Andy McCarthy, Fox News Contributor, columnist for National Review and former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is here today to discuss and unpack the statement today by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Andy has been giving his perspective on these remarks all day, highlighting the next steps for Attorney General Barr and the anticipated actions of Bob Mueller now that he will be a private citizen. Joining him are Gregg Jarrett, Fox News Legal Analyst and author of the Russia Hoax, currently writing his follow up, Witch Hunt and David Schoen, Criminal Defense & Civil Liberties attorney. 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.
You know, there's a part of me that is highly entertained, and I know that it's frustrating to many of you that are watching the breathless hysteria reporting that is now going on this nine-minute press conference by Robert Mueller.
First of all, he's full of crap.
I mean, it's laughable on the surface what he is saying.
And one thing you've got to understand, if Mueller and his merry band of Democratic donors, including Hillary Clinton's former attorney for the Clinton Foundation,
Andrew Weissman, his pit bull, the guy that literally lost tens and tens of thousands of jobs in the Enron accounting case and was overturned 9-0 in the Supreme Court.
And in Sidney Powell's book, she describes how he had withheld exculpatory evidence in the past, no ethics there, sent four Merrill executives to jail for a year until the Fifth Circuit overturned that disaster of his.
I promise you, they would have spelled it out so clearly with zero ambiguity, and there would be absolute certainty that Donald Trump had committed some crime.
They did not even come close to that.
The interesting thing is to watch all of this noise begin again because it's going to die down again because there's no meat on the bone.
There's no substance here for any of them.
And yeah, Mueller's playing a political game at this point, but it's a little more sinister and a lot deeper than I think most people are picking up on.
The real message from Mueller today was, don't talk to me ever again.
I'm done.
You guys go play politics.
I gave you, I'm giving you a little, you know, political bone to chew on here.
But no, we didn't have what you wanted.
And I know you're all disappointed.
And I know you all hate the fact that the independent counsel statute was changed after the Clinton case.
And this is actually the Attorney General's decision.
The interesting part is he's contradicted himself numerous times as it relates to this very issue.
And I don't even think he's aware of it.
And, you know, all this is innuendo.
Now, the way this criminal justice system in America works, if you don't have the evidence, you don't say we don't have the evidence.
You don't say we can't convict.
You're just going to try, you don't bring charges and the case is closed.
If we have a justice system where the likes of Mueller or any prosecutor for that matter, and I do think there are a lot of prosecutors that become zealots and they lose all human proportionality and perspective.
And unfortunately, again, some are great.
Some do their job.
They follow the law and they don't deviate.
They don't have agendas.
But others, it becomes like their game.
It becomes how many convictions can I get?
How many?
I'm going to take this guy down.
I'm going to do this.
And that's where a lack of ethics occasionally comes in.
And now, so none of this, as it relates to the Mueller report, has changed a thing.
Now, you got to understand here, there is nothing legally at all that rises to the level of anything that would resemble an indictment.
It's not there.
And what Mueller's kind of skillfully tried to do today, and I was watching Gerald Nadler after, and by the way, Mueller looked like, you know, a wreck today.
It was, and I think what's happening is he's showing up at his DC parties, and he's probably getting a lot of crap for the fact that he didn't do what the left wing in the D.C. sewer and swamp wanted him to do.
And he just basically washed his hands today.
I'm never going to talk again.
This is my last, I'm never, it speaks for itself.
Okay.
If it speaks for itself, then you've got a problem because there's no underlying crime based on your own words.
Donald Trump, you know, Trey Gowdy infamously says, well, if you're innocent, act like it, quote, damn it.
That's what he said, not me quoting.
Well, how do innocent people act?
Well, I know if I'm going to be accused of something that I'm innocent of, I will loudly proclaim my innocence.
And with all the noise that, well, Donald Trump vented because two years of his presidency, probably 50% of his time was spent on what he knew was a witch hunt and knew that he did not do, which Mueller confirmed that they had no evidence again today.
He's pissed at times when you want to do your job and you've got to sit with a group of lawyers and you got to go over strategy again and again and again on the same topic.
It gets a little bit old.
But what Mueller doesn't want to do, it's not that he doesn't want to explain to the Jerry Nadlers of the world.
If he gets called before Congress, Robert Mueller is going to get destroyed with really hard questions.
When did you know that there was no collusion of any kind?
When did you, how is it that your mandate that said you could pretty much go anywhere, which originally was about interference, Trump, Russia, collusion, conspiracy, whatever, you had time to go into FARA violations, which are like ridiculous.
You know, it is, it is so insignificant.
And did you do that after you already knew that there was no collusion, conspiracy of any type?
How did you have time to dig into taxi medallion issues?
How did you have time to dig into loan application issues?
How did you have time to dig into all of these other taxes and all these other insignificant things?
But you ignored the dirty Russian dossier that was paid for by the other candidate in the very race, if you're talking about election interference, that we know was selectively leaked to members of the media, the Washington Post, and hacks like David Korn and Michael Isakoff.
How did you ignore, even the New York Times is suggesting now that the Hillary Clinton bought and paid for Russian dossier was from the get-go Russian disinformation designed to impact the 2016 election.
That's far closer to his mandate than taxi medallions, FARA violations and loan applications.
Why didn't you have time to ask just a few questions on that?
I don't think he has an easy answer there.
And then the specific follow-ups that would occur thereafter.
Mueller doesn't want to go before Jim Jordan.
Now, Nadler's in a pickle because Nadler got the message today.
I'll give you this bone, but don't call me before Congress.
And the reason really that Mueller doesn't want to go, because Republicans are going to ask the questions that he can't really answer.
You know, how about the Steele dossier?
That's a foreign agent.
I thought foreign agents were not supposed to impact our elections.
How did that become the basis for the FISA applications?
How did that get leaked information that was unverified that we now know is unverifiable because Christopher Steele doesn't stand by his own dossier.
He says he has no idea if it's true.
How did you ignore all of that?
What turned out to be Russian disinformation, Russian lies, bought and paid for by one candidate and used to bludgeon the other candidate.
And even people you hire like Strzok and Page, no thanks to Mueller.
We found their text messages.
That was because of Michael Horowitz, the inspector general.
How is it possible you missed all this if that was what you were supposed to be investigating?
I don't see the answer that would ever make any sense for him.
And remember, you know, this whole issue, the Attorney General.
So we used to have the Independent Counsel Statute.
That was up to the Clinton years.
Remember the Star Report?
There were 11 specific crimes that Ken Starr outlined as it relates to crimes that Bill Clinton committed.
And by the way, Bill Clinton, you know, he did all of these things.
I mean, these, you go back, it was pretty serious.
And that Ken Starr said there's substantial, credible information supporting the following 11 possible grounds for impeachment.
One, Clinton lied under oath in a civil case when he denied a fair, sexual relationship or relations with Monica Lewinsky.
Two, the president lied under oath to the grand jury about his sexual relationship.
Three, in a civil deposition to support his false statement about the sexual relationship, President Clinton lied under oath about being alone with Ms. Lewinsky and about the many gifts exchanged between Ms. Lewinsky and him.
President Clinton lied under oath in his civil deposition about his discussions between Ms. Lewinsky concerning her involvement in the Jones case.
And the president obstructed justice, had an understanding with Ms. Lewinsky to jointly conceal the truth about their relationship by concealing gifts subpoenaed by Paula Jones' attorneys, and it goes on from there.
Now, he ended up paying nearly a million dollars to Paula Jones.
He lost his law license and he was impeached.
But they're very specific.
And the reason we're now out of the independent counsel statute is because of people like Jerry Nadler.
Jerry Nadler at the time didn't want the Star Report published.
