Politics of the Trump-Russia investigation

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Politics of the Trump-Russia investigation

President Trump blames former personal attorney Michael Cohen for hush money 'liability'; reaction and analysis on 'Special Report.'

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," December 10, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF.:  There's a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him, that he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-FLA.: It's about what our laws are and about the fact that no one should be above the law. Obviously this is relevant information, and things that cannot and should not be ignored.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We are very happy with what we are reading because there was no collusion whatsoever. There never has been. The last thing I want is help from Russia on a campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: The president last week and then taking that reaction to Twitter, as you can imagine, over the weekend, numerous times about this investigation. "Democrats can't find a smocking gun," spelled that way, but I think it's "smoking gun," "tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comey's testimony. No smoking gun, no collusion. That is because there was no collusion, so now the Democrats go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution, which it was not. But even if it was, it was only a civil case like Obama's, but it was done correctly by a lawyer and there would not even be a fine. Lawyer's liability if you made a mistake, not me. Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced. Witch Hunt!"

With that, let's bring in our panel: Chris Stirewalt, politics editor here at Fox News; Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist, and we welcome, Sahil Kapur, national political reporter for Bloomberg News. Sahil, let's talk about just reaction to what we saw in these filings and what you're hearing on Capitol Hill. I know you were just talking to a bunch of senators.

SAHIL KAPUR, BLOOMBERG NEWS: I was just on Capitol Hill and spoke to a number of senators. Republican senators are not breaking with the president at this point. They are in wait-and-see mode. I spoke to Senator Grassley, the current chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who said Cohen is a liar and I don't give much creditability to what he says. Senator John Thune, the new majority whip, we don't have the full picture yet. He is waiting for the Mueller report. Senator Capito, we'll just have to wait and see where it lands, and on and on.

Right now we are at a backdrop where the president's approval rating is still 85 to 90 percent with the Republican voters. His base is with him, and you see a reluctance among Republicans on Capitol Hill to confront him. This is very much part of a strategy. It's more of a political strategy than a legal strategy to undermine confidence in the Mueller investigation, and with his base, it's working.

BAIER: Yes. Mollie, what about the president's tweets and what he is saying about reaction to the filings?

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, THE FEDERALIST: I think the tweets, poorly spelled as they might be, are doing a good job summarizing what the issues are. I think it is really striking that we have moved seamlessly, so for a lot of Democrats, the media, even some Republicans, we have moved seamlessly from this year's long investigation insinuating that Trump is an agent of Russia, to now, OK, we will just settle for this campaign finance violation. And the campaign finance violation itself is highly disputable. There is not a good track record of the federal government being able to convince people that this is even a problem, much less that it's a serious problem if it were one.

So I think it is interesting you are pointing out that Republicans aren't breaking with the president. I think a lot of people who elected him are wondering, why aren't more people talking about we were promised something so big and we are being delivered what at most would be something you would fine someone for even if they win this case it would be very difficult for them to make?

BAIER: Yes, but the caveat being, we don't know what we don't know with the Mueller report coming, XYZ. Chris, what about -- in context of campaign finance violations and you look at the John Edwards case --

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: -- and what the president is saying in his defense.

CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS: Lying about a payment to a sex worker to conceal -- hush money to conceal an affair, to keep it from voters ahead of an election. It's salacious, it's ugly. In terms of the actual campaign finance violation of the law, it is flagrant in the sense that it looks premeditated. It's flagrant in the sense that it was done with intent, and all of that stuff. But at the same time, to Mollie's point, people don't get that wee-weed up about campaign finance violation rules. I think this is a little piece. I think there has been so little from Mueller that people are glomming onto it. They want to talk about something. But I think this is probably ephemera.

BAIER: To that point, here's Jared Nadler over the weekend on what he has seen so far.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JERROLD NADLER, D-N.Y.: You don't necessarily launch an impeachment against the president because he committed an impeachable offense. There are several things you have to look at. One, were there impeachable offenses committed, how money, et cetera. And secondly, how important are they? Do they rise to the gravity where you should undertake an impeachment? An impeachment is an attempt to in effect overturn or change the result of the last election. You should do it only for very serious situations. So that is always the question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Some Democrats were out talking about all kinds of things. Adam Schiff was saying prison after the president leaves. But it seems like Nadler is saying, wait a second. Maybe politically we need to look at this before we even talk about it.

KAPUR: Right. I've spoken to many Democrats about this, and plenty of them if not most of them believe in their heart of hearts that this president deserves to be impeached, that the things he has done rise to that level. But they are trying to be strategic about this, at least the leaders are, because the Democratic house over the next few years can theoretically impeach the president on a partisan vote, but you need 20 senators on the Republican side at a minimum to remove him, and that is if you get all Democrats. So their theory is that unless there is some bipartisan support for removing this president from office, then they will just be spinning their wheels and they worried about being perceived as overreaching, that they're just trying to get retribution for the 2016 election.

BAIER: Speaking of which, the former FBI director out this weekend saying whatever happens, you need to get this guy out of office by January of 2021.

