Fox News "Fox News Sunday" - Transcript: Russian Investigations

Interview

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WALLACE: Normally the decision to launch a military strike would fill the plate of any president. But this weekend, President Trump has plenty more to deal with. The criminal investigation of his personal lawyer, a special counsel continuing to breathe down his neck, and now a damaging book by the former head of the FBI.

Joining me to discuss all this, South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy, chair of the House Oversight Committee and a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Congressman, let's start with the FBI raid on the home, the hotel, and the offices of President Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen, which raises obvious questions about possible violation of attorney/client privilege.

As a former federal prosecutor, are you convinced that this raid was appropriate or at least on its face not inappropriate?

REP. TREY GOWDY, R-SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, here's what we know. We know a neutral detached federal magistrate had to sign off on the search warrant. We know that it requires the highest levels of DOJ permission to seize attorney/client records. And by that I mean the attorney general or the deputy attorney general. And we also know it must have nothing to do with Bob Mueller's probe, either directly or indirectly, or he would not have referred it.

What we don't know is what the basis of the probable cause was, what was searched and what was seized. But -- so -- so we know a little bit. We don't know a little bit. I think the most important thing we know is that a neutral detached federal judge, that has nothing to do with politics, signed off on this warrant.

WALLACE: I -- I want to pick up on -- on one of your points, which is that you -- you noted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller referred this to prosecutors in Manhattan.

And here was the president's furious reaction to that and it led to this exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Why don't I just fire Mueller?

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)?

TRUMP: Well, I think it's a disgrace what's going on. We'll see what happens. But I think it's really a sad situation when you look at what happened. And many people have said, you should fire him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Question, do you still think -- we talked several weeks ago -- do you still think it would be wrong, it would be a serious mistake to fire Mueller? And given the growing calls to fire the deputy attorney general, do you feel the same way about firing Rod Rosenstein?

GOWDY: Well, let me take Mueller first. I don't know what Mueller was supposed to do other than what he did. When a prosecutor comes in contact with information or evidence of a crime, what are you supposed to do, other than to refer it to the appropriate jurisdiction?

Now, if Mueller had kept something tangential or unrelated for himself, then I'd say, fine, you can criticize him. But he came in contact with potential criminality -- potential criminality. He referred it to the U.S. attorney's office of jurisdiction. And he did so with the permission of Rod Rosenstein. I don't know what else he could do.

As for Rod Rosenstein, I -- I don't see a basis for firing him in his handling of this probe. Now, he's the one who drafted that original jurisdiction for Mueller. So if you think it's too broad, you've got to direct your criticism towards Rosenstein and not to Mueller. If you're upset with Rosenstein because he's slow walking document production to Congress, take that up with him. But -- but how this is Mueller's fault just defies logic to me, Chris.

WALLACE: Yes, but here's the -- the point. And Steve Bannon, the president's former and apparently exiled adviser has suggested this. If you fire Rosenstein and you put a new guy in there as the deputy attorney general to oversee the Mueller investigation, then you don't have to fire Mueller, but you can restrict him. Are you concerned about that?

GOWDY: So this is the same Steve Bannon that accused the president's son of an act of treason. The same Steve Bannon that did something no one else in the world can do, which is elect a Democrat in Alabama. I don't know who the hell would take advice from Steve Bannon. And if I were to president, I'd say go get advice from anyone else in the world other than Steve Bannon.

WALLACE: But -- but just to make it clear, while you -- you rule out flatly the firing of Mueller, you're leaving the door open to firing Rosenstein?

GOWDY: It depends. It depends. I mean, look, the president is the head of the executive branch. He doesn't -- I mean he doesn't have to run his hiring and firing decisions by us. So if he's upset with Rod Rosenstein because Rod Rosenstein is not producing documents to Congress, that's a legitimate thing to be upset about. If he's upset with Rod Rosenstein because he wants to get at Bob Mueller and that's the way he's going to do it, taking the advice of Steve Bannon, which I would strongly recommend against, then, no, I don't think that's appropriate.

Does he have the power to get rid of Rod Rosenstein, yes, he does. Do I think it's wise, I don't.

WALLACE: In the midst of all this, this week, the president pardoned Scooter Libby. He, of course, is the former Dick Cheney aide who was convicted of lying to the FBI in the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA undercover officer case.

Given the timing, congressman, are you at all concerned that the president is sending a message to people, associates who may be under fire from Bob Mueller, just listen, if you protect me, then I will protect you with a pardon if it comes to that?

GOWDY: Well, I would hope most of the folks involved in this already know the president has the power of pardon. He's already proved that with Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona.

So I'm not a big fan of pardons. I'm a prosecutor. Most of the commentary I've read, Chris, on Scooter Libby's pardon is that they thought that it was an overzealous prosecutor. OK, there's a way to deal with that. Don't hire overzealous prosecutors.

