MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jamie Raskin

Interview

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HAYES:  Now we`re joined by Congressman Jamie Raskin, Democrat from Maryland, Member of the two House committees that are currently -- or two of the House committees currently investigating the president, Oversight and Judiciary.  We just played that your chair Jerry Nadler is response to this.  What`s your response so far?
 
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D), MARYLAND:  Well, we are determined indeed to get the complete unedited Mueller report turned over to the Congress and turned over to the American people.  And we want not only the report except for whatever might be top-secret, classified, but we want all of the underlying evidentiary materials upon which this special counsel made his judgment.
 
And there`s excellent precedent for that the Department of Justice turned over more than 880,000 related to Hillary Clinton`s e-mails and that of course did not result in a prosecution.  And we know that there have been prosecutions and many guilty pleas related to the Mueller investigation but we want all of the material turned over to us.
 
HAYES:  I don`t think I quite realized that.  Well, you`re -- so what you`re calling for and what your committees contention is that in addition to as public and airing of the actual report, Congress should be transmitted the full evidentiary record upon which the report was based?
 
RASKIN:  Absolutely right.  I mean, of course, we`re an independent branch of government.  We are the lawmaking branch of government charged with the duty of constitutional oversight over the executive branch.
 
And so we have the power to receive all of these documents and this has been the pattern that the Department of Justice has turned over to Congress when asked for it not just conclusory findings and basic you know, the factual or legal judgments, but the underlying materials upon which it`s based because we, of course, have an independent Constitutional role to play and we`re looking at a whole set of question that may be completely different from what they`re looking at.
 
For one thing, justice takes the position that they cannot indict the President of the United States so obviously they may not be looking for that.  But we have a much broader responsibility in order to vindicate democratic confidence in the rule of law in the Constitution.
 
HAYES:  And you`re saying there`s precedent for that than in the case of just the recently conducted investigation into the e-mail use of the former Secretary of State that after that decision 880,000 documents were handed over to the Congressional Committee?
 
RASKIN:  Sure.  I mean, we`ve seen tons of documents turned over from the Department of Justice related to the Mueller investigation.  And Peter Strzok and all of the e-mails, remember the late night emails and so on, all of those were asked for by Republican chairs of the various congressional committees.  They were turned over by the Department of Justice.  So we`re just looking for the exact same treatment.
 
We want to see yes, what did the Special Counsel say but what`s underlying it.  What are all of the documents and the facts and the evidentiary basis for their decisions and then we`ve got to make decisions of our own of course?
 
HAYES:  What do you do when -- I mean, this is a situation right now wherein in various document requests not only has various federal agencies declined to give you that information whether it`s the Oversight Committee particularly or Judiciary Committee, they have simply not responded.
 
When, the Department of Justice tell you to take a walk off a short pier when you ask them for those -- that evidentiary record, what do you do?
 
RASKIN:  Well, first of all, I don`t think that that`s going to happen precisely because we can ask the former Special Counsel and Mr. Mueller to come in.  We can subpoena him and we can begin to ask people to come in to testify about it.  So we have every expectation --
 
HAYES:  I see.  That`s the alternative?
 
RASKIN:  Yes.  That is the alternative.  We have the subpoena power.  But we are shocked to tell you the truth that the White House has been failing to turn over documents requested by Elijah Cummings, the Chair of the Oversight Committee.  That`s not true of everybody who received the document requests, thousands and thousands of documents have come in but not from the White House.
 
And so we hope that the lawyers in the White House will prevail upon the president to comply with his legal duty to turn over documents that have been requested by the Oversight Committee.
 
HAYES:  All right, Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you so much for making the time.

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