MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: "One-on-one with Jane Mayer."

Interview

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HAYES: My first guest has just returned from a trip to Ukraine, Congressman John Garamendi, a Democrat from California. Congressman --

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): Good to be with you.

HAYES: It`s good to have you, Congressman. You just got back from a congressional delegation to Ukraine. It was planned before all this stuff broke. What did you hear there? What was it like to go there under these circumstances?

GARAMENDI: Well, it was kind of weird. First of all, we did have another civil servant there, Mr. Taylor, Ambassador Taylor, and he made it very, very clear that something was very much a miss. So we`ve seen two examples here, Yovanovitch and Taylor, two ambassadors who stood up to the president and said, no, no, we`re not going to let that happen. So we had that going. We also met with an extraordinary group of people, the Minister of Defense, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, young, aggressive, determined to end the corruption and determined to build a democracy and push Russia out of their country. It was thrilling in many ways. It was also on the edge of the seat because a lot of things were going on.

HAYES: Bill Taylor is the -- is the chief of mission there right now. He replaced Yovanovitch. He`s a career Foreign Service officer. He also shows up in those texts that were given to us last week. He`s the one saying, I think it`s crazy to withhold military assistance to help a political campaign on the record, right? Did he come to you that he wrote those texts, that that is him?

GARAMENDI: We actually step off the bus to meet them outside the Ministry of Defense and return to him, and one of my colleagues said, wow, that was some sort of text. Good for you. And he said, yes, yes, it was. It was just at that very, very moment the news broke as we stepped off the bus. And he did confirm that yes, he did that. he didn`t go any further detail, but I can assure you, he should be one of the witnesses before that very same committee. Once again, as civil servant standing up to power and staying, Mr. President, you`re outta line, we`re not going to put up with it.

HAYES: There`s another -- there`s another individual who`s going to testify, we think, before the committee. Again, the White House has been trying to shut these people down. You have people coming forward. Fiona Hill actually worked in the White House in the NSC. She was the Russia specialist there. She has left that position. It`s our understanding that she`s going to lay bare the kind of parallel foreign policy when she comes before the committee. Is that your understanding as well?

GARAMENDI: That`s what I understand. I`ve actually had the experience of questioning her in the Armed Services Committee, and she is going to be one extraordinary witness. She knows her stuff, she knows what`s going on, and she`s going to speak the truth to power.

HAYES: Do you think that they were close to getting away with this scheme? I mean, it strikes me that had the whistleblower not collected the worries of people that work with him in the White House, had the whistleblower complaint not come forward and been pushed out by Congress, that they may have just successfully squeezed the Ukrainians into announcing the great fanfare that they`re looking into the Biden`s.

GARAMENDI: Well, I think that`s probably exactly what would have happened. And because that was what the President was trying to do, that is to totally throw his oath of office out the window, take care of himself in his reelection, break the law, at least two different laws are probably broken here, campaign finance and probably a bribery law. All of that came to light because once again, a civil servant out there in one of the agencies, probably one of the intelligence agencies said this is wrong, blew the whistle.Interestingly enough, it was done not by him or herself, but there are others that obviously, we`re part of it, and now a second whistleblower. This is going to unravel very, very quickly on the president because he`s done wrong. And he`s been found out.

HAYES: You have been a longtime supporter of impeachment, you`re a Democrat, you`re in California. You also have another position I think`s interesting, which is that you think it would be good if the House took a vote now, as some sort of resolution calling to officially inaugurate the impeachment inquiry. It`s something that was done under Bill Clinton. It was done near the beginning of the Watergate impeachment inquiry, not at the very beginning. Republicans are saying Democrats should do that. Nancy Pelosi is holding off. Why do you think that`s a good idea?

GARAMENDI: Well, I think it gives us more power to all that we`re doing. It`s more formalized, more power, it`s obviously -- it`s a full vote of the -- of the House. I think I may be out there pretty much by myself right now --

HAYES: You are.

GARAMENDI: But nonetheless -- that`s -- yes, I am.

HAYES: Well, there are Republicans that agree with you.

GARAMENDI: I`m afraid so.

HAYES: But you think -- you think that that would like formalize it or grant some sort of legitimacy, the process, some more teeth to it?

GARAMENDI: Well, the process that we have now is legitimate. The rules of the House are right in line with what we`re doing with the four committees that are carrying on the investigations. All of this is legitimate. It`s by the book. It`s just that I think one more thing could be added to it and shut down the Republicans and the President and say, OK, you wanted to vote, here it is. But I don`t think that`s going to happen, at least not right away.

HAYES: All right, John Garamendi, Congressman from California, thank you very much for making time tonight.

GARAMENDI: Thank you.

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