Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin makes clear one of his obsessions during that joint press conference with President Trump.
And what is the strategy for House Republicans to keep control of the House, as we witness a rising interest in Democratic socialism ahead of the midterm elections? Good morning, everyone.
Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Maria Bartiromo, and this is "Sunday Morning Futures."
President Trump responds this morning to the Justice Department releasing more than 400 pages of documents related to the 2016 FISA application for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
It shows the intimate Steele dossier was, in fact, a major component for the surveillance warrant. Fresh reaction from House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Alan Dershowitz coming up this morning. Vladimir Putin called him out by the name during the Helsinki news conference by President Trump.
Today, Bill Browder responds to the Russian leader. He will join me live.
And the midterm race is heating up. I'll speak exclusively with House Majority Whip Steve Scalise about the Republican leadership's strategy to keep control of the House.
All that and a lot more right now, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures." And top of the news right now, the Justice Department is making its first public disclosure of a highly sensitive FISA request by releasing the heavily redacted version of the documents relating to that FISA warrant against former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.
The 400-plus pages were released as a result of lawsuits filed by several media organizations, including Judicial Watch. The documents reveal major components in the FBI surveillance request leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
 |
| John "Mr. Stinky Face" Brennan (a,k,a, Pookie) |
That is what they used to get the warrant, the former British intelligence officer hired by a research firm working for Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton. The president reacting on Twitter earlier this morning, saying: "Congratulations to @JudicialWatch and @TomFitton being successful in getting the Carter Page FISA documents.
As usual, they are ridiculously heavily redacted, but confirm with little doubt that the Department of Justice and the FBI misled the courts. Witch-hunt. Rigged. A scam." The president later tweeted this: "Looking more and more like the Trump campaign for president was illegally being spied upon, surveillance for the political gain of crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
Ask her how that worked out? She did better with crazy Bernie. Republicans must get tough now. An illegal scam." Joining me right now with his first reaction to all of this is House Judiciary Committee Chairman and Virginia Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte. Mr. Chairman, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks so much for joining us. REP.
BOB GOODLATTE, R-VIRGINIA: Good morning, Maria. It's good to be with you.
BARTIROMO: Well, what strikes me about all of these documents that I have been looking at all morning is all of the redactions on every page, major black, black lines redacted. So, tell us, what did we learn from this FISA warrant?
GOODLATTE: Well, we certainly learned that there is a serious problem with the FBI presenting to the FISA court an application for a search warrant against a United States citizen and then followed by three renewals when they were basing it on a very flawed document, the so-called Steele dossier, that has never been verified. Even after all of this came out, they attempted to verify it and failed. So that's number one. Number two, I have had the opportunity, as have a few other members of the House of Representatives, the opportunity to read these FISA warrant applications without all of those redactions. There are only a few redactions in the document that I reviewed. And I think it is critically important that the American people have the opportunity to see most of the rest of those documents. We want to make sure that we're protecting sources. We want to make sure that we're protecting methods that are used in investigations. But most of the information that is redacted in that report should easily be seen by the American people. They can judge for themselves, but I will tell you, it doesn't support the issuance of a warrant against Mr. Page.
BARTIROMO: So, what will be done about it?
GOODLATTE: Well, certainly, this is a big development for the investigation that I, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Trey Gowdy, as chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, have been pursuing now for the last nine months, because, as you know, at each step in that process, the FBI has objected to our looking into this matter, because they claim it's part of an ongoing investigation. And we have said all along we're not interested in looking at the substance of anything that Mr. Mueller does find in his investigation. We don't want to interfere with that. But we do want to see how this investigation was launched and how it contrasts with the shocking way that they handled the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation. So that is an absolutely critical aspect of this. And now we have a federal judge who agrees that information regarding that investigation can and should be made public and has ordered it be made public. Much more needs to be done in that regard. But the Congress, which has subpoena power and has issued subpoenas with regard to both documents and witnesses, is entitled to have answers to our questions. And I think that this is a major boost to that effort.
BARTIROMO: There was one redaction here about an agent, an agent launching this investigation. Are we assuming that that is Peter Strzok, who is also-- his name redacted in this warrant?
