President Trump’s former attorney John Dowd spoke with Brian Kilmeade about the Mueller Report. On the report, Dowd said, “It took too long. Two years is nuts.” When asked about Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler saying the Mueller report does not exonerate President Trump, Dowd replied, “He is just a complete counterfeit. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And he just makes stuff up, every single day. We put up with this for two years ever since the President was elected. They just make it up.” Dowd also shared that President Trump called him yesterday and said the President “is very happy with Bill Barr” and “sounded as good as I’ve ever heard him and he sounded happy.”
Listen here for the full interview:
Full transcript below
BRIAN KILMEADE, HOST, FOX NEWS RADIO: Former attorney for President Trump and a legal legend himself, John Dowd, welcome back to the Brian Kilmeade show.
JOHN DOWD, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, it’s great to be back. Thank you, Brian.
KILMEADE: John, I’m going to let you go. You worked so hard on this case. With disillusion by where it was going. You talked to us along the way. What are your thoughts today?
DOWD: Well, first of all Brian, I am so happy for the president. It’s an incredible day. And the strategy we employed that really worked well and then we were severely criticized and ridiculed for really put the president there. But it was his doing. He approved the transparency.
And Brian, you’re a student of history. No president in the history of this country has ever been so transparent, all the way back to Tom Jefferson. And he just let them — we gave it all to them. And there was nothing there. And it was a — is a complete phony.
So, I’m just thrilled that we’re finally done and I’m thrilled, I know he president is to have Bill Barr at the top of the Department of Justice because Brian, we have got to straighten out our Department of Justice.
There was a cabal that ran the FBI and the Department of Justice for a number of years under Obama, and that’s got to be cleaned up and they’ve got to be called to account. Otherwise, no one will ever trust the system again. And I think that’s got to be done. And I agree with Rudy’s call and the others in that respect.
KILMEADE: I’m going to bring you to a quote you gave last time you were on our show.
You said this, “little did I know that it appears that they were all in it together. I mean Rosenstein, James Comey, Mueller, McCabe, the whole crowd. And they were out to get this president no matter what. I don’t think they sincerely believed anything about Russia.” Do you want to add to that, subtract that?
DOWD: Well, we know — it’s amazing, Brian, we now know that. We now know that thanks to testimony before in the house on the side and the other committees. And Comey has admitted they had nothing. Strzok said they had nothing. (Inaudible) said they had nothing. And McCabe had nothing.
And it — if you really want to see how bad mentally sick they were, just listen to McCabe. I mean for him to say the president of the United States is a soviet agent is just so outrageous and so respondent (ph).
But it tells you the mentality that was at the top of the FBI. And Brian, years ago the attorney general asked me to investigate the top of the FBI. And I did, it involved corruption. But it scares you that an operation that big could get out of whack and get off the rails and do what they’ve done here. But we’ve got to get everything that happened.
The FISA court needs to get this out. And all across the board to get it out and get it done quickly. None of this — I mean my criticism of Mueller is he took too long. I mean two years was nuts. He had all the evidence back in September of 2017. But any event, we need to get it done. We need to make, as McCarthy says, everybody accountable and, you know, maybe some people will go to jail. They ought to for obstruction of justice and undermining the system of justice. It is outrageous.
KILMEADE: Well, I mean, what we know right now is if the president did obstruct, it was in plain view. It was through his tweets. It was through his interviews. He would go out in front of the cameras and say, “Robert Mueller, it’s a hoax. This is a witch hunt.” So that’s why Mueller came back and didn’t say – according to Alan Dershowitz, did not do his job. He didn’t come back and say obstruction or no obstruction. He said I’ll leave it to William Barr to decide if there was obstruction and I’ll put the evidence in the 675-page report. What’s your take on that decision?
DOWD: My take is, I mean, I think Alan Dershowitz is right. You can call it a copout. I call it unprofessional. Your job is to decide. And in fact, they did decide. They decided that there was no crime of obstruction, but reading on Page 3 – and I think Jay Sekulow read this last night – the key line is in cataloging the president’s actions, many of which took place in public view. The report identifies no actions that in our judgment constitute obstructive conduct. I mean, and that’s right.
I know what they’re talking about, and he’s scolding his attorney general, et cetera, et cetera. They tried to make it up. But they had a duty under oath – their oath to render a decision of no prosecution, no charge at all just like they did on the collusion. There was no evidence of obstruction here. If anything was obstructed, it was by Comey, McCabe, and the people of the Department of Justice. They undermined our entire system of justice by using it to have a coo to take out this president.
KILMEADE: But John Dowd, as a U.S. president first attorney, in what way did the president make things harder on himself?
DOWD: I don’t know. I don’t – I don’t if he made it harder on himself. People criticize his tweets and hell raising, but if you’re in his shoes and I – you know, I was – I talked to him last night. I tell you if you’re in his shoes, you cannot believe you’re getting investigated. You cannot believe the fake information that’s out every day on something he didn’t do nor anyone associated with him, and you just live with that every day while you’re carrying the burdens of office. You know, it’s enough to raise hell. I don’t – I don’t – if anything, my view is the president made Bob Mueller’s job very easy. We got all that information to him, and as I think I said before, Brian, on March 5, Bob Mueller said, “John, there’s no exposure. John, no one lied. John, there are no missing records.” You can’t – you throw that up against any presidency or high official under investigation in this government, the history of this country and you’ll never see anything like it. But by the way, that decision was a decision of the – this president –
KILMEADE: Now –
DOWD: – this wonderful president, he said, “give it to him, John.” He was never afraid, Brian.
