CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Dan Kildee

Interview

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BLITZER: Let's hope it happens. We will have to hear from Mueller, as we know.

Thank you very, very much.

[18:10:00]

Let's get some more on all of this. Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia is joining us. He's the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

SEN. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: This is your first TV interview, I understand, since the Mueller report was released several weeks ago. You have been quiet. What do you think the report tells us?

WARNER: Well, on one level, I was surprised, particularly in terms of the activities involving Russia.

Our Senate Intelligence Committee investigation virtually had all that information beforehand. I was hoping that Mueller, with the resources he had, might be able to follow a few more of those threads a little further.

We did not focus as much on the questions around obstruction, but I think it is pretty remarkable that 10 examples were cited. And I understand the White House lawyer today was complaining about Mueller not making a charging decision.

I think it would be great if the White House, in a sense, said the Office of Legal Counsel restriction that says a president can't be indicted would be removed. And then we ought to bring Bob Mueller up and ask him what he thinks, as a lawyer, as a prosecutor, as a former head of the FBI, what he thinks should happen, because he built a fairly extensive case there.

You know, in terms of the Russia activities, I know Mueller has said that he didn't feel that this reached the -- his terminology -- the level of conspiracy beyond a shadow of a doubt. There is no such thing as a legal term around collusion.

But I would say this. If -- he did validate the fact that the Russians intervened. They did it to hurt Clinton and help Trump. There were over 100 contacts. Those contacts included sharing of private polling data with Russia, Russian agents. It involved some parts we still don't know the answer of, of WikiLeaks and Trump confidant Roger Stone being some level of intermediary.

I have just got to tell you, if that -- those kinds of activities are not illegal, I think virtually every American would believe they were wrong and every reasonable American would turn those -- turn that over to law enforcement.

If they were not illegal in 2016, at least going forward in 2020, because the Russians and others will be back, I think Congress ought to make sure that there is an affirmative obligation, when a foreign power tries to intervene in an American election, that if you are receiving that kind of help, you have an affirmative duty to turn that over to law enforcement and let them investigate.

The Trump folks didn't do that.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: I know you have gone through carefully the 400-plus-page report. Did you see anything specifically in there that potentially could lead to impeachment?

WARNER: Listen, Wolf, I'm more focused on how we prevent this from happening going forward, to make sure going forward that we have an affirmative obligation that, if a foreign agent or a foreign country tries to interfere in an election, you know about that, you have the obligation to turn that information over to law enforcement.

I want to make sure -- we have got bipartisan legislation now -- that we do a better job of securing the integrity of our elections. And Mueller pointed out the Russians tried to attack all 50 states, and frankly got into local election databases. And I think we were very, very lucky that they didn't make a changing of votes.

We need to -- we have got tangible things we can do to improve the security of our election system. And I also have been working on legislation, because we also saw how the Russians manipulated Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, how we make sure that we have some guardrails around social media, so that that dark underbelly of social media -- that's where we see hate speech and dissension constantly taking place -- that we don't allow foreign governments to use those tools to interfere in our elections.

And I will have legislation there. So I'm focused on how we make sure this doesn't happen again, whether it be Russia or any other foreign adversary. And I hope, again, that many of my Republican colleagues, who on a lot of these issues have agreed, will actually work with me to make sure this becomes the legislation.

BLITZER: So, you're the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee. You're -- you see all sorts of extremely sensitive, very classified information. You're part of that so-called Gang of Eight.

Did -- have you -- first of all, have you seen the redacted portions of the Mueller report?

WARNER: Wolf, the attorney general has made the redacted portions available. I have not gone and look at them.

I don't think any of the Democrats have yet because we believe that the version of the report without the redactions ought to be at least available to all members of Congress. I think that has been grossly restricted by the attorney general, trying to in a sense sweep this under the rug.

And I would like to play out the opportunity to let every member of Congress see this before I go view the version that has got no redactions.

BLITZER: Why not go view the full report and at the same time continue to play out the opportunity that other members eventually will be able to see most of it as well?

[18:15:02]

WARNER: Wolf, at some point, I'm going to see the full report. And one of the things I think is very important as well is to see the underlying particularly counterintelligence evidence that went into that report. Again, remarkable that the attorney general made all his judgments without looking at any of the underlying without looking at any of the underlying evidence.

I don't think that's appropriate legal ethics. But I will get a chance to see all of that. I do think, from just the current standpoint, as the House and others try to force the attorney general to release the non-redacted report to all members of Congress, I'm going to hold off until we see how these proceedings go forward.

BLITZER: Well, in this letter that was released today by the White House special counsel, and it was written on April 19, five-page single-spaced letter, he made it clear that they're not going to make it clear that underlying evidence to you.

WARNER: Wolf, I believe from a Gang of Eight intelligence standpoint -- maybe the special counsel won't, but it's terribly important.

