Media Equality Project helps combat attacks on conservatives
The founders of the group speak out on 'Hannity'
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," May 30, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Welcome to "Hannity," and this is a "Fox News Alert." We are following several breaking news stories tonight. There are huge, major breaking developments about the deep state which is now targeting more members of the Trump administration. Newt Gingrich will join us in a few moments, along with Jay Sekulow, and from Circanews.com, Sara Carter, John Solomon.
But first tonight, there is a war on freedom of speech, especially for conservatives, and now conservatives are starting to fight back against the left. And that is tonight's all-important "Opening Monologue."
I have to start tonight on a personal note about something that happened last week. Now, I was asked by the family of the DNC staffer that was killed in July to pull back covering the story of the death because their son and their family was hurting. Now, their family out of consideration, seeing the pain that they were going through, they told me a number of times what was happening with them, and I was honestly glad to accommodate them because as a father, I know that I would probably never recover if I lost one of my kids. I honestly don't think it's possible, I cannot imagine the pain this family has gone through.
Now, out of respect for the family's wishes, well, I decided for the time being not to discuss it unless there were further developments. But I also promised you, my audience, my loyal audience, that I will not stop investigating, I will not stop asking questions, and at a very high level, the bottom line here is the family wants the truth and I think the country deserves the truth, because this impacts so much of what the narrative in this country is now about, which is the left and their conspiracy theory.
Now, I can report I am making progress. We will have a lot more coming, probably sooner than later. And I want to address this because, well, I have now been labeled by liberals, members of the destroy Trump media, a conspiracy theorist. Why? Let me explain.
Now, as we have been telling you on this program for months, Democrats and the media continue to push the Russia collusion Trump narrative without a shred of evidence. Nothing! Now, if evidence -- pay close attention. If it ever does become available, we will report it on this program. However, just this past weekend, former Obama Director Of National Intelligence James Clapper said he never saw a smoking gun or smoking gun evidence that collusion with the Trump campaign and Russia ever existed. Listen in here with his own words.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MEET THE PRESS"/NBC, MAY 28)
JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I have to say that without specific -- specifically affirming or confirming these conversations since even though they're in the public realm, they're still classified -- but just from a theoretical standpoint, I will tell you that my dashboard warning light was clearly on, and I think that was the case with all of us in the intelligence community.
I have to say, you know, at the time I left, I did not see any smoking gun certitude evidence of collusion. But it certainly was appropriate for -- given all the signs, certainly appropriate for the FBI to -- and necessary for the FBI to investigate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: OK, investigate, no evidence. Now, that's not all. Let's go back to January. While testifying under oath, Clapper said there was no evidence that Russia affected the actually vote tallies back in November. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, JAN. 10)
CLAPPER: First, we cannot say that -- they did not change any vote tallies or anything of that sort, and we had no way of gauging the impact that -- certainly, the intelligence community can't gauge the impact it had on choices that the electorate made.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Wow. Also back in March during an interview, "Meet the Press," Clapper again said he had not seen any evidence of Russian collusion. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MEET THE PRESS"/NBC, MARCH 5)
CLAPPER: We did not include any evidence in our report -- and I say "our," that's NSA, FBI and CIA, with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything -- that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report.
CHUCK TODD, MODERATOR, "MEET THE PRESS": I understand that, but does it exist.
CLAPPER: Not to my knowledge.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Not to my knowledge. And Democratic lawmakers, they've also admitted, even as late as last week, they've seen no evidence of collusion whatsoever. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN, MAY 18: The last time we spoke, Senator, I asked you if you had actually seen evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. And you said to me -- and I'm quoting you now -- you said "Not at this time." Has anything changed since we spoke last?
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, D-CALIF.: Well, not -- no, it hasn't.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, MSNBC, MAY 18: I know we need to go soon, but just to be clear, we haven't -- there has been no actual evidence yet.
REP. MAXINE WATERS, D-CALIF.: No, it has not been.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. I just wanted to...
WATERS: No, it has not been.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters! So we have no vote tallies that were actually changed. One of the top Democrats in the Senate says she has seen nothing to suggest there was collusion between the Russians and President Trump and his campaign.
Now, again, if we're presented on this program with concrete evidence collusion happened, and it hasn't been out there for months, I promise we will report on it.
