Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" - Interview with Doug Collins
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Joining us right now is Georgia Republican Congressman Doug Collins. He's the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee in the House.
Sir, it's good to see this morning. Thanks so much for joining us.
REP. DOUG COLLINS, R-GA: Hi, Maria. It's always good to be with you.
BARTIROMO: You just heard my conversation with Rudy Giuliani, I hope.
Give us your reaction to this inquiry into impeachment.
COLLINS: Well, first off, let's start, Rudy is a passionate defender of this president.
He's watched this president be attacked for over three years, and he is simply doing what an attorney is supposed to do. And he's presenting that. That's his job.
But let me go back to what's going on in the House and where this is at right now. This week, we saw a dark day in the House. We saw Speaker Pelosi abuse her oath of office, if you would, by abusing the role of the speaker by saying an impeachment inquiry had started.
And they were sending it to the Intelligence Committee, where you have a gentleman who has a habit of lying about the facts, Mr. Schiff. And what that means is, though, is, they have decided to walk down a path in which they are in contrary to American values. They're not going to allow this president to have due process. They're not going to be fair.
They're going to ramrod this thing through because -- and I heard a member of House leadership this morning say on another network that they wanted to -- he wanted to have an inquiry, but he wasn't ready to vote for impeachment.
The reason is, if they were truly serious about that, they would bring it to floor, they would have a vote, and then there would be fairness, and the American people can know that this wasn't just simply a Democrat ramrod of this president.
That's the problem we're seeing right now, Maria.
BARTIROMO: So, what does that mean, though? I mean, what does that mean for this impeachment inquiry? Where does this go? Does the president -- is the president in jeopardy of being removed from office?
COLLINS: No, he's not in jeopardy of being removed from office. He's in jeopardy of having to continue the onslaught of lies and attacks and half- truths from a one-sided investigation in the House.
This is something, from my position as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, all you had to watch is our committee completely fall apart under investigation. In fact, any time they have been allowed to have -- we have allowed to have investigations, whether it be the Mueller report or these ridiculous hearings that Chairman Nadler's had in Judiciary Committee, it has always tended -- has shown that the president has done nothing wrong.
There were -- the collusion was a false narrative, the conspiracies. All these things were false when you actually investigate. So now they have decided, let's throw that out the window, because that's not working for us. Fairness is not working. Being on the right side of the American people is not all right. So we're just going to ramrod it through. That's what's happening right now.
BARTIROMO: Look, I want to ask you about the whistle-blower and the rules around a whistle-blower.
We know that, in the actual transcript, we see that -- and the actual complaint, rather, the whistle-blower says, I do not have direct knowledge of this. That is in the complaint. But I was told this and I trust the people who told me.
What are the rules around the whistle-blower in terms of what that person can charge?
COLLINS: Well, that's what's really been interesting here in the last little bit, because we have been finding out that the whistle-blower rules, especially in the intelligence community, seem to have been changed.
And they have been changed from requiring and demanding a firsthand account or an actual knowledge, firsthand knowledge of the abuse or the misuse of issues in the intelligence community, to now where they can have secondhand information.
If you look at the whistle-blower report, even besides the transcript and everything else, comparing the two is really interesting, because it seems to be a very well-written document, multisourced. If this was a piece for The New York Times or The Washington Post, that's not -- be what you expect.
But you don't expect this and what comes in the form as a legal document accusing the president of doing something in a legal fashion and doing so from secondhand information.
Now, as we go forward here, is that going to be the standard that has been changed now in the intelligence community where basically anybody there can take any report that they want to over the watercooler, wherever, and decide to file a complaint?
This is more serious than this. This president and our country deserves better than what we're seeing right here.
BARTIROMO: They may deserve better, but, Congressmen, that's not what's happening.
The Democrats are in charge, and they are going to be investigating this. And they want the president out of office. What are you going to do about it, as the ranking member of Judiciary?
COLLINS: Well, it's been a really interesting week, because it seems like the Judiciary Committee, as they -- again, in this ramrod that Speaker Pelosi, in, frankly, just degradation of the House rules, is saying now, well, we're going to do an inquiry with not being an inquiry into the Intelligence Committee. We're going to keep following the rules.
But we're also going to say this. In just the next few weeks, I think we're going to see the inspector general report of the Department of Justice come out. We're going to go back to the real area that we need to be concentrating on here is how this actually got started.
Hopefully, the Senate will be having hearings. And I know Lindsey Graham will be doing that. And we will be looking at this. And they're going to have to deal with the entire picture. They're rushing to judgment, Maria.
Keep this clearly in mind. They're rushing to judgment because they know time is running out. And they're desperate for this president not to win next year.
BARTIROMO: Are we going to see indictments?
COLLINS: This is the derangement syndrome in the House right now.
BARTIROMO: Are we going to see indictments, prosecutions of the people who did the wrongdoing coming out of the FISA abuse story and after the I.G. report? Where is the -- where is the accountability?
COLLINS: Well, the accountability, I think, is coming.
You see all of the major players are continuing to scramble, making up stories on how they were really just doing their job. It sounds very similar to, oh, I didn't do anything. Don't look over here.
I think Bill Barr, the inspector general, Mr. Durham are all looking into this. And I do believe that this is coming. And this accountability will happen, Maria.
We have been talking about it a long time, but it's time to stop the -- basically, the harassment of this president.
BARTIROMO: OK.
COLLINS: It's time to for the House to do what they need to be doing. And that is get back to the people's business.
BARTIROMO: Congressman, thanks so much. We so appreciate your time. I'm looking forward to having you once again come back soon.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source