House. It was a teacup cotton ball dog. T it doesnt fit. Now i have a burmese mountain. H laura good luck with the president tomorrow. We are from washington tonight. A jampacked show, everything you need to know about this sad sad showing on capitol hill by bob mueller. Chris hahn, ari fleischer, and we even have a body language breakdown on mueller. An expert who worked closely with him for years. Youre not going to believe what he has to say about todays testimony. First, trump beats the elite again. That is the focus of tonights angle. When he was appointed special counsel, Robert Mueller was described by the political and media elite as a brilliant choice. There is no more respected figure in american Law Enforcement than bob mueller. Hes got a reputation for no nonsense. He is a pro, he will follow the facts where they lead. This is big stuff and mueller is the guy to do it. This is going to be resolved by one man sitting quietly at his desk named Robert Mueller. Bob mueller completed another tour of duty. Laura at the time i mightve been the only one not buying it. I am sick of hearing what a great prosecutor bob mueller is. They should stand up and say lets see where this goes. It should have bought lotto tickets that day. Where did this all go . We found out today that when we saw a man who we thought was going to be wellprepared wasnt. I dont have it in front of me. I take your word. Im not certain of the person who originally copied that quote. I dont know that for sure. I cant answer that question without knowing more about that question. Laura a man who wasnt wellversed in the details of the investigation. I would like to ask you the reason again that you did not indict donald trump is because of opinion saying you could not indict a sitting president , is that correct . Laura a man who had to come back after break and correct that answer. I want to go back to one thing that was said this morning. You said you didnt charge the president because of the olc opinion. That is not the correct way to say it. You did not reach a determination as to whether thee president committed a crime. Laura that was just a small part of it. After all of that, the same Media Establishment who lauded mueller from the start, it was reduced to admitting this about todays proceedings. It was a televised disaster. I thought it really was a very ineffective. The democrats have to be disappointed. It certainly seems like donald trump is winning. Laura finally some honesty. If anybody can have a bad day, im a lawyer too,is i was invold in a lot of white color investigations. You dont always hit home runs. But this was a day full of swings and misses. An investigation that was in search of a crime from the very beginning. Anybody, but rank partisans would come to the same conclusion at this point. If mueller was thee consummate pro everybody said he was, he wouldve used today to apologize to the American People andnd ths president for what ultimately was a travesty. We will never know the full extent of how much this has hobbled the presidency of donald trump. I have to say this, even with this albatross around his neck, the president has once again beaten the elites at their own game. He delivered economic success that is the envy of the world. Better try harder next time, guys. That is the angle. Joining me now are two people who worked on the independent counsel of ken starr and saul weisberg. They are both Fox News Contributors. Joining me is kevin braga to assistant fbi director for intelligence by mueller and caucus chair mark meadows. Ken, what was mueller biggest screwup today . Total lack of preparation or at least the inability for whatever reason to communicate, to show a mastery or basic knowledge of the report. I was stunned and then i was shocked by bobs inability to focus, to show that he understood the questions, the constant please repeat the question. Sometimes you do that as a witness to stall and gather your thoughts, but it seemed to be genuine. What was that question . He was in a state of befuddlement which became, i think, embarrassing. I would say early on i was so glad to see that the issue of exoneratione and the idea of a prosecutor taking it on himself for now we know the team taking it on themselves to say this report does not exonerate the president. We have been saying this for now. Al months totally inappropriate, totally improper, and now we know that its much more likely something that bob mueller did not in his judgment come to. It was the judgment of the mueller team. Laura mark meadows, im going to go to you. We are going to move to this because he was asked about whowe appointed him at this hearing. For those of you who missed this, watch. Which president appointed you to become the United States attorney for massachusetts . Which senator . Which president . I think that was president bush. According to my notes it was president ronald reagan. Laura the president has been through hell, his family has been through hell. All these people had to hire lawyers. They have had to go through all this testimony they were vilified, and everybody build him up to be this guy, we cut my soundbite now, but who walked on water. I didnt buy it from the beginning. Any time the elite build someone up to this demigod status, my antenna always goes up. This was a sham from the beginning. He was not with it. And he is running this investigation that could affect u. S. Politics . I was there next to bob mueller for the entire judiciary meeting, and it was obvious that he was not prepared. And he didnt have a grasp of it. Laura the basic facts of this investigation. The whole panel knows more about this investigation then bob mueller does. That was meant to be a softball question by a democrat, and it was a swing and a miss. It was just a sad day. Laura you worked with him, you know him, i assume you think he is a man of great integrity. Your view . I do. I got a lot of Text Messages and tweets from colleagues and the operative word today seems to be painful. Its not the bob mueller that we remember. We lose a