congressman adam schiff is a member of
january 6 select committee he was the
lead impeachment manager and trump's
first impeachment he's the chair of the
house intelligence committee as well and
he joins me
now what do you think about what your
colleague madison cawthorne said
well it's so irresponsible it's hard to
imagine but this is really a
continuation of the big lie
what he is saying is if elections
continue to be rigged he may find it
necessary to take up arms well of course
the election wasn't rigged so what he's
really saying is if he continues to
propagate the lies about our election it
may lead him to bear arms to
confront his own lies
and this is the danger that led us into
january 6 the propagation of falsehoods
about our election the glorifying of
political violence they're urging other
people potentially to violence
and it couldn't be more reprehensible
but it's also
reflective of this new generation of
republican members of congress that came
to congress basically each of them
trying to scream louder than the other
he's trying to get their 15 minutes of
fame from being more outlandish than the
other
all devoted to tearing down the
institutions of government
and never making the transition to
governing in any way
uh and it's just an incredibly dangerous
trend for the country
you mentioned january 6 of course you're
on the select committee uh yesterday we
got news the select committee is i don't
know if preparing ours has already sent
out requests to telecom companies for
the communications inc that includes
some members of congress um first i want
to ask you i'm going to
read the statement that minority leader
kevin mccarthy issued but first i just
want to ask you
do you have any wariness about this line
do you have any worry was there
discussion in the committee about what
precedent this might set to be getting
phone records from fellow members of
congress
you know certainly we've discussed the
range of requests that we're making and
without getting into any of the
particulars of our conversation
we looked at the historic precedent and
there is precedent for
seeking records relating to members of
congress
most often in the context of ethics
investigations well i think
participating in an insurrection an
armed insurrection against the
government is among the most serious
ethics violations you could imagine if
not more than that but yes we did
consider it
and i think that at the end of the day
we're determined that whoever was
involved
in this effort to prevent the peaceful
transfer of power should not be able to
hide behind their office
we want to develop all the facts uh if
people were not involved in trying to
overturn the government they shouldn't
be concerned but kevin mccarthy clearly
is for a variety of reasons not the
least of which is his boss his master in
mar-a-lago doesn't want it to happen
i will read you now uh the statement he
issued in full because it mentions you
and i want to get your uh your response
to it he says adam schiff benny thompson
and nancy pelosi's attempts to
strong-arm private companies to turn
over individuals private data would put
every american with a phone or computer
in the crosshairs of a surveillance
state run by democrat politicians
if these companies comply with a
democrat order to turn over private
information they are in violation of
federal law subject to losing their
ability to operate in the united states
if companies still choose to violate
federal law a republican majority will
not forget
and will stand with americans to hold
them fully accountable under the law
this is not a threat of violence but it
is certainly a threat that he is making
in response to this
well it's a threat and it's a threat to
a premise on a falsehood
that somehow asking these companies to
preserve records or ultimately to turn
over records of people involved in an
insurrection is somehow against the law
that's just flat wrong but mccarthy look
he's scared uh and i think his boss is
scared they didn't want this commission
and the select committee to go forward
they certainly didn't want it to go
forward as it is on a bipartisan basis
and they don't want the country to know
exactly what they were involved in
and you can see why i mean these two
stories are not uh unrelated to each
other
his caucus his conference members are
people like hawthorne who are still
pushing the big lie that resulted in the
insurrection to begin with they're still
pushing a big lie that may result in
further violence in the future the last
thing kevin mccarthy wants to do is take
on these rabble rousers in his
conference because frankly they
represent donald trump and kevin
mccarthy lives to do whatever donald
trump wants but he is trying to threaten
these companies
and it shows yet again why this man
kevin mccarthy can never be allowed to
go anywhere near the speaker's office
um this is a question i'm going to ask
and you may know nothing about but i'm
going to ask because the news just came
over that a republican congressman named
mark mullen
of oklahoma
has been making multiple attempts
to get into afghanistan
uh
reportedly went to tajikistan was going
to enter with a bunch of cash asked the
embassy they told him that's a terrible
idea you can't do that and as of now his
whereabouts are unknown and as chair of
the house intelligence committee i just
wonder if like you know anything about
this or have any read on where
congressman mullen is
you know i don't he's a member of our
committee but i don't know what his
circumstances are look you know a lot of
our members feel very you know i think
desperate to try to help people
particularly those that have served in
iraq or afghanistan and no interpreters
or others were at risk
and while i can understand that and i
feel very much the same way
we don't want to put people's lives in
risk we don't want to put our service
members lives at risk by one of the
members putting themselves in a position
where they may be harmed
and i think when members for example
went to afghanistan while we were trying
to evacuate others
it added to the burdens of those
conducting the evacuation and added to
the dangers of others
so i really think we need to work
through the administration
to try to continue to evacuate any
people that worked with us who are
threatened
but i don't think that's the right way
to do it