← The Rachel Maddow Show
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump's corruption of the Justice Department yields embarrassing results
00:42:55
As Donald Trump has tried to use the Department of Justice as his personal tool for petty revenge and political intimidation, the department's track record has been abysmal and its frequent mistakes, mortifying. Rachel Maddow takes a look at the degradation Trump has brought to a once-distinguished facet of American government.
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Matt Taibbi
Really happy to have you here. So the President of the United States is off to China tomorrow. What do you think the odds are that while he's there he's gonna blurt out something to the Chinese about how he doesn't really mind if they invade Taiwan? Quote, US Allies are particularly worried that Trump, who is known for his sweeping off the cuff statements, might end up disavowing U.S. support for Taiwan, perhaps even inadvertently. According to conversations with five diplomats from Asian and European countries, not only are they worried about what he might do on purpose, they're worried about what he might oops seed on the international stage. What do you think the odds are he blurts out something wrong, whether or not he means it, and oops broke Taiwan? What are the odds 18 patients from that hantavirus stricken cruise ship have been brought back to the United States now? What do you think the odds are that the Trump administration will contend with that risk in ways that are sane and organized and even vaguely scientific? This is the Trump administration that fired thousands of scientists from the cdc, scientists in particular who work on infectious diseases and all sorts of global health conditions concerns. Also, they fired the people who work specifically on the issue of viruses spreading on cruise ships. Yeah, what do we need those folks for? Get rid of them. It would usually be the CDC that would be the lead agency in the whole world on a crisis like this. But under Donald Trump, there's not even a CDC director right now. Right now they've got the CDC being run as a part time job by the guy who is also part time running the nih. That is a guy who is most famous for his in a declaration that said, let's try to maximize the number of Americans who get infected with COVID 19. Because sure, Covid would go on to kill more than a million Americans in that pandemic, but do we really think that's bad? Surely we could have upped those numbers a little higher. That's who Trump has running the CDC again as a part time job. Under Trump, the FDA is being run by a guy who, it was widely reported on Friday is being fired from his job at the FDA. There's an incredulous headline tonight at politico.com saying basically why is this guy still showing up at work? Macary keeps working. Yeah. Isn't he fired? Didn't we all hear on Friday that he was getting fired? We don't know. We'll see. We do know that under his leadership, the FDA just approved fruit flavored vapes. Because who among us does not want to make America healthy again by starting a maximum number of middle school boys and girls on grape flavored east cigarette. Mega dose of nicotine bombs Maha Under Donald Trump, the US Government's health agencies are also leaning in on tanning beds for kids. Seriously for kids. So your kid can have healthy looking skin like HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Start them early enough and they'll look like this in no time. Pass the vape. But don't worry, Trump has just nominated yet another person for surgeon general. This will be his third surgeon general nominee. Neither of the first two have panned out. The last one he nominated turns out didn't have a medical license. The one before that said she was a graduate of the medical school of the University of Arkansas. But it turns out she was not at all a graduate of the University of Arkansas Medical School. This latest one he's nominated is a Fox News personality who sells tinctures on Instagram and what she says are, quote, powerful physician formulated aphrodisiacs. So clearly we're in good hands. Or at least we're in hands hands of some kind. Don't make me think about it. A lawsuit was filed today to stop whatever it is Trump is doing to the reflecting pool on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. he announced last month that a company who does all his pools would be doing the reflecting pool. And for some reason at his instruction, he said they would be painting it blue as if it were a swimming pool. Trump announced that it would cost $1.8 million to do this job. Also, he had somehow just directed that expenditure as if we have the kind of government that works like that, which we don't but today, the New York Times reports that mysteriously late last week, the amount being paid to the people he hired on a no bid contract to paint the reflecting pool blue, that amount suddenly on Friday ballooned the $1.8 million Trump had announced to quote more than seven times that figure in an unannounced contract revision on Friday. The lawsuit seeking to stop the reflecting pool, slash swimming pool points out that that reflecting pool is on the National Register of Historic Places, which is supposed to mean something. The lawsuit filed today also says that the reflecting pool's signature dark color is a quote, character defining feature of the reflecting pool, and that the whole reason it's called the fricking reflecting pool is because its dark color means it reflects. It reflects, for example, the Lincoln Memorial on one side and the Washington Monument on the other side. And they don't say this, but it's implicit. Putting up little cabanas and deck chairs around it and painting it blue is never going to turn it into a swimming pool, even though that's all you apparently understand. Trump literally already paved the Rose Garden. Now here he comes with, you know, diving