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The Rachel Maddow Show weeknights at 9:00 Eastern on MSNBC. So you remember the photos of the guy at the attack in the Capitol January six, the guy with his feet up on a desk in Nancy Pelosi's office, going through papers in that office, he later bragged that he'd left what he called a nasty note on that desk, calling the speaker a word that rhymes with witch but starts with B. He left a note swearing at her on the desk in her office.

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This is him charming guy. The FBI says that they received a tip from a member of the public five days after the Capitol attack, pointing out that in some of those iconic photographs of that guy, if you zoom in on some of the photos of him taken in Pelosi's office, if you look closely, you can see in those photos that actually he was armed while he was in there. In fact, there is a logo that you can see on some kind of stick on his his left hip.

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The that's not like an umbrella or a normal walking stick. The logo on it says, Zap, zap. And what it is, is basically a powerful stun gun mounted on a extendible walking stick, the zap hiken strike, hiking staff, high voltage stun device. It's nine hundred and fifty thousand volts. Here's the FBI agents affidavit about that, quote, on January 11th. Twenty twenty one year affiant learned that law enforcement received a tip that in one or more of the photographs of Barnett seated in Speaker Pelosi's office, he was carrying a stun gun.

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Your affiant reviewed the photographs and determined to the tip to be accurate, as seen in the zoomed in box in the photograph, the Zep brand is clearly visible on the stun gun tucked into Mr Barnett's pants. The weapon appears to be a zap hiken strike nine hundred and fifty thousand volt stun gun walking stick. The affidavit continues. Law enforcement conducted a search on January 8th, two days after the attack at the residence of Mr Barnett in Grey, Arkansas.

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Pursuant to a search warrant during the execution of that warrant, law enforcement observed and observed the empty packaging for that stun device inside Mr Barnett's home. That said, even though they they found the packaging for that device, they never actually found the device, the nine hundred and fifty thousand volt stun gun on an extendable stick that he had on him when he broke into the Capitol and broke into Nancy Pelosi's office and started going through that stuff. This guy did media interviews outside the Capitol when the siege was breaking up, bragging about how that was him and how he had stolen stuff from Pelosi, too.

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And after doing all that, he just went home, drove home to Arkansas. Nobody arrested him.

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The siege of the capital was on a Wednesday. This guy among all the rest of them just went home that night when he got home to Arkansas, he apparently cleaned up some stuff at his house except for the packaging for his stun gun on a stick. He forgot about that, but he apparently got rid of his cell phone and he stashed his guns and he made arrangements to turn himself in when it would be convenient for him, which he decided would be the Friday after the attack.

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And when a judge in Arkansas reviewed his case days later, that judge decided to send him home on his own recognizance, presumably to go keep cleaning up whatever other evidence might be used against him at trial. Now, federal prosecutors in D.C. did not like this outcome, and they asked a federal judge in D.C. to step in to intervene, to stop him from actually being released from custody, basically to override that decision by a federal magistrate judge in Arkansas.

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The chief federal judge in the courts in Washington, D.C., heard that motion from prosecutors this week in D.C., yesterday afternoon in D.C. and it did not go well for Mr. Boots on the desk with a stun gun on his hip. We just got in the transcript tonight of what happened at that hearing. You may have seen headlines about some of the things that the judge said. We just got the actual transcript. Check this out. The judge, quote, pending before the court is the government's motion for review and appeal of the magistrate judge's release order.

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So it is the government's motion. So Miss Dauman is dormant as the federal prosecutor in this case. I will let you proceed as Dauman, the federal prosecutor, says. Thank you, Your Honor. The government's position is that no conditions would ensure the safety of the community and the defendant's appearance. In this case, he broached the US excuse me, he breached the US Capitol during a solemn proceeding with both houses of Congress. And the vice president of the United States were then present in the Capitol.

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He knew exactly what he was doing. Your Honor has his post figure seven in the government's memorandum stating its time shortly before the breach of the Capitol, the defendant bought a stun device that he had purchased just days before. It's clear that he planned his actions and he acted on animus to occupy the office of Speaker Pelosi, the judge and the judge that interrupts my doorman. You call that a stun device? Is it a stun device? Is it a stun gun or something different than a stun gun?

