MSNBC "Hardball" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Denny Heck

Interview

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KORNACKI: I`m joined now by Democratic Congressman Denny Heck of  Washington. He sits on the House Intelligence Committee.

Congressman, thank you for taking a few minutes.

Let me try to get a taste of this week. We put the powers in perspective  out there that Democrats now have running these committees, the oversight  potential there. You have been sitting on that committee for a while.
Give me one area that you have been waiting and eager to dive into that you  can now dive into you couldn`t before.

REP. DENNY HECK (D), WASHINGTON: The phone call before the Trump Tower  meeting in the summer of 2016, we`d like to know to whom that call was made  -- or from whom it was received by Donald Trump Jr.
That`s something that we had sought to actually subpoena when we undertook  our investigation over the last couple years, but were denied the  opportunity to do. But it`s just one example, Steve. There are literally  dozens of them that any proven investigator would have followed up on.

KORNACKI: How is your investigation going to -- I mean, I guess the  question is, is your investigation or any investigation that you launch, is  that going to work in tandem at all with the Mueller investigation? Are  these going to be just existing in completely separate worlds?

Do you have to rely on Mueller in some way, at least what`s publicly known  about his investigation, to pursue your work?

HECK: We don`t have eyes on the Mueller investigation. He is very, very  secretive about his deliberations, as is the professional thing to do.

So I couldn`t tell you exactly what the status of his deliberations are.  What we know is that there have been 36 criminal indictments and four  prison terms meted out to various characters within the Trump orbit.
But we really don`t know what the status is. Just like you, we hear from a  lot of different people that he`s nearing its completion. So, we will be  undertaking, where we think is appropriate, a separate, and may or may not  be parallel, follow-up to some of the things we think merit it, as a  consequence of failure to follow through in the last couple years.

KORNACKI: I`m curious, how do you anticipate working with -- and do you  anticipate working at all productively with the Republicans on your  committee?

Obviously, there was a lot of tension there the last two years between the  majority Republicans, the minority in your party. How`s that relationship  going to work in reverse the next two years?

HECK: Well, the dirty little secret in Washington, D.C., is that, when we  weren`t working on the Russian investigation, there were actually a lot of  areas where we worked together on very well.

Yes, the relationship was strained. Clearly, it was strained. But it was  not all-defining in terms of our work, either with respect to  reauthorization of the Intelligence Authorization Act or a variety of other  measures that we undertook.

We completely modernized CFIUS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the  U.S. And the Intelligence Committee had a strong hand in that. And we did  that in a bipartisan way. So it was really pretty much along the lines of  the Russian investigation where the relationship got, at a minimum, pretty  rocky, Steve.

KORNACKI: We mentioned too -- we showed that clip, Nancy Pelosi leaving  the door open to the possibility of impeachment there.

One of your colleagues, Brad Sherman, he already did this a couple years  ago, introduced a resolution, an impeachment resolution already.

Let me ask you the question. I know, when he was able to force a vote on  this a while back, you were a no at that point. But let me ask you this  question. If this conversation moves toward impeachment over the next few  months, is there, roughly speaking, a cutoff date where Democrats would  need to initiate that by, just given the fact that the 2020 campaign is  going to begin, where the country will be in full presidential campaign  mode?
Does this have to be launched, if it is going to happen, by this summer,  say?

HECK: Well, I think whether or not we ever take up impeachment is going to  be largely dependent, as Speaker Pelosi suggests, on the final work product  of the Mueller investigation.

And I think that we ought to be, frankly, guided by the substance of what  it is that he finds. And we are not in a position to be able to indicate  what that is at this time, because we simply don`t know what it is, Steve.
So it depends on what he recommends as to whether or not we should take it  up. If it`s serious enough, I don`t know that there would be a cutoff for  it. But, again, there`s no point in having this largely academic  conversation until and unless we have additional information from Director  Mueller.

KORNACKI: All right, Congressman Denny Heck, thank you for taking a few  minutes.

HECK: You`re welcome, sir.

KORNACKI: Meanwhile, there also remains the outstanding question of  whether Donald Trump`s tax returns, which could be key to numerous  investigations, will actually be made public.

Politico reports the new Democratic chairman of the Ways and Means  Committee -- that`s congressman Richard Neal from Massachusetts -- plans to  take a cautious approach before he demands those returns.
Trump is the first president in 40 years to refuse to release his tax  returns. He claims he is withholding them because they`re under a routine  audit.

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KORNACKI: And I`m joined now by Republican Congressman Tom Reed from New  York. He sits on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Congressman, thank you for joining us.

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