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Jury selection began Monday in the case of "The United States v. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev," one of the most high-profile federal trials in decades. The 21-year-old Tsarnaev is accused of planting bombs near the finish line at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded more than 260. It was the nation’s worst bombing since the Oklahoma City attack of 1995. Tsarnaev faces 30 counts, more than half carrying the death penalty. Jury selection will take several weeks followed by a trial of up to five months. But as bombing victims and the wider Boston community search for closure, concerns around due process could prolong the case for years. Ahead of the trial, defense attorneys unsuccessfully tried to move the proceedings out of state, saying their client can’t receive a fair trial in the city where the bombing occurred. Federal prosecutors are also seeking the death penalty in a state where executions are barred. That will mean harsh constraints on the jury pool, ruling out anyone who opposes capital punishment. In a dissent to the First Circuit Appeals Court’s rejection of a trial delay, Judge Juan R. Torruella criticized the decision to proceed with the case, writing: "Such a rushed and frenetic process is the antithesis of due process.” We discuss the Boston Marathon bombing trial and its due process concerns with Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: One of the most high-profile federal trials in decades is underway. On Monday, jury selection began in the case of The U.S. v. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged Boston Marathon bomber. Tsarnaev, who is 21 years old, is accused of planting bombs that killed three people and wounded more than 260. It was the nation’s worst bombing since the Oklahoma City attack of 1995. Tsarnaev is also charged for the ensuing events, when he and his brother, Tamerlan, allegedly shot dead a police officer and sparked a citywide manhunt. Tamerlan died after a firefight with police. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces 30 counts, more than half carrying the death penalty. Jury selection will take several weeks, followed by a trial of up to five months. Survivors and victims’ families are expected to attend. Heather Abbott, who lost her left leg below the knee, said the trial will be difficult, but also a healing process for the victims.
HEATHER ABBOTT: I expect it to be emotional. You know, I’m sure that it’s not going to be an easy time. But for me, it’s something that I want to at least experience attending for—I think just for some sort of peace of mind to see, you know, the person who changed my life forever. And I’ve become close with many of the other bombing victims, particularly the amputees. So, I think, you know, to be able to support each other through this time will be important.
AARON MATÉ: Boston Marathon bombing survivor Heather Abbott. But as victims like her and the wider Boston community search for closure, concerns around due process could prolong the case for years.
AMY GOODMAN: Ahead of the trial, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s attorneys unsuccessfully tried to move the proceedings out of state, saying their client can’t receive a fair trial in the city where the bombing occurred. The defense cited the case of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, whose trial was moved out of state. But over the weekend a divided federal appeals court rejected the defense’s motion.
Federal prosecutors are also seeking the death penalty in a state where executions are barred—that’s Massachusetts. That will mean harsh constraints on the jury pool, ruling out anyone who opposes capital punishment.
Defense lawyers have also unsuccessfully argued they haven’t had enough time to pour over thousands of newly released government documents. There’s also the matter of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s arrest. At the time, authorities used a public safety exception to delay reading him his Miranda rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present, a move that sparked controversy. It was before he was read his rights that he reportedly admitted to a role in the bombings. All of these issues could come up on appeal, a possibility that may keep this case in the courts for a long time to come.
For more on the Boston Marathon bombing trial and its due process concerns, we’re joined by Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. Her article is headlined "Tsarnaev Trial Will Test What It Means To Be 'Boston Strong.'" It was published on Monday.
Carol Rose, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the climate right now in Boston and your major concerns about this trial?
CAROL ROSE: Right, well, I mean, I think the key here is whether this is going to be a trial that’s about vengeance or that it’s going to be a trial about justice. Are we going to be ruled by our values, or are we going to be ruled by our fears? The climate here in Boston is a media circus, as you can imagine. It’s sort of 24/7 around this trial. It’s where everybody’s focus is, just as it was where everyone’s focus was during the lockdown, the shelter-in-place order that came out in the days immediately following the bombing. And that’s one of the reasons that the ACLU and others have a lot of concerns about the due process, whether there can in fact be a fundamentally fair trial for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, because it—a test here. This isn’t just a test or a trial of his guilt or innocence; it’s really a test of whether we as Americans are going to let people who use violence shake us from our values, shake us from our commitment to due process, to fundamental fairness and to the American system of justice. And I think that’s what’s at stake right now.
AARON MATÉ: Well, Carol, let’s go through your concerns. Talk about the death penalty in a state that bars capital punishment.
CAROL ROSE: Right. Well, so, Massachusetts has—is a non-death penalty state. So, this is a federal trial, so the federal government, Eric Holder’s decision, is to come in here and pursue a death penalty trial nonetheless. What that means is that when you’re trying to qualify a jury, it has to be death-qualified, is what it’s called, or death-certified. That means they’ll be asking every juror whether or not they’re opposed to the death penalty. And if they are fundamentally opposed to the death penalty, they’ll be kicked off the case. They can’t serve on the jury. So, what does that mean when you want to have a jury of your peers, when you’re in a state where, in general, the peers are opposed to the death penalty, but we’re going to have a jury that’s death-qualified? So, that’s just one of the many due process concerns that have been raised.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Carol Rose—
CAROL ROSE: And unfortunately—yes?
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what that means. I mean, who ends up being on a death penalty jury? Who gets excluded? Who gets included?
