MSNBC "Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell - Transcript Interview with Jamie Raskin

Interview

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Leading off our discussion tonight, Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin

from Maryland. He`s a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Neal Katyal

is with us. He`s the former acting solicitor general and an MSNBC legal

contributor.

Congressman Raskin, were you surprised by the attorney general`s

announcements during the hearing that he is agreeing to testify, although

it`s going to be five weeks from now?

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, he`s agreed several times before and he`s

always found a reason to back out. So I think most members of the committee

feel like we`ll believe it when we see it.

And, I mean, it`s scandalous that he won`t appear. One of the things that

Donald Ayer pointed out so well was that this administration has been

openly defying the approach appropriations power of Congress. We

appropriate money for certain purposes and they steal the money to build

the president`s infantile, medieval wall at the border instead. They have

defied dozens and dozens of subpoenas that we have issued, demands for

information, requests for interviews and so on. They just categorically

reject the demands of Congress, which is the law making power in article

one of the Constitution.

So, you know, it was very powerful when Donald Ayer said today that Donald

Trump is the biggest threat to the rule of law in the country today, which

is resonant with I think Donald Trump`s niece who`s saying he`s the most

dangerous man on earth. But we should reflect on what the rule of law

means. In the hands of the right wing judges like Justice Scalia, the rule

of law is just the law of rules. It`s just what`s in the statute books.

But the American revolutionaries and the French revolutionaries and the

enlightenment thought that the rule of law was a system of legal controls

against people who had power. They understood that the rabble below would

always be subject to the baton in the ribs and the equivalent of the rubber

bullets and the tear gas and so on.

But the rule of law was a way to control people who get state power, and

that`s what they`re in the process of trying to demolish, by taking over --

taking over every governmental entity and stuffing it with their

authoritarian puppets and then wiping out the civil rights and civil

liberties of the people. So we`ve got a few months left to try to defend

democracy at every turn on a daily basis, and we will continue to see these

chaotic circus shows by people like Louie Gohmert who believe or not was a

judge in Texas, which gives you a sense of what judges are becoming in a

lot of parts of the country.

But they`re going to continue, you know, just to, you know, scroll graffiti

on legal documents and throw tomatoes and try to make as much chaos as

possibly, why, to distract America from the world historical failure of

this administration to deliver any kind of public safety or security to the

American people in this pandemic, which has cost more than 120,000 lives of

our people.

O`DONNELL: I want to continue with our analysis of what we heard and the

important points of what we heard today. But, Congressman, I do think we

owe it to the audience to try to explain as quickly as we can why these

hearings get out of control like this. There was a call by some Democratic

members we heard, could the chairman get the sergeant in arms to drag Louie

Gohmert out of there.

And the truth of the matter is the House rules just really have not

anticipated clearly situations like this. I used to work in the Senate. I

know what the rules are there. But I studied House rules today. The most I

could come up with for unruly behavior was simply a rule about the House

floor, where it says the sergeant at arms is authorized to hold up the

mace, the symbol of the sergeant at arms authority, before unruly members

and carry the mace down the aisle of the House chamber to subdue disorderly

conduct.

These rules haven`t really anticipated Louie Gohmert, have they?

RASKIN: No. Or James Warden (ph), or a lot of their friends, Matt Gaetz.

If you are going to go down with that mace, you better bring the other mace

with you, too, because these people were completely out of control.

Look, Lawrence, they won`t even wear masks. We even have the Dr. Fauci and

the president`s medical personnel saying everybody should be wearing a

mask, and they make it a point of macho pride not to wear a mask when we go

into Congress, which is terrifying a lot of members, including some

Republicans who have medically vulnerable people at home.

And, you know, Jim Jordan has made a point of never wearing a jacket. I

don`t care about that. I would not want to kick him off the floor for not

wearing a jacket. That`s a fashion statement.

But when it comes to wearing a mask, that`s a public health decision. He`s

imposing it on everyone else. It`s extremely dangerous and we have had a

lot of members come down with COVID-19. As you know, the pandemic is out of

control in the red states. It`s a lot of the Republicans who refuse to wear

a mask.

O`DONNELL: Neal Katyal, what we reportedly saw here in the conduct of the

Republicans in the hearing is connected to what we`re talking about in the

Justice Department because what we have discovered in the Trump era is that

so many things that we thought were rules that we thought were kind of

unbreakable turn out just to be customs, and being sane in a committee

hearing is just a custom that was shared by every single member of the

House of Representatives up until the Trump era. And so also with so many

practices in the Justice Department that we had a sense we`re codified. We

had a sense there were legal lines drawn, but there weren`t as many as we

thought.

And that`s part of what was under examination today in that hearing, wasn`t

it?

NEAL KATYAL, MSNBC LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Absolutely. So, the first thing I

want to do is agree with the congressman about Attorney General Barr and

whether he`ll actually testify on July 28th. I mean, the attorney general

has been scared of testifying. The House has been trying for more than a

year to get him to testify, and he asked -- and he acts scared at every

turn and dodges it. He`s kind of like Trump at a spelling bee, just

frightened out of his mind.

So, you know, I`ll believe it when I see it. I absolutely agree with you,

Lawrence, that the justice department is built on the rock of traditions

and norms and chief among them is the idea of independence that presidents

don`t tell you if you are at the department who to prosecute or who to let

go. Both of those story lines today are clashing because you have the

president saying, let go of my pals like Roger Stone, and that`s where the

testimony of Aaron Zelinsky today was flabbergasting.

I mean, people like me who have heard it at the department before, we`ve

heard it whispered from all sorts of people. People have called me,

prosecutors at the top of the department and in the career, you know, in

the middle ranks saying this is unbelievable, they politicize law

enforcement. You can`t believe it.

But they have been afraid to testify. Here you have got this brave guy,

Aaron Zelinsky, career prosecutor who has evidently documented everything,

that`s what he testified today, and he said this president was interfering

with law enforcement decisions by telling him to go easy on his pals and

then there was other testimony today from other folks saying this president

is saying to go hard on his enemies and use the prosecution power.

And once that happens, our law enforcement system, you know, will become on

the verge of collapse because it depends on the integrity and even handed

enforcement of the law, as all law enforcement systems do.

O`DONNELL: Neal Katyal, a quick word about the appeals court ruling in the

Michael Flynn case today saying that it should be dismissed. Is that the

end of this story?

KATYAL: Oh, absolutely not. First of all, the opinion is legally flimsy to

put it mildly, so it very well may get further appeals.

Second, the president said that Michael Flynn was exonerated today. Nothing

in the decision says anything about that, Lawrence. It`s just about does

the president have the raw power to drop a prosecution after someone pleads

guilty. And, you know, the exercise of craw power is very different than

the wisdom of doing it.

Here, everyone agrees this guy, the national security adviser to the

president, pled guilty for lying to the FBI about his conversation with the

Russians and that gave the Russians huge comfort because they knew that our

national security adviser was now compromised, that he had lied to the FBI.

And could you imagine having that person in the White House, which is what

the president wanted. It was a grave sin. It was criminal.

And nothing in today`s decision takes any of that back. And Michael Flynn

is not vindicated relative to this decision, whatever happens to it. It

happens to be a terribly weak decision and should be the basis for further

appeal. But whether it is or not, Michael Flynn is not exonerated.

O`DONNELL: Neal Katyal and Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you both for

starting us off tonight. Really appreciate it.

RASKIN: You bet, Lawrence.

O`DONNELL: Thank you.

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