Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Sen. Tim Scott on House 'emergency' USPS bill, goals for Republican National Convention

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Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Sen. Tim Scott on House 'emergency' USPS bill, goals for Republican National Convention

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, both RNC keynote speakers, join Maria Bartiromo with insight on 'Sunday Morning Futures.'

This is a rush transcript from "Sunday Morning Futures," August 23, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARIA BARTIROMO, ANCHOR: Welcome. Good Sunday morning, everyone. I'm Maria Bartiromo. Thanks for joining us.

Straight ahead right here on "Sunday Morning Futures": one convention down, one to go, with now 71 days left until America votes for its next president.

The DNC wrapped up on Thursday, with Joe Biden officially accepting his party's nomination. And tomorrow kicks off the RNC, where Donald J. Trump will formally become the Republican candidate.

Just ahead, two of the convention's organizers and key speakers. GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott are here with me with an exclusive look at the week ahead and what it will take to set their party up for success in November.

We will also talk to White House trade adviser Peter Navarro this morning about POTUS' second-term agenda and why he believes the election could all boil down to China.

In the middle of all of this, a major development in the Russian collusion hoax, with John Durham interviewing former CIA Director John Brennan on Friday as part of his criminal investigation. This is expected to be one of the last steps before Durham releases his findings in the coming weeks.

President Trump shared his suspicions about Brennan with me when we spoke back in may.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: How involved was John Brennan?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Totally involved. He was totally involved.

John Brennan was one of the architects, in my opinion. You look at Brennan. You look at Clapper. You look at them all.

But, ultimately, the president knew everything. The president knew everything. President Obama and Vice President Biden, they knew everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: Will John Durham's criminal investigation result in high- profile indictments? Congressmen Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy, who were among the first to raise the red flag on Russiagate right here on this program years ago, they're here with me this morning to investigate.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham also here, back with another exclusive this morning, a declassified document that he says proves the FBI treated Hillary Clinton and President Trump differently.

All that and a lot more, as we look ahead right here, right now on "Sunday Morning Futures."

But, first, Nancy Pelosi called the House back into session yesterday to vote on emergency funding for the post office, this as GOP leaders gear up for the week's RNC, where they will establish the party's platform ahead of the November election.

GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott are both keynote speakers. Leader McCarthy is also the RNC chairman.

They join me now with their first ever interview together.

Good morning, gentlemen. It's great to have you.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Good morning, Maria.

SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): Good morning. Good to be with you.

BARTIROMO: So, Congressman, I want to start with you, because you are in Washington.

The speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, called everybody back to vote on the post office funding. What can you tell us?

MCCARTHY: Well, she created this problem that wasn't there. She called us back for a special session of Congress, saying that the post office was in dire need.

But when you talk to the commissioners and others -- they're not Republicans, but just go to Ruth Goldway, who is an 18-year commissioner, a Democrat appointed by Bill Clinton. She said the post office has no problem. They could deliver all the mail.

If you delivered all the mail that you wanted when it came to elections, that's only three-quarters of what they do in a regular day.

But Nancy Pelosi said they were out of money. But when you looked at their bank account, they had $14 billion that can fund it all the way to August of next year. But in our CARES bill, we also gave them another $10 billion through the Treasury if they need anything.

This was a made-up problem that was not there. But what's worse about all this, Maria, the Republicans put on the floor funding to combat COVID. We put funding in there for the small businesses that you know all those people who are out of work to help them with the PPP program...

BARTIROMO: Right.

MCCARTHY: ... and also funding for police, because we're watching our major cities.

But you know what? That was defeated. And the worst part about it being defeated, it got defeated because Nancy Pelosi now allows Democrats not to show up for work; 68 Democrats didn't even show up for this special meeting. They stayed home. And they were still being able to be paid. That is what's wrong with Nancy Pelosi being speaker.

BARTIROMO: OK.

Well, I saw that in one of your tweets, that 68 Democrats didn't show up. I was struck by that. Let's talk about the RNC this week.

Senator Tim Scott, you're...

SCOTT: Yes, ma'am.

BARTIROMO: ... one of the highlighted speakers.

Tell me what you want to achieve and what you're expecting this week.

SCOTT: Well, I'm excited about speaking tomorrow night. I'm expecting a fantastic conventional week long tomorrow night.

Tomorrow night, I will focus on growth, hope, and opportunity. If you looked at last week's Democratic Convention, you left shaking your head. What do they believe in? What do they want?

Other than defunding the police, Medicare for all, raising taxes, we have no clue what they're going to do with a $7 trillion ask.

