Politics of Democrats' expanded investigation into President Trump

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Politics of Democrats' expanded investigation into President Trump

House Democrats seek documents from 81 Trump associates; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," March 4, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JERROLD NADLER, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: We will be issuing document requests to over 60 different people and individuals from the White House to the Department of Justice, Donald Trump Jr., Allen Weisselberg, to begin investigations to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption, and abuse of power.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I cooperate all the time with everybody. And you know the beautiful thing. No collusion. It's all a hoax. You're going to learn about that as you grow older. It's a political hoax.

HOUSE MINORITY LEADER KEVIN MCCARTHY: Nadler is setting the framework now that the Democrats are not to believe the Mueller report.  They're now saying we have to do our own investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Well, it's 81 individuals, agencies, entities tied to President Trump received a flurry of letters demanding documents today as a part of these increasing Democratic probes. Take a look at some of them, 25 of the 81 individuals getting these letters today from the Judiciary Committee under Democrat control.

The ranking member on that committee, Doug Collins, issued a statement. "We don't even know what the Mueller report says, but Democrats are already hedging their bets. After recklessly prejudging the president for obstruction, Chairman Nadler is pursuing evidence to back up his conclusion because, as he admits, we don't have the facts yet."

We will start there with the news of the day. Let's bring in our panel: Chris Stirewalt is politics editor here at Fox News, Katie Pavlich is news editor at Townhall.com, and Jim Messina, Democratic strategist and CEO of The Messina Group.

OK, Jim, when you listen to Nadler over the weekend on the Sunday shows and he said I've reached the conclusion that the president has obstructed justice. And then the follow-up is why not move forward with impeachment now? And he says, well, we have to lay out the case to the American people. What do you think of that? Is it cart before the horse?

JIM MESSINA, CEO, THE MESSINA GROUP: I think it's smart. Democrats are being careful politically. They've learned some lessons from the Republicans in the '90s when they impeached President Clinton. They don't want to go down that road yet. They want to build a very compelling case. This is not surprising. I was the White House deputy chief of staff for President Obama when the Republicans took over the House. The very first day I got a bunch of these letters and same lawyers calling me saying we're going to look into this stuff. It's the balance of power, and the House is going to look very deeply at this stuff. And they showed. Thirty-four members of President Trump's campaign or close circle have been indicted, and we should look at it.

BAIER: Katie?

KATIE PAVLICH, TOWNHALL.COM: They should have learned some lessons about impeachment, but it seems like the ball head has been moved completely off of the field when it comes to what Democrats have acted like they want to know. First it was they wanted to know about Russian collusion, which is why they supported the Mueller probe. And then they criticized anyone who dared to go after or question the credibility of Robert Miller and the people who he had working with him. In fact we haven't heard calls for a while about passing legislation to protect the Special Counsel investigation now that Democrats don't seem to be getting what they want when it comes to information that they can use for impeachment.

There is a proper role for Congress to play when it comes to oversight. However, this is not about investigating government scandals like Operation Fast and Furious or the IRS targeting conservatives. This is about going after President Trump personally and using Congress and House committees with subpoenas to open up a treasure trove of opposition research for 2020 candidates. And the truth is that impeachment might be good in a primary, but it's not going to be good in a general election.

BAIER: And that's really the question, because it is a political process. This is not a criminal endeavor. It's a political process. And you look at the latest NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll on the president's job performance, it's actually ticked up from January from 43 to 46 percent, Disapproval, 52, Chris. And is there a risk-reward moment here for Democrats where they have to decide, do we go down this road fully or do we look to make our mark legislatively?

CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS: Don't underappreciate the degree to which avoiding another government shutdown worked for Trump's favor. And don't also underappreciate the degree to which having the focus on Democrats, whether they be in Virginia or whether it be the Green New Deal, it has not been a run of good weeks for Democrats in terms of the narrative.

I would say keep a prayer and keep some sympathy for Jerry Nadler. He's a serious person trying to do a serious job, but he has on his committee and he has on the Democratic conference people who want to be much more radical and much more aggressive than he is. So he is riding a tiger here. He needs to show his members, yes, I am on the case. We are being diligent, we're being aggressive. But he wants to keep them at bay so that they don't do what Katie is talking about, where you end up -- Nancy Pelosi and Jerry Nadler do not want to impeach Donald Trump unless they absolutely have to. They'd rather just beat him in 2020.