CAROL ROSE: Right, well, there’s going to be a series of questions that will be asked of every juror. And if a juror has said, do you—could you possibly—are you opposed to the death penalty on religious grounds in all instances, you will not be on the jury. But it will be the judge that makes that decision. So it won’t be the prosecutors having to use one of their peremptory challenges to get that person off the jury.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, in terms of populations—for example, African Americans overwhelmingly against the death penalty, Jews overwhelmingly—
CAROL ROSE: Women.
AMY GOODMAN: —against the death penalty, women—so, who ends up on pro-death penalty juries?
CAROL ROSE: Well, studies have shown that you have a far more—not only—so, the trial is bifurcated: There’s the guilt phase, and then there’s the sentencing phase. But studies have shown that when you have a death-qualified jury, then you end up having a lot more people who are likely to find them guilty in the guilt-finding phase, in addition to imposing the death penalty down the road. So you are—you know, in this case, you’re more likely to have a jury not only to finding—have a finding of guilty, but also to be willing to impose the death penalty, than would a general representative jury that represents the people of Massachusetts.
AARON MATÉ: Well, Carol, the Justice Department announced that it would pursue the death penalty in the Tsarnaev case last January. Now, as we say, executions at the federal level are rare. But Attorney General Eric Holder explained his decision in a statement. He said, quote, "After consideration of the relevant facts, the applicable regulations and the submissions made by the defendant’s counsel, I have determined that the United States will seek the death penalty in this matter. The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision." What were the government’s options? And do you see a political decision here in this decision to seek capital punishment?
CAROL ROSE: Well, Eric Holder and U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz definitely had an alternative. They could have gone forward and proffered a plea deal to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. For example, it could have been life without possibility of parole, life without appeal; you agree to be locked away forever and to do your time for your crime, in exchange, no death penalty. The government never did that. The government never offered that.
And I think that there are number of reasons. I mean, we can only speculate, but what people in the legal community here in Boston are speculating is in fact that this might be a chance for Eric Holder to show that Article III federal courts are capable of doing these big terrorism trials, and therefore we don’t need the military commissions in Guantánamo. It could be that the prosecutors want to be part of a high-profile case and tap into the sense of tremendous anger and a feeling of a desire for vengeance that’s very widespread in Boston right now. People are really traumatized by what happened, which is one of the reasons it’s a problem about getting a fair jury trial in Boston, because people are traumatized by it. So, there’s a number of reasons, sort of political reasons, that they would have decided to go forward.
But the problem with that is that if you have—if there had been a plea trial, then the first part of the trial, the guilt or innocence part, wouldn’t happen. You would only have the sentencing phase. And during a sentencing phase, when there’s been a plea like that, in general, the defendant doesn’t really talk. It’s really about the survivors. It’s about the people who have come forward, like the person we just heard from, to be able to tell their stories and to be able to talk about the healing process and to move forward. When instead the prosecution chooses to pursue a death penalty trial, first we have to relive every last detail of what happened and go through all of that, which can be retraumatizing for people who are survivors and for all of us.
But beyond that, during the sentencing phase, it’s really going to be about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. It’s going to be about his youth, who he was influenced by, whether or not he did too many drugs, whether or not his big brother influenced him, what a good guy he was at the high school. It’s going to be about him, as it should be in those cases, because it’s his life on the line. But it won’t be about the survivors, and therefore there’s a real chance that if you pursue this, you’re going to create a martyr of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev among people who somehow decide that he is the person they want to back. He could be an inspiration to people around the world who would also use violence as a way to achieve their means or to make their statements in America. And it really is a setback for what we, as Americans, want, which is to move forward, to have healing and to have justice rather than vengeance.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Carol Rose, the issue of moving the venue? Timothy McVeigh was tried in Colorado, is that right, not in Oklahoma?
CAROL ROSE: That’s right, in a case that was very similar. It was an indiscriminate bombing. There were children killed and hurt in both instances. The whole city and surrounding area was really traumatized emotionally by it. And the judge in that case, I think, correctly said, "You know, it’s important that, especially in these cases that are so political and high visibility, that we as Americans set the highest standards of due process, that we prove to people who would use violence that we won’t be deterred from our values, from our system of justice. We will go over and above to make sure there’s a fair trial." And that’s why, in the Timothy McVeigh case, they moved the trial out of state. He was still convicted. But there was no doubt that he had a fair trial.
The concern here is, if you don’t do that, there’s going to be multiple issues for appeal. There’s going to be a perception, either in the country and certainly internationally, that somehow Dzhokhar Tsarnaev didn’t get a fair trial, and therefore there’s going to be delays in any execution. And beyond that, we’re going to be living with it for years to come and have the real sad danger of the possibility of turning this guy, who used violence against so many people, into a martyr. And that’s a shame.
AARON MATÉ: And, Carol, to a skeptic who might say, "Why is this important? Why is the ACLU raising all these concerns around the rights of someone who is most likely guilty, who has admitted to a role in the bombing?" what’s your response?
CAROL ROSE: You know, this isn’t a trial about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s guilt or innocence. I think the evidence, most people would agree, is rather overwhelming. This is a trial about who we are. This is a trial about whether we, as Americans, are going to let people who use violence against us somehow shake us from our fundamental values, a commitment to due process and fundamental fairness, a commitment to constitutional values. The ACLU represents the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as it applies to everyone. But this trial isn’t about the bad guys. This is a trial about Americans, about who we are. And that’s why the ACLU cares.
AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of Miranda rights, how important is this, when Tsarnaev made his confession, when he was read his Miranda rights, what the public security exception is?