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Prosecutor Your Honor, it is a stun gun, but it's in the form of a walking stick, like a staff. So I suppose it's extendable to the length of what one might call a walking stick, but it can also be collapse down, is my understanding. The judge, that stun gun walking stick device, has that been recovered, the prosecutor? No, Your Honor. And that is part of the government's concern as to Mr Barnett's statement to law enforcement that they could search his home, but they wouldn't find it.

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What the government did recover was the box that it came in as well as the receipt, but the stun device itself. Your Honor, the government has inferred that the defendant has disposed of it in some manner. The judge then in this hearing, the note some of the other times in recent months that this defendant, the guy from Pelosi's office, has recently come to the attention of police in Arkansas, including this charming incident as relayed by the judge.

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The judge says, quote, I appreciate that there was a July twenty fifth, twenty twenty Fayetteville, Arkansas, police report of a nine one one caller complaining about a person who turned out to be the defendant, pointing a rifle at her car because her car had a Black Lives Matter sticker on it. And then there was another incident of a call to the police on September 20th. Twenty twenty regarding protesters for something called Save the Children, reported the defendant walking around on the public street in Fayetteville with a rifle slung on his back and a pistol on his hip.

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So this is part of the known record in terms of his contacts with police, he points a rifle at a woman because her car had a Black Lives Matter sticker on it. He brings multiple guns to a Save the Children rally, which is likely to be part of the kuhnen Satan worshippers anti Semitic conspiracy theory that so many Trump supporters have fallen suerte have fallen under the sway of the judge. In fact, at this hearing asks if that's what this rally was about, if it was a kuhnen thing when he turned up at it with all of the guns, the prosecutor says it appears that is what that rally was.

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The defendant later in the hearing denies that that rally had anything to do with Kuhnen, which OK.

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But Mr Barnett's defense counsel then tries on an argument with this federal judge in D.C. telling the judge, basically, listen, down in Arkansas, we just weren't that worried about this guy. We're still not that worried about him. He seems fine to us. And the defense counsel makes the case to the chief federal judge in D.C. that, listen, the judge who looked at this down here rightfully said the guy could just go home instead of awaiting trial in jail.

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The cops also were not that concerned about picking him up with any urgency. We are much more relaxed about him here. I don't I don't see what the big problem is. Here's the defense counsel trying that on defense counsel, quote, I'd like to point out, your honor, first of all, that my client came home after the events of Wednesday, January 6th. He was called but not visited by law enforcement on the next day on Thursday.

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And through his wife, he made an appointment to surrender on Friday and appeared as he agreed to on Friday morning in the sheriff's office in Bentonville, where he was apprehended. The judge. And wouldn't you agree that that's a scheduled time, gave him enough time to clear out his house? Didn't the FBI agent in this case testify about Mr Barnett essentially saying, I cleared out my house, go ahead and search it? It gave him just enough time to do that, didn't it, counsel the defense counsel?

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Well, Your Honor, it certainly did. The agent also said that he wasn't going to go out and arrest Mr Barnett on Thursday. So the level of concern here certainly has a mixed set of characteristics. Yeah, mixed levels of concern here, to say the least. They just weren't that concerned about him in Arkansas. Oh, you did, you're the guy with the Nancy Pelosi pictures bragging about what you stole from her office and there's a stun gun on your hip.

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Well, you know what? I can't be bothered to go arrest you right now. Do you want to come in sometime tomorrow? Is that convenient for you?

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And knowing these are the circumstances under which the guy came to the attention of the authorities, the judge in Arkansas, in fact, let him go. And so here's the defense counsel saying to the chief judge in Washington, D.C., Your Honor, you should let him go to just just relax about all this. We don't think he's that big a deal. How do you think that worked out with the chief federal judge in D.C.? How do you think that argument played for her?

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And we know we now know in her own words, the judge, the defendant has been charged with a serious felony, knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority while carrying a dangerous weapon. This offense alone carries 10 years of imprisonment. He's also charged with two misdemeanor offenses, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds and also theft of public money, property records, the descriptions and the title. The title of those offenses, to my mind, don't even properly capture the scope of what Mr Barnett is accused of doing here.

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These felony and misdemeanor charges in some ways, the judge says, are too benign sounding to describe what happened on January 6th at the US Capitol. What happened on that day at the Capitol is criminal activity that is destined to go down in the history books of this country, of hundreds of Americans using force and violence against their own government to disrupt what we have been most proud of, a peaceful and democratic transition of power. This violence disrupted a constitutional function of Congress necessary to the presidential transition and to the functioning of our democracy.

