CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Pramila Jayapal

Interview

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BLITZER: Arlette, thank you very much. Arlette Saenz in Iowa for us.

Joining us now, Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington state. A member of the Judiciary Committee.

Congresswoman, thanks so much for joining us.

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Great to be with you, Wolf.

BLITZER: So as you heard, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler says he wants to file lawsuits as soon as possible to enforce subpoenas.

Are you confident you're going to succeed?

JAYAPAL: Well, I'm confident that what we had today was a vote on the House floor that allows us to pursue all options that are on the table as far as enforcing our subpoenas.

And so far, we have seen the Trump administration block us on numerous counts, you know, block the testimony of Don McGahn. We have asked Hope Hicks to come and testify. We have asked Annie Donaldson to come and testify. We need to make sure that these folks come and testify.

Because we are taking, ramping up our actions, you see now the White House is distinction to give a little bit in terms of this capitulation around the Mueller report and the unredacted information and the underlying information. It's not all on the table but at least some pieces of it are.

And so this was a very important vote for us to take, because it really allows the chairmen and chairwomen of the committees of jurisdiction to move quickly, to not have to wait in order to enforce their subpoenas in court.

BLITZER: On that point, let's go to the negotiations between the Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department over granting access to more information from the Mueller report. Chairman Nadler's agreement with the Justice Department might be complicated by involvement, we're told, from the White House.

Is the deal in jeopardy?

JAYAPAL: Well, I can't tell you that; what I know is, earlier, we did have an agreement but it wasn't for everything we wanted. So we were going to start with at least reviewing the underlying information. The Judiciary Committee was granted the authority to do that.

However, there are other pieces here. And, as you say, the White House can, at any moment, on any deal -- I mean, listen, we had a deal for don McGahn to come and testify, until the White House stepped in and Donald Trump said, you can't testify.

And that may happen again here. And I think that we are going to see whether this president is going to continue to obstruct justice or not. Now we have the authority granted by Congress through this vote today to start to hold this administration accountable through lawsuits and in the courts.

BLITZER: Should the White House have any hand in this process?

JAYAPAL: Say the question again?

BLITZER: Should the White House have any hand in this process, in deciding what the Justice Department can share with the Judiciary Committee, for example?

JAYAPAL: No, and, you know, I'll tell you something. Yesterday, we had a panel of prosecutors front of us, including, as you know, John Dean, who was -- not only was he the former White House counsel, he was actually -- [17:15:00]

JAYAPAL: -- the Republican chief counsel for the Judiciary Committee. And all of them said that we have to remember, the attorney general is the attorney for the people of the United States. It is not -- he is not the attorney for the president. The president should stay out of the way here.

He has been continuously obstructing justice. He should learn and stay out of the way. But, listen, if he doesn't, we have a big fight coming. We already have a big fight in front of us. I cannot believe that one branch of government is completely disregarding another.

We have a president who's trying to act like a king and Congress has to hold him accountable.

BLITZER: You're one of at least 13 Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, Congresswoman, who want to actually begin formal impeachment proceedings. That's more than half of the membership from your party on that committee.

Do you feel like you're being ignored by leadership?

JAYAPAL: No, I mean, I think this is complicated. First of all, we should be clear that what we, many of us -- I think it's over 60 now in the House -- have called for is to begin an impeachment inquiry. What that does is it allows the Judiciary Committee to use all of our Article I powers to investigate the abuses, the constitutional abuses of this president and this administration.

That is very, very important because our hands get tied in strange ways if we don't declare a formal impeachment inquiry. We still believe -- and those of us on the Judiciary Committee are steeped in this. We're going through it every day, day after day, some of the details.

Our caucus is starting to understand what is at stake here. And, frankly, by allowing the Judiciary Committee to start an impeachment inquiry, it also allows for the focus to be very clear that it is within the Judiciary Committee and we will get the facts and we will follow the facts. And let's see what happens.

It does not necessarily mean there's an impeachment vote but it does mean that we do the inquiry. And I do believe that is warranted.

BLITZER: As you know, Speaker Pelosi says that impeachment certainly isn't off the table but does say she's satisfied with the current strategy of maintaining multiple ongoing investigations into the president.

Why should Democrats abandon that current strategy that's laid out by the Speaker?

JAYAPAL: Well, I don't think it's about abandoning. I want to be very clear that Democrats are completely united around the need to hold the president accountable. However, we do have a real crisis on the table. We need to have a

couple of strategies here to ensure that we are getting the information that we really should get. Robert Mueller threw us a pass down the football field when he did that report and put in there 10 potential counts of obstruction of justice and Russian interference in our elections that we need to be taking action on.

He was intercepted by William Barr, who tried to make it seem like the American people were reading a different report than the one that Robert Mueller wrote.

So our inquiry has to deal not only with the obstruction of justice issues that Robert Mueller raised in the report but also with the ongoing obstruction of justice and we really do need to have every tool in our toolbox. And we're going to have to start using some of them.

BLITZER: Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, thank you so much for joining us.

JAYAPAL: Thank you, Wolf.

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