tonight on kqed newsroom, house democrats are pursuing investigations into russian interference, and president trump's finances despite his call to end the probes in the state of the union speech. we will check in with the man leading many of those on investigatis, the california congressman adam schiff. >> oakland teachers vote to authorize a strike. foat it means for public education in caia. >> and a new exhibit shines a light on a bay area disaster that killed hundreds and led to desegregation in the military. we begin with the escalating battle over investigadeons of pre trump and his associates. on thursday, president trump lashed out on house intelligence adcommittee chairam schiff who had announced he would launch a broad investigation that goes beyond russia, to examine the president's finances.

mr. trump said it was presidential harassment. the exchange came just days after the state of the union speech, where the president warned against, quote, a idiculous partisan investigation. the house intelligence committee met this week for the first time in the new congress, and voted to share transcripts from the russia investigation with special counsel robert mueller. joining us now is congressman adam schiff, nice to have you back with us. >> thank you, greato be with you. >> well, we'll talk about the investigation u're heading up in just a moment but first i wanted to ask you about the acting attorney general matthew whitaker, his testimony before the house judiciary committee today, what do you make of his answers to questions related to the russia investigation? them?u satisfied with >> no, i'm not satisfied, because on important points, he is still refusing to answer. the american people have a right tohe know wh the acting attorney general, someone who auditioned for that part, saying how he could privately cripple the investigation, is taking any aouion that

undermine the investigation. he's already publicly talked about the length of the investigation, when it might come to a close, it is something he shouldn't be discussing. and there are a lot of unanswered questions about why he was picked for the position, and whether he has communicated to anyone on the president's legal defense team, for example. facts of the investigati that uld prejudice that investigation. >> he has said that he hasn't cut funding to the investigation, he hasn't interfered with the investigation. >> well, he has made certainly those top line claims. but without being able to determine what conversations he's had, andith whom,and about what, it is impossible to test those and one thing we have learned the hard way, during the russiat ination, is there are a great many times when people, including the president, simply say things that are flatly proven false, you know, without much time elapsing between the statement and the proof. so the attorney general needs to answer these questions, needs to

answer them completely, and not attempt to stonewall the judiciary committee in any way. >> moving on now to your panel, the house intelligence y committee, announced this week that you are expanding that investigation. what addional areas are you now looking into? >> well, the number of areas that we were not able to fully pursue when the republicans were running the committee, they made the decision really to act as more of a legalefense team for the president than objective investigators. and i hope that that changes this session. we have invited them back into the investigatn. but we will continue to pursue bssues involving the conduct and communicationween trump associates and wikileaks, or the publishing arms of the russian military that had hacked these documents. we're going to continue to pursue the facts around that trump tower meeting and what the president may have known about the trump tower meeting. or other efforts to obtain dirt on his opponent from the

russians. we also need to look into thepr ident's business, because what we've already seen is eply alarming. and that is during the campaign, at the time he was denying any business dealings with the russians, he was attempting to make the most lucrative business deal potentially of hisentire career, a grand tower in moscow, something woh hundreds of millions of dollars to him, and to his family, and at the same time, the russians were seeking his help in doing away with sanctns on russia. >> are you concerned about monea dering? are you looking -- you're basically saying that you want to see if any of the decisions he's making in office is prompted by financial interests. am i correct? >> that's exactly right. and money laundering is one part of that. the have been continual and credible allegations which we only scratched the surface on previously, with the republican majority. thatthe president may hav been, or his businesses may have been laundering money for the

russians. there were times then theump family, by virtue of their questionable business actices, couldn't get loans from legitimate american banks. and in ft, theonly bank that would lend them money was deutsche bank, a bank that has a historyof laundering russian money. but there was also a time when even deutsche bank apparently wouldn't lend to the trump organization. andyet, they were buying golf courses, spending lots of cash, flipping properties, and all hose, as potential hallmarks of money laundering. if this is financial leverage that the russians hold because, hey were on the other end of these transactions, they would know it, then obviously we need to find out. >> other democratic lawmakers are alsoad pursuintional lines of inquiry, including trying to obtain the president's tax returns. the president is clearly unhappy about all of this. what effect do you think all of these probes will have on

