House Judiciary Ranking Member Congressman Doug Collins Announces The Release of Lisa Page’s Closed Door Testimony

Congressman Doug Collins (R-GA), Ranking Member House Judiciary Committee, spoke with Brian Kilmeade about preparing to release the transcripts of the closed door testimony given by Lisa Page to the House Judiciary Committee, why he doesn’t believe Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she says she is not interested in impeaching President Trump, and why all Republicans who are about to vote against President Trump’s authority to declare an emergency declaration at the border need to think long and hard before they disapprove of the President’s declaration.

Watch here:

BRIAN KILMEADE: Joining us now is somebody who probably thinks that’s good news, but like me wonders how long they’re actually going to wait before they actually try to impeach, Congressmen Doug Collins. Congressman, welcome back.

REP. DOUG COLLINS (R-GA), JUDICIARY RANKING MEMBER: Brian, it’s always good to be with you.

KILMEADE: Hey, Congressmen, what was your reaction to the Speaker telling “The Washington Post” she is not perusing impeachment?

COLLINS: Although it wasn’t the flags in the covers (ph), you’ve got a great meeting for members. It was just said – what (inaudible) said about the members who were elected in Trump district.

We have a lot of people out there who realize this has been just a farce going after this President for two years, even four years sworn in on this impeachment eal, but now she’s got a large part of her caucus who have said that we need to impeach no matter what and you’re exactly right.

They’re going to push her, but she tried to get some push back. What was funny is that they were watching her caucus run to the camera, say oh no, we’re still going to impeach we’re still going to impeach.

Again, she tried a political move. It’s when you have no policy, you go to bad politics and that’s what she’s up to right now.

KILMEADE: Well I mean she’s lost control. It went from look at the strength of the Speaker to where is the Speaker? Evidentially she left a meeting of her own caucus in anger because no one would listen to her.

COLLINS: It is pretty amazing. I mean I asked the question a couple weeks ago. I didn’t realize that AOC had become the co-speaker, but that’s exactly what seems to have happened here and the protection of Ms. Omar and Tlaib and the group that they seem to be driving the ship here.

I found it really funny when Steny Hoyer actually had the – he’s the majority leader – actually said he had to tell reporters, we have 60 something new members, we’re not just putting new members.

And I thought – I said we’ll that’s nice except three new members are laying out your entire agenda. They’re running the show and you’re having to react to it.

KILMEADE: So a couple of things going on now. Now it’s not really exactly your area but you certainly have an opinion. The Southern District in New York let it be known that they want to see the bid that President Trump put under when he was a businessman to buy the Buffalo Bills.

They want to see if he lied about insurance claims of when a hurricane hit Mar-a-Lago. They want to know about the Trump organizations and Deutsche Bank. They also want to know about the Trump Foundation. What’s going on here? What does this have to do with being President?

COLLINS: Well it’s just an attack on the President. They’re going to try everything that they can. I mean look, we had a convicted liar here two weeks ago with – in front of a committee and by the way, he needed an attorney with him.

He didn’t need a production agent and Lanny Davis, in my mind, has failed that clearly because it does appear and even Democrats are agreeing he lied again to Congress. So if he just wants more time in jail then that’s probably what he’s going to get.

So all of this just goes back around to an attack on this Mr. President, an attack on what’s going on, and again, simply I’ve determined this.

I thought for a while it might not, but when you have a Democratic agenda that is bankrupt – when it is completely socialist when you’ve let it be hijacked by the fringes of your party you have nothing else to do then you’re going to try and attack the one that they’re been attacking since November 26th and we’re seeing that.

You’re seeing it through the court system. You’re seeing it through people coming out. Look, if Ms. Pelosi was true about not wanting to do impeachment, she would have said to Jerry Nadler, Jerry don’t send 81 letters on a fishing expedition, she would have said we’re done with this, we’re going to go back governing. They have no intent on going.

KILMEADE: Well, it’s kind of sad because there’s so much to do especially when it comes to what’s happening at the border. When you talk to people Congressman Collins offline they know it’s a humanitarian crisis and just statistically they know that there’s some bad actors who have woven into these families that are crossing the border. Does anything change from when the President first demanded the wall to the numbers that are released by the border patrol about how overwhelming it’s been?

COLLINS: The pressure on the democrats who actually are not willing to just buy the line, hook, line and sinker, that the border is OK and that ICE agents are terrible people and border patrol agents are the actual criminals here. But the part of their party that actually understand that we do have crisis down there, for those who do understand we need border protection. You know, this is – the more and more they see they don’t know how to answer it.

