CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Blumenthal

Interview

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COOPER: All right. Shimon, appreciate it. Shimon Prokupecz.

Joining me now is Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, member of the Judiciary Committee.

So, if -- what do you -- if the idea of Rod Rosenstein staying is to be a, quote/unquote, heat shield as this source has said, who is he staying to be a heat shield for?

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTAHAL (D-CT), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Well, Robert Mueller is a prosecutor with vast experience in very heated prosecutions. And so he's pretty combat tested. The idea that he needs a buffer or a heat shield is somewhat surprising.

But the fact is politically, he needs some backup. And I will tell you, members of Congress will have his back, if the president goes after him, as is likely to happen. We've seen what the president did when the offices of his lawyer Michael Cohen were raided. We've seen some of his remarks about resisting the prosecution. There is a credible case of obstruction of justice right now, a powerfully credible case against Donald Trump. And he is clearly feeling the heat himself.

COOPER: And in terms of the Michael Cohen court documents, the idea that special counsel Mueller zeroed in on Michael Cohen and started investigating Michael Cohen much earlier than anyone realized is interesting.

BLUMENTHAL: Not only interesting but profoundly significant. That document, more than 800 pages long, contains a wealth of detail, factual precision, that was collected by this prosecutor in just two months and is only part of what he knows at that point, which is almost two years ago.

So, think of how much he knows now. I've said all along we know only a fraction of what Robert Mueller knows.

COOPER: If there's 800 pages of documents from two years ago and Mueller does actually write out a report, there's no -- I mean, it will be interesting to see if we can learn how long that report actually is.

BLUMENTHAL: The report hopefully will be long enough to contain the incriminating information that he has gathered about Donald Trump. Not accidentally, Donald Trump was named in fact as an unindicted co- conspirator in the prosecution of Cohen. And the reasons for his becoming individual number one, he's not named by actual name but by clear reference as individual number one.

COOPER: But if he's not going to be prosecutor for a crime, isn't it entirely possible that Robert Mueller would not go into detail? I mean, if the person is not actually being charged with a crime as one of the criticisms of Comey's press conference about Hillary Clinton.

BLUMENTHAL: That's the reason for transparency. If he's not named as a crime, the facts and evidence have to be presented. That's the reason that I've authored a bill with Senator Grassley, its bipartisan now joined by another Republican, another Democrat that would require a report with those factual findings and evidence that includes all of the facts that implicate Donald Trump.

The public has a right to know. And if he's not going to be indicted because the Justice Department policies, they're not rules, they're not regulations prevented and if Mueller is not going to present into a court the facts that he knows that are relevant to the potential criminal charges, there is a right on the public to know and I think that Robert Mueller has that obligation and the attorney general has the obligation to make it public.

COOPER: If -- and obviously if that doesn't happen, you would want to see -- we also now have, you know, reporting that the White House wants to review those documents before their -- and whatever he's handed over to Congress to, you know, look for executive privilege, you are fully prepared, I mean the Democrats are fully prepared to challenge each case?

BLUMENTHAL: We will challenge it. I think that document will be suspended. There is no legitimate claim to executive privilege here. There's nothing --

COOPER: None?

BLUMENTHAL: There is nothing in a regulations that justifies the President of the United States concealing criminality in the name of candid discussions with his advisers on policy. We're talking here about an effort to hide criminality, obstruct justice in the name of executive privilege. And the purpose of executive privilege is to enable candid discussion about policy among his advisers. So I see nothing in those regulations that would justify a broad claim of it.

COOPER: But if it's not found to be obstruction of justice by Mueller, then you can't really make an obstruction of justice argument to stop executive privilege from being claimed, no?

BLUMENTHAL: I think that the claim of the White House to review this report should not be upheld. The Department of Justice has a claim to review the report, the White House does not. And the Department of Justice should not cut out to the White House. And after all, the President has his lawyers, not even his White House counsel, potentially reviewing it, to protect him, not to enable the public to know.

COOPER: Right. And it's not the job of his lawyers to declare privilege, it's the White House.

BLUMENTHAL: Exactly.

COOPER: Yes. Senator Blumenthal, thank you.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.

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