CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: "Interview with Rep. Jimmy Gomez"

Interview

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BLITZER: Sunlen Serfaty up on Capitol Hill, I know we're going to get more information coming out. Thank you very much.

In the meantime, I want to bring in Congressman Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat who serves on the Oversight Committee. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. We certainly have a lot

to discuss right now.

Let me start with this report from "The Wall Street Journal" that President Trump ordered the removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine after she was targeted in a smear campaign by Rudy Giuliani.

What concerns does that raise?

REP. JIMMY GOMEZ (D-CA): It raises a lot of concerns.

It raises that anybody that doesn't agree with this president, anybody that doesn't follow along to try to make sure that they can get dirt on a political rival is going to be removed.

And he has sent a message to everybody: Do not cooperate with Congress, because, if you do, then we're going to remove you.

BLITZER: The former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, a career Foreign Service officer, a career diplomat, will appear before your committee -- we're talking about the Oversight Committee -- along with the Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, next week.

What do you want to ask her?

GOMEZ: We want to really find out who was pressuring her, what questions were asked. Did anybody try to get information that was made up?

Did she explicitly tell the president and the White House that the information that we're looking for did not exist or was completely false? We really want to see what kind of interactions we had. And was there undue pressure on her just to make things up in order to comply with the president's request?

BLITZER: You also serve on the Ways and Means Committee.

And, as you know, "The Washington Post" is now reporting that a career IRS official, a whistle-blower, was told that at least one Treasury Department political appointee tried to interfere with the IRS audits of either the president or the vice president's tax returns.

Do you know the specifics, first of all, of that complaint?

GOMEZ: I do not. I haven't seen the complaint.

BLITZER: Do you want this complaint to be made public? Because, as you know, there are privacy laws when it comes to tax returns.

GOMEZ: Yes, I would want to first consult with the chairman of the committee, as well as the rest of the committee, to determine that.

[18:10:03]

But I want to make a few points when it comes to this whistle-blower complaint. It really adds credibility to our request of the presidential tax returns. And the reason why is that, from the very beginning, we wanted to audit, we wanted to make sure that the presidential audits were done in a way that was free of political pressure and it was done in a way that really was true to its core.

And that's why we started to look into it. That's why we asked for the presidential tax returns. And that's why we invoked 6103-F, the statute that lets us get it.

So, this is something that goes to the heart of what we have been doing, if the whistle-blower complaint is true.

Additionally, it just shows the importance of whistle-blowers. Whistle-blowers will inform the public, inform Congress that something is going on in the executive branch or any other department, that something is not -- something is going on that's not right.

And they can report it without fear of repercussions, without being fired, without being demoted, without being suspended. And that's why it is important to have this whistle-blower protection, is because it is necessary to get this information.

BLITZER: As far as you know, Congressman, are there other whistle- blower complaints in addition to those involving Ukraine and now the IRS that have not yet been made public?

GOMEZ: Not that I know of.

But you never know. And I think different committees handle it differently. Chairman Neal has been very -- holds his cards close to his chest to make sure that we're protecting the integrity.

And he believes that the lawsuit within the Ways and Means Committee to get the presidential returns is necessary and is the best course of action.

So, I'm not sure if there are other whistle-blower complaints. But we will -- I guess we will find out soon enough.

BLITZER: Congressman Gomez, I want you to stand by for a moment.

Our Manu Raju is up on Capitol Hill. He's getting more breaking news.

What are you learning, Manu?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

We're learning a little bit more about this testimony that Kurt Volker has been in, the former U.S. envoy in Ukraine, about eight hours and counting behind closed doors, and some details now coming out.

We're told that he told the Ukrainian government not to get involved, not to interfere in U.S. elections. He said to stay out of politics. Essentially, that's what he -- the message that he conveyed to the Ukrainian government.

And, of course, that's significant because the president of the United States had a phone call with the president of Ukraine. And in that phone call, the president urged President Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden, along with his son, Hunter Biden.

Now, in the aftermath of that, we're told that the ambassador -- that Kurt Volker has -- says -- told the Ukrainian government to essentially stay out of U.S. politics.

Now, we're learning some more, Wolf. We're learning that he told lawmakers today that the Ukrainian government had a lot of questions about why that military aid had been withheld. He did not have any good answers, apparently, for the Ukrainian government when he was asked about that as well.

