Fox News "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Doug Collins

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

WALLACE: A Senate Democrat says the wrap up of the Mueller investigation is not the beginning of the end, but just the end of the beginning.

Joining us now from Atlanta, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Doug Collins.

Congressman, welcome to "Fox News Sunday".

REP. DOUG COLLINS, R-GA: Good morning, Chris. Good to be with you.

WALLACE: To what degree -- I understand it's very early -- to what degree do you think what we have heard so far about the special counsel's report clears the president, especially the fact that there's been a decision made it not only not to indict the president, but also not to indict for instance on issues of collusion, any of the top people around him?

COLLINS: I believe it goes to what we've been talking about for the long time. What the president has been saying from the beginning, that there was no collusion. What we have so far and the indications out of the Department of Justice that there's no more indictments, I'm waiting to see the conclusion that Bill Barr is going to give us hopefully as early as today.

As we see those, then we can actually show to the American people what the investigation meant and how far it went, and also the fact that now we can hopefully begin to move on in these to your cloud of an investigation in which a lot was gone into to prove the president. Now, we are saying that the collusion is not, and now, we can move forward.

WALLACE: You say move on. You just heard my interview with your chairman, Jerrold Nadler. He makes it clear he intends to keep investigating not only other issues but also to keep investigating collusion, obstruction of justice, all of the issues the special counsel was looking at.

COLLINS: Well, that's all they have. Obviously, we've seen on the first two months of this Congress, they really don't have a policy agenda. They have an agenda against the president. They have an agenda to try to win 2020.

And so, what we're seeing is, is they think that they can go into the Judiciary Committee or any other committee and have a limited budget, limited subpoena power, limited staff and go up against an investigation that lasted 22 months, had unlimited power, unlimited subpoena power, had plenty of investigators and they think they can find something more than what they did, then I think they are sadly mistaken, and I think the American people will see through that.

WALLACE: What about the argument that you heard from Chairman Nadler -- look, the special counsel has his role, we have -- we, the Democrats, the Congress has its role, which is different and broader?

COLLINS: I think it might just be a different -- what he's saying if he keeps going by the rule of law and they're different for purposes. If Mr. Nadler is saying that our committee is supposed to be a paintbrush that just simply tries to taint the presidency and paint the presidency with doubt and innuendo, then I would disagree with that. That's an abuse of power.

That's not something the committee ought to be doing and I think we also have to respect what the Department of Justice and Mr. Mueller has been doing. If we do that, then the American people can see we are respecting the will of law.

WALLACE: Now, as we were just talking about, Democrats are demanding not only the release of the full report, but also all underlying materials. You have said the same thing, but you have added this phrase that you want to see it all released, quote, to the maximum extent permitted by the law.

What do you think are the limits permitted by the law?

COLLINS: Well, the limits -- no, Chris, I think that's a great question. I think the American people deserve to understand.

It's amazing to hear my chairman say that he wants everything out there. Well, I would ask my chairman: does it include classified information, which has never been released to the American public? Would it include 6(e), which is grand jury information, things that are normally never released to the public outside -- really outside of a special order from the court? Would he want to do the things that, you know, would actually get into ongoing investigations?

I think the problem is that the Democrats and my chairman have a problem. They thought that this report was going to show something they can impeach the president on. That is not seemingly going to happen.

Now, they have to figure out some way around that and I think when you understand that for him to make a broad statement of what they want released, that's not fair to the American public and we believe they are trying to taint what is coming out by not saying what should not come out to the public, because of what I've just listed.

WALLACE: But, you know, there are other areas besides grand jury testimony, classified material. Democrats say the president is any unique legal position. They say on the one hand, that the Justice Department regulations they don't release information on people they're not going to charge, but also the department regulations say they can't charge the president.

So, you know, there is, as I say, this kind of self-contradictory basis there. Isn't it legitimate to argue that even if there is damaging information to the president that does not rise to the level of an indictment, that it should be turned over to Congress to take a look at?

