MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jamie Raskin

Interview

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I`ve got just the guy to ask. Joining us now is the Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin. He`s a member of the select committee investigating the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6th.

He was also one of the impeachment managers when Donald Trump was impeached for his role in that attack.

Congressman Raskin, good evening to you, thank you for making time to be with us tonight.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): You bet.

VELSHI: I noticed in an article written by Katie Benner, who I`ll be speaking to in a few moments, you gave her a quote, you say, it`s great to have a Justice Department that`s back in business. Earlier you tweeted, in fact, that the indictment shows that Donald Trump and his allies are not above the law and the American justice system is back in business. You are very confident this move is significant.

RASKIN: Well, what happened under Attorney General Bill Barr was that we had an attorney general who was essentially acting like a White House counsel at best, really a personal lawyer for the president of the United States, up until the very end, when Bill Barr decided to jump off that sinking ship, and he turned against the president. But up until then, he was essentially following orders.

So it`s good to have a U.S. attorney that`s able to enforce the law against clear defiance of a congressional subpoena. And it`s great to have a grand jury that hears all the evidence and renders a judgment consistent with the rule of law. And I liked very much the statement that Attorney General Garland made where he said that he was going to adhere to the rule of law, he was going to follow the facts and the law, and he would pursue equal justice under the law.

VELSHI: I have to ask you, is it your sense, you are a legal scholar, is it your sense that the Justice Department can compel Steve Bannon to testify? Or can they simply take action against him for not agreeing to his deposition and not supplying the documents necessary? In other words, he faces a fine and potential jail time, but can they actually get him in front of you?

RASKIN: The Justice Department has the power and the courts have the power to do both. But those are separate actions. Here we pursued criminal contempt, and that`s just a crime. It was a criminal offense, he violated the law when he stood us up, when he blew off the subpoena, and he violated the law when he refused to produce the documents in and the papers we`re looking for.

But at the same time, on a parallel track, if we bring a civil contempt action against him, the courts also have the power to compel him to testify and to bring us those documents. And if he doesn`t, he can be held, again, behind bars. But he has the key to his own freedom as the contempt bar says because all he has to do is testify and turn over the documents and he can get out of jail on the civil contempt side. But on the criminal contempt side, if he`s found guilty, he could be sentenced to jail or to probation or to some other kind of diversionary punishment.

VELSHI: So the one hope, the primary hope is that you get the information that you want from him.

Steve Bannon is an important character on a lot of levels, not because an adviser to Donald Trump but in fact he did actually say on January 5th, all hell is going to break loose the next day. But he was in that war room in the Willard. He was involved in the planning of this.

So on one hand, you actually want the information and the documentation that Steve Bannon has. On the other hand, the shot across the bow here for everybody else, including Mark Meadows, a former member of congress, one of your colleagues, who has decided also not to show up and submit his information, are you hopeful that this will send a message to all of them that this Justice Department means business?

RASKIN: Well, in general, one hopes that the enforcement of law in any kind of case, whether we`re talking about sexual assault or embezzlement or obstruction of justice, will result in deterrence towards other people committing the same offense. So this is a criminal prosecution, a criminal indictment that`s been handed down. And I hope the message is sent by this, as in all other cases, that you don`t trifle with a court subpoena or a congressional subpoena. That`s an order to appear.

Now, I want to be clear, he may have had certain constitutional privileges he could have asserted. He could have come in and had some questions that he answered and other questions where he said I take the Fifth, I might be incriminating myself.

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He could try his rather outlandish executive privilege claim even though he wasn`t working for the executive branch of government. But you`ve got to make it in the case of specific questions that are posed to you. You can`t just blow off the whole proceeding. I think the grand jury got that, and I`m sure that a petit jury will also take all of the facts under investment here.

VELSHI: Obviously, if you`re the actual Department of Justice, you can skip some of these things, right? If they subpoena you, or they go to investigate and question you, you can`t lie to them. Is it your sense the Department of Justice is actively pursuing an investigation that is parallel to the one that the January 6th Committee is conducting? Or are you the only game in town right now trying to get to the bottom of what happened on January 6th, who funded it, who knew about it, who organized it?

RASKIN: Well, that`s a good question. I mean, our charge under the resolution that created us, 503, is to develop a complete and comprehensive report on what took place in the attack on American democracy, which was the most dangerous attack to my estimation on American democracy since the civil war. And it could have actually led to a civil war had the inside coup been actually executed, if Mike Pence had gone along with what Donald Trump was trying to force him to do, which was to refer Electoral College votes back to the states, a power of course that he doesn`t have under the Constitution. That could have led to a real constitutional crisis and to real violence.

So, very serious problem that is presented to us. Our job is to report back to the American people to give a complete factual report but also to make relevant legislative recommendations about what we can do to prevent the return of such a nightmare any time in the future.

Now, it`s also the case, of course, that the Department of Justice is engaged in prosecuting the literally hundreds of criminal offences that took place on January 6th, from the most simple kinds of offenses like disorderly conduct and trespass all the way up to certain violent offences. I think the first plea bargain took place for a violent offender who assaulted a federal officer and was just sentenced to 41 months, 3 1/2 years, in prison. And they`re going to be working their way up, as I perceive it, to other violent offences, and then all the way up to those people who were actually perpetrating a conspiracy against the United States to try to interfere with the presidential election and really overturn the government.

But again, that`s a guess on my part. I have no idea what charges are forget coming. But in most organized crime prosecutions, they work their way up from the most simple offences to the most complex ones.

VELSHI: As far as guesses go, I`ll take yours, because weeks ago we were discussing this very topic and you suggested this might end up being something serious.

Despite the fact that this hasn`t happened before, your guess was correct.

Congressman, good to see you as always. Thank you for joining us this evening.

RASKIN: Great to see you, Ali.

VELSHI: Thank you, sir. Congressman Jamie Raskin is a member of the House Select Committee on January 6th. He was impeachment manager in the second impeachment of Donald Trump.

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