CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Jason Crow

Interview

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COOPER: Ryan Nobles, appreciate it. Joining us now is Colorado Democratic Congressman, Jason Crow, who just a couple of weeks ago was preparing to defend himself and the people around him against an attacking mob.

Congressman Crow, Speaker Pelosi today seemed unclear as to when she'll send the Article of Impeachment over to the Senate. Do you have any update as to when that might happen?

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): I don't, Anderson. I think what they're trying to do is work out an agreement, which is the right thing to do. I mean, I am not going to play politics with this, nor should anybody play politics with this issue.

If we can come up with an agreement with Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer, and do this in a collaborative way. That's the right way to do it.

COOPER: So you wouldn't be opposed to delaying the start of the trial until February?

CROW: You know, I do think it's important that we do it as quickly as we can. I mean, I was a proponent of trying to get the President removed from office before the 20th. That obviously did not happen given the rules of the Senate.

So now that we're past that, and President Trump is now out of office, I still want to do it as quick as we can, because I think justice needs to be brought to the President and those involved.

But you know, he is entitled to his defense. I mean, we are the United States of America. We are a country that promotes the rule of law. I'm for the rule of law, he's entitled to a defense and to have his attorneys review the evidence, so we have to balance those two requirements.

COOPER: POLITICO is reporting, there's discussion happening about a trial being as short as three days. President Trump's first impeachment trial was almost three weeks. Do you think that would be sufficient to meet the standards of a fair and complete trial? Three days?

CROW: Well, this is really different, Anderson. You know, when I tried the trial, a year ago, we were dealing with corruption allegations, the use of military funds, a long line and chronology of information regarding dealings with Ukraine. And we had to tell that story, not just to the Senate, but to the American people as well.

A critical difference here is that everybody knows what happened on the sixth. And actually, the jury, in this case, the Senate were actually victims of the same crime. They were there. They were victims of this insurrection in this violent mob as well.

So what we do need to do, though, is tell the context leading up to that. That in my view is going to be one of the most important things is that what happened in the six did not happen overnight. You know, that took years and months to build up to that moment, the pressure cooker, the incitement that the President and his allies have built up to lead to the 6th, that's going to be really important story to tell.

COOPER: So in your mind, the President's incitement went far beyond just the words he spoke on the morning of January 6th?

CROW: Absolutely. I mean, if we are sitting back and being honest with ourselves, which we have to be, you don't get a mob of thousands of people that believe this big lie, that believe that the election had been stolen, that believe these QAnon conspiracy theories, that doesn't happen in a couple of hours.

That doesn't happen, because the President said, go and, you know, let those people hear you and stand up and fight for your democracy. And then two hours later, they're storming the House and Senate chambers.

This has taken a long time to bring us to this point, a pressure cooker that's been building that the President has intentionally been building over many years and that's a really important story to tell here.

COOPER: Speaker Pelosi was asked about the possibility of calling witnesses today and said it was up to the impeachment managers. You served as a manager obviously in the former President's first trial, is that something the current impeachment managers should consider?

CROW: I think they will consider it. You have in Jamie Raskin, an outstanding lawyer. He's the lead impeachment prosecutor here, a constitutional scholar, they are going to leave no stone unturned, and they're going to figure out how to present a really good case.

That might include witnesses, that might not; in our case, we needed the witnesses because there were people like Ambassador Bolton, who were in the room who heard what the President and other people were saying regarding Ukraine and that was information that had to come out. The Senate decided they didn't want to hear it. They didn't actually want to have a fair trial and have that information come out to the American public.

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CROW: This is a different situation where we saw what happened on January 6th, and much of the information that we're dealing with here is actually public record. It's the President's speeches. It's the President's tweets. The things that he has done that led to the insurrection on January 6th, so it's a very different scenario I think we're dealing with in this case.

COOPER: I mentioned earlier in that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said today that he doesn't believe that President Trump provoked the attack on the Capitol. He said, if you look at what he said that morning, I mean, this is the same person that took to the House floor days after the insurrection saying the President bears responsibility for the attacks on Congress by mob rioters.

Is it concerning to you that someone in Republican leadership seems to be, you know, I don't know, if he is just flip flopping on the issue? Or if he was just, I mean, I guess maybe he could claim he was just referring to the talk that morning. But even then, it seems like a flip flop.

CROW: Yes, it seems like a flip flop because it is a flip flop. That's the honest truth here. You know, I often have whiplash in trying to keep up with Mr. McCarthy's various statements. I think he thinks that we have much shorter memories than we actually do because he'll just say one thing one day and change it the next day. Fortunately, we have him on tape saying these things. So you know, I cannot -- I just can't speak for Mr. McCarthy and some

of his Republican colleagues that change positions on a whim based upon the prevailing winds of the day.

You know, the truth has got to come out. Truth does still matter. Facts still matter. Consistency matters and that's what this is going to be about in the weeks and months ahead.

COOPER: Congressman, Jason Crow, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

CROW: Yes. Thank you.

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