So tonight, we ask an important question. Why has there been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of media coverage about the Trump-Russia conspiracy if there's zero evidence?
Now, the funny thing is now I'm being called a conspiracy theorist because I dare to ask questions. Now, I ask my questions based on the comments of the only one person on this earth who actually knows for sure the source of the DNC emails to WikiLeaks. As far as I know, by the way, I'm the only member of the media who has interviewed Julian Assange multiple times on radio and right here on this TV show.
During those interviews, he told me repeatedly Russia was not the source of the DNC email leaks -- repeatedly. Now, we at this point -- are we at a point in this country that I can't ask a question without being called a liar, a conspiracy theorist?
You know, and it's also now gone to a whole other level that is very dangerous. Now my character is being assassinated. I'm being lied about, smeared and slandered. And the worst part is there are many on the left that are now working hard to get me fired, get me off the air. So this voice of ours on the show -- I don't force you to watch, I ask you to watch, I want you to watch -- could no longer be heard.
There is now a well-funded, well-orchestrated campaign against me in this particular case to silence me by attacking my advertisers. Now, this is all put together by in part a Clinton-founded, in part, Soros-funded, in part, group.
Now, I want to tell you something. This is not hyperbole. What has been happening to me in the last week is a kill shot. They want this show canceled, they want me off the air. It's also an attempt to silence the Fox News Channel and talk radio.
Now, this has been a tactic that has been used against many other conservatives in the past with, honestly, a certain degree of success. And also note, talk radio, Fox News right now represents the only opposition voice, an existential threat to advance everything that the left wants to accomplish in the country. We're the only opposition, and of course, all of you.
Now, we saw what happened to Dr. Laura Schlesinger, Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and now it's my head on the chopping block.
Now, for the record, I am not and have never been a conspiracy theorist, and asking questions does not make a person a conspiracy theorist. I'm actually curious and I want to get to the answers as certain families have said publicly they want answers. And by the way, they deserve them.
Now, there are conspiracy theorists on TV today, like those that work at MSNBC and CNN and ABC, NBC, CBS. And then of course, we have all the unnamed sources, always in The New York Times, Washington Post, by the way, that are now being debunked regularly. We'll have more on that in a minute.
But first, this effort has really not gone far, and the reason is all of you out there in this audience. You have shown me all of your support, and it has been extremely humbling. And because of you, now, one of my advertisers, USAA, has come back on the show because you stood up for me, free speech and this program. You spoke out, your voices have been heard.
I am beyond thankful. I'm beyond appreciative. I'm beyond humbled. And I want to thank all of these advertisers for sticking with us, the vast, overwhelming majority that did. Only a few didn't.
And as I've said many times on this show, I am against boycotts because it's only an effort to silence speech that other people don't like. I said if you don't like someone on TV, on radio -- like for example, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher and the horrific, crude, vile things they've said, you can turn the on and off switch off. You can change the dial. And the same goes with primetime conspiracy cable TV that is now, like, 24/7.
But this Clinton-Soros group that is now going after me, they have been listing every one of my advertisers. Now, they're they saying it's not a boycott. Ostensibly, that's not really true, in my opinion. Now, it's gotten to the point where freedom of speech in this country and the continuation of voices like mine here on the Fox News Channel and on talk radio as we know it, as -- is in real jeopardy. There's a real risk here.
And that brings us to where we are today. My next two guests, Brian Maloney and Melanie Morgan, have come up with a new group to finally fight back and combat all these attacks to silence conservatives. In the past, there's not one -- conservatives have never fought back. Now, they're calling it the Media Equality Project. They've started an operation which they call, Fight Fire With Fire. And they're calling for people to, quote, "stop the conservative scalping." Stop the scalpings.
And they're not -- by the way, they're not calling for a boycott. They're just doing what the Clinton-Soros group is doing. They are calling for the left and the country that say they're so for free speech to stop trying to silence conservatives.
Now, Brian Maloney earlier today published an article entitled, "While Hannity remains under fire, left-wing counterpart Rachel Maddow escapes scrutiny." Now, this report details the extensive history of the MSNBC host, Rachel Maddow -- frankly, it's funny, I didn't know about -- them quoting the most bizarre conspiracy theories, frankly, I've ever heard.
