Gorka: Government was systematically weaponized under Obama

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Gorka: Government was systematically weaponized under Obama

Sebastian Gorka and Herman Cain speak out on 'Hannity' about FISA abuse scandal.

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," February 9, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Welcome to "Hannity."

A lot of breaking news this Friday night.

New information, new developments on a lot of issues. Politico is reporting this hour that the former White House chief of staff strategist Steve Bannon may have been picked up by FBI surveillance while the bureau had a FISA warrant on Carter Page.

Also tonight, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, he's asking for transcripts from the FISA court while the FBI was trying to get approval to monitor page and brand new information about that second anti- Trump dossier. Now, according to a report, congressional investigators, they are examining the documents and they want to interview the author, long-time Clinton ally Cody Shearer.

Plus, a former State Department official confirms what congressional Republicans have been saying by admitting that he was sharing anti-Trump opposition research from friends of the Clintons with the dossier author, Christopher Steele.

That and so much more and our breaking news opening monologue.

(MUSIC)

HANNITY: All right. Brand new tonight, Politico out with explosive report about potential deep state spying on a former top Trump advisor.

Here's their headline: FBI surveillance of Carter Page might have picked up Bannon. Now, according to the reporting, Carter Page was being surveilled by the FBI last January during the presidential transition when Page had a phone call about Russia with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Now, according to Politico, Page made the shocking revelation during congressional testimony and Page said at the time that Bannon called him about canceling a planned television appearance and then Page eventually brought up the phony dossier which BuzzFeed had published just a day earlier on January 10th. Now, it's not certain if the conversation with Bannon was picked up by the FBI, but national security experts, they're telling Politico that it's very possible that it did happen.

Now, investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson who says the Obama administration you may remember, remember she said they hacked her computers, made this very profound point on the show earlier this week. Let's take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHARYL ATTKISSON, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: I was told even before Donald Trump announced for office that intel officials and I was told this by insiders, has sometimes been using bad information to bring to the FISA court to wrap up other people that are the true targets that they can't get a warrant against but to wrap them up in incidental targeting, different ways without maybe a direct warrant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Wow, this is beyond shocking and raising very serious questions given the other information that we already know. Now, according to two Republican memos, the FBI lied to the FISA court. Remember? They used a Clinton bought and paid for Russian dossier they never verified or corroborated it in order to get a warrant to spy on Carter Page. Now, remember, that Grassley-Graham memo, that detailed how Comey never bothered to verify all this anti-Trump information in the dossier that Christopher Steele had put together because he thought, well, the former British spy was credible in the past.

Now, that same memo also uncovers how the bulk of the FISA application the FBI presented to the FISA judge consisted of the dossier that they never verified. This is unbelievable. And we also know that Comey told then President-elect Trump that the dossier was salacious and unverified during the transition. That was, what, two months before. And the dossier was good enough to get a FISA warrant? But it was unverified and salacious?

This entire scandal now reeks of corruption beyond anything which we have seen before. In other words, what is he admitting here, what we are seeing here is the powerful tools that we give our intelligence community to protect us with abuse to spy on an opposition campaign during an election and before an election, and after an election. Now, also tonight, Fox News has obtained House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' letter requesting transcripts of Carter Page's FISA court hearings. This is important.

Now, Chairman Nunes is asking for, quote, any relevant FISA court hearings associated with the initial application or subsequent renewals related to electronic surveillance of Carter Page. I would like to see them too.

Now, the House Committee is setting a February 16th deadline that's one week from tonight for the court to provide those transcripts if they in fact have them. Now, getting these transcripts would be a massive development as we have been explaining night after night, we know the top echelon of the FBI again, they relied almost exclusively on this Hillary Clinton bought and paid for dossier to get that warrant and then, of course, on Carter Page, and they didn't tell the FISA court that the dossier was, in fact, bought and paid for with about $12 million of moneys paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC funneled through the same law firm.

Now, we are following this developing story because this is key in all of this. How could you use an unverified Russian propaganda dossier to get a FISA warrant to spy on opposition candidate and an incoming president?

All right. Also, other breaking news this hour. Another new explosive report, according to ABC News, Senate investigators, they are examining a second anti-Trump dossier. Now, this was put together by long-time Clinton ally, guy by that the name of Cody Shearer.

