MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff

Interview

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HAYES:  All right, Pete Williams, thank you very much for that reporting.  Joining us now by the phone the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Democrat Adam Schiff of California.  Congressman, your reaction to this.
 
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA):  Well, look at one level it`s not surprising because we saw just how misleading the Barr summary is when we finally got the report.  But now we see it in black and white from Mueller himself, his dissatisfaction with what Barr had done, how the country was perceiving it.  And of course the whole point that you know, that Barr had in releasing this four-page in misleading summary was to help the White House set a public narrative that was at odds with the facts.
 
So the discussion also about Mueller being unhappy with the public perception, that public perception was being driven by a messaging team that apparently was working in concert with Bill Barr, pushing out this false no collusion no obstruction line when those words appear nowhere in the report.
 
What we found when we got the report was what we suspected and that is that Mueller wrote his own summaries.  And now we have confirmation that Mueller wanted his own summaries to be made public, and this excuse that  DOJ is now giving that they didn`t want to release the report piecemeal, as if giving Mueller`s own summaries instead of their own would somehow make it a piecemeal release that just doesn`t pass the laugh test.
 
HAYES:  Do you think Robert Mueller should appear before congress?
 
SCHIFF:  Absolutely.
 
We`ve requested that he come before our committee.  I believe that he will.  He`ll also testify before the Judiciary Committee.
 
But let`s face it, I don`t think the country can put any confidence in what Bill Barr has to say.  He`ll be testifying before congress, but I`m not going to rely, I don`t think anyone, should rely on his characterization of Mueller`s work or conversations with Mueller, because he`s proven to be unreliable and misleading and those are terrible qualities to have in an attorney general.
 
HAYES:  Is he so unreliable that you think he should, in the words of Julian Castro and something agreed to by Maxine Waters earlier in this program, resign or begin impeachment proceedings against the attorney general?
 
SCHIFF:  Well, my feeling was that he should have never been confirmed, and certainly not have been confirmed without committing to recuse himself from a case in which he had such an obvious bias.
 
Look, I don`t think the country can have confidence in its top law enforcement official.  And under those circumstances, it`s hard to see how he can justify to himself his continued service in that position.  I think what he has done has been such a tremendous disservice to the country.  And if he was true to what he said in his senate confirmation hearings, that he hoped to be able to bring about some public confidence in the results of this all-important investigation, we now have it from Bob Mueller that that`s exactly the opposite effect of what his actions have produced.
 
HAYES:  Do you interpret the existence of this letter, both what was written inside it, the fact that it was written at all, and that there was a phone call afterwards, as a big deal?  That it is not something undertaken lightly by Mueller?
 
SCHIFF:  I think it`s a very big deal.  And I think what it signals is that Mueller wanted to put his reservations in writing, because he could not rely on Barr to accurately characterize his work in the report, and there was every concern, there certainly should have been, that Barr might not represent Mueller`s reservations accurately.  And indeed, we already see a discrepancy between the strength of Mueller`s letter, at least as it`s quoted now in the press, and the Department of Justice trying to say, well, in his conversation, he wasn`t quite as strident as he was in his letter.
 
Well, I`m not willing to accept another summary from Bill Barr about what Bob Mueller has to  say or his reservations.  We`ve had two too many false summaries to begin with to take a third at this point.
 
HAYES:  Let me ask you a question that I had asked Chair Waters earlier in this program, the White House has, as far as I can tell, and maybe the reporting on this is inaccurate or I may be mistaken, not turned over a single document in any of the various inquiries that have come from oversight committees, including your own.  They`re suing Deutsche Bank and another bank to try to prevent them from complying with subpoenas.  They basically said go to hell, more or less.  What is your understanding of how within the bounds of sort of the normal parry and thrusts this is between the executive and congress and how new it is and what to do about it?
 
SCHIFF:  I think it`s completely unprecedented.  I mean, there certainly have been other presidents who have bridled at congressional oversight or sought to withhold information or made over-broad claims of executive privilege, but no one, to my knowledge, has said, I don`t respect congress as a co-equal branch of government, I won`t yield to any oversight request no matter how mundane, no matter how, you know, just on its face a quintessential part of congressional oversight.  We`re going to stonewall everything.  That`s this president`s position.
 
It`s unprecedented.  And this is now the second broadside on the system of checks and
balances when it comes to congress.  The first was going after congress` power of the purse and saying we`re going to declare an emergency and basically evade congress` ability to set funding levels and priorities.  Now the administration is saying as imperial president, we`re going to reject any oversight of what we do.
 
And this will not only have tremendous repercussions in terms of our ability to oversee this administration, but if we were to let this stand, it means that the balance of power is fundamentally altered for the future, that there`s no ability to hold even the most corrupt president accountable.  There`s no way to investigate even the worst examples of malfeasance because a president can simply stonewall each and every request.
 
So we`re going to have to fight this tooth and nail.  We`re going to have to succeed, and I think we will.  But they`re determined, I think,to draw this out as long as humanly possible.
 
HAYES:  Is there -- have you been -- has the White House or White House staff communicated directly to you their intentions vis-a-vis document production or compliance with subpoenas?
 
SCHIFF:  You know, I had an initial get acquainted meeting with the new White House counsel.  Since that time, we have been in negotiations with the Department of Justice and the FBI to get the materials that we need in the intelligence committee.  And as you know, the Mueller investigation actually began under Comey as a counterintelligence investigation.  We still don`t have any of the
findings of the counterintelligence investigation that goes to what possible risks of compromise there are. 
 
And so there`s a statutory obligation to provide that to the committee.  In a very atypical illustration of bipartisanship vis-a-vis the Russia investigation, Mr. Nunes and I have sent two joint
requests now to the department demanding this information.  And, you know, we`re prepared, if necessary, to use compulsion to get it.  We want Mueller to testify.  We want the underlying evidence.  We want make sure that we get answers.
 
HAYES: So, I just want to make sure I understand that clearly, the counterintelligence portion
of this, whatever results from that, whatever work product that resulted from that -- from a counterintelligence perspective -- has not been furnished to your committee at all?
 
SCHIFF:  No, it hasn`t.  We were getting periodic counterintelligence briefings up until the point where James Comey was fired.  At that point, the most significant counterintelligence investigation in recent history went into a black hole.  And the department and the intelligence community stopped fulfilling their statutory obligation to keep us fully informed of any significant  counterintelligence activity. 
 
So they`ve been dark now for a year-and-a-half.  And that, I think, violates the statute.  And we`re insisting on getting full answers now.
 
HAYES:  That`s wild.
 
SCHIFF:  And we`re going to do what`s necessary -- it is, it really is.  And I think they know they`re on very weak legal footing.  And so we`re pursuing this with all vigor.  And we`ve told them basically, we need this information, we need it now, and we`re prepared to go to court to fight to get it if
that`s required.
 
HAYES:  All right.  Congressman Adam Schiff, thank you so much for making some time this evening.

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