The following is the transcript of an interview with Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland that aired Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022, on “Face the Nation.”
MAJOR GARRETT: We’re joined now by Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of the January 6, select committee. Congressman, good to see you. Good morning.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Thanks so much for having me Major.
MAJOR GARRETT: So, former President Trump says that MAGA Republicans are trying to save democracy, they want to be taken seriously on this issue. So let’s review what the former president said this week earlier. He said the 2020 election should be rerun, or he should be reinstated in office, and that if reelected in 2024, he would provide apologies and full pardons to those charged and or convicted for storming the Capitol on January 6, evaluate that.
REP. RASKIN: Well, first, if he’s saying that the election should be rerun, which is something he’s been asserting from the beginning, that’s totally outside of the Constitution. There is no procedure for the military just to seize the election machinery and run a new election, which is one of the things that his disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was pushing and we know was part of the January 6 plot. And look, more than 60 courts rejected every claim of electoral fraud and corruption which Donald Trump advanced. He’s had the benefit of more than 60 courts, including eight courts, where he appointed the judges to office, look at all those claims and they were all rejected. It was rejected in the states and he lost the election. Two of the hallmarks of a fascist political party are one, they don’t accept the results of elections that don’t go their way and two, they embrace political violence. And I think that’s why President Biden was right to sound the alarm this week about these continuing attacks on our constitutional order from the outside by Donald Trump and his movement.
MAJOR GARRETT: Let’s talk about the January 6 committee. There is conversation about having Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House come in. He has described this committee as a “Stalinist show trial” earlier this year, he said under a Republican led Congress, members of this committee might be arrested. How do you respond to that remark- those remarks? And what would be the value of him coming in talking to the committee?
REP. RASKIN: Well, we’re inviting in only people who have relevant evidence and testimony–
MAJOR GARRETT: What’s his relevant evidence and testimony?
REP. RASKIN: Well, he- he has appeared at numerous times in- throughout the investigation about the attempt to propound “the big lie”, and to keep things going long after the election had been settled. But it’s interesting that he invoked Stalinism, when all of the Stalinists are on Donald Trump’s side, like Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB who said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, or the dictator of North Korea who Donald Trump writes love letters to. The Stalinist are on their side, and they should keep them on that side of the aisle because our side is fighting for democracy in America.
MAJOR GARRETT: Does the committee still have interest in obtaining testimony from Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas?
REP. RASKIN: Look, what we’re interested in getting testimony from anyone who has relevant evidence about the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. Let’s not lose sight of what we’re talking about here–
MAJOR GARRETT: There were disclosures this week that she was in email conversation with people in Wisconsin about that topic.
REP. RASKIN: I, speaking as one member and only as one member, I would say she has a relevant testimony to render, and she should come forward and give it. I don’t want to overstate her role. We’ve talked to more than 1000 people. But we’d like to hear from Gingrich and we’d like to hear from her too.
MAJOR GARRETT: What is the probability former Vice President Pence testifies?
REP. RASKIN: Well, look, Vice President Pence was the target of Donald Trump’s wrath and fury and effort to overthrow the election on January 6, the whole idea was to get Pence to step outside his constitutional role, and then to declare unilateral lawless powers to reject Electoral College votes from the states. So I think he has a lot of relevant evidence, and I would hope he would come forward and testify about what happened–
MAJOR GARRETT: Voluntarily or view- via subpoena?
REP. RASKIN:
Well, we’re trying to get everybody to come forward voluntarily–
MAJOR GARRETT: But the subpoena’s not out of question?
REP RASKIN: In no one’s case is a subpoena out of question, but I would assume he’s going to come forward and testify voluntarily, the way the vast majority of people have.
MAJOR GARRETT: One of the mandates of this committee is to create legislation. 10 Republicans on the Senate side have signed on to an Electoral Count Act revision. Is there a bill on the House side? Will there be and do you expect this to be updated and resolved legislatively, either before the midterms or in the lame duck session?
REP. RASKIN: Well, we want to take a much broader view, I think. I mean, the narrowest thing you could say is, well, the vice president doesn’t have the power to unilaterally rebuff Electoral College votes from the state–
MAJOR GARRETT: Clarify that.
REP. RASKIN: –But yeah, but if that’s all we do, in a certain sense, it’s validating Donald Trump’s argument that there was any ambiguity about it in the first place, which there was not. No vice president had ever tried to reject Electoral College votes and Mike Pence and his team ultimately said it was ridiculous. So I think we need to take a much broader view about Donald Trump’s attack on the entire electoral college process and the entire Democratic process from the counties and the towns and the cities through the states all the way up to the federal government. So I think we got to defend the right to vote in democracy itself.
MAJOR GARRETT: Does that mean the Senate bill would be unacceptable in the house?
REP. RASKIN: No, I think it’s a- it’s a good first start. It’s a good first offer. But I think we need to look far more systematically at what Donald Trump was trying to do. And we’ve seen, for example, when he called Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and said, just find me 11,781 votes, when they tried to intimidate election officers. This was a far more sweeping plot than just what happened in the last couple of hours there.
MAJOR GARRETT: We have less than a minute, one of your colleagues on the committee, Adam Kinzinger, said the next step for the committee is to look into the money behind and the money being made off of the big lie. True?
REP. RASKIN: That was an important degree, an important dimension of everything that was happening. This was a Donald Trump operation. So it was always an effort to–
MAJOR GARRETT: But, will that be brought in the public presentation of that committee coming forward.
REP. RASKIN: It will undoubtedly be part of our report and whether, you know, it comes up again in the hearings. I can’t say yet because we’re still working all of that out.
MAJOR GARRETT: There is much anticipation in the nation’s capital, possibly across the country in the report propounded by the committee. When can the country expect to see that?
REP. RASKIN: Well, certainly by the end of the year, because, you know, we’re like Cinderella, at midnight, our license runs out at the end of the year. But under House Resolution 503, that’s a significant part of our responsibility to report to the American people about how to prevent coups, insurrections, political violence and attacks on our democratic process going forward.
MAJOR GARRETT: Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, thanks so much.
REP. RASKIN: Thanks for having me Major.
MAJOR GARRETT: Face The Nation will be back in just one moment. Please stay with us.
