MSNBC "Hardball"-Transcript

Interview

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. President Bush is gearing up for a constitutional showdown, and democrats are seething over his decision to assert executive privilege to prevent two former White House aides from testifying about the firing of those federal prosecutors. Senator Chuck Hagel—actually, Chuck Schumer this time said, quote, "The president seems to think that executive privilege is a magic mantra that can hide anything, including wrongdoing. Show me an administration that craves secrecy, and I‘ll show you an administration that probably has something to hide."

Well, is President Bush‘s decision to invoke executive privilege justified, or is he abusing his power? Democratic congressman Chris van Hollen of Maryland is chairman of he Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. That‘s the committee that wants to have Democrats win congressional elections. And he‘s also a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. And Republican congressman Steve King of Iowa is a member of the Judiciary Committee. He joins us by phone.

Congressman King, thank you for joining us. Why is executive privilege in this case important to the republic?

REP. STEVE KING ®, IOWA: Well, thanks for having me on, Chris. And the biggest reason is because the president has to have advisers that know when they advise him they can speak frankly and speak in confidence. And a president can‘t be concerned that those conversations that are necessary, especially for national defense and for foreign policy, might be subpoenaed before Congress, where they end up all over C-Spans and news and the Internet. I wouldn‘t want to have a chief staff who was constrained by that, and a president certainly can‘t have.

MATTHEWS: How broad is this protection, as you see it? How much can a president keep secret from Congress, every conversation he has with his staff where you say should be sacrosanct?

KING: Well, I‘d argue that, first of all, the Congress ought to exhaust all of their avenues of getting that information that they want, and they haven‘t done that. The second piece of this is that they should be exploring potentially a felony or some kind of a crime. This is clearly a fishing expedition on the part of Congress. And I sat for hours and hours of Monica Goodling‘s testimony before the Judiciary Committee, and in the end, no matter who they brought out from the A team to come in and ask a question or probe this, there wasn‘t a shred of anything they could hang their hook into, but they still continue to do this fishing expedition, trying to break this White House down instead of governing the United States of America.

MATTHEWS: OK, let‘s go to Congressman Chris van Hollen. What is the probable cause here? What do you believe the White House has done wrong to justify these subpoenas?

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D), MARYLAND: Well, Monica Goodling, for example, in her testimony before the House said that she crossed the line inappropriately in terms of politicizing the judicial system. The fact of the matter is you now have six members of the Department of Justice who have resigned as a result of this scandal. You have thousands of e-mails between the White House and the Republican National Committee—this is a serious issue, politicizing the judicial process in the sense of essentially saying to U.S. attorneys, If you go after Republicans in terms of corruption, we‘re going to fire you. And if you don‘t go after Democrats, we‘re going to fire you. We need to get to the bottom of this...

MATTHEWS: OK, Congressman, give this an example, those watching, so we‘ll cut through this. Give us an example of where you believe they probably broke the law, where they did something really wrong here.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think in the case of...

MATTHEWS: Give me one example of where a U.S. attorney was fired because he was going after a Republican.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, Iglesias, certainly feels that that‘s why he was fired, because he was essentially not pursuing a case that both Senator Pete Domenici and Congresswoman Heather Wilson called about. And there are other examples, as well.

But the point is, There‘s certainly enough evidence here to suggest that the Congress should look into this further. They are stonewalling. They said they‘d send Karl Rove up in a closed session, behind closed doors. You can‘t keep a transcript...

MATTHEWS: Right.

VAN HOLLEN: ... and you can‘t put him under oath. Now, I understand, given Scooter Libby‘s conviction for lying under oath and committing perjury and lying to the FBI, why they don‘t want to do it. But the fact of the matter is, it looks like there‘s lots of things they‘re covering. Thousands of e-mails, again, between the White House and the Republican National Committee, in a situation where you should have, essentially, a sense among the American people that politics is not intruding into the system of justice in this country.

MATTHEWS: So you‘re saying, Congressman, that Karl Rove, if he were called to testify and accepted the subpoena, would make himself—would jeopardize committing perjury. You think he‘d have to...

VAN HOLLEN: What I‘m saying is...

MATTHEWS: ... commit perjury. You just said that because you said he‘d do another Scooter Libby.

VAN HOLLEN: No, no, I didn‘t. No, I did not say he would do it.

I can say, I understand their concern, because, in the case of Scooter Libby, who, as you know, was chief of staff to...

MATTHEWS: Yes.

VAN HOLLEN: ... the vice president, he committed perjury. And you have to ask yourself why they are so worried about having someone come testify under oath in front of Congress?

Congressman King, your response?

KING: Well, first of all, I don‘t think there‘s anybody out there that can tell me what it was that Scooter Libby said that was not consistent with his—with his deposition.

I have scanned the news media. And he was convicted, so I am going to accept Chris‘ word on that, but I don‘t know what it was Scooter Libby said that was not consistent.

Secondly, there was no underlying crime there.

Thirdly, I‘m going to say that Iglesias in New Mexico, there‘s plenty of—plenty of reports out there that he was simply dismissed because of incompetence. And one of those things would be for bungling an electoral fraud case that was right before him in his hand, and the ball was just simply dropped.