And according to ABC, the Senate Intelligence Committee is now trying to set up an interview with Shearer who reported solid claiming that he put together the second dossier as, quote, an independent journalist. Now, nobody is buying that because, according to The Guardian, Shearer has ties going all the way back to when Bill Clinton was president in the 1990s.

We did reach out to shearer for comment. Shocking, he didn't get back to us.

And we are also learning tonight that the State Department was, in fact, involved in obtaining and then spreading phony anti-Trump information during the campaign. Really? And a former top ranking official at the department that Hillary Clinton used to run is admitting in a "Washington Post" op-ed that he was in contact with Christopher Steele also, and that Clinton confidante, Sid "Vicious" Blumenthal, gave him information that came from Cody Shearer, who we just told you about.

Now, this is a striking admission from the State Department because remember, Christopher Steele used the information it was never verified, Clinton paid for it her friends are feeding Steele, nobody verifies it and then it's used as a basis for a FISA warrant.

You got this guy Jonathan Winer, matches exactly what the memo put together by Senators Grassley and Graham exposed earlier this week when we got the unredacted version.

And, of course, we have Congressman Devin Nunes, well, he told us in an interview earlier this week that his committee is now investigating the State Department and their involvement in this.

Now, in an op-ed entitled: Devin Nunes is investigating me, here's the truth. Well, Winer says he met with Christopher Steele in Washington in September to talk about information in the dossier. After which Winer goes on to explain about the dossier, quote, I was allowed to review about you but not keep the copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a two-page summary. I shared it with Nuland who indicated like me she felt the secretary of state needed to be aware of this material.

So, former Obama Secretary of State John Kerry may also be involved in this scandal, which is why he needs to now answer questions under oath about what he knew, when he knew it and if he ever saw this dossier, what he knew about the dossier.

Now, Winer then goes on to write how later that month that he talked with his friend Sid "Vicious: Blumenthal, best friend of the Clintons. And Winer admits, quote, talking about Blumenthal, showed me notes gathered by a journalist I didn't know, Cody Shearer that alleged the Russians had compromising information on Trump of a sexual and financial nature. And what struck me was how some of these materials echoed Steele's but appeared to involve different sources.

So, Winer then goes on to write on my own, I shared a copy of these notes with Steele to ask for his professional reaction. He told me it was potentially collateral information. And I asked him what he meant by that and he said that it was similar but separate from the information he had gathered from his sources. By the way, Russian sources.

Then he writes: I agree to let him keep a copy of the Shearer notes. Now, Winer goes on to say that Christopher Steele shared the information that he gave him to the FBI.

Do you see how unbelievable this is?

Now, we reached out to Blumenthal for comment. He's not responding to our request. So this whole scandal starts with Hillary Clinton, remember, rigging the primary against Bernie Sanders. Why Bernie people aren't more mad, I don't know.

Then she tried to rig the general election against Donald Trump. She pays for a phony Russian propaganda dossier filled with Russian government lies and propaganda. The FBI then takes that bought and paid for dossier, they don't tell the FISA judge the truth to go out and get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign before the election and then they use it after the election.

And there's now concerns that Steve Bannon, former top Trump aide, well, that he might have been caught up in incidental surveillance. By the way, there might be a lot of other people. And we're also learning that in addition to the Clinton campaign, while we have Hillary's allies, they are feeding anti-Trump dirt to the State Department, which is sharing it with Christopher Steele.

Like we have been telling you, sit tight. If you think this is bad right now, I promise you it's going to only get worse. What we have now is a sliver of the information. It's coming out day by day.

I have been warning you from the beginning, this is Watergate on steroids.
As you can see this gets more corrupt by the day.

Here now with information, new information, FOX News contributor, investigative reporter Sara carter. Also, FOX News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett.

All right. Let's try and break this down.

I talked to a very good friend of mine today, Sara, really smart guy. My best friend from 3rd grade, John Gomez. He is a lawyer in his own right.

And he says this is hard for him to follow every night, and we're trying to, you know, lay the foundation, bring the new information in. And try and make it explainable because the level of corruption is so deep it's hard to follow every single aspect of this.

