>> good evening from new york and i'm chris hayes. another rioter at the capitol on january 6th received a serious prison sentence. a qanon follower, nicholas lang grant was given 44 months for assaulting enough of sir with a dangerous weapon. he threw an orange traffic barrier and to stick like objects at officers who were protecting the lower west terrorist entrance to the capitol. quote, the items were capable of inflicting serious bodily injury. he also bragged about the attack on social media like so many of his courts. next time we come back with rifles. and while we are continuing to see formal accountability to the insurrections footsoldiers, there are also investigations underway on multiple fronts that are moving up the chain of command. in the case of elmer stewart rhodes, the founder and leader of the oath keepers gang who was allegedly the mastermind behind the plot to take the capital, and to hold the peaceful transfer of power by force on january 6th. rhodes has been in jail since his arrest and an indictment earlier this month on multiple charges including seditious conspiracy. today we learned he will remain in jail until his trial, which is tentatively set for july. rhodes was denied bail in part because the judge deemed him a flight risk and that was based hard on the fact that he appears to have constructed elaborate escape tunnels in his backyard. and how do we know about that? well, rhodes's ex-wife took these photos of which she described as a training spider hole he built to hide from federal officers in case they came looking for him. now going even further up the chain prosecutors are looking to the phony electoral certifications that were sent the natural archives for multiple states falsely declaring donald trump the winner of the 2020 election. the way i think about the scheme? it's like when your kid in school. elementary school. and you get a letter sent home. maybe it's about great. maybe it's misbehavior. you might try to just for your parent signature and take it back the next day. this was like that, but for a coup that would end american democracy. now there is a somewhat technical process for electing a president, specifically how electors are chosen and sent to vote for the president and basically and practically in every state, the winner of the popular vote in that state gets to send all of their electors to vote for that candidate. so after the 2020 election trump supporters and seven different states that joe biden won, sent phony certificates to the national archives claiming that they were the actual electors. this is what that document looked like from arizona. and the national archives received the same kind of thing from georgia, michigan and new mexico, nevada, pennsylvania, wisconsin. the national archives is the place that the certificates get sent. it's just getting sent from people who didn't actually win. now in some cases the documents were signed by a top state republican party official, this was not like a freelance group or wackos. so even though this may sound like flailing or almost again, comical attempts of forging appearance signature, sending fake documents within the national archives won't notice. a look, we got this from arizona. it was actually part of a very coordinated plan by donald trump and his allies. they knew full well that these documents were hard have legitimate. one might even say fraudulent. but it's congressman jamie raskin, a member of the january six committee told the new york times quote, the phony electors were part of a plan to create chaos on january six, as a pretext for a contingent election. they were an effort to create the illusion of contested state results in order to trigger the second part of the plan, to give mike pence an excuse to reject the electors. stop the certification and keep donald trump in power. we're still waiting to find out what, if anything, the january six committee that congressman raskin sits on is going to do about it. that raskin another members say they are now looking at the fixer difficulties and that's not at all, just last week the former trump campaign advisor epshteyn admitted to this plot. telling my colleague that he was involved in another familiar name was in charge. >> yes, i was part of the process to make sure there were alternate electors for women as we hope the challenges to the city electors would be heard and successful, part of the constitution and electoral counteract. everything that was done was done illegally by the trump legal team according to the rules and hard on that -- of rudy giuliani. >> well, it was done by the trump legal team, but whether it was illegal or not, that's a real open question. because it doesn't work like this. it's not supposed to work like this. nothing ever really happened before. that's facially false! that's not true! the thing the attested to in signatures and since international archives was a lie! potential for charges related in this plot picking up steam and it has implications that range across the entire country because this plot was happening in georgia. as the atlanta journal of constitution points out today, hang ranking state republicans can face criminal scrutiny. david schaffer, state senator birch on snow leading candidate for lieutenant governor warming the fake electors. -- for nearly a year the bipartisan state elections commission has been considering a complaint alleging that republicans who signed the full certificate committed fraud. they have made no moves yet. the lawyers brought the case -- commission -- then there's michigan. in michigan you might have seen this. attorney general dana nessel gave federal prosecutors information from her investigation into the matter. she says there's enough