CNN "State of the Union with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview with Dick Durbin

Interview

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BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. I'm Dana Bash.

We're learning new details of just how close President Trump came to enlisting the Justice Department in his scheme to overturn the election.

This weekend, investigators on Capitol Hill interviewed two top Justice officials at the center of the former president's efforts. Both officials, according to a source familiar with the matter, provided detailed account of a tumultuous period during which senior Justice Department lawyers sought to deploy the department's resources to push Trump's false claims of voter fraud.

Joining me to discuss this is the chairman of the committee investigating all of that, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.

Thank you so much for joining me.

So, your committee interviewed Jeffrey Rosen, who is -- was the acting attorney general for Donald Trump at the end of his presidency. Rosen was reportedly getting calls from Trump nearly every day about overturning election results. What did he tell you?

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL): He told us a lot, seven hours of testimony.

And I might quickly add, this was done on a bipartisan basis, Democratic staff and Republican legal staff asking questions during this period of time. Mr. Rosen appeared voluntarily, which says a lot, and cooperated with us. The Justice Department had set it up for us and said, we're waiving any privilege. He can speak to any issue. We're not holding him back.

And I thought he was very open. And there's a lot there, an awful lot there, you can imagine, seven hours of testimony. And it really is important that we ask these questions, because what was going on in the Department of Justice was frightening, from a constitutional point of view, to think that Bill Barr left, resigned after he had announced he didn't see irregularities in the election, and then his replacement was under extraordinary pressure from the president the United States, even to the point where they were talking about replacing him.

BASH: Yes.

DURBIN: That pressure was on.

BASH: So, you said there's a lot there.

DURBIN: There is a lot there.

BASH: What did he tell you specifically about the pressure that the former president placed on him directly?

DURBIN: I can't get into that at this moment.

But I will tell you that, ultimately, there will be a report. There are more people that we will try to bring in. I would like to bring in Jeffrey Clark, for example. He was the heir apparent, in Trump's mind, if Rosen was not going to do his bidding. And Rosen stood fast and didn't.

And so there was a tense period of time there at a moment where the president was going to put his own man in as attorney general.

BASH: I understand you're not ready to give me the details of what he said during those seven hours, but I guess the question, the key question is whether the former president, when he was still president, tried to get Jeffrey Rosen to overturn the election results.

DURBIN: It was not that direct, but he was asking him to do certain things related to states' election returns, which he refused to do. He just said, I'm not going to do that.

He was being asked by the White House, the leadership in the White House, to meet with certain people who had these wild, bizarre theories of why that election wasn't valid, and he refused to do it.

[09:20:08]

I'd have to say history is going to be very kind to Mr. Rosen when it's all over. And I -- when he was initially appointed, I didn't think that was the case. I was wrong.

BASH: When you were listening to that testimony yesterday, what was the most shocking to you? DURBIN: Just how directly, personally involved the president was, the

pressure he was putting on Jeffrey Rosen. It was real, very real. And it was very specific. This president's not subtle when he wants something, the former president. He is not subtle when he wants something.

And I think it's a good thing for America that we had a person like Rosen in that position, who stood -- withstood the pressure.

BASH: It sounds like this is a man, in Donald Trump, who actually knew about the levers of power that he had to potentially try to use to keep the election results from happening.

DURBIN: Yes.

And I also say that there were forces within the White House who were also pushing back against the president's wild views. But, having said that, it was a very tense period in history. We're going to get to the bottom of it.

And the voluntary cooperation of people like Jeffrey Rosen and Richard Donoghue is invaluable. There's another meeting coming up this week, another interview. We're going to keep pushing forward on this. I have been on this since January. And now we're getting some real results.

BASH: I want to ask about Richard Donoghue, but who within the White House was pushing back against the president?

DURBIN: I can't get into that at this point, Dana.

BASH: You gave me a teaser there.

DURBIN: Yes, I know.

(LAUGHTER)

DURBIN: But I will tell you that the president's instincts were just flat-out wrong, what he tried to do, because of this big lie that he still holds onto to this day.

Fortunately, a lot of people saw through it and did their best to calm him down.

BASH: So, you mentioned that you also spoke with the acting deputy attorney general, Richard Donoghue, on Friday.

According to notes that have actually been released, he witnessed President Trump telling his boss to "just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R congressman."

DURBIN: Yes, I'm afraid I can't get into specific testimony, but I'm afraid that was the impression. It was clear.

The president was looking for a green light from an attorney general. Bill Barr reached a point where he couldn't do it anymore. And Rosen stepped in, and he was not prepared to do it. And the president said, we will find another one.

Think about that for a second. The president is looking for the right person as attorney general who will give him an answer of yes. And Richard Donoghue was deputy attorney general. He witnessed all of this.

BASH: There are also questions about Jeffrey Clark, who's the other man you said you want to talk to, about whether or not he interacted with Republican elected officials, particularly Pennsylvania Congressman Scott Perry.