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This was not a peaceful protest. Hundreds of people came to Washington to disrupt the transition of power and to thwart Congress, a branch of the federal government, in carrying out its duty, in fulfilling its constitutional task of officially certifying the votes of the Electoral College during the assault on the capital that was intended to disrupt the transition of power to a new administration as designed under our Constitution. Five people died and many more were injured. Members of Congress and the then vice president were forced to flee the grounds of the Capitol.

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Congressional staffers and members of the media were forced to hide, fearing for their safety, barricading themselves in offices. Many on the scene, from the Capitol Police to members of Congress, were afraid for their lives. We are still living here in Washington, D.C., with the consequences of the violence in which this defendant is alleged to have participated. Thousands of National Guard troops were brought into the district to ensure that last week's inauguration could proceed peacefully. Thousands of heavily armed members of the National Guard remain in the District of Columbia just outside this courthouse, which faces them all with a clear view of the Capitol.

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Visible reminders of this January 6th riot and the assault on the Capitol. We see heavily armed National Guard troops still patrolling from my window behind tall fencing, barbed wire, concrete barriers. All of this is to protect the heart of the federal government and the people of the District of Columbia from the risk of violence. Shockingly, this risk of violence, the judge says, is posed by fellow Americans. Just yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a national terrorism advisory system bulletin indicating a heightened risk of violence from ideologically motivated violent extremists who are emboldened by the January six Capitol attack and might target elected officials and government facilities.

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The government has presented overwhelming evidence that this defendant, Richard Barnett, enthusiastically participated in this act of assaulting the Capitol and disrupting the democratic process. He not only entered the Capitol without authority, but he strutted into the office of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and sat behind her desk and had pictures of himself smiling and seemingly enjoying himself. The government describes his conduct as brazen. I would agree that is an accurate description. He felt so entitled he put his feet on the desk.

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He felt so entitled. He picked up her mail and walked off with a piece of mail. He felt so entitled that the government has pictures of this defendant showing off, holding the mail he took from Pelosi's office. When he reached to the outside of the Capitol. He felt so entitled to do what he did that he spoke to media outlets on January 6th about what he had taken from Speaker Pelosi's office. He said, quote, I put a quarter on her desk and even though she ain't f ing worth it, and I left her a note on her desk that says, Nancy, Bigo was here.

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You curse word. And the judge says, and I quote, Wow, brazen, entitled, dangerous. The judge says, quote, The defendant traveled all the way from his home in Arkansas to Washington, D.C., prepared for this assault on the Capitol. The government has obtained evidence that one week before his travels to the nation's capital, he went out and bought the stun gun and also walkie talkies and also pepper spray. He came to the city on a critical day under our Constitution, prepared with a weapon and cloaked with entitlement.

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The nature and circumstance of this offense clearly weigh in favor of pretrial detention when the defendant drove back to Arkansas from D.C., he admitted, almost bragged that he took steps to hide his identity. He turned off the location services on his phone. He covered his face. He only used cash, all steps to evade law enforcement, which he knew given his fairly brazen conduct while in D.C., we're looking for him. He knew the images of him at the riot and the assault on the capital had been widely circulated.

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He didn't turn himself in immediately, but instead arranged a time arranged for a time to surrender that allowed him to clear out his house of incriminating evidence. He bragged about this to law enforcement, saying, quote, If you all go out there and do a search warrant, you can all see all my bleep. You ain't going to find nothing out there. I assure you, I'm a smart man. There's not anything there. And quote the judge continues, quote, I don't know how smart Mr Barnett is, but he is certainly a braggart.

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Bragging to law enforcement about what he has done to cover his tracks is not a smart thing to do. In short, the judge says the fact that the defendant turned himself in on a schedule of his choosing does little to mitigate the heavy weight of the other factors favoring detention. The court finds that there are no conditions or combination of conditions that will assure this defendant's appearance as required or compliance with any release conditions because of his entitled behavior that he exhibited on videos and in photographs while he was inside the US Capitol showing a total disregard for the law and for official directives and total disregard for the US Constitution.

