MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff

Interview

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O`DONNELL:  Joining us now, Congressman Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. 
 
Thank you very much for joining us tonight, Congressman Schiff.  Really appreciate it. 
 
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), RANKING MEMBER, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE:  Good to be with you. 
 
O`DONNELL:  What made you decide that today was the day to put Matt Whitaker on notice in writing in "The Washington Post"? 
 
SCHIFF:  Well, it`s very important, I think, to get that message out before he does any damage to the Mueller investigation or tries to.  But also if he doesn`t recuse himself and he were to think that any conversations he had with the president, any promises he made to the president in order to get the position about whether he would follow or ignore the advice of the ethics lawyers at the Justice Department, he has to know that this is going to come out.  There`s going to be no hiding this.  And he will be called to answer. 
 
That, I think, I hope will be an incentive to get an ethics opinion and to follow it.  But as you point out, there are even broader problems with this appointment than this one investigation as serious as that is, and that is that the appointment itself looks like it violates the Constitution`s requirement that the Senate have a role in confirming anyone as a principal officer, and clearly, the attorney general, temporary or not, as a principal officer. 
 
O`DONNELL:  We have seen a series of op-ed pieces, scholarly legal opinions indicating that this is a completely illegal and unconstitutional opinion -
* installation, I should say, of a possible acting attorney general.  And it`s interesting that the Justice Department, which was expected today, reported today to be on the verge of issuing a written opinion saying that it was legitimate, did not do that and they didn`t do it on the very same day that the state of Maryland went to court and filed a legal challenge against Matthew Whitaker occupying the office of acting attorney general.  It seems that maybe the Justice Department has to figure out what its response is in court now. 
 
SCHIFF:  Well, I think the Justice Department may be looking again at the opinion it`s about to issue.  If they issue an opinion and find that this appointment was unconstitutional, they know the heat they are going to get from the president.  He`s going to try to write this off as revenge of the deep state again. 
 
Quite the contrary, it would be a sign that our system of checks and balances, that the Justice Department truly is independent.  That would be a healthy sign for our democracy. 
 
But the Justice Department, I think, is still likely to opine tomorrow that because he is appointed on a temporary basis, that that somehow makes him an inferior officer.  It doesn`t.  It simply makes him a temporary principal officer.  Otherwise, you could avoid the constitutional requirement. 
 
And you can`t pass a statute like the Vacancy Reform Act that somehow supersedes the Constitution.  It doesn`t.  And what I think the Justice Department really needs to consider is there is language postdating their earlier opinion on this subject in the Supreme Court by Justice Thomas and maybe others that clearly indicate that the reasoning they used back in 2003 when they approved a much lesser appointment, is likely to be flawed and not withstand Supreme Court scrutiny. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Well, it seems we are definitely going to see this argument made in court, possibly both sides of the argument made in court, in federal court.  But this is just the first case, the Maryland case.  There could be cases in every federal district in the country making the same argument.  There could be federal judges all around the country being asked to rule on this. 
 
But in the meantime, talk about Whitaker`s actual qualifications.  If he had been Senate confirmed in a Senate confirmed position in the Justice Department and if he had met the legal requirements to be elevated to acting attorney general, there would still be problems with naming him. 
 
SCHIFF:  Well, there certainly would be.  But one problem would be obviated and that is you would have the opportunity, under oath, before he assumed this incredible responsibility of being put on the record. 
 
Did you discuss this case with the president?  Did you make promises to the president?  Will you seek an ethics opinion?  Will you recuse yourself?  All those questions would have been answered. 
 
Now, I think the president chose this course to appoint someone on an interim basis that had been auditioning for the part on TV, which is how you get a role in the Trump administration, precisely because he could avoid having his choice subjected to scrutiny in the Senate.  But that`s all the more reason to insist on the adherence to these constitutional principles.  This is not some low-level official here.  This is the chief law enforcement officer of the country. 
 
And as you point out, Lawrence, any decision that he makes, really any decision of the department now, is under a cloud.  And if down the road when this case gets to the Supreme Court, it`s adjudicated against the Justice Department, then it will be an entire mess for the Justice Department because it will mean every decision made in the interim will be subject to question.  And that`s not a road you want to travel down. 
 
O`DONNELL:  The headline of your piece, "We`re Watching You", could not have been more clear, directly to Matthew Whitaker today.  But surely you Democrats in the House are not the only ones.  Matthew Whitaker spends his day surrounded by experienced FBI agents, experienced federal prosecutors who have every right to be as suspicious of his motivations as you are.  Every one of those people, I imagine, when they leave the room with Matthew Whitaker are going back to their desks and recording as James Comey did, every single word that they just heard him say. 
 
SCHIFF:  Well, certainly if there is an indication that he is acting unethically, that would be their obligation.  If they see signs that he is conveying information about a particular case to the president or his lawyers, not just any case but a case in which the president himself may be implicated or members of his family may be implicated, yes, they would have to consider whether he is violating the law, whether he is acting as a surrogate of the president in obstructing justice. 
 
There are already troubling reports out of the Justice Department.  Public reports that even in his tenure as the chief of staff to Jeff Sessions, he was operating as a back channel to the White House, undercutting his boss, the attorney general, and reporting to people on the president`s staff as a way of ingratiating himself.  And, of course, you have the bewildering conduct of the president himself one day saying he doesn`t know Whitaker, and his own staff contradicting him and saying, of course, he knows Whitaker.
 
O`DONNELL:  Toward the end of your piece you say definitively, the truth will come out.  Is it your ability to guarantee that the truth will come out?  Is that simply the fact that the Democrats won the House of Representatives in this election and that you will be a chairman in the next Congress and Jerry Nadler will be chairman of judiciary in the next Congress and it is through those powers of those chairmanships that the truth will come out? 
 
SCHIFF:  We are certainly going to move heaven and earth to make sure the truth comes out.  And, you know, for your part in the media, the media has also done an excellent job of making sure that the truth comes out.  The reality is he needs to know that he is not going to be able to conceal any conduct that interferes with this investigation.  And if he acts in any way unethically, that it will be exposed.  And exposure is powerful. 
 
So, this won`t be easy.  Undoubtedly, any oversight we do will be fought tooth and nail by the Trump administration.  All the attacks we have seen over the last two years on Bob Mueller, we can expect the president to start leveling against people in Congress. 
 
But we`re going to do our job.  We are going to defend the rule of law.  We are going to do whatever is necessary to defend the independence of the Justice Department.  We took an oath to the same Constitution and we intend to live up to our oath. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Congressman and future chairman, Adam Schiff, thank you very much for joining us tonight.  Really appreciate it. 
 
SCHIFF:  Thank you, Lawrence. 

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