Trump announces 'full pardon' for Gen. Michael Flynn

close

Video

Trump announces 'full pardon' for Gen. Michael Flynn

President pardons former national security adviser; Neil Cavuto has the latest on 'Your World'

This is a rush transcript from “Your World with Neil Cavuto” November 25, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR:  Thank you, John, very much.

Well, it's the great escape everyone. You are looking at Newark and in
Chicago and in Atlanta. And pretty much anywhere in everywhere, it's the
same drill, get out of town, and let's just see if grandma wants to see us.

Remember, there's a lot of pressure on grandma whether she can see you or
you her. The bottom line is that people aren't listening to CDC guidelines
that they shouldn't be traveling. About 15 million of us are.

Where we end up is anyone's guess. Getting there on time will be important.

We have got Charles Watson following the developments at Atlanta's
International Airport and dealing with the crowds, and then Garrett Tenney
on what those crowds are going to be doing over the next few days. We hear
a lot of shopping.

Welcome, everybody. I'm Neil Cavuto, and this is YOUR WORLD.

First Charles Watson in the very busy Atlanta, Georgia, part of the world,
where a lot of people are taking to the air -- Charles.

CHARLES WATSON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  That's right, Neil.

And there are major concerns among public health officials, who believe
that millions of Americans traveling in the midst of a pandemic could be
disastrous. Airlines are already seeing large crowds, the largest crowds
they have seen since the beginning of the pandemic.

Since Friday, the TSA has screened more than four million passengers.
Overall, airlines are expected to see about a 50 percent decrease in
traffic this year compared to last year, fewer people, but still alarming
for public health officials, as they plead with Americans to follow CDC
guidelines to stay home.

Holiday travelers say they are ready to begin living their lives once
again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREA CAPLINGER, TRAVELER:  It's kind of hard. I mean, my family lives
here. I have family back home. But my mom's 73. She's been tested a few
times, so we have stayed our distance.

LANCE GRIM, TRAVELER:  First, and now that the pandemic is around, what, 10
months later, that it's -- people are starting to care less about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON:  And, Neil, numbers at airports are expected to continue to grow.
Industry experts say they expect Sunday to be the busiest day of this
holiday -- Neil.

CAVUTO:   All right, Charles, thank you very much, my friend. Have a great
Thanksgiving yourself.

Want to go to Garrett Tenney right now in Chicago, keeping track of all the
retailers who are keeping tracking you and keeping you safe while you shop
-- Garrett.

GARRETT TENNEY, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Yes, Neil, even with the rain, the
cold and the pandemic, we have seen a lot of packed parking lots today, not
so much at shopping malls, but at stores like Target, Home Depot, and here
at Walmart.

Those stores and a whole lot of others are kicking off Black Friday earlier
this year, offering deals for shoppers ahead of time on just about anything
and everything.

With the pandemic, retail shops across the country are limited to how many
shoppers can be inside at a time. And that can get tricky the morning after
Thanksgiving, when crowds are lined up outside your doors waiting to rush
in.

So, the hope is that this will help alleviate some of that. But online
shopping is expected to be huge. During the third quarter, online sales
were up 36 percent year over year, and the National Retail Federation
expects that trend to continue.

Anecdotally, that's what we have heard today as well from shoppers who
really only came out to buy food for Thanksgiving.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  You know, this is a traditional dinner that we do every
year. And right now, I'm still going to do it just with my family.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  You do have to go to the store. It is convenient that
there's everything that I needed here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  It's just me, my husband, my two kids for
Thanksgiving, so keeping it small. Usually, it's like 20 of us. So, it's a
little different this year, but got to do what we got to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TENNEY:  A number of major retailers won't even be opening on Thanksgiving
this year, such as Walmart, Target, Kohl's, Macy's, Home Depot, J.C.
Penney, and Best Buy.

On Black Friday itself, most stores are opening later than normal, between
5:00 and 7:00 a.m., compared to Thanksgiving afternoon. And they're putting
other safety precautions in place as well, such as sanitizing shopping
carts, single file lines outside, and requiring everyone to wear masks.

Despite everything that's going on, the National Retail Federation is
forecasting that holiday sales will increase between 3 and 5 percent
compared to a year ago, even with everything that's going on and back when
the world looked a whole lot different than it does now.

So, that's certainly something we can all be thankful for over the next
couple of months -- Neil.

CAVUTO:  It's amazing how resilient we are and how optimistic longer-term
we tend to be.

Garrett Tenney, thank you very much.

Garrett Tenney in Chicago on that.

TENNEY:  You got it.

CAVUTO:  Again, you can hear Garrett spell it out expectations we will see
a 5 percent-plus boost in sales right now.

A lot of them might be online. A lot of them will be courtesy of waiting on
long lines, but people are apt to do that. What does that say about the
American psyche a day after we hit 30000 on the Dow? Gave a little bit of
that up today.

We have got Frances Newton Stacy with us, the Optimal Capital director of
strategy, also John Layfield, FOX News contributor, much, much more.

Frances, the optimism on the part of consumers really does stand out when
you think about all they have been through, and maybe I'm thinking these
pent-up buying plans are precisely because all they have been through.

What do you think?

FRANCES NEWTON STACY, OPTIMAL CAPITAL:  Oh, I agree with you.

I think the COVID fatigue is going to manifest in a myriad of different
ways. I hear commentary that -- from friends that they can't wait to get
the vaccine, so they can do revenge travel, you know?

So I think that's true. And I think, with the stock market near all-time
highs, and I think with generally people who could work from home didn't
miss their work -- obviously, that's not everybody in this country --
they're ready to spend.

And any time you have some kind of stress, election stress, pandemic
stress, people do like their retail therapy.

