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“The Five” spent time on Wednesday discussing what to expect from Democrats and the news media as Attorney General William Barr releases a redacted version of the Mueller report — a happening set for Thursday.
We already know the top-line conclusion. There was no collusion, matter of fact there was no effort at collusion, and the Russians tried to collude and the Trump team said no,” co-host Dan Bongino said.
“My question going forward, what the heck was Bob Mueller doing for 675 days?”
TRUMP LEGAL TEAM PREPARES MUELLER COUNTER-REPORT ON OBSTRUCTION ALLEGATIONS
Co-host and liberal commentator Marie Harf believes President Trump is trying to get ahead of the report and speculated he may be “embarrassed” on Thursday.
“It seems a little bit like he’s trying to pre-empt what he knows will not be a uniformly good report for him. There will be things in this report that are embarrassing, that all of us sitting around this table would say I never would’ve done that if I worked on a presidential campaign. I think Trump knows that and is trying to get ahead of it,” Harf said.
Co-host Jesse Watters said negative information is expected when it comes to a comprehensive report.
“There’s going to be some derogatory information in there. Because this was a very brutally intrusive exam into the administration and the campaign. You’re going to find some flaws and this was undertaken by kind of ferocious and — not sinister but angry partisan Democrats with a lot of liberal pedigree. They are going to find some things, but overall no obstruction, no collusion,” Watters said.
WOW: CHELSEA HANDLER SAYS SHE HAS ‘FEELINGS’ FOR ROBERT MUELLER
Watters and co-host Greg Gutfeld specifically called out CNN and other key players in the mainstream media for their relentless focus on the Mueller report.
“I just don’t know how CNN is going to handle it because this last week they had the lowest-rated week of all of 2019,” Watters said. “They have a choice to make. Are they going to now report real news about Spygate, or are they going to continue to push fake news? They lost to the Food Network last week, which means people would rather watch a pot boil then watch CNN.”
“It’s really about the Russians and how they manipulated the media, not the voters. The collusion was Russia playing the media for suckers,” Gutfeld said.
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Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist, says that though many think it’s important to move on from the Mueller report following Thursday’s expected release, one aspect that calls for further exploration is how it all began.
“People talk about moving on. That’s important because there are serious policy issues that fixing our border and other things Congress needs to work on — but how did the investigation ever start?” Hemingway said on “Special Report with Bret Baier” on Wednesday.
“It was used, not just during the campaign but in the interim, before he [Trump] became president and for the first two years of his administration, to undermine him,” she said. “It affected foreign policy and his ability to get things done.”
Hemingway emphasized that answers were needed in order to avoid a recurrence of the circumstances behind the inquiry.
“People need to make sure the report is put into context. It is not just there was a legitimate reason to look into Russia collusion and there were no indictments … for Russia collusion or obstruction, but a story about how people weaponized information and used it to go after political opponents,” Hemingway told Baier.
“That absolutely must be looked into. We absolutely need to get answers so that it doesn’t happen again and the people who did it are held accountable.”
Barr will release a redacted version of Mueller’s full investigative report on Thursday morning.
Democrats are expected to file subpoenas to see what’s behind the redactions.
Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley said Democrats will continue to second-guess the report, but its findings will stand.
“Clearly the Democrats are very upset by this finding. I think what we are going to see is them combing through this report second-guessing Mueller’s findings on no collusion, second-guessing the Justice Department decision that there was no obstruction of justice because there was no underlying crime, and you will see Trump’s team push back and say pick it apart all you want,” Riley said.
“Doesn’t change the central conclusions, no collusion and no obstruction.”
TRUMP LEGAL TEAM PREPARES MUELLER COUNTER-REPORT ON OBSTRUCTION ALLEGATIONS
Amy Walter, national editor of the Cook Political Report, added that no matter what the report says Thursday, it will have no bearing on how the public views President Trump. “His approval ratings, disapproval ratings haven’t moved much given the many things that have happened over the last two years.”
