CBS "Face the Nation" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jim Himes
Interview
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MARGARET BRENNAN: We're back now with the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Jim Himes. He joins us from his district in Stamford, Connecticut. Good morning to you. Congressman, you-- you heard the White House case as laid out by Kellyanne Conway. Is there a chance that the House actually doesn't move ahead with impeachment?
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES (D-Connecticut/@jahimes/Intelligence Committee): Yeah. Case is an interesting way to put what Kellyanne Conway just did. I was keeping pretty close track, and I'm pretty sure that every single one of her assertions was inaccurate. Let me give you the big example, and then I'll come back around to your question. She said, hey, nothing happened here. The aide was released and the meeting happened. Now, you could look this up because I understand that the White House is all about making facts slippery, but both of those things happened. The aide was released and the meeting happened, not in the Oval Office. But the aide was released and the meeting happened after they were caught, after September 9th when the inspector general of the intelligence community came to Congress and said, there's this whistleblower complaint. And the White House, by the way, had seen that complaint. So when the jig was up, yes, then the aid was released once they were caught. But she's also wrong, just to get back to your question, I haven't spoken to all two hundred and forty or so of my colleagues, but-- but I don't think any Democrat in the Congress looked at what happened over the last two weeks and said, gosh, there's nothing there. Much to the contrary. Like the American public that was paying attention, my colleagues saw an ambassador fired for corrupt purposes, saw aid being held up, ad by the way, you know, she--
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: --Kellyanne Conway may quibble about-- about what Sondland said. The Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said there was a quid pro quo, and we should get over it. So, no, there's not a Democrat who watched the last two weeks and said, gosh, this is a weaker case than I thought it was.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So there are no scheduled hearings left. What-- what is left to investigate? The case doesn't seem to be closed.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, you know, it's a little bit of a hard question to answer because, you know, again, whether you're Kellyanne Conway or Jim Himes, one thing is true, which is-- is that every single day and every single piece of testimony brought up new information. It might have been Laura Cooper who came to us, and the first thing she said was, look, I know the administration is saying the Ukrainians didn't know about this until late August, something that Kellyanne Conway repeated this morning, but she came to us in open testimony and said my office was actually queried by the Ukrainians in July. And I tell you that story because whether it's that or Bill Taylor appearing and saying--
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: --oh my gosh, there was this phone call that was overheard where the President asked about the investigations. Every single day provides new and incriminating evidence. So it's a little hard to tell you that this thing is done. Look, the thing we need before we get into talking to Pompeo or Giuliani or anybody else. We need the e-mails and the paperwork that we have subpoenaed from the State Department and from the White House so we can look at what people actually said to each other. That's the critical thing here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: As far as we know, there's no intention of handing them over. Are you in talks to actually have them deliver?
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, we are. We're pressing. And-- and look, this is another thing that we and the American people--
MARGARET BRENNAN: You think you will get those documents released?
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: I don't know. Look, it's the decision of the White House and the decision of the Secretary of State. But the American people need to consider what is involved in the future if the President and the State Department can just tell Congress to go get lost.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What about--
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: That ends oversight. That ends the separation of powers. And that's a very scary thing.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Chairman Schiff said this morning that the committee is talking to Lev Parnas. He is one of the indicted associates of Rudy Giuliani. How far along is that? Do you think you need to hear from him?
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, again, I think it will be very interesting to hear what he has to say, because, of course, he was wrapped up in the other half of this that we don't know a lot about, which is what the heck Rudy Giuliani was doing in Ukraine. Obviously, Rudy Giuliani, private citizen affiliated with the President, was instrumental in firing an extraordinary public servant--
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: --Marie Yovanovitch. So, I think Lev Parnas can shed some light on the whole unseemly activity that-- that Giuliani was up to in the Ukraine.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, and his attorney says he-- he would be willing to talk to your committee. One of the other things that his attorney has told news organizations like The Washington Post and CNN is that the ranking Republican on House intelligence, Devin Nunes, was in contact and trying to dig up dirt in Ukraine on Joe Biden. Is this a credible allegation? Is this something you are going to investigate?
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, so if you watched Devin Nunes for five minutes in these hearings, you know that he has given over to the utterly to the defense of the President and more importantly, to the propagation of fantastical conspiracy theories like this notion that the President keeps pushing that the Crowdstrike company, which, apparently, is a Ukrainian company, despite the fact, as you pointed out, it's actually a California-based company. Devin Nunes has given himself over to the search for and propagation of wild conspiracy theories, which, by the way, at their source are about Russian intelligence. So, this whole Ukrainian meddling in the election of 2016 has zero evidence for it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: And it is deliberately propagated by the Russian state in order to create confusion. So, is it credible? And I-- look, I-- I don't know what happened on that trip, but the allegation is that Devin Nunes used federal funds to fly himself--
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: --and a couple of staffers over there in the search of dirt-- dirt on Biden. That's actually what the President is accused of doing, misusing public dollars for a political purpose. Look, I haven't seen evidence one way or the other, but obviously--
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: --Mister Parnas may be able to cast some light on that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we will see what happens. Some of your colleagues have called for the Ethics Committee to investigate. We'll have to leave it there, though.
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