MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries

Interview

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MADDOW:  It was not in his plan for this evening, but we saw that he was in place at a hastily convened press conference tonight with the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler.  And we saw Congressman Hakeem Jeffries there, member of the Judiciary Committee and chair of the House Caucus, we wrangled him and asked him to come to the studio to talk about some of this breaking news tonight. 
 
Congressman Jeffries joins us now.
 
Thank you.  I know you weren`t planning on being here.  Appreciate you being here, sir.
 
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY):  Good to be here.
 
MADDOW:  We did just get breaking news I want to ask you about, and this happened since the press conference.  The chairs of all of the key committees on these topics in the House, the Judiciary chairman, Jerrold Nadler, intelligence chairman, Adam Schiff, the Oversight Committee, the Elijah Cummings, the Financial Services chair, Maxine Waters, Foreign Affairs chair, Eliot Engel, they all released a joint statement calling on William Barr to cancel his presence conference on Special Counsel Mueller`s report which is as the chairs note is scheduled to take place before Congress is set to receive the report tomorrow morning. 
 
I`ll just read you in part of it, quote: These new actions by the attorney general reinforce our concern that he is acting to protect President Trump.  The attorney general previously stated I don`t believe it would be in the public`s interest for me to attempt to summarize the full report or release it in serial or piecemeal action.  We agree.  He should let the full report speak for itself.  The attorney general should cancel the press conference and provide the full report to Congress as we have requested with the special counsel`s fact gathering work concluded, it is now Congress` responsibility to discuss the findings and evidence and proceed accordingly. 
 
This is essentially the chairmen, and including the chair of your committee, Judiciary, telling the attorney general to get out of the way here. 
 
JEFFRIES:  That`s correct.  Under no circumstances should the attorney general proceed with that press conference tomorrow.  It`s wholly inappropriate. 
 
Bob Mueller is a well-respected law enforcement professional.  He conducted a 22-month investigation.  He wrote a report that`s approximately 400 pages long. 
 
The Mueller report should speak for itself, period, full stop.  No misdirection, no manipulation, no misinformation coming from the so-called attorney general. 
 
It`s not acceptable.  He`s acting more like a house counsel to an organized crime boss as opposed to the people`s attorney.  And it`s got to end. 
 
MADDOW:  In terms of -- I`m going ask you something that I don`t think you`re going to answer, but I`m going ask you anyway and I`m going to bother you about it.  During the course of the Mueller investigation, we understood that some committees in Congress, including the intelligence committee, potentially the Judiciary Committee, at times had to deconflict with the special counsel`s office to make sure that what they were pursuing in terms of their congressional investigations wasn`t going to mess up the investigation that the special counsel was carrying over.  That requires some sort of communication with the special counsel`s office. 
 
Since Robert Mueller`s investigation has come to a close and since this report has been handed over to the Justice Department, has there been ongoing communication between the special counsel`s office and the congressional committee`s that might give you in these key committees some insight into what`s going on between Mueller and Barr? 
 
JEFFRIES:  Well, not to my knowledge, but Chairman Nadler indicated even earlier today that he expects that Bob Mueller testify before the House Judiciary Committee sooner rather than later, as well as other individuals who are involved in the Mueller investigation.  We can`t trust anything that`s coming out of the Department of Justice.
 
And all we want is the facts.  All we want is transparency.  All we want is disclosure so that the American people can evaluate the four corners of the Mueller report on their own. 
 
MADDOW:  We don`t know what`s going to be redacted tomorrow when it comes out, and we don`t know based on the way in which it`s redacted if we`ll even be able to tell quantitatively how much has been cut out of it.  I mean, unless you`ve got physical black boxes over lines of text, you can`t tell how much he is going to cut. 
 
Given that, I wonder if the prospect of Mueller testifying assuages any of your concerns about what Barr might cut.  If Mueller is subpoenaed to testify, if he is requested to testify, is he at liberty to appear?  Is there anybody who can block him?  And will he be able to testify what might have been cut of that report if it was improperly redacted in Mueller`s eyes by Barr? 
 
JEFFRIES:  He is certainly at liberty to appear.  He is an American citizen.  He is not an employee of the Department of Justice at this particular point in time.  They can`t block him.  And we fully expect that he would want to be cooperative, particularly if Bob Barr has engaged in a sustained campaign to try to color in inappropriate ways the findings of the Mueller investigation. 
 
MADDOW:  If Barr is going to release a report that raises concerns for you tomorrow.  Obviously, Chairman Nadler has secured the authorization from the committee to issue a subpoena, how do you think that will go?  I mean, for those of us who don`t know congressional subpoenas versus grand jury subpoenas versus who enforces that sort of thing, what is your best guess?  Not what you`re hoping, but the way you think it will actually unfold at that point. 
 
JEFFRIES:  Well, I think in my view, first we want to evaluate carefully whether the report has been overly redacted.  We`ve agreed from the beginning that sources and methods should not be disclosed.  We don`t want to jeopardize any national security concern as it relates to the safety and security of the American people, but we also have this concern that I think is justified by the behavior that we`ve seen from the attorney general over the last few weeks where he seems to be acting like the president`s publicist as opposed to facilitating the disclosure of this information. 
 
Seventeen different intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered with our election, attacked our democracy to artificially try and place Donald Trump at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  This is a serious investigation.  We need to figure out what happened why, did it happen, how did we prevent something like this from happening again, and we have to get the four corners of the report and the underlying documentation. 
 
So, I think the initial step is to evaluate the appropriateness of the redactions. 
 
MADDOW:  One last question briefly.  There was court filing today in the Roger Stone case, of all places, surprise, in which the Justice Department said there is going to be multiple versions of Mueller`s report prepared for release.  Whatever they`re going release to the public tomorrow, there will be some less redacted version that will be made available to some members of Congress in a secure facility inside Congress. 
 
Did you have any idea that they were planning on doing that before the court filing came out today? 
 
JEFFRIES:  I did not.  And Jerry Nadler asked that question and he indicated there has been no agreement, no cooperation with the Department of Justice as it relates to any underlying redactions that may or may not be communicated.  Again, this came out of left field.  And, you know, it was just another example of sort of the strangeness that is unfolding out of the Department of Justice. 
 
MADDOW:  It does seem like they are feeling their way along here and making it up as they go. 
 
JEFFRIES:  I think that`s right. 
 
MADDOW:  Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, member of the House Judiciary Committee, he and other members of that committee held a press conference with their chairman tonight.  He`s also chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, which means he is in-house leadership. 
 
Thanks for changing your plans. 
 
JEFFRIES:  Great to see you. 

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