Now, they're doing the same thing now to Maddow that this left-wing Soros-Clinton group, you know, who's allegedly not calling for a boycott, is doing against me. This new group has listed the advertisers -- they're not calling for a boycott -- and they are pointing out some of the most bizarre, conspiratorial, controversial things that have been said by Rachel Maddow.
For example, let's start with a few headlines courtesy of NewsBusters. Quote, "Maddow, Trump speech sees immigrants as vicious, murdering criminals." And then watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, FEB. 28)
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: It will be a notable thing that the president spent a big portion of what was, in effect, a State of the Union trying to, you know, tell the country what vicious, murdering criminals immigrants are. And that's focusing on crimes committed by immigrants...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: No, he actually said "some." And, Maddow, you know, "Trump's speech could be a 'gateway drug' for the KKK becoming mainstream in the GOP." Really?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, JULY 28, 2016)
MADDOW: A lot of people who I think are critical of Donald Trump generally look at praise like that from somebody like Donald Duke and wonder if he is a gateway drug, if there is something beyond Donald Trump himself that means a much greater transformation of the Republican Party into something that is going to be new to mainstream politics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: But there's a lot more. Back in 2011, Maddow tried to explain away then-congressman -- this is actually one of my favorite -- Anthony Weiner's graphic lewd tweet. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, JUNE 1, 2011)
MADDOW: If the congressman was hacked, as he said he was, if he was pranked, how would that work? How could a person do that? What would that look like?
The Daily Kos writer looks at the image of the congressman's Twitter account more closely, and judging from the pixelization of the images and some other visual clues, he concludes that the damage was a composite, saved a number of times, indicating it had been Photoshopped.
For a theory with fewer steps, a number of other blogs have different versions of a theory of a potential hacking that looks at the information embedded in this controversial picture.
A third, but by no means final theory, has to do with the photo-sharing service that I was talking about earlier, Whyfrog (ph). It's not all that hard to generate a program that would try every possible combination using your Twitter name until you got the right email address to use the service to post pictures.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now, hacking can occur. Not this time.
Then in 2013, in order to mitigate the role that radical Islam played in the Boston Marathon bombing, Maddow introduced several kind of bizarre conspiracy theories in this rather strange rant. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AUG. 6, 2013)
MADDOW: Pick your poison, right? I mean, it's "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," which Tamerlan Tsarnaev also apparently had a nice copy of. It's "The Protocols of Zion," or it's 9/11 truth, or it's what Anwar al Awlaki sold to Nidal Malik Hasan, who's now using that argument in his own defense down at Fort Bragg.
If the Boston bombing was really carried out by the government, and 9/11 was really carried out by the government, and Waco and false flags and all the rest, right? Pick your poison. There's always been an appeal to this necrotizing conspiracy theory radicalism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now, of course, there was also that time that Maddow theorized that Republicans may be pushing assassinations as an actual political tactic. Wow! Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AUG. 12, 2009)
MADDOW: Has enough kerosene been poured on the flames that the possibility of violence, even assassination is being posited as a real political tactic in the United States?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now, as I mentioned earlier, this is very important to me, freedom of speech is. I'm against boycotts. I've stood up against them my entire career, even when Bill Maher was on ABC's "Politically Correct." I applaud the fact that our next guests say, OK, if the left stops, they will stop. If the left starts to live up to their standard of freedom of speech, every voice should be heard and the viewers get to decide.
Now, I got to tell you, I didn't notice one single liberal cable host -- by the way, Lanny Davis was the only one that stood up for me. One liberal cable host that said, "Let Hannity say what he wants. Leave him alone." Just like I defended -- I would not be a part of a Stephen Colbert boycott or a Bill Maher boycott or any of these other show boycotts.
You know, so maybe it's time -- let's stop the liberal fascism. Let's stand on the principle of freedom of speech.
Brian Maloney, Melanie Morgan join us tonight. Thank you both for being with us.
And by the way, I was blown away on a personal level -- I've known you guys for a long time -- unbeknownst to me, I guess back a month or so ago, you guys sent "Stand with Sean" -- I didn't even know you were doing it.
Melanie, tell us how this came about. And I remember contacting you at the time, thanking you because I've kind of been under fire for a while now. It gets a little lonely sometimes there.
