Gregg Jarrett fills in for Sean and talks about all of the challenges President Trump has faced in his quest to make America great again... and through it all, he's been successful! As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, it's time to take a look at all the hurdles President Trump has been able to overcome. The Sean Hannity Show is on weekdays from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on iHeartRadio and Hannity.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Welcome to the Sean Hannity Show.
It is one day before Thanksgiving.
And if it doesn't sound like Sean here, um, you're right.
I'm Greg Jarrett, filling in for the inemitable Sean Hannity.
So I'm the poor man's Sean Hannity, but I'm really happy to be here.
I'm a Fox News legal analyst, also a lawyer.
I also wrote a book.
And I maybe you heard of it.
Don't know.
Hope you have.
Hope you bought it.
If you haven't, you should.
It's called The Russia Hoax, the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump.
And the title pretty much tells the story.
But who did that?
Who schemed to clear Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump?
As I explain in the chapters, top officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice, people like James Comey and Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page and Bruce Orr and the whole gang of individuals.
They conspired to first clear Hillary Clinton of the obvious and compelling evidence of crimes she committed, mishandling classified documents, exposing national secrets to our enemies, jeopardizing national security.
They wanted her to be president, so they cleared her.
And then on the very day that James Comey announced that Hillary Clinton was suddenly and magically absolved, contorting the law and twisting the facts.
His FBI was meeting secretly in a building in London with the author of the phony fabricated anti-Trump dossier, Christopher Steele.
And armed with that document, they used it as a pretext to investigate Donald Trump for colluding with Russia, even they knew, even though they knew he didn't.
They had no probable cause, no credible evidence, no plausible intelligence, but they decided we are the law.
We can do anything we want.
We are accountable to no one.
Hillary Clinton will probably get elected, so nobody will find out.
But we're going to create an insurance policy, which is the investigation of Trump and the words of Peter Strck will stop him.
We're going to stop Donald Trump.
And they were off to the races in this scheme to frame Donald Trump for things he never did.
The book came out in July, and since then, a great deal has happened.
We've had testimony from everyone from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page to James Baker.
All kinds of evidence has come out.
And all of it corroborates what's in the book.
And by the way, I just finished submitting to the publisher an updated version of the book, which will be in the paperback, which comes out in January.
But if you don't want to wait for that and you're looking for a good Christmas present to put under the tree for someone, might I suggest you buy the hardcover, the Russia hoax, the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump.
Available in bookstores.
By the way, my Twitter handle is at Greg Jarrett.
And, you know, Linda, our producer here said, you really need to spell out Greg Jarrett because it's got two Gs and two R's and two T's.
And I said, no, it actually has three G's.
There's a G on the front end of Greg.
G-R-E-G-G-A-R-R-E-T-T.
Check out the Twitter handle.
I'm always treating something, tweeting out something that's either controversial or inflammatory according to the mainstream media.
They don't like my tweets.
Did you see the front page story of the New York Times by the usual suspects?
Maggie Haberman, Michael Schmidt, big splashy title today.
Trump wanted to order Justice Department to prosecute Comey and Clinton.
Oh my God, he did?
Really?
He wanted James Comey and Hillary Clinton to be held accountable for their wrongdoing?
Who knew?
What a surprise.
I'm shocked.
Conn, how in the world is this a story?
President Trump has talked repeatedly and publicly about Clinton and how she should have been prosecuted for the classified document scandal during the campaign two years ago.
He correctly called her Crooked Hillary to chance of locker up.
He promised voters he'd reopen the case if elected, and then, you know, after he won, he kind of tried to be magnanimous and conciliatory.
He seemed to back off the notion.
After a while, though, he changed his mind and he said openly she should be prosecuted.
Apparently that is news to Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman.
And by the way, the president has said repeatedly the same thing about James Comey.
I mean, once the president fired the FBI director, and we all learned of Comey's Machiavellian maneuvers to frame Trump to lie to a FISA court to spy on the Trump campaign, and Comey leaked stolen documents to the media.
Well, Americans and President Trump were outraged.
And the president called for an investigation of Comey and potential prosecution along with Hillary Clinton.
And yeah, I wrote a whole book about it.
I identified all the criminal statutes they appeared to have broken.
So how in the world is this news that he wanted them both to face possible prosecution?
It's not.
But there's no evidence actually that he ordered their prosecution.
I'll come back to that in a second, but I want to give out our number because I'd love to hear from you.
Truly.
I want to hear from you.
I'll take your phone calls.
So our number is 1-800-941.
That's 800 941-7326.
All right.
The story does say today in The New York Times that there's no evidence that the president ever ordered the prosecution of Hillary Clinton and James Comey.
But guess what?
You wouldn't really know that until you thoroughly read through the New York Times because they buried that tidbit of information in the sixth paragraph of the story, eventually quoting a statement from the White House counsel, Dom McGann, who said the president never, to his knowledge, ordered that anyone prosecute Hillary Clinton or James Comey.
But of course, the mainstream media was in a froth over this, saying, oh, see, obstruction of justice.
This is a bombshell.
Impeachment.
They already had the president cuffed and being led out of the White House last night when the story broke online.
But of course, none of that is true because the media doesn't know what they're talking about.
They know nothing about the law.
They never even bother to look up the law.
It has nothing to do with obstruction.
The president took no action.
He talked about it allegedly.
He talked about it.
He thought about it.
So now the New York Times is the thought police.
And if you dare to think or even verbalize the idea that people who broke the law should be prosecuted, what a concept.
The Times will trash you on the front page as a rogue villain, villain, a lawless individual, which is what they say about Donald Trump every single day.
I got news for the New York Times.
It is not an abuse of power for the president to discuss prosecuting people who appear to have broken the law with impunity.
Guess what?
As executive of this nation, chief executive, he has sworn to uphold the law and enforce the law against those who break the law.
And in fact, every president for two centuries has done pretty much the same thing.
I can go all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, who ordered the prosecution of Aaron Burr, and in fact, Jefferson actually managed the prosecution against Aaron Burr.
More recently, John Kennedy encouraged his brother to prosecute organized crime when Bobby Kennedy was the attorney general and John Kennedy was president of the United States.
Was that wrong or unlawful?
Of course not.
Again, as the president is the chief executive, he is duty-bound to enforce the law.
If he thinks an individual or groups of individuals are breaking the law, he should and must direct the attorney general and the Department of Justice to prosecute them.
And in fact, a president can not only order a prosecution, he can order the Department of Justice to refrain from prosecuting people.
How do I know that?
Because Barack Obama did that.
He ordered that millions of people here illegally not be prosecuted by the Department of Justice and deported.
It was the deferred action program.
Millions of people who could otherwise have been prosecuted, but President Barack Obama ordered that they not be prosecuted.
So it is a complete myth perpetuated by the media and brainless Democrats that the president cannot play an active role in directing the Department of Justice to prosecute or refrain from prosecuting people.
Nowhere is that written in any law.
But it ain't there.
It is a myth, a fiction, and a canard that I hear all the time.
People on CNN and MSNBC last night in reaction to this story that broke by the New York Times are saying, it's an abuse of power, it's obstruction of justice by the president.
You're thinking about it and you know, talking to somebody, see, I'd really like for Comey to be held accountable for all the laws he broke, and Hillary Clinton, by the way, jeopardized national security and committed crimes, and she shouldn't she be held accountable.
Having that discussion or thinking it is, according to Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt, and all of the other people who were vote vocalizing last night on MSNBC and CNN, you know, they think it's a crime.
It's not.
Now, all of this happened just as the president submitted answers to questions propounded by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.
And my question is, doesn't Muller already have the answers to these questions?
I mean, think about it.
Is there really a need to interview the president either in person or in writing?
This is a president who has been extraordinarily cooperative and transparent and forthcoming.
The White House handed over 1.4 million pages of documents.
Roughly 30 White House staffers and campaign staffers voluntarily gave interviews to Mueller's investigators, including eight people, by the way, from the White House counsel's office.
So all of the information that Mueller has sought with these written questions can and were already obtained through the documents provided and the testimony of others.
So what did Muller ask?
Well, surely he asked the president about collusion.
