Jordan: What Democrats did in the House was unfair to the president

close

Video

Jordan: What Democrats did in the House was unfair to the president

Trump defense team member and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan reacts to House managers' arguments during trial.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," January 23, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: I'm Laura Ingraham. This is "The Ingraham Angle" from another really busy Washington tonight. An "Ingraham Angle" exclusive investigation we brought you last night.

Well, we brought you details of a secret 2016 meeting between Obama administration officials and Ukrainian prosecutors. The topic was the Biden family and Burisma, and the article The New York Times was going to write on the subject was - ha, curiously never published.

Judging by the reaction we got, we touched the nerve. Tonight, we'll bring you part 2 of our expose, including details of how Ukrainian official at that 2016 White House meeting went on to help the DNC hurt the Trump campaign.

But first, day 3 of the impeachment trial is nearing its end, and just like last night, we're going to fact check the arguments. We have exclusive insight from Congressman Jim Jordan; White House spokesman Tony Sayegh will lay out the President's defense.

And Senator Marsha Blackburn, who sat through hours and hours and hours of oral arguments is here to tell us why the tone of the House Impeachment Managers, she thinks, is really hurting their case.

So after listening to the oral arguments today, I think it is pretty clear that House Democrats are operating under the assumption that they can make just these tremendous leaps of logic, contradict the public testimony of their own witnesses, and in some cases, just outright lie.

That - thinking about this, I think, their new maxim seems to be if at first you don't persuade lie, lie again. And since the rest of the media they're not interested in fact checking Democrats, they only fact check Trump, right? We decided we would do it.

So, first, Adam Schiff and his merry band of impeachment managers took to leveling new charges against President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF.: It's not every day that you get a document like this, what appears to be a member of the conspiracy writing down the object of the conspiracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: OK. First of all, conspiracy - this sounds really serious detective. But then why wasn't it made into an article of impeachment? Why didn't they move to amend their articles of impeachment?

And of course, there's this little thing called actually authenticating a record. There's a process that you have to go through with any piece of documentary evidence. It's called - well, let's go to law school for a moment. It's called the chain of command. We have no idea what that is all about, we have no idea what some of the references in there are all about, and Adam Schiff is trying to intuit the whole thing for us. No thanks.

Second, Schiff suddenly developed the power to read minds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: You can say a lot of things about the Attorney General, but you cannot say that he ever has looked to pursue something he thought was not in the President's interest. This is pretty extraordinary. Where he is saying the moment this transcript is publicly released, I've got nothing to do with this scheme. The Attorney General can recognize a drug deal when he sees it too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That was one of my favorites of the day, and I had a lot. Now, remember, Schiff has been called dazzling. Thrills are going up everybody's legs in cable TV at the networks that no one watches, and he's been called a virtuoso.

So, I guess, they forgot to mention that he's a walking, talking magic eight ball too, because he now can read the mind of Attorney General Bill Barr, just because bar said I didn't talk to anyone about this - big deal.

Third, when they fail to muster arguments that are really persuasive, or really good enough on their own, they lean on the founder. Here's Jerry Nadler.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JERROLD NADLER, D-N.Y.: Hamilton was a wise man. He foresaw dangerous far ahead of his time. Given the many threats they had to anticipate, the Framers considered extremely broad grounds for removing Presidents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Sounds very damning, right? Well, "The Washington Post" said that, Hamilton line, quote "Was from a note, the then Treasury Secretary wrote in response to Washington about tax policy, and the letter doesn't even mention impeachment." This is called, by the way, quoting the Framers via Wikipedia.

OK, anyone can take a fragment of what John Jay said or Roger Sherman said or Charles Pinckney said and say, "Oh, see, he agrees with me." It's what eighth graders do in bad essays. Don't do it in the U.S. Senate.

Fourth, Nadler also claim this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NADLER: The Articles of Impeachment against President Trump rank among the most serious charges ever brought against the President. Since President George Washington took office in 1789, no President has abused his power in this way. Prior Presidents would be shocked to the core by such conduct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: All right, let's check in with an actual constitutional expert.

PROF. JONATHAN TURLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: This impeachment not only fails to satisfy the standard of past impeachments, but would create a dangerous precedent for future impeachments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well, fifth, and finally, we have the myth that the President must bow down to unelected bureaucrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SYLVIA GARCIA, D-TEXAS: Vice President Biden followed Official U.S. policy. He went through official channels to remove the prosecutor that was corrupt. That is the exact opposite of what President Trump did. That was not at U.S. policy--

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And this, of course, gets to the point of this entire circus. The impeachment zealots don't like Trump's vision for U.S. foreign policy. OK, they want to go back to the old globalist days. We'll intervene anywhere we feel like, at any given day.

So instead of challenging him on his ideas or at the ballot box, they hope to remove him from office. That's what it all comes down to. Do the American people ultimately have a say in U.S. policy through the officials they elect? Or are we all just happy to let career bureaucrats on the seventh floor of the State Department tell us what's best, because they have a PhD at the end of their name?

None of them were elected. President Trump was. He does foreign policy. He's the Chief Executive Officer of the United States. If he wants to fire Marie Yovanovitch, he can do so for any reason. If he wants to fire any other Under Secretary, he can do so for any reason. Even Democrats should be alarmed by the stupidity of these arguments.

Joining me now is Congressman Jim Jordan of the House Judiciary Committee. He is also a member of President Trump's impeachment defense team. Congressman, did Democrats really believe that these types of assertions - I'll just focus on one for a moment.