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Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist, says that though many think it’s important to move on from the Mueller report following Thursday’s expected release, one aspect that calls for further exploration is how it all began.
“People talk about moving on. That’s important because there are serious policy issues that fixing our border and other things Congress needs to work on — but how did the investigation ever start?” Hemingway said on “Special Report with Bret Baier” on Wednesday.
“It was used, not just during the campaign but in the interim, before he [Trump] became president and for the first two years of his administration, to undermine him,” she said. “It affected foreign policy and his ability to get things done.”
Hemingway emphasized that answers were needed in order to avoid a recurrence of the circumstances behind the inquiry.
“People need to make sure the report is put into context. It is not just there was a legitimate reason to look into Russia collusion and there were no indictments … for Russia collusion or obstruction, but a story about how people weaponized information and used it to go after political opponents,” Hemingway told Baier.
“That absolutely must be looked into. We absolutely need to get answers so that it doesn’t happen again and the people who did it are held accountable.”
Barr will release a redacted version of Mueller’s full investigative report on Thursday morning.
Democrats are expected to file subpoenas to see what’s behind the redactions.
Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley said Democrats will continue to second-guess the report, but its findings will stand.
“Clearly the Democrats are very upset by this finding. I think what we are going to see is them combing through this report second-guessing Mueller’s findings on no collusion, second-guessing the Justice Department decision that there was no obstruction of justice because there was no underlying crime, and you will see Trump’s team push back and say pick it apart all you want,” Riley said.
“Doesn’t change the central conclusions, no collusion and no obstruction.”
TRUMP LEGAL TEAM PREPARES MUELLER COUNTER-REPORT ON OBSTRUCTION ALLEGATIONS
Amy Walter, national editor of the Cook Political Report, added that no matter what the report says Thursday, it will have no bearing on how the public views President Trump. “His approval ratings, disapproval ratings haven’t moved much given the many things that have happened over the last two years.”
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Former Watergate Assistant Special Prosecutor Jon Sale said Tuesday that Attorney General William Barr will do whatever “the law requires” to keep sensitive information private on the heels of Thursday’s Mueller report release.
“I think Barr will put his head down, do what the law requires. Grand jury material has to be redacted. Doesn’t matter what anybody in the Congress says,” Sale said on “Your World with Neil Cavuto.”
TRUMP LEGAL TEAM PREPARES MUELLER COUNTER-REPORT ON OBSTRUCTION ALLEGATIONS
“But you anticipate as much as half of it? That seems like a lot but it could be,” Cavuto asked Sale.
“It’s not a matter of quantity. The question is whether or not Mueller can actually tell his findings and Barr still do his job,” Sale responded.
Barr is set to hold a news conference Thursday morning, during which he’ll discuss the long-awaited release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his Russia election meddling inquiry, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.
Barr released a four-page summary last month, which stated that the special counsel found no proof of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election.
Democrats have demanded the full, unredacted report and are expected to issue a subpoena.
Sale says the request is destined for the courts, and Barr is “duty-bound” to resist a subpoena and would not negotiate grand jury material.
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“There was a case decided one week ago in which the court of appeals in the District of Columbia held that the court does not have inherent authority in the public interests of whatever reasons to release grand jury material.”
Sale added, “So, I think people are just going to have to accept the court ruling.”
Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.
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President Trump’s job approval stands at 45 percent, while 51 percent of voters disapprove, according to a new Fox News Poll. And that is almost exactly where it was last month, 46-51 percent, before Special Counsel Robert Mueller completed his Russia probe March 22.
That makes sense given two-thirds of voters (65 percent) say Mueller’s investigation has not changed how they feel about Trump. One in ten (10 percent) say they feel better about the president, while nearly two in ten (17 percent) feel worse.
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The Justice Department will release a redacted version of Mueller’s report Thursday. Attorney General William Barr released his summary March 24. Congressional Democrats want the full report released, as do 80 percent of voters according to a Fox News Poll conducted March 17-20.