CAROL ROSE: Well, I think this is, again, yet another issue that’s going to be on appeal and is going to keep this case with us for many years, because there wasn’t—hasn’t been a plea bargain. I think the question of your rights in the immediate aftermath of getting arrested are hugely important to all of us. And again, the law as it’s set in one case can’t be different than in other cases. And I think all Americans really care about having their rights, knowing what their rights are, so you can’t be taken away by law enforcement and somehow coerced into saying something that you wouldn’t otherwise say because you don’t have a lawyer present. So, whether or not—you know, nobody, very few of us, certainly not me, like this particular guy, but what we’re talking about are the principles and the law and the precedent that’s behind it. And we do care about those rights when they apply to us, so it’s important to remember that the rights at issue are not just Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s, they’re the rights of every American.
AARON MATÉ: And, Carol, can you talk about the death of Ibragim Todashev? He is the Chechen man who was shot dead by FBI agents in Florida while being questioned about his ties to the Boston Marathon bombers? Are there still unanswered questions about his death?
CAROL ROSE: Yeah, a tremendous number of unanswered questions about the shooting death by FBI in Boston—or, excuse me, Massachusetts State Police troopers down in Florida. Immediately in the aftermath of the bombing, the police announced that suddenly they had decided to pin a longtime murder, a triple homicide—three guys were killed a couple years before the Boston Marathon bombing. Suddenly they said, "Oh, we found the guy who did it." They had not solved the case. And they just said it was Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Initially, they said that Dzhokhar was involved, and then they changed it and said, no, it was actually Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a man named Ibragim Todashev.
The Boston FBI and the Massachusetts State Police went down to Florida to interview him. Their story was that in the course of writing his confession, he jumped at them, or something happened. In any event, they shot him. They shot him dead. And then they basically deported everybody who knew anything about the case, including Todashev’s girlfriend. So, there’s a—and then there’s been no independent investigation of why, what happened in the shooting and what really went down. So there’s this huge mystery about the role of Ibragim Todashev and his involvement with the [Tsarnaev] brothers, with—and the involvement in the shooting death.
The hard drive for Ibragim Todashev’s computer was finally turned over to the defense team only two weeks ago, along with about 9,000 or some new documents that the prosecution finally turned over. That’s one of the reasons, from a fundamental fairness or due process perspective, the defense requested to have additional time to prepare for the trial. There are so many unanswered questions about the role of the police and the FBI in the shooting of Ibragim Todashev and the relationship of that to the Tamerlan—or, to the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial.
This trial is going to go on for many, many months. There are a tremendous number of unanswered questions. And at this point, if the trial is going forward and we’re not going to have a plea, then, at the minimum, we need to bend over backwards to make sure that we’re going to have a fundamentally fair trial, so that we can use this to really recommit or show a recommitment to our justice system, and rather than sort of a rush to execution.
AMY GOODMAN: And the case of Robel Phillipos, Tsarnaev’s friend who was convicted of lying to the FBI, his attorneys said they’re going to appeal. Where does that stand right now, and how does that fit into this?
CAROL ROSE: Well, that fits into this. I mean, there are a number of people who knew Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or had a relationship to him who have been rounded up by the police, by the FBI, by the prosecution, many of whom may or may not be called in this trial. Phillipos was convicted of—when you say lying to the FBI, what he said is "I don’t remember. I was too high to remember." So, that was his lie. He was convicted. There, I think, is an appeal, and my understanding is that that is going to be heard later on in this month.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you very much, Carol Rose, for joining us, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. Her article headlined "Tsarnaev Trial Will Test What It Means To Be 'Boston Strong,'" it was published Monday on WBUR’s website, WBUR the NPR station in Boston. We’ll link to it at democracynow.org.
When we come back, we look at the 114th Congress, and particularly one man in the Republican leadership. Stay with us.
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As Congress begins a new session today, one of its top Republicans has acknowledged he once addressed a gathering of white supremacists and neo-Nazis. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise has confirmed reports he spoke at a 2002 convention of EURO — the European-American Unity and Rights Organization. EURO is founded by David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader and perhaps the country’s most notorious white supremacist. Scalise was serving as a Louisiana state representative at the time. "Mr. Scalise reportedly described himself as 'David Duke without the baggage,' so it’ll be up to Republicans to decide what that says about their conference," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on Monday. We speak with Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, who says that Scalise’s denials are not believable.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: As Congress begins its new session today, one of its top Republicans has acknowledged he once addressed a gathering of white supremacists and neo-Nazis. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise has confirmed reports he spoke at a 2002 convention of EURO—that’s European-American Unity and Rights Organization. EURO was founded by David Duke, a former KKK leader and perhaps the country’s most notorious white supremacist. Scalise was serving as a Louisiana state representative at the time.
The news was first reported last month by law student Lamar White Jr. on the website CenLamar.com. Scalise told the New Orleans Times-Picayune he does not recall the conference and, quote, "didn’t know who all of these groups were ... For anyone to suggest I was involved with a group like that is insulting and ludicrous." Scalise did apologize for his speech, saying, quote, "It was a mistake I regret, and I emphatically oppose the divisive racial and religious views groups like these hold."
On Monday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said it’s up to Scalise’s GOP colleagues to decide if he faces consequences.
PRESS SECRETARY JOSH EARNEST: Ultimately, it’s the responsibility of individual members of the House Republican Conference to decide who they want to elect as their—as a leader of their conference. And certainly, who those elected leaders are says a lot about who the conference is and what their priorities and values are. And they’re going to have to answer for themselves whether or not elevating somebody who described himself as "David Duke without the baggage" sort of reinforces the kind of message that the House Republican Conference wants to project.
