Caputo debriefed

Following up on his testimony and statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo was interviewed by one of the prosecutors and two FBI agents working on the Mueller Switch Project yesterday. After his sitdown with the Mueller team, Caputo appeared for a short debriefing by Tucker Carlson on FOX News last night (video below). The Carlson interview was compelling television full of quotable quotes. Here they are in order, all rendered in the space of a four-and-a-half minute appearance:

• “They’re still looking at Russian collusion, still looking for it…In my mind, if anybody thinks that Russia collusion is off the table, they haven’t visited with the Mueller team.”

• “They know more about the Trump campaign than anybody that worked there and they know more about what I did in 2016 than I do myself.”

• What are they looking at? “I don’t want to interfere with the investigation. I was warned about that.”

• Did he construe that as a threat? “I’m not going to be friending them today on Facebook, if that’s what you’re asking.”

• “It’s not nice but it’s nothing compared to the $125,000 in legal bills that I’ve stacked up for nothing.”

• “What’s happening to me and my family is happening to many other people in this investigation and I’m just a witness. I can’t imagine if somebody’s a subject or a target what they’re going to go through.”

• “A tin cup isn’t a good look but I’ve had to open a GoFundMe page.”

• “I certainly didn’t sign up for this when I went to work for the Trump campaign and I will never, ever work on another Republican campaign for as long as I live…and I think that’s part of this, Tucker. This is a punishment strategy. I think they want to destroy the president, they want to destroy his family, they want to destroy his businesses, they want to destroy his friends so that no billionaire, say, in 15 years wakes up and tells his wife, you know what, they country’s broken and only I can fix it….His wife will say, ‘are you crazy Did you see what happened to Donald Trump?’ That’s what this is about.”

• “Clearly these lawsuits after the fact are the new Democratic strategy. When you lose, you still win. I don’t think anyone should work on a Republican campaign again unless you’re legally indemnified. If you do, you’re crazy.”

Caputo then appeared for an interview in a longer segment with Anderson Cooper on CNN (video below). It traversed some of the same ground, but the hits kept on coming:

• “I was there [with the Mueller prosecutors] for three hours. I would compare it to a proctology appointment with a very large-handed doctor. It was an awful experience.”

• “I’m a witness, not a subject or a target, but it doesn’t matter. When you get in that room it’s fraught with peril.”

• “As someone who left the campaign on June 20 and didn’t return to the transition or the administration, they wouldn’t be asking me about these allegations of obstruction and they wouldn’t be asking me about these allegations of financial crimes of some of these other people who’ve been indicted. They only asked me about Russian collusion….and they asked me about a bunch of my friends.”

• “I don’t think they’re convinced yet that there’s no Russian collusion.”

• “You know, I was in the Senate talking with their investigators on Tuesday and they were still fishing around. It reminded me of net fishing. They’re just out there throwing things out there hoping that they can get something in. If we’re working with a fishing metaphor, I’d say the Mueller team is spearfishing.”

• “I don’t think they ask any questions they don’t already know the answer to. Thank goodness, I watch a lot of cop TV.”

• “I don’t recall them specifically asking me anything about the president of the United States….I think they’ve narrowed it down.”

• “Anybody whose name is in the mouth of the Mueller investigation is in peril, I think. These folks are really focused on bringing somebody in.”

• “I can tell you these guys know everything. They have all the documents, all the emails, and they’re ready to rock.”

• “I think the president should not go anywhere near this [Mueller team]. I think in a lot of ways it’s a trap. I think the president is clear on potential Russian collusion. I think the campaign is in the clear. In the end if they want to get the president, they’re going to try to trip him up in an interview like this and my advice, after being through it, is stay away.”

• “I have a lot of respect for Director Mueller. When this thing first started I had some faith that it was going to be done fairly. I’m not so sanguine about it anymore.”

• “I’m very confident there was no Russian collusion. I’m very confident that the president is in the clear here. I’m very confident that in the end they’re going to find the holes that they’re digging to be empty, but they are digging and they’re going to continue to dig.”

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