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CNN Live Event/Special

The Impeachment Trial of Donald J. Trump; Mitch McConnell Agrees to Impeachment Trial Rules Changes; Interview With Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR). Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired January 21, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:21]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, the Senate has taken a very, very brief recess right now. And they're going to be resuming the discussion, the debate over the rules.

There's been an amendment that's just been introduced by the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, an amendment to call witnesses, to get more -- to get evidence admitted, Jake.

They're taking a break right now. They're going to be moving on, two hours, presumably, to debate this -- this one amendment that Chuck Schumer has just introduced.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: It seems very unlikely that the amendment will pass, especially now -- well, first of all, Democrats only have 47 votes in the Senate, but then also given the drama that we have been told of in the last 15, 20 minutes, which has to do with Senator Susan Collins and some others forcing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to make the rules more fair, in their view, going from two 12-hour days for each side to now three, theoretically, eight-hour days to make the case.

Going from the House Democrats being able to just automatically introduce their evidence -- oh, I'm sorry -- that is now the case. Before, it was that they were going to have to vote on it, and it might not happen at all. Now the evidence will automatically be included.

BLITZER: And these are both significant changes.

And, as we can see, they were handwritten, as opposed to the resolution that Mitch McConnell had released last night.

Dana Bash is up on Capitol Hill.

You got a special guest.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

Senator Jeff Merkley, thank you so much for coming out during the break.

SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D-OR): You're welcome. BASH: My first question is about the changes that Senator McConnell

made last minute to allow the documents to -- that the House gathered as part of their investigation to be included in the trial up front, and then to give the arguments a little bit more time, so they won't be made in the dead of night, as Democrats have been saying leading into the changes being made.

MERKLEY: Actually, the change isn't very significant.

What he did is, he said that the House documents will still not be entered into evidence now. They will only be entered into after the initial days of argument, pro and con, which was the plan all along.

So, the difference is between having a vote and saying that they can be entered unless there's an objection. So, he will still control what gets entered. And it's still not entered up front, the way it was in the Clinton trial.

BASH: So, the other thing I want to ask you about is something that Mitt Romney said to my colleague Manu Raju, which is that Democrats have to be careful not to make everything a crisis, that, you know, I mean, he's somebody who you all are trying to persuade, right, on a key issue like witnesses.

And coming into it today, you know, that he was saying that, if you make everything the worst thing in the world, then nothing is the worst thing in the world.

Is there a concern about overreaching here, especially when your audience are these persuadable Republicans?

MERKLEY: Well, I think the real concern is about whether or not the Senate is going to fill -- fulfill its constitutional responsibility.

And so the issue of whether or not you have witnesses and whether or not you have documents is core to that. And so I wouldn't say it's an exaggeration to say it's a crisis to have a situation where there is a trial that is not really a trial.

As every American understands, a trial involves presenting your case with your witness and documents and the defense with witness and documents. That's a fair and full trial. These rules are the opposite.

BASH: Thank you, Senator. Thanks for coming out. Appreciate it.

MERKLEY: You bet. You bet. You bet.

BASH: Jake, back to you.

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

And let's talk about these changes, because I'm interested in everybody's perspective.

Let me start with you, John King. You have covered Capitol Hill, as I have. It is interesting. I don't

know what the truth is, but it is interesting that, right before this fierce debate on the rules, A, Mitch McConnell changes the rules to make them friendlier, B, Susan Collins, who is facing a tough reelection race at the end of this year in November, is able to emerge as one of the heroes of this process, forcing the Senate majority leader to make them more fair.

Now, maybe that's exactly what happened, but the skeptic in me wonders if this is a little bit for show.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, sometimes, you give to get, right?

So Mitch McConnell gave. That's interesting, because he's trying to prove he's in charge. He's trying to prove he's strong. He's trying to prove everybody should follow the leader. The leader here publicly made concessions at the very beginning of a very important trial in which his control over his people is the biggest factor in whether the president moves out.

