of any direct conversations about race, so how do you expect this upcoming hate crimes trial to be different on that front? alex, race will be front and center in the federal trial. the federal indictment said that these men infringed mr. arbery s civil rights because he was black. there was plenty of evidence that these defendants are old-school, unreconstructed racists, including that travis mcmichael allegedly used the n-word after he pumped three bullets into mr. arbery. the state prosecution could have used this, but i think when they ended up with a nearly all-white jury, they decided against introducing it. but alex, sometimes it s important to name the evil. racial animus is part of what must be proven in a federal trial, so prosecutors will fight to get all of that evidence in. you know, kristen, early on
arrested him, we should never have held the trial. those 12 jurors who were peers of william cosby and peers of andrea constand, looked cosby in his eye and said guilty, guilty, guilty. they found that he sexually assaulted andria constand, and i think that s really important, not only for survivors, but i think it s also important because, yes, this is a blow, but this sexual predator, yes, he gets to walk free. he was still found guilty. kristen, i know that this has just been a few hours since this news came out, but i m curious when you kind of look back at some of the decisions you and the prosecution made collectively, do you have any regrets? would you have done it differently in any way now knowing and i know hindsight is now 20/20, but is there any way this moment could have been avoided when you still bring justice for the alleged victims of bill cosby?
stephanie gosk, thank you very much. appreciate your coverage. joining me is heidi thomas who accused cosby of sexual assault and chris tin gibbons fedden, former special prosecutor in the cosby case and msnbc legal analyst. ms. thomas, i have to get your reaction to this pretty shocking development today. yes. it s a gut punch. were you, was there any warning given to you, any of the other victims, did you get a warning this was coming? any idea? none, none. in fact, we were contacted within the last two to three weeks by the parole board. he was refused and the victims advocate office reaches out to us ahead of time to let us know that s up for parole. he has never as he s made very clear, he never has admitted that he did anything wrong and
it was pointless. no one was going to believe me, and i would have lost my job, and 30 years later, i started hearing people, these women saying they were drugged, and i thought, oh, i bet that s what happened. so that s kind of my story. i think you know, the fact is, this was andrea constand s case, and the fact that there were over there were 60 of us that could back her up. yes. you know, i just it s, it floors me. it s unimaginable. i need to get kristen gibbons fedden in. how could it be this prosecutor who, the weirdest, it s weird enough he was trump s lawyer to an impeachment, somebody serially accused of sexual, everything from sexual
mr. castor has nothing to immunize mr. cosby in and when you look at it that way and the fact that all of the statements that mr. cosby made in his deposition regarding andria constand was exactly what he made to the police moments when he was interviewed, i don t agree with the fact that he made an agreement and waived his fifth amendment right to self-incrimination and he did. he made no incriminating statement in the jurisdiction by which bruce castor had the authority to immunize bill cosby. as i look back i have no regrets and that might be because because i honor and respect the decision of the justices, i have to respectfully disagree. all right. kristen gibbons fedden, thanks so much for your time. greatly appreciate it this afternoon. our other top story this hour right now, the house is voting on a select committee to investigate the january 6th