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Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Says Democrats Are Moving Forward With Articles Of Impeachment. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired December 05, 2019 - 10:00   ET

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

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: -- big in South Carolina and Nevada, he'll be on his way.

[10:00:02]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you, Errol. We appreciate it very much.

All right. Good morning, everyone. Top of the hour. It is a big day. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And historic day. And I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington. We want to welcome our viewers in the U.S. and around the world. We begin with the breaking news, a moment setting up a major clash between Capitol Hill and the sitting U.S. president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Sadly but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our founders and our hearts full of love for America, today, I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Only the fourth time in our country's history. Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not take questions at that moment as she made that announcement. We do expect her to take questions just minutes from now when she speaks again. Of course, we will bring you that live.

HARLOW: You will also see her tonight at 9:00, CNN's Town Hall with Nancy Pelosi.

Our team is following all of the latest developments as they unfold this morning on Capitol Hill. Let's begin with our Senior Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju.

Good morning to you, Manu. What more can we expect from Pelosi when she does take reporter questions this hour?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we learned more about her thinking, her plans, her timeframe, but I can tell you that this is going to move pretty quickly in the House right now in the aftermath of this announcement. Democrats are largely united in moving forward to impeach this president.

Behind the scenes, she has been meeting with members. In fact, she just met with some members. I'm keeping my eye on in case she walks by. But she just met with some Democratic members. They talked about it in there. And I'm told there was virtually no dissent in this room. Democrats are on board. They have been waiting for the signal from the speaker who has privately gauged the thoughts of her colleagues who believe what the president did when it came to Ukraine was just simply a violation of his oath of office, a violation of the Constitution and it warrants his removal from office.

And Nancy Pelosi made a similar message delivered this morning from the speaker's balcony saying the president's actions left her no choice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: The president leaves us no choice but to act because he is trying to corrupt once again the election for his own benefit.

The president has engaged in abuse of power, undermining national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections.

His actions are in defiance of the vision of our founders and the oath of office that he takes to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So I see her inside the room right now. She's talking to some Democratic members as they start to come out of the room. We'll see if she does decide to walk by here. And if she does, we'll throw a question to her. She usually doesn't answer our questions necessarily in this setting, but she does -- she will, as you have mentioned, later this hour, take reporter questions at a press conference.

So there are still a lot of questions about exactly what the next steps are in terms of the scope of the articles of impeachment, but that's exactly what they're going to be deciding behind closed doors in the coming days. But, again, we've been reporting for weeks, is it going to move fast, it is. And we expect that to happen before Christmas that the president will be impeached. Guys?

SCIUTTO: So, Manu, what still needs to happen? You have a Judiciary Committee, they consider the articles once they are written up and then a vote. How quickly might that happen and then how quickly a vote in the full House if they keep on this ambitious timeline?

RAJU: Well, we expect the first thing that will happen is a hearing next week in the House Judiciary Committee that will hear from two key witnesses, the attorneys who sort of -- Democrat and Republican attorneys of the House Intelligence Committee to report on the findings of the investigation. And Democrats will -- this will be an open hearing. Then we expect the votes to happen on the House Judiciary Committee on those articles of impeachment. And that could happen by the end of next week. And then after that, then we could expect to vote on the House floor to impeach this president. That could the week of December 16th. So it's going to move pretty quickly.

One thing that the speaker has to decide on is exactly the scope of the articles of impeachment. We know exactly what they have been talking about, obstruction of justice, obstruction of Congress, as well as abuse of power. And we'll see exactly how they structure that. But those conversations will happen behind the scenes with Pelosi, with Jerry Nadler, the House Judiciary chairman, as well as the House Intelligence Committee chairman, Adam Schiff, as she gets input from a number of her members. Guys?

HARLOW: Manu, thanks very, very much. We'll hear your voice, I'm sure, shouting questions at Nancy Pelosi in a moment.

Phil Mattingly is also with us on the Hill. Phil, I just had a moment ago that was so striking, at least to me, with Judiciary member, Democrat Steve Cohen, because I kept asking him, should this include Mueller -- stuff from the Mueller report and his answer repeatedly was, I am with leadership on this.

[10:05:04]

I am with leadership on this. I think that message from Pelosi last night, to be disciplined, resonated.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It turns out the speaker is the speaker for a reason and it's the second time she's the speaker because her caucus listens to her and she keeps her caucus in line.

