McCarthy Compares FBI Scandal To Infamous Scandal; Makes Recommendations For Trump In Senate Trial

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy compared the FBI’s misconduct in surveilling the Trump campaign during the 2016 election to the infamous Watergate scandal, which brought down Republican President Richard Nixon, saying that what the FBI did was a “modern day coup.”

McCarthy made the remarks during an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo after listening to interviews that Bartiromo had with Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham and Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

“So, you just heard Senator Cruz. You heard Lindsey Graham, as well, talking about what is taking place and what has taken place in terms of the IG report,” Bartiromo said. “First, react to that. Set the stage for us.” 

“Well, if you pause for one moment and you read this IG report by Horowitz, here’s the FBI: They broke into President Trump at the time candidate Trump’s campaign spied on him and then they covered it up. It is a modern-day Watergate,” McCarthy responded. “And you’ve got Democrats who aren’t willing to even look into that. That is the area that we should be looking in.”

“It’s a modern-day coup. The closest this country’s ever came to but the only way you can compare this to is Watergate,” McCarthy continued. “They broke into his campaign by bringing people into it. They have been trying to cover it up for the whole time. Now the question rises just like Watergate. Who knew? When did they know it? And how high did this go up?”

Later in the interview, McCarthy spoke about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to try to withhold the articles of impeachment from the Senate, a move that McCarthy says Pelosi will not be able to sustain.

“Almost half of the entire Democratic conference that sits there today voted for impeachment before the Ukraine call ever took place,” McCarthy said. “Now, you don’t get managers on the Republican side, but the president could have representation, that he’s probably going to hire an attorney to represent him.” 

McCarthy suggested that Trump use some of his top defenders in the House to help him get through the Senate trial.

“Maybe he uses the White House, but I believe he should have help from the House, these individuals that have worked through this that could give advice, and others,” McCarthy said. “I would go to John Ratcliffe, former U.S. attorney, that has done an amazing job. I’d go to Jim Jordan. I’d go to Doug Collins. These are individuals that I would actually pull in if I was in the White House, because we have been at this.”

“Remember, the Democrats have been trying to impeach the president for two and a half years, changing the — changing whatever they could find every step of the way, from the Mueller report to trying to quid pro quo to extortion to bribery to what they came up today with articles that reach nowhere, no facts,” McCarthy continued. “But through all those battles, you want people that have been through this, understand it, and have been in those hearings even when they were in the basement — that testimony; who’s been in those rooms. And those three individuals are ones that I would actually recommend to the president.”