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Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Announces Impeachment Managers. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 15, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There's been some expectation on Capitol Hill that there'll probably be fewer than 13 individuals. We'll see how high it goes, how many individuals will come. But they'll all be here flanked next to Nancy Pelosi in just a matter of minutes as she makes his decision that will set the stage for his impeachment trial over the next several weeks, guys

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: I mean, yes. You look at the team she's putting together. You've got Adam Schiff, of course, a prosecutor. You saw some of those skills come across during the House impeachment. Val Demings, former police chief in Orlando. You can get a sense of the kind of qualities she may be looking for.

Let me ask what happens next, for folks at home who don't know the process right now, and how soon do they see the formal trial on the Senate floor begin?

RAJU: Well, the formal arguments won't occur until Tuesday of next week but some of the process and some of the ceremonial aspects will begin today. We expect a vote probably in the noon hour or early afternoon to actually name those impeachment managers that would set the stage for the articles to be transmitted from the House to the Senate.

And then later this afternoon, Nancy Pelosi is going to have a formal ceremony signing those papers. The House clerk will also sign the papers. Then the impeachment managers will walk over from the House side to the Senate side. They'll deliver those articles over there.

And then we expect tomorrow is when those articles will be read aloud in the Senate chamber. At that point, that's when the chief of the justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, will oversee the trial, will be sworn in, same with the senators, then too will be sworn in. So some of those aspects will take place, and then behind the scenes, each side will start to prepare their arguments for the trial. And then that will begin on Tuesday. And the big question is how long does it last, will they call witnesses, will Republicans break ranks and vote to subpoena any witnesses, all that will play out in the days and weeks to come, guys.

SCIUTTO: Manu Raju, thanks very much. You're going to hear from the speaker at that podium there that we just showed in just a few minutes' time. We're going to bring that to you live. Meanwhile, let's discuss the implications, CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, CNN Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, CNN Legal Analyst and impeachment expert Ross Garber with a lot of experience here.

John, I want to draw on your experience having covered Clinton impeachment as well and the lead up to this trial here. One lesson of this, right, is don't assume anything. Because until a few days ago, folks were saying it's a long shot to have witnesses, will there be any evidence that moves the debate in a Senate trial. And in the last few days, we've seen both those questions move, particularly the evidence that's coming out today.

You covered Clinton. Do we know the end result of this trial?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We do not. We have every expectation that there are not two-thirds support to convict and remove the president. There is zero evidence on the table that enough Republicans, it would take 20 if all the Democrats stuck together, are prepared to abandon President Trump.

But on the other questions, will we have witnesses being the most significant one, we don't know the answer. We know there are enough Republicans on the record saying they are open to the idea of witnesses to give the Democrats a chance. Being open does not mean you will vote for witnesses in the end.

And so why is this so important what we're about to see? We will get the who, we will get the names in just a few minutes. What they have to do, their challenge is why these picks are so important for Speaker Pelosi. They need to convince four or five Republican senators, meaning they need to convince the American people, that they need to change public opinion. The House proceedings did not move the dial all that much on public opinion.

So these managers, using the evidence brought to the House, they can use documentary evidence in their impeachment inquiry, they can play video clips on the Senate floor, unless they change the rules from the Clinton days. Can they make the case over the course of two or three days that we need to hear more, and here is the case for more. This is why the country must hear more so that those Republican senators, Jim and Poppy, feel they have to vote yes when the Democrats then file a motion saying we want to call in Mick Mulvaney, we want to call in John Bolton and so on.

SCIUTTO: Yes. So far, you have Senator Collins, Murkowski, Romney have all expressed some public interest to the possibility of witnesses. Lamar Alexander seeming to open the door at least but not those solid four votes that are necessary to this point.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: So, Jeffrey, they've got a tough job. How do these House managers do it? How do they climb that mountain and get those Republicans to say, okay, fine, we need to hear from these witnesses and we need to admit This additional evidence that we got from Lev Parnas? JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, another way of looking at their challenge is how do they get members of the Senate, Republican majority, to defy Mitch McConnell, which is probably the hardest task they will ever face because, you know, the rule in the United States Senate is what Mitch McConnell wants, he almost always gets.