Remember, we have got an ongoing investigation of our own, bipartisan, that continues that is based on counterintelligence, how we make sure Russia or any other country doesn't do this again. We have the right as the Oversight Committee to look at that underlying counterintelligence evidence.

That's our responsibility. We're going to get a look at that. And we're going to make sure -- again, that's our charge to make sure the intelligence community and law enforcement prevents this from happening again, and we have got to have that underlying evidence to make those conclusions.

BLITZER: The chairman of your committee, Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, it's a curious note.

He's mentioned in the Mueller report. It appears that Senator Burr told the White House about a March 2017 briefing that he got from the FBI director at the time, James Comey -- he was later fired -- on the Russia investigation, and even, according to the report, identified some people under investigation.

A spokesman for Burr says he doesn't recall this conversation. Do you think Burr did the wrong thing? Does he need to step down as committee chairman?

WARNER: Listen, Wolf, the chairman and I have had a -- we've had our bumps along the way. But we have both tried to make sure we maintain a bipartisan investigation, because this goes to an attack on our nation.

And I was not aware of the references made in the Mueller report. I was surprised by that. The chairman has said he's going to, you know, lay out his version of the facts to the whole committee. I owe it to him to have him have that opportunity. But I think it's very important that we keep classified information classified.

BLITZER: Have you spoken directly with the chairman about this?

WARNER: I have spoken with the chairman. And, again, I'm going to give him the opportunity to talk and brief the full committee and have him do that first, before I tell you my whole views on national TV.

BLITZER: But do you believe what the Mueller report says about him?

WARNER: Listen, I have had a very strong working relationship with the chairman. And we have had lots of times where this could have -- investigation could have gone off the tracks, the way the House investigation did.

We have had the opportunity to pursue the vast majority of witnesses that Democrats and Republicans alike have felt were appropriate. And I want to try to maintain that good working relationship.

BLITZER: But if it's true, potentially, it could undermine that trust that you have in him.

WARNER: Listen, Wolf, we will see how this plays out. We have had our disagreements in the past, and there are many times where he disagrees with me and I have disagreed with him, though, at the same time, I feel when we're talking about a foreign nation attacking our democracy and in a way to help one candidate, Trump, and hurt another candidate, Clinton, that has been validated by Mueller, validated by the whole intelligence community, no matter what this White House or what the White House's semi-lawyer who's supposed to be our attorney general says on a regular basis.

We have got to make sure that it doesn't happen again, and the ability to have a bipartisan group of policy-makers who will come together with consensus recommendations on how we prevent this from happening again is one of the most important things I can do.

BLITZER: It certainly is, because, clearly, by all accounts, the intelligence community believes not only is it happening right now, but it's going to intensify as we get closer to the 2020 election.

The whole purpose of what the Russians were doing were to sow dissent, to undermine the democracy, to create chaos, political discord here in the United States. And clearly they're anxious on continuing that.

WARNER: They are, Wolf.

And that's what's so extraordinarily frightening, frustrating. I don't know the appropriate word to use when you hear the president's official lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, saying no big deal taking help from Russia, when you have got the president's son-in-law saying what's a few, you know, Facebook ads, where you have the attorney general in his testimony in a sense joking about some of these items.

I think these are not joking matters. I think this is a foreign nation attacking our country. And we still have a White House that basically denies that this took place, and we have a White House that is so afraid of Donald Trump's wrath that, when the former secretary of homeland security said, let's get a Cabinet meeting together to actually plan for 2020, the White House chief of staff said, let's not have that meeting because it might offend the president.

[18:20:13]

This is outrageous, and it is, candidly, beyond the pale, and why our committee, bipartisan, and why this Congress needs to make sure it doesn't happen again.

We need to make a law in place that if you receive assistance from a foreign power during an election, you have an obligation to report that, that we make sure that we have our election systems safe and secure with a paper audit trail and that the large companies who have 90 percent -- three companies have 90 percent of our voter files.

There's some way to have security checks on those files, and that we have some rules of the road around Facebook, YouTube, Twitter in terms of how they are not going to be manipulated on a going-forward basis.

Every American -- I don't care what political party you belong to -- ought to be part of that fix, because what we saw -- and the Russians not only did this against us. They did it in the Brexit vote. They did it in the French presidential elections. You add that, all they spent up, it's less than the cost of one new F-35 airplane.

So this is cheap and effective. And America needs to be on guard. The FBI director, Christopher Wray, said just last Friday that this is an ongoing threat. And the level of dismissiveness from this White House is -- frankly, stuns me.

BLITZER: And Russia's not just a foreign nation. It's a hostile foreign nation, as you know.

Let's talk about the attorney general, Bill Barr. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, says the attorney general actually committed a crime by lying to Congress during sworn testimony under oath. Do you agree, first of all?

WARNER: I saw Barr's answer earlier, I think it was last month, to Senator Van Hollen, where he was asked specifically, did he have any idea that Mueller might either agree or disagree with his so-called four-page summary? He said he had no idea.