evidence to charge the 16 phony republican electors. secretary of state jocelyn benson to share new evidence with the january six committee and with the u.s. attorney general meryl karlyn about coordination between the foreign president and his team and the michigan officials again who carried out the fake electors plot. it includes an audio recording and co-chair of the michigan republican party himself was one of the fake electors saying trump asked her and others to carry out the scheme to circumvent the electoral process. and michigan secretary of state jocelyn benson joins me now. secretary, can you tell us with this recording is? would evidence there is of wet this plot wasn't who is directing it? >> yes. thanks for having me, chris. thanks for connecting the dots for your viewers to snow. it was great and underscores with this additional evidence is seeking to do. at this moment when all of this is happening in december of 2020 rudy giuliani is visiting the state of michigan, testifying before a sham legislative hearing about full celebrations of wrongdoing in the election. there are other conversations happening between the white house and legislators. a lot of this evidence and all of it that was submitted to the committee through our effort this week, it's designed to put all of these receipts, if you would say so, in the hands of federal investigators who have the ability to look further into what was happening behind the scenes. whatever conversations happened. what coordination there was between this effort to lie to the federal government about who the electors were for the state of michigan and other coordination that ultimately could have led to and under the support, underscored the tragedy of the u.s. capital on january six. >> two things struck me about law -- it's not just random activists. it's not a bunch of people getting together and sing we're going to do this. in many cases it's the folks who are going to be the electors. if trump carried this thing. and it's coordinated with the trump campaign and through the republican party. i mean, tell me about that. what you know about the degree of coordination and who was involved? >> yeah, first let's acknowledge, candidates don't get to choose electors, voters choose the electors. and so -- >> yes, you would hope, but i think that's a better system frankly yes. >> yes. that was something that i had to say a lot during when there were candidates trying to claim victory before the voters had completely had their say. all of that to say there was evidence. there were local cases coming out from the county -- connections to trump's attorney and his campaign to the point where sydney powell had access to documents that were not public but were part of the lawsuit and submitted them to the u.s. supreme court as part of an effort to show some sort of malfeasance with regards to our elections falsely so. there's just a lot of smoke here. a lot of details that we. myself is a chief election officer we don't have the authority to investigate and go further into what connections there may have been, but there's enough there that the january six committee does have the authority and ability to gather that additional evidence so we could get a full story of not just would happen in the state to try to nullify both votes, 5. 5 million citizens and others all across the country, but also underlie the violence and the terror that happened on the day that these electoral counts were happening and being voted and collected on in the u.s. capital. it's all about accountability at this point. and allowing the entire truth of who was involved to unfold that we can't see full consequences for all involved and also with an eye towards making sure it does not happen again. >> at the risk of stating something obvious, and i feel like it's worth reiterating the points. no one actually pays much attention to the technical sort of chain of custody at the electoral college cup. there is a call made in the media and then the next president isn't operated. it's a transition. that didn't happen here because of the resistance of becoming a president who wanted to forestall the peaceful transfer of power. just to be clear, there's no precedent for this in your state, rain? it's not the case ever before that when someone before winds the other people are like -- they decide to send in their own certificates just in case if maybe they're appeals -- >> yeah. exactly. this is unprecedented and i think the point we're trying to show the committee with this additional evidence is that nothing happened and isolation. everything was connected from the moment unofficial results were released 24 hours after the polls close. subsequently almost every day after that there were attempts to harm the full certification of the results and interfering with that certification at the local level and state level. and when we met at the capitol -- the state capital on december 14th, individuals showed up claiming they should be lightened because they were the actual actual electors. all of these things happening at the same time trump and his attorneys are coming to michigan talking to legislators. again at the time, we were just trying to protect the will of the people and make sure we got those actual certificates -- the real certificates to the national archives so that actually everything could go up -- knowing there were a lot of efforts to try to stop us from doing so. now it's about connecting the dots between all those efforts, so that we can't just again ensure everyone's accountable be able to tell the whole story so that if anyone tries this again. we are there and ready to stop it. it >> you are one of the states know where this alternate fake fraudulent electors