SARA CARTER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: It is. It is. But if you just lay out the facts, Sean, here you have the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC paying for a dossier that is being gathered by a foreign agent, a British foreign agent. That British foreign agent is using Russians to gather information. Then have you members of the Hillary Clinton campaign, people that were close to her and her husband actually gathering their own separate dossier and then feeding that that information to the British foreign agent who is trying to get the FBI to open an investigation into then candidate Trump and then President-elect Trump.

It's really quite simple and as simple as that. For people who were so afraid of the Russians. For people who were so terrified in those last years of Russians interfering in the elections, they had no problem accepting information from Russian FSB agents, former KGB agents, disinformation that was never verified and then lying to the FISC court about this.

And I'm going to tell you this: one of the things they will discover in those FISC court applications is the fact that even the FBI never -- it wasn't just a footnote. They never admitted that they actually knew. They only speculated that it might be political. They only speculated and mark my words on that.

HANNITY: That's a purposeful -- but that's a purposeful deception and omission to the FISA court. That is beyond material that is beyond material. That would have been a game changer for any fair judge.

CARTER: That's right and it was deceptive. It was deceptive even if its own footnote statement. Wouldn't it have been easier to go to the judge and say, look, we know that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee were paying for this dossier? That would have been a lot easier than trying to bury it in a footnote. And so, in fact, that footnote was very deceptive in itself, because that footnote did not directly state that the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC paid for that document.

HANNITY: So, you got, Greg, you hit people, know hit people, literally, you know, making up information, feeding it all to Steele. Steele is -- we learned in the unredacted Graham-Grassley memo that, in fact, the information that got us, the bulk of the FISA, it's unverified, they don't tell the FISA judge where it comes from. So, you got basically everybody feeding this big lying narrative to each other and then they lie before a judge and they get a warrant.

OK. This -- and it's all designed to impact a presidential election. And they did it successfully in some ways. They got the warrant.

GREGG JARRETT, FOX NEWS LEGAL ANALYST: Sure, and I was just reading the declassified opinion of the chief justice, chief judge of the FISA court was declassified nine months ago. It's 99 pages long. And what it tells me is the Department of Justice and the FBI knew they could get away with it, because this judge points out, repeated acts of incomplete and misleading filings before the FISA court.

So, the FBI and the Department of Justice likely knew that they could go in to that judge the first one and three after, and conceal evidence and deceive the judge and the judge probably wouldn't know any better, because they have gotten away with it so many times before. So, they use all of the information, this paid for and now put together in part by the Clintons and their allies.

And Department of Justice and FBI knew this stuff was all fabricated. Look at the dossier, it's a joke. But they sort of hid that from the judge and they used it as a pretext to go after and destroy Donald Trump and it's an American tragedy.

HANNITY: Well, let me stay in this. And, Sara, you and John May 25th last year, you were on this program talking about it, how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court blasted, literally ripped to shreds the Obama administration for breaking not only America's surveillance laws but blatantly violating the Constitution, those aren't my words, those are the judges' words.

CARTER: Those were the judges' words? That came from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court? They did blast them, Sean, they said that they stepped all over the Fourth Amendment. They were conducting warrantless searches. They knew that. They knew that they were violating the rules and regulations.

And they said, look, the FBI cannot self-regulate. It can't watch itself. There needs to be changes. There were a lot of things that did change but a lot of things that haven't changed as we've seen. And I think that this calls for further investigation.

I know that the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate committee is also looking into this, the judiciary and others. They're going to look at what happened with our intelligence apparatus and whether or not that was weaponized against our own people.

HANNITY: Yes.

CARTER: And I think Carter Page is just one example of many.

HANNITY: We need to, Gregg, get to the crimes that potentially are committed here. I mean, misrepresenting information to a court is bad enough, but it suggested in the Grassley-Graham unredacted memo that they had actually seen all four FISA warrant applications. So, I'm assuming Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham saw them.

So, they are available in some capacity as Devin Nunes so I can believe is asking for this information tonight.

