House Intel Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said a large amount of the FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page has been redacted to cover up the involvement of the Steele dossier and has nothing to do with national security. In an interview with Tucker Carlson Wednesday night he said the public has a right to see the redacted pages and the part the Steele dossier played.





TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: Well, the Carter Page FISA application has been released in part. Big portions of it, though, were redacted and those portions could help reveal the extent to which the Obama administration surveilled the Trump campaign, which they did.



Congressman Devin Nunes is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He represents California in the House of Representatives and he joins us tonight. Mr. Chairman, thank you for coming on.







REP. DEVIN NUNES (R), HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Great to be with you.



CARLSON: So, you've seen the entire document, the entire application - FISA applications to spy on Carter Page and then the Trump campaign. Much of it was redacted, pages and pages redacted.



Do you believe knowing what was redacted that the public has a right to see that information?



NUNES: Absolutely. So, what we heard for a long time is that the memo that we created to make sure that the American public knew that the FISA contained the Steele dossier, or the so-called dirt that the Clinton campaign paid for, bought it from Russians, fed it to the FBI in order to get a FISA warrant on Carter Page, we said that that made up the bulk of the FISA.



We were made fun of, we were told that was wrong, that we were lying, when, in fact, we were 100 percent right. It did make up the bulk of the FISA.



Then you noticed that right after that came out, they said, well, what's really important is the information that is redacted. Then, lo and behold, they found out that just a couple months before the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee had actually asked for about 20 pages, at least 20 pages to be declassified of the Carter Page FISA. Those today, Tucker, remain redacted and hidden from the public.



We believe that if the public saw that information, they would have a very clear picture to what Director Comey called a mosaic, and I think the public needs to understand what is this mosaic that was created by the FBI, fed to the DOJ, fed to a FISA court in order to spy on an American citizen and effectively get information directly from the Trump campaign?



CARLSON: Yes. So, here you have the Obama administration spying on a rival political campaign, specifically on a man who has never been charged for the crimes that were the pretext of the spying in the first place, and yet no one on the left cares at all.



And, I guess, my question to you, again, having seen the information that I'm not allowed to see, is there a good reason, a national security based reason to keep that information from the public? On what grounds was it redacted?



NUNES: Quite the opposite. There is a national security reason to make sure that the American public sees this in its entirety because this is a phony FISA, OK?



The Department of Justice and the FBI put something together that is completely fraudulent in order to spy on an American citizens. It's our job as Congress to bring sunlight and full transparency to this.



CARLSON: OK. Then let's do that now.



NUNES: It takes the DOJ and FBI to let that happen.



CARLSON: OK. Then why don't you send it to me now and I will put it on the air in the back half of this show. I mean it. I'm dead serious. You are the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.



NUNES: Yes.



CARLSON: It is your elected by voters to make these judgments. Bureaucrats elected by nobody are telling us, threatening us basically that it hurts national security. You are the one with the power, why don't you send it to me, we will put it on the air and let the public decide. Is there a penalty for that?



NUNES: Yes. I'm not the one with the power. Now, hypothetically, could I go to the House floor, could I go out in my official duties and tell the American public what's in the rest of that FISA? I could.



However - I mean, you already see - remember, most of the media and the left is against us and against it. They don't want the rest of this out. They want to keep this hidden. Can you imagine the field day they would have against me or of any other Republicans talk about what is now classified information.



CARLSON: But who cares! So, you have journalists arguing on behalf of holding information back. I mean, that's insane. If you live in a world where journalists are saying the public should know less, they have been discredited by definition. We don't have to listen to them. They are not journalists; they are something less, they are flacks.



So, is there a penalty for doing that? This seems like a really important question.



NUNES: You understand, Tucker - yes, that's the problem. You understand this. There's a penalty, right? So, we can't create a situation.



But what can happen right now - how do we get this done is the president just needs to step in and declassify this. He has said he doesn't want to get involved, but, quite frankly, he needs to get involved in this. It doesn't involve him. If he would just declassify it, then we as Congress would have no problem coming on your show and talking about this declassified information.



CARLSON: Yes. Because there's no argument against it.



NUNES: You can understand.



CARLSON: By the way, if you believe in democracy - yes. I hope someone will leak it to me. I do. I do, because I think the public has a right to know. And I'd love to know why the public doesn't have a right to know. And I love all these anchors telling me every day I don't have a right to know. Really, why? Speak slowly, so I can understand. It's infuriating.



Mr. Chairman, thank you for all the work you have done. And I hope someone will send that to me. We will put it right on the air immediately. I promise you. Thank you.