MSNBC Interview - Transcript: Capture of Abu Khattala

Interview

RONAN FARROW, MSNBC: On that question, I want to turn to Maryland Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen. Are you with us, Congressman?

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Yes I am, Ronan. Good to be with you.

FARROW: Thank you for joining us. So, let's look at this question first of the venue. Should Abu Khattala be tried in the military court?

VAN HOLLEN: No, we should try him in our federal criminal courts because we've had the best success rate at trying and convicting people for acts of terror in that court system. The military court system, there are a couple of questions. One is the legality of that and if you went through that system, there's a much higher likelihood that he would actually be released on appeal. And number two, the track record in federal criminal courts has been much greater with respect to people who've committed these acts of terror. So why would we go the route that has a lower success rate than the federal criminal court system?

FARROW: I mean, look. Guantanamo detentions and the larger perception of military kangaroo courts has really hurt the United States around the world in terms of how we're perceived. I think this is a step towards the right kind of commitment to due process, but it is causing waves on the Hill. And actually, internationally there's an interesting counter-suggestion that hasn't really entered the domestic debate for us yet -- the Libyan government responded today and they said this is a violation of their sovereignty, his capture in the first place, and that he's got to be returned to Libya to be tried. Clearly, that's unlikely at this point. What's your response to them?

VAN HOLLEN: Yeah, that's highly unlikely. This is a person who committed acts of terror against American personnel, U.S. Ambassador Stevens and other Americans. We're perfectly within our legal rights to bring him to justice. The President said very clearly that if you attack Americans, we will bring you to justice. We did that with Osama Bin Laden, we're now doing that in this case.

FARROW: So what about this question of how long it took to capture Khattala? He's been living out in the open. The anecdote that really seems to stick with everyone is this 2012 New York Times interview where he was sipping on a frap, one of a series of Western press interviews he did. If he were so out in the open -- and apparently in the intervening years there were long stretches of where his location was known and he was transparent about it -- is it problematic that we took so long to grab this guy?

VAN HOLLEN: You know, Ronan, this is one of these cases where we have successful apprehension of someone we've been looking for and you get this silly, conspiratorial talk, primarily on the right, that somehow the President was taking his time awaiting for the best political moment. That's nonsense. There are large risks in going after somebody on Libyan soil. I mean, this guy was in Benghazi, that place is in total chaos right now. You want to make sure that you do it without threatening the lives of the Americans who are going in to rescue him and you want to do it in a surgical way, and they were able to carry this out in that kind of way, with that kind of precision. We should be celebrating the fact that we got this instead of people coming up with these conspiracy nonsense theories.

FARROW: Right, and got it at, relatively speaking, minimal cost -- no death toll, no cost to American lives. It's easy to be an armchair critic, as you point out, but there are reasons to wait in cases like this. The other issue here, of course, is the fallout for the individuals that were connected to the initial attack. You know, Hillary Clinton is under constant siege on this issue. She has been talking about this and seemed to make an about-face last night from earlier comments she'd made that this was just a settled issue. Take a listen to that.

CLINTON: There are answers -- not all of them, not enough, frankly. I'm still looking for answers because it was a confusing and difficult time. There are still some unanswered questions. It was, after all, the fog of war. But I am absolutely convinced that the United States and all of our various agencies, with all of our professionals, including the Congress, is piecing together the best information we can find.

FARROW: Congressman, does this recent set of developments add some legitimacy to Republicans who are on the Hill saying that there are more questions, we need this Select Committee, we need to keep hammering this issue?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, no. Hillary Clinton was referring to the fact that there are still some questions with respect to who exactly these bad guys were, what affiliations did they have. There's no allegation that people have been trying to cover up that fact. I mean, we've now had two full hearings and committee reports in the United States Senate, bipartisan reports. We've had four committees in the House looking into this issue. Frankly, the capture of this individual may provide us that kind of information that's not in our custody right now, which is one of the reasons it is important to interrogate him, to find out who else was part of this plot, who else was part of the attack, and certainly we should get more information through that route. But these hearings are based on this premise that somehow the administration is hiding information. And there's just no evidence to support that. So, yes, let's get information from this person we've now brought to justice, but turning this into a political circus doesn't serve anybody's interest.

You know, my father was in the Foreign Service. He served our country overseas. And it really is an injustice to our Foreign Service officers and the others who were killed in that Benghazi attack to turn this into a political circus. We should now be very pleased that we've achieved the objective of capturing one of the masterminds, apparently, behind the attack. Let's now gather more information and go forward.

FARROW: Right. It seems like we now have a shot at real accountability, where fingers should be pointed. We'll see if they continue to be pointed back home. Congressman, appreciate your taking the time.

VAN HOLLEN: Thank you, Ronan.

Source