CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jerrold Nadler

Interview

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COOPER: Well, as we know, there's a reporting, Robert Mueller and James Comey are friendly, not best friends, as the president suggests, while members of Mueller's team have indeed donated to Democratic candidates, some have also given to Republicans. Some are registered Democrat, some are not, some we don't know.

As for the claim that the report and by extension, the Mueller investigation comes out of nowhere, in fact, it has a very clear beginning.

[20:05:03] The president fired James Comey and then boasted about it to Russians and Rod Rosenstein's, the president's appointee, named a special counsel.

You can agree with how the investigation is proceeding, but it's pretty clear how the special counsel's work actually began.

Meantime, there is news involving one of the president's top aides at the White House, and before he got there, Hope Hicks. We have learned she plans to turn over documents to the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation of possible obstruction of justice by the president and others.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler chairs the committee and he joins us now.

Congressman, thanks for being with us.

First of all, a lot to talk about. These comments from the president saying that Mueller shouldn't be able to write a report because he's never got votes. Does this --

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D-NY), CHAIRMAN, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: That makes no sense at all. Mueller is a special counsel, appointed under regulations of the Department of Justice, to investigate certain matters, which it was decided were a conflict for the department to investigate, because the president, who appoints the highest officers of the Department of Justice, is himself a subject or a target of the investigation, which was focused on suspicions or allegations that the Russians, while we know the Russians interfered in the 2016 election, with the intention of helping Trump win. And the questions are whether Trump or people around Trump conspired with the Russians to do that, and did they violate the law in so doing?

That was the main reason for the appointment of Mueller. And that's a standard operating procedure, to appoint the special counsel in those kinds of circumstances.

COOPER: The president is saying that he told Congress that, you know, make it public, if they want, the report. I assume you would like to hold him to that?

NADLER: We certainly would. We want the report, which Mueller has to give to the attorney general and the attorney general can edit it before it goes to the chairman of the House and Senate judiciary committees and to the public, we want the report to be entirely public. We want the underlying evidence to be public, because it's very important that people have confidence either in the president or in the -- certainly in the investigation, so that they see the evidence and they -- and they see what's really going on.

Our job as the Judiciary Committee chairman -- the Judiciary Committee, is to uphold the rule of law and to investigate possible obstruction of justice, abuses of power, and corruption. And the report goes directly to that, which is why we have to see it and the public should see it.

COOPER: Based on our reporting and legally, the president and the White House -- White House attorneys, they can look at the document for executive privilege, no?

NADLER: No, I don't think they can, and they certainly shouldn't be able to. The report is -- the president is a subject or a -- possibly even a target of the report. It's his conduct and the conduct of people around him that's at issue in much of the investigation. And that should be public.

And it's fundamental law that executive privilege cannot hide misconduct. You cannot use the executive privilege to hide misconduct by the president or by anybody around him. In the Nixon case, which was decided 9-0 by the Supreme Court was very dispositive on that point. In addition to which --

COOPER: That was a case about whether or not to release the tapes.

NADLER: To release the tapes, for which the president claimed executive privilege. And the court said "no", because you cannot use executive privilege to hide misconduct of any sort.

Second of all, when that evidence, whatever evidence was given to the special prosecutor, was given to him, any claim of executive privilege was waived by the act of giving it to an investigator.

COOPER: How extensive do you actually expect the Mueller report to be? Because it's not really written down in his mission statement of exactly what sort of report -- I mean --

NADLER: I don't know. I hope it is extensive. I hope it examines all the questions and gives the public answers we can rely on and gives the Congress answers we can rely on.

But we can't depend on that, which is why -- which is one of the reasons why our committee has to do the job that we're doing of investigating, because we cannot -- we don't know that the Mueller report -- and the Mueller report, first of all, is looking only at allegations of crimes. Our job is to look -- is to protect the rule of law and look much broader than just crimes.

Second of all, we don't know how broad the Mueller report is going to be, we don't know how public it's going to be. And therefore, we have to do our own job.

Certainly, seeing the Mueller report and the evidence underlying it will make it much easier to do our job.

COOPER: If the White House did seek to substitute executive privilege, it would only -- things that can only -- only things that happened in the White House, after the president actually became the president, not during the campaign.

NADLER: That's right.

COOPER: Not during the transition.

NADLER: That's right.

COOPER: Nothing is covered by executive privilege?

NADLER: No. Executive privilege is a doctrine to protect the right of the president to get personal advice so he can make his judgments. If he's not president, that doesn't apply.

And in any event, as I said, executive privilege cannot be used to hide wrongdoing or misconduct.

COOPER: Your committee has sent out 81 requests to individuals and entities as part of the investigation into the president and the inner circle. Can you say how many of those 81 have actually submitted documents?

NADLER: We have been contacted --

COOPER: I think the deadline was two days ago.

NADLER: The deadline was yesterday -- Monday. Yes, two days.

COOPER: I know, the days do all blend together these days.

NADLER: Yes. I can't give you an exact number. We have gotten substantial response from very large number of people. We've gotten -- who have told us either, here are the documents or we're preparing the documents, you'll have them shortly.

