CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Madeleine Dean

Interview

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BLITZER: Let's get some more on all of the breaking news.

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

Congresswoman, thanks so much for joining us.

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): Thank you.

BLITZER: How do you think the attorney general will use this extraordinary declassification authority the president has granted him?

DEAN: What a dangerous conversation that you all had to just report, as I sit here listening to the news of the day, the dangerous, erratic behavior of this president, the petty schoolyard bullying that he engages in.

And then, when he doesn't like the outcome of the Mueller report, he covers it up. And when the cover-up isn't enough, and he's been told by two federal courts that he has to produce these documents, he then tries another distracting and dangerous tack of saying to the Attorney General Barr, disclose all kinds of information.

[18:10:00]

Let's remember where this started. This was a counterintelligence investigation about Russia, our foe, interfering with the 2016 election. That's where it started.

It did not have to involve Mr. Trump or his associates or his campaign at all, if they had chosen not to be connected in any way. Instead they chose 180 contacts with the Russian government or persons connected to Russia in terms of interfering with this election on behalf of Mr. Trump, to the harm of Mrs. Clinton and, frankly, to the harm of our American election system.

That's where this started. And then where did it grow, sadly, and metastasize? It metastasized into what was volume two of the Mueller report, a president now under investigation, so worried about himself being under investigation, that he has to go and try to cover it up. He has to try to obstruct.

BLITZER: What impact does it have when the president directs the attorney general to investigate what the president earlier in the day described as United Kingdom, Australia and Ukraine ties to the origins of this investigation?

DEAN: I don't know, to be honest.

I didn't follow that line of argument by the president, as I often have a hard time following his line of argument. And, of course, you ask a central question, which is the actor whom he put in charge of doing this, and it's Mr. Barr.

Sadly -- I mean sadly -- Mr. Barr, who has sworn an oath of office to uphold the Constitution on behalf of our rule of law, the highest law enforcement officer in our country, is not acting on our behalf. He is acting on behalf of a president in search of cover-up after cover- up after cover-up.

I hope -- and I know how important it is that you document the president's behavior and erratic decision-making and, of course, what he's doing globally that is harmful.

But I hope also -- I just came back from a week in Washington. We have been passing substantive legislation after substantive legislation. And we have a Senate sitting on their hands doing nothing with it. We passed important gun legislation that will save lives, two background check bills that will save lives. Nothing there.

We passed For the People.

BLITZER: Right.

DEAN: We had a nine-hour committee hearing for Judiciary passing three important bills regarding dreamers and temporary protective status, particularly for those vulnerable folks here from Venezuela.

We're doing substantive work. The president is involved in distraction and cover-up. I'm optimistic we will continue our work.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: The president says, Congresswoman, it's ridiculous, his word, ridiculous for Robert Mueller to testify before your committee, the Judiciary Committee, when he already published his 450-or-so-page report.

This comes after the chairman of your committee, Jerry Nadler, said Mueller would like to testify, but only privately, behind closed doors, maybe make an opening statement in public.

Are you open to that option?

DEAN: Well, I know that our committee, Mr. Nadler, the chairman, is talking directly with Mr. Mueller and Mueller's people.

What I heard was the latest iteration was -- and I'm sympathetic to this -- that special counsel Mueller doesn't want to come and have a spectacle, as we have seen members of the other side of the aisle entertain a circus-like atmosphere when we have anybody in when we're doing our duty of oversight.

So, I understand his interest in doing that. However, one of the reasons he said he would have it in private was that he would also make sure that a transcript would be provided.

My preference is that it become -- it is before the American public. The public will see the circus for what it is, and it will see the creditability and the extraordinary work that Mr. Mueller did.

The other thing that your reporting suggests and the language of the president is, the president has not read this 448-page report, which we've only seen in redacted form, because, if he read it, he would understand that his false banner in the Rose Garden the other day, no collusion, no obstruction, is simply a falsehood. And he posted a billboard of falsehood in our Rose Garden.

BLITZER: Your committee, the Judiciary Committee, has issued these subpoenas to former White House officials Hope Hicks and Annie Donaldson for documents and testimony, Hope Hicks, the former communications director.

Annie Donaldson, she was chief of staff to the former White House counsel Don McGahn. And they want her contemporaneous notes, which, as you know, featured prominently in the Mueller report. How likely is it that you will get that testimony?

DEAN: Again, I hope that they will understand that it is our constitutional duty of oversight to make sure that we get the facts before the American people and hold this president accountable before the law, because no man is so high as to get above the law.

[18:15:00]

But I have to tell you, we have a pattern here. And so we have asked for documents early in June, and then later in June, to have the two women come in and testify before our committee. We have a pattern where we have seen nothing but obstruction by this president, by this administration, by this attorney general.

So I don't hold out a whole lot of hope, and I hope they do the right thing. They're American citizens first.

BLITZER: You have seen over the past couple of days how things have escalated between President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They used to actually have a fairly civil relationship. Does that worry you?

DEAN: It worries me on behalf of the president because it shows a strange, erratic nature in this president.

The president is under investigation. Unfortunately, he has to just accept and face that. And why doesn't he let everybody in so he can clear his name?

But we also have to run our government. We have to pass laws like the dreamers act, like the gun violence act. We passed out of the House important health care legislation to protect preexisting conditions. Imagine. We are being met -- the American people have asked us for this, and we are about being met by a president who only cares for himself.

So I worry on behalf of the president. I hope he can calm down. I don't worry on behalf of Speaker Pelosi. I was with her today at a local community college with my colleague Mary Gay Scanlon, who also serves on Judiciary.

And she was asked about all of these things and how can you possibly get along with this president? She's a better leader than that. She will shepherd this Congress through. And I hope the president is persuaded to actually do the work of the people, not the work of his own self-interest.

BLITZER: What do you think, realistically, Congresswoman, you can accomplish between now and the 2020 election? The Democrats have the majority in the House. The Senate is controlled by a 53-47 Republican majority, the White House obviously, the president of the United States.

What is realistic?

DEAN: What's realistic is, I think over the course of the next two years or whatever we will have left of this, this Congress and then the upcoming election cycle, is that the American people will see a House controlled by Democrats robustly passing legislation for the good of the people, not for self-interest, being obstructed as much as the minority can, but they're not being very effective.

But they also will be observing very, very closely the operation of this Senate. That's what we must shine a light on. We are passing important legislation after important legislation to protect America, to move Americans forward, to grow our economy, to improve health care.

BLITZER: All right.

DEAN: And we have a Senate being paid and sitting on their hands. I hope they will address that.

BLITZER: Congressman Madeleine Dean, thanks so much for joining us.

DEAN: Thank you for having me.

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