MSNBC "Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell - Transcript Interview with Madeline Dean

Interview

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Joining us now is Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania.

She`s a member of the House Judiciary Committee. She was in the room last

week when former top prosecutor from the Southern District of New York,

Geoffrey Berman, gave his closed door testimony about being forced out of

that job.

Congresswoman Dean, first your reaction to the -- where we are on the Roger

Stone pardon and with Roger Stone tonight doing his first interview with

Sean Hannity, accusing everyone else in the courtroom with him when he was

found guilty of violating their oaths. He accused the prosecutors of being

politically motivated. He accused the judge of being biased.

He said the jury was stacked, meaning the jury all violated their oaths to

be impartial. He slandered the forewoman very specifically.

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): I lost --

O`DONNELL: Congresswoman, if you can hear me.

DENA: I was getting the question and I have nothing now.

O`DONNELL: OK. So, Congresswoman Dean apparently can`t hear me at this

point at all. We`re going to take a break here and see if we can

reestablish that connection and we`ll be right back.

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O`DONNELL: And we`re back with Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of

Pennsylvania. We believe the audio is working.

So let`s just begin with your reaction to the Roger Stone commutation of

his sentence.

DEAN: Well, it is one more massive layering of corruption by this

administration. It`s an identification of, sadly, what we in America have

come to know with this administration and this Department of Justice, that

there are separate systems of justice, those for the friends and cronies

who protect a corrupt president and those for the rest of us.

It`s a very disappointing, dark day in our country`s history, and I`m

looking forward to the day when we hold all of these people accountable.

O`DONNELL: The -- Roger Stone tonight appearing with Sean Hannity basically

slandered everyone who was in the courtroom with him. He said that the jury

was basically rigged, they violated their oath. He slandered the judge

saying the judge violated her oath as did the prosecutors because the only

person apparently who`s telling the truth is Roger Stone.

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): Then he was convicted and of course Mr.

Hannity`s credibility is at an all-time low. I heard some of his program,

this evening. Roger Stone was convicted, convicted of lying to prosecutors,

of threatening witnesses, of withholding documents, of covering for a

President who is corrupt.

And you`ll notice with all of the cases that you and I might talk about

tonight, there`s something in common and that is that all roads seem to

lead to Putin and corruption and cover up. What is this President afraid

of? Why does he reward corrupt crooked friends of his? Why does he punish

those who will not protection him as in - as in the case of Mr. Cohen? Is

this is a very sad day and - and you started this by saying think of the

deaths.

We are in a pandemic and yet, this President is focused on trying to keep a

crony out of 40 months prison time. 136,000 Americans are dead from

coronavirus. What is this President focused on?

O`DONNELL: What can you tell us about Geoffrey Berman`s testimony, who`s

the former U.S. attorney in Manhattan, who gave closed door testimony to

the Judiciary Committee where he described for you I guess in some detail,

how he was ousted from that job by Attorney General William Barr?

DEAN: Well I was very impressed. I want to be there in person for the

interview. The transcribed interview which I believe has been released so

you`ve had the chance to take a look at it. I was impressed by two things.

Number one, it was proof of Barr`s bungled firing of Mr. Berman on a Friday

night on June 19.

One more Friday night attempt to take somebody out who might be of damage

to this President who might actually be investigating the corruption of an

administration like we`ve never seen before.

So on the one side you saw and heard the very palpable evidence of Barr

trying to entice Mr. Berman to resign from his position. He was nothing out

of it and that`s what he said to us in great earnestness. He limited his

testimony you will see from the transcription, to just those couple of

days, he made no attempt, Mr. Berman that is, to identify the motivation of

AG Barr but we do know that what he was worried about was if he got fired

and then they replaced him or they asked him to resign actually, then they

replaced him with some outsider that will be a distraction and delay in the

important investigations, some of them including this administration`s

corruption.

So Mr. Berman got the better of that and would not have that happen and his

first deputy now stands in his place. We saw a man of great honor, of no

political - he is a Republican I believe in his past, appointed as a

Republican but he showed no politics, no fear, no favor.

He just wanted to do his job and protect the investigations.

O`DONNELL: I have been in awe of how he played those 24 hours and somehow

got to install the successor that he wanted in that position, instead of

the person that Attorney General Barr and Donald Trump wanted. Did - did he

explain to you how he managed to make that happen?

DEAN: Well, it was interesting because he ran through the scenario. There

was a lunch at the Pierre hotel on Friday, the 19 where Mr. Berman said

there were sandwiches and nobody ate lunch, where AG Barr trying to entice

him, was the word he used, entice him to resign.

Maybe you`d consider, he suggested being Chief of the Civil Division and be

a great lump for your resume and he said - Mr. Berman said no, of course

not. I love my work. I really like to work with my colleagues and we have

important investigations to complete. They had agreed to speak later in the

day. They spoke apparently at 7:00 PM and at that point AG Barr asked him

well, maybe you`d like to be Chair of the SEC.

If you remember Mr. Clayton, the Chairman of the SEC was also in front of

my other committee, a bizarre set of circumstances in front of the

financial services and again Mr. Berman said no, let`s speak on Monday. AG

Barr said no, we`ll speak tomorrow.

But instead of course at 9:15 at night, the Attorney General put out a

press release misleading the American public for about the fifteenth time

that I can even think of, suggesting - telling the American public that

Berman had resigned and he didn`t. Mr. Berman got the better of that

corruption by this Attorney General.

O`DONNELL: Congresswoman Madelaine Dean, thank you very much for joining us

tonight and I`m sorry about that audio difficulty. We really appreciate you

joining us.

DEAN: I`m pleased to be with you.

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