Power Grab: The Liberal Scheme To Undermine Trump, The GOP and Our Republic
Jason Chaffetz, former Congressman and author of a new book, Power Grab: The Liberal Scheme to Undermine Trump, The GOP, and our Republic. (It’s available for pre-sale now it will be in bookstores Sept. 3.) With Nancy Pelosi’s wild accusations about the President’s desire to make America white again, and Chuck’s lobbying for himself, instead of his constituents, this book could not be more properly timed. 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.
It's 800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
Big victory against the deep state, the swamp, the sewer in this emoluments case brought by D.C. and Maryland against Donald Trump.
Of course, the desire to harass a sitting president and get into this whole issue of his businesses.
Look, they just want to harass him every day he's in office because then they think they're doing something good and worthwhile.
Democrats, it is now such a state of mass rage, hatred, hypnotic psychosis.
I don't even think they're aware of what they're doing anymore.
It just makes them feel better to be in that state every second minute hour of every day.
And that would be the Democratic Party and that would be the media.
Jay Seculo is going to break down the pair of decisions at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, complete victory for the Trump presidency, and stating there was, you know, not even standing in the first place to bring the lawsuit, Maryland and D.C., and just the latest effort at presidential harassment being dismissed with prejudice, and it cannot be refiled.
And in that sense, a big win in the emoluments lawsuits against the president because, oh, he has Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
And even though he has handed off his businesses to his children, you know, it was a what, 36-page ruling.
But anyway, the injunction barring the president from receiving money from the hotel would not cause government officials to cease patronizing the hotel.
It just, there's no redress here.
It's, you know, how do you, where's the standing in all of this?
How are you in any way harmed by any of this?
And it's a huge deficiency and remarkably manifested itself during the oral arguments when the counsel for the district and for Maryland, upon being questioned, repeatedly was unable to articulate the terms of the injunction that the District of Columbia and Maryland were seeking to redress the alleged violations.
I mean, just another nonsense lawsuit.
It's sort of like, you know, Nadler now is going to send out subpoenas like they're hotcakes in the hopes of, I guess, the John Dean testimony didn't work out well enough for him.
And I guess Mueller, who's going to regurgitate everything in the Mueller report, that's not enough for him.
So I guess the only thing they've got left is, okay, well, let's bring back the old people.
We already had four separate determinations on Trump-Russia collusion.
Four, the nine-month FBI investigation.
Yeah, it was Lisa Page who said we had nothing after nine months or struck.
There's no there there at all there.
Okay, but here we go.
We'll start with the Mueller investigation.
Two years later, what do we've got?
Nothing still.
What did we get out of the House Intel Committee investigation?
Nothing still.
What do we get out of the bipartisan Senate Committee investigation?
Nothing still.
You know, why do these people have to be dragged back before these committees and answer the same stupid questions?
Now, remember, everybody was encouraged to speak to Congress.
Everybody was encouraged to speak to the special counsel's office.
Full cooperation from the White House.
Even the White House counsel at the time, Don McGahn, spent 30 hours before Mueller.
Not one time did they invoke executive privilege.
1.5 million documents handed over to Robert Mueller.
And still, it's not enough for the likes of Gerald Nadler and the cowardly shift, the only guy we have on tape actually colluding with Russians, which is probably one of my favorite tapes ever.
I think I like my Obusova.
Yes, but of course.
What is the nature of the compromising materials?
Pixel naked Trump, naked Trump.
Did Vladimir, did Vladimir see the pictures and everything?
But of course, Vladimir, he sees the picture.
Naked Trump.
Yes, yes, yes.
I mean, a dope thinks he's speaking.
Oh, my gosh, you got to give this information.
I mean, it's so pathetic.
They're such hypocrites, too.
You know, I've been thinking a lot about this 2020 Democratic field.
Well, I'm actually thinking about three separate things.
We got a lot of deep state news that we're going to break open here today.
Steele testifying is a big deal.
They spent 15 to 16 hours with him, the Inspector General's prosecutors, when the president was visiting the Queen in Great Britain.
And there's no way, earthly way that I think that Christopher Steele would ever be dumb enough to try and contradict his sworn testimony in the interrogatory going back in Great Britain and say something different because he opened himself up to perjury charges in Great Britain.
So he did this under oath in an interrogatory where he said, oh, I have no idea if any of this dirty dossier is true.
I have none whatsoever.
So I think he had to say the same thing or he would then put himself in a position that he could potentially be arrested and charged with perjury and lying in a court proceeding there.
And I've got to believe he's not that stupid.
But, you know, there are plenty of stupid people in this world.
So we're watching that, and we can now confirm that Steele, in fact, who created the dirty dossier, everybody knew.
This is the amazing thing because we all wanted the Inspector General report to come out in May.
We were expecting it because the Attorney General Barr said it would probably come out mid-May.
But there's been all these last-minute developments that have prevented that from happening, one of them being the interview with Christopher Steele that went on for 15 hours in early June.
And then, of course, we have other key witnesses at the last minute have now decided to cooperate.
I'm told that some of them are people that had already been interviewed, but are kind of getting watching the news and realizing that maybe what they said the first time isn't exactly accurate and looking for an opportunity to clarify the record before they might get charged with something.
So I'm told that there's a lot of people in that position that have now decided to come forward and cooperate more fully.
But it is a crucial development as it relates to the fraud that was committed on the court.
Now, we know multiple times that have been confirmed that everybody was warned that Christopher Steele hated Donald Trump.
We know that everybody was warned by Bruce Orr in closed-door testimony.
He described warning everybody in the FBI and the top ranks.
Everybody in the Department of Justice knew.
Oh, this was August 2016.
Then just shy of two weeks before James Comey, who said, we don't spy.
Well, why'd you sign the FISA warrant?
Anyway, he signed the first FISA warrant, but he had been warned again, this time by Kathleen Kavlak, who was very alarmed after meeting with Steele because Steele had a deadline for the information that he was seeking.
