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CNN Live Event/Special

The Impeachment Trial of Donald J. Trump. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired January 21, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

[16:30:00] SCHIFF: And finally, with respect to those secret hearings that counsel keeps referring to those secret deposition in the House were so secret that only 100 members of Congress were able to be there and participate. Only 100. That's how secret that chamber was. Imagine that in the Grand Jury proceedings in the Clinton investigation or in the Jaworski and Nixon investigation imagine inviting 50 or 100 members of Congress to sit in on those. Imagine as the President would like here apparently (ph) the President's insisting on having his lawyer on the Grand Jury because there was a case being investigated against him.

Now we have no Grand Jury here, why is that? Why did we have no Grand Jury here? Why was there no special prosecutor here? Because the Justice Department said they're not going to look into this. Bill Barr's Justice Department said there's nothing to see here. If it were up to that Justice Department you wouldn't know anything about this.

That's why there was no Grand Jury. That's why we and the House had to do the investigative work ourselves. And yes, just like in the Nixon case, just like in the Clinton case we used depositions. And you know what deposition rules we used? Those terribly unfair deposition rules we used? They were written by the Republicans. We use the same rules that the GOP House members used. That's how terribly unfair they were. My gosh, they used our rules. How dare they. How dare they.

And now why do we do the depositions, because we didn't want one witness to hear what another witness was saying so they could either tailor their stories or know that they just had to admit so much and no more.

Its how every credible investigation works. And this -- you know the counsel could repeat all they like that the president didn't have a chance to participate, didn't have a chance to have counsel present in the Judiciary Committee or to offer evidence.

They can say as much as they like. It doesn't make it any more true when they make the same false representation time and time again. It just makes it that much more deliberate and onerous.

The president could have presented evidence in the Judiciary Committee, he chose not to. And there's a reason for that. There's a reason why the witnesses they've talked about aren't material witnesses.

They don't go to the question of whether the president withheld the aid for this corrupt purpose. They don't go to any of that because they have not witnesses to absolve the president on the facts.

You should want to see these documents. You should want to see them. You should want to know what these private emails and text messages have to say. If you're going to make a decision about the president's guilt or innocence, you're going to make a decision about whether he should be removed from office, you should want to see what these documents say.

Now if you don't care, if you've made up your mind that he's the (ph) president of my party or for whatever reason, I'm not interested. And what's more, I don't really want the country to see this. Well that's a wholly different matter.

But that's -- that's not what your oath requires. It's not what your oath requires. Your oath requires you to do impartial justice, which means to see the evidence. To see the evidence. That's all we're asking.

Just don't blind yourself to the evidence. Mr. Justice, I yield back.

ROBERTS JR.: Thank you. The majority leader is recognized.

MCCONNELL: I send a motion to the desk to table the amendment and ask the ayes and nays.

ROBERTS JR.: The question is on the motion to table. Is there a sufficient second?

(UNKNOWN): There is.

ROBERTS JR.: There is. The clerk will call the role.

CLERK: Mr. Alexander.

ALEXANDER: Aye.

CLERK: Ms. Baldwin

BALDWIN: No.

CLERK: Mr. Barrasso.

BARRASSO: Aye.

CLERK: Mr. Bennet.

BENNET: No.

CLERK: Ms. Blackburn.

BLACKBURN: Aye.

CLERK: Mr. Blumenthal.

BLUMENTHAL: No.

CLERK: Mr. Blunt.

BLUNT: Aye.

CLERK: Mr. Booker.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: We're letting them vote.

This is Jake Tapper.

And what's going on right now is, there is an amendment being introduced by the Democratic leader of the Senate, the minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York.

And the majority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, is asking for a vote to table the amendment, to table the amendment.

I guess anything could happen, but we do expect this is going to pass on a party-line vote to table the Schumer amendment, which is calling for subpoenas and a whole bunch of more evidence to be obtained from the White House.