little bit of verbal dexterity over the years, but i think his basic unfamiliarity with the report itself, having to pull in his deputy for backup, does not inspire confidence and his answers today did not inspire confidence that he was a man in control. The deputy seemed like caretakers. This is the u. S. Presidency involved. We were led to believe that this was going to be the best of the best, the fairest of the fairest, and it wasnt. Saul, you have been a big defender of mueller from the beginning. You never worked withg him, but after today, your thoughts. Ive been a big defender of his integrity from the beginning, and im still a defender of his integrity. Im not going to kick him when hes down. Like kevin, i got Text Messages from people out of the blue, people i havent talked to, ex fbi in years that said literally this is not the bob mueller that i knew. Something is wrong. I dont know when that started, but i know to me that failure today is a failure of the democrats. This man said the report speaks for itself. I dont want to say anything beyond whats in the reports. Think he could have been much sharper than he was today he still would not have given them what they want to hear. When you do not give them what they want to hear, they destroy you as theyve been doing all day and they are doing tonight because theyre ruthless. Laura i have a piece of advice i offered on twitter today. Ca i held my fire until the endto f the testimony, but mine was committee, when you want a big hearing, and a lawyer that youre going to call really doesnt want to testify, you think is going to make your point, dont bring him to testify. He said he didnt want to testify. I think maybe he knew he didnt know the underlying facts. We are going to get to some of these facts like the steele dossier in a moment. He said he didnt want too testify and barr said in that letter, stick to the report. He wandered off a few times when he wanted to, and the democrats asked him some questions. The republicans were shut down, not going to answer that question, but he never wanted to do this testimony. Ti from what we know, this was just an enormous misjudgment because now that we look back in hindsight, we now see some of the warning signs. His press conference where he said no questions. I think its fundamental to Democratic Society that people who hold power as he did at that time, have to be responsive not just of the congress of the United States, but to the media. Prosecutors have to be careful about what they say, but he had issued his report so it was time to answer questions including the questions being raised about the integrity not about mueller, but about his team and especially the political leanings. All of thatt had been in the public domain, but he had never responded to these i think very reasonable and in fact powerful questions. He said im not going to respond so i think that was a sign. A harbinger of what we started a. Laura congressman, i want to play the exchange about the steele dossier pair this is what they got the investigation going. For everybody who lived under a rock, it was this dossier compiled with supposed sources, the highest levels of the russian government all a bunch of phony baloney stuff paid for ultimately by the clinton campaign. This was the exchange about the steele dossier. When did you become aware that the unverified steele dossier was intendedd was included in the application to spy on carter page . Im not going to speak to that. Your team interviewed because Christopher Steele, correct . You cant tell this committee as to whether or not you interviewed Christopher Steele in an investigation with 18 lawyers . That is onene of the investigations that is being handled by others in the department of justice. It was really that moment and one moment before when he said he didnt know what fusion gps is all about. When you look at both of those, youve been covering this. Obviously its not just you thats been covering it, its been all over for two years. Adam schiff has talked about it, devin nunes has talked about it and here we are with bob mueller not being able to answer basic questions about this entire investigation. You hit an earlier point here. The democrats forced bob muelleo to do this. It was first they wanted to wait for the Mueller Report, then they wanted him to come back and they wanted him to do a press conference and then they wanted him to show up. Three times they have struck out. Theyre going to get they need to stop while theyre behind. Right now they are so behind, they need to just stop. Laura they dont care about whats good for the country. This is what Andrea Mitchell said about the line of inquiry. About the steele dossier. Doit is shameful. Shameful that republicans are so focused on trying to undermine the origins of the investigation that they did not deal with the facts that has been concluded by all of the intelligence agencies under obama and of course professionals. This is the gaping hole in the whole investigation. Bob mueller was handed a mandate to do a counterintelligence investigation he ran off and did a criminal investigation ignoring a lot of the basic counterintelligence questions igthat should have been asked. And one of them surrounds the whole issue of the dossier and the russian involvement in that in their efforts to that manipulate the president ial election. We learned today just how much the Mueller Investigation was impacted by this socalled obstruction that they claimed that never actually happened. Spoiler alert, it wasnt. Effective at all. We never fired as special counsel, mr. Mueller. Were you allowed to complete your investigation unencumbered . Yes. In fact, he resigned as special counsel when you closed up the office in late may of 2019, is that correct . Correct. The congresswoman did this in like three questions. Was it impeded, wasnt fired, finish the investigation. Sometime im critical of the republicans crossexamination technique i think they bring in real pros like you to do the investigation, but she was fantastic. She was great, but