board for the reflecting pool. You first, sir. As this administration flails and fails on matters large and small, one of the salutary consequences of that for the American people is that when the American people push back against this administration, the pushback almost always works. And I just want to take one example, one example that we have focused on a lot here on this show, and I will tell you, the reason we have focused on it a lot is because of me, because I, frankly, have spent a long time reading the history of guys like Trump in our country and in other countries around the globe, over time, in multiple generations, in multiple centuries, and patterns emerge. Okay. And what I think I have learned from that history is that like a proverbial goldfish, guys like these grow to fit the size of their bowl, which means the more they have to work with in terms of authoritarian power they can consolidate to themselves, the more resources they have at their disposal to use for nefarious, authoritarian purposes, the more repressive and monstrous they can be. So it becomes very important once you realize what kind of guy you've got at the head of your country becomes very important for you to think about what kind of resources you are handing him to use for his authoritarian project. Okay. And so, you know, given what we know about Trump's inclinations and fantasies, do you really think it's a good idea for the American people, with their tax dollars, to build him to build this particular president a huge new network of some of the largest prison fac on earth, all specifically designed to hold people without trial and essentially outside the reach of the legal system. Is that a good idea to give him that kind of a system to play with? I think there is a case to be made that that could be one of the single most dangerous, one of the single worst ideas we could have as a country in terms of handling the risks posed by an aspiring autocrat. And so over the last few months, I have been acutely interested in, in this warehouse prison plan that Trump, in his wisdom, has unveiled. I have been acutely interested specifically in seeing the American people everywhere, red states, blue states, urban areas, suburban areas, rural areas, everywhere. I have been very interested in seeing the American people step up in all kinds of ways to just say no to this, to say no to building Trump a network of huge new prison camps to fill with whoever he wants. And tonight, I can tell you, and I think this is an important moment to Mark, I can tell you tonight that if you have been part of the fight against those prison camps, if, for example, you supported the national protests against the Trump prison camps that took place a few weeks ago, or if you have supported the fight back in one of the dozen plus states where they tried to put these things and failed already, if you were part of getting one of these Trump prison camps canceled in Merrimack, New Hampshire, in Ashland, Virginia, in Hutchins, Texas, in Durant, Oklahoma, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in Kansas City, Missouri, in Chester, New York, if you are in one of the places that has got one of these things canceled already, if you are in one of the places that's still now fighting tooth and nail to stop one of these prison camps from coming into your town and your state in places like Roxbury, New Jersey, and Salt Lake City and Hagerstown, Maryland, and Socorro, Texas, and Social Circle, Georgia, and Surprise, Arizona, and Romulus, Michigan. If you have been part of any of the fights against these facilities, I think it's important to take a moment to know that you are winning. You are winning this. Your pushback has worked. Headline at Axios ICE targets Plan B after backlash to Mega Jail's plan. What backlash? Oh, yeah, that's you. Why are they giving up on plan A. Why are they giving up on the Trump prison camp warehouse idea? Because people have pushed back hard against it. And when people push back against them, generally speaking, they cave. The warehouse prisons, quote, have drawn significant pushback from, quote, local activists and legal challenges and even from, quote, Republican elected officials. Citing one source, Axios also reports, quote, there have also been talks about selling some of the already purchased warehouses. And that's one source from Axios. We haven't confirmed that reporting, but it kind of tracks with how this has been going. Right. There's a lot of things that Trump and the Trump administration have been doing that are terrible ideas for the country, if you go by what the American public tell pollsters they think about those ideas. I think there is a case to be made that the worst of all ideas from Trump is now not yet declared dead, but it is definitely more dead than alive. This archipelago of massive prison camps for Trump. They tried it. They could not handle the pushback. And so now, basically, they are no longer trying it. And it doesn't mean these fights are over. People are going to be protesting in Hagerstown, Maryland, for example, tomorrow against their continuing efforts there to make sure this thing is never, ever going to happen. But if you have been part of this fight against the Trump administration for these past few months, honestly, this news should put some wind in your sails, because what you've done has worked. It has been protests, it has been pressuring local elected officials, including the Republican ones. It has also been some low profile, but really consequential brave local officials, like this man. This man, the town manager from Social Circle, Georgia, a local official who did not ask for this fight, but when it came to him, he decided he was just going to throw himself in the path of this thing. And if he had to make up his own tactics to do so as he went along, well, then that's what he would do. Watch. Do you feel like your community is being steamrolled?
