Rep. Matt Gaetz, an early advocate for releasing the Nunes Memo, responds to objections from House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and takes questions from CNN's Jake Tapper about the politics of the document.
Tapper's key question: "I have to ask you, in this memo, it makes clear that a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI began in July 2016, investigating George Papadopoulos. Of course, that's the former campaign staffer for the Trump campaign, who has pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his interaction with the Russians. If that is the counterintelligence investigation's genesis -- which it is, according to the Devin Nunes memo-- why is the idea that Carter Page, in October 2016, who had already been on FBI's radar -- we know he was surveilled in 2013, 2014. Why is that evidence that this entire investigation is tainted?"
Gaetz's response: "I would point to the statements of Andrew McCabe before the Intelligence Committee. Mr. Mccabe said that the dossier was absolutely essential, and but for the dossier, there would have been no FISA warrant to spy on Americans, and that is particularly troubling in the context of the renewals. As you well know, these FISA warrants have to be renewed every 90 days. Even after the FBI terminates Christopher Steele because they're mad at him for going to talk to the media and deem him unreliable, they still repeatedly reauthorize the FISA warrant. Andrew McCabe --not Republicans, did say but for the dossier, that warrant would not have been issued and certainly wouldn't have reauthorized."
NANCY PELOSI: If the president uses this fake, horrible release of distorted intelligence as an excuse to fire deputy acting attorney general Rosenstein or Mueller, it could lead to a constitutional crisis.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN: My next guest is one of the Republicans who championed the release of this memo. Your reaction to the minority leader and the warning that it will provoke a constitutional crisis?
REP. MATT GAETZ: I don't think it's appropriate for Leader Pelosi or myself to give the White House advice on HR policy. I would extend an olive branch to Leader Pelosi and say this is the time for bipartisanship. We should evaluate the polarization at the highest levels of our government, not in terms of existing facts, but what to do going forward so this doesn't happen again. Republicans and Democrats are going to be in government and in power the foreseeable future and I think it's appropriate that the investigative processes don't get tainted with these political considerations like they clearly were in this case.
TAPPER: You say like this type of thing, you say political considerations are part of this case. How do you mean?
GAETZ: The Democratic Party paid the Perkins Law Firm. The Perkins Law Firm paid Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele and Nellie Ohr to write the dossier and the Nellie Ohr's husband, Bruce Ohr, valeted that document into the Justice Department. It was so unverifiable that they had to use a Yahoo! News article before a FISA court to validate it. That Yahoo! News article was planted by Christopher Steele, the very author of the dossier.
Jake, this is the first time in American political history that an opposition research document has been injected into the bloodstream of our intelligence community. That's not a Republican or Democrat concern. That's an American concern. For just a moment in this town we would put down our partisan swords and work together, I think we could develop a process that the American people would have greater confidence in moving forward for Republicans or Democrats.
TAPPER: Well, this memo is a Republican memo.
GAETZ: It is a staff memo. Devin [Nunes] didn't write this memo.
TAPPER: The Republican staff. As you know committees have Republican and Democratic staff. This could have been done in a bipartisan way. It was not done in a bipartisan way. In fact, Democrats submitted their memo to counter this. And that's going through a process right now. It's not being released at the same time.
I have to ask you, in this memo, it makes clear that a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI began in July 2016, investigating George Papadopoulos. Of course, that's the former campaign staffer for the Trump campaign, who has pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his interaction with the Russians. If that is the counterintelligence investigation's genesis -- hich it is, according to the Devin Nunes memo, why is the idea that Carter Page, in October 2016, who had already been on FBI's radar -- we know he was surveilled in 2013, 2014. Why is that evidence that this entire investigation is tainted?
GAETZ: I would point to the statements of Andrew McCabe before the Intelligence Committee. Mr. Mccabe said that the dossier was absolutely essential, and but for the dossier, there would have been no FISA warrant to spy on Americans, and that is particularly troubling in the context of the renewals. As you well know, these FISA warrants have to be renewed every 90 days. Even after the FBI terminates Christopher Steele because they're mad at him for going to talk to the media and deem him unreliable, they still repeatedly reauthorize the FISA warrant. Andrew McCabe --not Republicans, did say but for the dossier, that warrant would not have been issued and certainly wouldn't have reauthorized.
TAPPER: That warrant is what Nunes claims McCabe said.
I'm talking about an investigation. Not just a warrant in October, but an investigation that began in July. The counterintelligence investigation, according to the Nunes memo, begins in July because George Papadopoulos, as we know, said something to an Australian diplomat about how the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. We also know, according to the Mueller plea agreement with Papadopoulos that he had said that in, I believe, March or April, that he learned about this through a London professor who had relationships with the Kremlin. My only point is the investigation into collusion or whatever, we don't know what it is yet if anything, began in July. You're talking about a warrant in October. That investigation had already begun.
GAETZ: Correct, Jake. However, if you take the entire universe of Papadopoulos claims and put them into a bucket, that bucket alone would never have functioned as a basis to continue this investigation. It may have been sufficient to start it. But it certainly would not have been a basis for the intelligence gathering and the continuation of that investigation.
If I said, "Jake Tapper is a bad guy and he colludes with Russia," that might be the basis to start an investigation into you, but it wouldn't be able to be continued without actual facts. Unfortunately, instead of getting facts and getting a basis, there was a reliance on this memo from Christopher Steele that was so unverifiable, they had to use a Yahoo! News article from Michael Isikoff to be able to justify it before a FISA court.
TAPPER: You're asserting a lot of things that I don't know to be demonstrable fact. One thing I know about, is when you talk about what you know about Papadopoulos, we have no idea what Papadopoulos knows.
GAETZ: Mccabe did. He was aware of all those facts and he testified before the Intelligence Committee that this dossier was the proximate cause of these surveillance warrants. That, alone, is far bigger than the Russia investigation, far bigger than Donald Trump's presidency. It goes to the very core of our democracy, and whether or not we want to have political documents serve as the basis to spy on Americans. We should rise about partisanship and solve this problem.
TAPPER: It's an excellent question, whether or not it was just this political document. But FBI officials that we've been talking to and Christopher Wray the FBI director himself, all of them saying that there is no way a dossier like this would be presented in a FISA court without corroboration of some of the things they're talking about.
GAETZ: Right. But the corroboration was the Yahoo! News article. The corroboration for the dossier was a news article planted by the very author of the dossier. it becomes a factual, legal tautology.
TAPPER: How do you know that? Have you seen the FISA warrant?
GAETZ: That's what's in the memo. We should [see it], honestly.
TAPPER:I'm not talking about the partisan memo.
GAETZ: These are statements of facts. You should not characterize it that way. These are verifiable facts. The letter I sent to Devin Nunes, signed by 60 of my colleagues calls not only for the release of the memo, but for the actual supporting documentation. I think it would be appropriate to redact sources and methods and dig further into how this happened. I think that will help us forge bipartisan consensus to make sure it doesn't happen in the future.
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