CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jim Himes

Interview

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COOPER: There's breaking news on Capitol Hill and the Senate committee's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Last week, as you may know, the committee's Republican chairman, Senator Richard Burr, told CBS News they had not seen any evidence indicating collusion.

Late this afternoon, top Democrat on the committee, Senator Mark Warner, broke with Burr saying, and I quote: Respectfully, I disagree. I'm not going to get into any conclusions I've reached because my basis of this has been that I'm not going to reach any conclusion until we finish the investigation. And we still have a number of key witnesses to come back.

The split between the two senators is significant, because it's rare, frankly. Their committee has generally operated smoothly without the partisan divisions that ensnared their House colleagues.

Congressman Jim Himes is on the House Intelligence Committee and I spoke to him just before airtime.

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COOPER: Congressman Himes, I wonder what you make of this very public split between Senators Warner and Burr, given that the intelligence committee in the Senate, unlike the House, has worked well together in a bipartisan way.

REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Yes, I'm not sure I'd read too much into it just now, Anderson. Look, there are still witnesses to be called on the Senate side, there's still a final report to be written, and, of course, the very word "collusion," which is the word over which Senators Burr and Warner split is subject to a lot of different interpretations.

So I'm encouraging people to remember that you've got three investigations out there, House, Senate, and the Mueller investigation. It's probably best that we wait and see what they actually say in their final versions before we get too excited about any potential outcome. That, of course, Anderson, points to the need for Mueller's investigation to actually be reported to the American people, so that we get finality, whichever way the truth points us.

COOPER: A Democratic aide told CNN that none of the facts are in dispute, only what those facts mean. Is that -- I mean, is that what it could come down to, you think? One set of facts with two different conclusions?

HIMES: Well, that's possible. I mean, again, consider the word "collusion," right? Collusion is actually not a legal term. There's no particular definition of it.

Is it collusion when the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., invites Russians to Trump Tower in order to give him dirt on the political opponent? Is it collusion, you know, the conversations that we still don't know much about that Manafort, when he was running president Trump's campaign had with Konstantin Kilimnik, this individual who has ties to Russian intelligence?

Again, we know there was all kinds of communication back and forth. We know that almost everybody who had that communication lied about it, so at the end of the day, again, I would urge caution here. The facts will out. People will determine whether it rises to the level of collusion when those facts are out.

And, of course, if we point to things like conspiracy, then, of course, you get into the legal realm about whether anyone needs to be held accountable for that. But it's too early to draw those conclusions just yet.

COOPER: The other conclusion is whether or not there is any evidence whether the president himself or even candidate Trump knew of any of what some might call collusion, if it's Donald Trump Jr. meeting with the Russians. Or other things like that.

HIMES: That's a good question. I mean, obviously, if the president knew that these contacts were going on, authorized these contacts, if the president said, hey, and I'm not saying I have any evidence that this happened, but if the president said, hey, yeah, let's continue these conversations, Russia wants X, Y, Z, that gets you pretty close to anybody's definition of collusion.

Now, we don't know some big things, right? We don't know, for example, whether the president's son told his father about the meeting that he had with the Russians. Steve Bannon certainly says it's a zero percent probability he didn't. So what did the president say?

We may not know that until we know what Bob Mueller was able to get from the president when he got answers to those questions. So, again, the thing to do right now is to sort of wait until these things are done, draw conclusions afterwards.

COOPER: And just lastly, in terms of Michael Cohen, Senator Burr said today in the wake of Cohen delaying his testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee yet again that any goodwill that may have existed is now gone. At this point, do you expect Cohen to actually honor his commitment to appear in front of your committee on February 28th, as he's scheduled to?

HIMES: I do. We have had a couple of false starts with that, I do expect him to.

Look, at the end of the day, if Congress wants you here, you come. If you don't appear voluntarily and Congress thinks it's important, you will be subpoenaed. And who knows? Some witnesses prefer to be subpoenaed.

But my point is, particularly around issues of, is there a compromise at the United States government, you know, is there an issue with Russia, what can we learn about how to avoid what happened in the past? It's not voluntary. If you get asked, you come. If you don't come, you get suspected.

So I do anticipate that one way or another, we're going to see Michael Cohen here in the Congress.

COOPER: Congressman Himes, thanks very much. Appreciate it.

HIMES: Thank you, Anderson.

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