We could have put together a very long montage of the number of times the word conspiracy was used and none of this is in an article of impeachment. Yet, they can under the Senate rules, say hearsay defamation, and they can just get away with it.

REP. JIM JORDAN, R-OHIO: Their whole case is presumptions, assumptions and hearsay. They don't have the facts. They make things up. But, frankly, it shouldn't surprise us. Remember, Adam Schiff is the guy who told us for two years I had more than circumstantial evidence, President Trump worked with the Russians to influence election. That wasn't true.

Adam Schiff is the guy who told us that the Nunes memo wasn't accurate. That turned out to be false. We had Mr. Horowitz's report last month. Adam Schiff said the FISA process was just fine. Mr. Horowitz told us they lied to the FISA Court 17 times.

Adam Schiff said we're going to hear from the whistleblower and we have not spoken, our staff has not spoken with the whistleblower. Both of those things were wrong, but of those statements are wrong.

So it shouldn't surprise us, some of the things he and Nadler and his team are now asserting. The facts are solidly on the President's side, the constitutional principle is on the President's side. And the unfair process is another great argument that White House can make, because what they did in the House was very unfair to the President.

INGRAHAM: One of the things that they alleged today was that, the President doesn't really care about corruption in other countries - he doesn't care about it. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: The fact that the President only wanted a public announcement and not the investigations to actually be conducted, demonstrates that his desire for investigations was simply and solely to boost his reelection efforts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: OK. This is what the President said in 2016 when he was running for President about foreign aid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: My foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people and American security above all else. I will also be prepared paired to deploy America's economic resources, financial leverage and sanctions can be very, very persuasive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: This has been his entire argument. Look at NATO now. The NATO Secretary General today said, guess what, NATO nations are starting to pay fine.

JORDAN: Yes, yes. He ran on this. The American people elected him to do this. He's always been skeptical of foreign aid. We got a colleague, he has a great line. He says, "Well, we don't have to pay people to hate us, they'll probably do it for free."

So President Trump says, look, I'm not a big fan of this. We're going to we're going to use it where we need to, but I want other European allies to share in the burden. And oh, by the way, Ukraine, Ernst & Young said, was one of the three most corrupt countries on the planet.

You got a new guy who was a TV personality, who wins election with an overwhelming majority, running on corruption and the President simply said, let's check him out. Let's see if he's the real deal. Let's see if he's genuine. And he - after 55 days, he became convinced that, Zelensky, I think he is the real deal. I think he's a genuine reformer, and the aid was released.

INGRAHAM: Well, doesn't the President have it within his Article 1 powers

JORDAN: Totally. Totally.

INGRAHAM: To make these calls? I hope we hear that from the defense team, Mr. Defense team member. That argument hasn't really been made. That he has a right to - if he wanted to hold up the aid, I don't care what the GAO said, that's a legislative body and that has no force of law.

But he's the Chief Executive Officer of the United States. If he thinks something smells, stinks to high heaven in Ukraine with this whole Biden thing, or corruption in general, he has every right to say, "Whoa, wait a second before we release this."

JORDAN: Of course, he's the President of the United States elected by 63 million people for this - this whole obstruction of Congress.

INGRAHAM: Oh, my God.

JORDAN: One of my colleagues says obstruction of Congress is what the Founders called separation of power.

INGRAHAM: It's called checks and balances.

JORDAN: Exactly right.

INGRAHAM: By the way, Hakeem Jeffries raised another issue that had been rejected by you all in the House. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES, D-N.Y.: Read the transcript. President Trump says, we have read the transcript and it is damning evidence of a corrupt quid pro quo. The evidence against Donald Trump is hiding in plain sight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Oh, that's very dramatic.

JORDAN: Yes.

INGRAHAM: That's a real LA Law moment there.

JORDAN: Yes, it is.

INGRAHAM: Wow.

JORDAN: That is ridiculous, because there was never any linkage of an announcing investigation, promising an investigation or doing an investigation to get release of the money.

So, I remember asking Ambassador Sondland, and I said, When was it - when did it happen? When was the announcement? And his response was, "It never did?" And that's the point. It never did and yet they got they got the money on September 25th. They got the call. They got the money on September 11th. They got the meeting on September 25, and they got the call from the President--

INGRAHAM: or Adam Schiff said that was because he was caught. That's the only reason that money was released.

JORDAN: Not true. August 31st, Senator Johnson is on a phone call with President Trump and the President tells him, you're going to like my decision Ron. You're going to like where this thing ends up, because he was becoming convinced that Zelensky and the new parliament that was elected - 70 percent Zelensky's party, they took over the parliament - that they were actually implementing the reforms they needed to implement.

INGRAHAM: Well, more importantly, they would have put the quid pro quo in one of the articles of impeachment, would have been under a bribery or - right? I mean, that would have been part and parcel.

JORDAN: They were saying quid pro quo in September 24th when Nancy Pelosi announced that they were going to do this before the call. Once a call came out, they backed their way from it, until today when Hakeem--

INGRAHAM: No they - I'm just saying they're resurrecting all the ghosts of the House impeachment process. Congressman, thanks for coming in tonight.

JORDAN: Thank you.

INGRAHAM: I know it's been a long day. Well, House Impeachment Manager Zoe Lofgren made a bizarre legal claim today. That kind of got my attention. She said executive privilege cannot be used to prevent a witness who is willing to testify from appearing.