So I would imagine one of the main questions was did you ever conspire coordinate or collude with the Russians during the presidential election?
Answer, no.
Are you aware of anybody in your campaign who did no?
What conversations did you have with Russians?
None.
You think I'm making that up?
Here's what the president said.
And frankly, uh, I'm gonna let the president speak to the second part of your question.
But uh just to say it one time again, and I say it all the time.
Uh there was no collusion.
I didn't know the president.
Uh there was nobody to collude with.
There was no collusion with the campaign.
And every time you hear all of these, you know, 12 and 14, it's stuff that has nothing to do, and frankly, they admit these are not people involved in the campaign.
But to the average reader out there there saying, well, maybe that does it doesn't.
Uh and even the people involved, some perhaps told miss stories, or though in one case the FBI said there was no lie.
There was no lie.
Somebody else said there was.
Uh we ran a brilliant campaign, and that's why I'm president.
How many times has the president said there was no collusion?
He has said it ad nauseum for the better part of two years.
So why would Muller even ask that question?
We're gonna pause, take a quick break.
I'm Greg Jarrett filling in for the Sean Hannity show.
My Twitter handle is at Greg Jarrett, Greg with two G's at the end.
Uh and our phone number is 1-800-941-Shawn 800-941-7326.
We'll be getting to your calls in just a few minutes.
And this is the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett filling in for Sean Hannity.
We're gonna be taking your calls in just a couple of minutes.
We're talking about the uh Robert Muller's special counsel investigation into so-called Trump Russia collusion, even though collusion is not a crime except in antitrust law.
And and the question I have for today is so why does Muller even need to pose questions about collusion?
Doesn't he already have all of the answers from witnesses and documents?
Doesn't he already have the answers from all the public statements the president has made?
So I want to hear from you.
The number is 1-800-941.
That's 1-800-941-7326.
And welcome back to the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett filling in today for Sean Hannity, who has a uh well-deserved day off.
He's cooking turkey and other goodies for Thanksgiving, and you know, he's the chef.
He's the uh chief chef in charge in the Hannity household, I'm told.
Um, although his wife might disagree with that.
At any rate, uh, we're talking about um the book I wrote, The Russia Hoax, the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump.
You can buy it in bookstores or online.
It is topical, especially now because Robert Mueller has received the answers to questions he posed to the president about collusion.
Which of course there is no evidence of and never has been any.
The FBI found no evidence of it.
And the special counsel has uh peered furiously into every crevice and corner to find some evidence of uh a conspiracy with Vladimir Putin that was hatched in the bowels of the Kremlin.
And of course, that's absurd.
It was all based on a phony dossier written by, you know, one guy.
He's not even an American, he's a British ex-spy who hated Donald Trump and said so, said he was desperate to stop Trump.
So he conjured out of thin air this dossier, claiming that uh for five to eight years before the two thousand and sixteen election that Putin and Trump were hatching this plan to win the election.
I mean, it was absurd on its face.
So Mueller is persisting in asking questions, and we were talking a moment ago about how the president has really answered all the questions.
Uh did you collude?
No.
How many times is the president said that?
Do you know anybody?
No.
So he was probably also asked about General Michael Flynn and his discussions with Russians during the transition, which is quite normal, by the way.
As I point out in the book, I I interviewed a professor who wrote a book on presidential transitions, and he said, Are you kidding me?
If Michael Flynn and others in the presidential transition team didn't have discussions with the Russians, it would be irresponsible.
Um the president was probably asked anyway.
Did you direct General Michael Flynn to talk with Russian officials during the transition?
The president's answer was surely this.
My staff did, of course.
It's what transition teams do, establishing contact with foreign nations to prepare for the upcoming challenges faced by new presidents.
It would be irresponsible not to do it.
Now, Mueller knows the answer to that.
How?
Because the president has said so publicly on numerous occasions.
Take a listen.
Did you direct Mike Lynn to discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador?
No, I didn't.
But Mike.
Excuse me.
No, I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence.
Very simple.
Mike was doing his job.
He was calling countries and his counterparts.
So it certainly would have been okay with me if he did it.
I would have directed him to do it if I thought he wasn't doing it.
I didn't direct him, but I would have directed him because that's his job.
Of course it is.
And, you know, uh members of Obama's transition team had discussions with foreign leaders, including the Russians during the transition before Obama was sworn in.
Did the media howl that, oh, that's a violation of the Logan Act?
No, of course not.
That's absurd.
It's preposterous.
It's ludicrous.
But the media wouldn't know that because they're dumb.
They just don't know, you know, what the law is.
And they don't know history either.
Um, and they surely didn't read that book uh written by the professor down in Texas and his colleagues, which explains it all.
Any rate, I want to get to your phone calls.
Um, and our number, by the way, is 1-800-941 Sean.
That's 800-941-7326.
Let's go to Anthony in Virginia.
Anthony, thanks for joining us.
How are you?
Hey, Greg, how are you doing?
Big fan, big fan of Sean Annity, first time caller, but a big time listener down here in Hampton, Virginia.
You know, I work at the shipyards down here, and uh, you know, um, life's good for us down here as far as work is concerned, thanks to um for the spending on defense.
Well, what bothers me and a lot of my friends, you know, um, and I and I'm I I'm dumb at Republican, but sometimes, you know, um, I may slide to the middle, um, because sometimes the best person to be um in charge.
Right.
But as far as the Hillary stuff is going, I mean Rolling Dean has shared a lot of legal um uh opinions and what's it gonna take to get a grand jury to um uh put together and get something started in regards to that.
And um another thing is I kind of c got kind of a joke um as far as Donald Trump is concerned, he has two more years left, and as far as I'm concerned, they say, guess what?
I'm president of the United States.
If you want a chance, if you want to shot at the title, run for president.
Right.
I'm president right now.
Right.
Right and so I mean I don't know, I don't know what your opinion is on that.
I it just it seems like all we do is hear about it and hear about it, and and I I I agree with all the legal opinions on um about Hillary Clinton.
It's just what's it gonna take to get that ball rolling before it's old news is known.
Anthony, thanks for your question.
So um what it will take is a competent attorney general for a change.
Now the Jeff Sessions, thankfully, belatedly, has departed the Department of Justice.
Uh it's up to the President to appoint a permanent attorney general to be confirmed through advice and consent of the U.S. Senate.
I highly recommend that President Trump uh nominate Congressman John Ratcliffe of Texas, who is one of the brightest members in Congress, who was a top prosecutor in national security and terrorism for the Department of Justice, who was also a U.S. attorney uh in the uh from Texas.
And this is a man who is not only a skilled uh trial attorney and lawyer, but he is somebody who believes in the rule of law and that nobody is above it, and those who break the law should be held accountable.
And that means even Hillary Clinton.
You know, the moment that James Comey stood in front of television cameras and said no reasonable prosecutor will ever bring such a case, that was a lie, and everybody knew it because the FBI and the Department of Justice had just brought a half a dozen cases that were nearly identical to Hillary Clinton, but on a smaller scale.
And and Comey knew that she broke the law because in his original statement that he penned on May 2nd, 2016, he wrote down not once but twice that she uh was grossly negligent, and that's right out of the espionage act criminal statute.
So she should have been charged with 110 felonies representing 110 classified documents on her private unauthorized exposed server in violation of the law.
I gotta tell you, it's a slam dunk case against her.
And so if you appoint somebody like John Rackliffe who believes that those who break the law should be held accountable, I suspect he would uh not only reopen the Hillary Clinton email case and present some of the evidence to a grand jury,
let the grand jury decide, but he would also hold accountable those in the Trump investigation who appear to have broken the law, people like James Comey and Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok.
I mean, just read the 500-page inspector general's report, and you will reach the inexorable conclusion that these people engaged in corrupt acts.
And in the book I wrote, The Russia hoax, the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump, in every chapter, I go through the laws that were broken by those involved in the scheme.
And uh so, you know, it's gonna take a good and competent and conscientious attorney general.
All right, let's go to our next caller, Jim calls us from New Jersey.
Hi, Jim, how are you?
Hey, hey, Greg, how are you doing?
Uh huge fan of you uh on Fox channel and Hannity, obviously a huge fan of his.