efforts to reach an agreement on border security before the government runs out of again on february 15? >> even before we formally took the hemajority, were agreements on what to do on border security between democrats and republicans. in the last congress, we voted s to fund bordeurity on a bipartisan basis. the reason we ended up in this shutdown was the president, in agreeing to these deal, incurred the ire of, you know, the ann coulters and the rush limbaughs of the wod, and so he shut down the government for a period of time. that was aas dr for the country. i don't expect that that is going to happen again. butet nless, we don't know where we're headed here. i think this committee that's been formed to reach a compromise will in fact, reach one. but whether that satisfies the president,r maybe more importantly, whether that satisfies rush limbaugh, i don't know. and that shouldn't tbe standard. i am concerned that the president may declare an emergency,hich i think is ultimately, would be struck down

by the courts. >> what will youdo if he declares a national emergency? t>> i thinkere will be a resolution of disapproval on the congress. and theyube alreadyc reports that mitch mcconnell has privately warned the president that he will lose likely a lots of members in those votes, if he takes this tion, which is i think anti-thetical to our democratic system. if in a ten-year debate over immigtion, and a situation with congress has considered a president's request, but refused it, were to be considered somehow an emergency, we would be in a constant statec of emerg there would be no need for a congress. so i think it is about thepo est case you could make for an emergency. >> i also wanted to ask you about president trump's mination of david burnhart, a former energy industry lobbyist, to be the interior department's next secretary. we replace ryan zinke who stepped down amid ethics scandals. what would his likely confirmation mean forrn

cali? >> well, i think it would be a disaster for california. i think it would be a disaster for people around the country and around the world who care about the environment. this is a president of course who campaigned on draining the swamp. you look at the department of interior, it is hard to find a bigger swamp than at the departme of interior, where zinke as you pointe out, was, you know, enmeshed in all kinds of ethical scandals. and now, his deputy, who they're eking to elevate to the new secretary, is a former lobbyist for the oil and gas industry. he will continue and be in a more powerful position to push for offshore drilling, off the shore of california, as well as elsewhere, to minimize anddo du safety standards on drilling, to sell off public lands, and open them up to greater mining operations that will pollute the air and pollute the water. >> i also wanted to touch on the green new deal that was announced this week by liberal

democrats. there is a very sweeping resolution and one of the most s sweeping elements is calling for the u.s. to convert to 100% clean renewable ener sources by 2030. about 60 democrats, both in the house and senate, have signed on to this. where do you stand on that bill? >> well, i stand on the bill as well, and i think it take, makes a powerful statement where we stand in the country to ween ourselves off fossil fuels and investment dramatically in newable energy. we are all too aware that we may be approaching, and fasterllhan we origithought, this tipping point, where it may be too late to deal with the problems of climate change. and so there is a real sense of urgency among democrats that's reflected in this green new deal. and you can see the contrast between the parties in the green new deal, which is, you know, a very aggressi effort to move ourselves in the direction of renewable energy, and a gop

which is ready to confirm an oil and gas lobbyist. so in this area, more than perhaps any other, can you see the difference between the paies. >> congressman adam schiff, we thank you for your time. >> thank you very much. now, to education. this week, oaknd teachers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike that could take place late this month. they want that 12% pay raise over three yes and reduce class sizes. the oakland unified school district is facing a potential $60 million budg short fall next year and is offering a much smaller raise, me5%. while governor gavin newsom has directed the state superintendent of education, for a look at how charter schools affect the finances of school districts. joining me, jsselle scott, iate professor at uc berkeley college of education and vanessa, kqededucation reporter. hello to you both. >> hi there. >> vanessa, you have been covering the oakland situation, trike achers can go on any