Bolton has a right to testify if he wants to. Wow. Joining me now and that is Sol Wisenberg, Former Deputy Independent Counsel; Harmeet Dhillon, Attorney and Trump 2020 Campaign Advisory Board Member and Bob Barr, Former Clinton Impeachment Manager.

Sol, this is an interesting area of the law that I have to dive back into tonight. But is this that categorically the case that Bolton can defy, the President's invocation, if he does, of executive privilege?

SOL WISENBERG, FMR DEPUTY INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: Well, as a general proposition, the Congresswoman's statement is preposterous. There's no support for it.

However, in practical terms, remember, several of these ambassadors and State Department officials and administration officials who did testify in front of the House, were instructed not to, and they did it anyway and the President did not go into court. So, you know, there's theoretical and then there's practical.

Keep this in mind as well, very important. There's never been a judicial test, to my knowledge - certainly not an appellate test of executive privilege during an impeachment inquiry.

INGRAHAM: You're right about that.

WISENBERG: I mean, the real impeachment inquiry, and that's very important.

INGRAHAM: Yes, you're completely right about that. Bob, I want to go to you on that. Under the rules that I understand, and again, there is no rule about executive privilege at impeachment. It's just history context we kind of try to figure it out as we go along.

But there were Democrats saying, they thought that the Chief Justice would rule on executive privilege dispute at the Senate trial. And the constitutional scholars, for the most part, said, no, no, no that's not how it works, that the Senate actually decides an immunity question at trial.

I know this seems like it's getting in the weeds, but it's fascinating. For anyone who believes in Article I power and the separation of powers, it's a fascinating question. Would you advise the President, if it came to this, to invoke executive privilege?

BOB BARR, FORMER CLINTON IMPEACHMENT MANAGER: Absolutely, I would. It's really - Laura, it's not getting into the weeds. It's a very fundamental overarching question here.

And that is, essentially does the President's ability as the Chief Executive Officer of the United States of America have the power and the responsibility to protect information, the release of which would damage either national security or the President's ability to carry out policies, including national security policies.

It follows the information, not the individuals, so that if an individual purports or is forced or attempt to convey information, that is privileged, the President can assert that whether or not the person is currently employed by the government or not. And the body that decides that is not the Chief Justice. He's there as the administrative officer. It's the Senate itself that would decide that--

INGRAHAM: Yes, they need 51 votes.

BARR: By majority votes.

INGRAHAM: 51 votes. Yes.

BARR: Sure.

INGRAHAM: Harmeet, we'll move on from this. Although, this - I'm telling you that is an incredibly interesting question. House Manager Jerry Nadler, he made another claim that was stunning about the strength of their case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NADLER: All of the legal experts who testified before the House Judiciary Committee, those invited by the Democrats and those invited by the Republicans, all agreed that the conduct we have charged constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: OK, Harmeet, this is just - this is like Adam Schiff, reading a fake transcript. We just played the clip earlier of Jonathan Turley saying otherwise and you know, we have plenty of Republican constitutional scholars, including yourself, John Eastman, Sol knows a thing or two about common law. It's not necessarily proven at all.

HARMEET DHILLON, TRUMP 2020 ADVISORY BOARD: Well, again, this is one of those cringe worthy moments where real trial lawyers watching this are just stunned.

But in real life, the expert witness is not allowed to testify as to the ultimate facts of the case, which seems to be what Jerry Nadler is getting confused about, and whooshing it all together and ignoring Professor Turley's testimony. And so, you know, he clearly has a different memory and a different understanding of law than reality.

INGRAHAM: Sol, I want to get into something that Elizabeth Warren said when she did one of the, you know, step out of the proceedings today that were soporific. So she steps out and she goes to the cameras, and she's talking about how Trump is constantly putting up roadblocks to information. OK, let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, D-MA., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is the constitutional responsibility of the Senate to hold a trial if it means that Gee, the President of the United States, the one who is on trial for impeachment, can just decide to throw up roadblocks. And that means it becomes too hard for this Senate to hold a trial, then the Senate will give up and go home, that violates every principle of the Constitution.

REPORTER: So it's a fight you want to have--

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Sol, that violates every principle, apparently, of the Constitution. Tension among the branches of government, one branch doesn't want the other branch to get information. We've never seen that happen before.

WISENBERG: Yes. It violates every provision, including the 3rd Amendment, no quartering of soldiers. It's totally relevant to that. I mean, one person's roadblock is another person's checks and balances or constitutional provision.

Now, you know, it's an interesting thing. Again, I keep harping on this. The historical precedents - I told you, there are no judicial precedents. But the historical precedents are strong for an argument that says executive privilege does not exist in the impeachment context, and the House could have done something about that by formally starting an impeachment inquiry much earlier and challenging in court and they didn't do it. Lot of incompetence there on the part of the Speaker.

INGRAHAM: Yes, I think that, Harmeet, when you look at this, so the idea that the President gives up his right, that's a kind of an amalgam, right, of all the - the bunch of different considerations and executive privilege. But that just gets thrown out the door, because a bunch of partisan decide to drag him through an impeachment inquiry? That's ridiculous.

DHILLON: That's right. I, kind of, have a different take than Sol on this. The President has an absolute duty, first of all, to invoke it. He has a duty on behalf of the Office of the President, on behalf of that separation of powers.

