← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Lawrence: Everyone arrested for assaulting law enforcement on Jan. 6 was assaulting them for Trump
00:39:34
Tonight on The Last Word: The Justice Department moves to dismiss both federal cases against Donald Trump. Also, Jack Smith is pursuing the prosecution of Trump’s classified documents case co-defendants. And ProPublica reports that a third Texas woman has died under the state’s abortion ban. Andrew Weissmann, Neal Katyal, Laurence Tribe, and Dr. Austin Dennard join Lawrence O’Donnell.
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- [00:00]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Well, if you were writing a remake of Frank Capra's classic 1939 black and white film, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, starring the great Jimmy Stewart, maybe the small town Mr. Smith would be from would be in upstate New York, maybe Clay, New York, where Jack Smith is from. And Maybe your fictional Mr. Smith would be on the football team and baseball team at Liverpool High School, like Jack Smith was, and then go to college locally at the small, obscure State University of New York at Oneonta. And then to send him on the road to Washington from such humble beginnings, he would graduate from that small college, summa cum laude, and go to Harvard Law School just like Jack Smith did. And then he'd go from Harvard Law School, like Jack Smith did, to the Manhattan District Attorney's office and then build a career as a federal prosecutor, always being paid dramatically less than his Harvard Law School classmates, who chose money as their first objective after graduation and became partners in the giant corporate law firms that support every wealth generating move that the billionaire class makes every day in this country. Jack Smith's choices were the choices of movie heroes. Jack Smith was Harvard, his Harvard Law School classmates. He had classmates there who cannot comprehend a career spent living on government salaries. For what justice would be the answer to that question in the movie version of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But that's not what happened in the real story of Jack Smith going back to Washington as the special prosecutor investigating then former president Donald Trump, the first former president to become a federal criminal defendant. Donald Trump was also the second former president to become a federal criminal defendant when Jack Smith brought the second of two indictments against Donald Trump in sequence. First, for the illegal possession of classified documents and violations of the Espionage act. And second, for crimes leading up to and on January 6th in Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the presidential election and what the indictment calls a conspiracy against the United States. This is not the way the movie is supposed to end, but it is the only way it could end after the presidential election delivered to Donald Trump the unique protected status of being above the law. No man is above the law turned out to be a myth that survived in this country for 248 years. And now it turns out one man is above the law. No woman has ever been above the law. According to the current Supreme Court, the only way for a woman to become above the law is to become President of the United States. And so the day we knew was coming since the election came today, when special prosecutor Jack Smith requested the dismissal of both federal criminal cases against Donald Trump. Hours later, Washington, D.C. judge Tanya Chutkan granted the dismissal of that case, quote, without prejudice. We'll get to the meaning of those two important words in a moment with Andrew Weissman and Neel Katyal. J. Jack Smith's motions to dismiss rely on Justice Department policy, as Rachel was just mentioning, against prosecuting presidents of the United States while they are in office. Jack Smith's motion said the government's position on the merits of the defendant's prosecution has not changed. That means Jack Smith thinks Donald Trump is still guilty in both of those cases. In the Florida case concerning Donald Trump's possession of classified material, Jack Smith asked for a dismissal of the case only against Donald Trump, but has not asked to dismiss the case against Donald Trump's co defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, who are accused of lying to the FBI about their participation in Donald Trump's conspiracy to hide classified documents. On the same day that Judge chutkan dismissed the January 6 case against Donald Trump, the FBI arrested two more men on charges of assaulting police officers with deadly or dangerous weapons during the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. The FBI arrested 43 year old Jared Hawks and 40 year old John Padgett. In court papers, the FBI said that Hawks and Padgett used a large object as a battering ram and a weapon against officers manning the barricade. According to the image embedded in the court papers, that metal object had a Trump banner. Also on the day Judge chutkan dismissed the Jan. 6 criminal charges against Donald Trump, Dane Christopher Thompson made his first appearance in court as a criminal defendant charged with assaulting law enforcement during the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The FBI says that Thompson was captured on tape wrestling a metal bike rack away from a police officer, grabbing a police officer's arm and lunging against an officer. Also today, on the same day that the January 6th charges against Donald Trump were dismissed, a Wyoming man named Douglas Harrington received a three year sentence for assaulting law enforcement officers with a flagpole during the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. Just before Judge Chutkan dismissed the criminal charges against Donald Trump for his involvement in the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. The Justice Department in a press release, said that more than 590 people have been prosecuted for assaulting law enforcement on January 6, 2021. Every one of those people were assaulting police officers they believed for Donald Trump. Leading off our discussion tonight is Neel Katyal, former acting US solicitor general, who's argued over 50 cases before the United States Supreme Court. He's also a professor at Georgetown Law. Also with us, Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel and former chief of the Criminal Div. In the Eastern District of New York. He is also an NYU law professor, and they are both MSNBC legal analysts. Andrew, let's begin with without prejudice. What does that mean in this dismissal?
