MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)

Interviewer: Rachel Maddow

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MS. MADDOW: Joining us now is Congressman Adam Schiff, a member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Congressman Schiff, thank you very much for joining us.

REP. SCHIFF: It's great to be with you again.

MS. MADDOW: Senate Democrats today said no funding to close Guantanamo. House Democrats made the same move last week. Please tell me there's some secret ninja tactical move going on here, that there's more than meets the eye.

REP. SCHIFF: Well, there is more than meets the eye. I'm not sure it's a ninja tactic, but the Democrats in both houses do support the decision to close Guantanamo. It's the right decision, has to be done. Guantanamo's been a black eye, and unfortunately a recruiting tool for terrorists around the world. And more than that, it's been ineffective in terms of prosecuting terrorists.

What we did in the Congress, though, was we basically said to the administration that after eight years of being left out of the deliberations on how detainees ought to be handled, because it was all done by executive order and executive fiat under the Bush administration, that we were not willing to continue that in the current administration.

And it took the House and now the Senate withholding the funds for GITMO to basically get the administration's attention. And actually, I have to say, Rachel, it was very effective, because within days of the House action, the administration for the first time announced that it intended to revive the commissions to some degree. That's the first time we heard any indication of what the administration planned to do with the detainees.

So it had its effect. It was a blunt instrument, I have to admit, and maybe not the instrument I would choose to use. But it is important now, almost halfway into the year, if we are going to stick to this timetable of shutting the prison at the end of the year, that the Congress be brought in, both in terms of conferring as well as the legislation that may be necessary to close the prison.

MS. MADDOW: There is a sort of complicated matrix of policy and politics here, though. And as the Republicans try to demonize the very idea of closing Guantanamo, despite the fact that Bush said he wanted to close Guantanamo, John McCain said that he would close Guantanamo as president, the Republicans are trying to make a lot of political hay there.

If congressional Democrats are trying to stop the funding in order to get a plan, one would hope that the congressional Democrats had a plan of their own that they were hoping the White House would get on board with, that they weren't just being an obstruction in trying to get attention without some sort of goal of their own. Is there a House Democratic goal here?

REP. SCHIFF: Well, I think that's a fair commentary. And all I can tell you is I have a plan. I've introduced legislation, Rachel, to broaden the jurisdiction of the military courts-martial and try the majority of the detainees in the military courts-martial system, which has been around longer than our country has been around. It's been a very effective venue to balance national security concerns as well as due process issues.

And when I raised in the Appropriations Committee that I thought this was the best model to use because, among other things, it would allow us to hold up to the rest of the world that we're giving these detainees effectively the same due process we give to our own troops when they're brought up on court-martial charges, I was ridiculed by Oliver North, which I took as great praise.

So, you know, there are some of us that are actively pursuing legislation to set up a model we think would be workable. I can't say that I have the whole Democratic caucus united behind this concept, but many of us are, and have been for some time, diligently working on it. And I would hope -- and I've conveyed this to the White House counsel, as well as our attorney general -- that this would be a collaborative process, and indeed, that we would work together.

Even if some of this can be done by executive order, it will be stronger legally in the courts if it's done in concert with Congress, and also I think it's good public policy to have the buy-in of the Congress in how these detainees ought to be detained, how they ought to be tried, what due process should be applied. And I think the UCMJ, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, is a pretty good model to use.

MS. MADDOW: This is a plan that's going to obviously need buy-in on both sides because it's going to be controversial every step of the way; Democrats certainly getting attention from the White House on this and from me. I look forward to having you back to discuss the policy here as it gets worked out.

Congressman Schiff, thanks for joining us.

REP. SCHIFF: Thank you. I look forward to it.

END.

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