Now, how our court will come out on it. I mean, we would all be sort of looking into our crystal ball. But in the Harriet Miers situation in 2008, there was a ruling on different shades of executive privilege and rejecting the proposition that it was absolute. So when it's not absolute, that means that it's there. But it's situational and it's question by question.

INGRAHAM: Now, let's it's issue by issue and depends on what will be revealed by answering a particular question. So John Bolton might be able to show up, but he might not be able to answer the questions, because it would violate a qualified executive immunity.

DHILLON: Right. And that would be--

INGRAHAM: Thanks all - we got to guys.

DHILLON: I would just say--

INGRAHAM: We got to go Harmeet, sorry, we're running out of time. Thank you for joining us. Harmeet was with President tonight in Miami.

All right. Now for a question everybody is asking. What's the mood at the White House? So the President is coming back from Miami. Joining us now is Tony Sayegh, White House Impeachment Spokesman. Tony, what's the President feeling tonight?

TONY SAYEGH, WHITE HOUSE IMPEACHMENT SPOKESMAN: Well, look, I mean, we've heard three straight days of nothing different. This is basically the bad sequel to the house hearings were a lot of conjecture, a lot of bluster, a lot of unsubstantiated claims made by Democrats and the witnesses they called.

And when you really think about the fact that there's been this embarrassing lack of facts in this case, and--

INGRAHAM: Well, they have a lot it - they have a lot of sound bites and a lot of documents. They have Vindman, they're resurrecting him, Yovanovitch and Hill--

SAYEGH: Abundance of rhetoric doesn't make up for--

INGRAHAM: --dynasty.

SAYEGH: --doesn't make up for bad facts. And the thing that strengthens our belief and the fact that we have our strong cases, think about the essential elements. Ukraine aid was it held up. No, it wasn't. It was actually paid in the same fiscal year it was allocated.

INGRAHAM: All right. Adam Schiff just spoke. We got to play this to Tony. So you all say read this transcript. Well, he had a new comment about the transcript tonight. Just said it Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: And let me just point out a few things that may have escaped your attention about that transcript, which is not really a transcript, because it's not complete.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAYEGH: So you said you heard nothing new. That's kind of new. They haven't said that phrasing forever, I think?

SAYEGH: Their key witnesses in the house hearings, who were in opposition to the President's view, testified that that was an accurate description of what happened on the call. That's, of course, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman--

INGRAHAM: It's not complete, Tony. It is not complete. The conspiracy would have been proven had it been a complete transcript. I have heard a lot. That was quite something. It's late at night, maybe he's getting a little dizzy. I don't know.

SAYEGH: Well, he also fabricated what was in that transcript when he read it into the record, because he knew that he didn't have the facts. Here's what's hurting the Democrats badly. They're using the Senate trial as a fishing expedition. They know they don't have the abundance of facts and evidence they need, so they're just putting it out there.

Well, maybe if we got this more evidence or this other witness - they should have brought that to the Senate as a strong case.

INGRAHAM: We're talking here tomorrow night. You're going to be back with us tomorrow night. You don't sleep.

Right now we'll take a break in a moment. We have a lot more coming up, a major new development in our exclusive from last night - that White House meeting in 2016.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: 24 hours ago we brought you an explosive story and judging by the responses we got, well, it seemed to strike a nerve. Last night THE INGRAHAM ANGLE showed you State Department e-mails from last year that no one in TV had brought you before.

These e-mails centered on a January 2016 meeting between Obama administration officials and Ukrainian prosecutors about how the efforts to fight corruption in Ukraine might be imperiled by Hunter Biden's ties to Burisma - might have been a conflict there.

Now, remember, all those folks were checked into the White House by the person who many say, is the whistleblower who sparked this entire impeachment circus. Well, we kept digging, and tonight we have a new development to share with you.

One of the Ukrainians who attended that 2016 White House meeting is a man named Andrii Telizhenko, a political officer in the Ukrainian embassy. Curiously, his name also pops up at a 2017 POLITICO piece that detailed efforts by Ukrainian officials to undermine Trump's 2016 campaign. Written by the same reporter Ken Vogel, who after initially pursuing it, didn't write that story about that White House 2016 meeting. Hmm.

According to POLITICO, Telizhenko aided DNC operative, Alexandra Chalupa in her mission to hurt Trump's campaign by trying to find connections between Trump, Manafort and Russia. But according to Telizhenko he didn't do this willingly. He claims he was forced into helping Chalupa and to help her go after Trump. Here's what he told POLITICO in 2017.

"We had an order not to talk to the Trump team, because he was critical of Ukraine and the government and its critical position on Crimea and the conflict. I was yelled at when I proposed to talk to Trump. The Ambassador said not to get involved, Hillary is going to win."

Well, we reached out to the State Department officials included in the May 2019 e-mails that we revealed last night, and we asked these questions. Do they know why Ken Vogel decided not to publish that story after all; did he follow up with any other correspondence explaining why he didn't write the story or perhaps with other questions?

What was the State Department's focus in that January 2016 meeting with all of those Ukrainian officials? And why did the person that we think is a whistleblower - hmm - why did he arrange this meeting?

As of this moment, we've received no response to our questions. We, however, are not stopping our call for more documents, the e-mails, the text messages, the voicemails, anything that sheds light on what certainly looks on the surface to be a concerted effort to save the Bidens from political embarrassment, and then her President Trump along the way.

