Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes

Interview

Date: Feb. 26, 2019

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HANNITY: So, now, Michael Cohen is the Democrats new best friend forever. Sadly, he has been to report to prison inmate to serve multi-year sentence.

And you know what? He and his family have been through an awful lot, frankly health and Democrats, in my opinion, are just shamefully using him as a political prop not to learn anything new but once again bludgeoning President Trump to make him look bad, while he's on the middle of high- stakes, historic negotiations abroad here in Vietnam to keep the world safer.

Whatever happened to politics ending at the water's edge? You know, it is a pretty heartless act by a group of people just pointed by all things Trump. And as of tomorrow, as the kangaroo court plays out on Capitol Hill, President Trump is going to be fighting for America's interest abroad, flying 25 hours to make the world a safer place, keeping the country and the citizens of the United States safe in the process. Pretty despicable.

Joining us now, Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan and California Congressman Devin Nunes.

Good to see you both.

Congressman Jordan, let's start with you.

So, in the middle of what is really important issue for the safety, security of the world, rockets haven't been fired over Japan in 15 months. No more threats to America, Guam, the entire Korean peninsula. Michael Cohen gets front and center coverage by the Democrats. Not one but three days in a row in the middle of these negotiations.

REP. JIM JORDAN, R-OH: Yes, Sean, look, you are exactly right. While the president is working to make the world safer, the Democrats first announced witness of 116th Congress is a guy who was going to prison in two months for lying to Congress. They are giving to the guy who lied to banks, lied to the IRS, lied to all kinds of folks but tomorrow he will get center stage to spread more lies about the commander in chief of our country, again while the commander in chief, while the president of the United States is working to make the world safer and meeting with Kim there in Vietnam.

HANNITY: You know, Congressman Nunes, first of all, why would anybody that has Michael Cohen's interest at heart, why would they allow him to do this at this point? When he's now got to settle, will he potentially put himself in greater jeopardy if he says something that contradicts what he said before? Will there be another investigation or some type of threat? Does he have immunity deal in this case?

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CALIF.: Well, Sean, congratulations on being in Vietnam, on a very best occasion, hopefully historical. Tomorrow is going to be Michael Cohen live in front of Jim Jordan's committee. On Thursday, unfortunately, it's going to be behind closed doors in a classified setting.

And one of the challenges we have here is we already had Michael Cohen in. He's been prosecuted. He's been prosecuted for lying to the FBI, pled guilty and -- I'm sorry, lying to Congress. So, why is he testifying behind closed doors for the House Intelligence Committee?

This is not a man who has any classified information whatsoever. And what I'm concerned about is, is they will twist things around. They will take things that happen because they will know what publicly happens tomorrow. And in our committee, they're going to take things, take what they want and selectively leak. So, we'll be dealing with that problem here on Thursday night, I can guarantee you.

HANNITY: Will he be under oath?

JORDAN: Yes, he will be under oath.

Sean, this is the best they got. This is all they've got. And remember, this is step one in their process to go to impeachment and try to remove the president from office.

Understand what happened last week. Last week, in Chairman Jerry Nadler's district, Tom Steyer, mega donor with a town hall to encourage Mr. Nadler to pursue impeachment. Last night in Baltimore, Tom Steyer organized a town hall in Elijah Cumming's district to encourage impeachment.

This is the best they've got, a guy who is going to prison for lying to Congress. This is how they will launch their effort to ultimately getting to impeaching the president. That is how desperate they are. But it starts tomorrow.

HANNITY: While the president is here in Vietnam --

JORDAN: Exactly.

HANNITY: -- you know, trying to negotiate the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. It's really outrageous.

Congressman Nunes, one question. So many people kept asking me. We have been able to slowly unravel this onion, take a layer off the day as it relates to the deep state. We now know James Baker, the general counselor, the top lawyer of the FBI and Comey thought that Hillary should be indicted. We know obstruction would be a slam-dunk case. We're waiting on FISA operation, 302s, interviews, Gang of Eight information.

When are we going to get all of that?

NUNES: So here is what we're doing. We're going to be doing talking about the last phase of our investigation and laying out everything else that we have left to do. We're going to be working with Jim Jordan and Doug Collins. So, Republicans are going to have the task force that we set up in the last Congress continuing.

It's going to take declassification by the president. I think it's going to take full transparency. We have all of this talk whether or not the Mueller report is going to be transparent and going to be released. I have no problem with that as long as it's not the Mueller report. It's all the interviews, any informants that they had --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Both of you have seen this?

NUNES: We want to know all of that.

HANNITY: Both of you know that Bruce Ohr in August warned everybody, Hillary bought the dossier. It was not verified and corroborated and that Christopher Steele hated President Trump. They signed four times.

(CROSSTALK)

NUNES: Just remember, Sean -- I just want you to remember, Comey and others have said that it wasn't the dossier. The dossier only played a small part of that FISA application.

HANNITY: That's not what Andrew McCabe said. Without a dossier, no FISA.

NUNES: But remember what I've said, it's bad enough that they've used the dossier. The rest of the craft that they used is even worse. And that's what we want declassified.

HANNITY: Jim Jordan, last word.

JORDAN: Bruce Ohr also talked to Andrew Weissmann before he got on the special counsel's team about the bias Christopher Steele had against President Trump when they launched this whole darn thing.

HANNITY: Real quick question, is the Mueller report -- you have seen everything both of you. You would expect it will be anticlimactic and there's no collusion? Do you agree with that assessment, Devin Nunes?

NUNES: Well, I think what you have to see is what the Mueller supporters are continuing at this. So, they're telegraphing already right now that there is nothing that is going to be in there. Look, we know nothing is going to be in there because there was no evidence of collusion and conspiracy. It was ridiculous from the beginning. The only thing they ever had was the information that the Clinton campaign --

JORDAN: Sean, all the way up until the day James Comey is fired, he told us there was still no evidence of any collusion whatsoever. We know there's not going to be any collusion in this final report.

HANNITY: Great, but there was collusion. Hillary bought and paid for Russian lies, and then it was used to stop -- well, first, influence an election in her favor and then later to bludgeon a duly elected president and unseat him -- the biggest abuse of power scandal ever.

Thank you both.

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