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The Lead with Jake Tapper

House Set to Vote on Impeachment; Senate Impeachment Rules of Engagement. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired December 16, 2019 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:00:01]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: So, what will the Senate impeachment trial actually look like, as the jurors prepare to consider what Democrats say are federal crimes?

President Trump seemingly on edge, likely to become just the third U.S. president in history to have this impeachment stain on his legacy. The polls from the president's favorite channel that have him fuming and tweeting.

Plus: Russia has been listening, state TV reporting on Rudy Giuliani's mission in Ukraine and Giuliani, making a stunning new admission just out.

Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We begin this historic week with the politics lead and Democrats setting the table for the big vote in the House of Representatives this week on whether to impeach President Donald J. Trump.

The House Judiciary Committee releasing a new report today accusing President Trump of offenses not specifically laid out in the articles of impeachment, including bribery and wire fraud, and pointing out that those crimes carry sentences of 15 and 20 years in prison, respectively.

Now, it's unknown what the impact, if any, that Democratic report will have on Wednesday's vote or the likely and subsequent trial in the Senate, for which Minority Leader Chuck Schumer today outlined the Democratic demands, asking for witnesses who have yet to testify before the American people and documents that have yet to be released.

As CNN's Alex Marquardt reports for us now, the White House again is saying President Trump did nothing wrong. Republicans already have a plan to push back on Schumer. And Senator Democrats are saying that the fix is in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Conducting an impeachment trial in the Senate is an enormously weighty and solemn responsibility.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The tables are turning, as the Senate trial looms. While Republicans will run things, Democrats today trying to push their proposal for what the trial would look like.

SCHUMER: To engage a trial without the facts coming out is to engage in a cover-up.

MARQUARDT: Which Minority Leader Chuck Schumer hopes will gain Republican support.

SCHUMER: Do they want a fair, honest trial that examines all the facts, or they do they want a trial that doesn't let the facts come out? Trials have witnesses. That's what trials are all about.

MARQUARDT: In a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Schumer called for subpoenas to be issued for four witnesses who have direct knowledge of the Ukraine affair, acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, his deputy, Rob Blair, Budget Office official Michael Duffey, and former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who allegedly called what the president's envoys were doing in Ukraine a drug deal.

SCHUMER: Each of them will have information to share about the charges made by the House, information that no one has heard at this point.

MARQUARDT: Sources say McConnell does not want witnesses. He's been working in lockstep with the White House counsel on the trial's format.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with the White House counsel. There will be no difference between the president's position and our position.

MARQUARDT: Enraging Democrats like Schumer, who told CNN there's a difference between discussion and working on the president's behalf.

SCHUMER: For him to talk to the president is one thing. For him to say, I'm going to do just what the president wants, is totally out of line.

MARQUARDT: Schumer hopes to model the trial on Bill Clinton's in 1999.

To get his way and have more control on what happens during the trial, Schumer needs at least for Republicans to join Democrats to give them a majority. Seven moderate or retiring Republicans are being targeted, including Utah Senator Mitt Romney, a vocal critic of the president's.

All this ahead of the full House impeachment vote expected on Wednesday. The Judiciary Committee, which approved the articles of impeachment, issuing their final report overnight, blasting the president for betraying the nation through abuse of power, which Democrats claim includes multiple federal crimes.

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D-NY): This is a crime in progress against the Constitution and against American democracy. (END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUARDT: For the trial, Chuck Schumer also told Mitch McConnell he would be open to Republicans calling their own witnesses who can also testify about Ukraine. That, however, does not include Hunter Biden, Schumer said.

He told CNN that the younger Biden would be a distraction. Now, the two Senate leaders have not yet met face to face. A spokesperson for McConnell says that will happen soon -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Alex Marquardt, thanks so much.

Now, we should note, as we chew over this with the panel here, Senate Majority Leader McConnell opposes witnesses right now. If you go back to the Clinton impeachment, well, here he is on "LARRY KING" back in 1999.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1999)

MCCONNELL: There been 15 impeachments in the history of this country. Two of them were cut short by resignations. In the other 13 impeachments, there were witnesses. It's not unusual to have a witness in a trial. It's certainly not unusual have a witness in an impeachment trial.

The House managers have only asked for three witnesses. I think that's pretty modest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: We should point out, for fairness, that Chuck Schumer also had a different position. He wants witnesses now. And back, during the Clinton impeachment, he did not want witnesses.

