Transcripts For FOXNEWSW The Ingraham Angle 20171228 : vimar

We will debate whether trumps tough talk and propolice policies deserve the credit. Meanwhile, the establishment media can understand they kill still cannot understand why President Trump space still supports this president. We will examine whether the medias problem is the messenger themselves. Gold star parents who lost their navy seals on in a firefight credit eight key change by President Trump for saving military lives on the battlefield this very day. But we begin with a little notice your long probe that could have a big effect on the investigation by special counsel robert mueller. Last january the Justice Departments Inspector General Michael Horowitz quietly began investigating the fbi and dojs handling of the Hillary Clinton email scandal. Recently that inquiry turned up evidence of antitrump bias among key players in the russia investigation. Remember those texts that talked about an insurance plan. That came from Michael Horowitzs investigatio investigation. All of washington is waiting to see what other bombshells this investigation may reveal in the new year. And whether this could discredit part or all of the mueller bro. Joining us now to discuss from washington, d. C. ,s scott bolden, democratic strategist and with me here in new york city is james freeman, the assistant editor of the wall street journals editorial page. Thank you for joining me at this morning im on fox friends all the time. Morning or night, i cant get it right. This is the ingraham angle, we are here this evening. Scott, let me start with you now that i know where i am. This investigation, bob muellers name is a household name right now. The democrats are banking through their resistance that hes going to take down as president. The name Michael Horowitz is not one wellknown but his investigation has already bore proof that peter and others have had to leave the Mueller Probe as a result of showing antitrump bias. Is this not an investigation if they show the special treatment was given to Hillary Clinton could have serious consequences . I understand about the issue, but he was removed. As a former prosecutor, let me just say this. He was not the only decisionmaker and until you show that the investigation has been tainted, not just having one investigator that was tainted and probably removed, you dont have political bias. You cant select people to be on the Investigation Team whether it was those who investigate Hillary Clinton or those who are on the Mueller Investigation simply for political affiliation. They have to show bias and has nothing right there right now no matter how many times the g. O. P. Throws political hand grenades at the Mueller Investigation. Pete you say peter strzok is not the only one in the investigation, true. Andrew mccabe, the number two. When the clinton email investigation was going on, we dont all through evidence that Andrew Mccabe said that this clinton email investigation should receive special status. Theres Andrew Mccabe right now. Also been referred to as andy in the insurance policy in the texts between strzok and lisa page. Andy mccabe said special status investigation. James freeman, the Inspector General is trying to consider whether or not it was a fair investigation, are we not onto something here . I think we are onto something and i assume mr. Bolden and people are democratic colleagues were happy when the investigation got going because the idea here was there was a theory in democratic circles that mr. Comey of the fbi had put islam on the scale and helped donald trump get elected. I think this was perhaps seen as a way to discredit the trump administration. Now as you said, quietly, he hasnt been leaking, but he appears to have been doing a lot of work, taking a lot of documents, a lot of interviews. He has interviewed mr. Comey among others. Pete Loretta Lynch as well. We will get a report probably late winter or early spring and its focused on the comey process. Not his decisions, but did he follow fbi procedures and i dont see how anyone can say yes he did because that was one thing that former ags and deputy ags of parties agreed with. It has kind of been lost now in the intervening months but there was widespread agreement that former fbi director james comey did not follow bureau procedures when he took upon it himself to announce that there would be no prosecution of mrs. Clinton when he shared his thoughts publicly in a press conference about her culpability. If thats not what prosecutors do and hes not a prosecutor. He supposed to gather the information. Prosecutors make the decision. Pete specifically this doj Inspector General is looking at as was mentioned by james the review of the clinton email investigation. Authorities are examining whether the Justice Department established followed established policies and procedures. It doesnt seem like established policies and procedures to write the exoneration of the person you are investigating two months before you are talking to them, as well as deeming the investigation special, meaning only a few people at that fbi were actually involved in investigating Hillary Clinton. I will note, this is very important to know, this Inspector General launched this report independently before President Trump was president and hes an obama appointee. This is not something President Trump has launched and why is this getting very little coverage and notice when bob mueller is walltowall on every other network in the city . Bob mueller has not done any interviews quite frankly. Its been the political pundits. Hes done a little bit of leaking. We dont know that either. There was nothing usual about