Well, now he even wants grand jury information in the Mueller report published.
This is not about facts.
This is not about truth.
This is not about anything other than, oh, we get another round of conspiracy theories until it dies again.
And the reason we know it's dead is because the Attorney General under the special counsel statute that replaced the independent counsel statute is the final arbiter.
Now, the report was handed over to the Attorney General and the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, and the Office of Legal Counsel without, and they said at the time, they gave no consideration to Justice Department policy as it relates to whether or not a sitting president can be indicted.
And based on the findings of the Mueller report, after Mueller didn't decide, was no obstruction.
Now, if all these people cared about obstruction, why have none of them ever brought up what we discuss?
Hillary Clinton, the evidence is overwhelming, incontrovertible.
She violated the Espionage Act, had top secret classified information on a private server in a mom-and-pop bath shop bathroom closet.
Then she had intention, which is a very big part of any obstruction charge.
What was the intent?
Well, she had subpoenaed emails, 33,000 of them, and she erased them.
And then her hard drive, they used acid wash known as bleach pit to wipe it clean if there was any forensic materials that could have otherwise been recovered.
And then an aide busted up BlackBerries and iPhones with hammers.
And then SIM cards were removed.
Now, what was the intent to destroy the evidence of the underlying crime?
Well, there is no underlying crime in this case.
And the fact that the president, under Article 2 of our Constitution, had full complete authority to get rid of Mueller anytime he wanted for conflicts of interest, but he didn't do it anyway, means that this is nothing but another round of lying, another round of conspiracy theories, another round of breathless hysteria,
the creation of false hope in the left in this country that they're going to get Trump anyway.
And they're not going to.
And what everybody's forgotten, I'll get to as this hour unfolds, we already have the answer.
The Mueller report is done, dead, and finished.
Anything you hear about it from now on is noise.
If the Democrats want to try and impeach, they will guarantee 1,000% the re-election of Donald Trump.
My advice to them is go for it.
I think that's good for them.
That the Green New Deal and never focus on helping the American people live in a safer, more secure, more prosperous country.
And then we'll compare the record.
Are we better off than we were four years ago?
And Donald Trump could probably win by a landslide.
Oh, there's a brutal takedown by Alan Dershowitz that just came out from The Hill.
And the headline is, shame on Robert Mueller for exceeding his role.
And what he says about the statement, that if we had confidence the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so, he writes, is worse than the statement made by then FBI Director Comey regarding Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign when Comey declared regarding that in July of 2016,
although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classed information.
But remember, Comey was involved in taking out the legal standard gross negligence.
More on the other side.
All right, 25 now till the top of the hour, 800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number.
All right, I want to take, I want to go back in one sense.
There's a very entertaining side of what's unfolding in the Democratic Party, and it's simple.
They don't know what to do.
Because Nancy Pelosi, she kind of instinctively knows this is a really bad political idea to move forward with impeachment on an obstruction case with no intent because there's no underlying crime.
And even Mueller's statements today are no different than what was in the report.
And just because the left gets jazzed and re-energized with their conspiracy theory doesn't mean it's smart politics.
And, you know, even Nadler looked like he was so unsure of himself today.
And then you got the cowardly shif, you know, bubble and fizzing like Alka-Seltzer and water all day about Mueller's nine-minute statement this morning.
Nancy Pelosi is the one that now finds herself at odds with the lunatic base of the Democratic Party.
And there's a lot of them, the new Green Deal crazies.
And so after Mueller spoke this morning, Pelosi then continued her call for Congress to move forward with investigations into the president.
Okay, we've had four separate investigations.
They have all concluded the same thing.
The FBI nine-month investigation, even Struck and Page admit, there was no there there, and they had nothing.
And that was before the appointment of Mueller, nine straight months.
Then we had the House Intel Committee, nothing.
The bipartisan Senate Committee, nothing.
Even Mueller reiterating today, nothing.
So, you know, for her to say, you know, holding firm that in not advocating impeachment and the crazy and appeasing the crazy base of the party that would, it would guarantee two things.
It would guarantee the reelection of Trump and guarantee that they are marginalized as a party for years to come, maybe to a point where they can never recover, that the only Democrats that will be elected are the crazy Democrats.
So, you know, she can say all she wants that they hold this, you know, sacred constitutional responsibility to investigate and hold the president accountable.
They're nothing but words.
Let's go back.
Remember Mueller decided not to decide.
And so that then, again, we got rid of the independent counsel statute.
We now have the special counsel statute.
Under the special counsel statute, it is the attorney general that makes these decisions.
The attorney general is now a man by the name of Bill Barr.
The deputy attorney general has just resigned or left is Rod Rosenstein, along with the Office of Legal Counsel, all concluding in very short order without any consideration of, quote, Justice Department policies as to whether you can or cannot indict a sitting president, all said the same thing.
No indictment, no evidence, doesn't rise to any level, not even close.
And of course, no underlying crime, but, you know, Democrats only care about obstruction if it's Trump.
They only care about collusion with Russia if it's Trump.
Let's just ignore the Hillary Clinton bought and paid for Russian lies that were spread to the American people and used as a weapon to get a backdoor to spy on the Trump campaign and then the Trump transition team and then the president.
But this line of questioning, Lindsey Graham, the Attorney General Barr, says it all.
And this holds today in spite of noise, that it's over.
Mueller is over.
It's done.
The curtain has closed on Act One.
And then you listen to what the Attorney General is now investigating, and you understand that the curtain is rising on the deep state.
And that will, and with the declassification last week, guarantee that the American people will discover all of the things that I've been telling you about the abuse of power, about a rigged investigation to the favored candidate that should win $100 million to zero, that will go to the heart of real Russian disinformation used to impact the 2016 election,
that power abused with the FISA courts and FISA court judges lied to by omission, not telling them that Hillary paid for this document put together by a foreign national that doesn't stand by the document, which renders that document then unverifiable because Christopher Steele, I don't know if any of this is true, and then used to bludgeon as an insurance policy a duly elected president.
That curtain is just rising.
The lights are now going down.
The curtain is about to go up and all of it's coming.
And with the declassification order last week, that means we're going to get it all.
It's just not a matter of if anymore.
It's a matter of when we get it all.
And this is the definitive statement on this all being over, except for a few zealot, extreme, radical Democratic socialists that just wake up every second minute hour of every day like the media mob, just hating all things Donald Trump.
Do you share my concerns about the FISA warrant process?
Yes.
Do you share my concerns about the counterintelligence investigation, how it was opened and why it was opened?
Yes.
Do you share my concerns that the professional lack of professionalism in the Clinton email investigation is something we should all look at?
Yes.
Do you expect to change your mind about the bottom line conclusions of the Mueller report?
No.
Do you know Bob Mueller?
Yes.
Do you trust him?
Yes.
How long have you known him?
30 years, roughly.
You think he had time he needed?
Yes.
You think he had the money he needed?
Yes.
You think he had the resources he needed?
Yes.
Do you think he did a thorough job?
Yes, and I think he feels he did a thorough job and had adequate evidence to make the calls.
Do you think the president's campaign in 2016 was thoroughly looked at in terms of whether or not they colluded with the Russians?
Yes.
And the answer is no, according to Bob Mueller.
That's right.
He couldn't decide about obstruction.
You did.
Is that correct?
That's right.
You feel good about your decision?
Absolutely.
That's the reality, legally speaking.
The Attorney General, under the new special counsel statute, not the old independent counsel statute, makes the final determination.
And in this case, it was made rather quickly.
And in this case, it was made in full agreement with the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of Legal Counsel.
Now, what Alan Dershowitz is arguing is very dead on accurate.