Okay, so listen, the uh Mueller investigation is a win-win situation for the Democrats, even if he doesn't come up with anything, because I agree with you a hundred percent That he was he was put into motion to divert attention away from all the bad actors and all the bad things going on.
But also he he produced the hugest opposition research campaign for the Democrats for the 2020 presidential race that probably ever was ex ever existed.
I mean, it's gonna be funny to see how much stuff the Democratic Party is going to have, whether it be nonsense stuff or major stuff that actually came from the Mueller investigation secretly.
Yeah, and I think that's the um the the intent of Robert Mueller and his gang of partisans.
I you know, they will, I guarantee you, uh criticize the president uh for numerous things in their report so that they can deliver the red meat to uh hungry Democrats who want to undo the election results and remove the president, and if they can't do it through impeachment, you know, they'll use that uh as you say uh correctly in the 2020 campaign.
And it'll be up to the president to make his case to the American people that he has been framed, part of the title of my book, in the Russia hoax.
Let's go to our next caller, Monty joins us from Idaho.
Hi, Monty.
Hello.
You're on the air.
Go ahead.
Good.
Good.
Um I just listened to all the rhetoric from the Democratic side concerning Trump.
They haven't let him be president from the very first day.
I agree.
Uh the Obama administration, he was already president before the first day, and they were already passing a whole bunch of crap.
I mean, sure.
It can be run off.
I don't like uh what they're doing.
It's like I was telling uh lady that answered this for me, they just seem like they're schoolyard bullies, and they're not gonna leave him alone until they get him beat up and you know, dismissed from school.
But but look, I would say that Americans are really smart people and they see through that.
They realize the media is biased against Trump, the Democrats really don't have an agenda.
Um their only agenda is to damage Trump, remove him from office, investigate him.
You know, every time he coughs or sneezes, it's a crime, and they, you know, the Democrats say they're going to investigate, and they are.
I mean, you know, here come the crazies.
You got Maxine Waters and Jerry Nadler and Adam Shifty Schiff and others who will be head of the key committees that will conduct all kinds of uh investigations into alleged nefarious conduct by Donald Trump.
And it's all trumped up, if you will, pun intended.
And uh, you know, uh that's what they're gonna do.
I am heartened by the fact that the president has a golden opportunity to appoint, as I mentioned a moment ago, a really good attorney general who will clean up the corrupt mess, the cesspool of corruption of the Department of Justice and the FBI.
I'm also encouraged that Lindsey Graham, uh the senator from South Carolina, will be the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I mean, I think that's a foregone concluding and he would be wonderful at that.
Uh I mean, he has said that he is vowed he will get to the bottom of these corrupt acts.
Uh and he too believes that nobody is above the law, and he will use the power of subpoena and hearings to get answers to these questions.
And if you have any doubt that he is uh uh a capable man, just go back and look at his uh statements and conduct during the Kavanaugh hearing.
He was, you know, the real hero who helped uh confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.
All right, we're gonna take more of your calls uh on the other side.
I'm Greg Jarrett filling in for Sean Hannity on the Sean Hannity show.
Our number is 1-800-941.
My Twitter handle is at Greg Jarrett.
That's GRE G G, J A R R E T T. We'll be back with more about the Russia hoax.
Welcome back to the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett filling in for Sean today, the day before Thanksgiving.
Uh trying to get as many callers as I can.
Let's go to David in Colorado.
So, David, we've only got about a minute left, so if you would try to be quick.
Okay.
Yeah, hi, Greg.
Hey, you know, I think a half of the country, and I think more than half of the country understands that the Clinton campaign and the Obama administration broke broke the law.
Uh I think we're very frustrated.
The Mueller Special Counsel was appointed immediately almost after Trump was elected.
But what can we do to demand that a special counsel is seated to investigate this ongoing coup attempt by the Democrats?
Well, people You know, I I agree with you, and I, you know, people have a voice.
And you can also uh communicate with the White House.
Say I want a good and competent attorney general like uh Congressman John Ratcliffe.
And uh Ratcliffe can decide to present evidence uh about Hillary Clinton and Comey and McCabe and the others to a grand jury.
Uh, he can also appoint a special counsel.
So we'll wait and see, but make your voice heard.
We'll be back with the Sean Hannity show in just a moment.
Welcome back to the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett filling in for Sean Hennedy today.
You just heard a clip from the president referring to it as a witch hunt.
You know what he's talking about.
First the FBI investigation, then the special counsel investigation of Donald Trump into so-called Russian collusion, which is not even a crime except in antitrust law.
And it's not any other crime.
Try telling that to the media.
They've never read the criminal code in America, so they wouldn't know.
They should read it.
I heard some say, well, okay, if it's if it's not specifically in the criminal code, then there must be other relevant statutes.
I heard one journalist say it's gotta be, this was George Stephanopoulos.
It's got to be conspiracy.
All right, little George, conspiracy to do what?
Um, you know, we conspire every day.
Let's have a meeting this afternoon at three o'clock, let's have dinner.
That's a conspiracy.
It's an agreement.
In order for it to be a crime, there has to be some underlying criminal activity.
So then George went on to say, well, it's conspiracy to defraud the government.
George probably never read the two Supreme Court prevailing decisions on conspiracy to defraud the government, which requires, according to the Supreme Court, evidence of deceit craft, trickery, or dishonesty.
So, for example, having a meeting, and this is what uh Stephanopoulos was referring to, having a meeting at Trump Tower during the campaign between the president's son and a Russian lawyer.
How is that deceit, craft, trickery, or dishonesty if all he uh intends to do is to receive information about Hillary Clinton, which, by the way, would be a vital public interest.
Let's say he received information and disseminated that information.
How is that conspiracy to defraud anybody, especially the American government?
It would be in service of the American government if voters learned that somebody who is the nominee to be president of the United States had engaged in, for example, illicit or corrupt acts.
Well, they didn't read U.S. versus Skilling, the Supreme Court decision that said that requires evidence of bribery or kickbacks.
All right.
Nobody has ever claimed that.
So that's it's not honest services fraud.
Some people have said, oh, you know, it's a violation of federal election laws.
Nancy Pelosi stood in front of television cameras and said the Trump Tower meeting is absolutely a violation of federal election laws, intimating that, of course, it was a criminal violation.
Pelosi's not a lawyer, and she doesn't know the first thing about the federal campaign election act because clearly she's never bothered to read it.
It's not.
Receiving information is not a thing of value under the Federal Campaign Election Act.
And if you go to the Federal Election Commission website, it specifically says that foreign nationals may participate in American campaigns as long as they don't give money or receive money.
And so, you know, if you attend a meeting and you're a foreign national, like a Russian lawyer, you're allowed to open your mouth and speak.
You're allowed to provide information.
It's not a crime.
It's not a violation of the federal campaign election act.
So, you know, I challenge anybody to show me where there was a crime called collusion.
And I go through this in my book called The Russia Hoax, the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump.
Available in bookstores or online.
And, you know, it the title says exactly what it's about.
I lay out the facts, the evidence and law in this scheme, first to clear Hillary Clinton, and then to frame Donald Trump for things he didn't do.
The paper vac version comes out in January with updated information that has occurred since the book went to print.
And all of the information through testimony, depositions, the production of documents, the inspector general's report only corroborates what is in the book.
And so I would encourage you to get the book.
Might make a very good Christmas present for somebody under the tree.
We're going to be taking some of your phone calls during the course of today's program.
The number is 1-800-941-Shawn.
That's 1-800-941-7326.
Those who have been holding will try to get to you first.
Hang in there.
I appreciate your calling.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist.
His work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the 9-11 attacks.
His expertise is especially apparent in his coverage of the Russia hoax.
And in fact, John has cited numerous times in the book.
There are more than 700 footnotes, and some of his distinguished work is contained in the book.
John, thanks for being with us.
Oh, Greg, my pleasure, and congratulations on the success of the book.
It's a must-read.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Now, you wrote a column that was published yesterday.
And it's entitled Questions Grow About FBI vetting of Christopher Steele's Russia Expertise.
What did you find out?
Well, uh one of the things is that when you use someone in the counterintelligence capacity, you want to know do they understand the landscape in which they're operating?
