agenda. when the house comes a decision come alive coverage here on c-span. tonight, mike pompeo's remarks on the ministration's new strategy for iran. he spoke at the heritage foundation this morning and it can see the attached page tonight starting at 10:00 p.m. eastern. historyr: c-span, where unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service, by america's cable television companies. today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington dc and around the country, c-span brought to you by your cable and or satellite provider. california congressman adam schiff comes to newsmakers this week, he is the lead to democrat on the house intelligence

committee. he is in his ninth term in congress and his position on the intelligence committee makes him part of congress' gang of eight, the group that has access to the most secret intelligence information in congress. thank you for being with us. >> my pleasure. >> let me introduce the two journalists who will be asking questions. on this one year anniversary of the molar investigation, we have so much to ask you about. >> it looked for the past several weeks that president trump and kim jong on were on track to have a dozen summit meeting in early june in

singapore. and then all of a sudden this week, the north koreans started to make unfriendly noises, saying that if this conversation was only getting rid of our nuclear program, we are not interested. why have the north koreans turned around on this, and is this summit meeting in peril? rep. schiff: i don't think the summit meeting is in peril, and it isn't surprising that we have seen this tactic. i think it would be surprising if the north koreans had some sudden deep with any and were ready to come hat in hand and get rid of their missile program and in the nuclear program. this is their tradition. they go through broad periods followed by short periods and they use various stratagems to cash strategies to improve -- stratagems to improve their leverage at the bargaining table and seek to divide the alliance against them. so we need to fully expect it. if the president was going into this was some expectation that he had won over kim jong-un by saber rattling, that is a naive expectation.

so this is going to be difficult. and of course, when we have been able to successfully enter agreements with north korea they have cheated. so one thing that is going to be essential is having a strong verification regime. but i still think this is going to go forward. what worries me is, our president seems so desperate now for an agreement, having walked out of the iran agreement, having pledged so much and built up so much of an expectation, that things will be different, he has a great relationship now with kim jong-un. kim jong-un may have concluded that the president of the united states needs this now much more than he does, and that puts us in a weaker position. >> you think he is too eager to get a deal now, having talked about war for months, that he is too eager to get a deal? schiff: i think it is a

risk. he is saying things like the north koreans are going to be so happy with the deal. we are going to guarantee there is no regime change. we are going to guarantee the personal security of the north korean dictator. those are pretty dramatic promises and concessions, even before you sit down together. and i will add one more than -- that deeply worries me. that is, this week we had this inexplicable statement from the president about zte, this chinese telecom and he is basically going to reverse course. this is a company we sanctioned for cheating on the north korean and iran sanctions, and lying to us about it. so we are going to reverse course and unsanctioned up -- unsanctioned them because we are worried about chinese jobs? this makes no sense whatsoever, except for two possibilities and one is that the president is so desperate for an agreement that he is willing to give china anything, if they will help, unsuding on sanctioning --

whenoning this company , our intel committee on a bipartisan basis has concluded there is a very real cyber security and espionage risk of using this equipment. , that hene possibility needs of the deal that bad. and another possibility which is , equally disturbing and that is that the reversal on zte came on the same week that china decided to invest $500 million in a donald trump related property in indonesia. the emoluments clause was designed to prevent us from having to wonder, is that the motivation here? but we have to -- but nonetheless, we have to ask what is behind this otherwise inexplicable change of course? host: nicholas? >> turning to a domestic issue. yesterday was though one year anniversary of the robert mueller investigation. the campaignto

team and the russians, i wonder, you've spent time investigating what has gone on, if you see patterns emerging, and if you think that the investigation will wrap up any time soon as the president would like it to? rep. schiff: i do not see a wrapping up soon. part of the reason is, as we have looked into matters and robert mueller has looked into matters, you find more and more concern that needs to be investigated and vetted. in many respects, it has brought in. we saw that with the search of michael: and his residence. when i saw that, my gut reaction was, this is very unusual to search a lawyer. this was not just a lawyer, this was the president's lawyer. they did not believe that was likely to be the case, based solely on concern over a potential campaign finance lw

violation. now we have seen in the bank statements that have been leaked or released, that there is a lot more going on here. there were a lot of payments in the multimillions o michael coh en, payments for influence over the president, who the president claims is still his lawyer. potentials a real hornets nest involving michael cohen in those transactions. but like this, there has been a multiplicity of new allegations involving potential financial impropriety, so i think that the investigation of necessity has broadened. for thoseso say this, who think the investigation has gone on a long time, having prosecuted white-collar cases, this case has moved with lightning speed. the number of people who have been indicted, the number of guilty pleas already obtained,

of those who have been indicted and pled, we are not talking about peripheral characters, we're talking about the campaign chairman, his deputy campaign of chairman, his national security adviser, one of his foreign-policy advisers, this is fairly remarkable progress, particularly when you look at other investigations that the government has conducted and we have conducted in congress. i participated in two investigations that went on for 3.5 years. so this has gone on a fraction of the time of the benghazi investigation, which produced very little. so i think that people need to be patient. certainly, the president wants it to be over and it is in his interest to make it seem like it has gone on forever and to be badgering the justice department and fbi and robert mueller.

