Republican lawmakers, President Trump complain about secretive process of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry

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Republican lawmakers, President Trump complain about secretive process of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry

Top U.S. envoy to Ukraine testifies behind closed doors; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," October 22, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY., SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: The process in the house to which the president is being subjected is totally unprecedented and totally unfair.

REP. JIM JORDAN, R-OH: Just when you thought the process couldn't get any more unfair, we found out last night that Democrats will now not even allow Republicans to have a copy of the respective transcripts from each of the witnesses we have interviewed thus far.

JAMIE RASKIN, D-MD, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Our Republican colleagues are shrewdly not talking about what actually happened because it's completely indefensible. So instead they pick a complaint de jour about whatever is going on in terms of process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, HOUSE: Some of the sound from Capitol Hill today as the inquiry continues behind closed doors. Today the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor appeared, and we have obtained the transcript of his opening statement. In it he says "By mid-July it was becoming clear to me that the meeting President Zelensky wanted was conditioned on the investigations of Burisma and the alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 elections. It was also clear that this condition was driven by the irregular policy channel I had come to understand was guided by Mr. Giuliani." Rudy Giuliani there.

Let's bring in our panel, former CIA analyst Buck Sexton, Johanna Maska, former aide to president Barack Obama, and Bill McGurn, main street columnist for the "Wall Street Journal." Bill, your take on what you read from the opening statement from the acting ambassador and where this stands now.

BILL MCGURN, CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I would like to see more. We have a lot of these things going on behind closed doors. I would like to see more. That statement doesn't look good for the president, but there are other statements that contradict that. And I think the president has a legitimate beef when he says this isn't being done in a fair and sort of above board manner.

BAIER: Johanna?

JOHANNA MASKA, FORMER PRESIDENT OBAMA AIDE: I think the president needs to stop playing the victim and start playing president of the United States of America. If we look at the issues on hand right now, we have got a question of whether the president is following a national security process. And I think between what's happening here with the testimony and what we have and the real legitimate questions that people have, and then what's happening in Syria, and the fact of the Russians are now involved, I think Republicans are asking questions, too.

BAIER: Buck?

BUCK SEXTON, FORMER CIA ANALYST: They call it inquiry. It looks more like an inquisition. This is something that they're creating as they go along. There's no effort really made at transparency here. We have these selective leaks day in and day out. How can the American people even decide?

And ultimately this is something that is a political question. They dress it up like it's a legal process, but what Pelosi and Democrats are doing is clearly intended to derail and destroy this president going in to an election year when this should be decided by the American people.

BAIER: So what do you think is the next step here and what happens? Articles of impeachment before the end of the year, a vote, what?

SEXTON: Yes, I think that there is a couple things coinciding. One, there's a little bit of panic. You have seen some articles this week about Democrats wondering if Joe Biden is not really the frontrunner, if Elizabeth Warren is perhaps a little too radical, can we really beat this guy. I think there are real concerns about that. So they want an X- factor. That's where impeachment comes in.

I do think that they are going to put this to the floor. I think they're going to impeach this president. I think they have been meaning to do that all along. And that's why this all looks like such a construct. They didn't get enough, they didn't have enough out of the Mueller investigation, and so now you have this effort, which looks like it's all been coordinated behind the scenes. And, again, there is no good faith here at all. Trump is the middle of trench warfare politically. He understands that, and he is trying to fight his way out of it.

BAIER: It is behind closed doors, Bill, but as you read this opening statement, is this enough as it stands for articles of impeachment to move forward?

MCGURN: Look, I don't think it matters. I think they are going to move articles of impeachment forward whether they have no witnesses or anything. I think it's kind of a game.

I will say at this point for the president, impeachment is a serious thing. You are overturning the results of an election, right? Chairman Nadler said a while ago that to do that you have to arrived at a point where the American people and even Trump supporters say this is the right thing to do. We are nowhere close to that. Most of the growth in the polls for impeachment has come from Democrats.

