CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Steve Cohen
Interview
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[20:25:39] COOPER: House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler is giving Attorney General Barr until Monday to respond to a letter demanding Justice Department hand over the unredacted Mueller report and underlying evidence to Congress. Nadler set a deadline of 9:00 a.m. for Barr to respond. He said he would move to contempt proceedings if the attorney general doesn't comply. Nadler's letter comes one day after Barr skipped a House Judiciary
Committee hearing after the committee voted to allow staff attorneys to question him. One Democrat on the committee, Congressman Steve Cohen, called the attorney general chicken Barr for not showing up and to illustrate his point, he chowed down some KFC.
Congressman Cohen joins us now.
Congressman, thanks for being with us.
So, the new Monday deadline for Nadler, how do you think the Justice Department and Attorney General Barr will respond? Is there any reason to believe they'll turn over documents your committee wants?
REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): I have no reason to believe they'll do anything that is in keeping with the traditions of the relationship between the executive and the judicial as equal branches of government. I think they will stonewall at all costs because they -- they know that they can't give up information and data, or the president will be exposed for the type of person and the actions he's undertaken.
COOPER: So, Chairman Nadler talked about moving to contempt proceedings if the attorney general doesn't comply. What does that -- what would that actually look like?
COHEN: Well, I hope it would be inherent contempt because we go out and take him and bring him in and have him personally brought to the House. If it is a --
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COOPER: You want to send out --
COHEN: -- a contempt.
COOPER: You want to send out a sergeant-at-arms and require the attorney general to come.
COHEN: Yes. Otherwise, it is up to the Justice Department. The Justice Department is not going to do anything to take a contempt citation from us and enforce it against their boss. So, you know, you've got an impossible situation there, and it leaves us no alternative except to use the sergeant-at-arms and to bring him in.
He's being utterly contemptuous to Congress. He has lied to the Congress. Charlie Crist asked him about the attitudes or the feelings of Mueller people, and Mueller, and he claimed he had no idea. He lied. Speaker Pelosi said that yesterday. She's correct.
COOPER: So, when you say bring him in, are you -- do you actually -- actually support the idea of putting him in -- are you talking about just having him sit for a hearing or locking him up somehow?
COHEN: You have to have him sit for a hearing and I think you have to have him locked up unless he agrees to participate and come to the hearing. Either that or have him be in a room with somebody like Mike -- what is his name, Gates (ph), just the two of them, that might be more difficult punishment.
COOPER: But do you believe that you're going to -- that your committee is going to order the attorney general of the United States to be arrested by the sergeant of arms and put in jail?
COHEN: I don't know what we'll do. But we can't just go to the Justice Department. It is meaningless. It shows we want to hold him in contempt but he won't be held in contempt because the Justice Department is not going to enforce a contempt citation against their boss. This is not going to happen. Trump and Barr would fire whoever tried to do it.
COOPER: Do you -- have you talked about this with everybody on the committee or do your colleagues support this --
COHEN: No, it is strictly up to Chairman Nadler. But I think this is the most contemptuous conduct towards Congress we've ever had. He's lied to Congress, he's refused to attend, he's tried to dictate the terms of oversight and that's never happened before.
We have lots of precedent for counsel questioning, people in hearings, not just impeachment hearings but hearings of all kind. We had it in Whitewater, we've had at many times of hearings. We have it back in the McCarthy era when Bobby Kennedy questions people and Whitewater, Richard Ben-Veniste and Michael Chertoff questioned people. It's a much more adept way to question somebody when you can follow up on your questions and not be cut off and not be filibustered and he's afraid of it and that is why he didn't come in.
COOPER: I mean, if -- if it came to you sending the sergeant of arms or committee sending the sergeant of arms to apprehend and arrest the attorney general, isn't that handing Republicans an incredible thing to -- you know, to point to as Democratic overreach? They went after you for the chicken stunt yesterday and gave them talking points that you weren't taking this whole thing seriously.
COHEN: I don't think anybody was averse to what I did with the chicken. Anybody who had a modicum of a sense of a humor or a modicum of intelligence or understanding liked it, those that failed in the two criteria didn't, and for those people, get a life.
COOPER: Congressman Cohen, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.
COHEN: You're welcome.
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