And we’ve told them the problem that we need, not only the wall that needs to be built and the security that needs to be built up but we have a perverse incentive for people to come across. And they’ve found in three ways and everybody needs to be talking about this, the border’s decision which violates, even President Obama tried to over turn, this is where you have – you can’t keep (inaudible) longer than 20 days.

You have an asylum problem and you have a victims problem, every victim that has a problem where parents are actually paying coyotes to bring their kids across because once they get to the border the government, the federal government, is actually completing the transaction because if the parent is here, even illegally, they get the child. So when we look at it, if those are three policy errors and the President was talking about this, those are things we can look at but democrats are squirming because they realize that the American people are getting this and their trying to figure out what to do about it.

KILMEADE: I just wish we would take action and understand that even if the President prevails in this or doesn’t no one’s going to remember by 2020 because I do think you have an obligation for the men and women at the border to give them the tools necessary to stop the flow, including a barrier. And if they want certain areas when it comes to vaulting up the ports of entry, go do it, there’s a deal to be had.

But Congressman I want to go back for a second and just ask you Elijah Cummings, I watched while you questioned but your committee came out and questioned Michael Cohen. And Elijah Cummings said, I told you if you lie to me I will nail you to the cross. He lied about wanting a job at the White House, not a big consequence but it wasn’t the truth and he lied about asking for a pardon, not a huge consequence but it wasn’t the truth, is there pressure on Cummings will you ask him to bring charges, additional charges, against Cohen?

COLLINS: Yes, Jim Jordan and (Mark Meadows) and the folks at OGR committee are doing that, in fact I saw an interview just the other day with Katie Hill and some of the others who are democratic members who are reminding Mr. Cummins of the same thing. So, he’s under pressure to bring these forward and I think you’re going to see that more and more. Let me go back to one thing as you said on the border issue and I agree with you completely and that’s what we’ve been fighting for.

I would just say, I normally don’t talk about my brother across the aisle but I will say this, when the resolution comes up with disapproval in the Senate, I think republicans need to take a long hard look before they vote against the President on this because they know what the situation is, they know the crisis and to take a cheap political vote because this is legal.

He can do what he is doing, I’ve been a voice on this from day one on the House side, there is nothing illegal, in fact if you want to change this policy, democrats don’t like it or republicans don’t like it, change the law. Don’t go after a President who is actually following what the law actually says, this President is doing that and I would encourage all the Senators over there to think long and hard before you vote to disapprove of this money because the President is actually doing something and I think we need to support that as we go forward.

KILMEADE: And by the way, John Demers often is critical of the President but he’s a former deputy assistant attorney general under President Bush, here’s what he said last night, cut 36.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JOHN DEMERS: I think what they want is a different kind of law to apply to President Trump than has been applied to all previous Presidents because what they are doing is trying to claim that a statute, not a constitutional power. President Trump is exercising a power under a statute to declare an emergency and then to transfer money to military construction projects to the wall. Congress gave that power to the President and Congress can always take it back. But what Congress really shouldn’t be doing is second guessing a President’s decision that the national emergency is there in the first place.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KILMEADE: And he’s not just doing generic bulk – building up of the military which was the campaign promise. He’s dealing with a crisis.

COLLINS: I couldn’t agree more with that announcement, we’ve be saying that for two months and I’m glad to hear that announcement because that is the truth. What we get into Brian, up here, so many time is Congress wants gripe, moan, complain, go on media, talk about everything, when actuality is we change the laws. And I think this is the issue I have, instead of talking about stuff if you really want to do something then engage in hard core of legislating. If you want to fix the border and you think the technology and you think that laws (inaudible), then let’s get together and let’s take an accurate review. There’s a deal to be had here and the President is the one who is open to the deal.

KILMEADE: Yes…

COLLINS: We’ve got to be able to get democrats to understand that.

KILMEADE: I’d go see – you’ve got to get republicans to understand that, Lamar Alexander, Rand Paul, they’re out, Collins, Murkowski, they’re out. So, Marco Rubio is out on this, you know, it’s just Jeff Flake, I hate the President, Jeff Flake just hates the President but these guys don’t hate the President. They say constitutionally they’re worried about the precedent, do you worry about the precedent?

COLLINS: No, that (inaudible), you see things that now republicans are like – yes the republicans are using the precedent line that Ms. Pelosi started and that’s just – this is false. You look at title (inaudible), almost is 2808 which is where the section fellows from the statute, it doesn’t allow for a gun emergency, it doesn’t allow for (inaudible) emergency, it doesn’t allow that.

