Levin on impeachment: Democrats are up Schiff's creek

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Levin on impeachment: Democrats are up Schiff's creek

Mark Levin analyzes the testimonies from the open hearings in the House impeachment inquiry and the fallout for Democrats in 2020.

This is a rush transcript from "Life, Liberty & Levin," November 24, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARK LEVIN, HOST: Hello, America. I'm Mark Levin; this is "Life, Liberty and Levin," a big-time special edition: The Democrats up Schiff's creek.

Now, before we start, I noticed all the witnesses and even the witnesses who aren't witnesses have to prove to you that they're noble, courageous and beyond reproach. Well, let me give it a try. Because The New York Times likes to refer to me as, oh, that right-wing radio host. You know, my grandfather, my mother's father served in the United States Marine Corps. He joined the Marine Corps after we were attacked at Pearl Harbor. He was 34 years old, had reached the limit. And he fought at Iwo Jima and he fought at Guam. He joined the military the same time as his brother-in-law, my great uncle Teddy. He fought at Guadalcanal. My father was 17 at the time. Again, after we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, he joined the Army and then later, the Army Air Corps, 17 years old, my father, well, as a young man, he grew up in a very, very, very poor environment. They lived about a mile away from a cigar factory. And after my dad would go to elementary school, he'd go down to the cigar factory and work till midnight because the family needed money and he would join the assembly line with his mother, my grandmother, Sarah. My ancestors came from Russia and Ukraine, so that either means I'm bipartisan or I'm a suspect. I don't know. I have no particular love for either country. I've a love for this country. Now, I served eight years in the Reagan administration, several years at the highest levels of the government, including chief of staff to the attorney general of the United States. My college, I graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude. I graduated from law school when I was 22 years old. The New York Times likes to refer to me as a right-wing radio host; well this right-wing radio host wants to unravel this attack on our society, this attack on our Constitution, this attack on our president. And I want you to understand somebody as somebody who has studied the Constitution, American history and impeachment for decades, unlike any legal analyst or journalist on TV today. What the Democrats are doing to this president has never been done to another president in American history. Two prior presidents who were actually impeached and found innocent, they never had to face this. The federal judges who were impeached, not all convict -- only eight of them convicted -- were never treated like this. Now, let's take a look at our board here and just reacquaint ourselves with Western civilization. Due process since the Magna Carta of 1215 and thereafter, the right to confront your accuser, the right to cross-examine your accuser. The right to call witnesses. The right to cross-examine witnesses. The right to present evidence. The right to counsel. The right to a public trial. This is basic stuff. I hear people say, "well, it's not a criminal trial. The Sixth Amendment doesn't apply. The Fourth and Fifth Amendment don't apply." I said due process since the Magna Carta and thereafter. Where do you think the framers of the Constitution got the idea for the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment? They didn't manufacture it. Hundreds of years of reformation, of civilization, of progress have been killed in the House Intelligence Committee by the Democrats. No president, in fact, nobody facing impeachment has ever in American history been treated this way. Now let's look at the impeachment clause. You have individuals quoting Gerald Ford for the impeachment standard, who said anything the House says is impeachment is impeachment. That's a lie. The Constitution says what's impeachment. The president shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. Keep it there. Does it say Gerald Ford said? No. Does it say it's simply a political process? No. And they can cite Federalist 65 all they want. Hamilton doesn't say that either. The motivation may be political. The motivation may be mob-like, but it's not whatever the House of Representatives says, the Constitution doesn't give the House of Representatives illimitable power. It doesn't get any branch of government illimitable power. That's what it gives it. Treason, bribery, or other crimes and misdemeanors. Now, has the president committed it, apart from all the static, all the bureaucrats, all the civil servants, all the never-Trumpers, all the Democrats, all the journalists and the phony legal analysts? Has the president committed treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. Now let me tell you something else that's interesting. We've all these former federal prosecutors and judges commenting. When this language was written, there wasn't a federal criminal code. You don't go to the federal criminal code to look up bribery or misdemeanors. They were looking at English common law. They were looking at the practices of the Parliament and they borrowed language from them. This was considered a higher standard when George Mason said maladministration, James Madison got up and said no. Maladministration? That means the president of the United States will be owned, owned by the House of Representatives, which is what the House of Representatives is saying today through the Democrats in this committee. "We issue a subpoena? You damn well better abide by it. We want documents? You damn well better give it to us. We don't care about separation of powers. We don't care about checks and balances; we're the House of Representatives and we Democrats, we control it. This doesn't matter. Separation of powers doesn't matter." Well, it damn well does matter. Now, the president of the United States has not committed high crimes and misdemeanors of any sort. Here's the testimony from witnesses who are really not witnesses to anything and one witness who is a witness to something. Let's take a look at the testimony of the picked Democrat witnesses. Cut to, go.

