MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: "Candidates offer contrasting visions."

Interview

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O`DONNELL: Thank you Rachel. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler is here to talk about the breaking news of the night with the Trump Justice Department trying to block his subpoena for grand jury material from the Mueller investigation. Chairman Nadler will be our first guest tonight with his reaction to that new legal filing by the Justice Department. Also tonight, Donald Trump lost a big round in court today on the emoluments case against him, which has now cleared legal hurdles to move forward. And we`ll take a look at last night`s debate and show you why you can ignore almost everything in the policy details that the candidates argued about last night. And Cal Perry will join us with a new must-see investigation into the potential dangers of the practice of flaring natural gas in Texas. We begin tonight with the breaking news. The Trump Justice Department headed by the Trump attorney general, William Barr, told a federal court in Washington tonight that the House Judiciary Committee should be denied any access to grand jury material from the Mueller investigation because impeachment is not a judicial proceeding according to the Justice Department. The Justice Department filing in court notes that grand jury material can be released in connection with a judicial proceeding. The Justice Department then insists, "impeachment proceedings in Congress including hypothetical removal proceedings in the Senate are not judicial proceedings under the plain and ordinary meaning of that term. Judicial proceedings are legal proceedings governed by law that take place in a judicial form before a judge or magistrate. Proceedings that occur outside the judicial setting are not judicial proceedings even if they are called a trial and include some of the procedures familiar from a courtroom such as sworn testimony or lawyer-led questioning of witnesses. The committee for its part offers no explanation for how Rule 6(c)`s reference to judicial proceedings authorizes access to grand jury materials for congressional proceedings administered by members of Congress rather than the legal proceedings overseen by judges." Yesterday the House Judiciary Committee on a party line vote voted for a resolution for investigative procedures offered by Chairman Gerald Nadler. That resolution describes in detail the investigative procedures the committee will use in what it calls "the committee`s investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment with respect to President Donald J. Trump." Leading our discussion tonight, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler. He represents New York`s 10th congressional district. Chairman Nadler, the Justice Department seems to be making two cases here. First of all, that this is not a judicial proceeding in your committee, therefore, you do have a right to this. Second, even if it was a judicial proceeding interpreted that way, you still don`t have a right to it, even if it went to trial, even if it went to a senate trial, you don`t have a right to any of this material. They`re, first of all, saying though that you aren`t even having an impeachment investigation. There isn`t -- they insist -- there is no impeachment investigation in the House.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Well, let me deal with that in reverse order. We`ve been very clear for the last several months in court filings, in public statements, and in proceedings in the committee that we are, in fact, conducting an investigation, preparing to decide whether to recommend articles of impeachment to the House. Now, you can call that an impeachment investigation, you can call that impeachment inquiry, those terms have no legal meaning, but that`s exactly what we`re doing. We`re involved in an investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment to the House. So, we will determine that at the conclusion of this investigation. Now, I know the Republicans and here, the Justice Department, is simply acting as an arm of the Republican Party. They have argued that this cannot be a really impeachment investigation because the House didn`t vote (inaudible) to the committee to do it. Most impeachments done since the Re-organization Act of 1946 have begun in the -- judiciary committee have not had House authorizations at all. The Nixon impeachment had a House of authorization six months after the investigation started in the judiciary committee. And that was done as was the Clinton House authorization in order to give committee the right to do certain kinds of subpoenas and depositions. The House rules have changed. We have that authority without specific resolution of the House. So, there`s no question that we are doing -- that we are in an official -- we`re doing an investigation toward determining whether to recommend articles of impeachment (inaudible). The second argument they make is that that doesn`t qualify as a judicial proceeding and therefore, we`re not entitled to grand jury information. I`ll just have to say, this is another instance of the Trump administration trying to cover up and hide from Congress and from the American people, in this case from Congress because the American people wouldn`t see grand jury information. All kinds of information they`re opposing. The president said he would oppose all -- he would defy all subpoenas, which they have done. That by the way was Article 3 of the Nixon impeachment, to find subpoenas. The law says that upon request by the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the department -- the IRS shall give tax returns for any individual. They have declined to do so -- they have refused to do so. They have said they haven`t shown adequate purpose. That`s none of their business. And so they`re just defying all the law in order to hide everything from Congress and from the American people. Now, their excuse here that this is not a judicial proceeding, there is judicial precedent for calling -- for considering an impeachment proceeding either judicial proceeding or preparatory judicial proceeding, but I`ll let the details go to the legal -- to the reply brief that will be filed this coming week.

O`DONNELL: Well, Judge Sirica in the Nixon case ordered grand jury materials handed over to your committee. That`s one of the precedents you`re relying on. They say that precedent isn`t relevant. I want to go to something else they used in here. They use what in courtroom terms would be called extrajudicial comment, meaning they use statements that Speaker Pelosi has made when talking to reporters or trying to explain the situation to the American public. And they use that in these filings to say -- to try to say that there isn`t an official proceeding going on. They quote the speaker on this one. They say "the Speaker of the House has been emphatic that the investigation is not a true impeachment proceeding on the same day the House adopted the resolution that the committee claims authorized this suit, the Speaker told a reporter the House Democratic caucus was not even close to an impeachment inquiry." That was back in June.

