CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) Is Interviewed About Issue Of Witness, Specifically John Bolton, John Kelly

Interview

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Let's get some more on all of this. Joining us now, Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, he's a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator, thanks so much for joining us. I know that there was just a meeting that you and your Republican colleagues had with the Republican leader, the Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is there an agreement amongst you, all of you on the issue of witness specifically John Bolton?

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): You know I think one of the things that the House managers emphasize was their case was overwhelming and that they had everything they needed to convict the President. So, it would seem that we either believe or we don't. If we believe them that their case is overwhelming they should need more witnesses.

[17:10:13]

But as far as bringing in Bolton I think we need to ask, is he disinterested or neutral or dispassionate witness. And I would say that he is a witness very interested in making a lot of money right now. Month ago he was against testifying, now that his book complete and available for $29.95 he's all for testifying. So I think we have to take with a grain of salt his testimony if he were to come in.

I think that probably will be 51 votes. I don't have any inside knowledge. It's just my estimate. But I think there will 51 votes against hearing more witnesses. We've heard dozens of witnesses, hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents and hundreds of hours of repetitive testimony. I don't know what more we could hear.

We use everything we could possibly hear and if people think that somehow the President did ask Bolton to do it, they are welcome to make the judgment. He's going to say it publicly anyway, he has already said it. So I think we have enough to make a judgment.

BLITZER: Well, do you think Senator, that John Bolton, the former National Security Adviser to the President, if he is subpoenaed and he comes in and testify under oath he would lie in a -- during a Senate impeachment trial?

PAUL: I think it's not so much about lying. It is so much that he is changing his attitude towards executive privilege and executive power.

For his entire life he has been an advocate for virtually unlimited executive power, that's been one of my complaints about him, unlimited executive authority. A month ago he was against, you know, divulging private conversations he had with the President and now he's for it now that he has a book out. I just think that has to be considered and examining what his motives are with this.

Whether he lie or not, I don't know. What I can say is that Professor Dershowitz said last night that even if the President asked the aid to be delayed for, you know, the fact that he wanted an investigation of corruption, that's not an impeachable offense. I've been saying for months now the actual legislation that gave the money to Ukraine commanded the President to examine whether or not the country of Ukraine was making progress on corruption.

BLITZER: Well, what if the demand as John Bolton is suggestion in his draft manuscript is not necessarily the overall issue of corruption, but that the Ukrainian government had to announce an investigation into the Bidens.

PAUL: I guess the way the law is written, it says corruption. It doesn't say corruption unless that corruption involves somebody that might be running against him. So this has been the fallacy of the talking points of the Democrats for months and months. They think the rule should be written that OK you're allowed to investigate corruption, you're allowed to withhold the aid for corruption unless that corruption involves the Democrat. No one could write a rule that way.

They've been saying to the local Republican sheriff, you're allowed to go after crime unless you're Democrat opponent son commits a crime. That's sort of a crazy notion of the way we would write laws.

BLITZER: Some of your Republican colleagues want to at least read Bolton's manuscript before making a decision. Now you dismissed that idea. Would you be open to private deposition of John Bolton under oath without necessarily going into public testimony.

PAUL: I think the question is whether or not the President pause on foreign aid is an impeachable offense. President Obama paused foreign aid twice, once to the Egyptians and he never gave the military aid to the Ukrainians. He also gave aid to el-Sisi, a general who took over Egypt in a military coup. All of these things, I think, were against the will of Congress and yet nobody talked about impeaching President Obama.

I specifically had a vote to withhold the aid to Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood, when they took over in Egypt, I lost 86 to 13. So the will of the Senate was not to stop the aid and President Obama stopped the aid. Now I think stopping the aid was a good thing, but it was against the will of Congress, it was against the law. Restarting the aid was against the law and yet nobody wants to talk about whether President Obama obeyed the law.

BLITZER: But it's one thing to stop U.S. foreign aid if a country is doing something inappropriate, if they're dealing inappropriately for example with their own people or taking steps that are counter to U.S. national interest, then any president of United States is fully authorized by Congress to go ahead and suspend that aid. In this particular case, the alligation of Bolton and others are making is that the aid was stopped for political purposes because the President want a so-called dirt of Joe Biden.

PAUL: But over the last 24 hours we've heard from the President's team say over and over again the President was concern with too many things, burden sharing that shouldn't just be always us doling out money. And I've heard him public and in private dozens and dozens of time rail about all the money we give away to people, and he was concerned about corruption, not only the corruption of the Bidens and I think Hunter Biden making a million dollars a year while his dad is getting the prosecutor fired does rise to the level of corruption, but he was concerned with general corruption.

[17:15:07]

And when you ask the witnesses that Adam Schiff brought forward, he hand selected witnesses and would allow no the presidential witnesses. But each one of his witnesses said that yes the administration had been reviewing corruption not just of the Bidens, but corruption overall in Ukraine.

There is not a person in the State Department who won't tell you that the Ukrainians have had a corruption problem when they had Russian influence and when they've had Western influence. You name it. Any of the last half dozen presidents in Ukraine have had allegations of corruption. It's an ongoing problem and the President was concerned about it.

BLITZER: The former White House Chief Staff, retired General John Kelly says, he believes John Bolton over the President for all practical purposes. What does that say about the President that his own former White House Chief of Staff doesn't necessarily trust him on this? PAUL: I think disappointing and it shows, I guess, bad judgment in picking him in the first place. I think it was also a bad judgment to get John Bolton. I opposed the picking of John Bolton for a policy reason, because I think he wants war in too many places and things, regime changes. It's just a walk in the park. And so I've always been opposed to that sort of pro war caucus kind of mentality of Bolton and his compadres, but I don't know. I'm disappointed in the whole thing.

I do think that the President's team made a good point that you shouldn't impeach a president over policy differences. All of these people in the bureaucracy of the State Departments hate the President because he's an unorthodox. They hated him talking to North Korea. They hate him offering to have talks even with Iran in the midst of all of this.

Should they hate this unorthodox approach to things? They're used to sort of this interagency consensus developed by bureaucrats and talking points. And then they can't believe that the President didn't use his talking points.

And so this is what it is. It's a bureaucracy pushing back against the President, but that should be decided in election. If people don't like President Trump and they don't like the historically low unemployment we have, they can vote for another president. But impeachment, this is ruining the country, because what's going to happen is impeachment is now going to be the tool of any simple majority that doesn't like a president of the opposite party.

BLITZER: But I know that you got to run, but do you believe there will be 51 votes for John Bolton to testify?

PAUL: I think that I'd say eight chances out of 10 that we have 51 votes. That's my estimate.

BLITZER: All right, Senator Rand Paul, as usual, thanks so much for joining us.

PAUL: Thank you.

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