AMY GOODMAN: As the House majority whip, Steve Scalise is the number three Republican in the House of Representatives. Many colleagues have rallied to his defense. These include Congresswoman Mia Love of Utah, the first black woman elected to Congress as a Republican and one of the 74 new GOP members to be sworn in today. On Sunday, Mia Love spoke about Scalise to ABC’s This Week.
MIA LOVE: These groups are awful, and the last thing I want to do is give them any sort of publicity or credibility. And I can say, as far as I’m concerned with Representative Scalise, he has been absolutely wonderful to work with. He has been very helpful for me, and he has had the support of his colleagues.
MARTHA RADDATZ: Does it hurt the image of the Republican Party? And should he remain in leadership?
MIA LOVE: I believe he should remain in leadership. There is one quality that he has that I think is very important in leadership, and that’s humility. And he’s actually shown that in this case and has apologized. And I think that we need to move on and get the work of the American people done.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the congresswoman from Utah, Mia Love, or she will be when she’s sworn in today.
A longtime adviser to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke confirmed he personally invited Scalise to speak to the 2002 gathering of white supremacists. Kenny Knight told The Washington Post Scalise was his neighbor and came as a favor to him and didn’t know about racial views of the organizers. He said, quote, "He agreed, believing it was going to be neighbors, friends, and family. He saw me not as David Duke’s guy, but as the president of our civic association."
Well, for more, we head south to speak to Mark Potok. He’s senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, joining us from Montgomery, Alabama; his latest piece headlined "Steve Scalise’s Denials Are Not Believable."
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Mark. Why not? Why aren’t they believable?
MARK POTOK: Well, thanks for having me, for starters. I mean, they are wildly unbelievable. You know, first of all, when Steve Scalise was in his twenties and a state representative, that was the peak of David Duke’s sort of heyday. Duke ran for Senate in 1990. He ran for governor in 1991. In both cases, he got the majority of the white vote in Louisiana. And it was a huge international story. Moreover, Kenny Knight—
AMY GOODMAN: But for young people—
MARK POTOK: —the person you mentioned as inviting—
AMY GOODMAN: For young people—Mark, for young people—
MARK POTOK: —Scalise to this event—
AMY GOODMAN: Mark, for young people—for young people who don’t know who David Duke is, can you talk about his history before he ran for public office?
MARK POTOK: Sure. Duke, early on, formed a major Klan group called the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. When he was still at LSU, at Louisiana State University, as a student, he paraded, in one instance, in a full neo—a Nazi getup, carrying signs having to do with the Holocaust and so on. He later tried to shed his Klan past, in the sense that he formed new organizations. One of them was called the National Association for the Advancement of White People. Later on, he created something called NO FEAR, which then changed its name to EURO. That was his latest iteration.
During those contests, especially the 1991 run for governor, a huge amount of reporting was done about Duke’s ties to various neo-Nazi groups and beliefs and so on. And it became very clear that it was simply false that he had put these beliefs behind him. While he was campaigning, he was still selling Holocaust denial materials from his bookstore and so on. So, I think it is certainly fair to say that David Duke was then and remains today the best-known white supremacist in the United States.
AARON MATÉ: Mark, I want to turn to a clip from a video promoting a 2005 EURO conference, three years after Scalise spoke. It begins with David Duke, followed by two speakers expressing white supremacist views.
DAVID DUKE: This meeting is attended by leaders of European-American organizations dedicated to our heritage and freedom from all over the European-American world.
KEVIN ALFRED STROM: One advantage we have over the Jewish supremacists who oppose our people’s awakening is that their growth curve, either in numbers or power, is severely restricted. Ours is not.
DON BLACK: We have the advantage because we are the white race. We have the ingenuity and the creativity to overcome anything that they can put up against us.
AARON MATÉ: That is from a 2005 video about the EURO conference, where Steve Scalise spoke three years earlier. Now, in a 2002 post from when Steve Scalise spoke, written on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront, a commenter who said he attended the EURO conference praised Scalise’s speech. Using the name "Alsace Hebert," the commenter wrote, quote, "Representative Scalise brought into sharp focus the dire circumstances pervasive in many important, underfunded needs of the community at the expense of graft within the Housing and Urban Development Fund, an apparent give-away to a selective group based on race." Two years later, the same commenter expressed excitement that Scalise would run for Congress. He wrote, quote, "Those that attended the EURO conference in New Orleans will recall that Scalise was a speaker, offering his support for issues that are of concern to us." Mark Potok, can you talk about Stormfront and what this EURO conference is—and, of course, the likelihood that Scalise didn’t know what it was?
MARK POTOK: Well, Stormfront, first of all, is the largest white supremacist web forum in the world. It’s run by a former Alabama Klan leader, a man named Don Black. It’s a huge forum. It has—there are claims to have something like 300,000 registered members, and not all of them Americans. It’s really quite something.
EURO, at the time, really was, in a sense, the most important white supremacist organization around, or it was certainly trying to be that. It had collected many of the better-known leaders of what they would call the white nationalist movement, with David Duke at the core, as the sort of head.
You know, to go to the believability of Scalise’s claims, it’s, I think, important to say that Kenny Knight, the person who invited him, has been lying through this entire episode. We know that because, among other things, Kenny Knight made a later claim to the New Orleans Times-Picayune that what Scalise had attended was not Duke’s meeting at all, was not the EURO meeting at all, he had attended a homeowners’ association meeting earlier that morning in the same space. He went on to say—Kenny Knight went on to say to the reporters that he, Scalise, and Kenny Knight then left. That is false. We know that because we have a picture, a photograph, of Kenny Knight at the EURO conference giving a speech, that was published, in fact, in the David Duke Report.