So, he gave. So, you're right to have -- why? He's smart enough. He's disciplined enough. He should have known this, this morning. Why did he do it when he did it? I think that's a fair question. And we will see where the reporting takes us.

[15:05:00]

It does do this. It sends a message to the White House, which, as Kaitlan Collins reported, had a heavy hand in the, let's do this as quickly as possible. The president wants this over several days before the State of the Union address. He wants it done as quickly as possible.

This is a message to the White House from Leader McConnell, who, yes, he made a concession. But what is the end result of that? Mr. President, you're going to get what you want at the end. Let me run the middle.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: He doesn't lose anything.

KING: Let me take this over in the middle.

So I do think, watch the next vote. Adam Schiff made a pretty persuasive case for witnesses. He's a good lawyer. You can disagree with his position if you want, but he made a very persuasive case for why he thinks this is different from Clinton, we should get our documents.

McConnell gave some ground to make Republicans happy with this. He's counting on their votes to vote down the Schumer resolution.

BORGER: Right?

He didn't -- look, I don't think McConnell loses anything in doing this. So he can give a little bit to Susan Collins. I don't think it was preplanned that way, so he would have to handwrite or his staffer would have to handwrite in on this resolution.

But when these moderates objected, he realizes there's a larger goal here. Machiavelli Mitch, maybe, he knew -- he knew what he was after. And he's after this question about witnesses. And we know that we have just gotten this amendment from Chuck Schumer, which is asking for all the documents from the White House that the House was not able to get.

And I think McConnell's goal here is to keep all his Republicans together. He wants to show unity. The president, don't forget, loved it when the House Republicans were unified on impeachment. It was so important to the president. He wants to show the president they can be unified on knocking down an amendment.

(CROSSTALK)

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, I think that's right.

In many ways, it was a ridiculous idea anyway that they were going to have 12 hours of testimony going into the dead...

TAPPER: And not letting the evidence in without a vote.

HENDERSON: And not letting the evidence in. You feel like going into 1:00 a.m., and these people aren't spring chickens, and neither are we have.

But the idea that we would go until -- that they would go until 1:00 in the morning always just seemed untenable for a lot of those senators there. If you're a Republican, is this something you really wanted to do?

I imagine that the president is watching this. He's away, and they wanted him to be away to not really be in the mix here.

But seeing Schiff's very persuasive, easy-to-understand narrative that he was laying out there, who's using the president's own words against him, when he was talking about witnesses -- he had the video clip of the president saying he'd love to have witnesses. He showed some text messages from Taylor as well and said -- laid all the reasons this wasn't the Clinton standard and why it should be.

And then you obviously had all the president's attorneys come forward and really attack Schiff. I'm sure the president watching liked that he -- that they were going after Schiff in that way and bringing up the probably bad idea from Schiff when he did do that parody in some of the hearings on -- in the impeachment.

But this is going to be fascinating. We see the different sides laying out and Mitch McConnell sort of blinking with this changing of the rules with this resolution that they will vote on.

BORGER: It was hard to miss that, while Cipollone did come out and say that this was -- the president did nothing wrong -- when he started, he said there was nothing wrong with the phone call.

He then immediately proceeded to talk about process, process, process. Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous, as he said numerous times, whereas Schiff was really focused on substance, substance, substance of what actually occurred.

And it wasn't just one phone call. It was a months-long process in which eventually this aid was held up to Ukraine.

So, it was as if they were arguing past each other, except on the question of witnesses. And I think that is so key here, because you can't say it enough. This is different from 1999. The witnesses in Bill Clinton's impeachment trial had already testified under oath.

They were -- had videotaped depositions. But people knew what they were going to say. They had already testified under oath. These witnesses have never testified.

TAPPER: Jeffrey, what did you think of Cipollone's arguments?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I thought it was a -- it was a good television argument, because it was slamming the Democrats, and especially Adam Schiff. It will be satisfying to people who already don't like the Democrats.

It reminded me of the Trump presidency, which was and is an endless and successful play to his base. The base that thinks Adam Schiff is the devil incarnate will be very pleased by that.