The deadline, of course, was Election Day because he wanted the dossier to get Trump and he wanted to be able to confirm, did this happen, did this happen?
I mean, Steele is the only guy that got paid from four separate people for information that we now know is a lie.
So there were multiple warnings for everybody.
And then the same people involved in rigging the exact same names, the ones that rigged the investigation into Hillary's email server.
There's no ambiguity that Hillary broke the law.
The evidence violating the Espionage Act, clear.
And for all the Democrats that claim that they worry about obstruction and Donald Trump obstructed the investigation of the, by the deep state, while there was no underlying crime, him complaining that it's a witch hunt and that he should fire people that were wasting taxpayer money and time and that he's frustrated with the process because he knew he was innocent.
How do innocent people act?
They usually say they're innocent.
That cannot, and he could have fired Mueller.
He never did.
He could have fired Rosenstein.
He never did.
He did fire Comey.
Now we know Comey deserved it.
So anyway, then the same people involved in that, the same people that didn't see the obstruction, which is deleting subpoenaed emails, the bleach pit, the hammers, then become the same people that use what they were warned not to use, the dirty dossier, which we now know is an unverifiable document.
But we know that on a FISA application, the words verified are at the top of the document.
But it's unverifiable because the author of the document doesn't know if any of it's true.
Most of it, as Greg Jarrett said on this program yesterday, has been debunked.
Now Comey, in spite of the admonitions and warnings, he signs in October of 2016 in the lead up to the election.
He signs the first FISA warrant.
The bulk of information is Hillary, DNC, even FBI-funded at some points, an oligarch-funded dossier.
And they use that as the basis of the FISA application.
Now, they minimize one very important fact that Hillary was responsible for the hiring and putting together of the dossier.
Well, why wasn't that in big bold letters?
Hillary Clinton paid for it.
Just an asterisk that says it might have a slight political taint to it does not cover what they were warned and what they knew to be true.
Well, that's sort of lying by omission.
And then the great lie is that they verified the Russian hookers peeing on Donald Trump's bed and the Ritz-Carlton and all the other lies that we have been told.
And then the amazing thing, you know, super patriot Jim Comey, well, in January 2017, after he signed that first FISA application, October 2016, he goes to Trump Tower.
Now, it's interesting that we now know that some in the FBI and elsewhere, James Baker, I believe one of them, were actually concerned that he was trying to hold this dossier over Trump's head to use for some type of leverage.
That's scary.
Just like, you know, he's bragging about abusing power in the General Flynn case.
By the way, General Flynn will not be seen as a co-conspirator.
That's other big news we'll get to.
And then Comey goes to Trump Tower.
He says it's salacious, but it's not verified.
The exact opposite of what he gave to the FISA court.
When they spied on Carter Page, it backdoored them into all things in the Trump campaign world.
And then it extended into the Trump transition world.
Then it extended again.
Sally Yates, who else, Rod Rosenstein, all these extensions, they'd had to be renewed every three months.
And then it went right into the Trump White House, and they're spying on the Trump White House.
But he doesn't call it spying.
All in an effort as an insurance policy to undo an election.
And it's now all coming out.
So the reason that it's all delayed is because of all these last-minute moving parts.
And a big part of it, I think, is the new Attorney General and the appointment of this guy, Durham, who is clearly doing his job.
And clearly, Inspector General Horowitz wants to get the bottom of all of this, which apparently we're going to get to.
Look, I don't see any other conclusion but the following.
A premeditated conspiracy to commit fraud against the FISA court denying American citizens their civil liberties and doing it to influence the outcome of a presidential election to tip the scales, tip the balance to a favored candidate that you are also involved in exonerating when the guilt is overwhelming and incontrovertible.
And I know you're asking yourself, how could this happen in America?
It happened and so much more.
All right, as we roll along Sean Hannity Show 800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, you know, I know a lot of you keep saying, oh, why does it take so long?
It takes so long because it's taken us this long to get the right people in place that are now doing the thorough investigation that should have been done in the beginning.
Now, I mean, that's what makes, you know, sleepy, creepy, crazy Uncle Joe Biden's comments so bizarre.
This wouldn't have happened on my watch or Obama's watch.
I'm like, it all happened on your watch.
What are you talking about?
Where did that come from?
You know, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And, you know, it's not any more clear than what has happened in this country with this witch hunt.
If we're going to ask the right questions of Robert Mueller, there are many.
Maybe I'll go through some of them in the next half hour.
There's a great piece by the Epoch Times.
I think they had their 33 question list.
Joe DeGenova has five question lists.
I think nine questions by Greg Jarriter out there.
But I got to tell you something.
I don't think Mueller is going to have an easy time on Wednesday.
Now, the nine and a half minute press conference was an unmitigated disaster, and he was basically telegraphing all the Democrats that want to subpoena him.
Don't waste your time because I'm going to stick to the script.
But then he stepped in it and contradicted his previous statements about, you know, whether or not Department of Justice policy and constitutional considerations on the question of whether you can or cannot indict a sitting president factored into his decision not to rule on the obstruction side of things.
And I'm told by somebody, and I think this is true, we've seen the question, you know that Mueller's team never asked a single question about obstruction.
Not one.
Of the president.
That's odd, considering, well, that should be, if there's no underlying crime, you're kind of stuck.
And Donald Trump saying publicly, because he's frustrated he wants to fire somebody when he had the authority legally to fire Mueller, but didn't do it, is very odd.
All right, quick break, right back.
We'll continue.
All right, we did get some news too yesterday.
By the way, thanks, Scott Channel, 25 till the top of the hour.
We got some news on Lieutenant General Flynn.
Every time I think of McCabe, this is day four of the Trump presidency.
And McCabe gets a call from General Flynn.
Well, do I need a lawyer?
You know, these guys are, no, no, you don't, no, no, no, no, no, no, not at all.
No lawyers.
That's not what this is about.
