CNN "NEWSROOM" INTERVIEW WITH REP. JARED HUFFMAN (D-CA)

January 12, 2021

KEILAR: More than 200 House Democrats have signed on as cosponsors of the article of impeachment against President Trump. And joining me now to discuss is California Democratic Congressman Jared Huffman.

Congressman, thanks for coming on.

REP. JARED HUFFMAN (D-CA): Good to be with you, Brianna.

KEILAR: You are, at this point, more than -- you are one of the more than 200 Democrats who have signed on to this. Congressman David Cicilline, who co-wrote the article, says he expects around a dozen Republicans to vote with you. How many Republicans do you think will join you?

HUFFMAN: Well, a dozen sounds great, and it's good to have a much more bipartisan showing than this last impeachment. This is fundamentally different than the last impeachment. What happened last week crossed lines that we thought were not even imaginable, and I'm grateful that more of my Republican colleagues are willing to acknowledge that.

KEILAR: Your fellow congressman, Conor Lamb, talked earlier today about a briefing where members were told about a plot to target Democrats in Congress. Were you on this call, did you learn anything about these threats?

HUFFMAN: Yes, I was. And we heard about multiple plots, some of which the media has been reporting.

KEILAR: And I'm assuming you would have liked to have heard about some of these things before the Capitol insurrection? We understand, according to an internal FBI report that warned of a war, that there were some details that were on the FBI's radar. The question is why weren't they really passed on?

This was a report that they got a day before the Capitol insurrection, it included some operational details like rendez-vous points as well as, you know, maps of the tunnels in the Capitol, connecting office buildings. What is your reaction to learning of that report?

HUFFMAN: Well, the more we learn, the more it becomes clear just how dangerous this was, just how compromised the Capitol was. We had lost the Capitol, for all intents and purposes, for a couple of hours, and no one was coming to help. So we really have to find out where the failures were, who is responsible, and we've got to make sure there's accountability so that this never happens again.

KEILAR: Impeachment is just one of the ways the Democrats are trying to hold people accountable for the insurrection, specifically the Republican lawmakers backed the president's challenge to the electoral vote count. Is there an effort to hold those lawmakers accountable?

HUFFMAN: Yes, there is. And it will depend on the individual member and, you know, just how far they went down this road of insurrection. But one member that I think everyone feels crossed the line is Mo

Brooks. When you put that much effort -- literally minutes before this crowd started making its way to the Capitol, and going there to incite them, carrying their water ideologically and otherwise, it's very hard to argue that you were not -- you don't bear responsibility for what transpired.

[14:20:02]

KEILAR: But do you have the votes to really do anything about that?

HUFFMAN: I don't know, but I feel like we have the obligation. I mean, the 14th Amendment, Section Three is there for a reason. It wasn't sort of a onetime provision to deal with insurrection in the Civil War, it was etched permanently into the Constitution for future insurrectionists so that they would not serve in the Congress.

So we have to take that seriously, we have to give some meaning to those words when you see an obvious insurrection like what we've had.

KEILAR: We've heard, now, about at least three of your Democratic colleagues who have tested positive for COVID-19 after being stuck in a room with a number of your colleagues, including a number of Republicans who refused to wear masks, for hours and hours while all of this was going down at the Capitol. Were you in that room?

HUFFMAN: I was not in that room, but obviously I've got a lot of friends who were. And I was talking to them in real time about their concerns, of being crowded in with Republicans who were mocking attempts to enforce our House protocol of wearing masks whenever we're together.

KEILAR: And so I wonder, at this point in time -- you were not there, there were a number of Democrats who were. Are there a number of Democrats who are currently quarantining? I mean, what -- you obviously have a lot on the agenda, so how is this being handled?

HUFFMAN: Yes. Well, the Capitol physician put out an immediate alert for members to -- that members may have been exposed, and so that's why you've seen so many tests. You need a couple days, obviously, for -- to find out if you have the virus. And so I think everyone who was exposed to one of those maskless Republicans has been doing the right thing and isolating themselves and getting themselves tested.

Unfortunately, many of them went back to their districts and exposed others on airplanes and their family before they got word about this possible exposure. So I'm sure we're going to see, unfortunately, more positive tests before this is over.

KEILAR: I'm sure we are as well. Congressman Huffman, thank you so much for being with us.

HUFFMAN: Thanks for having me.


By:  Brianna Keilar
Source: CNN