So the question will be can they present enough evidence where Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander, the potential votes for witnesses feel that it would simply embarrass the Senate to reach a verdict in this trial without hearing from the witnesses they need to hear from. That's the challenge. It's a big challenge because defying Mitch McConnell is not an easy thing for Republicans to do.

SCIUTTO: Yes, ask Merrick Garland that question.

Look, the reason we're showing you that podium there, any minute now, the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, will walk up there. We're going to get some news about those impeachment managers and also next steps.

[10:05:00]

Ross Garber, let's talk for a moment about this new evidence that's just come out in the last half day or so here. I mean, these messages back and forth between Republican congressional candidate, Lev Parnas, an associate of the president's personal attorney appearing to discuss surveilling, knowing whether Ambassador Yovanovitch had her phone turned off, where she was, her computer, et cetera.

And I just want to remind people what the president said in his perfect phone call with the Ukrainian president, July 25th. He said about Ambassador Yovanovitch, we're going to put this up on the screen, well, she's going to go through some things. And by the way, she was forced out soon after that.

How crucial is this evidence and can Republicans in the Senate say, we don't want to go there in the trial?

ROSS GARBER, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. First of all, this new stuff that's come out is bizarre. And it raises lots and lots of questions. And, you know, it's one of the issues with witnesses, are we going to get answers to those questions.

But one of the pieces of the Clinton rules, which Senator McConnell says he wants to use as a model that I've been focusing on that I think hasn't gotten much attention says every piece of information that's publicly available that the House collected becomes part of the record, becomes evidence in the Senate trial, and the president doesn't get to object to it. It comes in right away.

And I'm watching to see if that provision stays in the Trump rules, in these new rules. Because if it does, then the question becomes is it just the information that the House got before the articles were passed, or does it include the sort of newly discovered information, I think we're going to keep an eye on that. And I think we should keep an eye to see whether there's other information that comes out today and over the next few days about this.

HARLOW: John King, Chief Justice John Roberts will be sworn in tomorrow. He's going to preside over this thing and the Constitution gives him pretty broad power, right, shall preside. So what does that actually mean, what's he going to do, what's he going to say about witnesses. Is he going to try to compel witnesses and documents or not?

Because we just don't know what he's going to do, Republican Senator Roy Blunt said yesterday, quote, we could overturn Roberts' rulings. If he does on the record, we could overturn the chief justice. Am I right that it would just take a simple majority of members of the Senate to overturn a decision by John Roberts in this?

KING: Yes, you're absolutely right. It would only take a majority vote. And this issue came up a little bit in the Clinton trial where some Republicans got annoyed early on at some of the early rulings of then Chief Justice William Rehnquist. And it was discussed. It never happened but it was discussed.

But here is the issue here. Again, yes, a majority of senators can overrule the presiding officer, the chief justice. The question is, back to everything we've discussed is connected, what are the politics of that? This is not a criminal trial, it is a political trial. Jeffrey is absolutely right, Mitch McConnell's word is usually bond among the Republicans in the Senate.

But Mitch McConnell's number one priority is to be the majority leader still after the next election. If the House Democrats can create a compelling case, if in the resolution they sending over today, to Ross' point, it says you can include this supplementary evidence, if they sending it over, Republicans have to make a choice.

And then Mitch McConnell is going to have to every day check in with Susan Collins, who's on the ballot next year, Check in with Lisa Murkowski, who's not on the ballot but is a maverick and who will stand with her friend, Susan Collins. And he's going to have to take the pulse every single day. Yes, he can probably get a majority on most of these issues if he twists arms. The question is will he be hurting his future in politics, his majority, if he does. That's the calculation every day.

SCIUTTO: And that pulse has already changed in the last several days.

We should note that Rehnquist often said about the Clinton impeachment trial that he was trying deliberately not to have a forward role and Roberts was a clerk to Rehnquist, notable.

Here comes Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Let's listen in.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Good morning, everyone. This is a very important day for us. And as you know I referenced temporal (ph) markers that our founders and our poets and others have used over time to place us in time to emphasize the importance of time, because everything is about time. How we use it, how we mark it.

And today is an important day, because today is the day that we name the managers, we go to the floor to pass the resolution to transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate and later in the day when we have our engrossment that we march those articles of impeachment to the United States Senate.

As I've said, it's always been our founders, when they started, when in the course of human events it becomes necessary when.

