Fox News "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff
Interview
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Chris Wallace: Next week the House, the full House, will vote on whether President Trump abused the power of his office and obstructed Congress, charges that arose from a House Intelligence Committee investigation led by our next guest, Chairman Adam Schiff, who's a frequent target of the president. Congressman, President Trump says that this is the weakest impeachment of a president in history. He calls it impeachment lite. Here is what he said. Well, actually, excuse me. Here's what you said during the hearings about the crimes he committed.
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Adam Schiff: It was a failed effort to bribe Ukraine, a failed effort to extort Ukraine.
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Chris Wallace: But the president notes that none of that, bribery, extortion, is in the articles of impeachment. Why not?
Adam Schiff: Well, we've charged the president with abusing his power. Bribery and extortion are a subset of an abuse of power and frankly abuse of power better connotes the full range of the president's misconduct, the pattern of his misconduct, his efforts to invite Russian interference, his efforts to obstruct the inquiry into that invitation to Russia to intervene, but then most pernicious, his use of his office, his abuse of his power, to attempt to get an ally to help him cheat in the next election, sacrificing our national security, undermining the integrity of our elections. We think that abuse of power most accurately characterizes the sweep of the president's misconduct.
Chris Wallace: All right. You also accuse him -- another article of impeachment is obstructing Congress by refusing to comply with subpoenas. But on Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear cases where the House had subpoenaed the president's financial records and the Supreme Court says it wants to hear and deliberate that case. So why is going to court an impeachable offense?
Adam Schiff: Well, going to court is not an impeachable offense. Stonewalling completely, refusing to comply with the oversight of Congress, particularly during an impeachment inquiry is an impeachable offense. Indeed, Richard Nixon was about to be impeached for a far less comprehensive effort to stonewall the Congress of his day. And I would just say to my Republican colleagues, who appear to be on the verge of shirking their constitutional duty, if they're prepared to say that a president of the United States can simply say "No" to any congressional subpoena and tie up the Congress for years in litigation, it is going to have to accept corruption, malfeasance, negligence, misconduct in any future president, Democratic or Republican. Are we really prepared to go down that road? In many respects, Chris, I think this may be the most serious of the articles, because it was -- it would fundamentally alter the balance of power and allow for much greater misconduct in the chief executive of the country. The last point I'd make, Chris, is among the acts of stonewalling is the utter refusal to turn over a single document from any of the departments -- to turn over the notes, for example, of Ambassador Taylor --
Chris Wallace: Right.
Adam Schiff: -- or his cable to Secretary Pompeo. All of these things are being withheld. There is no legal basis to do so. And so, yes, the president can sue all he wants. It's a delay tactic and he's repeatedly lost in court. But that doesn't make it any less an act of obstruction.
Chris Wallace: President Trump says that if the House -- as expected -- votes articles of impeachment this week, and it goes to a Senate trial, that he would like to call you as a witness. Here he is, on you.
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Donald Trump: I think Adam Schiff is a deranged human being. I think he grew up with a complex for lots of reasons that are obvious. I think he's a very sick man.
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Adam Schiff: [laughs]
Chris Wallace: First of all, what do you think of the president's psychoanalysis? And if his lawyers call you to testify as a witness on the Senate floor, will you comply?
Adam Schiff: Well, in terms of the president's comments, I guess all I would say is this president does nothing -- if not project onto others his own misconduct. In terms of whether I'm a witness, I'm not a fact witness in any way, Chris. And the president knows that. He also wants to call the Speaker as a witness. This is merely his common tactic. And that is, he can't defend his gross misconduct. He can't defend his abuse of power.
Chris Wallace: But if --
Adam Schiff: He can't defend --
Chris Wallace: -- if I may interrupt --
Adam Schiff: -- withholding 400 million --
Chris Wallace: Excuse me.
Adam Schiff: -- in military aid --
Chris Wallace: Sir, excuse me.
Adam Schiff: -- and so, he simply attacks those --
Chris Wallace: Just for a minute. He -- I just want to pick up on the --
Adam Schiff: -- who stand up to him.
Chris Wallace: -- one point of the fact witness, because he would say --
Adam Schiff: Yeah.
Chris Wallace: -- that contact either you or a member of your staff had with the whistleblower does make you a fact witness.
Adam Schiff: Well, the fact that the whistleblower did have contact with my staff doesn't make me a fact witness. But nonetheless, nor does it make the Speaker a fact witness. This isn't about fact witnesses. There are, in fact, members of Congress who are witnesses. Senator Johnson had a discussion with the president. Senator Graham had discussions with the president about the withholding of aid. They may be fact witnesses. We didn't seek to call them; we're not seeking to make a circus out of this. But the president is because he can't defend his gross abuse of his office. He can't defend withholding military aid from an ally at war, the damage he's done to our national security. All he can do is attack. And sadly, too many of the Republican members are willing to debase themselves by doing whatever the president asks.
Chris Wallace: Finally, I want to switch to the Inspector General report, because you have weighed in on that. In 2018, you were the ranking member, the top Democrat in the minority in the Intelligence Committee. Devin Nunes, the then-Republican chair, issued a report talking about all the problems with the FISA warrants and the FBI case. You defended the FBI's use of FISA warrants to surveil Carter Page in a lengthy memo. Here you are discussing that.
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Adam Schiff: It's important for the public to see the facts -- that the FBI acted appropriately in seeking a warrant on Carter Page. They're not part of some deep state, as the president apparently would like the public to believe.
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Chris Wallace: After reading the IG's report, which discusses 17 serious errors of omission -- some would say misconduct -- on the part of the FBI, do you still think that the FBI acted appropriately, as you said there?
Adam Schiff: Well, I think this is consistent with the IG report. They were right to seek a FISA on Carter Page. And there wasn't some Deep State conspiracy. There was no spying on the Trump campaign. There was no effort to -- based on political bias -- open the investigation. It was properly predicated. But there were, nonetheless, serious abuses of FISA which were not apparent two years ago, but which have become apparent now, with 170 witnesses interviewed and two million documents reviewed by the IG. And I am glad that the IG made the recommendations that he has made, and the FBI is going to follow them. But that wasn't apparent to us two years ago. But the most significant things, I think, are that corrective steps will be taken, in terms of the FISA process, and that the IG debunked these claims by the president, by Mr. Nunes and others, of this deep state conspiracy, this improper investigation. It would have been negligent for them not to conduct this investigation.
Chris Wallace: I've just got a minute left -- because at that time, in 2018, you said the FBI and Department of Justice did not -- quote -- "omit material information." Apparently, you did not know at the time that, in fact, Steele's main Russian sources had told the FBI that he had misrepresented what that Russian source had said and that the FBI knew, at the time, that Carter Page, in fact, was acting as a contact, as an unofficial source for the CIA. Given what you know now -- we talked earlier to Director Comey, and he basically said, "I was wrong in what I represented back in 2018." Are you willing to admit that you were wrong in your defense of the FBI's FISA process?
Adam Schiff: Oh, I'm certainly willing to admit that the Inspector General found serious abuses of FISA that I was unaware of. Had I known of them, Chris, yes, I would have called out the FBI at the same time. But I think it's only fair to judge what we knew at the time, not what would be revealed two years later. But yes, there were very serious abuses of the FISA process. They need to be corrected; we need to make sure they never happen again.
Chris Wallace: Chairman Schiff, thank you. Thanks for your time. Always good to talk with you, sir.
Adam Schiff: Thank you.
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