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The magistrate judge in Arkansas, the judge, this did a thorough and thoughtful job considering the evidence, but I respectfully disagree. The charges against this defendant are gravely serious. The evidence is extraordinarily strong. His brazen conduct inside the Capitol building during the assault on the legislative branch of our government and his evasive conduct once he knew he was under investigation, bring into question his willingness to abide by any conditions of release that this court might impose instead of pretrial detention.

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The government's motion for pre-trial detention is therefore granted. And so the decision back home in Arkansas to let that guy go home, to stay with his girlfriend. That decision is reversed. And the guy who put up his feet on the desk in Nancy Pelosi's office is thereby locked up as of right now, at the orders of the chief federal judge in Washington, D.C.. BuzzFeed News today rounded up a whole bunch of these cases in which people in the Trump mob who attacked the Capitol were allowed not only to walk away and go home after the attack that day like they all were, but then when some of these folks were arrested back home, we have seen again and again that local courts have decided that those people should be freed on their own recognizance and in multiple cases.

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Now, federal prosecutors in D.C. have asked judges in D.C. to overturn those orders and in fact, keep these defendants in custody. I mean, you just saw that happen in the in the Tour de force that we got from D.C. District Court Chief Judge Barel, how that was the case of the guy in Pelosi's office, the guy with the stun gun. We now know in Pelosi's office that same federal judge in D.C. also overrode a local decision in Tennessee where a judge there decided to free the zip tie guy, the guy with all the plastic handcuffs.

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What were you going to do with those? That guy turns out was also armed with a stun gun. He's described by prosecutors as having stashed additional weapons in the bushes just outside the capital. A judge in Tennessee looked at all that and said it was fine to send him home. Judge in D.C. said basically, oh, my God, are you kidding? No, he is staying in custody, so he is in custody. Same thing with the guy in the Kuhnen shirt who chased Officer Eugene Goodman up the stairs just off the Senate floor, just feet away from the office in which Mike Pence had been taken by the Secret Service.

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Turns out when that guy kept sticking his hand in his pocket during that confrontation while he was menacing Officer Eugene Goodman, why was he able to keep putting his hand in his pocket while he was doing that? Well, we now know look at the knife he had in his pocket. While he was menacing that officer. Despite knowing that, despite that evidence, a judge back home in Iowa said to release this guy and let him go home. A federal judge in D.C. had to swoop in at the request of federal prosecutors and say, no, he is not going to be sent home.

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He is going to be in custody. Same goes for a guy arrested in New Jersey accused of beating police officers inside the Capitol and found to have been armed, found to have had a collapsible baton to better beat police officers with a court in New Jersey said, oh, well, it's just beating police officers with a weapon inside the Capitol building while it was being overrun by these guys who were trying to violently overthrow the government. You know what it was three weeks ago.

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Let's let him go home. A D.C. federal judge again intervened there to say, no, that guy needs to stay in custody while his trial is pending, overriding the judge in New Jersey who said to send him home. I mean, basically everybody who attacked the government, everybody who attacked Congress and the Capitol building just walked away on January 6th. But a lot of them got arrested and got charged once they got home, and we have been watching local news stories all over the country ever since local news coverage in north Texas, in California, in Missouri and Pennsylvania, in Massachusetts, in West Virginia and New Mexico and Florida and Arkansas and Delaware and Cleveland, Ohio.

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All people who participated in the attack on the government. We now have all this footage from local news of them having their houses raided, being arrested and in some cases turning themselves in, having their arraignments and their court appearances. And even in the case of those charged with serious stuff, people having weapons and physically attacking police officers and stealing stuff from the Capitol. There is this recurring theme now of even the people charged with the most serious stuff being let out after their initial arrest.

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And so we have seen repeatedly federal judges in D.C. overturning those local decisions and an increasing number of cases and saying, no, these people need to be held in jail.

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And the arrests and the indictments continue to members of the proud boys indicted today. Interestingly, they're being charged with conspiracy effectively for playing some kind of organizing role in the violence. Those charges announced tonight by the Department of Justice in D.C. Two women from Pennsylvania also charged today. They're charged with multiple crimes in conjunction with entering the Capitol as part of the attack on the 6th. In one video posted after the attack, one of the women arrested excuse me, one of the women charged today says, quote, We broke into the Capitol.

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We got inside. We did our part. She says, quote, We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the frigging brain, but we didn't find her and says that on video from the Capitol on the day of the attack, she's now in federally charged. We learned today that US Capitol Police Officer Brian Cesnik, who apparently was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher by the Trump mob that day. We learned today that his body will lie in honor at the US Capitol Rotunda on Tuesday and Wednesday.

