← The Rachel Maddow Show
The Rachel Maddow Show
Yes, Trump could get in trouble for his 'IRS settlement' slush fund scheme
00:43:33
Amid a politically punishing backlash against Donald Trump's flagrant $1.776 billion money grab for his criminal allies, a judge is considering whether to investigation if the "IRS settlement" on which the slush fund is based began as a legitimate court case or was a fraud on the court from the beginning. Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance talks with Rachel Maddow about the legal guidelines the judge is considering.
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Rachel Maddow
Really happy to have you here. I apologize for having this totally lame voice and also for looking all puffy. Um, Susan and I went away for a few days, which we never ever do. So naturally punished for my sins. I caught a cold right at the end of us being away. And now I'm back and I'm here and I'm fine, but I sound like Foghorn Leghorn. And I know and I'm sorry. I apologize. I'll be better quickly, I promise.
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Chris Parenti
All right.
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Rachel Maddow
This is myjul Johnson. He is a historian. He's based in Philly. And Migel Johnson leads a walking tour of that city. His walking tour is called the Black Journey African American Walking Tour of Philadelphia. And on his walking tour, you will see, you know, the Liberty Bell and Congress hall and all the big Philly sites. But you'll also see the national historic site that's called the President's House. The President's House is where the first presidents of the United States lived in Philly while the White House was under construction in D.C. so George Washington lived there. The second president, John Adams, did as well. And as you might know, when George Washington moved into the President's House in Philly, when he lived there, he had with him there nine people who he kept in slavery. And because of that, for more than 15 years now, that national historic site in Philly, the President's House, has included an exhibit about that, about those nine people who lived there with George Washington. And it is a fascinating story, right? I mean, it's this contradiction of George Washington as the first president, the man who led the literal fight for American Liberty, while he was also simultaneously personally enslaving people, including right there in Philadelphia at the president's house. We think of slavery as a Southern thing, right? But there it was. So the city of Philadelphia did a partnership with the National Park Service, and they installed an exhibit of art and plaques and timelines and videos all about that part of this history. It was called the President's Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation. That exhibit on slavery and the nation's first two presidents went up in Philly at that site about 16 years ago. But early this year, January of this year, the historian myjul Johnson got a text message, an urgent one, basically, said, where are you? Get over to the president's house quick. He raced over. This was on Thursday, January 22 this year. And when he got there, this is what he found. National Park Service workers, Trump administration workers, taking down that exhibit at the president's house. They were carting off the explication of, quote, the Dirty Business of Slavery, which was a detailed history of the slave economy. They were also taking away the part of the exhibit titled Life Under Slavery, with its details on what it was like for black Americans who were held in slavery in Philadelphia. Into the truck went the two panels on, quote, the house and the people who worked and lived in it. They just pried that stuff off the walls, put it in the back of a pickup truck, and took it away. This was what was left behind. Scars. Look at that. Scars on the walls and empty brackets and old glue where the history had been before they crowbarred it. Orders from Donald Trump. If you've ever spent any time in Philly, you probably know that Philly does not easily accede to being messed with. Philadelphia is a city you cannot mug. And so when Donald Trump did this to Philly earlier this year, when he mugged Philly this way, the city of Philadelphia and activists and my Joel Johnson's own Black Journey walking tour, they got together and sued the Trump administration over the destruction of that exhibit. And you might remember us covering it on the show at the time. A federal judge back in February sided with my Jewel Johnson, and the city ruled that it was illegal for Trump to have done what he did. And so the exhibit started going back up at the president's house. But then the Trump administration appealed, so the order to put the exhibit back up got stayed until a federal appeals court could take up the case. So it's kind of been in limbo. What this has meant for most of the year is that if you go to the President's house in Philly today. It's kind of half there. You see about half or maybe fewer of the panels are back on the walls. It's kind of a hodgepodge. Some of the stuff is there, some of the stuff is not. It's discontinuous. There are big holes where a lot of the panels and information are just gone. But now it's June, June of 2026, which means celebrations are supposed to start this month for the country's 250th birthday. And I know you've heard all about Trump kind of botching the celebrations that are planned for the 250th in Washington, right? Putting a cage match on the lawn of the White House sponsored by what multiple state gambling authorities widely consider to be an illegal gambling gambling operation. Okay. But nevertheless, they made a big donation to one