CNN "The Lead With Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) is Interviewed About the DOJ Inspector General's Testimony

Interview

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Let's bring in Democratic Senator Chris Coons. He's on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He just finished questioning the inspector general today about his findings.

Senator Coons, thanks for joining us as always. We appreciate it.

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Thank you.

TAPPER: The inspector general said today that no one should feel vindicated by this report. What was your big takeaway from his testimony today?

COONS: Well, Jake, first, the inspector general conducted a strikingly broad investigation. They looked sat a million documents. They conducted interviews of over a hundred witnesses and they ultimately concluded that the FBI did not act with political bias, that they launched an investigation into the possible collusion between Russian intelligence and the Trump campaign with a solid and legal foundation.

They did identify some missteps, inadequacies in FBI procedure and behavior, but overarching the important conclusion the I.G. reached is those actions did not influence how that investigation was launched or the conclusions that it ultimately reached.

TAPPER: We live in a time of such division. There isn't even agreement within the leadership of this Justice Department on this. Take a listen to this exchange between the inspector general and your colleague, Senator Klobuchar. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KLOBUCHAR: Do you agree with Attorney General Barr that the investigation was predicated on the thinnest of suspicions?

HOROWITZ: Well, I'm not going to get into a comparison of what his view. He's free to have his opinion. We have our finding and as I said earlier, I stand by our conclusion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Presumably, from your first answer, you side with the inspector general, Mr. Horowitz?

[16:20:03]

COONS: That's right. And one of the things I did emphasize was that I'm grateful that the FBI Director Chris Wray, instead of continuing to support the conspiracy theories advanced by President Trump and frankly by Attorney General Bill Barr accepted the conclusions of the inspector general report, said he would promptly move to implement the recommendations for how to improve the FISA warrant process and agreed with the conclusions that the inspector general reached.

TAPPER: So, the bar was -- no pun intended -- the bar for launching an FBI investigation, counterterrorism or intelligence was lowered after 9/11.

COONS: Yes.

TAPPER: It sounds like you're saying that Attorney General Barr would not necessarily view the investigation as having been launched on the thinnest of suspicions if it had been an investigation of, say, your fellow Delawarean Joe Biden?

COONS: Well, I can't speak to what the attorney general would say in that circumstance but my broader concern is that there wasn't bipartisan agreement in that hearing that the inspector general reached the right result, and that result was that the FBI made its most important investigation decisions without political bias. That runs directly in the face of the repeated attacks on FBI as being a hoax or rich hunt or politically bias. And that's the important conclusion here, and I wish that all of us on the committee, Republican and Democrat, would have embraced that outcome today.

TAPPER: Now, you pressed Horowitz on whether the FISA application process was abused for political purposes, he did say he say evidence of it either way. Senator Graham, the chairman of the committee, seems to suggest that the lawyer's whose conduct is being referred for prosecution, who altered this email for a FISA reauthorization --

COONS: That's right.

TAPPER: -- that may have been acting out of bias based on anti-Trump text messages. So, in other words, the FBI investigation was launched OK but that it wasn't continued in a non-bias way. What do you make of that?

COONS: Well, the larger point I was making in my questioning today, Jake, was that the individual Carter Page, who's at issue here, there was a FISA warrant issued against him for surveillance on him, he ultimately was not the target of any of the indictments of this investigation. But if you put it in broader context, there were 37 indictments, convictions, guilty pleas.

The president's theory that this was a baseless witch hunt I think is disproven by the fact that the president's own national security adviser, deputy national security adviser, campaign manager, personal attorney, all stand convicted. They've either pled guilty or been convicted in court as a result of this investigation. That's the larger back drop.

And while there was this one instance that was pointed to over and over by Chairman Graham and others on the committee today, if you put it in a broader context, this was a well-founded and necessary investigation.

TAPPER: Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, thank you so much, sir. Appreciate it.

COONS: Thank you, Jake.

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