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

Interview

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O`DONNELL:  Leading off our discussion now, the man with the global view of all of this, Congressman Adam Schiff of California.  He`s the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. 
 
And, Chairman Schiff, can we just begin going backwards through this material, through what we just heard from Chairman Nadler?  What is your reaction to what Chairman Nadler is telling us now about what Matthew Whitaker clearly withheld, at minimum, in the public hearing and some would say deliberately misled the committee. 
 
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE:  Well, my reaction is this.  Jeff Sessions was effectively fired because he recused himself, because he followed the advice of ethics lawyers at the Justice Department. 
 
Matt Whitaker was hired because he talked about how he could privately cripple the Mueller investigation and because I`m sure the president was confident he would not recuse himself.  Now, the ethics lawyers urged him to do so.  He refused. 
 
Then you have the new attorney general appointed, who refuses to commit to following the advice of ethics lawyers on that same issue, recusal. 
 
So, is it plausible that the issue of the recusal of the prosecutor in the Southern District of New York came up?  Absolutely.  Is it I think straining credit utility to think that if he did have conversations about that with others or the president that he would have a failure of recollection about it?  That doesn`t strike me as too credible. 
 
O`DONNELL:  The president`s response today, that he hasn`t even thought about, not even thought about pardoning Paul Manafort. 
 
SCHIFF:  Not the least bit believable.  What I found really striking about the Manafort sentencing today, and indeed Manafort`s conduct generally during this court process, is Paul Manafort made the calculated decision to lie about providing polling data to someone linked to Russian intelligence.  He made the calculated decision to do that and risk getting caught and risk getting a much greater sentence. 
 
Why would you do that?  You would do that if you felt that if you gave that evidence to someone linked to Russian intelligence.  He made the calculated decision to do that and risk getting caught and risk getting a much greater sentence. 
 
Why would you do that?  You would do that if you felt that if you gave that evidence that goes right to the issue of collusion, there is no innocent explanation for giving internal polling data, raw data to the Russians or someone linked to Russian intelligence, that it would effectively kill any chance of a pardon.  And so instead of -- instead of revealing this information, he chose to lie about it and then go out on the courthouse steps through his attorney and say no collusion, no collusion, which is effectively the -- akin to saying, Mr. President, please pardon me. 
 
O`DONNELL:  And then the president echoes exactly what Manafort`s lawyer has said a little bit later. 
 
SCHIFF:  It was refreshing, too, to hear the judge call him out -- really call out both Manafort and the president.  Call out Manafort by saying, don`t try that no collusion business here.  I know this is a thinly veiled plea for a pardon.  You don`t fool anyone in this courtroom. 
 
But also when she said that facts matter here, that was a rebuke of the president, as much as it was of Paul Manafort.  And I thought that was very powerful and certainly was a powerful corrective to the otherwise shameless life business we heard from the -- from Judge Ellis. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Yes, you`re a former federal prosecutor.  A federal prosecution comes to a conclusion in Washington, D.C. with the sentencing of a defendant.  Instantaneously in New York City, the Manhattan district attorney, instantaneously comes out with a 16-count indictment. 
 
In your experience in a situation like that, how much cooperation would there have been between the federal prosecutors getting that guilty plea today and the Manhattan district attorney, if any? 
 
SCHIFF:  You know, my guess is that the prosecutors have kept an arm`s length distance.  There may have been some deconfliction.  You know, can you hold off in doing this until the sentencing?  My guess, frankly, is that the district attorney`s office decided on their own that they wouldn`t step on the sentencing of Manafort.  They didn`t want to influence the sentencing of Manafort. 
 
But most people think of a system of checks and balances or when they do they think, OK, you`ve got the house and senate, you`ve got the Congress and the courts, you`ve got the executive and the courts.  These are all part of the checks and balances.  But there is also a check and balance between the federal system and the state system. 
 
And here that check and balance worked perfectly because you have an unethical president talking about intervening in a case in which he is implicated, dangling a pardon, certainly publicly and maybe privately as well.  And you have the state of New York saying, not so fast, if you`re going to betray the rule of law that way, we are going to make sure the rule of law is enforced in the state of New York. 
 
O`DONNELL:  The intelligence committee has an eye on almost all of these moving parts.  It`s hard for us to tell because so much of your work is closed and needs to be how much you`re looking at some of these things that some of the other committees are looking at, at the same time. 
 
Is it your sense that something changed importantly today in what Jerry Nadler learned from the acting FBI director?  Because that`s a new level of detail in the interference level the president is willing to go to.  I think it was reasonable for people who have been watching his external behavior to guess that things like that could happen, but here you have an acting attorney general saying these are the kinds of conversations I had with the president of the United States. 
 
