CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: "Interview with Rep. Ruben Gallego"

Interview

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KEILAR: All right, Manu, thank you.

I want to get more now on all of this with Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego of Arizona, he is a member of the Armed Services Committee. Sir, thank you for joining us.

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: So the White House is threatening they're not going to cooperate with this impeachment investigation unless the full House of Representatives votes to open a formal inquiry. Obviously we have heard what the speaker thinks about this. But do you think that the House should hold that vote and if not why not?

[17:10:10]

GALLEGO: Well first of all, those being prosecuted rarely get to set the rules of the prosecution so the President and the Republicans really cannot dictate this. And partly and most importantly we know that they are not going to be acting in good faith.

They have not acting in good faith at all throughout this process. They have stonewalled, whether it was during the Mueller investigation or now what he's doing right now by denying access to information and to witnesses that we have a right as Congress to have oversight.

So, this is, you know, another move just through a dust-up in the air. But more importantly it really just leads to a bigger issue that this is just another process of obstruction that warrants I think us going after the President for articles of impeachment regarding obstruction.

KEILAR: As the White House stonewalls on testimony and Democrats are poised to issue subpoenas, how do Democrats proceed with impeachment as some of these other issues play out in court?

GALLEGO: Well, I think in terms of impeachment, if they continue stonewalling, you just roll that right into the impeachment in regards also with all of the other crimes and misdemeanors that we have seen. So for example, you know, the extortion of a foreign country for personal gain, that's an article of impeachment.

And now if they keep on obstructing both abuse of power and obstruction of justice are also going to be on the table. So, the President could stonewall but it won't change the out come. It's actually most likely only going to increase the outcome of him being formally impeached by the House.

KEILAR: So, could you hold an impeachment vote without testimony from Sondland, without testimony potentially, we're waiting to see from the former ambassador to Ukraine, from maybe a number of other State Department officials who are involved in this?

GALLEGO: Certainly we can. If the reason they are not testifying because this President is actively obstructing us doing our oversight duties as well as getting that information, then that itself is an article of impeachment. If you look back at Watergate, it wasn't just the fact that they broke into the Watergate, it was all of the actions afterwards that were part of the articles of impeachment.

So the President is either going to have the easy way or the hard way. And the easy way is to actually comply with us, allow these State Department employees and all the other information we need to actually make a determination, whereas he'll still going to get impeachment in the end and that's just because of obstruction of justice and obstructing Congress.

KEILAR: When one American diplomat texted Sondland, "I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign," CNN actually learned that what Sondland did was he called the President and four and a half hours later is when he texted a reply. It was a very legalistic message saying the President was, "crystal clear," that there was no quid pro quo's, as he put it. What do you make of that?

GALLEGO: Well I think this is just CYA politics, cover your ass politics that the ambassador was doing. And I think he was coordinating with the President of the United States like common criminals who are, you know, coordinating their alibis.

Also let's not forget, they were having this conversation over WhatsApp, right? This is official communication that's happening between ambassadors, the administration and the President and they were -- they were doing it on WhatsApp, at least in between these two ambassadors, not between the President.

You know, they ran a whole campaign last year about the State Department doing -- or two years ago, you know, doing communications over unsecured network. WhatsApp is unsecured. And the fact that we don't actually have any of the information that they were type -- or texting to each other is also a problem. The State Department needs to turn over all texts that were in between these two ambassadors.

KEILAR: Since I have you, and you're on the House Armed Services Committee, I want to ask you about the President's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Northern Syria. Many members of Congress, Republican and Democrat, have criticized this. You've signed on to a letter calling on Defense Secretary Mark Esper to answer questions about this decision. What specific concerns do you want him to address? GALLEGO: Well, we want to know exactly who did the President talk to before he made this decision. What was the cost benefit analysis? Were there other considerations taking place? You know, how long did the President actually take to actually have this information. Who gave him advice and want to know what the motivation is behind that. This is a very dangerous situation.

We are about to lose one of our closest allies in the Middle East, an ally that stuck with us through thick and thin. And also it's going to destabilize our alliances all over the world because people and countries are not going to be able to trust us in the end if they see how we treat the Peshmerga and the Kurdish people in terms of what's going to happen in Northern Syria.

And already, by the way, Turkey has already started attacking that area after there was promises that we gave that there would not be any attacks on the Kurdish areas.

KEILAR: The Kurds are currently in charge of detention centers for many, many Isis fighters and associates of Isis. And they have said essentially that they may just need to walk away from those facilities as Turkey invades. How likely do you think that is?

[17:15:12]

GALLEGO: Look, I can't predict it. But I think this also produces a better question. What has this presidency and what has this administration been doing for the last couple of months that they did not actually foresee this problem or they're not trying to negotiate a separate truce or separate peace between Turkey and the Kurds or at least some level of security agreements so we wouldn't find our self in this situation.

What they were doing is Pompeo was traveling the world trying to fabricate lies against a political opponent of the President instead of actually doing serious work in Northern Iraq. That is the problem that you have here. That is a damn shame and it's going to cost us geopolitically in terms of our alliances probably for decades to come.

Pompeo is the failure in this situation. Pompeo should have been working this out. Should have been pressuring the President to work this out, instead he's just the President's lap dog and he's going to continue to engage in these failures on the international scheme.

KEILAR: Congressman Ruben Gallego, thank you so much.

GALLEGO: Thank you so much for having me.

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