Now, politically speaking, that's very different from anything from a legal perspective.
The legal perspective, as it relates to Mueller and the president, is dead.
It's done.
It's over.
It's finished.
And, you know, you got to understand that there is zero reason for what Mueller did today, except Mueller, I could tell, is scared to death if he ever got before the committee, which now puts, you know, pressure and puts Nadler and company in a bit of a quandary.
Because what we have in all of this is a rogue prosecutor who picked an abusively unfair, biased team, and they still couldn't get the president.
And, you know, now he can't answer questions about very specific issues about his decision-making in this process, who he hired, what he chose to investigate.
His mandate was so broad.
How do you ignore the Russian dossier?
How do you ignore all of these things?
And, you know, it's to the point where, you know, I could tell you he's in a pretzel because he's not being treated well at the Washington elite parties.
He's not as accepted and as esteemed as he once was.
You know, and we saw all of this throughout this whole process.
Now, what Dershowitz said about it, which I think is really important, is that if we had confidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said that.
Okay, do you have evidence he did?
Do you have the evidence that is indictable that could lead to a conviction?
Well, the opinion has been rendered there too.
And again, if you use the Clinton standard, which the media will never make the comparison, which is warranted and justified and appropriate, well, go back to when James Comey did his July 5th,
2016 press conference and said, well, we did find, didn't find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate the laws, intended, keyword, governing the handling of classified information.
There is evidence that they were extremely careless.
The first draft in May of 2016 had gross negligence.
Now, why did they change the words?
Because that is the legal standard.
So they did it.
They designed it to protect Hillary Clinton.
And so that was their way of doing so.
And what Dershowitz is pointing out is what Comey did, you know, was universally criticized for going beyond what his responsibility is in terms of stating whether or not there's sufficient evidence to indict in this particular case Clinton.
I think the evidence was so overwhelming and incontrovertible, such a clear-cut case of 18 U.S.C. 793 and certainly meeting the standard of intent, subpoenaed emails deleted, acid-washed, and devices busted up and SIM cards removed.
Anyway, but Comey did that and everybody criticized him.
Mueller does this today, going beyond the conclusion of his report to try and give, throw a bone on the way out the door, probably so he won't be called to testify, because I think Mueller is afraid of having to testify.
I want Mueller to go testify.
I think Mueller under oath will be a disaster for Robert Mueller.
And I think deep down he knows it.
He now has to justify the team he appointed.
He now has to justify why he would have prioritized loan applications and taxi medallions and farah violations over a dirty Russian dossier that the NEW YORK Times is suggesting was in fact Russian disinformation paid for by the one candidate that we know was saved by rogue upper echelon people in the FBI, because she should after all win $100 million a zero.
And Trump is loathsome and if he wins, he can't win, but we have to have an insurance policy.
He knows all of that comes into play.
And Dershowitz said until today, I defended Mueller against the accusation that he's partisan.
I didn't believe he personally favored the Democrats or Republicans.
I think one, look, I like Professor Dershowitz.
I think he was a little naive here.
And I saw you can't appoint only Democratic donors and Hillary's attorney and a guy like Weissman and not have a partisan agenda.
You just can't.
But he said by putting his thumb, indeed his elbow on the scale of justice in favor of impeachment based on obstruction, I'll add without an underlying crime, Mueller has revealed his partisan bias.
It's clear he hates Donald Trump, okay?
But he does have respect for Barr.
Barr's been respectful to him and he was trying to be respectful towards the Attorney General.
But in any normal case, a prosecutor never goes beyond publicly disclosing that there's insufficient evidence to indict.
And Dershowitz's words, no responsible prosecutor would ever suggest that the subject of his investigation might be guilty, even if there is insufficient evidence or other reasons not to indict.
So it is beyond unethical what Robert Mueller did today.
And I think what he's going to get in return is probably a pass for testifying.
Because if Jim Jordan gets a hold of him and Mark Meadows gets a hold of him and he has to answer under oath a lot of serious questions about his decision making and about when he knew that there was no collusion, I think Robert Mueller's story is going to collapse under its own weight.
And why did he hire this biased team?
So, you know, no prosecutor would ever do this.
And it doesn't matter that it's a political statement that he made.
You know, federal investigations by prosecutors, including a special counsel, you know, by their very nature are one-sided because they only hear the evidence of one side, not the exculpatory evidence.
Witnesses are not subject to any counter, you know, cross-examination.
And evidence is taken in secret behind closed doors of a grand jury.
And that's why prosecutors can only conclude whether or not they have the evidence to commence a prosecution, which he did not conclude.
And he contradicted his own statements in terms of what he had communicated to Barr, that that was not a factor, meaning The laws or the policies that would govern whether a sitting president can be indicted or not.
This is a travesty of justice.
This is the witch hunt on steroids, but none of it matters.
It's all noise.
And if the Democrats go down the impeachment route, I say more power to them because they will guarantee the election, re-election of Donald Trump.
That will be an act of political suicide, the likes of which we've never seen in our life.
The Special Council's office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy.
Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.
And beyond department policy, we were guided by principles of fairness.
It would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge.
So that was Justice Department policy.
Those were the principles under which we operated.
And from them, we concluded that we would, would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime.
That is the office's final position.
And we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president.
All right, our two Sean Hannity show.
Glad you are with us.
Write down our toll-free telephone number.
It's 800-941-Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program, understand what's happening here.
Understand that this is exactly the opposite of how justice in America works.
And all this was the special counsel literally just giving, just dropping little nuggets, innuendo hits, when under our system of justice in America, if you don't have the evidence, you don't say we can't convict.
You just don't charge.
It's really that simple.
And what Mueller did here is nothing but pure politics.
If they had the evidence at all, in any way, shape, matter, or form, to prove any crime, be it collusion, conspiracy, whatever, so on and so forth, they would have brought those charges forward and they would have made it clear.
And what has happened here is it has just gone in the opposite direction for them.
So it is, you know, how do you defend against a never-ending cloud of innuendo over your head?
And what are the long-term ramifications about this?
Now, look, the effort to unseat a duly elected president continues.
It's never going to stop.
You know, if Donald Trump cured cancer, if Donald Trump gave every American $10 million and he adopted even the Green New Deal and every left-wing policy that exists, they'd still hate him.
And nor does it in any way deflect from all that we now know is coming.
With the declassification, that means the FISA warrant applications will come out.
That means the 302s will come out.
That means the exculpatory evidence that was hidden will come out.
That means that all the closed-door tests, it's all coming out.
There's a second act to this, and it is going to be devastating to all of these deep state collaborators.
Those, you know, how Robert Mueller had time to look into, let's see, loan applications, taxes going back to the 80s, Farah violations, taxi medallions,
but ignored what the New York Times is now suggesting was a Hillary Clinton bought and paid for, put together by a foreign agent, Russian disinformation that was used for the very specific reason of creating interference and even outcome of the 2016 election in favor of Hillary to ignore it all is unconscionable.
Now all of that is coming into the fray.
As I said, you know, go back to when Lindsey Graham interviewed the Attorney General, Barr.
Barr said there was no consideration given when he made the decision, along with the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, with input from the Office of Legal Counsel, that this whole Justice Department policy issue of whether you can or cannot indict a sitting president never came into play.
And what Robert Mueller said is dead wrong.
If Robert Mueller wanted to come out and say this is what we found, he wouldn't have punted it to the Department of Justice.
Anyway, we've got full analysis, a lot of different angles to get to today.
Andy McCarthy, the great attorney he is, formerly of the Southern District of New York, and, of course, number one best-selling author, legal analyst Greg Jarrett, the Russia hoax, and David Schoen, criminal and civil liberties defense attorney.
