CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is Interviewed About the Impeachment Inquiry

Interview

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COOPER: We're talking tonight about the House Intelligence Committee report adopted tonight along party lines and the revelation that there are phone records to key players at pivotal moments in the affair, including the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes.

Joining us is Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. He and his Republican counterpart Ron Johnson traveled to Kiev in earlier September with U.S. aid to Ukraine still frozen.

Senator Murphy, first of all, just your reaction to the House Intelligence Committee report accusing the president of misconduct and obstruction. Is there -- I mean, what's your biggest takeaway?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I think it just confirms what we've known for a long time, the president was using the massive power of the Oval Office and taxpayer dollars to try to get a foreign government to interfere in American politics. What we have learned over the course of the last several months is that the scope of this corruption was massive involving high ranking officials in the White House and the Department of State and was directly connected back to the president himself.

I don't know why you have the power of impeachment in the Constitution if not to be used for a scheme of this magnitude. If the president gets away with this, then I'm not sure what will ever stop a president from using all of the powers of the executive branch to try to destroy their political opponents or win an election. I think it's a very impressive report, and it speaks to the gravity of the crimes.

COOPER: And should Devin Nunes have said something? I mean, you know, you have the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee who, I don't know if he was a key player, but he was certainly I guess, you know, they were having phone calls with Lev Parnas and Giuliani and Solomon and Parnas is indicted.

I mean, should he have said something, even if he didn't recuse himself?

MURPHY: I mean, certainly Representative Nunes should have let folks know that he had been coordinating and communicating with Rudy Giuliani, going all the way back to the spring, but, you know, ultimately this isn't really a trial of the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. It's about what Trump did.

And, you know, it's a reminder, though, that this didn't just get discovered in the late summer and early fall. Rudy Giuliani was openly crowing about his attempts to try to get the Ukrainians to do Trump's dirty work back in that April time frame when he was having calls with ranking member Nunes, and many of us were raising those concerns to our Senate colleagues at the time.

So, this has been an open secret for a long, long time where. We're finally getting to the point that there are some consequences for what Trump and his allies have been doing.

COOPER: And your Republican colleagues, Senator John Thune, and other Senate Democrats, they basically said that the only question is whether President Trump's conduct is impeachable, not whether it's appropriate, and therein lies potentially a lot of cover for the president's allies.

MURPHY: Yes, again, I think that my Republican colleagues in the Senate, you know, have to really think about the precedent that gets set if they endorse the president's actions.

I mean, to me, the one sacred covenant that a president makes with the people who elect him is that he's going to use the power of the Oval Office to protect the nation and to advance the common interests, not to advance his personal political or financial interests.

And when you break that covenant, I just don't think you can stay in office because it signals that, you know, we're on our way to becoming much more like a tin pot dictatorship than a democracy.

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And so, if Republicans don't vote to render some consequences to President Trump for the way that he's abused the office, I think they are just inviting future presidents to do the same.

So I'm not letting them off the hook yet. I hope they take the time to read this report, read the articles that get sent over. I'm not giving up on my Republican colleagues.

COOPER: Although, I mean, you know, some of your Republican colleagues -- I mean, Senator John Kennedy for one continue to peddle a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. I mean, several current and former Trump administration officials themselves have said on the record that just doesn't hold water.

You tweeted --

MURPHY: Yes.

COOPER: -- that the Republican Party is becoming the most important global asset of Russian intelligence. That is scary.

MURPHY: Yes, it's really scary. What the Russians want is for more chum to be thrown in the water regarding what happened in 2016. They love the idea that now we're engaging in this fantasy where Ukraine, not Russia, influenced the 2016 election.

I will say, though, in the last 24 hours since I sent out had that tweet you referenced, the majority of the Republicans in the Senate who have commented on Senator Kennedy's claims have made it pretty clear that the intelligence says Russia, not Ukraine interfered in the elections. So, Senator Kennedy is, I think, increasingly out on a limb here, and I'm glad that -- although I may not agree with the judgment that my Senate Republican colleagues render on the president's conduct, at least most of them are not engaged in this just wild Trump-driven conspiracy theory about what happened in 2016.

COOPER: And last, I want to ask you about the aid to Lebanon that was mysteriously withheld by the administration and then lifted. You recently got back from a trip there. Have you gotten any answers to why it was held up in the first place? Obviously, there's more attention being paid to this sort of thing.

MURPHY: Yes, so I think it's really important that, you know, we get to the bottom of why the Trump administration was quietly and mysteriously holding up security aid to Lebanon.

It's very similar to Ukraine. Lebanon is at a very perilous moment right now. The military badly needed the aid, and the president held it up without any explanation to Congress, exactly what happened in Ukraine.

Now I'm not suggesting there's as nefarious a motive here, but I would hope my Republican colleagues would start asking some questions. We have a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee coming up with State Department officials who oversee Ukraine. We're going to be asking those questions.

The bottom line is the president doesn't have this power. He can't decide to hold aid or put conditions on aid that Congress didn't. And all of us, Republicans and Democrats, have got to stop this behavior from the executive branch in its tracks before it gets out of control.

COOPER: Senator Chris Murphy, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

MURPHY: Thanks. COOPER: Up next, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Adam

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