Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" - Rep. Nunes on the House's Russia investigation findings

Interview

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BARTIROMO: A lot more coming up from Senator Lindsay Graham later on in the program but first, the stock market reacting to the potential of a trade war even as China calls for cooperation in preventing one. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 724 points on Thursday marking the fifth largest point decline in history. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes joins me now from the World Ag Expo in California. Congressman Nunes is also a Member of the House Ways and Means Committee along with the Chairman of the Intel Committee so a lot to talk to with today with you. Mr. Chairman, good to see you, sir. Thanks so much for joining us.

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CALIF., CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Thank you, Maria. It's great to be on.

BARTIROMO: And there you are coming from the World Ag Expo with plenty of farmers who no doubt have to be questioning now being forced to pay more to actually get their goods into China. Give us your reaction to the aluminum and steel tariffs and this move this past week on China.

NUNES: Well, China is a big problem. We actually are running an investigation on many aspects of China at the House Intelligence Committee. I think most Americans know that China is, in fact, stealing our intellectual property. They're spreading globally. They continue to manipulate currencies so China has to be taken on. I'm not sure that the aluminum and steel tariffs is the way to do it, however, this is the path that the president has outlined for the American people. And let's remember, every president has said that they're going to get tough on people who cheat on trade. This president is actually doing it and so we're going to have to -- as that happens we're going to have to watch the markets. I think every trade agreement is going to be negotiated. My recommendation to the White House is to not only just look at tariffs but let's look at where we can actually tear down tariffs too. So perhaps we can take this opportunity to strike trade deals with allies like Japan, possibly Vietnam, the Philippines, other places in Asia so that if China does want to get into a trade war, that we can actually begin to open up more trade with their neighbors where they'll take some of our products that we grow here in America, reduce those tariffs and we can bring in some of their products. That's how free and fair trade should be done in this country.

BARTIROMO: That's an important point to look at Japan, Philippines, and Vietnam. I'll ask Peter Navarro about that coming up because of course, he's working on the U.S. trade policies there. But you just said something interesting. You said that you have been investigating Chinese practices. You were going to announce that this week. Are you going to come up with it, the details of that investigation in this upcoming week?

NUNES: Yes, we continue to look at the areas that we're going to -- that we're going to investigate so the way that we're looking at it now, Maria, is first and foremost, we're looking at the military footprint and potential military footprint that China is trying to put around the globe. So this didn't get a lot of fanfare because there's so much attention being paid to the Russian fiasco and Russian collusion. But in the meantime, the Chinese just opened up a base, a military base in Djibouti. Djibouti is at the entrance to the Red Sea in the heart of the Middle East in the Indian Ocean, a long way away from China. We believe that they are looking at investing in ports and infrastructure around the globe, not just for military capabilities but also to control those governments, to have the ability to lobby and manipulate governments, when you invest in things like financial markets or the energy sector.

BARTIROMO: Yeas, this is a really important --

NUNES: And last and I think most--

BARTIROMO: Yes, go ahead.

NUNES: Well I think most importantly also, they're stealing our intellectual property so either it's through the internet or it's through investing in educational systems here or think tanks. They're bringing people here. I believe that they are stealing Silicon Valley blind and in just a few years the American people are going to possibly be looking to China for new coding and new programs because of everything that the Chinese are stealing from here in America.

BARTIROMO: That's right because they're trying to transfer technology from America to China on some of the most important industries of the future. What I was struck by speaking with you before this interview is you have called China a growing national security threat, so I want to turn to the FBI investigation in a moment but go through why you see China as this growing national security threat in particular building those military bases all over the world.

