NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff
Interview
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CHUCK TODD:
And joining me now is the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff. Congressman Schiff, welcome back to Meet the Press.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Thank you. Great to be with you.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me start with this, you've said that you can continue to investigate while also compiling your report. How does -- what does that look like? And is that more for show or is there w -- do you have some evidence that more investigation is going to happen next week?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Certainly not for show. I mean, there is more work to be done, but at the same time we've already accumulated quite overwhelming evidence that the president once again sought foreign interference in an election, conditioned official acts, a White House meeting that Ukraine desperately wanted, as well as $400 million of bipartisan taxpayer funding to get these political investigations that he thought would help his reelection. So, you know, we view this as urgent. We have another election in which the president is threatening more foreign interference, but at the same time there are still other witnesses, other documents that we would like to obtain, but we're not willing to go the months and months and months of rope-a-dope in the courts which the administration would more than love for us to do.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, you have somebody right now, Lev Parnas, the -- who, according to his attorney, this is one of the associates of Mr. Giuliani that apparently was always with him on these Ukraine trips and may have been involved in a campaign finance scheme that's being investigated right now. He says he has some things to talk to Congress about. Are you going to hear from him?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Well, we have already subpoenaed him for documents and we're in discussions with the Southern District of New York, so we are pursuing it, but at the same time we'd like to know what the documents have to say before we make a decision about witnesses. This is why we've subpoenaed Pompeo for documents and others for documents. As we saw during the hearings that we had, those documents can be awfully important to knowing the right questions to ask.
CHUCK TODD:
You just got some documents actually. A FOIA investigation, you know, a FOIA request --
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
-- by an outside group ended up getting some documents that raised some more questions that tie Rudy Giuliani -- confirm some phone calls between Rudy Giuliani and the Secretary of State. Confirm -- and you'd gotten those articles that Giuliani was spreading around from the State Department's IG. So, there's more documents, again, more evidence.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Well, the --
CHUCK TODD:
I want to put -- I mean, you have all these open leads. It just seems odd that you're stopping.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Well, we're not --
CHUCK TODD:
I mean, look at all these open leads.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Yes, Chuck, it's --
CHUCK TODD:
You have Bolton, you have the energy deal, the --
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
It's important to know we're not stopping, but it's also important to know this, Chuck, and you've acknowledged this, and I find this remarkable, the evidence is already overwhelming, right? The evidence is already overwhelming. The questions is not --
CHUCK TODD:
But you're not in a courtroom. You know that.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Well --
CHUCK TODD:
You have a political bar you have to meet.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
That's true. That's true. But the fact that Republicans may be derelict in their responsibility doesn't relieve us of our obligation to do our Constitutional duty. And we feel an urgency about that. So, even as we compile this report, even as we submit evidence to the Judiciary Committee, we're going to continue with our investigation, but we are not going to let the administration stonewalling us stop us. And if people are acknowledging, and I think they're quite right, that the evidence is overwhelming, then you have to ask, "What more would be necessary to show Republicans? Indeed, is there anything that could move Republicans?" --
CHUCK TODD:
Well, let me give you one example --
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
I would hope, I would hope they'll do their duty.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me give you one example because it's one that a lot of Republicans are hanging their hat on, that if there is one piece of evidence you have not been able to surface, it is direct -- it is this idea that the president -- when did he order that the aid, itself, was to be withheld as a quid pro quo. You only have Gordon Sondland saying that it was the meeting --
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
No, we have the --
CHUCK TODD:
It was the meeting, it was the meeting and he assumed it. You don't have the direct. This is how -- they're hanging their hat on it.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
No, no, I realize that.