actually met -- a attempted to meet. they meant in some secret room in the capital. i think that happened in arizona as well. partly because my understanding is that under lots with they have to do. they're trying to sort of cos play all the steps and to see who the -- claim their the rightful electors, but obviously they're not. michigan secretary of state jocelyn benson, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you for having me, chris. >> soon another batch of crucial evidence will be handed into the hands of the january six committee after one of the central figures and donald trump's coup attempt lost his fight to block their subpoena. next, with the ruling in this case could mean for other witnesses fighting subpoenas and why the committee is eager to get john eastman's emails, next. next i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54, what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80, what's my price? $9.95 a month for you 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the days leading up to january 6th. committee first subpoenaed eastman in november and he has been dodging and fighting them ever since. he's pled the fifth 146 times when he appeared before the committee last month, and he's been trying to keep his papers out of there has to. but a judge just dashed his hopes on that. michael isikoff has been covering the latest developments on the eastman case. michael, set this up for me. what documents did the committee want access to and how is the segment trying to block them? >> there's something like 19,000 emails that have been identified and that were exchanges between eastman who was then at chapman university, and california, and trump and his legal team. that is a pretty substantial body of evidence right there. the committee subpoenaed chapman university for these emails because they were apparently on, a big chunk of them, were on the university server. he went to court to try to block the committee from getting his emails. this is just a few days after he invoked the fifth amendment 146 times when he was deposed by the committee. and now, judge david carter in california's hearing this dispute. he ordered that eastman and his lawyers produce a privileged log identifying which of those emails they want to claim were covered by attorney privilege. but the interesting development in the hearing the other day on this case was, the lawyer for chapman university, who said, in court, that all of these emails were improper, unauthorized, and he likened them to contraband because, this was a chapman university server, it wasn't easements personal server. so the idea that you could have attorney-client communications on a third party server is not likely to fly with judge carter. >> so he's emailing on his chapman address in the midst of this frenetic period and essentially coup plotting. they are sitting on the server. i want to read from your piece here, because i thought it was striking as well. the lawyer for chapman university, whose computer hosted the -- the professor had no rights to use the email system, because it was partisan work on behalf of a political candidate, a violation of the university status as a non profit. any used by eastman of the emails was improper and unauthorized. it was like into contraband, as you just said. so you've got the actual possessor's of the document saying, these are contraband. and now the claim that he is trying to make that these were protected by attorney client privilege, is that right? >> exactly. chapman's lawyer has argued that, we'll, chapman you -- i'm sorry, eastman's lawyer argued that chapman knew that he represented outside clients. obviously, chapman is disputing that and is disputing that you have the right to do it. but it's a bottom line reminder for everybody that if you are doing personal work, don't do it on your employers computer server, because they own the material, not you. >> that's a news you can you use segment you can get here. just go sign up for gmail or proton account, very easy to do. when we think is in the documents? i was shocked by the number -- i have to say, and following your reporting, my sense of his sensuality ascended in so far as, it seemed like he might have been a little bit of an arms distanced guy who got this in front of them, but it seems like it was fairly central during the entire plotting. >> he was, john eastman who was a law professor, former clerk to supreme court justice clarence thomas, esteemed in conservative legal circles, he was certainly respectable. he was in many ways one of the most central players in all of this. your previous guest said everything is connected. and you were talking about those for fake electors. that was central to eastman's game plan for blocking the election of joe biden as president, to claim that there were disputed electors. i mean this is laid out in his memo. he wanted pence to say, there is a dispute about who the legitimate electors are for these seven states. therefore, we have to throw them back to the states. there is a dispute. well there was no dispute. it was totally made up. these were phony electors, clearly, but it was central to the eastman strategy. so in many ways, eastman lays out, in these memos he wrote, there were two of them, sort of the game plan for the coup as it were, and everything that took place in the run up to that was part -- most essentially the appointment of these fake electors, in order to advance the strategy. >> the legal theory, just to be clear here, the legal theory is -- disputed electors, it's something that has happened before, in history particularly during reconstruction. because it contemplates that. the idea is that, it was like a pass, the threats are going to throw