So, there’s been a lot of effort on the part of Kenny Knight and others to essentially muddy the trail, but as I said at the beginning, I think it’s simply not believable that a politician like Steve Scalise at that time could possibly not have known what this meeting was. He knew Kenny Knight. David Duke has himself explained in the last few days that Scalise new Knight as Duke’s campaign manager. So he knew that he was going to a Duke event. We have had one of our own staff members, Heidi Beirich, attend later EURO meetings. These meetings are draped with all kinds of racist banners and flags and so on. So I think the whole tale is nothing but that, a fairytale.
AMY GOODMAN: You also write about, in terms of was it known what EURO represented at the time, that the Iowa Cubs, a Triple-A team, were planning to stay at the Best Western Landmark Hotel in Metairie, Louisiana, at the same time that the national EURO convention was taking place, and that their—the local New Orleans team, that was arranging the visiting team’s accommodations, actually switched hotels in part because EURO was there.
MARK POTOK: That’s right. And this made the local papers. In addition, a spokesman for the hotel itself took the trouble to go on local television and say that the hotel did not in any way agree with the views of EURO, they hadn’t understood what the organization was when it booked, and so on. So, there was a lot of public putting of distance between various organizations and people and the Duke organization. So I think that simply goes to the fact that EURO was well known locally as an organization, an organ of David Duke’s.
AARON MATÉ: Well, Mark, former KKK leader David Duke says Scalise is being singled out. Speaking to Fusion, Duke said of the 2002 meeting, quote, "He was just going there, obviously, to tell voters about some of his initiatives on some tax matters. ... If Scalise is going to be crucified—if Republicans want to throw Steve Scalise to the woods, then a lot of them better be looking over their shoulders." Duke suggested he could release a list of names of politicians he is connected to. In a follow-up interview with CNN, Duke said we would name names from both main political parties.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH: You said this week that if he’s crucified—I think that was your word choice—
DAVID DUKE: Yeah, yeah.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH: —then you’re going to name names.
DAVID DUKE: Yeah.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH: What are we talking about?
DAVID DUKE: I would name names of any Democrat or—and I know some Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives who tried—in fact, urged me to support them.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH: In other words, you’re saying there are members of Congress today who have relationships with you.
DAVID DUKE: Have had relationships.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH: Have had, but they choose to keep those private.
DAVID DUKE: So—and that’s fine.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH: And you honor that.
DAVID DUKE: And I respect somebody’s privacy.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH: But you’ll call them out.
DAVID DUKE: But I would call them out if they—hypocritical.
AARON MATÉ: That was David Duke speaking to CNN. Mark Potok, what do you make of that, him claiming he has ties to politicians from both parties, Democrats and Republicans?
MARK POTOK: Well, I think he said, and said correctly, that he had had ties to them. I think that’s certainly not true now, or at least it’s very unlikely. At the time, around the turn of the century, turn of the millennium, there was quite a lot of contact between politicians and various white supremacist groups. Another big group was the Council of Conservative Citizens, the group that Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader, got into trouble over endorsing and speaking to and so on. So, I think it’s probably true that there were a number of politicians in Louisiana. Duke had a real constituency. He earned, in various elections, 600,000 votes, white votes, and in another, 700,000 white votes. So, there were certainly politicians who were interested, if not in David Duke personally, then his constituency. So, you know, we don’t know what was in Steve Scalise’s head in 2002 when he went to attend the EURO conference. We don’t know whether he had similar views or was simply trolling for votes.
AMY GOODMAN: Mark, according to the longtime Louisiana political reporter Stephanie Grace, Steve Scalise once described himself to her as, quote, "David Duke without the baggage." In an interview with The New York Times, Grace recalled her first meeting with Scalise, saying, quote, "He told me he was like David Duke without the baggage. I think he meant he supported the same policy ideas as David Duke, but he wasn’t David Duke, that he didn’t have the same feelings about certain people as David Duke did." Can you comment on this and, finally, what you think should happen? I mean, right now Steve Scalise is the number three power in the House of Representatives, as it begins today. He’s the House majority whip.
MARK POTOK: Well, first of all, it wasn’t a one-off claim. You know, as to what should happen to Scalise today, I mean, I think that the Republican Party, if it is being remotely honest in terms of trying to reach out to minorities, which it has made an awful lot of noise about in the last couple of years, it seems obvious that they ought to get rid of Scalise. I think he is being given a pass because we don’t happen to have video of whatever it was that he said at the EURO meeting, because there’s a little bit of shakiness in exactly when he spoke and so on. And so he’s being allowed to get away with this. You know, I mean, to me, if the Republicans have any kind of earnestness, you know, in their repeated statements that they’re looking to enlarge what is becoming a narrower and narrower party, this would be the move to make, but they seem quite unwilling to make it.
And, you know, I think part of the reason for that is that Steve Scalise is in the Republican House leadership, in part, as a kind of outreach to tea party Republicans and so on. You know, after all, Scalise is a man who, on a couple of different occasions, was a very lonely voter against the Martin Luther King holiday back in 1999 and 2004, as well. He was one of three, in one case, and one of six, in another case, of representatives who voted against that bill.
