CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon

Interview

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BURNETT: Breaking news: Attorney General Bill Barr refusing to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow morning. The chairman, Jerry Nadler, announcing the Department of Justice won't comply with a subpoena to release the full unredacted Mueller report which had a deadline of today.

Nadler says he may hold the attorney general in contempt if the unredacted report isn't provided in the next couple of days.

OUTFRONT now, Democratic Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon, who's the vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

Good to have you back, Congresswoman.

Attorney general says not going to testify. You say what?

REP. MARY GAY SCANLON (D-PA): Well, our biggest focus right now is to make sure that we get the Mueller report. We need the report. We need the underlying evidence so that Congress can do its job.

BURNETT: And when you say unredacted, you want in your possession unredacted, including 6E, grand jury?

SCANLON: Yes.

BURNETT: And you think you're going to get that without starting impeachment proceedings?

SCANLON: I think there are a number of avenues to get there without impeachment proceedings, but the issue here is we're seeing increasing evidence of stonewalling by this administration. I mean, the bombshell news last night that Mueller had prepared summaries that were ready to be released and not only didn't Attorney General Barr release those summaries, but when he did, they were also redacted.

BURNETT: So, will you hold a hearing tomorrow with an empty chair?

SCANLON: We will be gaveling in tomorrow morning, yes. I mean, Attorney General Barr still has the opportunity to show up. We're hearing he's too afraid.

BURNETT: So here's the thing. He has said and he had expressed this. Obviously, he didn't cancel until after his testimony today, his questions, but he had indicated that he had an issue with you all allowing lawyers to be part of the questioning.

Carl Bernstein was on and he said you all -- the goal should be to get him in there and you could have done it if you had lawyers, for example, hand you questions, cede your time. There would have been a creative way to get the lawyer's questions out there but have you all doing the questioning.

Do you think you tried hard enough?

SCANLON: Oh, we've been back and forth for day after day here trying to find grounds on which we could agree. But there's two key points here. The first is that the White House does not get to dictate how Congress does its business. That's number one.

Number two is, any trial lawyer worth their salt knows you don't have 16, 23 different people asking questions. There's no way there to play out a narrative. There's no way to tell the story.

BURNETT: That's true.

SCANLON: If there's one thing we know, is that the Mueller report is not tweetable. We need to be able to tell the American people that story. And having it come in five minute segments when you have a witness today proved he's very good at running out the clock and not answering questions or only answering them with legalese.

So, we wanted the ability to have someone who could back clean up, someone who could tell the story, ask the questions that didn't get answered in the short five-minute segments.

BURNETT: Well, I have to say, I agree with you on that. No matter how well you do, that is one of the greatest frustrations of those hearings, right?

SCANLON: Yes.

BURNETT: Everyone has to make their own point, they don't follow up. That's fair point.

Special counsel Mueller has agreed to testify in front of your committee. That's what Chairman Nadler announced today.

[19:45:00] When is that going to happen?

SCANLON: I think we've just started talking with him but the schedule date is May 15th. We've been talking about that date for a while.

BURNETT: All right. See if he appears on that day. Thank you.

SCANLON: Thank you.

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