Ron Johnson: I had a trip scheduled to visit President Zelensky in Ukraine on September 5th of this year and the day before or a couple of days before, I had heard that the president was considering or was withholding some of this military support, which, by the way, he's provided the lethal defensive weaponry that Obama didn't provide. So he's already provided this in the past. Anyway, I put in a request to talk to the president and he called me back on the following day, on August 31st. And I was trying to convince the president in that phone call to give me the authority, a few days later, to say the report's on its way. I'm trying to talk the president into it. Once again, the president was incredibly consistent, said "Ron, I mean, you know, we've talked, you know how corrupt a place this is." You know, it's, so he made that point and then he really hammered on the lack of European support. He talked about Angela Merkel. "You know, Ron, I asked Angela, you why don't you fund these things?" And he says, you know, "Angela tells me because you guys will," said "Ron, we're schmucks. We’re schmucks.” So, that was his -- that was the reason he gave me. I then brought up this rumor I’d heard. “Well, is there something in the works? Is there something -- does Zelensky have to do something, or does Ukraine have to show you something in order for this support to be released?” and that is where he made the adamant, vehement, angry denial. Again, I described it as “expletive-deleted.” “They’re -- no way. No, no, I would never do that. Who told you that?”

LEVIN: Next, we have former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who was very upset as an Obama holdover that the president of the United States would actually dare to choose somebody else to replace her, so she was hostile. So, first we have Ron Johnson. No offense, he says. Now Marie Yovanovitch; I would call her a hostile opinion witness. Go:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALE SPEAKER: Madam Ambassador, as you sit here today, very simply and directly, do you have any information regarding the president of the United States accepting any bribes?

FORMER AMB. MARIE YOVANOVITCH: No.

MALE SPEAKER: Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the president of the United States has been involved with at all?

YOVANOVITCH: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVIN: We have then two other witnesses, Ambassador Volker and Mr. Morrison. Mr. Morrison served on the National Security Council. Their testimony on whether or not the president effectively committed an impeachable offense. Go:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FEMALE SPEAKER: I wanted to start with the July 25th call between President Trump and President Zelensky. Mr. Morrison, you were on that call, and there was no mention of withholding aid on the call, correct?

TIM MORRISON: That is correct, Congresswoman.

FEMALE SPEAKER: And there was no quid pro quo, correct?

MORRISON: Correct.

FEMALE SPEAKER: No bribery?

MORRISON: Correct.

FEMALE SPEAKER: No extortion?

MORRISON: Correct.

FEMALE SPEAKER: And, Ambassador Volker, I presume you got a readout of the call. Is that correct?

AMB. KURT VOLKER: A very terse readout, but yes.

FEMALE SPEAKER: In this terse readout of the call, Ambassador, from the U.S. participants, was there any reference to withholding aid?

VOLKER: No, there was not.

FEMALE SPEAKER: Any reference to bribery?

VOLKER: No, there was not.

FEMALE SPEAKER: Any reference to quid pro quo?

VOLKER: No, there was not.

FEMALE SPEAKER: Any reference to extortion?

