Rep. Adam Schiff on Syria strike: Trump got a "couple things right and one big thing wrong"
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, says President Trump got a "couple things right and one big thing wrong" when it came to launching a precision missile strike on Syria overnight on Friday. The U.S., together with the U.K. and France, targeted three sites in Syria in response to use of suspected chemical weapons on civilians in Douma.
"I think he was right to have strikes on these chemical facilities as a deterrent on Bashar al Assad, to try to establish this norm against the use of chemical weapons, and I think he was right to pick targets that would not risk Russian lives to embroil us in a broad war," Schiff told "CBS This Morning" on Monday. He added that the use of further sanctions against Russia is the "right approach" rather than striking Russian targets.
Schiff noted, however, that the president faltered in not seeking congressional approval first before striking Syria. "This should've been brought to Congress for a vote. Morally justified, but probably unconstitutional," said Schiff.
Meanwhile, Schiff, who serves as the Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, says he found former FBI Director James Comey to be "very credible" in his interview with ABC News on Sunday, saying it gave Comey an opportunity to explain just why he made the decisions he did as director.
"I've never had a reason to question either his intel or his honesty, I think he's giving us what he thought at the time, why he did what he did, I think his recollections of his conversations with the president which he memorialized are spot on and unfortunately resonate all too much, particularly when he concludes that this is a president who is morally unfit for office," explained Schiff.
As for what struck Schiff the most from Comey's interview: "His description of the president and those around him like a mob family."
He added, "That was a new insight and frankly it resonates with what we've seen with the president. I think it makes a lot of sense and the fact that so many around him are willing to propagate his falsehoods, that is mob kind of behavior, anything in the service of the boss."