NUNES: Well, I mean yes, let's start with that. So I just mentioned that they're building a military base in Djibouti. They are also continuing to put more and more submarines into the -- into the oceans. They took over the South China Sea so they built islands that are essentially I call them stationary aircraft carriers all over the South China Sea. So you know, why does that matter? Why does that matter to people here in California or all over the United States of America? Well, it's because almost two- thirds of the world's global trade goes through that area, and so if they control the entrance to the Red Sea and they control the South China Sea, very strategic locations I might add, they effectively could cut off world trade if they wanted to. And so I don't see them, you know, I don't -- nobody wants to have a fight or a war with China or a trade war with China but the fact of the matter is that they are a communist dictatorship. Most of the major companies are state-owned enterprises. If you're an American and you go try to invest in China, you have to make a deal. Some part of the communist party is going to own that deal. If you're not part of the communist party in China, you're not going to own a business. So these are the types of things that we have to be concerned about especially as they begin not only to advance their military capabilities but also to steal our military secrets and then furthermore, if you look at smaller countries around the globe they've really made investments into major infrastructure so I mentioned that a little bit earlier but if you come in and the Chinese loan you billions of dollars to build a railway or a port, what countries in Africa have found out that comes with a price. They then want your vote in the United Nations. So these are the types of things in why China is such a national security threat and why I think what you're seeing is if the president can kind of move off of the steel and aluminum threats directly, tariffs directly and move in to more holding China accountable and bringing them to the table, we might be able to strike a deal that we haven't been able to strike in many, many decades.

BARTIROMO: Well, this is a really unreported story an underreported story. I'm glad you just broke the news that you're actually working on an investigation of all of this and you will have more details for us on that coming soon. So we'll keep following that Congressman. I know that there are ten industries in China that are deemed off limits for foreigners. You can't even own a joint venture in things like defense and financial services and we don't do any of that here in the U.S. So we'll keep watching that. But I want to get your take on the other major investigation that you've been working on and that is, of course, looking at the FBI and its handling of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation as well as this Russia collusion story. Last week, we had one of your colleagues on the program Chairman Bob Goodlatte of the Judiciary Committee and here's what he said. Listen to this.

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BARTIROMO: OK, Congressman, obviously we got the subpoena. It went out late last week. Bob Goodlatte broke the news on this program last Sunday. If you don't get those documents, then what?

NUNES: So if I was Chairman Goodlatte, what I would do quickly because I had to go through this for the last year, fighting Department of Justice and FBI for documents. I think the American people now know that they stonewalled for many, many months so that we could actually figure out that Fusion GPS was paid by the Democratic Party and that Clinton Campaign to collude and interact with Russians to get dirt on President Trump. That took us a long time to find out and what I would recommend to my colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee and I applaud Chairman Goodlatte for what he's doing but don't wait. So when we get back in two weeks, if the 1.2 million documents aren't in the capital, then what he should immediately move to hold Department of Justice and the FBI in contempt and if we have to vote on contempt, then we should immediately move to impeach those officials. That would be using the full power of the Congress. But we can't wait. We've been waiting -- we've been listening for over a year and a half to the Democrats in this country, scare the American people that they have evidence of collusion with Russians which they don't. They can't prove it. They've been saying it, you have these investigations ongoing, you have FBI officials who have been fired. Congress has the -- is a separate branch of government. We created the Department of Justice and the Congress needs those documents and they need them now, they need them yesterday.

BARTIROMO: Well you obviously, for all of those reasons shutdown, closed your investigation in potential collusion because you did not find any but I want to go through the findings that you did come up with and report when you announced closing that investigation. What struck you most, because I find it really incredible that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is not looking at the collusion that we know that has existed between the Democrats and the Russians. Wouldn't that be under his purview?

NUNES: Well I think what -- there's a lot of things that strike me. You asked me what strikes me most about the report that we released. Let me start there. What strikes me most is that we had 70 recommendations and findings yet I think you might be the first person to actually cover our recommendations and findings because all of the media that's essentially part or allied with the Democratic Party ignored. They've went out with there with this narrative that the House Republicans were never interested in doing an investigation, however, the opposite is true. We have 70 findings and recommendations so what I would start with on that is that let's start with paper ballots. Perhaps in this country, we just talked about China, we know that the Russians are always up to no good. We better have you go back to using paper ballots in this country so that we have a way to check and double check that votes are accurate and all votes are counted. I think that's a major finding and major recommendation in our report

BARTIROMO: Yes, I want to talk about that Congressman.