JARRETT: Right, and they have probably already identified the felony statutes that were likely broken by the FBI and the Department of Justice, their abuse of power and perjury. And what will be critical is as you reported and actually we talked about it two night ago is that Nunes is now requesting the presiding judge to provide the transcripts of all four of those FISA hearings.

To get to the bottom of the false representations, the fraud upon the court that was perpetrated during those hearings. And if those transcripts provide that evidence, then charges should -- must be brought officials at the Department of Justice and FBI.

HANNITY: What did it -- but (ph) if the FBI and James Comey knew? If he knew that he was -- you know, that footnote may have political origins and knew darn well it was bought and paid for by Hillary, and if they even knew on top of it that Hillary aides were feeding this.

And remember -- go back to the Grassley-Graham unredacted. They are saying this is Russian government lies. They said government, the Russian government in that Christopher Steele is putting in that information.

It's the irony in all of this is insane. Just like the irony of Uranium One is we are giving Russia 20 percent of our uranium. You know, we have heard a year about Russia and now we have real evidence.

JARRETT: Any intelligent lawyer and Comey is certainly a veteran lawyer, would know that you can't rely on evidence that comes from a source in Russia or sources in Russia who are experts on lying and deception and disinformation. Nor can you rely on a former spy in Great Britain who is trained in the same thing. And then you factor in that it was political research paid for by the opponent of the target.

You can't make up such deception and fraud if you tried.

HANNITY: How could you ever present what the Grassley-Graham memo was saying, Sara, unverified Russian government information that Hillary paid for to get a warrant to spy on an opposition party.

CARTER: The Grassley and Graham memo basically substantiated everything that Nunes was saying in his own memo.

HANNITY: True.

CARTER: And it went further. And it went further. It implicated them in criminal acts. And this is why they want to speak to Christopher Steele. This is the reason why they want more information.

And I tell you this, Sean, in March, when the I.G. report comes out and hopefully we have been hearing it's going to be the first weeks of March or by mid-March, I think it's going to be an explosion of information that we didn't even know -- the focus on Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI, former deputy director of the FBI. All of the other things that come into play with the Clinton server investigation. Those things will be so relevant. And they won't be able to dismiss those facts.

HANNITY: The fix was in, Sara. The fix was. It was rigged by Comey. It was rigged by Peter Strzok.

What are the statute of limitations -- I don't know if you know off the top of your head -- on the Clinton email server, considering the fix was in, Gregg? That's an important fact --

JARRETT: Well, some of the -- some of the statutes are five years, so they may have run. Others have not run as yet. So, on that basis alone, there ought to be a second special counsel appointed, reopen it and quickly re- examine the evidence.

Send it to a grand jury which is where it should have gone to begin with. Let a grand jury decide whether there is sufficient compelling evidence that Hillary Clinton committed a myriad of crimes. I guarantee you if an honest grand jury looked at it, she would be indicted.

HANNITY: Unbelievable. I agree with you, too.

All right. Thank you both. We appreciate it.

We have more breaking news from Washington tonight. Ed Henry has a report.

Also, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Herman Cain, so much more.

Breaking Friday news night. We're glad you are with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

HANNITY: All right. Joining us now with more reaction to tonight's opening monologue and huge news we have had all week: former deputy assistant to the president and Fox News national security strategist, Sebastian Gorka, and Fox News contributor Herman Cain.

You know, Dr. Gorka, think of what we had. A week ago today, we got the House Intel, the Nunes memo. Then we got the Senate memo on Monday. Then we got the unredacted version on Tuesday. Then we find out that the Uranium One informant testified before three committees in Washington.

The great irony here is that we're learning that there was real Russian problems in the election. And that's Hillary paying for Russian lies that then gets used as a foundation for a FISA warrant and that we knew 18 months in advance of bribery, extortion, money laundering, kickbacks by Putin operatives in America. And we still allowed him to get 20 percent of America's uranium.

And the mainstream media still stuck on Trump-Russia collusion with no evidence.

SEBASTIAN GORKA, FOX NEWS NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGIST: Right, Sean.

So, if you want to see chapter and verse, just go to Peter Schweizer's book or watch the free video online on YouTube. "Clinton Cash" documents all of this, whether it's Uranium One, whether it's Haiti, whether it's all the corruption that's connected to how this woman and her husband became multi, multi, multimillionaires after being public servants all their life.

