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Trump Administration at War Internally Over I.G. Report on Russia Probe?; House Drafts Articles of Impeachment Against President Trump. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 10, 2019 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:33]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Today is a day that will go down in history for Donald Trump's presidency and the nation as a whole. For only the fourth time in U.S. history, articles of impeachment have formally been brought against a sitting U.S. president.

And, today, there are two of them, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D-NY): The framers of the Constitution prescribed a clear remedy for presidents who so violate their oath of office. That is the power of impeachment.

Today, in service to our duty to the Constitution and to our country, the House Committee on the Judiciary is introducing two articles of impeachment, charging the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, with committing high crimes and misdemeanors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Sources tell CNN a Judiciary Committee vote will take place by the end of this week, with a full House vote on impeachment sometime next week.

Let's go straight to Manu Raju. He's our CNN senior congressional correspondent there on Capitol Hill.

And so we have an idea, Manu, of the timing. What more do you know about this historic day?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it was a significant moment when they announced these two articles are impeachment, one, of course, abuse of power, the other, obstruction of Congress, all related to the Ukraine episode, but a reference to the president's past behavior. And that was a subject of enormous debate behind the scenes with Democrats, as they engaged about whether or not there should be a third article of impeachment, including obstruction of justice, as detailed by the Mueller report and evidence that the president sought to undercut that investigation.

A number of Democrats believed that there was overwhelming evidence that the president should be impeached over those allegations of obstruction of justice. But, ultimately, Democrats decided not to, because, behind the scenes, they engaged in a debate.

A number of Democrats said that they would oppose this effort if they added an obstruction of justice charge. Others said that there would not be a clear enough case presented to voters if they were to go forward on this and it would muddy the waters of sorts as they try to make the case that the president abused his office in his dealings with Ukraine.

But, nevertheless, ultimately, Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee got behind this approach. And they argue that they made the right decision ultimately to get beyond just two articles of impeachment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): We want to give the Senate the strongest possible case that they can have while he is in the White House abusing his power, inviting a foreign ally to interfere in our elections, but not the first time.

So you will see in both of the articles that that pattern of conduct that was undergirded with the Mueller investigation is absolutely in there.

RAJU: Why not include obstruction of justice as the third article for impeachment against the president?

REP. KAREN BASS (D-CA): Well, you know what? We really didn't feel that that was necessary. It doesn't mean that the investigations will stop. When we had the meeting this morning, we were very satisfied with the two articles, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

And we feel that those two articles, especially obstruction of Congress, is broad enough.

RAJU: Was there concern that you wouldn't have the votes to pass an obstruction of justice article on its own?

REP. DAVID CICILLINE (D-RI): Well, I mean, there's ongoing litigation the obstruction of justice. And I think there's broad consensus in the caucus that the Ukraine scandal presents the greatest and most serious threat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, now the question is ultimately where do the votes lie? There are, of course, enough votes in the House Judiciary Committee to

approve those articles of impeachment, those two articles of impeachment. Those votes will probably start occurring on Thursday.

Tomorrow night, the members have been told to expect to give opening statements in that committee session, votes on Thursday in that committee. Then it goes to the full House next week. The exact date is unknown at the moment, but the question is, will any Democrats break ranks?

We expect two at the moment who have previously voted in opposition to moving forward with an impeachment inquiry. They're signaling they will vote again against the articles of impeachment. Will any Republicans break ranks?

One Republican, Congressman Will Hurd, who has broken with the president occasionally told me moments ago he's still opposed to the idea of moving forward and voting to impeach the president.

And one former Republican turned independent Justin Amash is signaling that he will support these articles to impeach the president. So you may see some members break, but overall expect party-line votes in committee this week and on the floor next -- Brooke.

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BALDWIN: So it's very possible then, by the end of next week, the president of the United States will be impeached.

Manu Raju, thank you.

And then, of course, next to the Senate, and that could be a very different story.

Congress unveiled four articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, but only two were approved. For Richard Nixon, there were three articles, which, of course, never got votes, because he resigned first.

So let's go to Alex Marquardt, just to take us through what Adam Schiff called overwhelming and uncontested evidence that led to the two articles being drafted against President Trump today.

So, take it away, Alex.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

Well, Brooke, you heard just there a number of Democrats speaking to Manu Raju about why they narrowly focused on these two articles of impeachment. In the words of the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Eliot Engel, they wanted two rock-solid articles.