Joining me now is Mollie Hemingway, Senior Editor at "The Federalist" and Fox News Contributor and Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Mollie for a conspiracy theory, there sure are a lot of facts to back up the notion of Ukrainian election meddling.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's just amazing. You have what appears to be this coordinated effort between media Democrats and some people in the bureaucracy to keep people from having any discussion about Ukrainian meddling, much less a thorough investigation.

And when you go back to that POLITICO article from 2017, it is amazing. People speak openly. You have Alexander Chalupa openly bragging about how she coordinated between Ukrainian government officials and the Democratic national committee to get negative information about Paul Manafort into the public sphere and she succeeded.

If you really care about election meddling from foreign governments, you have two examples in the Hillary Clinton campaign. She sourced the dossier to Russian officials. She secretly funded that. And you have people at the DNC funneling her, a contractor at the DNC, funneling the DNC and the Clinton campaign information from Ukraine, getting stuff out into the media, and they really did unseat Paul Manafort as chairman of the Trump campaign. Whatever you think about that, that's really impressive work that they did.

INGRAHAM: That's pretty big.

VDH, going back to these emails, the State Department officials didn't know what to do last may when they were approached by Ken Vogel about that meeting at the White House in January of 2016. The campaign was already heated up, Trump was ahead, but you didn't know what was going to happen. But the Ukrainian officials were brought into the White House, checked in by the person many think is the whistleblower. And they had some big meeting about something, but apparently according to Vogel and his inquiries, it was about their investigation of Burisma and potential wrinkle since Hunter Biden was on that board.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, HOOVER INSTITUTION: We've got to remember that in that time nobody thought Donald Trump was going to win, so they were not very shy about what they were doing. And there were Ukrainian officials that were writing op-eds about how unpalatable Trump would be if he were elected.

The thing about the Vogel article, Laura, is it was almost jocular. It was matter of fact. And then all these liberal fact checking outlets like "PolitiFact," they checked it out and said basically it was true. And David Merkel from the Atlantic Council had Ukrainian ties, they even admitted it. So there was no controversy over any of this until the Russian collusion heated up as a way of removing Trump. And then they got word, and they thought, wow, if we're going to go after Russian collusion, we have our foot prints all over the Ukrainian collusion, and all of a sudden, anybody that took them at their prior word was considered as conspiracists.

All of it, Laura, begs the question is why would they want to have witnesses called, because Hunter Biden is the key to this, and everybody knows he had no expertise in oil or the Ukraine, that Ukraine was corrupt and that his dad was not only vice president but point man on Ukraine. Why would you want him to get out there and testify in this tangle of lies when his father is a frontrunner in the Democratic primary? It doesn't make any sense.

INGRAHAM: I think the mother of his child can't even find him. Mollie, Senator Graham also called out the efforts by the left to claim the Biden Burisma scandal. It's just a closed case. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C., SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: I don't know how many times it was said by the managers that the Biden conflict of interest allegations has been debunked. I know a lot about the Trump family and their dealings in Russia. I don't know anything about about the Biden connection to the Ukraine. So when the managers tell me this has been looked at and debunked, by who?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMINGWAY: And it's more than that, too. When you think about to those House impeachment proceedings, you had one of the witnesses testify that she had been briefed, assuming that you would have senators asking her when she went through her confirmation hearing about Hunter Biden's role at Burisma. You have these emails that you unveiled, showing that there were meetings where people were concerned about Hunter Biden's role. The idea that Obama's officials were concerned but we're not allowed to have any question about it is very alarming.

INGRAHAM: I have to say, Victor, when you watch this thing today and you listen to Adam Schiff insert new charges into the Articles of Impeachment which are not in the Articles of Impeachment, throwing around words like "conspiracy," "grand conspiracy," the quid pro quo that again was ultimately thrown out because they actually had to read the transcript. There was no quid pro quo. But they can defame the president and no one can object. Those are the rules of the Senate.

HANSON: It's like Mueller and Horowitz never existed. But I don't know why they have Adam Schiff out there. He highjacked the impeachment inquiry. And then they turned the prosecution, if that's the word for it, over to him. And this is a guy who was exposed on so many levels. He read that false version of the phone calls. He datamined Devin Nunes calls. He has lied about his contacts with the so-called whistleblower.

INGRAHAM: He's a fact witness.

HANSON: He has so much exposure, he could be witness number one. And he is key to this whole origin, because if you reduce it down, this whole melodrama, psychodrama, is just one reference to Joe Biden and one phone call, and Adam Schiff's inspector Les Miserables obsessions. They should both be the first two witnesses, and I don't think they'd survive a very effective cross examination.

INGRAHAM: Mollie is chomping at the bit here.

HEMINGWAY: It's just also important, if the whistleblower was involved in this meeting, involved with the Bidens and dealing with Hunter Biden --

INGRAHAM: Set up the meeting.

HEMINGWAY: And if we already know that he was very close to Biden and he was very close to some of these issues, it's interesting that once someone started asking some questions about then he becomes a whistleblower. And that's why it's important that we do ask questions.

Adam Schiff, you might remember, demanded that we hear from the whistleblower until that precise moment when it was revealed that he had coordinated with the whistleblower, then he changed his tune. Let's go back to the original Adam Schiff plan, talk to the whistleblower, find out more about why he was so concerned about people finding out about Hunter Biden's role in Burisma and why that became something so alarming to him and why he wasn't more alarmed by Hunter Biden's role to blow the whistle on that a few years ago.