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Next week, there will be a ceremonial arrival of his body Tuesday night at nine thirty PM Eastern. We will cover that live here as it happens, if we're allowed to have a pool camera there. And then the first viewing of officer second body as it lies in honor will be from members of the Capitol Police that night and overnight, members of Congress will be able to pay their respects starting the next morning, and then they will hold a tribute for him on Wednesday.

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And then his body will be taken to Arlington, to Arlington National Cemetery to be interred for his services in defending the country against the violent mob sent by the former president to try to stop the transfer of power. And so we are seeing all of these people as January comes to a close, this remarkable month in American history. We are seeing these people who took part in the attack, getting arrested, getting charged. And there is considerable drama and interest and lots to watch and some scandal in terms of the handling of their individual cases.

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There's also the question of how many of the hundreds of members of the Trump mob will end up being charged. Every one of them will enter the capital, can be charged. How many of them will be? There's the question of command and control and organization among them in terms of paramilitary tactics and weapons and all the rest. But, you know, just like Michael Cohen went to jail for delivering the illegal hush money payments that Donald Trump directed should be paid to help his political campaign in twenty sixteen.

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I mean, just as individual one, Donald Trump is the person on whose behalf those crimes were committed. That's why prosecutors described the former president as individual one in those crimes for having directed the commission of those crimes.

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I mean, to a certain extent, so too, we're all these people attacking police officers and breaking Capitol windows and doors and trying to find Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence to shoot them or hang them. So, too, were they doing what they did for a reason for a person. For somebody who they believed was asking them to do it and for someone who they over and over again have been telling judges as they started to get arrested and started to get charged, they believe told them to do what they did.

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The president will face his impeachment trial in the US Senate starting a week from Monday. I can tell you tonight we can report that more than two hundred and seventy congressional staffers have signed on to this letter asking US senators to please convict him at that trial. The letter says in part, quote, We are staff who work for members of the US Senate and the US House of Representatives where it's our honor and privilege to serve our country and our fellow Americans.

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We write this letter to share our own views and experiences, not the views of our employers. But on January six, twenty twenty one, our workplace was attacked by a violent mob trying to stop the Electoral College vote count. The mob was incited by former President Trump and his political allies, some of whom we pass every day in the hallways at work. As the mob smashed through Capitol Police barricades, broke doors and windows and charged into the Capitol with body armor and with weapons, many of us hid behind chairs and under desks or barricaded ourselves in offices.

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Six people died. A Capitol Police officer, one of our coworkers who guards and greets us every day, was beaten to death. The attack on our workplace was inspired by lies told by the former president and others about the results of the election in a baseless, months long effort to reject votes lawfully cast by the American people. Our Constitution only works when we believe in it and defend it. It's a shared commitment to equal justice, the rule of law and the peaceful resolution of our differences.

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Any person who doesn't share these beliefs has no place representing the American people now or in the future. The use of violence and lies to overturn an election is not worthy of debate. Either you stand with the Republic or against it. As congressional employees, we do not have a vote on whether to convict Donald Trump for his role in inciting the violent attack at the Capitol. But our senators do. And for our sake and the sake of the country, we ask that they vote to convict the former president and bar him from ever holding office again.

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And it is signed by more than two hundred and seventy congressional staffers, people who work for members of Congress and members of the US Senate at the Capitol. And we don't know if there will be consequences for the former president at all for having finished off his term in office by leading his supporters toward a violent attack on the government to try to keep him in power.

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We do know that a Republican group, a group called the Republican Accountability Project, is spending a million bucks putting up billboards like this one all over Texas right now. You lied about the election. The Capitol was attacked. Senator Cruz resign. They're putting up equivalent billboards all over Missouri saying the same thing to Senator Josh Hawley. Sarah Longwell, executive director of the Republican Accountability Project, tells Politico tonight, quote, It took a lot of players within the Republican Party to convince the vast majority of their voters that the election was fraudulent.

