DeSantis: Questions should be easy for FBI, DOJ to answer

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DeSantis: Questions should be easy for FBI, DOJ to answer

Florida congressman speaks out on 'Sunday Morning Futures' about need for agencies to turn over records related to anti-Trump dossier.

This is a rush transcript from "Sunday Morning Futures," December 31, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TRISH REGAN, GUEST HOST: Good morning, 2018 is just around the corner and as the year winds down, the Chairman of the House Intel Committee is demanding answers on the anti-Trump dossier and Congressional leaders gear up for a Wednesday meeting at the White House to talk immigration and spending. Hi, everyone. I'm Trish Regan in for Maria Bartiromo and this is "Sunday Morning Futures." Happy New Year's Eve!

House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes hammering the Justice Department and the FBI, are they stonewalling on the anti-Trump dossier? Congressman Ron DeSantis, he joins me live. The big four lawmakers meet this week with top White House officials for talk on spending and immigration. Is the deal on DACA in the cards? Former Congressman Jason Chaffetz is here and he'll join me.
And after passing tax reform, is reforming Medicaid the next target for Republicans? Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn joins me live on that as we look ahead today on New Year's Eve on "Sunday Morning Futures".

The Head of the House Intelligence Committee is blasting the Department of Justice and the FBI for failing to turn over documents tied to the largely discredited anti-Trump dossier. Fox News obtaining a letter Congressman Devin Nunes sent to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggesting the FBI and Justice Department should be investigating themselves and demanding all records by this Wednesday. Joining me right now is Florida Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis, a Member of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. Happy New Year's Eve! It's so good to see you, Congressman.
Let me ask you about this letter here from representative Nunes. Putting that deadline on things, how does that change the equation right now? Will they meet it?

REP. RON DESANTIS, R-FLA.: Well I think the letter was great and I applaud Chairman Nunes for doing that. I think that deadline needs to be enforceable. Trish, we've been doing this for months and months asking very simple questions about the genesis of this investigation about how the dossier came into the FBI's possession. Whether the FBI paid for the dossier whether, they used it to get surveillance on any Trump associate, and those are all very easy questions to actually answer and yet we've been met with resistance after resistance after resistance. So I think they have until next week to do it and then if not, you know, I think the House is going to have to move on to different measures in order to force compliance.

REGAN: Congressman, what do you think that resistance is about?

DESANTIS: You know, it's hard to tell. I mean, you have a lot of people in there who have been a part of the bureaucracy for a long time. I mean, to me the questions are very easy to answer. If you said, of course, we didn't use the dossier, then you'd just say that and I think the reason is probably that some of the answers to these questions are going to call further into question the behavior some of the people involved at the very highest levels of both the Clinton and Russia investigations.

People like Peter Strzok so we need answers to those questions and I think what they're doing by resisting but then actually leaking certain fact to the media, there was just an article in the New York Times yesterday where they're leaking about this Papadopoulos which actually conflicts with previous stories and is not anything that anyone has been able to say under oath on the record to us. You know, you look at that and say OK, you're not willing to answer Congress' questions under oath but you leak things to the media? That is not the way this is supposed to work.

REGAN: Well, you know, you think about frankly who's running the FBI, and James Comey sort of leaker-in-chief if you would himself. I still remember being absolutely stunned during his testimony when he admitted that he was the one who actually leaked things to his friend at Columbia who could then in turn leak it to the New York Times. I mean, it's shocking to me because it tells you perhaps Congressman a little bit about the culture there. And I guess one of the things I'm amazed by is if they're so into leaking, how come we haven't heard more about this so-called collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians? Why haven't they been able to find anything to pinpoint anything to leak the media?

DESANTIS: Oh, yes, I mean, that -- if there was any evidence of collusion, that would have been leaked months and months ago. You can bet your bottom dollar on that but it's very, very frustrating to see a lot of times they will refuse to answer Congress' questions because they say well, you know, it's classified. We're not sure that we can do it in this setting but then they leak classified information to the media, so it's just very, very frustrating process, but you're exactly right. I think there has not been evidence of collusion and one of the kind of data points that supports that is I think if there was evidence of that, I think the press would have gotten it by way.