Well, we now have documented evidence of not one, but two letters from Mueller indicating his frustration with Barr's characterization in the four-page letter. To me, those two, his earlier statement and the facts of what appeared, don't jibe.

And if that, to me, is not telling the truth, and I don't think the attorney general of the United States should be in a sense not telling the truth before Congress, as well as in his daily course of activities.

BLITZER: Do you want him to resign?

WARNER: I think it would be better for the whole nation if Bill Barr, who I actually had hoped, because he's got -- had a distinguished legal career, would come in and be an independent attorney general, because lord knows we need now more than ever respectful rule of law.

I believe he has not met the standard. I believe he instead views himself as the president's personal lawyer. Maybe he can join up with Rudy Giuliani. But he should do that and not try to continue to act as the attorney general.

Yes, I believe it would be in the best nation -- interests of our country if he resigned.

BLITZER: Let me play for you something that's just coming in right now. I want you to listen to what the president just told FOX News moments ago about the former White House Counsel, Don McGahn. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, I have had him testifying already for 30 hours.

QUESTION: So is the answer no?

TRUMP: And it's really -- so, I don't think I can let him and then tell everybody else you can't, because especially him, because he was a counsel. So they have testified for many hours, all of them, many, many, people.

QUESTION: So, as far as you're concerned, it's really -- it's kind of done? It's done?

TRUMP: It's a blanket. I can't say, well, one can't and the others can.

QUESTION: OK. So, is it done?

TRUMP: I would say it's done. We have been through this. Nobody has ever done what I have done. I have given total transparency. It's never happened before like this.

QUESTION: So Congress should be...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: They shouldn't be looking anymore. This is all -- it's done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let me get your reaction.

First of all, he clearly doesn't want his former White House counsel, Don McGahn, to testify before Congress, even though he spent 30 hours testifying before the Mueller report. And he says you guys should not even be looking into this anymore. He says it's done.

WARNER: Well, I think we have all known that Donald Trump has not understood our three branches of government or has not really demonstrated much respect for the rule of law. I think about all the ways he's, you know, impugned the integrity of

the intelligence community, the FBI, the Justice Department repeatedly. And I think we're again getting into very dangerous ground.

I don't think there's been any president of either party that's liked it when Congress has investigated them. But the idea that this White House is going to suddenly -- and we have seen it with Barr today and we may see it if he exerts executive privilege or some of the statements he is saying where no one should go up to testify...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Do you want Don McGahn to testify?

WARNER: Of course Don McGahn should testify.

BLITZER: What if the president says he's not going to? What are you going to do?

WARNER: Well, I think then you get into questions around executive privilege.

But I think the broader question is, Wolf, is, I have heard out of this White House that there may be in a sense a full ban on White House personnel -- that's what's been reported in the press at least, that there's been musings about potentially saying nobody should go testify before Congress.

[18:25:10]

Well, in my mind, again, if we allow that to become the new normal, what would happen with this president, what with happen with a Democratic president on a going-forward basis -- again, my hope would be that that since most of this activity seems to be in the House, that you might actually have cooler heads in both parties go to this White House and say, you just can't ignore the law.

You just can't ignore the powers of Article 1, the Congress. And my hope would be that the overwhelming number of Americans, regardless of bipartisan affiliation, would say, come on, you know, this is one of the fundamentals of our democracy.

If we suddenly are ignoring those kind of rules, those kind of laws, those kind of precedents, then, frankly, what the Russians did in 2016, they are successful.

BLITZER: Yes, a lot of people thought their mission was accomplished.

I know you got to run. But let me get quick reaction to this report. It was posted on "The New York Times" today that an undercover FBI investigator met with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos just two months before the 2016 election.

Now, this is what the president and the attorney general say was spying, was spying against the Trump campaign by what they would call the deep state. Was that appropriate?

WARNER: Wolf, Mr. Papadopoulos, who shared information with a foreign diplomat who was friendly to America, and the information was that he knew that Russians had hacked Hillary Clinton and they were going to release that information to help Trump.

Now, that's a Trump campaign affiliate. Now, if the FBI had that information, and they didn't investigate, they would have been derelict in their duty. And the idea that somehow law enforcement using people that are undercover, I mean, I don't -- I didn't -- I'm frankly amazed that anyone would call that into question.

But it has been this pattern. I mean, I go out and try to visit my FBI offices on a regular basis because I feel like the FBI from this president is under constant assault. I feel the Justice Department, pre-Barr, is under constant assault. I know the intelligence community has been maligned on a regular basis by this president and this White House.

Again, I think we're in an uncharted area where respect for rule of law and the notion that you can somehow, you know, make these kind of charges that this White House makes, I hope we'd all take a deep breath.

BLITZER: Senator Warner, it was kind of you to join us. I know you have got to run. But thank you so much.

WARNER: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: We will certainly welcome you back soon, Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

WARNER: Yes, sir.

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