Here is what we are going to do. We are going to focus on growth. The Trump administration pre-COVID-19 created seven million jobs. And they did it in an inclusive way, the lowest unemployment rate on record for African- Americans, Hispanics, Asians, 70-year low for women.

If President Trump is reelected -- and he will be -- we can expect more growth. Hope. When you think about kids born in poverty looking for choice -- chance, there's no question that educational choice is one of the fastest ways to level the playing field in America.

And we're going to talk about the importance of school choice and quality education in every corridor of this country. And, finally, opportunity. The president and I worked hard on Opportunity Zones and produced $75 billion in the private sector for the most distressed communities.

That's a lot better than what the Democrats are proposing, more Section 8 vouchers, more government spending, a guaranteed position at the bottom, if you vote for the Democrats, and opportunity to reach your highest objectives, your highest dreams if you vote for the Republicans.

It has never been more clear and more simple on why we should support the Republican ticket, led by President Trump.

But we will hear next from the greatest marketing mind in all of Congress, Kevin McCarthy.

(LAUGHTER)

MCCARTHY: Tim is being a little kind there, because Tim is no better example of the party of Lincoln, of why he is a Republican.

But we're going to talk a little bit about what President Trump promised before he became president, because he kept those promises building that economy, securing our border.

Remember -- remember those chaos that we had down at the border, the caravans and others, about rebuilding our military? He's been able to do that as well.

Or what about criminal justice reform? This president has kept every single promise he made. But how do we make tomorrow better than today? So, we're going to be celebrating America. The difference, it's not going to be cynical, like the Democrats. We're excited about our convention.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

MCCARTHY: You know why? Because we know America is exceptional.

And we're going to have people on the stage that understand America is exceptional, understand America is one nation under God, understand that everybody -- that this nation is conceived in liberty and dedicated that everyone is equal.

And, with that, you will harness the ability to every generation before us to improve like we improved before. So we're going to rebuild our economy.

BARTIROMO: Well, I...

MCCARTHY: We're going to tackle China, something you didn't hear about Joe Biden, but this president is able to do. We're going to change our supply chain.

You know what? We don't make penicillin, we don't make vitamins here anymore. We're going to change all of that. And those are some important elements.

BARTIROMO: I think you...

MCCARTHY: And we're going to make these cities safe again.

BARTIROMO: Yes, I think you make really good points in terms of the solutions of what we didn't hear last week at the DNC, because, while they talked a lot about empathy, they all trashed Donald Trump, but there wasn't really anything to sink your teeth into in terms of, this is what I'm going to do.

I know that he wants to raise taxes by $4 trillion, but nothing more.

Now, Senator Scott, you just said school choice. This is real important, especially women, families out there, they want to make sure they have the choice to have their kids have the best opportunity that they can have.

You don't hear a lot about that. Is this going to be critical for, you know, mothers, housewives, African-American community? Talk about that, because I know that the African-Americans community is a key vote for the president. How do you see it?

SCOTT: Maria, there's no doubt about it, when you look at President Trump's accomplishments.

Here is the most interesting thing we should see last week vs. this week, promises made, promises kept on our side, and a lot of hot air on their side. When you think about the president's State of the Union, he's had that young lady, 11 years old, beautiful little girl from Philadelphia, who has been trying to get into a quality school for years.

He promised that she would get an opportunity to go to a charter school of her choice, and he delivered. When you think about school choice, the closest thing to magic in America is a good education, and too many kids in too many zip codes, in too many neighborhoods do not have that chance.

President Trump supports school choice. And I will tell you that two-thirds or more of African-Americans and Hispanic parents support school choice, because they know that, if you want an opportunity in America, it comes through education. And we can deliver on that promise, just like he delivered on the promise for the highest funding in the history of the country for historically black colleges and universities.

And, at the same time, during the last administration, under Joe Biden's leadership, they actually attacked the HBCUs and reduced funding. You can look at all the articles from 2013 to 2015 on the failures of the Obama administration and Joe Biden as it relates to HBCUs.

In addition, it was Joe Biden who brought us the 1994 crime bill that locked up millions of black people. And, fortunately, for all of us, President Trump delivered on the criminal justice reform that made up for the terrible atrocities and mistakes brought to us by Joe Biden.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

SCOTT: And let us not forget that it was Joe Biden who says $4 trillion of new taxes?

That means lower revenues to the Treasury, not higher revenues to the Treasury. There's an inverse relationship that we simply can't see on the left. But we see it, after 2017, when our revenues to the Treasury went up, not down, with the tax cut.

