MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow had nothing but praise for the American Bar Association on Thursday night’s edition of “All In” for continuing to hold a number of Donald Trump attorneys and associates to account for their involvement in Jan. 6 and continued attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
While justice and “retribution,” as Hayes said, are important in and of themselves, Maddow also admitted that “the hilarity” of Jeffrey Clark’s disbarment trial is one of the reasons that it’s still important to continue these investigations and trials.
“Part of it, I mean, because part of me is forever 8 years old and constantly needs to be entertained, part of it is just the hilarity of it, right?” Maddow said.
The MSNBC host illustrated her point by turning to Clark’s trial, which featured a senior Justice Department official testifying that the former assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division believed that “what was going on with the election was tied to his fantasy that smart thermostats had stolen” it. “Like OK, I want to I want to know more about that. Like, please give me all of that money here.”
More seriously, Maddow continued, what also matters in the trials that have followed the insurrection on the Capitol is that “the criminal justice system, for all its faults, it makes evidence public. It tests evidence, it tests facts. It’s an adversarial, fair process. And when you lie, your lie is exposed, and then that is inadmissible or it is punished.”
“And pouting doesn’t count, and yelling doesn’t count, and threats are illegal, and it’s a compulsory process and the truth gets proven and it’s done in a fair way that everybody can see,” she concluded.
Earlier in the segment, Maddow and Hayes traded praise for the unlikely institution that’s bringing down Trump allies: the American Bar Association. After listing several justices who have had their licenses revoked or suspended, Maddow said, “One of the takeaways from this is that the bar associations are holding up as an American institution — and who would’ve picked them as the institution that was going to be really important here?”
“The reason the lawyers have paid is because the bar associations have stood up as an institution and said we’re going to do our part here,” Maddow said.
On Wednesday, former Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said during Clark’s trial that he and his second in command, Richard Donoghue, met with Clark several times to convince him to change his stance on fraud in the election.
While Rosen believed he and Donoghue had been successful in convincing Clark to change his course, the reality is that he continued to speak with and support former President Trump.
Back in 2022, Clark opened his door to federal agents while only wearing his pajamas. His request to go inside and put pants on while the agents raided his home as denied. “So I came outside, they swept the house,” he told Tucker Carlson at the time. “Eventually, they let me go back inside and put the pants on.”
Clark currently faces criminal charges in Georgia for his role in an attempt to overturn the state’s election results. Trump was named as his codefendant. He could be sanctioned and possibly disbarred as a result of the investigation and trial.
Watch the exchange with Hayes and Maddow in the video above.