MELANIE MORGAN, MEDIA EQUALITY PROJECT: It sure does, Sean. And thank you so much for having both Brian and I on the program.
I wish we were meeting under different circumstances, but I have to tell you that I really consider what's happening with you to be an epic fight of proportions, monumental proportions. It's really a simple choice between good and evil. Do we want to stand with people like Media Matters for America that go after and ruthlessly defame you and slander you, and others in our business, as well as ordinary people who might just be wanting to express a conservative opinion on Facebook or Twitter, but are shouted down in silence and character assassination.
Now, I tell you it's a very disturbing time right now. And I just want to let you know that we have been working on this, connecting the dots to what's been happening to the George Soros and Hillary Clinton-funded foundations. Since April 26th, as Brian and I went back over our books and went, Wait a minute, you know, this has been going on for a long time. And yes, you didn't know about it.
Nobody's giving us any money to do this, but we are very upset because this has happened to me when I was a conservative talk show host here in San Francisco, where I am now. There was a boycott, and they tried to take us down. They try to get us fired. They tried to throw us off the air. And I see the same thing happening here. And I said, never again. I'm just not going to allow it to happen.
HANNITY: You know, when Maher suggested incest with the president and his daughter, and people wanted me to support a boycott or a campaign against it, or the vile crap that Colbert spewed, I said no and I tweeted it out. Just to be -- just to be clear here, Brian, this is not a boycott. You're doing what the Soros-Clinton group is doing to me, exactly the -- almost the same words, right?
BRIAN MALONEY, MEDIA EQUALITY PROJECT: Well, that's exactly right, Sean. And essentially what we're doing is we're giving them a taste of their own medicine. We're not trying to kick everybody off the air that we don't agree with. Otherwise, there'll be nobody left on the airwaves.
But conservatives have not fought back in the past, and Melanie and I just decided that we've had enough. And your show is the one that absolutely has to be defended. If we let this go, I think the left will realize they can win virtually any battle. I think that this is the year where conservatives realize, what are we doing sitting back for? This is ridiculous. We've had an unbelievable outpouring of support from thousands and thousands of people who are calling...
HANNITY: I am blown away by it, actually.
MALONEY: Yes.
HANNITY: I couldn't believe what I was seeing today. I just couldn't believe the impact you guys had.
(CROSSTALK)
MALONEY: ... millions of people today...
HANNITY: Yes. Let me ask this...
MORGAN: Yes, millions -- millions of tweets have been taking place.
HANNITY: It's crazy!
MORGAN: Our Facebook page has been overwhelmed. But the reason why is because everybody knows that, you know, you have to plant your flag. And we are standing with Sean Hannity. And I think that America says it's not fair. It's inherently unfair for people to go after somebody personally, to try and take them down professionally. All this conspiracy theory stuff -- I mean, honestly, I think there's probably a Russian under your bed, Sean. You better check and see that Olga and Sergey aren't hanging out there!
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: But let me ask -- we're running out of time, and I went long because I had to explain all this. Your guys are saying you want people to contact. You want the advertisers to know what these shows are saying that they're supporting, and you're also saying that if they stop, you'll stop. But if they're not going to stop these...
MALONEY: Right.
HANNITY: ... liberal fascistic tactics, if you will, you're going to keep going. And it's now, you know, fighting fire with fire, right, Brian?
MALONEY: Well, that's exactly right. And that's why we started Stop the Scalpings on Facebook, and essentially, we really want to call attention to the fact that Maddow's been getting away with being a conspiracy wacko for years and years.
HANNITY: It's crazy!
MALONEY: Nobody was sponsoring it. Nobody was paying attention.
HANNITY: All right, guys, thank you.
Up next, new revelations, really important revelations about deep state leaks. We'll explain. We have a mini monologue coming up next and we'll get reaction from former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
And also on this busy breaking news night...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KELLY, DHS SECRETARY: It's borderline, if not over the line of treason.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You plan -- you call it -- you believe it is treason to leak some of this stuff. You believe (INAUDIBLE)
KELLY: I do believe it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: The DHS secretary John Kelly says the dangerous leaks that are coming out of Washington, attacking the president, those surrounding him have now crossed the line into treason. Jay Sekulow, Sara Cater, John Solomon are here with a breaking news report straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY:
Welcome back to "Hannity." So while the deep state, the propaganda media are so busy trying to take down Jared Kushner now, there's a massive story that is being ignored. It's a story that you'll only hear about right here on "Hannity" and the Fox News Channel. And that is tonight's mini monologue.