of Trump's super PACs. So he's regularly promoting this illegal gambling operation all the time. And their cage match is gonna be on the White House lawn. Trump decided to put a car race on the streets of D.C. for which someone had the brilliant idea to market this official T shirt which says one nation, one race. The T shirt only comes in white. Seriously, they had to take that down off the website after not being quite able to explain that one, one race. Trump now has called for the cancellation of a concert that he had tried to plan in Washington for the 250th. After, again, a melange of celebrities and former celebrities they thought they had persuaded to come perform, I think basically started hearing from their fans about whether or not it's a good idea to perform for a Donald Trump event this year. All those celebrities and former celebrities started to drop out. Trump was humiliated by that for obvious reasons. And so now he's called for the whole event to be canceled, and he has announced that he himself should be the headliner instead. So. Okay, that'll be great. And, you know, this is kind of how it goes with Trump. His first inauguration in Washington, this was the musical entertainment. Remember, it was poorly organized, poorly attended, and sort of sadly underwhelming when it came to star power. The vibe was like cut rate Wedding DJ and desultory junior varsity marching band. Even for Trump, I think it was therefore kind of a relief when his second inauguration came around and had to be moved indoors for poor weather. At least they wouldn't need the the piano guys again or whatever. Then there was the North Korea style military parade he tried to throw himself for his birthday. That turned out to be sad and Small and also radically underattended that day, it was dwarfed by the no kings protest that took place against him all over the country. This is how things go for him. I mean, remember the pro Trump super bowl halftime show that everybody was supposed to watch instead of the real one with Bad Bunny. But in the Trump one, Kid Rock kind of just lost the thread trying to lip sync and gave up halfway through. Trump is just not good at this stuff. So I know you've heard about Trump botching the 250th in Washington, but you know, the birthplace of the Constitution, the place where the presidents lived even before there was a White House, the real birthplace of the country, the place where we signed the Declaration of Independ Independence, is Philly. And right now, It's June of 2026. And in Philly, what's there? This half there, half not there, half taken down mess, thanks to Donald Trump. And so the good people of Philadelphia have done exactly what you would expect them to do. They have decided to take matters into their own hands and fix this themselves. The people of Philadelphia decided, yes, they're going to sue, and yes, they're going to hope that the courts do the right thing. Stick a pin in that. Come back to that in a moment. But in the meantime, while they're waiting for this thing to get through the courts, if the Trump administration is going to put those words back up, if they're not going to put that history back up, then the people of Philadelphia will put the words back themselves. And so right now, sometimes at the president's house in Philly, that means a handmade sign posted up where a real one used to be. Sometimes it means reading the words from those signs aloud yourself. Here, for example, was the official Life Under Slavery panel on its way to the truck to be taken away. But here's the same content from that panel being read aloud a couple of weeks ago for all comers for anybody coming by to see it. By a volunteer named Sherry Yutain, Philadelphia's enslaved people observed firsthand how free African descents moved about the city. The city was a hub of several escape routes for many seeking freedom here. Those seeking their freedom often found sympathetic assistance despite the threat of punishment for helping them. Yeah, what are you doing? For the country's 250th in Philly, these folks have been reading this stuff. They have been volunteering as citizen docents to read out loud the history that Trump stole so it can't be taken away from the site where that history happened day after day. They show up, they stand by the walls of the president's house. They give out flyers with the text of those. Those panels that were taken down. They have folders of the text that the president removed. They have carefully saved the history of this place where George Washington and the people he enslaved lived and where now line up to see the Liberty Bell. And they keep that history alive. Volunteers take turns signing up for a shift to read the text out loud from the disappeared panels. The group doing it is newly formed. They're called Old City Remembers. The founder of the group tells us he got the idea right after the Trump administration destroyed the exhibit. His name is Matt Hall. He says when he found out what they did, he thought, we've gotta do something. And he thought the simplest and most sustainable response was to capture the history they had taken down and just read it aloud for people who came to the site. So they read it aloud. Old City Remembers is still onboarding volunteers in Philly. So far, about 150 people have completed their training. 