And then Comey says, I took full advantage of the chaos there, something I'd never do in the Obama or Bush years.
And I sent my guys in.
Now, they had already surveilled and unmasked General Flynn, and they knew the essence of the conversation.
And so what is really sad is you have a 33-year vet, combat veteran, war hero, Lieutenant General Flynn.
And, okay, he admits to at one point something that the FBI didn't think he did.
He admits to lying to the FBI, which, by the way, is the to me, that law is the dumbest law ever.
And here's why.
Because I think instinctively, even again, most Americans are able to bifurcate between this upper echelon and the rank and file special agents that are amazing people that do a great job and they're part of the premier law enforcement agency in the world.
They just are.
And I think they understand there's a difference.
I think there's a natural, instinctive desire.
If an FBI person comes to your house and says, I'd like to talk to you, I'd like to ask you questions about this, this, or this, and assuming you didn't do anything wrong.
And all you want to do is help the FBI because, well, whatever they're working on, you want to be a good citizen, just like you'd want to help the police.
And it turns out that if you lie to the FBI, let's say you didn't remember something perfectly, and they determine, not you, whoever that person happens to be, is it a good person or not a good person?
Sometimes you go to the store, you had a good person, nice person, helpful person, and then you get the person that, you know, doesn't want to help anybody and has their own agenda.
So it takes away, I think, the instinctive natural respect and response of most Americans, which would be to help the number one law enforcement agency in the world because we respect what they do and we want to safer world and safer country.
Anyway, so they found no collusion, no conspiracy, all these things.
So what happened when Comey bragged that, oh, yeah, I sent my guys in.
They had already known.
Remember, he was surveilled.
He was unmasked.
Raw intelligence was leaked.
A real crime was committed against General Flynn.
Now he's got a new attorney who I think is amazing.
That's Sidney Powell.
And, you know, license to lie is her best-selling book that she wrote.
A lot of it is about Andrew Weissman.
Anyway, so they go into the process, and just like Judge Ellis had said, you know, in the Manafort case, well, we know why we're here.
It has nothing to do with taxes or Ukraine.
We're here because this guy you want to put the screws to in the hopes that he sings or composes against Donald Trump.
I guess as the world has seen, he even said, yeah, they want me to turn on the president and they want me to turn on, you know, the family and Jared Kushner.
And I'm right over what?
He goes, well, that's the problem.
They didn't do anything wrong.
That was, yeah, and that's what he had said.
So this is a real problem that we're now, that has now emerged in this process where prosecutors often now, way too often, they're offering people get out of jail free cards if you say what they want you to say.
Now, that's a pretty strong incentive.
You're offering something of great value and worth.
And oftentimes, unfortunately, they're telling you what they want you to say, what they want you to, they want you to tell them.
They basically telling you, giving you the script.
Anyway, so the screws were turned.
His house he had to sell.
They wrecked his finances.
And then they said, well, we're just going to go after your son.
Unbelievable.
Now, Sarah Carter broke that story last night, that damning new information.
And we now know brand new legal counsel, Sidney Powell, prosecutors wanted Flynn to lie under oath, which was the perjury trap against his former business partner in a case surrounding a FARA violation.
We have a whole dossier full of Russian lies for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election that's ignored, but we're staying on FARA violations.
Anyway, this was in the filing.
The prosecutors have been adamant that Mr. Flynn testifies that he authorized the filing of the FARA form, knowing and intending that it contained false statements.
And Mr. Flynn cannot give that testimony because it is not true.
He's being honorable.
Now, Flynn refuses to give the testimony that they say they want.
Then federal prosecutors, they're planning to portray Flynn.
It's not going to happen, we now know, because there's an update since then, as a co-conspirator in the case.
And, you know, to think of the depths, why would we ever allow a situation to exist where overzealous prosecutors are good fair prosecutors that use discretion and just want the equal application of the law?
But then if you're offering somebody, if you tell us this, we give you a get-out-of-jail free card.
That's a pretty darn big incentive.
That's called freedom.
I don't even know if you could put a price on that.
And that has happened more than once in all of this.
By the way, Devin Nunes is now saying that the new evidence is showing the Steele dossier was just made up.
He literally said that the New York Times, according to a New York Times report, FBI officials questioned one of Steele's sources and, quote, came to suspect that the man might have added his own interpretations to reports from his own sources that he passed on to Mr. Steele, calling into question the reliability of all the information.
And Nunes says this is a man who made up the entire document.
And you're starting to see that it's unraveling.
And his sources are not real.
Or if they are real, they're second to third hand.
So a lot of this is just made up out of whole cloth.
Or maybe, as the New York Times is suggesting, was Russian disinformation from the beginning.
And, you know, these are pretty amazing times we live in here.
Anyway, so Mueller's going to go.
Epoch Times has their questions.
A lot of them are the same that we brought up here.
Did Bill Barr, the AG, misrepresent your report?
The answer we already know is no, because Mueller's already said so.
Asking who wrote volume one and volume two.
I like that.
Were any of the authors of your reported in contact or consulting with representatives of the Brookings Institution or Atlantic Council?
Now, that's an interesting tidbit.
I'm wondering if that's coming out of some place of knowledge.
I don't know.
Or your report references efforts to curtail the special counsel's investigation.
Did the president ever actually limit or impede your investigation?
The answer is obviously no.
Why did you provide a conclusion on collusion but not obstruction?
At what point did you or the special counsel team determine that there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia?
You determined there was no collusion on the part of the Trump campaign, which implies that you also determined the allegations within the Steele dossier to be invalid.
Was there an obligation on your part, if you're looking into Russian interference, to inform the FISA court of that fraud?
Did you examine the effects on the election that may have resulted from a fusion GPS-led Steele disinformation campaign?
That's a big question.
This is why I keep saying FARA violations, taxi medallions, taxes and loan applications, but we can't look at a dirty, bought, and paid-for Russian dossier used to spy on the opposition party candidate.
Amazing.
