CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Rep. Joaquin Castro

Interview

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SCIUTTO: Appreciate it. I want to turn now to Congressman Joaquin Castro. He's a Democrat as well. He serves on the -- both the Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees of the House. Congressman Castro, thank you for joining us tonight.

REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D), TEXAS: Thanks for having me, Jim.

SCIUTTO: You may have heard your colleague from the other chamber, Senator Blumenthal called this an abuse of power -- an illegal abuse of power. Do you agree with that?

CASTRO: I definitely think it's an abuse of power and I think that there is an argument that it violates first amendment rights of John Brennan. The reason is because it's government taking action through the president against political speech and political speech is among the most protected speech under first amendment law. And so I suspect that all of us will find out whether that's the case or not. John Brennan could pursue an action and if he does, then a judge and court will make a ruling on that.

But putting that aside for a second, it's certainly an abuse of power. Look, let's be clear about this. John Brennan's problem is that he spoke truth to power to a thin-skinned president and that's why he lost his security clearance and that's why Jim Comey and others may lose their security clearances. And this is a very dangerous precedent to set by president of the United States.

You can imagine the situation 10 years from now where a Democratic president uses this to punish folks who are criticizing him from the right. And so I think that members of Congress from the Republican party -- of course Democrats but from the Republican party and others have to be worried about the action that the president is taking here.

SCIUTTO: Does this make the country less safe? CASTRO: It absolutely does. And because, you know, for all of the

outside politics that goes on, the intelligence committees in the House and Senate, traditionally, but certainly the professionals that work at the CIA and the FBI and the other intelligence agencies and the folks that worked there before usually will rely on each other and -- and speak with each other about important national security issues.

And having a security clearance would allow John Brennan, the former CIA director, obviously the -- who operated at the highest levels of American intelligence to communicate with folks and give advice to folks and consult with folks who are making some of the toughest decisions at those agency today. And now you've just taken away his ability to do that.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this. We noted that the official presidential statement revoking John Brennan's security clearance that was announced today was dated -- look at the date there -- July 26. Nearly three weeks ago. Now, the White House claims that this was a cut and paste error, but it does raise suspicions that this was on the shelf somewhere and -- and they brought it out today to distract from the many other issues, including the allegations from Omarosa as well. Do you see that?

CASTRO: Yes. I mean, this president -- one of the things he does better than anything else is basically plays the media game very well, both on social media and then in terms of effecting news coverage. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if they basically released this story today even though it'd been sitting for a week or two because there's bad news on the Paul Manafort front.

That trial is likely to wrap up. and I believe, as others do, that he will be convicted of a range of crimes, because Omarosa just came out and said the president is not mentally fit to lead the country and also that he used the N-word to describe African Americans, because the president just called Omarosa a dog on Twitter yesterday, and he's getting a lot of blow back not just from Democrats but Americans that are -- that are shocked that a president would speak that way about an American citizen.

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So yes, it's been a very tough week for him but one of the things he is good at is basically trying to drive the media narrative.

SCIUTTO: He's trying to change the subject.

CASTRO: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

SCIUTTO: Another thing he is trying to change the subject from and another frequent target, of course, is the special counsel. And you had -- in a series of alarming threats and words, you had some -- some unusually alarming words from the president's lawyer, Rudy -- Rudy Giuliani, who said today if he, Robert Mueller, doesn't get it done in the next two or three weeks, we will just unload on him like a ton of bricks. Write the damn report so we can see it and rebut it. That -- that is the lawyer for the president of the United States

issuing a very clear threat, is it not, to the special counsel? Is that obstruction of justice?

CASTRO: Yes, I think that Rudy Giuliani is making those threats because right now he and Donald Trump feel the heat of the Mueller investigation and to some extent they feel powerless. They know that the Congress will likely come after the president if he fires Bob Mueller without cause. And there's a feeling of powerlessness there and so he's lashing out.

SCIUTTO: More than a year ago you came on this show -- speaking of the Russia investigation -- and predicted that people will go to jail as a result of these (ph) investigation. Do you believe that Paul Manafort is one of those people?

CASTRO: Yes, absolutely. I think that he will. From everything I can tell and keeping up with the coverage of the trial, I think Paul Manafort and others -- obviously folks have already made plea agreements and are cooperating with the prosecution. And I think that there's still more to come, too.

SCIUTTO: Congressman Joaquin Castro, thanks very much for joining us tonight.

CASTRO: Thank you.

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