Nunes: Media's Excuses for Clinton Make Her Look Guilty

The media's excuses for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are making her look guilty in the case of the deal for Uranium One, but the House Intelligence Committee has asked for further information mainly because it wants to know if the FBI already had an open investigation before the transaction, Chairman Devin Nunes said Friday.

"I think a lot of people are getting this conflated," the California Republican told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "What happened was that we found out reportedly that there was an open FBI investigation at the same time that this transaction was made. So we now have permission to interview this witness who has come forward and brought us information. We will take that information, and then we'll see where it goes."

But the press is making excuses for Clinton, while the committee wants to know about the FBI, Nunes said, making the issue "a little overblown."

The committee is trying to determine, now that it's known that the Democratic National Committee and Clinton's campaign paid for research leading to a salacious dossier about then-candidate Donald Trump, and whether the report was used to start an investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians.

Meanwhile, the CIA has declassified a trove of documents found in late terror leader Osama bin Laden's compound, and Nunes said that one of the challenges his committee has faced is that the information involved has been locked up for years.

"As you know, our intelligence agencies comb through it, but it has not been available for historians," said Nunes. "One of the things we already found out just in the last 24 hours is that there was a pipeline in Iran" where members of al-Qaida were hiding.

"At the same time we were doing and making a nuclear agreement with the Iranians, they were harboring al-Qaida," said Nunes. "Now we know that they had been harboring al-Qaida for a long period of time. So this is unacceptable from our intelligence agencies."

Congress had asked for the documents to be disclosed about four years ago, and it was "unfortunate" that they were withheld, said Nunes.

"It's unfortunate to take them this long to get out but this is, you know, one of the reasons why is we have a new administration," he added.

• Hillary Clinton and the Russian Uranium Deal
• Gingrich: Clintons May Be 'Destroyed' by Russia Story They Created