the clinton investigation. Politics crept its way in and there were a lot of political things from day one. As a former prosecutor, a special status meant absolutely, they were trying to protect the investigation from not only leaks but political comments and to have politics injected into it. I think the Inspector General, we welcome his investigation because it is something that is really important. But i still dont think that if there was something there we would have it by now. We did get the emails, dont get me wrong, but again, was their political bias . Wasnt handled in an inappropriate manner . It certainly was handled in an unusual manner with comey and most democrats hated comey reopening the investigation or even making public statements. That was unusual but i think comey indicated, he laid out his basis for taking these unusual steps. We welcome the ig investigation. I think democrats and republicans ought to be both concerned, but relieved once that report comes out. Pete very interesting to see what it reveals. James, we hear investigation, how senate investigations. A lot of them going on right now. But through all of those it has revealed what a lot of people feel like it is in fbidoj swamp. We are not talking about the agents that do the great work. Talking about leadership whether its strzok, andrew weissman, who was to attend Hillary Clinton Victory Party until it wasnt a Victory Party. Bruce or, is connections of his wife to fusion gps. James baker, the council who had to step down. It seems like a lot of deep state democrats who have an ax to grind or political preference and we all know political preferences, everyone is allowed to have them but if they start to cloud your judgment or give you reason and rationale to pursue someone for a different reason, how do you not look at that and say we need to find out more . The fbi agents, they are allowed to have political opinions but when you get into extreme bias, thats what we saw in the strzok text. Thats why mueller fired him. He would not have fired him if there wasnt that issue of extreme bias. As this rolls forward, remember the whole reason the Mueller Investigation exists is because mueller was fired dominic. Pete then asked his buddy to leak things to make sure he triggered a special counsel. This is going to shine a light once again on the fact that mr. Comey deserved to be fired. The reputation of the fbi was in tatters last year because of what he was doing conducting his investigation into the emails and what this is going to do is bring up a lot of issues that were kind of tossed aside or forgotten when the focus moved to mr. Trump when he started talking about the reason he fired mr. Comey. If you go back to me and look at Deputy Attorney general rosensteins memo it laid out chapter and verse on how mr. Comey had violated longstanding procedures. It quoted officials from both parties over the years saying this is antithetical to the interests of justice. I think he is now looking into that. Thats a problem for comey and for mueller. Pete briefly come in 20 seconds. This is all political rhetoric. You have to show political bias. Show me one document, one witness testimony pete what about the Text Messages that say we have to have an insurance policy . That individual was removed from the campaign. Pete he wouldnt have been without the Inspector General report. That doesnt show political bias. It means that he was tainted but the investigation was not tainted. Pete but he was in charge of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. He was in charge of changing it was not his decision. Pete they were a part of changing the wording from gross negligence in the end it was muellers call. Republicans would love to make more of it but until you have evidence, documentary or otherwise. Because the fbi and doj, thats all they are looking at. All you have of these political grenades by the republicans. My goodness, if you dont want any democrats to be on any of these Investigation Teams and we are starting to look like a third world country. Pete there are plenty of democrats. That was the whole point of the rosenstein memo. Former deputy ag under bill clinton. Eric holder, official in both the clinton and obama Justice Departments. You discounting what they set about comeys conduct . There political support, who they write checks to, if they attend a briefing if they attend a fundraising and you are going to say that needs to be investigated . Thats nonsensical. Pete 675,000 to the wife of the number two in the investigation was running for congress. It means something. She took money from the state governor from the state Democratic Party in virginia. What also she supposed to do . You want them to be divorced over this . Pete in addition to reality in these extrinsic circumstances. Political you may like the fact that theyve done this, but thats the art of the deal. If theres nothing illegal or inappropriate or unethical about it and you cant make it that way by merely repeating that. Pete the American People are still great for for the fact that you have bob mueller doing his thing with the name Michael Horowitz, not a household name who seems to be a political is digging down to the fact that our secretary of state had a private server in her home and deleted bleach bit 33,000 emails and got away with it and that makes people feel like the system is rigged differently for them than someone with political connections. We will find out what the conclusions are. You disagree with the conclusion so you want more investigations done. Pete if they were based on a swamp benefiting Hillary Clinton. We may get evidence of that, thats the point. You are