A top House Republican said President Trump has triumphed over the “swamp” at a gathering of conservative activists.
Rep. Doug Collins, who is the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, talked about the FBI’s alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act during an appearance Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.
“This was something that was done — it was calculated. It was something that they had begun, this process and these investigations,” said Collins, speaking with Fox News contributor Sara Carter. “They went after candidate Trump, but really and truly, you know, what they were trying to stop is you. And you would not let them. And I think that’s what we got to remember. They wanted to stop you. The swamp wanted to stop you. They wanted to stop you from electing this president, and they couldn’t.”
Trump often said he wanted to “drain the swamp” while running for president in 2016, referring to problems in the federal government.
Republican allies of the president have long claimed the FBI and Justice Department misled the FISA court to obtain warrants to wiretap onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page during the Russia investigation. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report in December that found at least 17 “significant errors or omissions” in the Page FISA process. The watchdog was particularly critical of the FBI’s reliance on the unverified anti-Trump dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele.
The DOJ later determined that at least two of the four warrants were invalid.
Several provisions of the law are set to expire in less than a month.
As Congress considers reauthorization, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is working on a number of potential reforms to the surveillance law, including mandatory, random audits of applications and requiring that the bureau turn over exculpatory evidence when pursuing warrants. The FBI and the FISA court itself have also been considering and implementing reforms following the inspector general’s investigation.
“When you look at it and you go forward, you really have to wonder: [How] did the politicization of this process become — and I think that’s what we’ve been exposing when we started, when I started releasing transcripts a little over a year ago. You started … peel[ing] back the page on what we’re seeing here,” Collins said. “When you take in the Mueller report, what a waste of time … and taxpayer dollars — to come to something we knew already based on faulty information from a faulty dossier [that] was brought before a court and should’ve never been there.”
The Russia investigation, which Trump often called a “witch hunt,” is now under review by U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was appointed by Attorney General William Barr.
Collins, one of Trump’s staunchest defenders during the impeachment process who is now running for Senate, also mocked House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and former FBI Director James Comey in front of the CPAC crowd.
“It just transitioned then into this sham impeachment from this fall. Like I’ve said, I’ve come to the conclusion — I’ve said this many times before. He may not like it. I don’t care — Adam Schiff can’t spell truth, much less tell it,” Collins remarked.
