Democratic Representative: Need To Wait For Assurances Trial Won't Be A Sham; Source: President Trump Seeking Input On Impeachment Defense Team; Donald Trump's Frustration Grows Over Delay Of Senate Trial
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN HOST: Hey there, thank you for joining me. I'm Martin Savidge in for Fredricka Whitfield. President Trump is on his holiday vacation in Florida where he continues to vent his anger over his stalled impeachment trial. He has been lashing out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the whistleblower in a series of Twitter attacks President is clearly frustrated by the uncertainty surrounding his Senate trial. Speaker Pelosi continues to hold it off on sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate. As Democrats push for witnesses to testify and Majority Leader McConnell signals that he is really in no hurry to get the trial under way. As the President fumes over his stalled impeachment, sources tell CNN he is also asking for advice on who should be on his defense team and what the strategy ought to be. CNN's Sarah Westwood in South Florida for us and Sarah what more are you learning about the President's state of mind on his vacation?</s>SARAH WESTHOOD, CNN WHITEHOUSE REPORTER: Martin, President Trump is increasing attitude about this extended the state of limbo surrounding his Senate trial. He is settling into something of a routine firing of almost daily messages against Speaker Pelosi as he spends his time with a rotating cast of aides here at Mar-a-Lago. And sources tell CNN that President Trump has been quizzing his advisors and his friends at his resort about what the White House strategy for the Senate trial should be? There are a lot of unanswered questions about that include who will present the closing and opening arguments and just who will be a member of that team? The only certainty at this point is that the White House Counsel Pat Cipollone is expected to present the bulk of the President's defense to the Senate, he is expected to be assisted by some of his deputies, perhaps there will be roles more limited ones for other members of the President's outside legal team. The President is also considering creating roles on that team for some of his fiercest defenders in the House. Conservatives like Congressman Jim Jordon, Congressman Mark Meadows they are expected also to play potentially a role but the President and is his team can't really make decisions about exactly what their strategy will be for the Senate trial as long as the situation remains so fluid. And now a lot of final decisions have not been made Martin and that's because Speaker Pelosi is holding on to those articles of impeachment she is refusing to transmit them to the Senate until she has a better sense that in her eyes she is going to have a fair trial. Take a listen to what a top House Democrat from CNN yesterday about just how long the standoff could last?</s>REP. DAN KILDEE, (D-MI): I think we have to wait until we have some assurance that the trial is not going to be some sort of a sham or a joke.</s>KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: I mean I'm talking extremes here, like into February?</s>KILDEE: Well, I mean that is certainly possible, but I'm not going to get ahead of the Speaker.</s>WESTWOOD: Now Speaker Pelosi is showing no signs of budging off of her position. Democrats are mounting pressure on Republicans - some of their demands like more live witnesses, like more document collection, but even as President Trump grows more impatient for the start of his Senate trial he is eager for his symbolic day in court. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seems to be remaining ambivalent about the start of the trial so Trump really caught in the standoff between Congressional Republican and Democrats right now Martin.</s>SAVIDGE: All right, Sarah Westwood down there in Florida for us. Thank you very much. With me now is the Lynn Sweet Washington Bureau Chief for the Chicago Sun-Times and Michael Zeldin is a Former Federal Prosecutor and CNN Legal Analyst. Welcome to you both.</s>MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Thank you.</s>LYNN SWEET, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Hi, Martin.</s>SAVIDE: Michael I'm going to start with you and the possibility of Speaker Pelosi with holding sending the articles of impeachment until as late as February and I'm wondering is that really a sound legal maneuver?</s>ZELDIN: Well, what is a sound league maneuver is to understand what the rules and procedure will be in any court that you walk into, and this is a court, and also what is the procedural set up? Will you have witnesses? Will there be live witnesses and will there recorded depositions? I think Pelosi is well within her rights and sound legal strategy to demand from the Senate what is that were walking into because if it is going to a sham trial, then maybe she just holds these things indefensibly. If it's going to be a real trial then I think she wants to get on with it as soon as possible.</s>SAVIDGE: Okay. So there is the legal strategy. But Lynn, what is the possible political fallout for Democrats if you have an impeachment trial that drags into February or later?</s>SWEET: Well, for early February it is the first vote in the 2020 presidential contest with the Iowa Caucus and then followed by New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. So you have this becoming a distraction at the least as the Democrat slugging it out in these important early state primaries. Or I could argue at the other way that without the distraction of a trial the candidates they don't have to react everyday to something that might have happen on the Senate floor. So maybe doing them a favor because it would also free the candidates who are running including several in the United States Senate it will let them stay on the road and beyond and about campaigning.</s>SWEET: Very short term gain for those candidates because at least it gives them a shot at doing their best in those primary states. Other than that I don't think a few weeks delay has a significant political impact either for the re-election of some Senators or in further Presidential politics.</s>SAVIDGE: Michael, sources are telling us that the President's seeking input on who should be on his legal team? And what the strategy ought to be? What do you make of the fact that the President has not yet settled on a legal team and a strategy?