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We're here to be an institutional memory of what happened and who said what. The goal is not to allow these officials to memory hole the fact that they pushed this lie which incited the attack on the Capitol. So the Republican Accountability Project is going to which is a Republican group, they're going to put up those billboards in Texas and in Missouri targeting Senator Cruz and Senator Holley, and they're going to put up those billboards in the congressional districts, the home districts of all these Republican members of Congress, Devin Nunes in California, Elise Stefanik in New York, Jim Jordan in Ohio, Louie Gohmert in Texas, Madison, Cawthorn in North Carolina, Marjorie Taylor Green in Georgia, Matt Gates in Florida, Mo Brooks in Alabama, Dan Bishop in North Carolina.

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They are all getting those billboards in their district telling them that the US Capitol attack is on them and they should resign. The same group is also going to start running this ad on Fox and Friends and during Fox News primetime shows in their home districts and home states of all of those Republicans I just named. There was fraud, rampant fraud, fraud, raw dominion machines that were problematic. I blame it on the menu. The election was stolen election song from Idol and Golden Dawn.

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President Trump won this election. More bad day, here is what we need. All your corners that you can wisely threaten. You've got to go to the streets and be violent. Let's have trial by combat today. Americans start kicking ass. You did this. Hold them accountable. There's been a lot of media attention, particularly this week on a couple of individual members of the Republican Congress and Congress, members who are really extreme, who have threatened their colleagues and promoted outlandish conspiracy theories that that attention is warranted.

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And there's also a former president and lots of members of Congress who supported and incited the cause behind the violent attack on the US government that was only mounted three weeks ago.

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A white supremacist group marched in Washington today up the National Mall toward the US Capitol, a group that calls itself Patriot Front. A white supremacist group. The FBI today upped the reward for information leading to the capture of the Capitol Hill bomber who they now says placed those operable pipe bombs at the Democratic Party and Republican Party headquarters on Capitol Hill the night before the attack on the US Capitol on January 6th. The mad bomber of the Capitol attack is still at large, somebody capable of creating and placing operable pipe bombs and then getting away without getting caught.

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That person still at large. The reward to capture that person is now up to one hundred thousand dollars. That's what's going on in the right in this country. That's what's going on in the Republican Party in terms of its politics and its actions. Meanwhile, Democrats are like, can we work on covid? You know, can we work on immigration and and a jobs bill? But more than three weeks down the road heading into this last week before the president's impeachment trial, this legitimate nightmare still hangs over us and the arrests and the charges continue for all these low level people.

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But so far, it's just them alone. They're facing the consequences alone. Why do they do it? They do it for. A lot to get to tonight.

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Watch this space, so there's good news, but then there's also worrying and sort of flummoxing, nuanced news. Let's start with the good, plainly good news. There was a Kofod briefing today, another one led by scientists. The Biden administration announced that there's going to be regularly scheduled public briefings multiple times per week from the scientists and experts leading the White House covid response, and they are holding to that. We've had two this week, Wednesday, and now today on Friday.

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They say they're going to do them every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from here on out. And we get to hear directly from doctors, from scientists like Dr. Fauci, Dr. Walinski, the leaders of this effort. Also, good news, new vaccines in the pipeline and getting closer to being ready for use. Early data released from a trial of the Novavax vaccine in the U.K. so pretty promising results. Johnson and Johnson announced today that its data is strong enough that they're going to apply to the FDA for authorization for its one shot vaccine as soon as next week.

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But like I said, some of this news is less than less than just clearly good. And some of it is a little bit hard to pass the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, for example, the one that may be on the cusp of getting approval in the US, at least on the cusp of applying for approval. It turns out Johnson and Johnson's own data that this vaccine is significantly less effective than the vaccines we've already got when it comes to preventing people from getting infected.

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The Phizer vaccine in the Moderna vaccine are more effective at preventing you from getting covid. But even that is a sort of nuanced implication because Johnson and Johnson, while they say that the vaccine may be less effective in terms of preventing people from getting covid, the data from their clinical trials also show that if you get their vaccine, it's almost one hundred percent effective at preventing you from dying from covid or even from being hospitalized for it.

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Johnson and Johnson vaccine also has other redeeming qualities. Like I said, it's only one shot. That's a really big logistical improvement over the current two shot regimen for the vaccines we've already started using. Also, doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine don't have to be frozen, let alone in super deep freeze storage. They just need to be refrigerated. That makes storing it and transporting it and distributing it much easier. But then there's also the news about mutations to the virus, all the vaccines, the Pfizer one, the maternal one that both of those that we're currently using and the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and the other ones that are in the pipeline, all of them appear to be less effective against a relatively new, more contagious variant of the virus that has emerged in South Africa.

