NBC News "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Russian Investigations

Interview

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CHUCK TODD:

Joining me now is the chief Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff of California. Congressman Schiff, welcome back.

ADAM SCHIFF:

Thank you.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me start, where, actually - where we sort of ended there with Kellyanne Conway. The report did include that text message exchange between two romantically involved F.B.I. employees, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. And in one of them, in the text message, let me put it up, August 8th, 2016, Page stated, "Trump's not ever going to become president, right? Right?" And Strzok responded, "No, no, he's not. We'll stop it." If the shoe were on the other foot, can you imagine what Democrats would be saying? If they had text messages from New York F.B.I. agents, right, that said, "We're stopping her."

ADAM SCHIFF:

Yes, I certainly can. And, in fact, the report spells out that Loretta Lynch and James Comey talked about a virulent anti-Clinton bias in the New York office which is of equal concern to Democrats. We would, I hope, take solace in the fact though that the IG found that none of this had an effect on the decision making at the bureau. With respect to the New York office though we don't know that that's the case. Presumably that is--

CHUCK TODD:

Didn't Kellyanne just say the same thing? We don't know that's the case with Peter Strzok?

ADAM SCHIFF:

Well, the - the inspector general found it was not the case with Peter Strzok. But there was apparently an ongoing investigation by the IG into whether that New York field office was leaking to people like Rudy Giuliani or the chairman of our committee. That's ongoing. So we don't know the answer yet about whether that ultimately affected the revelation of the emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop.

CHUCK TODD:

I want to bring up your counterpart, the Republican chairman of the committee, Devin Nunes. Something amazing that he admitted to earlier this week. Take a listen.

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CHUCK TODD:

For what it's worth, September 26th of 2016 is when this laptop was discovered. And he says late September. So that doesn't, I don't think, meet the definition of whistle-blowing. Essentially it was, he immediately found out and told Devin Nunes. He said, "We in the Intelligence Committee." Were you informed of this whistleblowing?

ADAM SCHIFF:

No. This is the first that we've heard about it. And it is deeply disturbing because if this was shared by New York field agents with Devin Nunes, was it also shared with Rudy Giuliani? Or did Devin Nunes do something which we have seen subsequently which is coordinate with the Trump team? Was this information shared by the committee with Rudy Giuliani or shared directly with them? We don't know the answer but we hope the inspector general will find out.

CHUCK TODD:

Do you think Peter Strzok should still be with the F.B.I. at this point?

ADAM SCHIFF:

I don't know. I imagine that the Office of Professional Responsibility will have to make that decision. Certainly these texts messages are very troubling. The fact they were on a work email, the fact that they were co-mingled with emails discussing business, all that's problematic. Again, you know, the IG concluded that none of this affected decision making. But nonetheless, that was completely inappropriate.

CHUCK TODD:

The midterm elections are coming up. There's this idea that there should be pauses sometimes when you have sort of high-profile investigations. Is there a point where you think Mueller should publicly pause, continue the investigation but not, you know, is there a window where he shouldn't issue the report until after the election?

ADAM SCHIFF:

I think that he's very conscious of not making the same mistake that Comey made by having a decision or a public disclosure made close to the election. So I would have to think that within a suitable period of time before November.

CHUCK TODD:

When is that? Is it August one? Is it Labor Day?

ADAM SCHIFF:

I don't know whether that's 30 days, 90 days or more. But--

CHUCK TODD:

It's not October.

ADAM SCHIFF:

It's not October. Absolutely not October. I think we're likely to see another indictment before that window. The hacking and dumping operation wasn't charged in the last indictment. And the only reason to exclude that when it was part of that same overall conspiracy is if that part of the indictment either involves U.S. persons or you haven't finished investigating whether to include U.S. persons.

CHUCK TODD:

I want to talk about the migrant crisis very quickly. There's going to potentially be this compromise piece of immigration legislation, Paul Ryan, that would include that some opportunities for citizenship, more protections for DACA folks. Look, not clear it would even have the support of some on the right because they call it amnesty. Is that a bill you could support, this moderate compromise that's coming up? Especially if it guaranteed that children weren't going to be separated from asylum seekers?

ADAM SCHIFF:

It's a moving target right now. What I've seen I think is problematic. But, look, what the administration is doing is they're using the grief, the tears, the pain of these kids as mortar to build their wall. And it's an effort to extort a bill to their liking in the Congress. It's, I think, deeply unethical. And by the president's -- making these provable falsehoods about what's required, the party adopting that has become - the GOP has become the party of lies. And it's such, I think, a sad degeneration--

CHUCK TODD:

Are you painting the--

ADAM SCHIFF:

--of the party.

CHUCK TODD:

--entire Republican Party with this?

ADAM SCHIFF:

I'm saying that Republican members of Congress -- Republican members of Congress who will not call out the president for demonstrable falsehoods on a daily basis and, and often trumpet them--

CHUCK TODD:

Mark Sanford did.

ADAM SCHIFF:

--become the party of lies.

CHUCK TODD:

He's going to be on here, later. Mark Sanford did and he lost.

ADAM SCHIFF:

Well, this is the problem because the GOP in Congress has become craven enough that they will do anything to maintain the majority. Even be complicit with a president who ignores and tears down the rule of law, who repeats falsehood after falsehood. They cannot maintain their integrity as a party if they follow this president.

CHUCK TODD:

All right, do you have a better solution on how to deal with this migrant crisis from Central America? It's now a four-year crisis.

ADAM SCHIFF:

Yeah. Well, you know first of all, I think we end this immoral policy of separating kids from their parents. And then I think, you know, we have to work with these countries to figure out what we can do to stem the violence back home, what we can do to humanely deal with people who are fleeing because they have no option but to flee. We need to be working with our southern neighbor, Mexico, to deal with this crisis. None of this can be solved by angry tweets or by using these families as leverage. Look, you're absolutely right. It's going to be very difficult to get a comprehensive immigration bill in an election year, in any year. So let's not tear these families apart in the meantime.

CHUCK TODD:

This shouldn't be a part of the immigration bill. Separating.

ADAM SCHIFF:

It shouldn't be. It's just plain wrong and immoral.

CHUCK TODD:

Adam Schiff, I have to leave it there. Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Democrat from California, I should mention that, to your constituents out there. Thank you for coming.

ADAM SCHIFF:

Thanks, Chuck.

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