CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Mark Warner

Interview

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ACOSTA: Right. And it just sounds like he's bingeing on some of these autocratic dictator like, impulses.

All right, Carrie Cordero, Andrew McCabe, Kaitlan Collins, again, thank you, all of you for those comments. We appreciate it.

Let's get more on the breaking news with Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the Vice Chair of the Intelligence Committee.

And Mr. Vice Chair, I want to get your initial comments to this, I guess stunning but not surprising news that the President has pardon, Michael Flynn.

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Well, again, I think, Jim, you characterize it correctly. Stunning, but not surprising and all of your earlier commentators have made this point. This is undemocratic. This is an attempt to rewrite history.

But history has been written, the intelligence community assessment of Russia intervention help from the Mueller investigation. Our bipartisan five-volume intelligence committee report documenting all these activities including the activities of Michael Flynn, who, you know, didn't even pretend he was innocent, pled guilty to lying twice to the FBI.

[17:15:01]

The idea that Donald Trump in his waning days are trying -- is trying to change history or rewrite history. I think he's going to be unsuccessful.

But I do think we need to be worried about not only Donald Trump pardoning his cronies and his, you know, political helpers, but what he could -- the damage he can continue to do to our national security apparatus. I mean, he fired Secretary Esper, he fired Chris Krebs, who put together the cleanest election in American history. There are rumors about the FBI director and the CIA director.

So, while he may be trying to clean up his personal mess, the proactive damage he can continue to do to our national security in our next 60 days should be a top concern of all of us.

ACOSTA: And Senator Warner, do you believe, and this is a critical question, do you believe this is an abuse of the President's pardon powers?

WARNER: I think this President has abused so many parts of his office in such undemocratic ways. Where I put this in that hierarchy of abuse, you know, I'll let other commentators and historians weigh in. But I -- this is not the first and I'm unfortunately afraid this will be the last time this president tries to abuse his powers for his own personal self-interest.

ACOSTA: And we're learning that the President is considering other pardons for other members of his inner circle, including other figures from the Mueller investigation, other figures that you were investigating as part of your bipartisan probe there on the Senate Intelligence Committee. What is your sense of it? Should there be a warning to the President, that he should not abuse this pardon power that he could go too far here?

WARNER: Well, again, I'm not sure who this president listens to in terms of warnings, maybe we could get some of his business supporters to weigh in. But when I've been obviously disappointed that more of my Republican colleagues, although, each day more and more recognize President-elect Biden call out his inappropriate actions, again, in terms of undermining the integrity of our elections, or for that matter, drawing down troops in Afghanistan without warning our allies. So, I would not be surprised by any action he takes.

But if he's simply, you know, and I say this with some tongue in cheek, but if he's only trying to protect his own, you know, tattered reputation, as opposed to proactively undermining our national security, I will take protecting his tattered reputation, rather than undermining our country in these last 60 days when we think about other parts of the intelligence community or our defense establishment, not only here at home, but around the world.

ACOSTA: And I just have to ask you about what the President was saying earlier today continuing to make these outlandish conspiracy, laden comments about the election, lying about the outcome of the election, calling for the election results to be overturned, what is your response to the President?

WARNER: Well, Jim, let's take, you know, a step back and recognize that, you know, 30 days before the election, our intelligence community and law enforcement community were really afraid of four things. They were afraid, one, a foreign interference.

They were afraid, two, Americans would not show up for the election because of fear of COVID. Number three, that people would come potentially with firearms on Election Day and try to intimidate people from voting. And number four, that there might be violence right before or right after the election.

And we looked at what happened with the good efforts of CISA and NSA and others, we kept the foreign interference out. Americans voted in record numbers, both for Biden and for Trump. We did not have intimidation at the polls, and we did not have violence before or afterwards.

Other than Donald Trump's personal antics after the election, this election was the safest and as Chris Krebs said, the most secure. And we should be actually commending our institutions, our local election officials, they did one hell of a job. And I think that is the real story.

And, frankly, at the end of the day, Trump's lies and attempts to up in our election, I hope will become a historical footnote rather than obviously, what should be in candidly viewed as an institutional success of our democracy. That actually happened on November 3.

ACOSTA: All right, we'll take that note of optimism there.

Senator Mark Warner, thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.

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