BAIER: Here's Jerry Nadler on that very question, on the Mueller investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NADLER: Crimes and impeachable offenses are two different things. There can be crimes that are no impeachable offenses, and impeachable offenses that are not crimes. They're just two different tests. But we have to lay out for the American people, and we can't depend on the Mueller investigation for this. The Mueller investigation, number one, we don't know when it's ending despite lots of rumors. Number two, it's focused on specific crimes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Does it sound to you, Jim, that they have a feeling that Mueller is not going to deliver what they want to deliver?

MESSINA: I think it's interesting. Everyone is already on both sides deciding what the Mueller report is going to say --

BAIER: Before we see it.

MESSINA: And it hasn't even been out. Why don't we all just sit back, let the Mueller report come out, and then figure out what to do next. I think Nadler is right that the obstruction stuff happened post-Mueller. It's not in the Mueller report. It's a different set of questions that they are going to look at. But let's wait for Mueller to come here.

BAIER: But we say that all the time on the panel. We don't know what we don't know. We're going to wait and see. And it could happen soon but we've not put a date on it. There are other things going on. The Southern District of New York, there are other investigations. And we point that out as well, Katie.

PAVLICH: Yes. There's plenty that we do not know, and Republicans or Democrats should not decide what they think is going to be in the Mueller probe. But the problem for Democrats is they have put everything on this. We have been hearing about Russian collusion for months, that there was evidence of this, which is why Robert Miller had to be protected. Of course, that's exactly what he's investigating, collusion. The fact is Robert Mueller actually isn't investigating collusion because collusion isn't a crime under the statutes that he's investigating.

BAIER: Technically it would be conspiracy.

PAVLICH: Conspiracy, but people are using the word "collusion" in the legal sense. The terms very much matter. When it comes to the subpoenas that are being issued, it's not about corruption in the government and corruption in Washington, D.C. These are about personal entities of the presidents. They want his tax returns. They want to go after Ivanka Trump. They want to go after Donald Trump Jr. They are going into every single personal issue that the president may have that they can use on the campaign trail against him to beat him in 2020. So when it comes to that line, it's going to be interesting to see how much Democrats can get done legislatively when all their time is being spent investigating personal finances of a president they simply don't like.

BAIER: There are some investigations like the emoluments clause and whether the president is using his office in some way, shape, or form to make money, where the two intersect, the personal and the president currently.

I want to turn quickly to the emergency declaration. Rand Paul coming out saying he's going to vote against this resolution. He's going to vote for the resolution that says there should not be a national emergency declaration by the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL, R-KY.: I think it's easy to argue that this emergency order, this executive order goes against the will of Congress, not all Congress, but the majority of Congress that passed the appropriation bill.

I spoke to the president last night, and we had a good discussion. He says he understands where I'm coming from, and he didn't tell me we would never play golf again, so I don't know.

It isn't about President Trump. It's about the division of power for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: And there are four Republicans now saying that they are against the president saying there should be an emergency declaration on the border. The problem here for them and for Democrats who support this measure is that the president has already threatened to veto it, and they're just going to have 67 votes in the Senate.

STIREWALT: First of all, sweet vast, Rand Paul.

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: Nice vest.

STIREWALT: Ver solid. But number two, this matters in a illegal sense because as you go to court, the president asked five times Congress give me the money for the thing I want to. Five times Congress said no. And then they're going to come back and say we specifically denounce the activity that you are taking. Look, he's going to veto it and he's going to go on ahead. But as the courts look at this matter, it's not going to be ambiguous what Congress thinks about the president's decision here.

The other thing is this is a first. This will be the first time Republicans in Congress have given Trump the yank. They've said absolutely not, we've not going to do it. That five will be 10, I'm sure, by the time they're done, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Mike Lee, and others I'm sure who stand up for separation of powers. Again, this isn't about the issue. It's not about what you think. It's about the division of powers.

BAIER: All right, we'll follow all of it.

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