the electors up in the air and all pence has to do is grab it and docket and say, well i don't know what to tell you guys, we got a dispute, we have two slates of electors in arizona. that's what he's been or to do by eastman, precisely, as the means of essentially overturning the election. >> exactly. precisely, that's what pence refused to do. i should say, the one president that assessment was citing was hawaii in 1960, when the original how'd had's nixon slightly ahead, there was a recount because the margin was so small. and because that recount was ongoing, there were two sets of electors as it turned out, john f. kennedy won the state, very narrowly, and it was those electors that were chosen. but that was a case where there was legitimately -- >> a material -- >> right! it was a close election. nobody was quite sure who was gonna win the state. and all of these cases, there was really no dispute. the elections have been certified and we knew who the legitimate electors were. >> they weren't showing up at the bank teller and saying, i am mr. burns. >> right. >> michael isikoff, great reporting, thank you very much. next, the conservative meltdown over biden's promise to nominate the first ever black woman to the supreme court. we will be right back. l be right back. >> i'm announcing today that one of the first supreme court vacancies in my administration will be filled by the most qualified woman i can possibly find. one who meets the high standards that i will demand for all court appointments. it's time for a woman to sit among our highest jurists. >> when he was running for president in 1980, ronald reagan pledged to put a woman on the supreme court. i didn't make that up, you just heard it right there. the campaign promise was calculated. it was aimed at shoring up his support for women's voters despite his opposition to abortion and the equal rights amendment. when he became president reagan made good on the promise and justice sandra day o'connor became the first woman ever elevated to the supreme court. 40 years after regan made that pledge, then joe biden promised his own historic supreme court nomination. >> number one, i committed that if i'm elected president i have an opportunity to appoint some went to the courts -- i'll appoint the first black woman to the courts and require that they have representation now. it's long overdue. >> today the supreme court associate justice stephen breyer officially announced his retirement and president biden said he will make good on his promise. >> the person i will nominate will be someone of extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity. and that person will be the first black woman ever nominated to the united states supreme court. >> biden has already appointed more black women to federal appellate courts than any president before him. his predecessor had an abysmal record on that front. truly jaw-dropping. as insider reports, an overwhelming number 192 of trump's active appointments are white, while only 37 of them are people of color. notably, trump was the first president, listen the first president since richard nixon not to appoint a single black judge to a federal appeals court. let's be clear. they were pointing a lot of judges. donald trump's judges were also overwhelmingly male. insider also found that only 24% of trump's judges are women. in contrast, biden has made a conscious commitment to increase the diversity of judiciary. he's going to nominate the first black woman to sit on the highest court in this country. a promise that sent conservative media characters into a spiral of racist and sexist tyrades >> i'm sure it will be as guy said, a black woman, he's got a dedication to that. we saw how well that worked out with kamala harris. >> when they say we want to black women, what they really mean is, what we don't want is a white male. >> you've got to get someone who is african american and compotent and that really is a test. and that really is a test. >> why doesn't biden strike a real blow for equity and just nominate brigitte floyd? that was george floyd's sister. she's not a judge or a lawyer or whatever. but at this stage, who cares. that's not the point anymore. this law stuff. >> he does that to over politicize something as sacrosanct and that should be free from politics as the supreme court. >> to exclude certain candidates based solely on base and gender is beyond extremely divisive. it may even be illegal. >> i'm sorry. but these mediocrities. these complete mediocrities whining about this. these legacy cases. the argument is pretty transparent. they believe that white people are the best. supreme, you might even say, and that meritocracy means choosing white people and if you're not choosing overwhelmingly white people than you are engaged in quote, affirmative action. that's the argument. and the irony here is that is also the argument the conservative supreme court is almost certainly going to make this year. they're almost certainly going to strike down race based admission at higher education across the country. agreeing with precisely the same braindead meritocracy argument on view on cable news. i'm joined now by elie mystal, the justice correspondent for the nation. his latest piece is titled the many remarkable black women who could replace stephen breyer. and elise boddie, a professor of civil rights and constitutional law at rutgers law school. she was also appointed to president joe biden's presidential commission on the supreme court. elise, let me start with you, i have to say i didn't know about the reagan pledge until this was in the discourse. i think it is striking, not to say the least, the reaction compared to that pledge to what we are seeing now. what do you make