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Andrew Weissman
It means that it can be brought again. When you dismiss something with prejudice. Double jeopardy has attached. You cannot be charged again for the.
- [06:57]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Same crime with prejudice is prejudice against the prosecution. Don't do this again.
- [07:02]
Andrew Weissman
Exactly. You agree that it's over. And so without prejudice means as if the case has not existed and it can be rebrought. And the real issue here is by Jack Smith doing this now as opposed to waiting, which is definitely an alternative he could have pursued, he really maximized the chances that the judge was going to do what she did, which is grant this without prejudice. And symbolically, that is also important because as Jack Smith saying, we still have the same view of the merits and we are not dismissing these charges with prejudice as if it has gone away and we think he didn't do anything wrong. It could be brought again. As remote as that possibility is, was.
- [07:48]
Lawrence O'Donnell
There any option here for the Trump lawyers to request that the dismissal be with prejudice?
- [07:53]
Andrew Weissman
Yes, there was. It is surprising to me that they did not say that they, according to the government papers, agreed that this would be dismissed without prejudice. It remains to be seen whether that was a mistake on their part, that they should have asked for that, or whether they think, you know what, once Donald Trump is the President on January 20, he has various options. He can obviously try to pardon himself, and he can also make sure the Department of Justice doesn't go forward with any case for four years? As to himself, I mean, obviously he will do that, but it's not clear that he can pardon himself. And it's also not clear that he could reopen this case to say, Judge Chutkan, we now want you to change your dismissal that was without prejudice to something with prejudice. That's a much harder burden for them to undertake. So by doing this, Jack Smith has now, with the judge's ruling, made it pretty sort of not ironclad, but pretty darn close to ironclad that this is dismissed without prejudice. I still think it's a long shot to think that this would ever get sort of resuscitated.
- [09:05]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Neel Katyal, does this wrap up the January 6th case in such a way that it allows the special counsel to write a report on that case, submit that report to the attorney General. And then have that report made public.
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Neal Katyal
Yes, all of those things can happen. And just to rewind the tape, what Jack Smith did today is he said he had to dismiss these two indictments or dismisses indictment because of two memos written by the Justice Department in 1973 and 2000 that forbid the indictment, Lawrence, of a sitting president. Now, those didn't directly control this case because Trump was a private citizen when he was indicted. So it wasn't like 73 or 2000 in which the question was, could you right away indict a sitting president? But the Justice Department today concluded that the same logic applies. And I think the most important point about this, and it'll come out, I suspect, in the final report, is this is a really good example of the Justice Department being principled. I think it's in the finest traditions of the department. The Justice Department could have, you know, read those two memos, said they don't apply, that this case is different because it's not the same. It doesn't involve. It involves someone who was indicted before he was president and the like. But they did none of that. They just, you know, stuck to the law, stuck to the memos that had been written before. And so when Trump gets off these charges today, I think it's important our viewers know he's not getting off them because A, he's innocent or B, because Trump pressured and intimidated Smith into dropping those charges. He's getting off because of a longstanding Justice Department policy. And as you mentioned, Jack Smith even went so far in the filing today as to say our view of the merits, that is Trump's guilt and innocence, hasn't changed at all. The only thing that's changed is that he's now president, and under these two memos, he can't be indicted then. So I suspect all of this will be written into that final report that Jack Smith writes.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
And, Neil, you were involved in drafting guidelines for special counsel in the Justice Department. Is it likely that this report will be public?