GOODLATTE: I can't comment on the redacted items in that until a court has ordered them to be made public. But I can say that, based upon our other aspects of this investigation, that Peter Strzok was at the heart of both the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, where the FBI bent over backwards to find every way possible to not proceed with that case. And, in fact, as you know, they did decide in a very public and controversial way not to proceed in that investigation. And he was also at the heart of the beginning of this investigation into so-called Trump campaign-Russia collusion.
BARTIROMO: I want to know what this tells us about the Robert Mueller probe, because you go back to Carter Page, and here is the guy who was actually wiretapped and surveilled. If Carter Page was an agent of a foreign power working for the Russians, why is he still running around free? Why are there no charges against Carter Page? And, by the way, what does that say about Comey, McCabe, Yates, Rosenstein, and the others who repeatedly certified to the court that he was, that he was an agent of foreign power? Why has he not been charged then?
GOODLATTE: Well, excellent question. He was surveilled for a solid year, three-month increments for -- with three renewals. And I don't believe they found anything with regard to him. I cannot speak for him, and I can't speak for special counsel Mueller. And, as I have said before, he has been charged with a responsibility to carry out. And if he finds evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, he should bring it forward. This investigation is now more than 2 years old. And it is, I think, very -- he's only been on the job for a little over a year. But this was going on for almost a year before he came on the scene, and still is a cloud, a shadow over this administration. It is something that, if they have the goods, as Chairman Gowdy has said, bring them to a grand jury. If you don't, let's let the world know that they don't have that evidence.
BARTIROMO: I want to run for you what Senator Rand Paul said on Fox News this past week, because I'm wondering if this information and all that we're gleaning from all of this, whether it's the FISA warrant or your interactions with Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, which I'm going to get to, if that is going to dictate where the Robert Mueller investigation goes. You would think that it would, since his mandate is collusion with the Russians. Here is what Senator Rand Paul said about all of this, this week on Fox News. Listen to this, Mr. Chairman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: The president sees the Mueller investigation, he sees all these accusations from partisan Democrats, Hillary Clinton, saying, oh, he colluded with the Russians, but then he also sees that the only people who actually we know colluded with the Russians were Hillary Clinton, who paid a British agent, who then paid Russians for information with this dossier. So he is -- feels like the intelligence community cooked up a political or partisan investigation. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Would Robert Mueller interview Hillary Clinton?
GOODLATTE: Well, again, I can't speak for Robert Mueller. But I can very heartily agree with Senator Paul when he says that Democratic operatives related to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for the creation of the so-called Steele dossier, and then turned it over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But what's so unprecedented about this is that the FBI then took it, weaponized it, without ever verifying its credibility, and brought it to the FISA court without disclosing the source of that information. That is deeply troubling. And it is a part of the reason why the new FBI director has been hard at work trying to reform this organization, whose credibility has been damaged by a few key people. And, by the way, those few key people are the same people in both of these investigations, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, the FBI counsel, the chief of staff to the director, the same people in both these investigations.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GOODLATTE: In one instance doing everything possible to avoid indicting Hillary Clinton, including allowing her chief aides to be in the room with her when she was interviewed by the FBI, creating a memo exonerating her before most of the witnesses, including Secretary Clinton, had been interviewed, not putting this before a grand jury, even though they had impaneled a grand jury in that investigation. They didn't let the grand jury determine whether she should be indicted, and then changing the language in the memo from gross negligence to extreme carelessness. Gross negligence very closely tracks the statute. Extreme carelessness is not a meaningful phrase. All to avoid indicting her.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GOODLATTE: That is shocking.
BARTIROMO: And many of the people that you mentioned, they have signed -- on the signage page of this FISA warrant, they all signed it, OKing it, and that includes John Brennan -- Sally Yates, John Brennan, Jim Comey, Peter Strzok. So, John Brennan, he's the man who deserves a belated bit of scrutiny, according to The Wall Street Journal, Kim Strassel's op-ed just this past week. We know that John Brennan has been all over town trashing President Trump and trashing the hearing that your committee actually did with Peter Strzok. What are your thoughts on John Brennan's involvement?
GOODLATTE: Well, we have lots of questions for John Brennan, and he will definitely be sought by the committees for an interview. This is an extremely disturbing thing to see both he and James Comey, supposedly impartial government officials carrying out their jobs in very important areas in intelligence-gathering and law enforcement, express the kind of extreme bias that they have shown now, which I think reflects quite accurately on what they were doing back in 2016.
