MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript Interview with Jerry Nadler

Interview

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MADDOW: Joining us now for the interview I`m very pleased to say is Jerry

Nadler, who is the chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Chairman, there`s a lot going on. I really appreciate you making time

to be here with us tonight. Thanks for your time, sir.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Thank you,

Rachel.

MADDOW: So I along with everybody was shocked by the news on Friday night

that the attorney general was announcing that the U.S. attorney in New York

was stepping down. I was something more than shocked when I saw that that

U.S. Attorney Geoff Berman respond by saying, I have done no such thing and

I do not intend to resign.

Since that happened on Friday night, have you been able to figure out any

more about what happened? Do you have any idea why Attorney General Barr

has moved to oust that U.S. attorney and done so in this sort of shocking

way that he did?

NADLER: Well, we certainly think that it`s because this is another instance

of the attorney general doing the president`s bidding, corrupting justice

and trying to make sure that the Justice Department doesn`t do its proper

job. It only serves as an instrument to the president for whitewashing --

for whitewashing the improper things he`s doing. And that`s why we`re

holding this investigation into the corruption by Barr of the Justice

Department, which we`ve announced.

MADDOW: In terms of Mr. Berman`s public statements around this botched

incident, it was striking to me that he in his initial statement

immediately talked about protecting the important investigations of that

office, making sure that they were not impeded in any way. He sort of

outmaneuvered the attorney general over the course of the weekend so that

now it is his deputy, his hand-picked and trusted deputy who`s going to

stay in control of that office instead of Attorney General Barr`s hand-

picked replacements.

But obviously the way this all went down and what you just said suggests to

a lot of people that there may be investigations here that touch on the

president`s interests that the attorney general is trying to mess with. If

that`s the case, how do you figure that out? How do you structure such an

investigation to find out if there has been that kind of improper

influence? Who`s allowed to tell you those sort of things?

NADLER: Well, we are having an investigation because that`s exactly what we

suspect. We will be having Mr. Zelensky (ph), for example, one of the

prosecutors who resigned because he was told not -- he was told by the

attorney general to corruptly change the sentencing recommendations for the

president`s friend, Roger Stone. He`ll be one of the witnesses. We`ll have

other witnesses. I think we can get to the bottom of this corruption of the

justice department by the president and by Bill Barr.

MADDOW: Those witnesses that are going to testify at your hearing on

Wednesday, do you expect -- they`re both serving Justice Department

officials. Will they have whistle-blower protections so that they can`t be

retaliated against at the Justice Department for what they`re going to tell

you?

NADLER: They`ll be able to say what they have to say.

MADDOW: Can you elaborate on that at all?

NADLER: I think -- I think -- no. I think that they will be able to say

what they have to say and that`s sufficient for now.

MADDOW: It`s been reported over the course of this evening, both "Axios"

and now NBC News reporting that you are -- that you intend to send a

subpoena to the attorney general for his testimony in this investigation

that you`re launching. Is that true? And what do you expect will be the

result?

NADLER: Well, we have begun the process. It takes a process. We have begun

the process to issue that subpoena. Yes, it is very much true, we are -- we

are doing that.

MADDOW: Do you expect that Attorney General Barr will respect the subpoena

or do you expect that he`ll defy it?

NADLER: Well, we don`t know that. Subpoenas are supposed to be respected,

obviously, but the corruption of the attorney general, of Barr, may lead

him to try to -- to defy it.

MADDOW: In terms of Mr. Berman --

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NADLER: We have other -- we have other --

MADDOW: Go ahead, sir.

NADLER: Let me say, we have other -- we have other remedies too, to try to

force the attorney general. We can -- we can eliminate his office budget.

There are a number of things we can do, which we will do.

MADDOW: His office budget, like his paper clips budget, or does he have

some sort of large discretionary amount of funding that you could cut off.

What do you mean by his office budget?

NADLER: No, no, we`re talking about -- we`re talking -- we are talking

about the budget in the Department of Justice.

MADDOW: Ah.

In terms of Mr. Berman and the firing of this U.S. attorney, you`ve said

that you have invited him to testify about what just happened, and you said

this weekend that you expect him to testify, although not necessarily at

this hearing that`s coming up imminently on Wednesday.

Can you tell us anything else about whether or not -- about your invitation

to Mr. Berman and what we should expect in terms of hearing from him about

what he`s just been through?

NADLER: Well, we would certainly like Mr. Berman to testify. There are

issues about his testimony in terms of prejudicing prosecutions, so that

may limit that. We`ll have to see.

MADDOW: I just want to -- I know that you`re limited in terms of you can

say and I`m limited in what I can articulate about my frustrations on this.

But at the top of the show, I went through this list of all of the

different prosecutions that have happened at SDNY just since President

Trump has been a candidate that all touch on him, a number of which appear

to be ongoing or we`re potentially looking at superseding indictments or

existing cases with more people who are connected to the president,

including his personal lawyer, Mr. Giuliani, and who has recently

resurfaced as becoming part of the re-election campaign and we hadn`t heard

about him for months.

I mean, I am -- I`m very worried given what we`ve seen from Attorney

General Barr about the way he`s intervened in ongoing investigations and

ongoing prosecutions to undo things on behalf of the president. And I --

because other people in the Justice Department respect the tradition and

the necessity to not talk about ongoing cases, I`m worried that there isn`t

a way for us to find out about that improper pressure.

NADLER: Well, that is the point of the investigation that we`re doing. We

are very worried that the traditional independence of the Justice

Department and of the Southern District of New York is being interfered

with and subverted corruptly by Attorney General Barr on behalf of the

president.

We very much believe that the -- that is what is happening and that is what

we are investigating, because that kind of corruption of destroying the

independence of the Justice Department, of the Southern District, and make

-- and trying to make it into a personal play thing of the president is

exactly the kind of corruption that this country cannot tolerate and that

we are investigating here.

MADDOW: House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler -- sir, I really appreciate

you making the time tonight. I know these next couple of days are going to

be really intense. Thanks for helping us understand.

NADLER: Thank you, Rachel.

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