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Eric Taylor
Absolutely. Absolutely. I feel like at times that I am one man standing in front of the freight train. That's the federal government.
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Matt Taibbi
The facility was originally set to open in May or June under Mullen. The timeline is unclear. For now, Taylor is using every tool to make that impossible.
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Eric Taylor
I have put a lock on the water meter over there.
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Matt Taibbi
You went over and locked their water at the facility?
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Eric Taylor
Yes.
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Matt Taibbi
Can you do that?
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Eric Taylor
I don't know. I don't know. Okay, I did.
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Matt Taibbi
You did it. All right. It's done.
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Eric Taylor
I did. I did. And, you know, and I told them that I wasn't going to remove the lock until I get a satisfactory answer about how they're going to be servicing the water and sewer. You know, I'm a big admirer of John Lewis and his getting good trouble. And that's my one way of hopefully getting into some Good trouble on behalf
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Matt Taibbi
of this community getting into some good trouble. That's the city manager of Social Circle, Georgia. His name is Eric Taylor, interviewed by Antonia Hilton for Ms. Now that good trouble of that kind and others has worked so far with the Trump administration looking for a plan B since plan A didn't work at all. When you push back against these guys, you win way more often than you might think. They don't wanna work hard, they wanna do stuff that's easier. They can intimidate people out of pushing back against. But when people do push back, more than not, they cave. And now we're starting to see this campaign against the Trump prison camp, the warehouse prisons, right? We're starting to see that campaign, that successful campaign spread out. But it's also about the prisons that Trump already has open. Not the new ones he is finding himself unable to build, but the existing prisons where Trump has been holding immigrants without trial. I mean, these are images just from the past few days. People protesting at the immigrant prison where they hold people in St. Albans, Vermont. That was this weekend, that was Friday. People protesting outside Texas Governor Greg Abbott's house on Mother's Day weekend protesting about moms and kids held in the hellhole immigrant prison camp they hold women and children in at Dilley, Texas. We're seeing people protesting this weekend and frankly regularly now and with increasing intensity at the biggest ICE facility in the whole Northeast, the very troubled, very screwed up Moshannon Valley facility in central Pennsylvania. Moms were protesting there this Mother's Day weekend as well. Specifically about the women held at that increasingly notorious prison in central Pennsylvania. The news outlet Pennlive has just started an eight part series on the Moshannon Valley prison for Immig and what seems to be going so very, very wrong there. Keep your eye on that Moshannon Valley facility. People locally in central Pennsylvania protesting there. People now coming from Pittsburgh and from Philly keep eyes on that as they move to close down the so called Alligator Alcatraz prison in the Everglades in Florida, as they move to potentially close down the camp East Montana, disastrous Trump immigrant prison that they built at Fort Bliss in El Paso and where they've already fired the contractor who was running it. Just, just watch these protests, watch these campaigns. Because even though the Trump administration and all, guys like him always try to make it seem like the stuff they're doing is inevitable and permanent and there's, you know, resistance is futile, turns out none of it is inevitable and permanent. When they get pushed back, they cave. They can't handle sustained, smart, nonviolent opposition, more often than not, it flummoxes them. It makes things just too hard for them, and it makes them change course. And part of that, I think an increasingly large part of that as time goes on, is because part of the reason they cave, I think part of the reason they lose basically every fight anybody picks with them is because they're not just hapless and shambolic when it comes to things like accidentally starting wars they don't understand and firing all the government experts who work on cruise ship virus outbreaks. You know, hiring influencers for doctor jobs. Right. They're, they're not just bad at that stuff. It turns out we're seeing this more and more over time that they are particularly bad in court. They are particularly terrible lawyers. And when you're talking about government policy that is turning out to be a bigger and a bigger Achilles heel for them all the time. You will remember, for example, when, when Trump lawyers sent Merrimack, New Hampshire legal documents that spelled out how they were going to install that Trump warehouse house prison camp in Merrimack, New Hampshire, they sent the town of Merrimack, New Hampshire, all