But don’t expect the release of Mueller’s report to put the issue to rest. The poll finds 35 percent of voters think the Russia investigation proves there was no collision, while 64 percent disagree or have no opinion.
In addition, 57 percent think it is at least somewhat likely U.S. intelligence agencies broke the law when they started investigating the Trump campaign in the first place: 22 percent think it is “extremely” likely, 12 percent “very” likely, 23 percent “somewhat” likely. A third, 35 percent, think it is “not at all” likely that there were illegalities in the investigation.
Meanwhile, 33 percent of voters are “not at all” confident the government can prevent Russia or others from hacking into U.S. election systems in future elections. Less than a quarter (22 percent) are “extremely” or “very” confident.
Poll-pourri
Mueller receives a better net favorable score than Barr or Trump. He’s at +12 points (42 favorable vs. 30 unfavorable). Barr, who nearly half of voters can’t rate, is in negative territory by just one point (26-27), while Donald Trump is underwater by 9 (44-53).
Among Republicans, 87 percent have a favorable opinion of Trump and 44 percent like Barr.
Thirty-one percent of Republicans and 54 percent of Democrats view Mueller positively.
Overall, voters view both Russian President Vladimir Putin and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange negatively. Putin receives a net -65 (9 favorable vs. 74 unfavorable), and Assange -25 (16-41). Some 43 percent have never heard of or can’t rate Assange.
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Recently Trump tweeted about comments Rep. Ilhan Omar made about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Omar is a Democrat from Minnesota and one of the first Muslim women in the House. Democrats view Omar more positively than negatively by 10 points. Among Republicans, she has a net negative score by 43 points. Half of all voters, 50 percent, don’t know enough about the congresswoman to have an opinion.
Trump is losing his on-going feud with the late Arizona Sen. John McCain: by a 51-27 percent margin, more voters admire McCain than Trump.
Conducted April 14-16, 2019 under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,005 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide who spoke with live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.
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Former Deputy Chief of Staff for George W. Bush Karl Rove said Wednesday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claim that “everything is at stake” in the 2020 election was “over the top.”
Pelosi, D-Calif., told CNN Tuesday, “Everything is at stake in this election. The Constitution of the United States, with the president who is trying to usurp the power of the legislative branch of government, the environment in which we live.”
“A little bit over the top. Almost semi-hysterical,” Rove, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff for George W. Bush from 2005 until 2007, said on “America’s Newsroom” Wednesday in response to Pelosi’s remarks the day before. “You know, The Constitution is at stake, the role of Congress is at stake, our very environment is at stake and it (looks) a little bit sort of unhinged.”
PELOSI SAYS DEMS UNTAINTED BY ANTI-SEMITISM SLAMS AMID OMAR-TRUMP FUED
He added, “On the other hand, it plays into the environment (in) which we find ourselves. Democrats do have a little bit of leeway in saying things are really, really bad even if they sound a little over the top.”
Rove then cited statistics saying, “If you take a look at the Real Clear Politics average of all recent polls, 37.7 percent think the country is going in the right direction and 56.1 (percent) think the country is seriously off on the wrong track.”
He added, “That’s sort of the same dynamic that people had in 2016 when they wanted change and the Democrats are trying to position themselves as the party of change for the 2020 presidential election.”
On “America’s Newsroom,” Rove, a Fox News contributor, also weighed in on Thursday’s release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s much-anticipated Russia report.
MUELLER PROBE HAS COST TAXPAYERS MORE THAN $25 MILLION, SPENDING REPORT REVEALS
Last month, Mueller submitted his almost 400-page report to the Justice Department for review by the attorney general and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Bill Barr relayed some of the primary findings of the report, stating the special counsel found no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 presidential election.
Barr said he identified four areas of the report that he believed should be redacted, including grand jury material and information the intelligence community believes would reveal intelligence sources and methods.
