CHUCK TODD: This memo that now the president apparently wants released which he has the power to do on his own. He can declassify anything he wants. Do you want the president to declassify this memo that was written by Republican staff on the House Intelligence Committee?
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: Look, they have been doing their investigation. They found something out. I’ve gone down. I’ve read it. The committee voted. This is the process. They voted to allow members to read it. They have the ability to vote to move it forward just like being— and then it would go to the executive branch.
CHUCK TODD: Why are they afraid to send this to the Justice Department for review?
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: Well, aren’t we separate but co-equal? Don’t we have a view? Don’t we have the responsibility for oversight? And the Justice Department will be able to see it because you have the executive branch and you have the legislative branch. And as the legislative branch looks at it, it will send it to the executive branch beforehand. They have the approval whether to declassify and put it forward. So they will have the opportunity—
CHUCK TODD: Do you want the president—
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: —with the committee.
CHUCK TODD: —do you want the president to declassify this memo?
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: Having read this memo, I think it would be appropriate that the public has full view of it.
CHUCK TODD: And you don’t believe this is somehow the president tampering with the investigation? How does this not look like that if he does.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: Because it has nothing to do with the president right now. It is the committee doing their work who have found something, voted as a committee of the whole. And remember why the intel committee was created based upon what was happening in the executive branch from the C.I.A. and F.B.I. and others. So they have oversight of it. They made a vote for the public or for the members of Congress to look at it. Now they can vote to send it to the executive branch. And they could have say of whether to release it.
CHUCK TODD: Why don’t you want Senator Burr to look at it? He’s chairman of the Senate Intel Committee. Why not?
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: Well, the intel committee in the Senate’s doing their investigation. We’re doing ours.
CHUCK TODD: He asked to see it.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: If we release it—
CHUCK TODD: He has to see it first. Why not—
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: —well, that’s a question for Devin Nunes, the chair.