BARTIROMO: So, he's on your list of witnesses to have in to interview them?
GOODLATTE: Absolutely. Definitely.
BARTIROMO: Who else is on that list?
GOODLATTE: Well, we're going to go through -- we have received a list from the Intelligence Committee of literally dozens of people. We're going through that list now and determining which ones are our priority. I think I would rather leave it at that, but certainly we will also be talking to Director Comey and former Attorney General Lynch. BARTIROMO: Let me ask you about Lisa Page. I know that you had behind-closed-door meetings with her, but, apparently, during that hearing, you have discovered more information that you want. Can you tell us anything about the Lisa Page testimony and what you learned?
GOODLATTE: Well, it was a private confidential interview. But I will say this, that Ms. Page, in contrast to Mr. Strzok, was far more forthcoming and gave us far more information regarding what was going on in 2016 and into 2017, to help our investigation. But I will also say that she reminded us of some documents that hadn't been talked about for a while, including the fact that there are not only memos by James Comey that we're all aware of, but also memos by Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI, that are of interest to us as well, and we're seeking those now.
BARTIROMO: So now you're seeking those documents. I know that you have been focused and certainly your colleague Devin Nunes has been focused on any information before the actual investigation was launched, which was July 31, 2016. Mr. Chairman, I want to take a short break, and then I want to come back to that. We also have much to discuss with you, including that showdown with Democrats over a House resolution to support ICE. We will be right back with Chairman Goodlatte. Follow me on Twitter @MariaBartiromo, @SundayFutures. Let us know what you would like to hear from Chairman Goodlatte. And a quick programming note: Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Senator Joe Lieberman will join me this Wednesday on "Mornings With Maria" on the Fox Business Network. So join me weekdays at 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern on Fox Business. We will be right back with Chairman Goodlatte.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BARTIROMO: We're back with House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte. And, Mr. Chairman, we know, based on the copies of the FISA warrant that we were able to look at today, that Rod Rosenstein, the deputy A.G., signed off on the FISA warrant. And they signed off three additional times, so a total of four times, with the same evidence. Are you among those calling for Rod Rosenstein to recuse himself?
GOODLATTE: I am not at this point. Rod Rosenstein did sign the third renewal application or, in other words, the last FISA warrant application. He was asked at the hearing that he testified at a couple weeks ago whether or not he read the document. He declined to answer that because he claimed it was part of an ongoing investigation. I think that's an important question that he needs to answer, but I also think it's even more important that he continue to work with the Congress to move this forward, so that we can get answers to all of our questions and get all of the documents that we have subpoenaed. There has been definitely more cooperation since we issued the subpoena and since U.S. attorney John Lausch from the Northern District of Illinois was appointed to help us get those documents. We have much greater access to unredacted documents than we have had before. But we still have a long way to go. This is an ongoing investigation, and there are many more documents and many more questions that witnesses have been instructed by the FBI not to answer that need to be answered. And I think the fact that a judge has now ordered the release of this FISA warrant application shows that it is entirely appropriate for us to look into how this investigation was launched.
BARTIROMO: Yes. And, of course, that investigation morphed into the Robert Mueller investigation. And there was one text from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page that basically says there's no there there when the Robert Mueller investigation launched, correct?
GOODLATTE: That's correct.
BARTIROMO: Yes. OK, we will keep following that. Let me move on to immigration. You have been working, obviously, with two bills. Are you going to be able to get one of them across the finish line before the midterm elections? What are your expectations there, Mr. Chairman?
GOODLATTE: Well, you know, Maria, 224 House Republicans, all but 12 of the Republicans in the House, have voted for one of the two measures that we offered. Unfortunately, neither one got to 218. One got to 193, just 21 votes short of what is a current -- what -- the majority that day.
BARTIROMO: Right.
GOODLATTE: And there are many members hard at work trying to make sure that we bring some of the measures from the second one into the first one and get over 218 votes. That would be huge.
BARTIROMO: OK. Well, we will wait for that. And real quick, I know you had some technology executives in a hearing as well. You're looking at the editing of information, conservative ideas. Tell us what you're looking at in terms of technology CEOs and where you are in that regard. Real quick, sir.
