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

Interview

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HAYES:  Bill Barr`s congressional testimony wasn`t supposed to end today.  Barr was supposed to appear tomorrow in front of the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee.  But with just hours until the hearing was said to begin, he bailed.
 
Over the weekend, Barr threatened to skip his date on Capitol Hill if the Judiciary Committee went forward with plans to allow the committee lawyers to ask question.  And until the committee voted along party lines to do just that.
 
Just a little while ago, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler announced that Barr would not attend tomorrow`s hearing and added the DOJ has also said it will not comply with a subpoena for the unredacted Mueller report.
 
Joining me now is one of the congressmen who had hoped to question Attorney General Barr tomorrow, Congressman Jamie Raskin, Democrat from Maryland.
 
I want to read you from the DOJ statement on the refusal by the attorney general to testify
before the committee, "congress and the executive branch are co-equal branches of congress and each have a constitutional obligation to respect and accommodate one another`s legitimate interests.  Chairman Nadler`s insistence on having staff question the attorney general, a senate- confirmed cabinet
member, is inappropriate."
 
You are being unaccommodating, your committee is, in the words of the Department of Justice.  What do you say?
 
REP. JAMIE RASKIN, (D) MARYLAND:  Well, I think that`s very rich coming from an attorney general and a president who are now refusing to turn over any documents or make any witnesses available in a host of investigations we are doing across congress, and is actively trying to interfere with Capital One and Deutsche Bank, even private entities complying with congressional orders.  So, they are basically trying to draw a curtain down over the whole executive branch. 
 
And, you know, the attorney general tried to dictate the terms of his appearance and the format of our hearing,  because he wanted to do to us what he did to the senators today, which is to bluster and filibuster all the way through those five-minute periods.  And he wanted to do that to us.  And we insisted that there be professional legal staff questioning after the public portion of the hearing.  And we would have, you know, been happy to work out an accommodation with him in some way.  But we needed to have real questioning without all the obstructionism.
 
HAYES:  So, why do you think that was the breaking point for him?  I don`t even actually understand the objection.
 
RASKIN:  Yeah, they are claiming it`s unprecedented, which obviously it isn`t.  I mean, lawyers have done this lots of times before.
 
The real reason he decided not to come, I think, is that President Trump gave the game away when he went on the Hannity show and said that he understood from Attorney General Barr that Barr  looked at the report and decided on the spot there was no obstruction, no collusion, no obstruction.  And I think that Barr conceded today -- I wasn`t able to watch the whole hearing, but I think he admitted that he had not reviewed any of the underlying evidence.  All of the boxes of evidence, hundreds of thousands of documents, he obviously arrived at a predetermined conclusion.  The cake was baked long ago.
 
And anybody who read his 19-page single-spaced memo would understand that.  He does not think that the president can be guilty of obstructing justice simply because he sits on top of the executive branch of government.  That`s what we are dealing with now, a run away executive branch of government, which does not want to deal with the reality of congressional power and our oversight power.
 
But we are going to insist upon it.  And we are headed for a collision with them.
 
HAYES:  So, what happens next?  I mean, they`ve not only -- he`s not going to show up, they`re also just explicitly rejecting a subpoena for the full unredacted Mueller report, which they said too bad, you don`t get it.
 
RASKIN:  Well, congress is not without its means to try to enforce our legitimate will and our lawful orders.  We can go to court to seek criminal and civil contempt sanctions against people that disobey lawful orders of congress.  We have inherent contempt power.  In the 19th Century, congress held people itself.  We have the power to fine people.  We also have the power of the purse.  And, of course, we have the power to censure, we have the power to impeach.  We are the law making branch of government.  We are in Article 1 for a reason.  We represent the people of the United States. 
 
The president`s sole job is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, that and being
commander-in-chief, but his main job is to execute the laws that we pass, not defy them, not circumvent them, and certainly not to violate them.
 
HAYES:  All right, Congressman Jamie Raskin on the House Judiciary Committee, thank you so much.

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