You know, why didn't he examine the Clinton campaign and DNC's tie to fusion in the hiring of Christopher Steele?
Why didn't he look into the dirty dossier?
Why didn't he look into FISA court abuse and lying that took place there and fraud that took place there, premeditated fraud?
Or Bruce Orr's interaction with Steele and the FBI, or Bruce Orr being used as a conduit by Christopher Steele to back channel information to Robert Mueller's office?
Why didn't they investigate the work of Nellie Orr?
You know, who did she share that information with besides her husband?
Or Christopher Steele and his conversations that we now know took place with Kathleen Kavlak thanks to John Solomon?
Did you investigate election meddling by any countries other than Russia?
Huh.
Why did your report omit the regarding information regarding Fusion's employment by Russian clients while they were also employed by Perkins Cooey on behalf of Hillary and the DNC?
Why did your report omit Christopher Steele's direct ties to a Russian oligarch, Olek Daraspaska, including the fact that Steele was actually employed by this oligarch?
Steele's the only guy I know that can get paid four separate times for one lying document.
It's amazing.
You know, did you fully investigate the origins of the alleged DNC server hack?
What forensic evidence was actually examined?
Why was there selective editing used in the representation of the transcript calls between the president's attorney, John Dowd, and the attorney for General Flynn?
Did you investigate the FBI's initiation of this counterintelligence investigation and what role Brennan had in providing the information that helped establish it?
Why was selective editing used in the representation of communications between Michael Cohn and this Georgie, I can't pronounce it, who was born in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia?
What about that?
You know, why did you use May 6, 2016 as a date of a meeting between Papadopoulos and a representative of a foreign government?
And was this in reference to the Australian diplomat Alexander Downer?
Why did you fail to note that Rod Rosenstein and then Attorney General Sessions had discussed the need to remove Comey as FBI director prior to Sessions' confirmation as AG?
And it just goes on from here.
You know, why have you not made publicly available the unredacted versions of the two additional scope memos from Rod Rosenstein?
Any other ones exist?
Who leaked General Flynn's phone calls with the Russian ambassador?
Isn't that a felony violation?
Was there FISA or national security letter issued on Flynn?
Is there a 302 FBI document from January 19th of 2017?
Why is there one in August of that year?
That's another question.
Why did the special counsel's office delete the data from Strzok and Page's phone?
Why did you even bring them on their team when they'd been involved in the investigation into Hillary and involved in the exoneration of Hillary?
Were you aware of their personal relationship?
There's a lot here.
So I just, you know, we can keep going.
But this has all got to be answered.
You know, it's interesting when you look at it through the prism of politics.
Now the Democrats, you know, you've got a civil war breaking out between Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Ortiz.
And, you know, it's pretty amazing that Ocasio-Cortez and Kamala Harris are teaming up on legislation to, you know, help get people out of prison, I guess, aimed at helping people with criminal records fairly obtain housing.
Well, that's fine.
I personally would like to create a panel that finds every Alice Marie Johnson in jail and let them out.
Those people that are deserving, nonviolent criminals, people that have been maybe overcharged or oversentenced.
By the way, a plurality of voters favor prosecution for illegal immigrants.
How are you going to run on this platform?
That walls are immoral.
You want to tear down the walls where the heroin and fentanyl comes from, open them up to drug cartels and gangs.
And then we're going to pay for every illegal immigrant's health insurance and I guess school.
And I guess the educational system will be inundated and everything in between.
And then they want to raise taxes to as high as 70% top marginal rate, 90% corporate marginal rates.
Then they want a wealth tax.
Then they want to offer everything for free.
And then they want the new Green Deal, no more oil and gas in 10 years.
And that means no combustion engine.
And by the way, they don't really understand America's greatness.
There was a great piece put out today by Mark Thieson and talking about Trump and his salute to America.
By the way, under Trump, welfare dependency is plunging.
Remember, 6 million fewer people.
You know, we have a drop of 6.7 million people off the food stamp roll since Trump became president.
The good news is the jobs market, the Fed is now saying we have 7.5 million jobs available right now, which means we're at virtual full employment in this country.
It's a great time if you want to raise your standard of living to maybe take that chance and get that new job and get into that new career with better pay and better benefits.
It was interesting that the founder of black entertainment television, a guy by the name of Robert Johnson, gave an A-plus to Donald Trump's fiscal record and failed the Democrats for moving too far left.
He was very critical of the increasingly bitter political rivalry in America, which he called wicked and mean.
And the Democratic Party that is traditionally supported, he's traditionally supported, has become too left-wing for his opinions.
The party is, in my opinion, for me personally, has moved way too far to the left.
And for that reason, I don't have a particular candidate I'm supporting at this time.
He said, I think at the end of the day, if a Democrat's going to beat Trump, then that person, he or she will have to move to the center.
And you can't wait too long to do it.
Probably really good advice that they'll never follow.
They're too busy fighting each other.
All right, hour two, Sean Hannity show.
Huge, big victory for President Trump today and the president declaring victory over the deep state.
This case is fascinating here as the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has weighed in on what is, I think, a really big issue.
And they agreed to throw out a case that was accusing the president of violating the Constitution through earnings from D.C. businesses, including, well, the Trump International Hotel.
What's interesting, just to give you a setup for the case, the lawsuit brought by the Attorney General's Attorneys General of Maryland and Washington, D.C., claiming that earnings from the Trump International Hotel in D.C. and its related businesses violated prohibitions against receiving benefits from foreign governments, the U.S. or individual states.
Now, the Fourth Circuit declared that Maryland and D.C., first, they lacked standing to begin with to bring the case in the first place.
And they ordered the lower court to dismiss the complaint.
And the president even said, word is I just won a big part of the deep state and Democrat-induced witch hunt.
He tweeted out this morning, unanimous decision in my favor from the United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, on the ridiculous emoluments case.
I don't make money but lose a fortune for the honor of serving and doing a great job as your president, including accepting zero salary here.
