CNN Newsroom: Interview With Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) About Trump Indictment

Interview

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Well, yes, it certainly is an obvious reading of that. He's coming after people. Now I understand some of his supporters said it was in a political sense. But any ordinary person reading that would come to the conclusion that he would be coming after people he perceived as opposed to him. I think seeking this protective order is not unusual. There's a protective order already in the documents case in Miami. And it's not uncommon in criminal cases.

If the special prosecutor is going to share all the evidence with the defendant, which is what he wants to do promptly, he needs to be sure that that won't be put out there in the public to intimidate witnesses, make people afraid to speak. And we do know that the ex- president has a record of threatening and demeaning other judges, their families, lawyers who are prosecuting. So this is not something that is just out of the air.

And I think the special prosecutor has a legitimate concern that people who might speak up or would be afraid, that witnesses' testimony would be chilled. It doesn't prevent the president from speaking. It just prevents him from publicizing the evidence that he receives from the special prosecutor.

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Well, his game is delay. We know that from the way he dealt with us in the January 6th Committee. Always delaying matters, trying to prevent them from being heard. But I think it's interesting that the trial judge in this case didn't allow a delay. I mean, the answer has to be filed by day after tomorrow. Trump's lawyers asked for an extension. She denied it. And so a decision will be made quite soon.

He's not going to be able to engage in unreasonable delay unless the trial court judge goes along with it, and that's not her reputation. She's no nonsense.

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Well, I don't know what to make of it. I guess he believes that his supporters are further energized when he's charged with a crime. I think that's kind of weird. But perhaps it's true. It has nothing to do with what the wheels of justice have to do. If prosecutors feel that he and have evidence to support that he's committed a crime, they have to charge that. They can't weigh the politics of this thing.

Now it's pretty clear, I mean, he doesn't have strong defenses on many of these indictments. It looks like his biggest defense is to try and get elected and pardon himself. So that's another factor I think that's going on here.

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Yes. I did, actually. Starting at the beginning, it was the tale that we were able to tell through the evidence we uncovered almost completely. There were a few things that we did not uncover. For example, Mike Pence would not talk to us so we didn't know he'd taken contemporaneous notes. We didn't know that the president said he was too honest when he refused to go along with the president in overturning the election.

We didn't know that there was a discussion about calling out the army to American cities if he succeeded in overturning the election. But for the most part, the scheme that the president, then president was at the center of, the multifaceted effort to overturn the election was what we uncovered. And I think it probably was of help to the special prosecutor. Obviously he would have to interview the witnesses himself.

He couldn't rely on our interviews. But it looks like he went ahead and did that. And it was a pretty quick process for a federal investigation. Really less than a year. And now we have these very serious allegations that have been filed.

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Well, possibly. I mean, when I read that, the first thing I thought was, you know, number one, Pence refused to lie and to violate his oath. We already knew that. But, you know, the president was asking him to be dishonest, and I think it was really in essence to ask and to be part of the president's dishonest scheme. It's almost an admission of dishonesty on the part of Trump.

Yes, we would have liked to have heard from the vice president, although we did hear from his people and learned a lot. The other witness we don't know about, it doesn't look like Mark Meadows fits the description of any of the co-conspirators that are mentioned in the indictment. Now I don't know whether something about him is going to come later or whether he's a witness. If he is a witness, he knows a great deal.

And we did try to speak to him. I mean, he was with Trump throughout the riot, at every step of the way, as the plot was made. So he has a lot of information.

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Well, of course we wanted to talk to him. I've never really understood why he provided all of these documents, text messages and the like, and then decided not to cooperate. What happened? Whether President Trump, then President Trump prevailed upon him, I just don't know. Obviously, the information he did provide was very enlightening and we certainly wanted to follow up with him by interviewing him but we were unable to do that. If Jack Smith is able to do that, I believe he will find out a lot.

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Thank you. You have a good weekend.

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