I think Gloria is exactly right. He did not engage with the facts of this case. He did not engage in the subject of whether the president engaged -- behaved properly with regard to Ukraine. I mean, he said it was all fine, but he didn't talk about the facts.

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And then he segued into what an outrageous, unfair investigation this was.

For -- I don't think he's going to lose any votes in the Senate because of that. I don't think he's going to gain any votes. But, certainly, his boss will have liked to have heard it, if he was there at Davos.

And it'll play well on FOX News.

TAPPER: All right, everyone, stick around.

Any moment now, the Senate trial will resume. They will begin debating Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's amendment.

Our special coverage continues after this quick break. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: We are waiting for the Senate to resume its debate on the

amendments proposed by the Senate minority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, on the rules of the impeachment trial.

We are getting a little more color now, however, on the changes made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, to appease concerns by some Republican senators, we're told.

[15:15:10]

CNN's Manu Raju has that.

Manu, what can you tell us? What happened?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there was a debate behind closed doors at the Republican lunch just before they came into session, the trial this afternoon.

And the Republicans -- a number of Republicans voiced concerns about exactly how this would be laid out, concerns that the Democrats' arguments could get some traction with the public, that these arguments could be pushed into the late of the night, into the wee hours, because, initially, what Mitch McConnell proposed was 24 hours split up into two days, essentially 12 hours a day, starting at 1:00 p.m.

So, doing the math, that could go stretch into the early morning hours overnight.

That didn't go over well, and not just with some moderates, like Susan Collins of Maine, but a number of Republicans, I'm told, did raise concerns internally. There were discussions, including one senator, a conservative Republican senator, Roger Wicker, told me just moments ago, he said, it just seems fairer the way that they have now proposed to do it, which is to spread out the arguments to 24 hours over three days, so about eight hours apiece.

Now, also, there were concerns about the Democrats' arguments here that the House evidence that had been accumulated while -- in the impeachment inquiry would not automatically be submitted in the record, there had to be a vote to allow that to happen.

That was a departure from the Clinton rules. There were concerns from members who said, look, we said that we were going to follow the Clinton rules closely. So Mitch McConnell, listening to his conference, agreed to make those changes in the aftermath of these concerns that were raised by Democrats.

But looking at the schedule, guys, talking to Republican senators, there's a belief that this could still move rather quickly. If there is no agreement to subpoena witnesses and subpoena documents, it's possible we can move through this trial to get to a final vote to acquit the president by the end of next week.

So, we will see if that happens. That's clearly the goal of the White House, the goal of Mitch McConnell, to wrap this up quickly. And it's possible that it could happen even under this revised time frame, that the president could be acquitted by the end of next week.

But, of course, we will see how the senators ultimately come down about subpoenaing witnesses, subpoenaing documents, and Republican senators still holding their cards close to their vest, particularly the swing votes, saying that they still want to listen to those opening arguments in the coming days, guys.

BLITZER: All right, thanks, Manu. We're going to get back to you.

You know, Alan Frumin, you're the former Senate parliamentarian. The fact that we're now going to hear this debate over this Chuck Schumer amendment to subpoena certain White House documents and records -- well, I think we're going to go back.

Let's go back to the chief justice.

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT: Mr. Schiff, do you wish to be heard on the amendment in -- proponent or as an opponent?

(OFF-MIKE)

ROBERTS: Very well. Mr. Cipollone?

(OFF-MIKE)

ROBERTS: OK. Mr. Schiff, you have an hour.

SCHIFF: Thank you Mr. Chief Justice. In a moment I will introduce House Manager Lofgren of California to respond on the amendment, but I did want to take this opportunity before certain representations became congealed to respond to my colleague's argument on the resolution at large.

First, it's worth noting, they said nothing about the resolution. They said nothing about the resolution. They made no effort to defend it. They made no effort to even claim that this was like the Senate trial in the Clinton proceeding. They made no argument that, well, this is different here because of this or that, or they made no argument about that whatsoever.