CAVUTO:  Yes, I guess they do.

John, what's remarkable, I have been kind of going inside some of the
retail numbers they're talking about. And what's very hot are the things
that are not very, very cheap, PS5 gaming systems, Xbox gaming systems,
Apple phones and products that don't come necessarily at bargain basement
prices.

So, there is sort of a strategy to this that defies conventional wisdom, or
does it?

JOHN LAYFIELD, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  No, I think it does.

I think the pent-up demand, like Frances talked about, is massive. I think
what we're going to see is not only just a great buying season at
Christmastime. And, remember, we have 11 million still unemployed right
now. And we're going to see probably a 5 percent holiday gain in sales and
retail.

I think what we're going to see when the vaccine starts getting some type
of critical mass, which, remember, we're not going to get the vaccine in 50
million tranches. We're going to start seeing people, once they start
getting vaccinated, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people a day.

And I think that euphoria that's going to come is going to be very akin to,
say, World War II ending. And I think you're going to see people -- this
pent-up demand is huge out there. And I think you're going to see that in
the retail sales.

CAVUTO:  You know, Frances, we're so used to talking about investors, and
they don't like any hint of uncertainty. Maybe there was some closure this
week, or hope, on the idea that vaccines could be coming out, a few coming
down the pike right now. Regeneron already released it for emergency use.

That and the fact that the president allowed the GSA to continue on with
this transition that would likely mean that Joe Biden gets everything he
needs to assume office on January 20. Now, that doesn't mean the
president's legal fight ends.

But I suspect that average folks and consumers, much like investors, like
uncertainty or worries put aside. And a couple of big ones were this week,
weren't they?

NEWTON STACY:  Yes, definitely, and particularly appointing -- or saying
that he's going to appoint Janet Yellen for the Treasury secretary, because
a lot of worry has been around the lack of coordination between the
Treasury and the Fed.

And that wasn't assuaged very much by Mnuchin demanding that the Fed give
those funds back, without sort of reason or what he was going to do for the
economy, because, remember, the Fed has a responsibility to the economy.

So, when people saw Yellen coming in, they saw a lot of coordination, they
saw the possibility for a lot of fiscal stimulus. It does look like Biden's
going to take office in January. Of course, Trump still has his legal
battles, as you say, and people are starting to price in the certainty.

And, really, what people are pricing in now is that the Fed is going to let
the inflation sort of run hot and money is going to be flowing, and markets
are reflecting that, for sure.

CAVUTO:  You know, the one last variable I'd like to leave out for you,
John, is that Atlanta run-off election -- the Georgia run-off election in
January.

And it's taken as a given that Republicans will keep at least one of those
seats, thereby keep their majority. But I have been looking at the polls.
They do look very tight. I know the market doesn't expect it. So it's a
mug's game here. But what if both seats go Democrat, and, all of a sudden,
now you're looking at a Democratic Senate?

Unlikely though it seems right now, that could change.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO:  What do you make of that?

LAYFIELD:  I think what happened right before the election gives you a good
indication of how the market feels for this.

Right before the election, the week before, it looked like the Democrats
were going to get a clean sweep. It wasn't a matter of that point, was
President, soon to be, Biden, it looks like, going to be elected, because
he was presumed to be elected, say, three weeks before that because he was
leading in the polls.

It was because the Democrats looked like they were going to have a clean
sweep. And then the election week that happened, the markets were up
because it looked like we would have some type of balance of power.

Since 1933, you have had about a 9.33 percent return in the stock market.
It's about half of that when you have a consolidation of party. Our
founding fathers were right that you like a balance of power. So do the
markets and so do the economy.

So, as long as you stay with the Republicans there, everything seems to be
moving just fine as far as the market, but that would be a shock to the
system if the Democrats end up getting the Senate.

CAVUTO:  All right, guys, I want to thank you very, very much.

I do want to interrupt us here. We have gotten word right now that
President Trump has pardoned his former National Security Adviser Michael
Flynn.

While this was being telegraphed over the last couple of days, as you
recall, Flynn was running into some roadblocks here on whether he could be
completely exonerated in his case. It looks like right now that all of
those headwinds he was bumping into, the president has resolved for him by
going ahead and pardoning his national security adviser, very first one,
very brief time in office.

It maybe was a preview of coming attractions for the president back in
those early days, but Michael Flynn completely pardoned of all of these
matters. We will keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, keeping you posted on keeping you safe. Right now, the
medical community has been telling folks to try to keep their distances
and, if they can avoid getting together, to try to limit the number. Some
states are actually even enforcing that by making sure, maybe courtesy a
snitching neighbor, that you are adhering to limited table spots at that
Thanksgiving dinner.

Dr. Luiza Petre joins us right now, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine
physician, assistant professor.

Doctor, how do you advise patients on how they deal with this and how big
their gathering should be?

DR. LUIZA PETRE, MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE:  Now, if someone decided
to mix multiple households and still celebrate in style a Thanksgiving
dinner, there are a few pandemic-style tweaks we could use.

I would say that it should be limited to eight, maximum 10 people,
depending how large the household is, possibly avoiding to bring older,
elderly, fragile family members at the same table.

But, with keeping this in mind, we still can do some social distancing.
Make sure you wear a mask that passes the candle test, that anytime that
you are close to a family member and you are not eating.

Avoid cooking together. And, if possible, avoid the buffet-style eating.
Don't cut the turkey together. Maybe use disposable utensils, and all these
things that we have to adjust this year.

Keep in mind, it's a year of sacrifice if you want to have a happy
Thanksgiving next year and to still see all family members at the same
table.

CAVUTO:  So, Doctor, you are saying you're all sitting at the table, you
should be wearing a mask at the table?

