Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Devin Nunes

Interview

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Joining me right now, one of the lawmakers to who questioned Mueller. Republican Congressman from California Devin Nunes is the ranking member of the House Intel Committee. He's a member of the House Ways and Means Committee. And he's been among the few congressmen who have been on this program for the last two-and-a-half years telling the truth about what has taken place.

Congressman, it's good to have you on the program. Thanks very much for joining us.

NUNES: Thank you, Maria. Great to be with you.

BARTIROMO: Reaction -- your reaction from the Mueller testimony?

NUNES: Well, first of all, it's clear that Mueller didn't write the report. And so who wrote the report? We think there were five or six lawyers involved. We're still trying to get to bottom of that.

I would say one of the main takeaways is, is that we still don't have any Russians, right? We don't know who the Russians were that supposedly, you know, colluded with the Trump campaign. Why? Because there were none, and that's what we said two-and-a-half years ago.

There is evidence that the Democrats colluded with the Russians. We tried to get to the bottom of that, but, clearly, Mueller is and his team of lawyers and 40 investigators and $40 million didn't bother to look for those Russians.

They were only looking for the Russians that were mysterious, because they don't exist, and they never found them.

BARTIROMO: You focused on Joseph Mifsud in some of your questions.

Now, we had George Papadopoulos on this program earlier in the year, and he basically broke the news on this show about Mifsud and about that he was the first person to tell him that Russia had Hillary Clinton's e-mails. Also, he broke news on this program earlier this year that another individual dropped $10,000 on his lap, another situation that you mentioned in your questioning.

Why was it so important for you to mention people like Mifsud and Schrage others?

NUNES: Well, remember, Mifsud is at the heart of this investigation.

Mifsud is the one who supposedly knows about Clinton's e-mails, that the Russians have Clinton e-mails. He supposedly said this to Papadopoulos, something about e-mails.

This is the excuse and the -- well, actually, it's not the excuse. It is the reason why they -- the documented reason why they opened the investigation on July 31, 2016.

Now, what I mentioned in my testimony and in my questioning, it's clear that the FBI didn't open the investigation on July 31. That's the paperwork. What we're trying to figure out is, when did the FBI really start to run the investigation? What types of processes did they use?

What was the predicate? Because, look, it really appears like they were spying on the Trump campaign. So let me, if I may, start with, there was an event at Cambridge University where Carter Page was invited to it.

In addition, Stephen Miller and other Trump campaign people were invited in June. In late May, early June, they get an invitation to a symposium that was held in Cambridge in early July.

Now, at this -- at this symposium, you have characters like the British historian Christopher Andrew. You have people like the former head of MI6 Richard Dearlove. This is some type of contract-for-hire spying outfit.

What you have there is, you have an American citizen, somebody who's long been involved in politics, and the guy's name is Steven Schrage. Now, knows that the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee, the FBI, we want to talk to anyone and everyone who was dealing with Carter Page and other Trump associates, especially in early 2016.

Schrage is the one who invited Carter Page to this event. Schrage is the one who organized this event. So -- but instead of coming forward, a guy who's been involved in politics for this long doesn't come forward? I want to know, did he know about the Steele dossier at that time? When did he find out about the Steele dossier? Did he have control of the Steele dossier at any time? Did he give it to anyone?

Those are the types of things that Steven Schrage needs to come clean on, because, you know, look, maybe he was just a guy working for minimum wage sweeping the floors around Cambridge. I highly doubt it.

And the fact that he hasn't come forward in two-and-a-half years is highly suspect. Now, when you look at the other Brits that were involved there, Maria, if you -- this also ties in with General Flynn, because these Brits were the ones who went public and said -- specifically, Christopher Andrew said that General Flynn had a Russian girlfriend.

Well, that sounds really bad, if General Flynn had a Russian girlfriend. Well, in fact, when you actually look at it, you know, who she actually is, she was born in Russia. She's now a U.K. citizen. And guess what? She was never interviewed by the Mueller team.

So you don't interview Schrage. Schrage doesn't come forward. Svetlana Lokhova, supposedly, this is Flynn's girlfriend. This is the reason that they open up an investigation on General Flynn. She doesn't even get interviewed.

So lots of questions and not very many answers on Wednesday.

BARTIROMO: You said this individual, Steven Schrage, has been in politics for a long time. What was he in politics for?

NUNES: Well, the best I can see, he's worked at think tanks. He has a law degree. He was supposedly studying at Cambridge. I'm not sure what he was studying. He's worked on numerous presidential campaigns. That's about all I know. I know people who do know him.

BARTIROMO: Did he work for national security for Mitt Romney? Was he working with Mitt Romney in national security?

NUNES: Yes, I think he worked on the Romney campaign, and I'm not sure. He may have worked on the McCain campaign also.

But, look, this is why somebody like this, who clearly knows Republicans, he ought to come forward and tell us what he knows. Maybe -- like I said, maybe he's completely innocent of this, but he could shed a lot of light on what the FBI or the Brits or private contractors or Fusion GPS...

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NUNES: ... or, you know, whoever was doing the investigating before July 31 -- we have been looking for that for a really long time, as you know.

BARTIROMO: Congressman, you have mentioned a lot of individuals. I want to ask you about that, because all of these individuals that you're mentioning are, like, intel aides across the world, one from Australia, one from Britain, one from Italy.

I want to know who coordinated all of that and who was the mastermind behind the plan to insert Donald Trump into the Russia meddling story.

We're going to take a short break, and then I'm going to come back and ask you that, what you think, who you think is the mastermind behind all this.

Follow me on Twitter @MariaBartiromo, @SundayFutures, on Instagram as well @SundayFutures, @MariaBartiromo.

