CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Chris Van Hollen
Interview
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COOPER: All right. Phil Mattingly, thanks very much. Just before air I spoke with one of the jurors in the trial, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen about the busy day of deal making we saw, also about the series of Democratic amendments that failed largely on party line votes.
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COOPER: Senator Van Hollen, you introduced one of the four amendments tonight, can you just explain what that amendment would have required and what do you think of what took place today.
SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Yes, Anderson, it's good to be with you. My amendment was to guarantee a fair and impartial trial and process. So, what I said was that, the chief justice of the United States who is the presiding officer will make the decisions on whether or not witnesses that are requested are going to be relevant to the trial, or documents that we want to have introduced.
So, both sides would have an opportunity to make their case for witnesses and documents to the chief justice of the United States, and he would make that ruling. Just like judges make those rulings every day in courtrooms across the country.
But in this case, Republicans, if they didn't like the ruling, they could have still overruled it by a majority vote. So, there was still a failsafe. They didn't even want the chief justice in the first instance to call the balls and strikes as he saw them.
And that was their last chance to give us a fair trial. They failed and they just made this United States Senate the first Senate to have an impeachment trial with no witnesses and documents, the first one in the history of our republic. It's disgraceful what happened today on the floor of the United States Senate.
COOPER: This argument from Senator Lamar Alexander which is essentially he doesn't agree with what the president did, he thinks, you know, the case was proven, he thinks he did what it seems obvious that he did do. Yet he doesn't think it rises to the level of impeachment.
Does the argument make sense to you? And do you think that's an argument that other Republicans, other Republican senators who may believe that would actually admit to or do you think they will just say, well, they'll stick with the -- it doesn't rise to impeachment but they won't say that it wasn't a perfect call?
[23:09:55]
VAN HOLLEN: Well, that's right. There are two issues here. One is, a Senator Alexander may have reached the conclusion that the House managers met the proof on all the elements of abuse of power.
And so we should pause to let that sink in because this is a Republican senator who said, yes, the House managers are right that the president and his entire team are lying about the fact that when they say they did not withhold the aid, Senator Alexander say, you bet, you did withhold the aid in order to get these political purposes.
But you know what, there are a lot of other senators there who still apparently claim that they're -- they don't know what all the facts are. And for them to vote against documents and witnesses is a dereliction of their duty to find the truth.
And then there's the question of Senator Alexander's conclusion because he says, wow, I just found that the president did all these terrible things and abused power. But he talked about it like it was jaywalking. He said maybe an error in judgment.
And so that leaves a very, very low bar and standard that allows future presidents to run rush shod over the constitutional order. So, I found no -- there was no sort of gratification in that conclusion both denying witnesses on the one hand but providing for no kind of accountability on the other.
COOPER: Is there anything stopping him? Because he still says it was a perfect call. He says he did nothing wrong. There's no ramifications for him thus far. So why wouldn't he do it again?
VAN HOLLEN: No, they just took the guardrails off. They've just said President Trump you can be a serial violator of the Constitution of the United States. And this could just be the beginning.
And I wouldn't be surprised at all now if President Trump continues to seek, actively seek foreign interference in U.S. elections. After all he's been saying, hey, China, you know, help me out, hey, Ukraine, help me out.
So, this is a very, very dangerous precedent and the Senate Republicans, without providing any guardrails or accountability, have created a reckless presidency.
COOPER: Yes, Senator Chris Van Hollen, I appreciate you being with us, thank you.
VAN HOLLEN: Good to be with you.
(END VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: We've got certainly a lot more ground to cover tonight,
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