Here & Now

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson Doubles Down

Frederica Freyberg:

A first look tonight at the impeachment proceedings involving Donald Trump. While the Democrats in control of the House investigate the president, Republicans in control of the Senate are looking elsewhere. “Here & Now” reporter Zac Schultz caught up with Wisconsin U.S. Senator Ron Johnson to ask him why he’s once again looking at Hillary Clinton’s emails and whether we can trust what the president is saying when he tweets about a potential civil war.

Ron Johnson:

President Trump should not be using the types of terminology, talking about potential civil war. At the same time, I want to know the truth. And I think you certainly could take a look at his conversation. I spoke with President Trump before I went to Ukraine. I obviously was there with the President Zelensky. He indicated that no pressure whatsoever. He’s obviously concerned about the funding, as was I, but he’s come out today saying there was no pressure. So it’s very–from my standpoint, very reasonable to conclude what President Trump was really talking about as the chief law enforcement officer of the executive branch of the federal government, let’s get to the truth. What happened potentially in Ukraine as relates to 2016 election. I want to find out where did this Russian collusion narrative come that has really put this country through an ordeal that we probably shouldn’t have had to go through because there really was no basis. So the American people have a right to know. I’m certainly inquisitive. I can certainly understand and I’m sympathetic with President Trump wanting to find out what caused all this. Why was I wrung–why was my administration, why was this country wrung through this really damaging business?

Zac Schultz:

Given the president’s history with Twitter and the truth, can we trust what he is saying when he tweets out messages?

Ron Johnson:

Obviously, President Trump has an unorthodox style. He’s pretty loose with some of his tweets. I think most of his supporters that I talk to certainly agree with the direction of many of his policies, but wish he would tweet a whole lot less. I’d put myself in that camp.

Zac Schultz:

But has he damaged some of his credibility when he talks about issues like this?

Ron Johnson:

I think any public official when they get something wrong, you get it wrong too many times, you start damaging your credibility. From my standpoint, the most valuable quality a public official can have is credibility.

Zac Schultz:

Has the president lost credibility with you?

Ron Johnson:

There are a number of things that he’s tweeted that simply aren’t accurate and that’s not a good thing.

Zac Schultz:

Regarding your Homeland Committee, why are you investigating former Secretary Clinton and her emails again? What’s bringing that issue back?

Ron Johnson:

We want to find out some answers. The problem when you are conducting Congressional investigation when there’s also criminal investigation, we don’t have access to any information. I think we do these things backwards. From my standpoint, the public has a right to know if there’s improper behavior on the part of any elected official. That should start with a Congressional inquiry. We should have access to the information. We should hold hearings. We should write reports. Based on those reports, again we’re talking about public officials, if there’s a requirement for a criminal referral, we refer that to the Justice Department. If they can’t handle it because of conflicts, then they set up a special counsel. For the Russian collusion, it went completely backwards. And as a result, the American public still doesn’t know what happened. And we still don’t know everything that happened with the FBI’s handling of that investigation. So, again, all I want to do is get to the bottom of so many different issues. I have so many answers — or so many questions that I want answered because if something happened, the American people need to know it. If nothing happened, the American people need to know that so we can move on. We have enormous challenges facing this nation. We got serious issues. We need to concentrate on those and get the past behind us. But until there’s a full airing, until the American people fully understand what did and possibly didn’t happen, it’s going to be difficult to move beyond this and we’ll remain in this partisan log jam.

Zac Schultz:

Democrats in the House say they’re being stonewalled by some of the president’s cabinet members and his employees. As a committee chairman, how would you feel if you were getting no response or being told that they weren’t going to come to testify before your committee?

Ron Johnson:

I’ve been stonewalled by both administrations. There is just institutionally, there’s a reluctance for any administration to share information with Congress. They don’t want to set different precedents. There is a reason, by the way, why you have executive privilege. There’s a reason why it’s very damaging now that another telephone conversation transcript has been leaked. And in this case, it was just basically offered because president wanted to exonerate himself. That’s incredibly damaging. World leaders, members of the president’s staff, have to be able to have candid conversations in order for a president to conduct foreign policy or to govern effectively. It’s an enormous challenge being a president of the United States. You need candid advice. You need to have candid conversations. There’s a reason you have executive privilege and why these transcripts really never should have seen the light of day.

Zac Schultz:

If the House votes to impeach, do you expect to see any action on your committee in the Senate?

Ron Johnson:

We have never stopped our investigations and our gathering of information. Now you’ll notice, I’ve never held a trial, for example, on Hillary Clinton’s email. I’m just trying to gather the information to get to the truth. I would expect that gathering of information investigation will continue. If at some point in time we require a hearing, we’ll hold one.

Zac Schultz:

Thank you, Senator.

Ron Johnson:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

By Friday, the Senator was doubling down with calls to look into Hillary Clinton’s campaign, as well as the Ukrainian company that Hunter Biden worked for. He also says he has no problem with President Trump calling on China to investigate. For her part, Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin sent out this tweet on the impeachment efforts. “This is your democracy and we should stand united and put our country first sending a clear message to Donald Trump and the rest of the world that we will not tolerate foreign interference from Ukraine, China or any foreign country in our American elections.”