COLLINS: Well, it's not the Department of Justice's job to give Chairman Nadler and House Judiciary, or any committee on the House or the Senate for that matter, you know, what they want to do to go off on a purely partisan investigation to lead towards impeachment. Let's also understand, clearly, these were findings that have not been made yet. There was been no findings that that was the reason that you couldn't indict a sitting president, the reason why there's no more indictments coming forward.

Let's be honest with the facts and say probably with the facts showed was that there was no collusion. Let's go to the logical choice that nothing happened. It was sort of amazing to hear the chairman say things that we do know.

Again, basically, when you talk about collusion was happening, meetings were happening, that all of this was going on again to simply sully what they have been called the best investigation around and not to touch the Mueller investigation. When it comes back not what they want, now they've decided that they can just try to go around it and draw implications so that others can doubt it. That's just wrong.

WALLACE: Congressman Collins, President Trump tweeted and called Mueller investigation a witch hunt, something called the "Trump Twitter archive" says that in his presidency, he has tweeted that phrase, witch hunt, 183 times.

But let's look at what the Mueller investigation has found. His team indicted, convicted or got guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies. His former national security advisor pleaded guilty. So did his former fixer. His former campaign chairman was convicted and a long-time advisor, Roger Stone, faces charges of lying to Congress.

Congressman Collins, I agree that there has been no action and apparently will be no action taken against the president by the Justice Department, but would you agree that this was no hoax?

COLLINS: I think what the president was saying was -- is since he was elected, there have been calls for impeachment and every kind of investigation, and I think that what he was lashing out was saying, look, this is not -- we won election and he won the election in many opinions, fair and square, doing what people do to win recollections, going to convince people to vote for him and visit every state in the Union and not skip states.

What we see here, though, is an investigation which people who lied were held accountable, people who were investigated are now being held under the rule of law. At what point does that not make the investigation any less valid in the sense that they did what they saw on others, but also found that in their main core of the collusion or investigation or obstruction, they are seemingly coming to the point that the president and those around him had nothing to do with this?

The other charges, except for those indicted with the Russians, which will probably never see in court in the United States, that is the core finding, at least if what we're seeing so far. Remember, that report and those findings are still coming out and we'll see. But at this point, the president has been proved right. I think he was obviously frustrated during this time and rightfully so, as this report seems to show.

WALLACE: But Michael Flynn was convicted of lying about his dealings with the Russians. Michael Cohen was convicted of lying about his dealings with the Russians. Roger Stone has been indicted for allegedly lying about his contacts with WikiLeaks, which got information from the Russians.

Don't you find that -- again, not saying that this proves anything about the president, but don't you find it curious that three people so close to the president allegedly or have been convicted of lying for their dealings with the Russians?

COLLINS: I think it just shows you had three people who chose to lie to investigators when nobody told them to lie to investigators as far as anything has been pointed out. When you have people lie to the investigators, when you have people lie to the FBI, Department of Justice, then there's going to be consequences to pay for that. To go into the reasons why they chose to lie is simply something that you'd need to ask all three of them. We still need the larger picture, which the Democrats want to just paint the president with, with these others, is the simple fact that at the end of the day, if this report comes back, as it seems to be coming back, that there was no collusion on the president or the part of the campaign, then that is the part that we need to take and move from here.

Why people lie? Chris, that's a discussion for them and their lawyers, and why they chose to do that.

WALLACE: And I've got about 30 seconds left. What do you think the reaction of the American people is going to be if the House Democrats, as intended, seem -- continue investigations for the next year or so?

COLLINS: I think it's going to play badly for "em, but if that's where they choose to make their case to the American people that they deserve to be in power in the House, then that's something that they're going to have to concentrate on. We're going to continue to concentrate on one of the greatest economies that we've seen in years. We're going to concentrate on the fact that deregulation works, and I think if they want to go down this path, we're going to meet them with strong resistance because there is a certain time that this is just a rabbit chase that they are wanting to go on a fishing expedition and we will be meeting that as it comes up. Surely, the American people will see through political stunts like that.

WALLACE: I like rabbit chases as well as fishing expeditions.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: Congressman Collins, thank you. Thanks for joining us today. Please come back, sir.

COLLINS: Chris, look forward to it. Take care.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source