Jerry Nadler Is Ready to Investigate

[babylonsister]

November 15, 2018 1:45PM ET
Jerry Nadler Is Ready to Investigate
The incoming House Judiciary chair on his plan to protect the Mueller investigation and why this might be the most corrupt administration of all time
By Sean Woods


Even after 26 years in the House, Congressman Jerry Nadler, incoming head of the House Judiciary Committee, was fired up when he spoke to Rolling Stone yesterday. After years in the political wilderness of minority status, Nadler will now have broad powers of investigation at his command. He has signaled he will be looking hard at the big questions: the firing of FBI director James Comey, Trump’s financial ties and possible conflicts of interest, Russia, obstruction of justice and more.

Nadler will need all his experience and moxie for the task. Politico is reporting that Donald Trump wants the GOP to install Tea Party leader Rep. Jim Jordan as the ranking member to spar with Nadler during the next session. But regardless of who he is mixing it up with, for much of the next two years, it’s almost certain Nadler will be at the center of contention with the president and his backers. The liberal stalwart, 71, representing Manhattan’s West Side and parts of Brooklyn, has previously said he doesn’t want to talk about impeachment: “It doesn’t serve the function of a Democratic House to talk about it.” But he was willing to talk about his drive to “hold Trump accountable,” whether the party will unify behind Nancy Pelosi, and the news that Amazon is coming to his hometown.

How do you see your role as head of the Judiciary Committee vis-à-vis the Trump administration?
I see my role as trying to protect the republic from an administration that has trampled on constitutional liberties, trampled on democratic norms. We have to protect the Constitution, we have to protect people’s democratic rights, we have to protect freedom of the press. That’s the goal, to shine a light on what’s going on. Oversight is incredibly important because the president had a Congress for two years that completely failed. It didn’t want to check the bounds of the administration, which is part of its constitutional duty. The president’s going to learn that we’re going to do our job and hold him accountable.

What line of inquiry do you think will be the most effective?
The first one is to protect the Mueller investigation, because that is fundamental to maintaining the integrity of our elections. And the administration has done everything it can to sabotage the investigation.

He’s called it a witch hunt, like, 82 times.
I think it’s 84.

OK, your count is undoubtedly better.
I don’t know, maybe you’re right, let’s call it 82. He’s called it a witch hunt 82 times. He has sought to intimidate all of the officials in the FBI and the Justice Department who were instrumental in starting it. His whole beef with [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions was that he didn’t recuse himself and he wouldn’t serve as Trump’s personal hatchet man. Now [acting Attorney General Matt] Whitaker’s only function, apparently, is to do that.

You’ve been in Congress many, many years — is this the most perilous time you’ve experienced for the republic?
It’s certainly the most perilous, yes. It’s certainly the most perilous time for our liberty and for the Constitution of America. The president, through a combination of ignorance, contempt and malevolence, has threatened everything. He’s threatened the First Amendment rights of reporters. He’s threatened everybody who gets in his way, and now with the appointment of Whitaker as the acting attorney general, you have someone who’s clearly unfit to run the [Mueller] investigation. The supervisor of the investigation says he prejudged the outcome. He announced in advance that there was no Russian interference in the 2016 election, which is absurd.

more...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jerry-nadler-judiciary-committee-756869/

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

1. Jerry "NAD MAN" Nadler. Go get em Jerry. The times they are a changin'.