VOLKER: No, there was not.

FEMALE SPEAKER: And I presume you also got feedback from your Ukrainian counterparts as to how the call went. Did they mention the withholding of aid?

VOLKER: No, they did not.

FEMALE SPEAKER: Did they mention any quid pro quo?

VOLKER: No, they did not.

FEMALE SPEAKER: And did they mention any bribery?

VOLKER: No, they did not.

FEMALE SPEAKER: And in fact, the day after the call, you met with President Zelensky. This would be on July 26th.

VOLKER: That’s correct.

FEMALE SPEAKER: And in that meeting he made no mention of quid pro quo?

VOLKER: No.

FEMALE SPEAKER: He made no mention of withholding the aid?

VOLKER: No.

FEMALE SPEAKER: He made no mention of bribery?

VOLKER: No.

FEMALE SPEAKER: So, the fact is the Ukrainians were not even aware of this hold on aid. Is that correct?

VOLKER: That’s correct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVIN: Now, the next witness is actually a direct witness, Ambassador Sondland. What did he have to say? Go:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM JORDAN: Ambassador, when did it happen?

AMB. GORDON SONDLAND: When did what happen?

JORDAN: The announcement. When did President Zelensky announce that the investigation was going to happen? On page 14, you said this. “Was there a quid pro quo?” Today’s -- your opening statement: “As I testified previously, with regard to a request White House call, White House meeting, the answer is yes, that it needed to be a public statement from President Zelensky.” When the chairman asked you about the security assistance dollars, you said there needed to be a public announcement from Zelensky, so I’m asking you a simple question. When did that happen?

SONDLAND: Never did.

JORDAN: Never did. They got the call July 25th; they got the meeting, not in the White House, but in New York on September 25th; they got the money on September 11th. When did the meeting happen again?

SONDLAND: Never did.

JORDAN: You don’t know who was in the meeting?

SONDLAND: Which meeting are you referring to?

JORDAN: The meeting that never happened. Who was in it?

[LAUGHTER]

You know how --

SONDLAND: The people that weren’t there.

JORDAN: -- Zelensky announced it? Did he tweet it? Did he do a press statement? Did he do a press conference? You know how that happened? I mean, you got all three of them wrong. They get the call; they get the meeting; they get the money. It’s not two plus two; it’s oh for three.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVIN: Now, next, more from a direct witness, Sondland, as he’s questioned by Ratcliffe. Go:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN RATCLIFFE: Tell me if there’s anything sinister or nefarious in any of this. A vanilla request about corruption; a call to say I’m on my way to Ukraine, a five-minute call you didn’t remember as significant, but whose primary purpose was to discuss a rapper. A call that you made where the president said, “I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. I want Zelensky to do the right thing. I want him to do what he ran on,” and him telling you to go tell Congress the truth. Anything sinister or nefarious about any of that?

SONDLAND: Not the way you presented it.

RATCLIFFE: Okay. And that is the truth as you’ve presented it, correct?

SONDLAND: Correct.

RATCLIFFE: All right. Why that’s important, Ambassador Sondland, is because none of that is hearsay. None of that is speculation. None of that is opinion. That is direct evidence, and ultimately, that is what, if this proceeds to the Senate, they’re going to care about, unlike this proceeding, which has been based on, largely, speculation and presumption and opinion. This is direct testimony and direct evidence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVIN: Every witness, even the witnesses that didn’t witness anything, every single one of them has basically said, “No impeachable offense.” You have to read the impeachment clause out of the Constitution to try and impeach this president. I have a lot more. We’ll be right back.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