COOPER: Would you say the majority of people have responded?

NADLER: I don't know it's the majority, but it's -- I don't know. It's a large number. And we've also gotten from a fair number of people saying we would be happy to provide you documents if you give us a subpoena first, which we will do.

COOPER: We reported last night that Rod Rosenstein -- and Hope Hicks is turning over documents, is that correct?

NADLER: Hope Hicks has, yes. Among others.

COOPER: Rod Rosenstein, we reported last night, now apparently intends to stay at the department of justice until the report is released. Is that something you support? Or does that not have any influence?

NADLER: Well, I have no influence over that question.

COOPER: Do you care whether he's --

NADLER: Yes, I'm glad to see that he's staying. From all accounts and from everything I can judge, he's a man of integrity and has done what he can to see that the special counsel can do his work unimpeded, and I'm glad to see that he will stay there as long as he does.

COOPER: Does that tell you anything about the -- how long this may still -- I mean, I'm sure you're asked this question --

NADLER: No, no, no. It's all a question of tea leaves. And I said on TV a few weeks ago that I watch CNN and MSNBC every night to figure out when they're going to release the report.

COOPER: Well, yes. Well, we're getting, you know, conflicting information.

I also want to bring in Robert Ray, who is the former Whitewater independent counsel, and Neal Katyal who drafted the special counsel regulations.

Mr. Ray, I mean, you hear the president saying he's fine with everyone seeing the report. Obviously, he's not happy with the investigation. He has his own history of it.

Do you actually believe he -- people will see this report? The full report?

ROBERT RAY, FORMER WHITEWATER INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: I think the news out of that, at least for me today, was that the president has provided cover for the attorney general to go ahead and do, consistent with his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the confirmation hearings to release as much of it as he can consistent with the regulations.

And again, we'd talked about what the possible exceptions would be. The chairman has mentioned the issue of executive privilege. There's potentially information that might be in the report that would be grand jury material that would have to get a court order in order to release.

There's potentially also national security information that might be in there, if Bob Mueller chose to put it in the report. I think there are ways to avoid that. But if -- to the extent that it was in there, everybody would concede the appropriateness of limited redactions. COOPER: Do you believe that, you know, besides national security

information, that executive privilege does not cover anything relating --

RAY: Look, I mean, the chairman's right as a general concept, executive privilege is not a shield to, you know, to cabin misconduct. But, you know, there are instances where there might well be a legitimate exercise of executive privilege.

I don't know. I haven't seen the report. I don't know what's in the report. I don't know whether the report even arguably would have any potentially privileged material.

And also, I mean, you know, Bob Mueller's a smart guy. I would imagine that the effort would be in drafting the report to avoid that.

But, you know, we talked about this last night. The question about whether the White House should gain access. I don't agree with the congressman that it would be inappropriate for the White House to have at least an opportunity to review it for privileged material. And I also think consistent with what I now understand, what we all understand is a defunct independent counsel statute, it remains the case notwithstanding the fact that we moved past the independent counsel statute, that fairness dictates that, you know, someone who is the subject of an investigation, if you're going to go out there and not charge them and have things to say about them in a report --

COOPER: That they get to respond.

RAY: The president gets an opportunity to respond. Now, you know, I understand why Democrats in Congress have a problem with that. And it wouldn't be a long period of time to get advanced access to it. And it would have to be on the condition that they don't jump the gun with regard to releasing findings that are contained in the report.

But I wouldn't have a problem with that, if that happened.

NADLER: I would have a problem. I think that, first of all, if there was any privileged information in the report, it's because that information was given to the special counsel. And the privilege is waived when it was given. It should have been --

RAY: I'm not so sure about that.

[20:15:01] NADLER: I think the law is pretty clear on that. Executive privilege must be asserted by the president. And if you give it to someone else, it's -- except on the very narrow circumstances of anyone, it's waived. Number one.

Number two, as a general rule, what Barr said, Attorney General Barr said in his confirmation testimony that you don't want to comment negatively about someone who's not indicted, because you don't want to smear them, is correct and salutary policy.

But that is on the assumption that the reason you're not indicting someone is because you don't have evidence sufficient to charge them with a crime to indict them. If the reason you're not indicting someone because you believe the law says that the sitting president may not be indicted no matter what the evidence, if you then take the position, that we're not indicting the president because we can't as a matter of law, we're not going no comment on the evidence against him, we're not going to list it, then you're converting that into a cover- up.

And you're saying that the Department of Justice cannot hold the president -- any president accountable, because you can't indict him. And the department will then withheld from Congress and the public, the information for Congress to hold the president accountable. And that yields a result in which the president is above the law. And that's inadmissible in this country.

COOPER: Neal, I mean, you drafted the special -- the regulations. Where are you in this, in terms of executive privilege?

NEAL KATYAL, FORMER U.S. ACTING SOLICITOR GENERAL, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: So, the first thing to say is, I agree with Robert Ray. And this is rare for me to say, I'm not someone who normally praises Trump, but I think Trump does deserve credit today for saying that he thinks the report should be made public.

