CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York

Interview

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COOPER: More breaking news tonight that could take on significance now that Robert Mueller's so-called pre-election quiet period is over. Author and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi says he expects to be indicted within the next few days. His lawyer declined comment. So do spokesman for the special counsel.

Of course, his role apparently centers on the possibility that he served as an intermediary between Roger Stone and WikiLeaks. Of course, he also appears to be fundraising off this latest news as he believes that he will be indicted for in his words, quote, some form or other of giving false information to the special counsel or to one of the other grand jury or however they want to do the indictment.

Joining us now, someone who may be investigating all of this further when the new Congress comes in, New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, who's widely expected to be the next chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Thanks so much for being with us.

The fact that Roger Stone hasn't been contacted by Mueller's team, does that tell you something?

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D-NY), RANKING MEMBER, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Well, people know more than I do about this thing. Former prosecutors say it, indicates that he may be a target.

COOPER: Right.

NADLER: That if they don't call you, and you're someone who was expected to be called, it may be because you're a target and they expect perhaps to indict you. But I don't know that.

COOPER: And we're told, they've certainly have been asking a lot of questions about Roger Stone and his associates. I want to read you something that Acting Attorney General Whitaker, Matt Whitaker said. He said he's fully committed to following all appropriate processes and procedures of the Department of Justice, including consulting with senior ethics officials on his oversight responsibilities and matters that may warrant recusals.

He says he will accept any recommendations from ethics officials. It doesn't say -- it says that he'll consult with them. It doesn't say he will accept their recommendations.

NADLER: Well, look, he's obviously not going to recuse himself. He should recuse himself because he's prejudged the issue. He said there's no Russian interference in 2016 election. He said that the investigation by special counsel is a witch hunt. He said it should be stifled by a lack of funding.

All of these things he's said. So, he's hardly the appropriate person to supervise a fair investigation. And he's clearly, remember, the president's beef with Attorney General Sessions was not on any policy matter. It's he recused himself upon advice of the ethics people of the Justice Department.

COOPER: Because in terms of policy, Sessions probably executed the president more than any members of his cabinet.

[20:25:03] NADLER: Absolutely. The two saw eye to eye on policy except he did the right thing. He recused himself and the president wouldn't forgive him for that, and said so repeatedly. The president was not going to appoint someone he thought would recuse himself.

COOPER: Right.

NADLER: So, I assume he got some indication that Whitaker would not recuse himself. Whittaker is unfit to supervise this since he did prejudge the outcome and since he's so clearly a partisan on this.

COOPER: It's also odd because the president at one point months ago said on FOX News that he knows Matt Whitaker and Matt Whitaker is very, you know, a great guy. Then just a couple of days ago he said repeatedly that he doesn't know Matt Whitaker.

NADLER: Well, that shouldn't be surprising. The president lies all the time. We know that. And he has a pattern of distancing himself from people whether it's Michael Cohen or other people he's been close to. Paul Manafort by saying I wasn't close to them when he was.

COOPER: There has been a lot of talk from incoming chairs about various ways they hope to investigate President Trump. Is there a danger in focusing too much on that? Are you concerned that Democrats are going to over step and over --

NADLER: No, I think Democrats are going to be very disciplined. We have priorities. The first priority is to protect the investigation because the investigation is necessary to protect the integrity of our elections to find out what happened.

COOPER: How can you do that? Because I mean, there's not a lot of appetite on the Republican side. It's certainly an incentive.

NADLER: Well, we can protect it. The first thing we're going to do in January is call Mr. Whittaker as a witness. There are a lot of ways we can protect. We have asked -- we have sent letters asking for document retention that all relevant documents be retained. It will be a criminal matter to destroy them now and we'll see how else that goes.

But the first priority is to protect the Mueller investigation. Then we'll see what their conclusions are. But we have a lot of other priorities too. We have to enact legislation to deal with voter suppression. We have to deal with the Dreamers. We have to have an investigation into how it came about that the United States could tear mothers -- tear children out of arms of their mothers at the border and still have several hundred kids who have not been reunited. We have to do something about gun control.

You know, we have massacre, mass shooting every two weeks in this country. We're told by the NRA and others it's a mental health problem. But if you look at Europe or Japan, nobody has more than 150, 170 deaths by guns a year. We have 33,000. We're not 10,000 times as mentally ill as the people in Japan or Europe. That's a slander on the American people.

COOPER: So, you're saying first priority is getting Matt Whitaker under oath in front of the committee?

NADLER: Yes.

COOPER: And then, do you -- what about impeachment proceedings? There's certainly a lot of Democrats who would like to see that.

NADLER: Yes, but that's far down the road if it happens at all. We can't make judgments on that until you see what the Mueller investigation comes up with, what other investigations come up with. If there's grounds to do that, most of us think that Trump is about as horrible a president as he can imagine, but that doesn't mean he should be impeached. To be impeached, you have to meet really three tests.

One, you have to show that impeachable offenses have been committed, which does not necessarily mean crimes, as a separate issues. Two, you have to show they rose to the gravity where it threatens the integrity of Republican and Democratic institutions, where it threatens the safety of a democratic society. And three, because you don't want a situation where you tear up the country for the next 30 years. With 30 years, people are saying -- half the country is saying we won the election, you stole it.

You have to believe at the beginning of the procedure that the evidence is so stark of misdeeds so huge that when all of this is laid out publicly and appreciable fraction of the people who voted for Trump will say, will admit, OK, you had to do this. Those are the tests as far as I'm concerned. And I think, historically, those were the tests and we're far from that right now.

COOPER: Congressman Nadler, appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

NADLER: You're welcome.

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