NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Interview Rep. Jerry Nadler
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REP. JERROLD NADLER:
Good to be here.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me start with the -- before I get your reaction to some of Mr. Giuliani, let me just start with something from the Mueller report. I'm curious, your reaction to it. On obstruction, this is what Mueller says, writes. "Congress can validly make obstruction of justice statutes applicable to corruptly motivated official acts of the president without impermissibly undermining his Article II functions." Did you believe that -- did you read that as a directive to Congress that, basically, the call is in your court, not Bill Barr's?
REP. JERROLD NADLER:No. I believe that that is already the law and that he is -- that sentence is part of an explanation of why he, essentially, disagrees with Attorney General Barr's wild, far-out legal theory that the president cannot obstruct, commit obstruction of justice, no matter what he does, because he is the head of the Justice Department. And he is saying that Congress can make corruptly motivated acts by a president or by anybody in the Executive Branch a crime. And it has. Unless you think that Barr is right, and almost no lawyer thinks he's right, in saying that the president is immune from, from -- that as long as the president does his official powers, he can do anything. That's like saying, that's like saying that a member of Congress has a right to vote for or against the Farm Bill. It's true. But if you vote for the Farm Bill or against it, because someone gave you a bribe, that's an obstruction of justice and bribery. The president's no different.
CHUCK TODD: Well let me read you this part though, 'cause i do think this is the complicating factor of all this. Also from the report, "Unlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President's intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct." They go to state that whether you think it's distasteful or not, a political motivation, meaning the president concerned about his political standing, might not be an illegal reasoning behind, sort of, having concern about this case?
REP. JERROLD NADLER:No, the, the Mueller report goes on to state that there may be other considerations that are not crimes that would -- that nonetheless are predicates for obstruction of justice and that happens all the time to save your reputation, for other reasons. What Mueller says, and this is where Barr deliberately, or one of the places where Barr deliberately misled the American people -- but Mueller says is that although a thorough FBI investigation might very well show evidence of obstruction of justice by the president, we're not going to do that.
CHUCK TODD: Right.
REP. JERROLD NADLER: Because of the Department of Justice legal opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted and it would be unfair to lay out the facts justifying an indictment without giving the president the opportunity in a trial to clear his name. So because of that legal doctrine, we're not going to charge him with obstruction. Barr misinterpreted that, or misrepresented that I should say, to say that they didn't find obstruction. There is plenty of evidence of obstruction and they say in so many words --
CHUCK TODD: Do --
REP. JERROLD NADLER: -- if we pursue this, we might put ourselves in an impossible position because we would then have to charge the president with a crime which the Justice Department won't permit us to do.
CHUCK TODD: Do you assume that the reason Bob Mueller did not charge anybody with conspiracy with the Russians is because he has found that no conspiracy took place or that he didn't have enough evidence to sustain a conviction? And is there a distinction, in your mind?
REP. JERROLD NADLER:Well, obviously, there's a distinction. But he pretty much states, in most cases, first of all, here's, again, where Barr misled the American people. He said, "There was no collusion." Collusion is a term that is not a legal term. The special prosecutor found, Mueller found, as you put on TV a little while ago, that there was plenty of evidence that the Russians intervened in the election to help Trump.There was plenty of evidence that the Trump campaign knew about that, and encourage -- you know, and wanted it and, in fact, knew about some of the Wikileaks dumps of stolen information, supplied by the Russians, in advance. What he couldn't prove, was that there was -- beyond a reasonable doubt, was that there was a criminal conspiracy, although, in the one case, I do not understand why he didn't charge Don Jr., and others in that famous meetings with criminal conspiracy. Because they were -- he said that he didn't charge them because you couldn't prove that they willfully intended to commit a crime. Well, you don't have to prove that. All you have to prove for conspiracy, is that they entered into a meeting of the minds to do something wrong and had one overt act. They entered into a meeting of the minds to attend a meeting, to get stolen material on Hillary. They went to the meeting. That's conspiracy, right there.
CHUCK TODD:
They seem to also have another issue. And I'm curious if this is a flaw in our code, or is this the way the intended law was made, which is our campaign finance laws. One of the other reasons they declined is that he couldn't figure out how to value opposition research.They couldn't figure out how to value cyber material, when looking at it through stolen property -- the legal code that has to do with physical merchandise. It seems to me that Mueller was all but saying to Congress, "Hey, guys. Your law -- the way you wrote the campaign finance laws stink."
REP. JERROLD NADLER:
Well, that may be. But I think that's a very conservative reading of the law. Because certainly, people are willing to pay a lot of money for opposition research. Just look at that so-called dossier that started out as opposition research against Trump, financed by some big Republican donor. And then, when Trump became the nominee, they shifted the financing over to Hillary. So campaigns are willing to pay a lot of money for opposition research. But the key is, here, that Barr clearly misled the American people, both on obstruction of justice, where there's plenty of evidence that there was obstruction laid out in the report. And he said -- and again, he didn't say there was no obstruction. He said, "We can't prove the negative. Because there's too much evidence for that. And we can't charge him because the Justice Department won't let us charge us, so we're not going to look at that evidence."
CHUCK TODD:
So -- all right, you have --
REP. JERROLD NADLER:
But the second -- but let me just say,
CHUCK TODD:
Go ahead.
REP. JERROLD NADLER
-- we have to get -- that's -- some of this is why we have to hear from Barr. We have to hear from Mueller. We have to hear from other people, like Don McGahn, whom we're going to call. We have to get the entire report, including the redacted material, so we can evaluate it, and so the American people can know what was going on --
CHUCK TODD:
All right. Let me --
REP. JERROLD NADLER:
-- and can make judgements.
CHUCK TODD:
Why -- you have all of this case of obstruction presented in the Mueller report, as you just stated. Some might ask, why haven't you start -- why haven't you opened an impeachment inquiry? Or in fairness, is that what you're doing right now?
REP. JERROLD NADLER:
I don't think we're doing that. We may get to that. We may not. As I've said before, it is our job to go, to go through all the evidence, all the information we can get --
CHUCK TODD:
Does the politics impact this, though?
REP. JERROLD NADLER:
-- and to go --
CHUCK TODD:
How much does the politics matter in this?
REP. JERROLD NADLER
-- and to go where the evidence leads us. I'm sorry?
CHUCK TODD:
How much does the politics impact this? As you know, impeachment gets politicized. So you have a legal case that you believe this happens, and you should do it. But the politics dictate something else. How much is that going to influence this decision?
REP. JERROLD NADLER:
I don't know. That'll come down the road, when we see what we have.
CHUCK TODD:
Is this in Nancy Pelosi's hands?
REP. JERROLD NADLER:
Among others. She's not the only person. She's certainly the leader of the Democratic Caucus. She's the speaker of the House. It's partly her and partly a lot of other people.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you think this is impeachable?
REP. JERROLD NADLER:
Yeah, I do. I do think this, if proven, if proven, which hasn't been proven yet some of this -- if proven, some of this would be impeachable, yes. Obstruction of justice, if proven, would be impeachable.
CHUCK TODD:
And you're going to go about to see if you can prove it?
REP. JERROLD NADLER:
Well, we're going to see where the facts lead us.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Democrat from New York, thanks for coming on and sharing your views, sir.
REP. JERROLD NADLER:
Thank you.
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