[16:35:00]

And it is not likely, we don't think, that that will pass the Republican-led Senate.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Fifty-three Republicans 47 Democrats -- 45 Democrats, two independents who caucus with the Democrats.

And it's expected, Jake, that this will be strictly along party lines. I'd be surprised if it's not.

TAPPER: Especially after the maneuver that McConnell made before this amendment was introduced, which was backing off some of the more harder-line provisions he had made in his rule.

There were some concessions made to senators like Susan Collins of Maine, allowing the presentation of evidence and the defense of the president to be spread out over three days, eight hours each for each side, as opposed to two days, 12 hours each, as well as the idea that the House evidence is now going to be introduced automatically.

It wasn't that way before. So, McConnell, having made those concessions, probably, that was a good gambit to keep Republicans in lockstep with him, and to shoot down the Schumer amendment, which is the vote going on right now.

The vote yea would be to table Schumer's amendment, so Republicans...

BLITZER: To reject it.

TAPPER: To reject it, yes, essentially. When they table it, they table it in perpetuity.

BLITZER: And this is the Schumer amendment to subpoena certain White House documents and records. Dana Bash is up on Capitol Hill.

What are you hearing up there, Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is the first of what we expect will be several attempts by Democrats to push for votes to change the rules of the road that Mitch McConnell has put forth.

And the expectation, as Jake was just describing, is that what we're going to see now will pass, which means they're going to kill this Democratic attempt.

And the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, has already released to the public -- and I'm sure the clerk has it there -- the second attempt that we're going to see today. This is specifically going to be about trying to subpoena records from the State Department that they believe are relevant to this trial.

So, this is -- when we heard earlier this morning Senator Schumer talk about the tactics that they are going to use, which he insisted are not dilatory tactics, meaning they're not just trying to delay for delay's sake, that is what we're seeing right now.

We are not seeing and hearing votes on the substance of the fundamental articles of impeachment yet. The Democrats are just trying to force votes on the process, but important process issues they feel that Republicans who run the Senate have not addressed.

TAPPER: Dana Bash, thanks so much.

And, John King, as they vote on this Schumer amendment to subpoena documents from the White House, after that -- we expect that that will fail, that amendment. Then Democrats will introduce one to subpoena documents from the State Department.

One of the things that's interesting is, Democrats are saying, we see, in the fact that McConnell backed off his harder-line provisions, his harder-line rules, the power of the four senators, whether it's Mitt Romney, Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, whomever, in forcing McConnell to open up the process a little, at the very least.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.

So what he did earlier in the day when he made those concessions was he added two days to the trial. That's all we know that has changed so far by stretching out the presentations, first the prosecution, meaning the Democrats, then the defense, the president's team.

They give him an extra day essentially to stretch it out.

This is much more important. Now, we expect McConnell to win here. The question, do the Democrats get any Republican votes, or do all the Republicans stay? Because we will revisit all of these issues again at the end of the presentations. The Democrats are saying, to be fair, we should have these subpoenas up front. Let's get the documents from the White House. The next amendment will be, let's get them from the State Department. Then, if Schumer wants to continue to push this, he's going to ask for specific witnesses in addition to documents.

When the presentations are over, the senators ask their questions. That'll be toward the second half of next week, if this plays out on schedule. The Democrats are going to try this again, because the organizing resolution does allow them to bring it up again later.

They're trying to get it up front. They're raising it, a question of fairness right now. Yes, Mitch McConnell this morning had to make some concessions. This is a test of whether Mitch McConnell can hold his party firm.

BLITZER: They just finished the roll call. Let's listen in.

TAPPER: Well, we are waiting for the final roll call to come in. We are expecting it to be -- to have passed, Mitch McConnell to have gotten the majority of the Senate, which is, of course, Republican, to agree to table Chuck Schumer's motion to subpoena White House records.

