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

Interview

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BLITZER: All right, Sara, thank you, Sara Murray reporting.

Joining us now, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Adam Smith.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

And if Roger Stone did know in advance about the release of Hillary Clinton's e-mails, does that rise to the level of collusion, in your view?

REP. ADAM SMITH (D), WASHINGTON: Well, it possibly rises -- and conspiracy is the actual crime.

It quite possibly right rises that level. And keep in mind, that that's what we're trying to figure out here. Was their coordination between people in the Trump campaign and the Russians, with the Russian effort to hack e-mails, and otherwise influence our election?

Look, it is conclusively proven at this point that the Russians tried to interfere in our election. Those were the indictments that Robert Mueller handed down against Russian officials doing that.

And then there's evidence, like what we just heard, about connections between people like Roger Stone and some other people in the Trump campaign with either WikiLeaks or the Russians who have been now indicted for trying to influence that campaign.

And it sure seemed like it at the time. Roger Stone and a number of other people talked about their connections, about being able to anticipate what e-mails were going to be released about -- well, John Podesta was mentioned as his e-mails were going to come out next, and then they did.

So there's considerable evidence of a connection there. And I think that's what special counsel Mueller is trying to determine. If he does, then that shows a conspiracy.

Now, at this point, there's no evidence that President Trump himself knew about this, but there is considerable evidence that people high up in his campaign did. And then, of course, there have been all of the efforts of President Trump to try to stop this investigation all along the way, which could rise to the level of obstruction.

BLITZER: Do you expect an indictment of Stone?

SMITH: Oh, gosh, it's really hard to predict, because the one thing apart Robert Mueller's investigation is, he keeps it close to the vest. You don't see a lot of leaks coming out of his investigation.

So, it's hard to know exactly what to expect. But when you look at the progression, as he's worked his way through high-ranking officials, either in the Trump campaign or close to Trump, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort and others, it is not unreasonable to expect that that is the next step.

BLITZER: We have now seen the first charges of Russian interference in the upcoming midterm elections. But, today, the national security adviser to the president, John Bolten, told the Russians he doesn't think their cyber-warfare had any effect on the 2016 election. Do you think that's an appropriate message to be sending, in light of

this ongoing threat?

SMITH: No, I do not. And that's one of the more stupefying aspects of this.

That seems to be the only thing that our president cares about, is making it clear that nothing the Russians did influenced the election.

There are multiple things wrong with that, the biggest of which is, Donald Trump won. He is the president. He should not be trying to defend the legitimacy of his presidency. It is legitimate. By our Constitution, he's the president.

He should be trying to defend the country that we have elected him to defend to protect us against the Russians, not focus on how it may impact him personally. Second of all, it defies all logic to think that, if the Russians did everything that we know that they did, in terms of hacking into these e-mail systems, releasing embarrassing e- mails at timely -- in a timely manner, spreading false stories all across Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms, it defies all logic to think that had no influence on an election that was decided by such a close margin.

Obviously, what the Russians did had an impact on the outcome that clearly benefited President Trump. But, again, that's beside the point. He wants. He's the president.

What we need him to do now is to stop the Russians from continuing to do this. We need him to be the president, not the partisan trying to defend himself and defend the legitimacy of his presidency, which, quite frankly, is not in question. He's got the job.

I personally would just like him to start doing it.

BLITZER: The director of national intelligence is now warning about influence campaigns by Russia, China, Iran, and others.

You say, that's irresponsible. What are your concerns about this recent joint statement that was released?

SMITH: Well, I think the biggest concern is, again, are they doing it to try to protect the country, or more like it sounds, which is, don't look at the Russians, please don't pay so much attention to the Russians? Let's -- look at the Chinese. Look at -- look somewhere else.

And, look, from the intel reports I have seen, and from what I have been able to look at, Russia is the country that is engaging in this activity, as we know, not just in the U.S., but throughout Europe. Russia wants to subvert and undermine democracy, because they believe in authoritarian forms of government, and they believe whatever is good for the U.S. and the West is bad for them.

[18:15:01] They're playing a zero sum game. And nobody is more engaged and trying to interfere in democracies and elections than the Russians. There isn't as much evidence of those other groups trying to have that type of comprehensive, sophisticated influence.

So to focus attention over there is to distract from what is rather obviously the biggest threat, which is Russia. So, I wish they would stay focused on protecting us from what Russia has clearly done, instead of the more speculative discussions about what China has done.

And China has done a whole lot of stuff on intellectual property and a bunch of other areas. There's not much evidence that they have done much in terms of trying to influence our elections. The Russians are the ones who seemed to be very interested in having Donald Trump win the presidency.

BLITZER: President Trump today said he's terminating a key nuclear arms agreement with Russia, because Russia has been violating the treaty.

Do you think that's the right decision?

SMITH: Well, I think the biggest problem with that decision is, he did it without consulting with our NATO allies at all.

And these short-range nuclear weapons threaten our allies in Eastern and Western Europe a lot more than they threaten us. And our allies don't want us to terminate that treaty.

Now, you can get into a debate about whether or not our allies are correct in that, but since they are the ones who are threatened, we should be consulting with them, which leads us to a broader, more troubling aspect of the way President Trump has approached foreign policy.

He has a go-it-alone approach. And I think, in the big, complicated world that we face, with the complex set of threats that we face as a country, we need allies, we need friends, we need people to work together. And certainly NATO should be at the top of that list.

You shouldn't be unilaterally withdrawing from this treaty -- well, it's a treaty between us and Russia. But you shouldn't unilaterally make that decision, without consulting the key allies in NATO who are so impacted by it.

And this really gives Russia free hand. If we're the ones who have terminated the treaty, they can claim that they weren't violating it, because it's very difficult to prove, and say, look, the U.S. killed the treaty, so, therefore, we don't have to abide by it.

And that's what hurts our allies. So I wish we would work more closely with our NATO allies on how best to confront Russia on all of these issues.

BLITZER: Fair point.

All right, Congressman Adam Smith, thank you very much for joining us.

SMITH: Thank you. Appreciate it, Wolf.

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