Investigating the investigators

What Sen. Marsha Blackburn wanted to hear from former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein

Interview transcript:

John Solomon  0:00  
Alright folks, welcome back from the commercial break. And as promised, Senator Marsha Blackburn of the great state of Tennessee is joining us. Senator, welcome to the show.

Sen. Blackburn  0:10  
Well, thank you. I'm delighted to join you.

John Solomon  0:14  
You have a busy day going on, your Senate committee had the hearings yesterday with Rod Rosenstein and today they have subpoenas going out. Could you bring us up to speed on what's going on?

Sen. Blackburn  0:23  
Yeah. So we are in the process of voting out the subpoenas. Thre 38 subpoenas that we want to look at what happened with this Crossfire Hurricane investigation. And on our list, you're going to hear some familiar names. There's that James Baker and you've also got people like Brennan and Clapper and Kleinsmith, and you've got Strzok and Page and Wray and Yates. And they're all in this group of people. Look, we've got to get to the bottom of this to find out how they ended up with this dossier, how it was believed to be accurate, when did they know it was not accurate? Because we heard from Rod Rosenstein yesterday, if he knew then what he knows now, he would not have signed that FISA warrant. He would not have had that scoped memo that he had. So somebody is not telling us the truth in this. What we have devolved to is a two tier system of judges, judgment and justice and a double standard. And if you're in the in crowd, you get one standard. If you're just regular people, you're gonna get another standard. If they like you, you get one kind of treatment. If they don't, you're going to get another kind of treatment. That is not fair to the American people. It is not fair to future generations. To our children or grandchildren that are depending on us to leave them a stable, free, democratic society in which they can live out their hopes and dreams.

John Solomon  2:14  
It's so funny that a lot of people that I talk to you today in the real world, they talk about the Department of Justice and the Department of "Just Us," meaning all the insiders get to behave a different way than the rest of us Americans... I think you've hit into a real sentiment there the avenue.

Sen. Blackburn  2:30  
Well, we have and you know, what we found out yesterday and what we became painfully aware of, as we sat through the hearing with Rod Rosenstein was that what we had was a very quiet insurrection that took place. And there were probably dozens of people at DOJ and FBI that knew what was going on. But they hate Donald Trump so much. They hate him. That they were will to work under the cloak of law, and try to use that to shield them, so that they could take an action on their disgust. They wanted to prohibit him from being President. And when he won, they wanted to render him ineffective and doing his job. And you've seen that. They tried Russia collusion, they tried impeachment, they tried all these different things, to bring him down and just blow him up. And it is... this is not the way our system works, and the American people are very fearful right now, of what is going to end up happening if we cannot fix this and bring some reforms, some needed reforms and some good old housecleaning to both the FBI and DOJ.

John Solomon  3:51  
That's a great point. And you saw the reason for the housekeeping yesterday because time and again when Rod Rosenstein was asked to explain his own failures of leadership, he kept pointing that finger back, to the FBI saying McCabe misled me, he wasn't forthcoming, the FBI dropped the ball. What do you think was the biggest takeaway from yesterday? What was the biggest revelation Rod Rosenstein gave you?

Sen. Blackburn  4:15  
Well, one of the biggest revelations that was that he... if he knew, then what he knew now, he would not have signed it. The other thing in my questioning.. I asked him about the double standard. You know, when you have McCabe who has been found lying three times, IG said he lied three times under oath. And he is scot free. He is over at CNN. He's written a book, he's making money. Then you look at what's happened with Michael Flynn. So if you were going to indict and charge Michael Flynn should you also have applied that equally to Andrew McCabe? And the answer was, well, yes, you know, it should be equal, but it was not. And you see two very different treatments. Then you look at the withholding of [unintelligible] the late Senator Ted Stevens, and you say... he was exonerated after his death. But then you look at the withholding of Brady [?] material around Michael Flynn, and if you state, if you look at this equally, and DOJ dropped the charges, I should this case be dismissed. And the answer to that is, yes. But what we have seen is, you know, John, I think you had these... this group, and the FBI... somebody and DOJ and the Obama White House...somebody cooked up the slot. Somebody gave the go ahead to order to implement it. Somebody did the dirty work and carried it out and probably a lot of somebody. And what frustrates the American people is that nobody has been held accountable. Nobody has been indicted. Nobody has been charged and they're all getting major book deals and are profiting by what is criminal activity if you look at the statutes that are on the book, and if you say we're going to abide by the rule of law and be a nation of laws.

