MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jerrold Nadler
Interview
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O`DONNELL: Joining our discussion now, Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York City. He is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. He will become the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives in January.
Congressman Nadler, I just want to get reaction. I`m sure you saw that as it happened during the Republican Convention. He was talking about the candidate you were supporting for president. Your feelings when you saw that that night, an unprecedented moment, I think, in the history of our political conventions, someone out there on a convention stage saying the other candidate should be locked up. And this candidate tonight being -- getting the recommendation from the special prosecutor, that he not be locked up.
REP. JERRY NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Well, my reaction when I saw that was that, oh, my god, you`ve got a candidate and spokesman for a candidate who have lost all sight of American traditions and the Democratic tradition, and who try to make enemies of their opponents and use the power -- and threaten to use the power of law for political purposes. And that is very dangerous.
And, of course, we now know that this president lies incessantly about everything. One thing I think we know now is his period of being able to lie incessantly and not being called to account is coming to an end, both because of the Mueller investigation, because of what they are revealing, because the fact that at least one house of Congress is now going to do a proper job of holding him accountable.
O`DONNELL: The redactions tonight in the special prosecutor`s filing or the things that we`re all fascinated by, I`m sure the House Judiciary Committee will be equally fascinated, and your staff will be studying these documents tonight.
And how will you approach, as you take the chairmanship next year, information like this that becomes public, that is of public interest, and yet is being held back by the special prosecutor? You have a competing interest that I suppose you want to, in some sense, make a cooperating interest with the prosecuting investigator. How do you handle that going forward?
NADLER: I think our first duty is to protect the integrity of the special counsel`s investigation. And we are not going to do anything knowingly that would interfere with that investigation. We would certainly, before doing certain things, consult with him to say -- to make sure we`re not, by accident, stepping up -- stepping on the investigation in any way, because we are dependent on that investigation to give us a lot of the facts.
I mean, we know the president lies all the time. We know he`s surrounded by liars, but we need to know a lot more as to -- so that the American people know what`s going on and so that we can take steps to defend our democracy.
O`DONNELL: The president yesterday issued a tweet about Roger Stone not testifying. Roger Stone promising not to testify against the president. That was interpreted by several legal scholars and former prosecutors as being, in effect, witness tampering, public witness tampering.
President Nixon`s articles of impeachment, as I described here last night, included elements that President Trump has already done, that we already know he`s done. When you become chairman of judiciary, you will have the sole and unique power vested exclusively in you to decide whether the Judiciary Committee should discuss, debate, and/or vote on articles of impeachment. That will be a decision that is yours and yours alone.
(CROSSTALK)
NADLER: It could be mine alone --
O`DONNELL: The chairman of judiciary has total power over the question of what the committee is going to do on any given day, including articles of impeachment. How will you approach this, given that the president is already crossing lines publicly that Richard Nixon crossed?
NADLER: Well, we`re going to have to look at all the evidence. All the evidence that the special counsel comes up with, the things that are being done in public, the things we find out are being done, and make decisions. There are certainly things he`s done, such as what you just mentioned, that give the appearance of witness tampering, that give the appearance of obstruction of justice. Whether they amount to that and whether you can prove those charges is a different question.
But they are certainly evidence, and we`ll have to look at all of that and we`ll have to look at, as I said, the special counsel knows a lot more than we do at this point. And down the line, we`ll have to make some judgments.
O`DONNELL: Is the impeachment question something that will wait until the special counsel has completed his work?
NADLER: It may very well. It depends how long the special counsel takes to complete that work. We don`t know that. But it may. I mean, because without the special counsel`s report, we may not have enough information to make such decisions.
But, again, initiating a formal impeachment inquiry is a very serious step. And I have articulated a three-part test for it.
Number one, do you believe that you have real solid evidence the president is committing impeachable offenses?
Number two, are those offenses of such gravity putting the country through an impeachment process?
And number three, because you don`t want to tear the country apart -- you don`t want half the country the next 30 years, we won the election, you stole it from us. Do you think that the evidence that you have is so sufficiently clear and sufficiently convincing of deeds so clearly impeachable and necessary to impeach, that once you have laid it out, that you believe that once you have laid all that evidence out, an appreciable fraction of the opposition vote base will say they had to do this. Those are, I think --
O`DONNELL: Well, that seems to make -- your third condition seems to make impeachment a political judgment and a political judgment --
NADLER: Impeachment is a political judgment.
