MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jim Himes

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

MADDOW:  The House Intelligence Committee today was an epic clash of civilizations maybe?  An epic clash of partisan.  It was an epic clash in which Republicans demanded the resignation of the Democrats for investigating what happened with Russia in the 2016 campaign and Democrats came back and gave them what four ten times and six times extra on Sunday about what Russia did, and how important it is. 
 
Joining us now is Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, who`s on the Intelligence Committee.  And he was there today.
 
Sir, I really appreciate you being here tonight.  Thanks for being here. 
 
REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE:  Good evening, Rachel. 
 
MADDOW:  Let me just start by asking you what was that?  I mean, this was a hearing on the Kremlin`s use of oligarch`s money and intelligence in 2016 and beyond, but it started off with what really looked like a battle scene. 
 
HIMES:  It was remarkable.  My pulse was around 200 just watching you replay it.  I was sitting right next to Adam, and I`ll tell you, the emotional energy in the room was amazing.  And you sort of saw this happening, you know?  You know, the former chairman, Devin Nunes with the midnight run to the White House and his activities ultimately resulting in Nancy Pelosi after a year and a half of antics calling on him to step down. 
 
You know, you can just tell the Republicans were just waiting for this moment.  And of course, what they did was they created a moment in which Adam Schiff reminded the nation that while -- and we`re going to accept Mueller for his conclusion, while the president`s behavior does not rise to the level of an indictable conspiracy, inappropriate, outrageous, unpatriotic, of course, every one of those actions was.  So, it put a little bit of a damper on the Republican celebration. 
 
MADDOW:  In terms of both where the hearing went today and with the grounds on which Chairman Schiff made the stand, that he`s made over the last few days, it`s interesting to me he has been asking, as an open question, even to you guys on the Intelligence Committee, he`s been asking whether the counter intelligence probe opened by the FBI into President Trump and campaign, whether that investigation has concluded along with the broader Mueller investigation. 
 
Do you have any further insight into that and into whether any counter intelligence findings were part of what Mueller produced as his report? 
 
HIMES:  Yes, I mean, that is a really good question and it`s not necessarily true that those findings or ongoing questions that are counterintelligence related will necessarily find their way into the report. 
 
I mean, there is three big shoes that have yet to drop.  One of course is that.  They one may not drop.  At the end of the day, if this is about compromise in a way that would be classified, that shoe might not drop. 
 
But, of course, the other two, and I think the Republicans realize that the high water mark of their political experience was probably, you know, two hours after the report was released because there are two other shoes to drop.  Number one is when the report comes out, just as Adam detailed in his speech the behavior that the president and his people engaged in is not going to make these guys look good and secondarily, this is why I wonder why we see so many victory dances on the other side, it was apparently not clear that the president did not obstruct justice. 
 
So when we see that, and I haven`t seen it, but when we see that, and when we are asking ourselves looking at actual facts and stories and saying, did the president of the United States obstruct justice, a crime for which two presidents were found themselves in impeachment proceedings, that`s going to be a pretty ugly political situation for the president and for the Republicans who have defended him. 
 
MADDOW:  But that`s all dependent on the idea that we`re going to have access to the Mueller report.  I mean, one of the things -- I started with the show tonight is the sort of remarkable situation we`re in right now, six days after Mueller submitted his report and we still have only seen like 40-something words of it including sentence fragments that were quoted by William Barr. 
 
I don`t know whether or not to be confident that the Trump administration is ever going to allow it to be released and I feel like the more I talked to Democrats about this, people, you know, who are on -- in the House, people who are in the Senate, people who are staffers, people who have every intention of trying to pry this report out, it`s not clear to me what the levers are by which they are going to try to get this released.  It`s both crazy to me that we haven`t seen it yet and I don`t know how we ultimately are going to get to the part where we do see it. 
 
HIMES:  You know, I have a little more confidence than you do, Rachel.  If worse comes to worse, we will subpoena the report.  And part of the reason we haven`t seen it so far is that unlike the Clinton report which you were talking about, in this case, there is lots of -- I`m almost certain, there is lots of classified information which needs to be redacted.  Where it gets interesting, because at the end of the day, look, we had a unanimous vote in the House of Representatives, and the president himself said that the report should be made available to the public. 
 
It feels to me like only Lindsey Graham doesn`t want this report out in the public.  So, I think eventually it becomes public.  I think where the fight is, of course, this White House and president is going to demand that anything that is embarrassing to him, and I think that of those 300-plus pages, a lot of that will fall into the embarrassing category.  They will use the tool of executive privilege to redact that.  And, of course, if they do that, which I have every expectation they will do, we will find ourselves in the court, which could get ugly and lengthy. 
 
MADDOW:  Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, member of the House Intelligence Committee -- sir, thanks for being here.  Appreciate it. 
 
HIMES:  Thanks, Rachel. 
 
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source