The made no argument that it makes sense to try the case and then consider documents. They made no argument about why it makes sense to have a trial without witnesses. And why? Because it's indefensible. It's indefensible.

No trial in America has ever been conducted like that, and so you heard nothing about it. And that should be the most telling thing about the counsel's argument. They had no defense of the McConnell resolution, because there is none.

They couldn't defend it on the basis of Senate precedent, they couldn't defend it on the basis of Senate history, traditionally couldn't defend it on the basis of the Constitution, they couldn't defend it at all. And so, what did they say? Well, first the made the representation that the House is claiming there is no such thing as executive privilege. That's nonsense. No one here has ever suggested there's no such thing as executive privilege, but the interesting thing here is, they've never claimed executive privilege. Not once during the House investigation did they ever say that a single document was privileged or a single witness had something privilege to say.

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And why didn't they invoke privilege, and why only now? And even now they haven't quite invoked it. Why only now? Why not in the House? Because in order to claim privilege, as they know because they're good lawyers, you have to specify which document, which line, which conversation and they didn't want to do that, because to do that the president would have to reveal the evidence of his guilt.

That's why they made no invocation of privilege. Now, they make the further argument that the House should only be able to impeach after the exhaust all legal remedies. As if the Constitution says, the House shall have the sole power of impeachment, asterisk (ph).

But only after it goes to court, then the District Court, then the Court of Appeals and then (inaudible) and then the Supreme Court, and it's remanded and they go back up the chain and it takes years.

Why didn't the founders require the exhaustion of legal remedies? Because they didn't want to put the impeachment process in the courts. And you know what's interesting is, that while these lawyers for the president are here before you today saying the House should have gone to court, they are in court saying the House may not go to court its subpoenas. I kid you not.

Other lawyers, maybe not the ones at this table, but other lawyers for the president are in court saying the exact opposite of what they're telling you today. They're saying, you cannot enforce Congressional subpoenas, that's non-judiciable. You can't do it.

The Counsel brings up the case involving Charles Kupperman, who was a Deputy to John Bolton on the National Security Council and says, he did what he should do, he went to court to fight us. Well, the Justice Department took the position, he can't do that. So, these lawyers are saying he should and those lawyers are saying he shouldn't. They can't have it both ways.

Now interestingly, while Mr. Kupperman -- Dr. Kupperman went to court and they applaud him for doing that, his boss, John Bolton, now says, there's no necessity for him to go to court. He doesn't have to do it.

He's willing to come and talk to you. He's willing to come and testify and tell you what he knows. The question is, do you want to hear it? Do you want to hear it? Do you want to hear from someone who was in the meetings, someone who described what the president did? This deal between Mulvaney and Sondland as a drug deal?

Do you want to know why it was a drug deal? Do you want to ask him why it was a drug deal? Do you want to ask him why he repeatedly told people, go talk to the lawyers? You should want to know. They don't want you to know. They don't want you to know. The president doesn't want you to know. Can you really live up to the oath you've taken to be impartial and not know? I don't think you can.

Now, they also made the argument, that you'll hear more later on from, apparently, Professor Dershowitz that, well abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. It's interesting that they had to go outside the realm of constitutional lawyers and scholars to a criminal defense lawyer to make that argument, because no reputable constitutional law expert would do that.

Indeed, the one they called in the House, the Republicans called in the House, Jonathan Turley, as said exactly the opposite. There's a reason that Jonathan Turley is not sitting at the table, much to his dismay, and that is because he doesn't support their argument. So they'll cite him for one thing but they'll ignore him for the other.

Now, they say "oh, the President is very transparent, he may have refused every subpoena, every document request but he released two documents, the document on the July 25th call and the document on the April 21st call."

Well let's face it, he was forced to release the record of the July 25th call when he got caught, when a whistleblower filed a complaint, when we opened an investigation, he was forced because he got caught. You don't get credit for transparency when you got caught. And what's more, what's revealed in that, of course, is damning.

