CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Public Impeachment Hearings Set To Begin; Interview With Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA)

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania is joining us. She's a key member of the Judiciary Committee.

Congresswoman, thanks so much for joining us. REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's get to the breaking news.

These transcripts from three more witnesses just within the last hour or so have been released, including the first witness from the Pentagon, Laura Cooper, testifying that the Pentagon's position was that money to Ukraine should flow. It had been appropriated, authorized by the House and the Senate, signed into law by the president.

But she was told all of a sudden in late August that Ukraine might have to commit to investigating the president -- investigating on the president's behalf in order to get that money.

So what's your reaction to that?

DEAN: And I read as quickly as I could some of the synopsis of her testimony

And what's damning about it is, it says that the president -- she testifies that the president directed through the Office of Management and Budget the withholding of the $391 million worth of military aid to Ukraine.

She worried about the legality of that. She was not alone in that worry. And she also said that Ambassador Volker implied the exact same thing. That's damning testimony, but it is showing of a pattern.

We have courageous career employees who have served in administrations Democratic and Republican who have come forward courageously to tell the truth about this -- this shadow State Department run by Rudy Giuliani, having messengers like Lev Parnas telling folks at Ukraine that, if they want to get that aid, congressionally authorized dollars, they're going to have to deliver in an extortion kind of way.

This is an administration that's in grave danger.

BLITZER: How do House investigators, Congresswoman, determine who specifically gave the order to withhold the money to Ukraine and why if the White House acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who also runs the Office of Management and Budget, and other officials at OMB won't testify?

DEAN: Well, I think, obviously, the Laura Cooper testimony is directly connected to that.

She's a corroborating witness to that. Lev Parnas is now becoming relevant witness, turning on Mr. Giuliani. I think it's also important to go back to -- and we will have the chance to hear from him in public -- the charge d'affaires, Mr. Taylor, Bill Taylor, who's first up on Wednesday.

He is eloquent in terms of our relationship with Ukraine and Ukraine's relationship with us. I think it's important to listen to what he has to say and the concerns that became very apparent to him of the secondary shadow foreign policy being run by Giuliani that was not in parallel with the best interest of our country, in the best interest of our elections, in the best interest of safety for Ukraine.

And then if you mirror that or marry that with Ambassador Yovanovitch, who will be testifying later this week, again, a career diplomat who wanted only the safety and security of our country and Ukraine and peace in that region against a foreign foe who had occupied, is occupying Ukraine, under military threat, Russia, and then the threats that she suffered, the smears that she's suffered, as somebody serving our country, these layers of pattern of behavior of, frankly, extortion by this administration of Ukraine to interfere with our elections in order to support the president's reelection, not peace and diplomacy, it's stunning testimony.

And it's corroborated over and over and over again.

BLITZER: The acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, could have just followed President Trump's orders not to cooperate with the investigation.

Instead, Mulvaney asked that a federal court make that decision. That's strange. How do you interpret that?

DEAN: I'm not sure how to interpret it.

I'm not in on those legal arguments. I'm assuming he wanted clarity as to his obligations. What we do know is that the president's stopping of testimony by people who are under subpoena is not lawful. There is no blanket immunity that the president can offer these people who are public servants.

[18:15:08]

And so I'm not sure his motivation for seeking that. I believe what he ought to do is appear, testify and tell the truth about what has happened.

Of course, he did tell the truth in that famous, now infamous, press conference, where he said, of course there's a quid pro quo. We do it all the time. Get over it.

And then he tried to backpedal that. So he's going to have a problem of credibility, no matter when and where he testifies. But, certainly, he has an important front-row seat as to the withholding of aid by this administration, by this president to a foreign -- a foreign democracy, a friend of ours.

And, remember -- people need to remember, this is constitutionally -- it is congressionally authorized aid. This was not up to the president to decide if or when to distribute the aid.

BLITZER: The chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, says he's not waiting for the various lawsuits to play out. That could take quite a while.

Are Democrats in the process, though, forfeiting some valuable testimony from Mick Mulvaney, among others, that could be critical?

DEAN: We're not forfeiting, but we're not going to wait.

I know that our own Judiciary Committee is moving forward with lawsuits and seeking legal clarity from another co-equal branch, the judiciary. But we do know that that could take weeks, months or even years, which would be just to the benefit of this administration.

So we have to do both. We have to pursue our legal remedies to get testimony from others who have relevant things to tell us. But in the face of the extraordinary obstruction, we have never seen an administration who has told people to not obey a lawful subpoena by a co-equal branch of government.