Gloria Borger, and while we wait for this final roll call vote on this Schumer amendment, you were taking issue with some of the arguments being made by the president's impeachment managers, the one -- not impeachment managers, defenders.

[16:40:04]

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Defenders.

TAPPER: Hold on.

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT: ... or change his or her vote.

If not, the yeas are 53, the nays are 47. The amendment is tabled.

TAPPER: So, as expected, on a party-line vote...

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Mr. Chief Justice, I send an amendment to the desk to subpoena certain documents and records from the State Department. And I ask that it be read.

ROBERTS: The clerk will read the amendment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The senator from New York Mr. Schumer proposes an amendment, Number 1285.

At the appropriate place in the resolving clause, insert the following section.

Notwithstanding any other provision to this resolution, pursuant to rules five and six of the rules or procedures in practice in the Senate when sitting in impeachment trials, one, the chief justice of the United States, through the secretary of the Senate, shall issue a subpoena to the secretary of Senate commanding him to produce for the time period from January 1, 2019, to the present, all documents, communications and other records within the possession, custody or control of the Department of State referring or relating to:

A, all meetings and calls between President Trump and the president of Ukraine, including documents, communications and other records related to the scheduling of, preparation for and follow-up from the president's April 21 and July 25, 2019 telephone calls, as well as the president's September 25, 2019, meeting with the president of Ukraine in New York.

B, the actual potential suspension, withholding, delaying, freezing or releasing of United States foreign assistance, military assistance or security assistance of any kind to Ukraine, including, but not limited to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, USAI, and foreign military financing, FMF, including, but not limited to all communications with the White House, Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget, as well as the Ukrainian government's knowledge prior to August 28, 2019, of any actual or potential suspension, withholding, delaying, freezing or releasing of United States foreign assistance to Ukraine, including all meetings calls, or other engagements with Ukrainian officials regarding potential or actual suspensions, holds or delays in the United States assistance to Ukraine.

C, all documents, communications notes, and other records created or received by Secretary Michael R. Pompeo, counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, former Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Ambassador Kurt Volker, Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent, then United States Embassy in Ukraine charge d'affaires William B. Taylor, and ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, and other State Department officials relating to efforts to:

One, solicit requests, demand, induce, persuade, or coerce Ukraine to conduct or announce investigations. Two, schedule, cancel or withhold a White House meeting for Ukraine's president, or, three, hold and then release military and other secretary -- security assistance to Ukraine.

D, any meetings or proposed meetings at or involving the White House that relate to Ukraine, including, but not limited to, one, President Zelensky's inauguration on May 22, 2019, in Kiev, Ukraine, including, but not limited to President Trump's decision not to attend, to ask Vice President Pence to lead the delegation, directing Vice President Pence not to attend, and the subsequent decision about the composition of the delegation of the United States.

Two, a meeting at the White House on or around May 23, 2019, involving, among others, President Trump, then special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Ambassador Kurt Volker, then Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and United States Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, as well as any private meetings or conversations with those individuals before or after the larger meeting. Three, meetings at the White House on or about July 10, 2019,

involving Ukrainian officials Andriy Yermak and Oleksandr Danylyuk, and United States government officials, including, but not limited to the national security adviser, John Bolton, Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker, and Ambassador Sondland, to include at least a meeting in Ambassador Bolton's office and a subsequent meeting in the Ward Room.

[16:45:07]

Four, a meeting at the White House on around August 30, 2019, involving President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

Five, a planned meeting later canceled in Warsaw, Poland, on around September 1, 2019, between President Trump and President Zelensky and subsequently attended by Vice President Pence.

And, six, a meeting at the White House on around September 11, 2019, involving President Trump, Vice President Pence and Mr. Mulvaney, concerning the lifting of the hold on security assistance for Ukraine.

