“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
— from Shakespeare’s Hamlet
There is something… off… about the narrative that is coming out of Washington, D.C. about the way things went down in the days leading up to the 2016 election.
The story just doesn’t fit the facts that have come out in the days since.
Why did the DOJ go easy on Hillary Clinton when the FBI wanted to prosecute? Why did the FBI go on a witch hunt for Donald J. Trump, when they had no actual evidence of any wrongdoing?
Congress should want answers to these questions. The American people should want answers to these questions.
Will anyone ask them?
Transcript via RCP:
REP. DOUG COLLINS: I think what we got to do is look at this as you’re going to know, because you can look at the proof. And that’s why we’re laying out the transcripts as we have.
Peter Strzok was a man who thought he was untouchable. He became a hero in his mind’s eye in thinking that he was going to be able to control and sometimes maybe showing off for his mistress at the time, Lisa Page. Let’s never forget that.
But also in his own role to grow up in the department. Peter Strzok was central, going back to the e-mail investigation, into the Russia investigation, into what became the Mueller investigation.
So what we’re seeing here is, yes, we see the bias. The transcripts reveal the bias. And when we see that Mr. Mueller actually got rid of him based on, you know, his actions and those texts, so I think when we look at this together, we get a picture of someone who was brought up or allowed to grow, if you would, under the Department of Justice under President Obama, in which politics became the first, foremost word, not justice.
MARIA BARTIROMO: Yes, I understand.
So, in other words, they were very heavy-handed with the investigation into Donald Trump on flimsy evidence. And yet they were very light on the investigation of Hillary Clinton.
Another tweet that your colleague John Ratcliffe put out was after he interviewed Lisa Page. And you released this transcript as well. And he says — Ratcliffe writes: “Lisa Page just confirmed to me under oath that the FBI was ordered by the Obama DOJ not to consider charging Hillary Clinton for gross negligence in the handling of classified information.”
Walk us through this tweet. So they all thought Hillary Clinton was guilty, but they were told from the DOJ, don’t even think about it?
COLLINS: This is there what — there were two things that really came out of this.
And I think one of the things was, we just spoke about, and that would seem to be of that corrupt triumvirate of Page, McCabe and Strzok. Strzok seemed to stand out as his very aggressive nature on what he thought about the president and his political bent.
The second thing that really came out from this Lisa Page was, let’s — as I said — and I put out another tweet the other day that says, Loretta Lynch has some explaining to do, because what we have seen now is that, beforehand, she was giving — she not only told Mr. Comey that this wasn’t an investigation, to consider it a matter, which is an interesting way of putting it, but also now we’re seeing from Lisa Page’s own testimony that the Department of Justice, which she headed, was saying gross negligence is not the standard that’s going to be used here.
They began to import what’s called intent, which is not part of the law. So really from the — early on, from April/May — and we know from May, when Mr. Comey started writing — the group together came together and they were going to look at gross negligence, but then began to write an exoneration of Mrs. Clinton long before they ever even interviewed her.
So we know this was coming from the top. So we now have a pattern here. Look at the pattern. You have Department of Justice and FBI on their own agenda with a political bent hoping for Mrs. Clinton to become president. That’s sort of the takeaway over these first three transcripts.
BARTIROMO: And this was way before Loretta Lynch, then the A.G., had a meeting on the tarmac with Bill Clinton just a few days before Hillary had her interview with the FBI, right? This was even before that.
COLLINS: Oh, very much so, Maria.
We — look at this. That was even — that was closer to the time when she said, I won’t be a part of the prosecutorial decision, which all of a sudden in many ways has become evident now gave James Comey what he believed was his Superman cape to go do whatever he wanted to do.
But she was already — this was already in the works. Lisa Page’s transcripts confirm this. This is why we released these in the way we’re releasing them, so that people can begin to see what’s happening here.
We were making — we were in this investigation. Democrats and others were saying, why are you going back, why are you doing this? You know, they made fun of the investigation the whole time. Well, now they have got a problem.
I believe Mr. Mueller’s report is going to come back and show that there was no collusion, which, by the way, is not a crime. But there’s no collusion, nothing with the Trump administration that they’re going to find and the president himself.
But what they are going to have to deal with now is the reality of influence and collusion among DOJ and FBI employees in an e-mail investigation which was handled badly, that moved into a Russia investigation that was handled even worse, and then into a Mueller investigation.
So these are the kind of things that the American people deserve to see, and that’s why we’re putting them out.
BARTIROMO: Now, Jim Baker was the key lawyer for the FBI. You have got transcripts on him as well.
He had a closed-door meeting. And my sources say that, in one of his meetings, he admitted that he wanted to charge HRC, he thought Hillary Clinton was — should be convicted of gross negligence.
Now, are you going to be releasing that transcript soon?
COLLINS: There will be more transcripts released. Baker will be one that we’re looking at releasing.
And, yes, there’s been some leaked information that Mr. Baker actually had that, exactly what you talked about. This is why this is important, Maria. And I don’t want any of your — the folks watching today to forget this. This is a pattern. This is not something that randomly happened.
I’m tired of really the mainstream media saying the FBI was investigating Ms. Clinton. No, there was a group that was investigating and told that they couldn’t do their job. Remember, she wasn’t even interviewed until late, after they had already started this discussion with the DOJ officials, probably including the attorney general — she headed it — saying that we can’t charge gross negligence.
So they already knew the outcome, but went through the process.
And Lisa Page’s transcripts also revealed the fact that this was, you know, sort of unusual. We also saw that with Strzok. We have heard it with many of these. Why would they interview a key witness, Ms. Clinton at the time, with key witnesses or fact witnesses in the room who have been granted immunity?