these documents spelling out how great this new prison was going to be for the economy of Oklahoma. What? Jimmy, this is in New Hampshire, you guys. That's not right. But that kind of what, that kind of duh, step on a rake error is a theme with these guys. The excellent Wired magazine just recently did a rundown on how things are going, specifically at the Justice Department's voting rights section. Used to be kind of the crown jewel of the Justice Department in terms of excellent lawyers and excellent lawyering right now, quote, mistakes in the office happen constantly. In a May letter sent to the Colorado Secretary of State, the DOJ rejected access to records. Excuse me, requested access to records pertaining to the November 2000 federal election, when they likely meant the 2020 federal election. In August, DOJ sent a letter to the New Hampshire Secretary of State seeking voter records which cited the wrong provision of the Help America Vote Act. In January, lawyers at Trump's DOJ filed a lawsuit in the wrong federal court in Georgia, and the judge therefore dismissed the action. In February, the same agency filed a lawsuit seeking New Jersey's voter rolls. In that lawsuit, they misspelled Governor Mikey Sherrill's last name five out of the eight times she was mentioned in their lawsuit. In March, it was revealed that lawyers at Trump's DOJ had spent months emailing the wrong address while seeking Oklahoma voter rolls. Also in March, a judge in Washington State demanded to know why DOJ voting section lawyers had improperly served their lawsuit and missed a crucial deadline. The judge also questioned whether whether the lawsuit was served in a different way than had been outlined to the court by DOJ, and if so, why DOJ's lawyers had made, quote, inaccurate representations to the court. In another filing in late February, DOJ lawyers seeking sensitive voting data in a single filing misspelled the words voters emergency and United States. United States. I mean, I mean, how's it, how's it going overall with Trump lawyers efforts to nationalize the midterm elections and have Trump take over elections all over the country? Quote, the Justice Department has not secured a single court victory in the 30 lawsuits it has filed to try to force states to turn over sensitive personal data on voters. The Washington Post reports now that in the crucial Eastern District of Virginia, which handles a ton of national security cases, Trump's genius effort to bring a banana republic criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey. You know, the seashells thing that has resulted in that office losing EDVA has lost its U.S. attorney. They've also lost the head of the criminal division there. They've also lost the head of their national security division, also the deputy head of the national security division. And yes, surprise, that is the same office that just lost the highest profile terrorism case of Trump's second term. They charged a guy with a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13American service members. You remember that? Well, it turns out, surprise, after losing all the top attorneys working on that case in that U.S. attorney's office, surprise, they were not able to get a conviction on that charge. Last week, we also saw Trump's DOJ abruptly drop felony charges against protesters they arrested in illness Illinois protesters who were protesting against ice. Trump's prosecutors dropped the charges. And we don't exactly know why, but they dropped the charges unexpectedly, right after the judge in that case demanded to see the transcripts of what exactly those lawyers had said to the grand jury behind doors, behind closed doors in order to get those felony indictments in the first place. Is it possible that something bad was indicated in those transcripts they couldn't let the judge see? I don't know. But it cost him all those felony charges. They dropped them all. Even in the ballroom case, the ballroom people suing to stop the stupid ballroom construction of what used to be the east wing of the White House. Those plaintiffs have now told the judge that they believe Trump's DOJ lawyers lied to the court multiple times in that case. About the ballroom. A federal judge in Rhode island, we talked about this last week on the show, is also now pursuing a disciplinary referral against one of Trump's DOJ lawyers for a disciplinary referral for misconduct because that lawyer appears to have. Say it with me now lied to the court, which is something you are really, really, really not allowed to do. So we're gonna, we're gonna talk tonight on the show about the effort to try to fight back against the new Jim Crow. Trump's appointees on the Supreme Court voting to end the Voting Rights Act. Republicans all over the south moving with lightning speed to bring us back to the 19th century to end all black representation in the states of the old Confederacy and anywhere else Republicans are in control. Their best trick is to make their actions seem permanent and irreversible and inevitable. The people's best trick is to push back non violently and relentlessly and then watch them cave. They don't like a hard fight in the first place. When their hard fight has to involve lawyering, which it so often does. Well, it turns out they're as good at that as they are at skincare advice and international diplomacy and aphrodisiacs you can buy on Instagram from the would be Surgeon General. The former head of the civil rights division at DOJ is going to join us next on the fight for black America's voting rights. The head of the Campaign for Accountability is here tonight on the latest Trump official to just blurt out and confess to what appears to be some serious public corruption. The folks behind the secret handshake, Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump statue have have done it again. They have outdone themselves this time. We've got that coming up for you in just a moment. We've got a lot to get to tonight, lots to see. Stay with us. This message comes from the International Rescue Committee. 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Matt Taibbi