John Solomon  6:28  
Yeah there's no doubt. Do you have confidence that Durham is going to get to the bottom of this Attorney General Barr's on the right track now?

Sen. Blackburn  6:34  
I think Durham is going to get through it. And as I said to Rosenstein yesterday, he printed... Of course, I was right at the end of the questioning... and I said you have printed every question that we have asked you you have printed and he pushed back on that and said, well, no, it's information I don't have. Well for goodness sakes, if you are the leader, if you are the chief man in charge, and you are willy nilly making decisions without the information, is your mind not curious enough to say, tell me about this. Give me the backstory, fill me in, bring me up to speed. There are other components of this discussion that need to be discussed right before you put your name on the lines.

John Solomon  7:32  
I was thinking yesterday as I was watching that Rod Rosenstein is no Harry Truman because the buck never seemed to stop with Rod Rosenstein. He always had someone else to blame

Sen. Blackburn  7:40  
That's right. And he kept punting and passing the buck and kicking the can and, you know, I thought it was really quiet and secure. He bought his two daughters with him. And I use them in an example. I don't think he really appreciated that but they were there. And he's got one daughter that wants to be an entrepreneur, let's say the other wants to go into the law, let's say they go to DOJ, let's say to take find out that their office neighbors and their friends and their co workers are participating in an illegal scheme to try to spy on a US citizen or a president for no real reason. And let's say the other one, a successful entrepreneur, and then rocks the political system and decides to run for office. What would he advise them? How would he feel? What would he say is the right thing to do? How should they protect themselves, and the advice that you would give to them. See, that's what we're going to pass on to our children and our grandchildren. And it is imperative, it is imperative that we make certain that this two tier system, this double standard ceases to be practiced by the FBI. That they come clean about this. We have got to end this. Our children are never going to know that they trust the institution, and that they can trust their government to be there as a government of, by, and for the people.

John Solomon  7:58  
You mentioned the FBI and you also mentioned the slow walking of the evidence. A lot of the slow walking of the evidence has occurred long since James Comey and Andy McCabe left the FBI. It's been on Chris Wray's watch. how satisfied are you with the job that Chris Wray is doing at the FBI overall and then specifically on the Russia case?

Sen. Blackburn  9:36  
I think the jury is still out on that. And that is one of the reasons we have a subpoena list and we will issue that subpoena and find out why there has not been a faster providing of this... making the things available to us and also to the public line. We are not coming to a resolution, why we are not seeing the necessary reforms that the FBI... The FBI is full of wonderful people. And all of our intelligence agencies are full of wonderful people. But what we have is a little cabal that was very political in nature and very purposeful in their intent. And they could not believe that this is someone who would be President. They had never been a part of the systems or the in crowd in Washington. They were out there saying, if you elect me, I'm going to be tough on China. I'm going to drain the swamp in Washington DC. We're going to get rid of a lot of this elitism. We're going to make these agencies respond to these small businesses, and you manufacturers, and we're going to treat everybody equally and they did not like that because they like holding the power unto themselves.

John Solomon  11:01  
Donald Trump poses a threat to all of those constituencies that then turned against them. You said a little bit ago that somebody cooked up this plot. As you look at the evidence, and you're so versed in it, you asked a lot of really important questions yesterday. Where do you think this plot begins? You have a theory where it all started.