AMY GOODMAN: Mark Potok, we want to thank you for being with us, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, where his latest piece for their Hatewatch blog is headlined "Steve Scalise’s Denials Are Not Believable." We’ll link to it at democracynow.org.
When we come back, we’re going to California to talk about Mexico and some new revelations about who was involved in the disappearance of 43 students. Stay with us.
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As President Obama hosts Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at the White House today, human rights groups want Obama to press the Mexican government on its failure to investigate and prosecute abuses by state security forces. The meeting comes on the heels of an explosive new report that directly contradicts the Mexican government’s claims they were unaware of what happened the night 43 students went missing after an attack by local police in the state of Guerrero. According to the Mexican magazine Proceso, federal police played a role in the attack, and federal authorities likely tortured key witnesses. The case has ignited protests across Mexico and around the world. We are joined by the reporters who broke the story, Anabel Hernández and Steve Fisher. Hernández is a leading Mexican investigative journalist and author of "Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: President Obama is meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at the White House today. The two leaders will reportedly focus on expanding dialogue and cooperation on economic, security and social issues. However, human rights groups want Obama to press the Mexican government on its failure to investigate and prosecute abuses by state security forces.
Two recent atrocities have drawn international media attention and sparked large-scale protests in Mexico. The first was the killing of 22 people by soldiers in Tlatlaya, Mexico state, in June. The second was the disappearance of 43 students in Iguala, Guerrero, in September.
Since 2007, the U.S. has provided Mexico with more than $2 billion in funding through the Mérida Initiative, a joint U.S.-Mexico effort to combat organized crime. Fifteen percent of that aid is supposed to be contingent on Mexico meeting human rights guarantees, but President Obama has signaled he won’t push Peña Nieto on the issue.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, an explosive new investigative report out of Mexico says federal authorities were involved in the disappearance and killing of the 43 students. The report was published in the Mexican magazine Proceso and is called "Iguala: The Unofficial Story." It directly contradicts Mexican government claims they were unaware of what happened. According to the report, federal authorities likely tortured key witnesses who offered critical testimony for an investigation by the Mexican attorney general’s office into the disappearances.
For more, we go to Berkeley, California, where we’re joined by the authors of the exposé, Anabel Hernández and Steve Fisher. They’re both fellows at the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Anabel Hernández is a Mexican investigative reporter who was awarded the 2012 Golden Pen of Freedom award. Her latest book, Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers, was recently published in English.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Anabel, you’re really in exile here in the United States, fearing for your life in Mexico. Talk about this explosive exposé on who you believe is involved in the missing students—in the case of the missing students.
ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: Hi, good morning. Well, as you know, the official story is that the attack against the students and the disappearance of the 43 students just were involved the local government—the mayor, Abarca, and his local police. But what we found, in documents, testimonies and also in a video, is that the federal police and the federal government was also involved, not just in the attack, but also the federal government was monitoring the students since the left to Ayotzinapa. That shows that the attack was planned, wasn’t an accident, wasn’t something casual, was very, very planned.
AMY GOODMAN: Anabel Hernández, at one point—your report is accompanied by a short compilation of videos that students took on their cellphones the night of the attack. At one point, voices in the footage shout, "Don’t shoot!" and "Get down!" in Spanish. Toward the end of the video, the students quietly talk to each other, saying, "The police are leaving. The federal—police—are going to stay. They’re going to hassle us." Let’s go to part of that video compilation.
STUDENT: [translated] Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! Careful! Careful! They already killed one. Call the ambulance! Call the ambulance! The police are leaving. The federal police are going to stay. They’re going to hassle us. Why did they shoot? Why did they shoot?
AMY GOODMAN: It is chilling, Anabel Hernández. Can you describe what happened, what you understand happened on that night of September 26 last year?
ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: Well, what happened was that at 6:00 p.m. the students left the school in Ayotzinapa to go to the road between Chilpancingo and Iguala to kidnap some buses to go to Mexico City on October 2. And then, when they arrive to very near to Iguala, the federal police was waiting for them and were monitoring them. Then, they went to the bus station to take some buses, and at the end of the day were five buses. In two buses, the students take one way, and in the other three buses, the students took another way. So, the federal police and the municipal police attacked to the students, to the three buses in the middle of the city of Iguala.
Wasn’t true the version of the federal government that in that moment the mayor, Abarca, and his wife was in a political meeting in that moment in downtown. That was false. What we found is that the political event already finished two hours before the attack. So, when the students crossed through the downtown in Iguala, Abarca and his wife didn’t was there. So, at the end of the street, the municipal police closed the road, stopped the three buses, and in the back, the federal police arrived. In the moment of the attack were the two polices, but now the federal government, the official government, just accused to the municipal police and have been hiding the participation of the federal police.
AARON MATÉ: Anabel, as we said, you are alleging complicity at a very high level, and it contradicts the official Mexican government’s story. What evidence do you have, aside from this video that we just saw? What are you basing this report on?
ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: We have access to the investigation that make the government of Guerrero. We have access to all the files. I mean, the first testimonies that the students gave to the authorities just few hours after the attack. I mean, the very fresh testimonies. In these testimonies, the students very clearly said that the federal police participated in the attack. Also, we have access to the criminal file of the attorney general office. And in this file, you can see all the contradictions, but also you can see how the government tortured to the most important witness to build the official version, to create the official version. And also, we have testimonies of the people that was in that street when the attack happened. I mean, we went to Iguala. We talked with many people, because in this street where the attack occurred was where exist many business, local business—you know, pharmacy, drug stores, restaurants, bars, that kind of business. And we were—neighbors, many neighbors. And we were able to talk with these people and with the students about what really happened that night.