BARTIROMO: Yes, that's right. The tax legislation really did move the needle on economic growth.

SCOTT: Absolutely

BARTIROMO: Real quick, cap us off here.

Congressman, final word. The president's speech on Thursday night is going to be a big highlight. But he's going to speak every night, right?

MCCARTHY: Yes, he's going to speak every night, just like, during the Democratic Convention, where Joe Biden wouldn't go anywhere, the president traveled this country.

That's what we need, a leader not afraid to get out there. He's going to speak every night, because he has a lot to tell about this nation, how we're going to rebuild it, restore the American dream, and rebuild the economy bigger than we have ever had.

He's not into defunding the police or dismantling America or destroying us by raising our taxes. We understand that tomorrow is going to be better than today. And you just heard from Tim Scott.

BARTIROMO: All right.

MCCARTHY: He's going to be on that stage.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

MCCARTHY: One day, I think he should be on that stage accepting the nomination for our party as well. And I look forward to helping him do that one day.

BARTIROMO: All right, awesome.

Gentlemen, thank you so much. Great preview. We will be watching all the developments.

Tim Scott, Kevin McCarthy, thank you, gentlemen.

Coming up, the president's point man on trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro, is here with POTUS' second-term agenda plans and the shocking reason why he says China wants Joe Biden in the White House, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures."

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Welcome back.

Well, Beijing apparently taking sides in the 2020 election, with The Global Times endorsing Joe Biden this week, labeling him as smoother to deal with than President Trump.

This comes -- this, of course, is state-run media, The Global Times. So, when you see something in the Global Times, that means it came from the CCP.

This is on the heels of the Democratic National Convention, where party leaders avoid mentioning China and China's role in unleashing COVID-19 on the world entirely.

Joining me right now is the White House trade adviser, Peter Navarro.

And, Peter, it's great to have you this weekend. Thanks for being here.

What are your expectations for this upcoming RNC. And why do you believe that China wants Joe Biden in the White House?

PETER NAVARRO, DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF TRADE AND MANUFACTURING POLICY: Well, and that smooth thing you see is those -- our jobs going offshore smoothly to China.

But, Maria, this whole election is setting up, both in China and with the DNC, as a battle between a nice guy and a tough guy. And we like that matchup, because I think the people of America will always choose a tough guy in the White House over a nice guy, because they know the world's a dangerous place.

You got dictators like Xi and Putin. You got the state-sponsored terrorist mullahs in Iran, rocket man on the Korean Peninsula, Al Qaeda, ISIS, tough guy.

But I do want to challenge this notion of the DNC that somehow Joe Biden is a nice and empathetic guy.

So, let me ask you a couple of questions here. Does a nice guy vote for NAFTA and ship millions of jobs off to Mexico and spawn millions more illegal immigrants coming north? No. But Joe Biden did.

Does a nice guy let China into the World Trade Organization and have tens of thousands of factories across the Midwest go to China? Here is the thing that I find most un-nice about Joe Biden. He likes to say he's the guy -- the kid from Scranton, but he spent all of his years in Delaware, right?

What is Delaware? It's the tiniest state. And it's basically a post office box drop for the big multinational corporations that send our jobs offshore, but, more importantly, it's the credit card capital of America, right?

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NAVARRO: Joe Biden got his start with lobbying money from the credit card companies. What does that mean?

If you go, for example, in 2005 to the bankruptcy act that Joe Biden pushed for the credit card company, that prevented both people with heavy student loans and credit card debt from being able to declare bankruptcy. And it was something that Liz Warren was really angry about.

And people -- like, these credit cards, they are like addictive, right? You get your credit card, you miss a payment...

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NAVARRO: ... pretty soon, you're paying 20 percent.

One other thing about the un-nice part of that credit card thing, Hunter. Where's Hunter? In 1996, Hunter became a paid employee of the biggest credit card company in America. And then five years later, he went to work as a lobbyist for that industry and still got $100,000 a year from MBNA.

So, when you talk about Joe Biden...

BARTIROMO: Wow.

NAVARRO: Yes, wow. I mean, why aren't you hearing about this?

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NAVARRO: We have heard a lot about all the other stuff he's done.

But that credit card stuff, every person in America who has had a credit card has at one point faced a balance where they had trouble paying.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NAVARRO: And Joe Biden is the guy who made sure that your interest rate went up to 20 percent if you missed a few of those payments.

BARTIROMO: Wow.

