Wednesday on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and anchor Chris Cuomo had an on-air 12-minute debate about possible wrongdoing within the Department of Justice, particularly special counsel Robert Mueller’s office and the FBI.
Gaetz has been at the forefront of a push to release a House Intelligence Committee memo that he has claimed would show an effort to undermine the country’s democracy. Gaetz has all been critical of missing text from FBI agents that some say suggest a cover-up of wrongdoing.
Cuomo argued that it was possible some of the text might not be in the context they are being presented as by Gaetz and other GOP lawmakers.
Transcript as follows:
CUOMO: What is your concern and on what basis?
GAETZ: Well, I wish I could share with you all of the bases for my concern, Chris, but many of them are found in the intelligence memo that Democrats are trying to block the American people from seeing. Every Republican on the Intelligence Committee voted for more transparency. Every Democrat voted against it. So, unfortunately, I can’t even discuss the issues around that.
What I can say is that the text messages between Strzok and Page, which you just mentioned in the intro to this segment, are very damning. It’s not Republicans who created the theory of a secret society. That was Lisa Page’s text message to her boyfriend, Peter Strzok. It wasn’t Republicans that deleted five months of text messages.
I mean, Strzok and Page were texting each other more than a high school cheerleading squad, but somehow it’s a five month black hole.
CUOMO: Well, they were romantically involved.
GAETZ: They were, but you don’t find it a bit interesting that the black hole starts right when Obama launches the counterintelligence investigation in August, and then it magically ends when — like the day Mueller is appointed? That’s like a really conspicuous time for that to occur.
CUOMO: Well, let’s look at these one by one, OK? First, the idea of the memo that Nunes and his people put together on FISA and their concerns, OK? I have something that you should probably know by now. The Democrats can’t stop you from making it public. I don’t know why this has taken so long.
The president of the United States has power to classify and declassify. Is there a process? Yes. Does he have to follow it? No. Is he someone who seems uniquely suited to ignoring that process? Yes.
And if a motivated member of Congress such as someone whose name rhymes with, I don’t Matt Gets, wanted to make this public, you could do so because you have immunity for anything you say in speech or debate on the floor of Congress. You could go out there. You could read the memo, and you could put anything you want into the congressional record.
So, it ain’t the Democrats, my friend. You could put this, if you wanted to do more than just hype it.
GAETZ: No, no, no. Chris, the Democrats actually voted no. The Republicans voted yes.
There’s a few reasons the things you mentioned would not be beneficial for our national security. First, if we accept as a premise that members of Congress ought to take top-secret documents and go start reading them on the floor of the House of Representatives, it will irreparably damage the sharing of intelligence and information —
CUOMO: You could read parts of the memo. You don’t have to read everything. You could read certain things.
GAETZ: It’s not going to come to that. OK. So there’s another reason why it may take another week or two to get this into the public square. That is we don’t want to simply release a conclusory memo. These are facts, but there’s intelligence information that buttresses those facts.
The letter that I sent to Devin Nunes signed by 65 Republicans does not merely request the release of the memo. We are requesting the release of the supporting, documenting evidence that illuminates the claims and facts that are made in the memo.
CUOMO: Good. It should come out because we can’t discuss it until we see it. So, let’s put that o the side.
GAETZ: You deserve credit for calling for the release. I appreciate that.
CUOMO: The texts between these two people, you say, well, the secret society comes from Lisa Page. You have no idea what the context was for that statement, and you have no real proof that any such secret society exists.
GAETZ: Well, Chris —
CUOMO: The question becomes why would you hang something out there that damages the FBI that way when you don’t know that it’s true?
GAETZ: Well, I know what Lisa Page texted. Again, this wasn’t a Republican idea. It was her text message.
CUOMO: You don’t know the context.
GAETZ: OK. Well, how about this, Chris? Why don’t you walk me through the appropriate context for members of the FBI having a secret society and meeting to discuss the presidential election? Walk me through what the good context for that would be.
CUOMO: I reject the premise. I will offer you one, though, if you want because you asked.
GAETZ: Sure.
CUOMO: I’m talking to someone who’s an intimate of mine. I don’t like Trump. I think he’s a buffoon. So I say to them, as she did, because we’re assuming her pre-disposition. She’s anti the president, right? And I’m granting that for the purpose of this.
She then says, well, I guess it’s time for the secret society to meet. It could be off the cuff. It could mean a million things. The problem is if I don’t know what it really means, I should not impugn the reputation of the FBI.
