FOX NEWS: Ratcliffe and Gowdy discuss Nunes' criticisms of DOJ, FBI

Joining me now for reaction is Representative Trey Gowdy. He's the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, a committee I used to chair. He's on the Intelligence Committee. He's on the Judiciary Committee. He's on the Ethics Committee. And rumor has it he's actually the chairman of the 4-H club there at Capitol Hill. He joins us from Greenville, South Carolina. And from Dallas, Congressman John Ratcliffe. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee and Homeland Security Committee, where he is the subcommittee chair on cybersecurity. He's a former United States prosecutor. Gentlemen, happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. And thank you so much for joining us. Congressman Gowdy, I want to start with you because I've actually been in your seat. I've dealt with the Department of Justice when they're not responsive. But how bad is the situation? What are the documents that you need, particularly in the Intel Committee, in order to get the job done that you want to get done? Well, happy New Year to you, Jason. And you too, Johnny. Jason, as you know, investigations are only as good as your access to documents and witnesses. In this case, we need what are called 302s. When the FBI interviews someone, a 302, that is the name of the form that is generated. We also need what's called 1023s, which is another summary of an interaction between an FBI agent and a source. So we need all of that. So we can then prepare to interview, whether it's a former General Counsel Baker, whether it is Peter Strzok, whether it's Lisa Page. We need to interview everyone who may have access to information, and we need access to all the documents. And frankly, Jason, we've been waiting a long time for it. As you know, I used to work for the Department of Justice, as did Johnny. If I have a bias at all, it is towards them. They need to produce the witnesses and the information. This has taken longer than it should and longer than it needs to. So, Congressman Ratcliffe, you've been a United States prosecutor. And to use a famous line, what difference does it make? I mean, part of what's happening is the Intel Committee has been looking at the so-called Russia probe. But you're on the Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee has come together with the Oversight Committee, and they're looking at things that have nothing to do with a Russia investigation, but do have things to do with how the Department of Justice is acted. Now, you were in the room, and you and Trey Gowdy were the two that got to actually interview Mr. McCabe. How did that go? Was he forthright? And who do you need to interview next? Well, Jason, good to be with you. Chairman Gowdy, always a pleasure. Listen, the reason that we had the Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in the room really related to the prior testimony of former Director James Comey. Jason, you and Chairman Gowdy and myself were all in the room when he testified emphatically and unequivocally that the decision to prosecute or not to prosecute Hillary Clinton had been made after her July 2 interview with the FBI. And then we subsequently learned of a May 2 memo written by the former Director Comey himself that went through multiple rounds of edits with people at the FBI, where it appears that that decision had, in fact, been made two months before her interview had been conducted. So it was those types of decisions that were out of the ordinary at the FBI that really prompted the need for an investigation into these matters. And really what the investigation that you just referenced involving the OGR Committee and the Judiciary Committee is really to get answers to those questions that I think the American people have long sought. So now that you've heard that testimony, Congressman Ratcliffe, who do you need to interview next? Who are you going to bring in to do those transcribed interviews? Well, ultimately, the interview that took place two weeks ago was a confidential interview. I would describe it as a foundational interview with Deputy Director McCabe. It really did ask questions about who, what, when, where with respect to a lot of these decisions that were made at the FBI and the Department of Justice as well that were out of the ordinary or out of standard protocol. And so really, he was able to provide us with a number of answers that will be helpful in identifying the people that we need to talk to. He also was not able to provide substantive answers to some other questions. So we'll continue this process. Ultimately, I think Chairman Gowdy and I agree that we'd like to see former Director Comey come and maybe Attorney General Lynch come in to answer some of these questions because there's a factual basis to bring them in and give them the opportunity to clear up what appear to be some inconsistencies between the testimony that they've previously given to members of Congress and the documents that have now surfaced. You know, Congressman Gowdy, one of the things that strikes me about what's happened with the Department of Justice and specifically the FBI is so many abnormalities, things that things would never, ever happen in any other situation. But you've both been prosecutors. What is different about the investigation that went into Hillary Clinton and the decision, the announcement? What is that laundry list of things that is so different than what normally happens during these investigations? Well, Jason, let's say at the outset the difficult facts make for difficult conclusions. And 2016 was a really difficult year for the FBI. And part of that was because of decisions they made. And part of it was because of they're trying to conduct an investigation in the throes of a presidential race. But the short answer to your question is what was different about the investigation into Secretary Clinton? The answer is almost everything. I'm not interested in litigating their decision not to charge her. Just forget about that. You can like it. You cannot like it. No entity is too big to provide oversight over. And the FBI and the Department of Justice are strong enough and venerable enough to withstand scrutiny. So Johnny mentioned one point. If you have made the decision not to charge someone in May of 2016 before you have interviewed two dozen witnesses, before you have interviewed the target of the investigation, then you're going to have to explain how you reached that decision not to charge before you ended the investigation. I want to know about the immunity agreements. I want to know why you allow fact witnesses to sit in on witness interviews. I want to know why you wanted those witness interviews to be voluntary. You know, Johnny and every other really good prosecutor knows that you use the grand jury to interview witnesses. You don't let the witness set the ground rules and say, well, I'm going to have these friends and family in the room and we're going to take a break at this time. That's not the way it's done for anyone else in this country. So I want to ask the FBI, did you do things differently in her investigation? And quite frankly, Jason, we already know the answer. The answer is yes. So then we're going to ask, why did you do it differently in her case? And again, I think the Bureau and the Department of Justice are big enough to withstand those questions. Real quickly to both of you, maybe starting with Congressman Ratcliffe, the integrity of the Department of Justice and the FBI is under attack. What do we need to do to turn that around? What needs to happen internally there to get the confidence of the American people back? Well, you know, I think part of the problem that we've been looking at here and people that have created the issues, as Chairman Gowdy has said, it's been a bad 18 months for the Department of Justice and the FBI. Some of the people that made it a really difficult time are gone now. But there are new folks. And really what we've got to do as members of Congress is conduct the oversight necessary to see whether or not they're being effective in restoring the integrity of the Department of Justice. Listen, I think Chairman Gowdy and I agree. We hope that the FBI and DOJ officials like former Director Comey and Attorney General Lynch, we genuinely hope that they have plausible explanations for all of these unprecedented circumstances that Chairman Gowdy just described. We hope that they do, because if they don't, then we really are facing a constitutional crisis. We have a situation where the American people will really question the integrity of the FBI and the Department of Justice for decades to come. And so, you know, I really hope that these investigations that we're conducting in our role as congressional oversight can shed some light on that. We're not prosecutors anymore. I'm not accusing anyone of crimes, neither is Chairman Gowdy. But we have an oversight role on behalf of the American people as their elected representatives. And that's what all of these investigations at the congressional level are really about. No, this country is different because we are self-critical. We do look under the hood and see what's going on. We speak truth to power.