CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jamie Raskin

Interview

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MARQUARDT: All right, Boris Sanchez down there in Florida with the president. Thanks very much.

Now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding a conference call among Democrats tomorrow. She has called the Mueller report findings a grave matter, and from Congress to the campaign trail, there's a handful in her caucus, fellow Democrats, who are openly supporting impeachment proceedings.

So for more on that, we are joined by Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who sits on the Judiciary and Oversight Committees. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Thanks for having me.

MARQUARDT: Congressman, on Thursday just after the Mueller report came out, your attitude on this question of impeachment seemed to be something like, let's wait and see. You wanted to see where the evidence that was pointed out in that report leads. Now that we've had a couple days to digest all of that and for the dust to settle, are you ready to say whether the president should face impeachment?

RASKIN: Well, let see. What are the main conclusions we get from the report? One, a sweeping and systematic campaign by the Russian government and Russian intelligence to interfere in our election to sabotage our election, not criminal conspiracy. The Trump campaign was not in on the origins of this campaign, but they gladly received the benefits of it.

And as Rudy Giuliani is saying, they're not apologizing for the fact that, you know, they got the benefit of all the e-mails being hacked into at the DNC, at the DCCC, Hillary's office, and then released to the public. And so, that's quite brazen and remarkable to me that that's their position, but so be it.

Ten different episodes of obstruction or attempted obstruction when I read through them, not all 10 to me seem to be real obstruction or attempted obstruction, but at least six or seven of them do appear to be pretty definitive evidence of attempts by the president to interfere with the ongoing Mueller investigation.

And we still haven't acted sufficiently to try to protect the 2020 election. And we've got a president in charge who seems to think there's no problem and continues to beat around the bush and say that we have real problems in protecting our electoral system.

So, maybe they weren't involved in the attempt to go in and break into the house, but they certainly left the door open and open the windows and said come on in everybody. So, I think this is a very serious matter.

[17:20:03] Obstruction of justice has been the cardinal impeachment offense when you look at it historically.

MARQUARDT: Right.

RASKIN: I mean, certainly, that was the main cause of action against Nixon and it's what the Republicans impeached Bill Clinton over with respect to one lie that he told about a private act of sex. What we're seeing in the Mueller report is far more sweeping and serious than any of that.

But still, whether or not it rises to the level of an impeachable offense that we want to act upon, it remains to be seen. And we want to hear from those witnesses. We know the Republicans impeached Bill Clinton just based on the Kenneth Starr report, and I don't think we're going to do that.

MARQUARDT: Right. OK. So, you're still waiting to see, you're still waiting to get more. Let's take a look at what Speaker Pelosi said in March. Of course, this is weeks before the Mueller report came out on Thursday. She said, "I'm not for impeachment. Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he's just not worth it."

So congressman, given all the details that we now have from the report, do you believe that that threshold has been reached? Do you think that your fellow Democrats -- the chorus will grow louder among them?

RASKIN: Well, first of all, I think that Speaker Pelosi probably articulates the right standard, which is that in terms of sentiment and feeling, that none of us should be for impeachment as an abstract proposition because it's very divisive for the country. It's a tough thing to go through.

On the other hand, impeachment hearings have also been unifying as I think that they were after the Civil War with Andrew Johnson. But in any event, the legal standard she articulates is right. We want to see very compelling evidence and we want to see at least the signs of bipartisanship because we know that it's a majority vote in the House, but it's a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict.

MARQUARDT: Right.

RASKIN: So, we want to see that there are enough Republicans like Mitt Romney, who have an open enough mind to say this is very serious business when the president is trying to interfere in an ongoing criminal investigation that affects him and his immediate staff.

MARQUARDT: Yes, Mitt Romney who of course said that he was appalled and sickened by what he learned in the report. But as you point out, there's very little indication that two-thirds of the Senate would actually vote to convict the president.

Congressman, when we look at the 2020 field of Democrats growing larger by the day, we have Beto O'Rourke on the campaign trail saying that of the hundreds of questions that he's fielded in various campaign events, only a few of them have actually been about the Mueller report. So, do you think that this -- the apprehension that we're seeing, that we're hearing is based on the law or really how impeachment would play politically for those candidates in 2020?

RASKIN: Well, look, we have serious issues facing the country and Democrats are focused like a laser beam on them. We've re-authorized the Violence Against Women Act. We're waiting for the Republicans in the Senate to take that up. We passed the toughest gun safety legislation in more than two decades to close the internet loophole, to close the private gun show loophole.

Again, we're waiting for the Republicans to act. We're focused on lowering prescription drug prices by giving the government the power to negotiate in Medicare or with big pharma. So all these things we're waiting for the Republicans to act and to follow our lead. At the same time that we're on offense on policy, we do have to defend

the constitution and the rule of law. That's the balance we have to strike. Impeachment has always been a mixed question of law and politics. The legal part of it is the requirement that we find high crimes and misdemeanors before we impeach. Those are offenses against the character of democracy.

On the other hand, it's not reposed in the courts under Article III. It's reposed to Congress, which means we have to make a judgment about the impeachment in the general context of everything we're trying to accomplish in terms of public policy for the people.

MARQUARDT: Right. All right, well, fascinating and dramatic days ahead. Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you so much.

RASKIN: Thank you for having me.

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