MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Jamie Raskin

Interview

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Congressman Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, serves on that January 6 Select Committee. He`s also the lead House manager for the second impeachment of Donald Trump and he joins me now. Congressman Raskin, first let`s get an update on this these document requests. I think there`s two sets of thoserequests with different deadlines. But one of them if I`m not mistaken was today to federal agencies. Do you know the status of that?

[20:35:18]

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Yes, it went out to the executive agencies. And it was due not at the close of business but just today. So, we would expect documents to be flowing in all the way up until midnight through electronic transmission.

HAYES: Something that really that I`ve found funny when I first started covering Congress and Capitol Hill is that Capitol Hill works on deadlines the way college freshmen do. Like, everything happens at literally at the last second. If it`s midnight, it`s going to come at midnight.

RASKIN: Yes, well, in this case, it`s worth the wait because there`s so much that we`re trying to find out about the attack on the Capitol in the Congress and the onslaught against Vice President Pence. And I`m especially looking for all the evidence of coordination among the different violent elements and the planning that took place beforehand.

I mean, you don`t knock over the U.S. Capitol spontaneously one day. That requires a lot of planning, millions of dollars of money invested and surreal organization. And so, we`re going to get to the bottom of it.

HAYES: Yes. So, you`ve got -- and the federal agency, you`ve got -- you`ve got essentially a partner, right? I mean, you don`t have you have lawsuits. You don`t have stonewalling. The document production from the telecom companies that that may involve other members of Congress and Trump officials is a little more fraught. What is your view sort of legally and constitutionally, about the legitimacy of that request, and its -- and its status and future?

RASKIN: Well, for one thing, if you look at what Kevin McCarthy was objecting to, it`s silly, because what he objected to was a document preservation request, where we told the companies to hang on to any documents that they`ve got a relevance to our investigation. And he said, if they comply with that, there would be some kind of unspoken retaliation against them if and when the Republicans come back into power.

So, essentially, he`s saying, don`t preserve the documents. He`s saying if you (AUDIO GAP) according to our request, that then there will be hell to pay on the other end. And it`s just absurd, but you got to ask yourself. And this is what America needs to understand. Why are these people continually trying to blockade an investigation into an attack against the Congress?

What is their interest in trying to impede a congressional investigation, which of course is illegal anyway, but why? What is it they`re covering up? It`s an amazing thing.

HAYES: Yes, I don`t -- I don`t think I realized it. This is probably on me for not carefully reading that there was a document preservation as opposed to a document production request. So, him saying, if you comply with a document preservation request, there will be retaliation from a Republican majority, to your point, just to make this clear, is saying destroy documents, right? I mean, implicitly, that`s what the (INAUDIBLE).

HAYES: Right. He`s saying, if you don`t destroy the documents, we`re going to exact revenge against you. So, I`m not quite sure McCarthy even understood that. I mean, they`re just lashing out at this point. But what an interesting comparison to make is what they`re saying now with what they said on January 6 through the day after, because they were so rattled and shaken by the violence that overtook the Capitol, that a bunch of them were saying exactly what we`re saying now.

I mean, Ted Cruz, called it terrorism. He called it -- they said they were domestic terrorists. McCarthy was calling for the censure of Donald Trump, for actions taken that today he`s trying to completely whitewash and pretend we`re nothing at all.

Lindsey Graham said, all of us could have died that day. One of them could have gotten him with a bomb, which of course is true because you had hundreds and hundreds of people entering the U.S. Capitol without going through security or having any background check. And of course, a lot of people thought somebody was going to, you know, pull out a gun and start firing, which is a last how far too many violent incidents end in the United States today.

So, I would just like them to go back and look at what they were saying or just go back and look at what Donald Trump`s lawyers were saying in the Senate when we brought the House impeachment over there. And his own lawyers numerously represented that they would never have anything positive to say about the insurrection, and that they would do nothing but denounce it.

And today, of course, they`re doing everything that they can to give comfort to those people who are being tried for assaulting federal officers, destroying federal property, interfering with a federal proceeding and so on.

[20:40:26]

HAYES: Finally, on the rally that is being planned, again, I mean, it`s sort of a strange thing. You don`t -- you know, you don`t want massive overreaction. It is a public building. At the same time, the last time that there was a kind of under reaction that led to this like, catastrophic event. How are you thinking about -- how are -- how are folks on Capitol Hill thinking about this rally?

RASKIN: Well, we`ve got a new Capitol Police chief, Chief Manger of Montgomery County, Maryland, nonetheless. And this time, of course, the Capitol Police force will be ready. Backup forces will be ready. And Congress isn`t there. And there`s no particular proceeding that they could be disrupting.

Some of the leaders of the Proud Boys apparently are saying this is a false flag operation meant to tease out criminal suspects from January 6 so that (AUDIO GAP) some of the attendance. But nonetheless, we are planning for something really big because Donald Trump and his allied forces continue to embrace the insurrection.

So, at this point, I hope (AUDIO GAP) overly partisan, Chris, but we`ve got a party of democracy in America and we`ve got a party of insurrection. And that`s the choice that`s confronting the American public today.

HAYES: Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you so much for your time.

RASKIN: My pleasure.

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