MSNBC "Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell - Transcript Interview with Mikie Sherrill

Interview

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Joining our discussion now, Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat from

New Jersey, she is a Former Navy Pilot and a Former Assistant U.S. Attorney

in New Jersey. Congresswoman Sherrill thank you very much for joining us

tonight. I want to get your reaction first of all to what is emerging as

the testimony that we`re going to hear in tomorrow`s hearing about of the

attorney general`s interference in the Roger Stone case.

REP. MIKIE SHERRILL (D-NJ): Well, as you mentioned, I was in the navy and I

have served all over the world. I`ve always been incredibly proud of our

justice system, the impartiality of our justice system, free from political

interference. And yet everything in Zelinsky`s opening statement speaks to

exactly what we - everything against our values. So for those of you are

unfamiliar with sentencing guidelines, as you`re an assistant U.S.

attorney, you look through the sentencing guidelines. They`re fairly rigid,

they lay out the case. Sometimes you have enhancements for bad behavior.

So things like for example, what Mr. Stone did, painting a target on the

face of the judge, lying to the judge, lying to Congress, and yet here in

this, we see because of political pressure, they were being - the assistant

U.S. attorneys were being asked not to enhance the sentence or make it

longer, but rather to lower the sentence, which, you know, here is someone

who was show nothing remorse whatsoever. I see no evidence that any U.S.

attorney`s office would somehow lower that sentence. So this concerns me

and should really concern every American.

O`DONNELL: I want to read more from what Aaron Zelinsky is going to say

tomorrow. He is still a prosecutor working in this justice department with

William Barr technically as his boss. He`s going say tomorrow in his

opening remarks, what I heard repeatedly was that Roger Stone was being

treated differently from any other defendant because of his relationship to

the President. And Congresswoman Sherrill, that`s what it appeared to be

from the outside. But here`s someone who is inside saying yes, that`s

exactly what it was.

SHERRILL: Exactly. Which, I think we have to really admire this country`s

wonderful public servant. Here is someone who is a line prosecutor, his

boss, and the U.S. attorney was afraid of the President. He was told by his

supervisor, according to this opening statement, that yes, this was

unethical and wrong. However, they had to pretty much keep their heads down

or they could lose their jobs. And he didn`t do that. In fact, all four of

the prosecutors, according to this testimony, all four of the prosecutors

resigned after their sentencing memo was withdrawn and a new one that they

felt was incorrect was put forward.

O`DONNELL: I want to take you to the strange situation that developed with

the U.S. attorney in Manhattan over the weekend. I had to learn a lot of

things quickly that I didn`t know about before, which was that a U.S.

attorney appointed by the district court judges in that district cannot be

fired by the attorney general, which seems to be something the attorney

general didn`t know. But the U.S. attorney knew. And so he refused to leave

when the attorney general tried to fire him. And then the President could

fire him.

Once that was all exposed, the Attorney General and the President had no

choice apparently but to leave in place the deputy U.S. attorney, which is

the normal successor when the office is vacated that way, and we have

reason to believe that she will carry on what Geoffrey Berman was working

on there. But that was a very, very dramatic 24 hours where it was very

hard to tell what was happening next, but it seems very clear this is

another case of very willful, political interference with some objective to

protect someone in Trump world, and possibly Donald Trump himself.

SHERRILL: It was very, very weird and difficult to understand. You have the

attorney general on a Friday night putting out a statement that U.S.

attorney Berman had resigned. Berman said the first he heard about was the

statement. He had no intention of resigning. And then he made a statement

that, again, I think points to the concerns about political influence in

our U.S. attorney`s offices across the country.

He said he was worried and he wanted to make sure the investigations

continued unimpeded. And so that says to me that he was concerned that

there was some political maneuvering here as many of us are now concerned.

So it was very odd and then to have the attorney general say well, the

President said you have to leave and the President saying no, I didn`t say

that, and very, very odd.

O`DONNELL: Were you as impressed as I was with the way Geoffrey Berman

handled it, and he actually managed to win 24 hours into this story and get

the successor he wanted in place taking over for him?

SHERRILL: Not the successor he wanted just because he was playing political

favorites, but the successor he wanted to ensure the integrity of this

investigation.

O`DONNELL: Yes.

SHERRILL: And so yes, I was impressed with him, as you said. And again, you

know, as I have seen so many of our public servants come forward and

protect this country, protect the institutions of our democracy, protect

our values, I`ve become more and more proud of our public servants.

O`DONNELL: Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, thank you very much

for joining us tonight. We really appreciate it.

SHERRILL: Thanks so much for having me.

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