I think at this point they are going to impeach him. For the president, the unfairness and sort of irregularity of the Pelosi impeachment, not following the rules and precedent, I think that's an advantage for him now going into the Senate, if you assume, as I do, that they are going to impeach him, because I think he can -- impeachment is partly a case to the American people and partly a case to the Senate. And I think that these measures, if they don't go to court first to enforce the subpoenas, a court could rule against this or could say we are not getting involved and then the president doesn't turn over his papers. So I think it could help him, the kind of unfairness and arbitrary way they are going about it.

BAIER: It seems like there is a dual track here, kind of a race to the finish line. One is the impeachment inquiry and the impeachment process. The other is this other investigation, the I.G. report that's coming out very soon, we're told, and the report by John Durham, which is expanded to include interviewing the former CIA Director Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Here is Brennan reacting to that news that he is going to be sitting down with John Durham.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BRENNAN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: I'm supposedly going to be interviewed by Mr. Durham as part of this non-investigation. I don't understand the predication of this worldwide effort to try to uncover dirt, either real or imagined, that would discredit that investigation in 2016 into Russian interference.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: It's interesting to hear him talk about it. There may be a big learning curve when these other reports come out for some channels and places that haven't really covered this aspect of the investigation.

MASKA: I think though that we are talking about dual tracks in two ways, right, because today Bill Taylor's opening statement talks about a dual track in national security. And I think there is a lot that are going to leave Republicans and Democrats wondering what's going on. I think what we have got, though, right now is that impeachment ultimately, it's not about polls. It's about the story. And so does the president have the trust of the American people, and those people in Congress, ultimately the senators, who are going to be voting on whether he should be impeached.

BAIER: Sure, but it is about polls when the political moment comes. It's a dual-edged sword. If Democrats go over their skis, they pay a price for it.

MCGURN: As said, we're going to get to the truth no matter how long it takes, as opposed to we are going to have this done.

BAIER: Before the caucuses.

SEXTON: It's never been about the truth, I think. I think we both agree that they were going to to impeach all along.

BAIER: Let me go back to the dual track and this other investigation.

SEXTON: Democrats, I think, understand that going on offense right now with this whole impeachment probe is essentially because it gets in advance of the inspector general report that's going to come out as well as this investigation by U.S. attorney out of Connecticut.

There were irregularities. Everybody who has been following this process of the Russian collusion conspiracy understands that we never got good answers in the beginning. Some Democrats, some senior Democrats who served under the Obama administration, I think, are concerned and should be, people that were ad various senior levels in the government then. And they don't want this report that comes out and everything else to look like it has any legitimacy. And that's part of why they are running with this right now, because they are going to say how dare you talk to Ukraine about this investigation. Of course, they are going to talk to Ukraine about the investigation. The Justice Department is openly looking into this.

BAIER: Meantime, the president has used a word that raised a lot of eyebrows, a lot of pushback, and that is "lynching." Take a listener to the reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOGAN GIDLEY, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: The president is not comparing what's happened to him with one of our darkest moments in American history.

JAMES CLYBURN, D-S.C., HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP: I really believe this man is prone to inflammatory statements, and that is one word no president ought to apply to himself.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: This is a lynching in every sense. This is un-American.

SEN. TIM SCOTT, R-S.C.: I wouldn't use the word "lynching," but I would love for the House to take up unanimously pass lynching legislation from the Senate and do something with it as opposed to complaining simply about the president's use of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Bill, a lot of reaction on Capitol Hill.

MCGURN: Yes. I think this is ridiculous. Clarence Thomas used the word linked about the political process happening to him.

BAIER: Hi tech.

MCGURN: Look, the things that the president has been called, white supremacist, racist, Nazi, all sorts of things, and then they get all bent out of shape on this. I think it's fake. They like indulging in the outrage against Donald Trump.

BAIER: Last word, Johanna?

MASKA: This is the president of the party of Lincoln, and I think that he should really decide whether he wants to use the word "lynching." I did try to look up whether lynching had been used in an impeachment investigation, and I found an 1898 a Republican congressman from Massachusetts actually moved an impeachment resolution on a judge for using the word "lynching" in his sentencing.

BAIER: We like history here on “Special Report.”

MASKA: Yes, we do.

BAIER: All right, panel, thank you very much.

