CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Pete Aguilar

Interview

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Joining us now Congressman Peter Aguilar, Democrat of California, member of the Select Committee.

Congressman, I really appreciate you being with us. Do you believe the former President's Allies whom you've subpoenaed will actually comply by tomorrow's deadline?

REP. PETER AGUILAR (D-CA): Well, what we believe is that it is every American's opportunity and their duty to respond to a subpoena like this and to tell the truth. That's all we've sought. That's what we're asking. And we feel that if someone wanted to be patriotic and put the Constitution first, they would do just that. They would --

COOPER: But you know the track record of --- in Trump world, I mean, they have proven that not paying attention to subpoenas from the House actually works. It actually, you know, because it was a norm that was followed that people would reply to subpoenas, but it turns out the House doesn't really have the power to enforce them.

AGUILAR: Well, that's true in prior times, and I think that we'll see. Let's see their level of compliance and then we will see what the select committee does from there.

But we have options. We've been very clear about that. That's been reported both civil and criminal options, and we have a Department of Justice who has an open line of communication with us. And so we feel that we have the opportunity to compel them, at some point.

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COOPER: Can you say, if any of the people you have subpoenaed have -- I mean, have you been able to serve some of them? Have you been able to serve Dan Scavino? Because all the reporting we had was that, as of now, he has not been served?

AGUILAR: I've seen that reporting as well, and we're going through the proper steps, and I'm not going to get into all the investigative steps and maybe we need to look in Dan Scavino's mom's basement for him. But, you know, we'll do what we need to do and we have the appropriate help in order to facilitate that.

COOPER: You talked about criminal options. What kind of -- I mean, are you talking about a criminal referral to the Department of Justice? And what -- how would that work?

AGUILAR: That's one of the tools for non-compliance that the committee would have to make a vote and the House would ultimately have to make a vote to send something to the Department of Justice. What we've said and what the Chairman has said very clearly is that

those are options that are available to the committee. But let's step back, let's wait for the deadline, both for material, as well as for their testimony to come before us. Once those deadlines lapse, then the committee as a whole will look at the alternatives and take action that's accordingly.

COOPER: CNN is reporting the former number two official at the Trump Justice Department, Richard Donoghue sat for an interview with your committee this past Friday. Can you tell us anything about that?

AGUILAR: I can tell you that the committee is making progress, that there are staff level meetings and interactions that are informal, as well as interviews that are taking place throughout the month. We'll continue to make progress. Members are engaged in this process.

And our ultimate goal here is to produce a report that lays out exactly what happened on January 5th and January 6th and the events that led up to that. That's our goal. That's our focus and that's what we're attempting to do here.

COOPER: We just learned that the Facebook whistleblower will be meeting with your committee as soon as tomorrow. Has she provided information to your committee? What do you hope to learn from her?

AGUILAR: I'm aware of that reporting, and it is my understanding that she indicated she was going to come and talk to the committee while she was on Capitol Hill earlier today. So, you know, let's allow those conversations, you know, to happen, and let's see what can come of it.

Like I said, there are different levels of meetings and discussions that are being had, some at the staff level and some involving members and investigators that are more formal.

And so we have these tools available to us and we are going to continue to meet with anyone who has information or seeks to provide us information that can help us in ultimately producing a report that talks about the facts, and the importance of making sure that this doesn't happen again.

COOPER: Just lastly, I'm wondering, I mean, I really stopped reading the former President's, you know, statements that they put out. This one did sort of rise to the top of the cesspool of Mar-a-Lago and I saw it and we mentioned it tonight.

When you hear the President saying the real insurrection was Election Day. I know, you know, the bar has been lowered so low for this person. But, you know, to think that a former President of the United States is calling an Election Day that was actually wildly successful in the midst of a pandemic, more people coming out than ever before, Republicans and Democrats voting. It was an extraordinary election. Republicans did very well all across the country, just the President lost.

The idea that he's calling that the real insurrection, what do you think about that? AGUILAR: That his own Homeland Security Department said was a free

and fair election and his Attorney General at the time said the same thing. So you know, it's just so detached from reality, but I think the American public sees right through this. They know the lies and the deception that he stokes to pursue and it's unfortunate and difficult.

But it shows the importance of the work that the select committee is going to do here because we need to separate fact from fiction. And clearly, there is a lot of fiction that comes out of his former tweets and in his current, however, he puts these statements out.

But we're going to get to the truth and we're going to do it in a thoughtful way and to make sure that we take in as much information as possible, and we compel folks to come give that testimony.

COOPER: Congressman Aguilar, I really appreciate it. Thank you very much.

AGUILAR: Thank you.

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