Devin Nunes tells Trey Gowdy why he believes the Mueller probe was on 'thin ice' from the start

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Rep. Devin Nunes on whether Russia probe review will lead to criminal investigation of Obama, Biden

California Rep. Devin Nunes, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, joins Martha MacCallum on 'The Story.'

Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said Tuesday on the "Trey Gowdy Podcast" that he believes the basis for Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation was on "thin ice" from the very beginning.

Rep. Nunes, R-Calif., joined former Rep. Gowdy, a Fox News contributor, for a wide-ranging interview on the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, the targeting of Gen. Michael Flynn and House Republicans' efforts to find out what the FBI under then-Director James Comey was doing in 2017.

Nunes said he knew something was amiss when the committee's access to key documents about the Mueller probe was continually blocked, including the memo from then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein outlining the "scope" of the investigation.

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"They were not supposed to use counterintelligence to set up a special counsel. I mean, that is all questionable. ... We pounded and pounded away. We couldn't get access to it," he explained, adding that when he did finally get a look at the memo in late 2018, the contents couldn't be revealed because the Mueller probe was ongoing.

"You look back on that and think when they wouldn't give us a scope memo and now that everybody knows what's in there, you knew they were lying. I mean, you know, by the documents they don't give you, you can essentially look back and say, 'wow' they were truly on thin ice," said Nunes, calling the scope memo "damning" because it relied heavily on the discredited Steele dossier about suspected Trump-Russia ties.

"It was all the dossier that they already knew was fake and phony. And I think the question is did Rosenstein and [Christopher] Wray — and whoever was involved in standing up the Mueller team — did they know that the FBI knew at the time and the Mueller team knew at the time that there was no there there? As Peter Strzok said in his infamous text message in early 2017 with Lisa Page, there was no there there."

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Nunes told "The Story" on Monday that Republicans have not referred either former President Barack Obama or former Vice President Joe Biden for criminal investigation over the Russia probe.

"We've been running our own investigation, House Republicans have, for three and a half years and we've made our own criminal referrals," Nunes told host Martha MacCallum after Attorney General William Barr said he does not expect U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review of the origins of the Russia probe to lead to a “criminal investigation” of either man.

Nunes told Gowdy that he hopes Durham is getting to the bottom of all these matters, including why the FBI and DOJ were "lying to and misleading Congress" in 2017 and 2018.