LEVIN: Welcome back, America, to this special edition of “Life, Liberty & Levin.” The Democrats up Schiff's creek. The impeachment clause has nothing to do with the federal criminal code. As a matter of fact, when this nation was founded, there was no such crime as a misdemeanor. What they meant, "high crimes and misdemeanors," "a very grave offense." A very grave offense, the president of the United States is the only person -- he and the president who are elected by all the people, the whole nation, and they were well-aware of the possibility that you could have a rogue house, a mob like we have today, which is why they set up the Senate to hold the trial with a two-thirds vote for conviction. Michael Turner was interviewing -- or was questioning -- Gordon Sondland again. And we want to take a look at this in the context of the impeachment clause. Go:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MICHAEL TURNER: After you testified, Chairman Schiff went out and gave a press conference and said he gets to impeach the president of the United States because of your testimony. And if you pull up CNN today, right now, their banner says, "Sondland ties Trump to withholding aid." Is that your testimony today, Mr. -- Ambassador Sondland, that you have evidence that Donald Trump tied the investigation to aid? Because I don't think you're saying that.

SONDLAND: I've said repeatedly, Congressman, I was presuming. I also said that President Trump --

TURNER: So no one told you. Not just the president. Giuliani didn't tell you. Mulvaney didn't tell you. Nobody -- Pompeo didn't tell you. Nobody else on this planet told you that Donald Trump was tying aid to these investigations. Is that correct?

SONDLAND: I think I already testified.

TURNER: No. Answer the question. Is it correct? No one on this planet told you that Donald Trump was tying this aid to the investigation? Because if your answer is yes, then the chairman is wrong, and the headline on CNN is wrong. No one on this planet told you that President Trump was tying aid to investigations. Yes or no?

SONDLAND: Yes.

TURNER: So, you really have no testimony today that ties President Trump to a scheme to withhold aid from Ukraine in exchange for these investigations?

SONDLAND: Other than my own presumption.

TURNER: Which is nothing. I mean, that's what I don't understand. So you know what hearsay evidence is, Ambassador? Hearsay is when I testify what someone else told me. Do you know what made-up testimony is? Made up testimony is when I just presume it. I mean, you're just assuming all of these things, and then you're giving them the evidence, then they're running out of doing press conferences, and CNN's headline is saying that you’re saying the president and states should be impeached because he tied aid to investigations, and you don't know that. Correct?

SONDLAND: I never said the president of the United States should be impeached.

TURNER: No, but you did -- you have left people with the confusing impression that you were giving testimony that you did not. You do not have any evidence that the president of the United States was tied to withholding aid from Ukraine in exchange for investigations. I yield back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVIN: One more. Representative Turner with Ambassador Volker. Go:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TURNER: You had a meeting with the United States and you believe that the policy issues that he raised concerning Ukraine were valid, correct?

VOLKER: Yes.

TURNER: Did the president of the United States ever say to you that he was not going to allow aid from the United States to go to the Ukraine unless there were investigations into Burisma, the Bidens, or the 2016 elections?

VOLKER: No, he did not.

TURNER: Did the Ukrainians ever tell you that they understood that they would not get a meeting with the president of the United States, a phone call with the president of the United States, military aid, or foreign aid from the United States unless they undertook investigations of Burisma, the Bidens, or the 2016 elections?

VOLKER: No, they did not.