And, Wolf, we're also learning about a meeting that had actually been planned between the Ukrainian government and the incoming Ukrainian administration of President Zelensky and President Donald Trump in Washington. But that meeting had been put on hold.

And it's not entirely clear why that was put on hold. But Volker said that the Ukrainians had raised concerns that that meeting had been put on hold. And if you will recall from that transcript that the White House -- the rough transcript that the White House released about that phone call, in that phone call, the president, they do discuss a possible meeting.

The president says, feel free to call and come to the White House whenever you want. Give us a date, and we will work that out. I look forward to seeing you.

And at the same time, we also are hearing that there were concerns about Rudy Giuliani's source of information, according to our sources, that he did -- Volker did raise concerns to Giuliani that the source that he was relying on for his information was not credible, and he perhaps should not rely on that.

And that's how that conversation transpired. But, again, this has been going on all day. There are a lot more details to learn. But we're getting some early glimpse here about exactly what happened.

But the fact that here is the president of -- after the president of the United States talked to the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, afterwards, we are hearing now that the U.S. special envoy at the time to Ukraine told the Ukrainian government, don't interfere in U.S. politics -- Wolf.

BLITZER: I take it the Ukrainians, understandably, were upset that there was a freeze on U.S. military and economic aid to Ukraine, that the meeting, the high-level meeting with the president was being put off.

Tell us a little bit more about that.

RAJU: Yes, that's been a big source of questioning all along, whether or not the president of the United States used any political leverage to try to get the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens by either holding off on the military aid, why not providing that military that would -- had been approved by Congress, but -- and also now this meeting, this meeting that apparently they had been discussing to have in Washington with the Ukrainian government.

[18:15:05]

And there had been, apparently, from what we're told, a lot of questions about why this meeting was not happening.

And this was discussed in this closed-door testimony and also discussed that phone call with -- between President Trump and President Zelensky. So it was clearly on Zelensky's mind as they discussed moving forward, as they discussed all those aspects in that phone call.

And the president, of course, in that same phone call said investigate -- you should investigate Joe Biden, you should investigate Hunter Biden.

So, in that context, someone may raise concerns about whether the president was using that meeting at all as leverage. Now, we don't know if Volker has said that's exactly -- that was the president's intention at all. But at the moment, that was -- we're learning, though, that was a clear source of concern from the Ukrainians about why that meeting didn't come forward and why also that aid did not come forward.

And according to what we're hearing is that Volker didn't have any real good explanation for the Ukrainians why at least the aid had not been provided -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, the suspicion was they were using that high-level meeting that didn't happen, as well as the economic and military aid, as pressure on the Ukrainians to come up with dirt on Joe Biden.

All right, Manu, stand by.

I want to bring back up Congressman Jimmy Gomez of the Oversight Committee.

Your committee was involved in today's deposition of this special envoy, Kurt Volker. Does Manu's reporting line up with what you're hearing from colleagues who were in the room? And this deposition has been going on now for, what, seven or eight hours.

GOMEZ: Wolf, we haven't been briefed on the deposition.

But when we get back, we will be briefed. And I look forward to that. But I also want to -- just according to the reports, what we're hearing. I want to be very clear that it doesn't matter if the information that Rudy Giuliani was seeking was inaccurate or it wasn't truthful.

The reason why is that the president of the United States never should have asked a foreign government to investigate a political rival, so he can win the 2020 election. He should never have asked China to interfere in the -- and investigate Joe Biden in order to win the 2020 election.

And it's always done in this context, right? There's always something outstanding. It's the money for the defense of the Ukrainians that's out there. He kind of put some meetings off.

Right now, this administration is going into trade negotiations with China. China is suffering because of this trade war. So are our farmers. So are our people in the United States.

But what kind of incentive, what kind of pressure is this going to put on China, right, when this trade war is costing them billions of billions of dollars?

So this president is abusing his office and trying to put pressure on foreign governments to interfere in our election. And that is something -- that is at the core of why we're conducting this inquiry. That is why a lot of people think he should be removed from office.

BLITZER: Congressman Jimmy Gomez, thanks so much for joining us.

GOMEZ: Thank you so much.

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