CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Trump Organization Subpoenaed

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Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut is joining us. He's a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Congressman, thanks for coming in.

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

BLITZER: What does it say that the Trump Organization has now been subpoenaed by the special counsel for business records?

HIMES: Well, not one bit surprising, right?

People who are in real estate know that an individual has all sorts of limited partnerships, complicated corporate arrangements that would be easy -- and I'm not saying they were, but they would be easy targets for money laundering, for people who wanted to pay off an individual.

So, to me, this just says that Bob Mueller typically is doing his work.

BLITZER: In that an interview last summer with "The New York Times," he suggested, you go after my business dealings, that crosses a red line.

Could this move by Robert Mueller potentially result in a new special counsel, the president deciding to fire him?

HIMES: Well, we need to be very clear about one thing, Wolf, which is there is no individual in the United States, including the president of the United States, who is above the law.

The president of the United States doesn't get to tell the FBI what they investigate, any more than the car thief or drug dealer on the street does. We are a nation of laws. It's interesting, because the president by saying, you don't get to look at my business dealings, is almost saying, hey, have a look.

Why else would he be -- in a moment in which he is saying he wants to fully cooperate with the investigation, why would he be creating that red line, which, as Jeffrey Toobin pointed out, has no legal meaning?

And if he exercised that, if he took the kinds of actions that you're talking about, it would be -- I think it would be a crisis, particularly at a political moment in time when an awful lot of my Republican colleagues, having watched what happened in Pennsylvania two nights ago, are feeling pretty nervous about what it means to be affiliated with this president.

BLITZER: Well, there could be a political crisis. There could be a constitutional crisis as well if he goes too far in this area. A lot of people are worried about that.

As you know, the Trump administration today finally enacted new sanctions against Russia, a month-and-a-half after the deadline imposed by Congress, as you know, including sanctions against a dozen Russians indicted by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

The president, as you know, has called this entire Russia probe a witch-hunt, a ruse. But now he's -- the administration is going forward with sanctions, at least in part related to those who were allegedly involved.

HIMES: Yes. And I guess I would make two observations, Wolf.

Number one, it's not enough. It wasn't enough when President Obama sanctioned individuals and closed down two diplomatic facilities. It is certainly not enough that after a year of actually protecting the Russians -- and, remember, we still have no statement from the president of the United States about an attempted murder by Russian agents on a London -- I guess it wasn't London, but on a British city street, using a weapon of mass destruction.

This has been a pattern of isolating Russia in the mind of the president from any culpability for anything.

[18:15:05]

Now, Wolf, what will be interesting is, of course, the rest of the world understands what the Russians did to our electoral process. When the House ultimately -- when you see the Republican report, which I'm not going to tout here, you will see that the Republican report actually agrees with everybody else, that we had a very significant attack by the Russian...

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BLITZER: The president did say in the Oval Office today that it looks like it was Russia.

They did issue a statement, together with the other allies, the U.K., Germany, France, saying Russia was involved in the poisoning of this ex-spy in Salisbury, England.

But let me get to another sensitive issue. You saw that "Washington Post" report today that they had an audio recording of -- the president told a closed door fund-raiser in Saint Louis last night that basically he acknowledged that he had lied to the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, about the United States having a deficit, the trade deficit with Canada.

And Trudeau said, that's not true. What does it say that the president of the United States would concede publicly, would say publicly in front of a group of Republican fund-raisers that he lied to the Canadian prime minister?

HIMES: Well, again, sadly, that's not a surprising thing.

If you read Donald Trump's books, he talks about using -- I forget the exact phrase -- but exaggeration and twisting of the truth as a negotiating technique.

Look, we have been under this president over a year now. Every other tweet contains some fantastic, maybe it is a lie, maybe it's an exaggeration, but, quite frankly, it is not surprising.

What's troubling is that there was a time in this country where the president doing what he did with Republican fund-raisers last night would seriously cause us to sit up and take notice. And, of course, this is just another day at the office for Donald Trump.

BLITZER: Congressman Jim Himes, thanks for coming in.

HIMES: Thanks, Wolf.

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