Maddow Shreds Cornyn Blocking Top DOJ Nominee With Reminder of Their Connection to Case of a ‘Cartoonishly Evil’ TX Cop
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow offered a long and scathing indictment of Sen. John Cornyn (R) for leading the charge to block the nomination of Vanita Gupta as Associate Attorney General, the Justice Department’s third-highest ranking official.
In an extended segment on her Wednesday night show, Maddow dug into the past connection between Gupta and Cornyn to explore the possible reasons for his staunch opposition. The pair intersected over a bizarre case from Cornyn’s home state involving what the MSNBC host called a “Kafkaesque nightmare” of prosecution in the small town of Tulia back in 1999. Dozens of Black people were arrested and convicted for being part of an allegedly massive drug ring, with the cases based solely on the testimony of Tom Coleman, an undercover investigator. But soon after, the lack of hard evidence raised questions and Gupta ultimately led a successful legal campaign to overturn the wrongful convictions of 39 mostly Black men.
“John Cornyn, who when he was attorney general of the state of Texas, is the guy who gave officer Tom Coleman the Texas ‘Lawman of the Year award for his great work in Tulia, Texas,” Maddow pointed out. “Before Vanita Gupta came in and exposed who that guy actually was before he was convicted of perjury.”
“They all got full pardons from [then-Texas Gov.] Rick Perry because of the Kafkaesque nightmare that was that guy, who John Cornyn named ‘Lawman of the Year,'” Maddow explained, continuing to pound the Texas senator. “I wonder. I just wonder if Senator John Cornyn might be at all embarrassed about this and about the young lawyer who came to Texas and exposed this thing, this terrible and cartoonishly evil thing that he had helped along, that he had celebrated, that he had given an award to.”
“That is not going to happen,” Maddow flatly declared, reporting on a letter from Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin that is flatly rejecting Cornyn’s demand.
“Venita Gupta is going to be confirmed by the Senate ultimately,” Maddow concluded, throwing fire directly at Cornyn. She will be the number three official at the U.S. Justice Department under Merrick Garland, despite Republican opposition to her led by the senator who she humiliated for his enabling, encouraging, celebrating role in one of the worst most racially-explosive astonishingly brazen law enforcement put-up jobs in the last generation. Senator Cornyn, I do not know if he’s ashamed by his role in all that. I wonder if he ever tried to get the award back.? But his effort to get revenge on the woman who had to come in and fix his mess, that effort will fail. She will win and he will lose. Again. God bless Texas.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