NAVARRO: And, again, where's Hunter? Hunter...

(LAUGHTER)

NAVARRO: We can get back to China. Hunter, OK, he is on Air Force Two and he brings back $1 billion for his hedge fund in the 2000s.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NAVARRO: That's why they love Joe Biden. They know he can be bought. They know he's compromised.

BARTIROMO: All right, Peter, let me talk about the upcoming election and what the president's plans are economically.

NAVARRO: Yes.

BARTIROMO: I'm looking at a Bloomberg story right now, Peter, and it says wages are soaring over 25 percent in a key region of a battleground state. That is Wisconsin.

The corner of Wisconsin emerging as American's hottest jobs market right now. Two metro areas, they are ranking near the top nationally in income gains. Apparently, they're up 25 percent in July year-over-year in two areas of Wisconsin.

We know the wage story before COVID-19 hit. What is the president going to do to get us out of what has been a sharp contraction, if he were to get a second term?

NAVARRO: Well, when you mention Wisconsin, the president takes a micro approach to macroeconomic problems in places like Wisconsin.

If you look at the shipyard up in Marinette, Wisconsin, we worked really hard to make sure that shipyard is viable. In Oshkosh, you got a big combat vehicle plant. In Maine, for example, just this week, Ambassador Robert Lighthizer pulled off this amazing thing where he got tariffs eliminated for Maine lobstermen, which were having trouble competing with Canada and across Europe.

So, at the micro level, what I love about Donald J. Trump is, he basically works on jobs at shipyards, at vehicle plants, at F-16 plants in Greenville.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NAVARRO: But the big picture here, the big picture here is to continue the agenda of deregulation, tax cuts, energy dominance, and fair trade deals. And that's exactly the opposite of what the Biden administration would do.

But the other thing I think that you're going to hear from not Donald J. Trump is how we are going to fight China and the China virus. We are coming hard at the China virus. We have been doing that since January 31, when the president pulled down the flights from China.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NAVARRO: And Joe Biden called it racist and xenophobic.

The president saved hundreds of thousands of lives. The multi-vectors of attack, Maria, we're taking with the China virus start with onshoring -- what Kevin McCarthy talked -- onshoring our production of PPE and medicines. That's critical.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NAVARRO: Racing to get therapeutics, like remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies.

And then Operation Warp Speed is the most incredible thing anyone has ever done in the medical arena in the United States government, because we're...

BARTIROMO: Yes, I mean, all those pharmaceutical companies...

(CROSSTALK)

NAVARRO: ... horse race.

BARTIROMO: All those pharmaceutical companies working together is quite extraordinary.

NAVARRO: Yes.

BARTIROMO: Peter, it's great to have you this morning.

By the way, Senator Tim Scott mentioned Opportunity Zones. We're going to talk with the HUD secretary tomorrow on "Mornings With Maria" on FOX Business. Ben Carson will break news on those Opportunity Zones tomorrow.

It's all good.

Peter, thank you so much, Peter Navarro joining us this morning from the White House.

We will take a break.

When we come back, the first lawmaker to question the Russia collusion hoax is back with me to expose what he believes is the Democrats' latest conspiracy against President Trump.

We will talk with Congressman Devin Nunes right after this, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Welcome back.

The debate over mail-in voting continued on Capitol Hill yesterday during an emergency Saturday session called for by Speaker Nancy Pelosi on post office funding.

After hours of heated discourse, the Democrats' $25 billion rescue bill passed the House, despite some Republicans warning it could disrupt the November election.

Republican Congressman Devin Nunes was among those who urged a no vote. He's the ranking member of the House Intel Committee and the author of the new book "Countdown to Socialism."

Congressman Devin Nunes is here now.

Congressman, it's good to see you this morning.

REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): Thank you, Maria.

BARTIROMO: Walk us through what took place yesterday.

NUNES: Well, look, I -- what I made the point on the floor is, is that the Democrats really believe in a lot of conspiracy theories.

And we have spent four years jumping from the Russia conspiracy theory, to the Ukraine conspiracy theory, to an impeached conspiracy theory, to now this bizarre conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is somehow trying to rip up mailboxes and send them to Wisconsin, so that American citizens won't have an ability to vote. It's preposterous, Maria.

And for the Democrats to bring us back here on a Saturday in August to vote on one of their conspiracy theories, it's just shameful. And the fact the media is not calling them out is ridiculous.

You have -- and I will just close with this part. You have so many reporters and blue check people on social media who continue to claim and put up pictures of mailboxes being removed.

