MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

MADDOW: Jack Bonner, the president of his eponymous firm, assigning responsibility for misinforming members of Congress to a rogue temp employee. Because you know, coal flows downhill.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Ed Markey from Massachusetts. He chaired today‘s hearing into the forged letters. Congressman Markey, thank you very much for taking time to come on the show tonight after such a big day.

REP. ED MARKEY (D-MA): Thank you for having me on.

MADDOW: At your hearing, Mr. Bonner said he took responsibility for the forgeries. But he did repeatedly blame a rogue temp for sending those letters. Were you about to figure out today if this was a rogue employee situation or if this is systematically the way these guys operate?

MARKEY: Well, I think the big issue here was that the Coal Coalition and their subcontractors that included Bonner and Associates knew about these letters, knew that they were fraudulent before we ever had this historic vote on the Waxman-Markey clean energy bill on the House floor on June 26.

And yet, the congressmen who had been the recipients of the fraudulent letters were never notified that the NAACP, that the American of Association University Women, the veteran groups, the senior groups actually did not oppose the legislation. And in many instances, they actually supported it, for example, the NAACP.

So Bonner was hired by Hawthorn. And Hawthorn had been hired by the Coal Coalition. And yet, all of them knew about the fraud and none of them told the members of Congress.

And it was a squeaker of a vote, 219-212. And without knowing it, we were able to win, but it wasn‘t because a fraud had not been perpetrated.

MADDOW: Is defrauding Congress a prosecutable offense? What can happen to the Coal Coalition, to the subcontractor, to Bonner and Associates for having done this?

MARKEY: Well, I don‘t know that, but my own feeling is that I do have a responsibility to ensure that there is a spotlight that is placed upon this legislation. Because now, the Senate is taking up the counterpart legislation to Waxman-Markey and that is the Kerry-Boxer bill.

And I want to make sure that this is a debate that takes place on the facts. The planet is running a fever. There are no emergency rooms for planets. And we have to take action in order to give global leadership, create the green jobs and back out the imported oil.

And we won‘t be able to do that if I have a fraud perpetrated on the Senate the way it was in the House because that vote in the Senate is going to be very close.

MADDOW: In addition to them getting sort of caught having done this in the House, this goes to the larger issue whether or not this is an ongoing strategy. This is an ongoing way. These are the types of tactics that the coal industry and other people opposed to global warming legislation are going to use to try to defeat it.

To that end, it‘s been reported late this afternoon that one of the people testifying today from the Coal Coalition may have committed perjury in your hearing today. He said, "Our organization has never opposed the climate change legislation, the Waxman-Markey bill."

I don‘t think that‘s true. Is it possible that the committee will be looking further into today‘s testimony? Could there be perjury prosecutions?

MARKEY: Again, I don‘t know if that‘s the case, and it would be premature for me to make any judgment. But the reality is that there was opposition to the legislation. In one of these instances, by the way, one of the letters that was sent was - it was of a deceased woman of a defunct chapter of the American Association of University Women that was sent to a congressman in Virginia who they felt could be persuaded to vote against the legislation, Tom Perriello.

He did vote for the legislation, but that just goes to show the extent to which some people would be willing to go in order to block this historic energy, clean energy legislation from passing.

MADDOW: Congressman Ed Markey, Democrat from Massachusetts, chair of the House Select Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence. Sir, it‘s great to have you here. Thank you for joining us.

MARKEY: Thank you for having me on.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source