CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) Discusses The Evidence To Impeach President Trump

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BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Jessica. And OUTFRONT tonight, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen. He was in the room for all of today's 10 hours in that hearing. I appreciate your time, sir. Thank you for joining us.

REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): You're welcome, Erin.

BURNETT: So obviously, it sounded as if this was the closing argument that Democrats made that, as your Chairman concluded that hearing. Do you have enough evidence now to impeach President Trump?

COHEN: I think there's unquestionably plenty of evidence to impeach him. It's been made clear by the scholars, made clear by the facts and I think everybody feels that he's definitely abused his power, betrayed his oath and corrupted our election process. And the election processes the fundamentals upon which democracy rests. It's what the founding fathers laid out as making us the special nation formed in the 1700s for the rest of the world, a beacon of hope and liberty where the people, not the kings through votes determine who their leaders were.

And if you get the election process furloughed, you lose that special privilege and that's what he tried to do with Ukraine. He used the bipartisan congressionally mandated military funds to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian aggression, an ally, and use that for his personal benefit and that's this plum wrong.

BURNETT: And obviously, you're talking about Ukraine here, I know though Congressman you've you said that were you running things here, you would include evidence from the Mueller investigation. Are you going to push for that behind closed doors as your Committee drafts the formal articles?

COHEN: We're going to talk about it and certainly I think he obstructed justice. I think Mueller made it clear he obstructed justice, but he couldn't indict him because of the opinion of the Justice Department's office legal counsel that you can't indict a president. I think we can do it.

There's two schools of thought. One is to keep it tight. The other is to put everything in it and it's not going to make any difference. We're not going to get any votes to speak of in the Senate from Republicans and we'll probably won't get any in the House.

We might lose a couple of democratic votes if we go that way and so I think that we don't want to lose Democratic votes and we don't want to hurt Democratic members. Because it's important that we, for the future of the country, for minimum wage, for prescription drug prices, for all kind of important laws, we need to have a majority in the House and the Senate both and a Democratic president. And that's important if America is going to go forward and have a good future.

BURNETT: Which I understand your point then and what that would mean for perhaps not including Mueller in this. COHEN: Yes.

BURNETT: I understand you're meeting tonight with your Committee, that your Committee is going to -- I mean, how quickly do you go from here?

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Do you anticipate having draft articles ready in the next day or so? What's your plan?

COHEN: I'm not sure what the timeline is. I would suspect Wednesday or Thursday. Certainly, one of those two days. I suspect we'll have articles that'll be presented and we'll have a mark up.

BURNETT: All right. So by Wednesday or Thursday. All right. Congressman, the President was not in office for a year before you had originally introduced five articles of impeachment against him, including one first pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, one for his words attacking certain news anchors and Republicans say Democrats have been out to get the President from day one. Your articles were just a part of that process. Here's what they said today.

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REP. STEPHEN SCALISE (R-LA): We know from day one, the day that Donald Trump put his hand on the Bible to take the oath of office, they wanted to impeach him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They've been after this president since 2016.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): They've been out to get the Presidents since the day he was elected.

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BURNETT: Why are they wrong, Congressman Cohen?

COHEN: Well, it was not for his impeachment from day one. I didn't think he was a good human being from when he came up with The Trump University stuff, that was way before he got elected and I thought he didn't get the nomination. He's been a bad person for a long time.

But it wasn't until he went to Charlottesville and he said they were fine people on both sides. I represent a district where the majority is African-American and Klansmen are not fine people, and I'm Jewish. Nazis aren't fun people.

And for anybody who said that, it was too much for me and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. He had done other things. It's clear that he violated an emoluments clause in my Opinion. The self- dealings of Trump hotel, the self-dealings of the Trump Tower and other office buildings.

There was the disparagement of judges calling them Hispanic judges and not American judges. And that was the judge he gave a $25 million of consent decree for defrauding students at Trump University. So the fact that the people like myself who came forth with impeachment articles and I didn't do it until November, because I waited to get it done as the best that I could and the most timely and try to get as much support as I could.

BURNETT: Yes.

COHEN: It's because Trump took these actions. He self-dealt. He did not put his monies into a trust. He did not take himself out of decision making and he took his daughter and his son-in-law and put them in the White House and they took care of 666 Fifth Avenue that would have been in receivership, but for the access Jared Kushner had to the Middle Eastern money people.

BURNETT: All right. I appreciate your time. Thank you very much, Congressman Cohen.

COHEN: You're welcome, Erin.

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