CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D), Connecticut

Interview

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BURNETT: Tonight, Democrats suing to block Matt Whitaker from serving as attorney general. Three senators filing a lawsuit that claims President Trump's appointment of Whitaker is unconstitutional because he was not confirmed by the Senate.

OUTFRONT now, one of those three senators, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the former attorney general of the state. He sits on the Judiciary Committee.

Senator, good to have you with me tonight. I appreciate your time.

All right. Let's just be blunt here, is this all about politics or do you genuinely think you can win a case?

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: We can win this case, we should win this case, we will win this case, because what the president is doing is an end run around the Constitution. It's the highest law of the land and it provides that he very simply cannot install a person like Matt Whitaker, who is his lackey and lap dog when the office really requires qualifications.

And Matt Whitaker lacks the key qualification, which is approval by the Senate. He's depriving us of doing our job, he's depriving the American people of a system of checks and balances, which is designed to protect against this kind of unqualified nominee.

BURNETT: All right. Your case has been assigned to Judge Trevor N. McFadden. He's a Trump appointee, 2017. You voted in favor of him.

Does this mean you will trust his ruling no matter what he doe does?

BLUMENTHAL: If he rules against us on whatever ground, we will appeal it, and I believe that we will win if this case goes to the United States Supreme Court, because there is no question that the highest law of the land, the United States Constitution applies here, and the Supreme Court has an obligation to apply it.

And make no mistake, what's at stake here is not just Matt Whitaker, but all of the decisions of the Department of Justice, the special council investigation. He's shown himself to be hostile to that investigation. He's provided a blueprint for strangling and stifling it.

BURNETT: Yes.

BLUMENTHAL: And the stakes here are very high.

BURNETT: Now, he has, right? He said he thinks it's not worth anything. That he could starve it from money or someone in the role he now has, could starve it from money. So, it no longer exists. You're right about that.

But Lindsey Graham tells us, Whitaker has used all that harsh language but has now assured Graham that he would, quote, use regular order when it comes to the Mueller investigation. Do you think Graham is right? You know, you say a lot of things but then you're given a position of great power and authority, and you take it very seriously, and you're going to do the right thing.

Is it possible that that is true? And that he's not a threat?

BLUMENTHAL: That's exactly the kind of question that needs to be answered in a Senate hearing. In a vote, in meetings with Whitaker, that's the process that takes place, when the Senate advises and consents.

You know, Alexander Hamilton warned that the president might appoint people of such insignificance and pliancy that they would become mere obsequies instruments of his pleasure.

This man is an instrument of Donald Trump in doing his bidding in a slow motion Saturday Night Massacre, cutting funds, cutting authority, and that's what we need to determine in the United States Senate if there were advice and consent.

BURNETT: So, let me ask you, because, you know, we've been talking a lot about decorum, right? The president, you know, using an expletive to refer to Adam Schiff and many other things, that he has done in that vein.

You and your colleagues do use some very derogative terms in your statement to defend the lawsuit. You just said two of them. You called him a lap dog and a lackey in this interview. But in the statement, you refer to Whitaker as a constitutional nobody and Senator Whitehouse calls him a lackey, which, of course, you just did verbally.

How is that rhetoric any different from that of the president?

BLUMENTHAL: This rhetoric is in legal papers, a complaint that we have filed in the United States district court. What matters here are not our words, but the law.

BURNETT: Yes.

BLUMENTHAL: And --

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BURNETT: But you're not worried about words like lackey and lap dog minimizing what you're saying and make it sound, you know, more personal and more like the president is rightly criticized for using those words?

BLUMENTHAL: The courts are going to decide whether or not we have been deprived of our right. It is our right of senators to do our job, and we're doing that job because we were elected to do that job.

So, the president's depriving the American people of that right by doing this constitutional end run. Those terms, those laws are going to be critical in the courts consideration. Not his rhetoric or even our rhetoric.

BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time as always, Senator Blumenthal.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.

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