Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. John Ratcliffe

Interview

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BARTIROMO: And you will see more of my interview coming up with the president.

But, first, joining me now in an exclusive interview is Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe from Texas. He sits on the House Judiciary, Intelligence and Homeland Security committees. He's also a former federal prosecutor.

And, Congressman, it's always a pleasure to see you.

REP. JOHN RATCLIFFE, R-TX: Good morning, Maria.

BARTIROMO: Thank you so much for joining us.

First, your reaction to the president just there on the Mueller report?

RATCLIFFE: Well, I remember when, after the election, Donald Trump said, let's turn the page. Let's move on from Hillary Clinton.

Unfortunately for the president, Hillary and the Democrats were not nearly so gracious. They weren't ready to turn the page or move on from his election. In fact, they were already working to undermine him.

Hillary and the Democrats, unbeknownst to the president, had already funded the fake, phony dossier that they then peddled through the intelligence community of the Obama administration, Clapper and Brennan, to Comey and Lynch at the Department of Justice and the FBI, who falsely verified it, all of which wasn't true.

And so when the president expresses concern about the Mueller investigation, given the fact that some of those same people started that process, he has every right to wonder whether or not he's going to be treated fairly.

Having said that, without having seen a single word of the Mueller report, the one takeaway that we already have we know is positive for the president. There are no indictments for collusion. There was no conspiracy or collusion with the Russians.

BARTIROMO: Congressman, you have seen every document that any member of Congress was able to see throughout this whole period. You have been my -- one of my regular guests on Sunday here for the last two years.

Because of your intelligence on the subject, because of you seeing every document, you have been one of the reasons that I too have been pretty adamant about the no-collusion situation in the last two years.

Our viewers are smarter as a result of it, because of what you have shared and some of your other colleagues. Devin Nunes has done a great job on this as well. What are you expecting? Give us your sense. You're going to get that -- you're going to get that summary in, what do you think, the next couple of hours?

RATCLIFFE: I think in the next few hours.

BARTIROMO: OK, so what are you expecting that is going to be most important for you to look at within this report and this summary?

RATCLIFFE: Well, again, what a senior Department of Justice official has already confirmed is that Bob Mueller is going to issue no further indictments.

What that means is no indictments for collusion or conspiracy. And what the American people need to remember was, the primary mandate of Bob Mueller, the reason we had Bob Mueller, were Americans conspiring with Russians to undermine the 2016 election? And the answer to that is no.

Bob Mueller, who was not limited by time or expense or by resources, apparently, is concluding there was no collusion, there was no conspiracy, there were no crimes by Donald Trump or those associated with him as it related to Russia and Vladimir Putin.

And if that is true, Maria, the most important takeaway, I think, and the ironic takeaway for the American people would be that the very people who for two years have been accusing Donald Trump of treason, who have accused him of working with Vladimir Putin would themselves be the ones responsible for giving Vladimir Putin his greatest victory over American democracy.

Think about that, a dossier funded by the Democrats, peddled through the Obama intelligence community, falsely verified by the Obama Justice Department, then sold to the American people by those very same elected Democrats and willing folks in the media.

All of that taking place really is extraordinary. Vladimir Putin, in his wildest dreams, could not have devised a more destructive scheme to the fabric of American society, and yet it has consumed the public discourse for the last two years.

BARTIROMO: Right. And that's what I want to ask you.

We're going to take a short break. I want to ask you about the accountability here, John Brennan, James Clapper, Jim Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Jim Baker, the lawyer.

And then Jim Comey has the nerve to write an op-ed about this in this past week.

Let's talk more about that we come back, more from Representative Ratcliffe, plus reaction from the Democratic side with Congressman Ro Khanna.

More of my interview with President Trump this morning as well.

Tell us what you would like to hear on the program this morning -- @MariaBartiromo is where you will find me on Twitter and @SundayFutures. Join me on Instagram @SundayFutures, @MariaBartiromo.

We're looking ahead right now, ahead of the Mueller report findings, on "Sunday Morning Futures."

Stay with us.

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BARTIROMO: And I am back with Texas Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe.

Congressman, the Democrats are not satisfied, even though we know that there was no collusion and Mueller is about to confirm that. They want everything released. They're talking about transparency. What do you think happens there?

RATCLIFFE: Well, they can demand whatever they want.

What they're going to get is what the law and regulations require Bill Barr to give them. So, today, that's going to be a brief notification of the actions that were taken and the decisions that were made.

I know that the Democrats are saying, we want everything, but the law doesn't provide for that. In fact, it says the opposite. And I very much doubt that Bill Barr is going to turn over classified material or material subject to executive privilege, or, most importantly, grand jury testimonies that Bob Mueller has received that did not result in charges against anyone.

That has been a longstanding policy of the Department of Justice. It was a departure from that policy by Jim Comey as it related to Hillary Clinton that got him fired and had Democrats complaining back then.