So, number one, it's all laid out there. But let's look at the recent charges and the recent things that we have learned from Devin and from Senator Grassley. The left loves to talk about Watergate. You know, the movies, constant references.

What was Watergate? Allegedly the biggest political scandal in modern times in American, which is about the cover up, just the cover up of one bungled burglary.

What do we have in this case? Not one event and the cover-up. We have a systematic weaponization of federal government under Obama. This isn't just about FISA, about the illegally spying on American citizens. It's the IRS. It's the DOJ.

It is, again and again and again. And look at the trail of bodies already what is it today we have the eighth person?

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Up to eight. Demoted, fired or retired. Yes.

GORKA: Or moved on.

That's before we know the whole story, Sean, eight already. This is, perhaps, the inflexion point. I am waiting for those FBI agents, those analysts, those DOJ employees who have been suffering in silence, who have been afraid but now there is a point where they see it's going to come out. So, get in front of it now, and tell us what you know.

HANNITY: Well, I know many of the rank-and-file are. And we have gone to great pains on this program to make sure our audience understands. This is not rank-and-file FBI. This is not rank-and-file intelligence. This is thought rank and file of the DOJ. This is the upper echelon. We have a cast of characters abusing power.

Herman, historically, I don't see a bigger abuse of power corruption scandal in our history as big as this one.

HERMAN CAIN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Neither have I. This is the absolute biggest. I commend you and your staff for continuing to report the facts and connect the dots.

There is no question that some laws have been broken. But due process takes time. Somebody should go to jail. And all roads lead to the Clintons or somebody associated with the Clintons, but it's going to take due process and some time before all of the dots are connected.

When there was a cover-up as Dr. Gorka talked about, that's one thing. And when it was exposed, it was out there almost immediately. This isn't a cover-up. It started out -- it was supposed to be about the Trump administration or candidate Trump and his people.

Now, we know it wasn't. It was the Democrats, the Clintons, and it was all about Hillary Clinton's campaign.

HANNITY: Isn't that the most ironic thing here?

CAIN: Yes.

HANNITY: It's a great irony.

CAIN: Yes.

HANNITY: Look at the Graham-Grassley memo. It's not only Russia. They talked about Russian government lies.

CAIN: Right.

HANNITY: Fed to Steele that then is used unverified by anybody to get a FISA warrant. I mean, and the Uranium One deal. Same thing. They knew about Clinton, Putin operatives in this country. Robert Mueller was the FBI director. We had a spy within.

CAIN: Right.

HANNITY: We'll talk about it in the next segment.

SEBASTIAN GORKA, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Sure. But we need to understand the enormity of this. Number one, it's perversion of justice to illegally spy upon an innocent American. Number one. Which means it can happen to anybody watching this TV show.

But at the same time, when is this illegal spying happening? During a presidential election. So what we're talking about is trying to pervert a presidential election by giving the FBI your tainted information to get that warrant. That's -- that's a high crime, Sean. That goes right to the essence of this republic's constitutional order.

HANNITY: Yes. You know, Herman Cain, what I'm hoping for here is that we are able to get to the bottom of it, but if we get to the bottom of it, if this inspector general report, which is coming out in a couple of weeks is all that we expect it is all going to go back to that fact that Hillary Clinton was protected and where somebody -- any other American would have gotten arrested.

Because we have a special category for the Clintons and there was a massive rigging of the crime she committed -- this -- you know, people said why are you talking about Clinton, Hannity? Because if we did the things she did deleting subpoenaed e-mails and putting it in mom and shop bathroom closet and using bleach bit and hammers I think we would probably all be arrested.

CAIN: Absolutely. We will get to the bottom of it because the more and more we reveal what the facts are eventually we will get to the bottom of it. It's not going to go away.

HANNITY: All right, guys. Thank you both. We appreciate it. When we come back, we had three congressional committees here from the informant on the issue of Uranium One. The person that broke that story, the author of "Clinton Cash," Peter Schweizer has a full report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. It is one of the biggest most egregious Clinton scandals who will not go away. For years, right here on this program we've been telling you about the highly unusual sale of a company called Uranium One to a Russian state owned energy company.

