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

Interview

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BLITZER: Good point. Very good point, Sara. Thank you very much, Sara Murray helping us appreciate the enormity of what's going on right now.

Let's get some more analysis.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff of California, is joining us right now.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: It's good to be with you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Do you fear that the departure of the White House counsel, Don McGahn, will put the Russia investigation potentially in even greater jeopardy?

SCHIFF: I don't know that it puts it in greater jeopardy, but it certainly completes full circle, where the administration initially took a strategy they would cooperate with the special counsel, and now they have pushed out basically everyone that had that view, and they're in full attack mode on the special counsel.

You saw Giuliani acknowledge just the other day that his whole goal is not to tell the truth. It's not to be consistent. It's merely to undermine Bob Mueller. And that was not, I think, McGahn's strategy.

The president is clearly worried about what he has said. And he should be worried. If he worked with McGahn to fashion a pretext for the firing of James Comey, if McGahn was involved in collecting these statements about, well, we're doing this because we disapprove of how he handled the Clinton investigation, when it was really about Russia, McGahn would be privy to those conversations.

He'd be able to say, this is exactly why the president wanted to get rid of James Comey. It was all about Russia. So the president is right to be worried. But I think we have to expect that the White House counsel is representing the presidency and not just the president.

And, of course, for Donald Trump, he cares about nothing about the presidency. It's all about him.

BLITZER: Once McGahn does leave the White House in the coming weeks, will there be anyone around the president, do you believe, Congressman, who will try to protect Robert Mueller?

SCHIFF: Well, I don't know. It's a good question.

I would imagine still that General Kelly is one of the few people that might be able to stand up to the president, to resist the president. Of course, Kelly's done a great many things that I disagree with as well. So there are limits, I think, the degree on many issues that he's willing to confront the president, and others where he's been in agreement with the president that are equally cause for concern.

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But the number of people willing to speak truth to power in the administration has continually diminished over time. Donald Trump doesn't want a team of rivals. He wants a team of yes-men and yes- women. And, increasingly, that's exactly what he seems to be getting.

BLITZER: Yes, General Kelly, General John Kelly, retired General Kelly, the White House chief of staff.

Do you see this -- all these latest developments involving McGahn, for example, as a sign that the president could be -- could be at least preparing to pardon Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman who was convicted on eight counts last week?

SCHIFF: Yes, sadly, I think that this increases the likelihood, those like McGahn that might be urging him not to do, that this will be another act of obstruction of justice, will only build a case the president, those voices apparently being pushed out.

It certainly appears that the president may very well be determined to do this to try to remove any incentive that Paul Manafort might have to cooperate with authorities.

And I have to say, what was most discouraging to me about this last week was to hear at least two prominent Republican senators say, if the president wants to get rid of Jeff Sessions because he doesn't like the fact that Sessions isn't willing to get rid of Bob Mueller and that he isn't willing to persecute his political rivals, those senators are willing to go along with that.

That just gives free rein to this president to obstruct justice, to get rid of the attorney general, if he needs, to pardon Manafort, if he needs to, to take whatever action that would undermine the rule of law.

BLITZER: Well, you make a fair point, because it does look at least like some of the president's allies up on Capitol Hill are laying the groundwork for him to fire the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, shortly after the midterm elections. If President Trump got a new attorney general confirmed by the U.S. Senate, that person would oversee the Russia investigation. So what concerns does that raise to you?

SCHIFF: Well, the preeminent concern is that the president looks for somebody who basically will cripple or fire Bob Mueller, that the whole reason that he has a problem with Jeff Sessions isn't about policy on criminal justice reform or any of the other responsibilities of the Justice Department.

He's fully supportive of Sessions' efforts to disenfranchise minority voters. No, the only difference he has with Jeff Sessions is Jeff Sessions listened to the ethics lawyers at the Justice Department and recused himself. Jeff Sessions won't unrecuse himself and fire Mueller.

Jeff Sessions won't falsely persecute, investigate Trump's political rivals. And Donald Trump thinks that the attorney general is basically his lawyer, not the lawyer for the Justice Department, not the lawyer for the American people, but basically the guy that has his back.

And so it's that fundamental motive. Again, this is a recurrent issue with the Trump administration. You may have the authority to fire the attorney general or the director of the FBI, revoke people security clearances. That doesn't mean you have the authority to do any of those things if you're doing it for a corrupt purpose.