INGRAHAM: On MSNBC former senator Claire McCaskill doesn't think McConnell really wants these two people to testify.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, D-FORMER MISSOURI SENATOR: If the Republicans wanted to hear from either Joe Biden or Hunter Biden, nothing is stopping them. All McConnell had to do was put it in the rule that he had 53 votes for. But the problem is they don't really want to do that. It is a total distraction, it's a total bluff. They ain't got nothing else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Victor, it's a bluff to find out why there was an apparent conflict of interest with the Bidens and Ukraine that led the president to asked some questions?

HANSON: The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If she thinks it's a bluff, all she has to do is wait a few days and we will see who is bluffing, because Adam Schiff and the whistleblower as well, but especially Hunter Biden, all three of them I don't think can tell the truth under oath without contradicting either prior statements, affidavits, or television appearances. I think it's going to be a disaster. I just don't understand why they are so intent on getting witnesses when it's only going to weaken a weak case. But maybe Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders is behind it, talking about conspiracies.

INGRAHAM: Yes, Sekulow called this out, Mollie. He spent a lot of the time saying the Democrats, this is just a game they are playing.

HEMINGWAY: It reminds me a lot of the anti-Kavanaugh operation where delay was a big part of it and just trying to drag things out. It is true that you're only going to call witnesses if this impeachment succeeds, if they decide that the case is worthy of impeachment. If they think it's not even worthy, if it doesn't meet the standards that you need, they're not even going to bother with witnesses. But if they're going to bother with witnesses and they think they're going to get away with not calling Alexandra Chalupa and Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and the ICIG, the inspector general, who has had some rough testimonies that we still haven't gotten word from. These are things, if we're really going to do this, let's do it, and let's really get a full exploration of the entire sordid Biden drama and how bureaucrats coordinated with each other to get us to this point.

INGRAHAM: A source that I have on this issue said that if they go to witnesses and really go to witnesses, this could last four to five months. If everyone, are you guys all watching? Everyone in this room was like, you've got to be kidding me, four to five months, guys. Get your supplies, get your canteens, because we're going to be here a long time.

There was more breaking news today. The Justice Department made a huge admission, Adam Schiff, I wonder how he dealt with this, regarding the warrant they got to spy on Carter Page. The DOJ conceding that two of its Page FISA orders that Adam Schiff, by the way, said were all fine, were not valid. The court understands the government to have concluded in view of the material misstatements and omissions that the court's authorizations and docket numbers 17375, 17679, were not valid. Victor, here's my question. Only two were not valid? This whole thing was not valid.

HANSON: Yes, it was all invalid. And what is striking is we knew that the FBI and members of the DOJ under Obama were corrupt. They were really trying to destroy U.S. citizens by improperly and probably illegally surveillance them. But we always thought the FISA court justice is were merely deluded or they were given false information. But they were so naive that when they were told that this was all part of an opposition research project, they didn't ask who is the opposition, as if there's anybody other than Hillary Clinton.

So I think the real subtext here is the FISA court in general and the particular judges involved in particular are really culpable, and they've almost eroded all support for FISA courts. I think a lot of conservatives who thought they were an essential tool in the anti-terrorism effort now are thinking it's not worth the risk anymore because they're so politicized, and they're the ones that are just as culpable as the DOJ and FBI.

INGRAHAM: No, no, no. Weapons of mass destruction, that's all I'm going to say.

HEMINGWAY: Some people were worried about the court for a long time, and this is very vindicating.

INGRAHAM: Libertarians.

HEMINGWAY: They said two of the warrants were invalid. But they didn't make a decision on the other two, meaning the other two could also be shown to have been invalid. And it's just totally true, though. This is way too little, way too late. They were informed years ago by David Nunes and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about these problems. They didn't do anything about it. And so if they were really taking this seriously I think they would have acted earlier and they wouldn't be putting people like David Kris, a guy who was a total defender of the Russia-gate hoax, as the person to help the Department of Justice clean up.

INGRAHAM: An American citizen was surveilled using a secret court in the United States with a material omission in the application, that an opponent of Trump funded this research, just that in the footnotes alone. Come one. What happened to the liberals who actually used to believe in civil liberties? Where are they? There are no real liberals left. I don't see any, at least not many.

Mollie and Victor, thank you very much. Great to have both of you on tonight, as always.

With day three of the impeachment trial now wrapping up moments ago, what can we expect next? FOX News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram, who has been drinking milk, apparently chocolate and strawberry milk is his favorite, standing by Capitol Hill with all of the answers. Chad, tell us, please.

CHAD PERGRAM, FOX NEWS PRODUCER: Good evening, they wrapped up just about 10 minutes ago. They'll be back at 1:00 tomorrow. This will be the final day of the prosecution, the House Democratic managers presenting their case. There was a lot of focus today on Russia, Burisma, and the Bidens. And some of the Republican senators think that the Democratic House impeachment managers overplayed their hand. This could backfire on them. Here is Republican Texas senator Ted Cruz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TEXAS: When President Trump's lawyers stand up and present their defense, that they are going to have the opportunity to present the very significant evidence that supported and still supports a serious investigation into corruption at Burisma and ultimately whether Joe Biden participated in that corruption. That consequence now as a result of this decision, Hunter Biden is not only relevant, he is now critical.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERGRAM: Democrats contend that Republicans are ignoring the evidence presented by the Democratic managers. Here's Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO, D-HAWAII, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: I think they are wrestling with their conscience, which is what they should be doing. My Republican colleagues should be a hell of a lot more upset by what the president did, not only to Ukraine, but to our own country by not being good for our word.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERGRAM: We're expecting the defense to start on Saturday. We're thinking that might be an abbreviated sessions. And then the Q and A period again, 16 hours, probably sometimes around the middle of next week. But there is a question about the questions. The reason, as you mentioned earlier, a lot of Republicans would like to summon Adam Schiff, the chair of the intelligence committee, as a fact witness here. There is some chatter that what the Republican senators might do is make him into a de facto witness during the question and answer session here, in other words, directing questions through Chief Justice John Roberts towards Adam Schiff. The question there is whether or not he will allow those questions to stand or whether or not they might have to vote on whether those questions are appropriate, Laura.