It’s very specific here and I think that’s the part – and I’m sort of tired of the grand standing, I’m sort of tired of the fact that you want, some of these folks have wanted from a more open border perspective, not dealing with the issues down there. And when we deal with those things that I brought to you earlier, and I talk about flores, I’m tired of democrats basically demo docking this issue because President Obama’s administration sued to overturn the flores decision.

This is not a republican issue this only (inaudible) in this sense became a reporter, became a partisan issue when President Trump was elected. This became – remember just a few years ago President Obama said there’s a crisis on the border with unaccompanied minors coming across and what did we do? We procrastinated(ph) money for it, we put it down there, no body denied that, now the same things happening and I agree with what was said just recently, when you have that issue of different laws for President Trump, that’s exactly what they want.

KILMEADE: All right, so Congressman you’re fired up today, I got to get you to something else you did. You decided on your own, I believe, to release the transcript of Bruce Ohr’s testimony behind closed doors. Why did you do it? What did it reveal?

COLLINS: What it revealed – well we decided to do it because I estimated it to making sure that an investigation started in the previous Congress was never forgotten. Our democratic friends want to talk about all of these presumed things and everything with Mueller and saying away and they’re going on few sectors, well let’s actually go back to what we’re saying is an actual problem. Where you have the corrupt trial and obstruct page in McCabe, all going back to earlier, to before the President was the President and going forward. So, what we said was we’re going to start releasing these and by the way for your listeners and for you as well, in about 40 minutes I’d happen to watch (inaudible) on Twitter you’re going to see something else being released today.

KILMEADE: Whoa, what are you, whoa, whoa, what are you going to release?

COLLINS: Get ready, I’ll let you know then, we’re going to release another transcript at five this morning in about 40
minutes, so it’ll be another issue with one of the ones that we’ve just been talking about, but it’s also (ph) to the fact. And the reason we released the Bruce Ohr transcript was the fact that it actually showed Adam Schiff, who has become completely comprised as chairman of the Intelligence Committee and needs to recues himself from this.

You know when he put out his answer to (inaudible) report on Intel he made comments about Bruce Ohr didn’t talk to these folks until after the Election. We know that to be false by Bruce Ohr’s own testimony that it was earlier in the summer.

It was showed that as we look ahead, Glen Simpson actually lied as well about the time…

KILMEADE: And you know what, just so people who aren’t as read in as you and I are and you more then everybody because you’re in the middle of it. Bruce Ohr is – what the significance of that is he said that he met with Glen Simpson in the summer.

Simpson said he didn’t met with him until after the election. Why does that matter?

COLLINS: It matters because of the time frame and when you go back and you look at when the investigation started. You deal (ph) with the Russia investigation.

Remember also Bruce Ohr is the conduit with Christopher Steele for the information on the dossier, which has been – Comey said (inaudible). Per (ph) Ohr’s credit he told them that. He said, we’re not sure about some of that.

That goes to show that they were hell bent, basically on going forward in a path against the (inaudible) Canada Trump and then onto President Trump, but what we’re trying to show is when we were made fun of for going after this for over two years after these interviews from going back to the (inaudible) e-mail in the investigation report (ph) has not been forgotten. We’re going to make sure of that.

And also from the side that the new Attorney General Bill Barr said in his confirmation that he was willing to look at this o the (inaudible) issue and others that Lindsey Graham had asked him about. We’re just simply saying we agree with you, Attorney General here’s what we’ve been finding.

We’re all for you moving forward and finding out the (inaudible) everybody needs to be able to trust the DOJ, not just Democrats or Republicans. Everybody needs to have a blind eye of justice when it comes to the working of that department.

KILMEADE: And you (inaudible) impacting information up against the break, but Bruce Ohr whose wife worked for Simpson…

COLLINS: Nellie.

KILMEADE: … Nellie – worked for a GPS run by Glen Simpson who hired Steele to go find out what the President was doing with Russia to secondary sources they tell Steele information who funnels it back to the FBI and they claim they weren’t looking until after the election.

We found out they were actually looking at it in the summer and everybody including Bruce Ohr knew it was unverified because Steele didn’t even know it was verified and it turns out not to be true and even Michael Cohen backed it up last week.

I hope I didn’t lose everyone but Congressmen we need another (ph) hour and within 40 minutes we’re going to get more information. We’ll check your Twitter feed, Congressmen Doug Collins. Thanks so much.

COLLINS: Yes. Appreciate it, take care. Bye.