50 people have signed up already for one of these reading shifts. With tourist season upon us now and the 250th coming fast, old City Remembers is hoping more people will sign up. Oldcityremembers.com if you're curious. But I said to stick a pin in what's going on with the courts tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon at 2:30pm the federal appeals court that sits in Philly is going to hear the case on this. They're going to hear the appeal on whether the slavery exhibit from the President's house in Philadelphia has to be put back up or not. We understand that lots of people in Philadelphia are planning on going in person to hear those court arguments tomorrow. They've had to move the arguments to the big ceremonial courtroom at the federal courthouse on Market street in Philly. People are gonna rally outside ahead of the hearing. And then the hearing starts at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon. They are expecting a packed house. People in Philly pushing back, protesting, suing, and being creative, finding ways to undo what Trump has been trying to do. I mean, you get the sense no matter what happens to that case tomorrow, the people of Philadelphia are not gonna let that history be erased. And it's not just in Philly. Two days after tomorrow's court hearing in Philly, this Thursday in Washington, D.C. a bunch of folks from the activist group Third act are expected to pack. The meeting of the National Capital Planning commission in Washington, D.C. doesn't usually sound like the most exciting, stimulating public meeting, but it's going to be packed because these folks are going as part of their efforts to oppose Trump building a triumphal arch for himself to honor himself in Washington. They've been protesting already under the banner 86 the arch saying democracies do not build memorials to living presidents. But Trump has been trying to ram this ridiculous dictator arch thing through despite vast and overwhelming public opposition to it. So third act is, is trying to make that the that public opposition to the arch as loud and visible and as present at every meeting as possible. And so at that boring meeting on Thursday, they're going to be packing the house and doing everything they can to try to stop that big dumb arch. You've probably also heard about the ongoing protests and confrontations outside the Delaney hall immigrant prison in Newark, New Jersey. We're gonna talk with New Jersey US Senator Andy Kim about that tonight on the show. But you should also know that it's not just at Delaney hall in Ohio this weekend, there were vigils and protests and prayer services all across the state of Ohio against the prisons and jails where the Trump administration is holding immigrants in Ohio at the end of this week. On Saturday, there'll be another day of nationwide protests, particularly in the Northeast, against Citizens bank for their role in bankrolling Trump's immigrant prisons, including the one at Delaney Hall. Citizens bank, for its part, they say they follow the law and they apply their standards consistently to all their clients. But the faith based groups that have been pressing Citizens bank on this say that the bank's CEO has dismissed concerns about the conditions in Trump's immigrant prisons and they say he has refused to meet with them as they have tried to push him on this matter. Faith based groups have pulled millions of dollars out of Citizens bank already. We're told to exp this week that they will be pulling out millions more, with more faith groups, more churches and mosques and synagogues joining that effort all the time. Pushback against Donald Trump and the Trump administration comes in all kinds of forms. It can be suing them. It can be protesting against them in the streets. It can be pressuring the companies and public figures who collaborate with them and enable them. It can be giving public comment and showing up at otherwise boring meetings where they're trying to ram through one or another of their bad decisions. It could be volunteering for a candidate who will oppose Trump or picketing the office of an officeholder who won't oppose him. In Philadelphia, it might mean standing up outside the walls of the president's House National Historic Site reading the words out loud about George Washington's slaves, the words that Donald Trump tried to throw into a truck and disappear. If you're CBS News correspondent Scott Pelly, it can apparently mean mocking the sweet bejesus out of the oligarch sock puppets sent in to destroy 60 Minutes as a favorite for the mad King. God bless you, Scott Belly. Long may you wave. In this time, in this moment, American pushback comes in all kinds of flavors. And we don't always know what effect each act of pushback is gonna have in the mom. We don't know if it's going to work now or ever. We don't know what backlash it might entail. We don't know what it might cause to happen differently that wasn't otherwise going to happen had we not pushed back. But in the year and a half so far, adding it all up collectively, all these different kinds of pushback, all in all, it's made this president radically and historically unpopular, and that has made him profoundly historically weak. And that means that over time, the effort that it takes to get him to fail and to cave gets a little easier because he's weaker as time goes on and as more and more Americans see clear to saying no to what he's doing. Tonight, after what is being, I think, sort of mildly described as backlash to Trump's attempt for this, this slush fund, Trump's attempt to back up a truck to the treasury to take nearly $2 billion to use as a SL, the White House tonight is reportedly backing off that plan to try to take that money for Trump. And that is in part because it hasn't just been Democrats in Congress, it has been Republicans in Congress who said no to this thing and who showed themselves to be prepared to vote against it as well. But I think the underappreciated part of all of this, something I feel like I want more clarity on, is that it is really starting to look like they were going to get in trouble