- [11:20]
Neal Katyal
Yes, I think almost certainly. When we wrote the regulations back in 1999, was right after the Ken Starr Whitewater Monica Lewinsky report, which I think everyone thought was horrendous. And at the time, there was a belief that these reports would largely stay more confidential. But every special counsel Lawrence, since has disclosed through the attorney general has made a public report. And I think it's because public confidence in the administration of justice requires it. And here it's really, I think, particularly important because, remember, so many people are being prosecuted for January 6th going to jail for January 6th, including new people just indicted today. And it would be very anomalous if that kind of person at the top of that wasn't subject to any form of accountability, even if it's just a public report, whereas everyone else gets essentially the hammer.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
So, Andrew, I know there are people out there wondering, why didn't Jack Smith and Merrick Garland fight these cases all the way to the last day till January 20, inauguration day? What are the advantages to Jack Smith making this decision to wrap these cases this way now?
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Andrew Weissman
Yeah, that's a great question. So I think there are pluses and minuses, and I think the audience members can make up their own mind. By doing this, Jack Smith has maximized his chances. And in fact, they came to fruition that this would be dismissed without prejudice. And it makes it much harder for President Trump on January 20th to try and have these cases dismissed with prejudice because the case is now over and the judges made her decision. If he had waited, the advantage of waiting would be, you know what? We're not going to do your work for you. If you want to dismiss this case, you have to do it, and you take whatever hit comes from that. If you're going to dismiss it based on these Office of Legal Counsel memos, Department of Justice Policy, you're going to have to do it. We're not going to do it. But if that happened, there's no question that Trump's Department of Justice would have said this should be dismissed with prejudice so viewers can decide which one they think is better, whether, yes, this does make it clear that Donald Trump is not taking the action. But on the other hand, I think that what Jack Smith did here is, I think, really helpful in terms of sending the right message that they want to send about this case, which is it's not based on the merits.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
And, Neil, on the issue of a written report by Jack Smith, if he didn't wrap up this case this way, and they just did, in effect, stay working on it until January 19, then there would be no written Jack Smith report.
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Neal Katyal
That's generally correct. I think the rules generally anticipate that report to be done at the conclusion of the investigation. So by concluding the investigation or this part, it does allow him to write that report. He probably could have done it anyway without that. It just wouldn't have been something that was the direct contemplation of the regulations. But this is better. But at the end of the day, Lawrence, I don't think that this was Jack Smith trying to decide, you know, pros and cons of which will be better to bring Trump to justice over the long haul. I think this was just basically done on a by the books. We have these two memos. You know, it might be great for us if we could stick it to Trump and make him make all of these decisions to eliminate the prosecution. But we just don't think that's the fair view of what the law is and what these memos are. And that's the kind of just nonpartisan Justice Department decision making that I saw, that I suspect Andrew saw every day of every week. And it's the kind of thing that I just really want to underscore what we can't lose in the next four years. And I hope to God we don't, because that's what makes the Justice Department work.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
We have so much more to cover here. Please stay with us. We're just going to take a quick break right here. We'll be right back with Andrew Weissman and Neal Katyal. And still with us, Neel Katyal and Andrew Weissman. Andrew, in the Florida case, there are still two remaining defendants. Jack Smith's not seeking a dismissal there. Can the special counsel write a report on that case even though part of it is ongoing?