INGRAHAM: Chad, I have a quick question about the schedule. Because McConnell agreed to three days, so the Democrats have had most of this week just to make their case, is it really right or fair to have the White House Counsel argue on a Saturday when few people are watching TV? It seems like they should just go 15 minutes after midnight tomorrow and then start it up on Monday in earnest?

PERGRAM: It does say session days, and that's an important distinction here, that you could have that issue. But the Senate rules that deal with impeachment, Senate Impeachment rule three deals with Saturdays, it says that specifically at 1:00. So whether or not you are the prosecution or the defense, you can't get around that unless there is unanimous consent. Some people think that might be an opportunity for the defense team to maybe make the case to hit the Sunday news cycles as they get into the shows on Sunday. And that might be an advantage to them each if they finish up later on Monday or Tuesday, Laura.

INGRAHAM: So they might go only an hour or two on Saturday, and then adjourn and go. Is that right?

PERGRAM: That's right. John Thune, he thought they might finish around noontime on Saturday. And part of the reasons here is because senators have other things to do. They have been cloistered, sequestered here for a couple of days. They want to get out of Washington as badly as anybody else, Laura.

INGRAHAM: Chad, thanks so much. Fantastic reporting.

PERGRAM: My pleasure, thank you.

INGRAHAM: Over the past three days we have seen the media tattle tale on senators who aren't totally transfixed by Schiff's dazzling, innervating floor speeches.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are starting to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of those who are definitely paying attention, definitely engaged, and those are who definitely not. Marsha Blackburn, the new senator from Tennessee, was reading a book, and it looked like a regular old hardcover book, ticking some, underlining some passages in it, but not making any particular effort.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: This really trigged the "Washington Post" consecutive Jennifer Rubin, Trump-hater. She tweeted "Marsha Blackburn might improve her understanding of the facts and law if she paid attention. This is shameful."

Senator Marsha Blackburn is here to respond. Senator Blackburn, this is what it's come to. They are not even listening to Adam Schiff. They are transfixed by your hard cover. Can you set the record straight? What were you doing with that book?

SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN, R-TENN., SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: I would love to. I had Kim Strassel's book that is all about the resistance. She has a great chapter in there about the act of obstruction. That's what I was reading through. It is very relevant to what we are doing. You have seen other members that have books regarding different impeachment hearings. Those are on their desks. There are other people that are working on clippings or reading. Everyone is spending their time well.

And Laura, you have to bear in mind, today there was one particular clip of Fiona Hill. I think we saw it five different times. So there is a lot of repetition in what they are showing and what they're saying. The point is this -- the Senate is going to perform our constitutional duty, we are going to do it in the appropriate manner, we are going to be fair. We are sitting there taking notes. I've already done a full notebook full of notes. And we are going to get to a summary judgment. And I look forward to getting to that point.

INGRAHAM: Senator, you can do whatever you want during the trial. The House wants to dictate the rules in the Senate. The media wants to dictate what everybody understands about the trial, they don't know anyone to know the truth about the Bidens. Now they want to dictate how you spend your time during the trial? And they say Trump is a dictator? Come on.

BLACKBURN: They out to realize, people like you and I are chief mamas in charge, and we know how to do more than one thing at a time.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: Senator Blackburn, you always criticized Democrat impeachment witness Lieutenant Colonel Vindman on Twitter, and then his lawyer shot back late tonight saying that a member of the Senate would choose to take to Twitter to spread slander about a member of the military is a testament to cowardice. So apparently a member of the military can never be criticized. What's your response?

BLACKBURN: We honor the service of every man and woman in uniform. But here's the thing, you look at what his commanders, Vindman's commanders, have said, and he has a problem with his judgment. That has been pointed out. He had one commander that said he is a political activist in uniform. He has had problems with going outside of his chain of command, which is exactly what he did here.

And I talk to a lot of military members on a regular basis. They have a real problem with some of the things and the manner in which he conducted himself in this matter. What we want to do is make certain that we get to the heart of the issues here. We want to be certain the president is treated fairly. We want to make certain that we move through this and that we get back to the people's business, things they want to see us do like putting more judges on the federal bench.

INGRAHAM: Senator, again, we have to pop the liberal leftwing radical balloons during this impeachment trial.

BLACKBURN: Of course.

INGRAHAM: It gives us a good opportunity to expose their tactics. They have a tactic with members of the military who favor their point of view or their outcome, removing Trump. So if you're a member of the military who likes Trump, then you can be criticized morning, noon, and night. But if you are Vindman, who clearly thinks Trump shouldn't be there, then you can never criticize him or ever say anything.

BLACKBURN: That's right. The liberals, the left, they are great at situational ethics. They are great at things -- and people need to listen to what they are actually saying. My goodness, Adam Schiff yesterday in his opening said, look, we can't trust that Trump is not going to cheat in 2020 and that the ballot boxes are going to fair.