sadly he has done that on the hell, but that is a terrible disservice to the country and we must insist that we observe the rule of law, that investigations go on to their conclusion, because we cannot have a situation where we do not know if a foreign adversarial power has leverage over the power of the united states. there is an imperative to get to the truth and have every confidence that bob mueller will. >> your committee, the intelligence committee has oversight over the cia, obviously. the cia has a new director, confirmed by the senate, but most of the cuts oppose -- most democrats oppose her nomination. what was your view of the nomination and do you think the process of confirmation in any way settled the court controversy that was inherent in the nomination, which was the record of harsh interrogation, some say torture, after 9/11 by the cia? rep. schiff: i do not think the

confirmation hearings or her confirmation itself resolve that issue, that we can say now it is put behind us. i do think that within the agency, as far as i can tell, she has a very good reputation as a good manager, dedicated to the institution. she is well thought of. the only issue, but it was a significant one, was what was her role in the enhanced interrogation program, in the destruction of the reporting, the tapes of the proceedings. and as a house member i was not privy to her senate testimony. if i had a vote on her confirmation i would've had hard questions about her involvement in those programs. and would want to get a personal sense of whether she was committed to make sure that we never went down that road again. i think that she was trying to

walk a fine mind, which some say she did and others say she failed to do of coming out against any repetition of this dark chapter. thealso not condemning people that she worked with at the agency and who believed they were following the law or orders of the administration. i would've wanted to have the benefit of that if i was making a decision on her confirmation, but i have to think that one of that was weighing on this judgment was, and this is frankly a that big issue in any confirmation, if we reject her, who will come next? the worst thing for the agency would be to have somebody who is waterng the president's

installed as the head of the cia. i think there were concerns that if she was not confirmed, what comes after could be much more problematic. think thatve to weighed on the senators. for some it was enough and for others it wasn't. i do not envy the difficulty of that situation. i do think that the cia is probably in a better place right now than it has been, when it was under so much of the president's attacks. i literally ran into somebody on the street the other day when i was in new york who had worked for the agency, and described to me, and just in the telling of it even though this was over a year ago, described how devastating it was to her to see that display by the president in front of the the stars

representing the fallen, when he was bragging about the crowd size at his inauguration. so the agency has been first through some tough times in the administration, and there is a hope they can put the worst find -- worst is behind them. >> do think the fact that the president chose a consummate intelligence professional suggests that he has put behind him some of that suspicion of the intelligence community that his team had when they came into office? rep. schiff: i would hope so. but i think the reality is that the president will attack whatever agency is in his personal benefit. and right now, his principal focus is turned on the fbi and department of justice. should the cia produce further evidence of collusion by his campaign, i am sure he will train his sights on them and claim they are part of the deep state that is out to get him. this president has no ideology except itself. no respect for institutions

except self. i think the cia is probably breathing a sigh of relief, that they didn't have someone there who was going to be interfering with the mission of the agency or undermining it from inside. but i don't think that they can necessarily have confidence that they are out of the crosshairs at any time in this administration. >> let's talk about the fbi and department of justice. briefly. alarm'sto to sound the about what you see as inappropriate or venture by your republican counterpart on the intelligence committee, congressman devin nuñes, and others who are making increasingly bold requests about documents from the justice department in the russia case. do those lawmakers not have a right as members of congress to exercise oversight and request that material? and did you think the justice

department has been handling the situation in the appropriate way? obviously, there has been a cycle of confrontation, and the president seems to be siding with lawmakers rather than his own justice department. are they entirely in the wrong? rep. schiff: i think they are entirely in the wrong with what they're doing in the justice department, because this is not being done as oversight. it is being done as a way of tearing down the institution to serve the president. the gop congress has decided they are not going to be doing oversight, period. if they were doing oversight, we would be having hearings about whether the chinese deal in indonesia is responsible for the change of position by the president on zte. we would be having hearings on whether the emoluments clause is being violated in other ways, we the committee would be investigating any allegations of corruption within the administration. they're not doing it. trey gowdy says congress should

not be in the business of investigations, which is odd for somebody who led the benghazi investigation. but they have decided we will not be doing oversight. this is not oversight, what they are doing with the justice department, it is an effort to undermine the investigation, discredit the fbi, the justice department, robert mueller, basically to give the president a reason to start firing people, or to undermine whatever bob mueller finds. and you can see the choreography in it, it is quite apparent. colleagues not just chairman , nunes but also the tea party people on the judiciary committee, they demand documents from the justice department. they get the documents. our chairman doesn't even read them. they go back and demand further documents. they get those and are not satisfied. they continued to escalate their requests, not because they are particularly interested in documents, except to the degree they might be used to undermine

the department or assist the white house the whole goal is to , fight. it is to keep escalating the demand until you get the fight. because every time the justice department quite rightly resists providing open investigatory materials that might interfere with the investigation, as if on cue the white house tweets, why won't the justice department provide these documents to congress? it is designed to give the president fodder to attack the department. and it is very transparent. that is not oversight. that is an assault on the institution masquerading as oversight. and sadly, it is having an effect i think in undermining public confidence in those institutions, and affecting morale in those institutions. they are strong enough to withstand it, but nonetheless they are doing long-term damage to our system of checks and balances.