TURNER: You know, pretty much Ambassador Volker, you just like took apart their entire case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVIN: They had no case. What's the point of having witnesses -- and they have to approve every single witness -- if they're not going to listen to the bottom line of what the witnesses have to say when it comes to impeachment? Well, let's get into some actual facts. We've heard the testimony from these bureaucrats who say they really care about Ukraine. And they were really upset because Donald Trump, he was going in a different direction with policy, despite the fact in 2017 he gave them the money they asked for offensive military armaments. In 2018 he gave them the money they asked for, for offensive military armaments. Donald Trump knows what's going on with Russia and Ukraine. It's Donald Trump who's put the most severe sanctions on Russia. I mean, the Ukraine was invaded during Obama's administration. Crimea was annexed during Obama's administration. Where are the bureaucrats? Where were the Democrats? Where were the journalists then? Where are the impeachment hearings then? Now, let's take a look at this. Over and over, they said the president made it clear he didn't give a damn about Ukraine. Well, then what did Obama care about? Here we have a piece, The Washington Post, written by Fiona Hill, who was a witness, and I might say, a pretty pathetic witness. And she wrote an op-ed, "The United States is on a dangerous trajectory in its relations with Russia." This is February 5, 2015. “A nuclear superpower that believes itself to be under direct threat. Several former U.S. officials and top think tank experts released a report calling on the West to provide military support to Ukraine. The logic of sending weapons to Ukraine seems straightforward and is the same as the logic for economic sanctions to change Vladimir Putin's calculus. Increasing the Ukrainian army's fighting capacity. The thinking goes, would allow it to kill more rebels and Russian soldiers, generating a backlash in Russia and ultimately forcing the Russian president to the negotiating table.” She writes, "We strongly disagree. The evidence points in a different direction. If we follow the recommendations of this report, the Ukrainians won't be the only ones caught in an escalating military conflict with Russia. In the jargon of geopolitics, Putin enjoys escalation, dominance in Ukraine. Whatever move we make, he can match it and go further." She writes a long, impassioned op-ed in The Washington Post that somehow passes the notice of Mr. Schiff and is Democrats, strongly opposing aid. Here we have the Brookings Institution. The Obama doctrine in Ukraine, it says in part, "as regards the two-year-old conflict between Ukraine and Russia" -- this is March 2016 -- "President Obama said Ukraine is a core interest for Moscow in a way that is not for the United States. He noted that since Ukraine does not belong to NATO, it is vulnerable to Russian military domination and that we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are going to do to go to war.” It's hard to dispute these points they point out. Except that the president set up a straw man, that president being Obama. The United States could have done more to help Kiev resist the Kremlin's aggression without a war with Russia. Here we have The New York Times and this is dated June 2015. "With the peace process stalled and violence escalating in Ukraine, a big part of a bipartisan coalition in Congress is defying Obama and European allies for pressing the administration to provide weapons to the embattled nation. The push for lawmakers to arm Ukraine's beleaguered armed forces threatens to open a rift between the United States and key allies, especially Germany and France." Germany. Ring a bell? What's the president say, according to Ron Johnson, "Hell. Germany needs to step up and help pay, too." At a time when the Obama administration has been working to demonstrate unified support for extending European economic sanctions, legislation to authorize legal military aid for Ukraine has gone to the White House before. But Mr. Obama has not acted on it. Period. They whine about 55-day delay with Trump? Obama blocked legislative efforts to help Ukraine. Obama had no interest. In fact, in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea and began arming separatists in eastern Ukraine with tanks, armored vehicles, and rocket launchers, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko came to Washington. He pled for weapons to defend his country and it was turned down. All the Democrat crocodile tears for Ukraine. They don't care about Ukraine. They don't even care about America or they wouldn't be turning our Constitution inside out. I'll be right back.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

