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

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

HAYES: And she is now under indictment. Nick Akerman, Natasha Bertrand,  thank you both. Joining me now a Democratic Congressman from New York`s  Jerry Nadler. He`s the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. What do  you make of these revelations from your perch chairing that committee,  Congressman?

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Well, I  listened very carefully to Nick Akerman and it certainly seems very  indicative. I think the wall -- the walls are closing in on the president.  The truth is beginning to be assembled of a best conspiracy to defraud the  American people with several different aspects whether it was the hush  money to the women that the -- that the President seems to be personally  involved in or this collusion with Russians in which they`re given data in  which the people gave it to them from the Trump campaign, knew had no value  to them other than to help them micro-target social media into illegal  social media interventions in the American election. And of course the  Trump Tower meeting relating to the hacks from the DNC.

This is why it is so important to protect the Mueller investigation and to  make sure that report that may or may not be coming out soon becomes public  and is not pocketed by Mr. Whitaker or Mr. Barr and that`s what we have to  make sure of. It`s one of the things we have to make sure of on the  Judiciary Committee that that report is public so the American people know  the results of this investigation.

And of course, we have work to do also. We don`t -- we now have enough  leads to do our own investigation on some of the things that Mueller  probably knows already but hasn`t said yet.

HAYES: So on the publicness, this is something I`ve been asking a lot of  folks. The regulations at issue do not require that it be made public.  You`re saying if you view it as your job to make it public, do you have  that power as the committee chair to do so?

NADLER: Well, the committee certainly has the power to subpoena the report  and if necessary we have the power to certainly -- to invite former  prosecutor Mueller to testify in front of the committee and ask him about  it.

HAYES: You`re saying once he -- once he were to finish, if the executive  attempted to essentially keep it under wraps, those are two avenues you  have the power to pursue?

NADLER: That`s exactly right.

HAYES: Now, there`s reporting about Steve Mnuchin who`s someone that I  know that various committees have oversight have been pursuing particularly  as relates to the decision to lift sort of walk back sanctions on Oleg  Deripaska, man at the sort of center of all this, and he has now agreed to  give a classified briefing tomorrow, is that correct?

NADLER: Yes.

HAYES: And what`s the nature of that?

NADLER: Well, I don`t know what the nature is. It`s a classified briefing  to all members of the House as to why he is proposing to remove the or  removing these sanctions. Now, these sanctions were imposed on Deripaska  and other Russian oligarchs close to Putin because of the invasion of  Ukraine -- of Crimea, the occupation of Crimea, the invasion of Ukraine.

And of course, we know from everything you`ve talked about, we know from  the testimony about the Trump Tower meeting that the chief quid pro quo for  all of this help to the Trump campaign from the Russians is the lifting of  sanctions. They wanted to do that from day one. And now we see -- now the  President, of course, tried to -- you know, tried to delay the imposition  of sanctions that Congress voted and Congress forced them to impose them.

And now he`s trying to lift sanctions without the Russians doing anything  to remove themselves from the Crimea or stopping their aggressions in  Ukraine. So why you would lift the sanctions except as a quid pro quo for  illegal help in the election by the Russians I wouldn`t know.

HAYES: And presumably the Treasury Secretary will speak to that in  classified briefing tomorrow. Another item that just broke in last hours  is stores in Washington Post about the beefed-up legal team inside the  White House and their strategies sort of aggressively to assert executive  privilege in matters having to do with the investigations of Robert  Mueller. Is your committee staff prepared for what can be some extremely  high stakes legal battles between these two branches of government?

NADLER: Our committee staff and the House Counsel who was just hired last  week are very much prepared for whatever legal battles may be necessary.  And the fact of the matter is you know, Richard Nixon tried to assert  executive privilege in the Supreme Court very sharply slapped him down.  There is no reasonable case for executive privilege. The executive  privilege is always pierced by any reasonable necessity in a criminal or  congressional investigation, and the Nixon case which was the unanimous  Supreme Court made that point very clear.

HAYES: All right, Congressman and Chair of the House Judiciary Committee  Jerry Nadler, thank you very much.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source