MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

HAYES: I want to bring in Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a democratic Rhode Island member of the Judiciary Committee, which is investigating events from January 6, and released a blockbuster report of their preliminary findings earlier this month.

Senator, there`s a somewhat similar trajectory to me happening over on the Senate side, particularly with Chuck Grassley on your committee who, you know, I think in a somewhats -- well, it wasn`t quite -- what he did wasn`t quite as inflammatory I think as what Congressman Nehls did.

But the minority of report he released in opposition to what the Senate Judiciary Committee report released about what they found that was happening in the Department of Justice and Donald Trump`s sort of rattling the cage to overturn the election was, you know, it was essentially a kind of apologia, MAGA apology authored by Chuck Grassley and I -- that really stuck out to me about where he`s at politically right now.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI): Yes, well, the Judiciary Committee, Republican committee staff in particular have been extremely, extremely political, all the way back to, you know, carrying the Kavanaugh nomination through.

So, as staff behavior, this is kind of what we`ve come to expect. I still have high regard for Grassley and as an individual, I think he really regrets what took place.

But at the end of the day, it`s his staff and they should have done better.

HAYES: What is the status of what the Senate Judiciary Committee is looking at? I know obviously, they`ve actually done quite a few interviews. One person they weren`t able to interview is Jeffrey Clark, who figures very prominently in that -- in that report, and who appears is going to sit down for an under oath or at least questioning. I don`t know if it`s under oath with the January 6 committee this week. How important is Clark in all of this?

WHITEHOUSE: I think he`s very important in all of this. As your viewers might recall, he was the head of the Environment Natural Resources section at the Department of Justice, which meant in the Trump Department of Justice, that it was his job to sit there and do nothing.

And as everybody was clearing out at the end of the Trump administration, there was a vacancy in chief of the civil division that he moved up into as acting. And from that position, he cooked up this scheme, that the Department of Justice would intervene in the Georgia election, and encouraged the state of Georgia to overturn the results in Georgia and worked with folks in and around the Trump White House to try to cook that idea up, even if it required a little coup d`etat in the Department of Justice, with him throwing out the acting attorney general.

Now, thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, even among people who`ve gone along with a lot from Trump. And both Trump`s own legal team and the White House leadership said we`ll have mass resignations if you do this. Don`t you dare.

But he knows a lot about what went on. He knows whoever gave him the material to write the report that he proposed to the acting attorney general. He knows who he had conversations with. And he made a very quick hop to a dark money organization, and who all was behind that and what the side deals were. He`s got a lot that we would like to know.

Unfortunately, we have no subpoena power in the Senate Judiciary Committee when it`s 50-50. But thank goodness, the January 6 commission is pursuing this.

HAYES: My understanding is Merrick Garland appears before your committee tomorrow. And there`s a number of issues obviously circulating over the Department of Justice and the attorney general. And there`s two I wanted to ask you about -- and I say this stipulating that the attorney general should be independent on questions of criminal prosecution and should follow the facts and laws they`ve often stated.

But there`s, of course, the referral from the house to the U.S. Attorney`s Office and District of Columbia about Steve Bannon is contempt, the fact that he`s sort of flagrantly violated that subpoena.

And also, a broader question about whether the Department of Justice is doing enough to investigate the president in his circle for the event of January 6, where are you on both of those issues?

WHITEHOUSE: I think that they are both very legitimate questions. The Bannon question gets a little bit close, if the questions are going to involve conversations between him when he worked for the president and President Trump.

But it looks like they`re trying to cover up conversations that Bannon had with other people, not President Trump that have no colorable claim to executive privilege under any theory that anybody`s ever articulated in any courtroom.

So, there should be a way for the Department of Justice to come forward with an answer pretty quickly. That says, OK, here are the things where there`s a legitimate question. And as to the rest, were prosecuting if you don`t turn up.

With respect to the January 6 investigation, the question is, does it stay an investigation mostly if the mopes and dopes who showed up? Is it really just kind of a glorified trespassing investigation? Or are they going to look really hard at the people behind it? The people who funded it, the people who coordinated it, the people who are in that Willard Hotel command room, and the members of Congress who may have participated in that effort.

And that`s the part that`s most interesting to me, if members of Congress were deliberately holding the proceedings up with their objections, so they could keep a time window open, that would allow the mob outside to break in and disrupt. And that was part of the plan. That`s something that needs investigation.

HAYES: Do you have reason to believe that`s the case?

WHITEHOUSE: There`s considerable evidence that a number of House members at least we`re in very close coordination with people who are in that Willard Hotel command center.

So yes, there`s what a prosecutor would call predication exists to pursue those questions.

HAYES: All right, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be hearing testimony from the attorney general tomorrow. Thank you so much.

WHITEHOUSE: Thank you, Chris.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source