Next up, our late friend Charles Krauthammer on baseball as his beloved Washington Nationals begin to play in the World Series tonight. Go Nats.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: The Washington Nationals play their first ever World Series game tonight, taking on the Astros in Houston. And that causes us to remember the love of the game by our late friend and colleague Charles Krauthammer. We miss him every day. We know he would have loved going to the World Series games or watching them on TV. He was a huge Nats fan. Here's some of his thoughts from years past.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I grew up playing the game, I loved to play the game. And as a kid my brother and I would go around on our Schwinns on the streets of Long Island with transistor radios hanging from the handle bars listening to Mel Allen and Phil Rizzuto doing the Yankee games. This was our lives.

BAIER: You write about baseball.

KRAUTHAMMER: Yes.

BAIER: And your devotion to the Washington Nationals.

KRAUTHAMMER: Yes, another one of my irrationalities, eccentricities.

BAIER: Having discovered your own private paradise at National Park.

KRAUTHAMMER: When I lived here in the city here in Washington without baseball, but I would go occasionally, usually with George Will, up to see the Orioles. But it's a bit of a hike. But then to live in a town where a Major League baseball team arrives so you can then see the highest level of play of this game I really love is irresistible.

So I started to go when they were losing. I didn't really care because I liked to see the game. And then the worst part is when I started to do your show every night, it ends at 7:00. The game starts at 7:10. The garage at FOX is seven minutes, if the wind is fair in the third street tunnel, from the garage at Nats Stadium. So I get there in the bottom of the first. How can I resist?

BAIER: I've made that drive, the seven-minute drive.

KRAUTHAMMER: Yes.

BAIER: It's like your car is on cruise control.

KRAUTHAMMER: The car knows where to go.

I only come on weekdays. Weekends are reserved for other things.

BAIER: So we are heading to special parking?

KRAUTHAMMER: Parking lot b, which is where I have been parking for many years. It's actually in left field. A home run hit hard enough would come right through the wall here. It's right near the center field gate.

BAIER: There is a number of politicos and pundits and journalists.

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, this is the journalist section.

BAIER: Right here?

KRAUTHAMMER: Yes. And I'm the mayor of this section.

(LAUGHTER)

KRAUTHAMMER: I let people in and out. George Will.

BAIER: George Will.

KRAUTHAMMER: Mort Kondracke. Juan Williams used to be here, but he has gone uptown on us. He is now in the concourse because he lords it over us. I think there is food service or something.

BAIER: I gotcha.

KRAUTHAMMER: There are a lot of folks I know. Mitch McConnell sometimes wanders by, and Sam Alito is a big fan.

BAIER: Is that right?

KRAUTHAMMER: He's a Phillies fan, but he loves the game.

When I was a kid, my brother gave me a book of box scores. It's just raw numbers of who did what. And the book was a puzzle book. At the bottom of each box score they would ask you, who got a double in the second inning? You had to figure it out backwards. So I have always associated baseball with trying to work stuff out. And that's always stayed with me. When I'm watching the game, I'm trying to figure out what those guys are doing down there.

BAIER: What do you think it is about baseball that draws you in?

KRAUTHAMMER: Probably that it is so attached to my childhood. I played a lot. My brother and I would run around whiffle ball games. I was all field no hit, but I could field. I couldn't hit very well, but I fielded pretty well. And I loved to field. There was nothing better than going in the hole for a backhanded play and coming up with a jump throw. That was like -- so when I see these guys do it, and they do it effortlessly.

BAIER: Is that why you love it so much?

KRAUTHAMMER: Part of it is you see your own youth. You see how you spent your childhood, and then you feel it when you watch them do it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BAIER: Love to hear his voice. We miss that voice every day. You can see the full piece, much more, Krauthammer on baseball, exclusively on FOX Nation this week. World Series starts tonight.

When we come back, a homecoming one football player will never forget.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: Finally tonight, a heartwarming homecoming. Tyrell Moore, a football player at West Rusk High School in New London, Texas, received quite the surprise at a pep rally. See the person dressed as Rowdy, the school mascot, it turned out to be his mom, Tammie Jones, active duty Navy sailor 20 years had not seen her son since December. That's it for “Special Report.” Fair, balanced and unafraid. Here's Martha.

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