BARTIROMO: Right.

RATCLIFFE: Bill Barr is not going to repeat those mistakes. So he will be as transparent as the law will allow and as the regulations provide, and the Democrats should respect that.

BARTIROMO: Because -- because when a person is investigated, investigators don't say, oh, look, we're investigating you, and we're not going to bring charges, but, by the way, we were looking at this other stuff that you did around insurance, and it looks shady, or we were looking at something you did last week, and it sort of looked shady.

I mean, that's not the way the American judicial system works, to give crumbs to the skeptics, so that they can just create more chaos around the official word that there were no charges.

I want to move on to this op-ed that Jim Comey wrote this last week. And in it, in "The New York Times," Congressman, he writes, look, I don't care what Mueller does, and I don't care if he doesn't bring charges to the president. I want to be clear.

First, your reaction to the op-ed that Jim Comey wrote.

RATCLIFFE: Yes, Jim Comey doesn't care.

My reaction was, Jim Comey cared enough about the special counsel's conclusions that he created the special counsel. His ego, when he got fired, was why Jim Comey cared enough to leak classified privileged conversations with the president of the United States from the Oval Office to "The New York Times" to create the special counsel.

Now the special counsel doesn't come up with the findings that Jim Comey wants, and he wants everyone to know that he doesn't care anymore. But, at the same time, in that op-ed, he wants to lecture you and me about the rule of law and restoring the reputation of the Department of Justice.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

RATCLIFFE: Getting a lecture from Jim Comey about the rule of law and the reputation of the Department of Justice is like getting lectured by Bernie Madoff on how to invest wisely.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

RATCLIFFE: Donald Trump wasn't -- Donald Trump wasn't the president when Loretta Lynch met with Bill Clinton five days before Hillary Clinton was cleared.

Donald Trump wasn't the president when Jim Comey decided he was going to be the FBI director and the attorney general at the same time. And Donald Trump wasn't president when Jim Comey talked in the public square about conduct of Hillary Clinton for which she wasn't charged.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

RATCLIFFE: All of those things happened and undermined the reputation of the Department of Justice under Jim Comey.

BARTIROMO: Well, it's just incredible to me to watch Andrew McCabe on his book tour and Jim Comey writing these op-eds.

Is it not true that Jim Comey was the director of the FBI? So, in other words, he knew that Hillary paid for the dossier. He knew that this was flimsy evidence to go get a warrant to wiretap an American citizen, just so that they could spy on their political enemies' campaign, the Trump campaign.

And he knew that it was flimsy evidence to get that wiretap. He knew all of this, and yet he's acting like this schoolboy.

Real quick, from the Mueller report, are you expecting that we are going to see new investigations start? Like, for example, we know what Lisa Page told us the other day, that Obama's DOJ told the FBI, lay off of Hillary Clinton.

Are we going to see new revelations, new investigations as a result of what you will learn from the Mueller report? Where's the accountability, as I always ask you, Congressman?

RATCLIFFE: Yes.

Well, I do know that the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity for Bill Barr is to restore the reputation of the Department of Justice and the FBI.

And the only way he can possibly restore people's shaken faith and trust in those venerable institutions is accountability. So, I do expect Bill Barr to take -- he doesn't need to take anyone's word for it. He only needs to take the transcripts that are now becoming publicly available, where Jim Comey contradicts Andrew McCabe, where Jim Comey contradicts his own lawyer, Jim Baker, where Sally Yates contradicts her own deputy, Bruce Ohr, and so on, and take all of that and look at it and present it to a grand jury and say, this was sworn testimony to Congress.

All of these things can't be true. Some people are telling the truth and some aren't.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

RATCLIFFE: And I expect Bill Barr to follow up with respect to all of that.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

By the way, Congressman, I mean, we know that the Hillary Clinton Foundation got $145 million in the foundation while she was secretary of state. She got the $145 million from Russia. We know that they hired Russians to find dirt on Donald Trump and put in this dirty dossier, which Jim Comey called salacious and unverified.

Do you believe that the Clintons were doing exactly what they were saying Donald Trump was doing, colluding with the Russians?

RATCLIFFE: Well, I will say this, Maria.

I'm not a prosecutor anymore. I don't allege crimes anymore. But, as you mentioned earlier, I have seen every classified document that any member of Congress has been allowed to see. And there is enough there that I think that everyone should be treated fairly, everyone should be treated equally.

And there is enough information there that a jury of their peers should be presented with that information before a grand jury to consider whether or not crimes were committed.

And, again, finally, someone in charge of the Justice Department who is committed to that and getting away from a political Department of Justice to an apolitical one, and I think we will get back on track. That's the only way the American people are going to feel better about our justice system.

BARTIROMO: All right, we have said it before. It certainly looks like Obama politicized all of these agencies.

Congressman, it's good to see you this morning. Thank you.

RATCLIFFE: You bet, Maria. Thank you.

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