GOODLATTE: Well, we held a hearing last week with representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter, in the case of Google, particularly YouTube, regarding their censorship policies, which they do on all three of those social media platforms.
BARTIROMO: Right.
GOODLATTE: And we have had the opportunity to ask some very probing questions about how it is that they have liability protections that newspaper or television...
BARTIROMO: Mr. Chairman, we're going to be looking at this.
GOODLATTE: OK.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much. Good to see you, sir, Chairman Goodlatte.
GOODLATTE: Thank you, Maria. BARTIROMO: We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BARTIROMO: Welcome back. The Senate voting unanimously on a nonbinding resolution to oppose giving Russia access to U.S. officials. Vladimir Putin making the proposal in exchange for allowing special counsel Robert Mueller access to the 12 Russians indicted by the Justice Department. Putin made the suggestion during that Helsinki news conference with President Trump, calling out my next guest by name. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We can actually permit official representatives of the United States, including the members of this very commission headed by Mr. Mueller, we can let them into the country and they will be present for this questioning. Then we would expect that the Americans would reciprocate, and so we can bring up Mr. Browder in this particular case.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BARTIROMO: "Bring up Mr. Browder in this particular case." Joining us right now is the man, Bill Browder. He is the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and a thorn in Putin's side now for several years. Bill, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks very much for joining us.
BILL BROWDER, CEO, HERMITAGE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: Great to be here.
BARTIROMO: Look, I know you a lot of years, Bill. And we have talked about your story for a lot of years. But, even then, for me, after knowing the story as well as I do, I got chills down my back when I heard Vladimir Putin mention your name. What did you think?
BROWDER: Well, I should point out that he's been mentioning my name on a regular basis for the last six years. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Vladimir Putin is obsessed with me. He's obsessed because I was the one responsible for getting the Magnitsky Act passed in 2012, which sanctions Putin and his corrupt cronies for human rights violations. And he hates that.
BARTIROMO: So, tell us about that, because just to briefly go through your story, at one point, you were the leading -- one of the leading investors in Russia. You owned a lot of Russian companies, Russian stocks in your Hermitage Capital fund. You were living between Moscow and London. You were traveling back and forth all the time, when you were -- became aware of corruption going on, oligarchs stealing money from Russian companies. You wanted it stopped. You started to become more of an active investor, calling out this. And then what happened, Bill?
BROWDER: Well, so after exposing corruption in these big companies like Gazprom, Putin expelled me from the country, declared me as a threat to national security. The police then raided my offices in Moscow, seized all my documents. I had a young lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky start to investigate. And he figured out that they seized those documents to steal $230 million of taxes that we paid to the Russian government. He exposed it. He was then arrested by some of the people he exposed, put in pretrial detention, tortured for 358 days, and then killed at the age of 37 in a Russian prison on November 16, 2009.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
BROWDER: And, since then, I have put aside everything else I'm doing on a mission to get justice for Sergei Magnitsky, which has resulted in the Magnitsky Act, which Putin hates me so much for.
BARTIROMO: And the Magnitsky Act basically protects companies and punishes those who try to have fraud and stealing of the wealth by the oligarchs. And Putin is upset by that. Let's show you -- the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote a piece about you this weekend, saying, Donald Trump, meet Bill Browder. It begins like this: "Vladimir Putin knows what he wants from Donald Trump. And one priority is help in silencing businessman and human rights advocate Bill Browder. Someone should tell Mr. Trump that he and Mr. Browder were both targeted by Fusion GPS, the political gun for hire that midwifed the Steele dossier in 2016." Tell us what happened with you and Fusion GPS, Bill.
BROWDER: So, just a little bit of background on the story. So, the Department of Justice discovered that there was some of the money from the Magnitsky case in New York. They opened up a criminal case against a Russian oligarch. And Fusion GPS came in to work for the Russian oligarch for Natalia Veselnitskaya, who is the Russian oligarch's lawyer. So, Fusion GPS, the firm that did the Trump dossier, started to do a smear campaign on me. And they put together all of Natalia Veselnitskaya's talking points about me for the Trump Tower meeting where she went into speak with Donald Trump Jr. And I would deduce that Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson, therefore, put together the same talking points for Vladimir Putin, because they were the same talking points in Trump Tower. So, in that Helsinki meeting last week, Vladimir Putin said a whole bunch of stuff about me. And, as far as I can tell, I think that those talking points came from Glenn Simpson.
