CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Ro Khanna

Interview

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BLITZER: All right, Sunlen, thank you -- Sunlen Serfaty reporting.

And joining us now, Congressman Ro Khanna. He is a Democrat who serves on the House Oversight Committee.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

After two years, we finally heard directly from the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

Do you believe Mueller would have charged President Trump with obstruction of justice if not for the current guidelines over at the Department of Justice against indicting a sitting president?

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): I believe Mueller believes there was significant misconduct, and he genuinely, I don't think, considered the legal issue, because the Constitution is clear that you can't indict a sitting president. So, he didn't want to have that judgment and he exercised great restraint. But I think what was clear from Mueller's remarks is the extraordinary

misconduct this president has engaged in and the need for Congress to do something to hold him accountable.

BLITZER: Do you believe the attorney general, William Barr, misrepresented all of this to the American people when he made his public statements about the Mueller report?

KHANNA: I do.

And you know how we know that? If he wanted to be honest, he would have given the exact statement that Bob Mueller made, simple, to the point, saying, this is for Congress to decide, and there was no conclusion reached.

The fact that Bob Barr -- Bill Barr had to write a long memo showed the misrepresentation. And his presentation was very, very different than what Mueller's presentation was.

BLITZER: You heard Mueller say today doesn't want to testify before Congress, and, if he does, he won't go beyond what's written in his 448-page report.

Should House Democrats issue a subpoena for his testimony?

KHANNA: Yes, they should.

Look, I have great respect for Bob Mueller, but he needs to testify in front of Congress, for two reasons. One, we have to understand more the counterintelligence operation, even if he needs to do that behind closed doors, so we can deal with the threat that he's alerting the American people of, that the Russians may interfere again in our 2020 election. We really need to understand that and explore that.

Second, I think the country needs to tune in to what he found. And if he testifies, and even if he reads parts of the report to a committee, that will get the attention of the American people and help us build the case.

So, I'm for subpoenaing him.

BLITZER: Mueller noted that investigations of sitting presidents are permitted, in his words, to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available.

[18:20:07]

Do you believe he was preserving that evidence that those documents for Congress to open formally an impeachment inquiry?

KHANNA: I believe he was preserving it to open up any inquiry when the president leaves office.

I mean, the Constitution says you can't go after the president while he's in office, because the president has many duties. But there's nothing to say that the president may not face consequences when he leaves office, and that that's my sense of what Mueller meant.

I also think he wants Congress to do something. One thing we can do decisively is have a censure resolution that could get the votes in the House, that could get the votes in the Senate, and could pass. And there's only one president, Andrew Jackson, who's ever been censured.

That would be a big statement of this Congress that what the president did was wrong.

BLITZER: Well, what would that exactly achieve? Because I know you're on the same page, Congressman, as the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in terms of continuing to investigate the president.

This censure motion that you would like to see, instead of opening formal impeachment proceedings, explain once again why you think that would be a better option, when an impeachment inquiry would give Congress more power actually to investigate and call witnesses?

KHANNA: Well, I think we have to continue to investigate.

But the challenge of launching an impeachment inquiry now is, if the House did go down the road and impeach, and the Senate acquitted, it may send exactly the wrong precedent and wrong message. The president would go around saying he's been acquitted.

Instead, if the House passes a censure resolution to say that the president committed acts that were unconstitutional, that violated the law, and that he has to be held accountable, that would set a precedent that future presidents wouldn't engage in that kind of conduct again.

And only one president has ever had a censure resolution. And when he won reelection, he worked to try to get it reversed. So it's a big stain on the president, if we can pass a censure resolution.

BLITZER: All right, Congressman, thanks so much for joining us, Congressman Ro Khanna of California.

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