Well, I guess that's one way to lose weight. Maybe I will try it, but, man,
that seems tough.

PETRE:  Well, I didn't mean it that way, but, except eating, a mask should
be worn at all times.

CAVUTO:  All right. Got it.

All right, thanks for that good news. I will try it between the pecan pie
and everything else.

Doctor, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving yourself. You have offered
some very sage advice.

By the way, we're getting a few more details on this Michael Flynn pardon,
the president commenting right now. This is a tweet from the president.

"It's my great honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been
granted a full pardon. Congratulations to General Flynn and his wonderful
family. I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving."

You might recall this pardon comes after a judge had effectively ruled on a
motion that the Justice Department's move to dismiss the case and undo the
Flynn guilty plea was not going to be received too well.

The president reportedly said he was considering granting the general a
pardon in the case, but didn't act until now. You might recall that Flynn
had pleaded guilty on December 1, 2017. It was part of a plea agreement to
cooperate with the probe that was conducted under than Bob Mueller, the
former FBI director who was overseeing the so-called, named after him,
Mueller investigation into ties the administration might have had with
Russian players.

Turned out to be much ado about nothing in the end. The Justice Department
earlier this year had filed a motion to dismiss the case out right. That
wasn't flying with the judge. The general was running into some headwinds.
The president took care of the headwinds by pardoning him today.

We will have learn more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  All right, the Justice Department had tried to dismiss the case
against General Michael Flynn, the president's first national security
adviser.

All of a sudden, the judge in that case said, not so fast, you can't do
that, especially because the guy pled guilty to these so-called sins. And
that was being appealed back and forth. They were waiting to hear from
another judge on a motion to dismiss the case and look back at the guilty
plea and whether that was enough to torpedo the Justice Department from
dismissing the case against it.

Long story short, the president pardoning Michael Flynn, saying that: "It
is great honor to announce that Michael Flynn has been granted a full
pardon. Congratulations to him and his wonderful family. I know you will
now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving."

Again, earlier on, a district court judge, I believe, Emmet Sullivan, at
the time had refused to sign off on that dismissal, as I said, instead
appointing an outside lawyer to give arguments against the Justice
Department's request, and they were fighting this in various courts.

So it wasn't a slam-dunk for the general. And this could have gone on for
months, some feared years, but the president mitigating all of that today
by pardoning the general.

Karl Rove is here on all these other developments and what to make of them.

Karl, what do you think? The president can pardon anyone he likes. This was
kind of telegraphed. Your thoughts?

KARL ROVE, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:  Yes, well,
and remember that where this all began.

Michael Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, during the during
the period after the 2016 election and before the inaugural, has a
conversation with the Russian ambassador to the United States, obviously
knows it's being listened to by U.S. intelligence agencies, and says to the
Russian ambassador, please don't overreact to President Obama's actions
with regard to sanctions and so forth.

He was basically trying to say, don't make a bigger deal than this -- don't
overblow this. And this was a subject of a White House meeting, and during
which the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, suggests that
Michael Flynn be charged with the Logan Act violation.

The Logan Act is literally from the early 1800s. It was passed during the
presidency of John Adams to keep foreign -- U.S. citizens from acting as
representatives of the United States abroad without official diplomatic
cover.

So it's never been -- I think it was used once and never been -- nobody's
ever been convicted of it. And it was outlandish that Biden would suggest
this.

So, long story short, he pleads guilty to lesser offenses in order to avoid
a long trial, gets stuck in being used as a lever against President Trump.
And the president just sort of cut it off by saying, I'm going to give you
a pardon.

And, in the meantime, his reputation, Michael Flynn's reputation has been
trashed. His purse has been emptied with legal bills. And he spent the last
nearly four years of his life dealing with this.

So, I think a useful end to an ugly moment. And the only person I think
that's going to be angry about this is Justice -- is Judge Sullivan, who,
for some reason or another, was not following the dictates of the Justice
Department that said, we want to withdraw the action altogether.

CAVUTO:  Yes, he questioned, how can I withdraw something at the time
because Flynn himself had pled guilty to that?

ROVE:  He pled guilty, right.

CAVUTO:  But I think the technicality, that he pled guilty to lying to FBI
agents.

But, leaving that aside, if you think of what that said in motion, Karl,
and this long, winding investigation that later became the Mueller
investigation, that became this great impeachment vote and what have you,
it just snowballed out of control.

ROVE:  Yes.

CAVUTO:  I'm wondering whether this sets the stage for still other -- other
pardons.

ROVE:  Well, I -- in a way, I hope not.

Let's say one thing, that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn, in their
contemporaneous notes, say he was telling us the truth. So, even at the
core of this was an argument as to...

CAVUTO:  Right. Right.

ROVE:  ... whether or not it was -- it should have been actionable.

But, look, I put this apart from Roger Stone and from Paul Manafort. Now,
think, for example, about Paul Manafort. And the issue here is that he
earned vast sums of money by doing political consulting in Ukraine with
money, some of which was funneled from Moscow, and then he brought that
money back to the United States in convoluted ways in order to avoid paying
income tax on it. That's one of the major charges.

So there's a big difference between somebody who got caught up in something
like Michael Flynn did, literally as the incoming national security
adviser, having a conversation with the Russian ambassador, and somebody
who was involved in activities like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone were
involved in.

CAVUTO:  I'm wondering, too, Karl, these outside players notwithstanding,
presidents are free to pardon anyone they wish.

Obviously, Bill Clinton was famous for pardoning some unusual figures
within the final hours of office. Marc Rich comes to mind and still others.

Do you expect a busy spate of them, whether they're justified or not -- of
course, the president can pardon whomever -- that he will have sort of a
blitz of these kind of pardons right before he leaves, if he leaves?