And, look, and when you actually do the research, what you find is, no, those are mailboxes that are just being refurbished. So, this is a conspiracy theory of the highest degree. And it should be embarrassing for them. But there's nothing that seems to embarrass them, because the media does not hold the Democrats accountable whatsoever.

BARTIROMO: Well, it's interesting, because, coming up on this program, Senator Lindsey Graham is going to be here.

And he is going to unveil for the first time declassified documents that prove that there was a different standard when looking at Trump vs. Hillary Clinton in 2016. There were two investigations going on simultaneously, run by the same people. Peter Strzok was in charge of the Trump investigation and also in charge of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation.

And so Lindsey Graham is going to bring us those documents coming up.

What do you have to say about that, the -- with the way the FBI handled the e-mail investigation? By the way, is there any way at all -- knowing what we know about China and the espionage campaign, is there any way that the Chinese Communist Party did not know that Hillary Clinton, the sitting secretary of state, and Barack Obama, the sitting president of the free world, were communicating -- communicating on an unsecure server?

And did they breach that?

NUNES: Well, look, you have a whole lot of questions packed into one question there, Maria. Let me try to decipher it like this.

So, the first part of this is, the fact that the Trump campaign was investigated, in and of itself, is ridiculous. It never should have been -- happened. We should not have used our intelligence services that are supposed to be used to protect this country from foreigners to target a political campaign on the behest of another political campaign.

They never had one drop of evidence that anybody in the Trump campaign was colluding with any Russians, except for the information that the Democrats laundered money to a foreign spy to go to all of their Russian friends to get information to throw it into fake dossiers and to feed it into the FBI and the other intelligence apparatus.

So let's set the Trump administration that -- or that investigation aside, because that was a scam.

The Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, I think everybody knows she was on an unclassified server. If I would have done that, if any military person would have done that, we have military people in jail today who lost their -- or they lost their security clearances for making a mistake.

Hillary Clinton didn't make a mistake. She was using that server. And that's -- and I think that's a problem.

As it relates to China, look, Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime to actually stand up to China. Every president says they are going to do it. Every presidential candidate says they are going to do it.

And, look, I even believed at the time, when President Trump was saying, I'm getting tough with China, I'm like, OK, I have heard this before.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NUNES: But, lo and behold, he's getting serious with China. And that's what we need a president to do, because China is eating our lunch.

They have the most sophisticated weapons systems that they are building. They truly are our challenge going into the next 10, 20 years.

BARTIROMO: Yes, but your colleagues were all over looking at Russia, looking under the bed for ghosts, as you like to say it, for four years, three-and-a-half years.

NUNES: Yes.

BARTIROMO: And they missed the real adversary, which is China.

Real quick, got to get your take on John Brennan. He did an interview with John Durham on Friday. We are waiting on Durham's criminal investigation.

What would you be asking Brennan? And where are we in the Durham probe?

NUNES: Well, the key to Brennan is, is, his story doesn't quite add up. So, hopefully, Durham was able to get him on the record, so that he could explain his testimony when he testified in front of our committee.

You are going to have Trey Gowdy on in a little bit. He may talk about this too.

But he testified that he had some information about Trump people communicating with Russians in the spring/early summer time frame of 2016. Well, the only evidence that we have of that that I can find anywhere is no other than, where, the fake dossiers.

Now, how did Brennan have that information? Who gave him that information? There's no track record of it at the CIA or anywhere else. He claims that he gave some of this to the FBI.

I also know that we had this strange set of briefings that occurred in late July and through August and into September of 2016, where every member of the Gang of Eight got these individualized briefings.

Now, I know, at that time, I didn't receive anything on the fake Steele Democrat dossiers. But I know that Harry Reid at the time, retired senator, Democratic Senate leader, he did. He did get information from Brennan on the dossiers, because, a couple days after that meeting, he writes a letter to the FBI asking questions that he could have only received from the dossiers.

BARTIROMO: OK. So, you're saying that Brennan needs to answer why he was peddling the dossier around, and then testifying that he didn't use the dossier.

We will put that to Trey Gowdy as well.

Congressman, it's good to see you this morning. Thank you, sir.

Devin Nunes joining us there.

Coming up, we have breaking news from Lindsey Graham. He is here with an exclusive, newly declassified documents that he says prove FBI bias and wrongdoing.

Don't miss it. He's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Welcome back.

Now this breaking news.

For three years, we have been reporting on the double standard of justice that existed during the FBI's separate, but simultaneous investigations into Trump-Russia collusion and Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

Here is what Attorney General Bill Barr told me during my exclusive interview with him back in May.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I do believe there were two standards of justice during a period of time toward the end of the Obama administration.