But the complaint basically claims that by maintaining ownership of his businesses, remember, his sons are running the businesses.
He's not involved in running the businesses anymore.
That Trump earned millions of dollars in payments, benefits, other valuable consideration from foreign governments and persons acting on their behalf, as well as federal agencies, state governments.
And the foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution prohibits people holding office from accepting such any type of thing of worth.
And anyway, joining us now to really explain the depth of this and how this is such a big win, Jay Seculo.
He is the counsel for the president and the chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice has been doing great work with their Freedom of Information Act developments the last couple of weeks.
How are you, sir?
I'm doing great, Sean.
This was a big win, really significant victory for the president.
Actually, a victory for the Constitution because that's what really was at play in this entire case.
This was a really important constitutional win today on a whole host of reasons.
Well, why don't you explain?
I don't know if people really understand because, you know, the D.C. district, Maryland's interest in enforcing the emoluments clauses, you know, explain to people what that actually is designed to do and mean.
Because you've had presidents in the years gone by, okay, they have blind trust.
They have no idea where their money is anymore.
So let me first tell you what the emoluments clause actually says in the Constitution.
It's 49 words.
It says, no title of nobility shall be granted by the United States, and no person holding any office or profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of Congress, accept of any present emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince, or foreign state.
Here's what they were worried about.
Ben Franklin, for instance, accepted a snuffbox with 408 diamonds on it from the king of France.
John Jay accepted a horse from the king of Spain.
So what they try to do, so they have this emoluments clauses in the Constitution.
So what D.C. and Maryland have tried to do, and by the way, members of Congress have also brought a suit, which I now think is a serious risk, obviously.
They bring this lawsuit.
And what's the purpose?
It's presidential harassment.
They know that the president is engaged.
The family has a business.
The businesses are, like you said, are in a trust.
They could not legally say to a foreign government, you can't rent hotel rooms here without violating the D.C. rules on public accommodations.
So that's absurd.
So they come up with this illegal profiteering.
And this court, and this is what's so significant, in multiple parts of the decision.
First of all, it's a complete vindication of the president because they said, the court said, three judge panel, that there was no basis for Maryland and D.C. to be in court in the first place.
They had no standing.
No legal standing, no legal cognizable injury to bring in a case.
And they thought the whole injury issue that they conjured up was absolutely absurd.
And then there's some really, what I call classics.
On page 30, it's a long opinion, 36 pages.
It says the likelihood that an injunction barring the president from receiving money from the hotel would not cause government officials to cease patronizing the hotel demonstrates a lack of redressability.
This is important, by the way.
It says, independently barring a finding of standing.
This deficiency was, and this is they're talking now about D.C. and Maryland in their oral argument.
The court says the deficiency was remarkably manifested at oral arguments when counsel for the District of Columbia and Maryland, upon being questioned, was repeatedly unable to articulate the terms of the injunction that they were seeking to redress these so-called violations.
When plaintiffs before a court are unable to specify the relief they seek, one must wonder why they came to court for relief in the first place.
A stinging rebuke, by the way, not only of Maryland and the District of Columbia, also a stinging rebuke of the trial court judge, who they had some choice words for, too, in this particular case.
Then the decision goes on and says that the District in Maryland's interest in enforcing the emoluments clause is so attenuated and abstract that their prosecution of this case readily provokes the question of whether the action against the president is an appropriate use of court, of the court itself.
That was a powerful, powerful line there.
Yep.
And then, of course, they dismiss the case with prejudice.
And the District of Columbia and Maryland says, oh, this is outrageous, that the court, you know, the trial court got it right, but these three judges thought the trial court got it wrong in a significant way.
And it's a complete win, a complete vindication.
The case is dismissed with prejudice.
What the District of Columbia and Maryland will do from here, maybe they try some kind of en banc review.
I doubt they get it, and I don't think the Supreme Court touches it.
So this is a big deal.
But what this is really about is there's been an effort to harassment.
While the Democrats are trying to get their fifth bite at the apple, even though we've had an FBI investigation, the House Intel Committee investigation, bipartisan Senate investigation, and then Alger Mueller report, what they're trying to do now is, all right, well, now let's look into Donald Trump's finances.
Did you see the law that was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo allowing investigators of Congress to get his state tax information?
Do you think that will hold up?
I do not.
I think that Donald Trump is president, so we're going to get your state tax returns released.
By the way, Chairman Neal of the House Ways and Means Committee says he is not going to utilize that procedure.
And you want to know why?
His case is weak to begin with, so weak that it should be thrown out of court.
But if we were to exercise his authority under that provision, it would show what a farce this is in the first place.
They're saying that they're doing this because they want to make sure the IRS is auditing presidents appropriately.
Did they ask the IRS for what their procedures were?
No, they did not.
Did they bring IRS officials up to discuss the audit of presidents?
No, they did not.
Did they seek the tax returns of Barack Obama, of George Bush?
No, they did not.
Of Bill Clinton?
No, they did not.
It's pretext.
Sean, it's no different than Governor Newsom in California signing two days ago, or actually in effect yesterday, a requirement that to be on the ballot, you have to, this is what is under California law now, to be on the ballot, you have to release your tax returns.
There's two big problems with that.
Number one, the states cannot set forth the requirement to run for president of the United States.
It's set forth in the Constitution.
That's number one.
Number two, the federal government controls that access, not the states, as to qualifications for office.
A state cannot override the U.S. Constitution.
But you know what?
The left is running roughshot over this.
They don't care.
But, Sean, I actually think in that case, I think we could win even in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
We're going to be challenging that one as well.
So we're on a very aggressive approach here to throw all of this back, and we're doing it.
And I think that's the problem.
Well, let's look at the big picture here.
What's to come?
Yep.
You know, Nadler announcing yesterday that he's going to send out a whole bunch of new subpoenas.
