In the segment, Rachel Maddow calls Tom Coleman's actions over twenty years ago as "cartoonishly evil." The same might be said of Senator John Cornyn today.
Source: Mediaite
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.”
Maddow could not hold back her contempt for Cornyn, his petty vindictiveness for his own foolishness over twenty years ago being brought out into the open by a young attorney who exposed this legal abomination, finishing:
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.”
The reviews for Rachel's shredding of Cornyn were uniform.
Rachel Maddow is missing a shoe because it’s in John Cornyn’s ass
— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) March 25, 2021
Rachel @maddow’s defenestration of @JohnCornyn was beautifully savage. Cornyn should be ashamed of backing a racist, n-word-hurling, lying sheriff in Tulia, Texas and of trying to undercut @vanitaguptaCR for defeating that injustice. But Texas Senators don’t appear to feel shame. https://t.co/pXYWVIZYK1
— Joy-Ann Pro-Democracy & Masks Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) March 25, 2021
Here's a longer version of the segment, with more background of this appalling case.
Maddow segment on the beef John Cornyn has with Vanita Gupta: pic.twitter.com/sOyVuUqW9a
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) March 25, 2021
