CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: "Interview with Rep. Steve Cohen"

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

BLITZER: Very important development. Kylie, thank you very much, Kylie Atwood reporting.

Joining us now, Congressman Steve Cohen. He's a Democrat. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee. He took part in today's questioning of the former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.

We watched the hearing very closely. Did the Democrats get what you wanted out of Corey Lewandowski today? COHEN: I don't think we did at first, because he simply tried to

stonewall and kill time and avoid answering questions. And he didn't answer a lot of questions that we would have liked to have had him answer.

But when the attorney Barry Berke has taken him on -- and he's doing it now -- Barry Berke has shown him to have told falsehoods on television, falsehoods on different programs, lying about his involvement -- relationship with the president and asking him to convey information to Sessions.

And when caught in it, and he said, well, I didn't have -- wasn't under oath and I don't have a duty not to lie basically to the media and claimed the media lies all the time, so whatever he did was OK.

He's under oath right now. And he was caught lying. He first didn't admit he was lying, but basically admitted it by saying he thinks the media lies, so it's OK to lie to the American people on television.

BLITZER: Yes, he's being...

COHEN: Corey Lewandowski is not a -- he's not a good human being and he's not a good witness.

BLITZER: He's still testifying up now. As you point out, the Democrats, the Democrat attorneys are now questioning him about what was going on, what was in the Mueller report, and all of that.

But bottom line right now, did the American public really learn anything new today watching these hours of this hearing?

COHEN: They might have. I mean, not too many people read the Mueller report. I don't know how many people watched our -- intently our Mueller investigation -- testimony.

But the fact is, the president asked Lewandowski, who was not even working for the president, after McGahn, after Sessions had told him they wouldn't do what he wanted him to do to get Sessions to back off, he dictated a letter to him, asked him to deliver that to Sessions, asking Sessions to back off, make the investigations on future presidents, not this president, and to claim that Trump ran the greatest campaign in the world.

He did that, even though he knew he wasn't supposed to get involved with the attorney general. He found Lewandowski, who was his pit bull, his enforcer, as he was called in many articles, and as he himself more or less said is a loyal soldier, to do it.

And the reason he did that is because he knew it was against the law. And he found somebody that would do it. At the last minute, Lewandowski got cold feet and chickened out and didn't do it. And he passed it off to Dearborn, who also didn't do it.

But Lewandowski has been shown by the questioning in just Mike Wallace fashion that he lied. BLITZER: We have heard from sources, Congressman, that Democrats

weren't necessarily fully prepared for Lewandowski to stonewall today the way he did. If that's the case, why go through with this hearing?

COHEN: I think we knew that he would stonewall. I think we knew he would use the opportunities to claim he had some executive privilege that the White House and the counsel had written to not go beyond the four corners of the Mueller report.

We didn't know he would do some kind of -- have to want to get the Mueller report and look at it to confirm that he was even there. And that was obviously just trying to kill time.

That was beyond anything we have seen from any witness the whole time I have been in Judiciary in 13 years. This witness was beyond stonewalling. He was just trying to kill time and not to be cooperative.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: So, what, if anything, can you do about that?

COHEN: Well, I think we could hold him in contempt of Congress --

BLITZER: Will you?

COHEN: -- for refusal to answer questions.

I don't know that we will. I think we should. And I think we should have done it before. I suggested it months and months and months ago that we should have done it with the attorney general, Barr, for refusing to show up and others.

We need to get tougher, because the Republicans play tough. They're playing it to the nth, because they know that there's information to be gained from seeing information from the grand jury testimony and from documents that we have subpoenaed and from witnesses we have subpoenaed.

And they're trying to stop it as much as they can. Trump knows what's in there, and Trump is scared to death of the truth coming out.

BLITZER: So why do you believe, from your perspective, the Democrats have been ineffective or weak in dealing with these subpoenas and the noncompliance?

COHEN: I think the decision was made to go through the courts in the most traditional way as possible, and that's what they have been doing.

[18:15:07]

We think we will get a ruling on McGahn at the appellate level in October. And, of course, that will go to the Supreme Court. That will take more time. I think the idea of doing this in the most traditional fashion has

proven to be not the right choice, because this is an untraditional presidency that will do anything, because they know what's at the end of the rainbow.

BLITZER: This was the first big hearing of the formal impeachment investigation in the Judiciary Committee. Corey Lewandowski was mostly non-cooperative.

Do you worry he set a precedent for other witnesses?

COHEN: Well, I hope that the other witnesses will be more cooperative.

Lewandowski, of course, is considering running for the Senate in New Hampshire. And part of this was him appearing for his audience of one, Donald Trump, to get his support, which I'm sure he will have when he runs for New Hampshire senator and wanting to impress the people of New Hampshire.

So he had different issues at play than the other witnesses I think we will have.

BLITZER: Well, what's to stop other witnesses from refusing to cooperate fully?

COHEN: Well, there's not a good reason not to cooperate, although the president finds reasons. His attorneys give him reasons, saying they have got some privilege.

Lewandowski wasn't even employed by the White House. He never was. He was just an adviser who showed up on occasion. We think will win in court, but that's going through court.

And to physically have somebody arrested, I guess, is just a decision that our Democratic team has decided not to pursue.

BLITZER: What comes next for this impeachment investigation? Because, as you know, the Democrats in the House, they're divided.

Many of them, a majority, want to go forward with formal impeachment proceedings, but there's a whole bunch of others, including some of the leaders, who say, you know what, it's better, especially going into an election next year, to focus in on other issues right now, like health care, infrastructure, national security.

COHEN: We're doing those things too. And we have passed health care bills. And we have passed bills concerning cleaning up government and corruption and cleaning up the election process and trying to get people more opportunities to have the vote and all.

But McConnell won't schedule any of those bills. And we have sent a lot of bills over there of substance, and McConnell will not schedule. Nothing we can do about that.

But we can do two things at once. And we're going to continue to work on health care and try to lower prescription health care, lower prescription health care costs, to pass an infrastructure bill, and to clean up the corruption that's here and present in this administration, and pass better laws on ethics that we need to have improved.

We're going to be working on those bills, but we also need to investigate the president in our impeachment hearing. We're going to have an emoluments hearing in my subcommittee, I think it's the 24th of this month. We're also going to have a hearing coming up in October on impeachment in general.

And I'm sure there will be other fact witnesses coming forth as well.

BLITZER: Congressman Steve Cohen, thanks so much for joining us.

COHEN: You're welcome, Wolf. Good to be with you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source