So what is this rock-solid evidence that they see for these two articles of impeachment? First, for abuse of power, Democrats point to the transcript of the president's July 25 call, that infamous call with President Zelensky of Ukraine. Remember, that transcript was released by the White House. And, in that call, the president said, after Zelensky asked for military aid, the president says, "I would like you to do us a favor, though."

He then goes on to immediately ask Zelensky to look into a conspiracy theory about the 2016 election. That word CrowdStrike, that is shorthand for that conspiracy theory.

Then, as you can see here, he asks Zelensky to investigate the Bidens with the help of Attorney General Bill Barr.

Now, Democrats lined up a number of witnesses who testified that the president was holding up aid, almost $400 million worth of military aid, as well as a meeting at the White House, for Presidents Zelensky until Ukraine announced those investigations.

Now, these witnesses spoke to the Intelligence Committee behind closed doors and in open hearings. You had Bill Taylor, who is the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine. He testified that he was told Ukraine wouldn't get that aid without the investigations. There's Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, a point man for Ukraine.

He said, Brooke, in no uncertain terms, yes, there was quid pro quo. And then Fiona Hill, the former top White House adviser on Russia, calling what she saw a domestic political errand.

Then, Brooke, on the second charge, the obstruction of Congress, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, he's saying this today: "A president who declares himself above accountability, above the American people and above Congress' power of impeachment, which is meant to protect against threats to our democratic institutions, is the president who sees himself as above the law."

Democrats accusing President Trump and the White House of what they called unprecedented obstruction of Congress. Democrats issued 71 subpoenas, but they got back zero documents. And all of these officials were blocked from testifying, including key witnesses, potential witnesses, like the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, the former White House White House National Security Adviser John Bolton, as well as former Energy Secretary Rick Perry -- Brooke, back to you.

BALDWIN: All right, Alex, thank you so much.

Jeffrey Engel is CNN's presidential historian and co-author of "Impeachment: An American History." And Gloria Borger is our CNN chief political analyst.

And so, Jeffrey, just perspective. I mean, I know Alex went into the weeds, but President Trump is the 45th president of the United States. Only four presidents have had these articles of impeachment brought against them.

So, just big picture, what do you make of this moment for President Trump? JEFFREY ENGEL, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I think it's very tempting

for us as American citizens to see the number of impeachments are increasing rapidly.

I mean, we didn't have one for the first 70-odd years of our country's history. And then we have had three basically in the last 75 years. I think that's actually a mistake. I think that we have to remember that each of these presidents who were impeached actually had to have a combination of two things.

The first was to be, frankly, despised by their adversaries. And the second was also to have done something to trigger the impeachment process.

If we think about President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush, they were both despised by their opponents, but neither of them necessarily did an impeachable thing that triggered an investigation that led to this kind of action in Congress.

So I think it's important to recognize that this is a very rare thing that we're seeing in American history. And it may seem like it's coming more quickly. But the truth of matter is, I think it's just something that has played out because of the president's actions.

BALDWIN: So, in this rare moment in which we all exist, Gloria, there could have been more articles. We have gone through the two. Apparently, there was much debate among the Democrats over whether they wanted to include articles that were based on what Robert Mueller found in his conclusive report.

Those articles were not included. Politically speaking, do you think that that was a smart move?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I do.

I think it was a smart move, for a couple reasons. I mean, Nancy Pelosi is very well aware of what are called the front-line Democrats, those 30 or 40 Democrats who won in Trump districts.

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And they didn't come to Congress to impeach the president, nor did they promise to impeach the president. And she doesn't -- she wants them to return to Congress, and she would like to return as speaker.

So I think, by limiting this, they weren't ready to impeach after the Mueller investigation, while other Democrats were, I think she decided and the Democrats decided, narrow this.

And, secondly, I think in order to give the Senate two digestible things to chew over that would be very easily understood by the American public, I think they kind of uncomplicated things by sticking to Ukraine.

It's a pretty simple story. And I think -- so, I think the reasoning was appropriate, and I think they did the right thing. BALDWIN: What about the Senate? Let me just stay with you. You

bring up the Senate.

BORGER: Yes.

BALDWIN: We have this new reporting. You know about these conversations between the White House the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and how there's a bit of a rift in thinking of how each...

BORGER: You think?

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: How each person sees this playing out, right?