reach an agreement. >> so if the teachers walk out, what the district's plan? what should parents and students know? >> right, they haven't said a whole lot about it, but they are going to try to keep schools open. they say that they wll call substitute, administrators from central office will be on school sites in some cases and they will probably hold fairly big classes in iaudits, things like that. that's what happened in 2010 the

last ti there was a strike. se janelle, you were a teacher in oakland yo at one point. so you're very familiar with the arstrict. in what way oakland's issues similar to those that we see in other teachers' strikes around the country,like los angeles and last year in west virginia? >> and oklahoma, rigng? we're se really a growing movement of teachers walking out. i think the movements in west virginia and lahoma are yolked to very traditional bread and butter issues that h unionse always been very interested in, so salaries, pensions,an benefi, the like. but they are also yoked to these issues of general support for public education in the eastate andy looking to increase the supports for counselors and nurses and things that have really been, resources that have been decimated from public schools, and oakland, and most recently in los angeles, you're seeing those same, issut you're also hearing very much in the public debate the questir

of char schools, and how charter schools are playing intl the fipi vitality of these districts. >> and vanessa, arere tensions over charter schools as you say. can you explain what are charter schools and why are so many publool officials and public schoolteachers upset about them? >> so charter schools emerge in our country, the first state law passed in 1991, california's law passed in 1992, and you know, charter, the ideal behindha er schools have always been somewhat at tension with one other, so on the one hand reformers hoped that charter schools would provide opportunities for parents to have greater choice and freedom, for teach torious have greaterv power decision making, around curriculum and the structures of their schools. >> how has it worked out? >> well, sort of all over the place. there are some wonderful charter schools that have emerged. i think the broad middle is that most of them are just as

quality, or maybe slightly bel traditional public schools, and then another subset are quite wors right? so they are all over the place if we just look at student ac evement on standardized assessments. >> and some of the tension is around the fact that these schools are drawing students and resources frompu traditional ic schools, right? so in oakland, for instance, you can really see a op, a downward trend in district school enrollment and upward trend in charter school enrollment and they line up ometty clearly and that's a lot of the caints that you hear from the union about charter schools. >> and that hurts the finances of the public school districts. they get less money if there are fewer people. and so is there a movement of sorts, vanessa,in oakland, among the public educators there, to try to get california lawmakers to do something about the charter school law? >> very much. on wednesday, there was a press conference with school leaders, and th's something that they talked about a lot. they have a lobbying effort

under way toer try to get gr newsom to put a moratorium in o pla new charter schools and on charter school appeals. d how likely will that happen, janelle? >> so it is looking more likely that some sort of change willpp than in the recent past. governor newsom has asked the state superintendent of instruction, to convene a commission, to look at the fiscal effects of charters. we are really talking about not just the presence of charter schools in california but p tticular districts wheere is a deep concentration of charter schools. so oakland fmple has the greatest concentration of charter schools in the state. >> how many chalser schre in oakland? >> so there are about 34 charter chools in oakland and th amounts to about 30% of students enrolled in publicho s in oakland. >> how does that compare to neighboring school districts? >> so berkeley unified has onea r school. >> just one? >> one. >> why the big gap?

>> so there are different explanations for the bigap. one ex planning from the charter alhool community in oakland is there great pare demand for options. another explanation is that there has been deep donor and philanthropic support to grow the charter in particular school districts as sort of proof points for the charter school movement so oakland charter schools havenjed significant support from donors, from flan pifrts and from the california charter schoolssociation. >> and are there certain guidelinere lations, that charter schools have to abide by, in terms of what is their level of accountability? what are the metrics for success? >> i mean i think you're in a better position to talk about that, but that's part of the argument, right, is in oakland, for instaie, as the dis moves to close a number of their schools, t shore up their finances, they say they don't have very muchontrol at all over what they do with charter

