CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Rep. John Garamendi

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

KEILAR: No, it certainly isn't. Admiral Kirby, thank you so much for your insight there. And joining us now is Democratic Congressman John Garamendi of California. He's a member of the Armed Services Committee. Sir, thanks for joining us.

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): Good to be with you, Brianna.

KEILAR: It is great to have you. And we learned from the Eddie Gallagher trial that some of his fellow Navy S.E.A.L.s had deep misgivings about his conduct. That is what led to there being a trial. What is your reaction to these leaked videos?

GARAMENDI: This entire incident is terribly sad and actually very troublesome for the military at large and certainly for the S.E.A.L.s. There are million - more than a million men and women -- actually 2 million men and women out there serving today all around the world honorably, doing the very best they can and this entire incident tends to deflect from them the honor that they deserve and the service that they're providing to this country. Where this situation goes, it is basically now become a political situation with the president using Mr. Gallagher - Chief Gallagher for political purposes and perhaps Gallagher is also doing the same for the president.

And so, it becomes a very sad and unfortunate incident in the entire military history. And will it have an impact going forward? I really believe that the command structure, leaving the president out of this for a moment, the command structure for the military has to and will continue to insist upon honor, upon dignity, upon the rule of military law, and discipline in all of its procedures.

[17:10:09]

KEILAR: I do want to talk to you as well about impeachment, the very pressing issue that you'll be facing when you come back to town.

GARAMENDI: Sure.

KEILAR: There is this impasse over the impeachment trial in the Senate as - this is something that Speaker Pelosi has been withholding the articles on sending to the Senate and it is really become this opportunity to get under President Trump's skin. Does the president's fuming, his sort of seething that we're seeing on Twitter, does that validate Nancy Pelosi's strategy?

GARAMENDI: Well, I don't think Nancy Pelosi's strategy had anything to do with getting under the president's skin but rather to provide whatever assurances were possible that there would actually be a fair trial in the Senate. And that fair trial is basically one in which testimony, written interrogatives available from witnesses that could collaborate or give additional facts to the charges that were laid out in the House impeachment.

So it is not about getting under the president's skin at all, it is about trying the very best we can, all 535 of us, with a very important responsibility here, that is the impeachment responsibility. We carried out that responsibility in the House. It is now up to the Senate to have an open trial in which testimony from key witnesses is available, documents made available. Keep in mind the president has laid down an absolute stonewall, refusing all subpoenas to the White House, to the Office of Management and Budget, to the State Department, as well as to the Department of Defense. That is just not tolerable. It is not at all part of what our Constitution requires that the president be forthcoming with the witnesses and the information so that there could be a real trial, not a sham.

KEILAR: But this strategy of hers withholding the articles when really it is possible she doesn't have leverage at all over Mitch McConnell other than to do something there in the public court of opinion, it looks political to many observers. Why hasn't that deterred the speaker?

GARAMENDI: Well, I don't think it is a political thing. It is a real -- a real issue that she has to take on and that is the House of Representatives is required to assign certain members of the House to present the indictment that is the impeachment, to the Senate. That is to manage the trial for the House of Representatives. She needs to know, will there be witnesses? If no witnesses, then that requires perhaps a different kind of presentation. So she has to line up the appropriate people that can best present the case.

Right now she has no idea, nor does the American public have any idea how this trial will be conducted. Will there be witnesses? Will there be information, emails, other data, and by the way where the full transcript, that is the actual voice transcript of the president's call to Mr. -- to the president of Ukraine? Where is it? Well, it is in a secret server, not in Ukraine. It's in the secret server in the White House. All of that information should be presented at the trial in the Senate.

So the speaker has a very important responsibility providing the appropriate most skilled members of the House to make the presentation to the Senate. Right now she doesn't know what to do.

KEILAR: So you're saying there is a recording of the call. Like a physical audio recording of the call that's being withheld? Am I understanding you right?

GARAMENDI: That is my guess.

KEILAR: Is that your guess or do you have a reason --

GARAMENDI: We know that there is a transcript.

KEILAR: There is a transcript. We know that's been moved to the more secure server. Do you have factual reason to believe that there is an actual audio recording of the phone call?

GARAMENDI: I do not have evidence of that. But that would be a question that I would think that the Senate would want to know. Is there an actual recording? Now the transcript -- partial transcript that was made available by the White House has many of the -- much of the conversation eliminated, deleted, and it is not an actual word-by- word of all of the conversation and that could be extremely important and might exonerate the president. Or maybe it would further provide information that he is indeed guilty of trying to bribe or extort Mr. Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, to engage in what is then illegal action that is interfering in the American -- foreign government interfering in the American election.

[17:15:04]

KEILAR: OK. Yes, I just wanted to make sure on the audio thing because that was the first time I've heard something of that. I wanted to know if there was a concrete reason to believe that. I want to talk about the --

GARAMENDI: I would think there would be.

KEILAR: We do not know. And it sounds like you're not sure that there is. I just want to be very clear with our viewers. It is a question.

GARAMENDI: You're one of the very first questions I would ask on the Senate floor. Send us the tape.

KEILAR: OK. Mitch McConnell has faced a lot of criticism for saying that he's working closely with the White House, saying that he's not an impartial juror in the Senate trial but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said actually something that was pretty similar during the Clinton impeachment before the Senate vote.

Listen to what Schumer is saying now and listen to what he said in 1999.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): The Republican leader said, proudly, quote, "I'm not an impartial juror. I'm not impartial about this at all." This is an astonishing admission of partisanship.

LARRY KING, TELEVISION AND RADIO HOST: Anybody taking an oath tomorrow can have a pre-opinion. It's not a jury box.

SCHUMER: Many do.

This is not a criminal trial. But this is something that the Founding Fathers decided to put in a body that was susceptible to the whims of politics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Why should voters take his complaint and he's really leading the charge with it about McConnell if 20 years ago he was making kind of a similar case that Mitch McConnell is making today. Why?

GARAMENDI: Well, I think the issue is not what these 100 senators bring to the floor of the Senate as they sit as jurors, but rather the information that is presented to them while they are sitting there during the trial. The information that has been compiled by the House is sufficient to bring charges. We need to have additional information brought forth in the trial. We need to have the testimony of McCabe, of Bolton, of Pompeo, of others that were said to be involved in this issue. All of that information should be available.

Would it change the preconceived views that people have coming into the trial is this quite possibly, maybe to the benefit of the president. It might very well be to the detriment of the president but that is what a fair trial would bring to this situation. It would give not only the Senate but the American public the opportunity to have more fully and completely, understand of what the president did, why it was illegal, why it was an abuse of his power to try to assist him in his re-election campaign.

All of that information should be part of the public trial that will take place in the Senate. And certainly Mr. -- Senator McConnell was explicitly clear he's bringing to that trial a clear prejudice. Now Schumer perhaps did that back in the Clinton period. But the senators need to hear all of the information, all of the witnesses, all of the tapes, if there is one, or at least the full transcript, which surely there must be, and they need to hear from these key people that were clearly involved in this entire Ukraine episode.

KEILAR: Sir, thank you so much. Congressman John Garamendi.

GARAMENDI: My pleasure. Thank you.

KEILAR: Still ahead -

GARAMENDI: Happy New Year.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source