[10:10:00]

Abraham Lincoln fourscore and seven years ago, Thomas Paine, now, these are the times that try men's souls. The times have found us again and again, even our poets, Longfellow. Remember? Listen, my children and you will hear the midnight ride of Paul Revere on the 18th of April 1775, hardly a man is now alive but remembers that famous day and year. It's always about marking history using time. On

December 18th, the House of Representatives impeached President of the United States, an impeachment that will last forever. Since December 18th, there have been comments about when are we going to send the articles over. Well, we had hoped that the courtesy would be extended that we would have seen what the process would be in the Senate.

Short of that, that time has revealed many things since then. Time has been our friend in all of this because it has yielded incriminating evidence, more truth into the public domain.

Since we passed the articles on December 20th, two days later, new emails showed that 91 minutes after Trump's phone call with President Zelensky, a top Office of Management and Budget Aide asked the Department Defense to hold off on the Ukraine aide.

On December 29th, revelations emerged about the OMB director and acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney's role in the delay of the effort by lawyers of the administration to justify the delay and the -- this is very important -- that the alarm that the delay time caused was in the administration.

On January 2nd, newly unredacted Pentagon emails which the House subpoenaed and the president blocked raised serious concerns by the Trump administration officials -- by Trump administration officials, they were concerned about the legality of the president's hold n the aid to Ukraine.

On January 6th, former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton said he would comply with a subpoena to testify and that he has new relevant information.

On January 13th, reports emerged the Russian government hacked the Ukraine gas company, Burisma, as part of their ongoing effort to influence U.S. elections in support of President Trump.

And just yesterday, the House committee, two of our chairman here, Chairman Nadler of Judiciary, Chairman Schiff of Intelligence, Chairman Eliot Engel of Foreign Affairs and Chairwoman Maloney of Government Reform, they released new evidence pursuant to a House subpoena, Lev Parnas, you know who that is, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, that further proves the president was a central player in the scheme to pressure Ukraine for his own benefit in the 2020 election.

This is about the Constitution of the United States, and it's important for the president to know and Putin to know the American voter, voters in America, should decide who our president is, not Vladimir Putin and Russia.

So today, I'm very proud to present the managers who will bring the case which we have great confidence in, in terms of impeaching the president and his removal. But this further evidence insists, and we wouldn't be in this situation had we not waited, insists that there be witnesses and that we see documentation.

And now, you see some of that change happening on the Senate side. I hope it does for the good of our country and to honor our Constitution.

So today, on the floor, we'll pass a resolution naming the managers, as I mentioned, appropriating the funds for the trial and transmitting the articles of impeachment of the president of the United States for trying to influence a foreign government for his own personal and political benefit.

Chair Adam Schiff of California, our lead manager. Chairman Schiff is as you know chair of the committee on intelligence, is serving his tenth term in Congress. Excuse me. Before Congress, Mr. Schiff was a California state senator and served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles for six years, most notably prosecuting the first federal FBI agent ever to be indicted for espionage.

[10:15:06]

Chairman Jerry Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is serving his 15th term in Congress. Mr. Nadler served as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties for 13 years. Before Congress, Mr. Nadler served in the New York State Assembly for 16 years.

Chair Zoe Lofgren, chair of the House Committee on the House Administration, which has jurisdiction over federal elections, is a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee. This is Chairwoman Lofgren's third impeachment as a Judiciary Committee staffer in the Nixon impeachment, as a member of the Judiciary Committee on the Clinton impeachment and now as a manager in this impeachment of President Trump.

Chair Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Chairman Hakeem Jeffries is the chair of the House Democratic caucus and is currently serving his fourth term in Congress. He's a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Before being in Congress, he served in the Assembly of New York for six years, an accomplished litigator in private practice before running for elective office. Mr. Jeffries clerked for the honorable Howard Baer Jr. of New York District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Congresswoman Val Demings of Florida, Congresswoman Val Demings is a member of both the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Judiciary Committee. Miss Demings is serving her second term in Congress. Before Congress, Miss Demings served in the Orlando Police Department for 27 years, part of that time as the first woman police chief in Orlando.

Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Mr. Crow served his country, our country bravely as an Army Ranger in Iraq and Afghanistan before coming -- running for Congress. Mr. Crow was a respected litigator in private practice in Colorado.

Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia of Texas, Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Before Congress, Miss Garcia was -- served in Texas State Senate previously. She was the director and presiding judge of the Houston Municipal System and was elected city controller. Miss Garcia was later elected the first Hispanic and first woman to be elected in her own right to the Harris County Commissioner's Court.

As you can see from these descriptions, the emphasis is on litigators. The emphasis is on comfort level in the courtroom. The emphasis is making the Strongest possible case to protect and defend our Constitution, to seek the truth for the American people. I'm very proud and honored that these seven members, distinguished members have accepted this serious responsibility, again, to protect and defend for the people, defending our democracy.

When we leave here a little bit later at noon, we'll go to the floor and pass a resolution naming the managers officially. But I wanted to say more about them here and to say that the decision to come down in favor of litigators is necessitated by the clear evidence that we should have witnesses and we should have documentation and we have to make the strongest prosecution, not only of our very strong case but of all the information that has come forth since.

We're going to take a few questions.

RAJU: Speaker Pelosi.

PELOSI: Yes, sir.

RAJU: if time has only strengthened your case, why did you rush to have a vote before Christmas? And, Mr. Chairman, why hold public hearings for just two weeks? couldn't you have stretched this out longer in order to get this more information that you considered has only bolstered your case?

PELOSI: Well, I'll yield to the distinguished chairman, but I will say that we had a strong case for impeachment of the president and removal for the president. Anything more would be in terms of where we go in the Senate and I yield to the chairman. REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): We've always felt a certain urgency about this impeachment given that the president was trying to get foreign help in cheating in the next election. But as soon as we did take up and pass the articles, Mitch McConnell made it clear that he didn't want a trial in the Senate, that he didn't want to hear from witnesses, that he didn't want documents.

And this time has given us the ability to show the American people the necessity of a fair trial, to expose the degree to which McConnell is working hand in hand with the subject of the impeachment, the president, to essentially turn what should be a trial into a sham.

[10:20:14]

And that time has been, I think, very effective in not only bringing new evidence to light, and the evidence was already overwhelming, but also forcing senators to go on record. Do they want a fair trial, one that's fair to the president but also fair to the American people, or are they going to participate in a cover-up?

So I think it's been very effective. And as you've seen additional evidence continues to come to light that not only has bolstered an already overwhelming case but has also put additional pressure, I think, on the Senate to conduct a fair trial.

And the last thing I'll say is Mr. McConnell has taken to saying that the Senate should only consider the closed record that comes from the House. And as if what the Senate is not a trial but an appeal from a trial. But, of course, the Senate, the framers had in mind, a real trial with witnesses and evidence. And if McConnell makes this the first trial in history without witnesses, it will be exposed for what it is, and that is an effort to cover up for the president.

Finally, some have suggested as part of your question, why didn't we wait to get more testimony. Well, we have sought McGahn's testimony, Don McGahn, the president's lawyer, since April of last year. We still don't have a final court judgment.

So, yes, we could have waited years to get testimony, further testimony from all the people the president has been obstructing. But, essentially, that would completely negate the impeachment power, that is allow the president by virtue of obstruction to prevent his own impeachment. And that was an unacceptable course, particularly when the whole object of the president's scheme was to cheat in the election, which is the ordinary mechanism for dealing with a corrupt presidency.

PELOSI: Let me just say I was very discouraged to see Mitch McConnell sign on to a resolution dismissing the case. That, to me, dismissal is cover-up. Dismissal is cover-up. Do you want to speak to that, Jerry?

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): Let me add to that. There is an overwhelming case beyond any reasonable doubt that the president betrayed the country by using -- by withholding federal funds appropriated by Congress, breaking the law in doing so, in order to extort a foreign government into intervening in our election to embarrass or try to embarrass a potential political opponent of his. There's overwhelming evidence of that.

We couldn't wait because -- I mean, some people said, well, let the election take care of it. He's trying to cheat in that election. So it is essential that we bring this impeachment to stop the president from trying to rig -- not from trying, he tried -- from rigging the next election, from conspiring with a foreign government, as the Russian government attempted to rig our last election.

The evidence is overwhelming. The latest evidence with Parnas and Giuliani makes it even more so. It made sense to wait a while as more evidence piled up, but we have to proceed because the election -- the integrity of the election is at stake.