Now we can report that an FBI informant is telling Congress that Russia paid millions of dollars to a lobbying firm in order to influence Hillary Clinton while she was working as secretary of state.

Now, we did in fact reach out to the lobbying firm involved APCO. They gave us a statement it reads in part, quote, "APCO never worked for Uranium One or on their CFIUS matter, period." And APCO also said they worked for Ten- X. The Clinton global initiative never was connected.

Now a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton is calling these developments a charade.

And here with the person who actually broke this story on Uranium One years ago, the author of the bestselling book "Clinton Cash, the Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Help Make Bill and Hillary Clinton Rich," Peter Schweizer.

So, what is amazing you wrote about this "Clinton Cash" and you talk about 145 million kick back to the Clinton Foundation with all the actors involved in this. This week, you know, we have been hearing about an informant that had infiltrated Vladimir Putin's operation in America to get a foot hold in the uranium market in America. He was there from the get-go.

He was there before CFIUS ever signed off. And he found all of this evidence, bribery extortion, money laundering, kickbacks. Everybody knew about it. How is it possible they would have -- knowing Clinton operatives are in this country, committing crimes, wanting uranium, why did they ever let this deal go through when we don't have enough uranium?

PETER SCHWEIZER, "CLINTON CASH" AUTHOR: Well, it's a great question, Sean. That's been one of the mysteries. You know, can you look back. It's 2010 when this takes place. Maybe there are some people in the Obama administration, you know, misguided and naive who think this is going to help with the Russian reset. And it's a stupid decision. And that may have been part of the motivation.

But when you look at the fact that Hillary Clinton who was hawkish on these types of CFIUS issues, in other words, she has a history of opposing precisely these kinds of deals came out in support of this deal along with the fact that money was flowing to her husband in speaking fees and also to the Clinton Foundation. The key question is what was their motivation and all along the way, Sean...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: What we do know is...

SCHWEIZER: Yes.

HANNITY: Well, we know the testimony before three congressional committees this week of this informant who was there from the get-go. He was telling them that those people involved in this deal were very confident the nine separate departments that were needed to sign off, the CFIUS group, were going to because of Clinton influence. So that's interesting, especially when you follow the money.

SCHWEIZER: That's exactly right, Sean. And you know, what you can do in a case like a witness like this is look at what he has said and whether those facts are borne out. You know, he was a mole that was talking about kickbacks and extortion by Russian officials.

That was found by the Department of Justice. People went to jail.

This is a guy who is talking about how the Russians wanted to corner the world uranium market. Well, there are State Department cables and other evidence that corroborate what he is saying there.

This is an individual who says that $3 million was given to this lobbying firm APCO and it was supposed to indirectly benefit the Clintons. Well, if you go back and look at the Clinton global initiative report from 2010 and 2011, you find out that low and behold APCO was doing a lot of in-kind work for the Clintons. So, everything he is saying can be independently verified.

HANNITY: So the Clintons number one excuse is well, she is only one of nine separate departments. She doesn't control the departments. She didn't sign off personally on it. What is your answer to their response, their talking point?

SCHWEIZER: Well, first of all, Sean, she was a lead agency in this CFIUS review. And that's key. But, also, it's irrelevant what the other eight people voted for. If you have a committee of nine and one person gets bribed to vote affirmatively for something, and the other eight vote affirmatively because they think it's a good idea, it's still bribery.

And that's the sort of the heart of the issue here. The other thing we have to factor in, Sean, is that this is the Clinton's essentially monetizing national security. People say to me, this is history, she is not president, why do we care?

We care because the precedent it sets. If you let people in Washington, D.C. monetize something, they're going to do it. And given what's happened, that there is no reason we could not have a secretary of defense a couple years from now say I'm going to set up a foundation. I'm going to take all this foreign money from interested parties.

My spouse is going to go out and give all these paid lectures and there is not a thing you can do to stop it because the Clintons did it and nobody objected to it then.

So this goes to the heart of the integrity of our national security system and the decisions that are made.