E, all communications including, but not limited to WhatsApp or text messages on private devices between current or former State Department officials or employees, including, but not limited to Secretary Michael R. Pompeo, Ambassador Volker, Ambassador Sondland, Ambassador Taylor, and Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent, and the following, President Zelensky, Andriy Yermak, or individuals or entities associated with or acting in any capacity as a representative, agent or proxy for President Zelensky before and after his election.

All records specifically identified by witnesses in the House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry that memorialize key events or concerns and any records reflecting an official response thereto, including, but not limited to, one, an August 29, 2019, cable sent by Ambassador Taylor to Secretary Pompeo.

Two, an August 16, 2019, memorandum to file written by Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent. And, three, a September 15, 2019, memorandum to file written by Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent.

G, all meetings or calls including, but not limited to all requests for, or records of meeting or telephone calls, scheduling items, calendar entries, State Department visitor records and e-mail or text messages using personal or work-related devices between or among, one, current or former State Department officials or employees, including, but not limited to Secretary Michael R. Pompeo, Ambassador Volker and Ambassador Sondland.

And, two, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Victoria Toensing, or Joseph diGenova.

And, H, the curtailment or recall of former United States Ambassador to Ukraine Marie "Masha" Yovanovitch from the United States Embassy in Kiev, including credible threat reports against her and any protective security measures taken in response. And, two, the sergeant at arms is authorized to utilize the services of the deputy sergeant at arms or any other employee of the Senate in serving the subpoena authorized to be issued by this section.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Mr. Chief Justice.

ROBERTS: The majority leader is recognized.

MCCONNELL: I now ask for a brief 10-minute recess before the parties are recognized to debate the Schumer amendment.

At the end of the debate time, I will again move to table the amendment, as the timing of these votes are specified in the underlying resolution.

So, I ask consent that the Senate stand in recess, subject to the call of the chair.

ROBERTS: Without objection, the Senate is in recess.

TAPPER: All right, that was a quick break that the Senate is now taking, as they begin taking up Senator Schumer's second amendment.

The first one failed. Republicans, on a party-line vote, 53-47, voted to table the Schumer amendment, which would be one that would issue subpoenas to get documents from the White House.

That did not pass. The next attempt by Schumer will be to issue subpoenas to get documents from the State Department.

Let's talk about all of this.

BLITZER: I suspect this one is going to fail as well 53-47, strictly along party lines.

And if there's a third Schumer amendment, which presumably there could be, and there will be two hours debate along that as well, two hours coming up now, presumably, Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has his Republicans in line. They will vote uniformly to reject all of these amendments and get on to the final vote, approving his initial resolution for the rules, rules of the road going forward.

TAPPER: And it does show -- I mean, we saw what happened was, behind closed doors, some Republicans, we're told, pushed the matter with Mitch McConnell as to some of the harder-line provisions he had for his rule.

Originally, it was going to be each side, the House impeachment managers and the president's defense, each side had 24 hours spread over two days to present their case.

That is now going to be spread over three days. So, instead of two 12- hour days, it will be three eight-hour days. Pardon me.

And then, in addition, the evidence that the House collected was not going to be automatically introduced in the Senate impeachment trial. That is now not the case. That evidence will be introduced, although senators will be able to, on a majority vote, strike out provisions if they want.

[16:50:13]

And it seems, Gloria, that McConnell, by ceding those small points, has been able to keep his entire 53-member House (sic) Republican Conference in line.

BORGER: Right.

And, as Wolf just said, I think you're going to see it now again on this question of State Department.

But I think the question that a lot of Democrats raised during their hearings was Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, what did he know and when did he know it? Ambassador Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, testified that the State Department would not allow him to see all of his e-mails that he had.

He had a bunch of them which he divulged. Clearly, they want to see more.

And so what they are looking for here is a way to start to connect the dots and find out the White House involvement with the State Department in either cutting off aid, or the role of Rudy Giuliani, for example, who we all know operated on his own tangent.

And they're -- this is what they're looking for. And in a normal trial, you would say, sure, have them in.