All right, Jared Kushner is now in the deep state and propaganda media's crosshairs. Last week, The Washington Post ran wild with the story. Here's the headline. Quote, "Jared Kushner now a focus in Russia investigation."
Now, after creating that feeding frenzy, The Washington Post, citing once again all these unnamed sources -- they published another article accusing Jared of trying to set up back channel communications with the Russians. Now, the Trump administration has pushed back against the claims, and the destroy Trump media again breathlessly hyperventilating about this report - - well, they conveniently forgot that President Obama -- he tried to do the same thing with Russia.
And remember, CNN, they take the cake when it comes to fake news sources. Look, for example -- take a look at this quote. "Sources -- Russia discussed potentially derogatory information about Trump and associates during campaign." Now, those are serious allegations, but again, well, there are no on the record sources. There's never on the record sources! It's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the targeted leaks from the deep state.
Now, later in this segment, we're going to show you a long list of examples on the side of your screen. And also tonight, a massive story that the propaganda media is ignoring. Last week, Sara Carter, John Solomon of Circa.com -- they will join us later in the show tonight with more details -- they published two massive, explosive reports about how the Obama administration was trampling on the Constitution, your 4th Amendment privacy rights, and illegally spying on you, the American people.
Now, take a look at one of the headlines. Quote, "Obama intel agency secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years." And Circa -- they also broke another major story with the headline, quote, "Declassified memos show the FBI illegally shared spy data on Americans with private parties" -- huge, massive stories that exposed a major constitutional abuse by your government! The media doesn't care.
Well, it happened under the Obama administration, and because they are salivating at any chance to destroy the president, his son-in-law or anybody around the president. This is exactly why President Trump needs to finally purge the deep state.
Here with reaction, the author of the new -- it's a best-seller and it hasn't been released yet -- "Understanding Trump," former Speaker of the House, FOX News contributor Newt Gingrich.
How does your book become number one and you didn't release -- how does that happen?
NEWT GINGRICH (R), FMR. HOUSE SPEAKER, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Well, lots of people go and pre-purchase it and got excited by the idea of understanding Trump.
HANNITY: There's an understanding here, though -- I mean, I mentioned about the assault. You've seen it over the years, all of us that are conservative. You lived through it when you were speaker. But this effort to silence conservatives, this effort to destroy anybody -- all the collateral damage they can get around the president -- what you make of it all?
GINGRICH: Look, this is a frenzied almost a death behavior by the left because they're in such trouble, and Trump potentially represents the end of their world. And so you have very powerful institutions -- I mean, the amount of leaking coming out of the intelligence community is staggering. It's all illegal. People should go to jail. I wrote my newsletter on this last week, and said, you know, leakers should be locked up.
But it's deeper than that. The Washington Post stories are -- are -- someday, historians are going to look back on this and say it was one of the funniest periods in American history. Here you have Barack Obama, who created background techniques for communicating with Iran during his transition, clearly a sign (ph) because it was Obama, that it was quite clever.
Now you have the Trump people may have done a parallel thing during the transition. I had one reporter yesterday say to me, Well, what does this tell you about collusion during the election? I said, Well, the dates you're describing are after the election. He said, Oh, yes, that's right, isn't it.
I mean, there's this really almost insane pattern right now in the elite media that says, We know Trump is wrong. We're are not sure what it is, but we know he's done something horrible. We don't know what it is. And then they go from there.
And I think it tells you how frenzied they are to stop the momentum of the Trump administration. And frankly, the president is carrying an enormous burden on his shoulders because he is taking on this entire establishment system, which is trying to break him.
HANNITY: You know, I watched with, for example, General Flynn, and in his particular case, he was reaching out to his future counterpart. Jared's back channels -- well, didn't Obama do that with this horrible Iranian deal? And when he sat with Medvedev and he said, Tell Vladimir I'll have a lot more flexibility when I get reelected? That seems to me to be a back channel communication, which seems smart. Reaching out to your future counterpart, reaching out to a country in the hopes that you can begin a dialogue for the betterment of both sides does not seem so sinister.
