MTP Transcript for April 1, 2007

SEN. HATCH: Well, first of all, let’s understand something. This was not well-handled. I think anybody with brains would, would admit that, and they are admitting that. And the Justice Department is admitting it, and the White House pretty well has admitted it. Now, the Justice Department has offered to bring in their people under oath. I presume that General Gonzales will be under oath. These are the people who handled it. These are the people who understand it. With regard to the White House, you’re talking about the top advisers to the president. The president has indicated that he’s going to invoke executive privilege. But they have offered to send Rove, and, in fact, they made an offer to send more. The general counsel Fred Fielding made an offer to send even more people than we had asked for on the Judiciary Committee, but they said, “Look, we’ll send them up there, you can get the facts from them. Yes, we want it to be not under oath with a limited number of people, but this is the way to get to the facts.” And, of course, the Democrats on the Judiciary, Judiciary Committee are not satisfied with that. So if they...

SEN. LEAHY: A lot of Republicans aren’t...

SEN. HATCH: ...if they—they’re going to—now, wait a minute.

SEN. LEAHY: A lot of Republicans aren’t satisfied either.

SEN. HATCH: Let me finish. Let me finish, Pat.

SEN. LEAHY: A lot of Republicans aren’t satisfied with it.

SEN. HATCH: Pat, let me finish. I didn’t interrupt you.

SEN. LEAHY: (Unintelligible)...tell the truth.

SEN. HATCH: Pat, I didn’t interrupt you. Now, let me just tell you something. There is not one shred of evidence here that any of these appointments were made to, to use Senator Specter’s words, to, to, to interfere with an ongoing investigation or case. Not one shred of evidence. This is a tempest in a teapot and, and, and the president—everybody admits that the president—these people served at the pleasure of the president. What happened here is, the president’s goals and purposes were to go after immigration smuggling cases, gun cases, so they get tough on the misuse of guns, on pornography cases. And some of these people were not doing that. Now, where they got in problems is they, they said there were performance problems. What they meant, it seemed to me by the so-called word in performance, was that these people were not following up on these cases.

Take Carol Lam, for instance. Carol Lam was raised on your program, Tim, by Schumer. Carol Lam, it’s amazing to me she wasn’t fired earlier because for three years members of the Congress had complained that there had been all kinds of border patrol capture of these people but hardly any prosecutions. She was a former law professor, no prosecutorial experience, and the former campaign manager in Southern California for Clinton, and they’re trying to say that this administration appoints people politically? Of course they do. That’s what these positions are. But politically they’ve appointed people who have been approved by the Justice Department—the Judiciary Committee, in most cases, who have served well, are strong people and, and, frankly, these, these seven were really mishandled.

Griffin, nobody doubts that he’s a good prosecutor. I think the problem is that they’ve tried to make a big tempest out of a tea—tempest in a coffee cup here over some mistakes that were made at the Justice Department when the administration, I think, is cooperating and they’re unwilling to take, take any of the information from the people at the White House in the way that Fred Fielding said he would do it. I was surprised Fielding went that far with people that high in the White House.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Leahy, let me ask about a comment that Senator Hatch made. Do you have any shred of evidence that any case was interfered with with, with—by the dismissal of these eight U.S. attorneys?

SEN. LEAHY: Well, this is one of the things we’re trying, trying to find out. We know that Carol Lam, who Orrin angrily dismisses, and I’m sorry he has to get so angry so early in the morning, but the—she, of course, had prosecuted a Republican congressman and was investigating other Republicans when, when she was dismissed. That, that we do know for a fact. We also, when they...

MR. RUSSERT: But do you have any evidence that this is an ongoing case is...

SEN. HATCH: You have not a shred, not a shred of evidence.

SEN. LEAHY: Well, this is—this is why we are having the interviews we’re having the next two weeks before the attorney general comes up. But we do know, when they talk about the cooperation, one of the key people we asked to come up, you talk about cooperation, employed by the Department of Justice. The attorney general assured us that they would come even without subpoenas. As soon as we asked her to come up, she took the Fifth Amendment. She said, “I won’t testify. I take the Fifth.” And what was the basis of the Fifth? “Because I might get prosecuted later if I lied before the committee.”

MR. RUSSERT: But she’s also said the Democrats are—had already made their opinions known publicly...

SEN. HATCH: That’s exactly right, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: ...and she didn’t—she didn’t feel she’d get a fair hearing.

SEN. HATCH: That’s exactly right.

SEN. LEAHY: No, no. She had—there’s going to be an almost equal number of Republican senators and Democratic senators asking questions. She’s talking about possibly being prosecuted if she had to lie when she came before the committee. Everybody’s expected to tell the truth when they come before the committee.

Now...

MR. RUSSERT: The president does—excuse me.

SEN. LEAHY: ...I—I’ve prosecuted enough criminal cases...

MR. RUSSERT: But senator, the president does have a right to replace these U.S. attorneys if he chooses.

SEN. LEAHY: Absolutely.

MR. HATCH: You’re doggone right.

SEN. LEAHY: Absolutely. I, I hear by the Amen chorus in the background, but the—he has a right to. But what he does not have a right to do is do it in a selective way using an obscure part of the Patriot Act that was never intended that purpose, do it in a way to avoid having Senate confirmation, and do it in a way when it is sent—as, as they said in their own e-mails, “to get loyal Bushies in there who will send those signals to the other.” Now you can’t have—I mean, it’s very similar to the tobacco case where they interfered there. They’re about to get $130 billion verdict, which would’ve gone—which would’ve been—gone to the U.S. Treasury, and then they’re told, “Wait a minute, you can’t do that, these are friends of ours. Lower that 130 to 10.”

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Hatch, you know, two times—wait a minute, Senator Hatch. Senator Hatch...

SEN. HATCH: Let me answer that. That was just crazy.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Hatch, this is important, though.

SEN. HATCH: Yeah?

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