of it? >> you know, chris, it's hard for me to take anything that is said on fox news seriously. we know that we could find excellence in every corner of america and that includes black women. black women have a lot to contribute to the diversity at the bench and have a lot to contribute to the law. so president biden will likely nominate a black woman who will bring that diversity of perspective and background and life experience to the process of deliberation and to the decisions of the court. i think that is extraordinarily important and we should celebrate that win and hope we have it. >> the logic here, elliott, it drives me pretty insane. partly because would happened beforehand, i mean this was a little under covered in trump's -- but like he was like -- it was just white people. not exclusively, but it was unbelievable, how racially slanted those appointments were. and the argument is it's natural. it's meritocracy. lots of white people and white men getting jobs. anything else, that's affirmative action. >> there's no credible good faith argument that the republicans when they are in charge, go out and find the best people available. you cannot make an argument that all the best people available of the 226 touches that are in court not appoint, not one of them was black. you can't say that there are 226 white people who are qualified in the black person will be 228? that's not a credible argument. moreover, you go back to reagan, you don't have to go that far back. you could go as far back to bush the first went there are good marshall tragically died, went out of his way to find a black person to replace him and really quite frankly found a much more conservative person than you could've ever gotten confirmed if he had found a white person that had clarence thomas's views. you don't have to go back to bush 41, you could go to donald trump who said directly while brett kavanaugh was taking water and the republicans were saying you should nominate this other person, amy coney barrett. no, no, no. i'm saving her for ginsburg. and when ginsburg passed away he said he wanted a woman to replace ginsburg. and the national review wrote that they wanted a woman to replace ginsburg so that they would have eight women with them when they overturned roe v. wade. the mediocrity of these people literally knows no bounds. they're happy to play identity politics when it works in their favor and they get more conservative people than they could have otherwise gotten. now they want to turn around with this hypocrisy that when biden says he is going to pick the most qualified person that he could find, and that person is probably not going to be a white guy, because they had 108 out of 115 opportunities to be on the supreme court already. now that somehow not sport? it's a ridiculous argument. it's not surprising from these people. >> there were many years of affirmative action on the supreme court that restricted who is considered for those positions, but there was also conceptual connection. i think people don't understand. the court is very likely to essentially strike down any racial consideration, diversity admissions and -- to me, the core conceptual could see at the heart of both these complaints. and it's this kind of hierarchy of merit -- to be divided by people, i gotta say, people in elite law are crazy about this. i saw this conservative lawyer saying this guy, he's a great lawyer but objectively the best. i'm like dude, there are hundreds of people that could be on the supreme court. literally hundreds. like, everybody get over yourselves. there's thousands of people that could go to harvard. this idea that there is some kind of special little thing in people that makes them to the top. it's the whole driving nonsense behind with the court is going to do here. >> it's really outrageous, first of all, everything elliott said is exactly correct. it's a complete double standard. and the problem is once again, that they don't see excellence across every corner of america. they don't want to see excellence. it's not in their interest to see excellence. with they're trying to preserve as a bastion of white supremacy, and their candid about it. i do have to say that with respect to the case that the court is taking -- i mean i'm concerned and -- i do think it's important to bear in mind, however, it may sound crazy to viewers, but we have been surprised several times before by this court. we thought race conscious admissions was dead in 2003. and justice and today o'connor -- voted in favor of race conscious emissions and wrote a beautiful opinion in many ways. anthony kennedy in 2016 voted to uphold the university of texas policy. i think we have to be careful not to normalize radical outcomes and that would be a radical outcome, because we're dealing with four decades of cases that have affirmed the importance of conscious admission. higher education once this. colleges and universities want to be able to continue to do this. they know how to do this. it's critically important for this country that we provide opportunity for diverse groups of people. if the court is going to strike it down we will have to bulldoze through a lot of law. they've also called for the court to overturn the seminal 2003 decision that i mentioned just a moment ago. let's not accept -- >> you sound like my wife kate who i think takes the same view on this. don't let them off the hook by catastrophizing that the worst is yet to come, because the law is on the side of the right outcome here. so don't take that off their plate. it does strike me. there's politics here. i remember was genuinely kind of horrified and i know a lot of latino people were. it was so gross, it was like dismissive, like this woman, this