What did you learn about that?

DURBIN: That part, we have not -- I haven't seen any testimony from that.

But we're going to do our best to ask Mr. Clark to come in and tell the story from his point of view.

BASH: Are you worried that there were sitting members of Congress who were involved in this?

DURBIN: It's a legitimate question.

BASH: Do you believe that Jeffrey Clark is going to come in, or will you have to subpoena him?

DURBIN: I don't know. It'll be interesting.

He has nothing to fall back on now with Department of Justice policy. Merrick Garland has opened the door and said, we're waiving all privilege here. So, he may decide, for personal reasons or other reasons, he doesn't want to testify. But I hope he will.

BASH: And what about the former Attorney General Bill Barr? I know you want to talk to him. Do you think he will come in voluntarily?

DURBIN: I hope so. We have a lot of questions relating to this incident and others during the tenure that he was attorney general.

BASH: Will you subpoena him if he doesn't?

DURBIN: It takes a bipartisan vote to subpoena. I don't know that we're going to be able to accomplish that.

People think the mighty Senate Judiciary Committee can just send out the subpoenas, and off we go. It's much more constrained.

BASH: How helpful would it be to actually speak with former President Donald Trump?

DURBIN: Not likely.

BASH: What has shocked you the most, generally speaking, in terms of what you have seen? You said you have been looking into this since January. DURBIN: I guess the thought that we have come to accept that this president and his bizarre conduct, we came to accept over four years as normal.

It's outrageous. When you look back on the Richard Nixon episode and the Saturday Night Massacre, people out of principle were turning around and threatening to resign. The same thing happened here, incidentally, within the Department of Justice. There was a point where virtually everyone in the authority in the Department of Justice was going to walk if the president had his way.

I mean, these are moments in history which you would never want to see repeated. And, with Donald Trump, they were.

BASH: Is what you're seeing and what you're describing an attempted coup?

DURBIN: Well, it was -- they were going through the ordinary process.

It isn't as if the president was removing the attorney general and making pronouncements, which would happen in a coup, I suppose, by classic definition. But it was leading up to that, that kind of process.

BASH: And last question on this.

Have you spoken to the current attorney general, Merrick Garland? And do you think that there's potential for criminal charges?

[09:25:05]

DURBIN: I don't know the answer to that. I think we're -- it's too early in the investigation.

BASH: OK.

So, I want to ask about infrastructure...

DURBIN: Sure.

BASH: ... the deal that is on the floor as we speak. It's poised to pass in coming days.

There are a group of moderate House Democrats who wrote to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and said, please back off your pledge to hold the infrastructure bill until the Senate passes the $3.5 trillion reconciliation plan.

This is part of the letter: "This is a once-in-a-century investment -- this once in a century investment deserves its own consideration without regard to other legislation. After years of waiting, the country cannot afford unnecessary delays to finally deliver on a physical infrastructure package."

So, if it is that vital, should the House pass it right away? DURBIN: Well, Dana, let me say initially the real question in the

Senate -- I guess in the Senate, perhaps in the House as well, is whether the center will hold.

There's a question now why we're waiting and doing nothing day after day after day. There are forces still trying to stop this bipartisan agreement in the United States Senate.

You just had Bill Cassidy on. He's become a real friend. We have worked together on this. I trust him. He trusts me. We have candid conversations. And that's a good thing. We have considered more amendments on the floor of the Senate, 22, with this bill than we had in a year under Senator McConnell in previous years.

But the question now is, moving forward, what can we accomplish? Nancy Pelosi has an extraordinary challenge, four-vote margin. That isn't much when you really sit down and count votes.

I don't want to really project the strategy. I want her to do it. She is as accomplished as they come. I can understand people want to see the infrastructure bill pass with no strings attached. But he -- she has to hold not enough votes -- not just enough votes for the infrastructure bill, but the follow-on budget resolution.

So, I give her all the flexibility she needs to reach that goal.

BASH: And, before I let you go, I have to ask about the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

It seems as though you're thinking about, you and your colleagues are thinking about stretching the limits of the Senate rules, maybe trying to get voting rights in. That's what Senator Klobuchar mentioned. You mentioned DACA.

How much are you going to try to stuff in there?

DURBIN: Well, I can tell you that this is a once-in-a-political- lifetime opportunity when it comes to issues like immigration.

It's been 36 years since we have had immigration reform. It's long overdue. Everyone knows the system is broken. We can see it on our borders. We know it already internally. And there is precedent. We have included -- the Republicans have included immigration measures in 2005 in the same budget resolution.

So, I think it's not an unreasonable request, and it's long overdue.

BASH: Senator Dick Durbin, Judiciary chair, Senate majority whip, you have got a lot of titles -- and grandfather, that's another one.

(LAUGHTER)

DURBIN: You bet.

BASH: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

DURBIN: Thanks, Dana.

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