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

Interview

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BLITZER: All right, Pamela, good reporting. Thank you very much.

Joining us now, Congressman Jim Himes. He's a Democrat who serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

You just heard Pamela's reporting. The president is apoplectic about this raid going on in New York City involving his longtime fixer and friend and lawyer Michael Cohen.

What does that imply about, first of all, the Cohen-Trump relationship?

REP. JIM HIMES (D), CONNECTICUT: Well, I'm not sure it implies anything, other than what we've known for a long time, which is Michael Cohen is -- maybe he in some way, shape and form is a lawyer, but he is really the president's fixer. Right?

And I think the president knows that he fixed some stuff, legal or illegal, might not want to see the light of day. And any president, of course, would think back to the '90s under the Clinton administration when you had a special counsel looking into -- and this is the part nobody remembers, started out looking into a strange land deal in Arkansas.

And, of course, what Americans remember today and the impeachment of that president was about a blue dress and a statement made in a deposition. So I think the president is looking at that and saying, my God, these things can go in unpredictable ways. And my guess is that there is some stories between Michael Cohen and Donald Trump that president would rather not have out there.

BLITZER: The president apparently very worried about all the documents, recordings, everything else that the FBI took in those raids.

How did your House Intelligence Committee investigation view Michael Cohen? Should your committee bring him back?

HIMES: Well, as you know, the Republicans prematurely ended the House investigation.

You know, this was before Mueller's investigation turned up all sorts of new information. In that sense, the president and Devin Nunes achieved one of their objectives, which is to get one of these things to go away.

So, I don't think we're likely to get Michael Cohen back. But, look, Michael Cohen came and told us what he's been saying publicly about the Prague meeting and any other number of things. So, yes, in a world where we had an opportunity to interview him again, I think we would want to know whether he was honest with the Congress and what else he might know.

BLITZER: The fired FBI Director James Comey has chosen sides against President Trump with his new book, as we all know by now and all the interviews he's done.

Do you worry that could impact American trust in the FBI and the Justice Department, for that matter?

HIMES: Well, I don't think it's Jim Comey's book that is impacting trust in the FBI.

It's the fact that the president of the United States pretty much every single day is lighting up the FBI on Twitter, suggesting that they're a rotten organization, suggesting that they're politically motivated without any evidence whatsoever.

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And, of course, this at a time when the FBI director is his appointee, where the deputy attorney general who is in charge of this investigation along with Bob Mueller are both Republicans, and, other than Mueller, his appointee.

So, I mean, the damage being done to the FBI here is not a function of Jim Comey's book or activities.

BLITZER: Whenever we do see Robert Mueller's final report, assuming we eventually do see it, do you worry some Americans will simply dismiss Comey's role in the investigation because of his criticism of President Trump?

HIMES: Well, I think you have to keep some things separate here.

One, Jim Comey, appropriately, has come under a lot of scrutiny and criticism for his decision, unusual and unprecedented decision, to discuss the investigation of Hillary Clinton prior to the election.

And that's particularly interesting, given what we know now, which is that there wasn't just a Hillary Clinton investigation going on. There was also a Donald Trump and Trump campaign investigation going on. He chose to talk about Hillary Clinton, but not the other.

I personally believe he made a mistake in doing that, a mistake of judgment. That does not that mean that Jim Comey is what the president is accusing him of being, dishonest, a leaker of classified information.

So, look, what worries me much more, Wolf, is that we have watched now for months as the president and the president's people and the president's party have worked very hard to delegitimize not just Jim Comey, but Robert Mueller and the investigation.

You just need to spend a little time on social media to see what is said about this Vietnam decorated war hero, who people understand to be upstanding. And you see that they have already tried to erode his credibility, so that if a report comes out with adverse information on the president, they will do their level best to do what they're doing to Jim Comey today.

BLITZER: On another sensitive issue, Congressman, the line from the White House right now is that U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley got ahead of the curve in announcing new sanctions on Russia on Sunday. She said they'd be implemented. They'd be announced by the Treasury

Department on Monday. It certainly hasn't happened. What does it say to you about the Trump administration?

HIMES: Yes, well, it's funny. The Congress actually heard exactly that line from a senior administration official who came to the Congress today to talk about the justification for the Syria strike.

So that's clearly the story, that Nikki Haley got out in front of the story. Now, her story was pretty darn specific with respect to the treasury secretary soon making an announcement.

One of the jobs of the people that work for the president is to take the fall when the president changes his mind. So, my bet, and I don't mean this to be the case, but my bet is that there was some vacillation on the president's part about the right thing to do here.

And I'm very interested in why a plan that was just about to get green-lighted, the secretary of the treasury announcing new sanctions, why did that all of a sudden get scotched? I would love to know the story behind that.

BLITZER: Good question. We will try to work it and find out.

Congressman Jim Himes, thanks very much.

HIMES: Thank you, Wolf.

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