affirmative action case. i think there's some real political danger here and how the republicans talk about this nominee, honestly. >> i mean first of all, anybody who is preemptively having a problem with biden's potential nominee of a black woman or all like cut their teeth on denigrating the qualifications and credentials -- and one of the longer term problems that we have is that after these people just showed their backside, showed themselves for the racist charlatans that they are, they were readmitted back into the academy. put back on tv, put back in professor ships, there was never punishment in doing that. they're just going to do it again. that's like a long term problem with our society, i believe. the other thing that people need to understand, you don't get more qualified in a kind of straight up old school traditional prestige way than some of the people that biden has on this list. we're talking about a college harvard law u.s. commissions former public defender. been on the bench for eight years, which is longer than amy coney barrett, and we're talking about an immensely qualified person. cheryl, and double cpf. we have amazing -- you can't actually assail their qualifications so that is why they're playing these racial dog wrestles because they can't come at them professionally. >> they're more like human whistles. i mean we can all hear them. thank you both. i appreciate that. coming up, what is going on in an investigation with matt gaetz? i keep asking myself, how is he still bopping around? i will talk to a reporter who knows the case inside and out and where it stands. just ahead. ahead do you struggle to fall asleep and stay asleep? qunol sleep formula combines 5 key nutrients that can help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up refreshed. the brand i trust is qunol. maxlength=32> gaffes are funny things in politics. especially what becomes a gaffe, what doesn't. i'm old enough to remember what happened the democratic presidential candidate howard dean again back in 2004 when he tried to fire up supporters after a disappointing third place finish in the iowa caucuses. >> not only are we going to new hampshire, we are going to south carolina and oklahoma and arizona. north dakota, new mexico, and we're going to california and texas and new york. we are going to south dakota, and oregon and washington and michigan. and then we're going to washington, d. c. says and take the white house. yeah! >> that scream, if you could call it that, that was a multi day, maybe weeklong news story. a viral moment in american politics in the early days and internet. and it helped doomed the chances of getting nominations. the most recent gaffe that i can think of, that also had real tangible effect on election happened last fall. democratic candidate terry mcauliffe said this in the virginia gubernatorial debate. >> i'm not gonna let parents come into schools -- and actually take books out and make their own decisions. stop the bill? i don't think parents should be telling schools with they should teach. >> mcauliffe was absolutely right. you can't have every individual parent controlling the veto over all public school curriculums. it doesn't work that way. curricular are produced by experts and concert with public input, democratic involvement supervision. that clip though, absolutely hurt mcauliffe with parents. he ended up losing the governor's race to youngkin by just two points. tonight there's something that should be a way bigger gaffe and that. it comes from a politician also in the hotly contested senate race this year, in a purple state that joe biden won in 2020. on tuesday, republican senator ron johnson of wisconsin told a local news station he supports a reduction unemployment benefits, and while he explains it doesn't think the government should help families find childcare, he said this. >> people decide to have families. they become parents. that's something they need to consider when they make that choice. i've never really felt it was societies responsibility to take care of other people's children. >> ron johnson says all sorts of crazy stuff. we'll have more soon about his vaccine comments. but coming out against the children of other people? that's something he's rock-solid on. >> parents are responsible for their children. i really don't want government big to gain greater control of over families. it's pretty basic. i don't see anything controversial about that. we're 29 trillion dollars in debt. the last thing we should be talking about is having government spend more money. >> not a mistake. an articulation of ron johnson's views. if you have a kid it's your own fault. deal with it. every parent in wisconsin across lines of race and class who is struggling the difficulties of this pandemic, juggling everything, know that the message of your republican senator ron johnson, who's up for reelection, you are on your own. so suck it up, buttercup. suck it up, buttercup new vicks convenience pack. dayquil severe for you... and daily vicks super c for me. vicks super c is a daily supplement with vitamin c and b vitamins to help energize and replenish. dayquil severe is a max strength daytime, coughing, power through your day, medicine. maxlength=32> there was a time new from vicks. in modern american life that an accusation of a politician engaged in sexual acts to a minor would've been enough to end a career. never mind if there were accusations of payments for it. florida congressman matt gates is proving that time has passed. the three term congressman gaetz representing florida's district is facing accusations of having sex with a 17 year old girl and obstructing an investigation into that allegation. joel greenberg pleaded guilty to six charges