BARTIROMO: Well the Senate voted down any idea that the Russians would be able to question you. And Donald Trump obviously agreed with that, so that's not happening. But I have seen some of your quotes in the press. You're afraid that, if in fact that were to happen, you're a dead man.
BROWDER: Well, basically, even if there's only a 1 percent chance of it happening, if I get handed over to the Russians and to Vladimir Putin, I will be killed. There's no question about it. They have made death threats on a number of occasions. A number of other people connected to this case have either been killed or attempted to be killed. Vladimir Putin wants me dead. This is not -- this is not -- this is a very serious matter.
BARTIROMO: Now, the charges that he levels against you, which were all debunked, we should say, but he says you avoided taxes in Russia and in the U.S. and that you gave hundreds of millions of dollars to Hillary Clinton. Your reaction?
BROWDER: Well, all -- he's been throwing out charges against me like candy. These particular charges have been analyzed by the U.S. Department of Justice, by the British government, by Interpol, by the German government, and have all been rejected outright. It's just complete nonsense. In terms of the Hillary Clinton campaign contributions, I have given zero, zero contributions to Hillary Clinton in any campaign. I do not make U.S. campaign contributions. And, in fact, this $400 million number that he threw out, they then walked back to $400,000 the next day. And the real number is zero.
BARTIROMO: It's an interesting situation, because when you look at the past in terms of Vladimir Putin, there's your story. There's Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Garry Kasparov, the chess champion, was thrown in jail, not to mention the endless number of murders of journalists in Russia and enemies of Putin. Then again, Russia and the U.S. control 90 percent of the world's nuclear capability. What does President Trump do? He has to work with the other partner of the nuclear capability, no? But it's important to put a picture together of who Vladimir Putin is.
BROWDER: Well, I think that President Trump should do what Ronald Reagan did. I mean, Russia and the Soviet Union have had these nuclear warheads for a long time. Ronald Reagan knew what to do, which was to contain the Soviet Union. And Donald Trump should contain Russia. This is not -- you don't make friends and buddy-buddy up to a hostile, malign power. And that's what that 98-0 vote was about and every other vote in Congress about Russia. This is not a partisan thing. This is a -- it's un-American to do anything other than contain Vladimir Putin. And I think...
BARTIROMO: It feels, at this point, we are seeing a new era. And it seems that the president understands who this person is. But we will keep watching that. Bill Browder, it's good to have you on the program this morning. Thanks very much. And we're not saying where you're coming to us from. We understand the danger you're in. Next up, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BARTIROMO: Welcome back. Republicans are working on their strategy to retain control of Congress come November amid talk of a blue wave in the upcoming midterms. My next guest has some insight on the plan for the GOP lawmakers in the House. With me now in an exclusive interview is House Majority Whip and Republican Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise. Congressman, it's great to see you this morning. Thanks so much for joining us.
REP. STEVE SCALISE, R-LA, HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP: Morning. Always great to be with you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: So, what is the plan to retain control of the House, from your standpoint?
SCALISE: The plan is to continue focusing on getting the economy moving, seeing this great economic growth, and then locking it in. We're going to bring some more bills to cut taxes. We're going to make the tax cuts permanent. That bill, Chairman Brady and his committee are already working on. We just did a jobs 3.0 bill, a bill to provide more regulatory relief, and do some more things that will help create more jobs and rebuild the middle class. And, look, it's a stark contrast with the radical left's agenda right now in Washington. Pelosi is talking about raising taxes. She's talking about abolishing ICE, single-payer health care. That's not the direction we need to go. So let's keep the economy moving. We're going to continue focusing on it. This week, we're going to bring a bill to repeal the medical device tax, push back the health insurance taxes, the HIT tax, some of these things that are hurting health care in this country, and let's focus on getting the economy moving.