Now, at what point does this, as I mentioned, we had four separate conclusions, including the Mueller report, that there was no collusion, no conspiracy with Russia to impact the 2016 elections with the Trump campaign.
And thus, there's no underlying crime.
But yet still, they want to claim, well, there could have been obstructing, obstructing what?
With the president complaining outwardly that he's innocent and not liking the fact that he never did collude with Russia as was being claimed for two-plus years?
That's not obstruction.
That's somebody defending their innocence.
Here's the point, though.
What point does this become an abuse of power?
At what point does this become not only presidential harassment?
How many more times do individuals, citizens, and everybody cooperated with Congress and with Mueller, and there was no executive privilege invoked?
Everybody that worked for the president was encouraged to testify to Congress and to the special counsel.
At what point do these people say, I can't afford to pay these bills anymore to answer the same questions again and again?
Do they have a right at that point to say no more?
Well, I think they do.
I think here's the problem that you've got.
The Mueller report comes out and it lands with a thud.
Why?
No obstruction, no collusion, no conspiracy with the Russians, right?
Then they have their big witness day with John Dean, and that goes nowhere.
And then they had a second one that I don't think anybody covered at all.
Evidently, there's a third one going to be tomorrow that no one will cover on these hearings they're having about the Mueller report.
Then Bob Mueller's supposed to testify next week.
He's already said he's not going beyond the document.
The document speaks for itself.
And so that's what that is.
And of course, Bob Mueller gets the entire burden of proof wrong with this exoneration line, which he'll have to answer, I guess, if he gets questions.
And he may not even get questioned on that.
I mean, I have no idea what the questions will or will not be and what he will or will not answer.
But I think the American people are done with this.
Look, it didn't come up in the debate.
Not one question about this in the debate.
Not one.
Let me ask this.
Would the White House, if they wanted to stop Mueller, would they have the power to stop Mueller from testifying?
Well, that's a question of whether the president, whether Article II on the executive branch could exercise executive authority.
And I think the answer to that is clearly yes, that you wouldn't let the prosecutor go up.
It's an inter-branch issue.
But, you know, so far, it appears that he's going to testify.
Or now, I think now Jerry Nadler's committee or Adam Schiffs are now asking for some of his staff.
And I can't imagine why the justice is.
So we're going to bring up Andrew Weissman and we're going to bring in Gene Ray.
The answer to that has to be no.
This is where it's separation of powers, and the answer should be no, in my view, that this is not.
And again, that's not a call that I make as the private counsel for the president, but this is a call that the Justice Department would make.
You know, allowing staff to go up to testify in this would be absurd.
And again, at that point, it's beyond vindictive.
Well, let's go back to the nine and a half minutes press conference where Mueller said everything's in the report.
I'm just going to echo what's in the report.
And then he contradicted something that he had said earlier, and that was, you know, that the reason he didn't rule on obstruction was it because of Department of Justice policy or constitutional issues involving the possible legality of indicting a sitting president.
He had said previously to many people that was not a consideration.
And then they had, you know, five hours later, a joint statement released to the press from the AG's office and the special counsel's office correcting that mistake.
Exactly.
So how does he then answer that question?
And I think the more important question, Jay, is how did he have time for taxi medallions, loan applications, taxes, and FARA, but no time for a dirty Russian dossier that was disseminated to the American people, full of Russian lies to influence the election?
Well, the first two questions I want to ask is: what did you do with the evidence that Peter Strzok gathered for a year and a half before he was taken off the case?
Why did you allow Peter Strzok's phone to be swiped clean without cataloging the evidence that was on it?
How did that happen under your watch?
What's your explanation for that?
Did you fire Peter Strzok or remove Peter Strzok or did Andrew McCabe?
Andrew McCabe says it's him.
It's a conflicting store.
Yep.
So you've got all of those stories that are conflicting.
And again, I suspect Bob Mueller's going to say, I'm sorry.
I think what Bob Mueller is going to say is, my report is my testimony.
My testimony is my report.
And that's it.
Quick break.
More with Jay Seculo, Chief Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice.
Counsel to the president as we come back on the other side.
800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number at the bottom of the hour.
Jason Chaffetz, he has some interesting insight into the Inspector General and why that report is delayed.
Bill O'Reilly at the top of the hour.
We'll talk presidential politics with him as we continue.
All right, as we continue with Jay Seculo, he is the chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, counsel to President Trump.
All right, so let me ask you: we see now what's happening, and that is you see a circular firing squad among deep state officials.
You got Struck and Page after then Attorney General Lynch.
You got Comey against Brennan and Clapper and against McCabe.
And it's getting interesting.
My question is: specifically on FISA abuse, everybody was warned that this was not verified.
Everybody.
They were warned multiple times, but yet this still became the basis for the FISA warrant application four times.
Correct.
Is that not premeditated fraud committed on the court?
Well, I think if I was the judge, I'd be hauling everybody into the FISA court to find out who was responsible for the abusive process and the lying to the federal court.
And Boatman, by the way, don't take Sally Yates out of this, the acting attorney general of the United States.
She signed off on all this.
So that's an important part.
But look, I mean, you got Brennan and Clapper saying, we told Comey not to use it.
And then Comey's saying, well, that's not true.
No one told me not to use it.
So what's happening is Harwitz has now got more witnesses coming forward because of the appointment in my view of Durham.
They interviewed Christopher Steele for hours and hours, 12 hours over two days.
I believe, Sean, we're going to get to the bottom of this, and we're going to find out that a fraud was committed on the court.
That's what this was at the end of the day.
And what should happen if, in fact, that's happened?
Then you haul in the people that are responsible for the fraud on the court and you prosecute them pursuant to federal law.
Well, if you prosecute them according to federal law, then that would mean what would the law be from your perspective if I go before a court and I have perjury.
Well, yeah, I mean, perjury is the least of it, isn't it?
If it premeditated fraud.
Contempt of court is a felony, of course, as well.
So you've got contempt of court, which is a big deal, especially for these lawyers and government agents.