AMY GOODMAN: Steve Fisher, you did a report along with Anabel Hernández. Explain further what we just saw and heard in this video, and then what happened to the witnesses, how you know that eyewitnesses were tortured.
STEVE FISHER: So what you see in the video, in addition to what you mentioned, Amy, where they speak of the federal police harass—likely to harass the students, in addition, further on in the video, they are yelling at the police. And in the video, it’s important to note, you don’t see the police clearly, but they are essentially yelling at them, saying, "Why are you picking up the gun shells? You know what you’ve done. You know that you’re guilty. Why are you picking up these gun shells?" And I think that further shows the efforts of the police that night to cover up exactly what they did.
And in regards to the witnesses that were tortured, we have the medical examinations of these witnesses that show that there were severe beatings, brutal, brutal beatings, including electric shocks to various parts of the body. And then we also have the documentation of these same witnesses denouncing this torture prior to—prior to their testimony. And it should be noted that the officials that tortured these individuals were the marines, the military and the federal police.
AARON MATÉ: And, Anabel, the motive, in your view, for this attack? These students were from a very politically engaged school. Was that a factor in why you think they were targeted?
ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: Well, you have to really understand what is the meaning of this school. This school—from this school, one of the members of this school in the decade of the ’60s was Lucio Cabañas. And as you know, Lucio Cabañas was a member of a guerrilla in Mexico. And these students still having that spirit in Mexico. If you went to the school and if you get in, in their circle, you can see that these students really believe in this kind of protest, you know?
And this attack against them, it wasn’t the first. The federal police have been threatened to these students by several years. In December of 2011, the students closed the road between Mexico and Acapulco. The federal police arrived and just started to shoot them. And the federal police killed two students. The International Commission of Human Rights proved that after the attack on December of 2011, the federal police took some students, tortured them, beat them, hit them, and to make them confess that they was the responsibility—that they had the responsibility in the murder of his colleagues and the other students.
AMY GOODMAN: Anabel and Steve, we have less than a minute to go, and I want to ask, in today’s meeting—
ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —between the Mexican president, Peña Nieto, and Obama in Washington, what do you want to see happen? We’ll start with Anabel and then to Steve. You each have 15 seconds.
ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: It’s important to consider that in these last four years since the Plan Mérida was signed, the money of the government of U.S. have been empowering these federal police, the militias, and also the marines that didn’t—really don’t want to respect the human rights in Mexico, and abuse of their force against the society. So, I think that the U.S. government have to ask about this.
AMY GOODMAN: And Steve, 10 seconds.
STEVE FISHER: I believe that the—it’s clear that the attorney general and the president of Mexico are unable to bring this case and bring justice for the families. And I believe today when President Peña Nieto meets with Obama, I believe it’s import for Obama to encourage and insist on an open investigation, along with international community.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you both for being with us. Anabel Hernández, Steve Fisher co-authored the new investigation, "Iguala: The Unofficial Story." We’ll link to the report at democracynow.org.
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Republicans to Push Keystone XL Pipeline as New Congress Convenes
The new U.S. Congress convenes today with Republicans in control of both houses for the first time in eight years. Republicans now have 246 seats in the House, their largest majority in nearly 70 years. The new Congress is also more diverse than ever before, with a record 104 women, including Utah Representative-elect Mia Love, the first black Republican woman in Congress. Women still make up only 20 percent of lawmakers, while people of color make up only about 18 percent. At the top of the Republican agenda is a push to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, with lawmakers in both houses expected to file measures in favor of the project today.
Burundi: 100 Rebels Killed in Clashes with Military
In the Central African nation of Burundi, more than 100 rebels have reportedly been killed following days of heavy clashes with the army. The military says the rebels entered the country from the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. The news comes as United Nations and Congolese forces say they have launched strikes against a Burundian rebel group based in the eastern Congolese borderlands.
Guatemala: Genocide Retrial of Former Dictator Ríos Montt Delayed
In Guatemala, the trial of former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt on genocide charges has been delayed shortly after it resumed following a two-year pause. In 2013, the former U.S.-backed military dictator was sentenced to 80 years in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity for the mass killing of Ixil Mayans in the 1980s. But a court annulled the verdict less than two weeks later. Ríos Montt, who is 88, appeared in court Monday on a stretcher covered with a blanket after he lost a bid to be excused on medical grounds. The retrial was postponed after his attorneys accused one of the judges of bias. (Click here to watch Democracy Now! coverage of the trial.)
Germany: Tens of Thousands Oppose Anti-Muslim Rallies
Tens of thousands of people have rallied against racism across Germany amidst a rise in anti-Muslim protests. On Monday, the latest rally by the anti-immigrant group Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, or Pegida, drew a record 18,000 people in Dresden. The city’s landmark Cologne Cathedral shut off its lights, leaving the surrounding square in darkness, in an bid to deter the protesters.
Florida Becomes 36th State to Allow Same-Sex Marriage
Same-sex couples are getting married across Florida today after a state judge lifted a temporary ban on the unions. After lifting the ban, Judge Sarah Zabel presided over two same-sex weddings, including one between plaintiffs Cathy Pareto and Karla Arguello.
Karla Arguello: "We’ve been together for 15 years, and it just means now that our family is recognized like every other family, that our love is just as good enough as everybody else’s, and that our son is finally going to have a family that’s not a second-class citizen, that he has a family like everybody else that deserves the same respect and deserves the same dignity as everybody else."