BARTIROMO: And, by the way, the economy is going to show movement this week. We get the GDP number out on Thursday, and all expectations call for a second-quarter GDP number of 4 percent, largely as a result of some of the rollback in regulations and the tax cut plan. I want to talk about what the Democrats, though, are going to do in response to that. Joe Lieberman, a former senator, wrote an op-ed. And Lieberman writes this in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this week, "Vote Joe Crowley for working families." It begins with this quote: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's surprise victory over Representative Joe Crowley seems likely to hurt Congress, America, and the Democratic Party. It doesn't have to." What Lieberman writes is that he's hoping that Crowley's name is on the ballot, because the idea to abolish ICE came from her, Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez. And Tom Perez, the head of the DNC, says she's the future of the party.
SCALISE: Well, I hope she is, because it shows such a dramatic shift to the radical left. That's not where America is. America is still a center-right country. And you saw she was out there with Bernie Sanders going through the Midwest, going to Missouri. She was in Kansas City. They're trying to push this idea of abolishing ICE, of all things. Think about this, Maria. The very people who keep our country safe -- ICE has been directly responsible for stopping human trafficking, stopping -- saving some of these kids that are being exploited from human trafficking. And they want to get rid of them. They want open borders. That's not what this country is all about. I hope they keep going around and letting people know that's what they would do if they were in the majority.
BARTIROMO: I don't understand the idea of open borders. It's really questionable in terms of that being a platform to run on. In terms of immigration and your efforts, we just heard from Bob Goodlatte. Are you going to be able to come up with a plan that protects the DACA recipients, but also protects this country with the proper security in terms of securing the borders?
SCALISE: Well, Maria, we have had two different bills we have brought to the floor that would do just that. And, as you heard Chairman Goodlatte say, we have had large numbers of Republicans vote for it, but not one Democrat. So when you have between the two bills 224 Republicans voting yes to build a wall, secure the border, solve the DACA problem and the visa lottery system, and not one Democrat could find a way to vote for any of those bills, it shows you they don't want to solve this problem and we do. We will keep working on it, but let's -- let's look at those votes, Maria, to show there are serious Republican plans to secure this country's border. And every single Democrat voted no because Nancy Pelosi bullied them and threatened them and said she didn't want to provide Donald Trump with a win. That's not -- again, that's not what this country is all about. Some of the great things President Trump has done, working with us to cut taxes, to get the economy moving, to bring regulations under control, it's actually working. They should want to join with us to keep that going. To be opposed to the things that are helping rebuild our middle class is a losing strategy for Democrats.
BARTIROMO: And in a -- also foreign policy, you look at some of the outcomes that have come, Jim Mattis apparently saying that the NATO meeting was among the most successful meetings that he's ever seen. Your thoughts on the president's relationship with Vladimir Putin and what the U.S. needs to do with Russia, given these horrible stories we just heard about Putin from Bill Browder.
SCALISE: Yes, Putin is a bad guy. He's not our friend. I think what you have got to look at are the actions that President Trump has taken to stand up against Putin and to stand up against Russia. And they're significant, Maria. If you start with the Ukraine, they're our friend in Eastern Europe. You saw Putin rolling through Crimea, moving into Eastern Europe. And Barack Obama sat on the sidelines. Those countries -- by the way, the Ukrainians, they didn't say, give us boots on the ground. They said, can you just sell us arms, so we can push back against the Russians' aggression and bomb their tanks? And Obama said no. President Trump said yes and actually sold them those missiles, so that they can defend their country and push Russia out of Eastern Europe.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
SCALISE: And that's happening right now. He kicked out diplomats. He increased sanctions against Russia. That's standing up to Russia. We need to keep reminding Russia they're not our friend. They need to get out of Syria. They need stop allying with some of these rogue countries.
BARTIROMO: Kevin Brady was on this program last week, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He said he was going to get -- try to get a vote on tax cuts 2.0 to the floor in September. Do you think he will need Democratic support here? Is anybody going to vote for tax cuts 2.0, when they're complaining about deficits, and they didn't vote for tax cuts 1?
SCALISE: Every single Democrat should vote for tax cuts 2.0.
BARTIROMO: But they won't. SCALISE: Because it's worked for our economy. But they probably won't, Maria. And, look, we're going to go forward anyway. What Chairman Brady is doing, I think, is important work. He was down at the White House just a few days ago working with President Trump to make sure that the cuts include all the things we want to do to keep this economy growing.
BARTIROMO: All right.
