Rep. Gaetz: Americans Deserve Answers on Dossier Issue

Americans deserve to know if their money was used to pay Russians to discredit President Donald Trump, and whether the FBI colluded with those responsible for compiling a dossier linking Trump with the Kremlin, Rep. Matt Gaetz said Friday.

"We have asked those questions and haven't gotten answers," the Florida Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program. "We've subpoenaed records to get to the bottom of it and we're being treated by the [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions' Justice Department similar to the way we were treated by the Eric Holder Justice Department."

The subpoenas have been ignored, and witnesses are not being produced, said Gaetz, while praising House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes for his letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in which he called out the FBI and Department of Justice for failing to "fully produce" documents that were related to an opposition research dossier on President Trump.

"At this point, it seems the DOJ and FBI need to be investigating themselves," the California Republican, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, wrote.

Gaetz said there is "no doubt" the FBI has had "their hands on the dossier," and the question remains "whether the FBI actually colluded with the Democratic National Committee, which we already know was involved in financially paying for the dossier."

"We need to know whether or not the FBI used this dossier as an intelligence document to obtain warrants to spy on Americans involved in the Trump transition," he added. "If that happened, it would be a devastating blow to the intelligence community, and certainly show the type of bias we've been arguing has existed throughout this investigation."

He also pointed out that within a few days of testifying to the House Intelligence Committee, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe announced his retirement.

Meanwhile, there have been other sworn depositions and statements taken over the processes and institutions in place, because GOP lawmakers "never want to have a circumstance where there is not sufficient transparency and oversight into the things that are actually happening, whether investigating the Clinton Foundation or the latest assertion of collusion that is meritless."

And if the FBI and DOJ continue to ignore subpoenas, the House committees have the power to consider them in contempt, said Gaetz.

"I suspect we're nearing that point, if we don't get access to the documents and witnesses that can shed light on whether or not the FBI was colluding with the DNC to undermine our duly elected president," said Gaetz.

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