But I think one of the difficulties House Democrats have had, at least behind the scenes, over the course of the last couple weeks is on this issue specifically, how big do you go, how wide a net do you cast as you draft these articles of impeachment. And there are political dynamics at play here, there are 2020 races that are at play here and there are just the idea that some people don't believe they should go as far as others do.

But what Steve -- you key on a very important point. Steve Cohen is not a shrinking violin. He will tell you what he's thinking and how he feels often to the detriment of what leadership actually wants. And I think what he is making clear, and you've seen this over the course of the last couple of days, where Adam Schiff was asked when he released his report, are you now for impeachment, and he would not give a definitive answer.

Eric Swalwell, who had already written an op-ed, calling for impeachment, said he wasn't sure whether or not he was for impeachment yet either. There is a reason for that. They have been told, as you know, behind closed doors yesterday, but also repeatedly over the course of the last couple of weeks, it's time to button it down, it's time to be disciplined with the message.

Also, as the speaker made clear very often, very repeatedly that this is a somber moment, this is a historic moment and you need to convey that in your public remarks. They know what they're getting into. They see the polling, they understand kind of the stakes that are at play right now. And the speaker's message, I think, has trickled down and you are seeing that reflected in the caucus right now as they move through this process.

HARLOW: Yes, we certainly are. Phil Mattingly, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

SCIUTTO: Well, White House officials are now preparing an aggressive defense ahead of a likely trial in the Senate. Joining us now is Karoun Demirjian. She is Congressional Reporter for The Washington Post.

Karoun, you have new details on this this morning. Tell us what you are learning.

KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it appears that the various White House officials are basically starting to prep everybody for what's going on. You had a battery of them coming to Capitol Hill yet to meet with senators behind closed door, talk about how they are sending signals that they appear to want to do this in real-time on the floor, not necessarily with videotaped depositions and things like that that we saw during the Clinton impeachment.

And that's just a sign that they are thinking that they have got a better forum in the Senate, really, to defend the president, to tamp down these impeachment charges that everybody is expecting to come forward once and for all and to stage a complete defense. They think that they are going to have a fairly sympathetic audience in the Senate GOP, but there is a lot of preparatory work that's going on right now getting those senators ready for what they will be hearing, what they will be needing to do to kind of bridge the gap between their role as juror but still politician and testing the waters basically for how they're going to make their case, which everybody is expecting them to do in January.

HARLOW: Karoun, when this thing moves on to the Senate, you only need the majority that a simple majority the senators have to call witnesses, to call Hunter Biden, to call Joe Biden, to call in Adam Schiff, right? And so you have the president this morning tweeting about that, trying to force a number of them to testify during a Senate trial. Is that what we have in store here?

DEMIRJIAN: It does appear that that is what they're -- is going to be a push forward to do. Look, the way that this gets resolved in the past has sometimes been an agreement between Democrats and Republicans. You could, however, in this time, in which everything is very divided, you could see a series of motions on the floor that would cause votes to be happening on either bunches of witnesses or individual witnesses, et cetera.

But, yes, it appears that there is going to be a very aggressive counter-messaging, counter-strategy and countercharge basically against the Biden family. The GOP is still focused on the whistleblower to some extent, though it is not as clear if that will actually get unveiled at the Senate the way that House Republicans have been pushing to do.

But you are going to have -- the GOP still has the majority of the Senate, right? And so they are going to have the upper hand when it comes to setting up witnesses. I think that there will be enough Republican senators that side with Democrats on the vote of going forward with the impeachment trial in the first place. But, again, if the party wants to call witnesses, it's going to be difficult for some -- potentially difficult for some of the same Republican senators to say, no, we don't want to hear from people just because Democrats are saying, well, that's your spin, to the GOP.

HARLOW: Right, yes.

SCIUTTO: I wonder then if you have the prospect, and again, this is not clear that all 53 Republicans would vote in lockstep, say, on calling a Joe Biden, but I imagine the president and some Republicans see that as a political opportunity given that Biden is currently the leading Democratic candidate in 2020.

DEMIRJIAN: It certainly is a political opportunity, and I think those who are close to the president are salivating at it. But I think that it's going to be a potentially difficult moment of reckoning for some of the more lifer senators in the GOP who have worked with Biden, who know Biden.

[10:10:02]

I mean, look, Biden was considered a guy who could work with Mitch McConnell. He came down to the Hill to negotiate the fiscal cliff. How many times did we see him as President Obama's envoy because he had ties with people on the other side of the aisle? So that's going to have to all get thrown out the window if they are going to go forward with this or at least be tabled to one side.

