MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Mark Warner

Interview

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MADDOW:  I`m very pleased to say that joining us now is Senator Mark Warner of Virginia.  He is the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee in the Senate. 
 
Senator Warner, it`s great to have you here tonight.  Thanks for making time to be with us. 
 
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA), RANKING MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE:  Thank you, Rachel. 
 
MADDOW:  So there was a briefing today for all members of the House in which the secretary of the treasury, Steven Mnuchin, came up and talked about his decision, the Trump administration`s decision to lift sanctions on a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, who has a lot of links to Trump`s campaign chair, Paul Manafort.  Manafort reportedly offered him private briefings during the campaign, for some reason. 
 
In the response to that briefing today, it seems like at least Democrats in the House want the relief of sanctions delayed.  They want this decision by the administration to at least be held off for awhile so they can examine it. 
 
Can you tell us if you think the Senate may also have some of those concerns? 
 
WARNER:  Well, I hope the Senate will take the same approach.  The plan that was put out by the administration was to take this Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, who controls about 70 percent of a major aluminum company Rusal, and in effect try to reduce his ownership down to around 40 percent.
 
But it doesn`t in any way get rid of the fact that Deripaska started this company, he placed all of the management in place, he has indirect control still of the company, and the fact as the largest single shareholder even after the fact, I think he will still have control, and if we want to send a message that Russians who were involved in interfering in our elections, and clearly there is evidence that a number of the oligarchs were part of Putin`s in a sense array of forces he brought against our democracy in 2016, I think we need to keep these sanctions in place and I think we in the Senate will move on that.  Frankly, I think when push comes to shove, a number of Republicans share that view, that this is not the time to take sanctions off of Deripaska. 
 
And frankly, again, Rachel, it`s even more so the case if you go back two days ago when it became evidence that Paul Manafort, Trump`s campaign chairman, was sharing proprietary campaign information, in a sense polling information, with this individual, Mr. Kilimnik, who is a known Russian agent, who also Mr. Kilimnik has a number of ties to Oleg Deripaska.  So, when we`re seeing Trump officials pass information to Russian agents that have ties to Deripaska, to somehow now take off the sanctions I think would be ill-advised on national security interests, on appropriately sending the message to Russia, and I hope the Congress takes advantage of its ability to kind of stop that effort to take off those sanctions. 
 
MADDOW:  Let me just push you on that a little bit because your reasoning there seems pretty air-tight to me, but I wonder if I can pressure you on why you think this happened?  Do you think this was just an honest bad call by the Trump administration, that they did some bad math here about how this might have worked out?  Or given what you just described about Deripaska and who exactly we and, and some of his connections to the Trump campaign`s relationship with Russia, Russian interference to help the Trump campaign, are you at all concerned this might be a case where they`re doing a favor to a specific Russian oligarch out of an improper or otherwise shady motivation? 
 
WARNER:  Well, it clearly doesn`t pass the smell test.  Now, there are legitimate concerns about Rusal`s ability to kind of have an enormous effect on the aluminum market overall.  There are economic reasons that have some validity.  But the idea that now, at this moment in time, as we get potentially closer to Mueller coming forward with his report, that they`ve chosen this moment to try to take off these sanctions, particularly in light of the recent reveal about Manafort`s passing of information to Kilimnik, the known Russian agent, again, who has ties to Deripaska.  That, to me, is more than enough reason not for us to give the Trump administration this ability to remove these sanctions. 
 
I think we need to continue to send a strong signal because the Russian activities that were countered against America, they`ve used these same techniques in a variety of other European elections.  I met with folks today on this subject.  The Russian active measures campaign goes on across the West because it`s been effective, it`s cheap and I don`t think we should be providing any relief to Putin or his band of oligarchs who often times he outsources some of these activities to by removing some of these sanctions. 
 
MADDOW:  Senator, last night, Congressman Adam Schiff was here.  He`s the newly-elected chairman of the Intelligence Committee in the House.  And I asked him about those revelations that you were just describing there, that the president`s campaign chair Paul Manafort apparently shared proprietary internal campaign polling data with this guy Konstantin Kilimnik who prosecutors twice have described as linked to Russian intelligence. 
 
You also point out his links to Oleg Deripaska specifically. 
 
Chairman Schiff told me last night that on the House side, at least, this was news to them.  They did not know before this court filing this week that was sort of mistakenly un-redacted that Manafort had been providing that internal campaign data to this Russian -- well, to Mr. Kilimnik.  Is it also true in the Senate that you were unaware of that before this week? 
 
WARNER:  It is true -- it is true that this is the first time we heard of it and it was, again, fairly remarkable that the only reason we found out was that the Manafort lawyers were sloppy in redacting their filings. 
 
So this information, I`m not sure they wanted to come out.  Luckily, Mueller would have it.  But this raises a host of questions, why was the campaign chairman of the Trump campaign offering in a sense secret proprietary polling data to a Russian agent?  Did the Russian agent then use that in terms of the Russian activities that then manifested themselves later in the campaign over social media, that manifested itself as we`ve seen now in efforts to particularly suppress African-American vote?  Did they take some of that knowledge? 
 
We don`t know the answer to that, but the basic fact of this coming to light, this was news to us on the Senate intelligence committee as well. 
 
MADDOW:  Senator Warner, you mentioned Manafort having some sort of sloppy lawyering this week with those screwed up redactions.  One of the questions swirling around Mr. Manafort is whether or not he might be angling for a presidential pardon as his get out of jail free card.  That relates to the confirmation hearings we`re expecting for the new attorney general.  I know you have called for the president`s -- the president to withdraw this nominee for attorney general. 
 
If you can stick with us for just one more moment, I`d love to talk to you about William Barr and his confirmation hearings next week. 
 
WARNER:  Absolutely. 
 
MADDOW:  All right.  Senator Mark Warner, top Democrat of the Intelligence Committee, he`ll be back with us in just a moment.
 
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