HANNITY: Really scary. And, again, the Russia connection is on Hillary's side. Amazing work. Thank you so much. We appreciate it, Peter Schweizer. When we come back, how is it possible the news media in this country, I've told you journalism is dead, has missed the biggest story in their lifetime? How is it possible? Sean Spicer and Joe Concha next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. So the media's hatred of President Trump is once again on full display. Listen do this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK TODD, HOST, MSNBC: It feels like we have reached a level of crazy in this White House and it's difficult to take it anymore. Reality TV appearances. Tabloid gossip. Conspiracy theories, name-calling, vulgarities and a level of egomania people have never seen in Washington.

And that's saying something. Like we are living inside a parody from three years ago. Consider what would happen if Donald Trump became president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president runs his Oval Office like a reality show. He tweets like it's a reality show. His actions, many of his actions are like a reality show.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: By the way Chuck Todd, he claims to be a hard news unbiased objective journalist. But that's not all. Remember how the media reacted to President Trump's idea of having a military parade. Let's see. How many ceremonies are there out there in Hollywood? Take a look at this insanity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right. Trump wants a military parade. So you are just going full dictator now? Just (muted) wasn't enough.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I guess he wants his toy soldiers to march in front of him in line in lock step.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some said it would put us in the same category as folks like Russia and North Korean leaders where they love a military parade.

CARL BERNSTEIN, POLITICAL ANALYST, CNN: The idea that we have to look like Red Square, it's just absurd.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe the antidote is to just get Donald Trump a military uniform with epaulettes on the shoulders and give him some salad dressing to put on the left lapel and let him march around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right. I said it before I will say it again. The left wing destroy Trump media is missing the biggest story of their lives.

Here with reaction former White House press secretary Sean Spicer and The Hill's Joe Concha. You know, you go back and you actually see that this wouldn't be the first time, Sean. FDR, the beloved FDR had this happen and Eisenhower had something similar and let's see, JFK, not a full display but they had their own displays.

And then I think of every Hollywood award ceremony, every music ceremony but we can't have an honoring parade of the military? Really? Why is that so hard?

SEAN SPICER, FORMER UNITED STATES WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I thought a couple things were interesting. One, everyone jumped to the immediate conclusion of associating with a dictator as opposed to somebody who actually loves and respects the military and wants to honor them for their service.

It's amazing. I thought of the people that you played that clip with and maybe I'm wrong so I apologize if I am. But I don't think a single one of them has ever served.

And I think it's funny that when you have a president who respects and honors law enforcement, first responders and the military and says I would like to have a parade to showcase them to the American people, that's somehow a negative thing?

Less than 1 percent of the people have served in the military these days. And we feel more and more connected from those who do. And those deployed every day to go protect our freedom. And when you have a president who wants to honor them and show the respect that they deserve and maybe make them a little closer to the other Americans that haven't been able to meet someone who has served before, I think that's a positive thing for our country.

And to see some members of the media immediately jump to negative conclusions...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: It's unbelievable.

SPICER: ... really shows how disconnected they are not just to the military but to what's going on in this country.

HANNITY: Like the time for honoring themselves in Hollywood will soon come to an end. I think I saw that in Gladiator.

SPICER: Right. Just hold on, Sean, in contrast, when the president decided not to go to the White House correspondent's dinner it was a national tragedy. He was disrespecting the first amendment. It was the end of the earth, the apocalypse was coming. But when he wants to have a parade to honor the military, my God, that's horrible.

HANNITY: You know, you think about it, I added up, it was something like 25, 30, between the music industry and the Academy awards, the Global Awards, this awards, Joe Concha, I think it's actually a great idea. And I think the country, we owe them a debt of gratitude and any way to honor them I think is well worth it.

JOE CONCHA, REPORTER AND COLUMNIST, THE HILL: I think because President Trump's name is involved in this proposal, Sean, that that is causing the reaction. And you can play a game of P.U., it's parallel universe where you take the name Trump out and you put in a name like Chuck Schumer.

What if Chuck Schumer had actually proposed a military -- that's right. He did in 2014. And there wasn't a sniff of outrage around that. But, to one point though, you can honor the military with a parade. No problem. The costs are down. Logistically you could pull it off. No problem.

But I think also the president could really back up those words and back up a parade by actually going to Afghanistan and visiting the troops. He hasn't done that yet. I think that will go a long way in showing that he is not just doing this for show as his critics are charging.

