CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Mazie Hirono

Interview

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BLITZER: I want to bring in Senator Mazie Hirono to discuss what's going on. She's joining our conversation. Senator Hirono is a Democrat. She serves on both the Judiciary and Armed Services committees.

Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): Thank you.

BLITZER: You now say it's time to open an impeachment inquiry.

HIRONO: Yes.

BLITZER: So what's your reaction to the president saying today that he can't imagine, in his words, the courts allowing for him to be impeached? What's your reaction to that?

HIRONO: He can't imagine the courts allowing him to be impeached?

BLITZER: That's what he said.

HIRONO: It's not the courts. It's the House of Representatives that begins an impeachment inquiry.

So the president gets things wrong all the time. He's just flailing away. The main thing is, one, he'd like to distract everybody from what's going on regarding him and protecting himself. That is what he does.

BLITZER: The attorney general, William Barr, says Robert Mueller could have made a decision on whether the president is guilty of criminal obstruction, even if he couldn't indict him, according to the Justice Department guidelines. Do you think that's true?

HIRONO: What Barr said was that Mueller had his reasons for not coming to a conclusion on obstruction. He said, I'm not going to argue with those reasons. That's what I heard, which means that those reasons that Mueller had for not weighing in as to whether or not there was obstruction are valid reasons.

Mueller did explain the OLC memo prohibited them, him from either indicting or charging a sitting president and that it would be very unfair to a sitting president to even weigh in with a conclusion because a sitting president would not have a venue, a forum in which to defend himself.

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So, I think, on the one hand, you see Mueller, who has tremendous credibility, bending over backwards to be fair and objective and following the OLC guidelines, and then you have Barr coming in and, really, I think he did a total disservice to our country when he indicated in the first instance that the OLC memo had very little or nothing to do with Mueller's decision not to bring a charge against Trump...

BLITZER: Yes.

HIRONO: ... for obstruction.

BLITZER: Very different perspective from the attorney general, as opposed to the special counsel.

HIRONO: Yes. Well, because he's acting -- he's acting as attorney general for the president.

BLITZER: Yesterday, we heard directly from Robert Mueller, what, for the first time in nearly two years, but he says he doesn't want to testify publicly before Congress. Should House Democrats issue a subpoena?

HIRONO: I think that they should, first of all, invite him to testify.

And, frankly, when he had his press conference, to watch Mueller focus on the parts of his 400-page report that were really telling about Russian interference and on behalf of Trump -- and they're still doing it, by the way -- and the OLC memo preventing him from charging the president, I think it was really telling.

It's really like watching the movie, as opposed to reading the book. And so I hope the House will invite him. And if they -- and if he chooses not to participate, because now he's a private citizen, I think they should issue a subpoena.

But I'm hopeful that, by invitation, he will come forward, even if he reiterates what's in the Mueller report. But, for example, if the House members asked him, what parts of the discussion in your report that had to do with obstruction would you consider those factors that point to the president doing obstruction, even if he reads those portions, that's a heck of a lot of obstructive behavior.

BLITZER: So what other questions do you think Mueller needs to answer that aren't necessarily in his report?

HIRONO: I would like to have him respond more to his thinking about why he -- you know, to reiterate again what his thinking was about the fairness issue, about the president not having a venue.

And when he said that there was evidence as far as a conspiracy, but not enough to meet a burden of beyond a reasonable doubt, I would like to ask him, well, what are -- you know, why don't you point out some of the factors that and evidence that were there that would lead to a conspiracy, just not to meet a criminal burden of beyond a criminal -- beyond a reasonable doubt?

That would be pretty interesting.

BLITZER: Earlier this morning, the president tweeted this, and I will read it to you.

He said: "I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected."

But then he went on camera meeting with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. He clearly reversed himself. Was that tweet his first admission, perhaps inadvertently, that Russia did want to see him win the presidential election?

HIRONO: Well, the thing is that the intelligence community and pretty much everybody else who has listened to what was really going on concludes that the Russians helped Trump.

They certainly were not helping Hillary Clinton. So, you know, Trump once again is the last person to admit that anybody else helped him. As he put it, it was all him, not all the people who voted for him, but it was all his doing.

It's pretty amazing, the lengths that he will go to, to protect himself.

BLITZER: Senator Hirono, thanks so much for joining us.

HIRONO: Thank you.

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