CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Congressman Adam Schiff
Interview
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BLITZER: Yes, lots going on right now.
Jim Sciutto, thank you for that report.
Joining us now, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff of California.
Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: You bet. Thanks, Wolf.
BLITZER: So, what does this development with Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, tell you about how Robert Mueller and his team are working?
SCHIFF: Well, they're working as I would expect.
And that is, they're keeping a very close eye on the case, on the witnesses. There's not much that's going to get past him. And the fact that Manafort would go to this length, that he would potentially be risking a revocation of his bail, additional charges, this evidence can also be used during the trial against him if he is trying to get witnesses to make false statements, tells you just how desperate Paul Manafort is.
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So, I have to think he is merely digging the hole deeper, and quite naive to think that Bob Mueller is not going to be on top of this.
BLITZER: You speak also as a former federal prosecutor.
Could this pressure by Mueller lead Manafort to actually flip, plead guilty, cooperate and hope for a reduced sentence?
SCHIFF: It could. It's certainly additional pressure. If Manafort is remanded into custody, he may have more time to think about whether he wants to cooperate, if Manafort faces potential new charges.
It's also potentially a signal to Manafort that these witnesses who are referred to in these court pleadings are cooperating with Mueller. And he may not have been aware of that until there was this effort to revoke his conditions of bail.
BLITZER: Yes, Mueller sends a very powerful message in that document.
Rudy Giuliani, the president's lawyer, told our Chris Cuomo that Jay Sekulow, another personal lawyer for the president, simply made a mistake by repeatedly denying that President Trump dictated that first statement by Donald Trump Jr. about that 2016 meeting with Russians at the Trump Tower in New York.
What's your reaction to that?
SCHIFF: Well, my reaction is, it's only a mistake if you consider deliberate lying to be a mistake.
Here, you have the president engaging in a cover-up of what took place in the Trump Tower meeting. The president was obviously aware of what happened. He knew that it wasn't about adoptions. But he dictated this statement. We now know that he was so directly involved in putting forward this patently false representation, and then sent his people out, Sarah Sanders, among others, Jay Sekulow, to lie and mislead the public about it. So, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the president was an active
participant in covering up what took place in Trump Tower. And, again, that's an indication that the president has a consciousness of wrongdoing.
If there was no collusion, then why lie about what took place in Trump Tower?
BLITZER: Hope Hicks, who was the communications director for the president at the White House, she was there when the president dictated that statement.
When she gave an interview to your committee, the House Intelligence Committee, on February 27, was she honest?
SCHIFF: Well, we couldn't get her to answer questions about the production of that statement, nor could we get Corey Lewandowski.
And this is, of course, the very same interaction in which Don Jr. erroneously claimed that he was protected by attorney-client privilege. If this statement was dictated by his father, as it appears to be the case, there's no privilege that protects that.
But, nonetheless, we couldn't get the GOP to insist on answers to it. They simply didn't want to know. And now we can tell why they didn't want to know, because the truth is the president was complicit in the production of that false statement.
BLITZER: You think Hope Hicks was more forthcoming in her testimony, in her question-and-answer session with Robert Mueller and his team?
SCHIFF: I'm sure these witnesses were forced to be more forthcoming before Bob Mueller, because they had to know that they didn't have the same home court advantage when they had Republican members of our committee acting as surrogate lawyers for the president.
So, yes, they would have had to answer these questions. You could see in the memo, that 22 pages of released documents, that they concede the president dictated it. They're not going to give that up unless they know it's already been shown to Bob Mueller, if that information was already known to Bob Mueller.
So, yes, I have to imagine that they told Bob Mueller about this, and this is why they concede the point in that legal argument.
BLITZER: Yes, I suspect you are right.
We also now know, Congressman, the president's team lied or misled the American people about his role in the drafting, the dictating of that statement.
Should they now clarify when President Trump first learned of that meeting at Trump Tower and the Russian offer of so-called dirt on Hillary Clinton?
SCHIFF: Of course they should. And I think that this is all the more reason why Bob Mueller needs to interview the president.
And if they continue to stonewall, he is going to have to subpoena the president. And it looks like they're trying to use every excuse now not to have him testify. They're trying to obtain materials that they have no business getting. The president has not been indicted that we know of. They have no right to investigate materials.
But now they are using this claim, well, we're not going to submit to an interview without having access to investigative files.
That's not the process. And they know it.
I would say, in terms of Sarah Sanders, the reason that she keeps refusing to answer these questions, I think, is probably very apparent. And that is, she doesn't want to say publicly that the president told her something that wasn't true, because Sarah Sanders either knew it wasn't true or the president told her falsely about the circumstances in the production of the statement.
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Either way, Sarah Sanders doesn't want to answer that question.
BLITZER: Yes, that's a good point.
The president, hard to believe as it is, once again today attacked the attorney general of the United States, Jeff Sessions, tweeting this.
And I will read it to you. "The Russian witch-hunt hoax continues, all because Jeff Sessions didn't tell me he was going to recuse himself. I would have quickly picked someone else."
Could he still pick someone else, Congressman? Do you think it would be difficult for him to replace Jeff Sessions even now?
SCHIFF: Yes, I do.
And I'm glad that the Republican senators are at least defending their own. And I think Senator Grassley is saying he won't schedule a hearing for a replacement.
But what is really telling to me, Wolf, about that tweet is the president continues to provide evidence to special counsel Bob Mueller. Here he is basically telling us about this corrupt intent of his, that if he had known that Sessions would not be there to run interference on the Russia investigation, to curtail the Russia investigation before it was over, he would have never appointed him.
So, this is yet further evidence of what the president is thinking in terms of trying to get Sessions to un-recuse himself, in terms of what he wanted an attorney general, of his expectation that he has a right to interfere and obstruct the investigation.
So, I have to think, if I were one of the president's lawyers, I would cringe in seeing the president saying these things publicly. It's just more evidence for the special counsel. BLITZER: Certainly appears to be the case.
Congressman Adam Schiff, thank you so much for joining us.
SCHIFF: Thanks, Wolf.
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