[16:05:07]

How are these guys explaining this different position?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, this is a tactic that happens when senators have been around long enough. Their aides dig up old clips, C-SPAN clips of each other on the floor, because especially for particular nomination fights, clearly for impeachment proceedings, many senators have taken many different sides.

Right now, Chuck Schumer, who, since he's kind of been in the focus today with his outline for witnesses and other trial requests, he's explained it away as saying, well, look, the witnesses that I felt were not necessary during the Clinton impeachment trial, they had already testified in the House proceedings, and the four witnesses that he's called for this time around have rebuffed subpoenas or calls from House Democrats to testify.

He's saying that's a different situation. I'm not sure that argument is going to fly with Republicans who have broadly come around to the consensus that they don't want witnesses to come in the Senate trial for President Trump.

But we are watching some of those folks in the middle like Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, who may feel a little bit differently.

TAPPER: And, Ayesha, what about McConnell flip-flopping on this? He's saying no witnesses now. I don't want any witnesses. And back then, he's like, bring it on. We need witnesses. This is how it's done.

AYESHA RASCOE, NPR: Politics. Can you believe it? It's happening in this town.

(LAUGHTER)

RASCOE: I mean, I know that Republicans, I guess, are going to say that if -- that these people that Schumer called for, that they could have testified in the House if the Democrats had pressed this in court, and if they really wanted these people to testify, they should have taken these matters to court.

Of course, Republicans also know that that would have taken a very long time.

TAPPER: Months, yes.

RASCOE: And it would have dragged on and on.

I think, when you look at the fact of the matter, Republicans don't want to bring any more people to testify, because that's not going to look great for the president most likely. It is most likely not in their interests to bring more people to testify.

TAPPER: Is it fair to say that that's -- what Ayesha just said is a diplomatic and reporterly way of saying that the facts are bad and the Republicans don't want the facts to come out?

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, of course not. They want this all to go away. Right? That's in their interest.

But I guess, from where I sit, where I have seen today, I'm trying to figure out what the Democrats want this trial to be about, because when we got the first report, the big headlines were abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

And now we're throwing around allegations of criminality, talking about the president going to jail possibly.

TAPPER: Bribery and...

(CROSSTALK)

CARPENTER: Well, you needed to prove that case.

And so this is kind of where I'm stuck, right? Because to prove that case, you do need the witnesses that Chuck Schumer is talking about. OK, so they try to call them up, what happens? They have already defied the House. They're probably just going to try to defy the Senate.

So, are you really going to push for the court again? And here we go back to the courts. And we're back where we started in the House.

TAPPER: And, Jen Psaki, in this new report from the House Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, for example, on the wire fraud statute, which I think carries 20 years in prison, they helpfully remind us -- quote -- "The underlying wire fraud statute requires a transmission by wire, radio or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings for purpose of executing a scheme or artifice."

And they argue President Trump's July 25 call to Zelensky, as well as the July 26 call to Ambassador Gordon Sondland, both were foreign wire communications made in furtherance of an ongoing bribery scheme.

Is this a good argument? And if so, why was it not made it in the articles of impeachment?

JEN PSAKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think what we're playing -- seeing play out here is that Chairman Nadler and Chairman Schiff and perhaps Speaker Pelosi have slightly different views about what the lead should be here.

So we have all watched as Chairman Nadler has been a little more forward about impeachment for months, and Chairman Schiff and Speaker Pelosi were -- came to it later because of the developments with the whistle-blower and the transcript, right?

Chairman Nadler is facing a primary opponent in his district. I'm not saying that's the sole driver, but he's overseeing the legal case here. Now, obviously, what the Democrats want to lead with as a whole is what the articles of impeachment are about, which is specific, narrow and focused on Ukraine.

But they also see this as a means of putting things on the table that can have legal action in the future. It's not over, regardless of the outcome of impeachment. So I think they're putting this out there for those purposes, too. But I think we will see Senator Schumer lead more in the direction of what Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Schiff did.

TAPPER: And, Seung Min, a number of these Democrats in seats, congressional seats that President Trump won in 2016 are coming forward, almost all of them that I have seen saying that they're going to vote for impeachment, which is a great risk to their congressional careers.

Freshman Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin from Michigan says she's a yes on impeachment. It is a swing district that went for Trump by 7 percentage points. There was some anti-impeachment protests that we saw in her home district.

It's a precarious position for some of these Democrats. The position could very well be the end of their congressional career.

