Caputo Feels 'Unfettered and Freed' by Quarter-Million Dollar Defense Fund

Former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo said Saturday he knows investigators with special counsel Robert Mueller's team are still watching him carefully, but he feels "unfettered and freed" by the news that his legal defense fund has climbed to more than a quarter-million dollars after he spoke on Fox News about his questioning.

"All they can do is call me back and cost me more legal fees," Caputo told Fox News' Neil Cavuto. "I've got to tell you, what I saw in the Mueller investigation interview showed me I don't think they're really anywhere on this."

The questions that were asked, Caputo said, were "dry holes," and as he was only on the campaign from December 15-June 2016, he wasn't near anything about obstruction or financial crime allegations.

Caputo said he never talked about President Donald Trump, who came up just "peripherally" in the questions, and he was not asked about anyone with the last name Trump.

"Every single question they asked me, they knew the answer to and they had the proof right in front of them of the answer," he said. "It wasn't like they were trying to find anything out from me, Neil. They wanted me to answer incorrectly and to me, that, even though I'm a witness in this probe I think they wanted to to flip me into a subject in that interview."

But that strategy didn't work, he said, because the truth is that "there is no Russian collusion, zero, zilch, nada, nothing that I saw, nothing that I heard about, and I can't believe anywhere that Donald Trump or even Paul Manafort would bring the Russian intelligence services into our campaign."

Caputo said when the investigations first started, he considered Mueller as an "honest and decent man," and he still thinks that about him, but he is no longer so optimistic about the investigation.

"The raids on Manafort's home, they pulled his wife out of bed in her nightclothes," said Caputo. "When they raided the president's attorney's [Michael Cohen's] office, I thought 'this is it for us, it's it for all of us, there's nothing they won't do and who isn't in the investigation will be in the investigation. Who isn't indicted is going to be indicted. Who isn't in jail is going to be in jail.'"

The investigation is now "headed off the rail," said Caputo, and "I decided I can't stand by and close my mouth anymore. That's why I told the Senate to go to hell."

Meanwhile, Caputo said that in his three hours in front of Mueller's team, he does think he shut down some of their avenues, and he does not think they have anything.

"None of the questions they asked me and the answers I gave them led them any further down that primrose path," said Caputo. "I don't think there's any collusion, and honest to God, they have everything on this campaign. They have, I mean, just everything, emails, whatever, and everything they needed, chapter and verse on the campaign. They know right now more about the campaign than any one person who worked there would ever know."

He also would not recommend Trump appear before the investigators, as he thinks the probe is "rigged against all of us."

"Maybe it was rigged against [Bill] Clinton and [George W.] Bush in their special investigations, maybe the system is messed up," said Caputo. "Whatever the history tells us right now is it's a rigged game and I do not want to go in front of them again, but thank goodness because of my Go-Fund-Me account I'm not afraid to because the only thing they have on me and all of my friends is that they're trying to drive us broke. That's the punishment."

Intelligence Committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., appearing on the program after Caputo, said that he and other witnesses should expect serious questions, as the matter is a serious investigation.

"This team has shown that they are going to be as aggressive in finding out what happened as many Trump family members, Trump campaign members, and Trump business organization members have been aggressive in trying to keep us from finding out what happened," said Swalwell. "They're willing to do what the House Intelligence committee was not willing to do, which is actually subpoena records.That's why Mr. Caputo was confronted with records they already knew. "

Swalwell noted that the investigation is under control, and has been going on for less than a year, when such probes usually take much more time.

"Over 100 million people saw Russia influenced ads or Russia paid for ads," said Swalwell. "I don't know what effect that had on the American people I just know that the Russians did it. If the Trump team was willing to work with it, that's why I wrote to have a bill to have a commission of bipartisan elders to look at this so we don't have this again. I don't want this again this coming November."