How are you all?
Welcome to the program.
Greg, why don't we start with you today and your thoughts overall as we begin our analysis of this?
Well, once again, as he did in his report, the special counsel Robert Mueller seems to have reversed the burden of proof and inverted the presumption of innocence.
You know, once again, he is saying we cannot prove the president did not commit a crime.
Think about what that really means.
It's a double negative.
Mueller was contending he can't prove something that didn't happen.
You know, what if that's the standard for all investigations?
Let's say you deposited your paycheck at a bank on Monday, the same day it's robbed, and then the prosecutor makes a public announcement.
He can't prove you didn't rob the bank, so you're neither criminally accused nor exonerated.
The burden of proof has been shifted to you to disprove the negative.
That's not the way our system of justice operates.
But Mueller maligned Trump with a taint of criminality and depriving him of the presumption of innocence, and he did it once again today.
Your take, David Schoen.
Several points real quickly.
Why did Mueller never say this before, that the sitting president couldn't be indicted?
This was a subject of discussion day after day by the president's lawyers, how outrageous this was.
Number two, if there was never could be a criminal prosecution of the president, and Mueller understood that, why was 600.1 of the regulations triggered?
That requires a criminal finding that there's a criminal prosecution or investigation of a person or matter that justice had a conflict with.
Under 600.2, there were alternatives to this, including just an initial investigation.
As Greg said, innuendo is tougher than a specific charge to defend against.
You can't defend against it.
And they make it worse by saying if there were no crime, then they would have made that clear.
Last thing is, you can bet your bottom dollar that if they had evidence of a crime here with people like Andrew Weissman and Robert Mueller on this committee in special counsel's office, they would have laid that out.
They would have said what the crimes were.
They would have said their evidence.
But we can't charge him because he's a sitting president.
Well, and your take, Andy McCarthy.
I mean, if you decided when you worked for the Southern District of New York not to indict somebody, you decided not to indict them.
Do you go out there and say, well, do you leave a cloud of suspicion?
Well, we think we might have been there, but we weren't there.
And how do you reconcile the varying statements?
I mean, if Rod Rosenstein, Office of Legal Counsel, the Attorney General, made what was a pretty clear, quick decision that had no basis or even considering this question of Justice Department policy about indicting a President of the United States while in office, he was clear that was not a consideration.
Well, Sean, I think now we have to really look at the timeline of that because what happened here, it looks to me like, is Mueller met with Barr on March 5th.
That's when they say they had their first conversation, according to Barr's testimony.
And as I understand it, it was at that meeting that Mueller repeatedly told Barr, I think Barr said three times, and he was emphatic about it, that the OLC guidance was not the reason why Mueller had decided not to make a decision about obstruction.
And then Barr asked him, well, what is your reasoning?
And Mueller said, we're still formulating that.
And then by two and a half weeks later, on March 22nd, when Mueller delivers the report, he has this whole section in the beginning of the obstruction part of the report that really lays it at the feet of the OLC guidance.
So, you know, I think that's probably what happened.
That's probably why the Attorney General said what he said.
And, you know, it seems to me that Mueller, the one thing that Mueller decided was he wasn't going to decide.
He didn't want to be the one to pull the trigger, and he couldn't come up with a coherent reason for not making the only decision that he was really arguably needed to make.
I didn't think there should be a special counsel at all.
And then at the last minute, he obviously decided, well, we'll lay it at the feet of the OLC guidance.
Well, but Mueller, everybody knew about Justice Department policy anyway, correct?
Well, they did, Sean.
But, you know, look, there's a big difference, and this is one of the things that really bothers me about Mueller.
There is a big difference between the role of the prosecutor who is investigating the case and the Justice Department that has to enforce Justice Department policy.
It was none of Mueller's concern that there's OLC guidance that says you can't indict a sitting president.
The only thing Mueller needed to do as the prosecutor who was handling the case was tell the Justice Department, yes, there's enough evidence to charge or no, there's not enough evidence to charge.
And if he thought there was enough evidence to charge, then you tell the Justice Department that.
And if the Attorney General at that point wants to invoke the policy that says a sitting president can't be indicted, then the Attorney General can invoke it.
But there was no reason for the prosecutors working on the case to worry about that.
And he's 100% right.
And that decision, by the way, by the Attorney General should have been made on the front end.
And that's the first point he made, that the special counsel never should have been appointed.
The Attorney General, the Assistant Attorney General at this point, Rosenstein, well knew OLC policy and knew that there wouldn't be a criminal prosecution of the president under that policy.
What Mueller told us today is what we knew.
He has cost the taxpayers millions of dollars and paralyzed the presidency for two years for nothing.
Sean, can I say one other thing?
Something that's got to be decided now that I think Barr was trying to sidestep.
There's clearly a difference between Barr and Mueller about what the legal requirements are for obstruction.
And I think Barr tried to sidestep that by saying, even if we apply Mueller's looser standard on the facts of the case here, the government would not be able to prove obstruction beyond a reasonable doubt.
Now I think with Mueller's report out there and with Mueller saying, I can't say that this isn't a crime, it's really incumbent on the Justice Department and the Office of Legal Counsel at this point to step in and tell us what is the Justice Department's position on what obstruction law says.
Is it Mueller's position or is it some other position?
You know, one of the interesting things, Greg Jarrett, is, you know, Mueller takes this position today, but if we look at the whole case, nobody was charged.
He didn't even return one charge because there was no evidence as it relates to any of these issues.
And, you know, and then we get to the whole issue of what does the law mandate?
I mean, then we get to the double standard issue because, okay, if there was no underlying crime, you never believed there was an underlying crime.
You believed in your innocence.
You proclaimed your innocence as the president did every single day.
And while, you know, Dom McGain could say that he might have suggested firing Mueller, well, somebody else would have replaced Mueller because of a conflict of interest.
That would be within the president's powers under Article II.
But the president never fired Mueller, never fired Rod Rosenstein, let the investigation go forward.
He encouraged everybody in the White House publicly and privately to testify.
They all did.
1.5 million documents handed over in the process of all this.
And saying that this is a witch hunt hardly is obstruction.
Where is the obstruction?
Well, there is none.
First of all, there are two U.S. Supreme Court decisions that say general statutes don't apply to a president who's exercising his constitutional authority unless those statutes say so.
If you look at all of the obstruction statutes, they do not expressly apply to the president.
So as a constitutional matter, in things like firing James Comey and the words allegedly uttered about Michael Flynn, those as a constitutional proposition do not qualify under obstruction of statute.
But even if you accept some sort of expansive, elastic interpretation of obstruction as it applies to the president, for every allegedly incriminating finding in Mueller's report, there is a corresponding exculpatory explanation.
So even there, there's no corrupt intent or improper purpose as obstruction requires.
So on all fours, obstruction has no application to the president.
What concerns me here is that Mueller's peddling two different stories.
He says to the public that the OLC opinion, you can't charge a sitting president, prevented him from doing his job.
And yet, according to Bill Barr's testimony and his statement to the media, he was specifically told by Mueller on three occasions that the OLC opinion has nothing to do with his decision.
So somebody's not telling the truth here.
And I don't know who it is, but I'll tell you this much.
Mueller's story doesn't really stand up.
All right, I want to pick up on that point when we get back.
Greg Jarrett, Andy McCarthy, David Schoen with us, 800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number.
We'll get Bill O'Reilly's take at the top of the next hour.
Conducted an independent criminal investigation and reported the results to the Attorney General, as required by department regulations.
Now, I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you in this matter.
I am making that decision myself.
No one has told me whether I can or should testify or speak further about this matter.
There has been discussion about an appearance before Congress.
Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report.
It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made.
We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself.
And the report is my testimony.
I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before Congress.
Yeah, but I'd love to get answers to questions.
When did he know there was no collusion?
I'd like to know, well, if you had time for taxi medallions, loan applications, taxes, and faro violations, why didn't you have time for a foreign, put-together, phony Russian dossier that was used as the basis of a FISA warrant before the election and after the election, paid for by the opposition party?
Was that not, is the New York Times right in their description that it was very likely Russian disinformation?
Maybe that's a little bit more important than taxi medallions and a little bit more important than FARA violations.
I don't think Mueller wanted to answer any of these questions.
So Democrats are doing what they do, which is, you know, of course, there's Nadler out there.
Of course, impeachment is on the table.
Mueller found substantial evidence of obstruction of justice.
No, he did not.
Point out to me where that evidence is.
Mueller could not charge Trump because of Justice Department rules.
That's not even what he's saying.
And the Attorney General, which, again, people like Nadler never wanted the star report with 11 specific charges that Congress should look into with Bill Clinton.
He didn't want that public.
And the former law was changed into the current law, which was, you know, we used to have, you know, very different way of handling all of this.
And we've gone over in detail.
So, okay, what does this all mean?
Anyway, we continue with Andy McCarthy, David Schoen, and Greg Jarrett.
It looks to me like Mueller just made a quick political statement with no substance in fact, when in fact, the current law as it is written, the call was to be made by the Attorney General if he decided not to make one, Greg Jarrett.
Absolutely.
And, you know, I'm not sure I understand the whole point of Mueller's statement today that lasted about 10 minutes.
Not going to take any questions.
I'm not going to testify, which, by the way, he has no choice of doing if he receives a subpoena.
He's not above the law.
But so, you know, this strikes me as yet another effort by Mueller to smear the president with a taint of criminality when, in fact, his report, if you really dig through it, as I have three times, demonstrate that there's no obstruction of justice.
And let me make one other point about the Office of Legal Counsel opinion.
Go back and look at Barr's testimony before the Senate.
He said that Mueller told him that there might be a case in which a president can be charged while sitting in office and that the OLC opinion can be, quote unquote, abandoned.
So, you know, this whole thing strikes me as a bit of a charade by Mueller again to smear Trump.
And Andy McCarthy, your take on that part.
Well, Sean, I thought it was pretty presumptuous of him to say that, you know, my testimony is the report, so I wouldn't have anything else to say.
Can you imagine a lawyer telling the Court of Appeals when they ask you at a legal argument some questions about the position you've taken in your brief?
And are you going to tell them, sorry, Your Honor, I've already said everything I had to say in the brief.
And how dare you ask me any more questions?
Of course, if he gets subpoenaed, he's going to have to come in and he's going to have to answer questions.
And he's going to have to answer questions about his investigative decisions, which include, I think, the fact that he probably knew that there was no collusion case as early as, I'd say, probably September 2017 when they didn't go back to the FISA court and ask for another warrant on Carter Page.
So there's a pretty important question here about especially if they're going to try to push a lot of obstructive conduct that happened after that point, according to Mueller's own report.
Why wasn't the president and why wasn't the country told that there was no collusion case against the president?
I think things would have gone a lot differently if that had happened.
Yeah, and David, what were you going to say?
There's two things.
I think, first of all, Mueller owed, if this is his position, he owed that to the American public almost two years ago when the president's lawyers were saying it about the OLC policy.
But think about this other angle about what Mueller said today.
He said, first of all, that Barr made more of the report public than he had to, and that he, Mueller, appreciated that, and that he, Mueller, would not go beyond any testimony, give any testimony beyond what's been made public in the report.
Now, when Mr. Barr took that position, Nadler and Schiff called him essentially a traitor.
He's going to be thrown out of office, et cetera, et cetera.
Let's see what they say about Mr. Mueller taking that same position because he's been their hero for quite a while.
So basically, we're dealing with politics, not the law, Greg.
That is the way I'm hearing this.
Oh, absolutely.
And, you know, again, if you read the special counsel report, it's 448 pages of politics and not so much the law.
And it's almost as if you can tell that Mueller and his team of partisans knew that there was no legal basis for an obstruction case against the president.
And so they sort of twisted the facts and tried to contort the law to create the suggestion, to imply that it might be possible.
But, you know, trust me, if they had evidence of a case against the president, Mueller would have said so explicitly and he would have moved to, as he told Barr, abandon the Office of Legal Counsel opinion that you can't charge a sitting president.
That's an advisory opinion.
It is not binding.
It is not mandatory.
You know, it is, this is our opinion.
But according to Mueller, he is free to abandon it in a case where there's solid evidence.
Well, it seems to me that any investigation, if this is the practice, and Andy, I mean, you've run some very high profile cases, The Blind Shake among them, and the First World Trade Center issues.
If that's the case, then basically prosecutors can leave a cloud hanging over anybody anytime, even though there is not evidence that rises to the level of an indictment.
And that is a troublesome, I think, precedent for the country.
Either you've got it or you don't.
And we know that there's no hidden indictment, and we know that the Attorney General's decision did not even factor into any consideration Justice Department policy, but based on the facts as presented in the report, it did not rise to any level of any crime.
Yeah, well, Sean, that's why I think you really have to now get straightened out what the Justice Department's position is on obstruction, because I don't think Mueller's position on the legal elements of obstruction is the same as the Attorney General's, and I think that has to be straightened out.
But as to your other point, look, it's the rule of the road in the Justice Department that the government speaks in court.
You speak when you are ready to formally charge someone because it's at that point in our system that an accused is given all of the rights that are guaranteed under the Constitution to confront a government's charge.
So at that point, it's a fair fight.
What prosecutors are not supposed to do is collect information for the sake of collecting it and then publicize it in a way that taints and convicts someone in the court of public opinion.
That's simply not supposed to happen.
And, you know, I would point out that Rod Rosenstein, who ran this investigation in the sense of supervising it for a very long time, fired Jim Comey as the FBI director for speaking about the evidence in the Hillary Clinton case because Mrs. Clinton hadn't been charged.
That was the whole rationale for removing Comey.
So, you know, to take that position and then to see this happen here is really difficult to square.
All right, quick break more with Andy McCarthy, Greg Jarrett, and David Schoen on the other side, and Bill O'Reilly at the top of the hour.
All right, as we continue with David Schoen, Greg Jarrett, Andy McCarthy, let's go back to Barr's testimony and an exchange that he had with Lindsey Graham.
Because from this day forward, once the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, once they made their decision after the Mueller report came in, it was made quickly that they were not moving forward with any prosecution in any way.
Whether with all the noise that we'll hear from Congress and the media mob, Mueller is still a dead issue.
But all of these other issues are very much alive, and we know the Inspector General awaits, Huber awaits.
We now have Durham investigating on his side, and we have the Attorney General promising full investigations into all of this.
Do you share my concerns about the Pfizer warrant process?
Yes.
Do you share my concerns about the counterintelligence investigation, how it was opened and why it was opened?
Yes.
Do you share my concerns that the professional lack of professionalism in the Clinton email investigation is something we should all look at?
Yes.
Do you expect to change your mind about the bottom-line conclusions of the Mueller report?
No.
Do you know Bob Mueller?
Yes.
Do you trust him?
Yes.
How long have you known him?
30 years, roughly.
You think he had time he needed?
Yes.
You think he had the money he needed?
Yes.
You think he had the resources he needed?
Yes.
Do you think he did a thorough job?
Yes, and I think he feels he did a thorough job and had adequate evidence to make the calls.
Do you think the president's campaign in 2016 was thoroughly looked at in terms of whether or not they colluded with the Russians?
