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Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Announces Impeachment Managers; Impeachment Managers Represent Diversity of the Country; Interview with Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY). Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired January 15, 2020 - 10:30   ET

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

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), LEAD IMPEACHMENT MANAGER: The issue here is, does the Senate want to hear from witnesses who have never testified, people who, like other witnesses, have firsthand information?

And unless the president is willing to concede everything the House has alleged, these witnesses are very pertinent and relevant. And so this is another profound distinction between the Clinton investigation and trial and where we are today.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Madam Speaker, having witnesses --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- for the prosecution opens up potentially having witnesses for the defense. And Republicans have suggested they would like to call Hunter Biden. Are you, the managers, prepared for that?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Would you like to speak to that.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY):, IMPEACHMENT MANAGER: Let me say, we are prepared. But the relevant question is relevance --

PELOSI: That's right.

NADLER: -- is relevance. In any trial, you call witnesses who have information about the allegations, about the charges.

The allegations, for which there's a mountain of evidence, are that the president betrayed his country by trying to extort Ukraine by withholding $391 million in military aid that Congress had voted, in order to get Ukraine to announce an investigation of a domestic political opponent. That's the allegation.

Any witness who has information about whether that is true or not true, is a relevant witness. Anybody -- like Hunter Biden -- who has no information about any of that, is not a relevant witness. Any trial judge in this country would rule such a witness as irrelevant and inadmissible.

If someone is accused of robbing a bank, witnesses who say, we saw him run into the bank or we saw him someplace else, are relevant. A witness who says he committed forgery on some other document, is not relevant to the bank robbery charge. That's the distinction.

PELOSI: But let me just say that what is at stake here is the Constitution of the United States. This is what an impeachment is about. The president violated his oath of office, undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections, tried to use the appropriations process as his private ATM machine to grant or withhold funds granted by Congress in order to advance his personal and political advantage. That is what the senators should be looking into.

This is a president who said the Second Amendment -- excuse me, Article II says that I can do whatever I want. It does not. He's undermining a system, the beautiful, exquisite, brilliant genius of the Constitution, the separation of powers, by granting to himself the powers of a monarch, which is exactly what Benjamin Franklin said we didn't have. A republic, if we can keep it.

So this is a very serious matter, and we take it to heart in a really solemn way, in a very solemn way. It's about the Constitution, it's about the republic, if we can keep it. And they shouldn't be frivolous with the Constitution of the United States, even though the president of the United States has.

The president is not above the law. He will be held accountable. He has been held accountable, he has been impeached. He's been impeached forever. They can never erase that.

I'm very proud of the managers that we have. I believe that they bring to this case in the United States Senate, great patriotism, great respect for the Constitution of the United States, great comfort level in a courtroom, great commitment again to the Constitution: Jerry being the chair of that Constitutional Subcommittee for 13 years; Zoe being involved in three impeachments and the others bringing their intellectual resources and their knowledge to all of this.

So I thank them for accepting this responsibility. I wish them well. It's going to be a very big commitment of time, and I don't think we could be better served than by the patriotism and dedication of the managers that I am naming here this morning. Thank you all very much.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: The Senate will try a sitting U.S. president for high crimes and misdemeanors and those seven House members there will serve as managers, in effect, the prosecution team of the president.

[10:35:02]

Really remarkable, strong, weighty words. Nancy Pelosi says this is about the Constitution, accusing the president of violating his oath of office, undermining national security. And Jerry Nadler, interestingly, zeroing in on the 2020 election --

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Yes. SCIUTTO: -- saying he's trying to cheat, speaking of Trump, he's

rigging the next election. Very powerful words, and quite strong accusations there.

HARLOW: Jeffrey Toobin, what did you hear?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think what I saw was perhaps more interesting than what I heard. I mean, this -- these seven people, they look like the Democratic Party. You know, 20 years ago, the House managers were 13 white men. These are --

HARLOW: That's a great point.

TOOBIN: -- two African-Americans, a Hispanic woman, four men, three women. I mean, the parties -- and you saw these in these committee hearings -- just look very different.

The -- six of the seven are lawyers. Val Demings is not a lawyer, but she was the police chief of Orlando. So -- and I think the impact of this group starts with how different they look from the Republican Party.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And, Poppy, you made the point, territorial, geographic --

HARLOW: Oh, right.

SCIUTTO: -- diversity as well. New York State and California, but Colorado, Florida, Texas --

HARLOW: Oh, yes.

SCIUTTO: -- these are important states in --

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- November.

HARLOW: Because they have to do the job of convincing enough senators to defy Mitch McConnell, which is what Jeffrey laid out.

