CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: "Interview with Rep. Peter Welch"

Interview

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right, at any moment, the White House is expected to release what it says is the unredacted log of the president's phone call with the president of Ukraine. And sometime today we should also get that whistle-blower complaint that there's been so much fighting over. Both developments, significant.

This as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially launches an impeachment inquiry into the president.

Meantime, the House Intelligence Committee is preparing to question the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire. That will happen at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. This is after Maguire told lawmakers that he couldn't appear last week, didn't receive enough notice.

Congressman Peter Welch is with me. He, of course, sits on that committee.

Good morning, sir.

REP. PETER WELCH (D-VT): Good morning.

HARLOW: So let's begin with impeachment. You called for this back in July after the Mueller report came out, before Mueller testified. Adam Schiff, the chairman of your committee, did not, but he has this week. And here's what he said on CNN this morning. This is the, quote, most serious misconduct of the president thus far, referring to Ukraine.

Do you agree with him?

WELCH: I do. You know it's egregious, even for Donald Trump, because it puts his campaign ahead of our national security. That's number one.

Number two, it's easy to understand. The Mueller report was somewhat confused but this is pretty easy to understand. The president basically withheld aide in order to try to extract assistance for his campaign, which put the national security of the American people in jeopardy. HARLOW: Well, you're saying that there -- but here's the thing,

congressman, you're going a bridge further than the facts do right now, right? We know that he pressed for an investigation of Biden and his son. We know that he withheld $400 million in aid for Ukraine around the same time. We just don't have the quid pro quo.

So my question to you this morning -- because we're going to get a lot of information today in the next 48 hours. If the transcript, the log of that call of the president of Ukraine and President Trump doesn't show that there was a quid pro quo and if the whistle-blower complaint doesn't bear out to show that, does that exculpate the president?

WELCH: It wouldn't exculpate him. I mean those are obviously very relevant and the president withheld them initially and now we're going to get them and that's a good thing.

But here's what you do know by the president's own admissions.

Number one, you know that he made a phone call to the president of Ukraine in which he asked the president to do an investigation that would benefit his campaign. It had -- his request about the Biden investigation had nothing to do with American national security.

Number two, you know that before he made that phone call, he directed Mick Mulvaney, his chief of staff, to sit on the $391 million of aid.

And, number three, what you know is that there was administration involvement in telling Mr. Maguire, the director of national intelligence, not to comply with the statute that directed that within seven days he provide the whistle-blower complaint to the intelligence committees.

[09:35:07]

So those three things are things that the president himself has admitted.

HARLOW: So -- OK. So that, to you, Congressman, sounds like it is enough for you on those three points to move forward on impeachment. But there is some trepidation among Democrats, some Democrats this morning, privately, to CNN, are telling us that they fear that Nancy Pelosi moved too quickly on this, that it would have been more prudent had she waited for the log of the call to come out, for the whistle- blower complaint to come out, for the testimony to happen tomorrow before making this jump. And the president just tweeted to that effect this morning as well.

Should she have waited?

WELCH: I think she has waited. She's been extremely patient. And, as you know, Pelosi has been the one that's been holding the caucus back from proceeding on impeachment. I think that what happened here is the three things I just mentioned were shocking to her and it was a level of misconduct, putting the national security in jeopardy for political benefit.

HARLOW: Because -- because here's -- here's --

WELCH: But there is going to be risk on it. There's no question.

HARLOW: There's going to be risk for Democrats politically you're saying.

Hold that thought. Tell me more about that on the other side of this because here is your fellow member of Congress on the Intel Committee, Republican Congressman Chris Stewart of Utah. Here's how he sees it.

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REP. CHRIS STEWART (R-UT): I'm not at all surprised. I mean they've been trying to impeach this president since literally before he was inaugurated. And, Wolf, I think they're going to regret it.

They announced this rather than wait less than 24 hours to read the transcript and see if there was a reason for this. And Ms. Pelosi came on and she unequivocally said, this president has broken his oath of office. He has betrayed national security. How in the world does she know that?

This inquiry hasn't even begun. For her to make a statement as definitive as that, that's why the American people are going to view this and roll their eyes.

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HARLOW: You've said there's risk for Democrats here. How grave is the risk?

WELCH: Well, there's -- there's risk either way. I mean the fact is that the president's conduct, particularly in this case, goes beyond anything we've ever seen, even with President Trump. And there is an enormous amount of concern among many of the American people that we hold him accountable and uphold the constitutional standard of government.

But there's going to be a huge pushback. Mr. Stewart I think reflected accurately what we're going to be hearing from the Republican side, who will try to diminish what the president did. My hope, by the way, is that on our committee, the Intelligence Committee, that we're together, Republicans and Democrats, in demanding that we do get the whistle-blower report.

You know, there should be --

HARLOW: Can --

WELCH: Go ahead.

HARLOW: I was just going to say, can you -- because we're running out of time, can you just give us a quick sense of the most pressing question you have tomorrow for the acting DNI?

WELCH: Well, there's a lot of noise here, so I think I heard you. But the question I think for Mr. Maguire is, the law says that you are required, you shall, within seven days, transmit that report. Why didn't you do it? Who intervened? Who told you not to and why? That's the big question.

HARLOW: Yes. It's an important one. We will all be watching. We'll have special coverage from D.C. on the hearing tomorrow.

Congressman Peter Welch, I really appreciate your time this morning. Thank you so much.

WELCH: Thank you.

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