We're going to take a short break. We have got a lot more with Congressman Devin Nunes, Congressman John Ratcliffe, and Secretary McAleenan, and George Papadopoulos coming up.

Stay with us.

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BARTIROMO: Welcome back.

And we are back with California Congressman Devin Nunes. He's the ranking Republican on the House Intel Committee, among the questioners last week of special counsel Robert Mueller.

Congressman, let me ask you. We know, based on what you have told us, John Ratcliffe has told us, Jim Jordan over the last year-and-a-half, that this investigation by the FBI likely started at the end of 2015.

We know that, at the end of 2015, going into 2016, there were very suspicious, informant-type situations going on. And yet, in the testimony, you mentioned to Mueller that somebody dropped $10,000 in George Papadopoulos' lap, but that was during the special counsel, which means that was in 2017.

They were still trying to entrap people even during the special counsel's investigation?

NUNES: Well, we don't know the answer to that because Mueller wouldn't answer the question.

So you're right. So, in the last segment, I talked about General Flynn. Some Brits dirtied him up, claiming that he had a Russian girlfriend, right? So these were former intelligence guys, a story, and went public.

This is why they were investigating Flynn, you know, back in 2015. Then, if you move into 2016, someone started setting up these so-called events or symposiums that it just so happened to be that all of these people got invited to.

Now, you're going to have George Papadopoulos on earlier, which this is another -- another track where you had a foreign politician named Alexander Downer, who still is unclear, because he claims he didn't ask about e- mails. Papadopoulos said he didn't talk about e-mails.

But yet somehow the FBI uses Papadopoulos to open the investigation. And then they continued to ask Papadopoulos about e-mails all through the rest of 2016. But Downer never said anything about e-mails.

So, you know, this is another thing that Mueller couldn't answer this week. So now, when you look at what they did in 2017, after the special counsel was set up, you -- somebody gave Papadopoulos $10,000.

And it was odd that, you know, just a week before, they arrested him at the Dulles Airport. Now, remember, Papadopoulos has been cooperating with the investigation. He had went through several interviews in the early parts of 2017.

So, none of this makes any sense, and -- and it really looks like the Mueller team -- remember, I call it the Mueller dossier. Mueller clearly wasn't involved in this.

But, look, this is nothing more, nothing less than a cover-up, OK? Why would you not -- you write a whole report on Natalia Veselnitskaya. You mention her 65 times in the report, OK? She's a Russian. She met with the Trump team one time for less than 20 minutes, OK?

She met with Glenn Simpson, who was running the dirty operations arm for the Clinton campaign, at least three times, my guess is multiple times, maybe dozens of times.

BARTIROMO: Right.

NUNES: So, you don't have that in there? You put it in a report, but you don't talk about it.

So, there's so much in this -- in that Mueller report that really just looks like a gloss-over and a cover-up.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

Well, clearly, as we have learned more and more, they used George Papadopoulos and also Carter Page as windows into the Trump campaign. And with Papadopoulos, they used this whole idea that somebody told him that Russia had Hillary Clinton's e-mails, and that, because he was told that, that they tried to play it that he was part of a conspiracy.

This is what with I want to know and what I think our viewers want to know. In your view, based on all of your work over the last three years, who is the mastermind of this story? Who is the mastermind of the plan to insert Donald Trump into Russia meddling, which we know Russia has been meddling for decades?

NUNES: Well, I think we can say for -- let's talk about what we can -- what we know are facts, what we can say for certain. I think that's helpful.

We know the Clinton campaign, number one. So they're aware of a lot of this, right? They're involved in the creation of the dossier. They're hiring Fusion GPS. They hire Christopher Steele. That's a fact. So the Clinton campaign is involved.

We know the FBI is involved to some degree. We don't know exactly what they were doing before July 31, 2016. Why? Because they wouldn't answer the questions that we had over the last two years.

And, in fact, when we were getting close, we wanted transcripts, there were things that we wanted, those were not given to the United States House of Representatives under Republican control. Do you know why? Because the Mueller dossier team wouldn't let us have them.

So that's why I say, somebody needs to look at these characters that were on Mueller's team. I think they obstructed justice. They obstructed a congressional investigation. So that's number two.

We have -- we have the Clinton team. We have the FBI. There's also a third team that we know of. That is this Cambridge team, this group of British people that were there, these intelligence-related folks, including the American citizen, Steven Schrage, who organized this event.

They were involved in the character assassination of a three-star general, the former head of the director -- the director of intelligence, General Michael Flynn.

BARTIROMO: Right.

NUNES: So those are the three entities that we know.

And I think what the DOJ needs to get to bottom of is, when did these all intersect? You don't get that until you start to interview people.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NUNES: And, remember, the Mueller team never bothered to interview many of these folks.

BARTIROMO: Real quick, we have got to jump, but is it more likely that the CIA would integrate all of these international sources across the world or the FBI?

CIA or FBI, in terms of getting all these intel associates, like the Downers of the world and Mifsuds of the world, together?

NUNES: Well, as you know, we have jurisdiction over both FBI and CIA and what they do overseas.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NUNES: We have lots of information of FBI people going overseas and doing things. We don't really have any information from CIA. So far, they have really come clean.

I would say the only one that has -- that has questions to answer is John Brennan, because we now know that John Brennan briefed Harry Reid on the dossier in August of 2016.

BARTIROMO: All right.

NUNES: At the same time, he never briefed me or Paul Ryan, who was the speaker of the House at the time.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

Well, we keep peeling back the onion and learning more and more.

Congressman, it's good to have you on the program. Thanks very much.

NUNES: We do.

BARTIROMO: You should be taking a victory lap right now, after all your great work.

NUNES: Thanks for all your work.

BARTIROMO: Congressman Devin Nunes.

NUNES: Thank you.

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