But, as the president's lawyer said in regard to the last amendment, he said, we don't want to allow the Senate to become an investigatory body, heaven forbid.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: All right, so -- pardon me, Nia. We're going to go to you in a second.

But I do want to bring in Dana Bash, who has some breaking news from Capitol Hill -- Dana.

BASH: Well, we all just got in our inboxes a new statement from Senator Susan Collins, a key senator, of course, from Maine.

And in it, she says -- this is the key line -- "It is likely that I would support a motion to subpoena witnesses at that point," meaning she's talking about towards the end of the trial, "as I did in 1999."

This is a longer statement explaining the fact that she is voting, as you saw in this first vote, with her party, with Republicans, against Democrats attempts to move up the promises that witnesses and documents that they want will be part of this trial. So, as part of the statement, she is leaning into the notion of

potentially voting for witnesses. She does say likely, so she catches it.

But if likely turns into yes, what that means, in, well, practical terms, is, you have Susan Collins, you have Lisa Murkowski, who has said she's interested in witnesses. You have Mitt Romney, who says he's interested in witnesses. That's three.

If there is a fourth Republican on any of the witness votes, that means that that witness will be subpoenaed to come before the U.S. Senate, again, likely, but the fact that she made a point of sending this statement out right now is noteworthy.

TAPPER: All right, Dana Bash, thanks so much.

Nia-Malika, your reaction?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, one of the things that's so notable here is, the trial experience of not only Lofgren, but also Schiff, very much on display here, right?

You saw them with testimony from the House trial, raising what Fiona Hill said, raising what Vindman said, and essentially saying, listen, don't you want to fill in the dots, not only the folks who were there that they're talking to, those 100 senators, but also the American public?

And it's interesting the way they are able to tell, I think, a pretty compelling story, the same story we heard in the House, in comparison to what the Republicans are doing, Philbin, for instance, not the most charismatic, television-friendly presenter.

He's talking about process mainly. So they are using their opportunity every time they get up there, even though it's about sort of process and these amendments that aren't going to pass, they're using their time quite effectively.

I think they very well know that Americans have a short attention span. They might not be through -- be through this trial through the whole thing. They have got one bite at the apple, at least right now. Maybe the viewership is really high now.

So I think they're using their time very wisely.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I thought one of Adam Schiff's most effective moments was, in responding to the accusation, which we have heard many times, is that the president's lawyers keep saying, the president's lawyer -- the House managers, they're not ready, they're not ready.

And he says, we're ready. We call John Bolton. OK? Let's see John Bolton. They can't call John Bolton, unless the Senate agrees to call John Bolton.

So the idea that, you know, the House managers are like kids who came to the teacher without their homework is just not true.

What's true is that they're not being allowed to try their case. And that's -- and when you come to these documents, these two motions for documents, you know, if you were trying a real case, the first thing you would do would be to get the documents.

[16:55:04]

BORGER: Connect the dots.

TOOBIN: But...

(CROSSTALK)

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The question is, when is the right time?

I mean, this is the game that the Republicans have been playing in this. Well, so the right time wasn't in the House. The Democrats should go to the courts and fight it through the courts.

And now they're in a Senate trial. Well, the right time is not now that we're on trial. We should wait until later in the trial.

And the question is, is there ever going to be evidence that they are going to admit?

Now, I do have to say, I think that one of the most significant changes that was made earlier in the day before they got to this voting is not so much the time extension, but the time extension is a humanitarian thing, and it's nice, but the more significant change was the automatic admittance of the evidence from the House.

That really does change what the Senate will actually be looking at. But in terms of these two amendments from Senator Schumer, there actually is a stronger argument for the senators to really take the second one, the State Department document amendment, and think about it in a different way than the White House one, because the White House one, you can think of all sorts of different privileges that would apply there.

But the State...

TAPPER: Executive privilege or whatever.

CORDERO: Executive privileges and attorney-client privileges that they're talking about, the communications with the NSC lawyer.