So, Leader McConnell wants the trial to be swift and simple, lack of drama. The president wants a show, hoping witnesses like Hunter Biden and the whistle-blower could turn this whole thing into a spectacle.

Who do you think Leader McConnell will listen to, his own senators and their desire for decorum, or the president of the United States?

BORGER: It's hard to say.

But if I had to -- if you pushed me to bet, I'd say Mitch McConnell will listen to himself and his senators, and will tell the president, look, if you want to keep a Republican majority in the Senate, this is what you have to do.

Now, Trump may or may not care about that. I would presume that he does care about it. But I think the president does listen to McConnell to a certain degree now, and they don't want to have a lot of circus, because they also don't want to have a lot of votes that senators would have to take.

So they too want to keep it simple. They're going to look to the Clinton impeachment trial in the Senate, which had only three witnesses that were videotaped on depositions that were done privately and that were shown in the Senate.

But if you want to have Hunter Biden there, well, they're going to say, OK, we want to have John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney.

BALDWIN: We're going to drag him in, right.

BORGER: We're going to drag everybody in here.

BALDWIN: Right.

BORGER: And it's just never going to work.

BALDWIN: You then have, Jeffrey, some Republicans, Kevin McCarthy, claiming once again that the Democrats are the ones rushing the process.

But put this in historic perspective for us. How does this timeline compare to impeachments past?

ENGEL: You know, in terms of when the Congress actually began discussing it, this is going to ultimately be the longest of the impeachment discussions.

Now, Ken Starr's investigation of Bill Clinton actually went on for several years before we got to this stage, but in terms of congressional action, this is actually going to be the longest and the slowest process, if you will.

But if I could return actually to the second of the prospective articles of impeachment, the one about obstructing Congress...

BALDWIN: Obstruction of Congress?

ENGEL: ... this is one that I keep -- yes, I keep on thinking about George Washington, a man who, of course, was at the Constitutional Convention, a man who, of course, was first president, so essentially not only knew what the convention thought, and the Constitution, but also played it out in real time for the first time.

He was very clear, extraordinarily clear on this issue. He said when first issuing a statement of executive authority, executive privilege against the Congress for diplomatic reasons, he said, you cannot see my diplomatic correspondence. I need to have the ability to talk in private, unless it's a matter of impeachment.

If it's a matter of impeachment, Washington said, basically, you get everything, because I cannot possibly be the judge of what is or is not something that should be seen for my own trial.

BALDWIN: How about that?

ENGEL: So he was very clear that there really is almost no reason, no possible reason that the Congress should not be allowed to see documents.

BALDWIN: George Washington.

BORGER: And don't forget, Bill Clinton testified before a grand jury because his lawyers figured that, if they took it to court, they would lose.

And the president's attorneys all along had made the bet that, if they stonewall long enough, it'll just go beyond the election. So it's two very different strategies here we're looking at.

BALDWIN: Totally.

Gloria and Jeffrey, thank you very much.

Just ahead, I will be joined live by the only congresswoman who has been involved in all three modern impeachment proceedings. Hear what Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has to say about the case for removing this president. Plus, Attorney General Bill Barr comes out with a vigorous defense of

President Trump, echoing his attacks on the FBI, but the current FBI director, he's firing back.

You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We will be right back.

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BALDWIN: Now to a tale of two Trump officials, Bill Barr and Chris Wray.

They hold vastly different understandings of this critical report. It just came out. It is by the Justice Department inspector general, who looked into how the Trump-Russia investigation actually began.

And he writes that he found no evidence of political bias, nor did he find any evidence that confidential human sources or undercover employees were used on the Trump campaign.

Translation: There's no evidence of FBI spying on the Trump 2016 team.

[15:20:01]

That was Chris Wray.

Now to Bill Barr, the attorney general, today. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Oh, it was clearly spied upon. I mean, that's what electronic surveillance is.

I think wiring people up to go in and talk to people and make recordings of their conversations is spying. I think going through people's e-mails, which they did as a result of the FISA warrant, they went through everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And now here is FBI Director Christopher Wray.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: So, the FBI did not spy on the Trump campaign?

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: Well, that's not a term at the FBI we use to describe our work.

QUESTION: Do you have any evidence of the FBI targeted the Trump campaign unfairly?

WRAY: I don't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Laura Jarrett is our CNN justice correspondent. Harry Litman was a deputy assistant attorney general, as well as U.S. attorney.

