MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff

Interview

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Congressman Adam Schiff a member of the committee issued this statement. "At the 11th hour Mr. Clark has agreed to appear before our committee once again, this time to assert a Fifth Amendment privilege against self- incrimination. Mr. Clark makes the assertion that answering particular questions about the scheme to overturn the election would tend to incriminate him, that is a weighty matter, and the committee will soberly assess whether that privilege has been properly invoked.

And joining us now is Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff of California. He is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and he`s a member of the January 6th Select Committee.

[22:39:45]

O`DONNELL: Congressman Schiff, the Fifth Amendment -- invoking the Fifth Amendment means that you personally believe as you invoke it that you did commit or may have committed a crime and answering this question might bring you closer to prosecution and conviction for committing that crime.

But people sometimes hide behind the Fifth Amendment when they really aren`t likely to be self-incriminating. How does the congressional committee determine whether the Fifth Amendment is being properly invoked?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, it`s a good question, Lawrence. And just to give some of the chronology here. For weeks we tried to get Mr. Clark to come before the committee.

Ultimately we were forced to subpoena him. We then brought him before the committee. He refused to answer pertinent questions and he gave a wide ranging, you know, set of excuses, assertions of different purported privileges, not the Fifth Amendment however, which didn`t seem to have a good faith basis.

And it wasn`t sufficient to merely show up and say I`m not going to answer any questions without being willing to state what is the particular privilege you`re asserting.

For example, Lawrence, I asked him about a conversation that he had with a reporter about January 6th. There was no conceivable privilege covering a conversation he had with the press. But he still refused to answer questions about it.

Now he is asserting at the 11th hour when he was going to be held in contempt a Fifth Amendment privilege. Now Fifth Amendment doesn`t apply if what he is really trying to do is not protect himself from incrimination but protect Donald Trump from incrimination.

And in terms of how the committee will ascertain whether he is invoking that in good faith we will have to assess that when he comes and testifies. Whether he is invoking the Fifth in a wholesale manner as to matters that there cannot be a factual basis for that claim or whether he is invoking it in good faith.

We take the Fifth Amendment very seriously but we`re going to have to assess it after his testimony.

O`DONNELL: Let`s for the moment assume he is invoking the Fifth Amendment in good faith which is to say he is invoking it because he believes he committed a crime. Doesn`t that suggest that Merrick Garland`s Justice Department should be all the more urgently criminally investigating what Jeffrey Clark was up to and who he was up to that -- who was with him in what he was up to?

SCHIFF: Lawrence, I want to be careful about answering your question. I don`t want it to be a basis for him to make any claim at his deposition on Saturday. But I will say generally that I think that the Justice Department ought to be investigating for example as I`ve said the former president`s actions in trying to overturn the election in Georgia.

In particular his call to the secretary of state where he asked Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes that don`t exist. Any effort to overturn a lawful election as we appear to have witnessed with Donald Trump after the investigation.

I don`t want to talk more specifically about Mr. Clark but I will say according to his lawyer at the 11th hour he is making the assertion he did not make when he appeared before our committee only weeks ago that he believes his answers at least to some questions might incriminate him.

Now the questions that are most pertinent here are ones that go to efforts to get Georgia to withhold the slate of electors or maybe send a slate that doesn`t represent what the voters in that decided as well as what an effort to similarly other states withhold their electors as well.

O`DONNELL: It would seem that the Justice Department now headed by Merrick Garland, has a special responsibility to hold Jeffrey Clark accountable and accountable to the committee`s demands. Otherwise the Justice Department then starts to appear to be basically helping a former Justice Department official slowly get away with whatever he was trying to get away with.

SCHIFF: Well, I think you are right, Lawrence. We should consider the fact, too, that Jeffrey Clark`s superiors at the Justice Department have already come in and testified. So in terms of any claim of privilege, executive privilege, the fact that those even above him in higher positions did not assert any privilege is pretty telling when someone at a lower level is trying to claim that. They also didn`t assert any Fifth Amendment privilege.

Now, Mr. Clark may have a particular reason why he believes that his testimony would incriminate him. Again, we`ll have to evaluate that as it comes. But should we decide that it is a valid privilege as to certain questions. Even then that might not be the end of the story. We could explore potentially with the Justice Department whether there is an order, some form of immunity.

[22:44:54]

SCHIFF: But I don`t want to, you know, cross that bridge before we see whether this indication is in good faith or bad faith. So far, I think, in his prior appearance before the committee he was not acting in good faith.

O`DONNELL: Congressman Adam Schiff, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it.

SCHIFF: Thank you, Lawrence.

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