SCIUTTO: No question. I wonder -- and we have John King with us as well, Ross Garber. John King, you covered an impeachment 20-some-odd years ago, 21 years ago. Describe the moment you saw here today.

And there was even a reference from Adam Schiff to that, talking about how in the Senate trial, Bill Clinton, folks did not want to speak about sex on the Senate floor. Of course, different -- the nature of the allegations, different than now. Help us -- help the viewers understand that.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There are some things, including the substance of the allegations, that are very, very different. This is about President Trump's personal conduct in office, it's about using the instruments of foreign policy and the instruments of government in a way that Democrats have said in their articles abused his power, and then using those same powers to obstruct Congress. That's the case then.

It was about sex in the Clinton days. It was about things that nobody wanted to discuss publicly. I remember, as a reporter covering the White House, it was awkward and uncomfortable and at times just made you tremble, some of the things you were saying on live television.

That's why they did not have live witnesses in the Clinton trial. They did take depositions from witnesses on the Senate side, including from Monica Lewinsky. It did not change the ultimate math in the end.

What the Democrats were trying to make here, they understand. This is the first page in this new chapter of the Trump impeachment saga, and the Democrats are trying to come out of the box to persuade the public and to persuade a handful of Republican senators, you really need to do this. We have not answered all the questions. You must allow witnesses.

Now, when we get to the witness question in the Senate, which is down the road a bit, will they have live witnesses, will they have depositions, will they have no witnesses? We will see how that plays out.

But I want to -- just two more quick points. Speaker Pelosi said "forever" --

HARLOW: Yes.

KING: -- at the beginning of her statement, at the end of her statement. She is trying to get under the president's skin and make clear, no matter what happens in the Senate, you have been stained forever. That's what she was trying to do.

SCIUTTO: Something he's referenced --

KING: And Jerry Nadler, I think, made a very important point at the end about the relevance question. Because here's what's going to happen. Let's say there are four or five Republican senators who are willing to hear from Mick Mulvaney, willing to hear from John Bolton, willing to side with the Democrats on letting some of these new documents into evidence.

They're going to have a meeting in Mitch McConnell's office where Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and other Republicans are going to get up and say, fine. If you do that, we're going to call Joe Biden, we're going to call Hunter Biden, we're going to call the whistleblower. And that's where the relevance question is going to become critical because they're going to use that, the threat of calling in other witnesses, to try to convince those four or five Republicans to back off.

And so will we see, on the floor of the Senate, motions filed by Democrats to call in one witness or to block another witness and watch all that play out? Strap in, this is going to be fun and unpredictable.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Let's let the president respond here. He took to Twitter, let's pull it up. He's clearly watching.

Quote, "Here we go again, another Con Job by the Do Nothing Democrats. All of this work was supposed to be done by the House, not the Senate!" The Senate has a constitutional role here.

Ross Garber, we heard Pelosi and Schiff say they won. They won with time, they won by holding on to these. But did they really win until Mitch McConnell makes a decision here on evidence and witnesses?

ROSS GARBER, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. So it remains to be seen. What they didn't get was what they said they wanted, which was --

HARLOW: Right.

GARBER: -- the rules ahead of time. They didn't get that. But, you know, interestingly enough, and whether it was calculated and intentional or not, what they may have actually gotten by this delay is this drip-drip-drip of new information. You know, John Bolton, saying, you know what, if I'm subpoenaed to the Senate, I'm happy to show up. You know, all of this new information that's coming out from Lev Parnas now.

[10:40:01]

So, you know, that actually has been something that they've accomplished. They didn't get what they wanted --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GARBER: -- but it turns out they've gotten something by it.

SCIUTTO: And this focus on the documents -- Schiff's words -- "Documents don't generally lie." And it is true that the documents available in the Clinton impeachment, far greater. There was not this institutional systematic blocking of documents and witnesses there.

Manu Raju, you were in the room there, you asked Nancy Pelosi the first question, on the question of documents -- we've talked a lot about witnesses, right? Do you have four Republicans to vote to call witnesses, a list of witnesses, individual witnesses. How would documents move? Would it be a similar vote and simple majority?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- to try to force the Senate to subpoena those documents, and that will also require 51 votes to succeed, so that means four Republicans would have to break ranks and join with the Democrats on the floor to do that. And Mitch -- Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate, has made it very clear, he plans to force those votes.

But I did ask her that question about why they decided to move forward on impeachment before Christmas, when they're arguing also, at the same time, that time has only strengthened their cause. Couldn't they have waited a little bit longer to get some of those documents, even if it were not through the court process but through other means, other ways (ph) the way they're getting -- learning now, like Lev Parnas' documents. Because, in large part, that is what the Republicans in the Senate are arguing, the Democrats should have waited longer. But the argument the Democrats are making is that they had to act urgently because of their view that the president is already trying to rig the 2020 elections.

