When will it be that the members of this committee on a bipartisan basis demand answers to those questions and refuse to accept personal slander as an answer to those questions?
Would you apologize to Donald Trump for slandering him?
unidentified
Personal slander.
Earlier today, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was on Capitol Hill for an oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
She faced questions on the Justice Department's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, the legality of deploying the National Guard to American cities, and the recent decision to seek an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey.
You can watch the full hearing tonight starting at 9 Eastern on C-SPAN.
It's also available on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org.
Yeah, so the way I describe the lawfare apparatus in this country is not just isolated to a few people who I think are political, who I think are trying to practice lawfare, trying to practice politics via the legal system.
I really chart the entire apparatus from the funders of it to the people who support it to the people in the law schools who are kind of coaching up younger attorneys to be political actors.
And so I kind of explain the entire web because one thing that I do, I'm a conservative media person and I work from that perspective.
But I also have a lot of respect for what the left has built in terms of their ability to get things done politically.
And one of those, part of that is that I actually try to figure out how they've had the successes that they've had.
And it doesn't happen overnight.
It's not just in one fell swoop.
People are working day after day, year after year, to try to build an apparatus so that they can deliver political victories.
And one thing the left has done, and you can see this right now, it's the number one resistance to President Trump right now, is actually the legal system.
Is that because the legal system is the only thing left to stand up against Donald Trump, given that the Republican House and the Republican Senate is not?
They're certainly stronger and I think a lot smarter than what we're seeing from the political, like the literal political left right now, because they do retain a lot of power.
That Joe Biden and before him, Barack Obama with Chuck Schumer were very efficient about getting judges appointed.
They also co-opted other parts of the legal apparatus, such as the law schools, which are basically breeding grounds for left-wing political power.
And that's what it does there.
And I think a lot of people on the right have overlooked that to some extent as being a legitimate threat.
And given the fact that the Republicans have their triple majority, and I think that they're sort of leaderless on a political level, as we've been seeing during the shutdown, they don't really have a cohesive narrative.
The thing that has been the most efficient for the pushback against President Trump has for sure been the lawfare apparatus.
But I'm not an attorney and I'll let the legal system work out whether or not he's being indicted for something that was legitimate.
That some of the lawyers can sort that out.
But I do know that Comey's motivation has been to be a political actor.
And you see with some of the evidence I bring forward in the book is, for example, that he had leaked information, government information, classified information, to a Columbia professor with the intention of leaking to the New York Times in order to set up a special counsel on Russia collusion, which was completely fake and was egged on by the lawfare apparatus.
I think that's what's going to bear out as this thing, as this thing takes place.
As we look into him deeper and deeper, I think that's what's going to be the evidence because I think his clearly, when you see his motivations, the way he describes things online, posting things as 8647, which is obviously a call to take out President Trump, he's someone who's motivated deeply by stopping Donald Trump by any means necessary.
And I think that means that he has done whatever he can to try to do that.
Obviously, you've seen the True Social post of President Trump urging the Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute FBI, former FBI Director Comey and other political perceived foes of the president.
Is that, in your estimation, lawfare on the part of the president?
And all of this, I'm happy to give several examples during the course of the conversation.
But this is all violation of due process laws.
It's all violating equal protection under the law.
And so considering that that was taking place from the Joe Biden White House against Trump, I believe specifically to rig an election, specifically designed to try to subvert our democracy.
Remember, the left's always talking about democracy constantly, that democracy is under attack.
Well, they had used a legal system to try to stop Trump before the Americans had a chance to vote at the polls.
And so when you go through that level of effort to use the law to try to undermine our electoral system, I think it is fair game to look into the main practitioners of it.
Yeah, perhaps, again, I'm not an attorney, so lawyers can comment on whether or not things are illegal or not.
But the fact of the matter is that he was way over-prosecuted for having those classified documents, all of which he could have had, all of which he could have had declassified at any point.
And yeah, but that's the most substantial piece of evidence against Trump that he's done something illegal.