“We don’t know how much is going to be redacted but let’s be clear, no matter how little the redaction is, short of no redactions at all, this is going to be the opening of the next chapter in which the Democrats on the Hill are going to say ‘you know what? We’re not going to agree that there’s no collusion and we’re certainly not going to agree there is no obstruction unless you totally give us an unredacted version of the Mueller report,” Rove said.
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“So this is merely the beginning of act two. We had act one. It lasted two years. Donald Trump was guilty of collusion with the Russians. That got blown up. Now we’re going to be turning to the obstruction issue and unless and until they (Democrats) have what they want, which is (a) totally unredacted version, you can count on the Democrats continuing to raise questions about it.”
He added, “I think the American people are getting tired of all of this and this isn’t a constructive way for the Democrats to move.”
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Former independent counsel Kenneth Starr said Wednesday he was concerned Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s upcoming redacted report may not be “written in a fair and balanced way.”
“The concern that I think is a fair concern is, is the report going to be written in a fair and balanced way? It is a concern,” Starr said on “America’s Newsroom” on Wednesday. “Now why the concern? Because of Bob Mueller, who I hold in very high regard, his choice of staff. So many questions have been raised about that staff and their leanings and so forth. And they’ve had the opportunity without any kind of cross examination, any kind of check, any kind of balance to write whatever they want to write. And that I think legitimately raises concern of fairness and balance.”
KENNETH STARR ‘VERY PROUD’ OF WILLIAM BARR’S HANDLING OF MUELLER REPORT
Last month, Mueller submitted his almost 400-page report to the Justice Department for review by the attorney general and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Bill Barr relayed some of the primary findings of the report, stating the special counsel found no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 presidential election. Democrats blasted Barr for what they called his “unacceptable” handling of the initial summary of that document.
Barr said he identified four areas of the report that he believed should be redacted, including grand jury material and information the intelligence community believes would reveal intelligence sources and methods.
MUELLER PROBE HAS COST TAXPAYERS MORE THAN $25 MILLION, SPENDING REPORT REVEALS
“The frustration will be, we don’t have it all. Why don’t we have it all? I think Bill Barr, the Attorney General, has very ably and responsibly answered that. There are restrictions on law. Grand jury testimony being the primary example,” Starr said Wednesday. “And then the acrimony will be this cherry picking. I think it is inevitable. ‘A-ha, do you see this sentence, see that and what that means is,’ and then a lot of interpretation and extrapolation.”
He added, “It would be good if we could call a national time-out and actually review what we have and then come to a more sober judgment. But politics is politics.”
Starr recommended Barr explain why he did what he did in the report once it is released.
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“I’m speaking as a citizen who has served in the justice department. This would build, I think, public confidence in what he has done, if he stands and explains it rather than waiting for a Congressional hearing, which will be a week or who knows how long and then all of the spinning goes on in the meantime. Let’s hear from the attorney general of the United States. That’s my hope,” said Starr.
Starr conducted an investigation into former President Bill Clinton and released his report in 1998.
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Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report is set to be publicly released, with some redactions, on Thursday but Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member William McGurn says the American people still don’t know when the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign really began and called on Attorney General William Barr to appoint a grand jury to find out.
“This is still the open question. We don’t really know when the FBI investigation began and what they were doing in the investigation,” McGurn, a Fox News contributor, said on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday.
“They’re sticking to this idea that it was a conversation with (former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser) George Papadopoulos, but that increasingly looks suspicious and so forth. And I think the reason is, to cut through all this, it’s looking increasingly as though the FBI launched an investigation into a presidential campaign based on opposition research commissioned by Hillary Clinton, her team, and performed by a known Trump hater, Christopher Steele to spy on Trump people.”
FBI FAILED TO PROVIDE DETAILS ON CONTACT WITH CLINTON CAMPAIGN LAWYER: JUDICIAL WATCH
The Mueller report’s Thursday release is expected to shed more light on the Russia investigation’s conclusions, as reported by Barr, that the Trump campaign did not improperly collude with Russia, despite multiple attempts by Russian-affiliated individuals to involve the Trump team in computer hacking.