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Andrew Weissman
Yes. And so one model for that would be the Mueller report. We had various pieces that were ongoing.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Oh, that's right.
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Andrew Weissman
And that we concluded. So that tells you a couple things. One, you can write a report even though you're not completely done. We're a model for that in the Mueller investigation. Two, yes, there are two co defendants who are on that appeal. Remember, the case is dismissed, but it's on appeal where the government says it should be reinstated. And there are two defendants who are not subject to this temporary presidential immunity. There's no question that Donald Trump will tell his Department of Justice to drop that appeal. He could even pardon those two defendants. But with respect to a report, what will happen is, and I strongly suspect is that there will be a report that talks about the facts as it relates to Donald Trump, and there'll be a lot of redactions there to be fair to those two defendants, because no one knows for sure right now that they will not be going to trial, is they will redact evidence that sort of would unfairly prejudice them. That's what we did. With respect to ongoing defendants, there was a lot of material that was redacted later, was unredacted when those cases resolved.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Neil, I know there's people out there now thinking, well, you know, if Merrick Garland and The Justice Department and Jack Smith had got started sooner this January 6th. Prosecution could have been complete by now. But when we see the course the Supreme Court took, which will obviously, if that case continued, would have involved yet another appeal to the Supreme Court of whatever Judge Chutkan's decision was, we would now be in the middle of maybe the second appeal to the Supreme Court on that case. In other words, we would not have made it to a verdict on that case.
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Neal Katyal
Right. Lawrence I think both things there are true, that is, that Merrick Garland took too long, it seems to me, in doing this, in launching the investigation and prosecution, you know, just year after year, which did contribute to the delay. But I think also it's the case that the Supreme Court wanted to give Donald Trump immunity and claim that much of his behavior was part of his official acts. And we'd probably be in the next round before the Supreme Court of briefing and argument. And the root evil here is this idea that because you're president, you're somehow immune from the criminal law. I mean, the presidency is not supposed to protect criminals. It's supposed to protect the Constitution from people who are acting as criminals. Or put differently, the presidency is not a laundromat for crime. But what the Supreme Court did in its decision this past June is give basically a president carte blanche as long as they could slap some sort of hey, I'm doing my official duties label on it. That could be an incredibly pernicious precedent with anyone in the presidency, with Donald Trump or anyone else. So I am worried about these legal precedents that have been set, and I'm worried about the fact that today we're seeing the consequences of those policies and that just those just permit memos, which I think are wildly overclaimed to say, you can't and died a sitting president.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
ANDREW Weiss, when you were a law student, you had career choices in front of you. You could go for the money, as most people do. You could go for government service. You have law students in front of you now who are looking at a career like Jack Smith's, which is the Mr. Smith goes to Washington classic hero story that then ends in a very non Hollywood way. It ends in a very unsatisfactory way for these students. What do you say to students who are looking at that thinking, why would I want the life of a federal.
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Andrew Weissman
Prosecutor, federal or state prosecutor, which is where the vast, vast majority of our criminal justice system is. And I think there are sort of two answers. One, though, it's that is Jack Smith. Jack Smith is A career public servant, a state prosecutor, a federal prosecutor in a war crimes prosecutor, he's done all of that. He is not interested in going for big bucks. It is public service. And so what I'd say to law students I teach at NYU is one, we need idealistic people who are smart and as Neil said, are sort of governed by seeking justice. So don't be deterred by thinking that you can't do that. And the second is when you're a prosecutor, like a defense lawyer, which is part of a sort of noble profession, sometimes you win your case, sometimes you lose your case, but that's your job is to do justice. And sometimes you're going to be really disappointed in what a jury does and sometimes you won't be. And as long as you know that you've done your all, that's, that's all you can do. And everyone has disappointments in the course of their career. And so like, you know, Jack Smith is going to do just fine. He, you know, he was dealt a tough hand. I think he played it with his team really brilliantly. And it shouldn't cause young people to not go into that kind of work or the defense side.
