CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jim Himes

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

COOPER: As for one of those letters he mentioned, the four-page summary he first released, the attorney general said it was not intended to summarize the report by Mueller. However, he said he did endeavor to use, I'm quoting, as much of the special counsel's own language, unquote, as he could. Keeping them honest, it's an interesting way to look at it considering

his letter contained 74 words plus a few more in the footnotes from what is reportedly a several hundred page document, 74 words from Mueller and zero complete sentences from the special counsel's report on the investigation.

As Democrats will point out, Secretary Barr managed to write 19 whole pages on the probe unsolicited which he shared with President Trump's attorneys before the president picked him for the job.

More now from a lawmaker who's been part of the story from the beginning. He's a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut joins us.

Congressman, do you give the attorney general the benefit of the doubt in terms of how he'll present the full Mueller report?

REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): No, he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. I mean, we're a co-equal branch of the government charged with oversight, so nobody gets the benefit of the doubt. One way or another, we need to see every word of that report. Some of the stuff will, of course, be classified and it may have to be looked at by a small group of people in a closed room.

The grand jury information obviously we're going to negotiate and figure out how to go on that, but no, he certainly doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. Look, the four-page letter, if you think back on what those four pages were all about, they were about supposedly clearing the president. And yet, there's 400 other pages of information that we need to review.

So, again, we need to review it.

COOPER: Why not wait until he's actually released it to judge his actions and his intent and the level of redactions?

HIMES: Yes, I'm not judging his actions or his intent. I'm just saying he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. You know, it would be wrong for the Congress to just assume that the executive was going to be fulsome in its disclosure about itself. So, look, I suspect we will probably have an argument over redactions.

But remember, look, we made progress here. Look back a year ago, we were really worried Mueller might get fired. We were worried the report may never be released.

We're going to see the report. I suspect we will have a fight over redactions. That will probably last some time. But I'm confident than all is said and done, we'll get -- we'll get to see the full report.

COOPER: What do you make of the fact the attorney general wouldn't say today whether or not the White House has seen or been debriefed on the report? If they haven't been, he could just say so.

HIMES: Yes, it's a little disturbing. You know, you think you could answer a simple question. I mean, you know, I don't have any information, but I would be shocked considering the fact that the president has obsessed over this investigation and this report as long as the investigation has been under way, if it hadn't made its way to the White House.

That doesn't trouble me so much. Again, what concerns me mostly is that we see that report and we see that whole report. So long as that's true and we have an opportunity to look at it and the investigative materials, the evidence that we think is important, I don't care who else sees it.

COOPER: Look, as you know, I mean, the argument against -- you know, there's two different things. There's releasing the report to the public and then releasing it to members of Congress.

[20:05:06] There's a lot of folks who will say, well, look, things leak out of Congress all the time. The idea of that this report wouldn't leak out even if it was only members of Congress who got to see it, would surprise a lot of people.

HIMES: Well, look, you know, the fact is there's precedent to overcome both of the objections of the Department of Justice and the attorney general. One objection, of course, is grand jury information. And Chairman Nadler was talking about that today. There is precedent with respect to the pre-Watergate situation when a judge waived the rule 6E, I think it is, of the department of justice.

The other thing is the attorney general is saying we're going to protect the identities of uninvolved or tangentially involved third parties, that's kind of funny to me, Anderson, because there was no such compunction with outing the text of Peter Strzok and the woman he was having an extramarital affair within the FBI. There was no problem releasing those texts. Now, all of a sudden, we're getting puritanical about protecting the privacy of marginally involved third parties.

Look, the attorney general and the Department of Justice does not have a lot of either precedent or credibility when they say we're going to protect people's privacy.

COOPER: Well, the attorney general also saying, look, Democrats, if they don't like redactions, they can go to court. How long a process would you see that being?

HIMES: Well, hard to say. Again, my hope is -- and I suspect I'll be disappointed in this hope -- my hope is that the redactions are such that they're immaterial. Look, if you want to protect somebody's privacy, black out their name or something.

But, you know, there's a difference between getting a report with a couple of names blacked out and page after page after page of blacked out information. I think we just need to wait and see what we actually get. It sounds like we're going to get it within a week or so.

COOPER: And just lastly, the chairman of your committee, Congressman Schiff, said the attorney general is behaving like the president's Roy Cohn. Obviously, not a compliment.

Is that kind of comparison you think helpful at this stage of the proceedings?

HIMES: Well, again, the attorney general didn't do himself any favors when he essentially arrogated a judgment that is not his to make, when he said that, you know, I got together with my deputy and we decided there's no obstruction of justice, even if Mueller didn't clear it. That's really, since the Department of Justice under their own procedures won't indict a president, that's not his judgment to make.

And so, he didn't really set himself up to be in a sort of happy relationship in the Congress when he said that and did that. It's really for us to judge, you know, the reason of course DOJ won't indict a sitting president is that the accountability mechanism resides with the Congress of the United States.

COOPER: Congressman Himes, appreciate you joining us. Thanks very much. A lot to look for.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source