CNN "Wolf" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff

Interview

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BLITZER: We'll see how that unfolds. Thanks very much.

I want to bring in Congressman Adam Schiff. He's the top Democrat, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. He's joining me right now.

We've just learned that the top Democrat in the Senate, the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, has just called on the president, congressman, to cancel the summit with Putin on Monday in Helsinki given the enormity of these allegations in this indictment. What do you think?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, I agree with him. In particular because none of us have any confidence in what he'll say during that meeting. It has to be of concern, I think, to all Americans that the president wants this meeting to take place out of the earshot of any witnesses. And the president, by framing it that, OK, I will ask Putin about it, we don't need to ask Putin about it. The evidence is ironclad. That's not how you confront someone, by questioning whether it took place or what the Russians may have done. We know what the Russians did and now it's spelled out again in excruciating detail.

[13:05:17] This is the thing that really leaps out at me, Wolf, about this indictment, which is again the intelligence community has blessed sharing very detailed information about what we know about different members of the GRU and what the responsibilities are and when they took certain actions and what computers they used and where they used them. That is information that they do not like to share. But I'm sure they feel, and they're quite right about this, it's important that we let Americans know that the proof is unequivocal. It's important that we let the Russians know this.

So, yes, I think we -- the president, frankly, ought to cut his losses with this -- this disastrous trip to Europe, not make it worse by a friendly meeting with Vladimir Putin on the heels of yet another indictment of Russia.

BLITZER: Because the specifics in this indictment are really, as you correctly point out, enormous. The name -- they name names. And the U.S. intelligence community hates to do that because they think it could compromise future intelligence operations.

They go through point by point. It's one thing to say the Russians interfered. It's another thing to bring it up with all this kind of specific detail.

SCHIFF: Exactly. And, you know, what I've been looking at in these indictments, like the last indictment, is both what they include and what they don't include. Here, in the first indictment on the social media campaign, there was no mention of the hacking and dumping operation. So this indictment was foreseeable. We knew this was coming.

But here, there's no mention, for example, of the Russians communicating with Papadopoulos. Now, I'm going through this indictment in real-time, but I haven't found any mention of that yet. Why is that excluded, that the Russians approached the Trump campaign, letting them know that they had these documents that are spelled out in this indictment? The reason you wouldn't include that is if there may be more charges you want to bring later that do involve U.S. persons.

So this still doesn't resolve the question of whether U.S. persons were knowingly involved. All the attorney general -- deputy attorney general said today is, there are no allegations about that in this indictment.

BLITZER: But listen to what the president said just a couple of -- a few hours ago at that joint news conference he had with Theresa May, the British prime minister, about what he always describes as this rigged Russian witch hunt.

Listen to this.

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BLITZER: What's your reaction when you hear that?

SCHIFF: This is exactly why he should not go to this meeting with Putin. He is basically undercutting the work of our own intelligence agencies, throwing it open to question, suggesting that this is all a witch hunt. That is complete music to Putin's ears.

And on the heels of bashing our allies in Europe, to go into a meeting with Putin in this kind of a subservient way to the interests of the Kremlin would be disastrous to our national interests.

The problem is not the investigation. The problem is that we have a president of the United States unwilling to confront our enemies and our adversaries, but who gratuitously attacks our allies. That's the problem. That's the threat to our country, not the good work of Bob Mueller.

BLITZER: Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, said he briefed the president on this indictment earlier in the week. So how do you explain, if the president was fully aware that these 12 senior Russian GRU military intelligence operatives were going to be named specifically and all these details in this lengthy document were going to be released, how do you explain the president once again calling it a rigged witch hunt, the whole Mueller probe?

SCHIFF: Because his argument about witch hunt has nothing to do with facts. And he's not so oblivious he doesn't realize that. This is all marketing for him. If he says it enough, if he says no collusion, no collusion, no collusion, which he repeats in threes like a mantra, maybe he can make the country or at least enough of it believe him. And certainly on the state-run TV that Fox has become, they will parrot his talking points.

