CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Congressman Adam Schiff on the Middle East and Government Hackers

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BLITZER: All right. Nick Paton Walsh near the border over there. Thanks very much.

Let's talk about all of this with Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff of California. He's the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Congressman, thanks for coming in.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: You bet.

BLITZER: Is the U.S. going to be able to stop this assault on Aleppo by the Iranians, by the Russians, by the Syrian army of Bashar al- Assad?

SCHIFF: I don't think we can stop it. And unfortunately, I think it's going to have the effect of simply lengthening this horrible civil war in Syria. They may go in. They may recapture some of these cities, but they're not going to be able to hold them. Not unless the Iranians, the Lebanese and the Iraqi Shia plan to long-term occupy Syria. That will just foment war in this sectarian conflict and just prolong the war.

So it's a tragic step backward. You know, we had been seeing, perhaps, some light at the end of the tunnel, as Assad was weakening. There was increasing pressure to come to the table for a negotiated end, but this lifeline now by Hezbollah, by the Russians and Iranians, is merely going to prolong the agony for the Syrian people.

BLITZER: And let's not forget what 200,000 or 300,000 people have already been killed in this four-year civil war. Hundreds of thousands have been injured, and millions have been made homeless. Refugees internally, externally, and that's presumably, only going to continue.

SCHIFF: It is going to continue. And it's terrible. We haven't seen a refugee crisis like this since the end of World War II. It is the humanitarian catastrophe of our time.

BLITZER: So is the U.S. leaving these people high and dry?

SCHIFF: No, we're not. And in fact, I think we are increasing our support for the moderate opposition. You can certainly count on the fact that the gulf nations are going to do the same. That's what we see in this region when you have a push here now by the

Russians and Iranians. You're going to see an equal and opposite reaction, particularly by the gulf nations.

But yes, we're upping our support, as well, because ultimately, the only way to bring this conflict to an end is to phase Assad out. As long as he is there, there is going to be oxygen for this insurgency; and this civil war's going to drag on.

[17:10:13] BLITZER: I assume you agree with other U.S. analysts that these Russian airstrikes are primarily going after these U.S.-backed rebels who oppose Bashar al-Assad's regime.

SCHIFF: They're going after moderate rebels that we support. They are going after the al Qaeda franchise, as well. They are not going after ISIS. That is really not their primary motivation. It's all about propping up the regime.

At some point they may come into conflict with ISIS, but that is clearly their lowest priority.

BLITZER: Is there anything the U.S. can do to stop that?

SCHIFF: There's nothing we can do. And we're not going to go to war with Russia. But I think we can continue to support the moderate opposition. That will have the effect of raising the cost to the Iranians and to the Russians.

And we'll see, you know, whether that causes the Russians to consider, does this continue to make sense? They're going to run into the same problems that we have in trying to accomplish this all through the air. They may take ground. They're not going to be able to hold it.

BLITZER: But they do have the support of the regular Syrian military, which is part of the Bashar al-Assad regime. They have support of the Iranian troops. Barbara Starr now reporting 2,000 Iranian troops have gone into Syria. There are a lot of Hezbollah fighters who are working with the Iranians who are supporting the regime, as well. So this Russian-organized alliance is pretty formidable.

SCHIFF: It is formidable, but that alliance nonetheless is going to be taking increasing casualties over time. And we'll have to see how many casualties over what period is Iran willing to endure, is Lebanon willing to endure through Hezbollah and are the Russians willing to endure.

BLITZER: Can you confirm that there are 2,000 Iranian troops inside Syria right now?

SCHIFF: I can't confirm the numbers. I think unquestionably there are Iranians in Syria helping to direct operations, helping to be a part of ground forces. But in terms of numbers that's not something I can...

BLITZER: One of Iran's -- the top military commander over there, Major General Qassem Soleimani, he is reportedly in Syria right now. This is an Iranian, as you well know, who's got a lot of American blood on his hands, when he was organizing fighters inside Iraq to go after U.S. troops there. What can you tell us about his involvement, direct involvement in Syria?

SCHIFF: Well, it's been very interesting over the last several years as he has raised his public profile. This was somebody who operated mostly in the shadows, did not want much of a public face. And now we see him cropping up everywhere, proud of his involvement. The Iraqis are proud to showcase him. The Iranians, as well. This is obviously a very high priority for Iran. But it's a very high-risk endeavor for them, too, as they're about to find out.

BLITZER: All right. Congressman, stand by. We have more to talk about, including these new reports that the director of the CIA, the secretary of homeland security, had their private e-mail accounts hacked. We're going to get into that and much more when we come back.

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[17:17:50] BLITZER: We're back with Democratic Congressman Schiff of California, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. We want to talk to him about the investigation into alleged hacking of private e-mail accounts belonging to the heads of the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security.

Let's go to our justice reporter, Evan Perez. He's got details.

Evan, CNN I understand now has communicated online with this person claiming to be behind the hacking?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. This is -- we haven't verified who this person is. This is the person purporting to be behind these hacks. And really, you know, we're talking about very sensitive information. Not necessarily classified information, I'm told, by U.S. officials, but it is being taken very seriously.

We have a couple of tweets from this alleged hacker. One of them says, as promised, the head of CIA's e-mail contact list is what he says he's going to post. In a second tweet he says, "Mayday, mayday, Jeh Johnson or @DHS.gov Comcast account has been compromised yet again by me, oh no."

And this is his way of goading and really boasting about the information that he claims he's able to access, Wolf.