SCHIFF:  It`s hard for me to evaluate, not having been in the room, whether this was the attorney general, former acting attorney general saying I can`t remember if I discussed this with the president or I`m not going to deny we had these conversations.  I`m not going to deny it.  I don`t know how he characterized this.  I find it, you know, very difficult to believe that if he did discuss this, that he would have some failure of recollection about it.
 
But also this is a president who has had no compunction about directly interfering in an investigation which he`s implicated.  He does it every day by bashing Mueller, by dangling pardons, by firing the FBI director. 
 
I think what we saw today, both in the developments in the Cohen side of things and these new e-mails that were publicly disclosed, but as well the conversation that Mr. Nadler had, chairman Nadler had with Matt Whitaker, a growing body of evidence of obstruction of justice.  I think that`s really the significance of what`s come out today. 
 
O`DONNELL:  And as that body of evidence grows, what is the status of Speaker Pelosi`s statement that came out earlier this week that I`m not for impeachment?  It seems -- she actually gave that interview a week before that quote came out, and as I`ve watched this and as you say the evidence grows, quotes like that mostly have meaning the day they`re said because you don`t know what the ground is going to be under you as investigators the next week. 
 
SCHIFF:  Well, I mean, here`s the thing.  I was watching one of my intel Republican colleagues today.  One of our intelligence committee colleagues on TV saying -- being asked about this Whitaker interview and saying if the president was talking about this case, the Cohen case with the attorney general, there is nothing wrong with that.  The attorney general works for him. 
 
Well, if that`s your attitude, then all of the norms that have grown up since Watergate, that you don`t interfere in a case in which you`re implicated, all of the degree to which that should be just repugnant, unethical and perhaps illegal, but if that`s the view of our colleagues in the GOP, getting them behind an obstruction of justice impeachment, you can imagine how difficult that would be.  This is the problem we`ve had with this presidency, which is he has so dumbed down ethical standards, that it`s hard to notice how often they`re trampled. 
 
I find it absolutely remarkable that the acting attorney general and now the permanent attorney general both refuse to commit to following the advice of ethics lawyers.  The top law enforcement personnel in the country won`t commit to doing that.  I mean, that is just shocking. 
 
O`DONNELL:  What about the commitment to release the Mueller report?  You don`t have that either. 
 
SCHIFF:  We don`t have that either.  Now, the attorney general in his confirmation proceedings said that he would release it to a maximum degree he`s allowed to.  Well, he`s allowed to release the whole thing.  We`re going to hold him to that. 
 
There may be classified portions that need to be redacted, but even there the Justice Department has declassified information like the FISA opinions, at least portions of them. 
 
O`DONNELL:  For Republicans. 
 
SCHIFF:  For Republicans.  As of June of last year, the Justice Department turned over 880,000 pages of discovery to the Republicans. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Yes, at the request of the Republican Congress. 
 
SCHIFF:  At the request -- and bear in mind that went to an investigation in which no one was indicted, in terms of the Clinton e-mail investigation.  So when the Justice Department suggests now, as they are saying anonymously, that -- well, they can`t possibly share evidence in the Mueller investigation that doesn`t result in indictment.  That would be a terrible double standard. 
 
And I think it would so dramatically undermine public confidence in the impartiality of the Justice Department.  It would be a mistake that would have consequences -- reputations consequences not unlike Bush v. Gore when the suspect abandoned precedent.  That was the beginning of a dramatic change in public perception of the Supreme Court as a partisan body. 
 
I think if the Justice Department uses a double standard here it will have the same effect of what people think of that department, which I came out of, which I love, which I, you know, venerate and I don`t want to see the department go down that path. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Are you confident that America will eventually know everything that is in the Mueller report?  That you in Congress either through subpoena power or other methods will be able to get all of that revealed. 
 
SCHIFF:  I am.  The truth is going to come out.  We are going to use whatever means necessary to compel the Justice Department to be forthcoming.  They`d be much better off not fighting it, not look like they`re trying to cover something up. 
 
Indeed, the case for providing this information in the Mueller investigation is far stronger than it was in the Clinton investigation.  For this reason, one of the reasons the special counsel regulations were written and the office was created is because it was important that the chief executive not be allowed to cover up a crime. 
 
In the case of Hillary Clinton, she wasn`t the president.  There wasn`t that danger that she could cover up things because she controlled the Justice Department.  That danger exists here.  That`s a much more powerful reason for transparency and disclosure than it was when they gave 880,000 pages of discovery in the Clinton case to the Congress. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for coming in tonight. 

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