But he was convicted, if memory serves me correctly, of a false statement and obstruction of justice. Those are things that you want to dissuade people from doing all the time. I think everyone knows the president has pardon power. So I don't know if he needs to send this signal, except to really slow-witted people.

WALLACE: I want to turn to one of your big issues now, and that is the way the FBI has handled the Clinton investigation and the Trump investigation. Former FBI Director James Comey has a new book out. You may have heard of it. And one of the questions -- he's going to have an interview on ABC tonight. You may have heard of that as well. One of the questions is what he told the president-elect when he talked to him at Trump Tower in January about the Steele dossier and the fact that it had been paid for by the Clinton campaign.

Take a look.

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WALLACE: Congressman, what do you think of Comey's answer and what do you think of Comey's book?

GOWDY: Well, as for his book, Chris, I'm disappointed. I had -- I hold prosecutors and law enforcement officials to a higher standard. So I think the book is sad.

Let's don't kid ourselves. Jim Comey now complains that President Trump is untethered from the truth. He'd still be the FBI director if he had his way. So all of the complaints he had about President Trump, he was willing to put those aside so he could keep his job.

The reason he wrote his book is because he got fired, not because he thinks President Trump is untethered from the truth, not because President Trump's ties are too long, not because he thinks he wears tanning bed goggles. It's because he got fired.

Now, as for whether or not he should have told the president the source of this salacious opposition research, would you want to know? I mean that's the first question you ask is, where did you get that from so you can judge the credibility.

I'm more concerned about the fact that they didn't tell the FISA court. That's what I'm really concerned about because President Trump doesn't sign off on warrants. The FISA judge did. So I think he should have told President Trump, but I know for a fact they should have told the FISA court.

WALLACE: Well, let me -- let me pick up on this because we learned this week that you and the chair of the House Intel Committee, Devin Nunes, have now read the original FBI memo that launched the whole Trump investigation in the summer of 2016. Having read it, are you persuaded that they had a legitimate reason to launch this probe?

GOWDY: I've always been persuaded. I -- I didn't have to read the -- the initiating document. I mean you've got George Papadopoulos, you've got a meeting at Trump Tower, you've got an -email from Cambridge Analytica, you -- you've got reasons to look into what Russia did and who, if anyone, did they do it with. So this origination document is important to me, though, because it goes to the credibility of those who launched the investigation. Was it because of George Papadopoulos? Because this initiation took place months after George Papadopoulos had his little conversation -- drunken conversation in a bar. Or was it the dossier?

So that's important to me to know. But you're going to have a Russian -- I mean Russia -- someone hacked the DNC server. Someone hacked John Podesta's e-mails. Someone played games with the American people, whether or not there's a dossier. So I've never thought that discrediting the dossier did away with the Russia probe.

WALLACE: All right.

One final question. I want to switch subjects.

In your role as chair of the House Oversight Committee, you wrote a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt this week seeking formal interviews with five of his top aides. Why and how much trouble is Pruitt in?

GOWDY: Well, I don't know how much trouble he's in. The reason the Oversight Committee wants to know whether or not the EPA is a good steward of taxpayer money is because Congress created the EPA. We fund the EPA. So, it is entirely legitimate for us to ask, are you being good stewards of the American taxpayer dollar? And it's also appropriate because we have jurisdiction over the Office of Government Ethics to look into his lease.

I didn't hire him. I'm not the one contemplating promoting him or demoting him or getting rid of him. That's all for President Trump. But Congress does have a responsibility to provide oversight. And I think the responsible way to do it is gather the documents.

Look, we're not having a prime time hearing, I've got, you know --

WALLACE: But let me just ask you, because I've got 30 seconds left. How troubled are you by this raft of reports that he spent too much money on his desk, his office, the planes, the security detail, that there are some serious ethical questions here about Mr. Pruitt?

GOWDY: I'm concerned about both what you cited and the explanation for it and whether or not it is credible.

Look, if you sit first class, you're guaranteed to come in contact with everybody else on the plane. If you really want to avoid people on the plane, sit in the last seat, not the first seat. I'd be shocked if that many people knew who Scott Pruitt was. So the notion that I've got to fly first class because I don't want people to be mean to me, you need to go into another line of work if you don't want people to be mean to you. Like maybe a monk, where you don't come in contact with anyone.

WALLACE: Yes, a monk who sits in the last seat in the plane. I -- listen, I'm going to have to consider that.

Congressman Gowdy, thank you.

GOWDY: Yes, sir.

WALLACE: Thanks you spending your weekend with us. Always good to talk to you, sir.

GOWDY: You too. Thank you.

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