MSNBC Hardball-Transcript

Interview

MSNBC Hardball-Transcript

MATTHEWS: Thank you, David Shuster.

Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse served as the U.S. attorney for Rhode Island from 1994 to 1998. He‘s a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In today‘s testimony today, do you have a sense now, Senator, that Gonzales, the attorney general, is not to be trusted?

WHITEHOUSE: I think we certainly have a sense that the administration is not to be trusted. I would—Gonzales is in a very deep hole with me, and at this point, I think he should resign. But I want to have him have the chance to come and see if he can dig his way out of it before the committee.

MATTHEWS: Kyle Sampson, his former—his recent chief of staff, today said that he was involved in many meetings, involved with the firing of these eight U.S. prosecutors. That‘s in direct contradiction of what Gonzales told the Senate in a March statement, right?

WHITEHOUSE: That is.

MATTHEWS: What‘s that tell you, that contradiction?

WHITEHOUSE: Well, at a minimum, it‘s unbelievably bad management.

It‘s highly disrespectful of Congress and our oversight functions in terms of just bothering to get the story right before you send the letters over. And I think it reveals a bit of a kind of partisan problem over there that cropped up in some of the other testimony today.

MATTHEWS: Well, what do you think it tells us about the administration? How does this fit together with the war in Iraq, with Katrina, with the energy program? How does it all fit together, in your mind‘s eye?

WHITEHOUSE: I see it as very high-handed, disrespectful of America‘s checks and balances, and simply wanting to go their way because they think they‘re better than everybody and know better. I think on a very small scale, what this might well have been about in the Department of Justice was the leadership around Gonzales and Gonzales himself trying to run roughshod over the traditional independence of the U.S. attorneys because they don‘t want to brook any kind of dispute or any kind of quarrel or backtalk from anybody.

And so very small amounts of contests become a firing offense, to the point where, actually, the United States attorneys feel obliged to warn the deputy attorney general that they promise to be polite and respectful when they come in for a meeting and feel obliged to warn the department or reassure the department that they‘re still company men. And that‘s not the way a U.S. attorney should be behaving. That puts a real chill in my stomach.

MATTHEWS: You know, everybody who grew up in the United States probably had some bad experience with local government, with either somebody who was corrupt or needed to be bounced or perhaps imprisoned, and they count on the feds, the U.S. attorneys like you were, to come in and clean things up, to be Marshal Dillon, if you will, and clean up Dodge City. Is this about that? Is this about whether we can trust this Justice Department to play that role?

WHITEHOUSE: Yes, I think it is partly about that. I mean, we heard from Kyle Sampson today that when he went over to the White House at one point, he actually suggested putting Patrick Fitzgerald, the Scooter Libby prosecutor, onto this list. Now, that didn‘t take at the White House, but the very idea that that was discussed is disturbing.

He said also that when the list was finally brought before the attorney general for final approval, the deputy attorney general noticed that Senator Domenici would shall very pleased that U.S. Attorney Iglesias was on the list. You know, that‘s just not a statement that should be made in that context, in that room, in this environment. And so clearly, things are highly politicized in a way that I would like to see remedied.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about Sampson‘s testimony. He denied the charge made by people at the Justice Department that they had been underbriefed, that he hadn‘t done his job of briefing him, and that‘s why they gave bad testimony to Congress.

WHITEHOUSE: Yes, that was his testimony, that they basically kind of came at it sideways and that he was willing and able to brief them but that they kind of missed the point.

MATTHEWS: Well, yes, but he says he gave them a full briefing. Does that tell you that the higher-ups, including the AG, Gonzales, and McNulty, the deputy AG, are not telling the truth here in previous statements?

WHITEHOUSE: They‘ve admitted that what they said to us has been incorrect and that they have not told us the truth, and that‘s why this is so important. As I said on the Senate floor the other day, you know, you cannot have a Department of Justice until it‘s first a department of truth. And when people are shading the truth even a little bit in that particular department, in that particular province of our government, it is far worse than anyplace else and a matter, I think, of real concern.

MATTHEWS: Would you advise Attorney General Gonzales to come to the Hill and testify in a couple of weeks or to resign in the meantime?

WHITEHOUSE: I‘m not sure he‘s going to last a couple of weeks, so I think he should get here as soon as possible. But as I said, where I am with him is that I think he should resign. But he‘s said he wants to come and testify. He says he thinks he can explain this. If the time is short, I‘m willing to listen to him and give him that chance, but he‘s got a very deep hole to dig out of.

MATTHEWS: What did you make of Senator Sessions, your Republican colleague on the committee, the senator from—I think he‘s from Alabama, saying that he was disappointed in the way Gonzales is coming across here?

WHITEHOUSE: I think—I think he‘s being very candid and very truthful. I think everybody‘s disappointed in the way Gonzales is coming across. The administration of this has been horrific. The extent to which politics has been allowed to intrude is a real shame. The mismanagement and lack of attention to details in a department many where details really count is telling, and I think it‘s all adding up to a very, very bad posture for Attorney General Gonzales.

MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you very much, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

WHITEHOUSE: Thank you, Chris.

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