REGAN: All right. So let's go back to the Trump dossier for a moment because this was put together as everyone knows by now by a firm, hired sort of hit job kind of firm to dig up dirt on someone who's Fusion GPS and they were brought in and eventually down the road, employed in part by folks close to Clinton, Hillary Clinton and bankrolled by the Democrats. I guess the big question that we have to ask is was Russia deliberately trying to mess with us, with the United States of America and our whole election process and did they deliberately feed false information to Christopher Steel, the British spy that was hired to compile this dossier?
I think that's, there's a lot of answers and the scary thought is that possibly the FBI used this thing to then get FISA warrants.

DESANTIS: Well we know for sure that Steel was getting information from foreign service bureau sources in Russia. I mean, there's just no doubt about it. We're trying to figure out whether he actually paid for that information that it's possible that he did do that. And so you're right, you have the Democrats paying. Now they funneled the money through a Perkins Coie Law Firm who then paid Fusion to try to camouflage this with the lids that's been blown off on that. We now know this was the Democrats money. Steel is actively working with Russians, and yes, I think it's without question that he was fed a lot of disinformation.

I don't even know that any of these Russian sources could have dreamed that this thing would have been used the way it has been potentially. And so, if that was their aim, I think it was successful but they bring this dossier back and this thing is basically just a bunch of garbage. And so, if that was relied upon, that is something that's very, very important.
And there's a very easy answer to that question, Trish. We just need to get it.

REGAN: You know, you say it's a bunch of garbage and I'd encourage people to actually check it out because I can tell you just reading through this thing, it actually reads like some kind of tabloid piece of fiction from an opposition party. I mean, even the way it's written is to me, quite odd.
If a spy is gathering intelligence, you wouldn't think they would compile it and put it into a dossier that looked anything like that one. And of course, this is imploding Congressman, around many journalist organizations and no one touched it, no one published it because no one saw it as authentic and no one could verify a darn thing in there. And yet, our own FBI, somehow is possibly taking this as some kind of gospel that they then think that they need to you know, issue warrants on people and eavesdrop, et cetera?

DESANTIS: Well yes, and then -- and remember how the dossier eventually became public. Comey briefed President-Elect Trump January 6th of 2017 and then low and behold a couple hours later, CNN -- they didn't want to print the dossier because they knew it was false but what they did was they leaked the existence of the meeting about the dossier. So that was the way that got into the bloodstream and there was only a handful of people who knew about that meeting including James Clapper who was the Head of National Intelligence under Barack Obama. So this whole thing with this dossier and how government either did use it or may have used it, it really does stink to high heaven.

REGAN: So when people talk about the deep state, is this what they're referring to?

DESANTIS: You know, I draw a distinction between the rank in file, the FBI, who I think if you look across our government, some of these FBI agents are as good as anybody and any agency of government. When I served in Iraq back in '07, you had FBI agents out in places like Fallujah, Ramadi risking their lives. I think the problem has been with a relatively small number of people who've very been high up in the agency both in Justice Department and in the FBI and these happen to be the people who were the driving forces behind both the Hillary e-mail investigation and then the Trump collusion Russia investigation. And I think anybody who misbehaved needs to be held accountable but at a minimum, we need to know what all these people did and how all this information was handled.

REGAN: You know, I think that's probably perhaps for Americans the most frustrating thing of all. In other words, everybody has questions. It's been proven that the Russians interfered in the election. And by the way, there was information this week going back to 2016 of course when the Obama administration knew that they were trying to interfere in the election and for whatever reason, the Obama administration wasn't so concerned then.
Maybe because they thought it would benefit Hillary Clinton. That aside, people want answers. Nobody wants the Russians interfering with anything and we deserve these answers on both sides but it has become so politicized. How do you get away from that Congressman? Does Robert Mueller need to step down?

DESANTIS: Well look, I think a lot of the questions that I have pre-date Mueller's appointment. I have problems with Mueller being appointed simply because I thought it was a counterintelligence investigation, not a criminal investigation. I think Rod Rosenstein made a mistake by imposing a criminal prosecutor on this because we didn't really have evidence of a crime. And so what a prosecutor's going to do, they're going to find evidence of a crime but that's not really the way you want criminal investigations to go. You want there to be an identified crime and then you try to build the case and that basic central crime was never there in this case.

But in terms of the partisanship, I got to tell you, Trish, I'm dizzy with how Russia is handled by the -- by the Democrats. A couple years ago, Obama was refusing to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, they were trying to do a reset. The Democrats lauded that. They viewed guys like me who are -- who are more of the Reagan school that's tough on Russia as kind of throwbacks to the Cold War. They criticized Mitt Romney in2012. Now all of a sudden because they're using it against Trump, they're so concerned about Russia. I think we should be concerned about them but I think a lot of this stuff has reaped the politics from the day that election happened.