ROVE:  Well, I think he ought to look back -- if he's contemplating that,
he ought to look back at what happened to Bill Clinton's reputation.

I mean, he gave a number of pardons to questionable individuals. It colored
the final days of his administration and left a bad taste in a lot of
people's mouths.

Powers that we ought to be most concerned about, and reluctant to employ
are unlimited powers. And the pardon -- the pardon power is unlimited under
the Constitution. There are no restraints on it. The president can pardon
anybody accused of a federal crime for any reason or no reason whatsoever.

And those are exactly the kind of powers that ought to be used discreetly
and rarely and with a great deal of forethought.

CAVUTO:  You mentioned -- and I touched on the Marc Rich thing with Bill
Clinton. I want to throw out the one that's been out there for a while,
that the president could entertain pardoning himself.

Can he do that?

ROVE:  Well, he obviously can, but why?

I mean, he would have to admit that there were things that he'd done that
were worthy of being pardoned about. And I'm not certain that he wants to
leave. Think about the final note that's going to strike:  I pardon myself
for any kind of actions that may or may not be illegitimate.

But, I mean, that that's just the wrong note to strike. And, again, once
again, it is an unlimited power. He can do that, no ifs, ands or buts about
it.

But whether or not that would be an appropriate use of it, or whether
history would judge that harshly, is another question entirely.

CAVUTO:  He would be balancing that out, of course, with the years and
years of the legal battles back and forth that would compromise his
businesses and everything else.

But you...

ROVE:  Well...

CAVUTO:  You don't think that it would be obviously a good idea?

ROVE:  Well, and, remember, he can pardon for federal offenses.

The things that the district attorney in Manhattan is looking into our
state offenses, over which he has no authority. A governor may be able to
issue a pardon for those kind of actions, but the kind of things that the
DA in Manhattan is looking at are not federal charges, and, therefore, he
can't pardon himself of those.

CAVUTO:  All right, got that.

Karl Rove, thank you.

And I should stress here, as Karl kind of clearly intimated there, that was
only conjecture out there. The president has not even hinted at that
himself. But it has been raised, whether he would entertain that legally,
as he could. Whether he would is anyone's guess.

I just want to be clear. That is not an issue here. He pardoned General
Michael Flynn. That is the issue here.

Kristin Fisher has been following this.

No big shocker there, Kristin, but again raising the possibility, whether
you talk about Manafort or some of these other key players, whether they
could be looking at potential pardons as well. But what are you hearing on
that front?

KRISTIN FISHER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Yes, that really is the big
question going forward, people like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone.

But this news about Michael Flynn, we first got word late last night from
Axios -- and FOX News confirmed it this morning -- that President Trump was
indeed planning to pardon, grant a full pardon for his former national
security adviser, who was only on the job for about four or five days,
Michael Flynn.

We were learning that he was indeed planning to do that. And then, just a
few moments ago, President Trump decided to make it official, as he often
does, with a tweet.

And I wanted to read it to you in full.

The president wrote -- quote -- "It is my great honor to announce that
General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a full pardon. Congratulations to
General Flynn and his wonderful family. I know you will now have a truly
fantastic Thanksgiving."

And President Trump has made it no secret that he has been seriously
considering granting Michael Flynn a pardon for quite some time. He really
felt that the special counsel's team, Robert Mueller, he often said that
they had ruined Michael Flynn's life.

And he's been talking about this for several months now. Michael Flynn, you
may remember, he pleaded guilty back in December of 2017 to lying to the
FBI about his contacts with the then Russian Ambassador to the United
States Sergey Kislyak.

And then, later, Michael Flynn tried to withdraw that guilty plea. And
then, just this spring, you had the attorney general, Bill Barr, saying
that that case should have never been brought against Michael Flynn because
he believed that the special counsel's team had essentially entrapped
Michael Flynn or somehow convinced him to lie.

So, this really -- what happened here today, this full pardon really brings
to a close this nearly three-, four-year-long legal and political saga that
has been going on here in Washington, D.C.

And, of course, Neil, now the big question is, in these final weeks in
office, is President Trump considering granting a full pardon -- he's
already granted clemency to Roger Stone. Is he considering a full pardon
for Roger Stone and perhaps Paul Manafort as well? -- Neil.

CAVUTO:  I'm wondering, too, Kristin, when you look at this and talk to
other people, if you think about it -- I was raising it with Karl Rove --
this was the kickoff, not at the exact timeline, to what would later become
this charge of Russian interference and talking to a lot of higher-ups in
the Trump administration that became the basis of -- the genesis of the
Mueller report, the investigation, the impeachment hearings.

And the president's argument was, and a lot of his legal representatives'
view was, there was nothing to that, there was nothing unusual or untoward
about an incoming administration official who would be talking to foreign
players, not a violation of the Logan Act.

And if that were the case, others out of power would have been doing the
same thing or been charged with the same thing, so that this was sort of a
zeal on the part of lawyers to really stick it to Flynn and, by extension,
the Trump White House, and then really let -- cast a die for the remaining
years.

Is it your sense that this is some closure on that or not?

FISHER:  Well, I think, certainly for President Trump and now clearly for
Michael Flynn, this is quite a bit of closure.

I mean, for Michael Flynn, this puts to rest -- he was still challenging a
lot of these things in court. So, for him, this really puts to rest all of
the legal challenges and issues that he was still having to deal with.

I mean, remember he went into a great deal of financial debt because of all
of this, so certainly a lot of closure for Michael Flynn today and for the
president. But you know Democrats on Capitol Hill like Congressman Adam
Schiff already speaking out on this, saying this was not the right move.

And you can expect they would say the same thing if President Trump were to
grant full pardons to Roger Stone or Paul Manafort as well.

