CNN "The Lead With Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) is Interviewed About Democratic Efforts of Impeachment

Interview

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Joining me now is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington state.

Congresswoman, good to see you as always. Thanks for joining us.

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Thank you.

TAPPER: Let me ask you, the odds that the Republican-led Senate will remove the president from office are not particularly high. Why not censure President Trump instead of impeaching him? A censure motion is probably more likely to pick up some Senate Republican votes and put an official black mark next to the president's name? No?

JAYAPAL: This just isn't about what the Senate will do. This is about upholding our oath to the Constitution. And here's the thing: we have a president who has committed the gravest abuses -- abuses of power and obstruction of Congress which essentially said he's a monarch. He's a dictator.

This is a man who used the Oval Office to bully and coerce a foreign ally to interfere in our election. And it isn't just Ukraine, Jake. As you know, there is a pattern of conduct here with this president trying to literally take away our democracy. That is a grave threat.

This is also a president unprecedented, by the way, this didn't happen with Nixon, didn't happen with Clinton, he has obstructed Congress at every single stage, refused to send his people in to testify, refused to provide any documents. He has said that Article II gives him the power to do anything he wants.

TAPPER: Uh-huh.

JAYAPAL: We cannot allow that to happen. And I hope that the Republicans in the House and in the Senate understand that we are not here serving our parties. We are here to serve our nation.

And that means that we have to look at the uncontested facts that are in front of us, the gravity of the situation, and they should stand with us to vote yes on these articles of impeachment.

TAPPER: Do you know of any House Republicans who might vote to impeach?

JAYAPAL: Well, I'm waiting for them to emerge. You know, two weeks ago, my former Washington state Senator Slade Gorton, a Republican, came out with an op-ed that said Republicans have plenty in front of them to vote to impeach this president, and that's what they should do. He broke with his party on the Clinton impeachment.

That is the kind of courage we need. We need the patriotism and courage of the -- similar to the, you know, many Foreign Service individuals who came and testified before us. And so, that's I think the most important thing. It looks like a lost my earpiece there. So --

TAPPER: OK. You don't have the earpiece. Hopefully you'll be able to get it.

JAYAPAL: OK. There you go. I got it again.

TAPPER: OK. Democratic sources tell CNN that the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, your committee, Jerry Nadler, privately advocated for obstruction of justice to be one of the articles of impeachment which would have included evidence from the Mueller probe. That was a point of contention in your party. Ultimately, it was not included as an article of impeachment.

Do you think it should have been included?

JAYAPAL: I don't think it was a point of contention. I will tell you that these two articles, there are different views here and we looked at all of the views. The most important thing to us on the Judiciary Committee as we had our many discussions was that the pattern of conduct that was found in the Mueller report, in the Mueller investigation, that we had a way to present that into these articles and both articles on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress have that built into it.

There are a couple of lines in each article that talks about that pattern of conduct. Because as terrible as what happened in the Mueller report was, this is while Donald Trump is president. So, Ukraine was so much more egregious in different ways but had we not had the Mueller investigation I'm not sure we would be at this point. So that was incredibly important, that pattern of conduct, and we have included those in these articles of impeachment.

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And I think that's what most of us were very concerned about.

TAPPER: Congresswoman, I want your reaction as a member of the House Judiciary Committee to Attorney General Bill Barr today saying that the FBI may have acted in bad faith by opening the Russia investigation and saying that the Trump campaign was spied on, despite what the inspector general report actually said, which is neither of those things.

JAYAPAL: Bill Barr is a sham as an attorney general. He should not be in that position. He is supposed to be advocating for the country. He's not supposed to be the president's personal lawyer.

To criticize his own attorney general or contradict his own attorney general, it shows us exactly his true colors. He's never going to stand up for the country. He's only going to stand up for a corrupt president who has abused his office and obstructed Congress and I that, you know, Bill Barr should not be the attorney general. That should be for somebody who is dedicated to the law of the country not to being the president's personal attorney.

TAPPER: Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

JAYAPAL: Thank you, Jake.

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