CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Ro Khanna

Interview

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COOPER: Congressman, the fact that the president has been railing on Mueller in recent days, could he have been given a head up on the content of the report or do you think he's just covering his bases?

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Well, I think he's concerned. The White House did not calculate their White House counsel cooperated with Mueller and spent over 30 hours testifying to Mueller.

[20:20:00] And I think he's concerned about the obstruction of justice issues and what the White House counsel may have told Mueller.

COOPER: In terms of White House aides, though, reportedly worried that the report might have made the president angry at them, should they have had some expectation of privacy, or should everyone who talked to Mueller have assumed that what they say would one day become public?

KHANNA: I think in an investigation like this, if you work for the president, especially as a White House counsel, you should assume that this is going to become public, especially when Mueller's report was going to go to Congress. And what's surprising to me is that the president nor anyone on his team actually talked to the White House counsel or some of the aides to see what they told Mueller.

And this is why they're concerned because they're worried about what may have been shared.

COOPER: You know, the four categories that Barr has said he will use in terms of what to redact. And one of them is about third parties and it's not clear exactly what he means by that, he said it doesn't apply to the president.

Do you think it possibly applies to members of the president's staff?

KHANNA: Well, it shouldn't. And Barr has not been transparent in this process. I mean, ordinarily, an attorney general that sit down with Jerry Nadler and one of the Republicans in Congress and come to an agreement about what should be redacted and what shouldn't be redacted, and he hasn't followed any of that.

And so, what we now need to do is see the report, see what the redactions are, see if they are fair and then push to see more if he has not been transparent.

COOPER: How long -- I mean, if there are a lot of redactions that Democrats feel are improbably, how long a battle? I mean, that could very easily become a legal battle that could drag on for in the past in somewhat similar circumstances, has dragged down for years?

KHANNA: It could. I don't think that's good for the country. I don't think that's good for the president. I mean, even if they're embarrassing details in the report, the president should be for getting it all out there and moving on. I mean, let's get the facts out there so we can focus on issues that people care about.

And the other thing is that Barr could at least show the report to Nadler, the chair of the Judiciary Committee and to the speaker and the minority leader. I don't need to see it. Not every member of Congress needs to see. I think we should be able to. But at the very least in private, share the report with the key committee chairs and the key leadership.

COOPER: Why is this so important? You can look at this and say Speaker Pelosi has passed and the Senate. The attorney general and special counsel, they'd already ruled out criminal proceedings. So, regardless of what the report says, what's going to come of it?

KHANNA: Well, it's important because the American people should know whether there was misconduct. Whether the president or any of its subordinates violated the law or engaged in behavior that is inappropriate. I mean, that has an implication for our democracy and making sure that never happens again, maybe we need to strengthen the laws and rules to prohibit it.

It's important to understand that we haven't seen a single sentence of the Mueller report and Bill Barr has characterized this as exonerating, but Bob Mueller never has, in fact, numbers of Mueller's team have leaked information saying that the report, particularly on obstruction of justice, could be much more damaging than Barr is saying. And so, the public should just know what they paid for, which is what did Mueller find?

COOPER: Congressman Khanna, appreciate it. Thank you very much.

KHANNA: Thank you, Anderson.

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