Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Joe Neguse (D-Co 2)
Washington, D.C. — In case you missed it, yesterday, Colorado Congressman Joe Neguse, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, joined Morning Joe on MS NOW to discuss former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s public testimony.
Neguse served as an impeachment manager during Donald Trump’s 2nd trial in front of the United States Senate on the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He underscored the importance of holding Trump accountable for his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election and pushing for the preservation of the peaceful transfer of power.
The interview can be watched HERE. A full transcript is available below.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Joining us now, Assistant Democratic Leader Congressman Joe Neguse of Colorado. He’s a member of the House Judiciary Committee and was an impeachment manager during Senate trials pertaining to the January 6th insurrection. Well, let’s — What are you hoping to hear from Jack Smith? What will you be most interested in asking?
NEGUSE: Well, good morning, Mika. Good to be with you. First, let me just say I find it completely puzzling why Jim Jordan and Republicans have decided to proceed with this hearing in the first instance. I participated in the deposition of the Special Counsel last month. He’s an exceptional prosecutor. I found his answers to be compelling and persuasive. Every answer to questions that were made in bad faith by the Republicans was were cogent answers. And I can’t understand why Republicans want to now give him an opportunity to remind the American public of the body of evidence that exists that shows that President Trump engaged in unlawful and nefarious conduct in the days and weeks after the 2020 election, and, of course, culminating in January 6th. Which, as you mentioned, he was impeached for on a bipartisan basis, and ultimately, 57 votes in the United States Senate on a bipartisan basis for conviction.
So the American public are going to have an opportunity to hear from Mr. Smith, as we did behind closed doors last month, and I believe that they will find his arguments very compelling. I suppose Republicans have decided that this is a way to obfuscate away from their lack of governing, and the fact that they have just over the course of the last 12 months, made life for everyday Americans a lot more expensive. And, perhaps this is a way for them to kind of engage — change the conversation rather, from what they would like to otherwise be talking about.
ARI MELBER: Congressman, Ari Melber here. Curious what you think is important to come out of this? We, of course, lived through it. We had the January 6th Committee, which did a lot of important work putting this before the public, and these cases were public until they were stopped, as you know. So how much of this is about adding to that record? And how much is about on your side of the aisle, making sure the public understands that what they’ve done before when they lost elections, they could try again, and sort of Trump-proofing the future elections if they don’t go their way.
NEGUSE: That’s a great question, Ari. I think you’ll hear, or you’ll see, the Democratic members give the Special Counsel an opportunity to talk at greater length about the investigations that he conducted. The reality is, President Trump has engaged in a five-year effort now to rewrite history. And that was, of course, born from, in my view, the sort of original sin of the, you know, United States Senate abdicating its constitutional duty to hold President Trump accountable in the wake of January 6th.
And now, of course, five years later, a year ago today, when President Trump issued pardons to those who had violently assaulted our nation’s Capitol. So, unfortunately, the reality is President Trump has never been held accountable for his conduct. And I think that today’s hearing will provide an opportunity for Mr. Smith to remind the country of what Mr. Trump and his sycophants engaged in and the risk that, ultimately, I think, still exists for future elections and the peaceful transfer of power, which was once considered sacrosanct. But of course, we now know we can no longer take for granted in the United States.
JOHN HEILEMANN: Hey, Congressman, John Heilemann here. Let me ask you about a different topic. Everybody right now, very focused, rightly so, on what’s going on in Minneapolis, with ICE and with ICE more broadly across the country and its enforcement practices. You’ve been focused on something that kind of that’s kind of been out of the public view, but is really important, which is, the king of “Detention Industrial Complex,” the private prisons that the administration have kind of created this network that they’re funding hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money going into those, you know, in a way where there’s not really been much oversight. I don’t think many people in the public are even aware of that kind of infrastructure that’s being built to support the ICE effort. Talk to us a little bit about what is happening on that front and what you’d like to see your colleagues in Congress do about it.
NEGUSE: John, you articulated it well. I think it has been lost in some respects during the course of the debate around the terrible abuses that have been committed and the violation of constitutional rights by ICE officials. The reality is, it is part and parcel to the wholesale corruption that’s happened at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You are talking about hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that are being used to fund what you described and what others have described as a Detention and Deportation Industrial Complex. Some of the wealthiest private contractors of ICE are making money hand over fist by virtue of the slush fund that House Republicans created last year for ICE, and, of course, today we’re debating yet another bill — $10.3 billion that House Republicans would like to allocate towards ICE. We’re fighting against that.
I think it is shameful. It’s reprehensible. There are a lot of wealthy corporations and wealthy individuals making a lot of money ultimately on these abuses and these, the misconduct that you know the press has so, in my view, comprehensively uncovered over the course of the last few months. So more is needed — needs to be done. I think we should end for-profit detention, and I’m leading a bill in the Congress to try to stop it.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, Assistant Democratic Leader Joe Neguse of Colorado. Thank you.
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