And all I can do about it is apply one standard of justice, the right standard of justice, and make sure we apply it to everybody equally. And that's what I'm trying to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: Joining me right now with breaking news is Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham.

He has an exclusive newly declassified document that he says proves the FBI applied that different standard of justice to Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump.

Senator, it is good to have you this morning. Thanks so much for joining us.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Thank you.

Well, so, this is the mother of all double standards. What did we...

BARTIROMO: Take us back to 2015, yes.

GRAHAM: OK.

BARTIROMO: Go for it. Yes, tell us about it.

GRAHAM: So, Hillary Clinton announces for president on April 20 -- OK.

In April of 2015, Hillary makes an announcement: I'm running for president.

It was pretty well-known. In March of 2015, the FBI finds out about a plot by a foreign government to lobby her campaign and funnel millions of dollars into the Clinton campaign illegally. They open up an investigation. They want a FISA warrant against a Clinton operative who is connected to the foreign government.

What happens? The FBI's seventh floor says, we're not going to let you get a warrant until you defensively brief the Clinton campaign. In October of 2015, FBI personnel met with the Clinton campaign to tell her about the problem, so she could fix it. They never issued the FISA warrant. That was the right way to do business.

Forward to 2016. Four counterintelligence investigations opened by the FBI against the Trump campaign, they never tell him about it, so he can fix it. They give him a generic briefing about general threats you need to watch out for as a campaign. Not only did they not mention Flynn, Papadopoulos, Manafort, any of the people.

They sent an FBI agent into the generic briefing to spy on Flynn and Trump to monitor their behavior when they gave them the general briefing and did a 302 summary of the defensive briefing. They used it as a way to spy on Trump. And they informed Clinton about the problem she was facing, so she could fix it, the ultimate double standard.

BARTIROMO: This is unbelievable.

So, we have these documents to show on air. And these documents, which are now declassified, show that they found out in March of 2015 that, in fact...

GRAHAM: Right.

BARTIROMO: ... there was a foreign government trying to get Hillary Clinton elected. Which foreign government was it?

GRAHAM: I can't tell you that, but there was an effort by a foreign government to funnel money into her campaign. They picked it up in March. The FBI wanted a FISA warrant to follow the activity.

The seventh floor, the leadership of the FBI, said, no, you can't get a warrant until you defensively brief her. They did that in October. They gave her a chance to fix the problem. I assume she did.

They never did that to Trump. They never told Trump, oh, by the way, you have got a Carter Page problem, you have got a Papadopoulos problem. As a matter of fact, not only did they not tell Trump. They used a generic briefing to spy on Trump.

And the seventh floor comes into play again in 2017. The FBI field office wanted to close the Flynn investigation out. They wanted to drop General Flynn from Crossfire Hurricane because there was no there there.

The seventh floor, through Strzok, told them, keep it open. So, the seventh floor is insisting that Clinton get briefed before you can get a warrant in 2015. The seventh floor is insisting you keep a surveillance open on Flynn, when the professionals wanted to close it.

The seventh floor at the FBI was a political operation in the 2016 campaign. And people in that seventh floor need to be fired and/or go to jail.

BARTIROMO: And so the seventh floor, meaning the offices of Jim Comey and Andrew McCabe, on the seventh floor. The seventh floor was the leadership of the FBI?

GRAHAM: This is important for your audience.

Foreign governments are going to try to influence our democracy for the rest of our lives. We need to have tools to find out about that. And when you find out about a foreign government trying to influence a campaign, you need to protect the campaign, not spy on it.

They did it right for Clinton. They used the counterintelligence investigation to spy on Trump. That is a double standard. That is political bias. And I'm hoping Durham is looking at this.

I cannot tell you how inappropriate it is to do what they did to Trump. They never told him about the problem. They used the problem as a way to spy on him.

BARTIROMO: And they had four investigations going into the Trump campaign, right? You had George Papadopoulos.

GRAHAM: Yes.

BARTIROMO: You had Carter Page. You had General Flynn. And Sam Clovis, was that the fourth one?

GRAHAM: You had Page, Papadopoulos, Flynn. And let's just put it this way. There was four.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

GRAHAM: They never told Trump, by the way, we're looking at people in your campaign, you may have a problem.

But remember this. They found a foreign government wanting to give Hillary Clinton millions of dollars, and they let her know about it, so that didn't happen.

BARTIROMO: Right.