SCALISE: We're seeing historic growth. Let's keep it going. We are going to have a bill on the floor to do just that in September. And it'll pass the House. The real question is, will every Democrat vote no, like they did last time, now knowing how well it's working for middle-class families?
BARTIROMO: It's a win for President Trump, for sure. Congressman, it's good to see you. Thanks so much.
SCALISE: Great being back with you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: We appreciate you joining us, Congressman Steve Scalise there. The Department of Justice released heavily redacted documents last night relating to the surveillance warrant against a former Trump campaign aid. So what, if anything, do these documents tell us? Alan Dershowitz weighs in next, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures" right now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BARTIROMO: Welcome back. Back to our top story today. The Justice Department released top-secret documents on the FISA warrant sought for the Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The release of the heavily redacted 412-page report comes in response to several freedom of information lawsuits. It shows the FBI relied on the discredited Steele dossier as a major component to apply for surveillance warrants on Carter Page. For his part, Page is maintaining his innocence. My next guest is the author of the new book "The Case against Impeaching Trump." Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz joins me right now. And, Alan, it's good to see you this morning. Your reaction to what we have received in terms of this FISA warrant, which is heavily redacted, every page, massive black spots? What do you think?
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, ATTORNEY: Well, I'm used to seeing redacted information. I would say 90 percent of redactions are generally designed to cover people's incompetence, and they're not national security. And I think you should have an objective, neutral person go through the redactions and always err in favor of publicly releasing and transparency, rather than secrecy. But what it also shows us is that there is potentially a violation of the United States Supreme Court decision called Franks vs. Maryland and its progeny. That case says, when you make an application for a warrant, you have to be truthful. And if you omit important information or fail to disclose information that might discredit the source, there's a real legal problem. And here, of course, we know that the Steele dossier, we know how it was obtained, we know the circumstances. And the FISA court didn't know those pieces of information, should have known it. And the question really is, was there other information sufficient beyond the Steele dossier to justify intruding on the privacy rights of an American citizen?
BARTIROMO: That's right.
DERSHOWITZ: And we don't know enough yet to answer that question.
BARTIROMO: Well, I mean, we know that one other piece of information used was a Yahoo article about the Steele dossier. So it was all based on the Steele dossier.
DERSHOWITZ: Yes. BARTIROMO: And then they re-upped it and got -- they had to get additional sign-offs on it three times with the same information. Normally, you -- when you go to re-up a warrant, you have new informational. It's based on the dossier. Look, is it high time we all admit that the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign because it was a political enemy and there was an election?
DERSHOWITZ: Well, I would like to know more about that. That's why right from day one I called for an independent, nonpartisan, expert investigating commission that would look at the entire 2016 election, ranging from Comey's statements to Strzok to whether the Obama administration put a spy in the campaign. All of these things are relevant to all Americans. And they're nonpartisan. We want to see fair elections. We don't want to see the thumb of any FBI agents, Justice Department officials, Russia, Comey, we don't want to see the come, even a pinkie on the scale of our election. And we're not learning this from the Mueller report.
BARTIROMO: So, what happens now, Alan?
DERSHOWITZ: Yes.
BARTIROMO: It certainly doesn't feel good. It feels like it's rigged, this whole thing. What happens now when you're -- in your estimation, based on what we know from Peter Strzok, what we know about the hearings in terms of Lisa Page, and, of course, all of these texts?
DERSHOWITZ: Well, we will see, first of all, whether any of this appears in Mueller's report, because there's going to be a report. But there are also indictments and there will be some contested cases. And in the contested cases, lawyers have a gold mine to work with, defense lawyers, challenging this FISA application, challenging Strzok's objectivity. All of this will become a basis for legal proceedings and legal challenges. We have already seen Judge Ellis in Virginia question the special counsel, wonder whether, not only are they trying to make people sing, but also make them compose. The process is a very flawed one. And the more the American people know about it, the more distressed they are at how special counsels operate, particularly in the context of political elections. We need to know more, not less. We need less redaction, more transparency. And we have the right to judge for ourselves whether our system of justice is operating fairly, within the Constitution, and consistent with civil liberties. Right now, there are questions, more questions than answers.
BARTIROMO: There sure are. All right, we are going to keep watching that and wonder when the Robert Mueller report will be out. We're waiting on that, of course. Good to see you, Alan. Thanks very much for weighing in this morning.