CAVUTO:  Yes, just amazing.

All right, Kristin, thank you very, very much. And thanks for updating us
very quickly on all of that.

Again, Michael Flynn, the president's first national security adviser,
albeit you could clock it with an egg timer, but he was the first, and he
has now been pardoned, all of those charges that had come against him and
sort of kept him stymied in legal hell for potentially years.

Former federal prosecutor Doug Burns with us right now.

What do you think of all of this, Doug?

DOUG BURNS, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR:  Neil, it was a very, very political
prosecution.

And what people missed was a key, key distinction, so I'm glad to be able
to just quickly explain it. And that is that you have to lie on a material
matter, material matter.

So, not to be cute or sarcastic, if I'm asked in a meeting with the
government, what's my shoe size, and I intentionally give the wrong answer,
that may not be material to the investigation.

So, the Department of Justice filing, which I read and studied, pointed out
that the questions that he was asked were not necessarily material, for
technical reasons having to do with the viability of the investigation and
so on.

But the bottom line is, much more important than all of that was, when the
Department of Justice, Neil, stepped forward and said, we are moving to
dismiss this prosecution, obviously, with the consent of the defense, I
have never seen in my 35 years of situation that even would remotely
involve a judge not simply granting that.

It's not the judge's role legally -- and you heard many experts explain
this -- not the judge's role legally to turn around and start second-
guessing that. The judge is there to be the umpire in an ongoing dispute.
When the parties say there's no dispute any longer, the judge should grant
the dismissal.

So, I was very, very surprised that Judge Sullivan was sitting on the
dismissal motion, Neil.

CAVUTO:  You know, if memory serves me, right, Doug, Flynn was the only
White House official, certainly high up, to be convicted in this Trump-
Russia investigation, certainly the biggest head on a spike.

Others were sort of caught in that orbit. But I'm wondering how this
changes the dynamic here, and looking at other potential pardons,
commutations and the rest that could be coming from the president. What do
you think?

BURNS:  No, that's a key question, because your question warrants breaking
it down into two things that you have also heard many experts explain.

And that is, like, a substantive crime or what we call a process crime. And
you have heard that. So, Paul Manafort was convicted, albeit unrelated to
the question of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but he was
convicted of white-collar financial offenses and so on, substantive
offenses.

Process crimes are when you're called in, obviously, and they claim you
were untruthful in a meeting, an interview, a proper meeting.

So, to answer your question, I think, Neil, that you may see pardons on
these process-type situations, ancillary untruthfulness, where people feel
it was a political dust-up and perjury traps were hanging in the rafters.

But on substantive offenses, more serious, albeit unrelated to collusion, I
don't think you will see pardons.

CAVUTO:  I'm curious, Doug, what you make of what Judge Sullivan does right
now. Is it a pardon to be-all and end-all?

In other words, then does he just dismiss all of this, or can he go on? I
was surprised -- I'm not the lawyer you are -- but that in the case of this
-- when this whole thing first started, and the Justice Department had
relayed to the judge, look, we want to drop the whole thing, and he said,
well, essentially not so fast.

And then we got to this point where -- that they were arguing the case out.
It was going to go to another judge, and then he or she was going to decide
on that. This obviously removes that possibility.

But does Sullivan then have to honor this, dismiss the matter, and move on?
Or what is the power of a pardon, I guess, is what I'm asking.

BURNS:  No, another interesting thing to discuss.

No pun intended, the pardon trumps whatever else was going on. And I'm not
being cute, But the point is, in all seriousness, I don't see any legal
mechanism or avenue for Judge Sullivan to do anything other than rule that,
a pardon having been granted by the president of the United States,
pursuant to the U.S. Constitution, this matter is hereby dismissed.

Hang a footnote, boy, this has been an unbelievably bizarre year and set of
years, so maybe something bizarre might ensue. But, legally -- and you have
me on for legal expertise -- if a president grants somebody a pardon, I see
no vehicle for a court to say anything other than that the matter is now
terminated.

CAVUTO:  All right, we shall see.

Doug Burns, thank you at last minute's notice coming in and giving us an
update on that. I do appreciate it.

For those of you just tuning in, the president, this was kind of
telegraphed, was expected. We didn't expect it maybe this soon, that the
president has gone ahead and pardoned his first national security adviser,
Michael Flynn, who was in office a very, very short time.

This was the case that really propelled the Mueller investigation and later
to have it morph into something that was a move toward impeaching the
president of the United States himself, in that he lied about his contacts
with talking to top Russian officials, including our -- the Russian
ambassador to this country and a number of other key players at the time.

Jim Trusty joins us right now, former federal prosecutor in his own right,
looking at all of this.

Jim, your thoughts on whether this puts the issue to bed, whether Judge
Sullivan in this case, as I was raising with Doug Burns, could resurrect it
and -- or just drop the whole matter altogether?

JAMES TRUSTY, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR:  Yes, I don't think he can
resurrect it.

I heard the conversation with Doug. And I have slightly different angles on
a couple of things. I suspect that, on a matter of principle, this judge is
not going to say, I'm now granting a motion to dismiss. He is going to say,
I am mooting the motion to dismiss. I'm not ruling on it, because
everything is mooted by the party.

So it's the same ultimate effect of, the case is over, but he gets to kind
of stick his nose out one more time and say, I never let him out of his
plea. I never dismissed the case. And that's where it'll die, with that
pardon.

CAVUTO:  If I can go back to the original alleged crime, not only the lying
to FBI agents, but the source of this, when, in the transition going to
President Trump, you had the general talking to Sergey Kislyak, right, the
Russian ambassador.

