MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Russian Investigations

Interview

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HAYES: Today`s other big news comes from the Senate Intelligence Committee whose leaders are siding with both the intelligence community and directly contradicting the Republican counterparts in the House with a bipartisan statement saying they believe Russians were trying to help Donald Trump get elected president.
Joining me now is the ranking member of House intelligence committee, Congressman Adam Schiff, who agrees with that statement from Senate Intel.

And congressman let me start with your reaction to your counterparts in the Senate backing up the minority report from your committee. What do you think?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, (D) CALIFORNIA: Well, there is really no question that the Senate intel committee, on a bipartisan basis, got the conclusion right. All the evidence we have seen corroborate what the intelligence community found in terms of the Russian motivation, which was to help the Trump campaign, to hurt Hillary Clinton, and more generally sow discord in our election. That was the bipartisan conclusion in the senate. That was the conclusion clearly of the Mueller team, as you can see reflected in their indictment of these 13 Russians, but also the overwhelming conclusion of the intelligence agencies.

So sadly, the majority on the House intel committee is now an outlier, and that`s not at all surprising because they have from the beginning viewed their mission differently, not at getting at the truth, but rather protecting the president, whatever the costs may be.

HAYES: New transcripts and documents out today from the Senate, from the judiciary committee, in terms of their portion of the investigation into that Trump Tower meeting. I`m wondering as someone who was part of your own investigation on the house intelligence side, do you feel like you learned things today from the documents made public?

SCHIFF: You know, we`re still going through the documents. On first read, a lot of the testimony in the senate very much tracks what we heard from these same witnesses in the House. We also see some of the same infirmities I think in the investigation in the Senate judiciary committee that we`ve had in the House, and that is that when witnesses would make a statement, the investigators weren`t allowed to progress and test the truth or falsity of that statement and probe and find additional evidence.

In our interviews, for example, of Donald Trump Jr., we asked him about this blocked call that he received in between communications he was having with Emin Agalarov. Now, he claimed not to remember who that call was either to or from, it was a blocked number. We know the president was using a blocked number when he was then candidate Donald Trump. It`s very easy to find out by subpoenaing Donald Trump`s phone records during the campaign to see if that was him, if that was a conversation that Don Jr. was having in the midst of trying to figure out whether to take this meeting at Trump Tower.

That`s a pretty key piece of evidence, a pretty obvious investigative step. The Republicans on our committee wouldn`t allow us to take it, because they didn`t want to know the answer. It doesn`t appear the Senate judiciary
committee took that step either, but Bob Mueller, I have to imagine, has taken that step. He knows the answer, and I would hope that we will have an opportunity in our committee, if not now, then down the road, to do this
investigation and the way that we need to.

HAYES: The president today in filing his financial disclosure with the Office of Government Ethics finally admitting he did in fact reimburse Michael Cohen for the payment to Stormy Daniels with the intent of keeping her quiet about her allegations. What`s your reaction to that?

SCHIFF: My reaction is that if this is a campaign expenditure, if it`s a loan for Michael Cohen to the tune of $130,000, then it violates the limit because that loan is considered basically a contribution and would be limited to a few thousand dollars, not $130,000.

So the failure to report this last year in the financial disclosures, the violation of the limit on campaign contributions, I think this is a pretty serious business, because it now looks like there may very well be violations of both campaign laws as well as financial disclosure obligations.

So that`s a first take. I would certainly want to delve into legal issues more, but I think the president was in a no-win situation given the sort of false web he had woven over this in that if he reported it, it led to one conclusion about prior falsehoods. If he didn`t report it, it led to a different conclusion about prior falsehoods.

But to me, the implication is it was a loan and it exceeded the campaign limits. And second, it should have been reported a year ago, and that`s a problem.

HAYES: You`re on a committee that has a lot of business to attend to day in and day out, week in and week out. The majority issued their somewhat perfunctory report. There is a minority report from the folks in your party. What is it now like on that committee as the chair of that committee, Devin Nunes, is out spinning further conspiracy theories about infiltration of the Trump campaign. Like, what is your relationship with him like? What is it like on that committee right now?

SCHIFF: Well, what it`s like is really what had been going on in private is now going on in a very public way, and that is there are now two very different investigations going on. The Republicans walked away from the Russia investigation, the one they were charged with doing. We still are continuing that investigation on the minority side. We`re continuing to bring in witnesses and receive documents from those that are willing to cooperate with us.

The majority for its sake is trying to investigate the investigators, it`s trying to tear down the FBI and the Justice Department. It`s a basic scorched earth policy that says we will do anything to protect the president, including tearing down these important institutions. So obviously, that makes for a pretty tense environment in our committee.

At the same time, we recognize I think on a bipartisan basis that notwithstanding these very serious differences about the investigation, the other work of the committee overseeing these agencies, making sure that they`re talking to each other and protect the country, all of that must go on in a nonpartisan manner. And I think on the positive side, we continue to do that work, which is the bread and butter of our committee in a very
nonpartisan way.

HAYES: How would you characterize your relationship with Devin Nunes?

SCHIFF: Look, certainly very strained, and it`s a tragedy because prior to this investigation I think we got together and worked together very well. We had a good relationship. We passed any number of very difficult intelligence-related legislation, reform legislation on a bipartisan basis. So, it`s been tough. But, you know, the reality is from the very beginning of the investigation with that midnight run the chairman made it clear that his priority was very different than following the facts and that was going to amount to a rupture no matter how hard we tried on the Democratic side to make this investigation work.

HAYES: Congressman Adam Schiff, thank you.

SCHIFF: Thanks, Chris.

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