scho s. theere are very few cases in which they can deny a charter application. >> so the law holds that districts evaluate their charter chools every five years, and charters can come up for renewal. what we know, not just in california, justkln d, but across the country, that it is very rare for our a charter e school to closed for underperformance. it does heam but it is rare. >> al st a rubber stamp approval when these renewals come up. >> yes, what we do t see inms of charter school closures, that it is more likelyf to be closed fiscal impropriety rather than lack of student performance on standardized tests. >> janelle, you talked earlier abo gavin newsom's call on the superintendent's panel for charter schools an the impact they're having statewide. what would you like to see coming out of thisit study? >> would be great if we could establish some consensus. i thi the debate is so charged, with one side saying, nope, there's no effect on

ls, anional public sch if public schools would just improve, we wouldn't have this problem. on the other eride, is, deep concern, and criticism of the growth of chartera schools, it would be good to have a party that's perceived as somewh neutral, to take a look at the numbers. one of the things that districts have, that districts have raised, as a concern, ise that aw does not allow them to deny charter applications on the basis of fiscal impact. so even if the district isre a that opening another charter school will further destabilize its inces, those aren't grounds to deny it. and so this is something that i think the soeate reallyneed to take up. for districts like los angeles and oakland, that are really struggling financially. >> and on a broader level, lea angeles ers, right, got an agreement last month, as part of that, as a resolution calling for a ten-month moratorium, so it does seem lirt this is of a broader movement sweeping the nation. thank you both,ot janelle with uc berkeley, and also vanessa, with kqed, nice to have you here. >> thank you for having us.

now, to the 75th anniversary of a bay area disaster that chang the nation. in 1944, african-american sailors were loading munitions on to a ship at the port chazago naval mne, on su sune bay, they had no safety training and told the munitiove were not but it turned out they were. a massive explosion ripped through the pr killing 320 servicemen. edveral weeks later, 50 black sailors reveo load munitions in vallejo, out of concern for their safety. all werilfound of mutiny. but the episode galvanized a movement to desegregate th navy, and eventually the entire military. now, a new exhibit at th treasure island museum sheds light on the port chicago explosion and its impact on the fight for racial ju joining me now to discuss all of this are the president of the treasure land museum, walt balonski. and mary redel, chief officer at the university of san francisco. welcome to you both. >> thank you for having us. >> ary, you'so the

president of the san francisco public library commission and you've been workihe with treasure island museum on this exhibit. take us back to that d in july, 1944, when the explosion happened. tat was the scene like? >> wel scene was a terrible tragedy. in so many ways. you hadouhese very men that were working in an environment that they were not prepared for. and theye suffered worst type of tragedy that you can ever imagine. and so thers survivf the port chicago essentially had said, we are noto going go back. at least 50 of them, that was. and these were ordinary young men, they were between 18, maybe 21, 22 years old. >> so young. >> so young. they were already in a segregated situation. over 200 of the individuals that were lost were african-american sailors. and other individuals. and so these 50 younglack sailors who had everything to back, theyhey went were afraid for their own

safety, they saw their mates with dismembered bodies, were ordered to go ba immediately, while the white officers were given the proper grievance time off and somehow or another, they were able to muster the courage, and the solidarity, to say we will rather go and face courtm tial with the united states navy, which also meant that they, at that time, they could have been sentenced to death. >> take us back to that era. why were tasks like this, loading live munitions, on to a ship, why were those types of tasks assigned primarily to black sailors? >> well, the navy was se regated, and frankly, it was racist. these sailors had joined the navy to go fight the enemy. and they were put to work doing manual labor loading these munitions. they were supervised by white offirs who were under a lot of time pressure. they pushed the crews to work faster and faster.n and tey bet with each other on which crew could load the most ammunition.

