MSNBC "The Ed Show" Interview - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "THE ED SHOW" INTERVIEW WITH REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D-IL)

INTERVIEWER: ED SCHULTZ

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MR. SCHULTZ: Joining me now is Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. She served on the House Intelligence Committee.

Congresswoman, good to have you with us tonight.

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Thanks, Ed.

MR. SCHULTZ: How important is this? I mean, if Mr. Holder doesn't do this, who's going to do it?

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Well, I still think, even if Eric Holder appoints a special counsel or some sort of a panel, that the Congress does have an obligation -- I do sit on the Intelligence Committee; I chair the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee -- because I think that it's important -- there are a lot of threads to this, beyond those that lead to any kind of conviction, that need to be followed to their logical conclusion.

I think -- I'm like you. I want to know the truth. And I want to tell you something. On this issue of Leader Boehner and others going after Nancy Pelosi, do you understand, on the -- and everyone should understand -- on the Intelligence Committee, we are not allowed to talk about what happens in there. And for them to presume that because there was no public push-back that there wasn't vigorous push- back within the community on these policies is wrong.

And that's why I would support Congressman Hoekstra's not only releasing what the briefings were about, but all of the debate that went on in that committee over those policies. I would like to see that made public as well.

MR. SCHULTZ: You know, if the Republicans want to do this full disclosure thing, I'm all about it. We can go all the way back --

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: I am too.

MR. SCHULTZ: We could go all the way back to Dick Cheney's 2001 closed-door energy meetings. I mean, there's a lot of stuff -- pre- war intelligence. I mean, we've got a lot of things we can go for.

Now, here's what Eric Holder said during his confirmation hearings when it came to torture.

ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: (From videotape.) Waterboarding is torture. No one is above the law. The president has a constitutional obligation to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.

MR. SCHULTZ: So Congresswoman, considering that testimony in his confirmation hearings to become the attorney general, how can he say that and not move forward with this, now that we've got a plethora of information, a bunch of discrepancies out there in these reports? You've got Republicans saying one thing, Democrats saying another. You've got -- the Senate Armed Services Committee has been very detailed that it went through the entire system; it was systemic. How can he not do this?

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Well, I certainly think that we have to follow up on that, absolutely. The contortions that the authors of those memos went through at the behest of, you know, their higher-ups, Hayden at CIA and it looks like Cheney as vice president, is so cold- blooded. People who haven't read those memos, when they talk about how waterboarding doesn't hurt, and therefore it doesn't meet the standard of what torture really is, which is excruciating pain, it's really surreal. It's something you don't want to read before you go to bed.

MR. SCHULTZ: Congresswoman, great to have you on with us tonight. Thanks so much.

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Thank you. Thank you.

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