Do they have sources in Russia?
Do they do they have sources in Moscow?
How deeply embedded, or are they prone to being misled or uh had a compromise trick uh pulled on them?
And so one of the things I learned was that in February of 2016, right when Christopher Steele was warming up his relationship with the FBI and the Justice Department through the number four justice official, a guy named Bruce Orr.
They were talking, they were starting to think about how they were going to get evidence on Russia.
Uh, he puts on an intelligence report uh to some of his private clients.
And it boldly predicts that Vladimir Putin is on the way out.
He's losing his grip on power in Russia.
Now just think how absurd that looks two years later, right?
In the summer of 2016, Vladimir Putin uh pulls off one of his great Western seats, right?
he meddles in the Russian uh in the United States election through hacking, at least if you believe the CIA and the FBI.
And yet here, the guy who they're going to use as evidence that uh Donald Trump was colluding with Russia is making this prediction based on his highly sensitive sources, he writes.
And the intelligence is so far-fetched, it's 180 degrees opposite of what the CIA actually was telling the United States government at the time.
He he puts out his intelligence report February 8th, saying Vladimir's looting Putin's losing in his grip on power.
February 9th, the CIA testifies in Congress that Vladimir Putin's at an all-time high in popularity in Russia and that he's consolidating power and that he's going to be even more aggressive in 2016.
So why is that important?
If you're vetting a source and you're going to base one of the most dramatic FISA warrants in American history, asking a court to let them spy on the duly nominated GOP nominee in the presidential election, you better be pretty darn sure your man knows his stuff.
Here's an example of really bad intelligence reporting.
And it's not the only example that was sitting in front of the FBI.
The FBI knew he had no sources in Moscow.
All of his stuff was coming from uh a uh a retired uh Russian intelligence agent in the United States.
And by the way, you're never retired when you're a Russian intelligence agent.
So there's real questions about whether he was being played.
It's a real serious concern that they didn't vet this guy.
And one of the things in my column that really jumps out to me now is I look back at it.
Uh there's a uh FBI intelligence analyst, John Moffam, one of the most trusted guys, guys that analyzes Russian intelligence all day.
Right.
Uh Congressman Meadows asked him, did you by any chance uh had you already vetted the uh dossier before it was used in the FIC?
He's like, no, no, no.
We were just starting the vetting.
We we hadn't really verified it yet.
We were just getting started on it.
It was an ongoing process.
Well, that's not you know, because you wrote it in your book so eloquently.
You have to make sure that what you're submitting in the court evidence is validated, verified, corroborated.
Right.
It was not when they used Christopher Steele's intelligence to justify spying on Donald Trump.
And that's where the conspiracy is.
That is where the failure in FBI uh work is is most evident.
You know, the inspector general found that Christopher Steele was unsuitable as a source.
That's right.
Um, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was he lied.
Um and yet the FBI, through Bruce Orr as a conduit, continued to rely on Christopher Steele.
And James Comey, when he was on his vanglorious book tour in which he was not only peddling his book but his own moral purity, the irony lost on no one, called Steele credible and reliable.
He was anything but.
I mean, Christopher Steele fancied himself as James Bond.
The truth is he's more like the bungling clueless inspector clue.
So I mean, his so-called intelligence, as you point out in your most recent column about the waning of Vladimir Putin was dumb, it was wrong.
It was probably based on absolutely nothing.
I surmise that Steele just made it up the same way his anonymous quadruple hearsay about Trump Russia collusion in the dossier was fabricated.
Well, that that's such an important point.
The FBI has gone out of its way for some time to in their public statements and in their leaking that they occurred around the time of the Trump investigation to portray him as credible, but in fact, he wasn't credible by their own admission.
And here are some of the things that we now know.
James Comey testified under oath that his dossier, Steele's dossier, was both unverified and uncorroborated.
That was ten months after the election uh investigation had already begun.
If the FBI is willing to say under oath it's uncorroborated and it's uh unverified and it's salacious, you have to wonder about its credibility, right?
Secondly, you have Lisa Page testify that nine months in they couldn't verify the dossier.
Most important allegation that Trump and and the uh Russians were colluding, and we know two years later they still haven't validated or verified it.
The reason why it probably wasn't credible.
We know from uh the man who hired him that uh uh Glenn Simpson, he testified, he doubted Some of the stuff that uh that uh Steele was pushing through this dossier to him and now ultimately to the FBI.
And then you have the great conflict of interest, which is that Christopher Steele is being paid by the Clinton campaign, Democratic Party to smear Donald Trump in the election, and they're taking that at the FBI with no grain of salt and going to uh uh a court while it's still unverified and asking for the most awesome of power to spy on a presidential nominee.
All of those things weigh against credibility, uh away against what uh uh uh director Comey said.
And it's funny, Director Comey may say one thing when he's under oath on the book tour, but look at what he said when he was under oath.
He called uh Steele's work unverified and salacious.
It's it's it's unbelievable.
All right.
Um we are with uh John Sullivan, who is a terrific reporter uh for the Hill.
He's gonna stick around for just a second.
We'll squeeze in a quick break.
This is the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett, and in the back uh half hour, we'll get to your phone calls.
This is the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett in for Sean Hannity.
On the first page of my book, I I write that James Comey, more than anybody else is responsible for the most notorious hoax in American history.
But he had help.
A guy by the name of Christopher Steele, who's not even an American, provided the pretext, the excuse to not only investigate Donald Trump, uh, but to spy on the Trump campaign.
This guy Steele composed a dossier that was dubious and funny on its face.
The FBI knew that they didn't care.
They used it to try to frame Donald Trump and undo the election results.
With us is John Sullivan, who has a new column about uh how the FBI's vetting of Christopher Steele um was really non-existent.
John?
Yeah, there's no doubt.
Uh and uh, you know, it's funny.
Last night you and I ran Sean's TV show, and just before Steven Nunez was on talking, and he said something that rang in my ears all night last night, and that is it's not only the failure to vet Christopher Steele, which is now so well documented it's irrefutable.
They apparently submitted other evidence.
He said last night for the first time, first time I've heard Devin Nunia say this, they submitted other evidence to try to bulk up or strengthen Christopher Steele's credibility, and that too will turn out to be bogus and embarrassing.
That's what Devin Nunez, one of the few people who's read the full evidence that the FBI had.
It really raises a concern.
What was going on in the FBI that you had to use bogus evidence, unverified evidence, right?
A foreigner being paid by the Democratic rival of the person you're investigating to try to make a case.
And you know, we talked that you you opened your segment by saying there was no conspiracy, and it's I believe that's going to turn out to be true between the Trump campaign and Russia.
There was a conspiracy to defraud the FISA court of America.
Oh, yeah.
And that's what Americans should be most concerned about coming out of this uh this entire episode.
They didn't tell the truth to the FISA judges who never even held a hearing.
They simply trusted the paper submission by the FBI and the Department of Justice.
Uh they they trusted that they were being truthful, and we now know that they were not.
I mean, the law specifically says regulations, you may not submit unverified information to the FISA court.
And yet Comey and the FBI and the Department of Justice did precisely that.
John Sullivan, as always, great uh talking to you.
Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.
Thanks, Greg.
Have a happy Thanksgiving.
You too.
We're gonna get back uh in just a moment with your telephone calls.
Our number is 1-800-941-Shawn, 1-800-941-7326.
Welcome back to the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett.
Um bit of a kerfuffle over uh the last hour or so.
Um, we heard, of course, that uh a federal judge in where else, San Francisco, one of the most liberal venues, um within the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Ninth Circuit covers um, I think nine different states, and this is a judge within that jurisdiction.
And the Ninth Circuit is, you know, the most liberal, they get it wrong all the time.
This judge ruled against the president on his uh proclamation on asylum, which by the way, um was perfectly legal.
Um, you know, when a judge in that jurisdiction rules against the president, you know that the president is correct, and it will eventually be upheld if it ever gets in front of, for example, the United States Supreme Court.
That's what happened in the uh travel ban case.
You know, all of the judges, some in the Ninth Circuit, including the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, um, got it wrong and had to be corrected.
You know, if federal district court judges and court of appeal judges got it right, we wouldn't need a U.S. Supreme Court.
