Ratcliffe: Russia Has Successfully Shaken Confidence In Our Elections Because Democrats Keep Proliferating Russian Propaganda

Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe told FNC's Maria Bartiromom on "Sunday Morning Futures" that Democrats had "leaked information that’s not accurate" to try to paint Sen. Bernie Sanders and President Trump as Russian stooges.





MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: New reaction this morning to reports that the U.S. intelligence officials are warning lawmakers that Russia is trying to interfere with the 2020 election now to help reelect President Trump and to help the Bernie Sanders campaign as well.



Joining me right now exclusively is Congressman John Ratcliffe, Republican from Texas. He sits on the House Intel, as well as Judiciary committees. He's also a former prosecutor himself.



Congressman, it's always a pleasure to see you. Thanks for being here.



REP. JOHN RATCLIFFE (R-TX): You bet. Good morning, Maria.



BARTIROMO: So, you were in that meeting last week, where Adam Schiff brought up the issue of Russia meddling.



Can you tell us what happened? Can you tell us anything about this new information?



RATCLIFFE: Well, think about it, Maria.



You're asking me about details of a classified briefing that was intended to remain secret.



BARTIROMO: Right.



RATCLIFFE: You're asking me about it because it's been reported on by The New York Times.



And, you know, it's all too familiar. We see, when there's a story about -- that is allegedly anti-Trump or negative for the president, it shows up in newspapers, because either Democratic members or Democratic staffers leak it.



The problem is, in this case, they have leaked information that's not accurate.



Look, let me be real clear, because the narrative often from Democrats and the media is that Republicans don't think that the Russians have meddled in our election.



They did. They meddled in 2016. They're going to meddle in 2020. That's not the issue.



The issue is why Russia is being so successful in shaking American confidence -- confidence in the integrity of our elections. And the reason is, it's because Democrats keep perpetuating and accentuating and proliferating Russian propaganda for their political gain and for their political motivation against Donald Trump.



It's Democrats that created the Steele dossier and peddled it to our law enforcement and intelligence communities. They did that so the Democrats could falsely accuse the president of conspiring with Russia for the better part of three years now, something that Bob Mueller said absolutely wasn't the case.



It was the Democrats that put out a memo saying that everything had been done appropriately at the FISA court and that there wasn't illegal surveillance. All of these things have been done by Democrats to really -- for their political gain, but has promoted everything that Russia has tried to accomplish.



And the Democrats have been their biggest allies.



BARTIROMO: And, at the same time, Adam Schiff continues peddling this story.



And you and Trey Gowdy were the only two Republicans to see the unredacted information around the FISA warrants. And on the Democratic side, it was Adam Schiff. The three of you saw the same exact information.



You came out of that, you came on my show, and you raised red flags about the process, raised red flags about what was going on. Adam Schiff went on the media and said, there is collusion in plain sight.



All at the same time -- as we look at our timeline here, at the same time, there were all of these informants being thrown at Trump campaign figures, like George Papadopoulos being invited by Arvinder Sambei to Rome, where he's introduced to Joseph Mifsud, who dropped a bomb on him, saying, oh, yes, Russia has e-mails of Hillary Clinton, followed by Mifsud telling Papadopoulos that in April of '16.



All of this I'm pointing out is way before the FBI's statement that this investigation into Trump collusion started in July of '16. So the question becomes, what is all this -- what is all of this activity before July of '16?



RATCLIFFE: Yes.



Well, you -- as you point out Maria, I mean, Adam Schiff has been among the worst offenders here, falsely accusing the president of conspiring with Russia. Adam Schiff is the one that authored the FISA rebuttal memo saying that everything had been done appropriately, when, as you correctly point out, he saw the same information that Trey Gowdy and I saw.



He saw that there was exculpatory information. He saw that the Steele dossier was central and essential to those FISA applications. And he went out and told the American people the opposite.



And now he's at it again by putting out, through his committee, information that is false. Look, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here, but I don't know anyone in the last three years who has done more to help Vladimir Putin and Russia with their efforts to sow the seeds of discord in American elections and American election security than Adam Schiff has.



And, as you say, there's a lot at stake here, and there's a lot being looked at with regard to what happened before, what we have been told over and over again, the Trump-Russia investigation, beginning in July of 2016, when there's very clearly evidence of activity before that that involves law enforcement and intelligence community assets.



BARTIROMO: Right.



RATCLIFFE: And those are things that I think that John Durham and Bill Barr's Department of Justice are looking at right now.



BARTIROMO: Look, I know that you have got -- in the Judiciary Committee, you have got this markup of the FISA reauthorization.



And there are three sections that you will be marking up, Section 215 business. The second one is roving wiretap provision. And then the third provision is this lone wolf provision.



We already know that two out of the four wiretaps into Carter Page were illegal. Do you think all four were illegal?



RATCLIFFE: I do.



And the reason -- John Durham, on the day that the inspector general came out with his report, indicated that he didn't think that there was proper predication or may not have been proper predication to begin with the very first one.



We know, for a fact, as you correctly point out, that even the FBI director admitted to me last week that at least two of the four were illegal surveillance. I don't think there was a proper predicate to do any of this. I don't think any of this was appropriate.



And I think that's what John Durham is looking at specifically. The challenge with these -- with these provisions that you talked about...



BARTIROMO: Yes.



RATCLIFFE: ... is, you know, we have important U.S. surveillance laws that are coming up for reauthorization. But it's against this backdrop of the American people seeing that there was illegal surveillance against Carter Page, a Trump campaign associate.



And our Democratic colleagues are working against us, because they don't want to talk about that, because it was a Democratic administration and Democratic politicians...



BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.



RATCLIFFE: ... like Adam Schiff who are complicit...



BARTIROMO: Yes.



RATCLIFFE: ... with respect to that allowing to occur.