Seem to have everything thats been a response to everything that the democrats have done. They announced impeachment charges, Michael Horowitz report. Bill barr is out there. Articles are introduced. Horowitz testifies today. On one hand they get exactly what they want. They create sort of confusion about mueller, the obsession to get trump. That story is out there. It seems as if this is part of a strategy the way the Trump Administration has used the government to respond to impeachment. Last night in hershey, pennsylvania, i was there, covering President Trumps rally. He talked about the ig report. He talked about the ongoing Impeachment Inquiry. He claimed that he was spied on. This is the counternarrative that has been building on the Trump Campaign, on the white house side, the Republican Party for a long time. When you read the igs report there was not an intention, according to horowitz, to spy. What was going on was Counterintelligence Investigation about possible russian interference in the 2016 election. As part of that investigation, they did have fbi assets that took stock of whether Trump Campaign advisers were being entangled with russia in any way. That was part of the Counterintelligence Investigation. President trump escalating this report into spying is making it a political weapon in 2020, and many of his advisers tell me its effective. Frank, it sounds like the fbi is being put on trial today. In a sense, it is. But its even larger than that. The neutral objective fact finder, the ig and the fbi pause you there. Geoff bennett has dianne feinstein. Lets go to her real quick, ranking member. Go ahead, geoff. Reporter she just walked in, chuck, but i asked her what she hopes democrats achieve with this hearing today and she said
a full and fair exposition of the facts. She is among the senators straggling in here as this hearing hopefully starts somewhere from being on time. Totally get it. Frank, i interrupted you. I do feel as if youre going to see maybe thats what this hearing ends up being about, where half the questions are about defending the fbi. Feels like the fbi is going to be on trial. It will be a rough day for the bureau today. Really it will be a rough day for any neutral objective fact finder. The ig himself is on trial today. Its fact versus political opinion today. Youll hear the democrats keep coming back to the adequate evidence to open all of these investigations, yes or no. Yes, there was. And youll hear the republicans say well, i dont agree with that predication level. You made an important point to me off air while maya and i were talking. I dont understand why barr is putting himself in a position that jim comey put himself in. It may or may not be ready by spring or early summer, which directly ties to the Democratic National convention. Lets remind ourselves every time we watch a clip of the Pete Williams interview with ag barr, we are watching a violation of doj policy. How . Explain. A prosecutor cannot comment on a pending criminal matter unless theres a compelling Public Interest. What did barr hint at as the compelling Public Interest . I didnt want the public to be confused. Were more confused than ever. The ig report is what barr thought it was a compelling Public Interest to respond . The facts found by the Ig Merited Violating Doj Policy and coming out with a counter opinion. And the timing of the durham investigation is going to be hung over our heads until its convenient to come out. Chuck rosenberg, do you concur with frank that basically the Attorney General is committing the same error in
judgment that jim comey did . He has the standard right, we dont talk about open investigations unless theres a public reason, public safety, warning people they may be at some risk and we have an ongoing investigation. Let me say one thing there, chuck, which i think is important. The fbi did make mistakes. Why . Well, actually, because its comprised of human beings. Human beings are fallible. Therefore, they make some mistakes. Do we need to fix stuff in the fisa process . Apparently so. We may need to tweak the guidelines and allow the fbi to have certain authorities in certain cases and certain instances, but none of that is surprising, right . Ask any Airline Pilot if shes had a perfect flight or any doctor whether he has had a perfect operation or any anchor whether theyve had a perfect broadcast. Thats not the way human beings operate. Havent had one yet. Of course not. None of us have. None of us will have a perfect day either. That said, there are things that
we need to fix. Ari what jumped out at you reading this today, reading a statement . The bottom line here is they didnt find what made everyone interested in this report. People werent waiting to discuss the third and fourth round of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants. Its just not why everyone is interested. You could go back and pretend that the Trump Administration is stark with libertarians or members of the Senate Committee are really concerned about international wiretap abuse but they actually have a record of opposing those kind of controls. Indeed, political conservatives tend to back up any National Security surveillance of any kind. What you have is a lot of folks trying to pretend that the carter page piece of it, i interviewed him last night, that