And then he was trying to talk to him about not aggressively responding to
these sanctions that were being imposed on Russia by then President Barack
Obama. Are those kinds of conversations a violation of the Logan Act, or
are they fairly routine for incoming players to be having phone calls, to
be discussing matters with other heads of state or those connected to other
states, in this case, the ambassador?

Is there anything untoward about that?

TRUSTY:  No, look, I think it's pretty routine.

At least, I'm seeing news reports that there's at least roughly similar
conversations taking place between Joe Biden's folks and folks all around
the world right now. So, look, the Logan Act has never been a successful
tool for prosecution.

You have got like two failed prosecutions under the Logan Act in its whole
history. And I think most people agree it's probably both dumb and
unconstitutional, which is quite the combo.

So I don't think there's much to it. I think there's -- look, this case, I
think a lot of people are getting -- the lawyers get hung up on whether it
was a material misstatement, whether there was willfulness. And there's at
least a little passing conversation of that in the government's motion to
dismiss.

But this case died the death of 1,000 cuts because of misconduct. It was
this approach that, well, we're going to get him somehow, seeking him,
rather than starting with evidence and seeing where it leads you.

And, look, I mean, everything from the ambush interview through discovery
violations when the case was before Judge Sullivan, all in the name of a
rinky-dink false statement allegation, this thing should have been over a
long time ago.

And the motion to dismiss was filed six-and-a-half months ago. And here we
are with Trump finally losing patience and issuing the pardon, instead of
waiting any longer.

CAVUTO:  Now, when Bill Barr intervened, to the degree did, as attorney
general, to say, this case is ridiculous -- I'm just paraphrasing here --
I'm going to drop it, and there's no truth to it, and then, of course, they
go to the judge.

This Judge Sullivan at the time says, you just can't drop something for
which this guy already pled guilty. But, technically, the general pled
guilty to lying to FBI agents. Maybe that grew because he apparently
misrepresented the conversations he had with the vice president, Mike
Pence.

But the conversation itself with the ambassador apparently was not at issue
here or the crime. It was then misrepresenting that to those agents. And
that's what they caught him on.

It's sort of like the Al Capone thing on the tax return thing, and leaving
aside all the other stuff that he had done that didn't land him in the
slammer.

I'm just wondering, did they use that as a means by not only burying Flynn,
but then to go after others?

TRUSTY:  Well, it certainly seems like it. I mean, it opened up the
Pandora's box of false statements to the FISA court.

But the Al Capone analogy is a great one to mention real quick, Neil. I
used to -- as a prosecutor, I used to say that, like, hey, we can't prove
the murder, but maybe we can do this drug case. And it's fine to convict Al
Capone of only tax evasions, when you know he's a murderer. But it better
be Al Capone, you know?

And so we're in a situation now where, whatever the story is with General
Flynn -- maybe there's something with Turkey. Maybe there's not. I don't --
I have no idea. I don't really have to decide whether he's an angel.

But I can see that they took that Al Capone approach and abused it. And
they broke all their internal rules, and did an ambush interview where they
already knew the answers to the questions. And then they followed up on it
by having serious discovery violations when the case got to court.

So, yes, that's what I mean, by death by 1,000 cuts. Whatever the
motivations for the original inquiry, this false statement case was pretty
far afield and pretty unjust by the time -- by the time it got through
Judge Sullivan.

CAVUTO:  I'm just curious if you can help me with this, Jim.

What is the difference between General Flynn maybe talking to a Russian
ambassador and a sitting president of the United States, in this case
Barack Obama, talking with then Russian President Medvedev about, I will
have some clarity after the election? In other words, just I can't say much
now.

That was caught on an open mic. Now, he's the sitting president. He's
talking about something that he might be able to talk more about once the
election passes. But he's telegraphing something to that Russian leader
that a lot of people at home in the United States would be scratching their
head and saying, wait a minute, right?

TRUSTY:  Right.

I mean, a lot of people that are kind of newfound hawks about Russia seem
to forget that conversation. But, yes, look, I think that probably falls
into the category -- and maybe this holds true for some other high-level
conversations with international leaders -- as the law permits much which
wisdom condemns as folly.

There are things you can do that aren't politically smart, that aren't
great moments in terms of projection of U.S. power, but that doesn't mean
they necessarily get prosecuted as crimes. And so I think that's probably
where we are with Obama's comments to Medvedev all the way through more
recent incarnations of that phenomenon.

CAVUTO:  All right, Jim Trusty, thank you very much, my friend, the former
federal prosecutor, much, much more.

Chairman Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence, is commenting on all of this right now, saying that:
"Donald Trump has abused the pardon power to reward his friends and
political allies and protect those who lie to cover up for him. This time,
Trump has once again abused the pardon power to reward Michael Flynn, who
chose loyalty to Trump over loyalty to his country."

Just part of the growing cascade of responses based on where you are
politically on this, a moot point now, because General Michael Flynn, after
years of legal tangling and untold sums for lawyers and the like, he might
not get his reputation back, as so many discover, in a long battle with the
powers that be in Washington, but he now can be assured not another day in
court. Donald Trump has pardoned him.

We will have more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  All right, we already learned that Adam Schiff isn't keen on this
pardon of General Michael Flynn, but the House Judiciary Republican
reaction a little bit different, saying that the pardon is "well-deserved,
principled, and one of President Trump's best decisions. Every American,
including Jerry Nadler, should be enraged by what James Comey's FBI did to
General Flynn. Justice!"

Is it justice in the end?

Joey Jones joins us, the former Marine bomb technician, retired U.S.
military staff sergeant, much, much more, genuine hero.

Joey, I know we were going to talk to you about a lot of other things.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO:  I do want to pick your brain a little bit on this, my friend,
about the significance of it, and what you think of what the president did
by pardoning General Flynn.