Sen. Blackburn  11:20  
You know John, I really don't. But I think as you look at this progression, it just ended up in a January 5 Oval Office meeting, in which Sally Yates ... found out they had been spying on General Flynn. So you've got this taking place. And I think that we have to begin to unravel that. That is the purpose of the subpoena. And that is one we're going to push forward with that. And it's why we are right at this moment beginning to vote these out.

John Solomon  11:58  
That's a great point. Those those subpoenas will really drill down. And that's really the goal, right? Who started this? Who got this going and then who committed crimes along the way?

Sen. Blackburn  12:07  
That's exactly right. You know, I said, we looked at the impeachment, and we said, Adam Schiff always wanted to be a screen writer and get an Oscar for a screenplay. And so that was a moment in the sunshine claim to fame. And you look at this, and you have to say, somebody read the "Emperor has no Clothes" as a story for themselves or their children. And so they started concocting this and they got so far into it, and then it's a play. Yeah, they had to go play [?] So I think when you Google [?] in future years, you're going to see a zoom screenshot of this cast of characters that cooked up this because it is the ultimate plot.

John Solomon  12:52  
One of the most amazing moments for me, and I know you got to go so I'll only ask a couple quick questions, and one of them is one of the more amazing moments yesterday was Rod Rosenstein, I think it was Senator Graham said that he agreed that in August 17, basically everybody had no evidence of Russia collusion, yet Robert Muller went on for another 18 months. What does that say about the system and specifically about the the Robert Muller investigation?

Sen. Blackburn  13:17  
What it says is, when did you know that? When did you find this out? You know, yesterday, it was so telling for Rosenstein when I asked him about Christopher...I mean, Andrew McCabe lying. And he gets previously said he wasn't sure McCabe had been forthcoming with him. I asked him, if that was accurate, you know, and gave him the opportunity to explain... he still agreed with that. So if you believe that somebody is not telling you, maybe they're telling you the truth, but not the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ... Did you not think you needed to get back in here and say, talk to me about this, I don't think you're telling me everything, what else do I need to know? This is called discretion and judgment. So once he so fearful of learning things about his colleagues and co workers to work with for 25 years, that he refused to ask the questions that may lead him to information he did not want to know. Was he content to say, my eyes are blind and my ears are closed... I'm just going to move forward, and instead of making a decision, and calling people in and say tell me what's going on here, I'm just going to push this off to Bob Mueller, and I'm going to let him try to figure it out, and then I can wash my hands of it. If that's what made him more comfortable in his personal life, in relationship with his longtime friends that had been there at DOJ.

John Solomon  15:04  
Remarkable. Now, it really is a dynamic that happened, no one wanted to make a call on this. And so they allowed a case with no evidence to just keep proceeding through the system. It is remarkable... One last question, because I know you got to get back to voting. But as you look out, and you have the subpoena list now and you've got some really big names on there, who are... for you personally, who are the three most important people you want to question and really drill down on to get an answer from?

Sen. Blackburn  15:30  
I think we want to hear from Obama and Biden. They are the ones that push the papers and set the meetings and are there to be told, do this or do that. For Biden himself to sign for General Flynn to be unmasked is quite remarkable. I think we want to know from Susan Rice, and to hear from her work in this. And that is going to give us a sense of the timeline of when Jim Comey, and we'll want to hear from him. When did he know that this was a hoax? And when did he decide he was going to do it anyway? And what was his reasoning?

John Solomon  16:16  
Well, there you have it, folks, right from someone in the middle of the storm right now, Senator Marsha Blackburn... gracious enough to join us in the middle of a very busy day. Senator, we can't thank you enough for your efforts to get to the bottom of this and also for sharing your insights today on on our podcast. Thank you very much. 

Sen. Blackburn  16:32  
Appreciate your good work. John, thank you so much.

John Solomon  16:35  
Thank you, Senator. Good luck today. Have a good one.