LEVIN: So, we’ve established the president has not committed anything close to an impeachable offense. We’ll underscore that a little later in the program. We’ve established that Obama was choking the Ukrainian government of the armaments that they needed, fighting off Congress and his own administration. No complaints in the State Department, no hearings by Adam Schiff and his party, no demands for Obama’s head, and he was defying the will of Congress, no problem, while the Ukrainians were being killed. Remember, Russia invaded Ukraine on his watch. Now, it's funny how the transcript of the conversation between Zelensky and President Trump is rarely used at these hearings. In addition to these witnesses and so-called witnesses, our president, their president, our secretary of state, their foreign minister have all said no quid pro quo, no bribery, no extortion, nothing of the sort, and the document that's been released, or the transcript, proves the point. Even Vindman, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman who says, “Don't call me Mr. Vindman” -- actually we citizens can call you Mr. Vindman, Mr. Vindman. Even he has said, well, no, the president didn't commit any offense as far as he can tell. Well, that's nice. This is from the transcript. “I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country's been through a lot, and the Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine. They say, ‘Crowd strike.’ I guess you have one of your wealthy people -- the server -- they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the attorney general call you or your people, and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.” The media, Anderson Cooper, all the rest -- hey, this is a conspiracy theory. Don't bother with it. None of the Democrats on the committee have wanted to look into this, not one of them. What is the president talking -- why is he so focused on 2016? Stick with me. Politico, left-wing, written by, among others, Kenneth Vogel, left-wing so-called journalist. “Ukraine efforts to sabotage Trump backfired.” That’s their headline, and this is from January 2017. “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption, and suggested they were investigating the matter only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the DNC met with top officials in the Ukrainian embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.” You had this witness, Fiona Hill, who dismissed all this, who dismissed all this. The Ukrainian efforts had an impact on the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine's foe to the east, Russia. It goes on later, “Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another's election.” It goes on and on and on, and they bring up a woman who the Republicans asked to have as a witness, and Schiff said no. Alexandra Chalupa had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison in the Clinton administration, was a consultant to the DNC; she was paid $412,000 from ’04 to ’16; a daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who maintained strong ties to Ukrainian-American diaspora and the U.S. embassy in Ukraine. She's a lawyer by training, and it goes on and on and on. Now, why is she important? Why is she important? She should have been called as a witness to figure out exactly what her role is. There's a number of articles about this woman and what she was doing with the DNC, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the State Department, and, by the way, met several times at the White House with the so-called whistleblower. What’s that all about? I don't know. We're not allowed to ask about her; we're not allowed to ask about the whistleblower. We're not allowed to ask about Hunter Biden, not allowed to ask anything, so we bring in bureaucrats who don't know a damn thing to begin with. Another -- why’d Trump want to know about 2016? New York Times: “Secret ledger and Ukraine list cash for Donald Trump's campaign chief.” Bottom line, they had what's called this black ledger, and people in the government were leaking it to news outlets in the United States for the purpose of embarrassing the president. The president eventually had to let his campaign manager go, and they were digging as much dirt as they could on Manafort and his consulting business over there and leaking it out, and leaking it out to The New York Times, to The Associated Press, and others. For example, the New York Times piece is very long, has headlines like “Mysterious payments.” It has “offshore company.” There's more and more, oh, yes. There is a disputed investment as the Ukrainian government is trying to affect the American election. Here's a follow up by The New York Times, "Ukraine releases more details on payments for Trump aide Paul Manafort.” "The Ukrainian authorities under pressure to bolster their assertion that once secret accounting documents show cash payments from a pro-Russian political party earmarked for Donald Trump's campaign manager released line item entries sum from millions of dollars." The Russians did interfere with our election. In fact, the Obama administration interfered with our election. The FBI, the CIA, the FISA court interfered with our election. The media interfered with our election. But so did the Ukrainian government on the side of Hillary Clinton. Here's another one. Financial Times, "Ukraine's leaders campaign against 'pro-Putin' Trump." They hated Trump. They wanted to take Trump out. Wow. Here's another one. The Nation, a hard-left magazine, "The full scope of Ukraine's impact on the 2016 election has yet to be examined." And look at this, folks. We have an actual court decision out of Ukraine. "Ukraine court rules Manafort disclosure caused meddling in the U.S. American election." An actual court finding. That's why the president of the United States wanted to get to the bottom of 2016 and find out what happened because the Congress didn't want to look, whether it's the Senate or the House Intelligence Committees. The FBI didn't want to look, the CIA didn't want to look, but the president of the United States wants to know what the hell happened in 2016. And we, the people of the United States, have every damn right to know, too. I'll be right back.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

LEVIN: Welcome back. What about this Hunter Biden stuff that the president mentioned in the phone call?