Yes.
And the answer is no, according to Bob Mueller.
That's right.
He couldn't decide about obstruction.
You did.
Is that correct?
That's right.
You feel good about your decision?
Absolutely.
So, Andy, to me, I hear that the Attorney General, I mean, they'd love to smear him, but the bottom line is he had the final say on this.
It's still over.
Well, it's over as far as a prosecution matter is concerned.
Now, you know, the problem here, Sean, is that what Mueller essentially said today was, and this is exactly the political signaling that I think my fellow panelists are pointing to.
What Mueller said was, if I could have said there was no obstruction, I would have.
I didn't say that.
I didn't say there was obstruction, but that's because there's Office of Legal Counsel guidance that prevented me from saying that.
And by the way, in this system, it's for Congress, not federal prosecutors, to discipline a president who has been accused of committing misconduct.
So it seems to me that what he has basically done for the Democrats is to signal to them, hey, look, guys, you know, I could have found felonies here, and the only thing that stopped me was the Office of Legal Counsel guidance, and you guys don't even need felonies, so here you go, and the Constitution says it's on you to take care of the president.
You know, have at it.
And, you know, it just seems to me that that is the, that's the argument that got made today, which is why, as far as people who are pushing for impeachment are concerned, I think they got, you know, they got a turbocharged today.
Yeah, well, again, that's a political process, and that's very different.
Greg, we have spoken at length with the declassification last week and now the Attorney General having access to everything, I would assume the big five buckets we always talk about will become public.
And when that happens, as I've been saying, well, the curtain is now rising in the second act of this entire saga, and it is going to be brutal in terms of what people are going to learn that was done in the 2016 election,
what was done to save a failed candidate that should have been indicted, what was done with real Russian disinformation paid for and leaked to the media to impact the 2016 elections and so on and so forth.
I think the Russian hoax is about to unravel.
And we will, I think, learn the details.
And it'll come to us not only through these declassifications that you refer to, but the Inspector General's report as well.
I mean, I think there is a lot of evidence of corrupt acts, improper acts by officials at the FBI and to some extent the Department of Justice.
If they were putting their thumb on the scales in a presidential election, so much discussion about Russian interference in the election.
How about FBI and Department of Justice interference in the election by using opposition research paid for by Hillary Clinton and Russian disinformation in order to damage a presidential candidate and thereafter upon his election to try to frame him for something he didn't do?
And I think Americans will be surprised by this.
And I think there'll probably be some criminal referrals and evidence will likely, I think, be presented to a grand jury if William Barr goes in that direction.
All right, I want to thank you all for the time today.
Greg Jarrett, David Schoen, Andy McCarthy, three of the smartest attorneys I know, we'll have a lot more on Hannity tonight.
Thank you all for joining us.
We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.
The introduction to the volume two of our report explains that decision.
It explains that under long-standing department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office.
That is unconstitutional.
Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that too is prohibited.
The special counsel's office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy.
Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.
Special Counsel Mueller today repeated three central points, which are critical for the American people.
One, the special counsel did not exonerate the president of the United States of obstruction of justice.
Two, obstruction of justice, of which special counsel Mueller found substantial evidence, is a serious crime that strikes at the core of our justice system.
Three, the Constitution points to Congress to take action to hold the president accountable for his misconduct.
Unfortunately, special counsel Mueller was unable to pursue criminal charges against the president because Department of Justice policy prevents a sitting president from being prosecuted.
That policy, in my opinion, is wrong, but it prevented the special counsel from pursuing justice to the fullest extent possible.
Therefore, as Mueller again highlighted this morning, it falls to Congress to respond to the crimes, lies, and other wrongdoing of President Trump.
We will do so.
Make no mistake.
No one, not even the President of the United States, is above the law.
Okay, so what's the evidence?
Because we've all read the Mueller report.
He says that is his testimony.
We know that the Attorney General, that would be Barr, and we know the Deputy Attorney General, that would be Rod Rosenstein, and the Office of Legal Counsel all said there's nothing here that rises to the level of obstruction.
And Bill Barr could not be any more clear that it's over.
You know, Barr's testimony before the statement was, well, Muell stated three times to us in a meeting in response to our questioning that he emphatically was not saying that but for the Office of Legal Counsel opinion, he would have found obstruction.
So he's not saying any of these things.
But in the end, that decision was given.
Now that we, you know, we have a new special counsel law because people like Jerry Nadler didn't like the old law that was used under Clinton that had 11 specific felonies listed by Ken Starr.
And in fact, you can't infer.
It is now the decision of the Attorney General of the United States, but it was made along with the Deputy Attorney General with the input of the Office of Legal Counsel.
And Barr said there were several people in that meeting that confirm all this.
Joining us now with all thingsO'Reilly, billoReilly.com is with us.
How are you, sir?
Busy, just like you.
We're always busy.
Yeah, I am always.
So are you?
We're two busy Irish guys, which is good because if we weren't busy, we'd be getting into trouble, which we don't want to do.
I have a few observations I want to run by you and see if you agree.
Let's do them one at a time.
This way I'll answer.
Yeah, I'll do one at a time.
I like the lightning round.
Okay, the O'Reilly lightning round.
By the way, I'm in the no-spin zone now.
Based upon his appearance today in body language and inflection, tone of voice, I think Mueller despises Donald Trump.
100%.
Okay.
But he likes, apparently, Attorney General Barr.
Respects him.
I don't know, like would be the right word, respects him.
All right, but he took no cheap shots and made no snide remarks, and in the end, basically said he didn't have a problem with anything Barr said or done.
Correct.
Okay.
So he loathes Trump.
He likes Barr or respects Barr.
So that's almost incompatible because Barr basically looked at his report and debriefed Mueller, as you just pointed out, in person and came to the conclusion that after two years, Mueller had no evidence that would rise to an indictment ever.
Not during a president's term or after he leaves office.
Correct?
Correct.
So far, you're on your game, Mr. O'Reilly.
Keep going.
100%.
So then why are we going through this exercise?
That's the next question the American people, those with open minds.
Why are we doing this?
Why is a special counsel implying that maybe there was a crime?
Because that's not what a prosecutor does or an investigator.
Basically, they come to a conclusion.
And if they don't have enough evidence, that in itself is a conclusion in our system of justice.
If you don't have enough to charge, the person is completely not guilty.
That is the most important statement that you have now made.
And that is this.
The way American justice works, if you don't have the evidence, and remember, he said, and Barr said when he and Rosenstein and the Office of Legal Counsel made their decision, Justice Department policy about whether you can or cannot indict a sitting president was never factored into their decision.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Because Mueller is not barred from doing what Ken Starr did.
That is saying in his report, we found this, this, this, and this to be felonious.
He can absolutely say that and state that, backing it up with whatever they found.
Now, let's advance the story a little bit.
Well, let me ask you one question, and then we'll go back to your lightning round.
Do you also believe, as I do, if they had the evidence that Donald Trump had committed any crime?
Now, the fact that you're saying, well, I can't exonerate somebody does not make you guilty, nor does it rise to the level of an indictment, which is very important.
But do you doubt the team that Mueller put together, only Democratic donors, somebody with one of the most atrocious track records in terms of unethical behavior, Andrew Weissman, Jeannie Ray Clinton's former attorney at the Clinton Foundation.
Do you have any doubt they would have been clear that they thought the president committed a crime?
No, but let's take politics out of it.
Let's advance the story into the legal realm.
If Robert Mueller had evidence Donald Trump committed a crime and didn't state that evidence in his report, then Robert Mueller himself is guilty of obstruction of justice.
That's a good point.
