Transcript: NPR's Full Interview With Rep. Doug Collins On Impeachment Inquiry

All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly interviews Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, on Capital Hill about the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

Mary Louise Kelly: We are speaking on the day that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced the House is ready to move forward with articles of impeachment. What's your response?

Rep. Doug Collins: Really, no response. This is what we've been expecting for a while. I mean, somebody I heard say this was breaking news. This is only breaking news if you've been in hibernation for the last year. They've been wanting to do this. They're moving forward now. Yeah, I do find it a little bit surprising that it came after yesterday. And which, frankly, if you were trying to say, "What is the articles about?" I mean, you can take a different perspective. But it is really concerning to me that the one thing that is not clear, that has been clear in other impeachment exercises, whether you agree with this president or not, it's irrelevant. I think Mr. Turley and some of the others even pointed this out —

Jonathan Turley [constitutional law scholar], one of the witnesses yesterday before your committee —

Yeah, he laid this out that we don't have uncontested facts here. I think, well, I guess if you had an uncontested fact it will be: there was a phone call. But past that, there seems to be a difference of opinion. Even one of the witnesses yesterday talked about inference, there was all this. So I think this is a concern for many of us going forward is how we go forward after yesterday. What I think the speaker did today was to simply revive and say, "Yes, we're doing this." I did think it was interesting, though, she didn't give a timeframe. But although, after some conversations I've had already this morning, we still would like it to be before Christmas.

The suggestion is that this will happen before Christmas.

I would think so, yes.

So how does that play out? What's next in your committee?

I think it makes it very difficult. Look, when my chairman , I think, and I've had a long relationship, when we do, when he does it — and we've had times when we do it right and we get along very well and when we don't. But I think even at times when I've even been critical of him, I think the speaker and the leadership in the Democratic Party is probably putting too much pressure on a process that he's not had his hands on for the last six months. We were taken away from us. And now he's expected to take what others have given and not be given the full run to have our own crack at these witnesses, our own chance to see. And there's reasons for that. We may — some of the witnesses, may or may not, and I'm not going to name who they might be, we call them in, it's interesting to see do they maintain their same story? Do they