KIM: Right. We have been looking a lot of it, a lot of the national polling in

terms of the percentage of the country that favors impeachment, but what Pelosi and Democrats care about are how people feel in those really swing districts.

[16:10:00]

But look at some of the Democrats who have come out today say they will vote to impeach Trump. Joe Cunningham in South Carolina, that's an R-plus 10 district, Ben McAdams in Utah, R-plus 13.

Those are very Republican districts. And they are taking a political risk out here to lean in and say they will vote to impeach him. They're hoping that they can not only emphasize that they are a check on the president by voting to impeach him, but also that they can work with him.

We're going to see a major trade deal passed later this week by the House. And that's kind of the walk and chew gum message that Democrats hope will work.

TAPPER: It's a complicated message. We will see if it works.

Everyone, stick around. We have got more to talk about.

Are Republicans really OK with a president asking foreign leaders to investigate domestic political rivals? We're going to talk to a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee next.

Then, a stunning new admission from Rudy Giuliani, as we find the Kremlin touting his efforts in Ukraine.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:15:23]

TAPPER: And we're back with the politics lead.

In less than 48 hours, President Donald Trump could be the third president to be impeached by the House of Representatives, which will set up a Senate trial in January.

Joining me now to discuss is Republican Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Thanks for having me.

TAPPER: Appreciate it.

JOHNSON: So, former Republican Governor Tom Ridge, who is first homeland security secretary for George W. Bush, he said recently, quote, I am disappointed and troubled by the very fact that my president, and he is my president, would ask a foreign leader of a troubled country who've been besieged by enemy of the United States to do him a political favor. As far as I am concerned, it is abuse of power.

So, I know you disagree with him. How is he wrong? How is it not abuse of power?

JOHNSON: I would tell Tom Ridge and anybody else they can't look at this in isolation, you have to look at it in full context, and, of course, what matters here is the actual record. The president didn't ask Zelensky to do him a favor, he said, do us a favor. And that's a very important word. It was obscured in the number of times in the Judiciary hearing, of the 14-hour marathon hearing. We had to correct the record over and over.

The context is that he was making sure that the precious treasure of American taxpayers was not spent overseas. The full context is that Ukraine, is why they're regarded to be the third most corrupt nation in the world. So, he wanted to be sure this would be done right, that if Zelensky that ran as a swamp drainer, so to speak --

TAPPER: Uh-huh.

JOHNSON: -- to clean up corruption, if he was really legitimate. And ultimately, the president concluded that he was and the aid was released.

TAPPER: So -- all right. Just so we're clear, though, this would set a precedent were a president with some sort of preceding information could be -- it would be OK with you, with that president, Democratic president even, asking a foreign leader to investigate a domestic political rival? Elizabeth Warren says, hey, China, questions about their dealings with visas --

JOHNSON: Yes.

TAPPER: -- or, hey, Azerbaijan, there's about question about Trump Tower, hey, Turkey, there's questions about the Trump Tower there, as long as there's some sort of predicate, that's OK with you?

JOHNSON: No, that's not what I said. I said you have to look at the whole context.

TAPPER: There's corruption in Turkey and Azerbaijan and China.

JOHNSON: There is. But what the president is talking about is not getting dirt on his political rival for 2020. That never came up in these conversations.

TAPPER: He said Joe Biden.

JOHNSON: He said Joe Biden but he is referring to events of 2016 which he has always been bothered by. And everybody can see the record of it, he tweets about it. For years he talked about his concern about the 2016 election. TAPPER: He never -- he never said anything about Joe Biden when he

was running as a candidate. He never said -- I mean, Hunter Biden took the contract in 2014.

JOHNSON: Right.

TAPPER: The first time Trump talked about it was last year.

JOHNSON: Well, you haven't seen the transcript of all his calls either. I mean, he's been concerned -- has talked consistently about how he feels the election was -- there was meddling, there was effort by foreigners to go against him. Everybody thought 2016 was messed up, on both sides of the aisle. That's what's in his mind.

And, you know, as a lawyer, we've got to look at the mens rea, the intent behind the supposed offender. What was in Trump's mind? And I think the transcript is very clear and evidence has come out since, shows Zelensky said very clearly he didn't feel any pressure, there was no pressure that he felt. They didn't know aid was delayed.

TAPPER: Tat's not true. It came out in testimony, a Pentagon official said in July 25th, they got a message from Ukrainians where is the military aid?

JOHNSON: Right.