But it also begs another question Republicans will have, is, well, why did Pelosi have to wait that additional couple of weeks, delay the trial for essentially a week's time if it wasn't such -- if it was so urgent.

But they try to make the case here that, no matter what, their case is strong, additional information is adding only additional weight to their case. Ultimately, another question that's still days ahead is whether or not Lev Parnas, the information that he provided to the House committees, whether or not there are more information that they do plan to present in the days ahead because there's -- it's still a bit uncertain, how they would deal with new evidence that could continue to come up --

HARLOW: Yes.

RAJU: -- after the trial begins. That will be probably a vote that the members have to consider on the floor if additional things come out through court cases and the other matters.

So a lot of uncertainty as this trial plays out in the days ahead.

HARLOW: Manu, remind us where we go from here in the next few hours. What happens?

RAJU: Well, we expect a vote in the early afternoon to name those managers, and then afterwards that will set the stage for a series of more ceremonial steps.

What will happen in the late afternoon around 5:00 p.m., Nancy Pelosi will have a formal ceremony, signing the records. Also the House clerk will sign those records. Then the House managers will have a procession of sorts, marching from the House side to the Senate side of the Capitol. They'll actually formally deliver those articles to the Senate.

Now, that will probably essentially be the end of the activities for this -- for today. Tomorrow, then, that's -- the managers will come back, they will read aloud from the -- each of the two articles, then the chief justice of the Supreme Court will be sworn in. Then the senators will be sworn in.

And essentially that will likely be the end of this week's public activities. Behind the scenes, each side will then start to draft their case, write their briefs and then next week, next Tuesday is when those arguments begin and we'll see how long it takes, we'll see will they have witnesses, we'll see if the White House gets what it wants, which is to wrap this all up by the State of the Union.

TEXT: Trump Impeachment Timeline: This afternoon: House debate and vote; 5:00 p.m. Eastern: Articles delivered to Senate; Next Tuesday: Senate trial expected to begin

SCIUTTO: Well, one thing to remember, be prepared to be surprised. A lot of things that we called certainties a number of days ago are --

HARLOW: You're right, you're so right --

SCIUTTO: -- no longer so certain.

HARLOW: -- to keep pointing that out.

RAJU: And -- and --

SCIUTTO: Jeremy Diamond is at the White House --

HARLOW: Oh.

SCIUTTO: -- just want to get a quick reaction from the White House here. So far, the president with this tweet. Any other word from inside the White House behind you?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No. Look, this is a moment that the White House has been anticipating, a moment that the president has hoped to see -- at least to see this start moving towards this trial in the Senate, where the president sees this as an opportunity to finally get the vindication that he has so craved.

You know, he has been frustrated, over the weeks, over this delay in transmitting those articles of impeachment. So from that perspective, it's a welcome step for the White House to see these actually transmitted.

Now, the president, of course, is still out there, criticizing what House Democrats are calling for, which is to have witnesses and evidence presented in this Senate impeachment trial.

The president, taking to Twitter, moments ago, to say, "here we go again, another con job by the do-nothing Democrats. All of this work was supposed to be done by the House, not the Senate."

And that appears to be particularly a reference to this call by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for there to be witnesses, and pointing out the differences with the Clinton impeachment trial, when many of those witnesses that folks were calling for had already been deposed --

HARLOW: Yes.

DIAMOND: -- in this case, of course, House Democrats are calling for witnesses who have not yet been interviewed or been deposed or testified publicly.

[10:45:04]

SCIUTTO: Yes. Although there were new depositions, we should note, in the Clinton impeachment. HARLOW: Yes. Jeremy, thanks so much.

Jeffrey Toobin, final thought -- and if you could also weigh in on just how little documentary evidence they have now, at least, to go off.

TOOBIN: You know, if this were a real criminal trial, this would be a document case. This would be a case built with --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

TOOBIN: -- e-mails, with texts. The House has been working with virtually none of that. Even the witnesses from the government weren't allowed just --

HARLOW: Couldn't get their own things (ph).

TOOBIN: -- to get their own documentary material.

I learned a new word today, "engrossment." You know what an engrossment is? I never knew what this word was.

HARLOW: Educate us.

TOOBIN: Well, at 5:00, the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, says she's going to do the engrossment of the articles of impeachment, which is the formal signing and delivery of the documents. I'd never heard that word before. The Speaker's office announced the engrossment.

