CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes

Interview

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BLITZER: Very interesting stuff. Sara, thank you very much, Sara Murray reporting.

Let's get back to the breaking news on the president, now being sued by the former porn star Stormy Daniels.

We're joined by Congressman Jim Himes. He's a Democrat. He's a key member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Congressman, thanks for joining us.

REP. JIM HIMES (D), CONNECTICUT: Good evening, Wolf.

BLITZER: Is it plausible that President Trump didn't know about Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels or his continued efforts to silence her, most recently with this apparent arbitration last week?

HIMES: Wolf, this is one of those things where we're talking about a Russian attack on our election, our response, and somehow we get dragged into a conversation over whether the president knew that a porn star had reached some sort of settlement.

As a member of Congress, I find it very unlikely that anyone's attorney would spend $130,000 of that client's money without that client knowing about it. But, obviously, I don't know the facts here. This is just one more absurd, embarrassing distraction.

This is the greatest country in the world, and we are spending our time, rather than thinking about being that country, talking about payments by the president to porn stars.

BLITZER: Two of your Democratic colleagues, Ted Lieu, Kathleen Rice, they want the FBI to actually investigate the payment. They say there might be some criminality there, in-kind campaign contributions, for example, that were never reported to the FEC.

Do you think the $130,000 payment could have violated election laws?

[18:15:01]

HIMES: Well, I guess, technically, Wolf, if this was designed to be part of the campaign, that is to say, designed to help the president get elected, it would be, of course, spending to that end and it would, therefore, need to be reported.

I have looked at a lot of campaign finance reports. That would be a first in the history of this country.

And, look, I will never tell any of my colleagues that their focus should be elsewhere, and this president gives us not just once a day, but probably three times a day, reason to doubt his fitness in this office.

But, again, Congress needs to be focused on the fact -- I sit on the Intelligence Committee -- that the Russians attacked us. As we learned in interviews with intelligence leaders in the last couple weeks, the president has ordered no response.

And, by the way, Wolf, let me be impartial about this. I thought Barack Obama's response to the Russian hack was inadequate. So the barn is burning out back, and we should do something about it. But instead we're focusing on the president and his friends and perhaps paid porn stars. And that's a really troubling and problematic thing for people who love this country.

BLITZER: Is this whole Stormy Daniels payment something you believe the special counsel, Robert Mueller, should take a look at?

HIMES: Well, again, it's hard for me to know. Obviously, if this was done surreptitiously -- and here, let me give you the angle that I think is in the national interest, because I'm not sure that this Stormy Daniels thing is in any way, shape or form in the national interest.

But, obviously, if there was behavior, if there was behavior that a foreign power, Russia or anybody else could use to blackmail the president -- and this, of course, has echoes of why we're doing this Russia investigation -- if there is -- and, look, I spend my time looking at our intelligence apparatus.

It is not hard for a foreign power to focus on a given individual, to record them, to take video, to surveil them. If there is behavior behind this that would make the president possibly subject to blackmail, now we're talking really serious issues.

We should see if that is the case, because that would obviously raise this from the sewer, from the cesspool into a matter of national security.

BLITZER: Well, if there's an element of blackmail, that presumably would be something that Mueller should investigate, right?

HIMES: Well, yes, I guess so. Quite frankly, that's something that the national security apparatus should be interested in.

Remember, this cast of characters -- ultimately, Michael Flynn was forced to step down because he lied about contacts that he had with the Russians, and, of course, the Russians knew that, and they could have blacked mailed him. That was the scandal there.

Never a good idea to lie to the FBI. But Michael Flynn handed an antagonistic foreign power a way to blackmail him as national security adviser. That is a very serious possibility. And that, setting aside the prurient interest that may exist for this story, that for somebody like me who is focused on national security is a very real risk. BLITZER: Let me ask you about this businessman and Trump go-between

George Nader who is now cooperating with the special counsel. What information could he give Robert Mueller about these secret meetings with the United Arab Emirates and a Russian banker?

HIMES: Well, I should start by saying that there is not really any communication between Bob Mueller's investigation and the congressional investigations that are occurring, including the one here in the House.

So, it's hard for us to know what it is that he may be doing with Bob Mueller's investigation. What I will tell you is -- and this is a matter of public record, because, of course, when the Erik Prince testimony, when he testified before my committee, that was made public.

And if you go back and you look at that testimony, the way that meeting in the Seychelles was characterized by Erik Prince was, gosh, I just worked out, and I went down and somebody said, hey, why don't you have a beer with this guy in the lobby bar, and nothing happened, it was really quick and nothing happened.

Well, now it turns out that there may have been a third party there. And I want to be careful how I talk about this. This is all allegations. But You know what? If there was a shadowy individual who was at that meeting with a Russian oligarch, and Erik Prince, with all of his connections to the Trump campaign and, by the way, a sibling of a Cabinet member, is there, I really want to know, first of all, why we were misled, if we were in fact misled, and, secondly, what really happened in that meeting.

BLITZER: The United Arab Emirates is one of those countries that was apparently targeting Jared Kushner, at least according to "The Washington Post," targeting him for manipulation.

How does this meeting fit into that and could this have put other Trump associates potentially at risk?

HIMES: Yes, I think there's at least two problems here.

And then step back a second here. As you might imagine, every country on the planet when the United States is going to elect a new president is very interested in getting to know the new president and the new president's people, or at least the president who may be president. That's not unusual.

Where it gets problematic is when these contacts are not disclosed. And many of these contacts, starting with Jared Kushner and straight on through to Michael Flynn and others, were not disclosed.

[18:20:00]

If they were not disclosed, why not? If it was innocent, why not be opened about what happened? That's a problem. And then, of course, this is one that -- this wasn't just meeting with the Swedish Red Cross delegation. This was a Russian. The Seychelles meeting anyway was a Russian

oligarch with connections to Vladimir Putin, and now maybe this sort of shadowy individual who seems to be of interest to Bob Mueller. So, again, this does not feel like a visit to friendly European girl scout group. There's more going on here.

And I think it's important for Bob Mueller to explore what that is.

BLITZER: There's a report out there now, Congressman, that Hope Hicks, the former communications director at the White House, longtime aide to the president who resigned last week, in questioning with you, that Hope Hicks said that one of her e-mail accounts was hacked. What can you tell us about that?

HIMES: Yes, I hate to be -- I hate to do this, Wolf, but not much.

There was a damaging leak out of the committee about her admission that I guess she had told white lies. I was very disturbed by that, because, quite frankly, I'm pretty -- I'm 100 percent sure there's nobody in this city who hasn't told white lies on behalf of their boss.

And I'm pretty sure there's no one on the planet who hasn't done that. And I think that got blown into a story that was not quite right, as a guy who was in the room.

So, again, in the spirit of trying to both preserve the security of our investigation and not maybe feed the rumor mill, I think I will probably just decline to comment on that.

BLITZER: Congressman Jim Himes, thanks, as usual, for joining us.

HIMES: Thank you, Wolf.

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