That's in the book of the six cases I go through.
But again, there are so many other people, every single president, many vice presidents, many generals, I document them all, who had done all those things and worse and had gotten wrist slaps or nothing.
And Trump, they had the FBI come in and raid Melania's underwear drawer and look in Barron's Peloton room, which was completely absurd.
And that led to the Jack Smith Special Prosecutor, which Jack Smith's special counsel was not constitutional.
And this is the whole thing that kind of is mind-blowing that we all blow through this.
He operated with impunity for 18, 19 months.
His job did not exist.
It was not legal.
And that's how Trump ended up winning those cases is his team finally figured out that, wait a minute, this is illegal.
And he proved it in a court.
And that's why all that got thrown out, which to me is such a much bigger deal than someone having a couple of documents they could have declassified and then didn't.
This is a completely bogus special counsel that operated leaking the Washington Post constantly, all designed to try to undermine our democracy from justice.
So one thing that I documented throughout the book is that Republican judges have a much higher incident of ruling against Republican candidates, presidents, et cetera.
And Democrats do from time to time as well.
But overall, if you look at the percentages that I look at, it's way actually more common for Republicans to go against Republicans than it is for Democrats to go against Democrats.
And I cite example after example of Democrats not only practicing lawfare from the bench, but then using their post, using their position to actually lecture people on politics, sometimes for hours at a time, trying to make sure that they're making a political statement, not just a legal one.
One thing I like that Ellie said there was talking about feelings.
Law is not supposed to have feelings.
Well, it does in a lot of cases.
And a lot of times it really is people who are Democrat appointees who are doing that.
Yeah, I think that's a great way of summing up the whole conversation so far is that when the Democrats do something where they're trying to apply the law in order to achieve a political means, we all treat it like it's very normal.
And that's Democrats, Republicans alike, the all treaty.
Well, that's just the way things are.
And then when someone on the right tries to use legal means to try to make life slightly difficult for a political appointee, someone who went out of his way to leak information to the press, to professors, in order to try to get special counsels to subvert our democracy, as James Comey did, we act like that's outrageous.
And I find that to be deeply hypocritical.
And if you look at someone like a Schiff, who clearly is someone who's an attorney, someone who was one of the impeachment managers, the impeachment managers, that is their whole farm system of people who are trying to get ready to try to play politics using our legal system.
And none of them been held accountable at all.
They just get promoted.
They get contributorships on television.
They get better committee appointments.
Adam Schiff got promoted to senator out in my home state of California.
No, this is a big myth for Pam Bondi, who I don't know her at all.
And I think some of the stuff she's doing is good.
So it's not trying to be a whole, everyone makes it like you have to extrapolate her entire character over this.
But it was really mishandled the way that they had the Epstein file documents part one that were released to those conservative influencers.
And then they went out and they posted for photos with them.
I think that that was a big error because I haven't seen the Epstein files part two.
There wasn't a lot of new stuff in those files.
And I think a lot of people online in the president's base, a lot of the people who are my core audience at Breitbart, they thought there would be more information released.
And they thought that part of the reason Trump was elected was to make sure that some of that information came out.
Now, I don't know how much information is out there.
I'm not someone who's as obsessed with the Epstein story as a lot of people who read my website every day and who are part of the conservative online culture.
But I'll tell you that people thought there was more than has been released.
And that has a look rate for this administration.
I think they're aware of that, though.
I think they would like to release as much as they can that they can.
I don't know why they can't release everything, but I know that from a media messaging perspective, that was not effective.
And it also gave the left something to attack the president with.
It's that this one wasn't because Jack Smith essentially answered to no one.
So he didn't actually have a boss.
unidentified
That's not why I called it.
Okay.
So I call it Ask You One Question because they were talking about law fair, which is using the courts to damage your political opponents.
Now, I'll get to my question, but let me give you some examples before.
In my opinion, I think Trump used law fair in the 2020 election to damage Joe Biden by claiming fraud when it didn't exist and trying to seal an election.