DERSHOWITZ: Oh, thank you so much.
BARTIROMO: Alan Dershowitz joining us. We will be right back with our all-star panel on all of that. Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BARTIROMO: Welcome back. The Justice Department releasing the Carter Page FISA documents. Let's bring in our panel on that. Ed Rollins is a former Reagan-Bush campaign manager. James Freeman is an assistant editor for The Wall Street Journal editorial page. Both are FOX News contributors. And it is a pleasure to see you both.
ED ROLLINS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you.
JAMES FREEMAN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Good to be here. Thanks.
BARTIROMO: Good to see you. Your reaction to what we have heard this morning, Ed Rollins?
ROLLINS: The truth of the matter is what was discovered with this document and the Strzok testimony, what have you. Hillary was never a target of any investigation. Strzok admitted that. She was never under investigation. They clearly -- Strzok, I think, was one of the instruments of really going after the Trump campaign. And he's trying to woo -- he's trying to woo his girlfriend. And, basically, she was very anti-Trump. Brennan was an anti-Trump person. And my sense is that they used this idiotic document that was an opposition research document to go violate the FISA rules and all of the rest of it. And this whole thing got started -- Carter Page is not an operative for the Soviet Union. The problem was the Trump campaign didn't have the big significant foreign policy people. These were all kinds of fringe players. And I think to a certain extent they got Paul Manafort on past sins.
BARTIROMO: Right.
ROLLINS: That'll all be the -- next week's trial will start. But I think the reality is, there was nothing. There was no there there. And I think the American public...
(CROSSTALK) BARTIROMO: Right. That was one of the texts. There's no there there. Peter Strzok said it. But you mentioned Carter Page. If Carter Page was an agent of foreign power, why is he still running around with no charges, James? There are no charges.
FREEMAN: Right. It's been two years now. And, as you mentioned, a lot of black marker, a lot of redactions in these documents.
BARTIROMO: Oh, yes. Look at this.
FREEMAN: But one thing that does come through is, it appears the dossier was central to it. And when they weren't relying on the dossier, they were appealing to the authority of Yahoo News, without pointing out that that was a Steele story as well in terms of the source.
BARTIROMO: It's all connected.
FREEMAN: No, why do they continue to say that Steele is credible after they even acknowledge in their re-applications that he didn't do as he was told and he was sharing information with the media? That's a question. So, I think this is another argument for the president to declassify everything, get it out there. Enough of the redactions. Let's see the whole FISA applications. Let's see what are known as the Woods notes, where the FBI goes through and figures out what they can put in the FISA document.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
FREEMAN: We need to see where this came from. BARTIROMO: And the editorial board did an op-ed on that, asking the president to actually make sure that you declassify these documents. Is this going to hurt the Dems in the midterm?
ROLLINS: I think it will, because they're just -- they're arguing things that aren't valid to the American public. And, equally as important, their party is getting so far to the left, that if Republicans, who have a lot of open seats and a lot of challenged seats, if they go out and talk about the president's programs of getting the economy moving, what have you, they will do fine. But they can't make it a national campaign. They got to make it a local campaign.
BARTIROMO: Right. And we're going to get the GDP number out on Thursday, James.
FREEMAN: Yes.
BARTIROMO: And it may very well show 4 percent growth. The outcomes that this president has had are very positive. And they're insane over it.
FREEMAN: Yes. Well, this -- I mean, going back now, two years later, there's nothing on Carter Page. Two years later, we're asked to believe that this was some secret Russian plot to revive the American economy and rebuild the U.S. military and strengthen Ukraine to resist Russian expansionism. So it gets harder and harder to believe. And I think the president and his Republican allies in Congress have a pretty strong case on the economy.
ROLLINS: The one thing is, the Russians were trying to play here. And they have tried to play here for a long time. And they got more publicity this time, because there were all these investigations.
BARTIROMO: Yes, and because they tried to implicate Trump.
ROLLINS: But not...
BARTIROMO: And we know Russia has been trying to undermine the West for a long time.
ROLLINS: And not effective.
BARTIROMO: Trump had nothing to do with it. Great to see you both. Thank you so much. Have a great day, everybody. I will see you next week. END
No comments:
Post a Comment