MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript Interview with Sheldon Whitehouse

Interview

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Joining me now for more on the removal of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman is

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island. He`s a member of the

Senate Judiciary Committee, the committee that confirmed Attorney General

Barr. He previously served as a U.S. Attorney himself, the U.S. Attorney

for Rhode Island.

And in that capacity as a senator on the Judiciary Committee, as a man who

held a job similar to Geoffrey Berman`s, what did you make of this when you

heard this Friday night? What is this?

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI): I don`t know. It`s somewhere between the

Gong Show and that black comedy The Death of Stalin. It`s just such an

array of misfires. First of all, there`s the lie about the U.S. Attorney

resigning. Then it turns out that nobody bothered to tell Barr or they`d

forgotten that this was a judicially appointed U.S. Attorney, a rare thing.

So it`s actually not clear that bar can fire him, which gave him the

leverage to hold out and demand that instead of the New Jersey U.S.

Attorney coming in, that his own Southern District of New York deputy to

take over again in the ordinary course. And then they also forgot that

there`s a blue slip in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

So actually, the new appointee who they supposedly wanted to be Jay Clayton

would have to go through Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand before they

could get there. So, the amateurishness and the obvious oversights, I mean,

it`s kind of fire the associate quality work here. So, all of that suggests

because Barr is not an idiot that there are some very powerful forces

working just beneath the surface to explain all this peculiarity.

HAYES: Well, I mean, that`s -- there`s a mystery here that to me is

unsolved, right? I mean, clearly something happened. There was some

predicate for this. There was some precipitating incident. There`s some

reporting today about it being an open letter, but, you know, statement of

interest and Department of Justice on Bill de Blasio`s opening. I don`t

quite buy that.

But it just seems to me that it`s someone`s job, I don`t know, Senate

Judiciary Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, to actually get to the

bottom. Like, we should know what happened here, right?

WHITEHOUSE: Yes, we should know what happened here. And if we had gavels in

the Senate, we would find out. Chairman Nadler does have the gavel in the

House and I hope and expect he will continue to look into this because it

all just smells really rancid.

I think part of it might be that they want to humble the famous sovereign

district of New York, which is why you bring a New Jersey U.S. attorney to

oversee it as a part-time job. There`s always been a rivalry between main

justice and the so-called sovereign district.

But just the bad lawyering here and the slipshod facts and being caught

lying twice, first by Berman, and second by the president saying, hey, I

had nothing to do with this when Barr said this was the President`s call,

it all just smacks of amateurism and bizarre, bizarre motivations.

HAYES: Yes, we had the president saying, "We have a very capable attorney

general so that`s really up to him. I`m not involved." Which again, do you

believe the President on this, who knows. We`re dealing with a bunch of

people who don`t have a lot of credibility. But we do know that there`s

precedent here.

I mean, in the -- in the D.C. District, right, you`ve got a situation where

they didn`t move out the U.S. Attorney. They sort of fake promoted her,

then they rescinded the nomination, and they have loyalists there, and

they`ve kind of got to town with -- I mean, that is where they have

undermined career prosecutors to get to suggest a lighter sentence for

Roger Stone, leading to resignations.

That`s where they have attempted to drop charges against Michael Flynn

that was so irregular and bizarre that a federal district judge has

basically said like hold up and appointed a retired judge to take the other

side of the case. So, they have run this play in D.C. before. There is some

precedent for what it looks like they`re trying to do.

WHITEHOUSE: Not only have they run this play, but they really got their

fingers burned trying to run it, as the professional prosecutors left the

case. And when Judge Gleeson, the specially appointed retired judge came

in, he wrote a blistering condemnation of what was going on. I mean,

stunning by a former judge.

So all of that really looked horrible for the Department of Justice. And

the fact that they would try to replay it while their fingers are still

scorched from the last maneuver is again, it`s just really, really

peculiar.

HAYES: Well, I hope that we get some clarity from Mr. Berman himself in the

near future on what exactly went down there. I know the people in that who

work in that office are pretty flummoxed and unnerved by the sequence of

events. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, thank you so much for joining us

tonight.

WHITEHOUSE: My pleasure.

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