And here's some examples from the Jack Smith report.
First, before the election, he said he was going to claim fraud if he lost.
Second, there's evidence in there that he admitted he lost the election.
Third, in the court lawsuits, Giuliani, Giuliani would get on TV and say fraud, fraud, fraud.
And then he would go to court and tell the judges he didn't have any evidence of fraud.
And then Trump's acting attorney general, he asked his acting attorney general, and I quote, just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen.
I think a lot of these people need to read the Jack Smith report instead of fairy tales on lawfare.
But my question is, if those examples are true and the evidence bears it out, do you think that in 2020, Trump used lawfare by the attorney generals and the courts to try to overturn a legitimate election that he knew was legitimate?
So there's actually some really important points in there.
The first one is that Trump has been remarkably consistent about believing that he actually did win the election.
Now, this is a big, this is something that we could really unpack for a long time.
I'm not in the book defending that position at all, but what I do map out pretty consistently is Trump is across the board.
He says, I won that election.
It was a legitimate election that I would have won.
And there was only one incident that I could find where he even indicated at all he may have lost.
He said on some podcasts that he lost by a whisker, and that was one time.
And every other time, he has been very consistent that he believes he won.
And that's just his position.
I'm not here to defend that position.
I'm here to say that he has been consistent with that.
And I think that that's a very important point because a lot of people act as though he's been inconsistent, and he hasn't.
And I think that his administration, using lawfare, if he did, it was incredibly ineffective when he was doing that.
But I do acknowledge in the book that Trump contesting the election, even though he relied on precedent that I think was set up by John F. Kennedy in terms of trying to convene these alternative electors.
And similar to that, Carl from Scranton, Pennsylvania says to you, if this man isn't a lawyer, how is he distinguishing what is frivolous prosecution and what isn't?
So I consulted with lots and lots of attorneys, people highly educated, and I interviewed lots of people who have some of the highest credentials you could possibly have.
And to Stephen's point as well, I have hundreds and hundreds of sources in my books.
Every book has meticulously sourced.
So every single thing that I cite, and I try to cite establishment media sources to comfort some people who might be skeptical as much as humanly possible, it's one of the commitments I have.
And even though I admit that I am a partisan, I am a conservative person, and I would like to see conservatives win, I do try to bring the receipts whenever possible.
And I don't specifically allege crimes.
I do identify things that clearly should be investigated because, for example, when people, when prosecutors are running for elections, as did Alvin Bragg, as did Letitia James, as did Fonnie Willis, specifically, and that they're going to deprive rights of another human being, in this case, we're talking about Donald Trump, that that is clear violations of due process clauses, is clear violations of equal justice under the law.
So I didn't talk to them specifically about Comey.
He's only a small factor of the book.
I feel like it's important to discuss him because it's in terms of the context of the general news cycle.
But he only appears a couple of times throughout the book.
But what I do know is that Comey was certainly one of the people behind the Russian collusion hoax, which I believe tried to undermine the president's first administration so he could not operate and operate as an effective president because he was distracted by what was a total farce.
Here's Anthony in Miller Place, a New York Democrat.
Hi, Anthony.
unidentified
Hi, I have a question for the moderator as well, a guest.
For the guest, I wondered, on December 28, Barack Obama and the Oval Office had shuttered two embassies, one on the Potomac River and one in New York and Glencove.
Two Russian embassies, they ejected about approximately 40 senior Russian diplomats and their families within 24 hours.
Now, is that not connected to the Russian hoax narrative?
And does that not, are there not RICO laws that should pertain to this activity with regard to lawfare and the targeting of political opponents because they lost the election?
And I wonder why is this not brought up?
We're going after Comey.
But obviously, the ejection of those Russian diplomats within 24 hours of losing the election under a Russian hoax narrative.
And Durham, what did John Durham expose with regard to it?
I mean, he seemed to be more of a dog and pony show.
