Here & Now

U.S. Rep. Pocan on Impeachment Inquiry into President Trump

Frederica Freyberg:

A first look tonight at Washington in disarray. Democrats excoriating President Donald Trump over what they call damning allegations of using his power to solicit interference in the 2020 U.S. election. Allegations in a whistleblower complaint that says the president pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden’s son, using U.S. aid to Ukraine as leverage. The complaint also alleges an attempted White House cover-up. On the flip side: Republicans call it a hoax, fake news and a charade perpetrated by Democrats still angry over Donald Trump’s election. We will break it down, but first, a check in with one member of Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation U.S. Representative Mark Pocan, Democrat from the 2nd District. He joins us from Washington. Thanks very much for doing so.

Mark Pocan:

Thank you Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is your reaction to the phone call transcript and the whistleblower complaint?

Mark Pocan:

It’s nothing short of a bomb shell. We’ve been looking at the Mueller Report, the very extensive report about another foreign country trying to get involved in our elections and the president denying allegations there. Well in this case, he’s essentially confessing. He said he asked them to do him a personal favor of investigating a political opponent’s family. He admits that days earlier he blocked funding that Congress had approved to go to that same country and now we’ve got the whistleblower report. This really cuts out the middle man, the process of finding out if he did something wrong because he’s essentially confessed to it. That’s why the reaction has been so strong, not just from members of Congress but from the public.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think should happen now?

Mark Pocan:

Well we have to do the proper process, which the intelligence community is going to do. Eventually, very soon, the whistleblower themselves, he or she will come in and talk about what they wrote in that report, which again is a very strong report and then any other witnesses that may be involved will be brought there. But if the White House tries to play the same game they had with the Mueller Report where they don’t let witnesses come to Congress, we’re going to be able to move ahead because again, we have a smoking gun this time. And smoking gun’s name is Donald Trump and I think we can move forward pretty expeditiously.

Frederica Freyberg:

What stands out most to you in that whistleblower complaint?

Mark Pocan:

I think just the brazenness of the call. I mean even the notes from the call that he gave us. He’s asking for a personal favor. He brought it up a few times about going after the Vice-President Biden’s son, getting information. He brought up a weird conspiracy theory that’s in the QAnon world about somehow Ukraine, not Russia interfered in our elections. And then we know he withheld — tried to hold up the aid to that very country to get the leverage. And then when you read the whistleblower report about all the craziness with Rudy Giuliani, the personal lawyer of the president dealing with this rather than intelligence agencies. I mean this whole thing is a mess and really short of putting an “I did it” tattoo on your forehead, the president has pretty clearly explained what he’s done and I think that clearly is a violation of his oath of office and an impeachable offense.

Frederica Freyberg:

The ranking Republican on the intelligence committee calls this process a “grotesque spectacle, a hoax and the lastest gambit on the part of Democrats to re-litigate results of the 2016 election.” What is your response to that?

Mark Pocan:

Yeah, you know I know they’re trying to spin but all they do is look dizzy. It’s not making any sense. And I think again, the public gets it. I mean the public is way smarter than politicians in Washington think they are. When the president admits he did a call, gives us notes that said he asked for this leader of a foreign government to do this. This is really in many ways what the Mueller Report was about but he didn’t fess up to. Now he’s fessing up to it. So I think the public is starting to see the pattern of what’s happening and we have to do our job now that we’ve made an oath to the Constitution and we have to make sure we hold the White House accountable.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why would the president himself release the call transcript and the complaint if he were worried about it?

Mark Pocan:

Because I don’t try to figure anything this White House does or this president does. Nothing really seems rational. You get the tweets when I do. That’s how we get information from this White House. But I know there was a controversy whether or not they should release it. I think there’s still more. I mean part of the whistleblower complaint that is this was put in a special safe for highly-classified information. Instead, this was political stuff he did that is likely a violation of office. There’s so much, I think, more we’re going to find out. But already just the information we have this week is really damming, I think, for the president

Frederica Freyberg:

In terms of that secret place where they put this, according to White House officials, this is in the whistleblower complaint, this was not the first time under the administration that a presidential transcript was placed into this code-word level system solely for the purpose, he or she says, of protecting politically sensitive rather than national security sensitive information. How concerning is that?

Mark Pocan:

Very concerning. I mean many of us remember what happened when President Nixon was president and what happened at that time. The fact that the president does it so brazenly and did it a day after Mr. Mueller testified on Congress and unfortunately didn’t deliver a Broadway play performance. The president thought he could get away with even more. I think this time he just — his brazenness just went too far and the American public can really see the fact of what’s going on and what I think many of us have known has been going on for way too long.

Frederica Freyberg:

Representative Mark Pocan thanks very much.

Mark Pocan:

Sure, thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

We invited several Republican members of Congress to appear tonight. They declined. 6th District Republican Representative Glenn Grothman provided a statement however saying, “A broad discussion of corruption with the President Zelensky is certainly appropriate, considering the amount of foreign aid Ukraine receives. I do think there are legitimate questions to be raised as to why Hunter Biden was employed by Ukrainian-based gas company, Burisma Holdings, at the same time his father over saw Ukrainian relations for the Obama administration.