You've got perjury.
You may have obstruction.
I mean, you can list a list litany of felonies that could be involved here.
And there may be conspiracies.
I'm sure there were.
It sounds like there are.
And I think they're going to get to the bottom of this.
I think Bill Barr is the right attorney general to get to the bottom of this.
All right, Jay Seculo, thank you.
800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number.
More with Jason Chaffetz on this when we get back.
Bill O'Reilly at the top of the hour.
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Quick break, right back.
Bill O'Reilly and Jason Chaffetz next.
All right, 25 now till the top of the hour, 800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
Other deep state developments.
We've had a lot now in the last couple of days.
And it's time because the investigation, abuse of power, corruption, all that happened.
I'm personally loving the idea that Robert Mueller is going to testify next week.
I think at this point in time, there are more questions he needs to answer than ever before.
And we can go through them as we have before.
I've got a good 33 of them in the Epic Times that I read earlier in this week, and they're epic.
They're pretty interesting.
They're right on the money.
But short of that, you know, we've all been asking, all right, well, the Horowitz report on FISA abuse was supposed to come out in mid-May.
Well, now we learn why it has been delayed, because last minute we now know that other people that were unwilling to cooperate are now stepping forward and cooperating with the Inspector General.
That would be Michael Horowitz.
And other people that thought they didn't come out in a particularly good light, they are now going back and trying to do some damage control.
And then there was the added bonus of Christopher Steele giving, what, 15 to 16 hours worth of testimony on his dirty dossier, which we now know was, in fact, everybody at the Department of Justice, the FBI, was warned ahead of time that it's unverified, that Steele hates Trump.
Hillary paid for it, and they still used it as the bulk of information to spy on the Trump campaign, and then the Trump transition team, and then the President of the United States, and that there were three subsequent renewal applications, again, using as the bulk of information Hillary's dirty Russian dossier that she paid for and everybody knew was not verified or corroborated.
Jason Chaffetz, his own sources have learned that the filing has been delayed for other reasons as the DOJ now has to sort out classification concerns, meaning, okay, what part of this are the American people going to be allowed to see?
That worries me somewhat, although the Attorney General Barr was pretty forthcoming with the entire Mueller report, but for one full sentence and seven partial sentences that ended up being redacted in spite of what the Democrats were saying.
Congressman Chaffetz joins us now.
He's got a brand new book out.
It's called Power Grab, the Liberal Scheme to Undermine Trump, the GOP, and Our Republic.
It's on pre-sale.
It'll come out early September.
And former Congressman, Fox News colleague, Jason Chaffetz, how are you?
Hey, thanks for having me, Sean.
I appreciate it.
So you've known Michael Horowitz in your capacity as a congressman for many years, right?
Yeah, I interacted with him from day one, and I think a lot about him.
I really, I think he's a man of integrity, and I think he does and will do the right thing.
How was it he that was able to uncover the struck Paige text messages?
And there's some conflict now.
Did Robert Mueller fire Struck and Paige or did Andrew McCabe fire them as he claims?
And the other question is, well, why did they take the two phones when they knew they were acting inappropriately and out of political bias, which is the reason supposedly they left?
Why did they let those two phones go back to the factory to get cleaned up so you can't retrieve any of these messages?
Mueller made that decision.
I know that Michael Horowitz and his team at there as the Inspector General met a lot of resistance, deep state resistance within the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The IG actually had to go work with the Pentagon to develop the algorithms and the systems to penetrate the FBI phone.
Are you telling me that the preeminent law enforcement agency in the world, the FBI, couldn't find their own text messages?
That's what they were telling the Inspector General.
But the IG did it, and it took months to develop those algorithms and develop that technology.
They were then able to extract these text messages, some of which from either destroyed or repurposed phones.
And that was the impetus.
That's how we got the 10,000-plus text messages.
That led to the evidence being presented to Mueller, who fired these guys immediately, something that Mueller should have known in advance.
But you can see the resistance that the Inspector General had to go through in order to extract the information that should have been readily available.
I mean, I don't know whether to be critical or not be critical, because as I understand it, the IG has, what, some 600 or 700 employees at his avail.
And boy, does he take a long time to get something done.
Now, from my understanding, sources have been telling me for a while now that he was finished with the report.
And then last minute, some people wanted to, well, I guess revise their comments or try to improve their position in this somehow.
And then the Christopher Steele opportunity came up.
I can't imagine Steele is going to say anything different than what he said in that interrogatory in Great Britain, where he said he had no idea of any of the Russian information that Hillary, the DNC, the FBI, and some oligarch were paying for is true.
If you were to do that, wouldn't that open him up to a perjury charge there?
No, I think you're right.
I think he is clearly stated on the record, and to deviate from that would cause a little bit more chaos.
But remember, the Inspector General only has jurisdiction of current employees at the Department of Justice.
What I think we will see ultimately, based on my contacts and my interaction there, is that there are people outside the Department of Justice that are involved in this debacle.
I think you're going to find that there are people within the intelligence agencies outside the Department of Justice that will be implicated and named in this type of thing.
That led to adding on months where people wanted to step forward and give their information.
You've overlapped that with Durham and what he's doing, and you can see why it's taken a lot longer than I would like.
I mean, I'm not trying to do it.
But now we know where the Attorney General is going.
Mueller's over.
I mean, I know Mueller's going to testify next week, but I'm not so sure this is going to work out the way Democrats want.
I think they anticipate that he's going to say something.
Well, I really did think the president was guilty of obstruction, but he couldn't be more clear that there was no collusion.
And the cited incidents that they laid out without making a conclusion that the Attorney General Barr made and then Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and also the Office of Legal Counsel made is it did not rise to any standard of obstruction.
