Fox News "Sunday Morning Features" - Transcript Interview with Lindsey Graham

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

BARTIROMO: Joining me right now is Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, who promised right here on the program to subpoena Yates before his committee.

And, Senator, it's always a pleasure to see you. Thank you for being here, sir.

GRAHAM: Thank you. Thank you very much.

BARTIROMO: I want to get back to the -- I want to get back to the Sally Yates hearing in a moment.

Let's talk about what we have here, fresh, breaking news.

GRAHAM: Yes. Yes.

BARTIROMO: These are redacted documents here. This is a Senate Intel Committee brief. And this brief is from the FBI, where they basically tell the Senate in March of 2018, Senator -- this is actually dated February 14, 2018 -- that the subsource was reliable.

Tell us what these redacted documents tell us.

GRAHAM: Well, here they are.

It took me forever to get them. I want to thank Attorney General Barr for helping me retrieve them from the FBI.

But it was Horowitz during his investigation of the warrant application found information in 2018 where the FBI was called to the Senate Intel Committee, because people were getting suspicious about the subsource, the Russian guy, at the Senate Intel Committee level, and the FBI was sent over to brief them.

And this is the report they prepared before the briefing, and they did to the Senate Intel Committee, the FBI did, what they did to the FISA court. They misled the hell out of them. They said that there's no evidence from the subsource to suggest that Steele fabricated anything in the dossier.

Actually, the subsource said, it was all bar talk, hearsay speculation, and conjecture, and the whole sexual activity of the president was made in jest. So they completely misrepresented to the Senate Intel Committee in 2018 what the subsource had told the FBI in 2017.

That is a new crime, a different crime, and I'm going to write a letter to Christopher Wray and ask him, who gave the briefing to the Senate Intel Committee in 2018, and how could they be telling the Senate Intel Committee in 2018 a bunch of lies, when they knew better?

BARTIROMO: So, let's go through these one, two, three.

These are the three points, the three statements that you find most troubling.

GRAHAM: Yes.

BARTIROMO: And the first one in this Senate document is, the FBI told Congress that the primary subsource "did not cite any significant concerns with the way his reporting was characterized in the dossier to the extent he could deny it -- could identify it."

But the subsource already told the FBI that he had no idea where some of the language attributed to him came from, right?

GRAHAM: Yes, he told them. He was interviewed in January 2017, March of 2017, and I think April of 2017.

And after those interviews, he said: A lot of the things they are attributing to me, I don't know where they came from.

And a lot of the things that Steele is saying didn't come from the subsource. It was just conjecture by Steele. But the main thing, the one that gets me the most: "At a minimum, our discussion with the primary subsource confirms..."

BARTIROMO: This is the second one, right?

placeholder
GRAHAM: Yes. This is the one that gets me.

"At a minimum, our discussion with the primary subsource confirms that the dossier was not fabricated by Steele."

Here is what the subsource told the FBI a year ago. "Most of it is word of mouth and hearsay, conversations I had with friends over beers," and that some of the information, such as the allegations about Trump's sexual activities were statements made in jest.

But they told the Senate Intel Committee, everything's fine.

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.

GRAHAM: Somebody needs to go to jail for this. This is a second lie. This is a second crime. They lied to the FISA court. They got rebuked, the FBI did, in 2019 by the FISA court, putting in doubt all FISA applications.

The FISA court just ripped a new one for the FBI. A year before, they're lying to the Senate Intel Committee. It's just amazing the compounding of the lies.

placeholder
Here is what I think.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

GRAHAM: I think the person who briefed the Senate Intel Committee had to be part of Crossfire Hurricane, because why would you keep telling a lie?

If they told the truth to the Senate Intel Committee in 2018, the dossier is not reliable, it would expose the crime they committed to the FISA court. So I bet you a dollar to donuts that the person who briefed the Senate Intel Committee in 2018 was part of Crossfire Hurricane, trying to compound lies.

BARTIROMO: Was it Bill Priestap?

GRAHAM: I don't know, but I'm going to write Wray. And I want an explanation.

This happened on Christopher Wray's watch.

placeholder
BARTIROMO: OK.

GRAHAM: Now, this is in 2018...

BARTIROMO: Yes, exactly. Yes, that's right.

GRAHAM: ... a year after the subsource was interviewed by the FBI three times, telling them it's a bunch of garbage. And they tell the Senate Intel Committee, it's reliable, just like they did the FISA court.

BARTIROMO: So...

GRAHAM: I'm going to find out who did that briefing. And whoever it is, they are in trouble.

BARTIROMO: What are you going to do? What are you going to do? You're going to write a letter to Christopher Wray?

placeholder
GRAHAM: I'm going to find out who did the brief. I'm going to write a letter to Wray. Right.

I'm going to write a letter to Christopher Wray, explain this briefing to the Congress. How could you send somebody over from the FBI in 2018, February/March, 2018, to brief about the subsource, and mislead the Senate so badly?

You had information in your files that Horowitz found where the subsource completely denied the reliability of the dossier, but the FBI continued to lie as late as 2018.

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.

GRAHAM: And if it weren't for Horowitz finding this, we would never know.

So, Mr. Horowitz, you did this country a great service.

BARTIROMO: All right. Let...

GRAHAM: Thank you.

BARTIROMO: Yes, and his I.G. report as well.

Look, let me ask you about Sally Yates. What did you learn from that? And, also, this upcoming Tuesday is another hearing related to General Michael Flynn. The judge does not want to drop this.

GRAHAM: Yes.

BARTIROMO: Want to get your thoughts on both of those, first Sally Yates.

What did you learn?

GRAHAM: That everybody is throwing Comey under the bus.

When I asked Sally Yates about the interview with Michael Flynn orchestrated by Comey, was that OK, was that proper, she said, no, that was rogue.

So, you got Horowitz -- excuse me -- you got Rosenstein, now Sally Yates saying, if they knew then what they know now, they wouldn't have signed the warrant application, which means they're running away from Crossfire Hurricane. They're dumping it all on Comey.

And that's probably the right thing to do. Eventually, I'm going to call Comey in and ask him, how could you keep signing warrant applications against Carter Page in April and June of 2017, when your agency knew in January and March of 2017 the dossier was a bunch of garbage?

BARTIROMO: Right.

GRAHAM: How could you keep doing that?

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.

And it's incredible to me how hard it is for you, the chairman of Senate Judiciary, to get the documents that you need to conduct your investigation.

(LAUGHTER)

BARTIROMO: It's absolutely incredible that these documents have been sitting at the FBI for a couple of years that you have been asking for them.

Senator, nice work. Great to see you, sir. Thank you so much.

We will keep following this.

GRAHAM: Well, thanks a bunch.

BARTIROMO: Senator Lindsey Graham with breaking news this morning.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source