for this. There was that one court ruling on Friday that ordered Trump not to start up the fund or make any disbursements from it. But there was also the other court ruling on Friday that essentially indicated that a judge had started an investigation, a court ruling that essentially started an investigation led by a federal judge into whether or not the whole process by which Trump was trying to take this money might have been an act of fraud, might have been a fraud on the court. The whole idea that this was a settlement of a lawsuit appears to have been false from the beginning. It was designed that way simply as a pretext to give the appearance of legality to what was otherwise just a bank robbery against the American people. And it is one thing politically to try to pull that off for the American people. It's one thing to try to sort of try to scam people and tell people not to believe their lying eyes about what's happened. But to do it to a federal court essentially gives the federal judge overseeing that court the right to look into it, to see whether you might have committed fraud against that court and thereby be sanctioned, be subject to sanctions for it. So this is going to be really interesting. Trump may be dropping this slush fund as of tonight. Reportedly he is considering doing that. But as far as I understand it, him dropping it won't necessarily stop the judge's investigation, the now ongoing investigation into whether all of this was a crime. Never know how all the pushback is going to work out. But the pushback always and ever matters. Joining us now is Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, co host of the excellent Sisters in Law podcast. Joyce, it's great to see you. Thank you for being here.
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Joyce Vance
It's good to see you too.
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Rachel Maddow
Joyce, is it? As you know, I'm not, I'm not a lawyer. I do not Play 1 on TV. But is it fair for me to characterize this as the judge in this case effectively investigating what went on here?
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Joyce Vance
I think that that's a fair characterization because under Article 3 of the Constitution, courts only consider actual cases and controversies. And the potential issue here is that Donald Trump was on both sides of the V in this lawsuit, he was the plaintiff who was suing the irs, but he also purports to control decisions that the IRS makes. And so there's actually video of him saying, isn't this crazy? You know, I have to decide how much money to give myself. So the judge is entitled to figure out whether that was the case she should have been considering in the first place.
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Rachel Maddow
In her order on this on Friday, which was a sort of terse, like four page order, very sternly worded, the judge in this case, Judge Kathleen Williams, noted that she is entitled to investigate serious misconduct as a collateral issue within the purview of Rule 11. And I talked to a couple of lawyers about this and all of them were basically just saying, like Rule 11, exclamation point, Rule 11. Can you explain for us non lawyers what Rule 11 is and whether it is in fact a big deal that that is what was invoked by the judge as she looks into this?
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Joyce Vance
It is a big deal. There's a little Bit of Law School 101 that has to happen here. This case has been dismissed. And so to get to that Rule 11 consideration, the judge would have to reopen the case. And she can do that. There's actually a group of 35 former federal judges. They've petitioned her and said, please, Judge, use Rule 60 to reopen this case and decide whether you should set aside the dismissal because there was a fraud that was perpetrated on the court. And so as part of doing that, the judge then says, you know, there's a rule called Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and it involves filing frivolous motions or frivolous cases and judges can sanction parties who do that. And so she's almost musing to herself in this four page order saying, well, I think I might need to inquire into that. And if she were to use Rule 11, she would be able to ask the government to explain itself. Why did you file this case? Did you understand that it was collusive in some sense? Who was responsible? Who signed off on this? Who didn't say that this settlement should not have taken place? Because you can't have the president setting his own settlement up. So lots of legitimate inquiry that she can engage in there if she decides it's appropriate.
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Rachel Maddow
Joyce Vance, this is going to be fascinating to watch. Again, we don't know for sure whether they are withdrawing this thing. The reporting is that they are at least considering it. There remains the open question about the IRS immunity part of this that was tacked onto the supposed settlement after it was closed. It's going to be a lot to watch here. Thanks for helping us understand, Joyce. It's really good to see you.
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Joyce Vance
Thanks.
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Rachel Maddow
All right, much more news ahead here tonight. Stay with us.
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Joyce Vance
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Joyce Vance
Why have we asked our contractor we found on Angie.com to be our kid's legal guardian? Because he took such good care when redoing our basement that we knew we could trust him to care for our kids, all eight of them, should something happen to us.