that is the big deal. In fact, thats the house thats left. Maya, you read this Opening Statement. Ill agree with ari, what were not talking about he is getting ready to take a seat. He will open by reminding us that the whole thing started in terms of Russia Investigation around a friendly government telling us that this conversation had started with a Trump Campaign aide. So, thats really important on the question that were really talking about, which is not what this report is about, which is why it was legitimate and important for us to Pay Attention to what was happening in our elections. Thank you all very much. We will let the hearing go. Mr. Horo with. Itz, thank you. I really appreciate what you have done. Do you have your team here with you . Yeah. Would it be okay if they raise their hands . Would that be all right . If theyre okay with it, im okay with it. Thank you all. You have labored hard and your
work product is impressive. And i just want to thank you all for what youve done for the country. And mr. Horowitz, im dying to hear from you. I havent made 20 minutes of Opening Statements in a year but ill take a little longer to try to lay out what i think is before us as a nation. Crossfire hurricane was probably the best name ever given to an investigation in the history of investigations, because i think thats what we wound up with, a crossfire in a hurricane. Theres been a lot of media reports about your report before it was issued. And i remember reading all these headlines. Lawful investigation with a few irregularities. Everything okay. People got off track. If thats what you get out of this report, you clearly didnt
read it. If thats your takeaway that this was lawfully predicated, you entirely missed the report. How do you get a headline like that . You want it to be that and nothing more. And i can assure you if this had been a democratic president going through what President Trump went through, that would not have been the headline. The headline would be fbi takes law into its own hands, lied to court. Ignored exoneration. So the first thing i want you to know is how the cake is baked here. And my goal is when this is over, whether you like trump, hate trump, dont care about trump, you look at this as more that happen a few
irregularities, because if this becomes a few irregularities in america, then god help us all. Now, the people that were in charge in this investigation were hand picked by mr. Mccabe, who is now a cnn analyst, high up in the fbi, the number two guy. The first question i will ask in a bit, is this the best of the best . Are these people normal representatives of their department of justice and the fbi . I hope you say no because i believe it to be no and if i believed otherwise, i would be incredibly depressed. So, ladies and gentlemen, im going to assume something for the sake of argument. That there was a lawful predicate to open up aCounterintelligence Investigation. And i want you to know that the standard to open one up is about like that. I also want you to know that a Counterintelligence Investigation is not a criminal investigation. Theyre not trying to solve a crime. Theyre trying to stop foreign powers from interfering in america. That a Counterintelligence Investigation is designed to protect americans from foreign influence. I want the American People to know there was an effort to affect Hillary Clintons campaign by foreign actors. The fbi picked up that effort. They briefed her about it and they were able to stop it. We will be receiving a defensive briefing tomorrow as a committee from the fbi to tell us all about what we should be watching for, and they may be some
specific threats against us, i dont know. But i know theyre going to brief us to protect us. Not just surveil us. Here is what i want every american to know. From the time they opened up Crossfire Hurricane to this debacle was over, they never made any effort to brief donald trump about suspected problems within his campaign. They had one briefing talking about, you know, the russians are out there. You better beware. Nothing about carter page. Nothing about papadopolous, nothing about the other people that they thought might be working with the russians. Why did they not tell him that . I hope you can give us an answer. Bottom line, Counterintelligence Investigation is a good thing until it becomes a bad thing. Because it doesnt take much to open one. The worst thing that can happen is for people to open one up whose best interest is not to protect an american but investigate one. Senator feinstein, a longtime employee was suspected of having ties to a Foreign Government. They informed her and she took appropriate action. How easy would it be for somebody to come in our campaigns as a volunteer, we really dont know who they are. You appreciate any help you can get. How easy it would be for all of us to get caught up in this scenario . I hope all of us would appreciate if you really believe theres somebody in my Campaign Working with a foreign power, please tell me. So i can do something about it. Why didnt they tell trump . Well figure that out later. I think its a question that needs to be asked. For a moment lets assume there was a lawful predicate to open up a Counterintelligence Investigation. Whats been described as a few irregularities becomes a massive Criminal Conspiracy over time to defraud the fisa court, to illegally surveil an american citizen and keep an investigation open against a sitting president of the United States, violating every norm known to the rule of law. Many of your prosecutors, many of you have been u. S. Attorneys. Many of you have been defense attorneys. Trumps time will come and go. But i hope we understand that what happened here can never happen again, because what happened here is not a few irregularities. What happened here is the system fail
