CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff

Interview

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COOPER: American.

One piece of breaking news just before airtime, the Justice Department and the Special Counsel Office putting out a joint statement on the apparent conflict between what Mueller said today about the rules against charging a sitting president and what Attorney General Barr said last month.

And I'm quoting now from this joint press release: There is no conflict between these statements." We'll take this up with our chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, in our next segment and something we'll ask our next guest about as well.

There's certainly plenty to talk about with Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who joins us now.

Chairman Schiff, there are certainly various interpretations of what Mueller said today, one of which is that he was essentially calling on Congress to do their constitutional duty and begin impeachment proceedings against the president. Is that how you interpreted what he said?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, again, I think Mueller was more than capable of asserting that if that's the conclusion that he had reached, that the president should be impeached. But, no, he said, this is now in the hands of Congress. And I think that leaves it open to Congress to determine whether to investigate this through its oversight powers, whether to initiate impeachment proceedings.

There were really two things Bob Mueller was not prepared to say. He was not prepared to say that we were able to exonerate the president. He reiterated once again that while he didn't have the power to indict, he did have the power to say that we could not find sufficient evidence of guilt. And he declined to do so.

And similarly, I think what he decided to do here is he decided to say, the reason we conduct this investigation is to preserve this evidence for, among other reasons, I think he implied, the president could be indicted upon leaving office. But also, so that the Congress can take the matter from here and decide what remedy is appropriate.

COOPER: Did anything Mueller say today shift the calculus toward impeachment for you? Because both Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Nadler continue to be restrained on the topic today.

SCHIFF: I'm not sure that anything he said today really shifted the calculus that much, in terms of the substance of his comments. But, I will say this. I think that Bob Mueller has one more service to provide the country, much as he appears reluctant to do so, and that is, he really should testify before the Congress. So, people --

COOPER: He clearly doesn't want to.

SCHIFF: He clearly doesn't want to. And, you know, who can blame him at this point. He knows that he will be savaged by the White House for anything that he says that's critical of the president. And he wants to resist being drawn into this.

But if he wants his report to be fully understood, if he wants the seriousness of the allegations in the report about the Russian interference and our affairs, as well as a full understanding of all these connections between the Trump campaign and how they wish to make use of the Russian help, even if it fell short of that standard, the Department of Justice, that they needed proof beyond a reasonable doubt in order to seek a prosecution, then he ought to testify.

[20:10:20] And I think that's the last duty that he's called upon to make.

COOPER: One White House official told CNN today that any push towards impeachment was going to backfire, saying it would be a great way for Republicans to win back the House in 2020. So there's obviously -- I mean, there's the political calculation to it, as well.

I want to ask you, though, about this joint statement from the Department of Justice and the special counsel's office that I referenced earlier. And I just want to read the whole thing, because it's interesting that they both put this out together. It's not from Robert Mueller, it's from the spokesperson for the special counsel's office. It says -- and the Department of Justice.

It says the attorney general has previously stated that the special counsel will repeatedly affirmed that he was not saying that, but for the OLC opinion, he would have found the president obstructed justice. The special counsel's report and his statement today made clear that the office concluded it would not reach a determination one way or the other, about whether the president committed a crime. There's no conflict between these statements.

Is that how you interpreted it, as well, that there's no conflict between their two statements?

SCHIFF: I'll tell you how I interpret it. But first, if I could comment on the politics of impeachment --

COOPER: Sure.

SCHIFF: -- I don't know, honestly, which way that cuts. There are good arguments to be made about how it will excite one base or the other if you do or if you don't bring an impeachment. But frankly, I think the issue is of such great importance, we need to look at it from an apolitical perspective, what's the right thing to do for the country. And at this point, I think we need to further develop the record before we make that judgment.

But as between those -- that statement and whether there's a conflict between what Mueller again had to say and what Barr has had to say, I think this was something that the Department of Justice, the statement issued today, was pushing the special counsel to sign on to, to say, there is no literal conflict between these two very specific statements. But the reality is that the entire impression Barr gave, the thrust of his comments was that there was no obstruction of justice, that Mueller intended for he, Barr, to make this decision, because for some inexplicable reason, not having to do with the OLC opinion, Mueller felt he couldn't make the judgment. And if that was his view, he should have never done the investigation.

To suggest that there's no conflict between that, that misleading representation by Barr and what Bob Mueller has to say, is completely bogus. It is in direct conflict with what Mueller has to say.

So, here, they're cherry-picking a statement to give the appearance of agreement when, I think, there really is none. And that, to me, was the big takeaway. There's a profound conflict between the attorney general and the special counsel on this.

COOPER: Yes, it certainly seems like that.

Congressman Schiff, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

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