TAPPER: July 25th, same day as the phone call.

JOHNSON: Which Ukrainians? You got to remember --

TAPPER: The government, the government of Ukraine.

JOHNSON: The deep state of Ukraine, OK. This is not --

TAPPER: This is the government of Ukraine wanted to know where it was.

JOHNSON: The fact is Zelensky was a reformer that came in, he was railing against the establishment in Ukraine. They had their own set of circumstances like we do. There were people, our understanding from transcript and evidence, there were people within the administration who didn't necessarily have Zelensky's best interest in mind because he was going to drain the swamp.

All of the details are important. You have to look at the facts, not little bits of it in isolation. It is the whole record that's important.

TAPPER: I guess one of the questions is President Trump took office in January, 2017 and at no point did he pressure that we know President Poroshenko, then the president of Ukraine, throughout 2018 doesn't pressure Poroshenko.

All of a sudden, Joe Biden announces he is running for president in April of this year, and in July he is pressuring Ukraine to look. And let's run this out, because it is specific to Ukraine. It is not I want you to get rid of corruption. Any Americans, this is President Trump on October 3rd, asked what did you want from Zelensky in the phone call. Let's run that sound.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would think that if they were honest about it, they'd start a major investigation into the Bidens.

[16:20:02]

It's a very simple answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: It's not an investigation into Burisma. It's not an investigation into corruption. It's an investigation into Biden, the leading Democratic candidate running against them.

JOHNSON: Yes, in that clip, it is. But again, what's the whole context.

Now, look, we can go back through all of the president's tweets over last -- since before he ran for president. He's been -- his priority is America first. And what he has meant by that, which he is articulated so many times, is he wants to make sure that we're not squandering our dollars overseas. He's worried about NATO partners not doing their fair share, as he says. He doesn't want our taxpayer dollars being squandered.

He sees Ukraine as number third -- number three most corrupt nation in the world and he knows the Bidens, there's something really fishy about that Burisma thing and everybody objectively has to acknowledge that.

TAPPER: There are so many countries full of corruption, and never heard President Trump talk about any of them. Netanyahu in Israel, he is in trouble with the law there, literally. Egypt, billions of dollars going to Egypt. Al Sisi, an incredibly corrupt government. China, Saudi Arabia, I mean, the list goes on and on.

And you're asking us to believe this is a man who's really concerned about corruption abroad. Not only that, let me ask you this. When you look at President Trump right now, his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, his former national security adviser Mike Flynn, his former deputy campaign chair Rick Gates, his former associate, George Papadopoulos, his former campaign adviser Roger Stone, all of them have been convicted of federal crimes.

In addition, Trump University settled a $25 million fraud lawsuit last year. Last month, President Trump admitted misusing his own charitable foundations, he was ordered to pay $2 million.

You really want the American people to believe this guy cares about corruption.

JOHNSON: I do. You take him at his own word, what he said.

TAPPER: Look at the record.

JOHNSON: That's what I'm saying, look at the record. When you talk about impeachable offenses, OK, we did a 14-hour hearing last week, we had all these hearings in the basement, they haven't presented any direct evidence to show the president was involved in any crime.

You were talking earlier about three previous impeachments in American history, and each one of those, there were specific criminal acts, that there was mountains of evidence to prove had been committed. We don't have that here.

And our ultimate concern, Jake, is Founders were very specific in warning against a single party impeachment, they knew it would divide the country. They knew people would go to their corners. And it may be (INAUDIBLE) damage to the republic.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: You know this as a historian, amateur historian, that they didn't want parties at all. I mean, they were --

JOHNSON: Washington warned against it in this Farewell Address.

TAPPER: Yes, they didn't want. But you talk about witnesses, Gordon Sondland testified before Congress about the big question, was there a quid pro quo? Did the Ukrainians have to make announcements of these investigations, political investigations, one -- I mean, ones that indisputably would help the president politically, whatever the reason behind them? Political investigation in exchange for a meeting --

JOHNSON: Yes.

TAPPER: -- with the president, which Zelensky desperately wanted to show the Ukrainians he was serious and to show the Russians he was serious?

Here is Gordon Sondland making that point before the House Intelligence Committee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GORDON SONDLAND, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE EUROPEAN UNION: Was there a quid pro quo? As I testified previously with regard to the requested White House call and the White House meeting, the answer is yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: There's -- that's a first person witness.

JOHNSON: It is.

TAPPER: He had conversations with President Trump. There was a quid pro quo, he said.

