the deaths, their grief, it was all part of a bigger plan by a much bigger power. >> god permitted it to work out the way it did. he didn't stop it. >> we don't want to feel that something horrible is something good, but we're supposed to have that faith that if something happens, you trip, you fall, you -- you trust god has a reason for it. >> reporter: i guess, sheila, is the fact that someth

that study -- the people to carry about -- carry out that study were chosen by janet reno at the department of justice and they concluded that the law had done nothing. it did not save lives. it had did not reduce the number of bullets fired in crimes. it had been a failure. to some minor degree, it switched the type of guns used in crimes so you had a gun with one name instead of another name but it did not reduce crime overall. indeed, it was a dangerous bill in the sense that so much political attention was distracted by the focus on this that it took public attention away from debate on measures that might have been more constructive and life-saving. today, police and law abiding citizens to semiautomatic handguns and rifles such as the ar-15 for the same reason, they are also a choice to defend. these are only meant for mass murder and that would libel law abiding citizens. they do not choose his guns for hunting or collecting but the purpose for which police of is a carry firearms, for all lawful defense of self and others. great britain shows the perils of mass gun confiscation that