Fox News "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Doug Collins
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
REP. DOUG COLLINS, R-GA: Well, Chris, good morning.
And it's interesting for Robert Mueller that he starts from the premise that's so interestingly the wrong narrative for America is that your -- he's trying to take and say, we're proving innocence here and that you're guilty until we prove you innocent. It's really an interesting correlation here.
I think what happened is, is that report is now out. We see the report -- you had stated earlier that this was the call for the Democrats to start impeachment. They've been wanting to impeach this president since November of 2016. They've never liked him. They use any excuse to begin the impeachment process. But what we found was is no collusion. There was no charge of obstruction.
Remember, Bob -- Attorney General Barr and Rod Rosenstein, who was appointed under Obama, both came to the conclusion, taking under no pretense of any legal opinion, and said that there was no charges to be had when they made their final report after getting it from Bob Mueller. So I think what he said this week was, frankly, it was sort of frustrating for - - he wanted to just basically memorialize what he had already written down. And, again, to cause more questions for many of us that instead of finding answers, we still find more questions.
WALLACE: All right, then there's the issue of whether or not Mueller felt bound by the office of legal counsel, a part of the Department of Justice, by the OLC's ruling that a sitting president cannot be indicted for a crime. Here again are Barr and Mueller.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL (May 1, 2019): He reiterated several times in a -- in a group meeting that the -- he was not saying that but for the OLC opinion he would have found obstruction.
ROBERT MUELLER, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL (May 29, 2019): Under long-standing department policy, a present (ph) president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Again, Barr says that the department guidelines was not the issue and Bob Mueller indicates that it was a central concern.
COLLINS: What Bob Mueller stated, this is nothing new. This is, again, has been out for now a while. It was actually written on the report. I mean a lot of folks -- people are saying that this was some kind of a new revelation from Bob Mueller this week. No, it was actually written into the report. We talked about it then. But Bill Barr also made it very clear that when he -- when -- when --
WALLACE: But -- but -- but it does -- in fairness, sir, it does -- it does contradict what -- it does contradict what Barr was saying, the attorney general, when he said that Mueller said that that wasn't an issue and Mueller says it was an issue. So it, at least, was setting the record straight with regard to what Attorney General Barr has been saying.
COLLINS: Well, and that's Mr. Mueller's, you know, decision. He made to, you know, to do his press conference this week, or his discussion about it. But also it was very clear that Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein basically both said that they did not take that into account when they took the information from Bob Mueller, who, by the way, punted on a prosecutorial decision. He sent it back and said, we're not going to make a decision based on the evidence that they had found.
When we look at this, again, the frustration point is -- is the report has been out. Mr. Mueller decided he wanted to end his time and resign and go back into private life. He did so by going up and restating points that he picked from the report that he wanted to do on Wednesday.
Look, I respect him. He needs to go back to public life. That's what he wants to do. That's fine. But when we look at this report, there's also many things that were left unanswered on where it started, how they got the information, why they only pick and choose a little bit of the dossier to actually disprove, but yet not talk about the other issues around us. You know, like when did they stop and find that no collusion actually existed? When did they continue on with this continuation of looking into the president?
This is a continuation of a discussion that happened Wednesday that should have ended with the report. He now should be ended. And now, actually, I believe Bill Barr is right in saying, how did we get to this point to start with? This is the critical point because we've had two years of basically turmoil caused by a cabal that started at the FBI that we're now actually getting a chance to look into.
WALLACE: All right, I promise I'm going to get to that in a moment, but you have just raised a lot of questions that Robert Mueller could answer. In the past you have said that you would like them to testify before the committee. He made it clear this week he has no interest in doing so. Would you support a vote by Democrats on your committee, the House Judiciary Committee, to subpoena Robert Mueller so they can ask their questions and you can ask your questions?
COLLINS: Well, that would be an interesting question for Chairman Nadler because Chairman Nadler, this year, has shown that he is willing to subpoena anything that moves. And it's -- amazingly he's not talked about that with Robert Mueller. I don't believe he really wants to talk to Robert Mueller because it's better for him to continue a narrative that Robert Mueller said things or implied things that he's trying to imply to the American people as impeachment.
I was one of the first Republicans that said publicly, along with John Ratcliffe and others that said we would like to talk to Robert Mueller because we do have questions. I believe it's a twofold process. I believe Chairman Nadler likes to continue the innuendo and -- and doubts that has been placed, and then also, at the same point, Robert Mueller doesn't want to testify before Congress because he's going to get real questions about how the investigation was done, where it started, how it became, and why they sort of picked and choosed (ph), it seems, in the report, how this actually got going.
So I think it's a -- it's a two-way street here. We will see what Chairman Nadler does. He's got a -- he's -- he's been obsessed with subpoena since he became chairman. Let's see what he does now.
WALLACE: OK, let's get to the question you were raising.
Attorney General Barr has indicated that he has now launched an investigation into the origins of the Russia probe.
What is the single biggest question that you have that you would hope that this investigation would answer?
COLLINS: Mine is taking into account the -- what we have already seen as a pattern that seemed to be developed by what I've call the corrupt cabal with -- with Strzok, with Page, with Comey, with Baker, with McCabe that seemed to be at the picture in the center of everything going on from the mid-year investigation, the Clinton e-mail investigation that moved into the Russia investigation. The information that was given to the FISA court, the information of a dossier that was -- if Mr. Comey later said was a salacious and unverified, but yet he verified that it was accurate going before this court. These are the kinds of things that you look at and should concern every American, not just a Republicans, not just a Democrat or independent, this should consume (ph) every American that you had a group at the Department of Justice and FBI, not the whole block (ph), but a cabal that was saying, we don't like Donald Trump. We don't want to see him president. They even said in a text message, we'll have an insurance policy. They were going at seemingly a roundabout way to say, we're going to take it into our own hands. They should concern everybody when you use a court, such as the FISA court, which is a secret court, which is one in which they have seemingly --
WALLACE: OK.
COLLINS: Not used all the evidence that they could have done in that.
WALLACE: I -- I've got -- I've got -- let -- congressman, excuse me, I've got less than a minute left. I want to ask you one last question.
COLLINS: Yes.
WALLACE: And this goes to the origins of the investigation.
James Comey says, look, they had information by July of 2016 that the Russians were hacking Democratic e-mails. And we know that George Papadopoulos, an advisor of some sort to the Trump campaign, was talking about that. Comey said they would have been derelict in their duty if they hadn't pursued that. Do you agree?
COLLINS: Jim Comey, right now, is trying to rewrite history. I believe his 15 minutes are up. He knows it. He's going everywhere, talking about the things that he did or should have done. And I think the interesting thing is here, he doesn't want, I believe, the light of investigations shined on what they were actually doing. I don't believe Strzok or Page or McCabe or Baker, any others wanted as well. So they're remaking themselves now.
When they go back and look at this, when you look at the information they had, which was essentially disproven and many times even through his own words were salacious and unverified, how do you take that with a straight face to the court?
Mr. Comey, your time's up. It's time to --
WALLACE: Right.
COLLINS: For us to find out how this started and go from there.
WALLACE: Congressman Collins, thank you. Thanks for joining us today. Please come back, sir.
COLLINS: We will, Chris. Thank you.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source