JOHNSON: Right, but the rest of the context, again, is that is based on his conjecture, speculation, his assumption, right?

The direct evidence in the record, he said he asked the president on the telephone, September 9th I think it was, what do you want from Ukraine? The president said, I want nothing, I want no quid pro quo. I want Zelensky to do the right thing.

TAPPER: Right.

JOHNSON: Again, he wanted to ensure that Zelensky would be the reformer to clean that up, so that if we're going to spend precious taxpayer dollars there, they're going to be spent well. And, of course, the aid did go forward.

TAPPER: After the whistle --

JOHNSON: And there was never been an investigation.

TAPPER: After the whistle-blower came forward, the aid was released, and, yes, President Trump, according to Gordon Sondland, did say, no quid pro quo, no quid pro quo, I don't want anything from Zelensky, this is after it had been raised in public whether this was a quid pro quo.

JOHNSON: Yes, so --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: And Sondland was asked, this is not as noticed, he was asked did you believe President Trump? Let's roll that sound.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE CASTOR, GOP COUNSEL: And you believe the president, correct?

SONDLAND: You know what, I'm not going to characterize whether I believed or didn't believe, I was just trying to convey what he said on the phone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Seems like it would be a simple answer if you believe that President Trump actually meant it.

JOHNSON: Well, it should, maybe he should have answered it directly. But, you know, we have Sondland's testimony. What we said in the House Judiciary Committee was, you have to take the full Sondland. You have to take all of Sondland.

TAPPER: Yes, I am.

JOHNSON: Not little pieces of him, right?

TAPPER: I'm taking the full Sondland.

JOHNSON: And the only direct evidence about the president's mens rea, his intent, is what he said on that phone call, the one that I just quoted to you, and that's the problem the Democrats have. They promised impeachment by Christmas. That's why we're having this conversation right now.

What they should have done is, for example, in the obstruction of Congress article, they should have gone to the third branch of the government, judiciary. That's how it is resolved.

[16:25:02]

When you have impasse between the legislative and judicial branches -- and executive branches, you go to the third branch and get it resolved. They didn't have time for that.

TAPPER: If there was nothing there, if it is all innocent, if all the information that Mulvaney who has already also said that there was a quid pro quo, military aid held back in part for this investigation into this wild conspiracy theory that you've never espoused about Ukraine interfering in the 2016 election, if there was nothing there, why not just let Mulvaney come forward? Why not just let John Bolton come forward? Why even fight it if it's all innocent like you say?

JOHNSON: I'll tell you why. Because Adam Schiff engineered this process in the basement, unprecedented, what we call a fraudulent process, having secret hearings in the basement.

TAPPER: Which Republicans participated in.

JOHNSON: No, not the ones with jurisdiction. I am on House Judiciary Committee, we're the committee with jurisdiction. I'm the ranking member of the constitution subcommittee.

As we sit here this afternoon, I am still not privy to all the evidence they gathered in that basement. Why is that?

TAPPER: Is it not in the Intelligence Committee?

JOHNSON: Right, but that is --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: That's (ph) important point --

JOHNSON: No, that's the relevant evidence that they're bringing forward supposedly to justify an impeachment. This is an unprecedented process.

The president didn't want to submit to a fishing expedition. And by the way, all previous administrations took the same position. Barack Obama, during the Fast and Furious investigation, he didn't submit everything Congress asked.

TAPPER: Not everything, but submitted some documents. This president submitted no documents, literally zero.

JOHNSON: Actually not true. When the impeachment investigation began, they submitted 100,000 documents. He's had 25 members of his administration testified before the Intel Committee, Oversight Committee, this Congress, this year. He's had 20 in Judiciary. I mean, he has wanted to cooperate.

When it came to this issue, when Democrats like Adam Schiff went out and telegraph what they're going to do, and, by the way, 95 House Democrats voted to impeach the president before July of this year, before any of the facts you and I are talking about even developed.

It was already decided. They predetermined this political outcome. This was clear to the president. Why would you -- you wouldn't have submitted to that.

TAPPER: We could talk for another hour.

JOHNSON: We could.

TAPPER: Congressman Mike Johnson, it's good to see you again.

JOHNSON: You too.

TAPPER: Thank you so much for being here. If I don't see you, merry Christmas.

JOHNSON: You too.

TAPPER: The impact of impeachment up next. How some Republicans are dealing with their vote and ignoring their own advice.

Stay with us.

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