We also have a statement that we got from the hacker. One of our producers here in Washington was communicating with him this afternoon. He says, "It was really because the government are killing innocent people. They also fund Israel for killing innocent people. It wasn't so much of a big deal for Jeh, but John had a lot of things in his e-mail he didn't want sharing."

Wolf, the types of things that allegedly he got his hands are the SF- 86 of John Brennan, the CIA director. This is information he would have filled out in order to get his top-secret government security clearance. This is very sensitive stuff. Again, not classified, but it's very embarrassing for this to have happened.

BLITZER: So what are they actually saying, the Department of Homeland Security, and the CIA about this?

PEREZ: Well, they're not verifying yet what exactly was taken, but we do have a statement from the CIA that says, "We are aware of the reports that have surfaced on social media and have referred the matter to the appropriate authorities."

DHS issued a similar statement, Wolf. We've had the FBI and Secret Service investigating. And just a little while ago, Twitter suspended the account of this alleged hacker. So it appears that law enforcement is already trying to put a stop to this.

[17:20:06] BLITZER: How sophisticated was this hack?

PEREZ: Wasn't terribly sophisticated. He even tells our producer that this is not something that, you know, required a lot of skill. It was more trickery, really, of these companies, that it requires them to be able to reset the passwords of these accounts. It's something that is the bane, really, of a lot of media companies, social media companies, because this is a very common way in which people take over people's Apple iCloud accounts or their Twitter accounts. It's very common, Wolf.

BLITZER: Evan Perez, thanks very much.

Congressman Schiff is still with us.

Congressman, this is pretty awkward, to say the least, very embarrassing if, in fact, the director of the CIA, the secretary of homeland security, their private e-mail accounts were hacked by this individual.

SCHIFF: Yes. And it's more than embarrassing. It's very much, I think, a risk for these individuals to have their private accounts hacked into. Even if it's not classified information, they still may have personal things that they don't want out in the public ethosphere. So it's of grave concern.

I think it highlights, Wolf, that none of us are really safe in this environment. If you're a major American company, and you haven't been hacked yet, you have; you just don't know it yet. And I think all of our personal e-mail is really vulnerable to this kind of hacking. So it's a grave risk.

BLITZER: So should people who have sensitive information, whether the legislative branch like you or the executive branch, no longer have any private Gmail or AOL or Yahoo or any kind of accounts right now?

SCHIFF: Well, you know, I think as a practical matter we have to. We have personal lives that we want to continue leading. But, you know, we probably ought to live by the maxim, which is easier said than done, which is don't put anything in an e-mail you don't want seen printed on the front page of the local paper. It's a good rule of thumb, because at the end of the day none of this can be guaranteed to remain private.

BLITZER: I assume you have a government account, but you also have a private account. Is that right?

SCHIFF: Sure.

BLITZER: Are you worried that your private account -- there have been government accounts that have been hacked into, as well, including State Department accounts, OMB accounts. There have been government accounts that have been hacked.

SCHIFF: Well, you know, I assume, frankly, that any account, public or private, that I use, if somebody wants to get in bad enough, they're going to get in.

BLITZER: Look ahead to Thursday. Hillary Clinton's going to be testifying for about eight hours, we're told, before the select committee on Benghazi. You're a member that committee. You have no confidence in what Trey Gowdy, the chairman, is doing now, I understand.

SCHIFF: I think the committee has been thoroughly discredited, not just by the comments of Kevin McCarthy or Richard Hanna or by the statements of the GOP whistleblower, who was part of their own staff; but frankly, by the committee's own actions.

We had a dozen hearings to have this year that the majority said we'd have with people like the defense chief and the head of the joint chiefs and the head of the CIA at the time of Benghazi, canceled all of them, every single one, except Hillary Clinton.

You look at the press they put out, 25 press releases since March, 20 of them, all about Clinton and the State Department. Only five about anything else.

You look at the witnesses they're interviewing and look at the witness interviews of the chairman chooses to attend for all the importance that he puts on these witness interviews. He's only gone to about ten out of the 50. And of those ten, there's a heavy focus on those staff surrounding Hillary Clinton. So the actions of the committee are just very telling.

BLITZER: So your responsibility, your job on Thursday as a Democratic minority member of this committee will be what?

SCHIFF: Well, look, try to see if there's something productive that can be gained from this testimony. We'll certainly want to ask the secretary about the security at embassies, what we can learn from the accountability review board, how those recommendations have been put into effect.

But she's testified twice before Congress. She's not presently in charge of security at our facilities. So there's limits to what she can -- what she can productively add.

Or also I think we're going to play a vital role in making sure she gets a chance to ask the questions and that when Republican members, if they selectively choose quotes out of context or lines from documents without giving the rest of the story in those documents that the secretary's given a chance to read the full document.

BLITZER: Very quickly, you said Trey Gowdy had not attended sensitive meetings that you think he should have attended?

SCHIFF: Actually, I think in the chairman's defense of these 50 witnesses that they keep trumpeting, many of them are completely duplicative of other witnesses. Some are I.T. people or the Clinton press people. They don't add that much value to the investigation. Many of them were already interviewed by the accountability review board.

So frankly, I can see why the chairman hasn't gone to the vast majority of these witness interviews. I haven't either. Most of the members haven't. But to trumpet their importance and then not attend, I think there's a certain discrediting quality to that.

[17:25:06] BLITZER: We'll have extensive live coverage on Thursday of these eight hours or so. We'll see how long it goes of these hearings. We'll watch very closely. Thanks very much, Adam Schiff, Democrat of California.

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