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Rachel Maddow
Are you my dad now?
- [24:53]
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- [25:36]
Rachel Maddow
Hey, do you remember this little guy? His name is Greg Bovino. He led Donald Trump's chaotic, violent, inept paramilitary invasions of multiple US cities until he was fired a couple of months ago. Mr. Bevino has been spending his retirement lamenting that he was not able to achieve his personal dream of deporting nearly a third of the US Population. He's also posted photos like this one on social media. He posted that on social media. He posted that photo just before jetting off to a white supremacist conference in Portugal this weekend. He was the special guest at a gathering of European far, far, far right politicians and activists who advocate for making Europe more white. Avino appeared before a giant photo of himself in the 1930s German style greatcoat he apparently made for himself to wear on the job. He told the assembled fascists in Portugal that the United States and Europe have, quote, the same problems and the same solutions. Last fall, when that tiny terror was leading the Trump administration's attack on Chicago, Trump's federal prosecutors, you might remember, they charged a local Chicago man, a Chicago carpenter, with plotting to kill Greg Bevino. Trump's DOJ said that this man had put out a hit on Greg Bravino, had offered cash to anybody who would kill him. Bevino said it was just more evidence of how terrible things are and terrible Chicago. He called the city a war zone. But you know, interestingly enough, that case immediately fell completely apart after multiple court rulings that prosecutors were trying to say stuff in court about the defendant that they had no evidence to back up. The jury in the case proceeded to acquit the defendant in less hours. That pitiful failed case was run out of the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago. The case just fell apart completely, which is important to know because everything is falling apart in that particular U.S. attorney's office right now. At the center of the collapse is the office's case against the so called Broadview 6. Federal prosecutors initially indicted six people for protesting outside the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. They charged them with felony conspiracy, but then started going wrong quickly. They dropped the charges quickly against two of the defendants. Then they pared back some of the charges against the remaining four. That made defense attorneys start to wonder was go, what was going on. Defense attorneys demanded to see the grand jury transcripts, which would show how prosecutors got a grand jury to indict these defendants in the first place. Rather than turn over those transcripts, the U.S. attorney's office instead just dropped the remaining felony charge altogether, saying, okay, now you don't need to see the grand jury stuff, right? The defense attorneys at that point could have just celebrated having all the charges dropped, but they decided they really wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on. The judge eventually agreed with the defense attorney's requests, and she ordered prosecutors to hand over the grand jury transcripts. It was quickly clear why they'd been trying to keep them hidden. Upon reviewing those transcripts, the judge said, quote, I have read hundreds if not thousands of grand jury transcripts. I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts. She accused the U.S. attorney's office not just of all that misbehavior, but of trying to hide that misbehavior from her by initially giving her a redacted version of the transcripts that hid the worst stuff that they had done well upon getting dressed down by the judge that way. The U.S. attorney's office then dropped all the charges, all the felonies, all the misdemeanors. And The Trump appointed U.S. attorney in that city has been flailing ever since, saying he wasn't personally aware of any of the misconduct, saying he took action as soon as he heard about it. He's announcing sweeping new reforms to his office. But against his denials, one of the Broadview Six defense attorneys, a man named Chris Parenti, says the U.S. attorney himself is a big part of the problem here. Parenti accuses the US Attorney of having had contact with the grand jurors himself. If true, that's basically a catastrophe for that federal Prosecutor's office. The U.S. justice Department under Donald Trump has cratered. It's basically gone. But in Chicago specifically, what's going on there right now could result in potentially one of the biggest federal prosecution scandals ever in the history of this country. And that's saying something for Chicago. Specifically, let alone for the country, but I mean it, for the whole country. Joining us now is Chris Parenti, attorney for one of the Broadview Six, former federal prosecutor himself. Mr. Parenti, I really appreciate you making time to be here. Thank you.
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Chris Parenti
Thanks for having me on, Rachel.
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Rachel Maddow
So this case is not over. Despite the fact that all the charges against your client and all his co defendants have been dismissed, you're continuing to push on this issue of alleged misconduct by the federal prosecutors here. The judge says she's going to entertain briefings on whether this was a vindictive prosecution. What should we expect to keep happening here, and why are you still pushing?