Tens of thousands of people in his state had already voted when Louisiana's Republican Governor Jeff Landry stopped elections that were already underway in his state last week. In response to the conservative justices on the U.S. supreme Court effectively ending the Voting Rights act of 1965, Governor Landry declared an emergency and moved to change the rules mid game, allowing Republicans in his state to erase the state's majority black congressional districts. So even though a third of the state is black, black voters would elect zero of the state's members of Congress. Sure, the election had already started. Sure, tens of thousands of people had already cast their votes. Of course there was chaos and anger at the polls. But no, Governor Jeff Landry told 60 Minutes this weekend. No, he said, none of that is my fault.
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Kristen Clarke
Voting was already happening. As we sit here right now, more than 45,000 ballots have been returned.
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Matt Taibbi
What happens to those? Oh, those ballots are discarded and those voters will vote again in November.
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Kristen Clarke
You say that like it's not a big deal.
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Matt Taibbi
What?
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Eric Taylor
Well, it's, it's not a big deal.
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Matt Taibbi
It's not my fault. It's not my fault. Those votes will all be discarded. It's not my fault. This week, residents of Louisiana began an effort to recall Governor Jeff Landry. They will need to gather more than a half million valid signatures from Louisiana voters by October to move forward with that, which will not at all be easy. But honestly, people want to do something. There's a lot of people in Louisiana right now who are just rip roaring about what's going on. And quite understandably, I mean, this was the scene inside the Louisiana Statehouse last week as Republicans worked to jam through the new maps, protesters packing the halls demanding to be heard. Frankly, some of the same in Alabama, where Republicans are trying to take away at least one of the Two congressional districts in Alabama represented by a black lawmaker. Protesters saying we shall overcome outside the House chamber, some of them dragged away by security guards. Same thing in Tennessee where Republicans have passed new maps that break up majority black Memphis so Republicans can run the table for the whole state. Protesters blew whistles and booed and shouted shame as Republican lawmakers walked in to cast their votes. I should tell you, in Tennessee, a big slice of black residents in Memphis will now have their votes folded into a white county called Williamson County. Williamson county literally still has a Confederate flag on their county seal, but they'll have just the right size of a slice of black voters from Memphis to make sure they can never, with our other Memphis residents, elect a member of Congress of their choosing. There's a reason why people are calling this Jim Crow 2.0. This really is plainly an effort to drag us back to the post Reconstruction era after the Civil War. Right. The so called redemption of the old Confederacy where the slave states reverted to Giving Black Americans 0 say in their own democracy and the federal government let them do it. Tonight the conservatives on the US Supreme Court gave their blessing to the no black voters need apply new map in Alabama even though more than a quarter of the population of Alabama is black. Nothing about this is subtle. People recognize absolutely what is happening. They are energized and they are fighting for it in the halls of our state capitals and also in the courts where in some cases they are getting some excellent help. Our next guest led the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. department of justice under President Biden when it was still the Department of Justice. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark came to that job after defending voting rights at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Now she serves as general counsel at the naacp. Right now she is leading the legal battle against what Republicans are trying to do in Tennessee. Joining us now, Kristen Clark, general counsel for the NAACP, former Assistant Attorney General of the United States. Ms. Clark, it's a real honor to have you here. Thank you for making time tonight.