Now they point to the only other record he has apparently released, the April 21st phone -- that's interesting, too. Now that's just a congratulatory call but what's interesting about it is the President was urged on that call to bring up the issue of corruption. And indeed, in the readout of that call, the White House misleadingly said he did. But now we've seen the record, we see that he didn't.

And notwithstanding, counsel's claim in their trial brief that the President raised the issue of corruption in his phone call, the July 25th call, of course that word doesn't appear in either conversation. And why? Because the only corruption he cared about was the corruption that he could help bring about.

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Now, Mr. Cipollone -- Mr. Cipollone made the representation that Republicans were not even allowed in the depositions conducted in the House. Now, I'm not going to suggest to you that Mr. Cipollone would deliberately make a false statement. I will leave it to Mr. Cipollone to make those allegations against others.

But I will tell you this, he's mistaken -- he's mistaken. Every Republican on the three investigative committees was allowed to participate in the depositions, and more than that, they got the same time we did. You show me another proceeding, another presidential impeachment or other that had that kind of access for the opposite party. Now, there were depositions in the Clinton impeachment, there were depositions in the Nixon impeachment. So what they would say is some secret process, well, they were the same private depositions in these other impeachments, as well.

Finally, a couple of last points. They make the argument the President was not allowed in the Judiciary Committee, chaired by my colleague, Chairman Nadler, to be present, to present evidence, to have his counsel present. That is also just plain wrong -- just plain wrong. I'm not going to suggest to you they're being deliberately misleading here but it is just plain wrong.

You've also heard my friends at the other table make attacks on me and Chairman Nadler. You'll hear more of that. I'm not going to do them the dignity of responding to them but I will say this, they make a very important point, although it's not the point I think they're trying to make.

When you hear them attack the House managers, what you're really hearing is "we don't want to talk about the President's guilt, we don't want to talk about the McConnell resolution and how patently unfair it is, we don't want to talk about how -- how, to pardon the expression, ass backwards it is to have a trial and then ask for witnesses and so we'll attack the House managers cause maybe we can distract you for a moment, from what's before you. Maybe if we attack the House managers, you'll be thinking about them instead of thinking about the guilt of the President."

So you'll hear more of that and every time you do, every time you'll hear them attacking the House managers I want you to ask yourselves "away from what issue are they trying to distract me? What was the issue that came up just before this? What are they trying to deflect my attention from? Why don't they have a better argument to make on the merits?"

Finally, Mr. Sekulow asked "why are we here -- why are we here?" Well I'll tell you why we're here, because the President used the power of his office to coerce an ally at war with an adversary, at war with Russia, use the power of his office to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid that you appropriated and we appropriated to defend an ally and defend ourselves, because it's our national security, as well.

And why? To fight corruption? That's nonsense and you know it. He withheld that money and he withheld even meeting with him in the Oval Office, the President of Ukraine, because he wanted to coerce Ukraine into these sham investigations of his opponent, that he was terrified would beat him in the next election. That's what this is about.

You want to say "that's OK, their brief says that's OK, a President has a right to do it. On Article 2, we heard the President -- he can do whatever he wants." You want to say that's OK, then you've got to say that every future president can come into office and they can do the same thing. Are we prepared to say that? Well that's why we're here. I now yield to Representative Lofgren. LOFGREN: Mr. Chief Justice, senators, counsel for the President, the House managers strongly support Senator Schumer's amendment, which would ensure a fair, legitimate trial based on the full evidentiary record. The Senate can remedy President Trump's unprecedented coverup by taking a straightforward step. It can ask for the key evidence that the President has improperly blocked. Senator Schumer's amendment does just that.

The amendment authorizes a subpoena for White House documents that are directly relevant to this case. These documents focus on the President's scheme to strong arm Ukraine to announce an investigation into his political opponent to interfere with the 2020 election.

The documents will reveal the extent of the White House's coordination with the President's agents, such as Ambassador Sondland and Rudy Giuliani, who pushed the President's so-called --

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