We need our democratic institutions intact. They’re taking a beating.
GAETZ: Of course, we do —
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Why add to that without proof?
GAETZ: You’re right.
No, no, no. The way that we solve the problem with our democratic institutions, degrading before our very eyes, is to pass better legislation for more oversight, more transparency, more reporting so that this never happens again. We shouldn’t have a circumstance where you get an HQ special where you depart from the normal investigative procedures.
That’s why it’s so important that the current Uranium One investigation is happening at the Little Rock field office and not at the head shed in Washington, D.C.
But like the notion that a secret society is just an off the cuff comment is laughable. I can’t even believe you would make that with a straight face. A secret society is a group of people that get together in secret to plan.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: — the existence of something as pernicious and nefarious as anti —
GAETZ: They said it.
CUOMO: No. She said it. You don’t know what the context is. Have you even picked up the phone and asked?
GAETZ: I’m sure you’ve seen Ron Johnson’s statements where —
CUOMO: And he backed off.
GAETZ: No.
CUOMO: He backed off.
GAETZ: He said there’s an informant.
CUOMO: He said, well, we have an informant who talked about private meetings that were off site. We don’t even know if it’s related to the same thing.
GAETZ: You have a text message talking about —
CUOMO: I’ll tell you what’s got me. I’ll tell you, Matt, whether it’s you or Johnson or any of you. You switch the R and the D and you switch the context from this discussion about these text messages to what we know about Russia and any collusion or activity, and boy, oh boy, you guys all sound the same.
When it’s about Russia, you don’t care what the basis is. You don’t believe it. You don’t want it investigate the. You think it’s silly.
But when you’re talking about this, you have a phrase between lovers. You don’t know the context. You don’t dig into it, but you’re ready to say that there’s a shadow organization at the FBI. And the irony that the only reason you know about these texts, Matt, is not because you looked it up. It’s not because Republicans figured it out. You didn’t even have a source on it. This was done internally by the same institution you want to say you can’t trust.
GAETZ: No, this was subpoenaed by Devin Nunes.
CUOMO: The inspector general’s report had them. That’s where he got them from. The inspector general’s report.
GAETZ: The inspector’s general’s report, but we were demanding in Congress.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: When Mueller was told, what happened? When Mueller was told about these texts that I.G. found inappropriate, he moved on them. He took them off — Strzok. Lisa Page was already gone, so he couldn’t.
So, you didn’t figure this out. Nunes didn’t figure this out. This was in the I.G.’s report, an independent agent. It shows accountability. It shows transparency, and yet you want to impugn the entire institution.
GAETZ: Well, let’s talk about that I.G. since you mentioned it, Chris. On December 13th, the I.G. sent a letter to Ron Johnson saying he had all of the text messages through June. Then there’s a five-month hole. So, how do you explain that inconsistency?
CUOMO: You know how to explain it.
GAETZ: If the I.G.’s word is to be taken —
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: You know there’s an explanation, and you’re ignoring it.
GAETZ: Hold on. No, no, no. I want to be able to make this point.
How can you say that it’s consistent to say we have all the text messages through June and then only later when Congress is demanding answers, as we should under our oversight authority, you say, oops, there’s a five-month black hole that just happens to coincide with the period where the Robert Mueller investigation was getting launched. He was appointed at the end of that black hole, and at the beginning you have Barack Obama siccing the intelligence community on the Donald Trump transition team.
It is outrageous, and I really hope we play back that segment when we get this memo released.
CUOMO: Don’t say it’s outrageous. Hold on. I’ve said to you before —
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: I said to you before, I want the memo released. I want the memo released.
GAETZ: Good. I love it.
CUOMO: I want to know more because politicians have politics in their mind, and I do not trust any of you as ultimate arbiters of fact, and I don’t know why you’re investigating any of this stuff because you’re too —
GAETZ: I don’t trust CNN anchors, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a debate without a content. CNN calling someone a partisan?
CUOMO: As long as you want to stay to the facts, you tell me what I say that’s partisan in this interview. I’m banging you on the premise for your assumptions.
GAETZ: OK, I will.
CUOMO: And I’m doing it on this too. What are you ignoring about the texts?
(CROSSTALK)
GAETZ: You said that Lisa Page saying something is a secret society isn’t really a secret society.
CUOMO: I don’t know what it means what I’m saying.
GAETZ: That is a hyperpartisan statement.