failed. People at the highest level of or government took the law into their own hands. When i say defraud the fisa system i mean it. Abuse of power i never believed would actually exist in 2019. How bad is it . It was as if j. Edgar hoover came back to life. The old fbi, the fbi that had a chip on its shoulder and wanted to intimidate people and find out what was going on in your life and the law be damned. Martin luther king, and just fill in the names. So, who ran this thing . The people were hand picked by mccabe, number two guy at the
fbi, Deputy Assistant director of counterintelligence peter strzok, a big player in all thing things Crossfire Hurricane. Lisa page. You may have heard of her. Who was she in an fbi lawyer working for mccabe. These are two central characters in this debacle. Let me tell you a little bit about who these people are. And where theyre coming from. Thanks to a lot of hard work by people from mr. Horowitz, the fbi and others, here is what we know. Strzok, the frontline supervisor, february 12th, 2016. Hes trump, abysmal. I keep hoping the charade will end and people will just dump him. The problem then is that rubio will likely lose to cruz. I never quite made it. I can understand why they would not consider me a serious candidate. The Republican Party is utter shambles. When was the last competitive ticket they offered . March 3rd, 2016. Page. God, trump is a loathsome human. Strzok. Oh, my god. Hes an idiot. Newsrooms nt all over the country people are nodding this represents the attitude of a lot of people in america and you can have that attitude, but you shouldnt be in the journalism business. You shouldnt be at the fbi. If you were in the military and you said anything like this about a commander in chief, you would be charged with a crime. Remember the Mcchrystal Debacle where they had a bar room
discussion with a reporter from the Rolling Stone . Whats takeaway . Dont go to a bar with the Rolling Stone reporter. They were talking about how they dont like joe biden. I was the first to say that is out of bounds. You can have all the political opinions you want. If youre an officer in the United States military, you will park those opinions and you will not speak ill of the commander in chief. But that obviously is not a rule at the Fbi Department of justice. March 16th, 2016, i cannot believe donald trump is likely to be actual serious candidate for president. July 16th, were getting closer to when this thing opens, and while donald trump is an enormous douche. Again a lot of people agreed with that. The first thing out of his mouth was were going to win so big. The whole thing is like living in a bad dream. July 19th, 2016. Trump is a disaster. I have no idea how destabilizing
his presidency would be. And a lot of people believed that. Youre entitled to believe that, but you should not be an investigator. July 30th, the investigation is open. And damn this feels momentous, about the investigation, because this matters. The other ones did, too, but that was to ensure we didnt f something up. This matters because this matters. So super glad to be on this voyage with you. I hope you understand what this voyage was about. August 8th, 2016. Three days before stzrok was named the front line supervisor. He will never become president , right . Page to strzok. No am, he wont. Well stop it. These are the people in charge. August 15th, 2016, i want to
believe the path you threw out for consideration in andys office that theres no way gets elected but im afraid we cant take that risk. That the American People will pick their president. Its like an Insurance Policy in the unlikely event you die before youre 40. August 26th, 2016. Just went to a southern virginia walmart. I could smell the trump support. People in charge. October 11th, 2016. Currently fighting with stu for the fisa. Stu was a lawyer who thought this thing was not on the up and up. Stood his ground until He Couldnt Stand It anymore. Eventually got run over. October 19th, im all riled up. Trump is an fing idiot, unable
to provide a coherent answer. New york times Probability Numbers are dropping every day. Im scared for our organization. November 3rd, 2016. Oh, my god this is fing terrifying, referencing an article entitled a victory by trump remains possible. November 9th, 2016. Rougher going to give out your calendars . Some kind of depressing. Maybe it should be the first meeting of the secret society. November 13th. I brought all the i bought all the president s men. I figure i needed to brush up on watergate. November 13th, 2016. Finally two pages away from finishing all the president s men. Page to strzok, do you know the president resigns at the end. Strzok. What . God, that would be so lucky. May 18th, 2017, the date page accepted a position on the special counsels team. For me, in this case, i personally have a sense of unfinished business. Im leashed with nye, whatever that means. Now i need to fix it and finish it. Strzok, who gives an f . One more Assistant Director or whoever, an investigation leading to impeachment. May 2017. You and i both know the odds are nothing. If i thought it was likely, i would be there, no question. I hesitate in part just because of my gut sense and concern
there is no big there there, talking about impeachment. May 22nd, 2017. Im torn. I think no, im more replaceable than you are in this. Im the best for it, but there are others who can do it okay. Youre different and more unique. This is yours.