- [21:18]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Anil Katyal, the people who I am absolutely certain are going to deeply appreciate Jack Smith's work are future historians looking at this period and writing this history. Historians. 50 years from now, 100 years from now, 200 years from now, we'll have Jack Smith's report. They'll have all that information that's in the indictment, all the public information we already have, that we would not have had without Jack Smith. In that sense, he is a prosecutor who will win history where he doesn't win this case.
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Neal Katyal
Yeah, there's multiple audiences in an investigation and one is the immediate public right now in the criminal defendant. But now there is that audience of history. And we were thinking about that when we wrote the Special Counsel Regulations because indictments serve two functions. One is to bring people to justice, but the other is to provide a historical accounting of what actually happened. And there's always been a fear that when, because the executive branch controls the prosecution power, there can be a cover up and facts won't come to light. And so that's why there is that reporting provision in the Special Counsel regulations. And that's what I expect Jack Smith to make much use of in the days to come to perform that other function of accountability and trying to explain what happened on January 6th and perhaps in the other investigation as well.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
About Mar A Lago Neel Katyal And Andrew Weissman, thank you very much for guiding us through these investigations and these prosecutions. And please come back when we get Jack Smith's report. Thank you very much.
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Lawrence Tribe
You're welcome.
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Neal Katyal
Thank you.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe joins us next. This is what everyone in Washington believed before the Supreme Court said the president is above the law. President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen unless the statute.
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Lawrence Tribe
Of limitations is run. Still liable for everything he did while he's in office.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Didn't get away with anything yet.
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Lawrence Tribe
Yet.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
We have a criminal justice system in this country.
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Lawrence Tribe
We have civil litigation.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
And former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either. Joining our discussion now is Professor Lawrence Tribe, who's taught constitutional law at Harvard Law School for five decades. Professor Tribe, we have the story of two lawyers here. And the story of these two lawyers are what Harvard Law students tonight are grappling with as they look at their futures. You have Jack Smith, who devotes his life to living on government salaries, working as a prosecutor, bringing the best cases he can possibly bring, now being threatened with investigation and prosecution by Donald Trump for doing his job. And you have Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyer, Todd Blanch, on his way to becoming the number two official at the Justice Department, the deputy attorney general. What are those two career stories telling students at Harvard Law School tonight?
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Lawrence Tribe
It's a great question, Lawrence, and there is no easy answer really depends on what you want your life to add up to. If you want your life to add up to a sense that you have done your best to make the world a better place, to bring about justice, you may not always win, but you can always be satisfied that your time on earth has made a positive difference. If your goal is to become deputy attorney general in administration, basically of an oath breaking insurrectionist who committed the gravest crimes against the Constitution in our history and looks like he may have gotten away with it, if that's your goal, then that's an alternative path. But the remarkable and wonderful thing about the law is that your path is not predetermined. You can choose to do the right thing. I wish Merrick Garland had done the right thing, which would have been, to a point, Special counsel, much sooner than he did. He waited maybe 20 months too long. And I heard in your last segment the prediction that it wouldn't really have mattered much because we have so corrupt the Supreme Court that they would have dragged it out anyway. We don't know that for sure. They would have tried. But even the terrible immunity decision that they rendered left open the fact that many things that a sitting President does while in office may nonetheless be prosecuted as crimes if they are not within the absolute core of his power, like issuing a pardon. And even that could be a crime if it's part of a bribe. If this case had been brought in a timely way, if Smith had been appointed sooner, we would have seen a much different path to the Supreme Court. And it's always convenient to say, well, it didn't make any difference. History was bound to come out this way. But I'm not a fatalist in that sense. So it does seem to me, and I've taught students this way, that it's really worth leading your life as though justice can matter. There are some people for whom there is no morality, there is no right, there is no wrong. Looks like we may be governed by such people for the next four years, but that shouldn't make any of us decide that it's just not worth it. I think it's worth trying to do the right thing. And by the way, the idea that these old Office of Legal Counsel opinions from the 1970s, which were kind of slapdash and more concerned with explaining why Spiro Agnew could be prosecuted than they were with giving a reasoned explanation of why the President could not be the idea that those memos should now force someone like Jack Smith to basically do the President's work for him. He is, after all, not President. Yet even those memos don't say that the prosecution has to stop, that we have to bend the knee to the incoming President. I think the lesson of tyrant, of tyranny throughout the world, as Tim Snyder has made clear, is you don't obey in advance. So I'm not of the view that Jack Smith necessarily did the right thing by not plowing ahead. But it is true that one of the advantages of what he did is that it now makes it easier for him to write a report because the matter is closed, although because it's without prejudice, it could eventually be reopened. And it is crucial that he write that report and for heaven's sake, that Merrick Garland not sit on it, but make it public. Because that is part of what the verdict of history will need to rely on in the future.