GRAHAM: They did anything to protect Trump.

A counterintelligence investigation is supposed to protect the American interests against foreign influence. When it came to Trump, they didn't try to protect him. They tried to set him up for failure.

So, I hope some Democrat cares about this. If it can happen to a Republican, why can't it happen to a Democrat? This is an abuse of the counterintelligence program designed to protect American from foreign influence.

When it came to Trump, they used this as a tool, a political tool, to get a man they didn't like and didn't want him to be president. This is a very big deal. And I hope Durham is looking at it.

BARTIROMO: So, she -- and she was able to fire that person who was complicit in trying to help a foreigner get money into her campaign. She was able to fix the problem.

GRAHAM: Yes, and they never allowed Trump to fix the problem.

BARTIROMO: That's right. I understand.

GRAHAM: They actually used a generic briefing to spy on him.

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.

GRAHAM: They sent an FBI agent into the briefing to spy on the candidate and General Flynn.

Dianne Feinstein, they found out that one of her drivers was connected to the Chinese intelligence service. They told her about it, so she could fire him. They never did this for Trump. They did it for Clinton. They did it for Feinstein.

Now, why didn't they do this for Trump? Because they were out to get him. How much more evidence do you need that the FBI was a political operation in 2016?

BARTIROMO: All right, real quick, I got to ask you about Bill Priestap, because the last time you were on with us, you told us that you were going to interview him this past week.

That interview didn't happen, did it?

GRAHAM: No, his lawyer contacted us and put conditions on the interview that are not acceptable.

But I'm going to subpoena him. It was Bill Priestap who gave the Senate Intel a briefing about the reliability of the subsource in 2018 that basically whitewashed the actual evidence. They told the Intel Committee the subsource was reliable.

We know, in 2017, it was all a bunch of garbage. So I'm going to turn that over to Durham. And I need the Senate Intel Committee to work with me. You were briefed by the FBI in 2018 about the reliability of the subsource. You had suspicions. And I'm here to tell you, you were lied to.

So, I need word your help to get to the bottom of that. This is a complete double standard from day one.

BARTIROMO: Well, he knew you were going to call. He had initially said, I will come voluntarily.

But then I guess maybe he saw you talking about it. We talked about it just last week. And then he called and said, well, the only way he's coming in, with these conditions.

You said, no, there's not any conditions around this.

GRAHAM: Yes, we want to get to the truth.

Now, I'm not a prosecutor. I can't prosecute anybody. I can't fire anybody. Durham is a good guy. Barr has been great in declassifying this. Director Wray has helped me.

But Director Wray needs to clean house over there. And the bottom line is, I don't know what Mr. Priestap did or didn't do. But I know the briefing given to the Intel Committee was an absolute lie about the reliability of the subsource.

And I'm going to get documents tomorrow to find out how that briefing was put together. And I'm going to turn it over to Durham, because it does sound to me like there was an effort to mislead the Senate Intel Committee a year after the FBI knew better about the subsource.

BARTIROMO: Well...

GRAHAM: If they had told the Senate Intel Committee the truth about the reliability of the subsource, it would expose their lie to the FISA court.

BARTIROMO: Senator, you're doing a great job in terms of unearthing all of these things and communicating it to our audience.

We so appreciate your time this morning, sir. We will be watching your work. Thank you.

GRAHAM: And final -- why am I finding this in August of 2020?

BARTIROMO: Go ahead.

GRAHAM: Why has it taken this long? Why has it taken this long?

I have got a great staff. We just stumbled upon this. There's probably more out there.

BARTIROMO: Your staff did a great job.

But you're right. The FBI has been sitting on documents for years, unwilling to give up any of this stuff. We have finally got them now. And they are being unearthed.

Senator Lindsey Graham, thank you.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Welcome back.

My next guest was one of only two GOP congressmen, along with John Ratcliffe, who saw all of the redacted documents in both the Trump-Russia investigation and the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe, which the FBI was conducting simultaneously.

Trey Gowdy is here now. He's a FOX News contributor. He's author of the new book "Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Using the Power of Questions to Communicate, Connect, and Persuade."

Good morning, and congratulations on the book, Trey. Thanks so much for being here.

TREY GOWDY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

BARTIROMO: Let me start off with the conversation that I just had with Lindsey Graham, because you actually asked the FBI straight on during that time, why did you treat the Trump campaign differently than you did the Hillary campaign amid all of this?

We have got these newly-declassified documents today. What kind of an answer did you get when you actually put it right to them back in the day?

