It would be “derelict” to national security to allow President Donald Trump to draw a red line around his business dealings with Russia and assert they can’t be investigated, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Sunday.
In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet The Press,” Schiff explained a New Yorker headline describing his efforts to “obliterate Trump’s red line.”
"What it means is this. What ought to concern us the most from an oversight point of view is there any entanglement that might influence U.S. policy against our national interest,” he said. "The president has wanted to draw a red line and say ‘you dare not look at my business.’ If the business is trying to have favor with the Kremlin, we can't ignore that.”
“The president should not be in a position to say you can't investigate certain things,” he continued. “That's what I mean. If [special counsel Robert] Mueller is not looking into this — and I don't know whether he is — someone needs to because otherwise we are being derelict with our security."
Schiff also asserted “we need to find out” what influenced the U.S. response to Russia’s interference in 2016 election.
“Unquestionably the U.S. response to the Russian hacking of our election has been influenced by something, whether it's been influenced by the president being concerned that his effort to build the Trump Tower deal would come out,” he said, referring to an abandoned deal to build a Moscow tower.
“The Russians knew about it. They were on the other end of the transaction. Whether that was the motivation or whether there is other motivation or whether it is Donald Trump reacting to the question that has been raised about his legitimacy because of the taint of the election I don't know. But we need to find out."
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