Thursday on “Fox News @ Night,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) explained his committee’s decision to end the probe regarding possible collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
Partial transcript as follows:
HENRY: Why are you ending your Russia probe?
NUNES: We’re ending the beginning of our probe, right? So, the four corners agreement which was made early on, about 14 months ago, looking at collusion. And the reason why is that there is no more left to look at.
HENRY: Adam Schiff says that’s not true.
NUNE: We have interviewed 70-something people. There’s badgering of witnesses that are occurring. Our members have had enough of it. Continual leaks, the Democratic witnesses, the people who they want in the middle of the testimony, there’s leaks.
HENRY: From Democrat Adam Schiff, right?
NUNES: We don’t know, but they sure don’t come from us. There’s no reason to continue this. We have no evidence of collusion. We have turned up nothing.
HENRY: So Schiff says that’s not true. He says there is significant evidence of collusion. He talks about George Papadopoulos. He talks about the secret meeting at Trump Tower. Is he wrong?
NUNES: Yeah, that’s not collusion.
HENRY: What is it?
NUNES: First of all, Papadopoulos, if you believe any of this. We don’t know what the truth is. This was somebody drunk at a bar that passed the intelligence over. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of what really happened there because last time I checked, it’s OK for Americans to get drunk at a bar in London.
HENRY: If that’s against the law, a lot of people in trouble.
NUNES: And he was mouthing off to an Australian diplomat, who supposedly passed this over to the State Department. That’s all we know right now. So that is not — that’s not colluding with Russia. If you take the Trump Tower meeting — is it smart to take a meeting with Russians or any meeting with Russians. Probably not, not a good idea.
HENRY: So bad judgment, but no evidence of collusion?
NUNES: There’s no evidence. We have interviewed most of the people that were in that meeting at Trump Tower, and all of them had have said the same thing, a short meeting, no more than 20 minutes long. They talked about Russian adoptions and came in and out of the room, and they didn’t have anything. What we never got to the bottom of, which I think is still important about that meeting at Trump Tower, Fusion GPS, who was working for the Democratic campaign and the Hillary campaign, met with those Russians right before that Trump Tower meeting and right after.
HENRY: You think maybe they were colluding?
NUNES: I think anybody with any common sense whatsoever has to figure that Fusion GPS knew about that meeting.
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