MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Adam Schiff

Interview

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HAYES: When Speaker Pelosi chose Liz Cheney and then chose Adam Kinzinger over the objections of their own Republican Party, it was pretty unprecedented. We -- you know, we go through the record. You can`t quite find a perfect precedent for it. But I think today showed it paid off. Today`s hearing was informative, it was respectful, it was genuinely bipartisan, and honestly, really seems like everyone is better off for it.

I want to bring in one of the Democratic members of that committee, Congressman Adam Schiff of California. And first just start on that. There was a lot of back and forth and a lot of beltway press, sort of second guessing of what went down with Kevin McCarthy`s appointments, three of the -- two of them being sort of blocked by the speaker and then this, you know, arrangement that you ended up with. But to me, it felt like I was transported into like a different universe today. And I didn`t long to go to the alternate universe of Jim Jordan up on the dais. How did you feel as a member of that committee?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, it`s interesting that you had introduced the segment this way because that was exactly my feeling walking out of that hearing today, which is my God, we got to hear from the witnesses. All the committee members, Democrats and Republicans were interested in getting to the truth. They were interested in what the witnesses had to say was about them and their experience.

And it was so breath -- you know, breathtaking in that it was how hearing shouldn`t be done. So,yes, very different experience than if we had the McCarthy disrupters on the committee. And I think it was a tribute to these officers, the way it should have been, we -- that we heard what they had to say.

[20:25:34]

HAYES: I want to play something that Congresswoman Cheney said. She has been very clear about subpoenas and the use of those subpoenas. She even mentioned today the possibility of members of Congress being called as witnesses. Here`s what she had to say. Take a listen.

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CHENEY: Congressman Jordan may well be a material witness. He`s somebody who was involved in a number of meetings in the lead-up to what happened on January 6, involved in planning for January 6, certainly for the objections that day, as he said publicly, so he may well be a material witness.

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HAYES: Can you imagine calling members of Congress as witnesses in this committee?

SCHIFF: I can. You know, I think that all of the members are determined to get to the truth and follow the evidence where it leads of people with relevant knowledge of what went into the planning of that violent attack on the Capitol. They may very well beat material witnesses, as Liz Cheney has to say.

So, no one is off the table. And, you know, at the end of the day, if we`re going to produce a comprehensive report that makes recommendations about how to protect the country going forward, we can`t afford to say, we won`t look at this area. We`re going to willfully have a blind spot. So, yes, we`ll go where the evidence leads us.

HAYES: I have to say, and I don`t know if you`re going to be able to answer this, honestly, on the record on TV, but I`ll ask it anyway. In my conversations with members of Congress, both on air and off, on the record and off and in my reporting on this, you always come up against this sense from people that there`s more to that day than we currently know and that they kind of know, there`s more than we know, but can`t say anything about it. That is what I have encountered.

Now, that might not be true, it might not -- It might be. Why does that keep coming up? Why do I keep getting that sense in every interaction that I have reporting on that day?

SCHIFF: Well, I`m not going to give you that sense, Chris, because I really have a lot of unanswered questions. And I have pre-determined conclusions. But you know, I will say this. Those insurrectionists, many of them, they believed what they were doing was ordered by the commander in chief. They believe that the election had been stolen. And a lot of my colleagues in Congress that were pushing the big lie, no, it was a lie.

And in that sense, they`re as culpable as anyone because they understood that they were laying the foundation for, you know, a real diminution of our democracy, a breakdown of our institutions. But in terms of whether we already know significant facts that are not public, I can`t say that I do. We`re trying to find out just in the Intelligence Committee before the select committee what do the intelligence say, why were we so ill-prepared, and we still don`t have the answers.

HAYES: There was a development today for the Department of Justice pertaining to Department of Justice policy about former Trump administration officials testifying before the committee. Now, normally, this is sort of zealously guarded by the executive. They tell -- tend to take a very broad interpretation of executive privilege, and not love Congress calling around them.

But a letter today to a former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen saying the extraordinary events in this matter constitute exceptional circumstances warranting an accommodation to Congress in this case. That`s about the possibility of testifying. How important is that to your committee?

SCHIFF: Oh, it`s very important. It means that one of the major obstacles that we encountered over the last four years and getting answers may not be an obstacle. That is, there may be people in the Trump administration that we need to testify, and they may fight it. But we won`t be fighting the Justice Department at the same side at the same time.

And if it does go to court, we will have the Justice Department making the argument with us, not against us. So, that`s huge. And you`re right, it doesn`t come easily, it doesn`t come naturally to the executive branch that wants to preserve even the possibility of a privileged someday. So, I consider that a very, very good sign.

HAYES: All right, Congressman Adam Schiff, who is on that committee, we`ll be hearing more from you in the weeks and months ahead. Thank you very much.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

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