Fox News "The Story" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. John Ratcliffe

Interview

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MACCALLUM: So, here to respond, Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe of Texas. He also sits on the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committee. So your colleague -- you just heard your colleague. What's your reaction to what he had to say there?

REP. JOHN RATCLIFFE, R-TX: Hi, Martha. Good to be with you.

MACCALLUM: Hi.

RATCLIFFE: Well, I'm still trying to figure out what's worse. Last week, I heard Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee demand that Bill Barr released the full report without redactions for classified national security information.

This week, I'm hearing the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jerrold Nadler, demand that Bill Barr, again, violate the law with regard to 6(e) information and other information. It's the theater of the absurd.

Bill Bar isn't going to comply with the Democrats deadline because he can't comply with it because he'd have to violate the law, he'd have to commit crimes to do that. What he is complying with is the law as it's written.

He is complying with the special counsel regulation. He's fully complied with it already, and now he's going to go further and provide more information than the law requires.

MACCALLUM: I thought, you know, a couple of things were interesting and in what Congressman Swalwell said. He refers to the Barr letter as the bar opinion letter. I didn't -- you know, that was not my take away when I read it. It didn't seem like there was a lot of opinion in there. It seemed as if he was summarizing the principal conclusions.

He said it's still a work in progress, they were still going through everything. And he laid out the conclusions as I would imagine as Robert Mueller did in the report. Do you think there's concern -- are you concern that when the rest of this report does come out, which I believe it will, that there's going to be a lot of daylight between these two takes?

RATCLIFFE: I'm not concerned about that at all, because Bill Barr is not going to bet his 40-year legal career on misinforming the public. Bill Barr followed the regulation to a tee. A regulation for the special counsel that ironically, Jerry Nadler, supported.

After the Starr investigation, Jerry Nadler was one of the ones that wanted the Independent Counsel statute to expire and to be replaced with this special counsel regulation, which again, Bill Barr has complied with completely and now intends to do more.

MACCALLUM: So, do you want the report, as much as possible to come out? Or do you support that? Do you want everyone to see what they paid for?

RATCLIFFE: Well, that's a false argument about what they paid for. The American people pay for every bit of classified information that we have in this country. They don't get to see all of it. There are reasons that we protect classified information, there are reasons that we protect grand jury information. These are long --

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MACCALLUM: But, there's certainly a lot of public interest in this matter because people have been hearing about it for two years.

RATCLIFFE: Absolutely.

MACCALLUM: And I think, they would like to see to the greatest extent possible, what all that was about.

RATCLIFFE: And I would too. To that point, that's what Bill Barr promised. And as you pointed out, Martha, that's what he's doing. He's providing everything as quickly as possible, with the only redactions, the thing -- the things that the law says he cannot provide to the American people.

MACCALLUM: Yes.

RATCLIFFE: And if he could provide them, he probably would.

MACCALLUM: You know, I just want to get your thoughts on one more thing. Because it's clear what Congressman Swalwell and others want, they want to see all the grand jury testimony with regards to Donald Trump Jr. Anybody else who was in that room, as he just said.

What does that tell you about where they are still going with this, politically?

RATCLIFFE: It tells me that it's politically motivated. They have no good faith basis to ask for that information. The law does not allow for it. The Department of Justice does not ever provide that information.

They want it for political gain. They have been promising information on collusion between Donald Trump and the Russians. Bob Mueller's conclusions, as summarized by Bill Barr, reflected that didn't take place. That should be the end of these investigations.

To the extent they want to continue them, they're underscoring, Martha, that they're simply politically motivated. That they are trying to get information that they think will be helpful to prevent Donald Trump from being reelected in 2020. That's what this is about.

MACCALLUM: All right. Congressman, thank you very much. Congressman John Ratcliffe, good to see you tonight. Thank you, sir.

RATCLIFFE: You bet, Martha. Thanks.

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