CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) SpeaksAbout Her Expectation On The Report
Interview
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BURNETT: All right. Manu, thank you very much. And I want to go now to Democratic Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, member of the House Oversight Committee. Congresswoman, I appreciate your time.
So what are you looking for in this report which you may see in ours once the committee approves it.
REP. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D-DC): Well, I think we've had a good understanding of what should be in the report, because we've had two weeks of open hearings. And we can conclude I think that the report will act on what those hearings showed us. And remember what we're dealing with here, this is the prosecutorial side of the impeachment inquiry and I was on that committee that dealt with that inquiry.
Republicans got to be in there as just as much as I was and now we're in to prosecuting and that's what you are seeing as I speak.
BURNETT: So, obviously, Republicans have released their own report which they call a rebuttal, but they're issuing it.
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I mean I suppose a rebuttal to what you say you know will be in it, the hearings we all heard.
NORTON: Why don't you call it prebuttal because we hadn't issued ours yet.
BURNETT: Right. Right. Right. So they have 123 pages and they have several things in there that do not add up when you check them against the facts. But they do write this, Congresswoman, "There is also nothing wrong with asking serious questions about the presence of Vice President Biden's son, Hunter Biden, on the board of directors of Burisma, a corrupt Ukrainian company, or about Ukraine's attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election."
Obviously, the President's former Homeland Security advisor said there were no such attempts to influence the presidential election. But what's your response to the point about Hunter Biden?
NORTON: They have yet to produce any evidence that Hunter Biden has been involved at all. And anything that has happened here, this is a man who went as a private citizen onto a board of a company in Ukraine. What does that have to do with whether we should impeachment the President?
They're just trying to find witnesses to embarrass former Vice President Biden, because they see him as the frontrunner for the nomination on the democratic side.
BURNETT: And President Trump claims that this is unifying the Republican Party. His tweet today, the Republican Party has never been more unified. This impeachment scam is just a continuation of the three-year Witch Hunt, but it is only bringing us even closer together.
And look, he has a point here, doesn't he? I mean, despite the facts here, despite witness after witness including the President's own million dollar donor saying there was a quid pro quo at the behest of the President of the United States himself. Not one Republican has said they'll vote to impeach.
NORTON: Actually we had two Democrats who didn't vote with us and previously voted with us, but both sides are pretty much dug in. But nobody more than the Republicans unlike the Nixon impeachment where Republicans thought for themselves and you had much more of a bipartisan approach to impeachment.
Here you see impeachment simply mirrors what the House looks like today, a completely polarized House, more polarized than at any time since the Civil War.
BURNETT: I mean, look, it's an incredible thing to say it as starkly as you did since the Civil War, because I think it feels that way. It feels that way to people, whatever the facts are people just - they go with what their political point of view is now. President Trump does have a line of response.
Obviously, he's saying, oh, this is unfair, even though as you know, Congresswoman, he could have had his own person in this hearing that the Judiciary Committee is set to hold. He chose not to, that's his choice. But he did say this before he left for London this morning where he is at a NATO meeting, here he is.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Democrats, the radical left Democrats, the do nothing Democrats decided when I'm going to NATO, this is setup a year ago, that when I'm going to NATO, that was the exact time, this is one of the most important journeys that we make as President.
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BURNETT: And putting aside the great irony of him saying that going to NATO is one of the most important journeys of a president when he is questioned the need for NATO to exist. Does he have a point here? This has been scheduled forever and Democrats are holding an impeachment hearing and he's out of the country.
NORTON: But isn't that the point? Isn't that the point that Democrats didn't say, "When will he be out of town?" These things happen to coalesce. We're trying to get this done by the end of December. We don't want to run on impeachment. We want to run on all of those bills we passed and have not gotten any credit for, because impeachment has been standing in the way.
What got us into the House? What got us into the House, of course, was what we did on medical care for all Americans. And now we want to go back to that and we can't go back to that if we're going to spend the whole next year doing exactly what we've done this year. Blotting out all of our tremendous accomplishments for impeachment.
Let's get this over with by the end of December, then let the Senate have their way. By the way, they're controlled by Republicans, we're controlled by Democrats. So I suppose everybody will be satisfied in the long run.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Congresswoman. I appreciate your time.
NORTON: My pleasure.
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