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Kristen Clarke
Thank you for having me.
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Matt Taibbi
There's a lot of fight back on this issue and there's a lot of passion on this issue and I think people see it very clearly. What I think people don't know how to assess is whether this is gone, whether this ship has sailed, whether the fight back has any prospects of success. I'm interested to hear about that for your lawsuit in Tennessee, but also how you view this more broadly.
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Kristen Clarke
Yeah, well, it is no doubt a challenging moment in American democracy. And I think history shows that democracy dies in the Darkness, it dies in silence. But what we're seeing right now, from Tennessee to Alabama, Louisiana, is that people are rising up. They are turning out to the town halls. They are showing up in their capitol. They are making clear that we are not going to stand by idly as lawmakers work to strip black people of their voice and strip them of the ability to shape democracy. Right now at the naacp, we are busy and active in the courts. We are determined to use every tool available. Even in the wake of the destruction dealt to our nation's most sacred civil rights law, the Voting Rights act, we are determined to use every tool available to fight back. A democracy is nothing without representation.
- [31:50]
Matt Taibbi
I know that the NAACP has helped to mobilize people in Alabama and Tennessee and elsewhere. And we're seeing, obviously, you know, just the palpable pain and anger and I think, determination to not let this stand, to not just let this go by in those states and others. What do you think the mood is like in these states where you are helping people fight and where you've been helping people organize and where people are feeling the brunt of this so bluntly?
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Kristen Clarke
People are angry. People are fired up. This is not the American democracy that we have fought for, that people gave their lives for, that people bled for. You know, in the Supreme Court ruling that put the death knell in the Voting Rights Act, Justice Alito and in the Shelby decision, Justice Roberts talked about the South. They, in their view, think that we've reached a new day in America, especially in the south, they say, but right now, the south is exhibit A for how far we still need to go as a country. It is not surprising or shocking that the south is the one racing forward at lightning speed to strip black people of their voice. And they're doing so without hesitation or shame. The Voting Rights act was always what nudged us in the right direction, and that nudge was needed most greatly in the South. In the deep south states, a former Confederacy that is not even blinking as they shamelessly strip away districts represented by honorable black public servants. So, as we have done throughout our nation's history, the NAACP will continue to march forward in the wake of the animus and the hostility. We will turn out in the streets and use our votes, our voices we will turn out in the courts, Constitution in hand, standing up, up for the rights outlined in the Reconstruction amendments. But most importantly, this election season, you will see turnout like you have never seen before. It is at the ballot box where we will use our voice the most determined fashion during this dark season.
- [34:17]
Matt Taibbi
Kristen Clark, general counsel for the NAACP, former head of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. department of Justice. Ms. Clark, it is a real honor to have you here whenever we can have you here. Thank you for making time tonight. Keep us surprised. I know this fight is just beginning.
- [34:32]
Kristen Clarke
Thank you for having me.
- [34:34]
Matt Taibbi
All right, much more news ahead here tonight. Stay with us.
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Matt Taibbi
I thought it was safe.