HANNITY: I think that will all happen but even if he does that I'm sure it will be criticized. How did they miss the biggest story in their lifetime, Joe Concha? The rest of the media, how did they get it so wrong on Trump- Russia collusion.

CONCHA: Well, have they go got it wrong. I mean, I believe the investigation is still going. We shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. It hasn't been...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Is there any evidence? Let me put it this way.

CONCHA: No.

HANNITY: Is there any evidence in over the year that you see?

CONCHA: No. There hasn't been any evidence presented. And remember, everything gets leaks these days. So if they did have something, it probably would end up in the hands of the Washington Post or the New York Times. So, no, not yet. But let Mueller finish his investigation before we start saying there isn't any...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: I don't think Mueller should have been there in the first place. I mean, we have learned just in the last week with the Nunes memo and unredacted Grassley-Graham memo, Sean Spicer, seems to me that this whole thing was a witch punt from the get-go.

SPICER: Well, we'll see. I want the investigation to play out only because I do believe that the president has been very clear from the beginning I'm not involve in the campaign that there was no collusion. So at some point you run out the clock and you say as have you noted that if you haven't found anything by now, let's give it a break.

I think that the stuff that they found people for in terms of lying to them and FARA are obviously violations of the law and those people should be prosecuted. But the underlying premise of this whole thing that there is collusion from Russia as you pointed out and Joe corroborated, there has been nothing so far.

I think we let this play out. But I think that it's going to be interesting to see where the press goes from there. Because they were wrong about the election. They were so ready to coronate Hillary Clinton they were all crying election night.

And now that they have wrapped themselves around this axle we'll see where they go from there. Will they admit that they were wrong? Will they vindicate Trump or will they move onto the next one? Because I have a feeling that that's what going to happen.

HANNITY: How did they miss the stories we've been talking about, Joe Concha, how did they miss the bulk of the FISA warrant was predicated on Hillary and paid for lies. How do you miss that?

CONCHA: Well, sometimes there is bias, Sean, where it's out in the open and it's very clear that a reporter or an anchor is rooting for a certain outcome. And then there is another kind of bias and Sean knows all about this. And that's the bias of omission.

I mean, when Sean was press secretary, I'm sure he was just stunned at the questions that weren't asked of him at a press briefing instead it was concentrating solely on Russia. So, yes, I think that's a very big story that isn't being covered because they simply do not like the narrative.

And by the way, Sean, congratulations. You got a lot of pep in your step the Patriots lost and here you are facing the fire.

HANNITY: OK. Thank you, all. When we come back, our Friday video of the day and Hannity hotline. I can't wait for the lovely comments you have for me tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. Tonight's heartwarming video of the day comes to us from the Kissimmee, Florida Police Department where 6-year-old Enzo Russell was sworn in as a special policeman on his birthday this past Wednesday.

Now Enzo's uncle is Sergeant Sam Howard of Kissimmee Police Department. Only 36 years old when he was killed in the line of duty last August.

As you know on this show, we always support and thank all of the brave men and women in law enforcement, the FBI, intelligence community, those that put their lives on the line to protect us every single day. And that was well deserved. Great job, guys in Kissimmee.

All right. Time this Friday night for our Hannity hotline. I can hardly wait for these comments.

(BEGIN VOICE CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to know when the parade is for the veterans because I am going to get balloons, red, white and blue and I'm also going to write my family names who has fought to give me my freedom that these other people are trying to take away from me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know what? Hannity is a tool, he's a tool for the people. He speaks the truth. If it wasn't for Hannity, none of this is (muted) would be coming out in public. And he is right. People need to go to jail. Hannity, keep up the good work.

(END VOICE CLIP)

HANNITY: Wow, we end on a really good note. I appreciate the kind words. We're working very hard. I promise we're digging for the truth. We're not the destroy Trump media.

If you have anything you want to say to me, it doesn't matter, mean, nice, hateful, 877-225-8587. Unfortunately, on this Friday night that's all the time we have left. A lot of big things coming next weekend. Jason Chaffetz is sitting in for Laura Ingraham tonight. Hope you have a great weekend.
We'll see you back here on Monday.

END

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