“It is a big deal when the FBI spies on any citizen, right? They’re given these powers for a reason and it’s a big deal. It’s a bigger deal when you launch one into a presidential campaign,” said McGurn.
He said he thinks Barr needs to appoint a grand jury because, “A grand jury can subpoena. A grand jury can indict. You indict someone at the FBI and we’ll get to the story pretty quickly.”
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He added, “Grand juries clarify testimony, clarify the mind and I think one reason we saw such a frenzy when Bill Barr just said ‘I’m going to take a look at this,’ you would have a very different Washington if there is a grand jury and some of these former FBI, DOJ, maybe even CIA officials are brought before it.”
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The mainstream media isn’t ready to give up the Russia collusion narrative even if the looming release of Robert Mueller’s report won’t contain anything damaging to President Trump.
That’s according to Gary Abernathy, a contributing columnist for The Washington Post, who penned an piece titled “Admit it: Fox News has been right all along.”
The piece, published Monday, argued that while liberal networks seemingly got the Russia story wrong, they are unlikely to give up even when the report is published on Thursday.
“I have been critical of president trump. There are a lot of issues that the Democrats and those who don’t like Trump can go after him on in 2020. And rightfully so. Legitimate political questions,” Abernathy said on “Fox & Friends.“
“But, Russian collusion, that’s done. I’m interested to see the Mueller report tomorrow. That’s going to be interesting reading. But we know the bottom line conclusion.”
“But, Russian collusion, that’s done. I’m interested to see the Mueller report tomorrow. That’s going to be interesting reading. But we know the bottom line conclusion,” he said, noting that Attorney General William Barr announced that there was no collusion.
Abernathy said he was prompted to write the column after the media flipped on the credibility of Barr after his summary of the Mueller report was released.
“Ever since he did the summary on the Mueller report, you see people accusing him of being Donald Trump’s toady and now all of the sudden the 68-year-old career professional has become a political animal trying to protect the president,” he said.
“Frankly the facts don’t back that up. That’s ridiculous. I said all along when the report comes out you will not see any daylight between Barr, Rosenstein or Mueller on what the conclusions are.”
“Frankly the facts don’t back that up. That’s ridiculous. I said all along when the report comes out you will not see any daylight between Barr, Rosenstein or Mueller on what the conclusions are.”
DEMS WON’T TAKE NO COLLUSION FOR AN ANSWER, SEEK MUELLER EVIDENCE AND MORE
Abernathy concluded that the mainstream media networks aren’t ready to give up on covering the Russia collusion angle as they heavily invested in it since Trump’s election.
“They have invested a lot of time in the Russian collusion narrative and just not ready to give it up,” the columnist said. “Again, if there was something here, that would be understandable.”
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“I’m anxious to seat the Mueller report because I think a lot of people who think it’s going to – they are going to find something there to call a bombshell revelation, I really expect the Mueller report to even go further in explaining point by point why all these little meetings and all these little, you know, dots that didn’t connect, you know, why they didn’t connect,” he added.
“I think the Mueller report will do a really good service to explain why that — and, you know, why they didn’t conclude collusion happened.”
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Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday to expect the president to react to Thursday’s release of the redacted Mueller report while downplaying it.
“I would say that that that’s sort of the latest iteration of the palace intrigue stories that the media, the mainstream media tend to love to run around here,” Conway said on “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”
BARR HAMMERED FOR STATING ‘SPYING DID OCCUR,’ DESPITE CONFIRMATION OF TRUMP TEAM SURVEILLANCE
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report, with some redactions, is set to be released to the public and Congress on Thursday morning, the Justice Department announced.
Mueller last month submitted his more than 300-page report to the Justice Department for review by Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Barr released a four-page summary he’d prepared, stating that the special counsel found no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 presidential election.
Democrats are still demanding to see the full unredacted report. President Trump said he has moved on, insisting that the report exonerated him.
Conway accused the media of trying to divide Trump and staff. She said the full report will further prove the president did not collude with Russia.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
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