REGAN: Well, I'm glad you said that Representative DeSantis because I have really questioned why it is that we suddenly wanted to be friends with Russia while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, but now Russia is the sworn enemy. What I would say is that we knew all along when you go back to the Bush era, we knew that Russia was a threat. This was out there.
Condoleezza Rice was a Russian scholar they knew and for whatever reasons during the Obama administration, they decided to ignore that. The Mitt Romney point is a very good one. Congressman DeSantis, happy New Year to you. Thank you.

DESANTIS: Happy New Year!

REGAN: Republicans getting a huge win with tax reform before the close of 2017. And now the next battle could be entitlement reform. Where the GOP, well, they seem kind of divided on this one. Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, she's going to join me here on how it may play out. And remember, you can follow us on Twitter @SundayFutures. Stay with us. We've got a whole lot more to come on this New Year's Eve in "Sunday Morning Futures."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

REGAN: After the GOP's huge win passing tax reform in 2017, entitlement cuts appear to be the next battle brewing on Capitol Hill. Medicaid could be facing some cuts. I want to bring in right now, Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. It's good to see you as always and happy New Years to you. Representative, you know it's never easy when you cut entitlements right? I mean, this the problem with entitlements, once you give them they're very, very hard politically speaking to take them away. Do you think it's prudent to actually be out there taking away benefits right now when you've got 18 coming up?

REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN, R-TENN.: Trish, I think what we have to do is make sure people understand we're not talking about taking away benefits from those who deserve those benefits. The goal is to make certain that those who deserve and need those benefits get everything that they're entitled to. The answer is how do you do that or that's the question and the answer is you do it by making the system more efficient, by innovating, utilizing healthcare technology. And then another thing I think is exciting to have a discussion on is looking at Graham-Cassidy. The legislation the Senators have that they want to send Medicaid back to the state. And here in Tennessee, when I talked to our terrific state legislators that we have, they say please, send it to us. We can deliver these benefits more effectively and that will give us the opportunity to innovate and they're excited about doing that.

REGAN: So maybe that's what's in-store. But you know, as you look at all of the policy items that you can attack in 2018, one of the big ones for the President is infrastructure.

BLACKBURN: Correct.

REGAN: If you -- if you were to stack this up and say what you wanted to get to first yourself, Representative, would it be infrastructure or would it be entitlement reform?

BLACKBURN: For me, getting to the broadband, high-speed internet title is number one. I am Chairman of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee at Energy and Commerce and I am so looking forward to broadband expansion and working with the President and his administration on getting this out there. And here's where this intersects with healthcare. If you're going to preserve all of our rural hospitals that need that preservation, if you're going to increase the opportunities for home health and delivery of home health, what you're going to need is consistent, reliable, high-speed internet. So there is going to be an intersection of these two. And the President is very focused on this rightly so -- and the Vice President has quite a history of being very good on the issues of Medicare and Medicaid. And with their leadership and working with the House and the Senate, I think that kind of cleaning up these systems so that benefits go to those that deserve them. The deliver
--

REGAN: I hear you. It sounds like you kind of wants both things then.
You know --

BLACKBURN: That's right because they're going to intersect.

REGAN: -- has been working pretty aggressively to deregulate some of the -
- some of the industry and get rid of those regulations that has hindered it from growing as fast as we would like to see it grow. But you're saying basically this is an infrastructure play of kinds, deregulation that simultaneously will benefit the reform and healthcare system.

BLACKBURN: Well, it will. And when you look at infrastructure and you look at the broadband expansion, and you look at increasing those opportunities in rural and underserved areas, then you're talking about access to more quality healthcare for more Americans and utilizing some of those next-generation concepts.

REGAN: OK. I hear you. Let me jump in and just ask you though, about what we're going to do right now about the increasing debt loads that we all have, 20 trillion and still counting. And now, of course, I'm a big believer that tax cuts will stimulate the economy and I think that you're going to see an increase in tax revenue as a result of these tax cuts. But nonetheless, all this stuff costs money and the President as much as you want to deal with healthcare reform, he wants to do infrastructure and they're talking about potentially a $1 trillion infrastructure program.
Where's the money going to come from?

