MARIA BARTIROMO, SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES: What are you expecting from the Inspector General report? Your take on this zeroing in on Andrew McCabe's action and the way this Hillary Clinton email probe was handled.



REP. TREY GOWDY (R-SC): Well those are three separate issues. You know I talked to Inspector General Horowitz a couple days ago and I know not to ask him what he's found and he's an honorable enough person not to tell me primarily what he's found so I'm a little amused that there's a leak about him finding a leak within the FBI. I want to know everything that happened in 2016 and whether Andy McCabe was leaking for or against Hillary Clinton. I think it's important for all of us to know. I do find it interesting that you and I work in a town where leaks are so pervasive. We have an Inspector General who’s not supposed to discuss his report until it's made public and yet you and I are having a conversation about what is in his non-public report. So I have a lot of confidence in him. I think he's going to find out what happened in 2016 with respect to decisions made and not made but I don't think it's fair to the Inspector General for us to guess about what is in his report based on media reporting.



BARTIROMO: But really what I'm getting at is people would like to see accountability, Congressman. And I'm wondering if in fact at the end of the day if it is proven that they handled the regulators, lawmakers handled the e-mail investigation with kid gloves and really let her off the hook while you have others going to jail for doing things in the same manner. So do you expect accountability in this case?











GOWDY: I do. I expect the Inspector General to issue a fact-centric fair report. Look at what he's already found. He found the Strzok and Page texts. Nobody else found that so I think he is uniquely well suited to el us all what happened in 2016. We already know that the FBI and the Department of Justice handled this case differently. We already know that Jim Comey had an unprecedented press conference where he usurp the decision away from the Department of Justice. I've never seen that before but we also know he sent two letters to Congress in the fall of 2016, both of which were unusual. So I think Michael Horowitz is uniquely well suited to put all of the public's fears at ease with a thorough fact-centric investigation.



BARTIROMO: Should the Attorney General be looking at this, Jeff Sessions? You know, the president tweeted out last week that he thinks it's disgraceful that Jeff Sessions is leaving it all to Michael Horowitz and the I.G. to look into these matters.



GOWDY: I'm smiling only because, you know, Jeff Sessions picked President Trump when he was a candidate out of 16 other candidates including some colleagues and even President Trump picked Jeff Sessions out of the entire universe of lawyers in the country, he picked him to be his Attorney -- his Attorney General. So I really wish they would communicate more privately as opposed to via Twitter. In this particular fact pattern I think Attorney General Sessions is right that the Department of Justice itself should not be conducting this investigation. I also think the President's right from this limited standpoint, I don't think the Inspector General himself can answer all of our questions. Some of these witnesses have already left the department which means the Inspector General does not have jurisdiction and there are other agencies like the State Department where Michael Horowitz at DOJ has no jurisdiction whatsoever. Maria, over the weekend, I'd counted up almost two dozen witnesses that the Inspector General would not have access to where he alone conducting this investigation. So I think we're trending perhaps towards another special counsel because of this unique fact pattern and the fact that there are witnesses outside the reach of the Inspector General.



BARTIROMO: So we should have then, you believe another Special Counsel to investigate these matters? How does one investigate itself frankly?



GOWDY: Well you don't. I wish that I had been able to grade my own papers in college and law school, but I was notable to. I would have done better first of all, but we don't put family members on the jury. We don't put friends on the jury. You need an independent arbiter, and the Department of Justice cannot investigate itself. Horowitz can. Horowitz is a fair guy but when there are two dozen witnesses that have left the Department or worked for other agency, someone else has to do it and I am reluctant to call for special counsel but I think it may be unavoidable in this fact pattern.