And, Laura, let me just start with you on Bill Barr.

How else did he defend his dismissal of this report?

LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: So, his entire argument appears to be, the FBI had a flimsy basis to open this investigation in the first place. He says that all the time. The word is predication.

And it's a fancy word for saying, did you have legal grounds to do this or not?

BALDWIN: Yes.

JARRETT: And his argument was, there was just this random conversation with George Papadopoulos, a low-level Trump campaign aide, and that wasn't enough to do something as important as opening this vast investigation on the Trump campaign.

But inspector general Michael Horowitz, first of all, interviewed over 170 people, looks at over a million documents. And what he says here is, it was properly predicated, in part because there's such a low threshold.

And he interviewed all the people who actually made the decision to do it, and said, look, this was actually a judgment call for the FBI. And you can have an argument about whether the threshold should be higher, but it's not.

BALDWIN: Yes.

JARRETT: And it met that threshold, and they followed it by the book.

BALDWIN: Harry, what do you think? We're talking about the top cop in this country who is dismissing his own department's report.

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: And that report is there, the inspector general is there specifically to provide an independent, apolitical assessment of the facts.

The world is upside-down here. The whole notion of having the I.G. report is to assess what the FBI did. Barr has suggested maybe there's other information. But that's not what predication is about. As Laura says, it's about what was in front of the FBI agents at the time.

And so Horowitz's judgment is specifically there in order to give public confidence, be apolitical. And Barr's post-talk intervention, along with Durham's, just undermines the whole notion of an inspector general. It's really odd times at the DOJ.

BALDWIN: Let me ask you about Durham, Durham, as in John Durham, right?

LITMAN: Right.

BALDWIN: So, Bill Barr spoke about this separate, still ongoing criminal investigation. John Durham is leading it. And he's getting criticism for his public statement that he does not agree with the I.G. report conclusion.

So here again is Bill Barr.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARR: I think it was definitely appropriate, because I think it was -- it was necessary to avoid public confusion.

I think it was sort of being reported by the press that the issue of predication was sort of done and over, even though it was a very limited look at that issue by the I.G., given the narrowness of his -- of the evidence available to him.

And I think it was important for people to understand that the -- that Durham's work was not being preempted, and that Durham was doing something different, and he explains what he's doing different, and that there are areas of disagreement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: There are quite a few people calling for Durham to be investigated for this statement, ex-FBI official Andy McCabe included.

So, Laura, was this appropriate?

JARRETT: I don't know who's worried about Durham's work being preempted, as he said, other than perhaps the president, who has said many, many times, just wait until you see the Durham report, it's going to be a shocker.

He said it yesterday. It's Horowitz, plus, plus, plus.

But the idea of the U.S. attorney who's been tasked by Bill Barr to do this, handpicked to do this, in the midst of an active criminal investigation, to not only say Horowitz is wrong, but just wait until you see what we found because I disagree with him, is highly, highly unusual.

BALDWIN: Under the highly unusual category here, you have what the president did going after -- Harry, going after the FBI director, Chris Wray, this morning.

Trump called him -- made sure to qualify this as current FBI director in his tweet. I don't know what the implication was there. And then you have A.G. Barr. One is perpetuating Trump's talking points. The other is knocking down his conspiracy theories.

Harry, what do you make of the -- it's quite a juxtaposition between these two DOJ officials. LITMAN: It really is. It's really unsettling.

I mean, we have a -- part of what the Democrats were saying today is , there's a pattern of kind of recidivism with Trump. That current is deafening, isn't it? And it suggests, you won't be here much longer if you don't play ball with me.

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But, again, on the point that Wray was making, it's impeccable. What was front of the FBI is what Horowitz needed to judge. And, as Laura says, irregular isn't even -- it's almost unprecedented, in the middle of a criminal investigation, on that very day, to reintroduce the winds of politics into this apolitical determination.

Things are really topsy-turvy here.

BALDWIN: One way to put it.

LITMAN: Yes.

BALDWIN: Harry Litman, thank you very much.

LITMAN: Thank you. Thanks, Laura.

BALDWIN: Laura Jarrett, welcome to New York.

JARRETT: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Thank you very much.

Coming up next, we will take you live to Capitol Hill on this historic day, where one of the Democratic congresswomen on the Judiciary Committee will explain her case for impeaching the president.

We will be right back.

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