BLACKBURN: And as we look at where the money is going to come from, I think one of the things that the President has talked about and Mick Mulvaney has talked about is public/private partnerships.

REGAN: I like that.

BLACKBURN: And pulling together these public/private partnerships, looking at what we can do on our end with utilizing those dollars to basically be the multiplier when you send this money back to the states and these grants go out into infrastructure. There are some opportunities that are going to be there. But Trish, this is the challenge to us, I believe, is how do we do some of these across-the-board cuts, reduce some spending and address entitlements so that money is going for 21st-century delivery.

(CROSSTALK)

REGAN: You know it's so easy to spend right, but to actually have to make cuts, you're going to have to get pretty innovative. So we're relying on you too --

BLACKBURN: Well, right, I've had my one, two and five percent across-the- board spending cuts and welcome, everybody to support them.

REGAN: Good. Well, it's so good to see you, Representative. Happy New Year!

BLACKBURN: Good to see you. Happy New Year to you! Bye.

REGAN: Bipartisan talks set to begin this week at the White House as lawmakers try to agree on a permanent spending bill and a deal on immigration. We're going to size up the prospects with former Congressman Jason Chaffetz, that ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

REGAN: Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders are going to be meeting with senior White House officials later this week as they try to hammer out a deal to avert a government shutdown. Immigration will likely be on the agenda as well of course. Joining me right now, former Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Fox News contributor. It's so good to see you this morning on New Year's Eve.

JASON CHAFFETZ, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Happy New Year. Thank you.

REGAN: Thank you very much. Are they going to build or work this one out?
I mean, we're not going to have a budget shutdown, are we?

CHAFFETZ: Well January 19 is a big day and you're going to have this battle royale between the Conservatives an I think some more centrist members, and the Democrats and immigration is going to be front and center.
Democrats have made no bones about it. They want DACA reform. I think the President has signaled that he's open to that but at the same time, this President was elected on tough border security and he's going to get funding for that wall and he's going to have to deal with chain migration and a host of other immigration issues.

REGAN: Representative Chaffetz, how will they ever go for that though?
The Democrats -- I mean, sure they want DACA reform but the wall symbolizes
-- actually physically symbolizes everything that they dislike about this President, which is a little bit exaggerated if you ask me only because you know, it's symbolic for controlling our borders which is as a country, you kind of need to do. But they hate the idea, they hate him, and if they actually vote for money for the wall, they're never able to live that down with some of their constituents.

CHAFFETZ: I think that's all very true but in 2006 these Democrats including Mr. Schumer -- Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi, they were fine with it. They actually voted for funding of the wall and with the President has previously asked for $1.8 billion does not put a wall on the entire border but it does fund a big portion of it. And right now, I've been down to the border, I've seen it. You'll have a wall and all of a sudden it stops and then you've got a barbed wire fence and you can see the path between Mexico and the United States where people just walk across.

It's really ridiculous and we're asking these border patrol agents to try to protect the border against drugs and incursions without the necessary support. And I would think that they would want to be able to do that.
Now, I do think we could deal with DACA but we also have to deal with chain migration, we're going to have to deal with an asylum reform and then we've got to deal with sanctuary cities where it wasn't too long ago that this administration lost a court case on sanctuary cities, some simple language in the next appropriations bill and you could actually solve that problem.

REGAN: Well, and it's wild to think that you know, even the Ninth Circuit out there telling the President he cannot have the power to decide who comes into this country at any given time. So that of course was reversed.
But you know chain migration is a big one. A lot of Democrats I've spoken to say, well, the President's family came here on chain migration. But what's different about when the President's family came here and the environment we're now living in Representative?

CHAFFETZ: Well look, we have just been dealing with even in the last few days, people that are here illegally -- you have the Governor of California, the Governor of New York taking people that are coming here as immigrants committing crimes. We aren't even deporting the criminal element under Barack Obama, there were no more than 80,000 people that were here illegally got caught committing a crime and instead of deporting him, he just released them back out into the United States of America. So this President, President Trump was elected on a tough immigration stance and he's going to have to hold the line on this.

REGAN: Well, I would encourage everyone. I was speaking with a historian Doug Wead this week and I'm encouraging everyone to look back historically at what our nation has done when it comes to immigration. We have this sort of false narrative that we've always been welcoming. I mean, we've been welcoming to an extent only to people who want to come here and embrace our values and help make this country a better place and you can go back and read some John Adams findings about this. Anybody who committed a crime, even the littlest one, you are out. Anyway, we'll see what happens this year. 2018 is going to be a big one. Congressman, it's good to see you. Thank you, happy New Year, to you and your family.

