CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview With Sen. Chris Coons

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Joining me now, Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware.

Senator, thanks for joining us.

In about 15 minutes, we're expecting the House impeachment managers to walk the articles of impeachment over to the Senate. Now, we don't know if this new evidence that we reported on earlier from Rudy Giuliani's associate Lev Parnas is going to be included in the impeachment trial ultimately.

Should it?

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D), DELAWARE: Well, Jake, thanks for the chance to be on.

All of us know that trials typically have witnesses and evidence, and particularly where one of the core issues in the trial, President Trump's campaign to block Congress' legitimate investigation, is part of what's at issue.

I will remind you, the two articles of impeachment, the first one, abuse of power, the second, obstruction of Congress, those are rooted in both President Trump's alleged actions to try and compel or shake down Ukraine to investigate, without foundation, his leading Democratic rival, Joe Biden, and the second a response to the fact that he blocked his closest advisers and Cabinet officials from testifying.

So, there should be more evidence available here at trial.

And these latest details from Lev Parnas are pretty striking and a reminder of how it really might add to the weight of these impeachment articles.

TAPPER: Your colleague Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, says that the fact that these documents were just revealed suggests that the House investigation was incomplete and the House Democrats did an incomplete job.

What do you make of that argument that this, testimony from Bolton, the e-mails from Duffey, Mulvaney, all of this should have been part of the House impeachment case and not the Senate trial for you guys to uncover?

COONS: Well, first, that sort of misses the point that part of why these documents weren't available, part of why the most important testimony from senior administration officials who were in the room at the time the president was making these decisions is because the president himself blocked them.

That didn't happen before. President Clinton, even President Nixon directed their senior advisers, their Cabinet officials to cooperate with what became their impeachment inquiries.

So let's not miss the point, the key issue here as to why this evidence wasn't available in the House was because it was blocked.

The other issue here is timing. The core issue is that President Trump is alleged to have sought foreign interference in our upcoming 2020 election.

The first votes will be cast in Iowa here just in a few weeks. There is an urgency to moving forward as a result. And so, when some of my Republican colleagues have said to me in our conversations, why didn't the House seek a subpoena, for example, for John Bolton, the House managers, I suspect, will say to us in the Senate trial that they were concerned that, if they took months and months to litigate the question of the subpoena, that the next election would already be upon us?

[16:50:02]

TAPPER: Some Republicans have been saying that if witnesses such as John Bolton are called, then Hunter Biden and others should be as well.

Now, I know you disagree with that.

COONS: Yes.

TAPPER: But what matters more is if there are four Republicans that will join you and the other 46 Democrats to demand witnesses, but not like Hunter Biden witnesses.

Are there? Are there four Republicans with you on this?

COONS: Well, we don't know yet. Or, certainly, I don't know yet.

There are a number of Republicans who have made intriguing public statements about how they think we should hear from John Bolton or they think we might consider witnesses.

But public reporting at this point is that all of them are on board with having the first two weeks of the trial, having essentially opening arguments, opening statements by the House managers and then whatever defense President Trump is going to put on, and then consider the question of if we need to hear from additional witnesses.

That strikes me as putting the cart before the horse. But if that's what 51 senators will vote for, that's what Majority Leader McConnell will get.

TAPPER: Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, thank you so much for your time, sir. Always good to see you.

COONS: Thank you, Jake.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source