KILMEADE: Right –
DOWD: But did he complain about it? Yes. I said to Mueller – you know, Mueller said, “you know, maybe people won’t cooperate.” We wanted the president – I went out and said – told everyone to cooperate.
KILMEADE: Right, but there’s a couple of things –
DOWD: So how did – I mean, he made – he made –
KILMEADE: Do you agree with this, John Dowd? Do you agree with this? If early on he said, “you know, I was doing a Moscow project, but I was doing a bunch of projects. There was a Moscow tower project I’ve been interested in since the 1980s.
And then he said there was one Trump Tower meeting with my son that he told me about later but it didn’t amount to anything. If he had said that upfront, we would’ve stopped this — these breaking stories in the middle of this two year saga. Don’t you agree?
DOWD: No, I don’t agree. The amount of hate that we have in this country today against this president because he has been a disrupter, he has done things that these so called professionals and experts have never done for us, they just hate him. And they don’t care. And they are now becoming the law breakers.
I don’t think that had done it, Brian. I don’t think — but I don’t — by the way, he was candid. I mean everyone, including everyone in his family cooperated. The Trump organization cooperated. You have never seen such cooperation in any criminal or (inaudible) intelligence investigation in the history of this country.
KILMEADE: So–
DOWD: And the president said do it, give it to them.
KILMEADE: So, he’s chairman of oversight. He has a long rivalry with the president. And it came out yesterday, let’s listen to Jerry Nadler.
JERRY NADLER, U.S. REP.: President Trump is wrong. This report doe not amount to a so called total exoneration. Special council Mueller was clear that his report quote “does not exonerate” close quote the president.
His conclusions raise more questions than they answer. It is unconscionable that President Trump would try to spin the special council’s findings as if his conduct was remotely acceptable.
KILMEADE: Your reaction?
DOWD: He is just a complete counterfeit. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And he just makes stuff up, Brian, every single day. We put up with this for two years ever since the president was elected. They just make it up.
And I saw Schiff on television the same way. They’re a disgrace. There was a time when if someone eon the house talked the way some of these people did, they’d all be before the ethics committee.
And be disciplined for such outrageous behavior. They know it’s false. They know what they said is false. I mean look what Mueller did, 500 search warrants, Brian? Give me a break. I read a (inaudible) for six years. I don’t come close to the resources he employed here.
And so, it’s just nonsense. He’s — they just should not be taken seriously. And I don’t — I think the American people are not wise to them (ph). Blumenthal in the senate, Nadler, Schiff, I mean they’re just reckless — they’re bomb throwers for Nancy and Chuck. And people just ought to call it what it is. They’re not worthy of the time. And that’s why–
KILMEADE: Right.
DOWD: They’re not going to get any worthy investigations, because n one’s going to cooperate with them.
KILMEADE: Right. Now to John Dowd, my last question to you is you talked to the resident yesterday to the degree you’re comfortable, could you let us know what you discussed and is his demeanor?
DOWD: Yes, last night he called me, Brian. And I couldn’t get a word in much; he was so gracious, like he’s always been to me. He expressed his appreciation for my help and my support and my work. And he just went on and on. But that’s the way he is.
That’s the way he was when I represented him. And it was — it’s just — and he sounded good. He sounded good. He is very happy with Bill Barr, which was nice to hear that he’s happy with the Department of Justice which is a place that I love. You know, Griffin Bell used to say you never leave the place. And all of us who’ve worked there have great affection for it, and to have the president once again happy with the department and happy with the attorney general is a great day for America, but he sounded as good as I’ve every heard him, and he sounded happy which was terrific.
KILMEADE: Right, and do you believe that this weighed on him more than he even led on?
DOWD: It did. Brian, it did – it did weigh on him and it interfered with his ability to govern, and particularly – and I shared with Bob and the president asked me to share. General Mattis asked me to share anecdotes where this investigation was getting in the way of his ability to represent this country effectively, et cetera. It would come up in conversations just as he was trying to close a deal or recover some American, get some American back in the country. He’s dealing with the head of state and they say, “well Donald, are you going to be around?” I mean, can you imagine having that happen over and over again in these relations and then all the other fights he said? But yes, it was – it was – but he is – I’ll tell you, Brian, he is not only one man of great energy, but he’s an incredible strength, incredible.
You know, yes. He’s just – he’s really – he’s – someday people will see what a remarkable man he is and how – how good a president he is. And you know, personally I’ve never – I’ve had a lot of good (ph) clients. They’ve been great, but it’s hard to equal how gracious and thoughtful and appreciative this man has been. Of all the things, he gets off the helicopter and 20 minutes later he calls me here at Cape Cod. It was just incredible, but he’s done that before. That’s the way he is. That’s the way he treated all of us, and –
KILMEADE: Yes, and if you’re going to take him on you got to get ready for a fight. And John Dowd, you did a lot of the legal fighting for him, and I know he appreciates it, and we always appreciate you coming on here letting us know what was really happening because we were – you know, we had to go through a filter, but not with you. John Dowd, thanks so much.
DOWD: You bet. Thank you, Brian. Take care.
KILMEADE: You got, John Dowd. Got a lot of information there, talked to the president last night. 1-866-408-7669. I’m going to take some calls, and then I’m going to welcome Darrell Issa, former Chairman of Oversight. Is Congress really going to open up even more investigations? Back in a moment.