CHAFFETZ: It's good to see you. Happy New Year!

REGAN: All right, the art market has gone steadily for decades now. Next, one of the biggest dealers there is telling us why owning art is no longer a luxury? Stay with us on "Sunday Morning Futures", I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

REGAN: You know the art market has seen a steady rise over the past few decades. So much so that some dealers who are saying it's no longer considered a luxury product. Maria sat down with one of the world's biggest art dealers, Larry Gagosian. He's owner of the international chain of galleries and he discusses the changes in the ever-growing art market.
Watch it. It's interesting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA BARTIROMO, HOST: When you see some of the outside sales that we've been talking about recently, it's really eye-popping. What's behind it?

LARRY GAGOSIAN, ART DEALER: Well, naturally, liquidity is a big factor in any market and there seems to be a lot of money in the world and there's a lot of discretionary money and art has become at the same time a much more popular pursuit, hobby, I hate to use the phrase but asset class because I don't really like to look at art that way. I think that's a dangerous way to look at it in some respects but it's certainly a factor. Some people buy art because they're confident that it will be a good store value and this is -- this is a kind of a recent phenomenon. The art market has become -- it's kind of global phenomenon.

I mean people collected art in all cultures for thousands of years literally. But the market, what we're talking about right now is in some ways a new phenomenon. The type of market that we're talking about is a relatively new animal and you know, it's great for artists because if you're a talented artist and you're entering the market now as a young artist who really has talent, I think you're going to find that there are people out there who are going to be collecting your work. So it's great for young artists to -- of course, you've got to be good and not everything
-- not everything, not all art is created equally.

BARTIROMO: I'm glad you mentioned young artists. I want to ask you about that but first, let me go back to something you said because it struck me.
And you said you know, it's different. I mean, why? Why do you see this particular moment different? What's different about it?

GAGOSIAN: What's different about it is -- it's not really different, it's more of what we've -- what we've experienced before. Twenty years ago there were really no significant collectors of contemporary art in China or the Middle East, Latin America, so when the word globalization is you know, people get tired of hearing it but the art market is certainly benefited from globalization. So what's different now is you can transmit information very quickly. We have 16 galleries literally all over the world and for instance, somebody who works in our gallery in Hong Kong may have access to a particular painting and the liaison with our gallery in Geneva.

And this goes on -- we're not the only gallery that does that by the way.
Other galleries in this kind of a footprint maybe not quite as many galleries but they have access to the same electronic communication. This is really fueled the market. This also allowed collectors to have more transparency, to have more access to more transparency about prices which gives the market more confidence. So I think it's a convergence of these things that we're seeing now and it's resulted in a very healthy art market.

BARTIROMO: So globalization is really critical here because you've got so much money from around the world coming into America right now. This is one of the biggest destinations, art.

GAGOSIAN: Right. Well, New York Particularly.

BARTIROMO: And New York, right.

GAGOSIAN: It's a great asset for the city of New York is the art culture, the museums, the galleries, the artists that work here, so New York has benefited enormously from the popularity of art.

BARTIROMO: There are some things that don't lose their value. I mean when you look at diamonds, when you look at high end you know, accessories even, what would you say about the art market?

GAGOSIAN: It's not a luxury good, it's not a luxury product. I mean, it may appeal to people who buy Hermes bags but it's not a Hermes bag. And you can't simply call a factory and say give me a thousand more bags or -- I mean they're great bags don't get me wrong but it's a controlled, there's controlled supply by the very nature of how it's created. So there's scarcity and there's rarity and there's always the hand of the artist involved. And that makes it different than -- sometimes people try to categorize it as a luxury. It's a disservice to art in my opinion and it really -- and it really distorts the true nature of the market.

This is one of (INAUDIBLE) early girl paintings from his pop art period 1962. There may be -- I don't know, 30-35 paintings from this period depicting women in this kind of idealized comic strip fashion. And this one is -- I'm (INAUDIBLE) Janet Leigh, the actress Janet Leigh for some reason. I don't think that would -- it might have been inspired by Janet Leigh.

BARTIROMO: What were your thoughts when you saw the Da Vinci go for $450 million?