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Kristen Clarke
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Matt Taibbi
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- [35:57]
Matt Taibbi
Here's a name I'm willing to bet you do not remember. You ready? Karen Bud Phelan. It's fun to say. Say it with me. Karen Bud Phelan. Karen Bud Phelan. Karen Bud Phelan. She is the number three person in Donald Trump's Interior Department. She also served there during Trump's first term. Her family has a bunch of ranch land in Nevada and Wyoming. And a few months ago, the New Times published an article that will someday get optioned for a Children's treasury or a or a compact encyclopedia of American corruption. Right. Just a quintessential example. This is how you would explain what corruption is to a child. Okay, so there's a mining company that wants to build a mine. They need water if they're going to build their mine. They approach a local ranch to ask if they can buy their water rights. The ranch is owned by Karen Bud Phelan's family. Karen Bud Phelan's husband and agrees to sell the water rights from his ranch to the mining company. There's only one contingency. The whole deal only goes through if the mine happens. If the mining company gets to actually build the mine. And what will decide that? Well, they need approval to build this mine from the Interior Department, conveniently. Karen Budfelin is a senior official at the Interior Department. So after this deal goes down, she meets with the mining company at the Interior Department's headquarters in Washington. She meets with people from the mining company. And even though the company swore that at that meeting it was just for fun, they didn't talk about the mine at all. Wouldn't you know it, the mine soon got its approval from the Interior Department, where Karen Bud Phelan is a senior official, and therefore her family got paid. That happened just before Trump left office in his first term. Karen Bud Phelan's family got paid millions. And soon congressional Democrats were calling for an investigation by the Interior Department's inspector general. As I said, though, I bet you don't remember Karen Bud Phelan's name, though, even though it's really fun to say. And the reason you probably don't remember her name is because the day there'd been a bunch of really good local reporting on it. But the day the New York Times published that big national quintessential corruption story about her in January, that was the day President Trump invaded Venezuela. And so, poof, there went the story about Karen Bud Phelan never to be heard from again. And so it never turned into a scandal. She stayed exactly where she is. And now it turns out there's more. Now we have this. This time from the Washington Post. Quote, trump official says she's involved in policy changes that benefit her family's ranches. Video shows, quote, a top Trump appointee at the Interior Department acknowledged that she's been involved in changes to grazing policies that benefit ranching businesses like her families, according to a video of her remarks. It's a claim that some ethics experts say could violate federal law. That top Trump appointee, obviously, is Karen Bud Phalen. Karen Bud Phalen. Karen Budphalen. In this video, which is from December, Karen Budfelin tells a room of conservative members of Congress that among her responsibilities at the Interior Department is, quote, grazing regulations. She says, quote, the thing that probably was the closest to my heart was grazing regulations. Why is it so close to her heart? Maybe because she and her husband hold grazing leases on about a quarter million acres of federal land overseen by the Interior Department. So those regulations are literally her family business. In the video, Karen Budfelin regales the lawmakers with how much her department is relaxing grazing regulations, including, quote, places like Northern Nevada, where my father in law's place is Karen Budfelin's father in law died several years ago. So what she actually appears to be talking about here is now her husband's place. So she's relaxed regulations that apply to her husband's ranch. Can you do that? We reached out to the Interior Department today and they sent us a statement that reads in part, quote, karen Bud Phalen has complied and continues to comply with any and all legal requirements, ethical standards and ethics guidelines as directed by the Office of Government Ethics and the department ethics officials. That said, the nonprofit watchdog group Campaign for Accountability is now written to the US House and Senate advising them that maybe they ought to open some investigations into this, into what they call serious and escalating ethics violations involving Karen Budvalen, whose name might actually start to stick in our minds this time. Karen Bud failed. Joining us now is Michelle Coopersmith. She's executive director of the campaign for accountability. Ms. Coopersmith, thank you very much for being here.
- [40:52]
Michelle Coopersmith
Thanks for having me.
- [40:54]
Matt Taibbi
Did I explain any of that the wrong way around?
- [40:57]
Michelle Coopersmith
I think you did an excellent job and I'm quite impressed, in fact, because it is so ridiculous.
- [41:04]
Matt Taibbi
Are, are there rules or even laws that Karen Bud Phelan could potentially be violating here? I mean, it really does seem like a very, very, very straightforward conflict of interest. Like almost the way you teach somebody what a conflict of interest is.
- [41:17]
Michelle Coopersmith
Yes, I would certainly say it's a textbook conflict of interest. And, you know, it's really easy to follow the rules when you're rewriting them, which seems to be what's happening at Department of Interior. And that's why we're asking Congress to execute some of its, you know, checks. You know, let's give some balance what we learned about in school and do its job and see what's happening at the Department of Interior, because clearly the Ethics office is not holding up its side of the bargain.