And I think, in addition to educating all of us on a new word, that is -- to emphasize what the speaker tried to do today, talk about the solemnity of the occasion --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

TOOBIN: -- this is not politics as usual. This is something about the Constitution. And I think that was the message that was really intended to be sent today. We'll see if the public reacts to it.

SCIUTTO: Listen, it's going to be, for all of us, a civics lesson -- lessons in these coming days and weeks here, and as Americans. It's something you might say you have a duty to watch.

HARLOW: Toobin, thank you. Of course, John King, Ross Garber, we appreciate it. We always need your brains around all this stuff. It's a big moment for sure. We're going to take a quick break.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:51:07]

SCIUTTO: The Senate will soon try the president for high crimes and misdemeanors. Joining us now is Republican Congressman Tom Reed of New York. He also serves on the Ways and Means Committee.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining.

REP. TOM REED (R-NY): Good to be with you (ph), Jim.

SCIUTTO: We're on our way to a Senate trial of the president. Since the House impeached -- and you voted, of course, against it -- new evidence has come to light, including documents that show direct communications between the White House and those who were delaying this aid.

We have a new witness, one who has raised his hand, John Bolton. Shouldn't senators be able to see that new evidence before making a decision on the president's guilt or innocence?

REED: Well, you know, I hesitate to tell senators what to do. I think the Senate is going to do its work. I'm glad to see the impeachment moving to the Senate. The sooner this gets addressed and closed, the sooner we can get back to the business of the American people.

HARLOW: Well, let's say you're not advising senators, but just giving your opinion as a sitting member of Congress in the House. What would you do? Isn't more evidence better than less?

REED: If I had ability to do that, I would have done this in the House, I would have done the investigation, I would have gone through the subpoena process, I would have resolved those disputes through the judicial branch and taken the time.

If you're going to use the tool of impeachment -- which is the nuclear option -- you should have done all this background work and foundational work in the House.

SCIUTTO: This, though, you know, is a new approach from a sitting president, is it not? Bill Clinton, during his impeachment, I mean, he certainly fought a lot of things, but did not block all witnesses and documents.

I just wonder as a congressman, you know, sitting, representing your constituents with the power to vote to impeach or not to impeach a president, whether Democrat or Republican, is that a precedent you think you want as a sitting lawmaker, that your constituents want, that a president could say, I'm just not cooperating with Congress, I'm not going to give them anything?

REED: There's always going to be checks and balance and separation of powers and executive privilege arguments to be made. That's why the judicial branch is part of the Constitution.

But, you know, as we deal with impeachment, that is why -- we've only done this three times before in our nation's history. Impeachment should be the last tool. I -- in my opinion, that should be something we don't pursue on a regular basis in the House, and that is where I hope we can get this behind us as soon as possible.

HARLOW: You chair, you co-chair the Problem Solvers Caucus -- REED: I do.

HARLOW: -- a lot of what you do is about trying to find a middle ground. And I just wonder, given all of these documents that we now have that Congress has been handed from Rudy Giuliani's indicted associate Lev Parnas, including text messages showing communication with President Zelensky's aides, about setting up a meeting with Zelensky with Giuliani, at the permission of the president to provide negative information about Joe Biden.

Knowing all of that, that we didn't know, sitting here yesterday morning, do you think it would be prudent and help the Senate make a decision, to have those documents admissible in the Senate trial?

REED: Well, I defer to the Senate in regards to that, and the Senate's going to do what it's going to do and I think --

HARLOW: I -- I know that --

REED: -- you know, as we go through the process, but --

HARLOW: -- I'm just asking you --

REED: Yes.

HARLOW: -- because you're an elected member of Congress --

REED: Sure.

HARLOW: -- does that shed light on some important things here that are relevant?

REED: I still see that there's just not an impeachable offense here. I see the issue of corruption being a legitimate government function of the executive branch in this case.

And when you're dealing with impeachment, the lessons of impeachment from before, there's no legitimate activity -- Nixon breaking into a hotel; in regards to Clinton, lying about sexual activity in the Oval Office -- what is the legitimate government function there by the executive branch? Here, I see a legitimate power of the president at play.

HARLOW: Congressman Tom Reed, sorry it was short. You'll be back soon, we know that --

REED: Always good to be with you.

HARLOW: Thanks for --

REED: Great to be on the show with you.

HARLOW: Thank you for weighing in.

He's right, in saying this is in the Senate's court now.

SCIUTTO: It is.

HARLOW: We'll see what happens.

[10:54:57]

The breaking news, big breaking news, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sets in motion the Senate impeachment trial. We've got all the developments. It's a big day ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)