MSNBC "Hardball" - Transcript

Interview

Interviewer: Chris Matthews

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Did former vice president Dick Cheney have the legal authority to keep Congress in the dark about a CIA plot to use commando squads to take out senior al Qaeda operatives, the way Israel did with—their Mossad organization did to track down and kill murderers of the Munich Olympics massacre?

Well, Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island is a member of the Intelligence Committee. Sir, thank you for joining us. It seems like the law is clear here. The president shall direct the CIA to inform Congress of any activities, operations, even those anticipated. Did they break the law in this regard, according to the reports in "The New York Times" and "The Wall Street Journal"?

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D), RHODE ISLAND: It appears that they have. I think the National Security Act is pretty straightforward and pretty clear. It does not give rise to any criminal violation. It is just a fact that they‘ve broken the law. But I think it‘s important for us to inquire into it because we want to make sure that the CIA doesn‘t have a sort of hip pocket theory of the law that gives it an exemption from compliance. We want too make sure that the CIA recognizes that if there was a failure, that it was indeed a failure, and there‘s no justification for it, and we can rely on the CIA following the law in the future.

MATTHEWS: Well, the act as amended says, "The president shall ensure that the congressional intelligence committees," on which you serve, "are kept fully and currently informed"—fully and currently informed—"of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activities." That would seem fairly clear English for someone of Dick Cheney‘s abilities to comprehend, and therefore, I assume he comprehended that law and chose not to obey it.

WHITEHOUSE: I agree.

MATTHEWS: What are the consequences? What are the consequences?

WHITEHOUSE: There are no real consequences because there‘s no enforcement mechanism for it. And I think he would probably argue that the law is improper insofar as it takes away what they consider to be very, very broad executive powers under the commander-in-chief authority to ignore the laws of the United States and to ignore congressional statutes. I think that that is a wrong legal position. But I think pursuing this and getting an answer to that question for once and for all is important.

MATTHEWS: Well, the reason I raise this is because I‘ve been covering the hearings now for a couple of days and watching a woman up for the Supreme Court, to be an associate Justice, having to explain a comment she made a while back, where she simply took pride in her ethnic background and her gender, to be blunt about it, having to go through this sort of limbo, where she‘s had to bow her head now before your members hour after hour after hour about a remark she made, why we can‘t bring the former vice president in to explain under oath—under oath—why he violated a law which was written in simple English?

WHITEHOUSE: Just as one member of the Intelligence Committee, I think it is very important that either the Intelligence Committee or also the Judiciary Committee, which I also sit on, seek some executive subpoenas and play that process out. We have a scarcity of judicial opinions on what we‘re allowed to subpoena and where the boundaries of executive privilege lie. And very, very aggressive positions were taken by the Bush administration, exceeding really, I think, any reasonable view of executive privilege. And I think it would be a very good thing for to us force that issue, get it resolved in a court and get some solid guideposts that we can rely on in the future.

MATTHEWS: Yes, I just wonder why every time we talk about subpoenaing the former vice president, he gets to come in and sit with George W. Bush, as if they‘re, you know, the Menendez brothers or something, have to be able to be in constant communication when they‘re operating—they‘re speaking under oath.

Anyway, let me ask you about Sotomayor, the nominee for the Supreme Court. Looking at it now, after the first round of questioning by your committee—a a half hour each, and a lot of penetrating questions, but mainly on the four points of her comment about being a Latina woman, being a wise one, and whether that‘s an advantage, her comment about the policy role, which now she says is meaning precedent-setting role of the appellate court, comments about the 2nd Amendment, et cetera, really focused here. What do you think has been accomplished in these hours?

WHITEHOUSE: From the Republican point of view, I think a lot of nothing. From the American public‘s point of view, I think they have had a chance to see a very calm, very intelligent, very capable practitioner who is really at the top of her game and who has handled all of these questions in a very disciplined and thoughtful way, in the way that a cautious judge would, grounding all of her answers in statute and in the Constitution and in the precedent of the Supreme Court, and speaking from a very, very fixed and I would say conservative, really, legal point of view.

And she has avoided opinions. She has avoided expressions of theory.

And, so, the notion that the Republicans are trying to foment, that this...

MATTHEWS: OK.

WHITEHOUSE: ... is a woman whose opinions and theories are going to dictate her judgments, I think, has been belied by her conduct over these many hours.

MATTHEWS: OK.

By the way, Senator, I loved the way you opened up your statement the other day. I thought it was one of the few times I have seen a strong—a strong offensive point of view from the Democratic side on these issues.

Anyway, thank you very much, senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

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