Special counsel John Durham will speak with members of the House Judiciary Committee in coming weeks, and members will hear "exactly how the FBI lied to the American people" with its investigative actions during former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, speaking at a time when Americans need to know "just how deep the rot in our intelligence agencies has gone," Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., said Thursday.
"He's going to be able to tell us exactly how the FBI lied to the American people, how they used the Steele dossier when they knew it was false and based on false premises, and how it was pushed to use the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrants to spy on the Trump campaign in 2016," Cline said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America."
The deceptions continued, Cline said, with special counsel Robert Mueller's report in 2018, the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in 2020, and the raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022.
"We would just like to have an election season without interference from our intelligence agencies," said Cline. "Is that so much to ask?"
Meanwhile, there are several ways the House can prevent the Department of Justice, under Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray from continuing such behavior, said Cline.
"We have several options ot our disposal in Congress," he said. "We have the power of the purse, and right now the appropriations bills for the FBI. They want a new office building, a giant new office building [to be] built. These kinds of things are being looked at very skeptically by appropriators."
Cline said there also is legislation that can be brought into play, including reauthorizing the FISA process, which expires at the end of this year.
"If they want that tool, we might have to take that tool away," he said.
Another legislative tool was put in place when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy took office and agreed to restore line-item revisions of individual bureaucrats' salaries in appropriations bills "so we can go in and line item, whether it's Anthony Fauci or Christopher Wray, those will be subject to debate and vote in the House of Representatives."
Cline also on Thursday discussed the impasse between House Republicans and President Joe Biden's administration on debt ceiling talks, saying it was Biden "from the very beginning" who has been the problem.
"It was the president from the very beginning, stopping [his] feet and crossing [his] arms and saying, My way or the highway, pass a clean debt ceiling with no reforms," said Cline. "That's not acceptable, and that's what he was doing for several months while the speaker was saying, 'Come to the table, let's start negotiating. Let's talk.'"
The House passed its debt ceiling bill with a GOP majority vote, Cline added.
"We're the only body to have passed legislation that actually raised the debt ceiling with a number of conditions that are popular among 80% of the people, with work requirements for welfare, energy independence," Cline said. "The president should be at the table negotiating and should agree to cut spending."
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