So uh President Trump, uh, one of the things that uh people like about him is his candor, and he's you know, he's refreshing, and he basically said publicly that this was, you know, an Obama judge.
And he's right.
And this was a classic case of forum shopping.
You know, those who um don't like the president enforcing the law um decided to challenge him in court and they venue shopped in a jurisdiction that they knew would be favorable to them with an Obama judge, and sure enough, that's what they got.
So the president, you know, rips into the judge for being biased, and extraordinarily, the chief justice of the United States, uh John Roberts issued a tweet.
I'll read it to you.
Uh Robert says we do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.
What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.
Well, in an ideal world, Chief Justice John Roberts, uh, don't we wish it were so?
But it ain't.
And you know it.
There are Obama judges and Bush judges and Clinton judges, and sometimes you get people who actually try to be fair and impartial and interpret the Constitution according to its intent.
But not all.
And for you to suggest that there are no such thing as Obama judges uh with a liberal bent who try to legislate from the bench is you know, either gullible or naive or both.
Uh let's go to our phone lines.
Robert joins us from Connecticut.
Robert, what do you think?
Hey, Greg, how are you doing today?
Good.
Good.
Uh first of all, congratulations on the success of your book.
Thank you.
Um so I do want to uh, you know, further talk about that.
You know, I I'm trying to get an understanding of, you know, it is important to me.
It is important to a lot of people in my family and a lot of the people that I keep in my circle that we do have independent judges.
I'm a conservative, but I personally believe that it is just as bad to have a conservative judge as it is to have a liberal judge.
Agreed.
Um how do how do we get back to that?
You know, because Trump, you know, because you know Chief Justice Riley said, yes, he is acting very naively.
His comments are a very naive comment.
Um there actually are partisan judges out there.
Um, but you know, I necessarily don't want a Trump judge.
I want an independent judge.
So how do we get back to that?
How how do we set up a system where we can rely on our justice system to act independently?
Um not someone who just thinks conservative, not someone who thinks liberal.
Yeah.
You know, it's uh construction of the Constitution, lifetime appointments uh by the President of the United States and you know, presidents over the years and and not just recent years, but over history have appointed uh people that uh are uh you know consistent with their own political views.
Uh the really good judges, you know, in America don't care about politics or partisanship.
They simply try to uh do the right thing and in cases of constitutional matters make decisions based on the intent of the Constitution, how it was written, the meaning of the language uh and so forth.
So, you know, other than um changing the Constitution, you know, you're invariably going to get judges with different points of view of how to interpret the Constitution.
Strict constructionists, those with a more uh elastic view of the Constitution.
And then you get judges who just think, you know, what's the political result I want?
And then they figure out a way to get there by contorting the law and the Constitution.
So you know, it's a it's an intractable problem, but it's been a problem for the better part of a couple of hundred years.
And I wish I I wish there was an easy answer.
We've been talking a lot about uh the Russia hoax, the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump.
It's a book that I uh wrote and published in July, but it continues to be topical almost every day.
Why?
Because the Department of Justice and the FBI continue to obstruct um Congress in their uh lawful duty to obtain information.
You know, under the Constitution they have a overwrite obligation and the FBI and the Department of Justice continue to obstruct.
And Robert Muller's investigation continues to this day into so-called Trump Russia collusion.
The president uh most recently uh yesterday had had handed over uh answers to questions propounded by Mueller we don't know the questions we don't know the answers but frankly if the questions were only about collusion it should have taken about 10 minutes for the president to answer them.
I didn't collude with Russia I don't know anybody in my campaign who did I don't have any information to give you end of story.
But uh our listeners have uh several questions about that so let's go to Rose in beautiful Key West Florida.
Hi Rose.
Hey how you doing Greg?
I'm well thank you.
Hey my one of my highlights of of Sean's show which I love is when you and Sarah are on it.
Oh thank you.
I appreciate that.
Hey uh you asked earlier do um do you think they already have the answers to the questions they're asking President Trump what answer is heck yeah they do it's a trap.
Yeah, I think you're right.
But how is he going to get these people off his back if he doesn't, you know, so he can keep stirring this country down a good road?
Well, everything comes to an end, and inevitably, special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation will end with a report.
You know, a lot of people are trying to read the tea leaves and say, you know, the questions to the president are probably the final piece of Mueller's twisted puzzle.
And we do know that Mueller's team of partisans has been diminishing in numbers.
Several have returned to their jobs.
That's another indication that he may be winding things down.
And, you know, Mueller, like everybody in Washington, reads polling data.
Surely he denied, of course, but I'm sure he does.
I mean, during the most recent midterm election, exit polls showed a majority of people think that the entire Russia probe is partisan and politically motivated and a substantial plurality, you know, think that, you know, it's wrong and, you know, there's likely no collusion.
So, you know, I think Mueller probably knows that and is probably trying to reach an end.
But you're right.
I don't think, I mean, the president, more than anybody, has been vocal and transparent about his denials of collusion.
You know, when questioned about the Trump Tower meeting, he said, you know, I didn't know about it in advance.
And Mueller knows the answer to that.
The statement he helped dictate about that meeting, the president has said repeatedly, look, that statement I dictated was accurate.
And it is.
And I address that in the book, by the way.
Russia hacking of Clinton and the Democrats.
the DNC um you know Did you know about it in advance?
No.
Like many Americans, you know, he assumed Clinton's emails were vulnerable to being hacked since they were on illegally, an unsecured, unauthorized and private server in her own home.
110 classified documents.
And probably many more, but she destroyed so many of them.
We'll never know the answer to that.
So yeah, you know, Muller knows the answer to all of this.
You know, the White House handed over 1.4 million pages of documents.
30 White House staffers and people from the campaign voluntarily gave interviews to Muller's investigators.
I mean, you know, he he didn't need to question the president.
He has answers for all of this.
But there is the concern that if the president provides any sort of answer, Muller will distort it to accuse the president of lying.
And, you know, accuse him of making a false and misleading statement, which is a crime.
Um, you know, that's what he did.
That's what Muller did to Michael Flynn.
You know, a distinguished general who served the country well, who didn't do anything wrong, who talked to uh Ambassador Kisliak during the transition as is normal.
It's not a violation of the Logan Act, even though Sally Yates, then the acting attorney general fought so.
She doesn't know anything about the Logan Act, and it's a preposterous.
So he told the truth.
And the FBI agents who interviewed him said he told the truth.
And the FBI was going to drop the whole thing.
But Muller took takes over, and you know, Bob Mueller, you know, God almighty knows better than everybody else, and uh he prosecutes uh Michael Flynn and ruins him.
Uh, you know, this demonstrates that the immense power of the federal government with unlimited resources can destroy an individual personally and financially just because they want to want to do it.
The law be damned.
Muller could never have proven his case against uh Michael Flynn.
Are you kidding me?
I mean, the statute requires that he'd have to show that any statement that was misleading was was done so intentionally and willfully and knowingly.
Well, how can you do that?
I mean, Flynn's first witnesses would have been the two FBI agents who would have sworn under oath in front of a jury.
The guy told the truth.
But Mueller, and Muller knows that, but he knows that he can drive somebody to near bankruptcy, forcing Flynn to sell his own home to pay for his defense.
And finally, Flynn flew through in the towel, mostly because Mueller was threatening to prosecute Flynn's son.
I mean, how unconscionable is that?
So Flynn threw in the towel.
And that's the kind of guy Bob Mueller is, and everybody needs to know that.
Let's go to Mike from Michigan.
Mike, what's on your mind?
Hey, Greg, it's good to talk to you.
You can help me out because I've been screaming at my radio for months.
Every time Sean talks about the way these guys lied to the FISA court judge.
I'm a truck driver.
Spent a lot of time in Detroit and Chicago, and there's a lot of dirty judge in this country.
Why couldn't there be a dirty um uh judge that's handling these cases in the what do you call it, Court?
Pfizer court, yeah.
It's called the FISC, the foreign intelligence surveillance court.
Right.
Yeah, well.
Yeah, listen, and and thank you, Mike.
It's a great question.
Here's the problem with a FISA court.
It's secret.
It's a star chamber.