And the next thing I would say is, I don‘t know what it is that Monica Goodling said when—or what she did, if she crossed the line. These things are allegations. But, aside from the conviction of Scooter Libby...

MATTHEWS: Right.

KING: ... I don‘t see that any of them are fact.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: But, Congressman, let me just ask you, from a point of...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I want a point of consistency here, just for a second, sir.

You said that there was no underlying crime in the Scooter Libby case, when he was convicted by a jury of perjury and obstruction of justice.

KING: I mean no underlying...

MATTHEWS: The U.S. Congress...

KING: ... underlying crime in the investigation by Fitzgerald.

MATTHEWS: Right. Well, let me ask you this. The United States Congress, led by Republicans, dominated by Republicans, voted and did impeach President Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice.

What was the underlying crime in that case?

KING: Well, I don‘t think I can...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: No, what was the underlying crime?

(CROSSTALK)

KING: ... But he was...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: No, wait a minute. I want consistency here.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: What was the underlying crime of the president, beyond obstruction of justice and perjury? You said there has to be an underlying crime to justify a conviction for perjury.

KING: Well, I would say that Bill Clinton lied to Congress, and during an investigation that was—at least had more merit than is being presented by the chairmen of the Judiciary Committees in the House and the Senate.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: You are not being consistent, Congressman. You say there has to be an underlying crime for perjury and obstruction of justice to count, when your party threw the president out of office, basically, on the issue of perjury and obstruction of justice.

And now you are saying, oh, that is not a big deal unless there‘s an underlying crime.

Bill Clinton‘s underlying crime was his relationship with a White House staffer, a young staffer. Was that an underlying crime? No.

So, what is your standard here?

KING: I do not believe that Bill Clinton issued executive privilege against the Congress. And I don‘t think that Congress tried to subpoena people into that thing over the wishes of the president and executive...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Well, you are changing the subject.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I just notice that you threw in that little point there.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: When you throw in these points, like there‘s no underlying crime, and, somehow, Scooter Libby was an innocent here, do you believe he was innocent of perjury and obstruction of justice, Scooter Libby? The president thought he was guilty. He said there was a fair jury finding, and he thought prosecutor did his job.

KING: I don‘t—I don‘t know what he said, Chris.

MATTHEWS: You disagree?

KING: I don‘t know. The news media hasn‘t reported that, that I can find. And I have gone through pages and pages of research myself. I‘m still waiting for somebody to tell me what he said that wasn‘t true.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Well, if you had paid attention, you would know.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Go ahead here.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: We will be right back with Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Congressman King—because, Congressman King, everybody who has been following this case knows exactly what Scooter Libby‘s testimony was, and they saw why he was convicted.

And later: President Bush tells Congress he will give them the information they want, just off the record and in private. Is this going to court?

You‘re watching HARDBALL on MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

We continue our conversation with Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and U.S. Congressman Steven King, Republican of Iowa.

But, Congressman King, I want to give you a chance.

Why do you believe, in the end, that the executive privilege is warranted, even when the Democrats have the suspicion that something was done wrong in the firing of these six U.S. attorneys?

KING: Well, I think we need to look at this from the historical perspective, is that a president has to have that ability to know that he is hearing in confidence the advice of his closest advisers, and especially in the area of national security and especially in the area of foreign policy.

And then Congress has to respect that distinction. And I believe that they have not exhausted all avenues, that they have not pointed to an underlying crime, and they haven‘t justified this fishing trip.

And I would point out, also, that Congress defended that executive privilege when it was William Jefferson who resisted the warrants that were served on his office there on Capitol Hill. Republicans stood with him. And I think, if Congress can claim executive privilege, the White House certainly ought to, because they are in charge of national defense and foreign policy.

MATTHEWS: What do you make of that, Congressman Van Hollen, that the Democrats stood behind Bill Jefferson when they found the $90,000 in his refrigerator?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, the fact of the matter is that Democrats did not do that. They took immediate action in that particular case.

In the Scooter Libby case, I just think it is important that people know that the judge that convicted him to two-and-a-half years was appointed by Ronald Reagan, President Reagan, and promoted by this president.

He said two-and-a-half years, and he did not serve a single day...

MATTHEWS: Yes.

VAN HOLLEN: ... less time than Paris Hilton.

Look, on this executive privilege issue, in this case, the president took the position originally that he didn‘t have anything to do with the decision to fire these guys. In fact, the U.S. attorney general essentially said, for a long time, he was not that involved.

And, yet, at the same time, they‘re claiming that they have to protect advice they give to the president in a case where he said he was—he was essentially absent.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

VAN HOLLEN: So, the fact of the matter is, you have thousands of e-mails with the Republican National Committee between Karl Rove and his deputies on this issue.

And, so, it seems to me there‘s a clear case that they over-politicized the issue. There is ample evidence already of wrongdoing. And the question is whether they crossed the line into even—even things that are probably—possibly illegal.

MATTHEWS: OK, thank you very much, U.S. Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Steven King of Iowa.

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