HEMINGWAY: It is really amazing that people thought that maybe James Comey had a political bias that affected his investigations, and then you see some coming and saying these completely extreme things. It's also a reminder that we haven't seen a lot of accountability. Remember, we have big special counsel ginned up, and the claim was that we had to do this, we had to send wiretaps against a Trump campaign. We had to send human informants against them. We had to break every norm in the book because we really legitimately thought there was collusion with Russia.

If at the end of the day come there is nothing there, the idea that you are going to be able to manage this political process, as Sahil notes, it is a political process, it's a political determination whether you have impeachment. You have a bunch of people in Congress who have signed nondisclosure agreements using taxpayer money who would have to make that case, and a bunch of media organizations that have also signed a bunch of nondisclosure agreements as part of their settlements. So those are the two groups that would have to make that political case, and I don't think they're very well-positioned to do that.

BAIER: What if -- go ahead.

KAPUR: What Democrats are calling for right now is to bring up the Mueller protection bill, a piece of legislation that would prevent interference in the White House where the president, there are some Constitutional concerns about that. But what the Democrats and a couple of Republicans, namely Susan Collins and Jeff Flake, by the way, Flake is retiring, they want to at least send a message that if the president does take some rash action to remove Mueller, that they will not have his back.

BAIER: The Constitutional questions are real. Essentially you are setting up another branch that would say you can't do this. Chris, what if it does come down -- and we always play the what-if game with what we don't know, but what if it does come down to this campaign finance violation and obstruction of justice for the issue on Russia that they are obstructing something that doesn't deliver on the Russia collusion part and it's the campaign finance violation?

STIREWALT: If Donald Trump is impeached, it will be on a bipartisan vote. If Donald Trump is removed from office, it will be on a bipartisan vote. And it's not going to be on a CFR violation, sorry. That's not going to feed the bulldog. Even if it is about a sex worker. Even if it is salacious, it's not going to be over a campaign finance violation. And it's also not going to be about -- if there was nothing to obstruct, right, if there was no crime, if there's nothing underneath, they are not going to impeach him on a technicality.

BAIER: In context, as we were coming to the end of that election, the "Access Hollywood" tape has come out. He gets over that hump. It's not like, I think, voters on voting for Donald Trump didn't think he had a past that he's dealt with all his life.

HEMINGWAY: It all hinges on the idea that it's news to you that Donald Trump might be caddish with women. But again, we have not had anybody in Congress actually trying to hold people accountable for some of these actions they took that I think a lot of the American people have trouble with. So rather than talking about protecting the Special Counsel, I think a lot of people are wondering, is anyone going to be held responsible for those criminal leaks that ginned up this idea of Russia collusion? If there is no there there, it's a huge problem.

BAIER: Republicans lose a lot of their effort to go after that as they lose control of committees in the House.

Last thing, the search for a White House chief of staff. Here is Mark Meadows just a short time ago talking about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARK MEADOWS, (R) NORTH CAROLINA: I've had no conversations in the last 48 hours with the White House. I think this time, anytime that you answer a question without actually hearing the proposal, it would be foolish. It's like answering a question before it's asked. And so at this particular point, I am looking forward to having conversations with the president if he so chooses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: And again, he sent out a statement saying "Serving as chief of staff would be an incredible honor. The president has a long list of qualified candidates and I know he'll make the best selection for his administration and for the country." Those possible contenders include Meadows, we've heard the treasury secretary is not interested, the OMB director is not interested, Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative, Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, and then you have David Bossie, not on this list, Chris Christie as well being talked about possibly, Sahil.

KAPUR: Right. And with Meadows, I think what's interesting is that one way or another, whether he stays in the House and serves in the minority or whether he is in the White House and takes the job of chief of staff if he is offered, he is going to be one of President Trump's most prominent defenders over the next two years. Now, I think what is giving some people pause about this job is that you are essentially going to be a facilitator for a mercurial president who is highly resistant to structures and who is not prone to being controlled by other people. You think of the previous chiefs of staff in other administrations, they had a lot of power. They set up structures that everyone, including the president on some level followed.

The other thing is there have been people who have worked for this president who have emerged diminished from that job. Think about Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff, someone like Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state. Jeff Sessions, the outgoing attorney general had a sterling reputation with conservatives. These are the kinds of things that I think any potential candidate will be thinking about.

BAIER: Quickly, Chris, does he need ace chief of staff?

STIREWALT: No.

BAIER: He's essentially his chief of staff.

STIREWALT: JFK didn't have a chief of staff. There was no such thing as a chief of staff before Truman. It's not necessary. He has a secretary, he has a personal secretary who he can use to reach out to people. The White House switchboard can find anybody anywhere in the world whenever he needs to talk to them. This is a guy who handles his own book. He doesn't like to be controlled. Short of his own daughter, I cannot imagine anyone who could do this job in the way that it is traditionally done.

BAIER: Or wants it?

STIREWALT: Or wants, or would want to do it. Talk about a goat rodeo.

BAIER: Although Meadows sounds like he might. Martha is going to ask him about it next hour.

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