So, in the face of that, we're going to get all the testimony that we can get. I'm very proud of the work of Chairman Schiff and his committee, the hours that they have poured into, along with our Republican colleagues -- don't forget, they're there in the room also -- that they have poured into gathering the evidence to put in front of the American people of the wrongdoing of this administration.

It is about the president's oath of office. It is about abuse of power, but it is just as equally important it is about our congressional oath of office.

I swore on January 3 that I would uphold the Constitution. And I know that all members of Congress honor and believe in that oath. So I'm very proud of what Intelligence is doing in the meantime, now bringing them to public hearings.

And then, of course, at some point, Judiciary will get a full report, so that we can consider what articles of impeachment we would want to move forward with.

BLITZER: As you know, "The New York Times" is reporting that Lev Parnas, one of Rudy Giuliani's indicted associates, now says he told the Ukrainians in may -- in May -- that they wouldn't be getting military aid and a visit from the vice president, Mike Pence, unless Ukraine opened up an investigation into the Bidens.

Both Giuliani, by the way, and his associate Igor Fruman, also indicted, deny this.

How do you assess the credibility of this latest claim?

DEAN: It's difficult to assess.

These -- both gentlemen are under indictment. It's problematic that they were working for Rudy Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani acting as the president's private attorney, unpaid, puzzling, in that, and also having other clients that would be in direct conflict with anything to do with the president and the administration.

But what the testimony that Lev Parnas, Mr. Parnas, is putting forward is that he was the messenger, that Giuliani made him a messenger to Ukraine representatives, upper-level representatives in Ukraine, to say, you need to play ball with us if you want that aid released.

I can't assess the credibility. We haven't seen his testimony, nor have we seen him testify. But we can assess the credibility of Mr. Giuliani, whose credibility, he has himself poured away in buckets.

He speaks out of both sides of his mouth. But he also is doing a very grave injustice to this country to say that he represents the president personally and is interfering with the State Department and our diplomatic efforts in Ukraine.

There's very serious behaviors there.

BLITZER: The public televised series will start Wednesday morning.

What lessons have Democrats, Congresswoman, learned from the Mueller hearings going forward now with this new round of impeachment hearings?

DEAN: Lessons learned, I think -- I believe, on our side, we were quite disciplined to try to get at the facts.

We were faced with a Republican Party that tried -- the Republicans on the other side of the dais, who tried to make a circus of that hearing, that was disappointing. We did have really talented cross- examination by Barry Berke, our staff attorney, at the end of the hearing.

[18:20:03]

And I guess one thing that we may have learned is, change the timing around. Sometimes, it's better to get right to the testimony right up front that -- while people are paying attention.

I know we need -- many of these hearings go on for hours and hours. And we need to be able to lay out as many of the salient facts as possible early, so we keep the attention of the American people, so that they will see the evidence and the facts, so that they can judge for themselves.

In the end, impeachment is a very serious and somber place to go. Our caucus takes no joy in it. And we can't go there without the support and the persuasion of the American people, of corruption and wrongdoing by this president that would be worthy of this last resort of impeachment.

So I hope what we have learned is to continue to do what we did, which was, in a disciplined way, put forward the facts that we could, even combating the circus of the Republican members of the committee, but right up front make sure that we get the most salient, important facts in front of the American people.

BLITZER: Republicans, as you know, they want to focus on the motivations of the so-called whistle-blower and on the Bidens' work in Ukraine.

Do Democrats have a strategy to keep these hearings on track? DEAN: Yes. Our strategy is to focus on the facts.

This nonsense about process is -- shows the weakness of the Republicans' hand and the willingness to continue to stand for a president. Instead of saying, you're right, there's something gravely wrong with trying to extort a foreign leader for help in interfering with the next election of this president, instead of saying, no, I get it, there's -- that's basically just very, very wrong, they're going to holler about process, holler about process and who should they have in.

And imagine trying to expose a whistle-blower. There's an important whistle-blower set of statutes that protect courageous people who want us to know things that are going wrong in our government.

So, I call upon my Republican colleagues to stop that and to focus on the facts. If the president has exculpatory information and witnesses, evidence, bring it forward. We have laid out a process that allows them to do that.

But you notice that there's none of that. It's only a pounding of the table over process and the Bidens.

The American people see through that. And we, the Democrats, take this occasion and this journey very, very seriously. But we have to do it. We have to uphold our oath of office to the Constitution, to the rule of law, and say that this president and anyone around him is not above the rule of law.

BLITZER: These will be historic hearings, no doubt about that.

Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, thanks so much for joining us.

DEAN: Thank you, Wolf.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source