everybody should have taken a crack. In skilled cross examiner having been when yourself would roll it out and asked 20 questions. You were allowed to talk to the white house counselwo on multipe occasions. You were allowed to see extensive notes involving conversations between don mcgahn and the president. You were allowed to question anybody you wanted to over x number of people. Did anyone ever claim executive privilege . You could have asked 50 or 60 questions like that. The answer would have brought out nobody ever kept us from questioning anybody except for the president himself which Everybody Knows about that issue. I would have liked to have seen that. Laura excellent point. There was another point we were talking about before their show which is we had all these Democrat Players who any of our law practices when we take a case you do a conflict check. Its a pain in the neck, did you ever meet this person, do you know anyone. The conflict checks are laborious in a law firm. This is a mini law firm, reallyi important the special counsels office. You dont want any appearance of conflict let alone actual conflicts. This is a line of questioning about jeanie reed et cetera. Niattended the Hillary ClintonsElection Night party. Were you aware that ms. Jeanie reed represented Hillary Clinton in litigation regarding personal emails originating as her time as secretary of state. Yes. When did you first learn about the animus towards donald trump. In the summer of 2017. You didnt know before he was hired . I did not know before that. I would like the whole panel to weigh in on this. What you do for ake basic conflt or appearance of conflict of checks and for an operation as important to the u. S. Government constitution. Frankly the world as this team was . You do your due diligence. You ask the key questions. So is there anything as when youre being considered for an executive Branch Appointment or confirmation hearings, is there anything that could be embarrassing to the president of the United States . I think bob or whoever was doing it, should have said i need to know. Im not asking you anything about your politics. But i need to know, is there anything by that definition of politically charged investigation, about your background, what youve done that could prove embarrassing to the investigation in terms of thear appearance of impartialit . That is so important. My word, given the group of sepeople he had around him. Of course he mustve known about Andrew Weissmanns reputation professionally which he continues to stand firm on. He should have asked those tough questions. Laura mark meadows, this is big. Did anybody do a conflict check . Who did the conflict check or the appearance or anything. The president of the United States did. Hes been talking about this for two years about the conflict. When we look at this, just the basic items and credibility. When you look at what bob mueller said today. You say gosh, you want to have a fair and impartial group of prosecutors. Thats why building him up from the beginning as the demigod, no one would question him because this is bob mueller. You cant question him. He wasnt questioning weissmann or whoever was doing it. He delegated it. Was he more of a figurehead in this investigation . After you saw this Performance Today was he the figurehead . He came into the office every day, he might have done something, but he did nothe know anything. Whether he was or he wasnt, thats what he projected today. Its unfortunate because hes a much more capable person than that. This is the achilles heel of the investigation. N. The perception was frontloaded with democrats. He wasnt able to get around ththat. Today on the podcast you when i talked about this, but the political morning console shows that even more democrats now from april through today are that this investigation was not handled fairly. That percentage has gone up 15 percentage points. Even among democrats, the distrust is growing. This is not going in a good direction for the democrats given the time, effort, and promises. Most people are saying lets get going, lets wrap this up. I think most americans have a sense of what happened here. Number one the colusions conspiracies coordination whatever you want to call it, the president is totally exonerated and that. The obstruction front he overreacted he did some things that were not lies that were disturbing, that he shouldnt have done, but there is probably not an obstruction case here and if there was, he is the president and we cant indict him, so lets move on. W i think in some kind of sense most americans think that way. You not going to move the ball any further. A page of history is worth a volume of logic. The fact is that this isnt watergate, but number two the republicans control the house and the first two years of trumps presidency and that means the democrats were not able to start issuing subpoenas into Start Building up the type of investigation that happened in watergate. Thats just reality, thats just politics. Laura nancy pelosi reacted today and said this. Lets watch. I do believe that what we saw today was a very strong manifestation some would even say indictment of this administrations cone of silence and their coverup. This is about our to protect and defend the constitution. Laura shes using the word indictment. They are not letting this go. The language is for 2020. This is all setting the table for 2020. It always was. A 2020 hearing it had no basis in trying to get to the underlying crime which i believe is how this whole investigation started. Laura this cannot happen to another president. It cannot be done. Panel, thank you very much for being here tonight. The Trump Administration declared victory tonight after the hearing and the president had this to say before heading to a fundraiser in west virginia. This was a very big day for the republican party, and you could say it was a great day for me. This whole thing has been three years of embarrassment and waste of time for our country. You know what . The democrats thought they co