For the moderator of C-SPAN, my question is with regard to Ceasefire, the new program that you're having.
And when Sam Feist was asked if callers would be allowed, C-SPAN viewers would be allowed to question your guests, he seemed to never even consider that as being part of the programming.
And isn't that part of the problem when you exclude the taxpayers from the equation?
Yeah, with regard to John Durham, I'm a talk show host, a podcaster, an Alex Marlowe show podcast.
People are interested.
And I was always a John Durham skeptic.
I didn't think that he was going to deliver anything shocking, and I think that turned out to age very well.
I didn't really see anything big that he revealed that was a big revelation.
I didn't quite follow the Obama example, so I apologize there.
I'm not sure exactly.
But if he was trying to prove some sort of Russian collusion hoax, I would say the entire law affair superstructure that I talk about in the book at length was trying to figure out some evidence that Donald Trump had colluded with Russia to rig an election, including Robert Mueller and his team of just absolute, just highly educated, highly trained, highly effective attorneys, and they couldn't do it.
It's a big victory for me at Breitbart News and stuff that I've been working on for the last 17 years since I was the first employee.
It's a big victory for Andrew Breitbart, our founder.
It is alternative media is the present now.
And it feels like after day after day, literally every day of my career, documenting the instances where the media has gotten the biggest stories of the day wrong.
At Breitbart, we're famous for identifying the crisis of the southern border, the Brexit phenomenon in the UK, which people didn't believe could happen.
It's definitely interesting because we're certainly in, maybe we're middle-aged now.
Like we're certainly not dinosaur media, but we're not the freshest site.
And I think that's good.
I think we've matured a lot.
And I think that we're highly effective so that people like you, I think if you get a Breitbart article and you can bring it to air, you could have high confidence that, yes, we have a conservative perspective, but it's all incredibly accurate.
But after looking at the stories from the Russian collusion hoax to that inflation is going to, the Bidenflation was transitory and Trump's tariffs are going to cause inflation and the coronavirus didn't start in the lab and all of these things that Trump's whole base is racist, even though he's picking up voters from all different minority groups.
All of these lies that have been told by the media over the last decade and a half that I've been tracking, I think that most Americans are understanding that they're getting a perspective when you see a Washington Post or an NBC News or a CBS.
Yeah, they're probably similar to where we are, which is that I think for the most part, they announce where they're coming from.
And I think people understand that when they're consuming Fox.
And I think that that's acceptable.
So I think that that's if you announce your biases and then allow for people to evaluate you afterwards, that's all I'm asking for.
What happens that is the most frustrating to me as a observer is to see the New York Times, for example, package a story with a clear perspective and act as though it's just neutral and it's not.
They investigated 100 Republican groups, Charlie Kirk's groups, and then yesterday, Senator Johnson came out and said that they had illegally investigated wiretap.
Again, I don't have the details tip of my brain again, but I'll tell you that this is the pattern that people in the Joe Biden apparatus.
I go through all the major players in the DOJ, that many of them were motivated to try to dedicate their time and their resources to investigating people who were political threats.
And in the meantime, law and order suffered deeply in this country.
Our cities got less safe.
People got away with all sorts of crimes.
And a lot of the effort was not on keeping American citizens safe.
It was going after political opponents.
And I think the more we dig into it, the more that's what we're going to find.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington and across the country.
Ceasefire: Where the Shouting Stops00:01:16
unidentified
Coming up Wednesday morning, we'll discuss FBI Director James Comey's arraignment, as well as Attorney General Pam Bondi's recent appearance before a Senate committee with the Wall Street Journal's Sadie German.
Then we'll talk about day eight of the government shutdown, first with Maine Democratic Congresswoman Shelley Pingree, a member of the Appropriations Committee, and later with House Republican Conference Chair Michigan Congresswoman Lisa McClain.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
Join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Wednesday morning on C-SPAN.
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Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins.
Politico Playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns is host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue.
Ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides Fridays at 7 and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.