obsessed with it. We have to leave it right there. Pete eventually will get to the bottom and both of these. Thanks. Much of Washington State is glued to the Mueller Probe, trump and spent scoring some impressive victories overseas, including one that president obama said was impossible. We will talk with john bolton about that just one minute. Liberty mutual saved us almost eight hundred dollars when we switched our auto and home insurance. Liberty did what . Yeah, they saved us a ton, which gave us a little wiggle room in our budget. Wish our insurance did that. Then we could get a real babysitter instead of your brother. Hey, welcome back. This guy. Right . Yes. Ellen. Thats my robe. You could save seven hundred eighty two dollars when liberty stands with you. Liberty mutual insurance. What bad knee . Ull ask what throbbing head . Advil makes pain a distant memory nothing works faster stronger or longer what pain . Advil. Finding the best hotel price is whoooo. Now a safe bet. Because tripadvisor searches. Over 200 booking sites so you save up to 30 on the. Hotelock it in. Tripadvisor. Pete welcome back to the ingraham angle. If the barbaric and bloodthirsty isis caliphate is suddenly almost extinct having lost 98 of its territory. A stunning half of that loss came in just the year since President Trump took office. But it wasnt so long ago that isis was running rampant, gobbling up large chunks of syria and iraq and looking almost unstoppable as a timber army. Thats what president obama told us in july of 2015. This will not be quick. This is a longterm campaign. They are opportunistic and it is nimble. Our strategy recognizes that no amount of military force will end the terror that is isil. Pete cant beat isis with the military. If that wasnt just wrong, it was a strategy destined to fail. According to fall short army general and fox news military analyst jack crean. The Obama Administration despite claims that it was a top priority never fired a shot in anger against isis even though the Iraqi Government was asking for help for nine months. Thats how long it took. It took 15 months before we ever went after their oil fears, their source of strength, financial strength. That was a strategic blunder that we didnt crush them early on. Pete turns out the jv team wasnt so jv. President trump just didnt change strategies, many credit him with unleashing the ability to make military bike changing their roles. Joining us now for reaction is former u. N. Ambassador john bolton. Thanks for joining us. President obama said that our strategy in iraq recognizes that no amount of military force will end the terror that is what he called isil, isis. Yet it appears to me that it is indeed military force that is eradicating the grounds that isis held. What is the key difference between what President Trump did and president obama . I think the strategy obama was pursuing he described as degrade and ultimately destroy isis. The emphasis was on ultimately. Under his approach just dragged on and dragged on and dragged on. And the consequence was that isis had ample opportunity to both train terrorists to get into europe in the united states, but also as things finally began to turn, to export rate unknown numbers of these leaders into other anarchic portions of the world. We should be happy that the caliphate, the physical caliphate is just about gone, but unfortunately the isis threat remains, now based in libya and yemen and the afghanpakistan border regions. It might have been avoided if we had been really pursuing them harder during the obama years. Pete absolutely. A lot of people, guys on the ground credit the loosened rules of engagement. When i was in iraq and afghanistan, its going to inhibit my ability to make decisions on the ground. Now its captains and majors and colonels making moment by moment decisions. How important is that to maintaining momentum in defeating an enemy like we have, which once was the caliphate once was the size of ohio. Im reduced to a thousand lowly fighters . I think it was critical and i think it reflects what the strategy should have been all along, not degrade and ultimately destroy, economize, save words, destroy, period. I have to say that because the administration continue to follow the obama approach of relying mostly on the government of iraq and its militias, certainly we helped with the kurds, we helped with some of the Syrian Opposition and other arab forces, but relying extensively on the fact that government, which is effectively a satellite of iran, we have left now iran in a very advantageous position in the region for what i fear may be the next conflict. Pete very true. At the next up in what happens in iraq and syria is absolutely critical. But for now the fact that the caliphate has been defeated, incredibly significant. We will see how much the rest of the town reports in the development. I have to get your insight on some news that we found quite interesting. Something that would not have happened under president obama, israel is honoring an american president , the israelis now plan to name the train station near the western wall in the old city of jerusalem after President Trump. Specifically, the transportation minister in israel as of the western wall is the holiest place for the jewish people and i decided to name the train station that leads to it after President Trump. Thats a big thing. A lot of people might be surprised by that, why are they so willing to immediately embrace this president . Because of what hes done. Because of recognizing jerusalem as israels capital and by traversing eight years of basically antiisrael American Foreign policy. Im sure cases of heart burn across the coun