CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT)

Interview

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BLITZER: Important information indeed. Shimon, thank you very much.

Joining us now, Democratic congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut. He's a member of the Intelligence Committee. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

REP. JIM HIMES (D), CONNECTICUT: Good evening, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's begin with your reaction to CNN's exclusive new report. You just heard it. Does this new information about blocked phone numbers not belonging to then-candidate Trump throw cold water on the notion that Donald Trump was looped in on that high-level talk with Russian officials at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign?

HIMES: Well, if CNN's reports are right and, in fact, those were calls to, I guess, business associates, that would certainly tick off one of the items on our list, which is not a short list, of follow-ups that we had, certainly on the House Intelligence Committee, with respect to the interviews that we did.

Now, it wouldn't necessarily prove that there hadn't been communication between Don Jr. and his father. And frankly, if the call had been to his father, it wouldn't prove that they'd necessarily had discussed the meeting with the Russians, which -- which was of such interest, of course, to the committee.

So it strikes me as mainly just ticking off one of the things on the list that we wanted to see, assuming that we get to see that. Remember, there were all sorts of people. There were other follow-ups that we wanted to see. And now of course, that the Democrats do control the House, we will have an opportunity to go through and not just get that but follow up on all of the other items that we thought -- any comprehensive investigation would want to look at.

BLITZER: Have you received similar evidence in the House Intelligence Committee, along the lines of what the Senate has received?

HIMES: We have not yet. In fact, the House Intelligence Committee has only yesterday really been re-created for this Congress when Minority Leader McCarthy appointed the Republican members. So we actually have yet to meet as a committee on the House side in this Congress.

BLITZER: Have you seen any evidence, Congressman, that Donald Trump Jr. did contact his father in some other way, perhaps?

HIMES: Not specific evidence. In other words, you know, again, if the CNN report is right, that those phone calls are not to his father, that rules out that he used that phone to call his father.

But that doesn't mean that there wasn't communication. Remember Steve Bannon, in his famous statement in his book said the probability that Don Jr. didn't run upstairs to his father's office to talk about this was -- I think the word he used, the probability was zero.

So there's lots of ways to talk to your dad. The right way to find out whether that communication happened, of course, would be to get Don Jr. to actually answer the question, something that he refused to do, as you point out, because he claimed privilege.

BLITZER: Let's move on to Robert Mueller's investigation. He says that prosecutors have now collected voluminous and complex evidence on Roger Stone spanning years. What does that tell you about the case he's building against Stone in the overall Russia investigation?

HIMES: Well, I guess what you can conclude is that there is more going on than we know, based on the charges that were leveled at Roger Stone, chief amongst them, of course, being lying to Congress.

Warrants, search warrants and seizures are usually very specific in what it is that you can take. The police can't go into your house and just take everything because it might be interesting. Warrants are usually very specific, and they say you can take the following things because there is the following logic for you having those things as law enforcement.

So the fact that it's as broad as it is certainly piques my interest. Because you know, the charge is lying to Congress and interfering with an official investigation; but if that's true, why are bank records and all these other things that apparently were seized necessary?

So that raises some pretty interesting questions. And, of course, chief amongst those questions is, is this really a lot broader than simply lying?

BLITZER: Let's move on to some other breaking news. The president now claiming that his intelligence chiefs say, the president claims that they told him they were misquoted when they publicly contradicted him during congressional testimony yesterday.

What's your analysis of this latest development, this rift that has developed between the president and his top intelligence chiefs?

[17:20:09] HIMES: You know, Wolf, it just could not be more embarrassing for the president or for the country. You know, Gina Haspel, Director Coats, these are some of the most serious people out there, people who oversee other people, who risk their lives every single day.

So to trot them into the Oval Office for this -- this photo shoot today during the intelligence briefing, and then to have the president say that they said that it was fake news -- that is not language that Gina Haspel or Director Coats uses. So the president is simply lying to the American people here. And he said go read the transcript. Look, you even don't need to go read the transcript. Look at the video of what they said.

They said that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. They did not mention the supposed crisis on our southern border in a threat, worldwide threats hearing. Didn't even mention it. Did not say that ISIS was defeated. In fact, said that ISIS continued to be a threat. North Korea, not denuclearizing.

Again, it's like -- it's like watching a 4-year-old boy say that what is evidently and obviously true to everybody else is not true.

So I think what's happening here is that the president is just speaking again to his base, in which there is no objective reality except what President Trump says; and then also hoping to move on. Because, of course, it's not comfortable for Republicans in Congress to be asked the question, you know, "Who do you believe? Do you believe the president or do you believe the director of the CIA?"

I think this is the president's attempt to get past that very embarrassing, very frightening moment in which he said, "My intelligence people are wrong."

BLITZER: And he said yesterday they should go back to school.

But I just want to be precise. You're suggesting -- and correct me if I'm wrong, Congressman -- that the president is now lying when he says that Gina Haspel or Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, claimed in this briefing they gave the president this afternoon that the news media made all of this up, and this was all fake news.

HIMES: There is no way -- and I know these people. There is no way that, in the Oval Office, they said, "This is fake news. The media made this all up." I can't imagine what they said. Can you imagine that moment?

And again, these are very serious professionals, the most serious professionals we have in the United States government. And there they are, with a president, you know, who told them that they need to go back to school and that he disagrees with them.

There is no way on God's green earth that the director of the CIA said, "Oh, Mr. President, that was all fake news." The president made that up.

And again, look, you know, this is not a -- this is not a contestable argument, right? We know exactly what they said, and we know exactly what the president has said; and those two things are pretty radically at odds. And so, under those circumstances, there is no way that a serious person sides with the president and says, "Oh, everything I said yesterday in front of the United States Congress was misinterpreted, was fake news." That did not happen.

BLITZER: Yes. Maybe the president forgot that everything that the leadership of the intelligence community said yesterday was on camera, and we have the actual video precisely of what they said.

Congressman Jim Himes, thank you so much for joining us.

HIMES: Thank you, Wolf.

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