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Chris Parenti
We're still pushing, Rachel, because, again, the government picked the wrong six people here to go after. Right? These are six people who were out there at that Broadview facility protesting for the rights of the undocumented that were being abused by our government. So they were willing to risk their own finances, their own freedom to fight for those people. And they're willing to see this through into the end because they realized how important this case is. Right. What this case has done is it allowed us to see what goes on in secret inside these grand jury rooms. Over the past week or two, I heard Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on these news shows telling people, hey, it might look like DOJ's, you know, returning political indictments against Mr. Comey and Don Lemon and the Southern Poverty Law Center. But don't worry, it's not us, it's the grand jury. Right? That's the official word here. But if his prosecutors are corrupting that grand jury process, and I can assure you they are, because we've seen these transcripts, then all of that falls away. Right? Because then you can't. The grand jury is just being bulldozed by federal prosecutors who are acting in an unethical way. And the behavior that we saw in our grand jury is. It's appalling. As a former federal prosecutor, I've never seen anything like this. The federal prosecutor went in there and personally vouched for the. The indictment. She threw out grand jurors who voiced dissent. Right. That's one way to get an indictment. Oh, you don't like it? Then get out of the room. And she had contact with the grand jury outside of the grand jury room, which you can't do. So if that's what they're doing to get these cases, these political cases, and the Broadview Six case was a political case, and we're convinced it was directed from the White House or the Trump administration, if they're willing to have prosecutors act in such an unethical way in a room where there is nobody, there's no judge, there's no defense attorney. It is built on trust that the Department of Justice will have its prosecutors do the right thing. If that trust erodes, then the whole system collapses. And that's why all six defendants in the Broadview Six case are willing to continue to push this fight forward, because they want the sunlight to expose what this Department of Justice is having their prosecutors do behind closed doors.
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Rachel Maddow
I'm really glad that you explained it that way. I feel like that's part of the reason that I've been so interested in this case and in the other cases where misconduct before the grand jury has been alleged. I mean, again, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me like us non lawyers in the country really need to get our heads around this particular problem. Because if they are lying to the grand jury, if they are engaging in misconduct before the grand jury, what that means in non legalese, is that they can bring criminal cases, they can bring charges, they can potentially arrest and jail people on the basis of nothing, and they can do it to all of their political opponents, to whole classes of people. If the grand jury system falls apart because they are abusing it, because they are behaving behind closed doors in ways that aren't what they're supposed to be doing under the judicial system, it really kicks the door wide open to mass arrests of their political opponents. Now, the judge acceding to your request to look at these grand jury transcripts, recognizing and being so STERN with the U.S. attorney's office here, after what they did, what kind of penalties are possible here? What kind of punishment is possible here? How can this U.S. attorney's office, how can any of these prosecutors offices be sort of brought back under the right side of the law if judges decide to do that?
- [34:24]
Chris Parenti
Yeah, we are hopeful. I mean, this judge was deceived by the U.S. attorney's office for seven months. My view of this is she is angry, right? For seven months. And keep in mind, she came out of that office as I did. And I think she didn't see it because you don't want to see it. You want to believe that that US Attorney's office, the Chicago US Attorney's office, which is known around the country as being one of the preeminent offices in this country, you don't want to see that they're doing things the wrong way or they're doing. They're putting not just their finger on their Scale, but their entire body on the scale for this one. Right. And you don't want to see that. And now that at the end of this. Right. She saw it. Right. And the government tried to hide it. They were ordered to turn over transcripts, and what they did is they redacted certain parts and they removed pages. Right. You would never do that with something that's only going to the court.
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Senator Andy Kim
Right.
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Chris Parenti
You redact things that'll be on a public docket, Social Security numbers, birth dates, names, things that are just going to a judge in her chambers. You wouldn't redact anything. But someone in that office and maybe more than one person sat down and literally crossed out all of this misbehavior that I just described for you that occurred there and took out pages and didn't tell the court. So, you know, everyone is thinking that the office is acting with that presumption of regularity that the department is usually entitled to. But as we tried to argue to the court, judge, that's gone. And it's not just for what's happened in Chicago. You see it across the country. This Department of Justice has mailed it in on doing things the right way. And now it's time for judges like her and judges across the country to say, I'm not gonna allow this. We have now seen what you're doing behind closed doors, and the American people need to see it. Because if you're doing it here in Chicago, I guarantee you they're doing it in every other office because they're getting pressured to put through these indictments that no grand jury, if you didn't put your finger on the scale, would indict. And keep in mind, in our case, the grand jury voted no. And it shows how relentless this department is. Even when the grand jury, who almost never says no, voted no against this indictment, they went back the next week and engaged in more misconduct to get this across the finish line. That's the scary part.
