In an interview Sunday with CNN's Jake Tapper, House Intel Committee ranking Democrat Adam Schiff (D-CA) responds to comments President Trump made about the Democratic response to the Nunes memo in an interview with Fox News and comments from his Republican counterpart on the intelligence Committee Devin Nunes.



Schiff says of course Trump is upset about his memo, because his son Don Jr. might have done something illegal: "What the president is referring to, I think what really aggravated him is when his son came to testify before our committee, I asked him about conversations he had with the president where the president was on that aircraft and they concocted this false statement about that meeting in Trump Tower with the Russians. And he refused to answer the questions, claiming attorney-client privilege, which clearly doesn't apply to a situation where neither he nor his father are attorney nor client."



Regarding allegations that there was an abuse of FISA warrants, Schiff said: "The information that was used in part in a FISA application came from a trusted source, Christopher Steele, someone who's a respected member of British intelligence." He also said that the warrant would not have been granted without the Steele dossier.











"There's been a lot made about the fact that some of the Steele reporting at the time it was included was uncorroborated," he said. "That's true of almost every warrant application. If search warrant applications and criminal wiretap applications and FISA court applications could only rely on things that were proven and verified, you would have very few of them. Part of the reason to get the application is seeking proof."





JAKE TAPPER, CNN: After its release, President Trump said that the Republican memo totally vindicated him in the Russia probe. As for the Democratic memo? He says a -- quote -- "total political and legal bust." And he's calling the man who wrote it, Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California -- quote -- "a bad guy."



Joining me now to respond in an exclusive interview is Democratic Congressman from California Adam Schiff.



Congressman, good to see you, as always.



Your new memo from the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released yesterday.



Take a listen to what President Trump said in response during an interview last night.



TRUMP: Well, all you do is, you see this Adam Schiff, he has a meeting, and he leaves the meeting and he calls up reporters, and then all of a sudden they have news.



And you're not supposed to do that. It's probably illegal to do it. He will have a committee meeting, and he will leak all sorts of information. He's a bad guy.



But it's -- certainly, the memo was a nothing.



TAPPER: Your response, sir?



REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, I'm proud to be one of the bad hombres, I guess.



What the president is referring to, I think what really aggravated him is when his son came to testify before our committee, I asked him about conversations he had with the president where the president was on that aircraft and they concocted this false statement about that meeting in Trump Tower with the Russians.



And he refused to answer the questions, claiming attorney-client privilege, which clearly doesn't apply to a situation where neither he nor his father are attorney nor client.



Our position is -- and the Republicans have adopted it as well -- if witnesses refuse to answer questions and make bogus claims of privilege, as he did, as Steve Bannon did, we call them out on it.



Well, the president doesn't like that. But that's not a leak. That's a fact. And it didn't disclose testimony he gave. It disclosed a privilege that he asserted that doesn't apply.



So, I'm not surprised the president doesn't like it. I'm not surprised, frankly, that the White House tried to bury this memo response as long as they could. But it's important for the public to see the facts, that the FBI acted appropriately in seeking a warrant on Carter Page.



They're not part of some deep state, as the president apparently would like the public to believe.



TAPPER: So, your counterpart, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, also took a jab at your memo yesterday at CPAC. Take a listen.



NUNES: What you basically will read in the Democratic memo is that they are advocating that it's OK for the FBI and DOJ to use political dirt paid for by one campaign and use it against the other campaign.



TAPPER: Your response?



SCHIFF: My response is that the information that was used in part in a FISA application came from a trusted source, Christopher Steele, someone who's a respected member of British intelligence.



And it was part of a full package that was presented to the FISA court. And it would have been negligent, frankly, given what the FBI knew about Carter Page, the history that he had, the fact that he had been a target of Russian recruitment even prior to this, the fact that they went out and interviewed him in March, even before Christopher Steele produced any part of the so-called dossier, that they were acting in good faith, and disclosed to the FISA court that those who were funding Christopher Steele's work likely had a political motivation for discrediting the campaign.



TAPPER: Right, but they didn't disclose, though, that it was from the Clinton -- funded by the Clinton campaign and the DNC.



For our listeners who aren't familiar with the FISA court, it's a closed, private, secret process, where the Justice Department and FBI are supposed to present all information they can to get the warrant.



But there isn't a defense attorney there. Wouldn't it have been better, in retrospect, if they had disclosed everything, not just that it was political opponents of the president or of then candidate Donald Trump, but that it was Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC? Wouldn't that have been better?



SCHIFF: Well, two points, Jake.



First, it's ironic that the Republicans would attack the FBI for following their procedures, which require that they minimize the names of U.S. persons and U.S. entities that are not the subject of a warrant.



So, even Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are referred to as candidate one and candidate two. They're supposed to mask the identities of people.



The second point, Jake, that it's very important for people to know is, the issue is, what did Christopher Steele know? What did he know that might influence him, that might bias him? Christopher Steele did not who was paying, who the client was who was paying the freight.



And so what the FBI properly reported is what they suspected, what Christopher Steele may have suspected. And they masked it appropriately. That's what they're supposed to do.



And to suggest otherwise, to take issue with, frankly -- and I have been on the committee now for 10 years, Jake -- this is the first time the Republicans have ever taken an issue with any FISA application. I don't think it's a coincidence that it serves the president's interests to do so here. But the FBI acted appropriately.



TAPPER: Would there have been a warrant, a FISA warrant granted without the inclusion of the Steele dossier?



SCHIFF: I think -- and the only testimony we have on this is that it was a part of the complete whole of the application, and all the parts were important.



So, I don't know that I can answer that, except to say I think it was important. I will also say this, though. There's been a lot made about the fact that some of the Steele reporting at the time it was included was uncorroborated.



That's true of almost every warrant application. If search warrant applications and criminal wiretap applications and FISA court applications could only rely on things that were proven and verified, you would have very few of them.



Part of the reason to get the application is seeking proof when you have probable cause that a crime may be committed or that someone may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.



TAPPER: Let me follow up on that, because your memo also says that the FISA application references Steele dossier information about Carter Page being offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton while he was in Moscow in July 2016.



Had that information been independently corroborated by the FBI when they applied for the warrant?



SCHIFF: Jake, I can't go beyond what the FBI said that we can release to the public.



But I can tell you this. The Republicans have taken issue with the fact that we -- or that the FBI included information about George Papadopoulos in the warrant.



That information did disclose that the Russians had communicated with Papadopoulos, someone who occupied the same position, a foreign policy adviser in the Trump campaign, that they had dirt on Hillary Clinton, that they wanted a relationship.



And they previewed the dissemination of that information, which the court could see was taking place in real time at the time that the FBI appeared before the FISA court.



That was directly relevant to whether they were doing the same thing with Carter Page.