MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jamie Raskin
Interview
O`DONNELL: Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. He`s a member of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack and he served as lead manager in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
Thank you very much for joining us tonight, Congressman Raskin. Really appreciate it.
I was quite struck by Chairman Thompson`s interview with Joy Reid tonight and it felt as if I could have seen whatever talking points he might have jotted for himself before that interview. It seemed like it was just an index card with the words Merrick Garland on it. His point seems to be the effectiveness of this committee is now going to be all up to the attorney general of the United States.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, right. It goes to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia under ultimately Attorney General Garland. But the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has a legal obligation to bring this before a grand jury, in the District of Columbia.
So, look. Steve Bannon committed a crime today. People have to understand that. Because it is important that people obey subpoenas they get whether from a court or from Congress. These are orders of law. You have to comply with them. He committed a crime and so we have referred him for prosecution on criminal contempt.
Now, that might not mean a lot to him. If you`ve got millions of dollars, I think Donald Trump pardoned him after he took money from Trump followers and money -- the wall in Mexico and just kept it but the message has to go out to anybody thinking of going down that Trump/Bannon path that we mean business as Adam Kinzinger said. The majority of people who have been subpoenaed by us or by the Department of Justice and various prosecutions have complied.
They understand that this was a terrible attack on the United States government, terrible attack on Congress in order to overturn a presidential election. And they want to cooperate or at least they understand they`ve depot a legal obligation to do it.
But the point is not a punitive one, Lawrence. We`re not trying to put him in jail.
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I mean, you know, he has put himself in that posture. We`re just trying to get people to cooperate with our investigation so we can give a complete report to the American people about this massive attack on our democracy.
O`DONNELL: And I just want to go over this point that you made about the obligation that the local U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. has in this case. Because in the chairman`s public statement when he issued the written statement today saying that they`re going to pursue this, it did use that word that you just used, duty. It said that the U.S. attorney has a duty, a duty to present this, that that`s in statute.
What is in statute? What is the law about exactly what must happen next? And then where is the space for discretion at the Justice Department about what happens next?
RASKIN: Well, that is the law. And we view it as the duty of the Department of Justice to pursue the prosecution of this person who is in, or presumably after Tuesday, will be in formal contempt of Congress. Of course after the committee meets it has to go to the full House of Representatives.
But assuming that a house votes and we find what is obvious to the naked eye that he has violated the lawful order of the Congress, we believe it is indeed the duty under the -- of the U.S. attorney to bring that before a grand jury and the grand jury has the opportunity to indict. All of that is consistent with Mr. Bannon`s due process.
By the way, he could come before the committee and take the 5th Amendment if he thinks he is going to incriminate himself. If he is not going to incriminate himself he owes the government his honest truthful testimony like every other American citizen. How many of your viewers think, Lawrence, that, you know, whether they`re conservative or liberal, Democrat, Republican, independent that they could get an order to go to court and provide documents and evidence and testify that they would just blow it off? How many people really think they could get away with that?
Steve Bannon is still clearly under the spell of Donald Trump who travels with an army of lawyers. These people think they`re above and beyond the law. But we`re still operating under the rule of law which is like the operating system of American democracy. And so we expect and demand that people comply with our orders.
O`DONNELL: Will you expect and demand that Donald Trump comply with a subpoena to testify to the committee?
RASKIN: Well, he has not been subpoenaed but we expect anyone who is subpoenaed to comply with lawful orders. Obviously, he is making noises about executive privilege. The idea that might somehow extend to Steve Bannon is comical and farcical. Steve Bannon was fired in 2017 several years before the January 6th attacks even took place.
Even for Donald Trump, it is a very far fetched argument because in a claim of executive privilege which does not adhere to a human being but rather to the office, Joe Biden has said there is no problem with turning this material over. Even if Trump were to somehow try to press this in court, what you`re weighing is the public`s overwhelming interest to know about our own government and the security of our own government against some asserted claim essentially in national security.
But here, the public and national security are on the same side of the equation. They both militate for disclosure of everything that Steve Bannon knows, everything Donald Trump knows, indeed everything that any of us knows because this was a massive crime against the republic. We haven`t seen an attack on the Capitol like this since the War of 1812, or an attack on the republic like this since the Civil War.
O`DONNELL: Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you very much for leading off our discussion tonight. We really appreciate it.
RASKIN: Thanks for having me, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
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