Interview with Representative Adam Schiff
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. intelligence sources tell CNN that top advisers to President Trump repeatedly had contact with Russian intelligence operatives during the presidential campaign. Democrats in Congress now calling for a full investigation. Joining us now is Congressman Adam Schiff. He is the ranking Democrat on the House Intel Committee. Congressman, thanks so much for being here.</s>REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Good to be with you.</s>CAMEROTA: Michael Flynn has resigned. What do you want to see happen now?</s>SCHIFF: Well, we have to investigate just the allegations that you're talking about and others as well. Really a core part of the House Intelligence Committee investigation has to be any Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, any contact with U.S. persons, anyone, frankly, that was assisting Russia's illegal activities in the United States during that campaign. So I think that has to be one of the front and center issues that we look at. We also need to look at what took place after the campaign and Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador. There's still a lot of unanswered questions. And the most significant of which, of course, was Flynn acting as some kind of solo or rogue agent in these conversations with the Russian ambassador, or was he charged to do so and raised this topic and essentially tell them not to respond to U.S. sanctions, that the Trump administration would take care of it? Was he conveying that message on behalf of others in the administration including the president.</s>CAMEROTA: Well, look, your colleague -- your Republican colleague, Congressman Jason Chaffetz, who would help in launching any sort of investigation, has said the Flynn situation has handled itself. He's resigned, nothing more to learn.</s>SCHIFF: Well, I hope that's not going to be the view on the Intelligence Committee. This may be a direction coming from the speaker, though. The speaker was asked about this yesterday, and he refused to commit to investigating Flynn's contact with the Russian ambassador. That is deeply concerning. The speaker either needs to authorize these committees, in particular the House Intelligence Committee, to investigate this, or he needs to allow an independent commission to be formed and get out of the way. But this is going to have to be investigated. The House cannot abdicate its responsibility and the Democrats on the Intelligence Committee are going to be pushing to investigate exactly this.</s>CAMEROTA: Well, look, the Republicans that we've spoken to thus far think that this is not the real story, that the real story, the real troubling story is not that perhaps Michael Flynn did have conversations with the Russian ambassador perhaps about sanctions, but that there is someone or many people in the intelligence community leaking. Here is Congressman Steve King whom we just interviewed this morning. Listen.</s>REP. STEVE KING (R), IOWA: What's most important here is the leaks that are coming out of the intelligence community that appear to be designed to politically assassinate some of the members of the Trump administration or at least weaken the Trump administration. And if you cannot trust the intelligence community to maintain classified information that's protected by law and facing with a potential 10- year sentence in the federal penitentiary, you've got to do something to clean up the intelligence community.</s>CAMEROTA: Congressman, does he have a point that classified info being leaked is the danger?</s>SCHIFF: Look, I don't support an investigation by leak. I didn't like it when the Clinton investigation was conducted that way and I don't think this investigation should be conducted that way either. At the same time, I think this is a distraction, a sideshow, it's a GOP effort, frankly, to put the leak issue front and center and ignore potential illegality in the White House. It's much less threatening to them, they don't have to contradict the president. They can still push for their tax cuts and all their jimmies without having to worry about where the evidence trail leads. But that's not going to fly. The real gravamen of the issue here is, were there Trump campaign people colluding in that election, in the hacking of Democratic institutions and the publishing of information and what was the course of events after the election? What were the Trump contacts with Russia? Were they undermining U.S. policy? And all this, of course, is in the context of Russia now ginning up military activity in eastern Ukraine, violating the missile treaty. And --</s>CAMEROTA: Yes.</s>SCHIFF: And this issue of dealing with Russia couldn't be more important.</s>CAMEROTA: Congressman, is this going to be easy to answer? The questions that you have, can't you get your hands on the transcripts from the FBI or the intel community, whoever had the intercepts, can Congress and lawmakers actually read those?</s>SCHIFF: Yes, we should be able to, and we are requesting those transcripts or any recordings or any other communications. Sean Spicer said that Flynn also texted the Russian ambassador. So we should obtain all those communications. We have already insisted that there be a preservation order for any evidence related to the Russia issue. But yes, not only I think should we get those materials and I would hope that our next gang of eight meeting we would have access to them, but also I think ultimately I'd like to see those published because the American people were misled by the Trump administration about these conversations, and I think they have the right to know exactly what was said.</s>CAMEROTA: So -- so once you get those transcript, I mean, do you need an investigation to be able to get your hands on those? And once you get those, let's say there were contacts that you aren't comfortable with, and there was discussion of easing sanctions. Then what?</s>SCHIFF: Well, first of all, we should be able to get these transcripts as a part of our oversight responsibilities, and in addition to our investigative responsibilities. If those transcripts show evidence of illegality by Flynn or others, that's something the FBI ought to be investigating and pursuing. And if there are other issues, if there are other actors within the White House that are undermining U.S. policy or acting at odds with our U.S. national security interests, they should be confronted with that. That may or may not be a criminal issue. But nonetheless, I think Democrats and Republicans feel very strongly that Russia is a bad actor. They're taking down democratic institutions not only in their own country but in Europe and attempted to do so here in the United States. So I think there's strong bipartisan support to make sure that there aren't any nefarious connections between this administration and Russian officials.</s>CAMEROTA: Congressman Adam Schiff, please keep us posted on what you learn when you can. Thank you for being on</s>NEW DAY. SCHIFF: Thank you.</s>CAMEROTA: We're following a lot of news this morning so let's right to it.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.</s>CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. We begin with breaking news. Another crisis for the Trump White House.