Robert Mueller could be prosecuted himself if he has evidence there was a crime committed and did not state that evidence.
Under his mandate, under the charge he was given, you could bring him in and charge him with a felony.
That's how absurd this whole thing was today.
It even gets worse.
And I'll tell you one of the things, and it's interesting, Nadler seems to now be in protective mode of Mueller because they can compel him to testify.
You know, they could hold him in contempt.
Yeah, but Mueller's not going to say anything he didn't say today.
Well, but Bill, here's the problem.
You also have guys like Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows.
He would have to answer: when did you know there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia?
He would have to answer to cite whatever he wanted to cite.
It would be a total waste of time.
Okay, but the next question, I don't think he can go back to the report.
How is it you had time for insignificant FARA violations and taxi medallions, loan applications, and taxes, and your main mandate was Russian interference, and you never looked at the dirty Russian dossier that Hillary Clinton paid for?
just wipe that out of the park.
Our mandate was this, our mandate was that, and we were on this court.
Well, the mandate gave him clearance to go in any direction he needed to go.
But he's going to say our guidelines were this, we did this.
I mean, it would be stupefying.
Not to say that Nadler, it won't call him, but Mueller covered himself on that realm.
Mueller will stay within his eight-minute statement.
He will.
And I don't even think that's important.
You know, what I think is important is that the American people understand the bigger picture that's going on here.
Number one, the president of the United States is being denied due process unto the law.
I mean, that's pretty outrageous itself.
All right.
Number two, the obstruction that Nadler is talking about coming to, if you read the report, there are just two things that Mueller cited that could rise.
The firing of James Comey and the order to the counselor McCann, the president's counselor, to get rid of X, Y, and Z or do something this and that, which was never, of course, carried out because you and I know Donald Trump and events, he vents, as most people do.
By the way, most innocent people, and in this case, the president, saying loudly every day, I never did this.
That's right.
And you can imagine his frustration on certain days, and he's going, we got to get rid of this one, or we got to do this.
That's not obstruction of justice.
There must be an act.
Now, if you're going to pin a case, a felonious case, on the firing of James Comey, here's Mueller's big problem.
Here's why he couldn't have that in his report.
Because it's more than likely that William Barr is going to release an Inspector General's report that says Comey broke the law.
That's coming.
Yes, it is.
Mueller could not be on Comey's side and could not cite Comey as part of an obstructive situation because Comey, I firmly believe, is going to be indicted himself.
And, you know, you and I have talked about this.
This is the time for the Trump administration to get that Inspector General's report out tomorrow.
I don't know how to let the Nadlers of the world dict Donald Trump in the court of public opinion.
So get it out.
It's done.
Release it.
All right, quick break.
We'll come back more with Bill O'Reilly on the other side, billo'reilly.com for all things O'Reilly World.
All right, as we continue, Bill O'Reilly is with us going over the news, Robert Mueller's press conference from earlier today.
You know, we both covered on Fox at the same time the whole Clinton impeachment saga.
The day Bill Clinton did get impeached.
Now, remember, when you go back to the old independent counsel statute and versus, you know, people like Nadler didn't want the star report out, there were 11 specific crimes laid out in that report by Ken Starr, specific.
And the day that Bill Clinton was impeached, and he also had to pay nearly a million dollars to Paul Jones, and he lost his law license, he had some more perjury, he had a 73% approval rating the next day, Bill.
I say, let the Democrats do this politically, and they will guarantee the reelection of Donald Trump.
Well, Nadler looked shaky today.
Did you see him?
He didn't know what to do.
Yeah, he was really shaky.
And Mueller looked tense, real tense.
Mueller was not confident there.
Nope.
All right.
So they understand that if you're going to put the nation through two years of maybe coulda, shoulda, woulda, but we really don't have it, but it might have happened, you know, number one, fair-minded people are going to say this is unfair.
And what Mueller, I want to reiterate, what Mueller did today was unfair, okay?
And number two, the independents, which will decide the election 2020, I think are going to shift over and say, you know, we may not like Donald Trump as a person, but the machine up against him is corrupt.
And we're not going to vote for a corrupt machine.
And that's what Nancy Pelosi knows.
Now, you put up Biden or anybody, any of these people, and if that machine is perceived to be a corrupt one, you're going to lose.
You know, it's very interesting, Bill, because there's something that's called overreach here.
And the Democratic Party, I really believe that it's like a Donald Trump lives in the brains of every Democrat on Capitol Hill, but also in the media mob, separate and apart, but also important to me.
And they cannot at this point even help themselves from the compulsion that waits for them the moment their eyes open every day, which is, what am I going to hate this guy about today?
I mean, it is that bad.
We've gotten to a point where this rage, psychosis, they cannot believe they didn't get what they wanted from Mueller, and they can't believe the guy became president.
But they're still hopeful.
See, the hardcore cadre on the progressive left is still hopeful that something will emerge to destroy Donald Trump.
So they want to keep this thing going.
And of course, they don't want to make a mistake.
I mean, they don't want to admit it.
So the New York Times, how many articles did they convict Donald Trump of the most heinous things you could convict him of?
How many times have they done that?
New York Times is going to turn around and go, ah, you know, well, we might have been wrong on that.
Never.
Never.
And you know what is really fascinating to watch entities like CNN go down and down and down and still do it.
Bill, putting a baseball team on the field and you have nine guys, none of them can hit, and you keep them on the field every single day and you never win.
You have a few more minutes or you got work to do because I want to hold you through the brick.
No, I mean, this is fun.
I like doing this.
Hang on.
Bill O'Reilly is with us, billoreilly.com.
He's got his Trump book coming out in the fall.
If you go to his website, you'll see it.
All right, 25 now till the top of the hour, 800-941.
Sean is our number.
If you want to be a part of the program, we'll get to a few calls in a minute.
Just a couple more minutes, two more questions for Bill O'Reilly and his website, billorilly.com.
You know, look, you have spent your entire career in media, and I've had enough, you know, private conversations with you that I can literally say when it comes to television audiences, ratings, look, there's a reason you were number one in cable for all those years.
By the way, you're welcome to take it back from me anytime you want because you can have all the fire and incoming that I get every day since you left.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Annody.
I appreciate it.
It gives me as a human shield.
Well, you know, what you're doing.
There's definite benefits in being number two.
Just go after the top guy.
Leave me alone.
I understand, man.
That's why I'm kind of glad I'm out of it.
No, I know every day of my life I had to deal with it.
But what you're saying is that I understand the audience watches television.
Okay.
So here's my question.
How do these so-called news networks get away with what turns out to be outright lying for two years, nothing but a web of conspiracy theories that they peddled, mostly with anonymous sources, hype and hyperventilation any moment they think they've got this president on the ropes?
Because the management condones it and at one point thought it was going to make money off of it.
So MSNBC was nothing, nothing, for 17 years.
All right, so all of these networks that say that they are news and they peddle conspiracy theories, lies for two plus years.
And then I'm going to get to a second part of the question after, but how do they ever recover or do they never recover?
They don't recover.
It's like Time magazine, Newsweek magazine, now Sports Illustrated just got sold.
Once the consumer believes that he or she is not getting a fair presentation, then most will leave and not buy or watch or whatever it may be.
The zealots will stay.
So if you're a far left media concern, the far left will watch you.
So Rachel Maddow is the best example of this.
On a hot day where the left thinks they've got a noose around President Trump's neck, her ratings go up.
But on an ordinary day when that doesn't exist, she doesn't do very well.
So it's all her whole constituency is based on can we get rid of Donald Trump?
That's not the recipe for success long term.
And the reason at Fox News Channel, they can say whatever they want about Fox News Channel, but I was number one for 16 consecutive years is because I was perceived to be.
