MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Adam Schiff

Interview

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MELBER: We`re joined now by Congressman Adam Schiff, intelligence Committee chair and member of this January 6 select committee.

Thanks for joining me.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Good to be with you.

MELBER: What do you hope to find in these phone records requests? And what do you say to people who argue this perhaps sets a bad precedent of Congress investigating potentially its own members?

SCHIFF: I can`t go into any particular document or other request.

But I can tell you that the premise that you make, which is nobody is off- limits here -- that is, if any member of Congress, any member of the former administration, or the former president himself, in whatever capacity, was involved in this attack on our governance, then we are going to follow the facts where they lead.

We`re going to investigate it thoroughly. We`re going to hold people accountable. We`re going to put all this together in a comprehensive report and let the American people know who is engaged in this attack on our democracy.

So, in that sense, I think you`re absolutely right. We intend to follow the facts, be comprehensive, and nobody gets a pass.

MELBER: Right. As you say, the concept of no person above the law is something that`s been discussed a lot over the last few years.

When you look at those public reports of the tours, I mean, that`s not classified at this point. Is it possible they were valid or does it look very suspicious to you?

SCHIFF: Well, it certainly sounds very suspicious to me.

And, look, I don`t want to presume what we will find in terms of those tours and the allegations about them. I have a vague recollection on that day of seeing a group of people near one of the ends of the subway that leads to the Capitol. And I don`t mean the Metro, but I mean internal system we have, the little people mover we have in Capitol.

[18:30:04]

So, I will be as interested as anyone to get to the bottom of that and find out, were members organizing tours? For what purpose? Did they know why these people were here? Were these people there surveilling the premises?

And, of course, we have seen now on social media talks about what could be done to members in those tunnels. So, we intend to get to the bottom of it.

MELBER: Yes. No, that makes sense.

As a leader of the Intelligence Committee, you have many roles. And I want to ask you about how it`s going in Afghanistan. Do you think the president is right that the tragic deterioration of the scene that we witnessed is essentially part of any vacuum of withdrawal? Or do you think that this could have been done better as a U.S. operation?

SCHIFF: I don`t think we can accept as a premise that the chaos we saw, particularly very early on, but which has continued, was inevitable.

There were going to be difficulties, yes, when we drew out, but I think there should have been better planning involved in the evacuation, in the drawdown. We`re looking now at the intelligence. And the intelligence over the last six months was increasingly pessimistic about the Afghan government`s ability to maintain itself.

I`m not ready to reach a conclusion. Certainly, none of the intelligence suggested it would collapse overnight, the way it did, within a matter of days, that Kabul would fall. But, nonetheless, you would presume that there would be military planning along any foreseeable contingency to avoid this kind of difficulty, where we would have thousands of Americans who are at risk of being stranded.

MELBER: Yes.

SCHIFF: So, too early...

MELBER: So, Congressman, does that -- but just to put a fine point on that, though, based on what you have seen and what you`re saying publicly, not the classified stuff, do you view that as an issue with military planning or with the decision-making and policy process by President Biden?

SCHIFF: Well, I think the decision to get out is the right decision. And I completely agree with President Biden that we could be there five, 10, 15 more years, at the risk of the lives of our troops, and not have a different result at the end of the day and still see the Afghan government collapse.

But, to me -- and this is a first impression at this point -- this looks like a planning failure, a military planning failure, as to how we draw down our forces, how we evacuate our personnel. There may be more responsibility than that to go around, not just to lay it at the feet of the military.

But it seems to me the military generally draws up plans for every contingency. There are nothing but plans on the shelf about what might happen and how to use the best military, best-equipped military in the world to move our people and our friends who risked their lives with us out.

And I can`t imagine that we didn`t have a plan for a rapid collapse. So, we`re going to have to do, I think, an extensive look, not just at the last two weeks, but of the last 20 years and why, after all that blood and treasure, we succeeded in protecting the country from another 9/11, but we have failed to stand up a government that the Afghans would fight for.

MELBER: Yes, all important points, and you`re very close to it.

On more than one issue here, Congressman Adam Schiff, Chairman, thank you so much, sir.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

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