CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With California Congressman Adam Schiff

Interview

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BLITZER: Certainly is.

Jim Sciutto, reporting for us, thank you.

Let's talk about all the breaking news on Russian interference and President Trump.

We're joined by the ranking Democrat of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff.

[18:15:00]

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

Let's get right to the sensitive issues. The president now says he meant to say yesterday he has no reason to believe it wouldn't be Russia behind the 2016 cyber-attack on American democracy.

Do you buy that explanation from him today?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: No, it is not the least bit credible, because what the president said at the summit with Putin about his not questioning whether Russia had any motive, he didn't think Russia had any motive, was completely consistent with everything else he said at the summit, that Putin was very strong in his denials, and he didn't know who to believe, but why would Putin lie to him?

So, no, I don't believe this at all. It is simply not credible that the president somehow misspoke. What the president said not only was consistent with what he said at that meeting, but it has been consistent with what he is saying all along.

Indeed, this retraction today is not only too little, too late, but too equivocal. Even now, when he is reading the statement prepared for him like he is a hostage forced to read something, he has to add that, yes, he thinks Russia is responsible, but maybe others. There's a lot of people out there.

Well, it wasn't the conclusion of the intelligence community that it could have been a lot of others or there are a lot of people out there. The conclusion was this was Russia. And the president simply can't bring himself to admit it, and that's obviously a real problem for our security and our efforts to create some deterrent to Russian meddling in the future.

BLITZER: And what is also interesting, I don't know if you have seen this, but the president clearly seems to have watered down those prepared remarks by his aides by ad libbing.

Look at this picture. We will show it to you and our viewers there. You see it there. You can just make out that he crossed out a line that read -- and I am quoting now -- "anyone involved in that meddling to justice."

How do you interpret that?

SCHIFF: Well, I think it is pretty clear that he has no interest in bringing the Russians responsible to justice and he doesn't want to see justice done to anyone in the United States that may have been responsible for working with the Russians.

After all, the president likes to repeat as a mantra, this is a witch- hunt. Well, when you read that indictment, when you read any of these indictments, and you see the specific evidence that is alluded to, you can see how much weight is behind these charges.

But it is not surprising at all that the president would cross this out. If this statement came about because of a threat of resignation by members of the president's staff, and I don't know that this is the case, but, frankly, they got very little for their efforts, because this half-hearted statement that even then was crossed out in part and ad libbed in part isn't worth the paper it was written on.

BLITZER: What concerns do you have, Congressman, about what happened behind close doors in Helsinki yesterday, when President Trump met alone with Putin?

SCHIFF: Well, this is the thing. We don't know. But if he was willing to say things so damaging to the United States in public, you have to imagine that what he said in private was a lot worse.

And I would say two things about that. The Russians are likely to have a recording of this. They would have been foolish not to make one, and I have to expect that the Americans don't have a recording, because, after all, the president didn't want anyone else in the room with he and Putin.

And why on earth would he bless our taking a recording of that conversation? So the Russians now have that, which may be another powerful form of kompromat for the Russians. Should the president say something inconsistent with his private representations, they could always make that public.

BLITZER: So, I just want to be precise, Congressman. What you're suggesting is that Putin, when he went into that private meeting with the president, either he was wired with a microphone for recording or his Russian interpreter was wired? Is that what I'm hearing you say?

SCHIFF: I would fully expect the Russians have either a fully accurate transcript or a pretty complete breakdown of everything that was said in that meeting.

And, yes, my expectation, and the president would have been advised, you should expect everything that you say is going to be recorded. I think it would be negligent not to advise the president of that, and probably negligent of the Russians not to make provision for that.

And I would be very concerned with anything the president represented during that meeting later being held not just against the president, but indirectly against the United States of America.

BLITZER: That's interesting. You don't believe the president necessarily was wired or the American interpreter was wired. I'm sure we will learn all about this down the road.

Congressman Schiff, thanks so much for joining us.

SCHIFF: Thank you, Wolf.

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