But this is precisely it. He has to be aware of what the facts are. But he believes that if you deny it -- and in the world of Donald Trump -- and, look, it served him well, it got him to the ultimate office in the land -- in the world of Donald Trump, if you deny something, you will not only not have a problem, but it didn't happen. It literally makes the facts go away. And that's what he's practicing.

BLITZER: It's really the timing of this, from my perspective, on the eve of this potentially historic summit with Putin and the president in Helsinki, the deputy attorney general, working with Robert Mueller, releases all this damning information about Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election. What do you make of the timing of this?

[13:10:14] SCHIFF: Well, you know, the concern I had initially in listening to Rod Rosenstein talk about how he gave the president a heads up about this indictment, is, this is no ordinary criminal case. This is a criminal case that potentially implicated the president and people around him on his campaign. And to have the Justice Department giving a preview of an indictment to someone who is -- has an interest in the indictment is problematic. But I do think, in this case, when the president of the United States is going into a meeting with the Russian leader, you don't let the president of the United States go in blindly.

Now, if this indictment had involved U.S. persons affiliated with his campaign, then it's a different story. But I think the Justice Department made the right decision to give him a heads up so he didn't go into that meeting with Putin blindsided. But, nonetheless, knowing this, the president knowing that there's unequivocal proof that the Russians hacked our institutions, to go into this summit and continue to make these comments so favorable to Putin and the Russians is utterly inexplicable from the perspective of U.S. national security interests. It can only be explained by the fact that Donald Trump has a single ideology that trumps everything else, and that is the ideology of self. It's good for him is all that matters

BLITZER: But I do want to point out, Rosenstein did say, and I'm quoting him now, there is no allegation in this indictment that the Americans knew they were corresponding with Russian intelligence officers. How significant is that?

SCHIFF: You know, he said essentially the same thing in the last indictment, which is a very narrow legalistic way of saying, we didn't include those allegations here, but we might include them in the next indictment.

Now, we can practically count down the amount of time it's going to take the president to say, I'm vindicated. The attorney -- deputy attorney general has said there's no evidence that U.S. persons in my campaign were involved. Of course that's not what Rod Rosenstein is saying at all.

BLITZER: Didn't take very long for the president's advisers and supporters to say he's been vindicated by this indictment. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor, the president's personal lawyer, just tweeted this. I'll read it. The indictments Rod Rosenstein announced are good news for all Americans. The Russians are nailed. No Americans are involved. Time for Mueller to end this pursuit of the president and say President Trump is completely innocent. That's Rudy Giuliani, obviously speaking for the president. He's his lawyer.

SCHIFF: And I'm saying this in jest. They could be walking the president away in handcuffs and Rudy Giuliani would say, he's been vindicated, but only partly in jest.

BLITZER: The bottom line in all of this, when you read this indictment, all these documents, you're on the Intelligence Committee, you're briefed, you're in the Gang of Eight, as they say, you know what's going on. Did anything surprise you?

SCHIFF: Nothing surprises me in this. The only thing that really strikes me about it is just the extraordinary level of detail. And I -- you know, I commend them for doing it. It's the right call. I know the Russians are immediately reverse engineering this information as we speak to try to figure out how did they know this, how did they know that, what do we need to shut down, what do we need to do to basically dry up whatever sources the Americans have.

But, no, this indictment was, I think, expected. And the question is, will the next indictment go to the heart of what the Russians told George Papadopoulos? Will it go to the heart of what was involved in the Trump Tower meeting? I think those are the questions that are teed up by this indictment.

BLITZER: And we know the U.S. intelligence community believes the Russians are planning to do the same thing in the midterm elections coming up in November.

SCHIFF: And on that, Wolf, if I could just add, because I'm glad that the indictment goes into this because most Americans are not aware of this and should be. Not only was the DNC hacked and Clinton's campaign manager hacked, the DCCC was hacked. The Russians played in House races, which means that if they follow the playbook from the last cycle, they'll play in the midterms. And we, obviously, need to be doing everything we can to protect against that.

BLITZER: U.S. intelligence community believes one of the main objectives of the Russians was to sow dissent here in the United States. And they've actually clearly achieved that objective.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

SCHIFF: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Adam Schiff, the top Democrat, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.

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