NUNES: So, we also found no collusion between the Trump campaign but we did find a link between the Clinton and Democratic Party to the Russians.

BARTIROMO: Let's go through those links. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, Congressman Nunes, stay with us and walk us through some of those lengths. We will talk more about that and then there's this coming up.

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BARTIROMO: Senator Lindsay Graham, one of the several powerful Republican lawmakers now calling for a second Special Counsel. How likely is it? Follow me on Twitter @MariaBartiromo, @SundayFutures more with Devin Nunes after this short break as we look ahead on 'Sunday Morning Futures.' We'll be right back.

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BARTIROMO: Welcome back. We are back with California Congressman Devin Nunes, Chairman of the Intel Committee, he's the Chairman of the House Intel Committee that just voted to release the Republican majority's report on the Russia investigation which found no evidence of collusion between the president and Russia. And Congressman, I was saying this earlier, if we know that the Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign paid for the dossier then the FBI used the dossier to get a warrant to wiretap the president's team, I mean, shouldn't that be under the group of things that the Special Counsel looks at since his mandate, Robert Mueller's mandate was to find collusion with the Russians. Can we ignore it?

NUNES: Well, you would think so, but I have no faith in that process. You know, this -- I supported the Mueller probe in the beginning but I thought originally that they would get into the who did all the leaks, you know, who leaked the conservation between General Flynn and the Russian Ambassador

BARTIROMO: Which was a felony right?

NUNES: And in fact, that was one the things that we found in our -- which was a felony. That hasn't been looked at so this is not, to me, they're just looking at the Trump campaign. This is a further continuation of what the FBI was doing that started mid-summer 2016. It's a continuation of that. And look, there's no collusion. If they don't have any collusion, they ought to come out and say it. If they have some collusion then they ought to come out and say it. But it seems to me like this is -- this is going nowhere fast. And in fact, let's remember too, one of the findings we had is there's an old law on the books that's 200 years old that's never been used called, it's called the Logan Act. This is the reason that they went after General Flynn at least the reason they described to Congress. So one of the findings we have in our report is why do we have the Logan Act on the books when we know that it's selectively enforced. So you decided to use it against your political opponent, General Mike Flynn who is the incoming National Security Adviser to President Trump. However the Obama administration who had people over in Moscow back in 2008 talking to the Russian government which would clearly be a violation of Logan Act, it wasn't enforced then. So this is an outdated law. It's never been used. It should be struck from the books so that political opponents can't use it against each other.

BARTIROMO: We are waiting on the I.G. report, the Inspector General. What should we expect from Michael Horowitz's report? It feels like ahead of that report some key people are being reassigned or fired within the FBI as a result of what's coming.

NUNES: Yes, so I mean the main thing that we've learned so far is that the I.G. was able to get these text messages between Strzok and Page and that's really illuminated a lot of the problems and biases that we were able to see in the Justice Department and the FBI's investigation. And so it will be interesting to see. This was only -- remember the I.G. report is only looking at how they handled the Clinton email investigation, so we really need that report. The sooner the better because that information is really pertinent to the investigations that both the Judiciary Committee has going on and the Intelligence Committee because we're still looking into FISA abuse and other matters. We still have a lot of witnesses to bring in from the State Department and from the FBI and DOJ to try to get to the bottom of, you know, was there a conspiracy to go after the Trump campaign? Did people purposely obstruct Congress' investigation? We still need to get those answers and that's what we continue to look at.

BARTIROMO: And we'll continue to look for any new text messages that come out to illuminate further information for us. Congressman, it's good to see you, sir. Thanks so much.

NUNES: Thank you, Maria.

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