Schiff on Trump: We Have ‘The Most Palpable Evidence of a Collusion in Terms of Violating the Logan Act’

STEPHANOPOULOS: We did see the president come out yesterday and say one more time, bottom line, no collusion. Let’s take a look.

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TRUMP: What has been shown is no collusion. No collusion. There’s been absolutely — there’s been absolutely no collusion. So we’re very happy.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: His attorneys are starting to take it step further. Jay Sekulow to The New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker laying the groundwork that collusion, even if it were shown, is not a crime.

SCHIFF: Well, any time the president has to deny something three times in a row raises a profound question about whether it’s true.

Now here I think you see the most palpable evidence of a collusion in terms of violating the Logan Act.

Now, I agree that’s not likely to be prosecuted, but let’s look at that, you have the Trump transition conspiring in private with the Russians to subvert the bipartisan policy of the United States, which was to sanction Russia over its interference in our election.

And so the question becomes if they’re willing to work secretly and privately at odds with U.S. policy during the transition, were they willing to do it during the campaign? And what we have already seen is that the Russians, through intermediaries, approached members of the Trump team, including Padopoulos, including the president’s son, and said, we possess dirt on Hillary Clinton. And we would like to have a relationship with your campaign. And the campaign responded, we would love to have that.

And days after this meeting at Trump Tower, for the very first time, Julian Assange announces he has received the stolen Hillary Clinton emails.

So, it certainly appears that what the Russians decided was that the way to help the campaign was not to giving these emails necessarily directly to the campaign, but publishing them so that the campaign and the Russians and the campaign could maintain some form of deniability.

Now, how explicit that agreement was, if there was a meeting of the minds, would be a conspiracy that Bob Mueller will have to investigate.

But we’re also trying to get to the bottom of it, so we can give a full report to the American people.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Bottom line, do you believe that Michael Flynn will incriminate President Trump?

SCHIFF: Well, I do believe that he will incriminate others in the administration, otherwise there was no reason for Bob Mueller to give Mike Flynn this kind of a deal where even in a factual basis, you can see there are other crimes that could have been charged. Whether that will lead ultimately to the president, I simply don’t know.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman Schiff, thanks for your time this morning.

SCHIFF: Thank you, George.