JOEY JONES, U.S. MARINE CORPS VETERAN:  Yes, I think it's unsurprising.

This is someone that had the president's back really from day one and has
always had his back. And then, when you have information come out that
really calls into question why he was ever convicted to begin with, I think
this was a pretty easy decision by President Trump, especially looking at
the way things are now, which looks like President Trump will be leaving
the White House in -- in the beginning of next year.

CAVUTO:  Now, the Justice Department, as you know, Joey, had wanted to drop
all of these charges, thought it was a slam dunk. The judge in that
particular case said, not so fast. The guy lied to FBI agents.

But the conversations at the core of this with the Russian ambassador did
not seem to be the issue here. In the end, it was lying to the agents or
whatever or misrepresenting these calls.

But an incoming national security adviser or someone would have a prominent
role in an incoming administration, it's not unusual to have those
conversations, is it not?

JONES:  Well, and that's the problem, is, the beginning of this
conversation was, was General Flynn wrong for doing -- trying to be good at
his job, trying to prepare for his job?

Was he wrong because the allegations that they threatened to lock his son
up, and he was trying to save his son? And the amount of conjecture that
was thrown into this conversation really meant, as an American citizen, you
either had to pick a side to begin with or go on a deep dive from every
court document you could find to have an opinion it.

But when you look at what's presented to the public, it really comes down
to what looks like a lot of partisanship. And when we start using the
Justice Department and federal convictions to decide a partisan favor, that
makes me step back and say, you know what, I'm glad he was pardoned, I'm
glad this doesn't go any further, because the last thing I want is someone
who did serve their country faithfully for decades be caught up in this
kind of partisan stuff.

Now, granted, he put himself in there by looking to work in a partisan
fashion as a bureaucrat, but I just don't think that's a precedent that we
need to set. And I hope it doesn't happen with anyone Joe Biden picks. I
hope we don't start trying to settle partisan disputes by ruining people's
lives over crossing T's and dotting I's.

If I get pulled over for speeding, but I have a legitimate excuse, nine
times out of 10, that cop is going to let me go. And I think that's the
right thing to do. Common sense should always prevail.

And I wasn't sitting in that room. I don't know how those FBI agents were
treating him. But I have been questioned, and I have been interrogated for
a security clearance. And, sometimes, they ask questions that every answer
seems wrong, and you don't know which one to give, even as a Marine bomb
tech, that I felt like I was pretty smart about stuff.

And I can put myself in his shoes, and I could identify with him. And I
think that's how a lot of Americans felt. And if that's all they had on him
was how he answered a question, then I think we're in a good place with him
getting the pardon.

CAVUTO:  All right, Joey Jones, I apologize.

But, look, we did this to you the other day, right? And it was not
personal.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO:  But I did want to pick your brain on this, and with all the
breaking news. But I promise, my friend, I will get you on some of these
other developments.

You just have a habit of coming on during breaking news, and conveniently
and nicely hitting it out of the park to respond to it.

Thank you, Joey, very, very much, but more for your incredible service to
this country.

All right, we have Katie Cherkasky joining us right now, the former federal
prosecutor, get her take on all this.

Katie, what do you think? A full and complete pardon. The inevitable
question that came up is, what's next? Who could be next? What do you
think?

KATIE CHERKASKY, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR:  Well, I think this was pretty
much a foregone conclusion.

And, as a defense attorney, I'm happy to see it. I think that this was a
case that was really falling apart. The Justice Department didn't even want
to pursue it. This isn't a case where we have somebody that was convicted,
and there's no question about it.

I think that this was an appropriate decision for the president's use of
pardon power. The case has been languishing with the judge for a while,
even though the DOJ said they didn't want to pursue it. So, it seems like
it was going to be a long time.

I -- this was the right time for him to make that decision.

CAVUTO:  Katie, I know this has come up. And I know this all started with
lying to FBI agents and those around him and all.

But the idea that an incoming foreign policy and national security official
of the incoming administration is talking to foreign leaders, ambassadors
and the like, is that wrong? Is that a bad thing?

Because you could say that any one of a president's potential Cabinet
members talking to foreign leaders or similar, they're also in deep doo-
doo, if that's the case.

CHERKASKY:  Well, I think it all boils down to intent, as with anything
under the law, and especially the criminal law.

So, sure, there's always an appropriate balance to be made. Whether it was
nefarious, whether it was criminal, that's a whole other question.

I think, in the General Flynn case, that there was a lot of questions about
the misconduct of not only the law enforcement agents, but potentially the
prosecutors not turning over information in discovery. That's a really big
deal. And that's an issue with constitutional rights.

So, above all else, we have to look at what's right under the criminal law.
In terms of policy matters, I think that that's a question for the
electorate.

CAVUTO:  So, Katie, that's an interesting distinction there, Katie.

So, it's one thing for General Flynn at the time to be talking to the
Russian ambassador. Quite another then for him to say, go slow on a harsh
response to then President Barack Obama's sanctions on Russians? Of course,
that was inviting what would be a tit-for-tat Russian response that never
materialized, because it was just days, weeks before the incoming Trump
administration would take over.

So, are conversations like that, where you're telling a representative of a
foreign government to go slow on a response to what the present government
is doing, is that -- is that illegal?

CHERKASKY:  Well, I think that it all boils down to a question of the
facts, the specific facts and the intent there.

I think that he -- that General Flynn was really toeing the line there in
terms of engaging in conversations that were appropriate or maybe even
vital to his incoming position, but did he go too far? Did he try to make a
deal that was really prohibited under the law?

