CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff

Interview

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Perspective now from Congressman Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Chairman Schiff, I just want to start with your reaction to the newly released footage of the insurrection released by the Justice Department. Do you think we will have -- I mean, I doubt it will have any impact on your Republican colleagues who continue to try to downplay what happened that day.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): It won't have an impact on them. Look, they know the truth, but they feel for whatever reason that aligning themselves with the President's lies is the future of their party and it is incredibly destructive. We really depend on two functional parties in the country. We only have one. And we have a cult of personality around the former President.

But still, it still makes a difference, Anderson, because the public sees it and a great many Americans have come to believe the lies of the former President and the lies of Kevin McCarthy and others and seeing this footage and seeing hose these Capitol Police officers were brutalized and the realization that some of those that were doing the brutalizing are former military, foreign police officers, it's a rude awakening for everyone, but hopefully, it will also help people see the lies of the former President.

COOPER: Back in the old days of the Soviet Union, it was a common tactic of the Soviet leaders and the Soviet government to try to obviously sow division in the United States and to latch on to disagreements in the United States and sort of use those as a wedge to try to, you know, gain some influence or affect policies here. Vladimir Putin is essentially now doing the same thing, only he is

parroting what G.O.P. lawmakers have been saying in terms of trying to white wash the insurrection. I mean, did you ever think a major political party, the Republican Party in this country would be on the same page as the Russian President when it came to an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol?

SCHIFF: No. I certainly didn't, but you are absolutely right. The Russians and the Soviets before them have a long history of sowing discord in the United States and I never thought I would see a situation where some of our political leaders would be in lock step with them, really attacking the foundation of our government and pushing out the lies that are aligned with Kremlin lies.

But look, the paramount example was the former President telling Bill O'Reilly when he was asked why can't you criticize Putin? The man is a killer. And his response was, "Well, are we so different?" That was I think the quintessential example of American political leaders in the G.O.P. adopting Kremlin propaganda themselves.

[20:30:22]

So, it's not new to the GOP, but it's new since the election of Donald Trump.

COOPER: And I mean again, I just -- the shamelessness of Kevin McCarthy with zero irony, saying that, you know, critic -- critiquing President Biden as having given Vladimir Putin a pass at the summit in Geneva. I mean, he's, you know, he's stood there, while the former president stood on stage with Vladimir Putin, and gave him a pass and not only a pass, but a pat on the back.

SCHIFF: Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, Kevin McCarthy was made for a period like this, where there is no truth, facts don't matter. You can just simply say whatever you want. But it's hard to find a more clear example of this than, you know, the mute Kevin McCarthy, who, well, the former president, I'd states stood shoulder to shoulder with Vladimir Putin, praising the Kremlin dictator, praising the Kremlin murderer, and taking his side over our own U.S. intelligence agencies who was mute, to now find criticism with the next president who stood up to poop and called him out on his interference in our election, the same thing the prior president had denied called him out on his adventure is a military adventurism and invasion of Ukraine, as well as the cyber attacks emanating from Russian soil, violations of human rights, the poisoning of Navalny.

So, you know, look, I think Biden hit all the right points. I think we were right to go into this summit with modest expectations, there wasn't going to be a big breakthrough. But from my point of view, just having a president act like a president, upholding our values and our interests, was awfully refreshing for the last four years.

COOPER: I'm wondering if you've learned anything more about what we learned, I guess it was two weeks ago or so. Or we could go the Justice Department under former President Trump secretly sees personal communications data from House Intelligence Committee members, including yourself, have you learned any more about the size, the scope of any accountability that may be in the pipeline?

SCHIFF: You know, I've learned a little more since then, only because we've learned of additional people that have -- had their records subpoenaed in this way. Because a lot of people Anderson thought it was spam coming into their e-mail accounts.

And this is, you know, one of the concerns we have, which is that we needed to learn about this from a generic e-mail from Apple, rather than the Justice Department coming forward and saying, hey, look, this is what was going on during the Trump era. We want to let you know about this. It was wrong. We're going to prevent this from happening again.

But I will say this --

COOPER: Wait, wait, you learned about it from Apple?

SCHIFF: Oh, yes. Yes.

COOPER: So the government didn't inform you. You just got an e-mail from Apple saying, oh, by the way this happened?

SCHIFF: Yes, the first time learned that my records have been sought by the Justice Department was when Apple sent, you know, me an e-mail. And I'm lucky that I didn't overlook it. But, you know, that, frankly, this is just a very small part of a much larger problem.

Over the last four years, the Department of Justice was horribly politicize. They intervened on the President's behalf to make whole criminal cases go away like that, involving Michael Flynn and twice pled guilty to lying to federal authorities. They moved to reduce the sentence of other people who lied for the prison like Roger Stone.

COOPER: Yes.

SCHIFF: And now we learned that they were trying to get the Justice Department including Mark Meadows, the President's former president's chief of staff, trying to get the Justice Department to intervene in overturning the election.

COOPER: Yes.

SCHIFF: So -- I, you know, the, you know, Merrick Garland's got a big job in his hands to clean up after the last four years.

COOPER: Yes, Congressman Schiff, appreciate your time. Thank you. Coming up --

SCHIFF: Thank you.

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