So, but I think, you know, how does Mueller answer the question that he had time for taxi medallions and time for FARA violations, which, you know, are fairly insignificant and loan applications and back taxes,
but he didn't have time to look into a Russian dossier that was used To commit a fraud on the FISA court because it's not verified or verifiable and then spy on an opposition party candidate using Russian lies and also influencing the American people in the lead up to the vote because we do know some high-ranking Intel people leaked that information in the dossier to the Washington Post and Michael Izikov and David Korn and others.
The list of questions, you're absolutely right, Sean.
The list of questions that Mueller has to answer about what he didn't do, in addition to what he did do, is far, is much longer than the report that he issued.
Democrats will use a tactic of asking questions they know he can't answer by framing it as classified information or something that's already answered.
It's a show.
That's all the Democrats are trying to do.
My prediction, Sean, is just a total guess.
I think Mueller backs out.
I don't think he does this.
And I think the Attorney General has his back and said, hey, I will support you if you decide not to do this.
I don't think it'll actually happen next week.
Would that then stop the Andrew Weissmans of the world from following suit?
I don't know.
I mean, Weissman's got a book deal.
He's going to go out on this public relations campaign.
But I think the Republicans, you know, they still have control over there in the Senate.
Lindsey Graham can make their life miserable by taking some proactive action.
And I think the temptation is going to be there to push back on this.
Democrats won't let it go.
This is, remember, that's why I wrote this whole book, Power Grab, because that's all the Democrats want, they want more power, and they have to create this illusion, this fiction of this drumbeat of scandal.
We've had four separate investigations now.
I think this now is an abuse of power by Jerry Nadler and the cowardly shift.
They just don't like the conclusion, so they're going to keep going until I guess they get the one they want or try to get the one they want.
But the bigger question is: knowing what we now know, knowing there were multiple warnings given to the FBI, the DOJ, that Hillary paid for the dossier, the DNC paid for the dossier, that Steele hated Trump and had an agenda, and that it was never verified, and yet they used it as the basis to get warrants to spy on Carter Page and through him the entire Trump campaign operation.
How is that not a premeditated fraud on the court?
And all those people that signed off on those warrants, shouldn't they, aren't they guilty of a premeditated fraud on the court?
I do think there should be some indictments.
I think there should be people in handcuffs, and it should come from two different avenues.
One is through the Department of Justice.
The Inspector General has already made a criminal referral on the Deputy Assistant Director on the FBI for leaking sealed materials for political purposes.
They should prosecute that person.
That's a very senior position, and the IG has already made that criminal referral.
But then you also have Chief Justice Roberts, because as you and I have talked about before, Sean, you cannot go to the court, mislead, deceive a court.
Any court that I've ever heard of, they actually stand up for themselves, and they can hold somebody in contempt.
They can do a lot of things, and they're senior most people from Rod Rosenstein to James Comey to right on down the line.
I don't know that Chief Justice Roberts has the political guts to do it, but if he's going to stand up and make the rule of law the law of the land, then he needs to hold these people accountable, and he can through the court.
Well, you would think so.
Now, I want to get back to this other issue, which I think is really, really important here.
So if the Steele interview goes on 15 hours and we both agree anything other than what he said under oath in Great Britain and an interrogatory would result, should result in a perjury charge for him.
You know, we have all these reasons now that the IG report is delayed.
One is the interview of Steele.
The other is other people coming forward.
But this is a pretty big development that all of this is now happening at this late hour.
And then it raises the question, okay, if people were willing to go that far and keep this alive that long, how close were we then to a potential, you know, coup in terms of people really undermining the electoral process at the highest levels of intelligence and the highest levels of law enforcement.
Well, and that's where I think it does go above and beyond just a couple of rogue people or somebody, you know, like a Mark Elias, who I don't think we talk enough about.
He's a general counsel, represented Clinton, represented the DNC, involved in the Podesta group.
I mean, this guy has his fingers in just about everything.
I worry, I think a legitimate concern and question mark is to what degree were other U.S. government entities directly or indirectly involved.
And I think that goes above and beyond just the Federal Bureau of Investigations or the Department of Justice.
Were some of these other overseas U.S. organizations involved?
And that's where a Steele interview talking about who did he talk to and who does that person work for becomes pivotal and truly understanding.
And it gets to another point, Sean, which is I worry about a cover-up based on classification.
Because I've seen this rodeo before.
I've been to this rodeo before.
Every single time I've seen a department and agency claim that something is classified, not because it's truly classified, but because it's embarrassing.
And that's the fight over the next several weeks, if not a month or two, that's going to be going on behind closed doors.
And it involves not only the Attorney General, but above and beyond that when you get the intelligence agencies fighting as well.
Okay, so they don't want the embarrassing information to come out.
It has nothing to do with sources and methods.
Who is the person that makes the ultimate determination?
Well, the president can involve himself if he wants.
But let's say the president does what he has done and he's opened up the possibility.
Barr now has the ability to declassify all of the things that we want out.
They haven't come out yet, including the FISA applications, gang of eight material, et cetera.
And the 302s.
So does Barr make the final determination based on the president already giving him that authority?
At the end of the day, look, Donald Trump should be winning awards for his openness and transparency.
I also am amazed at the restraint that he's offered.
But I think we're coming to a point in probably the six-week timeframe where the president's going to have to take this bull by the horns, look at this material, and make the classification decision himself.
He is the constitutionally elected officer, and I don't care how much the Democrats bark and scream and yell and hoot and holler.
Donald Trump is going to have to actually make this decision.
He's been hands-off.
He's kept his distance.
Yeah, he's sent out some tweets, but he really has been hands-off on this.
But at this point, he's going to have to make that final decision.
I think at this point, four investigations are enough.
Now it's harassment, and people cannot afford to be dragged back before these committees for what is ultimately a perjury trap and pay these high hourly rates of these lawyers when they're asking the same questions over and over again, hoping that there might be a slight variation and they can scream perjury.
I don't think anybody should answer those questions at that point.
It's now harassment.
All right.
Jason Chavitz, his book comes out early September, Power Grab, the Liberal Scheme to Undermine Trump, the GOP, and the Republic.
