CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)

Interview

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BLITZER: Good point. All right. Jim Sciutto, thank you very much.

Let's get some more on all of this. The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff of California, is joining us.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. And I want to get to several other issues in just a moment. But first on what we just heard, the upcoming testimony from the former Trump foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos. This will be his first interview with members of Congress. What should lawmakers press him on?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), RANKING MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well, they should press him on his meeting with Mifsud. What exactly Mifsud said.

And also, he's been very squirrelly about who he told within the Trump campaign about this contact by the Russians, about their willingness to give the campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton. Those are the most important issues.

But, look, this is someone who had a secret meeting with the Russians and lied about it to the federal investigators. Michael Flynn had his own conversations with the Russians and lied about them and was convicted of it. Carter Page has also been dishonest about his contact with high-level Russians. This is a pattern within the Trump campaign and the Trump transition.

And I think the best that any of these members can do is try to find out about these contacts and sort out fact from fiction.

But look, the reason he's brought in is not really for that purpose. He's being brought in so that they can selectively push out some crazy conspiracy theory. That's what they tried with Carter Page, although it was very little -- to very little avail.

BLITZER: And you're suggesting the Republicans in the House are trying to do that.

As you know, Papadopoulos has been promoting these conspiracy theories to further President Trump's claim that the entire Mueller investigation is simply a witch hunt. What do you make of that?

SCHIFF: Well, look. It's sad that, even after these multiple convictions of multiple high-level people within Trump orbit, not only the president, but you have people amplifying his witch-hunt comments on FOX. You have a whole basic information ecosystem propagating the president's line. It's deeply destructive.

You know, these deep-state theories we used to basically laugh at third-world countries for having these crazy conspiracy theories. But now they're being promulgated here in the United States, and you can see the damage it's done to the FBI and the Justice Department. It will be among the many things that we will have to recover from when this awful Trump era is over.

BLITZER: If the Democrats do take the majority in the House of representatives and you emerge as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, are you going to reopen this entire investigation? Because, as you know, the Republican majority, they shut it down.

[17:15:09] SCHIFF: Well, you know, they shut it down and they didn't shut it down. They're obviously bringing in people like Papadopoulos. They're just not bringing them into the committee that's charged with the investigation.

BLITZER: I'm talking about the House Intelligence Committee.

SCHIFF: No, you're right. But it's interesting that they should bring Papadopoulos in, but not have him come before the committee that has been doing the investigation into Russia. It's because they want to use him for a very different purpose.

But the reality is, while the Republicans walked away from the investigation, the Democratic minority has continued, and we've been bringing witnesses in. We've been learning more. And that work won't stop when we take the majority. But we will be able to get answers the Republicans were unwilling to pursue. Records that the Republicans wouldn't ask for.

And to give you, you know, very blatant example, we know that there were calls back and forth between the president's son and Emin Agalarov, the son of that Russian oligarch, in the setup of the Trump Tower meeting. And sandwiched between these calls was a call from a blocked number. And we know the president used a blocked number during the campaign, so we asked for a subpoena of the phone records.

But the Republicans said, 'No, we really don't want to know if the president was in the loop and approved that meeting in Trump Tower."

That's the kind of investigation they ran and, of course, we will do things very differently.

BLITZER: Do you think Mueller has the answer to that question?

SCHIFF: I would certainly expect that Mueller has the answer to that question. The question, though, that I don't know whether Mueller has been able to answer, because I don't know whether he's been given the license to look into it, is were the Russians laundering money through the Trump Organization?

And that will be a very high priority to get an answer to. For the reason that, if they were doing this, it's not only a crime, but it's something provable. Something that the Russians could hold over the head of the president of the United States. And that might be influencing U.S. policy in a way that is against our national interest.

BLITZER: President Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who, as you know is now cooperating with the special counsel's probe, he pleaded guilty to several charges.

But Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, says he's been in contact with Manafort's legal team and claims that Manafort hasn't provided any testimony he would consider to be damaging to the president. Does that sound plausible to you?

SCHIFF: You know, honestly, and I hate to say it, but you really can't believe anything that Rudy Giuliani says. He's made that clear time and time and time again as he's made representations about Michael Cohen that proved not to be true and about others that proved not to be true. About what the president knew about the Stormy Daniels' placements that proved not to be true. So there's no reason we should rely on him to tell us what Paul Manafort may have to say.

Clearly, the White House is deeply concerned about his cooperation. And we're just going to have to wait until Bob Mueller tells us either through indictment or through a report what, in fact, we, the U.S. government, will ultimately learn from Paul Manafort.

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

SCHIFF: Thank you, Wolf.

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