GOWDY: Yes, ma'am.

Eyeball to eyeball, Devin and I asked about the differences in the defensive briefing. The FBI's explanation was, well, we couldn't tell President Trump because some of the targets of our investigation were sitting beside him, Flynn, Manafort.

So, our response was great. When you send word through Chris Christie, we need to talk to you alone, how did that defensive briefing go? When you said, OK, we can't do it today, let's tell the president, let's tell candidate Trump tomorrow, without them around, how did that conversation go, they said, well, we didn't do that.

We didn't -- we didn't -- Chris Christie is in the room. We didn't let Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney, know we really do need to talk to candidate Trump alone.

So, Devin and I said, why not? Why not say, we need to talk to just you, not your campaign people? They have no explanation for that.

And, quite frankly, Maria -- you mentioned John Ratcliffe. If it weren't for Ric Grenell and John Ratcliffe, we wouldn't be getting these documents.

It sure as heck has not been Chris Wray that's getting them. He's been opposing it is. It's Grenell and Ratcliffe.

BARTIROMO: So, walk us through all of those years that you and your colleague kept asking for documents from the FBI, and they just sat on them.

I remember, back in 2017, '18, '19, having you on when you were in place as the chairman of the Oversight Committee, along with John Ratcliffe and others, telling me that you were asking. You sent a letter to this one. You sent a letter to that one. You wanted documents from the FBI.

How come you didn't get them in a timely manner? How come we're learning about this now in August of 2020?

GOWDY: Well, you just had the chairman of -- former chairman of the House Intel on in Devin Nunes.

You just had -- you had the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee on. And they have not gotten documents in four years. And most of these documents are either at the FBI or the CIA. Both of those entities are run by Trump appointees right now.

So, why it is taking four years? I mean, what Devin and I got are briefings, which is essentially, we're going to tell you what happened, take our word for it. That's what we got, briefings, not documents.

The proof is in the documents. I don't care what John Brennan says in 2020. I want to know what he said in 2016 and 2017 and 2015, the fall of 2015.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

GOWDY: I need the documents. And when the CIA and the FBI will not -- oppose the release of these documents, then it takes four years.

BARTIROMO: Yes, unbelievable.

All right, stay with us. I'm glad you mentioned that, because I want to ask you about John Brennan. He just had that interview with John Durham.

We will take a short break and get into it when we come right back. I'm talking with Trey Gowdy this morning.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Welcome back.

We're back with former Congressman Trey Gowdy.

And, Trey, you interviewed -- yourself, your interviewed, at a hearing, John Brennan, when you were investigating the Russia probe, when you were the chairman of Oversight.

What are your thoughts on Brennan's interview this Friday, this past Friday, with John Durham and what that tells us about the Durham criminal investigation?

GOWDY: Well, I only had five minutes with John Brennan. And Durham had eight hours.

My sense is, the focus will be on the ICA. I mean, I think your viewers know this, Maria, but there are more than a dozen entities in our intelligence community. Only two of them really participated in this ICA, Brennan and Comey.

So, go back and think of the things that Brennan and Comey have said about candidate and President Trump. These are the two folks who wrote in record time an ICA after Obama failed to protect the country in 2016, Brennan, who thinks that Trump is an agent of a foreign government and has labeled his conduct treasonous and promised his family members would go to prison.

That's whose responsible for the ICA, Brennan and Comey. And, as it turns out, there are more FBI employees that have been indicted than members of the Trump family.

BARTIROMO: Explain ICA, Trey. I'm not sure I understand that he was only involved in the ICA.

GOWDY: The intelligence community assessment.

Remember, in late 2016, after President Trump won, they were dying for an explanation as to how they all got it wrong. So, it must be Russia. And President Obama said, get me an intelligence assessment.

We got a big intelligence community, but it was Brennan and Comey that wrote this?

BARTIROMO: Yes.

GOWDY: And then you have got the whole issue of the dossier.

My guess is, most of Durham's questions were about how that ICA reached its conclusions in record time. They did it in about three weeks. Three weeks is a quick turnaround to do an intelligence assessment.

BARTIROMO: Do you think there was criminality?

GOWDY: Well, we know there was. Clinesmith pled guilty.

Was there more? I don't know.

BARTIROMO: That's right.

OK, Trey, great to see you this morning. Thank you so much.

GOWDY: Yes, ma'am.

BARTIROMO: And happy birthday. A little birdie told me it was your birthday yesterday, Trey Gowdy.

GOWDY: Thank you.

BARTIROMO: I will see you tomorrow.

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