CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Jeff Merkley

Interview

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Now, a juror as well as a lawmaker is openly interested in hearing from witnesses and weighing the evidence. Joining us now is Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon.

Senator, first of all, what do you make of the new documents that have been released from Parnas? How much stronger do you think this makes the Democrats' case against the president?

SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D-OR): Well, this start sketching (ph) and really critical details about how Giuliani was operating and about communication between that operation and the president. Certainly, it isn't the whole picture. I think information is going to continue to come forward, but this starts to fill in some of the gaps.

COOPER: As of now, none of what Parnas has revealed is part of the evidence that the Senate is going to consider. To your Republican colleagues who are hesitant to include any new information during the trial, for, I guess, a variety of reasons one can interpret -- some stated, some not stated -- what do you say to them?

MERKLEY: Well, I say to them that there's really two steps here. An indictment is based on sufficient information that a serious act has occurred. And of course, in the context of an impeachment, that doesn't necessarily mean a crime. It can mean abuse of power in other ways. But it's just that there is serious information that merits a full trial.

A full trial is the full examination of evidence. And like any other trial, it continues to pull on any information that is available for witnesses to come forward, for documents to be examined, and that's what a trial is.

It is really a situation where the president's lawyers deserve to pull in whoever they feel contributes to their case and the House managers in presenting their case need to be able to pull in and have a subpoena for the witnesses and for the documents. That's what a trial is, full fairness to present the case on both sides.

COOPER: So if Republican lawyers wanted to pull in Hunter Biden or Vice President Biden, you would support that?

MERKLEY: My belief is that the jurors, the hundred of us, should not be determining who is relevant to the case. And quite frankly, I think that if either side tries to turn this into a circus, pulling in people who are clearly not relevant or continuing the persecution of a political opponent, it would do great harm to that side. So I would say that in this case, the right of the defense to choose who they think is relevant and present that information something no one else should be able to interfere with.

COOPER: Republicans are united in their opposition to include any new evidence. Do Democrats really have any leverage, though, to force this issue?

MERKLEY: The leverage is 51 votes. The leverage is people doing their responsibility under the constitutional framework of checks and balance. The leverage is the oath we're going to take at the start of the trial, where we pledge to do impartial justice.

Leverage is that the American people understand that impartial justice envisions a full access to witnesses and documents. Lack of witnesses and documents, that's a cover-up.

COOPER: Impartial justice, which is something that all the senators are going to be swearing to, is that something -- I mean, senators who have come forward and said, you know, I'm -- I -- this is not -- you know, we are not going to find the president guilty, can they swear to that oath?

MERKLEY: Well, I think they're going to have to search their heart and ask if they're able to set aside their preconception, all of us, all hundred of us.

[20:15:04]

And if we are unable to do that, if we're unable to in good faith say, we'll set aside our preconceptions, look at the exact language of the House articles of impeachment, the exact evidence and how it fits, then we should recuse ourselves. Because it would be really a deep violation of any form of integrity to go forward and swear that you can do impartial justice when you're unable to do it.

COOPER: The Republicans have been criticizing the House impeachment hearings as rushed, saying that Democrats were more interested in getting it done fast than they were in conducting a thorough investigation and that if they really wanted to do a thorough investigation, they would have gone through the court process in order to get the testimony that they wanted that they couldn't.

There is new evidence that has come to light. The fact that new evidence is still coming to light, does that prove their argument correct?

MERKLEY: Well, recognize that a lot of this information was solicited in the House examination and it was blocked, in all kinds of various ways. People who refuse to testified and in this case, information that they subpoenaed, but they weren't able to get until now.

But again, it goes back to the fact that the House setting is a different setting. Is there substantial information relevant to what would be the -- an indictment? And in a trial, it's full examination of the facts, with everything brought to bear.

My colleagues, my Republican colleagues know this. They know that the president would have -- his legal team because of tied up the subpoenas for probably a year, taking it through the next election, and that therefore, we could not have executed our responsibility under the Constitution if the House waited until the courts could process each and every of the cases in which they were seeking documents and witnesses.

So, the House has to ask themselves a key question. Is what we have so strong that this merits a full trial? And the House concluded that it was.

COOPER: Yes.

MERKLEY: And now we have a different set of responsibilities in the Senate.

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

MERKLEY: Good to be with you.

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