Let me add one other thing. This is a test of the Constitution. The president's conduct violates the Constitution in every single way, trying to rig an election, stonewalling the Congress and saying no one may testify because I can have a cover-up despite Congress. But it's a test of the Constitution now.

The Senate is intended by the Constitution to conduct a fair trial. The American people know that in a trial, you permit witnesses, you present the evidence. If the Senate doesn't permit the introduction of all relevant witnesses and of all documents that the House wants to introduce, because the House is the prosecutor here, then the Senate is engaging in an unconstitutional and disgusting cover-up.

So the question is, does the Senate -- the Senate is on trial as well as the president. Does the Senate conduct a trial according to the Constitution to vindicate the republic, or does the Senate participate in the president's crimes by covering them up?

PELOSI: Thank you.

REPORTER: Madam Speaker.

REPORTER: Thank you so much.

You talked about the push to try to have witnesses and try to have documents and (INAUDIBLE).

[10:25:06]

Based on your understanding of the Senate rules, what do you see as procedural options to try to do something or make the best case as you can and then they don't (INAUDIBLE) based on what they decide to do?

PELOSI: Well, I've often quoted, and Mr. Jeffries quotes Abraham Lincoln, public sentiment is everything. Over 70 percent of the American people want to see a fair trial, whatever the outcome, a fair trial with witnesses and documentation. And we haven't seen even the rules. We put our rules out in October for the next couple of months, the next few months that followed for our making the case. We haven't seen what the rules are in the Senate.

But we do know that in the time that has transpired since December 18th, the American people have come down in favor of a fair trial, which they always wanted, but meaning that it would entail having witnesses as well as documents. I think anyone else want to speak to that, my colleagues?

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Well, the evidence is overwhelming that Donald Trump corruptly abused his power by pressuring a foreign government to target an American citizen for political and personal gain by withholding $391 million in military aid to Ukraine without justification. There is a mountain of evidence in that regard.

In America, no one is above the law. That is why the House proceeded with great leadership from Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Schiff and Chairman Nadler, to hold this president accountable. The Constitution required it. Our democracy required it.

Given the evidence that has been built to date, the American people deserve a fair trial. Our democracy deserves a fair trial. The Constitution deserves a fair trial. So we're going to simply follow the facts, apply the law, be guided by the constitution and present the truth to the American people.

Speaker Pelosi has given us the space for the American people to weigh in over the last few weeks, which has led at least four senators, which is the magic number, to publicly indicate that, in their view, a fair trial does include the presentation of documents and the presentation of witnesses. We certainly hope that is what will take place.

SCHIFF: If I could just add really quickly on to this, and I thank Chairman Jeffries, I just want to underscore the importance of documents, because we spent a lot of time talking about John Bolton and other witnesses. Witnesses may tell the truth and witnesses may not tell the truth. Documents don't generally lie.

And in the documents that we submitted to the Judiciary Committee just last night, you see the importance of documents. Because included among the Parnas documents we obtained is a letter from Giuliani trying to set up a meeting with the president of Ukraine, Zelensky, to discuss a particular matter. Of course, we know that matter is the investigations that the president wanted Ukraine to undertake of his political opponent.

There have been -- there has been speculation from time to time, maybe the president or his allies will throw Mr. Giuliani under the bus. That letter makes clear that Giuliani, in his own words, is acting at the behest and with the knowledge and consent of the president. There is no fobbing this off on others. The president was the architect of this scheme.

These documents are important. We have only obtained a very small sample of the universe of documents that the president is withholding. If Mr. McConnell wants to follow the Clinton model, as he keeps professing, all of the documents were provided before the trial. Those documents should be demanded by the senators. If the senators want to see the evidence, they should demand to see the documents and not participate in an effort to stonewall or cover up the president's misconduct. PELOSI: And witnesses were deposed.

SCHIFF: Yes. As the speaker mentions, the other, of course, profound distinction between now and the Clinton case is that the witnesses that the House managers sought in the Clinton trial had already testified. Their testimony was known. So the question for the senators then was do we want to hear them again. And there was another question not present here, which is do we really want to hear witnesses talking about sex on the Senate floor.

[10:30:00]

That's not the issue before us. The issue here is does the Senate want to hear from witnesses who have never testified, people who, like other --