And by the way, I say this -- I'm going to put up on the side of the screen all the deep state leaks under Trump so our audience can see. What's your response?
GINGRICH: Well, let me say, first of all, during the Cuban missile crisis, there was a back channel communication which many people credit with saving us from nuclear war. When Richard Nixon wanted to open up ties to communist China, it was a back channel process that started that process. When Eisenhower wanted to end the Korean war, there was a back channel through India that was a key communication method.
This notion that, suddenly, this is a terrible thing -- it verges on being insane. But this whole story -- and I worry -- I don't actually worry about the substance. I worry about the investigative process and the degree to which, sooner or later, somewhere, somebody will engage in a mistake, and that mistake will now become the problem, not the original act, not the original accusation. And people have to be very careful in dealing with the criminal justice system, especially when you remember a simple fact, Sean -- 97 percent of the campaign donations given by the Justice Department went to Hillary Clinton. And 99 percent --
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Why are all these holdovers still there? We aren't they gone?
GINGRICH: We are talking about deep into the bureaucracy when you talk about the total number of donors. But it's also true that there are Obama appointees that are still all over the place and the Trump administration ought to be doubling and tripling the effort to get rid of them. And it is absurd that we are now about to enter June with people from the Obama era still in decision-making positions throughout the government.
And by the way, it was also the deliberate design of Schumer and the Senate to Democrats to slow down every nominee because that slows down all the people below them. And so from the standpoint of the Democrats, they have had quite a say success at slowing down the rate of which Trump has taken control of the federal government.
HANNITY: All right, Mr. Speaker, stay right there. We have another segment. More with Speaker Gingrich when we come back. And also later tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KELLY, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: It is borderline if not over the line of treason.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You believe it is treason to leak some of the stuff? You believe that?
KELLY: I do believe it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: This is such a big story. The DHS secretary says the leaks out of Washington, the deep state, can be described as treason. Jay Sekulow, Sara Carter, John Solomon weigh in as we continue on this busy breaking news night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JACKIE IBANEZ, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, and live from America's news headquarters I'm Jackie Ibanez in New York.
The U.S. military conducting a successful missile defense test. The Pentagon saying it shut down a mock warhead during an exercise over the Pacific Ocean. The rocket was launched from California's Vanderburgh Air Force base. This was the first of its kind in nearly three years. It comes two days after North Korea test fired a Scud type ballistic missile. That test was the latest in a string of recent North Korean missile tests.
And comedian Kathy Griffin apologizing tonight. It follows growing outrage over a disturbing photograph showing her holding a model of a beheaded President Trump. Griffin apologizing there in a video posted online saying, quote, "I am a comic. I crossed the line. I went too far." She said she has also asked the photographer to take down the gruesome image.
I'm Jackie Ibanez. Now back to "Hannity." For all of your headlines log on to FoxNews.com. Have a great night.
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity" as we continue with the former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.
All right, I want to put back on the screen all of these leaks, deep state leaks against the president, because there has been so many. To me this is such a grave danger because in many ways what they are doing not only is unconstitutional, in the case of General Flynn violating the Espionage Act. But it seems to me if they can, and we'll get into this with Carter and Solomon next segment, if they can surveil, unmask, release raw intelligence against Americans which is illegal, that seems to be foundationally something that would be a dictatorship, that's something that would be a police state if the government is literally surveilling, unmasking, and releasing intelligence, which has happened, and we know it has happened.
GINGRICH: Let me draw a distinction. There are two points here. The first, which you are starting make right now, is that having Obama deliberately decide to loosen the rules -- and, candidly, I don't know if Trump has issued retightening the rules again, which he should. But the entire Obama effort to loosen the rules was a deliberate encouragement of the deep state to start going after American citizens.
And you are right, this is a major step, just as the violence on campuses and the various things that the left is doing to shut people up. This is one more step towards the kind of tyranny that the American constitution was designed to block.
But there is a second half to this, which is the leaking of secrets -- and I thought it was very sobering yesterday when Secretary John Kelly, four star Marine general, very sober guy, not inclined to go out on a limb. When he was asked, he said, you know, I actually regard leaking the secrets as virtually treason. And I think we should take it that seriously.