And I think that may be a choice that the Senate GOP members end up making, but it's going to, for some of them, be a choice that's going to require a little bit of soul ripping because it's going against a former colleague with whom they had a relationship.

But it does appear to be a central piece of what Trump's defense is in terms of saying ,why he was asking for the Ukrianian president to conduct these investigations or announce that he would conduct these investigations. And for his argument that, for him, this was all about potential corruption in Ukraine and when we talk about corruption in Ukraine from the president's lips, his focus is on the Bidens.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: There you go. Wise words, Karoun. Thank you so much. We appreciate having you.

DEMIRJIAN: Thank you.

HARLOW: So, still to come, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will take questions from reporters in just a few minutes. This comes after she announces Democrats are moving forward with articles of impeachment against the president. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: Some history made on Capitol Hill this morning. Last hour, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on the House Judiciary chairman to move forward with articles of impeachment.

HARLOW: She did not go into details, but she could in just a few minutes. She will take questions right here from reporters in just moments.

Last hour, Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen, a member of the Judiciary Committee, gave us a sense of what those articles of impeachment will include.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): They certainly will include the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. It's possible that we'll get to obstruction of justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: We're joined by Michael Gerhardt, one of the constitutional experts who testified on Capitol Hill yesterday, Michael, a long day for you, I know, thanks for being here with us, and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Elliot Williams. We appreciate you both being here.

So, Michael, we just heard what they will -- he didn't equivocate, Steve Cohen. He said that they are going to include those two things. What he didn't say is whether they will include anything from the Mueller report.

MICHAEL GERHARDT, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That's right. And I think this is a work in progress. We're watching as best we can what the House committee is going to do. They had an open hearing yesterday obviously talking about the laws that applies to the facts.

At the same time, they are working behind the scenes to draft articles which will eventually become public and debated in the committee, and debated in the House, and we'll get to them. And I think part of the point of yesterday's hearing was to test different ideas about what could be possible impeachable offenses here. And now, the members of Congress are trying to look at that and filter out of it what they think are the strongest articles.

SCIUTTO: But, Michael, let me, if I can, look forward to the Senate trial, which would follow this here. There is talk now among Republicans that they will compel witnesses, a witness list that could extend to Joe Biden and his son. That would require a simple majority vote?

GERHARDT: Yes, that would require just a simple majority vote in the Senate.

SCIUTTO: And, I mean, I suppose -- listen, we saw loads of witnesses in the House impeachment hearings refuse to show up. I mean, could they, like we saw now, side to say, no, I'm not relevant to this investigation, I won't be there?

GERHARDT: It's possible they might say that. It's obviously very difficult politically. One of them is a presidential candidate. And at the same time, I think the Democrats have to think about whether it makes sense to simply return the favor to the president who has ordered his people not to cooperate and not comply with subpoenas. And then seeing the Democrats do the same thing, it takes them off the high ground they may be on.

SCIUTTO: I see.

HARLOW: So, Elliot, a Senate trial is presided over by Chief Justice John Roberts. Can he compel John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney and others to talk and would they have any choice not to?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, again, the question here and sort of this was the specter of Jonathan Turley's comments yesterday, the other professor -- one of the other professors in addition to Michael. His comments were, let's play it out in the courts and see what happens there.

There are a number of -- or at least one lawsuit pending as to the question of whether you can compel individuals. That's sort of the big thing looming over all of this here. The president and his allies have made a point of frankly frustrating Congress. There's likely to be an article of impeachment for obstruction of Congress in some way by not sending people.

So -- and it's hard to say, and I don't know, and perhaps Michael has insight as to the question where the chief justice can compel. Certainly the federal courts can. And this is percolating through the Washington, D.C. District Court right now. And so we'll see where that ends up.

SCIUTTO: This is a fascinating possibility. I mean, this is why I like working with Poppy, because you brought up an idea that I didn't think about.

So Republicans will want to call the whistleblower, right, they want to focus attention there. They will want to call Joe Biden and his son. They see political opportunity there. So possibility where they'd say, let's call those guys, but we're still holding back the folks with direct knowledge of the president's involvement here, a Bolton, a Mulvaney, et cetera.

[10:20:03]

What do you do constitutionally, legally, in those circumstances?

WILLIAMS: You also showed a really important point, Jim, which is that Joe Biden actually is not relevant to the impeachment inquiry. It's, yes, you can want to talk about whether Hunter Biden is shady or unlawful or is engaged in misconduct, but the question is whether the president of the United States violated his oath of office by engaging the services of a foreign government. Joe Biden is irrelevant to that.

