MSNBC Interview - Transcript

Interview

MS. HALL: President Bush's former adviser, Karl Rove, defied a congressional subpoena today neglecting to appear before a House Judiciary subcommittee. Rove cited executive privilege, but the subcommittee is denying that claim. Lawmakers were attempting to compel Rove to testify about whether the Justice Department used his political influence to bring down Democrats and fire several U.S. attorneys.

Congresswoman Linda Sanchez of California chairs the judiciary subcommittee that subpoenaed Rove to testify.

Congresswoman, thank you for joining me.

REP. SANCHEZ: My pleasure.

MS. HALL: I don't think anyone more so than Dan Abrams of MSNBC has been following this, and I watched his show the other day and he said, listen, Karl Rove is not going to show up. He's going to defy this. What will Congress or members of the subcommittee do about it? His answer was never given directly, so I'll ask you for Dan Abrams. What happens now?

REP. SANCHEZ: Well, we have several options that we can pursue, basically, the action by the subcommittee will need to go to the full committee and I'm confident that the full committee will vote it to the full House. The House has two options, basically, to pursue statutory contempt, which we attempted to do in the Harriet Miers case and which Attorney General Mukasey thwarted those attempts or inherent contempt, which is basically where the House of Representatives would hold a trial as to whether or not he is in contempt.

MS. HALL: Congresswoman, people are calling this political theater and that you knew Karl Rove would not show up. You knew that he would cite executive privilege. Everyone kind of knew how this whole thing would play out today, but yet we're still here talking about possible options.

REP. SANCHEZ: Well, just because Karl Rove chooses to ignore the law, doesn't mean that we ignore process and there is a specific process that we have to go through in order to get to the point of contempt and what comes after and the fact of the matter is, you know, we had been in intense negotiations trying to get him to appear before the committee and we were hopeful to the very last that he would see the common sense in coming, I mean, it's not unusual for current or former members of administration to come before Congress.

MS. HALL: Right.

REP. SANCHEZ: Specifically, when they've been subpoenaed, I mean, that is the usual course of business. So this broad claim of executive privilege and immunity is, you know, Nixonian in breath because there basically just saying nobody has to say anything and we don't even have to show up and appear in front of a subcommittee.

MS. HALL: And is that the message you feel Karl Rove is sending by the actions today? But what message does Congress send to the American people watching this all play out?

REP. SANCHEZ: Well, number one, that we are not going to let this matter drop. We are going to pursue it and the message of Karl Rove and the Bush administration seems to be saying is that, you know, Congress is not a co-equal branch of government and we don't have to pay attention to what Congress is asking of us, when, in fact, the law says that they really need to.

So we will continue to pursue this matter. We think that there are some questions that Karl Rove must answer to Congress with respect to using the Department of Justice as a political weapon, to either selectively prosecute Democrats or in their firing of U.S. attorneys for political reasons. I mean the American people need to know that the Department of Justice is dispensing justice without fear or favor and that's not occurring right now.

MS. HALL: All right. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Sanchez, for your time today. We certainly appreciate it.

REP. SANCHEZ: My pleasure.

END.

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