Devin Nunes did another interview – this time with Jeanine Pirro. Thanks to the Conservative Treehouse for catching the clip.

The interview centered on The Nunes List – Forty-Two Names Referred & Growing.

There were a number of items I found important.

Nunes:

Notes his 3rd Letter is focused on Fusion GPS & handling of the Dossier (discussed here). Has suggested a new “Deposition-Style” interview format. Is expecting more documents from the FBI & DOJ on Monday. Is heavily focused on what happened before the official start of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Investigation on July 31, 2016. Has shifted his Investigation to Phase III. Questions if FBI Informants were used prior to the July 31, 2016 Counterintelligence Investigation. States he believes the Carter Page FISA is 100% fraudulent. Repeatedly calls on President Trump to declassify documents – including the Carter Page FISA documents.

Note: I found Pirro almost excruciating and have edited out her extraneous comments to minimize the inane stridency while leaving the salient questions. This was not easy.

Comments by Nunes remain untouched.

Pirro did get one thing right. She correctly notes the investigative shift underway:

Nunes is now investigating how – and when – the Steele Dossier was transferred from the Clinton campaign & Steele to the FBI.

Here’s the video:

And the transcript:

PIRRO: You sent yet another letter to Congressmen Gowdy and Goodlatte asking that they question individuals openly in this continuing Trump-Russia collusion investigation.

Your letter includes up to 42 names, some of them from the executive office of President Obama, as well as the State Department, DOJ and FBI. What’s different about your third letter?

NUNES: The third letter is about Fusion GPS and all of the people that are in that realm of Fusion GPS that could have been involved handling the dossier, digging up the dirt and feeding it into the FBI.

PIRRO: It seems that you went from the initial “who paid for this dossier?” to “how did this dossier get from the Clinton campaign and Steele to the FBI?” Do you know what the answer to that is?

NUNES: We don’t know the answer to that. We think it could have come from many directions. We know that one of John McCain’s former staffers did it. We think that many people in the press had this and actually also gave it to the FBI, at the same time Christopher Steele was supposedly working with the FBI.

Editor’s note: Victoria Nuland…

NUNES: So there’s lots of ways that it made it through, but what we’re really asking for is for these 42 people to be interviewed in public.

I can’t control how they do the interviews and conduct the interviews, but I would think that they would want to do more deposition types. Let the Republicans ask an hour of questions of these witnesses – of the witness at a time – and then let the Democrats give them an hour.

Have it be televised because these 42 people really help us get to the bottom of ‘was Trump really colluding with Russia’ or ‘was this an orchestrated effort by the left’ – working with the FBI and DOJ – to frame the President and many people involved to dig up dirt to start this investigation.

That’s why I think it would be helpful to have all this done in public.

PIRRO: You never get answers from these witnesses. It’s almost like a circus. It’s the same all the time.

You think that this deposition would get into more in-depth information? Will it allow for the basis of a criminal predicate prosecution in the event that they lie?

NUNES: Yes, and I also believe, Judge, that there is a task force that the Oversight Committee and Judiciary Committee set up – made up of five Republicans and five Democrats.

Let each one have an hour at a time to ask questions of these witnesses so that you don’t get the grandstanding, you don’t get the political speeches.

I think that would be worth a lot more for not only the Congress, but ultimately the American people to understand what information each witness has that’s relevant to this matter.

PIRRO: The House gave the Department of Justice until yesterday to give them information on the beginning of the Trump investigation – or as the FBI called it, Operation Hurricane. Did Congress get any information from the FBI and DOJ, and if they didn’t, where are we with this?

NUNES: Well, as always, we have to pound and pound and pound to get information from DOJ and FBI.

They did give us a lot more information last week, we’re expecting more information on Monday.

But you mentioned something about Crossfire Hurricane that we know was opened July 31st. One of the key outstanding questions that we have is, what actually happened before July 31st.

They seem to be playing these word games…

At this point Pirro almost ruins the interview (reminder – I’ve heavily cut her extraneous commentary). Fortunately, Nunes pulls it somewhat back on track.

PIRRO: Hold on, Congressman, hold on. What if they don’t give you that information, what can you do to the FBI and DOJ? You’ve given them more deadlines. This investigation has been going on for a year. At some point, don’t you guys feel impotent?

NUNES: Well, look, there’s a couple things here. Before July 31st – for a couple of months now we’ve been really zeroing in on that. The FBI and DOJ have had plenty of opportunities to tell us what happened before July 31st.

They have not.

Now, ultimately here, the President of the United States, it’s his DOJ and his FBI. And at some point here, he need to gets involved. And look, were there informants used or not?

PIRRO: No, Congressman, I don’t want to go there yet. [Rant]

What the American people want to know [is] what do you have in terms of a sanction? Otherwise, you guys should be working on legislation.

NUNES: Well, look, ultimately we have the job of oversight. They have to comply with us. They’ve slowly complied and let’s not forget, it’s Congress that’s helped uncover the dossier, the dirt, who paid for it.

People are trying to hide this. Like the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign were trying to hide – in conjunction with the FBI. The FBI and DOJ didn’t want the American public to know any of this.

We do have a few outstanding documents that they do need to give us – it’s very, very important.

So, what steps do we have? Look, we have other steps we can take. We can hold them in contempt, but at the end of the day here, we do need to know what happened before July 31st. That’s what we are really trying to get to.

If you look at Phase Three of the investigation like we talked about just a moment ago, having these 42 people come and testify, I think will be very powerful for the Congress and for the American people to have transparency and sunlight in this whole mess.

PIRRO: The FBI and the DOJ say [the Counterintelligence Investigation into President Trump began on] July 31, 2016.

If you now find out that a counter-intelligence investigation was started against a Presidential campaign a week after the guy gets the nomination to be Republican candidate for President, then we’ve got a counter-intelligence at the level of a third world country.

NUNES: That is correct. I think any involvement – even in Crossfire Hurricane – of informants being paid to go into the Trump campaign is a Red Line that we’ve never crossed before.

But what could be even worse is if there were informants that were being run into the Trump campaign and their associates before July 31st, which would be even worse.

This is why at the end of the day, we have to hold these hearings, we have to ask these questions – and ultimately the President of the United States is going to have to declassify all this information so the American public knows exactly what the counter-intelligence resources that we have in this country, what they were used for.

I think it’s an unprecedented step.

PIRRO: Why do you think the President is not declassifying?

NUNES: I don’t know. The FISA is very frustrating to me because I think that pieces of the FISA that was gotten on Carter Page – we’ve had an ongoing feud about this for many, many months. I think the FISA is totally fraudulent, 100% fraudulent. You have James Comey and others currently at the FBI and DOJ who are defending the FISA – which is unbelievable to me.

The President ought to just solve this once and for all. Declassify – you don’t have to expose sources and methods – but most of that FISA, the pertinent parts of it could be declassified.

He could help answer for all of us who was telling the truth. Were they justified to get a FISA warrant on Carter Page or not? I don’t think they were and I think the American people have the right to know and the President should declassify.

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