GAGOSIAN: Well I literally saw it because I was -- I was at Christie's and I was sitting there and I mean it was just jaw-dropping. I mean, nobody expected the price to go that high. Nobody I knew. It was just -- it was
-- people were flabbergasted. I mean, I saw it was stunning, a stunning price, unprecedented.

BARTIROMO: I know. I mean -- but I had friends in the market who I had dinner with the night before and they said well we don't trust that painting. We would never be there because we think it's been painted over.
I mean --

GAGOSIAN: Well it had --- it had some restoration as many old master paintings do. I mean, the painting is how many hundred years old, you know, and it didn't live in a museum its whole life. It had been passed through other hands so it had -- it had restoration. And some collectors were put off by it. But it was a Da Vinci and there are only 16 and this is arguably the last one that will ever come on the market unless another one is discovered in the future. And again, the rarity and the brand Da Vinci is a pretty good brand. So I mean the price was flabbergasting but if you look back at why it happened, maybe it's plausible in a certain way.

BARTIROMO: It's interesting to see --

GAGOSIAN: Because that much money to have something that rare, anything can happen.

BARTIROMO: You said it's so global. Who are the big money buyers today in terms of countries? Obviously, America is America, but when you look around the world, is it Chinese, is it Saudi, where do you see it?

GAGOSIAN: Well, I mean, Saudis are starting to get in the market. Abu Dhabi and Qatar have been collecting art now for about the last 20 years seriously. China's a huge market. I think it's a growing -- I think it's growing market. I think the economy there is just going to get stronger and stronger. They're building museums you know, like McDonald's. I mean, there's museums all over China, big ones, private ones, there's a museum that (INAUDIBLE) is just about -- they're just about to start construction I think 1.5 million square feet in Beijing. The (INAUDIBLE) Abu Dhabi just opened so these museums have to put something on the wall, you know, and they've got to buy art -- they've got -- to attract people they can't just borrow paintings from other museums. They need to have -- it's a destination. And particularly when you're in a place like you know, Doha or Beijing, you want to -- you want to bring traffic to your museum.
You've got -- you've got to make exciting acquisitions to bring the public in.

This is a beautiful painting from the neoclassical period of Picasso. This was painted in 1925. It's a very large canvas for that period. Typically they're much smaller -- much smaller paintings. This is big canvas and it depicts one of Picasso's children who actually sadly died very young. And Picasso quite often would dress him up in a bullfighter outfit and Picasso was a big, big bullfight fan. He wants too many, many bullfights. There are credible photographs Picasso you know, with (INAUDIBLE) and other artists of his generation in the bullring. And he liked to dress his Pablito, that was the boy's name, dress him up in these bullfighter costumes and make paintings of him. He did maybe 10 paintings, I don't know how many but a hand full of paintings with his son dressed as a bullfighter.

BARTIROMO: Tell me about the cycles of the art market because you must have seen ups and downs in your career right?

GAGOSIAN: Absolutely. I've seen some really rough cycles but I think the cycles recently have been less severe. Dot-com bubble, Lehman Brothers crash, the first bad, bad art market that I had to kind of soldier through was in the early 90s and it was just at a point where the Japanese, their stock market collapsed, they were huge collectors of art. They all wanted to sell. There were -- there were these funds -- I'm not a big fan of art funds by the way. There were these funds that were buying art, they all wanted to get out. Everybody wanted to sell and there was -- there were very few buyers.

(CROSSTALK)

GAGOSIAN: Believe me, he kept my gallery open, but they were very few buyers. There were very few buyers. You didn't have -- you didn't have the Middle East. You didn't have Latin American buyers. You had zero China, and you had -- you know, basically a recession in the United States, it was terrible. Since then, what I've noticed, because of the broadening of the Market that we've been talking about, because of the buyers in the Middle East, because of the great new collectors in China, because of the broadening of the market in this country and elsewhere, yes it goes in cycles. Anybody who thinks that it's not going to go in another cycle is being (INAUDIBLE) because all markets go in cycles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

REGAN: Really interesting stuff. So art is not an investment or art is an investment, it's not a luxury there from Larry Gagosian. Thank you to Maria for that one. Coming up next everyone, the year ahead in the Russia investigation, where does the probe go from here and what about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's future? Our panel is next on "Sunday Morning Futures". I'll see you here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

REGAN: Of course the New Year will bring new developments and a lot of questions in the ongoing Russia investigations in Congress as well as the Special Council probe. So what can we expect next? Joining me right now is Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent at the Washington Examiner and Brad Blakeman, former Deputy Assistant to President George W.
Bush. Good to see you both.