By the way, I'm only number one for three years.
But let me tell you something.
I have no plans to stay that long to break your record.
I'm just telling everybody now.
Yeah, well, I hope you do.
I really do.
I mean, I don't mean.
I'm going to play golf.
Go ahead.
You base your analysis on facts.
Yes.
And that is the difference.
Not hatred, not emotion, not I want a socialist government.
You basically see the world the way you see it.
Everybody knows what that is.
But then when you present thing, it's fact-based.
That's the key to success.
Bill, 99% of the news media in this country went in one direction.
You know, there have been times in my career and your career as well, both of us, we come at something from an entirely different angle.
When I vetted Obama, the last two years we've been on peeling this onion and with the declassification last week, it's not a matter of if anymore.
America's going to see the FISA applications.
America's going to see the 302s, the gang of eight, the exculpatory evidence.
It's all coming.
But here's my big problem.
And I want you to really dig into this.
Now, if these people on the left, in the media, Democrats, if they cared about, let's say, obstruction of justice, how did they all ignore Hillary's behavior, an underlying crime, the Espionage Act, and then when she deletes 33,000 subpoenaed emails, bleach bit hammers and SIM cards removed, if they care about Russian interference, how do you ignore the dirty dossier?
Even the New York Times is suggesting that Christopher Steele, who put this together, paid by Hillary, that it was Russian disinformation, but then it's used in a FISA warrant application to spy on the opposition party candidate to influence an election and also spreading it out to media members so it would impact the 2016 election.
How do you ignore, you know, how do you say I'm a believer when you talk about Justice Kavanaugh in high school, but there's no I believers when it comes to the lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, who has credible allegations of rape and violent sexual assault.
You don't hear a peep out of them.
Where is some desire in here to get to the truth rather than just being a total hack for a Democratic Party socialist agenda?
Zealots do not seek the truth.
If you are a political zealot, and you could be one on the right as well as the left, you are not interested in what really happens or what's fair or what's good for the entire country.
The only thing you are interested in is imposing your view of the world on everybody else.
So that's the answer to your question.
If you're not a rational person, you're not sitting down and examining evidence.
No.
You want socialism.
So anyone who doesn't, you're going to try to destroy them.
You don't care how, because the end justifies the means.
And that, unfortunately, has taken root in about 20, 25% of the American population.
That's pretty scary.
You know, at the end of the day, the reason, for example, what do I do for a living?
If somebody asks me, I'll say, I'm a talk show host.
Well, you're not a journalist.
No, I'm a talk show host.
You're not a, well, maybe you're an opinion journalist.
I said, yeah, that's part of being a talk show host.
Bill, I can produce, as you can, hundreds of hours of straight reporting, whatever it happened, maybe a war, God forbid, or maybe a natural disaster, and there's no opinion.
We've done investigative work the last two years on the deep state or vetting Obama, two examples.
We give opinion, but we're honest about the opinions and why I am a conservative because conservatism works, i.e., the economy under Trump after tax cuts and ending burdensome regulation.
We also talk sports and culture and everything in between.
In other words, I view what I do as the entire newspaper.
They're supposed to be objective.
They're not.
Can you think of anybody on cable today that you would say, meaning a host in prime time, that is objective?
I think Britt Hume is pretty fair.
Well, but I agree.
I think the team has no show anymore, and I think a guy like that is who you want to put up.
He's a thinker, leans a little bit conservative, but doesn't allow, doesn't let that influence his reportage.
But there are very few of them because they take orders, Hannity.
I mean, guys like me and you, we're lucky in the sense that we started this business and we didn't get interference.
I mean, I never got interference with the O'Reilly factor.
I don't think you got interference with Hannity and Colms when you started, did you?
No, no, none at all.
Okay, so we didn't have corporate masters telling us what to do.
Again, I'll go back.
If you're a reporter for the New York Times and you are seen on the street in your off hours wearing a mega hat, you're through.
You're done.
By the way, the MAGA hat is now the new trigger of the left in America.
It's hilarious.
I know.
But there wasn't that culture when we started the Fox Transformers.
Okay, but you worked for, like, I knew Peter Jennings.
I worked for Jennings and I worked for Rather.
Okay, and I knew Tom Brokaw.
I knew I was in both organizations, CBS much more than ABC.
And once in a while, they crossed the line with me, and they got pushback.
I didn't brook it.
But most of the reporters did.
Most of the reporters working over there, if they got told by management, this is how you skew the story, they did it.
And now all of them do it on cable.
And that's what you're seeing.
It's fascinating, though, because I got to know Jennings and Brokaw and Tim Russert.
Tim Russert, he moderated a debate between me and James Carville.
But more importantly, I would interview him.
I just happen to love his two books that he wrote.
He's a fair man.
I mean, Russ was a fair guy.
But, Bill, Peter Jennings came in my radio studio highlighting every page of the book that I had recently written.
Tim Russert would seek my opinion as a conservative to understand it.
Tom Brokaw, he was great until now he's in a mode where he has to protect MSNBC for some reason.
But I don't think he was a rigid radical ideologue, although I think they all slanted left.
Well, for Brokaw, it was a social thing, I have to say, because I know them all.
Rather was a committed liberal.
Right.
Okay?
Sam Donaldson, same thing.
Right.
Brokaw is a social liberal, loved the parties, loved the salons.
Jennings didn't like any of that.
Jennings, you know, he went out and he schmoozed around, but he was real suspect of all of that.
And so he was the least ideological of all of them.
Yeah, you know, it's just the, we're never going, I don't think there's a path back.
No, there isn't.
Because corporate America controls it now.
It's a big moneymaker now.
It's not a news calling.
It's not like, okay, we're here for the people.
We want to give the people the truth.
That's not what's happening.
It's like we want to make as much money as we can make.
And along the way, I want to have friends that will invite me to all the parties in the Hamptons, Manhattan, and Hollywood.
So I'm going to be liberal.
But what they're going to do, Bill, just from a looking at it from a business model perspective, is they're going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
It's already dead.
Well, here's the thing, though.
I mean, in many ways, I think we'll look at the golden age of cable and even broadcast news.
But I will tell you, the biggest shock for all of them is the day that Donald Trump leaves office, which is going to be six years.
No, it's over.
Nobody will watch this.
If Joe Biden ever gets elected president, cable ratings are going to fall 50%.
I won't be on the air, so it won't matter.
I don't care.
I mean, you're never going to see him.
Has anybody seen him since May 17th?
He made his announcement for president?
He's gone 10 days in a row.
He must have been tired from that one appearance in Philly.
You know, look, he doesn't have to campaign.
I said that from the jump.
You're not going to see him in a diner.
He's going to do name recognition, and I'm Obama.
You know, I'm the return of Obama.
Vote for me.
That's all he's going to do.
Not going to work, Bill.
Not in this day and age.
No way.
The order appointing me special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation.
And we conducted that investigation and we kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of the progress of our work.
And as set forth in the report after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.
We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.
The introduction to the volume two of our report explains that decision.
It explains that under long-standing department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office.
That is unconstitutional.
Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that too is prohibited.
The special counsel's office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy.
Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.
All right, so we're going to have so much more on this debacle today and the news and information that you really need to know about.
And all the noise is not and will not be what you think it is.
And where this is all really heading.
That's tonight at 9 on Hannity on the Fox News channel.
Hope you join us.
We've got a great lineup tonight as well, as usual.
And we will be joined tonight, yes, the great one, Mark Levin, Jay Seculo, the president's attorney, Alan Dershowitz, Gregan Sarah, and John Solomon, Jim Jordan, and Mike Huckabee.
