CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Richard Durbin

Interview

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BLITZER: We're now about 40 minutes away from the Attorney General of the United States William Barr's appearance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the stakes have gotten higher. We now know the special counsel Robert Mueller did, in fact, object to Barr's four-page letter on the 448-page report.

So how will Democrats take this on today during this upcoming hearing? Joining us now, Senator and Democratic whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, he's a leader in the U.S. Senate, and he's also a leader on the Judiciary Committee as well. Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

Let's get right to the substance of this huge uproar that has developed overnight. On April 10th, your Democratic colleague, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland asked Barr under oath this question: did Bob Mueller support your conclusion? Barr's answer was, and I'm quoting him now, "I don't know."

We now know Mueller stated his concerns to Barr on March 27th, a letter. Did Barr lie to Congress?

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): And if you go the day before on April the 9th, Congressman Chris of Florida at a House Appropriations meeting asked virtually the same question and, again, Attorney General Barr said, no, he wasn't aware of any concerns by the Mueller investigative team about his earlier statement.

Let's follow it from start to finish, Wolf. This started off as a matter of grave national importance, Russian interference in a presidential campaign. Then we had a recusal of a sitting Attorney General Jeff Sessions because of his involvement in the same campaign and undisclosed contacts with the Russians. Third, we appointed a special counsel Bob Mueller, we gave him $25 million in two years, and said find out what happened here. Before his report was public for the American people to reach their own conclusions, in steps the new Attorney General Bill Barr and whitewashes the report.

Comes to a conclusion that there's no collusion, there's no conspiracy, there's no obstruction of justice. Now, we know that Bob Mueller made it clear at the beginning that his conclusions, Barr's conclusions, did not reflect the reality of that report.

BLITZER: So do you believe he lied? Did Barr lie in front of Congress which, of course, would be a perjury, that's illegal.

DURBIN: Well, I'm not going to say a crime was committed, but he clearly misled both Congressman Chris and Senator Van Hollen. He knew sitting there, he'd received a letter from Bob Mueller saying that his report, his letter of March 24th to the American people failed to provide the context and the substance of the report that Mueller had worked on for two years.

BLITZER: Do you believe he should resign or be impeached?

DURBIN: Well, I will say this, I'm gravely concerned that the 14 remaining referrals, criminal referrals for investigation related to this same matter are really under the supervision and control of Attorney General Barr. He has virtually disqualified himself to be the kind of person we expect to stand back and make sure that justice is served when it comes to these 14 referrals.

BLITZER: He will be sitting in front of your committee in a few moments. What will you ask him?

DURBIN: Well, clearly, I'm going to go into this matter because it gets down to the bottom line here. Bill Barr has told us not just this time when he came after the position of Attorney General, but previously that Attorney Generals should not show any political favoritism.

He did exactly that with the March 24th letter. He did exactly that with the press conference before the release of this report. It is inconsistent with his promise to the American people and to the Judiciary Committee the conduct that followed.

BLITZER: How does Mueller's letter that we now know existed? I anticipate we'll be getting the full text of it fairly soon. How does that letter change your approach to today's hearing?

DURBIN: Well, I'll tell you, as of last night and the disclosure of that letter, it was no longer speculation or conjecture as to what Mueller agreed -- whether Mueller agreed with Barr's -- his own version of the report. We now know that he didn't and he put it in writing. As one of your earlier people said on your show, when an attorney puts something in writing, it's pretty significant.

BLITZER: If you could ask Mueller, you know, anything you want right now, and I don't even know if he's going to agree at some point to testify before your committee or another House or a Senate Committee, what would you ask him?

DURBIN: Well, I'd ask him this, Attorney General Barr says that the White House fully cooperated with the Mueller investigation. The Mueller report says the president refused to be interviewed. Did the White House and the president fully cooperate with the Mueller investigation?

That would be a question I'd ask Mueller. That's number one. Number two, did you believe that it was up to Attorney General Barr to reach a conclusion as to whether the president obstructed justice?

[09:25:00] Is that what you were asking for in your findings, and as a result of this investigation? I doubt that his answer would be in the affirmative.

BLITZER: I want you to listen to your Republican colleague Mike Lee of Utah. He sits on the Judiciary Committee. Listen to what he said last night.

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SEN. MIKE LEE (R-UT): The fact is that this has been a very thorough investigation, it took them two years, they concluded that there was no collusion. And so now they're losing their minds because they've been relying on the Mueller report as this sort of holy grail from whence was going to come all of these blessings, and they didn't have that and they're frustrated.

They want to take it out on Barr. We can't let them do that.

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BLITZER: And so what's your message to Senator Lee and others, other Republicans, others supporting the president who feel the Democrats right now are simply grandstanding?

DURBIN: Mike Lee is my friend, but I disagree with him. I respect Bob Mueller and I said from the beginning, I will stand by his findings whether I agree with them or not because I believe he is an honest man with integrity, a professional prosecutor.

I don't agree with everything that he concluded in his report, but I believe it's very clear that what Bill Barr did with those findings was to twist them politically to the benefit of the president. I don't believe that is his role as Attorney General, I don't believe he served the cause of justice.

BLITZER: The chairman of your committee we're going to be hearing from him fairly soon right at the top of the hour, Lindsey Graham, he told our Manu Raju on Monday, he said that the Democrats in his words are political hacks in their pursuit of more information. What's your reaction to that?

DURBIN: You know, it's amazing to me to listen to my Republican colleagues. Think back just for a moment, all of the hearings on Benghazi and Hillary Clinton's e-mails, millions and millions of dollars, days and days of hearings, all the investigations over and over, repeating themselves.

And now they're saying that we have gone too far to ask for basic information from the Trump administration about something as serious as whether the Russians undermined our election.

BLITZER: Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, thanks as usual for joining us.

DURBIN: Thank you, Wolf.

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