- [36:26]
Rachel Maddow
Yeah. And judges around the country, in Chicago and around the country, so getting up on their hind legs and saying no to this, exposing it, acknowledging that it's happening and saying we're going to put a stop to it could be, I think, a whole new phase in Trumpism and in what this administration is doing and even tries to. Chris Parenti, former federal prosecutor, attorney for one of the Broadview Six. Mr. Parenti, thank you so much for your time. Please keep us apprised. We'd love to have you back.
- [36:53]
Chris Parenti
Will do. Thank you, Rachel.
- [36:55]
Rachel Maddow
More ahead here tonight. Stay with us,
- [36:58]
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- [37:58]
Rachel Maddow
Why have I asked my H Vac guy I found on angie.com to change my grandpa's trachea to Because I was so amazed by how quickly he replaced our air ducts, I knew I could trust him to change Pop Pop's tube while I was on vacation. Make it quick young man. Aw, see, Pop up trusts you. I think we should call a doctor.
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- [38:32]
Rachel Maddow
So Homeland Security denies the hunger strikes are taking place altogether. But for months now, we've seen them pop up one after another. First it was a reported 100 people held prisoner at the Moshannon Valley Processing center in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania. Then it was another reported 200 people at the North Lake Processing center in Baldwin, Michigan. Then it was reported 20 people at the Desert View Annex in Adelanto, California. And now it's a reported 300 at Delaney hall in Newark, New Jersey. And while the private prison company that runs all of these facilities, company called Geo Group, says all of its facilities are monitored by ICE and Homeland Security and comply with the agency's detention standards, all of the hunger strikes at all of these facilities are reportedly protesting similar things. Inhumane conditions, inedible food, a lack of access to medical care. And we have seen demonstrations outside all of these facilities all across the country. But the epicenter of these protests right now is outside Delaney hall in Newark, New Jersey. As of this hour tonight, the half mile radius surrounding Delaney hall is yet again under curfew. That curfew was put in place by Newark's Mayor, Ross Baraka, who himself was arrested for protesting outside that same facility just last year. Every day for more than a week now, protesters have been showing up in considerable numbers outside Delaney hall to draw attention to that reported hunger strike going on amid the people held prisoner inside. Last week, there were repeated clashes between federal agents and protesters, with demonstrators pushed to the ground and sprayed with chemical irritants. In one instance, an officer beat up a demonstrator with a baton, hitting the person across the torso and thighs and knee and calves as the man tried to flee. New Jersey Governor Mikey Sherrill, who herself has called for Delaney hall to be shut down, ordered New Jersey State Police to create a barrier around the facility in order to try to de escalate the standoff between the federal agents and the local protesters. That said, since then, we've seen multiple violent clashes between protesters and the state police. Activists say dozens of protesters have been arrested. Last week, New Jersey Senator U.S. senator Andy Kim was one of the lawmakers who showed up and demanded to inspect that facility to see what was really going on inside. They tried to tell him he couldn't come in, but he did come in. As he was exiting the facility, he says he saw a group of ICE agents staring down a crowd of protesters, preparing to push through the crowd with an armored car. Senator Andy Kim tried to de escalate the situation himself by physically putting himself between the ICE agents and the protesters. It did not work. ICE agents nevertheless tackled protesters, dragged them along the ground. Senator Kim himself ended up getting hit by pepper spray. Senator Andy Kim joins us next. Stay with us. So we've been following a number of developing stories today and tonight, particularly as the White House moves to drop President Trump's demand for a $2 billion slush fund of taxpayers money. But tonight, we've got eyes on the Delaney hall immigrant prison in Newark, New Jersey, which has been the site of protests for a week now, as local residents basically show up to try to support immigrant prisoners who are reportedly on hunger strike inside that facility. Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey was hit with pepper spray at Delaney hall last week as he tried to put himself between police and protesters there. Senator Andy Kim joins us live now. Senator Kim, thank you so much for being with us tonight. I appreciate you.