And we know how that operated in Old England, which is why, you know, we decided in our constitution that, you know, trials should be public, and that the accused should have the right constitutionally to face his accuser.
But The FISA court is a whole different operation because of national security secrets and classified information and so forth.
So it's it's in secret.
And you should know, by the way, it is not an adversarial process.
One side is presented, the government side.
And in this particular case, uh these judges, I think, were not corrupt, but they were fooled.
There was no court hearing.
It was just a paper submission, and they trusted what Come and McCabe and Yates and Rosenstein presented to them, which we know was unverified information.
They deceived the court and concealed vital evidence and perpetrated a fraud on the court.
Well, that's it for now.
I'm Greg Jarrett.
Uh stay tuned when we're hour to go.
Sean Hannity has the day off.
I'm Greg Jarrett.
Thanks for being with us.
We'll be back in a moment.
And welcome back to the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett.
Many thanks for the people who called in great questions, solid commentary.
You folks know what you're talking about.
Maybe you read the book.
It's called The Russia Hoax, the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump a great Christmas present.
I'm Greg Jarrett.
Thanks for being with us.
Coming up next, our final news roundup and information overload hour.
Welcome back to the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett filling in for Sean.
This is our last hour, and I want to thank you for joining us for the total of three hours to many of you who have been here throughout.
I'm the author of the book, The Russia Hoax, the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump.
You can get it at Barnesand Noble.com, Amazon.com, or just drop by your bookstore.
Number one New York Times bestselling book, and it is still relevant today.
How so?
Because the president has answered in writing questions from the special counsel, Robert Muller about so-called collusion, even though collusion can be found found nowhere in the criminal codes, and there has never been any evidence of collusion.
How do we know that, by the way?
Because the top FBI lawyer on the Russia case, Lisa Page, testified two months ago in deposition that the entire time the FBI had the case, they never found a whiff of Trump Russia collusion.
And that's significant.
What does it mean?
It means when they handed it off to the special counsel, they violated federal regulations by appointing a special counsel, because those rules say there must be evidence of a crime.
You just can't appoint a special counsel for a fishing expedition or a safari.
You've got to have evidence of a crime.
That's the law.
Let's bring into the conversation, David Schoen, who's a terrific civil liberties attorney.
And and David, you know, what do you think of the president answering these written questions?
Doesn't Robert Mueller essentially already have the answers to these questions from all of the public statements the president has made, not to mention the 30 people in the White House and the campaign that have been interviewed on the 1.4 million million documents that uh were handed over from the White House to Mueller.
I believe Robert Muller has the answer to any question anyone possibly could want to ask on the subject uh of these questions.
But listen, uh you know, we said from the start, I don't believe Mr. Muller or anyone on his team is actually seeking information.
I don't think they seek to ask questions to learn more information to find out what happened.
I think it simply is as some people call the perjury trap, but specifically what I think it's for is because of the broad jurisdiction Muller is given under the special counsel regulations, specifically section 600.4, by appointing Mueller, they created a whole new set of crimes.
And those crimes are simply in Mueller's uh prerogative to charge uh if he finds if he Muller or anyone finds that the president acted with the intent to interfere with his investigation or committed perjury or obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence.
In other words, creating the special counsel position created a whole new set of crimes, so that all Mueller has to find is that he doesn't believe the president's answer to any questions, and then a new crime has been created.
And by the way, these members of this Team, people like Weissman and Greg Andres, they're masters at that kind of thing, uh coming up with these new crimes simply because someone agreed to an interview.
I personally don't understand the thinking in agreeing to submit the written questions of the answers to written questions, um, uh unless there's an agreement that that ends it and that there's no grand jury subpoena, that there's no um further request for an oral interview, that kind of thing.
And we don't have those kinds of agreements.
I don't understand it.
Even if the agreement with Muller was we're not going to answer any questions about the firing of Comey, anything related to obstruction of justice, anything that the president did after he took office, you can ask him about the campaign and any and all contacts with Russia that the president had or didn't have, or his awareness of anybody else in his campaign.
If that's the agreement, explain the jeopardy.
Well, the jeopardy is simply uh it it's a unilateral decision by Mueller as to whether he believes something in the president's written answers is untruthful.
If it is, Muller can charge a crime.
It may be 100% truthful.
But if Muller believes, even if he doesn't genuinely believe it, if in order to justify his existence, he he he tells everyone that the president lies, and he can charge the president.
So in other words, he he's pulling a Michael Flynn routine all over again.
Flynn was interviewed by the FBI, the agents concluded he told the truth, but Mueller charged Flynn with a false and misleading statement uh charge anyway.
Exactly.
And that's the danger of this thing.
But and again, these prosecutors in the who come from the Eastern District of New York have done that kind of thing forever.
That's why they ask for interviews often, and then they charge with false statements, either to an agent or to them, um, or obstruction of justice in their investigation.
But he I think it's it's un American, Franklin.
Yeah, I agree with you completely.
And here's the problem.
It's easy for a guy like Mueller to level an accusation or make a charge.
Proving it in court is difficult.
And in the case of of both Papadopoulos and Flynn, I think it would have been impossible.
I mean, certain certainly in the case of Flynn, there's no way that uh Mueller would have obtained a conviction.
Why?
Because if you look at the statute, false and misleading statement, it must be made willingly and knowingly that you're you're making a false statement that you're lying.
Same thing with perjury.
It requires intent.
So if your recollection of events is simply different than Mueller interprets it, or somebody else uh remembers it, you know, Mueller will charge, but he can't win under that premise under the statute.
Well, that's of course right, but as you know well, everyone's life changes when he or she is simply charged with a crime.
When an accusation is leveled, that change that's life-changing.
And that's the power that Mueller has been given, and that he chose this team with an agenda to exercise.
And by the way, Greg, you know, you pointed out in the beginning, there never should have been a special counsel appointed.
Not only has there has there to be a basis for a criminal investigation, but their specific requirement under the regulation 600.1 is that the appointment of the special counsel would be in the public interest.
I would respectfully suggest that from all that we've seen, this is a disaster and never was in the public interest.
And I'm hoping, Greg, that you're gonna write a sequel to your book that describes this so-called investigation and how far off the tracks we went in this country.
Well, I yeah, I'm thinking about doing that.
Um, but in the meantime, I hope people will read the Russia hoax, the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump available in bookstores and online.
Um but you know, there's a third reason, David, that the appointment of Robert Mueller was illegitimate.
Under the regulations, there has to be a conflict of interest at the Department of Justice in order for uh the acting attorney general to appoint a special counsel.
Since Jeff Sessions had recused himself under accusations of a conflict of interest and removed himself from the case, didn't he also remove the conflict of interest and therefore none existed?
I agree.
I mean, there's a catch-all phrase about extraordinary circumstances, but focusing on the conflict of interest, I think you put your finger on a very important point here, because there's also another irony about that issue, which I think is an inherent problem with the regulation.
If there's a conflict of interest for the Justice Department, such as the special counsel had to be appointed, then why did Mueller pick as his right-hand man, Andrew Weissman, who comes from the Justice Department, a current employee, head of the fraud unit at the Justice Department, and many other members of the team?
It's true.
The regulations allow it, but why would you do that if you want to be above board and avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest?
As I explained in the book, Robert Muller had three, not one, not two, but three disqualifying conflicts of interest.
And one of them was a mandatory uh disqualification, and yet he ignored them, didn't care.
And then he assembled a team of partisans.
Wouldn't a reasonable conclusion be drawn there from that there is nothing fair or impartial or neutral about this special counsel team?
Absolutely.
The American people should have rejected this team from the beginning.
There's an entire universe of capable lawyers who could have been picked for the special counsel team and should have been picked if he cared in the least about the public perception.
And I would respectfully suggest again that the public perception is a key to any special counsel uh investigation.
It has to be seen as fair and uh impartial.
This cannot be that.
Every member of the team virtually uh has an agenda that met that is an anti-Trump agenda.
They're nearly all were Democratic donors.
Two of the individuals actually represented either the Clinton Foundation's uh foundation or people involved in the investigation in Hillary Clinton's criminal conduct in mishandling classified documents and uh destroying documents and jeopardizing national security.