And this I view as a corrupt purpose.

BLITZER: How important, Congressman, is Michael Cohen to this Mueller investigation? As you know, Cohen, the former fixer and lawyer, former private lawyer, personal lawyer for the president, he pleaded guilty to eight counts.

And two of those counts, he said under oath that the president was effectively an unindicted co-conspirator, arranging those hush money payments to those two women. Do you think he has information that would be credible to the special counsel, Robert Mueller?

SCHIFF: Well, certainly, his attorney does. Lanny Davis has said that he has information that he believes would be of important and value to the special counsel.

For that reason, I reached out to Mr. Cohen's lawyers as well to invite him to come back to our committee to share whatever information he may not have been willing to share when he first appeared before the committee.

But those allegations that he made in that courtroom, that the president was essentially a co-conspirator with him to violate the campaign laws, I think people need to understand, these were not mere bookkeeping errors. It's one thing if you exceed a campaign limit by a couple hundred dollars because you're making periodic contributions, and it's done accidentally. This was a deliberate decision made after discussion to violate the

laws by hundreds of thousands of dollars, to violate the prohibition of corporate contributions, to keep information from the public of a salacious nature, that is the president having an affair with a porn star, that very well may have determined the outcome of the election.

So that serious business. And if you're going to prosecute Michael Cohen for it, which they have, and you're not going to hold the president of the United States to a different standard, then the Justice Department will have to make a decision about whether they prosecute Donald Trump for the same violations, whether they have the evidence, or whether prosecution would have to wait until he's out of office, what kind of report to make to Congress about that.

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So is this pretty serious business.

BLITZER: Do you think Michael Cohen was truthful in his statements when he testified before Congress behind closed doors?

SCHIFF: I don't know.

I would certainly like to bring him back to ask him questions about things that we have learned since his appearance. I would also like to test whether he has additional information, as his counsel seems to be suggesting, of importance to the investigation.

But we have learned a great deal since we had him come in. And there are a lot of further questions we would like to ask now that he is, it appears, more than willing to cooperate.

BLITZER: President Trump has already revoked the security clearances of the former CIA Director John Brennan, as you know.

And over the past 24 hours, he's gone after two other officials whose clearances he's threatening to remove, the current Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, and the fired FBI Director James Comey.

Is that potentially, from your perspective, Congressman, obstruction of justice, considering their roles in the Russia investigation?

SCHIFF: I think it's certainly additional evidence of a corrupt motive.

I don't know how strongly that goes precisely to the issue of obstruction of justice, but I think it's unlawful to essentially revoke people's security clearances because they exercise their First Amendment right to criticize the president.

Now, I know some have argued that he has the discretion to give or to withdraw a security clearance. But, again, that doesn't mean that you can do that for a corrupt purpose. And a lot of people depend on a security clearance for their livelihood. That may not be true for James Comey and it may not be true for John Brennan. But there are a great number of people who do work for the federal

government, who are contractors, who cannot get that work if they don't have a clearance. And if you say that it's OK for the president to create an enemies list for these people, it means that it's OK for the president to create an enemies list for other people and deprive them of employment if they criticize the president.

So I think this needs to be challenged. And I don't want to see this become the norm, where this is merely a political tool of retribution by any president of the United States.

BLITZER: So you're suggesting that this could be a threat to others out there to shut up, not say anything bad about the president because he could retaliate against them with security clearances?

SCHIFF: Absolutely, absolutely.

Wolf, you have got to imagine there are a lot of people in the work force right now, who want to get in the work force, who are thinking, if I tweet about the president or I comment about the president, or I go on television and say something about the president, then maybe he pulls my security clearance, because, indeed, that has happened.

People have gone on TV and been added to the enemies list. I think there's a reason why Susan Rice popped up on at least, because she had gone on TV recently. And maybe the president was watching and told his staff, add Susan Rice to the list.

And who else? I think Phil Mudd was added to the list, probably because he was on television saying something the president didn't like.

This is not how America behaves. This is how tin-pot dictatorships behave. And we cannot allow this to somehow become the new norm in this country.

BLITZER: Congressman Schiff, thanks so much for joining us.

SCHIFF: Thank you, Wolf.

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