- [42:19]
Senator Andy Kim
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [42:21]
Rachel Maddow
The Department of Homeland Security says there's no hunger strike happening at all and the conditions inside Delaney hall are nothing to complain about. I know you were able to get inside last week. What can you tell us about the conditions there?
- [42:35]
Senator Andy Kim
Well, first of all, I can tell you that DHS is lying. They're lying because they are trying to cover this up. They're in damage control. You know, they saw what happens when the American people are outraged about this in Minnesota and elsewhere. They know that they will lose control over this narrative. So they have to deny it. But I saw it with my own eyes, as did many of my colleagues. And this is something where again, it's not even just in Delaney hall, as you pointed out earlier. It's a facility and detention facility after another all across this country. And this is the brokenness that I see when I see an 18 year old high school senior locked up there at Delaney hall, when I see and talk to a pregnant woman who is not getting the care that she needs, or a man with stage three lung cancer. Those are the situations that are before us. They're not the worst of the worst. They aren't these violent criminals that Trump keeps talking about. And it's happening with our money, it's happening with our resources. Instead of actually supporting and fighting to lower our costs and deal with affordability, this is where billions of dollars are going to.
- [43:45]
Rachel Maddow
Delaney hall has been the site of powerful and controversial protests and arrests and confrontations. It's also been the subject of the types of reports that you just described in terms of the way those conditions seem to be falling short and failing the people who are being held there in very large numbers. Can the state of New Jersey do anything to get this place shut down? Can the people of New Jersey do anything more than they already are to get this type of facility out of their state?
- [44:15]
Senator Andy Kim
Yeah, well, we're certainly looking and seeing how we can take legal action, not just against what's happening with ICE there, but also with Geo Group. I mean, Geo Group is running this facility. They're getting nearly a billion dollar contract to be able to run this. And you can see how this is all caught up within itself, that there's this revolving door between ICE and geogroup. For instance, today is day one of the new head of ice. What was his previous job? He was a senior vice president at Geo Group. He was there for well over a decade working and lobbying there. And now he's the head of ICE starting today. I would actually say that his job is probably exactly the same because what we see here is again, just this revolving door. Tom Holman is someone who worked with Geo Group before, now is at the White House doing this. And they are profiting off of the human misery that they are creating there. Like, you know, when I was there, they had one doctor for about 800 detainees, one full time doc. And when we heard so many of the reports of just the medical support not there for so many of these detainees, Geo Group could hire more doctors if they wanted to, but then that's going to be less profit for them. You know, they just made 800% increase in profit this past year as opposed to the year before. You know, this is their golden age, as Trump said during his inauguration. And it's something that's coming at the expense of the American people as well as just making these types of conditions at facilities all over the place. And I will say Delaney hall is not just some one single bad apple. You know, this is a systemic failure, a systemic failure across the entirety of this system that is doing exactly what it's intended to do, which is make profit for these corporations that donated to Trump's campaign and his inauguration and creating just this level of chaos within the rest of our country.
- [46:12]
Rachel Maddow
New Jersey. U.S. senator Andy Kim. I'm sorry that you got pepper sprayed while you were there last week. I'm sorry that happened to you and that it's happened to those other protesters there. But I thank you for being there and I thank you for being here tonight. Thank you for joining us, sir.
- [46:25]
Senator Andy Kim
Yeah, thanks for shining a light.
- [46:27]
Rachel Maddow
All right, we'll be right back. Stay with us. Okay, two quick things. First, if you have not gotten tickets yet for the big MSNOW live event in Philly later this month, this is a really good time to do it. I'm told there are new and cheaper tickets available, so use the qr code there. June 25th at the Academy of Music in Philly. It's going to be awesome. And second thing, I will be back here tomorrow night at 10pm Maybe with more of a voice. We'll see. I'll be here tomorrow night because tomorrow night is election night. We're gonna be covering primaries in Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota, the big governor's race in California. We're gonna be following those races all day. Then at 10pm Eastern tomorrow, Tuesday night, 10pm Eastern. I'll be here with the whole team to cover the results as they come in. We're all gonna be night owls tomorrow, 10pm Eastern. I'll see you then.
- [47:21]
Chris Parenti
Why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster? I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical Knew I could trust him to bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end.
- [47:31]
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