MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Trump Campaign

Interview

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REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), RANKING DEMOCRAT, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well they are quite intense allegations and if this is correct, if Vekselberg sent Michael Cohen half a million dollars, of course, the question is why. Now, in what Avenatti put out, he is just asking the question I think whether there was reimburse Mr. Trump or Mr. Cohen for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels but don`t know number one, at this point whether it`s confirmed that he made that payment to Cohen and number two, what that payment was for. But it would explain something that has been a question for me and that is this intense interest in Michael Cohen, both on the part of the special counsel but also the intense worry about the President, what is driving this is this really only about Stormy Daniels. I`ve always found that hard to believe that the Justice Department would be prepared to take on the lawyer to the President, a search of a lawyer at all is unusual but let alone the President`s lawyer if it is just about a potential campaign finance violation. So it would make sense both in terms of stopping Vekselberg at the airport to question him or seize his devices, but it would make sense in terms of the intense interest over that search in New York.

HAYES: Was Vekselberg someone on your radar and your team`s radar as you were conducting your own investigation on that intelligence committee?

SCHIFF: Yes. And I can`t go into the particulars, but this is someone who had come to our attention. But again, this was someone that the GOP on our Committee would not allow us to do a full investigation. So while he had come to our attention, we were not allowed to pursue the matter.

HAYES: The other people on your committee that you just mentioned, Devin Nunes, of course, being one of them, there are allegations that he is essentially been using his purse to share information with the White House to allow them to plot a legal strategy. Do you have an opinion on that?

SCHIFF: Well, there`s certainly good reason to believe that this is a coordinated effort between the committee or the Chairman and not just our chairman, but also members of the GOP on the Judiciary Committee Mr. Meadows and Mr. Jordan because what they`re doing is very much in lockstep. You see this escalating fight with the Justice Department where these Republican members and in the interest of defending the President are making a continuing escalating series of demands on the Justice Department, not because they particularly want the documents they are asking for and indeed our own Chairman has acknowledged he doesn`t read them, but because they`re interested in asking for more and more sensitive information until they get no for an answer. It`s the fight that they want. And when they get no nor an answer, you see the President immediately chime in as if on cue saying why won`t the Justice Department comply, as if the President cares about document production to Congress. So this is -- it looks choreographed, designed to prompt a fight, designed to give the President a pretext to either fire people or further bash the Justice Department.

HAYES: In light of what is being alleged this evening from Michael Avenatti, and again, I don`t know the source of the documents, the bank transactions he claims to know about, we don`t know yet -- hard confirmation of that. But in light of that, are you confident that the Justice Department, the Southern District, and the Special Counsel Office can all be protected from this political pressure being brought to bear to follow the leads to where ever they go?

SCHIFF: Well, I`m not confident because, at the end of the day, the ones that will protect the investigation are the members of Congress. Now the President has been threatening to fire Bob Mueller, at one point he tried to fire Bob Mueller. At another point, he evidently stayed his hand in terms of firing Mueller because he was assured by special counsel at least reportedly that they were not subpoenaing Deutsche Bank. I think the special counsel needs to subpoena Deutsche Bank. We need to know whether the Russians were laundering money through the Trump Organization via Deutsche Bank. We need to know whether Russia holds this lever over the head or the President of the United States. So I am concerned that Congress is not stepping up to its institutional responsibility to protect this investigation, to allow the investigators to follow facts wherever they lead.

HAYES: Adam Schiff, Congressman of California on the House Intelligence Committee. Thanks for your time tonight.

SCHIFF: Thanks, Chris.

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