CHUCK TODD:
And you could say it's a thin reed, but is a reed.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Chuck, let's look at this. First, they hung their hat on there's no evidence of a quid pro quo. Then there was overwhelming evidence of a quid pro quo. Now, some are hanging their hat on, well, what's your evidence that the president withheld the military aid. The president's own chief of staff has admitted they withheld the military aid to get this investigation, this crazy DNC server investigation, which is part of a Russian disinformation campaign. The president's own chief of staff. I mean, they seem to be saying unless Donald Trump writes out, "I bribed Ukraine," the evidence will be insufficient. What every juror is told, and I don't think that the Senate is different than a jury here, at least it shouldn't be, is they don't leave their common sense at the door. There was no plausible explanation but one, and that was the president wanted this leverage to get Ukraine to do his political dirty work.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you -- are you going to be a House Impeachment Manager?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
That'll be up to the Speaker.
CHUCK TODD:
That's up to the Speaker?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
Would you like to be one? Would you like to be one of the prosecutors?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
I don't, I don't want to get ahead of where with are, which is we haven't even brought up articles, made a decision about articles.
CHUCK TODD:
Is it possible you don't -- that articles are not filed this year?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
I don't want to prejudge the outcome here. I do think the evidence, the facts of what the president did, are really not contested. They're largely not contested. That's the remarkable thing. So, the question is, knowing the president sought foreign interference in an election, knowing that he conditioned official acts to get political favors, are we prepared to say that that's okay, that's consistent with the duties of the office? And I will say this, members are going to have to think hard about two things. One, the knowledge that if we do nothing, it is very likely the president will do this again. But second, are Republicans prepared to say that they will allow this president and any future president to simply stonewall the Congress and refuse to provide evidence? And if they do, it means that the impeachment clause is a nullity. And more than that, it means that our oversight ability is also a nullity.
CHUCK TODD:
I know where you are on the whistleblower and the belief that you really don't need to hear from the whistleblower anymore, but you did pledge that the Intelligence Committee would hear from the whistleblower in some form or another. Are you going to fulfill that pledge?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
We had a deep interest in having the whistleblower testify until two things happened. One, we were able to prove everything in the whistleblower complaint with witnesses that had firsthand information, and second, the president and his allies effectively put that whistleblower's life in danger. The president said the whistleblower and others should be treated as a traitor or a spy and we ought to use the penalty we used to use for traitors and spies, and that's the death penalty. So, here's the thing, Chuck, we don't need the whistleblower's secondhand evidence anymore. It would only serve to endanger this person and to gratify the president's desire for retribution, and that is not a good enough reason to bring in the whistleblower.
CHUCK TODD:
And one last thing, on the Senate trial, is one of the reasons you're not going to fight to try to -- in the courts right now for Bolton is that you believe - -there's this theory that's been on, I think, Talking Points Memo, a liberal news organization, Josh Marshall. There's a legal theory running around that it's a lot easier to get the Chief Justice to compel John Bolton to testify at a Senate trial than it would be waiting around to get him to Congress. Do you buy into that theory?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
I think that may very well be true. Now, people like John Bolton, whose deputies had the courage to come in and testify, are going to have to answer one day why they saved what they knew for a book rather than tell the country when the country needed to know. But I do think that when it comes to documents and witnesses, that if it comes to a trial, and again we're getting far down the road here, that the Chief Justice will have to make a decision on requests for witnesses and documents. And, and so, I don't envy that job for the Chief Justice --
CHUCK TODD:
He may say that you should be a witness. They may want to call you.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Well, look --
CHUCK TODD:
Are you ready?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
-- if the Senate wants to call me as a witness, then they pretty much made the decision not to take this process seriously. I'm not a fact witness. I was the chairman of one of the committees doing an investigation. I am not in the shoes of a special counsel. I don't work for the Justice Department. All I can relate is what the witnesses said in deposition and in the open hearings, and that's no reason to call me as a witness.
CHUCK TODD:
Adam Schiff, I'm going to leave it there. Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. So, right now, no public hearings scheduled for any time in the rest of this year?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Well, we don't foreclose the possibility of others.
CHUCK TODD:
Alright. Adam Schiff, Democrat from California. Thanks for coming on and sharing your views.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF:
Thank you.
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