CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Washington Congressman Adam Smith

Interview

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BLITZER: Guys, thank you very much.

Let's get some more in all of this.

Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington state is joining us. He's the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

Let's get right to the questions. Is the president making things worse for himself with all these tweets?

REP. ADAM SMITH (D), WASHINGTON: Well, obviously, from a little legal standpoint, he's making things worse. How the public reacts to it, as I think one of your commentators alluded to -- the president thinks that these tweets appeal to his base, and they do.

They fire up his base. And that's what he tries to do. That's how he holds all these rallies.

But in terms of people who aren't part of his solid base, and in terms of the legal strategy behind that, he opened -- the more you talk, the more you open yourself up to exposure legally. And I think the most interesting thing about all of this that I don't think has been emphasized enough is, from the very beginning, the president, Donald Trump Jr., the attorney general, a whole series of people have consistently lied about their interactions with Russians.

They were asked about this repeatedly before all this stuff came out back in November and December, and they all said, never happened. Donald Trump Jr., never had -- said he never had any meetings with any Russian officials.

Why did they lie about it? Why did they so consistently lie about their interactions that have now come to light with a whole series of different people connected to the Russian government?

BLITZER: Do you believe, Congressman, the president's tweets could be used by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and his team to get at his so-called state of mind, which is so important, of course, to proving obstruction of justice?

SMITH: Exactly.

Obstruction of justice is the issue here. I mean, there there's two issues. One is conspiracy. Did the Trump campaign conspire with Russian operatives to try and influence the election?

But the other issue is, did the president then try to obstruct the investigation into those charges? So, when he tweets, like he did -- not the one on Saturday, but from a week ago -- that he wants to shut down the entire investigation, I mean, he's made it very, very clear that he wants to stop this investigation.

And that flirts with obstruction of justice. And the more often he says that, the more potential legal jeopardy he is in.

BLITZER: Why do you think the president is apparently coming fully clean now about this meeting, the purpose of the meeting, after all those months of misleading the American people?

SMITH: I don't know.

I mean, it's sort of like with the whole firing of Attorney General -- sorry -- FBI Director Comey. When it first came out, yes, well, we got a memo, blah, blah, blah. And then like within 24 hours after claiming it was a whole series of things, with Lester Holt, he just says, oh, no, I fired him. It was my choice. And it was because of the Russia investigation.

So how President Trump's mind works on this is hard to say. But he's certainly proven over and over again that he will change his story whenever he wants to, and not even along any sort of pattern that seems to be self-interested. It's just sort of what pops into his head in a given moment.

BLITZER: The president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, says they will decide within the next day or so on a meeting with Robert Mueller.

This could go all the way, as you know, to the U.S. Supreme Court if the president refuses to grant an interview to the special counsel, special counsel then has to issue a subpoena.

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How do you see this fight playing out?

SMITH: Well, it's interesting, because I think, legally, it's clear. You can't ignore a subpoena, even if you're the president of the United States.

If you're subpoenaed by a lawful investigation, you have to testify. Now, you can take the Fifth. There's a whole bunch of things you can do. But nobody has the right to ignore a subpoena.

However, remember the Supreme Court that we have. If this goes all the way up to this Supreme Court -- you can bring it back to Nixon, when the Supreme Court at that time required President Nixon to turn over the tapes, because they were following the law.

But, as I have noted before, this Supreme Court seems to make its decisions based on what Donald Trump and the Republican Party want, as opposed to precedents of the Constitution.

So we're headed towards a very, very difficult situation. And, look, it's really simple. The president simply has to cooperate with this investigation. It's a lawful, legitimate investigation. No serious person questions that the Russians at the highest level were involved to try to influence our election.

They were using cyber-attacks. They were using disinformation campaign. They were hacking e-mails. We need to get to the bottom of what happened. To the extent that the president is trying to stop that, he's not only potentially committing a crime; he is harming the national security interest of the United States of America.

BLITZER: Congressman Adam Smith, thanks so much for joining us.

SMITH: Thanks, Wolf. I appreciate it.

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