BRAD BLAKEMAN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Good morning.

REGAN: Brad starting with you. So there's this deadline now thanks to Devin Nunes, and he's saying look we want all of these things turned over related to that so-called dossier that was compiled by, well, a British spy funded by the Democrats to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. What do you think will come of that?

BLAKEMAN: Well hopefully we'll get to the truth. It's ironic that it takes a charity judicial watch in order to get a lot of the information that we should be entitled to that's in the possession of the government.
I hope that the FBI did not contribute U.S.-funded dollars to this effort in getting information from the dossier but certainly they relied on it.
And we want to know to what effect did they rely on it in order to get warrants to wiretap Americans. This is very serious business, not only in the conduct of the FBI but also the supervision of the FBI. So Nunes is making some headway, but I think the American people are fatigued by this Russian collusion. There's nothing seems to be there, there with regard to Trump but there seems to be something there regarding the FBI.

REGAN: Susan Ferrechio, you know, Brad makes a good point here. You would think especially given all of the leaking that's happened in Washington, you would think that we would hear more about this connection between Donald Trump and his campaign to actual collusion with the Russians, but for whatever reason, it seems as though the whole thing is sort of turning on its head and the finger pointing is really happening now more at Hillary Clinton and her team. I guess the bottom line is we all want answers on both sides. Are we going to get them this year?

SUSAN FERRECHIO, CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON
EXAMINER: Well there's clearly resistance from Mueller &company for turning over this information. That's not unusual. They really don't like the co-mingling of Congressional investigations with the federal government's investigation. That doesn't surprise me. But the problem is it really shields the information that Brad was just talking about. What role did the dossier play in instigating this whole investigation? You have the New York Times story that's out over the weekend that is putting a more emphasis on Trump aide, George Papadopoulos playing a major role here in learning about these damaging e-mails that were allegedly hacked by the Russians, and we don't know what he did with that information. All of this again is unnamed sources per usual and in the New York Times.

So clearly it seems as though there's someone trying to put out a real counter-narrative here against the idea that the dossier played any role.
So you have these two competing narratives. You have Devin Nunes trying to track down what role the dossier played, not able to get that information.
On the other hand we have anonymous sources per usual leaking information that seemed to put the emphasis on the FBI beginning the investigation based on what they learned about George Papadopoulos who did work for the Trump campaign in some capacity and they're trying to build him up as a much more serious player within the Trump campaign. They're trying to put more emphasis on Trump's campaign collusion with the Russian government.

As this campaign -- the investigation evolves over the coming months, you've got the Senate Intelligence Committee, the House Intelligence Committee as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee looking at all of this.
It's going to be months -- it's going to be -- you know, they've interviewed at least a hundred people over in the Senate. There's going to be more and more interviews, more documents. The big question is what will Devin Nunes get out of this? So far, he hasn't got what he's wanted and they're supposedly drafting this contempt of Congress charges against the FBI. We'll see how far that goes and whether they can use that to actually get the information they're seeking.

REGAN: So if they hold them in contempt of Congress, maybe that will actually speed things up. Nobody wants to be held in contempt of Congress.
Good for them to be working on the draft of those documents. But do you know, if I'm Robert Mueller, Brad, I would be very interested in just exactly what was done with the Trump dossier, its origin, who wanted it, who supplied information to Mr. Steel because I look at this and I'm just wondering if the Russians deliberately interfered with our electoral process by feeding false information to this British spy who was then funneling it back to our own FBI.

BLAKEMAN: There's no -- there's no doubt that that that certainly is within the realm of possibility. One thing --

REGAN: Do you think Mueller cares?

BLAKEMAN: The -- he should care but the Russians did try to influence our election. That's the bad news. The good news is it did not have an effect. But we have to make sure they don't do it again and I think our focus needs to be on the Russian interference and not this fictitious what I believe to be fictitious collusion between the Trump campaign.
Papadopoulos was a wannabe. I've been involved in presidential campaigns, I've seen these guys. He was a free agent. He was not acting with the direction of the campaign. He was trying to be somebody. And in trying to be somebody what did it get him, a perjury conviction.

REGAN: So basically, in order to actually really prove collusion if you would and I don't think collusion is really the right word here --

BLAKEMAN: It's not a crime.

