Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. John Ratcliffe
Interview
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BARTIROMO: We'll see you soon. Michael McCaul, joining us there.
Tomorrow the Department of Justice inspector general, Michael Horowitz, will head to Capitol Hill as well. He'll be answering questions about the IG report on the Clinton email investigation. He will first face members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And then on Tuesday, he'll return to Capitol Hill for the joint hearing to address members of both the House Judiciary and Oversight committees.
My next guest will be one of the first people to ask Inspector Horowitz about his findings, Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe of Texas sits on both the House Judiciary and the Homeland Security committees, and is a former federal prosecutor.
Congressman, it's great to see you this morning. Thanks so much for joining us.
REP. JOHN RATCLIFFE, R-TEXAS, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE: You bet. Thanks, Maria.
BARTIROMO: And I know, Congressman, you've gone through the IG report. Do me a favor, go through it for us. You've put it into three categories. Explain to our viewers what's most important in terms of this inspector general report.
RATCLIFFE: Yes, it's hard to break down 565 pages, but there are three main take-aways or categories for me. And the first one is the IG report really tells us that the problems at the FBI and the Department of Justice were more pervasive and problematic than any of us realized.
The second thing is it sadly confirms that even though Hillary Clinton should have been charged with mishandling classified information, she was never really in danger of seeing that happen.
And finally, the inspector general report really provides a factual basis to call into question the legitimacy of all of the actions taken, all of the decisions made, and all of the evidence gathered in the first nine months of the Trump Russia investigation, based on who was in charge of that investigation.
BARTIROMO: Yes, that's a very good compilation of the three areas that we want to focus on. That first one was the FBI and the DOJ. And here you said it was much more pervasive than any of us thought, the animus against Donald Trump really came through in some of these texts.
I point your attention to the text of August 8th, 2016, between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok when she says "Trump is not ever going to become president, right?", Peter Strzok says "no, no, he won't, we will stop it."
Interesting to note that Peter Strzok was put in charge of the Trump-Russia collusion case on July 31, 2016. Eight days later, August 8th, he says "we will stop it." Four days later, another text. "We need an insurance policy" so that Trump doesn't become president.
Is that the kind of animus you're referring to?
RATCLIFFE: Yes. And it's not limited to Peter Strzok, although I will say I don't know that the FBI could have chosen anyone worse to lead the Trump- Russia investigation had they picked Hillary Clinton to lead that investigation. I don't know that the level of animus or bias or prejudice against Donald Trump would have been any higher.
But the IG report tells us that it's Peter Strzok and it's Lisa Page, but it's also teams of agents and lawyers that are identified in this IG report, five of whom who have been referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility for their anti-Trump texts.
And so really throughout the 565 pages of this report, Maria, on every page you find some evidence of political bias against Donald Trump and that really calls into question the work that was done here with respect to the two highest profile investigations in recent times, both the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and the Trump-Russia investigation that became the special counsel matter.
BARTIROMO: You know, if anybody has given us a window into how the rank and file or some of the leadership certainly felt about Donald Trump, it's Peter Strzok with his texts. I mean, that has been incredibly revealing. Why does he still work there? How is it possible that he still has a job at the FBI?
I know he was demoted. But still?
RATCLIFFE: I can offer you no explanation for that. I would hope, you know, that Director Wray would care enough about the 13,000 folks at the FBI that instead of just offering platitudes about how great an organization it is would defend those 13,000 by holding accountable agents like Peter Strzok and others who, you know, tarnish the badge that the 13,000 other agents hold.
And to me there's no excuse for him to be employed at the FBI at this point in time. I would hope that both Director Wray at the FBI and Rod Rosenstein at the Department of Justice would be asking and taking the hard stances and questions that they need to, to defend their people and their institutions and hold them accountable.
They should be asking tougher questions than members of Congress are asking.
BARTIROMO: Yes. On to the second point, and that is the second subset which was the Hillary Clinton investigation. You say this was supposed to be a serious investigation. I want to ask you about that because there are texts here too from one agent to another saying "I'm with her."
The person, four days before Hillary was supposed to be interviewed, the agent -- or one of the agents who was going to interview her sends a text to her -- or one of the colleagues and says "just so you know, I'm with her."
And this was the person that was going to be interviewing her. So let's take a short break. I want you to go through what you learned from this IG report about the Hillary Clinton investigation as well as the Trump investigation. We'll take a short break and come right back with Congressman John Ratcliffe.
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BARTIROMO: Welcome back. And I am back with Congressman John Ratcliffe.
And, Congressman, let me ask you about the Hillary Clinton investigation and what you gleaned from the IG report, because you said to me this weekend when we were talking about this, this was supposed to be a very serious investigation.
RATCLIFFE: Right, Maria. I mean, you referred to it as the Hillary Clinton email investigation. And we do that. But remember what it really was supposed to be was an investigation into whether the secretary of state of the United States violated the Espionage Act by mishandling classified information.
That's a very serious matter and it should have compelled a serious investigation. And yet the IG report confirms that exactly the opposite happened, a very light touch where Hillary Clinton got preferential treatment, limited use of a grand jury, limited use of subpoenas, immunity agreements handed out like candy to witnesses that destroyed evidence and lied to the FBI.
And, you know, really speaking to the lack of seriousness, we have this tarmac meeting between Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton, and five days later a team of DOJ and FBI agents and lawyers sit down with Hillary Clinton and she doesn't get asked a single question about the meeting between their boss and her husband.
And, of course, there's that exoneration memo that was drafted, written, revised by the entire investigation team before 17 important witnesses, including Hillary Clinton, wherever interviewed. So, again, she was never going to be charged by Obama administration officials for the types of things that we're now finding out many of the folks involved have been accused of as well.
BARTIROMO: This is all quite extraordinary. Let me ask you, is there a chance that there will be charges against Jim Comey on the very same issues that he was looking at for Hillary Clinton, the misuse of classified information?
RATCLIFFE: I think there's certainly a chance. I mean, a lot of this will come forward in testimony. We expect that former Director Comey will come back because there's a lot in this IG report that is inconsistent with testimony or appears to be inconsistent with testimony that he and others have given under oath to various congressional committees.
So, again, to that point, I mean, we have Andrew McCabe accused already of potentially giving false testimony. Jim Comey is certainly not out of the woods with respect to testimony that he has given or action that he has taken with regard to the handling of classified information.
And there is Peter Strzok. I mean, how he is not seriously considered for obstruction of justice charges based on the text messages and the emails that we have seen that really cannot be taken out of context or read any other way.
When you say you're going to stop Donald Trump from becoming president, it doesn't get any more clear than that.
BARTIROMO: No. We're going to be watching your committee testimony on Tuesday. You're going to be one of the people asking the questions of Michael Horowitz. We will be watching that and certainly with great interest.
Congressman, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks so much.
RATCLIFFE: Thanks, Maria.
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