INGRAHAM: You have to trust the people.

BLACKBURN: We're going to take away your right to decide who you are going to vote for in 2020. That's the things that I hope people are listening to, to see what their real objective is. It is to control, to redo 2016 and to preempt what is going to happen in 2020. This is what this is about, they hate the guy so much. Donald Trump has done nothing wrong. We are going to make certain that we move this this process. And I will tell you this. What we are hearing from Tennesseans, he is in a better position than ever. He is going to be re-elected president of the United States in 2020.

INGRAHAM: I was seeing a lot of references to political crucifixions today on social media. I have to say Senator Blackburn, we salute your service for actually being able to physically withstand sitting through this day after day after.

BLACKBURN: Well, it is nothing compared to the service our military has given.

INGRAHAM: I know. I get it.

BLACKBURN: And it is nothing to what our children would have to endure if we don't protect the Constitution and make certain that we are a government of, by, and for the people. So it's worth the effort.

INGRAHAM: And if we actually have a president who gets to exercise his Article One authority without some bureaucrat questioning his judgment every five seconds. Senator, thank you so much.

BLACKBURN: Good to be with you.

INGRAHAM: And when we return, the liberal media wants you to take them seriously. So why do they go out of their way to discredit themselves? Matt Schlapp, Charlie Kirk, Dinesh D'Souza expose the hypocrisy. You don't want to miss it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was a virtuoso performance, a stunning recitation of the facts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He laid it out very clearly and told a pretty compelling and clear story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought it was dazzling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His mastery of this material is really formidable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's speaking to 100 years in the future. This is a speech that kids are going to be given in 2060 at university projects and things like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Give me a memorable line, folks. And they wonder why Americans think so little of the American media.

Joining me now, Matt Schlapp, chairman of the America Conservative Union, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA and author of the book "The MAGA Doctrine," and Dinesh D'Souza, conservative author and filmmaker. Matt, these same media figures were embarrassed by Schiff over the Russian collusion disaster. So they are making a little change here?

MATT SCHLAPP, CHAIR, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION: In 60 years people will be giving the speech -- what is her name, Joe Scarborough's wife Mika, says that it was a recitation. Yes. He knows the material so well because he's been saying the same lies over and over again. This has been going on for years. There is nothing here. We watched this all in the House. He is literally reading the same stuff in the Senate. It's just like, please.

INGRAHAM: Charlie, I was watching this live. I went to the Senate chamber, was it yesterday? It's all a blur. I think it was yesterday. And I had to be prodded by the capitol police because I fell asleep. And there is a rule on the back of the ticket that you can't sleep. I'm not making it up. I actually did fall asleep. But there is a mellifluous way he speaks, it's very soothing in a way when you take the content out. Is this moving the needle?

CHARLIE KIRK, FOUNDER, TURNING POINT USA: Not at all, no. You can start to see the ratings drop tremendously. You even have some people in the media completely misrepresenting and making up what's actually happening inside and outside of the chamber. You had a CNN political analyst who said that he heard two Republican senators saying, a few Republican senators saying, what Adam Schiff is doing is really changing my mind. Of course, that was totally made up, completely made up.

But that shouldn't surprise us because everything about this has been made up. Schiff met with the whistleblower and lied about it. The entire Russian collusion hoax they now bring back was built on a lie, not to mention the entire media narrative, the way they have been representing this has been one lie after another. And it's too bad. I don't think it's moving the needle, but it is hard to watch our founding institutions really disrespected like this in front of our very eyes.

INGRAHAM: Dinesh, when I think of the great speeches in American political history, we think of Reagan, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, we think of the "Gettysburg Address." And now we are thinking of Adam Schiff on Burisma moment and the conspiracy with Joe Biden? Take it away, Dinesh.

DINESH D'SOUZA, CONSERVATIVE FILMMAKER: First of all, I think that this appeal to history is very interesting because in a strange way I think it's a confession of rhetorical defeat, because essentially what they're saying is listen, 100 years from now, 200 years from now, people will be really convinced that this guy was telling the truth. When you can convince a jury that is sitting in the room and you can't convince the people watching on TV, you've got to appeal to the jury of people not yet born, hoping that maybe they will go along with you and see the wisdom of your words.

INGRAHAM: Matt, come on. The thing about this that I love is that Bernie and Klobuchar, when I was spying -- when I was watching them as I was in the gallery, when I was awake, I was awake for some of it, but they are shifting in their seats. They're listening with one ear. They want to get to Iowa. These Democrats, they know how this will end. They want to get to campaigning. Bernie is on the rise, Matt.

SCHLAPP: It's a sham and it's a game, and when you get to see what those senators are doing, I remember during the Clinton impeachment, they are not paying attention to what's going on. There is no drama here. There is nothing of interest here. It is what it is. They've been trying to get Trump the whole time he's been in office. This is just the next chapter in that play. By the way, Laura, this is going to happen the whole year. And they're going to lose more and more Americans who think this is a waste of time.

INGRAHAM: There' just going to now to the emoluments clause.

SCHLAPP: It's going to keep going.

INGRAHAM: If the Democrats get power back in November or if they retain control of the House and President Trump wins, it's never going to end. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Great to see all of you tonight.

Shannon Bream and the "Fox News @ Night" team take all the breaking developments from here. See you tomorrow night.

Content and Programming Copyright 2020 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2020 ASC Services II Media, LLC.  All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of ASC Services II Media, LLC. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.