CUOMO: Neither do you.
GAETZ: How about give it the plain that you’re a lawyer. You understand the plain meaning doctrine. How about we accept things at their plain meaning?
And you know what? You also understand the adverse inference doctrine and the fact there’s five months of missing text messages —
CUOMO: There is no adverse inference doctrine at play here. I don’t know where you got that phrase —
GAETZ: There would be if there was a criminal prosecution.
CUOMO: There is no basis for a criminal prosecution.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: And the reason that you know that there is an explanation for where these texts went is how huge would this conspiracy have to be that in order to hide these texts between these two people, which were already allowed to be discovered by the I.G. and move the on by Mueller, who is a lifetime Republican, who has talked to Trump about getting a job in the administration — all of these other phones, maybe one in 10, maybe thousands of FBI field agents and other administrative employees have the same problem with a hole in their texts. How could it be that such a big conspiracy was undertaken just to hide what these two people were saying from you?
GAETZ: Chris, you’re talking about undermining the president of the United States. Of course, it’s one hell of a conspiracy, and people at the top levels of our government were involved in it. That’s why this is so treacherous. That’s why we’ve got to find out.
And you made mention of Trump interviewing Mueller. I think that’s one heck of a point.
CUOMO: Mueller interviewing Trump. I know that’s what you’re dreaming about, but that ain’t what’s happening, my friend.
GAETZ: No. It was Trump interviewing Mueller for the FBI position. So it’s one heck of a note that he interviews Mueller for the position, decides he doesn’t want to hire Mueller, and within 24 hours, Rosenstein has appointed Mueller to investigate the president. I don’t know a single American —
CUOMO: Rosenstein who was the president’s choice who he relied on for an assessment of Jim Comey. Now, we can’t trust him about Mueller?
GAETZ: Hey, look, that’s my contention.
CUOMO: You guys celebrated him.
(CROSSTALK)
GAETZ: There’s not an American that would want to be investigated by someone they passed over for their old job back within the last 24 hours.
CUOMO: There was never any hint of animus.
GAETZ: And oh, by the way, that very day was in the black hole —
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: The president, who is not shy, never said anything about it.
One other thing and then I’ve got to let you go. You say that this is the biggest coincidence since the Immaculate Conception. What are you talking about?
GAETZ: Well, look, the notion — and, again, this will really be illuminated by the memo. But the notion that this five months, not any five months, but this particular five months is where the black hole is, I mean that is one hell of a coincidence because it’s precisely the time that someone would be hatching a conspiracy, meeting with their secret society, building out their insurance policy to deprive the American people —
CUOMO: Now, you have the meeting of the secret society, you don’t even know that one exists, but what do you mean by the Immaculate Conception?-
(CROSSTALK)
GAETZ: No, that was Lisa Page’s text. She said — she said that we need to be able to get together and have our secret society meeting.
CUOMO: What do you mean by the Immaculate Conception?
GAETZ: That was the substance — look, I was making a point that this is an absurd coincidence.
CUOMO: By what? Like what do you think happened with the Immaculate Conception?
GAETZ: The Immaculate Conception, it’s obviously a religious doctrine that deals with the Christian faith.
CUOMO: I know. But I’m saying like, where is the analogy? That’s what I don’t understand. What do you think happened with the Immaculate Conception?
GAETZ: Look, did you really bring me on to discuss my religious views, Chris? I mean, I’m a Christian. I believe that (INAUDIBLE) Jesus was born.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: I’m saying you made the analogy, and I don’t understand. The Immaculate Conception is not how Jesus was born.
GAETZ: It was the conception. That’s the nature of the —
CUOMO: No, it wasn’t. It was Mary’s conception. It was the mother’s conception without original sin. It was not the conception of Jesus.
Facts matter, Congressman. If you’re going to make an analogy, at least know what you’re talking about because you’ve got to have a basis for these things. You only know what you show. You’ve got to release that memo. It’s got to have the facts and you better figure out what this secret society is before you say there’s a shadow organization within the FBI.
GAETZ: We intend to. We intend to, absolutely. We intend to find out what it is. That’s why the American people have been learning more and more about the intractable bias in this investigation.
CUOMO: They’re learning a lot of suggestions from you, but they need some facts to back it up and when they get them, you know where you’re welcome to come on and make the case right here.
GAETZ: Thank you, Chris.
CUOMO: Congressman Gaetz, appreciate you taking the opportunity.
GAETZ: Thank you.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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