MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jerry Nadler

Interview

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HAYES: I`m joined by the -- I`m joined now by the incoming chair of the  House Judiciary Committee, that would be Congressman Jerry Nadler who`s a  Democrat of New York. I`ll start with you on the President`s comments.  He`s asked about Mr. Whitaker, he responds about the Mueller investigation  and how it`s a legitimate. Do you read anything into that?

REP. JERRY NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Well we read a confirmation of the  obvious that Whitaker was placed there to be a hatchet man to subvert or  sabotage of the Mueller investigation. He had only one qualification which  was relevant namely that he unlike attorney General Sessions he would not  recuse himself. He would not that point -- he would ignore his obvious  conflict of interest. So the president is simply confirming that his  purpose there is to sabotage the investigation.

HAYES: There`s been news that you and your colleagues in the Democratic  Party are going to launch an investigation into Whitaker particularly the  role he played with this company that is being investigated by the FBI.  There`s a quote from someone who was on the wrong end of the scam who is he  says sort of intimidated by Whitaker out of blowing the whistle. He was  yelling Whittaker pushback against early fraud complaints about company he  advised. That`s in the Washington Post. What do you want to find out  about his role in that company?

NADLER: Well, we want to find out what kind -- whether he was involved in  criminal or fraudulent activity because he is supposedly the chief law  enforcement officer of the United States. And we would simply be doing the  due diligence that the Senate should do if it were given the opportunity to  do what it`s constitutionally mandated to do namely advise and consent on  the nomination. We believe that this nomination is illegal, that the  office of legal counsels opinion is nonsense that the office of legal  counsel is simply shilling for the president, and someone has got to look  into his qualifications and his conflicts of interest since the Senate is  not being given the opportunity to do that.

HAYES: So I take it that you`re not impressed the office of legal counsel  decision is in the words of Kellyanne Conway in that interview twenty  pages, and the President also seemed impressed that it was 20 pages. That  doesn`t convince you?

NADLER: Length the never convinces on anything. His appointment is  clearly unconstitutional because it evades the necessity of a principal  officer the government being confirmed by the -- by the Senate. It cites a  general succession law. But as any law student knows, general success --  general laws are trumped by specific laws. This is a specific law that  says the succession for an acting Attorney General goes through the Deputy  Attorney General, the Solicitor General and through other people confirmed  by the Senate, so no.
This is obviously the president reaching for someone who he thinks is a  hatchet man who can evade judgment by the Senate and who will do his job of  sabotaging the investigation of which the President has shown very clearly  his latest tweets and comments that he`s terrified of.

HAYES: Yes. Let me ask you about that. I think the conventional wisdom  watching the President`s behavior from the outside, we know he`s consulting  with his attorneys on questions, we know there`s some activity happening behind the scenes with Mueller vis a vis his court filings, other people saying they expect to be indicted, is your read on the situation the same one that we tend to have which is that he looks like a man who`s very scared about what Mueller is going to do?

NADLER: He certainly is giving the impression of someone very scared of  what Mueller is going to do and he`s trying to avoid that. Remember, his  only beef with the Attorney General Sessions that he kept complaining about  was that he didn`t recuse himself from the investigation and therefore  couldn`t stop it. And where`s my Roy Cohn who could in effect do my -- you  know, protect me personally. That`s not the job of the Attorney General,  and he`s obviously very scared of this, and he has been convinced until now  at least, that he could evade accountability, that he was above the law,  and that no one would hold him to the law.
But now we`ve got a Democratic Congress or at least House coming in in  January that`s going to do proper oversight which is our constitutional  duty which is going to hold him accountable and the special prosecutor may  very well hold them accountable too and he`s acting very cornered.

HAYES: Do you have any leverage in this lame-duck -- Senator Blumenthal  was talking about ways of thinking about attaching something to and he must  pass legislation in the lame-duck session to protect special counsel.  Obviously, that law would have -- there have to be a matching law on the  House for it to get to the President`s desk. Do you have any leverage in  the minority in this lame duck for something like that?

NADLER: Well, we`re working together with our colleagues in the Senate.  We have leverage -- they have more leverage because you need 60 votes  basically to passed any bill and we don`t need that in the House. But  unless you can assume that all the Republicans are going to support the  budget law which they may not, not because of this but for other reasons,  for questions of what`s in the continuing resolution, what`s in the budget,  we will have some leverage. And certainly, the prospect of our becoming  the majority in January gives us some leverage too.

HAYES: All right, Congressman Jerry Nadler, thanks for being with me.

NADLER: Thank you.

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