- [29:13]
Lawrence O'Donnell
The Merrick Garland precedent, I think, is already there. There in, for example, the Special Counsel report on the investigation of President Biden, which I believe was released within days of it actually being submitted to the Attorney General. So that seems to be the controlling precedent for Merrick Garland.
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Lawrence Tribe
Well, I hope he thinks as much about what is right as what is technically the controlling precedent. Because so far, by deciding to proceed always by the book, he's not remembered that the book has not just a cover but a content, that each book that we go by teaches a deeper lesson. And it is that deeper lesson that ought to guide us.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Professor Lawrence Tribe, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it.
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Lawrence Tribe
Thank you, Lawrence.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Coming up, another woman has died in a Texas hospital because of a miscarriage, a miscarriage that was not properly treated. The women dying in Texas hospitals because of miscarriages are not the wives or sisters or daughters or girlfriends of Texas Republican politicians who wrote the law that ties the hands of Texas doctors trying to save lives. We'll be joined next by Dr. Austin Denard. She is a Texas OBGYN who was forced to leave Texas herself to receive life saving care for herself. That's next. The pregnant women who are dying in Texas hospitals because they cannot get proper medical treatment for miscarriages are not the wives or daughters or sisters or girlfriends of the Texas Republican politicians who have made miscarriage deadly in Texas. If a Texas Republican politician's daughter needs proper care after a miscarriage in a Texas hospital, you can be sure that that politician will make sure his daughter or his wife or his mistress gets the care she needs to stay alive. But everyone else is at risk. ProPublica is now reporting on yet another death by miscarriage in a Texas Hospital. A 35 year old mother of two boys is now the third pregnant woman whose death has been discovered in public records in Texas by ProPublica. The woman's husband called his mother, a former physician while his wife was passing large clots the size of grapefruit. And his mother, the former physician said unequivocally, you need a dc. That is the only process that could properly remove the remaining tissue that was causing the blood clots. She was given a drug called misoprostol. The drug didn't work. The bleeding continued and three hours later the mother's heart stopped. More than a dozen doctors told ProPublica that the death was preventable. Quote, it was clear Portia needed an emergency dnc. The medical experts said she was hemorrhaging and the doctors knew she had a blood clotting disorder, which put her at greater danger of excessive and prolonged bleeding. Misoprostol at 11 weeks is not going to work fast enough, said Dr. Amber Truhart, an OBGYN at the University of New Mexico center for Reproductive Health. The patient will continue to bleed and have a higher risk of going into hemorrhagic shock. The medical examiner found the cause of death to be hemorrhage. Dr. Allison Goulding, an OBGYN in Houston, told ProPublica. Stigma and fear are there for DCs in a way they are not for misoprostol. Doctors assume that a DC is not standard in Texas anymore, even in cases where it should be recommended. People are afraid. They see DNC as abortion and abortion as illegal. Joining our discussion now is Dr. Austin Denard, a Texas OBGYN and plaintiff in the lawsuit against the state's abortion law. She was forced to leave the state of Texas to receive life saving care herself. Doctor, thank you very much for joining us tonight. This is such an ongoing tragedy that we keep reading about. And just to note to the audience, the stories we're reading about are over a year old because that's how long it takes for the public records to emerge that ProPublica is studying and assembling and reporting on us, reporting to us. And doctor, I know one thing that people are wondering about is where is the line here on medical malpractice in Texas? At what point does this or could this become medical malpractice?
