CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's dig a little bit deeper on this story. Republican Congressman Darryl Issa of California is the chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee.

Congressman, thanks very much for joining us. Lots of unanswered questions, I know your committee is investigating other committees in Congress as well. First of all, do you believe there were White House officials beyond the Secret Service, beyond the military involved in this prostitution scandal?

REPRESENTATIVE DARRELL ISSA (R), OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM CHAIRMAN: Wolf, I share with Senator Grassley the legitimate question that the senator asked, which were there any and a denial by this administration is not good enough.

They want an actual accounting of individuals and I think that's only fair, particularly when you consider that the lack of judgment and Drew did it very well, it's not about a crime. This was not a crime in Colombia.

It is about the poor judgment and can we continue to have anybody this close to the president who has such poor judgment?

BLITZER: Do you have any evidence yet you or Senator Grassley or anyone else that White House officials may have been involved?

ISSA: I think what Senator Grassley is seeing is this pattern of some of the most responsible doing irresponsible things. We know that White House advance people were down there. They were going to clubs, too, and they were drinking.

We don't know whether or not they made such poor judgments as to have an unknown foreign national back in their hotel room or anything of the sort. The important thing, though, Wolf, is this is about the Secret Service and other professionals cleaning up what was clearly a gap in -- a loss of judgment.

But a gap in security that today didn't affect the president, but could affect a president, a vice president or cabinet member in the future and it also embarrassed the American people by Americans doing something overseas where even if it was legal was viewed as irresponsible.

BLITZER: Senator Joe Lieberman, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Oversight Committee, he says that his committee's been getting calls from whistle blowers saying this had been a problem even before this incident, prostitutes and U.S. officials in Colombia. Do you have any evidence to back that up?

ISSA: Well, we, too. We're the counterpart to Senator Lieberman's committee and we, too, have been hearing that everything from the wheels up rings off attitude to some of the reports that go back a number of years about behavior.

I think the important thing again though, Wolf, is this is clearly out there, both the House and the Senate not with a lot of open hearings to ridicule those who have already been disgraced, but with those still in responsible positions.

We need to know that they apply a fix and in this case the fix is going to be more widespread obviously because of the numbers we're seeing than anyone would have guessed.

BLITZER: Any evidence that any of the women, the 20 or 22 women who were apparently involved in this, the escorts or the prostitutes had any connections with drug cartels or foreign intelligence organizations, anything along those lines?

ISSA: Not at this time, Wolf. These were the questions that we asked the Secret Service director in addition to verifying that all of these women were over 18 and thus no U.S. law would have been broken.

So we went -- we asked those questions and they're getting us the answers. But let's understand if somebody is an agent of a foreign government that could be the hardest thing to find because if we go back to Matahari.

You know, you can in fact have people in this profession or in this sort of activity also be agents in the foreign government. It's not our number one suspicion, but it was the number one risk these people took by this reckless behavior.

BLITZER: Congressman, you're also investigating a very separate General Services Administration scandal involving a bunch of officials who were partying, shall we say, in Las Vegas to the expense of nearly $1 million in taxpayer money.

It's one thing to be stupid and irresponsible. It's another thing to be criminally charged, potentially with misconduct. Is there any evidence you're collecting that GSA officials were criminally responsible for any activity?

ISSA: Yes, Wolf. The inspector general, Brian Miller has a referral under way and a number of the areas include misuse of GSA credit cards and allegations of bribery.

This related to the contractors that they had a relationship with and used them on a no-bid basis, and no bid is an important word in government because the GSA is the agency most responsible to make sure that we do have competitive bids.

That you simply don't give your wife's cousin a big contract without it being a low bid and that's exactly what we believe happened in this case, but at GSA we believe it is more widespread and the tip of the iceberg, if you will.

BLITZER: That sounds like almost like bribery, if you will, that would be a crime.

ISSA: We believe the charges could include bribery and there could be a referral coming very shortly.

BLITZER: Define very shortly.

ISSA: In a matter of days if it hasn't already happened. The actual indictment process is one that we don't directly participate in, but the inspector general does refer criminal charges at the conclusion of the investigation. We believe he's made the case for a number of crimes that can be included.

BLITZER: Is that why that GSA official took the fifth and refused to testify before Congress?

ISSA: It certainly could include. The questions we had for him would not have caused to take the fifth, but the questions he might have been afraid of being asked as to his own criminal misconduct certainly would be justification for protecting his Fifth Amendment rights, which is what we think he did.

But he's not the only one and we believe it will be much more widespread and as we continue looking over the shoulder and working with the inspector generals throughout government. We think we're going to find a lot of conferences just like this and a lot of poor use of taxpayer's money and in some cases criminal activities.

BLITZER: Congressman Darrell Issa is the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight. Appreciate it very much, Congressman. Good luck.

ISSA: Thank you, Wolf.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source