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WALLACE: Joining us now to discuss all this, Congressman Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
Chairman, let’s start with the report from several news outlets that the first Mueller charges will be announced tomorrow. As a former federal prosecutor yourself, what will you be looking for?
REP. TREY GOWDY, R-SC, CHAIR, OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Well, first of all, Chris, we don’t know who’s being charged. Let’s assume arguably (ph) though the reporting is true — we don’t know who is being charged, we don’t what they’re being charged for, we don’t know the time period. I will say this, the only conversation I’ve had with Robert Mueller, it was stressing to him, the importance of cutting out the leaks with respect to serious investigations.
So, it is kind of ironic that the people charged with investigating the law and executing the law would violate the law. And make no mistake, disclosing grand jury material is a violation of the law. So, as a former prosecutor, I’m disappointed that you and I are having the conversation, but that somebody violated their oath of secrecy.
WALLACE: Let’s handicap this, though, if you will, sort of expert analysis. As a federal prosecutor, you’re quite right. We do not know who is being charged and what they are being charged for. What, if anything, when we find that out, whether it’s somebody close to the president, somebody further down, whether it’s something related to Russia or whether it’s in effect an extraneous charge, not to say it’s not a legitimate charge. But something like fraud, or money laundering, what will that tell us about the Mueller investigation?
GOWDY: Well, a little phrase in the memo from Rod Rosenstein arose or may arise from investigation. And the reason you have that phraseology is, if special counsel finds evidence of a crime that’s unrelated to his or her original jurisdiction, you don’t ignore it. But it’s going to be really important whether or not this indictment involves 15-year-old business transactions or 15-day-old conversations with Russia.
So, it’s really important what the charge is. It’s really important who the person being charged is. One thing I don’t get that excited about, although I do see a lot of reporting, is somehow or another you’re going to be able to flip a witness and that witness is going to turn state’s evidence on everyone else. If you didn’t believe a witness yesterday, chances are great you’re not going to believe that witness tomorrow, particularly if they are under indictment and have a reason to curry favor with the government. These investigations come down to documents and evidence, much more so than they do witness testimony.
So, I would caution your viewers, don’t get too excited that, all of a sudden, the government now has a star witness. That star witness, you probably didn’t believe a week ago and you probably won’t believe a week from now.