CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Hakeem Jeffries

Interview

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COOPER: Preet Bharara and Ben Ginsberg, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Joining us now is Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who served as an impeachment manager in the former President's first trial. Congressman Jeffries, thanks for being with us. What do you make of the Trump team's legal argument that the trial is unconstitutional? Because Donald Trump is no longer President and his speech is protected, because there's no proof that he was wrong about election fraud?

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Well, it's certainly a settled question that the trial can proceed even when a former Executive Branch, elected official or administrative official has stepped down.

The very nature of an insurrection by definition, Anderson, is that it's going to come at the end of a President's term as part of the effort to halt the peaceful transfer of power. And so it would defy logic and accountability if someone could simply halt a trial, because there was a failed coup attempt, or failed attempt at sedition and insurrection, and therefore, escape accountability. And so, I think that that is an argument that is not compelling at all. And with respect to the alleged truthfulness of the President's

remarks, every reasonable person in America knows that Joe Biden won the election. He won the election by more than 80 million votes. He is governing now on behalf of people who voted for him and voted against him working on tough challenges on behalf of the American people, and that it was Donald Trump, who was the individual who refused to accept the results and radicalized millions of people, which resulted in the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6th.

COOPER: I mean, the idea that the defense team would include the false and disproven election fraud claims in his formal response to Congress and state insufficient evidence exists to make a determination on those claims. I mean, Ben Ginsberg was saying that that's just ridiculous. I mean, those claims have been rejected in, you know, some 60 court cases.

JEFFRIES: We have a client in the former President, twice impeached, a President and a disgraced President, who was directing his legal team to do his bidding, and carry out this narrative fantasy of the presidency being stolen. The big lie continues to be perpetrated by Donald Trump, and that is why we are where we are.

And the hope is that there will be a enough decent and fair-minded Senate Republicans are going to follow the facts, apply to law, be guided by the Constitution, and let the chips fall where they may once the compelling evidence by the impeachment managers is presented and hold him accountable for the charge of inciting a violent insurrection.

COOPER: I mean, the rules of the trial, as you know, are still being finalized. Senator Lindsey Graham on FOX News yesterday said that if Democrats hold a lengthy trial, including calling witnesses, it could open up quote, "A Pandora's box." What do you make of that?

JEFFRIES: Well, I think Lindsey Graham is divorced from reality at this particular point in time, because he is no longer in charge of making the decision along with his colleagues on the other side of the aisle in suppressing the ability of witnesses to be called or threatening to call irrelevant witnesses. That was the game that the Republican senators played during the last impeachment trial when they controlled the majority.

But there's a new sheriff in town as it relates to what's going on in the Senate and fairness is going to dictate the witnesses that I believe will be called in this trial. And that's a good thing for truth, for justice, and for the American people.

COOPER: Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

JEFFRIES: Thank you, Anderson.

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