including sex trafficking with a minor. gates insists the accusations were false and thus far he is not charged. the developments in the case of not stopped. two weeks ago nbc news reported that gates's ex girlfriend gave testimony to the federal grand jury investigating the congressman just a few days ago, another man involved with greenberg has pleaded guilty to unrelated charges and he's reportedly cooperating with authorities raising more questions about the investigation into gaetz himself. national news correspondent mark caputo's been responding reporting the investigation. mark, welcome. i want to read the first paragraph from your report on january 12th. matt gates's ex girlfriend testified wednesday before veteran jury investigating him for sex crimes, a major development that suggests the department of justice may be moving closer to indicting him. that was two weeks ago. order the updates so far as we know? >> you pointed out the daily beast had first reported that you'll à la carte, aka big joe as he was known, he's cooperating with the federal government. a contract to the daily beast report says he was not a member of matt gates's circle. gates, according to friends and those who knew them when he would hang out with joel greenberg, not the sky big joel, or joel caught, it was kind of a large man. he was a sidekick of joel greenberg's -- before joel greenberg was a tax collector in florida. he was the kind of guy who had so much money from his parents he did not have a job, that he bought am radio time. he had a site kick roomy and pal along, the joel greenberg joe -- show, big deal. that's how they advertise themselves and how they spent their time. green bird parlayed that into this run for what seems to most people pretty obscure. then everything went off the rails. >> so here's the thing i find fascinating about the story. matt gates has not been charged. he denies the allegations pieces but i've covered political scandals and chicago. like sex with a minor is a big deal. it is a big, big deal. it's a horrible thing. just as an ethical matter, and in politics one accused of doing that, it tends to be a pretty big scandal, and i just can't tell if it's the trump rules or are people waiting for a shoe to drop. it seems undisturbed in his political life or a person who has an allegation of sex with illegal child. >> i guess in most favorable terms -- he says he's not guilty. so far he hasn't been charged. he has been under investigation for this since at least mid december of 2020. that's when the feds jumped out of the blue and snatched his phone from him. they also snatched the phone of his ex -- ex girlfriend who was referenced at the top of the segment. who is probably really one of the key witnesses in this case. the three likely key witnesses or the alleged victim, joel greenberg and this ex girlfriend. greenberg has many -- major credibility problems. he's a one man's crime spree in florida. he only pleaded guilty to six counts, but he was charged with 33. incidentally, it's still that mandatory minimum sentence of 12 years. he's trying to do everything possible tag -- to kind of pressure prosecutors and show the judge is cooperating so the judge could shave off the sentence. he's got a problem. the alleged victim or the ex girlfriend is probably the most credibility of the bunch. that's where she's is sort of key. this character, big giorgio ella caught, he had sort of hug -- he had absolutely no experience in the field. in 2019 he sexually harassed an employee in the tax collectors office among the many disgusting things he said, he talked about how he liked to go to strip clubs and pick up women who are desperate and needed money. that was probably the most principle i could say on air from that. that was settled quietly for $40,000 at the time in 2019. it gives you an idea of the caliber these people. that having been said, if enough witnesses come forward and wind up on the stand, even though they might have credibility problems or might be under pressure like testify overcharging with a crime, but the reality is is that ultimately it's going to be for the jury to decide if there's an indictment, the question is will the jury believe with a here? we'll have to wait and see to see if a, there's an indictment and be, to see how the government presents it in this case and gaetz presents the defense. >> that's all true, legally. i guess having covered political sex scandals, it's not always the standard of a courtroom or an indictment, that is what creates political problems for someone. but those tend to be very different standards in terms of like, i have a political problem in my hand. and everything you said about the legal standards as 100% true an important. he denies the allegations. but like a lot of times, that's not enough, for someone politically. matt gaetz is writing this out. he's in a safe district. we'll see what happens but so far he seems like he sitting tight. mark caputo, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> that is all in on this thursday night. the rachel maddow chill starts right now. right now. desparting supreme court justice stephen breyer at the white house today. the event basically formalized the announcement of justice breyer's retirement. president biden also invited justice breyer and his wife to have a sleepover in the lincoln bedroom sometime i president biden at the white house today, he reiterated his pledge to appoint an african american woman as his nominee to the supreme court for justice breyer's seat. even though other presidents including ronald reagan, including donald trump, have made pledges of that kind, to pick a specific demographic for the court. in

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