I think if you want to leak secrets about who is doing what to whom in the White House, that's politics. Maybe you fire people, but you start leaking America's secrets which weakens us in the world, risks our agents, scares our allies, strengthens our enemies, you ought to go to jail. And I am disgusted with the degree to which the "The Washington Post," "The New York Times," and the major networks are enablers of what John Kelly has said is the equivalent of treason.
HANNITY: And they have been proven wrong. Like the deputy attorney general didn't say he was going to quit. We learned that Comey didn't ask for more money, they didn't need more money according to McCabe. And even the Comey memo is problematic because that would have meant if he thought it was obstruction, he would have violated two felony laws because that was in January coming and he testified in May that nobody ever tried to get him to do that.
So I have an FBI friend. We were talking this weekend. You talked in the last segment about how risk is when they are investigating, if you don't get a fact right or if you forgot an email that you sent -- not necessarily sometimes that you do something wrong, but it is a perjury trap for people. And my friend said to me, and I love the FBI. I love law enforcement. I respect them. And I would want to help them. And he goes the fact is that you can never talk to them. I said, what do you mean? If they come and ask you questions, you have got to shut up. And I'm like, even if I can help them? He goes, if you get something wrong you could be charged with lying to FBI. There is something radically wrong with that system, isn't there?
GINGRICH: Yes. The whole thing has gotten to be I think very dangerous, very ruthless. I have said over and over again that the conviction of Scooter Libby in the Bush administration is one of the greatest scandals in modern America. He did nothing wrong. They knew he wasn't the person they were looking for. They knew who they were looking for, and the prosecutor not only deliberately targeted Libby to try to get to Dick Cheney, but the prosecutor locked up a "New York Times" reporter for 85 days. I have always been astounded that the news media didn't go crazy. This is a prosecutor who locks up a reporter for 85 days because he's engaged in a political witch hunt to try to get the vice president of the United States. That's what the Trump people have to be afraid of is that in a system -- that's why I mentioned earlier the donations. If you are in a department which had 97 percent of its campaign donations go to Hillary Clinton, you have got a culture and an attitude and a style that is very dangerous for anybody who is in favor of Trump.
HANNITY: All right, Mr. Speaker, and it would be nice if maybe we could get away from some of the nonstop attacks, all the distractions, so maybe the president's agenda that he promised the American people to get people back to work, out of poverty, off of food stamps, and get people back in homes -- with the lowest home ownership rate, it would be nice if we could focus on those things. It's good to see you, sir.
GINGRICH: Good to see you.
HANNITY: Thank you. And up next tonight on this breaking news night tonight here on HANNITY --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: It is borderline if not over the line of treason.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You believe it is treason to leak some of this stuff? You believe that --
KELLY: I do believe it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: More on that outrageous statement and hopefully not a true statement. That's scary. DHS Secretary John Kelly saying, talking about the dangerous leaks that are coming out of Washington, it could have crossed a line into treasons. Jay Sekulow, Sara Carter, John Solomon will weigh in on this busy news night. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: I don't know why people do these kind of things, but it's borderline if not over the line of treason.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You believe it's treason to leak some of this stuff? You believe that?
KELLY: I do believe it is. I believe when you leak the kind of information that seems to be routinely leaked to the high, high level of classification, you are telling the --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what was leaked on the Manchester bombing, you believe, maybe even meets you would say treason?
KELLY: I think it is darn close to treason.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: That was a DHS Secretary John Kelly suggesting that the numerous leaks are borderline treasonous. Here with the reaction from the American Center for Law and Justice Jay Sekulow, "Circa News" Sara Carter, John Solomon. Good to see you all. Sara, I will begin with you. You guys keep unraveling the layers of the onion here. You had a very big story last week. I just mentioned with Newt Gingrich, listed all of the leaks. What's new, and how bad is it?
SARA CARTER, "CIRCA NEWS": I think it is very significant. General Kelly, Secretary Kelly brought up a really good point, Sean. When you think of the Manchester bombing, when you think of those leaks, those pictures that were leaked out to "The New York Times" that showed there was a secondary trigger on the bond that actually gave away information that there was a large network working with Abedi here in Manchester, one of the most important issues that people don't realize is that while there is an ongoing investigation between the United States, Great Britain, and our allies overseas, intelligence allies, it gave away information to Al Qaeda, to Al Qaeda, to ISIS.