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And that South Africa variant has been found for the first time in the United States within the past couple of days.

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So we're all learning basic layman's virology and vaccine techniques, but we need expert help on some of this stuff. And I'm following this stuff as closely as any of you are. But I feel like even with reading all this stuff very closely, including reading some of the studies and stuff, I am left with some some basic, simple questions about what's happening with vaccines right now, what's happening for our country right now in terms of our hopes of beating this thing through vaccination questions like why?

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Why would the FDA approve a vaccine like Johnson and Johnson's? That's only sixty six percent effective. Seventy two percent effective in the US part of the trial when we've already got these other two vaccines already on the market that we're already using that are way more effective than that ninety four point ninety five percent effective at preventing infection, why would we not just double down on the ones that we have if they're so much more effective? There is an answer to that.

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I want it explained to me by an expert also, as these virus variants sort of evading our current vaccine interventions, gain momentum and gain strength and become a larger proportion of the covert infections that are out there, are we going to need to scrap the vaccines that we have and develop new ones that are designed to attack these ascendent virus variants? Or can those vaccines that we've already got be modified or boosted in ways that handle the variants? And what about treatment therapeutics?

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Are these variants less susceptible to treatment as well as being less except susceptible to the vaccines beyond the fact that one of these vaccines may be one shot instead of two shots? What are the other logistical differences in these new vaccines, things like storage, temperature and other things that might make a difference in terms of ease of distribution? Also, is there a material difference between the companies that are making these vaccines in terms of how much they can make? I mean, presumably it's less value to the country to approve a vaccine if the company making it can't make lots of it.

[00:34:54]

Presumably that leans in favor of approving a vaccine where the company has the capability to. Make tons of it, maybe even if their vaccine isn't the best one that is available. I've lots of questions. I'm glad that I'm not involved in the decision making process in terms of figuring out how to implement all of this stuff as all these different vaccine candidates come online. But fortunately, we have somebody here tonight who is in a position to answer them and who is in a decision making role on this stuff.

[00:35:21]

The man President Biden has put in charge of covid vaccine development for the United States joins us live here next for the interview. Stay with us.

[00:35:34]

Joining us now for the interview is Dr. David Kessler. He's a former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration. He's now leading the Biden administration's effort to speed up the development and manufacturing and distribution of vaccines. Dr. Kessler, once again, it's an honor to have you here. Thank you for your time.

[00:35:49]

It's a pleasure, Rachel. You are nine days in, I just want to ask you broadly, how is it going and how did your expectations compare with how how it's actually been? Let me tell you where we are today, as of today, as of tonight, twenty seven point nine million vaccines have been have been administered. Forty nine million have been distributed. Nearly five million people have had both doses. As of tonight, two point seven million people have received them in long term care facilities.

[00:36:26]

The rate of administration is about one point two to one point four million doses a day. We need to meet the president's target of one hundred million doses in 100 days, and we are trying 24/7 to meet that goal.

[00:36:46]

In terms of the vaccines that we've got to work with, there's been so much hope about the Johnson and Johnson vaccine for a number of reasons. One, it seems like Johnson Johnson is capable of producing very large numbers of doses. There's it's more convenient that it's a single shot rather than two shots. It just has to be refrigerated. It doesn't need to be in a deep freezer or even in a freezer in terms of its its transit and its distribution.

[00:37:12]

That all seems good. But the numbers today, just to a layman looking at it, when they announced sixty six percent effectiveness against people getting infected. Seventy two percent in the US part of the trial, that felt like a disappointment when when the two vaccines that we've already got are up in the ninety four ninety five percent range.

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So your numbers are right. But I think we need to look beyond just those numbers. And in fact there's another number and it's eighty five.

[00:37:41]

The number is eighty five percent and that's the effectiveness rate against preventing severe disease. In fact, there were zero cases of hospitalization, zero deaths even with the South African variant with this vaccine. So maybe we won't be able to wipe out the virus entirely, but we can change the course of this disease to take out the morbidity and mortality. And that would be an enormous accomplishment. So in some ways, I'm sitting here and we just a very, very fortunate for the United States to have multiple vaccines.