NADLER: Well, first of all, the House Democratic caucus doesn`t do an impeachment inquiry.

O`DONNELL: Right.

NADLER: But second of all, the speaker has been very supportive of every step that we have taken in initiating this impeachment investigation. Every court filing, every statement, every official statement in the committee was okayed by her at the time. The House counsel who prepares, who makes all the legal filings on behalf of the Judiciary Committee reports to the Speaker not to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. So she has been fully supportive of every statement we have made and of the initiation and continuation of the steps that we`re taking for the investigation. Even the procedures that we -- that the committee voted, which included in the preamble whereas clause as a history of how this investigation started, and of the resolution passed by the House back in June I think it was, authorizing subpoenas and other things and the accompanying report of which says, this is among other things, in order to determine whether to recommend the articles of impeachment to the House. All of that was done with the Speaker`s approval and direct involvement.

O`DONNELL: The Justice Department filing says that the committee does not know whether it`s going to have articles of impeachment or vote on articles of impeachment of the president. The committee might -- and it uses public comments to support this thing. The committee might end up with just a censure or the committee might not take action.

NADLER: Well, that`s -- but that`s saying -- that`s why --

O`DONNELL: Therefore, you don`t deserve any of this material.

NADLER: Well, that`s like saying that you shouldn`t show evidence to the jury because the jury hasn`t made up its mind at the beginning of the trial. Of course, we haven`t determined yet whether to recommend articles of impeachment. That`s why we`re having this investigation to determine whether the evidence is sufficient and important enough to justify the rather extraordinary step of voting articles of impeachment. One can have one`s personal opinions as to the quality of that evidence, but you don`t announce the conclusion at the beginning of the trial, at the beginning of the proceeding.

O`DONNELL: Yes. Judge Sirica ordered the grand jury material handed over to the committee before the judiciary committee decided that it was going to vote on articles of impeachment. And also the committee didn`t necessarily know whether the vote on articles of impeachment would pass.

NADLER: Well, of course not. A proper investigation, a proper proceeding to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment, whether by the judiciary committee in 1973 and `74 with respect to Nixon or now, you don`t start off with a conclusion. You may have personal opinions, but you don`t start of with an official conclusion. You examine the evidence and you make a conclusion. Now, I think personally the evidence is very strong in a dozen different impeachable offenses, but that`s my personal opinion at the moment. We are going to have a very aggressive series of hearings starting next Tuesday to bring out the witnesses and we`re going to go well beyond the parameters of the Mueller report. It`s not just the question of collusion with the Russians in the election and the question of obstruction of justice, which I think is very clearly indicated in the Mueller report. But the question of self-dealing and self-enrichment that American taxpayer`s money is going directly into the pocket of the president, That apparently Saudi money is going directly into the pockets of the president because all of this in direct violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution because of the very corrupt actions where you direct the Air Force to use a Trump hotel. Or foreign governments seeking to influence the United States government, have their delegations stay at Trump hotels, which he hasn`t divested himself of an interest in, and which means money directly into his pocket. We have to take a look at his failure to defend. I mean there`s ample evidence. There is plenty of evidence that Mueller testified to this, Senator Coates, the former head of the -- the director of National Intelligence, that we`re under attack now by the Russians in terms of the integrity of our election, that we`re expecting that they will try to intervene and others in our election next year. And has the president done anything to carry out his oath to protect and defend the Constitution, to see that the laws against election interference are faithfully executed? I think not. That`s another grounds for impeachment. The fact that he has in fact defied all congressional subpoenas is an obstruction of the work of Congress. The central purpose of impeachment is not to punish crimes. The central purpose of impeachment as described by the framers, the federalist papers et cetera, is to prevent the aggrandizement of power by the president to protect liberty, to protect the separation of powers, to prevent the president from assuming power over the Congress and over the judicial branch. And his complete subversion of this by refusing all information to Congress and even this brief could be read as part of that, that was Article 3 in the Nixon impeachment, and Nixon didn`t go so far as to say he would oppose all subpoenas as this president has said he would do and has done. So I think that there is some very, very serious reasons. And some people say, by the way, why should we impeach the president, the Senate would never convict anyway. I think it`s very important that this kind of conduct, if you can prove it, be called out. That the constitution must be vindicated, and that a president -- and the next president and the one after him or her has to know you can`t do this sort of thing. You have to protect the institutions of government so that powers are not centralized so you don`t evolve graduating to a dictatorship.

O`DONNELL: Is Stormy Daniels going to be a witness in front of your committee?

NADLER: I don`t know if she will be, but the misuse or the payments to the women, to Stormy Daniels and -- I forget the name of the other woman, to prevent that information from coming out in order not to influence -- in order to influence the election is certainly something we`re going to look at.

O`DONNELL: Chairman Nadler, really appreciate you coming in.

NADLER: Thank you.

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