So you would really have to dig into, again, the actual intent behind it,
the other preparations that had been made, and all the surrounding
circumstances to make that decision. And, in this case, under the criminal
code, the Justice Department did decide, based on the totality of the
evidence, they didn't want to pursue this case, because there's probably
evidentiary issues that are quite significant.

So, is it a violation? Well, we -- well, right now, it's not. It hasn't
been deemed to be so. Could it be?

CAVUTO:  Right.

CHERKASKY:  I think there is a line that could cross.

CAVUTO:  Katie, this is falling along the lines of predictable political
reaction of Democrats condemning it, including Adam Schiff, Republicans, by
and large, supporting it.

Representative Lee Zeldin, the New York Republican congressmen, saying
that: "100 percent the right call to pardon General Michael Flynn. He
shouldn't have been targeted like this in the first place. One item
remains. Crimes and other misconduct were committed against General Flynn
along the way and that justice is still remains absolutely necessary
today."

But I am wondering about whether this widens out on the president's part to
people like Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, where he could similarly move to
pardon. Or are those distinct and different cases in your eyes?

CHERKASKY:  Well, they are different cases. And, obviously, the evidence is
different in each of those circumstances.

The president, in my view, has not abused pardon power. I think that the
Flynn case was a perfectly legitimate use of that, especially given this
complex history there.

In terms of what he may do in the future, that's going to be up to him. The
president's pardon power is pretty limitless, except for cases of
impeachment. So, there's not a lot that can be done, except for shouting on
the back end if people don't agree with that. But there's not any recourse
due to that. It drops out of the criminal system at that point.

CAVUTO:  While I also have you, Katie, one of the things that's been
bandied about is whether the president can, in fact, pardon himself.

Now, he's not indicated that. It's sort of -- you know the rumor,
Washington mill. It is what it is. But I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a
constitutional expert on these matters. But can a president of the United
States pardon himself?

CHERKASKY:  Well, that seems to be an open question.

It did come up during the Nixon era, but it seems that that may not be a
distinct possibility. From what we have seen -- it's never happened, but,
of course, people could always try and take the legal challenges as they
come.

CAVUTO:  So, just to understand that, that it doesn't mean that it can't
happen. I know that Joe Biden this past week has talked about pursuing
investigations, it's not what he wants to do. Many have argued that that's
what they want to do.

We know, in the case of Gerald Ford, coming after Richard Nixon, he
pardoned Richard Nixon afterwards. None of this applies here. None of it's
been even mentioned as a distinct possibility here.

I guess what I'm asking you is, especially when a lot of the matters that
are going and being finalized are state matters that go beyond or that are
distinctly different than federal matters, would a pardon even on the part
of the president for himself stave him off from those?

CHERKASKY:  Well, no, I mean, President Trump faces legal battles after he
leaves office. I think that's clear.

CAVUTO:  Right.

CHERKASKY:  I think that's going to continue.

A pardon can only be applied to federal crimes, violations of federal
statute. There's no exception. It doesn't apply to civil matters. It does
not apply to state matters. Those fall under, obviously, the governor's
authority.

CAVUTO:  OK.

CHERKASKY:  So, there's not -- there's no realistic way to believe that the
matters he's facing, which are state and other civil matters, would be
falling under the pardon power anyhow, even if he could do that.

So, I don't see any real chance of that happening.

CAVUTO:  All right, Katie Cherkasky, thank you for helping us out on this.
I do appreciate it.

We are getting more read out of the Justice Department exactly that -- how
this all came together.

David Spunt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, right now, he's been talking to a
lot of his sources on the phone, and maybe he can update us.

David, what are you hearing?

DAVID SPUNT, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Well, Neil, we're waiting to hear
from the Justice Department on this. And it's surprising we haven't heard
from DOJ on this, because Attorney General Bill Barr was actually somebody
that was behind this.

Actually, I just got a text right now, if I can do this on air, from
someone with the Justice Department. I want to see if we have a reaction
right here.

It just -- actually, we don't have it yet. It says something's going to be
coming soon. So we will pass that along as soon as we get it.

But, Neil, what I can say is that Attorney General Bill Barr was absolutely
adamantly in favor of pardoning Lieutenant General Michael Flynn. This is
something that he wanted. This is something the Justice Department wanted.
And that was interesting to Judge Emmet Sullivan, who many, many, many
times wanted to find out exactly why the Department of Justice wanted to
pardon Michael Flynn.

I mean, after all, Neil, listen, it's difficult to prosecute a case and to
decide a case when the prosecution and the defense were on the same side.
So, essentially, Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn's attorney, and the Justice
Department was on the same side to say, drop this.

Basically, Neil, what happened was Judge Emmet Sullivan was keeping the
case in limbo right now. He was going to decide if the Justice Department's
arguments were strong enough to drop the case. We were expecting to hear
from Judge Sullivan any day now, probably at some point over the next few
weeks. But then this pardon came.

I'm still waiting right here on my phone to see the official word from the
attorney general, but I assume it will be a positive reaction.

CAVUTO:  All right, David Spunt, thank you very, very much, following all
of that in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

SPUNT:  Sure.

CAVUTO:  Kevin McCarthy weighing in right now, the Republican leader in the
House, saying that: "What happened to General Flynn was a national
disgrace. No American should ever be targeted for simply belonging to a
certain political party. President Trump is right to pardon the respected
three-star general."

The president probably said it best in describing the pardon, that his
general should enjoy a good Thanksgiving, that he deserves that. And I
think, somewhere, wherever he is right now, General Michael Flynn agrees.
He's going to have a good Thanksgiving.

I hope you do as well.

That will do it for here.

Here comes "THE FIVE."

Content and Programming Copyright 2020 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2020 ASC Services II Media, LLC.  All materials
herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be
reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast
without the prior written permission of ASC Services II Media, LLC. You may
not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of
the content.