MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Russian Investigations

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MADDOW: So, last night, we got the news that the full U.S. Senate had passed a mysterious resolution unanimously. A resolution announcing the Senate Intelligence Committee to provide the Justice Department with documents, quote, in connection with a pending investigation arising out of the unauthorized disclosure of information.

We did not know what that was about. Senate Republicans and Democrats, though, agreeing unanimously that their Intelligence Committee should give documents, documents in the possession of its Intelligence Committee, to the Justice Department as part of a pending investigation. So, all through late last night and through most of the day today, details were in short supply and speculation was in rich supply.

Now, tonight, we are starting to get another part of this story. Just within the last few minutes, "The New York Times" has reported that a reporter, a "New York Times" national security reporter, has had her phone and e-mail records seized unbeknownst to her. Previously -- she knows now, but she didn`t know when they were seized, seized as part of that investigation into a leak from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Senator Ron Wyden is the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. He`s also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I am assuming that he will not be able to talk to us about this matter, but I am going to ask him anyway.

Senator Wyden, thank you very much for being with us tonight. I appreciate your time, sir.

SEN. RON WYDEN (D-OR), SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Rachel, you are quite good at making correct assumptions. And under the Senate rules it`s just not possible for me to get into it.

MADDOW: Let me just -- I want to push around the edges of that with great respect for your fidelity to your responsibilities as a member of the Intelligence Committee, sir. "The Times" is reporting tonight that there is a connection between the Justice Department surveilling their reporter, looking at a reporter`s e-mails and looking at her phone records while she was a reporter going back years.

"The Times" is reporting a connection between that treatment of their reporter which obviously raises a lot of First Amendment concerns and this investigation into whether or not there were unauthorized leaks from a staffer on your committee. Is "The Times" right to draw those two things together? Are these connected matters?

WYDEN: Rachel, I heard about the content of "The Times" story as you were reading it on the air. And again, without being particularly obstreperous, I just can`t get into this because of the committee rule.

MADDOW: OK. And I`ll ask you one last question. Obviously, the resolution that allowed the Senate Intelligence Committee, the chair and vice chair, to hand over these documents to the DOJ, that was a unanimous resolution that passed the Senate without objection last night.

Should we see -- is that just a formality? Is that just the way these things come up? Or should we see that as a sign that there aren`t significant partisan differences, that this isn`t the site of a big fight among members of the committee or members of the Senate in terms of whether or not the Senate is properly cooperating with DOJ on this?

WYDEN: At this point, Rachel, and again, you are a persistent soul, and that`s why your viewers appreciate it. I just can`t go there.

MADDOW: OK. I understand, sir.

Let me ask you about what I had initially asked you to be on the show to talk about here tonight, which is a decision that you have made that you were actually going to stop the appointment of at least one senior staffer to the U.S. Treasury Department because you say that you haven`t received information that you`ve requested from Treasury that`s related to the Russia investigation. What can you tell us about that, sir?

WYDEN: Well, we are looking at two separate matters. I`m looking at Russia and I`m also looking at this Novartis deal because I`ve been concerned that as the reports came out, it looked more like a corporate shake down than a traditional business deal involving Michael Cohen.

Now, with respect to the Russia investigation, I have put a hold on an intelligence nominee, and the president told something of a fairly tale just in the last couple of days about this person shouldn`t be held, even though we were trying to get documents because she had moved. That was his assertion. And then we found out that she had been in Washington, D.C. all along.

I think what`s going on here, both with respect to Russia and with respect to the Novartis matter, the president and his allies are awfully afraid of what is in these documents. And -- for example, on the Novartis deal in particular, what I can tell you is our finance investigators are very good. They understand financial crimes, tax crimes, and treasury secretary Mr. Mnuchin know this because they disclosed he failed to disclose $100 million in assets before his confirmation hearing.

MADDOW: In terms of the likelihood of success here, obviously you have leverage as an individual senator putting a hold on nominees until you get this information that you want. Typically the way this works is that that starts a negotiation. That starts a discussion that at least makes the department think about whether they want to loosen up in terms of this information?

Do you have any support from committee members? Do you have any indication from treasury about whether or not they`re willing to give you what you want?

WYDEN: I have talked to Mr. Mnuchin about access to documents. But what we`re going to do, particularly on the Novartis matter is isolate this administration and the treasury secretary as the outlier. We`ve been able to get information that the company is willing to cooperate. Mr. Cohen`s counsel says he`s willing to cooperate.

And there are a lot of questions to be determined here. What exactly was Novartis trying to get for that $1.2 million. Mr. Cohen didn`t have any expertise in health care. Novartis was trying to get governmental approval of a $475,000 drug. They get billions of dollars in reimbursement from the government.

We want to know what it is Novartis was trying to buy from those payments to Mr. Cohen which were bigger than the ones they were giving their lobbyists.

MADDOW: To be clear, you feel you had responses from both Novartis and Cohen, that they`d be willing to talk about this and treasury is the odd man out here. Treasury is the one that won`t cooperate?

WYDEN: Treasury is clearly the one stonewalling. In particular, as we go on this issue, we`re going to show how this relates to questions of health care. We learned from the Medicare trustees this week, Rachel, that the Trump policies with respect to tax breaks for the wealthy and not containing health costs yank Medicare three years closer to insolvency.

So what the American people and your seniors want to see, is they want to see some efforts to contain cost and yet what we see are all these deals where insiders look like they`re getting money and people who know nothing about health care seem to be much more interested in protecting the administration than protecting seniors and taxpayers.

MADDOW: Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a member of the intelligence committee, on a big night for the intelligence committee, thank you for your time, sir. I appreciate you being willing to talk to me even about stuff you can`t talk to me about.

WYDEN: Thank you.

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