CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Ted Lieu

Interview

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Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu, of California. He sits on the House Judiciary Committee.

Congressman, you describe what happened last night as a 16-alarm fire. Why do you believe that's the case? Why do you think is happening at the Justice Department?

REP. TED LIEU (D-CA): Thank you for your question. We have a strong pattern of corruption here where Donald Trump and his neighbors are intervening in legal processes to protect themselves and their friends against investigations.

We've seen Trump fire the FBI director. He's fired numerous inspectors general. We saw Secretary Pompeo get an inspector general fired because he was investigating the secretary.

We've now seen Bill Barr intervene in cases against Roger Stone and Michael Flynn to protect them from prosecutions. And now we have this firing or attempted firing of U.S. Attorney Berman, whose office is investigating Trump's allies.

This is outrageous behavior. And we on the House Judicial Committee are looking at options to hold them accountable.

CABRERA: The chairman of your committee, Jerry Nadler, tweeted, "America is right to expect the worst of Bill Barr, who has repeatedly interfered in criminal investigations on Trump's behalf. We have a hearing on this topic Wednesday. We welcome Mr. Berman's testimony and will invite him to testify."

Democrats have been making this case for a while that Bill Barr should be impeached. Do you think your Republican colleagues will be swayed at all by what happened last night?

LIEU: I'm disappointed that my Republican colleagues haven't found their spines. But we'll continue the work that the American people want us to do, which is to hold this administration accountable and get the facts and evidence.

So this Wednesday, we're going to have two whistleblowers testify about what they've seen in the Department of Justice. Bill Barr has really perverted this department to do the president's bidding instead of the work of the American people.

Bill Barr could show up any time before a committee and explain himself. So far, he's afraid to do so. We do invite U.S. Attorney Berman to show up. Hopefully, he will.

CABRERA: Today, a judge denied the Trump administration's request to block John Bolton's new book.

One of the things that he alleges is that the president told Turkish President Erdogan back in 2017 that he would help end an investigation by the SDNY into a Turkish bank by replacing people in that office. Bolton also alleges that the president asked China for help winning re-election.

Do Democrats in the House need to subpoena John Bolton?

[15:35:02]

LIEU: We're going to be exploring all those options.

And the case with the Turkish bank is another example where the allegation is you have a bank breaking the law. The Southern District of New York is investigating it. And all of a sudden, we see the U.S. attorney try to be fired. And that raise suspicions that either Bill Barr or Donald Trump is trying to stop that investigation. And we have to get to the bottom of it.

CABRERA: Is there any reason not to subpoena John Bolton at this point?

LIEU: In my opinion, there's no reason not to subpoena him. I believe we should subpoena both John Bolton and Bill Barr both, absolutely.

CABRERA: Bolton declined to testify during the impeachment probe and Democrats were concerned about how long a fight over the subpoena would take. In the book, Bolton accuses Democrats, accuses your party of committing impeachment malpractice for not broadening the probe.

What was your reaction to that?

LIEU: I almost fell out of my chair. So we didn't know about this China incident where Donald Trump pleaded with the president of China to help Trump win re-election.

Well, guess who knew about that? John Bolton. And he refused to come to House and testify. He could have told us about that incident and we could have investigated it. So this is squarely on John Bolton's shoulders.

At the same time, I do look at the excerpts from his book and they are very damning of this president. It shows that Trump puts himself in above American national security and above the American people.

CABRERA: We're just a few hours away from the president's rally in Oklahoma. Both the campaign and local officials tell us, even in the middle of a pandemic, they had more than a million requests to take part in this rally. Some people lined up days in advance to get in.

We're seeing them now going into this arena. There's a large overflow crowd. Clearly, these people don't share your concerns about the president's conduct. Why?

LIEU: I can't explain why people think that way. I do wish them well. I hope they don't get sick.

However, we do know that one of the easiest ways to get COVID-19 is in an indoor place with lots of people being together for long periods of time. That's exactly what this rally is.

You are going to have people get sick. And some of them may die. And the president just doesn't seem to care. That is deeply disturbing.

CABRERA: I want to ask you about party. Who would you like to see join the ticket with Joe Biden to take on President Trump?

LIEU: A number of folks that are under consideration are my friends. I think any of them would be great.

At the end of the day, the American people are going to make a choice, do they want four more years of chaos and a president who puts his interest above those of American families or do they want Joe Biden who cares for American families and wants to bring our country back to normal again.

CABRERA: Quickly, given the moment that we are in, how important is it that the former vice president pick somebody who is a woman of color to be his vice president pick?

LIEU: I believe it's really important that we have a woman of color who is the vice-presidential pick.

We know that the Trump administration still doesn't get it. We had Vice President Pence who could even say the words Black Lives Matters.

Of course, all lives matter, but the reason we say Black Lives Matter is because our system dramatically undervalues black lives. And we've had government systemically murder black Americans for generations. That's why we say Black Lives Matter.

If you can't say it, it shows you still don't get it. Joe Biden gets it. And I hope he picks a vice-presidential candidate who is a woman of color.

CABRERA: Congressman Ted Lieu, thank you for being with us.

LIEU: Thank you, Ana.

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