O`DONNELL: A political judgment that would be surrendered to Trump supporters. In other words, if Trump supporters cannot support impeachment, then the Democrats in the House would not support impeachment.
NADLER: No, I wouldn`t say -- remember first, you`ve got two different things. First of all, simple arithmetic. You can`t remove the president without two-thirds vote in the Senate which means if you`re going to complete the process, you have to get some Republican votes.
I think a simpler test is can you -- people who voted for Trump, some of them -- not a majority but you have to think that your evidence is sufficient enough so that you get enough -- some of them -- I don`t know what percent, but an appreciable percentage of them to agree that you had to do it because you don`t want to tear the country apart. And if you can`t do that, you`re not going to have a successful impeachment anyway because you need the votes of the Senate.
O`DONNELL: We`ve had two impeachments during your lifetime, during my lifetime, neither one of them tore the country apart. The Bill Clinton impeachment which did not result in removal in the United States Senate did not tear the country apart. The trial in the United States Senate was not even suspenseful. There wasn`t even a sense that there was even a possibility of him being removed.
NADLER: Right.
O`DONNELL: His popularity went up during the impeachment process. Doesn`t the Congress exaggerate the drama involved in impeachment when in fact the country has rolled two impeachment processes without any real stress at all?
NADLER: Well, it depends on the circumstances. The Clinton impeachment was so clearly frivolous and so clearly nonsense and so clearly political that I don`t think anybody really took it that seriously. And there was going to -- it was going to backfire on the Republicans. In fact, the midterm elections which occurred before they carried on the impeachment in the lame duck session showed that. So you didn`t have that problem.
The Nixon impeachment, you had the tapes. Remember, the Republicans didn`t turn on Nixon until the very last moment when the tapes came out and then there was no question at all. Maybe we`ll have something so clear this time. Maybe we won`t.
O`DONNELL: But should the House surrender its unique initiation of impeachment power to the Senate just for the fear that --
NADLER: No.
O`DONNELL: -- the Senate will not convict?
NADLER: No, no, no. I don`t think that`s the case. But remember, impeachment is a political act. It`s intended to be political. It`s not a legal punishment. It`s intended to be political to defend the constitution, to defend the Democratic order against a president who would aggrandize power. And you have to make judgments as to whether an impeachment in given circumstances would accomplish that or not.
O`DONNELL: Let me just -- one final point on this, which is if you -- if the Democrats in the House made the judgment that we don`t want to do this because we don`t believe the Republicans in the Senate would get to a conviction and a removal if that was the judgment --
NADLER: But I don`t think that`s the test.
O`DONNELL: OK. But if -- OK, good. Do you fear the possibility that if the House of Representatives does not act, that it will be historically condoning the behavior of this president and, therefore, historically setting the precedent that future presidents can publicly try to influence and tamper with witnesses?
NADLER: No, no. I do think there is a problem that we have, though, that gets into this. I do not agree with the office of legal counsel that a president cannot be indicted for crimes committed while in office. The justice department, however, is bound by that opinion. The special counsel thinks -- considers himself bound for that.
So you can`t indict a president as a practical matter right now. But once the president is no longer president, you can indict him. But the statute of limitations may have run. So, we ought to -- and I`m considering introducing legislation to this effect, call the statute of limitations on any president while he is president so that he can`t be above the law. If he can`t be impeached for improper conduct, if there are crimes he should be made to be prosecuted.
President Ford pardoned Nixon. I thought at the time it was not the right thing to do. I still think it wasn`t the right thing to do. It`s debatable, but you can`t -- you should not have a system where a president, anybody is above the law.
O`DONNELL: I just want to double underline the breaking news that you`ve just added to our breaking news tonight. And that is that you as the chairman of the Judiciary committee next year, considering legislation that would, in effect, suspend the timing of statutes of limitations on any offenses applying to a sitting president so the clock would stop ticking, in effect, on those statutes of limitation so that they would extend after his term of office?
NADLER: So that a president -- the president, according to this opinion by LOC is the only president in the country not subject to indictment for breaking the law. I don`t think that is right. But if that`s what we`re going to do, then you should extend the statute of limitations so that he`s not permanently, what`s the word?
O`DONNELL: Above the law.
NADLER: Above the law.
O`DONNELL: Yes, I agree with you about that, about the precedent, the notion that the president cannot be prosecuted. I don`t see where that exists in the constitution. Congressman Jerry Nadler, thank you very much for joining us tonight on this important breaking news tonight. Really appreciate your time tonight.
NADLER: Thank you.
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