CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Himes

Interview

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COOPER: We're with going to come back to you shortly.

First, Democrat Congressman Jim Himes joins us, member of the House Intelligence Committee.

[20:05:01] He was in today's Michael Cohen hearing.

So, Congressman Himes, Lanny Davis says Cohen, himself, authored the false line about the Trump Tower Moscow timeline. Is that your understanding as well that it was Cohen and not, in fact, the president's attorneys?

REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well, Anderson, I can't get into the specifics of what has been discussed in now the two days in which Michael Cohen has testified before my committee. But remember, that statement that is in question here, the statement that was used by the special counsel to ultimately get Michael Cohen to plead guilty to lying to my committee was a deep and rich statement with all sorts of dates and people and mentions and, of course, at the time, as you know, Michael Cohen was part of a joint defense agreement.

COOPER: Right.

HIMES: And so, it's not crazy to infer that a lot of people would have looked at that statement. But, obviously, Michael Cohen when he gave that statement to the Congress, he knew that that date was incorrect.

COOPER: So any of the president's attorneys who reviewed Cohen's statement, do you -- or does your committee plan on calling them to testify?

HIMES: Well --

COOPER: Or at least at this point?

HIMES: As the chairman said today, it was a very productive day. I know this is frustrating but we want to keep the -- COOPER: Of course. I know, there's a lot you can't say.

HIMES: -- subject as private as we could, partly because as a result of today's testimony, the committee may very well call in additional people, and if we call in additional people, we don't necessarily want them knowing exactly what it was that Michael Cohen said.

So, when the chairman said it was a productive day, I think it's -- I think what he meant, and I think what is fair to say is that we learned new things. Michael Cohen said today that he brought new documents. The chairman confirmed that. We saw new documents that pertained to -- to when Michael Cohen told the committee the Trump Tower building had stopped being -- the project had stopped.

So we did see a lot of new information. As a result of that new information, we may very well call additional witnesses.

COOPER: What did -- do you have a sense of what the timetable of the investigation for the committee is? I mean, the plan, you know, to wrap this up in a matter of months or weeks or longer?

HIMES: Well, remember, we started when we regained the majority, when the Democrats regained the majority, we restarted the investigation which then-Chairman Nunes had ended prematurely. We know it's prematurely, of course, the special counsel subsequent to the closing after our investigation has charged any number of people. It's clear we were lied to.

And so, what I will tell you, Anderson, is that we started with let's find out more about the lies that were told to my committee. That's, of course, what we've done with Michael Cohen. And without portraying the details of what we learned today and last week, there is an awful lot more for us to do associated with the lies that Michael Cohen told the Congress. And you might fairly infer that those -- that has to do with the possibility that somebody along the way was looking to assist or did assist in Michael Cohen's crime of lying to Congress.

COOPER: So when we spoke with you last week, we just learned that the house intelligence committee was going to request Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization CFO, who's been there a very long time, to testify. Can you say what the status of that is right now? Has contact been made? Have you gotten any response from him?

HIMES: I don't know that. What I don't know, we said this last week, it continues to bring our intention to bring in Felix Sater. Felix Sater, of course, being the individual who worked in the Trump Organization's office, had a relationship with Michael Cohen and obviously with Donald Trump.

I believe it is still the intention to have him in next week. I don't now if it's an open hearing. That was the original idea. But that remains the next step for this investigation in the House.

COOPER: And on the subject of pardons, number one, did you talk about them with Michael Cohen? Number two, if you did, can you say if the issue of a pardon was first raised by Cohen's attorneys or the president's attorneys?

HIMES: Yes, Anderson, I don't want to get into that. I know the press has been reporting a lot about that today. Of course, Michael Cohen hinted in previous testimony there might have been some issues there. Let me just leave it by saying that the question of whether there were pardons offered to Michael Cohen is a question that has been out there for a long time. And it is still very much out there.

COOPER: And I just wanted to ask you about what we started this broadcast with, "The New York Times" obtaining six checks written from President Trump to Michael Cohen to pay off Stormy Daniels, doing it while in office. In the Oval Office, I assume. Do you think there is any legal or constitutional exposure there?

HIMES: Well, of course, there is. I mean, those checks are interesting because those checks, and the fact that Donald Trump made a payment to reimburse Michael Cohen for paying off a porn star in order to avoid a story, you know, I know Rudy Giuliani is really interested in the question of whether that was personal or political.

I think anybody looking at that would say trying to stop a story that you had an affair with a porn star is something that would certainly be material to Americans' decisions on how they vote for president. You know, not only is that a big deal in and of itself, but simply doing it is a violation of the law and doing it from the White House.

[20:10:05] Remember, Bill Clinton was impeached in the mid '90s for lying about an affair, but Bill Clinton didn't, you know, write hush money checks while he was in the White House. So, yes, of course, we're in a tough spot here because there is now very clear evidence that the president may have committed a serious crime while president of the United States.

COOPER: And just lastly, I've been thinking about something you said last week on the program after Cohen testified in front of your committee. You said the Republicans on your committee didn't do the sort of castigating of Cohen we saw Republicans in the House Oversight Committee doing which was an open hearing.

I wondered, did that -- did that apply today? Did the treatment of Cohen apply to Devin Nunes as well?

HIMES: Yes, again, without getting into the details of the hearing, of course. The -- what happened these last two days with Michael Cohen behind closed doors could not have been more different than what you saw in front of the oversight committee with cameras running, Republicans bringing posters out. None of that happened.

In fact, it was, you know, fairly boring procedurally and as much as question after question after question got asked, the Republicans did participate. Again, I don't want to get into the details of what was said and done, but the Republicans I think are mainly, I think they understand they're in a little bit of a box because, you know, as they did before the American people, saying Michael Cohen, you have no credibility, you're a bad guy, you're a criminal, and stuff -- well, sentence number two behind that is, this is a guy who worked for the president for ten years and oh, by the way, was finance chairman of the Republican Party.

So that's a pretty uncomfortable position for the Republicans to be in.

COOPER: Yes. Congressman Himes, good to have you on. Thank you very much.

HIMES: Thanks, Anderson.

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