Fox News "The Story with Martha MacCallum" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Devin Nunes

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

MACCALLUM: So, the whistleblower touched off this whole impeachment inquiry. But now his lawyer is under some pretty great scrutiny tonight after a series of anti-Trump texts that he wrote shortly after President Trump was inaugurated started to come to light.

President Trump calling for an end to what he called the impeachment hoax after it was revealed that attorney Mark Zaid tweeted in January of 27, "hash tag, coup has started. First of many steps. Hash tag rebellion. Hash tag, impeachment. Will follow ultimately. Hash tag lawyers."

And in July of that year he wrote, "I predict CNN will play a role in at real Donald Trump not finishing out his first full term as president." This is from the lawyer who now represents the whistleblower.

Here now Republican Congressman Devin Nunes. The ranking member of the House intelligence committee. Congressman, good to see you tonight. Thank you for being here.

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CALIF.: Thank you.

MACCALLUM: You know, it struck when I was reading those tweets that I remember that in the beginning of this whistleblower situation, the I.G. for the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, said that he was aware that there were some partisan affiliations that the whistleblower had but that there was no indication that they had in any way affected him coming forward. And so, they consider that to be a non-event.

I mean, in light of this, that makes that a little more difficult to swallow, doesn't it?

NUNES: Well, I would go further than that, Martha. And that is that we still don't know who this whistleblower is or if the whistleblower even exists because the whistleblower has not been made available to the Republicans. And you know, that is -- that is just -- that's not evidence. It's not evidence for a court of law.

We have to know who this person is. We have to meet who the person is so we can make up --

(CROSSTALK)

MACCALLUM: Are you suggesting when you say that he doesn't exist that it could be someone like Mark Zaid, is that what -- are you are suggesting that?

NUNES: No. But I think in a court of law, this is not evidence. And you work, this is like at the highest level, we are talking about impeaching a president. We have to have this whistleblower come in and talk to us in person so that we can measure this person up.

I would say though, when I read those quotes or read those tweets, I had flashbacks to the Strzok/Page text messages. You know, we're in the fall of 2016 as they're investigating President Trump or then candidate Trump and they're exonerating candidate Clinton and you have them testing things like Hillary Clinton should win 100 million to zero. I had flashbacks to that. I don't know why. It seems like it just reminded me that.

MACCALLUM: Well, I mean, I think you know, if nothing else, and this is totally separate from, you know, what people think or don't think about what President Trump did on that phone call but there's one thing that appears to be indisputable now. And that is that there was a very large movement of people who, from day one after the inauguration, made it their business to try to figure out a way to take the president down.

NUNES: Yes.

MACCALLUM: I mean, I don't know how you can look at this and go back to these tweets and --

NUNES: Well, I just --

MACCALLUM: -- connect this to the whistleblower and think anything other than that at this point?

NUNES: Well, the other thing that I don't understand that's not happening in the White House is that all of these career bureaucrats that are either in the NSC or other departments in the White House, I mean, my gosh, you want to see where the leaks are coming from, it's coming from the White House is owned bureaucrats that are sitting in there.

MACCALLUM: And you know what, people who work in the White House have said that --

(CROSSTALK)

NUNES: And you know, they need to clear all these people out of there.

MACCALLUM: -- since day one, you know, that there were people who work in the White House who were against the president and as I said, this is separate from, you know, what may or may not be decided about the actual content of that phone call.

You know, with regard to the whistleblower and who is going to force this testimony, I mean, it seems Democrats are perfectly happy to kind of let that whole thing go by the wayside. And you say, and Lindsey Graham was here last night, saying that we must hear from the whistleblower and I think the American people probably feel that way too. Who is going to make sure that happens?

NUNES: Well, look, we don't have subpoena power so, you know, we are going to put our list forward.

MACCALLUM: Nope.

NUNES: And of course, we've already said for many weeks now that we have to interview the whistleblower so that's going to be on our list. But this is another troubling thing that the media is not paying any attention to.

And that is that, you know, we don't have a right to subpoena people. We have to basically create a list that meet certain criteria and then go back to House Democrats to let us have some of our witnesses.

MACCALLUM: yes.

NUNES: I mean, it's -- and look, I'm not complaining about -- I don't like to complain about process, but I can tell you this. That every one of the witnesses that we put forward are going to be substantive and it's going to lead back to the corruption of the Democrats and what they were doing in Ukraine.

Not to mention, whatever this whistleblower, whoever this whistleblower is and whoever he is connected to --

MACCALLUM: Yes.

NUNES: -- we will be trying to ask those questions and I think if they don't give us --

(CROSSTALK)

MACCALLUM: You know, let me ask you something.

NUNES: -- several witnesses, I don't see how this is going to have any credibility.

MACCALLUM: I just have one more question for you before you go. With regard to Rudy Giuliani, because his name comes up in every one of these testimonies. And I asked the press secretary Stephanie Grisham if the president is still represented by Rudy Giuliani and she did not want to respond to that. She said that's a personal matter.

But it became more than a personal matter when he sort of, injected himself in the, you know, in the sort of State Department duties and that's what a lot of this is about with these people. So, if --

NUNES: Yes.

MACCALLUM: -- if he was onto something, and I know you believe he is onto something, why shouldn't he still be a part of the process?

NUNES: Well, the president makes that decision and one of the things, that you are exactly right on, is that many of the people you're going to see next week, what they are most mad about is that they were being circumvented by Ambassador Volker, by Ambassador Sondland, and by Rudy Giuliani.

MACCALLUM: Yes.

NUNES: And look, the reason that it's very clear that you were hinting at, Rudy Giuliani was representing the president while he was under investigation by Robert Mueller and the special counsel. The origins of much was in the Steele dossier that was then given to the FBI, originated in Ukraine that was paid for by the Democrats.

MACCALLUM: Well --

NUNES: So, Giuliani has every right and responsibility to be over there trying to figure out who these Ukrainians are.

MACCALLUM: OK. I mean, it sounds like that's not happening anymore. He's hired three lawyers himself so, you know, it just makes me curious if that was so determined to be so important, now it appears that the White House is moving beyond that. So, we'll see.

Thank you very much, Congressman Nunes. Good to see you tonight.

NUNES: Thank you. Thank you.

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