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Dr. Austin Denard
Well, thank you so much for having me this evening. This is such an important topic for us to continue to talk about. I read the ProPublica report and I read it through tears. It's so, so hard to hear these stories. But these stories need to be shared and we need to shed light on what's happening in Texas as a direct result of these abortion bans. And what you're seeing over and over again in these stories is just intense fear, fear and hesitation by the medical community to provide what is standard medical care. And I'm just so worried that we're going to continue to see more and more stories like this emerge.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
But is there a line here in this law where you could say even though the law says this at this point in this case the absolutely necessary procedure was a dnc? Is there any way you can legally perform a DNC in Texas now?
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Dr. Austin Denard
Well, I think the surrounding feeling in the state is that there's just so much confusion and physicians just don't, or medical providers just don't really know when they can intervene. And the Supreme Court has told us that the indications are clear that the law is clear. We've asked the state medical board to give us some more clarification and it just, just isn't there. So, you know, we should not be looking for our hospital lawyer's phone number. When we are faced with these urgent or emergent cases, we should be calling the pharmacy to get appropriate medicine for these patients or calling the operating room to emergently take them for a dnc. But there is significant delayed care because of these fears, because physicians like myself are. We're so worried that we're going to be criminalized for performing what is considered an illegal abortion. And what is legal and illegal is confusing. And we're really seeing that that translate into the real lives of families and of physicians here in our state.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
If you were not a doctor yourself, do you think you may have stayed in Texas too long in terms of taking control of your own situation?
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Dr. Austin Denard
You know, I always talk about my situation as being the best case scenario. When I looked up at the ultrasound screen at 11 weeks of pregnancy and realized that there was minimal brain and almost no skull in the fetus that I was growing in my womb, I knew that I was not going to be able to get the care that I needed. I didn't need any sort of counseling. I knew that the diagnosis was lethal and it was fatal. Was never going to be a brother or sister for my children. And I remember in that moment thinking, I have to find care. I have to find care out of state. And the only thing that my doctor, who I love and adore could do was just throw her arms around me and say, austin, I'm just so sorry that this is happening to you. So I had an enormous amount of privilege and so, so many people don't have that privilege.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah, it's. I feel with some of these cases, women have gone too far down a road that leaves them ultimately in the hallway of, in one of these cases, literally bleeding to death in the hallway of a hospital.
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Dr. Austin Denard
It's just so heartbreaking and it's almost unfathomable. But this is where we are. I mean, I think physicians and hospitals are just so scared to touch any pregnant pat that they are getting triaged and sent home or sent to other hospitals and patients aren't getting the care that they need. And it's just, it's gut wrenching to hear these stories.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Is there, do doctors fear, what are the doctors fears? Losing their licenses, getting arrested? What do they think their liabilities are?
- [38:46]
Dr. Austin Denard
Well, you just said it. I mean, we're afraid that we're going to be thrown in jail, that we're going to lose our license, that we're going to be fine. Thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. I mean, I've spent my entire adult career becoming the best kind of doctor I can be going to medical school, residency training for years and years to take great care of my patients. I have so much on the line, and I wake up every morning wanting to take good care of them. We think about our patients when we wake up in the morning. We think about them when we go to bed at night. It's, it's a calling and it's a career. So we're really putting everything out there on the line to be able to provide the care that we know is the right thing to do for our patients.
- [39:25]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Dr. Austin Denard, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [39:29]
Dr. Austin Denard
Thank you so much for having me.
- [39:33]
Lawrence O'Donnell
That is tonight's last words.