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EXECUTIVE SESSION COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, JOINT WITH THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. INTERVIEW OF: JAMES A. BAKER (DAY 2) Thursday, October 18, 2018 Washington, D.C. The interview in the above matter was held in Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, commencing at 10:01 a.m. Present: Representatives Meadows, Jordan, Ratcliffe, and Gaetz.
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Mr. Somers. Good morning. This is a continuation of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's transcribed interview of James Baker, the former general counsel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'm not going to read through the entire preamble again. I would just remind the witness that he is required to answer questions to Congress, including congressional staff, truthfully in a transcribed interview. And the time is now 10:03. I'll turn it over to Mr. Jordan to begin our first hour of questions. Mr. Jordan. Thank you. Mr. Baker, thank you again for being here. I want to pick up where we left off a couple weeks ago. You'd indicated that Mr. McCabe, Andrew McCabe, and Lisa Page came to you after a meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein where Mr. Rosenstein had said that he was looking at recording the President. Mr. Baker. I'm sorry, Mr. Jordan. I'm having a little hard time hearing. I don't know what the -- Mr. Jordan. Okay. I'll do it again. So, when we left off a few weeks ago, we were talking about a meeting you had with Andy McCabe and Lisa Page shortly after the meeting they had with Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein where Mr. Rosenstein indicated he was looking at the possibility of recording the President of the United States. Tell me when that meeting that you had with -- when was the meeting
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you had again with Ms. Page and Mr. McCabe? Mr. Baker. Okay. First of all, if I can just say, at some point in time, there's something I remembered from last time I'd like to -- that I didn't remember when we were sitting here together. I'd look to talk about that at some point and put that on the record. I don't want to interrupt your flow of questions. Mr. Jordan. Go do that. If there's something you want to clarify from last time, do that upfront, and then we'll go right back to my question. Mr. Baker. Okay. Sure. It's not directly related to this, and I'm happy to answer your question that you just asked me. Mr. Jordan. Okay. Mr. Baker. So I recalled after -- just actually a few days ago -- that another incident when a -- this time an attorney on behalf of a client came to me and wanted -- came specifically to me and wanted to make information available to the FBI in the form of electronic media that he wanted to get into the -- Mr. Jordan. Different case or same case? Mr. Baker. Different case. Mr. Jordan. Okay. Mr. Baker. Well, a completely different case. Different attorney, different client, but insistent on meeting only with me or the Director. And then he did not have the material with him at the time. We had to actually dispatch FBI agents to go to a -- from a field office to go collect this material. It was in the -- to the best of