COOPER: Do you believe him? Because he also said that he would -- he wanted to testify against Mueller.

KATYAL: Well, you know, he said it. And I think as Robert Ray just said, has told the attorney general what he wants to happen. Now, he said a bunch of other ludicrous things like, nobody voted for Mueller so he can't be investigating him, which is just kind of poppycock. I mean, that would mean that a president would be totally above the law. I agree with Congressman Nadler there.

I think the executive privilege stuff is one he really shouldn't assert. If he tries to assert it, he's going to lose for exactly the reason the congressmen said, which is the Nixon tapes case. So, you know, it would be one thing if it's over a particular source or method or something like that, but, you know, this president has a history of using these kinds of defenses in a kind of tendentious way.

So, I think it's a very tough road for him to follow if he tries to asset executive privilege.

COOPER: Mr. Ray, you said something interesting about someone who was on Chris Cuomo's show, which I walk every night. You said, people will be poorly disappointed to think that this report is going to be a long exposition about all the things uncovered in the course of the investigation. Do you think that's still the case?

RAY: I think that's right. I have no way of knowing. You know, I don't --

COOPER: But it's not the Starr report.

RAY: I think, remember, also, experience is some guide here. People do learn the lessons of history and I think it has generally been seen as the fact that there was too much detail in connection with some reports. I think, also, the independent counsel statute seemed to prove the point that, frankly, that statute seemed to be an encouragement to have, you know, much to say.

My own view is that it's an appropriate job for a prosecutor and the president does have a point about this. A prosecutor isn't elected to anything. And it's a -- it's important for a prosecutor to remember that basic fact. That's sort of my takeaway point from what the president said here.

So, you know, you can dismiss it as poppycock all you want. But there's a point there that the president has that's well worth noting. And for that reason --

KATYAL: There's no point there. What's the point?

COOPER: Let him finish --

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RAY: My view about a report is that a prosecutor's job is to provide sufficient information and context, facts, to explain why charges were either brought or not brought, period.

COOPER: Neal --

RAY: And it's not a roving mandate to be a fact gatherer for the benefit of anybody, including Congress.

COOPER: Neal, I want you to respond.

KATYAL: I mean, the ridiculousness of this, someone like Robert Mueller needs to be reminded that nobody voted for him. I mean, that's inane. Obviously, he knows that. This is one of our most distinguished public servants around.

And, by the way, it wasn't just Mueller showing up one day and saying, hey, I would like to investigate the president. The president's own guy, Rod Rosenstein, who was appointed by Donald Trump, named Mueller to that position. So, the idea that this is like some sort of creation out of thin air, I think, is ridiculous.

And that proof is in the pudding. You've had now 37 different indictments, including the president's national security adviser going to jail and other people like that. So this is like -- this is a very serious thing. This is not Mueller just going off on his own.

NADLER: I think I would add one other thing. The special counsel here acts pursuant to the regulations, more -- I mean, more than just the normal way of a run-of-the-mill prosecutor.

[20:20:02] Because he was appointed to look into very serious allegations that the Russians interfered in our elections and that Americans perhaps including the president, certainly including people in the campaign, worked with them, the normal way of a run-of-the-mill prosecutor. Because he was appointed to look into very serious allegations that the Russians interfered in our elections and that Americans perhaps including the president, certainly including people in the campaign, worked with them.

And people have a right to expect, to the extent possible, the answer to the question, is that true? And who colluded with the Russians, if anybody? And what went on there. Not simply a question of who's being indicted.

COOPER: Do you --

RAY: Generally speaking, I agree with that. And I think that's going to come out inevitably, one way or another. So, you know, absent context, it's a little hard to comment about.

Your question to me was, do I expect a 500-page report or more? Do I expect a five-page report, I don't know. But I don't think -- if I know Bob Mueller the way I think I know him, I don't think you're going to see, you know, an exhaustive examination of facts that goes on forever.

I think it's going to be direct and to the point. That's what I expect to see. And I think there'll be --

KATYAL: What Congressman Nadler --

RAY: -- details in that, but I don't expect that you're going to have -- you know, people are apparently already selling rights now to the report in a book-length form. I don't think you -- if you're expecting that, I think you're going to be disappointed.

COOPER: Neal? Sorry, go ahead.

KATYAL: What Congressman Nadler said is so important, which is Mueller's mandate is criminal. It's not just a matter of, you know, the judgment and so on. So for example, Trump we now know lied to the American people when he said in 2016, before the election, that he has no business dealings in Russia.

The Mueller investigation has proved that not to be the case. That's not a criminal case. That's not an indictment.

It's absolutely something Congress has to investigate, but wherever that Mueller report comes out, I think everyone needs to remember the limited confines. He's looking at crimes. He's not looking at other things, which are more responsible -- the responsibilities of Congress.

COOPER: Yes, we're going to have to leave it there. Appreciate Congressman Nadler, always.

RAY: Thanks very much.

NADLER: Thank you.

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