Staking Credibility in Schiff is Democrats’ Biggest Mistake

Welcome back we are looking ahead to the House vote on impeachment as well as looking back at the IG report now. Joining me is Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe of Texas. He's a member of the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees and a former federal prosecutor and Congressman. It's always a pleasure to see you. Thank you so much for joining us. Morning Maria. So we are expecting this impeachment vote to be on Wednesday. What are you expecting in the week ahead and tell me about the reaction you've been seeing from that IG report. Yeah as you said the vote will be on Wednesday despite what a Democratic scholar called the fastest, thinnest, weakest impeachment in US history. That's the direction that we're going. The real question is how big will the jailbreak be by the Democrats. We've already seen one Democrat apparently switching parties over it another saying he's going to vote against it and so really the question is how many more before Wednesday's vote and the reason for that Maria is because the Democrats have made the mistake of staking the credibility of all this on Adam Schiff. The person that they put in charge of this investigation turns out is the one that helped start it by meeting with a person who walked out of Adam Schiff's office and became the whistleblower and at the very same time that that's happening as you mentioned now there's an Inspector General report that comes out that says during the last impeachment hoax the Trump-Russia one Adam Schiff repeatedly made false statements to the American people about the FBI's actions and so I think you know that's what's happening and that's why the Democrats have been rushing to keep this from unraveling and keep their folks in line and they're having a really hard time to do that. I wouldn't want to bank my political future on Adam Schiff's credibility but they've made that mistake. Yeah so you know I mean going back to the IG report you know Adam Schiff was certainly out and about a lot throughout the last three years saying that there is collusion in plain sight and now we get the IG report and we actually see the misconduct and what they call errors, fraud, whatever you want to call it. What is your reaction to what you learned from Michael Horowitz? Well it wasn't just that Adam Schiff was out and about he put out a report that said there was no FISA abuse by the FBI that was false. He said that the FBI didn't fail to turn over exculpatory information that was false. He said that the Steele dossier was not a central part of the FISA applications against Carter Page that was false. The Inspector General's report the findings in there detail all of that it's an indictment of the things that Adam Schiff was saying it was an indictment of Jim Comey's leadership at the FBI. The biggest takeaway for people out there Maria is that what the Inspector General's findings very clearly delineates is even if you concede and I don't but even if you concede that there was a predicate to start this there was no predicate to continue a counterintelligence investigation against the President of the United States they had to do it by making those false representations to the FISA court. Yeah and we're gonna speak to Devin Nunes shortly of course you referred to the Nunes memo back in 2018 February of 18 where he wrote out all of the misconduct that took place by that cabal of people and of course then Schiff came out with that correcting the record memo which we know now was wrong just flat-out wrong. You mentioned some of the the wrongdoing one of them as we know from the Michael Horowitz report is an altering of a document by an FBI lawyer tell me about that and and where are you expecting accountability Congressman? Well as the Inspector General's findings outline what are referred to as errors and omissions are false statements misrepresentations destruction or alteration of documentary evidence I mean what you have are FBI lawyers literally changing evidence to make false representations to the court to continue this counterintelligence investigation against the president so you know it details now everyone's entitled to a presumption of innocence Democrats never want to give one to Donald Trump but the Inspector General's findings really outline what is criminal activity I mean we're talking about FBI lawyers who are depriving folks like Carter Page of their civil rights under color of law tampering with evidence taking documents and making them say the opposite of what they really represent and certifying that to the court so you know really terrible and again an indictment of Jim Comey's leadership at the FBI and of the things that the Democrats said to again most important point to continue a counterintelligence investigation against the sitting president of the United States when there was no probable cause to continue it that they started by by making seven errors and omissions that were misrepresentations alterations of evidence and then added ten more to continue it along the way you know I don't think the American people can really appreciate the damage that was done to the FBI during Jim Comey's tenure there so are you saying that there was criminal activity against Carter Page and against a sitting president certainly I would love to be Carter Page's lawyer his civil rights as alleged in the findings by Inspector General Horowitz very clearly delineate that but but there were actions taken by individuals at the FBI to continue a counterintelligence investigation against a sitting president against his campaign and then against his presidency and you know so these are things that findings made by Inspector General Horowitz that I would now expect John Durham to look at from a criminal standpoint I'm not saying that anyone I'm not making allegations that anyone has should be convicted these are allegations everyone's entitled to a presumption of innocence but do I think that there's activity detailed in this that should be investigated and prosecuted absolutely so do you think people could go to jail could people go to jail over this absolutely I mean what an what would an aggressive prosecutor do with this if the folks involved were George Papadopoulos or Michael Flynn the the the findings of fact made by the Inspector General here you know certainly detailed potential criminal activity which would send people away for a long period of time all right we're also going to talk with George Papadopoulos coming up so he can tell us exactly some of the conversations he had which now we know are exculpatory evidence which were not given to the FISA Court we're also looking at when the investigation actually started because as you know the FBI tells us that the investigation the counter intelligence investigation began in July of 16 but there were informants running in to campaign people as early as March of 16 so we'll speak with Michael Mukasey coming up congressman it's good to see you this morning thanks so much you bet thanks Maria