Judiciary Committee in House to Vote on Holding Barr in Contempt of Congress; Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) is Interviewed about Barr Contempt Vote.
BERMAN: The House Judiciary Committee will vote just hours from now to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt. But the Justice Department is threatening to have President Trump invoke executive privilege on everything involving the Mueller report if that vote takes place. Joining us now is Democratic Senator Chris Coons. He's a member of the Judiciary Committee. You've been in the center of all of this for some time, so we appreciate you being with us. Senator, can I read you the letter that the DOJ sent last night. Stephen Boyd wrote this letter to the Judiciary Committee in the House side. "In the face of the committee's threatened contempt vote, the attorney general will be compelled to request that the president invoke executive privilege with respect to the materials subject to the subpoena. I hereby request that the committee hold the subpoena in abeyance and delay any vote on whether to recommend a citation of contempt for noncompliance with the subpoena pending the president's determination of this question." He basically said, "You do this, game over," in terms of anything Congress wants on the Mueller investigation. Do you think they have a legal case?</s>SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): I don't. I don't think that it's possible to assert executive privilege over everything that Congress might be seeking to get from the executive branch. Look, one of the fundamental powers of Congress is a power of oversight, a power to investigate actions by the executive branch. It's part of our balance of powers. It's something that has been well-established over many administrations of both parties. Look, there's always skirmishes at a boundary line issues, famously the fight by Richard Nixon to say that he shouldn't have to give up tape recordings of discussions in the Oval Office, which led to U.S. v. Nixon. There's always been some disagreements. But this is a wholescale effort to assert executive privilege across an entire investigation and a whole range of things. And John, this fits into a broader approach by the Trump White House to declare Congress's oversight power illegitimate. That's more of a threat to our separation of powers than any specific fight we might be having right now.</s>BERMAN: When you're talking about a threat to the separation of powers, there are those who ask the question, is that a constitutional crisis? Is it?</s>COONS: We keep coming up against constitutional crises here scalover the last two years. I'll put it this way. President Trump has taken a series of actions over his two years as president where he has genuinely pushed the boundaries. Across a whole range of things -- criticizing sitting federal court judges, the way he talks about the media and now the way he is challenging the power of Congress. He's done this previously in terms of spending decisions. He's done it in other ways in terms of the reach and scope of his executive orders. This is, I think, just another way in which he is genuinely pushing the boundaries of presidential power. John, what worries me is that we have two new Supreme Court justices and an attorney general who have publicly and repeatedly asserted a view of presidential power that I think is ahistorically overbroad, meaning they support this unitary executive theory idea that, when Justice Scalia first wrote about it in a dissent, it was very much a minority view. They are now in a position to potentially make it the law of the land, if there were a Supreme Court decision resolving this fight.</s>BERMAN: You know, the president on Twitter, and he's incorrectly interpreted the Constitution, by the way, and exactly the separation of powers. But he said he will take the notion of impeachment or investigation to the Supreme Court. Leave his interpretation aside. But you seem to be suggesting is he might have his justices, the ones he appointed, on his side should these issues get to that court. Is that your view?</s>COONS: He might. Exactly why I voted against Justice Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh after vigorous questioning on this, was their views on executive power, which I think are significantly overbroad. And in fact, pose a threat to the ways in which our constitutional order has always worked.</s>BERMAN: Senator, if I can, I want to talk to you about what's happening with Iran this morning. I remember you talking -- talking to you before the Iran deal was signed in 2015. You had concerns. You ultimately supported it at the end. But now a year after the United States backed out unilaterally, Iran says it will start reentering the nuclear realm with production of various things. What's your reaction to these moves this morning?</s>COONS: This is a significant moment in our many years'-long effort to try and contain or hopefully stop Iran's race towards a nuclear weapon. Iran is a very dangerous, destabilizing power in the region. They export their view of terrorism and their engagement with the region in a way that is extremely harmful to our allies and our interests. And the announcement that they may well go back to enrichment and enrichment, possibly to weapons-grade levels is very concerning. The JCPOA, the Iran deal is something that was cobbled together between Russia, China, our European allies and the United States. And at its most positive, it gave us searching inspections, insight into what Iran was doing. And they committed to not develop a nuclear weapon.