[00:38:24]

In terms of the variants that are sort of thwarting some of our vaccine interventions right now, all the all the vaccines that we know of seem to have some lesser amount of effectiveness against, for example, the South African variant and maybe some of the other variants, as well as those variants spread more widely. And as they become a larger proportion of the covid infections that are out there, are we ultimately going to need whole new vaccines that are designed to attack them?

[00:38:55]

Or will there be boosters or tweaks to the existing variant, the existing vaccines that we've got? I think it's probably the latter. I think we are equipped to do that. That's the advantage of the great science that's been done, the technology. But the fact is and I was very concerned about the South African variant, but the data today, again, shows just with the Jannsen vaccine that it can work against that variant in preventing serious disease. I don't want to get out ahead of the FDA.

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We have the next several weeks. The FDA has to go through all the data the CDC committee called. The ACP has to study it and decide where and when and if it should be used. So I don't want to get out of head, but I'm sitting here a lot more confident that we can take the morbidity and mortality out of this disease.

[00:39:57]

Dr. Kessler, one of the things that you have talked about here on this show and that I've asked you about sort of with some urgency is the issue of treatment. Obviously, we are trying to reduce the number of people getting infected and thereby reduce the number of people getting sick. But we've still got hundreds of thousands of people getting infected every day and having been personally terrified by seeing the progression of illness in someone who didn't even have one of the worst cases, didn't even end up in the hospital.

[00:40:24]

I want there to be progress on treatment, on therapeutics. And you've talked about how that's a priority for you and and the White House now. Is there any indication that these variants are less susceptible to the therapeutics that we've got or the therapeutics that we're hoping will well show promise?

[00:40:40]

So we are looking at the monoclonal antibodies and we're learning more every day.

[00:40:47]

And as you and I have talked, we need to find an oral antiviral and we've embarked on that program.

[00:40:55]

But right now, if you have positive results in from the age of the virus on PCR or any other kind of testing, and you are at high risk for progressing to severe Kovik disease, you're not in the hospital, but you're at high risk. You really should ask your doctor about starting monoclonal antibodies. Is there an issue in terms of supply of those it's there was a lot of attention to those therapeutics when the president, for example, was hospitalized, and that's part of that was part of his treatment.

[00:41:31]

But there's been this public sense that those are sort of just for the rich and famous and just for the connected. And I'm not sure that people checking into their local community hospital with shortness of breath know that they can get it. What is that? What is the pipeline like in terms of making those available on the front lines?

[00:41:48]

In fact, tonight we have more than we're using. And that's why I'm mentioning it. Again, these are in limited supply. I can't guarantee it's available for everybody. But if you were at high risk for progressing to severe disease and you have a positive KOVA test, at least talk to your doctor. Let's use up what we have. Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner, now leading the Biden administration's effort on vaccines. Sir, good luck to you and your colleagues.

[00:42:20]

Come back whenever you want to talk to our audience. We'll take you any time you have time for us. Thank you, Rachel. We'll be right back. Stay with us. Last weekend, tens of thousands of Russian citizens from literally all corners of that country defied subzero frozen temperatures to protest the Kremlin's imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny after recovering from an attempt to assassinate him with a Russian nerve agent. Navalny, the bravest man alive, returned to Russia where they had just tried to kill him and where they promised him he'd be arrested.

[00:42:58]

When he landed, they arrested him. As soon as he landed, he told the people of Russia to not be afraid. He told them to take to the streets. And in fact, the protests supporting Navalny last weekend were among the largest the country's ever seen. Nearly 4000 Russians were arrested this weekend, but they're going to go do it again. They're planning more protests here at home. Of course, we now have a president who's directly calling on Vladimir Putin to release Navalny.

[00:43:23]

And the US is now again threatening sanctions over what Putin's doing to his own people and to the political opposition. Putin, as security forces continue to lock up Navalny supporters and his family members, put his allies under house arrest. As of now, they are still keeping Navalny locked up as well. But watch this space. I mean, the bravery of the Russian people last weekend was astonishing. And it's not just the security forces and what they did, but temperatures 50 and 60 degrees below zero.

[00:43:50]

And now they're going to go back and do it again this weekend even after four thousand people got locked up. It has to be something to see. You did it, you made it to the end of this week, you thought it couldn't be done, that is going to do it for us tonight. I hope you have a great weekend. We'll see you again on Monday.

[00:44:13]

The Rachel Maddow Show weeknights at 9:00 Eastern on MSNBC.