- [41:42]
Matt Taibbi
How do you think about the relative size of various scandals in the Trump administration? Even if you're just talking about self dealing, you're just talking about financial conflicts of interest, I feel like sometimes when it feels like there's a lot of those kinds of violations, it feels sort of fruitless to even pick one. On the other hand, when it's something so straightforward and so clear, there's the possibility that an investigation into a matter like this might be sort of a signal moment of accountability. Even if there are other wrongdoers in the administration, how do you think about the balance of those equities?
- [42:19]
Michelle Coopersmith
I think that's completely right. You know, investigations into very, very obvious conflicts of interest like this one. It serves as a deterrent to others. Right. We want to send the message that you cannot do things like this, that there will be accountability if you break the rules. And that's why we're just calling on Congress. Do your job. Let's look into what's happening. And I don't think that this is a partisan issue because our government officials should be working on behalf of all people in this country. It's not just those who have grazing allotments or those who own ranches. It's for everyone.
- [42:49]
Matt Taibbi
Michelle Cooper Smith, executive director of the Campaign for Accountability. I'm really interested in this story. I'd be interested to hear what you hear back from Congress on this. Please keep us surprised. Thank you.
- [43:01]
Michelle Coopersmith
Definitely. Thanks for having me.
- [43:03]
Matt Taibbi
All right, we'll be right back. Stay with us. You know this group that calls themselves Secret Handshake, nobody really knows who they are, but they, they're the group that keeps putting up different life size statues of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Like this one on the National MALL In Washington, D.C. you may remember they also did the big golden toilet on the National Mall. Hey, just what we need, needed. Well, today, the folks at Secret Handshake, whoever they are, they have a new installation in the nation's capital. Trump decided to call his war in Iran Operation Epic Fury, which is hilarious in its own right, but behold, Operation Epic Furious. Straight to hell. Straight as in straight of Hormuz. This is a real, fully functioning old school arcade game. A couple of them stationed at the war memorial in Washington, D.C. d.C. You can go see them there. They're out in public. They work. You can play them. And if you're not in D.C. you can still take a crack at this thing online. Secret Handshake made an online version of this video game so you can play at home. Basic ideas. In the game, you play as if you are President Trump deciding to invade Iran. You start the game behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office and your options then are either to order a Diet Coke or to invade Iran. You can order as many Diet Cokes as you want. They just pile up there on the desk one after another. Then you might see the other thing, see the fireplace in the Oval Office. If you walk up over to the fireplace, you can start setting Epstein files on fire. Every time you throw one of the Epstein files into the flames, it tells you how many of them are still left to burn. So you might be there a while doing that one by one. Once you stop ordering Diet Cokes and burning Epstein files. You can then leave the White House by helicopter to go fight bad guys in Iran. Bad guys like this low flow shower head. If you do good fighting you can earn oil and also truth social posts written on rolls of toilet paper. But if you actually want to post the truth social posts, you have to find the secret golden toilet inside the military base and then flush the rolls of toilet paper down the drain. But not so fast. That's not the end. The only way to end the case game is to go back to the White House and see Melania and the first thing she says to you when you see her is I was never on the Epstein jet. She will then ask you if you have burned all the Epstein files. You can tell her you are working on it or you can ask to hold her hand. In which case, game over. I'm terrible at video games. I spent way too much time with this today. I gotta tell you. At one point JD Vance pops up in Iran and tells Trump that he has been taking all his cognitive tests for him. Boss and I laughed out loud and messed up the whole game and had to start over. Anyway, we will post the link on mattowblog.com if you want to try it out. Operation Epic Furious. There are live arcade games of this at the War memorial in Washington D.C. right now and you can play it online. This is from the folks at Secret Handshake. We do not know who they are, but honestly, long may they wave more ahead. Stay with us. All right, that's going to do it for me tonight. Thanks so much for being here in
- [46:39]
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Matt Taibbi
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Matt Taibbi
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