CNN "State of the Union" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. I am Jake Tapper in Helsinki, Finland. We are live from Allas Sea Pool in Helsinki.
Tomorrow's Trump-Putin summit is taking place in the shadow of Friday's indictments of 12 Russian military intelligence officials. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announcing the charges, detailing a Russian scheme to hack the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 and arranging the release of the stolen goods to influence the election.
National security experts say there's just no way this campaign by Russia's primary military intelligence agency would have happened without the direct approval of Vladimir Putin. And Russian election meddling continues to this day.
President Trump's own intelligence chief said Friday, quote, the warning lights are blinking red, unquote.
Joining me now is Congressman Adam Schiff of California. He's the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
Congressman Schiff, thanks so much for joining us.
Do me a favor. Step outside your role as a Democratic congressman for just one moment and talk to us about this indictment as a former prosecutor. You worked in the Los Angeles branch of the U.S. Attorney's Office for six years.
What do you see in the Friday indictments that other people, non- lawyers, non-prosecutors might not see?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, what I always look at in these indictments is what is included and what is left out. And included here, you have a Russian military intelligence driven operation that is taking place simultaneously with another operation by the Internet Research Agency that's focused on social media. So you have these two different operations, both with the same
objective, interfering in our election, trying to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.
[08:15:00] But you also have the Russians probing and exfiltrating data from voter registration databases, going into a vendor for the software provided to voting systems and seeking to obtain that software with the potential aim in the future of intervening more heavily.
And finally, you have this very direct reference on July 27th, including the time in which -- the time of day in which the Russians, for the first time, go after a Clinton server, really seeming to head the call that day of Donald Trump to hack Hillary Clinton's e-mails.
And that's very interesting to me because why do you include that but exclude any mention of the Russian's telling Papadopoulos that they have these same stolen materials? It says to me, much like the first indictment, made no mention of the Russian hacking scheme. The second indictment on the Russian hacking scheme also leaves a lot unsaid that may be the subject of a third indictment involving U.S. persons or that report to the Justice Department by Bob Mueller.
TAPPER: Yes, let's talk about the July 27th, because on July 27th, 2016 in the middle of the Democratic National Convention, after, according to the indictment, Russians had hacked into the DNC e-mails and then arranged through organization one, which we know to be WikiLeaks, their release that -- on that time, President Trump, then candidate Trump, made a direct appeal in front of the cameras to get Hillary Clinton's e-mails that she had deleted or had been deleted for her from her private server.
Take a listen.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
TAPPER: Now, the indictment does not mention that statement from candidate Trump, but it does note, as you just pointed out, that on that very same day the Russians made their first effort to break into Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server.
Do you suspect that Mueller and his team put that in there to highlight that the Russians might have been doing what candidate Trump wanted them to do?
SCHIFF: Absolutely, you know, it could be a coincidence that the Mueller team puts the same date -- and an action (ph) that same date in the indictment. But it can't be a coincidence that they actually put the time of day.
Why is that significant unless you're comparing it to the time when Donald Trump made that statement? And I think it shows another thing, Jake, and that is the Russians had to wonder whether this intervention, even on Trump's behalf, might backfire on the Russians, whether it might be rejected by the Trump campaign certainly if John McCain had been the nominee, Russian intervention on McCain's behalf would have been rejected by McCain, would have hurt the Russians.
But here they get a clear signal from the president -- the candidate Trump at the time, yes we would welcome your help, Russians, and they waste no time in trying to provide that help.
And I think going into this meeting this -- within the next 24 hours, Trump can't contain his admiration for Putin, but more than that, Trump views Putin as his benefactor. After all, Putin intervened, these Russian military intelligence officers were not acting on their own.
Putin intervened to help Trump, and Trump is nothing if not grateful for that help.
TAPPER: All right. Congressman Schiff, stay right there. We're going to take a quick break.
When we come back, I have more questions for you about the summit and what is at stake tomorrow, including your call for the summit to be scrapped altogether.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:22:47] TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. We are live in Helsinki, Finland.
And we're back with Congressman Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
Congressman, we're now less than 24 hours away from the president's summit with Vladimir Putin, which will take place right behind me in the presidential palace.
Now, the White House says they're proceeding as planned despite calls from people like yourself to -- to cancel it. They also say that the indictments issued on Friday strengthen President Trump's hand when it comes to confronting Putin about election interference.
Your response?
SCHIFF: Well, of course, that's not the president's intention. The president, as you pointed out, Jake, knew these indictments were coming and yet was telegraphing he thought the meeting with Putin was going to be easier -- easier, in fact, than meeting with our own allies.
So, Putin is getting a lot just by taking this meeting. After all, part of the reason for this indictment is to stigmatize those involved in interfering in our election. Putin is essentially an unindicted co-conspirator. And not just any
co-conspirator, he's the ringmaster of this conspiracy and he's going to be sitting down at the table with Donald Trump. And Trump is basically saying that indictment is just a witch hunt. And that's a great gift for Vladimir Putin.
So I think if Kim Jong-un can eat the president's lunch, which I think he clearly did, it will be a very easy matter for Vladimir Putin.
TAPPER: This morning when President Trump was talking about his meeting tomorrow, he addressed the hacking by Russian military intelligence officers and blamed it on Democrats.
Take a listen.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
TAPPER: Your response, sir.
SCHIFF: My response is if the Russians wanted to exfiltrate data from the RNC and use it against Donald Trump, they would have done so. They mounted a sustained attack on the DNC and on the Clinton campaign precisely because they wanted to help Donald Trump. And to blame Obama for President Trump's own failings, it just doesn't cut it.
One thing that Barack Obama did was to confront Putin. And I certainly agree that that confrontation should have been stronger, but the current president will do nothing of the sort.
And this is why we've been calling for him to drop the summit, just because none of have any expectation that he's going to do anything more than ask Putin, in fact he has said he's going to ask Putin.
We don't need to ask Putin whether he did it, we know that he did it, and merely by phrasing it as a question, I think betrays the confidence that the president of the United States ought to have in his own intelligence agencies.
TAPPER: But, Congressman, let me -- let me ask you, Putin has met with three very different presidents in the past, and look where that has gotten the world. We've seen Russian -- Russia meddle in the United States election, annex Crimea during the Obama years, use military force in Syria during the Obama years, annex parts of Georgia during the Bush years.
Who's to say the Trump style won't work, to play devil's advocate, why not take a different approach?
SCHIFF: Well, certainly those other approaches have been unsuccessful, but there's no reason to expect that this won't be frankly a disastrous approach. After all, he's sitting down with a man who just ordered intervention into our own election and rewarding him for doing so.
There is no way that that brings about a successful result and you can certainly say, OK, these other approaches failed so maybe we just ought to go to Putin hat in hand, I don't think that's the answer. If anything, the reason these prior approaches failed is they weren't tough enough, Jake, and this is going in exactly the wrong direction.
TAPPER: All right. Congressman Adam Schiff, Democrat of California and top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee -- thanks for joining us this morning, we appreciate it.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source