He says in the phone call, "I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down. And that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down, and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man who is the mayor of New York City, a great mayor. And I'd like him to call you, and I will ask him to call you along with the attorney general. Rudy very much knows what's happening, and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him, that would be great. The former ambassador for the United States, the woman, was bad news. And the people she was dealing with in Ukraine were bad news. So I just want to let you know that. The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution. A lot of people want to find out about that. So whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me." Wow. If he's breaking the law, he's also involving the attorney general. Isn't that weird? Well, what is the president talking about there? Is he just doing this because he wants to interfere with an election? Well, I dug, and I dug deeply. May 13, 2014. You know who else wanted to interfere with a potential future election of Joe Biden for president? Apparently, ABC's Jon Karl. Here's a flashback. Go:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON KARL, ABC NEWS: Hunter Biden is not taking a position with the largest oil and gas company -- holding company in Ukraine. Is there any concern about at least the appearance of a conflict there? The vice president --

MALE SPEAKER: I would refer you to the vice president's office. I saw those reports. Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family are obviously private citizens and where they work is not -- does not reflect an endorsement by the administration or by the vice president or president. But I would refer you to the vice president's office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVIN: Well, did they go to the vice president's office? Is that the end of it? Well, the vice president, well, he was still focused on this. And of course, he didn't know anything about his son. I mean, ABC News knows about it. Peter Schweizer knows about it. Everybody knows about it, apparently, but Joe Biden, slow Joe Biden. And here's the infamous video of Joe Biden subsequent -- sometimes subsequent to that flashback. Go:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN: I'll give you one concrete example. I was -- not I -- but it just happened to be, that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so, I got Ukraine. And I remember going over convincing our team or others -- to convince, you know, that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev, and I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn't.

So they said they had it -- they walked out to press -- kind of said, "No," I said, "I'm not going -- or we're not going to give you the billion dollars." They said, "You have no authority. You're not the president. The president said." I said, "Call him."

[laughter]

I said, "I'm telling you, you're not getting a billion dollars." I said, "You're not getting the billion. I would be leaving here." I think it was -- what -- six hours. I look and I said, "We leave here in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money." Well, son of a b___h, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVIN: It's all sleazy how Biden got on that board was paid 83,000, not 50, $83,000 a month, some say millions of dollars. We're supposed to pretend Joe Biden doesn't know anything. Joe Biden knows all about it. ABC knew about in 2014, everybody knew about it. And here we have Ken Vogel back, leftist and a co-journalist on a piece in The New York Times, May 2nd, 2019. "Biden faces conflict of interest questions that are being promoted by Trump and allies." Notice how always they hate on Trump and allies? The pressure campaign; that is, the firing of the prosecutor eventually worked. “The prosecutor general, long a target of criticism from other Western nations and international lenders, was voted out months later by the Ukrainian parliament. Among those who had a stake in the outcome was Hunter Biden” -- it’s not me, it’s the New York Times -- “Mr. Biden’s younger son, who at the time was on the board of an energy company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch who’d been in the sights of the fired prosecutor general.” Hunter Biden. “The broad outlines of how the Bidens’ roles intersected in Ukraine have been known for some time. The former vice president’s campaign said they’d always acted to carry out United States policy without regard to any activities of his son, that he had never discussed the matter with Hunter Biden, and that he’d learned of his son’s role with the Ukrainian energy company from news reports.” A State Department official flagged Hunter Biden’s conflict of interest in the Ukraine. This broke when Yovanovitch was preparing for her testimony to be confirmed as an ambassador. In the Q&As the State Department put together, they put together this appearance of reality of a conflict of interest. George Kent, a career official at the State Department -- Fox News -- told House investigators that he raised concerns about Hunter Biden’s lucrative service on the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, he said, in January-February 2015. He became aware that Hunter Biden was on the board of Ukrainian company Burisma Holdings while his father Joe Biden was overseeing Ukraine policy as vice president. He goes to the VP’s office; they send him away. The vice president is grieving over the passing of his elder son, they said. So, nobody brings it up with the vice president? Nonetheless, the vice president intervenes? Hey, I have a theory. The Democrats like the theories. They like to connect the dots. You guys in journalism, and the legal analysts, you pay attention, too. Maybe they put Hunter Biden on that Burisma board, which is the largest or one of the largest companies in a corrupt country, even though he had no background for any of it -- maybe they wanted to buy influence with the Obama administration, because, remember, the Obama administration would not give the Ukrainian government the military armaments, the offensive military armaments necessary to defend themselves against the Russians. Why don't they look into that? It sounds like a perfectly logical point. And when the president of the United States said, “You guys might want to look into it,” what in the hell is wrong with that? And he also said, “You might want to talk to the Attorney General about it.” So, he's going to commit a crime, and he's going to bring the Attorney General into it? And remember, the president of Ukraine said, “I didn't feel pressured at all,” and in fact they didn't launch an investigation against Biden. There was no link to military aid. There was no link to a meeting. There was no link to an announcement of any kind. What the hell are we doing here? I'll be right back.

