MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

MSNBC "The Ed Show" Interview With Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) Interviewer: Ed Schultz

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MR. SCHULTZ: Joining me now is Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. He sits on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. Tomorrow he will chair a hearing on the torture memo.

Senator, good to have you with us tonight.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Thanks, Ed.

MR. SCHULTZ: Starting right from the top, Dick Cheney just keeps throwing fuel on the fire for these hearings, doesn't he?

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: It's kind of amazing, when you think that he's blaming the Obama administration for shutting down the torture program and for shutting down the warrantless wiretapping program, when, in point of fact, both of those were actually shut down during the Bush- Cheney administration because they were, in one case, determined to be illegal, and in the other determined to be ineffective. So it's really a bit of a stretch to blame those on Obama.

MR. SCHULTZ: You know, Senator, there's a lot of Americans out there tonight wondering if this is the real deal, if anything's going to become of these hearings, or is this just window-dressing. I need you to address that.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Well, there are a lot of different folks here in Washington who are looking into what happened. Probably the lead investigation is by Chairman Feinstein on the Senate Intelligence Committee. That is going to be a very thorough-going look into the entire torture program.

My hearings in the Judiciary Committee are designed to lay a foundation for our discussion later on of the report from the Office of Professional Responsibility about the Department of Justice torture memos once that OPR report gets released.

I think we're at the beginning of a long series of investigations, and I don't think this is window-dressing. We're serious about it. Chairman Feinstein is serious about it. I think the Office of Professional Responsibility at the Department of Justice has been very serious about it. And there's a lot of work to do ahead of us.

MR. SCHULTZ: Senator, I read your statement today. It sounds like your hearing tomorrow is going to be focusing on the legal justification as to where they actually got it and exactly what the Justice Department said. Do I have that right?

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: It focuses on three things, Ed. We have a witness who will comment on the factual underpinnings about the usefulness of torture and about what it actually produced, which were used to justify the torture program.

We have a witness who will talk about the effect within the Bush administration of these OLC memos and how horrified and scandalized a lot of lawyers were and how the response of the administration was to order that memos be destroyed and shut off debate rather than get to the bottom of the legal question.

And we have an expert on the discipline of attorneys to give us the general framework for what the rules are and what we can expect to be setting the OPR report against in terms of evaluating the likelihood of people being disbarred or censured for their legal behavior.

MR. SCHULTZ: Do you think this is the road map to a special prosecutor, special investigation?

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: I would not at this point. I think that the Department of Justice is perfectly capable of handling this in-house. I have enormous confidence in Attorney General Eric Holder. I think ultimately this whole array of investigations will make the idea of a national accountability commission inevitable.

MR. SCHULTZ: Senator, do you want --

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: There will be a lot of information. People will have to pull it together.

MR. SCHULTZ: Yeah. Senator, do you want to give us your opinion tonight why you think the former vice president continually goes out and does these interviews? Is he ginning up support in case there are some legal ramifications down the road that would involve both him and the former president?

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Well, he wouldn't be the first potential defendant to try to influence a potential jury pool. I think this would probably be the largest-scale effort of that variety. But certainly there's a very intense messaging program going on. And I think one of the things that these hearings will reveal is that the messaging program is very false and very misleading. But we want to develop it slowly and carefully through the evidence rather than run around making a lot of wild and unfactual assertions, as the vice president, I believe, is doing.

MR. SCHULTZ: And finally, Senator, you're on the Intelligence Committee. Can you tell the American people tonight watching "The Ed Show" that operationally we haven't changed anything when it comes to protecting the country? Or have we?

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: By all of the standards that Americans believe in, our country is as well-protected as ever.

MR. SCHULTZ: Thank you, Senator. That's all we needed to hear tonight. I appreciate it so much --

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Thank you.

MR. SCHULTZ: -- Senator Whitehouse.

END.

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