How could those two individuals have been chosen?
You're a hundred percent right.
I mean, you you've said it over and over, and everyone uh who cares sees it.
I mean, Jeannie Ree represented uh Mrs. Clinton in the very thing that's uh at least related to all of this uh investigation and the competing investigations.
So, you know, I I can just envision what happened.
James Comey was interviewed by the special counsel.
He's a key witness in any potential obstruction case, longtime close friend, ally, former partner with uh Robert Muller.
So Mueller has a choice.
Am I going to believe my longtime friend or the president of the United States, the man who fired my longtime friend?
That's right.
So you mean you you can just see why the conflict of interest recusal regulation was written to prevent that sort of thing from happening, and yet Mueller ignored it with impunity.
That's right.
That's right.
From from start to finish.
Uh I don't look, I hate to sound so cynical.
I don't believe there ever was a search on Mr. Muller's part, any member of his team's part, uh, to seek the truth here or to get information.
I think there's been an agenda, and now I think it's a matter of justifying their existence.
And the agenda was driven, I think, by retribution inventions, which is what I write about in in my book, The Russia Hoax.
That that Muller had every motivation to target Trump unfairly, uh, in an act of retribution for firing his longtime friend.
Or maybe he just doesn't like Donald Trump.
You know, they had a financial dispute and and another conflict of interest was Mueller had actually interviewed the day before he became special counsel.
He'd interviewed with Trump uh to take the job to replace James Comey.
There's another conflict of interest.
Uh, it wasn't disclosed to the president.
Um now the question is what will be in Mueller's report?
And and I am willing to bet, although there is there is no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia, that Muller will write something in the report that will be highly critical of Trump, whether it's collusion or obstruction of justice, so that this will be fodder for Congress, Democrats and Congress who want to impeach the president.
What do you think?
Sure.
I think you're right.
I think it will be full filled with cheap shots and unsupported allegations.
Um listen, let's be honest.
The president was an outsider from the beginning of this thing.
He's never been a part of Mr. Muller's network, and these folks operate in networks.
Um I'm a huge fan of the FBI, as I said before, my father was an FDI agent.
But there's a close-knit circle.
Um, Muller has his uh fans and he has his enemies within that circle.
But Muller is a part of that package, package of government and former government employees, and Donald Trump has never played ball with them.
All right, David Schoen, stick around for just a moment.
We're gonna squeeze in a quick break here on the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett.
We're gonna be talking when we come back from the break about the man, the lawyer that you know Americans love to hate, Michael Avenatti, the creepy porn lawyer who now is accused of felony domestic violence.
We'll be right back.
Welcome back to the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett.
With us is David Schoen, Civil Liberties attorney.
David, I want to talk to you about um the sudden turn of events as to the fate of Michael Avenatti.
This is a man who represented uh Stormy Daniels in uh numerous lawsuits against the President of the United States and others.
This is a guy um who now stands accused of domestic felony abuse.
He insists he is innocent.
And and I, for one, have said from the very beginning, and so is Sean Hannity, that he is entitled to the presumption of innocence and due process.
But I I must say that some of the evidence that is beginning to surface um is not looking so good for Michael Avenatti.
Um the woman who is his accuser, was granted a temporary restraining order by a judge in Los Angeles in the court documents she submitted to the judge uh to keep Avenatti away from her.
She says he dragged her on the floor, threw her into a public hallway dressed only in her t-shirt and underwear, that he allegedly hit her in the face with pillows and engaged in.
Let me just give you a quote here.
He dragged me on the floor of the apartment toward and out the door into the public hallway.
I was wearing my undershirt and t-shirt at the time and suffered scratches to my bare skin and my side and leg.
That's a report from the New York Times based on the court documents that were filed.
What do you think is going to happen?
Oh, uh, I don't know what's going to happen, but the allegations are absolutely chilling.
I mean, he cornered her according to the allegations, sworn allegations, uh, cornered her.
He threatened her if she were to go, begging her not to go to the police, not to go to the press, after leaving marks on her, we're told, um, is absolutely chilling.
But listen, you're right, he deserves due process, as he even now has come to the conclusion uh that a defendant, uh an accused deserves due process.
That wasn't his position, of course, with prospective Supreme Court Justice uh then uh Kavanaugh.
But listen, everything that comes up with this guy, though, there's a denial.
Um, everything is every charge against him is baseless baseless.
The court finds that he uh cheated people out of money.
No, actually, they cheated him out of money, he says, and they owe him more.
Bar complaint was filed for serious misconduct.
There was no bar complainter.
He's not there was no misconduct, he says.
It's he's a media created phenomenon that is absolutely mind-boggling.
I'm afraid now, I was hoping we might see uh Avenatti Stormy Daniels as the tickets to the Democratic Party.
I'm afraid now he may have hurt those chances.
Stormy Daniels might still be in the running, but anyone who cozes up to Michael Avenatti after all of this got to be out of their minds.
But he just keeps coming and coming and coming.
He's got more than nine lives.
I want to say thanks to David Show and Civil Liberties attorney who's been with us over the course of the last hour.
David, many thanks.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
I'm Greg Jarrett.
We'll be right back.
And welcome back to the Sean Hannity Show.
I'm Greg Jarrett filling in for Sean Hannity.
Want to talk now about Jim Acosta CNN and the White House new press rules.
Uh, as you may know, it all began with the insufferable, incorrigible Jim Acosta of CNN when during a presidential news conference, he decided that he was the most important person in the rule room, that he was going to hoist his opinion on the president and engage in an intemperate argument with the president.
Let's take you back to that moment.
Uh thank you, Mr. President.
I wanted to challenge you on on one of the statements that you made in the tail end of the campaign uh in in the midterms.
That's here we go.
That well, uh if you don't mind, Mr. President that this caravan was an invasion.
As you know, it's I consider it to be a miss President, the caravan was not an invasion.
It's a it's a a group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the U.S. Thank you for taking the case.
And why why did you why did you characterize it as such?
Uh I consider it an invasion.
You and I have a difference of opinion.
But do you think that you demonized immigrants in this election to try to want them?
I want them to come into the country, but they have to come in legally.
You know, they have to come in, Jim, through a process.
I want it to be a process, and I want people to come in, and we need the people.
Your campaign has you know why we need the people, Dajim?
Because we have hundreds of companies moving in.
We need the people.
But your campaign had an ad showing migrants climbing over walls and so on.
But if they weren't actors, they're not going to be doing that.
They weren't actors.
Well, no, it's truth.
Do you think they were actors?
They weren't actors.
They didn't come from Hollywood.
These were these were people, this was an actual, you know, it happened a few days ago.
And uh they're hundreds of miles away, though.
They're hundreds and hundreds of miles away.
That that's not an invasion.
Honestly, I think you should let me run the country.
You run CNN.
All right.
And if you did it well, your ratings are.
Let me ask my question.
If I may ask one other question, Mr. President, if I may ask one other question, are you worried?
That's enough.
That's enough.
The other folks.
That's enough.
Pardon me, ma'am.
I'm excuse me.
That's enough.
Mr. President, I had one other question.
If I may ask on the Russian investigation, are you concerned that that you may have a question?
I'm not concerned about anything with the case.
You may have indictment investigation because it's a hoax.
Are you that's enough?
Put down the mic.
Mr. President, are you worried about indictments coming down in this investigation?
Mr. President.
I'll tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them.
You are a rude, terrible person.
You shouldn't be working for CNN.
Go ahead.
I think that's under a very rude person.
The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible.
And the way you treat other people are horrible.
You shouldn't treat people that way.
Go ahead.
And go ahead, Peter, go.
In Jim's defense, I've traveled with him and watched him.
He's a diligent reporter who busts his own.
Well, I'm not a big fan of yours either, so I understand.
To be honest.
Every time, every time I hear that, I gotta laugh.
You know, um I've been a reporter, uh journalist for I don't know, 35 years or so.
I have never seen such an obnoxious, abrasive, rude, self-centered, self-absorbed reporter as Jim Acosta.
And and he's like that every day.
This is a guy who would walk a mile for a camera so he can grandstand in the hopes that any confrontation with the president or the White House press secretary will be played over and over in a constant loop on social media and on CNN and and elsewhere.
