MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Bennie Thompson

Interview

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Joining us now live is the chairman of the January 6th Select Committee, Congressman Bennie Thompson of the great state of Mississippi.

Mr. Chairman, it`s kind of you to make time for us tonight. Thank you very much for being here.

THOMPSON: Thank you for having me, Rachel.

MADDOW: Let me just ask -- I`ve tried to sort of put in a nutshell the grand scope, the large scope of these requests that you and your committee have made today.

Is there anything that I`m misunderstanding about it or anything that I`m sort of misconstruing in terms of its importance?

THOMPSON: No question you`re right on point, Rachel. As you know, House Bill 503 charged this committee to get to the facts and circumstances behind January 6th. That means we need to find out what caused it, those individuals who participated in it, and then create a model to protect this democracy so that nothing like this will ever happen again. So, we have a weighty mission. We have a mission committed by eight patriots on it to make sure that we do just that.

So the letter you`ve referred to, it is exhaustive. It goes into great detail. The detail that we will need to do our job, the information we need to do our job, because clearly a lot of us at this point feel that had January 6th been successful, this democracy would not be what it is today.

So we came real close. And so by getting this information, we think it will provide the necessary direction for us to correct it so that the military or no other branch of government can be used against American citizens.

MADDOW: In terms of the expected response to these requests, I was very interested to see that as you noted today with this request, some of these agencies that are getting these requests today, they are reiterated requests from other documents, similar documents that were made by other House committees back in January, in some cases back in March. That implies that those agencies were asked for documents like this and they didn`t turn them over.

Now, I would assume that under -- if this were the Trump administration still in office, I would assume that you`d have a huge fight on your hands in terms of no agency wanting to give you anything. But under the Biden administration, I would expect less of a fight in terms of handing over these documents that are properly within the remit of your investigation.

Do you know why those agencies didn`t respond to those earlier document requests, including the ones in March once the Biden administration was firmly in position?

THOMPSON: No, we don`t, Rachel. And that`s why we referred to the request in our letter. And that`s why we gave them two weeks to fulfill the request.

They`ve had since March to get a lot of this information. The additional information we requested, they can do in two weeks. The other information by and large should already be somewhere in their possession. So we look forward to getting it.

But again, this is how this committee will get its work done, by getting the information. We`ve already talked to the Department of Justice. They have assured us that they will cooperate with the production of various documents that we request, that they will not stand in the way of our committee doing our job.

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So, with Joe Biden as president and Democrats in charge, actually receiving the information that we will need to do our job should not be as difficult as it would have been had Donald Trump been re-elected president.

MADDOW: Mr. Chairman, I have to ask you about one thing that I noticed looking at all the different requests to these agencies, the different categories of information that you`re looking for. I noticed some different timelines.

In a lot of instances, you`re asking for, you know, information about a ton of different people and a ton of different things they were doing, but the time frame is really narrow. It`s, you know, just on January 6th itself.

For other categories of information, though, you`re asking for different time frames. The time period between November 3rd, for example, and the January 6th attack or -- and the inauguration.

And in some cases, you`re asking for information going all the way back specifically to April 2020. Requests for information about basically planning to try to undermine election results going back as far as April 2020.

I just have to ask you, what was going on as far back as April 2020 that you want records from that early?

THOMPSON: Well, we have information that I can`t share with you at this point that individuals were planning in anticipation of the election not going their way. By getting access to this information, we`ll be able to prove it. Clearly, the things we cited in our letter kind of lay out the predicate for what occurred. If this happened, we`ll do this. If this happened, we`ll do something else.

So, there was always a plan A, B, C, D in this process. And so, there were a lot of people involved.

We want to find out from the people who took out the permits for January 6th, the march. We want to make sure that those individuals who financed individuals coming here, that we talk to them. There are a lot of information that we will need, and that`s why we did a significant wide net casting effort with this first letter which I anticipate -- to be very honest with you -- there`ll be some other letters forthcoming also, because we need access to all the available information.

Because, you know, when the president of the United States invite people to come on a particular day and in that invitation says it`s going to be wild, that causes the committee and a lot of other patriotic Americans real concern because in America, we`re supposed to settle our differences at the ballot box. Not with an insurrection or anything like that. We`re not a tinhorn dictatorship. We`re the United States of America.

MADDOW: Congressman Bennie Thompson, chairman of the January 6th Select Committee -- sir, thank you for your time tonight. We`ll stay on this closely. As you say, we anticipate more letters like this going out soon. We`ll ask you back when that happens, sir. Thank you.

THOMPSON: Thank you.

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