SCIUTTO: Constitutionally, Michael Gerhardt, because, Poppy, it's always nice to have constitutional expert on impeachment sitting next to you and our show, what would the rules be? Because, obviously, Republicans have the majority, they set the rules there. Could they say, we want these witnesses but not all those witnesses and forget about it?

GERHARDT: They very much are able to do that. There's no question, they have the power do it. And they may be likely to do it because they may want to be able to put on the case they think that would justify the president's actions.

And, by the way, all this attention on Biden, as Elliot was pointing out, diverts the attention from the president, and at the same time, it diverts attention from the president's misconduct. And, essentially, what the Republicans will be arguing in the Senate is, your misconduct, that is the Democrats' misconduct, is somehow worse than the president's misconduct.

SCIUTTO: And, Poppy, it would get back to what the president wanted throughout from the very beginning of this, would it not, would be to investigate Joe Biden, his likely or a likely opponent in 2020 for things in Ukraine where we should note, again, you and I said this in air many times, there is no evidence that Joe Biden was involved in any wrongdoing.

HARLOW: No. I wonder though to both of you, just quickly jump in, Michael, let's start with you, Jerry Nadler's own words a year ago where you need three things to impeach and a key one of them is bipartisan support of the American people so you don't rip this country apart. You don't have that.

GERHARDT: That's right, you don't have that. It is a very noble aspiration. It may be very difficult to accomplish. One thing that complicates what the chairman said is that once he says bipartisanship is essential for impeachment to move forward, he hands over to the Republicans the opportunity simply to not agree.

WILLIAMS: And you were never going to get that because the decision was made not to act in a bipartisan matter the day Donald Trump was sworn in. House Republicans have been largely in lockstep with the president of the United States. It's only occasionally the individual who is retiring who sort of seemed to step out of line.

So the question of bipartisanship, Poppy, is far bigger than impeachment. This goes back to sort of President Trump's role with respect to Republicans in Congress from day one.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: It's part of why Congressman Heck is retiring. It's what he wrote yesterday. Bipartisanship compromise get you nowhere, I'm out.

SCIUTTO: Yes, and you hear that from -- that's one thing both parties agree on, and I think it's that bipartisanship largely dead. Although we may see a USMCA deal, so there are some signs in there.

Michael Gerhardt, Elliot Williams, thanks to both of you. I think we might to you again in the coming weeks and months.

Straight ahead, reaction to all of this from a Republican lawmaker we're going to speak to live. Stay with us.

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[10:25:00]

SCIUTTO: It is moving forward. Right now, House Democrats are drafting articles of impeachment against President Trump. In her reasoning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, quote, our democracy is what's at stake. The president leaves us no choice but to act because he is trying to corrupt once again the election for his own benefit.

With me now, Republican Congressman Mark Green, he serves on the Oversight Committee, as well as the Homeland Security Committee. Congressman, we appreciate you taking the time this morning.

REP. MARK GREEN (R-TN): Thanks, Jim, for having me on the show.

SCIUTTO: So as you heard, they're going to move forward with drafting articles of impeachment. Have you made up your mind yet, are you a definite no?

GREEN: I'm a definite no. You know, most of the people in Tennessee in my district don't feel like that looking into the Biden situation in Ukraine is a crime anyway. And it looks like the folks that are talking about the incident anyway just have presumption of the evidence. So it is not even proof, it is presumption, and we're moving forward with an impeachment that something that the folks in Tennessee don't even see as a bad thing.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this, because you are a military man, you know the importance of this military assistance to Ukraine, a small country fighting a very large, powerful country, Russia.

Do you believe it was right in the midst of that war for the president to put a hold on that aid knowing how much our ally depends on it?

GREEN: Well, just remember, Jim, he is the one who started that lethal aid. The Javelin missile, which President Trump authorized, President Obama would not authorize. He did put a hold on it, but he had a new president in place, so he wanted to make sure there wasn't corruption, that the money and the support would actually go to the place that they were saying that it was going to go.

Ernst & Young, a pretty bipartisan or non-partisan organization, ranked the Ukraine as the third most corrupt country in the world. So I think it's okay for the president to, you know, make sure that the money and the support that we give goes to the place that the taxpayers expect it to go. But I just want it --

SCIUTTO: Fair. But the Department of Defense, in May of last year, certified that aid. It did a review, as required by law, it looked at corruption and a letter was sent to all the relevant committee saying, we have looked at it and Ukraine is --

[10:30:00]