MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Raja Krishnamoorthi

Interview

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Well, joining us now is a member of the House Oversight Committee, Illinois Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi.

Congressman, thank you for joining us.

You and I have talked about some amazing things over the last few years. But this is really out there.

[21:25:01]

There was a senior official of the Justice Department, fully expecting his two bosses to get fired, because they would not agree to Donald Trump`s request to call the election corrupt or to somehow undermine the election. He was ready to hit send. It was even a surprise to him that Jeffrey Rosen didn`t get fired.

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): That`s, right that shows you how close we were to a calamitous results in the Justice Department, this gentleman, Mr. Hovakimian, a fellow member of the complicated surname club, decided that basically it`s very possible that his boss and his bosses boss were about to be fired, for not calling the Trump election corrupt, and basically not trying to overturn the elections. That goes to show how close we were to a Donald Trump getting his way. .

VELSHI: Congressman, the other thing we were looking at is this Justice Department drafts, that was going to go to Georgia election officials. Again this is, we know about the phone calls to Brad Raffensperger, we know about Donald Trump asked Brad Raffensperger to find 11,000 votes, and we know he said he asked for a favor, he told the Justice Department, you don`t have to actually find anything, you just have to say this and leave the rest to me.

We now know that they actually wanted Georgia Republicans to basically throughout the election, to basically elect a slate of pro-Trump members of Congress. In the context of everything that`s going on today, with the voter suppression, laws this brings it all into sharper relief.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: It sure does. It turns out this guy Jeff Clark was writing and drafting these types of, letters to all six states, that ended up going for Joe Biden. I think that what we see is the beginning of the effort to overturn the election, and I think that what we see now, in terms of voter suppression efforts, is just a continuation of those efforts. And unfortunately, probably what we are going to see more of it in the run up to 2024. It`s all the more reason why we need more transparency, as to what happened in the aftermath of the 2020 election as well.

VELSHI: You know, I`m pleased that we`ve seen an example in the Justice Department in this letter of someone who`s willing to stand up to the injustice. We now know that Jeffrey Rosen was willing to stand up to Donald Trump. On Monday night, I interviewed Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman who said there`s other people in the government like him, prepared to stand up and do the right thing.

But how do we -- how do we assure ourselves that this kind of thing can`t just happen? A corrupt president cannot just try to corrupt the Justice Department and overturn democracy.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I think that`s a great question, Ali. I think at this point, here we have to realize that we can`t just trust that there`s going to be people of integrity in these high offices, including the presidency, so what needs to be done at the Justice Department, to put into place reforms, to prevent it from being used as an instrument for overturning an election by the very president who lost.

Those are the types of questions we have to ask now. In all the more reason I would say that we need to put into place whatever reforms are necessary to shore up our democracy and to protect it, for the next elections. Let me put in a special plug for HR1 and S1, the For the People Act. We need that right now.

VELSHI: We are seeing evidence that is more and more important.

Congressman, good to see you again. Thank you as always for joining. Illinois Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi is a member of the House Oversight committee and the Intelligence. Committee.

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