But the State Department documents go to the heart of what was going on within that branch.

And I would think that senators should really be thinking about each of those amendments separately and individually.

TAPPER: And, Michael Gerhardt, I just want to bring you in for one thing, because I know you were taking issue with the fact that the Trump lawyers, the defense team keeps arguing that President Trump has not been allowed to participate in the House process.

You want to fact-check that for us?

MICHAEL GERHARDT, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA: Sure.

He's been invited more than once to participate in the process. His lawyers have been invited more than once to participate in the process on the House side, and they declined.

And so what we're seeing from the president's lawyers here is they're continuing to assert the same talking points. Their audience, of course, is not just to their base, but to those Republican senators, and then reminding them all of the talking points, even if they're not true.

On the other side, we have got the House managers arguing to the same -- to, of course, the American people, the senators, but they're trying to work with the evidence. They're trying to remind everybody of the evidence that they had pulled together on the House side.

So it actually undercuts any argument made by the other lawyers.

BLITZER: I just want John to weigh in, because this first amendment that Chuck Schumer introduced to get White House -- to subpoena certain White House documents and records failed 53-47.

The second amendment to subpoena certain Department of State documents and records, by all accounts, it's likely to fail exactly along the same lines 53-47.

If there's a third amendment, and I anticipate there possibly could be, to get witnesses, to subpoena witnesses, by all accounts, that's going to fail as well. But there's a political point these Democrats, the House managers and Schumer, they are making right now. They want some of these vulnerable Republican senators on the record rejecting these requests.

KING: And so don't understate the importance of these votes. But don't overstate the importance of these votes, because, remember, we're in the Senate.

When you join the Democratic Caucus or the Republican Caucus, you're joining a club. You are expected to support the leader on the rules. When you start any debate when they bring legislation to the floor, you are told, whether you're Ted Cruz or Susan Collins, whatever end of the Republican spectrum you're on, when the leader goes to the floor, you're expected to support him on the rules.

You may then later disagree. The leader might not like it. You might disagree on the substance later. You might offer an amendment to the bill. In this case, you might vote with the Democrats on witnesses.

To start the trial, Mitch McConnell's message is, we lose today, the Democrats get control on day one. That's not going to happen.

So he is expecting loyalty from his members, which is why that Susan Collins statement is so important. She's in a tough reelection battle. The last time I looked, it was 48-46. She knows she's in a tough battle, so she is explaining herself.

She is saying, I might be in a different position in a week than I am today.

Today, she's voting with the leader. These are going to go down. McConnell will carry the day. The question is, Mr. Schiff, Ms. Lofgren, the other Democrats, are they good enough to plant the seeds, that, when these votes come up again in a week, they get a different result?

This is about party loyalty because it's day one.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: And can I say, Gloria, I mean, it's not hard to imagine the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee using these roll call votes in which they say the senators' name and he or she says, aye or nay...

BORGER: Absolutely.

TAPPER: ... running ads saying that vulnerable Republicans, such as McSally in Arizona, Gardner in Colorado, Collins in Maine...

KING: But flip it, Doug Jones in Alabama.

TAPPER: Or, otherwise, Doug Jones in Alabama, vice versa from the Republicans.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: But that's why Susan Collins had to...

TAPPER: Saying she voted to cover up the...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: That's what the Democrats will allege.

BORGER: Well, and that's what Chuck Schumer is doing.

And they know that. And that's why, if Susan Collins votes no on witnesses now, that's why she released a statement saying, that doesn't mean I'm going to vote no on witnesses later.

KING: I'm voting no, but.

BORGER: Because that's the way it was in the Clinton trial. We waited to hear the case.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: I'm not saying she doesn't have an explanation.

(CROSSTALK) BORGER: But -- but...

TAPPER: But you don't get to add to a DSCC ad, is all I'm saying.

[17:00:00]