Fox News "Sunday Morning Features" - Transcript Interview with Doug Collins

Interview

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Joining me right now is Republican Congressman Doug Collins of Georgia, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee.

And, Congressman, it is great to have you this morning. Thank you so much for joining us.

REP. DOUG COLLINS (R-GA): Good to be here.

BARTIROMO: You have had quite a week.

Before we get into this week, I want to ask you a specific question, because I'm working on a project. How many hearings have you had in the last year on China and national security in the Judiciary Committee?

COLLINS: None of any consequence.

In fact, we have really only brushed on it occasionally. And being one of the -- as your just last segment said, this is one of the biggest issues that we have going on right now.

But from an intellectual property standpoint, from a national security, from a data privacy, we have we have barely brushed on it at all.

BARTIROMO: You have had no hearings on national security and China, and China has been eating our lunch, stealing intellectual property regularly for decades. And it has only picked up speed in the last two years.

What have you been focused your time on, Congressman? How many hearings have you had an investigating Trump?

COLLINS: More than I can count.

I mean, the thing about it is, is, Chairman Nadler seemed obsessed from day one with just simply going after his old countermate Donald Trump, who, at the time when he knew him in New York, and now as president, it was like: All I want to do is get at President Trump.

We have done nothing but have hearings. Remember, Maria, let's go back, take each other back in time. We started off with the acting attorney general, Whitaker. He thought that was one of the most important hearings we could have had to start last year.

And then it rolled into the Mueller report. It rolled into Barr being asked to come in. And then he blew up that. And then Steve Cohen and others making fun, bringing fried chicken to hearings. This is what we have been doing in the Judiciary Committee. We have been having show hearing after show hearing after show hearing, and, really, for the most part, not concentrating on anything that actually could help the American people.

In fact, all this stuff that we did this past couple weeks on policing, Chairman Nadler never picked up on the police working group that Chairman Goodlatte has started before, in which we had actually been talking about this stuff.

Instead, he had a singularly minded focus from him and Nancy Pelosi. And that was, what can we do to influence the 2020 election, so that Donald Trump loses?

BARTIROMO: That's unbelievable.

I mean, we are hearing one after the other in Congress, in the administration telling us that China is the biggest threat that this country faces, that they are sending researchers in regularly to steal intellectual data on everything from military, to medicine, to agriculture, et cetera.

And you have had no hearings about it in the Judiciary Committee. You have had quite a week. The American people should be outraged, OK? The American people should be outraged by your committee, 100 percent.

And I'm also going to ask Devin Nunes the same question about the Intel Committee.

But let's talk about the week that you had, because you had to get hearing and a testimony from two whistle-blowers. And I put my quotes on -- quote, unquote -- "whistle-blowers."

Tell me how that went.

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COLLINS: Well, if that's a whistle-blower, then, again, Chairman Nadler knows less about whistle-blowers than he knows how to run the committee, because, I mean, when you look at Mr. Elias and you look at Mr. Zelinsky, these are not whistle-blowers. They're political hacks.

Remember, Zelinsky worked on the Mueller investigation and also the Stone investigation.

But Mr. Elias is a special case. Mr. Elias came in and talked about how Attorney General Barr was going after the cannabis industry and how he had reported him to the inspector general.

What he failed to talk about was two things, number one, that the Office of Professional Responsibility had debunked everything that he says, said, we thoroughly investigated Mr. Elias' claims and found nothing improper or wrong in what happened.

But the best one, Maria, was this. When we talked to him and we asked Mr. Elias if he had ever asked -- because he came in saying, I'm a career prosecutor, I have no political bias.

In fact, he even told me, I leave that at the door when I come in. Yeah, right.

He asked to be on the -- last year, he asked his superiors if he could be detailed to the House Judiciary Committee on the majority side to investigate the president during impeachment.

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That doesn't sound too much like a nonpartisan to me. It sounds like Peter Strzok and everybody else has been going on over there, Comey, those -- quote -- "career prosecutors."

And, remember, we didn't even have a chance to talk about Strzok's notes now that contradict everything that we know about what he was doing during that time of investigating Flynn and everybody else, by the way, even contradicts transcripts that we released, remember, last year about these emphases as well.

So, again, this is just another joke of a hearing that the -- Nadler wanted to do to get at the president. He's got to quit working for the political arm of the Democratic Party and start working for the committee and the American people.

BARTIROMO: And Speaker Pelosi is supposed to be the speaker of the House of Representatives, but some of the things that she has said recently does not look like she's representing the entire House of Representatives.

You are calling for her to step down. Tell me what you want.

COLLINS: Yes, her latest is just over the top.

When you call Republicans who do not bend to her vision of what the political -- or the policing bill that we passed in the House just this week, they passed in the House, should be, she calls Republicans who are not in favor of her bill murderers.

She implied that Tim Scott and others in the Senate were not doing enough, so that we were complicit in the murder of George Floyd.

I'm sorry, Speaker Pelosi. You're the one that is actually not being honest with the American people, when you tell them that the bill in the House is actually going to solve their problems. It is the Senate Democrats, the Chuck Schumers and others of the world, who blocked what actually should happen.

Maria, we have gotten so far away from what actually should happen in Congress, where the Senate, under Republican leadership, will pass a bill, the Democrats in the House can pass a bill, and we go to committee to actually help somebody.

Instead, she uses her position, which is the speaker of the whole House, to call the Republican Party murderers, and imply that she was not going to apologize for that.

Well, Speaker Pelosi, then go back to just representing maybe San Francisco and not being the speaker of the House, because that's not worthy of that position.

BARTIROMO: Well, I'm not sure she's representing San Francisco.

(LAUGHTER)

BARTIROMO: I was there recently, and the homelessness is out of control. The drug needles on the floor is out of control.

I mean, the situation in San Francisco has gotten worse every single year in the last five years.

COLLINS: Yes.

BARTIROMO: Congressman, it's good to see you. I know you're in the middle of that, in terms of the mishandling of the Rayshard Brooks case.

COLLINS: Yes.

BARTIROMO: We're going to talk about that as well.

Police are not coming out. They're afraid because of these charges. And we saw the numbers earlier in terms of the impact on the police.

Thank you so much, Congressman. We will see you soon.

COLLINS: Thank you. Thank you, Maria.

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