FBI, DOJ stalling, hoping GOP loses House in midterms, Rep. Nunes says

President Trump’s team is likely reviewing requests to declassify parts of the heavily-redacted Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application used by the FBI to obtain a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page during the 2016 election.

“I think his lawyers are looking at this to see if they can declassify it sooner rather than later,” said House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes, R-Calif., during an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures.” “But the sooner this comes out, the better off we all are because what I’ve said is what’s left that’s redacted, the American people really need to know what’s underneath it.”

Nunes, who along with his team sent a letter to the White House in June asking for just 20 pages of the FISA application to be declassified, remarked that he is unsure whether Trump himself has read the committee’s document, but added that Americans “will be shocked by what’s in that FISA application” if they look at the pages that could become declassified. The California Republican said the 20 pages contain the “bulk” of what the committee wants to see, though he wouldn’t be opposed to the release of even more declassified material from the application.

Since many witnesses still need to be interviewed as part of the investigation, Nunes is afraid the committee may run out of time, especially if Democrats flip the House in the November midterm elections.

“There’s a stall game going on at DOJ and FBI – they’re trying to stall as much as they can, hoping and betting that Republicans would lose the House in the fall,” Nunes said. “And if that happens, it essentially shuts down everything. Rod Rosenstein will not be held in contempt, FBI will not be held accountable, all these investigations will shut down, everything will be buried … That’s why the sooner the president declassifies this, the better.”