BARTIROMO: Yes.
COLLINS: This just goes back to show the two layers of justice. There was a layer for Ms. Clinton and then there was a level for Mr. Trump that were not equal. And people understand it, whether you’re a Republican or Democrat or independent or don’t care.
BARTIROMO: Oh, sure. But my…
COLLINS: You can’t have a Department of Justice like that.
BARTIROMO: My audience wants to know what happens now… We just talked about the malfeasance going on with this cabal of people at the top of the FBI and the DOJ. Will we see accountability?
COLLINS: I believe we can. And I think that’s in the new attorney general.
He has been — we — through his confirmation hearings, what he said when asked questions about this from Senator Graham, he said that he was willing to look into these issues that many of us have been talking about, which we got nothing on before under the previous attorney general or anything else.
BARTIROMO: So you think we will see prosecutions? Will we see prosecution?
COLLINS: I mean, look, some — my hope is, if there’s wrongdoing, that they will be prosecuted, because if it’s simply not prosecuted — look, two of the guys, McCabe and others, have been fired for cause, were fired. They were also under indictment.
We understand these kind of things going on, so hopefully we will see this actually prosecuted out.
BARTIROMO: So, you were among those who voted for transparency with the Mueller report. As I understand it, the Mueller report will be out within the next two weeks.
What was that 422-0 vote all about?
COLLINS: It was a political stunt by the Democrats, who thought that they could divide Republicans in the voting no upon it, because, at the end of the day, after I looked at it when they dropped it, we looked at it and they said, this is nothing but simply a first-year law student’s restatement of what the regulations say that Mr. Barr is going to have to do.
This is the sad part we’re at right now, Maria. They have no agenda. They have nothing that they can actually put on the floor. So they wasted an entire week of the American taxpayers’ dollar to actually put a report on the floor that said nothing, basically except the same thing the regulations say that Mr. Barr needs to do.
So we just called their bluff and just said, fine, we can vote for this, because this is exactly what Bill Barr said he’s going to do.
BARTIROMO: Yes, but…
COLLINS: Why are we wasting the American people’s time?
BARTIROMO: But you have a structure in place, we have a structure in place whereas, under the rules, the attorney general sees the report from the special counsel, and then gives it to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee on the House side and the Senate side, so that every congressman doesn’t have — it’s like you’re giving it to every congressman and every senator.
That’s basically like giving it to The New York Times, right? If somebody is not charged with something, the police don’t say, hey, we’re not charging them, but guess what, there’s all this other stuff that we were looking at, maybe there’s this fraud, maybe there’s that fraud.
Doesn’t this open a can of worms for the president?
COLLINS: No, it doesn’t.
I think what we got to understand here and I think what we understand is, let’s go back exactly what has to happen. Mueller will present some kind of report. All the paperwork says that it can be a report on what he’s found, what his prosecutions were and what his declinations were, the ones he declined to prosecute.
That is given to Bill Barr. Bill Barr at that point, then he makes what’s called an explanation to basically four people that have to be notified. It doesn’t say that we’re the only ones or at the same time have to be notified, but we have to be notified.
BARTIROMO: Right.
COLLINS: So it can be released to the public, as long as we’re notified.
And I think what we have to look at is what he said in his confirmation hearings, that he wants to release as much as possible, to make sure that this gets behind us and we move forward.
BARTIROMO: Right.
COLLINS: We know and you know, as you said earlier, that there’s not going to be collusion here. This is where it’s going to be put very hard for the Democrats.
So, all this was — and don’t be fooled by this — this was simply a stunt, because they thought they could divide Republicans to make — quote — “us look bad.”
BARTIROMO: Yes.
COLLINS: It’s not being transparent.
I have no problem being transparent when what we see is coming forward and it’s within the regulation itself.
BARTIROMO: Right. All right.
COLLINS: So, this was nothing more than a political stunt.
BARTIROMO: Well, Adam Schiff continues to say he has more than circumstantial evidence that there was collusion. We will see what he says after this drops.
Is the Mueller report going to come out within the next two weeks, do you think? And what are you going to do about the fact that you don’t have subpoena power? Jerry Nadler’s in charge. He’s going to bring down for questioning who he wants . So where are all these investigations going, Congressman?
COLLINS: Well, I think two things.
First thing is this. Adam Schiff is the new Joe McCarthy from the Senate. He has got — always said, oh, I have got this evidence of collusion. We have it all here.
Yet he never shows it. In fact, he actually has to back up. When we released the Bruce Ohr transcript, it showed his own explanation of when some of this actually was dropped was wrong. It wasn’t August. It wasn’t after the election.
Adam Schiff is just one, you know, again process away from spinning his own yarn. Jerry Nadler has subpoena power. He sent out 81 letters recently asking for information ranging on wide topics. You almost know that they are concerned about Mueller not having what they want, because only 30 of these letters actually had anything to do with Russia.
When we come to this part, it’s going to be very obvious that Mr. Nadler and others are responding to their base. They’re responding to the pressures of their base, who want to impeach the president and have wanted to since November of 2016.
You’re seeing a politically motivated agenda to impeach the president, to make the president look bad for the 2020 elections. And we’re going to be fighting against this. We’re going to be fighting the overreach.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
COLLINS: We’re going to be fighting to do what Congress is supposed to, do not the fishing trip that they want to be on.
If Jerry wants to — if the chairman wants to come down and have a fishing trip, I have got some great trout streams in North Georgia. I will be happy to let him fish there. But he shouldn’t be fishing with the American people’s money on wasted topics.
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