As many as 14 counties in Florida have reportedly opted to end all courthouse weddings rather than comply with the ruling and provide weddings for same-sex couples. Florida is now the 36th state to allow same-sex marriage.
James Risen Refuses to Discuss Source in Court Appearance
New York Times investigative reporter James Risen has appeared in court and refused to answer questions about an alleged source. Monday’s hearing in Virginia took place ahead of the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who is accused of giving Risen classified information which revealed a botched CIA plot to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program. Risen has waged a seven-year legal battle against the Obama administration’s attempts to subpoena him and force him to reveal his source. It is unclear if Risen will be forced to testify at Sterling’s trial. Risen’s hearing comes as the administration has backed off on a threat to subpoena another journalist, 60 Minutes producer Richard Bonin, at a trial over bombings by al-Qaeda. The New York Times reports the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, has withdrawn his recommendation to subpoena Bonin over his interactions with al-Qaeda’s press office in 1998.
California Gov. Brown Inaugurated with Vow to Act on Climate Change
California Gov. Jerry Brown has been sworn in for an unprecedented fourth term with a sweeping plan to address climate change. In his inaugural speech, Brown said California must lead the way if the world is to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius.
Gov. Jerry Brown: "I propose three ambitious goals to be accomplished within the next 15 years: first, increase from one-third to 50 percent our electricity derived from renewable sources; two, and even more difficult, reduce today’s petroleum use in cars and trucks by up to 50 percent; three, double the efficiency of existing buildings and make heating fuels cleaner."
Oil Prices Dip to 6-Year Low amid Fracking Boom
U.S. oil prices have briefly dropped below $50 a barrel for the first time in nearly six years. The drop in prices comes amidst a boom in oil production inside the United States spurred by the rise of the drilling process known as fracking, which environmentalists say raises dire health and safety concerns.
2 NYPD Officers Shot and Wounded; Drop in Arrests Continues
In New York City, two police officers have been shot and wounded while pursuing suspects in an armed robbery in the Bronx. The shooting comes as New York City police have continued their apparent work stoppage following the fatal shootings of two officers last month. According to The New York Times, over the past week arrests are down by half while parking and traffic tickets dropped more than 90 percent over the same period the previous year. The police are protesting Mayor Bill de Blasio’s comments on police brutality and racial profiling. On Monday, Mayor de Blasio addressed the decision by hundreds of police officers to turn their backs to him at the funerals for their slain colleagues. He called the actions "disrespectful."
Mayor Bill de Blasio: "They were disrespectful to the families involved, that’s the bottom line. They were disrespectful to the families who had lost their loved one. And I can’t understand why anyone would do such a thing in a context like that. I think it just defies a lot of what we all feel is the right and decent thing to do when you’re dealing with a family in pain. I also think they were disrespectful to the people of this city, who in fact honor the work of the NYPD."
Judge Agrees to Consider Release of Eric Garner Grand Jury Records
A judge in New York has agreed to consider unsealing documents from the secret grand jury that decided not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the chokehold killing of unarmed African American Eric Garner. Garner’s family, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Public Advocate Letitia James and the New York Post have all pushed for the records’ release. New York State Supreme Court Justice William Garnett agreed to hear their arguments on January 29. Demonstrators have also vowed to resume weekly protests over Garner’s death after a pause following the murder of two New York City police officers last month.
Ferguson Grand Juror Sues for Right to Speak Out About Case
In Missouri, a member of the grand jury that declined to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting unarmed African American Michael Brown is suing for the right to speak publicly about the case. The lawsuit accuses Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch of presenting possible charges to the grand jury in a "muddled and untimely manner," and notes the case had a "stronger focus on the victim" — Michael Brown — than in other cases. It also challenges "the implication that all grand jurors believed that there was no support for any charges" against Wilson. The juror is challenging a lifetime ban preventing grand jury members from discussing cases.
Undercover Probe Finds Mistreatment of Chickens Sent for Slaughter
A new undercover investigation has revealed inhumane and potentially illegal treatment of chickens at a slaughter plant in Butterfield, Minnesota. The undercover video filmed at Butterfield Foods marks the first-ever exposé at a slaughter plant for so-called "spent" hens — egg-laying chickens who are sent to be killed once they are no longer deemed profitable. Paul Shapiro, vice president of farm animal protection for the Humane Society of the United States, described the group’s findings in a phone call with reporters.
Paul Shapiro: "What we found and documented on video at Butterfield is truly sickening. Perhaps most horrifying is that many birds at Butterfield are scalded alive, killed by drowning while fully conscious in tanks of scorching hot water. These hens are called cadavers by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and they’re called 'red birds' by the industry because the color of their skin turns red from blood rushing to the surface because their hearts are still beating when they’re submerged in these tanks."
Suicide of Transgender Teen Sparks Mass Call to Ban "Conversion Therapy"
A petition to ban so-called conversion therapy for transgender people has received nearly 300,000 signatures on Change.org following the suicide late last month of Leelah Alcorn. Alcorn was a 17-year-old transgender woman who walked into traffic after leaving a suicide note describing how she suffered from conversion therapy and attempts by her Christian parents to change her. She wrote, "My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. ... Fix society. Please."
CIA Inspector General to Resign for Private Sector Job
The inspector general of the CIA, David Buckley, who presided over a probe into how the agency hacked the computers of Senate staffers investigating the torture program, will resign at the end of the month. The CIA said Buckley would leave his post after more than four years to take a job in the private sector.
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