REGAN: Right. Because he would -- they would actually have to determine that Donald Trump basically sent his minions out and said tell the Russians to hack into Hillary Clinton's e-mail server and the DNC and we're going to make sure all that stuff gets released. I mean, that's -- I mean, when you talk about the standard for a crime and I've spoken a lot with Professor Dershowitz about this very thing, that's what we're talking about because you know, if you talk to the Russians or had a white Russian at a bar, on any given night, it seems as though you are now a suspect but it's going to take a whole lot more than that isn't it Susan?

FERRECHIO: I think so. I mean, where does the trail go from here?
There's no evidence that George Papadopoulos passed this information along to anybody in the Trump campaign. Can't hey get more out of him on this?
It's not clear. But I think in Congress, what you're going to see is maybe a couple of revelations in the coming months. First I'm told that they may come up with, you know, how close was the collusion between Trump-Russia but first, they may get into how much influence did the Russians have on this election? So I think we may hear two outcomes in the Senate.

REGAN: All right, don't go anywhere. We've got lots more to talk about.
As we get ready to ring in the New Year, what will be the biggest stories of 2018? We're looking ahead, we've got more with the panel, I'll see you right here next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

REGAN: The countdown is on. We got the New Year coming up in well, a matter of hours. So what are the biggest stories do you think that 2018 will capture? We're back with our panel right now. Susan Ferrechio and Brad Blakeman. Brad, I would imagine still the whole Russia thing, right?

BLAKEMAN: Well I don't think so. I think we're going to be able to pivot actually the issues and I would urge the viewers to focus like a laser beam on January 30th. That's the day that President Trump will give his State of the Union and that will be the roadmap to where we're going up to the midterm elections and beyond. I think the President needs to reach out his hand across the aisle because now, we need Democrats. The numbers are against us in the Senate and we have to tackle infrastructure, immigration, DACA, sunsets in March and if we're really in a bipartisan spirit, we'll be able to knockout healthcare. So I think this is going to be a year of issues. I don't think people --

REGAN: Do you think the Russians is going to go away? Good, because that's been a huge --

BLAKEMAN: No.

REGAN: No it's not going to go away?

BLAKEMAN: No, it won't go away with the first few months of 2018. It may go away sometime next year and that's just a hope.

REGAN: Oh, OK, but, we can still work on all this policy. Susan, you agree with that? I mean the economy has been doing much, much better, upwards of three percent growth. We're looking at 25,000 nearly on the Dow, some people predicting 30,000, and the hope is that wages will start to grow because that's what's so critical on this economy right now that people start to get paid more money. Can that happen in '18?

FERRECHIO: I think the economy is going to be a major story this year -- this coming year because it's going to be a reflection of the GOP and the President's tax policy that's going to be starting in February when it becomes law. We'll see whether wages go up which is a promise that Republicans made and whether the public really comes to understand the implications of the tax law. The polling shows that people think they're going to have a tax increase when the vast majority will not. I think it's also going to be a year about the President's messaging skills. He will be out on the campaign trail I think delivering his message and promoting the accomplishments so far in his administration which have been mostly overshadowed by negative media. But I don't think the Russia issue is going to go away. I think Democrats want to prolong this as long as possible

REGAN: Well, that may not be good for them though as we increasingly hear more about this dossier.

FERRECHIO: Sure.

REGAN: I think you're right. I think it's going to continue to lurk in the background and -- but I don't -- I don't think it will prevent his policy agenda from getting accomplished. One question I have for you though, Brad, is this wall because when you talk about DACA and you talk about actually real immigration reform, the President has made it clear the wall is part of that. People, you know, in the Democratic Party don't want to spend one penny on it. So how do they -- how do they get what they want to get done on immigration when the Democrats are so resistant to this idea?

BLAKEMAN: They're going to have to compromise. The Republicans are going to have to do it, the Democrats are going to have to do it because they're reliant on each other. Democrats want a favorable DACA bill, so do Republicans, the question is what are going to be the terms to the border security? What are going to be the terms to broader immigration and they're --

REGAN: And where do they get the money of course for the wall. By the way, I have an idea for the President on this one. I think he could call Steven Mnuchin over at Treasury and have him take a good hard look at the private equity carried interest loophole that could save Americans $180 billion a year, so that would build a lot of walls. That does it for "Sunday Morning." Good to see you guys I'm Trish Regan in for Maria. I'll be back tomorrow on the Fox News Channel filling in for Neil.

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