and punish the men if they lost the bet. it was a terrible situation. >> and so mary, how did this ceoefrt, by the 50 men, eventually influ the navy and eventually the entire military to desegregate? >> well, this is the story.t s is a civil rights story that begins in san francisco bay areathat i don't think that people know about. we often think about atlanta, and other parts of the united states, where the civil rights was born, but this 50 young men were really the ones that set the early precedent to the modern civil rights movement that we knew. and so essentially, the navy moved forward, thr trial, and after the trial, to be the first branch of the military to begin desegregation. and under president trman, he ordered there, by all of the .s. armed forces followed, a so essentially these 50 black sailor, ordinary young men, facing all lo, gave an

extraordinary contribution to racial justice and social justice in the united states, and it happened here. >> did the military desegregate for altruistic reasons in the beginning, or were they frankly a little scared of seeing these 50 young black men btod ther? >> the thing is i'm sure there was publicity that was going on at the time and this i a precursor to the modern civil rights movement. butathe same time, these, the tragedy was so significant, i mean that's one thing that we cannot deny, it was so horrific, there had never been hatpe of incident happen on the u.s. soil, that i think that even then, they knew that there was something that w not right about it. >> there were two things going on really. one was the publicity. you know, the naacp was involved. thurgood marshall was a young attorney, the counsel for th naacp, he came out to assist with the reial. and so tas a lot of publicity and a lot of attention afterwards.

but also, the navy realized that if they segregated black sailors into bltsk u they were creating black unity. and they alized that was going to be a problem if they kept doing that. >> is that why, by slitting them up and desegregating, that would actually weaken their resolve on a lot things. >> yes. >> and what happened to the saors who were convicted of mutinyowfterwards? hid that affect their lives later on? >> well, they received about seven-year prison sentences, most of them, after the warer those reduced to about two years, and they were returned to svice, and discharged. >> were they able to find work? were they able to live normal >> not really.? i believe they were received, they received general discharges and it was a black mark on their records that followed them for most of their lives. whicis one ofhe reasons why the port chicago story took so long to become well known, because this was something they were ashamed of. sometimes their families didn't know about it. they didn't want to talk about

it. and eventually, the families learned, professor robert allen at berkeley, found out about it, and wrote a book in the 1990s, and that really helped make it more widely known. >> and mary, of all of the men convicted, only one received a pardon from president bill clinton. and some of the men said a pardon implied they were guilty and inead, they wanted exoneration, they wanted their names cleared. is thdee any effort uway to try to get common ration fexone. >> i believe there are some exoneration efforts goinw,on right nnd the things, under president obama, there was not a sucessful empt con exoneration that happened? >> do you know why? why is that? >> do you know the specifics? >> i don't really know about i know maybe the president was reluctant to push race issues on o many fronts, but there is an organization, the friends ofp t chicago national memorial, which is working to to clear the

names of the sailors and working for the families, and exoneration is one of their priorities. >> mary, what's the connection between those 50 men, convicted 75 years ago, to what you're seeing today? >> you know, one of the things is that justice does not happen in a vacuum. the arc of moral justice was really long and always bends netowards righteo and these 50 men were essentially banded ogether, and this act of solidarity, and it's connected directly to what we with rosa parks, connected directly to what we see today, in black lives matter, and even more recently, what we're seeing with colin kaepernick. you know, this whole idea of how doou stand up at a time when the society doesn't believe thae ssarily what you believe is right. these 50 young men are directly ted to the young people that are here in the bay area, th are in florida, that are all throughout the united states, that are saying this particular issue is not right. >> certainly the story still resonates today.

maryand walt, thank you both for being here. >> thank you. > and to learn more about port chicago and its impact on the civil rights movement, you can attend aer lecture med by mary, tomorrow, at treasure island, visit treasure island museum.org/port chicago, to make a free reservatn for the talk. space is limited. and that will do it for us. as always you can find more of our coverage at kqed.org/newsroom. i'm thuy vu. thank you for joinin

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