MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jim Himes

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

MADDOW:  "The Washington Post" reports tonight that Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was told in advance that Michael Cohen was about to plead guilty to a charge of lying to Congress about the president`s business dealings in Russia during the presidential campaign.  Whitaker was told this was going to happen today, but he was not given the opportunity to approve or disapprove of this step. 
 
MSNBC`s Nicolle Wallace reporting today that Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker isn`t directly supervising the Mueller investigation.  He is not having run by him decisions like today`s new felony charge against the president`s long-time lawyer.  Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, according to Nicolle`s reporting today is still doing all of that just like he used to. 
 
I have questions.  Will we be allowed to know?  Will Congress be allowed to know, particularly with Democrats taking over the House?  Will there be any visibility into whether or not Mueller`s operations are being impeded, especially if they`re being impeded improperly in the Justice Department?  Should we have confidence that Mueller`s actions mean that Mueller is acting in an unimpeded fashion? 
 
And while we`re on the subject, when the House is taken over in January by Democrats, what are Democrats going to do with the fact that Mueller has now brought charges against a witness in the Russia investigation for lying to Congress?  Do they believe that other witnesses should be subject essentially to the same sort of charges, the same sort of penalty given that House Democrats have expressed concerns that some of the testimony given by Trump allies and Trump aides in the course of the investigation has been untrue? 
 
Joining us now is Congressman Jim Himes, Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee.
 
Congressman Himes, thank you very much for joining us.  It`s a real pleasure to have you tonight. 
 
REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT), HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE:  Good evening, Rachel.  
 
MADDOW:  So, let me first get your reaction today to this guilty plea by Michael Cohen and the new revelations that it brought us about the president`s involvement in this business deal with Russia involving directly the Kremlin during the campaign.  
 
HIMES:  Well, it`s stunning.  I mean, it`s particularly stunning for the Congress.  The charge obviously being that he lied to Congress.  I mean, you sit back and you look at this thing and you realize that everybody, everybody is lying about their contacts with Russia.  I mean, it started with Mike Flynn to Papadopoulos to Manafort and now to Cohen. 
 
Lying to Congress is a pretty big deal.  People don`t do that as a normal course.  So, it obviously raises the question why?  Why would there be all this lying?  What`s underneath? 
 
And that`s obviously something I suspect we`re going hear from Mueller, and as you were just saying, you know, this certainly gives us some threads to follow up on, because, of course, the transcripts of the various witnesses that came before the House Intelligence Committee before it was abruptly ended, you know, now I think are going to be subject to some extra scrutiny. 
 
MADDOW:  In terms of those transcripts, obviously, they take on renewed interests now, given that we`re told that Mueller was allowed to review the transcript of Cohen`s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee with -
* in the presence of Cohen`s lawyer.  There has been some ambiguous information from the Senate Intelligence Committee in terms of how -- what kind of criminal referrals they might have made or what information they handed on the Mueller. 
 
But in your committee in the House, as far as I understand it, there was actually a vote that these transcripts should be made available, should be made in fact public.  What`s the status of these transcripts now? 
 
HIMES:  Well, so, just -- before that, of course, the Democrats on the committee had made a motion that all of the transcripts be conveyed to the special counsel, because at the time, we had suspicions that there had been in fact lies told to the House Intelligence Committee. 
 
That motion was defeated by the Republican majority on the committee, but subsequently, as you point out, a vote was taken to make all the transcripts public.  My understanding is that that process is getting pretty close to being finished.  It had to go through declassification.  Some of the transcripts contained classified information.  But of course, once the transcripts are out in the public realm, it won`t just be Mueller and others who are looking for possible lies.  Everyone, including the media, will have the opportunity to do so. 
 
MADDOW:  Given what you saw from Cohen`s testimony and from the other people who have testified behind closed doors to your committee, do you believe that there are other people either within the administration or people who are associated with the campaign and with the president`s business who will be on the hook for the same kind of charge that Cohen faced today for bluntly lying to Congress? 
 
HIMES:  It really wouldn`t surprise me.  And without getting into the specifics of the testimony and what is still a closed investigation, I`ll tell you this, which is that needless to say, we asked a lot of questions about contact with Russia, precisely what Michael Cohen lied about, we asked that of lots of witnesses.  And at the time, again, without getting into specifics, at the time I don`t recall thinking well there is obviously inconsistencies here. 
 
So, I do suspect that Michael Cohen is probably not the last one to come under scrutiny for possible lying to Congress.  There is a whole other topic here too.  You know, when this investigation was being run by the Republicans, they effectively stopped us from asking follow-up questions, from executing subpoena, from getting corroborating information that might either prove a witness having been truthful or not. 
 
The Republican majority allowed anybody associated with the White House to claim executive privilege in one of the most, you know, outrageous and broad ideas of executive privilege you can imagine.  So I do think that after January, we will have plenty of threads to follow up on. 
 
MADDOW:  Just -- I know that you can`t be specific about the testimony of witnesses who spoke behind closed doors, but just to pick on something you just said there, you said that when you heard answers to questions about contacts with Russia, including for Michael Cohen, the answers from witnesses didn`t seem inconsistent with one another.  We now know that Michael Cohen`s answer was full of lies. 
 
Does -- are you suggesting that a number of different witnesses may have all told the same lie as if it were a coordinated effort? 
 
HIMES:  I`m not quite sure I`m trod sate was coordinated, but again, we would have noticed.  You made the right inference.  If somebody had told a radically different story about contacts with Russia on the subject of the president`s business interests, we probably would have noticed and say wait a second, this is completely inconsistent.  And I don`t certainly recall noticing that. 
 
And, of course, again, now everybody`s testimony is -- you know, remember, it was only 48 hours ago that Paul Manafort, it turns out he was lying while he was cooperating with the special counsel.  So, yes, I think, you know, particularly since we weren`t allowed to do  follow-up, I think every single witness that was there, you know, talking about the president`s investments and business interests in Russia, those transcripts need to be scrutinized and examined with a critical eye. 
 
MADDOW:  Congressman Jim Himes, Democrat on House Intelligence Committee -- sir, thank you for your time tonight.  I really appreciate it. 
 
HIMES:  Thanks, Rachel.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source