CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Washington Congressman Adam Smith

Interview

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ACOSTA: All right, very interesting. Shimon Prokupecz, thank you very much.

And joining me now, Congressman Adam Smith, the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee. Congressman, what do you think of the last 48 hours about the

credibility of the president of the United States and the White House after everything we have seen from Rudy Giuliani these last two days?

REP. ADAM SMITH (D), WASHINGTON: Well, that's the thing that really stands out is the fundamental dishonesty of the president of the United States.

And that goes to everything. That goes the credibility of our country. We are in the middle of some very, very complicated issues, but nationally -- both in the country and internationally, obviously the summit coming up with Kim Jong-un. We have an incredibly important trade discussion going on with the E.U. and China right now.

We have got the continuing situation in Syria and Iran. And who in the world right now can trust anything that the president says? He lies every other day. And the thing is, you know he lies because he is contradicting himself. It's not a matter of him saying something that we then have to prove is untrue. He said the exact opposite thing a mere matter of sometimes hours or days before.

So I think the credibility of the presidency has never been at a lower point. And that undermines everything we're trying to accomplish as a country.

ACOSTA: And he said today, go back and look at the videotape.

And we did. And, of course, he contradicted himself.

Congressman, some people say that this alleged affair fits with their view of the president's character before he won the White House.

SMITH: Right.

ACOSTA: And you hear this often from Trump people privately and sometimes publicly that this has been litigated during the election. Why do you think it's so important to get to the truth on this?

SMITH: Well, two things about that.

Even if it was litigated before the election, if the president has this history -- and keep in mind, there's I think pretty close to a dozen different women who have accused him, not just of an affair, but of sexual harassment, sexual harassment of which of course he famously sort of bragged about doing.

So that's a fundamental character flaw. Whether it was present before the election or not, it is still a fundamental character flaw. And let's shift topics, because a lot of times, with President Trump, the hard thing is, he distracts you with everything.

Yes, you do not want a president who has had multiple affairs, who has paid hush money to people he had affairs with, and who has lied about it repeatedly. Again, the credibility of the office matters.

But getting back to the Russia issue, there is a mountain of evidence of some kind of conspiracy between people very, very close to President Trump and the Russians.

The meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and the Russian agent at Trump Tower being but one of them. Let's remember, Michael Flynn was fired for lying to the FBI about his interactions with the Russians. Even Attorney General Sessions, let's be generous and say he forgot about meetings he had with the Russians.

The connections between Cambridge Analytica, the connections with them seeming to know, the Trump people seeming to know when these e-mails were going to be released by WikiLeaks. The notion that this is a witch-hunt, and as the president keeps saying, as if a mantra -- I swear this is what he says to himself before he goes to bed at night -- no evidence of collusion, well, first of all, the issue is conspiracy.

The president is kind of right there's no such crime as collusion, but there is a crime of conspiracy and there's also a crime of obstruction of justice.

(CROSSTALK)

ACOSTA: Let me ask you about obstruction of justice.

SMITH: Yes.

ACOSTA: Because on the Mueller investigation, the president keeps saying, well, if he fights back -- and I think he said this just recently -- if you fight back, they say, oh, that's obstruction of justice.

As you heard him today, he likes to fight these battles. He doesn't see it as violating the law. How do you read that comment? What do you make of that?

SMITH: It's remarkably ignorant of the law.

Keep in mind, until a couple of days ago, apparently, the president was unaware of the fact that you can obstruct justice even if it turns out there was no underlying crime. If you think you are protecting against a crime that happened, then that can be obstruction of justice.

[18:15:07]

So, the president's knowledge of the law is apparently really rather limited here. But he's not just fighting back.

Look, he said on NBC TV he fired Comey because he didn't like where he was going with the Russia investigation. He clearly put pressure on Comey to take it easy on Michael Flynn. He has put pressure on a number of different people to steer away from the Russia investigation.

And there's two pieces to this. One, of course, is whether or not the Trump campaign was involved in it. But the second one that is important beyond that, Russia interfered in our election. The president continues to deny that and continues to do nothing to prevent it from happening again.

And that's a threat to all of us, independent of whether or not there's any criminal charges proven against the president.

ACOSTA: Well, Congressman, let me ask you about this looming showdown that I guess we're starting to see on the horizon here, the president, whether he will or whether he won't sit down with the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

The president said today he would love to speak to the special counsel. What happens if the president refuses? I talked to a source close to all this earlier today who said it's about 50/50 as to whether this will not happen.

What happens at that point? What would you like to see happen if the president says, no, I'm not going to do this?

SMITH: Well, I'm not sure of the legalities here myself. I will be honest about my ignorance. I'm not sure what right the president has to resist a subpoena. I think the law is a little bit unsettled there.

I think it's quite possible that he does have the right to say that he's not going to talk to Robert Mueller. And, look, if I was his lawyer...

(CROSSTALK)

ACOSTA: Even if the face of a subpoena, he can say that he's not going to do it, and you think legally he might be able to get away with that?

SMITH: My understanding it's that's unsettled, because it's a separation of powers issue. You have got the judicial branch going after the chief executive of the country or in this case the Justice Department. How does that balance of power play out? I'm not sure.

If he is compelled to testify, given the fact that the president is so incapable of telling the truth -- think about this -- take us back to the Clinton days and the fact that the Republicans impeached President Clinton for lying about an affair in a deposition. And keep in mind, the Starr investigation was supposed to be about, again, some things totally unrelated.

And ultimately what they impeached him for was lying about something that was totally unrelated to Whitewater and everything else. That was just one lie. Donald Trump lies like most people breathe.

If you get him in front of Robert Mueller, under oath, every lie he tells is a crime. How on earth does anyone think that President Trump is going to be capable of sitting through an interview like that without saying something that's clearly not true?

ACOSTA: Yes. SMITH: So -- but I would say it would be idiotic for him to testify

in front of Mueller, but then again it would be idiotic to hire Rudy Giuliani and put him on FOX News and have him directly contradict everything you have been saying.

(CROSSTALK)

ACOSTA: It sounds like a reality TV cliffhanger, I think. We're going to have to wait and see how it all pans out.

SMITH: Yes.

ACOSTA: But, Congressman Adam Smith, some very interesting comments on all of this. Thank you very much.

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