MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Pete Aguilar

Interview

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VELSHI: I know I`m going to face some repercussion just from sitting here.

Joining us now, Congressman Pete Aguilar of California. He`s a member of the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack. He`s a member of the Committee on House Administration, which held that hearing today, which with local election officials.

Congressman, thank you for being with us.

You know, yesterday`s testimony was incredible to hear. Lawrence O`Donnell and I were talking about this. We thought we all had heard everything there was to hear about January 6th. Then, hearing those police officers talk, again, was stirring.

Same thing today, these people, these elections officials in Michigan and Arizona, telling them -- us about how they`ve been threatened? People have gone to their homes. People have threatened their safety.

What`d you take away from that today?

REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): What I took away is that these are additional, brave heroes who are administering our elections. And they are the fabric of our local communities. And they are under assault.

And so, our hearing today, in House Administration, which you showed that clip of, was about a bill from Nikema Williams and John Sarbanes, it`s the Preventing Election Subversions Act of 2021, making it a crime to intimidate and harass elections officials because we know that`s what they`re trying to do here. They`re trying to -- to use the combination of the -- the back-door law change with, you know, rooted in racism, combined with the audits, as you mentioned and that`s casting doubt on a free and fair elections system, that is administered by those very individuals who were -- who were under attack.

VELSHI: The Department of Justice has -- they -- they had done this with Maricopa County in the state of Arizona, a few months ago, sort of sent them a warning to say don`t lose the chain of custody of ballots. Don`t -- don`t fiddle with stuff. They have written, again, to states to say where election records are no longer under the control of elections officials, this can lead to a significant risk of the records being lost, stolen, altered, compromised, or destroyed.

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The risk is exacerbated if the election records are given to private actors who have neither experience, nor expertise, in handling such records. And who are unfamiliar with the obligations imposed by federal law.

The Department of Justice is saying, is warning states of exactly what I think is going on. I think in Arizona, they are going to just keep on counting and storing and messing with these ballots until there`s nothing left of the ballots. Until no one can, actually, prove anything.

AGUILAR: That sounds about right because -- and that will continue to foment exactly what they want is to cast doubt on these free and fair elections.

And so, that`s -- that`s the intention here. And sometime, you know, they used to try to hide it. And now, they`re not. And so, it`s -- it`s very clearly a problem in some of these communities.

And Congress needs to step in. And so, that`s -- we wanted to -- to put a spotlight on what was going on. And, you know, I tip my hat to, you know, these local-elections officials.

Adrian Fontes, who you showed there, you know, who talked -- each of them talked about threats that they`d had against them, against them and their families and their loved ones. That shouldn`t be the case. And these individuals -- you know, really are that better off of democracy that we have back home, thousands and thousands of them, across the country, administering our elections laws. And they deserve to do their work without intimidation.

VELSHI: I don`t know if you had a chance to see Devlin Barrett and his colleagues reporting at "The Washington Post" that Donald Trump, in December, was calling his attorney general on a daily basis with this kind of information. Between this and the testimony we heard yesterday, lots and lots of people want to know who this points to and who was involved, and how Donald Trump and how Mo Brooks and people like that were involved in facilitating this.

Well, who -- I mean, what does that look like to you? Does -- does Donald Trump, do all these people get subpoenaed before the select committee?

AGUILAR: Well, we have a lot of work do. And -- and clearly, as you showed, you know, those brave officers yesterday, two D.C. Metro Police officers, and two Capitol Police Officers told their story. And in very graphic detail, what they went through protecting democracy.

And so, you know, we owe it to them. And the last question that the chairman asked them was, what do you want us to do? What do you want us to get out of this? And -- and just like you highlighted, you know, they said justice and accountability. And they want -- they want an accountable system, and they want us to chase the truth. And that`s exactly what we`re going to do.

We`re not going to be intimidated. We`re going do our work. We are going to make sure that we lift over every -- every rock. And we`re going to do our -- our level best to produce a document that gets to the root of what happened. What led up to the events of January 6th? How we protect against it, moving forward?

And so, that`s what our work will do. There will be subpoenas. We will move forward in a quick and expeditious way. But, you know, we will -- I`ll let the chairman talk about our work plan, you know, moving forward.

VELSHI: Congressman, thanks very much for joining us tonight. It`s good to see you again. Representative Pete Aguilar is a member of the House Select Committee on January 6th.

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