So as soon as that story broke, people started to scramble and were on the run. This is why these leaks are so dangerous. They are so narrow. And if you are thinking of it in a bigger case like the stories that John and I have reported on, those stories are significant because that affects the Fourth Amendment right of Americans. And it allows information to not only lay in the hands of the intelligence community, but to be moved into the hands of private citizens and third parties and forbidden parties as we exposed with the FBI with foreign surveillance court documents.
HANNITY: Where are we in terms of your discovery? And we've had the admission by Brennan last week of unmasking, and that is something you reported in detail. How deep is this going to come out to be inasmuch as how bad is it?
JOHN SOLOMON, "CIRCA NEWS": Well, it is currently a lot worse than it was a few years ago. Both the amount of searches, the amount of unmaskings, and the amount of violations are correspondingly going up since 2011 when a lot of these rules were loosened. And I think the people that have the ball in their hands now are the members of Congress who are going to debate this law, section 702, that allowed all this to occur. And it is going to come down to them to decide are they going to set the new line between privacy and security?
And I think the comment that Jay just made about the Fourth Amendment being an afterthought, it sort of is. When you read these opinions, it's almost like after the fact they realized they were violating one of the most core principles of the constitution. And I think that lack of seriousness about how serious that line is for privacy for Americans, it seems to be fading as more time goes on.
HANNITY: This is chilling. Guys, stay right there. We'll have more with Jay Sekulow, Sara Carter, John Solomon, as we continue on this busy breaking news Tuesday night. Thanks for being with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: As we continue on "Hannity" with Jay Sekulow, Sara Carter, John Solomon. All right, go back to your report, I was actually on vacation. There was a lot of people that speculated otherwise, Sara, but welcome to my world. But go back to the report on I believe it was Thursday night when you guys wrote that up.
CARTER: Yes. Well, John and I both put together the story. We were able to expose the documents that had been released by the foreign intelligence surveillance court with the FBI, regarding the FBI. And it was called the search for warrantless data. So this is basically not information gathered by the FBI with a warrant, but information that has been gathered through the NSA by the FBI, warrantless.
Now, Director James Comey said on May 3rd during a hearing that all of the warrantless data that was collected by the FBI was actually carefully collected, there was a lot of oversight. There were precautions taken. And what we found out from the documents, from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, was that that was not the case at all. In fact in hundreds of cases the FBI searched through warrantless data, shared information with a forbidden party. It is incredible.
HANNITY: We're short on time. Jay, are there going to be arrests here? Do the administration now know the severity of the deep state? Are they going to stop what is happening here and the violation of law, the committing of felonies, and, you know, the trampling of our constitution and our Fourth Amendment rights?
JAY SEKULOW, AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE: The attorney general said he is going to put an end to these leaks, and that means he has got to empanel a grand jury, and hopefully one has been empaneled to stop this so that it doesn't continue.
But I would take it a step further, James Comey, I've got a breaking news alert for everyone, James Comey did not tell the truth again when it came to a data collection. Is anyone shocked at this? But where's a consequence? So Sean, here is what I would say to the administration. Until you have that grand jury empaneled, until there are charges brought against those that are committing the crimes, there will be no accountability. You have to take affirmative legal action. Now there is no alternative for the sake of the constitutional republic. That's what hangs in the balance in these kinds of cases is the constitutional republic.
HANNITY: Last word, John.
SOLOMON: I think you are right. Until there is a really serious evaluation of why we are leaking and why people aren't being punished, this is going to continue go on. Just look at the corresponding numbers. They keep going up.
HANNITY: Yes. All right, guys, thank you all. Your reporting has been amazing. I think it is one of the biggest stories that we have had in our lifetime, and people better pay attention because this is really serious. Thank you both. Thank you to all three of you.
When we come back, a very important "Question of the Day." We need your input straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." Time for our "Question of the Day." So do you think that deep state leaks are hurting this country? I believe it is. We want to hear from you, Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter, let us know what you think.
That's all the time we have left this evening. Set your DVR, we hope you never miss an episode. Hopefully, it's not my choice, but I want to be here. We'll be back here tomorrow night. Thanks for being with us.
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