Jim Acosta doesn't care about asking questions.
He cares about drawing attention to himself and imposing his own opinion on everybody, including the President of the United States.
Acosta starts out by lecturing the president, as you know, it's not an invasion, he said to President Trump.
Because Acosta had the audacity, the temerity to disagree with a noun.
Acosta needs to go back to grade school, and I'd begin if I were you, Jim.
With Webster's dictionary.
An invasion is an unwanted intrusion.
So it's fair for the president and a great marriage many Americans to regard a caravan composed of thousands of people who broke through a Guatemalan fence by force into Mexico and headed to our border with perhaps the same intentions to be called an invasion.
But you know, Jim Acostria doesn't care about the truth.
He doesn't care about the facts.
He just cares about Jim Acosta and somehow elevating his status on the world or the national stage.
I want to talk to Seb Gorka about this.
Uh Seb has written a wonderful book called Why We Fight.
He's a former White House Advisor, Seb.
Always great to have you with us.
I Want to get your take on Jim Acosta.
Am I wrong that he is just the most obnoxious and insufferable person in the White House press corps?
You're you're not wrong, Greg.
You're just far too polite.
Jim Acosta is a punk.
That's all he is.
He's a grandstanding punk.
And and and I'd like to know why he's ashamed of his Latino heritage.
Jim is not Jim.
Jim was born abilio acosta, and that's why I call him abilio when I tweet about him on social media.
Well, why is he ashamed of his Latin American heritage?
That's so strange.
So strange.
I just don't know how the president and my former colleagues and how they stood up with this person for so long.
I I would have stripped him of his hard path six months ago.
And I do think that the decision in the 1990s to televise all the press briefings was a bad mistake because that's how you get people like Jim Acosta.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, some people have said, oh, Sam Donaldson did the same thing.
No.
Yes, Sam Donaldson would pose uh loud, direct, challenging questions, sometimes with a bit of acaustic edge on them, but he always posed questions.
Sam Donaldson, when he was at ABC and he he was a White House correspondent, would ask tough, challenging questions.
But that's not what Acosta does.
Acosta imposes his opinions on every he is not a reporter.
He's a pundit in disguise as a White House correspondent.
Now, you know Go ahead, Seb.
No, he thinks it's the Jim Acosta show.
He he doesn't think it's the White House press briefing.
He really thinks it's the Jim Acosta show.
You know, it's important to note that the federal judge who issued a ruling, you know, saying Acosta has to have his press credentials back, did not determine that Acosta's First Amendment rights, the free speech, free press, were denied.
Timothy Kelly was the judge.
He issued a temporary restraining order based on due process grounds.
Uh and and here's the problem.
Due process is now been so irrational and reasonably expanded and stretched into a gumby-like figure that it bears no resemblance to the intent of due process by the framers who wrote that in the Fifth Amendment and then later the 14th Amendment.
I mean, in this day and age, if you're denied bathroom privileges, it's now somehow a due process violation.
It's been stretched all out of shape and reason.
And and Seb Gorka, the I mean, this is the end result, isn't it?
Look, you are the legal expert.
You are Fox News' number one legal guy.
Uh I'll leave that to you.
But but as an American citizen as a layman, I always thought due process was about your standing in a judicial process, your standing in a court of law.
What is judicial process got to do with your government pass to access a facility?
Right?
I mean, all you have to do is read the Fifth Amendment.
It's talking about a criminal proceeding, a judicial proceeding.
But you know, judges over the decades have expanded it so that you know somebody looks at you the wrong way in the workplace, you know, oh, you're violating my due process, right?
You know, there but let me move on because Seb, there's always been this accepted set of rules of decency and decorum in the White House press briefing room.
They were never put in writing because reporters understood the rules.
You get to ask one question.
That's right.
Because they were grown-ups.
That's right.
You get to ask one question, uh, but only when you're called on, if you're lucky the president or the White House press secretary, uh, will allow you to ask a follow-up question.
Uh, but you can't commandeer the news conference and argue incessantly with a president.
Uh you can't be like Jim Acosta and hog the microphone.
I mean, if you let Acosta continue on, you know, two hours later, it's still Jim Acosta arguing with the president of the United States.
I mean, what about the other 60 reporters in the room?
So all I know is for the Thanksgiving parties and the Christmas parties, abilio, Jim Acosta will not be popular with his fellow White House press or colleagues.
The idea that we went from a set of unwritten rules, gentlemen's agreements, to having this black on white regulations put in place because of abilio.
I wouldn't want to be Jim Acosta right now.
I know that for sure.
Yeah, I mean, now it's gotten to the point where the the White House has to set rules as if you know the White House press corps are a bunch of children in third grade.
Here are the rules.
They're written out on the chalkboard.
If you want to ask a question, raise your hand.
You may only talk when called upon.
I mean, it's just it's gotten that silly thanks to Jim Acosta and others.
Now, NBC host Chuck Todd uh today is criticizing these new common sense reasonable rules.
He says they're absurd.
And he said, and I'm quoting here, I assume there isn't a single serious journalist in the White House press corps who would abide by these absurd rules.
This is censorship, he wrote.
Really?
I mean, what do you think of that?
Again, you're the legal expert, but but but as far as my understanding goes, First Amendment rights apply to whether a government is trying to stop you from expressing your opinion.
It has nothing to do with journalists and how they behave or whether they uh whether they behave in accordance with the decorum that is required.
Yes.
I think this it's you're you're exactly right, and Chuck Todd, as he is prone to demonstrate every day, knows absolutely nothing.
Zero.
Dumb as a bucket of hair, dumb as a bag of hammers.
Can I just just say one thing?
Because um my friend Anderson Cooper hates it when I remind them.
On a good night, CNN gets 600,000 viewers.
When you or I go on Sean Hannity, it is five million.
CNN is an irrelevance.
And you know, sooner or later, the market forces will just determine their fate.
But less than half a percent of Americans watch these jokers, and sooner or later, nobody will watch these jokers.
You know what I would do if I were press secretary?
I I would walk in there, uh, and I the first person I would call upon would be uh Jim Acosta.
And if Jim Acosta uh pulled something similar and tried to take over the news conference and wouldn't give up the microphone uh after I've said that's enough, uh I would say, here endeth the news conference.
Bye-bye.
And by and by the way, there will be no more news conferences for the rest of the week.
I guarantee you, Seb Gorka, that Acosta would be immediately surrounded by his colleagues who then were deprived of asking any questions at all, and they'd tar and feather him and send him out of Washington on a rail.
Can I can I just, you know, um let's be honest here.
A press conference is held for lazy reporters.
You're you're not breaking news because uh the government is making a statement, which then you type up for your news company.
The press conference is a crutch for lazy journalists, but you know what?
I would love to see what you just heard.
And I think uh I think I can send that idea to a few people in the building.
I wish you would.
Uh, because you know, you abuse the rules, that's it.
Press conference over.
Seb Gorka, I hope you have a great Thanksgiving.
Author of the book, Why We Fight.
Everybody should read it from White House advisor.
Thanks for being with us.
I'm Greg Jarrett.
When we come back, more of the Sean Hannity Show.
Welcome back to the Sean Hannity show.
I'm Greg Jarrett.
I've been filling in for the last uh three hours, and you can follow me on Twitter at Greg Jarrett.
It's been a great time here.
We've had terrific guests, a lot of important subjects that we've addressed.
I want to wish everybody a very happy and safe and joyous Thanksgiving.
And, you know, when you go out shopping the day after Thanksgiving and you're thinking about, you know, maybe Aunt Mary or uh cousin Francis would like a book for Christmas.
Might I suggest the Russia hoax, the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump.
It uh was on the New York Times bestselling list.
Uh it was number one for several weeks, number two for several weeks.
It still holds up.
Every chapter, all the facts, the evidence, and the law about how corrupt people at the FBI and the Department of Justice subverted the rules of law and tried to undo the election results and undermine democracy.
And this is a book I believe in, and all of the evidence that's come out since the book was published only corroborate the thesis.
You can pick it up at your local bookstore, The Russia Hoax.
I'm Greg Gerrett.
Thanks for joining us here on the Sean Hannity Show.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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