>> democrats have a chance to retake the house this fall. what would a chairman schiff do differently? and what would be your first priorities in this area, and perhaps in others, if you had the gavel? rep. schiff: the first priority of the intelligence committee is to make sure we are gathering intelligence to protect the country, that our agencies are talking to each other, that we are making the right budgetary decisions. a lot of that work goes on outside the public view, and notwithstanding even the worst differences we have over russia. but nonetheless, there has been, i think, a falloff in the willingness of the intelligence community to share information with our committee because of the actions of our chairman. a lot of what i would consider my mission would be to start to rebuild confidence within the intelligence committee. the nunes memo was deeply destructive of that trust, because when they used this

never before mechanism to selectively declassify intelligence, and did it in such a misleading way, it violated the bargain between our committee and the agencies we oversee, which is, you voluntarily share with us intelligence and we will not abuse it, we certainly will not publicize it. and that was so violently done away with, that compact, that there is a real lack of trust now between the ic and our committee. so i would work to restore that .rust i would look at what has been done and what hasn't been done. how far as the mueller investigation gotten? how far has the senate gotten in their investigation? and then decide what more needs to be done.

and it is hard to say at this point where we will be eight or nine months from now, but that is how i would approach the job. host: seven minutes left. >> there is a debate among democrats about whether candidates in your party particularly for the house, , ought to be talking about potential impeachment in the midterm elections. should democrats be talking about impeachment or not? rep. schiff: don't take the bait. there is a reason donald trump is the foremost champion of his own impeachment. he talks about it more than anybody else. he would like to use impeachment as a mobilizer for his base. he would like to suggest democrats aren't interested in governing, they are only interested in getting rid of me. democrats need to continue our focus on what matters most to people, and that is their ability to put bread on their table, provide for their family, have a shot at the american dream. i think that is why we have had

the success we have had in the special elections. democrats are doing phenomenally well in special elections across the country. they are not campaigning on impeachment. they are not campaigning even on russia. they are campaigning on what they will do to meet the needs of their constituents, and that is a winning formula. so that is what i encourage our colleagues and even our challengers around the country to do. i expect that will be there priority. >> how do you avoid, continuing to talk about elections, you said you would try to restore trust with the intelligence community. how do you avoid the republicans ending up feeling the same way the democrats have? that you have been -- that you had subpoena power and a lot of pressure from your party behind you, that you wouldn't just be trying to dig up as much as you could out of the intelligence

community and out of the fbi that might be damaging to donald , trump and might advance a narrative of collusion or obstruction? in other words, are the democrats doomed to end up in just as partisan a place where a place that is perceived to be? rep. schiff: no. we will win on the strength of how bad the republicans are doing. that requires us to focus on governing, focus on producing for the country, and running committees like the intelligence committee in a responsible way. we have been hamstrung on the committee because from the outset of this investigation, the majority decided it had a different mission. it wasn't following the facts wherever they lead, it was defending the president at all costs. and you can see that just this week. just this week, the senate intelligence committee, which has worked on a much more bipartisan basis, announced that they were confirming the

conclusions of the intelligence community, that the russians had intervened and they had intervened to help donald trump, andto hurt hillary clinton, to sow discord in the united states. that was a fundamental conclusion of the intelligence committee which has been ratified now by the bipartisan work of the senate intelligence committee, by the minority on the house intelligence committee, by bob mueller's own investigations with the indictments of the russians, by the intelligence agencies that have continued to work on this issue. the only outlier are house intel republicans, who dispute even the basic conclusions that the russians were trying to help donald trump. that i think is a very clear window into where the republicans on our committee

has been, which is we will put that is favorable to the president, and tear down any actions by the justice department that is not favorable to the president. that is their mission. and confronted with that we had little choice but to part company. but if we had the opportunity to run the committee, we will choose to run it in a very different way and bring back i bipartisanship to the committee, as well as focus on the work that the country has really charged us to do. >> another big event in the last couple of weeks was the trump administration's decision to withdraw from the iran nuclear deal. i am curious about your analysis to that decision. the iranians and europeans act as if they want that deal to survive despite this blow to it? do you think it will survive or has president trump killed it? rep. schiff: he may have killed it. they will certainly work hard to

kill a and a lot will depend on whether the administration follows through with the threats john bolton has been making, which is sanctioning our european allies. that would be an incredibly, singularly destructive things to to do. >> we will leave newsmakers at this point. live now to coverage of the u.s. house. >> the house will be in order. the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. may 21, 2018. i hereby appoint the honorable dan new house to act as speaker pro tempore on this day, signed, paul d. ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 8, 2018, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. the chair will alternate recognition ee