Tell us what you can tell us: Trey Gowdy
The ‘Special Report’ panel discusses the latest in the Mar-a-Lago fallout and the seizure of documents from Trump’s home.
This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," August 15, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the congressional oversight committees will have full insight into just how damaging this situation is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would encourage all my colleagues on the left and the right to reserve judgment and not get ahead of yourself because we don't know what that document contains.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have an FBI and a Department of Justice that have literally become the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seemed to motivate his base and people rushing to his defense and feeling as if he was being picked upon and martyred.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Well, the Justice Department saying that they are not comfortable now releasing the affidavit to back up the search warrant, so at least at this time we're not going to see that. "Axios" says Senators Rubio and Warner send a bipartisan request for info on the Mar-a-Lago search. "first bipartisan effort at oversight of the FBI's search on Mar-a-Lago and shows that members across the aisle are interested even after the unsealing of the warrant in more transparency from the DOJ over the rationale for that search." "The Wall Street Journal" says, "The secrets of Mar-a-Lago, if the documents were serious nuclear secrets, you would think the Justice Department would have demanded their return as soon as that was known. And if such documents are floating around Mar-a-Lago, why tell the world via leak in the "The Washington Post?"
With that, let's bring in our panel, Juan Williams is a FOX News analyst, Morgan Ortagus, former State Department spokesperson, and Trey Gowdy, former Congressman from South Carolina. Trey, you made an appearance in the taped segment before the panel and on the panel. So, your thoughts about all of this?
TREY GOWDY, FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE: I need more facts. That's the curse of being a lawyer, Bret is you want more facts. So with the predicate, the probable cause for the search last week, I would like to see the affidavit. That's one source of the anger.
The other source of the anger, though, quite frankly, Bret, is six years of belief on behalf of many Republicans that the blindfold has slipped and that lady justice is actually paying attention to who is in front of her. And that's not going to be fixed with releasing the affidavit.
BAIER: OK, but Trey, real quick, in the justification of that, there is the 6-E ruling which indicates a grand jury. Perhaps there is a witness or witnesses that they are trying to protect. And the DOJ filing says they don't want to go down some road because of the sensitivity of the classified material. Do you buy any of that?
GOWDY: Absolutely, which is why they all have these big old black pens where you can redact informant information, grand jury information, and ongoing other investigative information. Look, we get redacted stuff all the time, Bret. So tell us what you can tell us.
BAIER: Right. Juan?
JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: I certainly understand Senator Warren or Senator Rubio wanting to lower the political tension around this right now. What we saw over the weekend was the FBI issuing this memo about an increase in prospective violence, threats against FBI officials, judges, and the like. So I understand the politics of it.
But you think about it, the Justice Department is doing this by the numbers, by the books. And as you just said and as Trey confirmed, it's a grand jury proceeding, and a grand jury proceeding is done in private. It's secret. It's not supposed to be public. That would be wrong.
And it's curious to me that you have people calling for the release of the affidavit and the grand jury stuff, because if no one is indicted, it's supposed to protect innocent people. If President Trump is innocent, this would damage his reputation, and that's not good.
And then the final point, I think, is it's just laughable to be me that people are saying the FBI is a bunch of radical leftwingers? That's nuts. I mean, you know, FBI Director Wray is a Trump appointee.
BAIER: All right, Morgan, respond to that, if you would. I guess it goes along the lines of skepticism after the years of investigations that go back into Russia and other things.
MORGAN ORTAGUS, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: I think there is no doubt that there is a company culture problem at the FBI. And I say this having great respect for many of them that I have worked with around the world, especially during the war on terrorism when I was based in the Middle East, worked with many FBI agents and officers.
However, you have got to look at the facts of the case. Listen, if you are Hillary Clinton and this is 2016, she and her campaign would say that Jim Comey and the FBI threw the election for her by all of their announcements so close to Election Day. We also know we have Chuck Grassley saying that there is FBI agents, maybe in the dozens, who want to whistleblower over the investigation or lack thereof into Hunter Biden, that you have FBI agents that were conspiring against Trump on their cell phones.
So, there is enough there that I think that if we want to restore faith and trust in the FBI, which I absolutely do, if you want to do that, someone has to admit that there is a company culture problem. And it's not the American people's fault for being skeptical. It's a culture issue that needs to be fixed.
BAIER: Meantime, the former president telling FOX News Digital that he wants to tone down the temperature, and he's willing to do whatever it can take, but at the same time, pushing back against all elements of the search and the raid.
Meantime, one year after Afghanistan, the U.S. withdrawal from there, take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does the president regret the decision that he made to pull the United States out of that country?
KATE BEDINGFIELD, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Absolutely not. The way we have been able to rally the west, rally the world against Putin's aggression, that's in part because we freed up our intelligence resources and our capacity to do that.
REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL, (R-TX) HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: We still have 1,000 American citizens left behind in Afghanistan a year later, and 100,000 Afghan partners were left behind that we promised we would protect.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: The House Foreign Affairs Committee out with a report. This is the Republicans report on Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover. Quote, "Around 3,000 Afghan security forces consisting of high-ranking officers to foot soldiers along with their military equipment and vehicles crossed the border into Iran. The recruitment of former Afghan military and intelligence personnel poses a major national security risk due to the fact that Afghan personnel know the U.S. military and intelligence community tactics, techniques, and procedures."
Morgan, there is a lot of levels to this. Your thoughts one year later about where we are now.
ORTAGUS: Well, Bret, I think it's an anniversary of shame. It's a shameful act that we saw happening a year ago, one of the worst foreign policy crises that happened in modern American history. And what continues to be shameful is there has been no resignations, no firings, still no one has been held accountable for the 13 dead Americans. No one is held accountable for the fact that ISIS Khorasan at this moment has a footprint in every province in Afghanistan. We learned two weeks ago that Al-Qaeda senior leadership was living in a safe haven just a mere few blocks from the vacant U.S. embassy. We know in March that the Pentagon said that it was possible within a year that terrorists would be able to plot attacks against the United States from the soil in Afghanistan. We know that girls don't go to school. We know that 97 percent of the country is on the poverty line.
It is an epic disaster that happened in Afghanistan. It's on this president's watch. And he will live with that shame hung around his neck throughout history.
BAIER: It has been painful, Juan, Congressman Mike Waltz tweeted out this weekend, the older brother of one of the 13 killed in action in Kabul at the end there recently killed himself at his little brother's memorial. It's just -- there's so many levels of sadness when it comes to how Afghanistan came to an end of U.S. military activity there.
WILLIAMS: I think it's a very sad situation. I just want to pick up on what Morgan said about the poverty and the young women unable to get an education. On the political side, I would say, look, this was a policy, getting out, that President Trump signed on to. I think it was badly executed by President Biden. Long ago this was the forgotten war. Before that it was the forever war. And the idea that if we left Americans there, I think there is the possibility that we would be losing American troops on the ground and people would be upset that we were still in this forever war.
So, we are out of there. And I think you have to say that's probably in keeping with the majority of Americans' public sentiment on that. Just wish it had gone more effectively without the loss of life, the tragic loss of American lives, from my perspective.
BAIER: Trey?
GOWDY: Heartbreaking is the word, Bret. All of the life and the limb and the treasure that this country invested in Afghanistan is no better off. It is a safe haven for terrorists and a prison for women and girls. And I just hate it for the people who sacrificed over the past two decades.
BAIER: Panel, as always, thank you.
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