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LEVIN: Ladies and gentlemen, so significant is what took place in 2016 -- the Russians interfering with our election; the Hillary Clinton campaign, the DNC, the Obama administration colluding with them, putting spies in the Trump campaign; the Ukrainians colluding with the Hillary Clinton campaign and the State Department and the Obama administration also to sabotage, to use Politico's word, the Trump campaign -- there's a criminal investigation underway now. But even more, September 25, 2019, Washington Examiner: “The Justice Department revealed that U.S. attorney John Durham, picked by Attorney General William Barr to look into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, is investigating whether Ukraine was involved in any 2016 election efforts. The Department of Justice team led by U.S. Attorney John Durham,” they said, “is separately exploring the extent to which a number of countries, including Ukraine, played a role in the counterintelligence investigation directed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.” A spokeswoman said while the Attorney General has yet to contact Ukraine in connection with this investigation, certain Ukrainians who are not members of the government have volunteered information to Mr. Durham which he is evaluating. I guess they're not going to be able to look into Joe and Hunter Biden, because we know the committee isn’t, and somehow they have -- they’re like the bubble men. You're not allowed to investigate them because the Democrats don't want you to know what's going on. The Democrats don't want to investigate 2016 in Ukraine -- really 2016 in Russia -- despite all their propaganda. Let's look at the board. These so-called irregular diplomatic channels -- you've heard about them over and over again -- they're not irregular. Presidents have used private envoys all the time, and you saw why during these so-called impeachment hearings. The president has longstanding bureaucrats that he's trying to get around. There's an iron triangle, if you will. These bureaucrats who've been in the State Department forever, cold warrior ideologues -- I believe I'm a cold warrior in many ways, but I'm not an ideologue -- and the Democrats. This is the iron triangle to handicap the president's foreign policy. Look at this list, so-called irregular diplomat channels. George Washington; Gouverneur Morris was his Rudy Giuliani. Woodrow Wilson; Edward House was his Rudy Giuliani. Warren Harding had James Logan; Franklin Roosevelt had Harry Hopkins. Richard Nixon had Armand Hammer. Next, Jimmy Carter had J. Paul Austin; Ronald Reagan, William Wilson; Bill Clinton, Bill Richardson; Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett; Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani; and there are many, many more. Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget, almost every weeknight, you can watch me on Levin TV. Give us a call at 844-LEVINTV to sign up, 844-LEVINTV, or go to BlazeTV.com. BlazeTV.com. We’ll be right back.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

LEVIN: Under the federal whistleblower statute, I've told you before, the so-called whistleblower is not a whistleblower. The so-called whistleblower's complaint is not covered by the statute. The phone call between the presidents, they're not covered by the statute. The president's not covered by the statute. And the so-called whistleblower is not anonymous under the statute. And yet, they treat him like the unknown whistleblower. This is the greatest travesty in American history that you tried to destroy a president of United States for all the reasons I said. And your main witness isn't even a witness. Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget most weeknights, you can join me on Levin TV. Just give us a call at 844-LEVIN-TV, 844-LEVIN-TV go to BlazeTV.com, BlazeTV.com. We'd love to have you there. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's the end of our special for tonight. Thank you for joining us. See you next time on "Life, Liberty & Levin."

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