</s>ZELDIN: Well, he hasn't also know what the rules of the procedures of the court will be so like Pelosi, he is having a hard time figuring out what type of person do I need to represent me? We heard names like Allen Dershowitz who was a brilliant constitutional lawyer and he could be valuable if this thing is going to have constitutional legal implications. He has terrific lawyers in Marty Raskin who represented him in the Mueller investigation. They would terrific cross-examiners if this is a trial with real witnesses. So the President is being hamstrung, Pelosi has been hamstrung because McConnell's and Schumer haven't reached a deal. It's on McConnell's shoulders mostly because he is the one who controls the Majority in the Senate and I think really it is incumbent up on him to make this a real trial consistent with the Senate rules and consistent with previous impeachment trials.</s>SAVIDGE: But Michael does it really matter on the strategy if the Senate is so stacked in the President's favor?</s>ZELDIN: Well, you know, that is the conversation. It is a fore gone conclusion, but remembers we have not seen many of the documents that the Senate wants and the House wanted. We have not heard from many of the firsthand witnesses who the House wanted and now the Senate wants. And maybe if we actually saw documents and heard from witnesses with firsthand knowledge it would have be as foregone conclusion as to the outcome. Right now we have the articles of impeachment which says obstruction of Congress; we have got a Senate Majority Leader who is facilitating that obstruction by not allowing real witnesses. If you get documents and if you get real witnesses maybe get a real outcome.</s>SAVIDGE: Okay. Then Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden says he doesn't think that Senate would really move to send him a subpoena that says he would not testify in the impeachment trial if he is subpoenaed because as he says in a tweet this impeachment is about Trump's conduct not mine. But if push came to show up do you think that Biden would really defy a subpoena in the middle of a campaign?</s>SWEET: This is not - this does shows the problem that this whole episode has politically for Biden. No matter what he does in this one he has a risk of political fallout. His son taking that trial, Hunter Biden taken that job on the Board of Burisma created an enormous political liability with Biden now. So far that liability has not eroded Biden's standing in the polls. It remains to be seen whether or not that stays the case or if Trump makes Hunter, Joe Biden's middle name. So I don't see how there is good outcome either way if but he can say legitimately and argument for some - to see what the subpoena would actually say, they want him to testify too in which case he could go to, he would have the option of fighting it and take that course and suffer whatever political consequence. Or if what the subpoena wants is so make a partisan and out of bounds, and nothing to do with the charges that Trump is facing, and there is nothing central to that, then it will expose the flaw in the strategy of going after Biden to defend Trump.</s>SAVIDGE: Lynn, do you think that the Republicans will actually subpoena and ask Biden to testify?</s>SWEET: I think they want to use him as a pawn, as a trade for something else, to use that as a threat to try and to threaten pulling him in order to see if the Democrats will back down, and the main people they want, Bolton and Mulvaney.</s>SAVIDGE: And Michael this is probably the last question. There is some legal disagreements over whether or not the President has been truly been impeached since the House has not sent over the articles to the Senate? Where do you stand on that legal question?</s>ZELDIN: Well, I think that he has been impeached. It may be as Constitutional Law Professor Noah Feldman said, it may not that the articles of impeachment haven't been perfected that is they have to go over to the Senate to sort of seal the deal, but he has been impeached and if the case ended right now the history books 20 years from now would say we had three impeached Presidents and Trump would be one of them.</s>SAVIDGE: Lynn Sweet and Michael Zeldin, great to have you both on the program, thank you.</s>SWEET: Thank you.</s>ZELDIN: Thank you and happy New Year.</s>SAVDGE: And to you. At least 79 people have been killed after a suicide bomb attack in Somalia.</s>SAVIDGE: Dozens of others are injured following the rush hour explosion at the key security check point in the nation's Capital City of Mogadishu. CNN International Correspondent Farai Sevenzo joins me now from neighboring Nairobi, Kenya and just what are you learning about this attack?</s>FARAI SEVENZO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Martin, compliments of the season. It is exactly this type of time of the year that the Al-Qaeda affiliated terror group in Somalia tends to attack. Now they haven't claimed responsibility, but the attack bears all of the hallmarks of their modest operand. We know of a certain that 79 people are dead and the Ministry of House in Somalia is saying over 100 have been injured. And what's more Martin is that this attack happened there - University, so without being completely certain, but obvious that innocents have died, civilians, students have been killed in this attack and of course this happens in the background of many drone attacks by the United States forces and the presence of African Union troops in that country trying to stand back, the influence of Al- Shabaab and of course it is a very sad time indeed. This time of the year when people are on their holidays, even if Somalia is a non-Christian country, it is mainly the Somalis that are suffering the effects of this relentless bombing and suicide attacks by terror groups Al-Shabaab Martin.</s>SAVIDGE: Yes. And it would appear that the victims at least most of them in this particular attack could be young people. Farai Sevenzo, thank you so much for updating us on the story. Still to come in the CNN NEWSROOM, newly obtained recording show members of SEAL Team 7 painting a disturbing picture of their Ex- Platoon Chief Eddie Gallagher's plus, the Iowa Caucuses remember them well; now just over a month away CNN is on the campaign trail.