CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Chris Van Hollen
Interview
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[10:45:59] HARLOW: All right. Welcome back. This morning, bipartisan bickering playing out before the cameras on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers lashing out after Attorney General Bill Barr did not show up for a House Judiciary Committee hearing. House Democrats now threatening to hold him in contempt. With me now is Democratic senator, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
Good morning to you, Senator. And thank you for your patience --
SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Morning, Poppy.
HARLOW: -- I know you were going to join us last hour. But a lot has happened in the last hour.
VAN HOLLEN: Yes, it has.
HARLOW: So thank you --
VAN HOLLEN: Absolutely.
HARLOW: -- thank you for sticking around.
VAN HOLLEN: Sure.
HARLOW: First, I'd just like you to listen to this from Democratic lawmaker, Congressman Ted Lieu of California. Here's what he just said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TED LIEU (D-CA): Attorney General Bill Barr is now one of the most dangerous men in Washington, D.C.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Wow. One of the most dangerous men in Washington, D.C. Do you agree with Representative Lieu?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, Poppy, if you're talking about a danger to our constitutional architecture, of a separation of powers and our notion of the Attorney General's Office as being a place where you have impartial justice, not somebody acting as the chief propagandist for the president, then in that sense I understand exactly what Congressman Lieu is talking about.
Because we are at a moment of crisis here. And the reality is, you have an attorney general who is acting on behalf of the president, not on behalf of the interests of justice and the rule of law.
HARLOW: So I think the broader question here, Senator, becomes, to what end? Right? I mean, Chairman Nadler knew that the attorney general was not going to show up this morning. He decided to have a hearing anyways, to have that empty, you know, chair on television across the networks.
And I'm wondering if you think that that is a good use or the best use of Congress' time and effort and resources.
VAN HOLLEN: Poppy, I think the question is what recourse do they have, right? What happened was that the chairman of the committee, Chairman Nadler, wanted to have a hearing. You know. The committee has the power and the prerogative to set some of the standards for that hearing.
And you can't just turn the keys over to the executive branch. I mean, we have a system of separation of powers. And right now, you have an administration that is openly thumbing its nose at the Article I branch, the People's Branch.
And so what the folks in the House are struggling with, the Democrats in the House, are --
HARLOW: Right?
VAN HOLLEN: -- how do you hold an administration accountable?
HARLOW: So --
VAN HOLLEN: And I would hope Republicans across the country would ask themselves the question, "What happens if a future Democratic administration acts this way?"
HARLOW: And I hear you, right? And they have power, right? The chairman, Chairman Nadler, has subpoena power. He can hold Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt if he defies that subpoena. But he could have done those without holding a hearing with an empty chair today.
And I guess the reason that I ask this, Senator, is because of some of the new numbers. CNN has a new poll out and it shows that among American voters, 44 percent now think that Democrats are doing too much to investigate the president. That's up significantly since March.
TEXT: In Investigating Trump, Democrats Are Doing: Too Much, 44 percent now, 38 percent in March; The Right Amount, 28 percent now, 34 percent in March; Too Little, 25 percent now, 22 percent in March
HARLOW: So the question becomes, are you concerned about the optics here for your party?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, Poppy, I agree that the challenge for House Democrats is to prioritize the ways in which they're going to hold this administration accountable. I mean, they have a constitutional obligation to make sure that we hold the executive branch accountable.
And their big challenge is, how do you do that, given all the different things that are going on and the fact that you have a president who has instructed his entire cabinet, all the agencies, not to cooperate when it comes to a lot of the, you know, subpoenas and other information requests that have been made.
So, look. I think that is a challenge for the House. And they've got to prioritize and figure that out.
HARLOW: Right (ph).
VAN HOLLEN: I would like to point out that the House, while they've been doing these investigations, have been passing a lot of legislation that is broadly supported by the American people: gun safety legislation, strengthening our democracy, ending secret money in politics.
[10:50:10] All those bills have actually passed the House. They're here in the United States Senate. This is where the -- we've become a graveyard for a lot of important pieces of legislation --
HARLOW: Yes.
VAN HOLLEN: -- that are broadly supported by the public. So I think it's important to keep that in mind, as the focus has been so much on these other issues.
HARLOW: All right. Fair enough. Let's dig in on whether or not you think you were lied to, Senator. And this matters a lot. One of the central questions this morning is whether the attorney general lied under oath when he testified before your committee back on April 10th.
So here is your exchange with him there, along with his exchange with Senator Crist.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VAN HOLLEN: Did Bob Mueller support your conclusion?
WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don't know whether Bob Mueller supported my conclusion.
SEN. CHARLIE CRIST (D-FL): Reports have emerged recently, General, that members of the special counsel's team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your March 24th letter, that it does not adequately or accurately necessarily portray the report's findings. Do you know what they're referencing with that?
BARR: No, I don't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: We now know those answers were after he received that March 27th letter from Mueller about his concerns about Barr's four-page letter-slash-summary of the conclusions of the Mueller report. So do you believe, Senator, that the attorney general lied under oath on April 10th?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, Poppy, at the very least this was deliberately misleading and deliberately deceptive. Because when I asked --
HARLOW: But what is different between that and a lie? I mean --
VAN HOLLEN: Well, let me -- let me put it this way. HARLOW: Sure.
VAN HOLLEN: What I asked him was, whether or not the -- Mueller, whether Bob Mueller supported the positions that the attorney general outlined in that four-page memo. And what he said was, he did not know.
What we know from that letter, which was at that time in the possession of the attorney general, was that Bob Mueller had already expressed concerns with the conclusions that he had reached, right?
And an honest answer, a fully honest answer, Poppy, would be, not "I don't know." The honest answer would be that Bob Mueller had expressed concerns. At the very least, he'd expressed concerns with the conclusions in that four-page memo. So, you know, Barr can split hairs on this. But by -- certainly by omission, he deceived the committee and the American people.
So the question now is, what is our recourse? I do believe he should resign for the good of the country. He clearly isn't intending to do this at that -- currently.
And so, you know, one of the questions in the House is, should they move to impeach the attorney general. And --
HARLOW: Should they?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, here's the challenge. It goes back to what you were just asking me, right? The House has so many things on its plate right now. They are going to have to decide how to prioritize this --
HARLOW: OK.
VAN HOLLEN: -- in a meaningful way.
HARLOW: Would you move to impeach Barr at this point?
VAN HOLLEN: You know, I think the House -- again, if I were in the House, I'd have to really review all the things that are going on. And keep in mind, the concerns you just expressed about how all of this is perceived by the public --
HARLOW: Right.
VAN HOLLEN: -- and with the goal of trying to get things done. And so I would certainly -- it certainly needs a healthy conversation in the House, is the best way to proceed on that issue, as well as these other matters.
HARLOW: OK. Senator Chris Van Hollen, we appreciate your time this morning. Thanks for joining us.
VAN HOLLEN: Thank you.
HARLOW: All right. We'll be right back.
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