James Comey reveals source of memo shared with the press

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," June 8, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I am Kimberly Guilfoyle and this is "The Five".

We begin today with fast breaking developments in the aftermath of ousted FBI Director James Comey's bombshell testimony on Capitol Hill, speaking publicly for the first time since President Trump fired him on May 9th.

Comey claims to the Senate Intelligence Committee that President Trump lied about the reason for his firing and also revealed some remarkable new information about the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation. But perhaps the most stunning news is that Mr. Comey admitted that he initiated a leak of one of his memos about a conversation he had with President Trump.

OK. When in doubt, call a friend, Dana Perino?

DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Well, I think that -- one of the things that he did today was he solved one of the leak investigations so we can cross that one off the list.

GUILFOYLE: Right.

PERINO: Because he was just open about it. He's like, "Yes, this is what I did."

GUILFOYLE: Came to chill on Comey.

PERINO: And I think that if you were --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nicely done.

PERINO: If you put yourself in his shoes and you know it's coming and that -- I think that because it was not a classified document. It was his own notes and he got his story out there first. I mean I think anyone of us, if we've had the president to mind in order to protect ourselves, we might have done the same thing.

GUILFOYLE: All right, Greg, what did you make of this? Any surprises for you and --

GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Actually, I think that is surprising.

GUILFOYLE: Yes.

GUTFELD: They want -- the media and the left, they wanted Watergate. They got a water balloon. Because everything we found out about Trump, we already know he's a queen's roughneck who sells real estate. This is what he does. We elected a bull in a China shop. Well the hearing is, is everybody is sweeping up the broken China.

But this is what you get. He didn't break any laws. I'm getting a little tired of Comey's homey folksy persona. It's, you know, it's like he's from Yonkers, OK? He keeps morphing into Comey pile, you know. You know, it's like -- he keeps saying lordy. It's like pearl clutching senior who's upset about the short skirts on "The Five".

You know, it's just -- I just --

GUILFOYLE: Hey, oh.

CHRIS: Ouch.

GUTFELD: I don't know. And I have to say he didn't do himself a lot of good. He admitted he's a leaker and that hurts his credibility. And it should.

GUILFOYLE: All right. And for the record, this is a dress, not a skirt. All right --

GUTFELD: I'm telling my mother when she use the coach --

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: All right, so, Chris, welcome to "The Five" tonight.

CHRIS STIREWALT, GUEST CO-HOST: It's nice to be here. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here with you, guys.

GUILFOYLE: Hard working today was that listening with rapt attention to your discussion.

STIREWALT: Dana and I started up the day cracking walnuts on this thing.

PERINO: There weren't even walnuts. There were no snacks. We've got to work on.

STIREWALT: But we don't get the deli tray that you guys get here down in Washington. We buy --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Yes, we're big time.

STIREWALT: So, today was important. It couldn't have lived up to the hype possibly --

PERINO: Right.

STIREWALT: -- that it had been reeved in, that is going to be this -- Greg said this, it was going to be the Watergate hearings. It was going to be able to stop.

We forget -- when we compress history, when we look back and we think, well, it was ADC, boom and then Nixon resigned or it was ADC and Bill Clinton was impeached. In reality, this stuff plays out over long stretches of time. Today was a very important day. James Comey acquitted himself well. There were bad things in it for the president. But there were good things in it for the president.

And the good thing in it for the president was this, Comey was absolutely clear that Donald Trump was right that Comey had told him that he was as of Comey's departure, not the subject personally of a criminal investigation.

GUILFOYLE: So that vindicated the president's consistent -- with the president's statements when he said it on three separate occasions --

STIREWALT: Bird and the ladder.

GUILFOYLE: -- and then with his attorney's statement yesterday that has to be construed, I think, you know, a win for the White House in terms of removing itself from that crowd.

STIREWALT: Absolutely. It's a much-needed credibility for the president on that question that was a weird thing that he inserted in the letter then when he put it in the Comey firing letter, why did you say that? Well, here's why he said because it was true and that's why he put it in there.

GUILFOYLE: OK. Richard, how did you see it today? Were you disappointed in any way?

RICHARD FOWLER, GUEST CO-HOST: No. Here's the thing. I think there was a lot of, you know, buildup to this big Comey hearing, hashtag. I know Greg hates when I say that.

But here's the things that I think we did learn, right? So we learned the president wasn't under investigation. If you look at all the statements released by both his $1500 an hour criminal attorney or the statement that we've got from the White House is that, you know, he wasn't. There was no present tense here. So that could mean a lot of things. It could mean that he's currently under. It could be that they're predicting that he could be under. And I mean I think there's three instances that you could point to where there could be a possibility --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: I mean that's kind of speculation. It doesn't really --

FOWLER: No, of -- I mean that's a speculation, right? But I think here's where -- I think this is why it was a good day for Comey and a good day for the FBI. And that is because he got a chance to sort of clear the air, say why -- what he did and why he did it. Why he leaked the information because he thought -- he sort of created some bread crumbs for Mueller to follow while they do their investigation. So he's like I've leaked this thing even it wasn't classified. It was my own work product and I leaked it to sort of say, "Hey, listen, there's a bigger flag here."

And I think why was that for the White House was the moment where he talks about the meeting with him and the president, right, where he -- where his superior was asked to leave the room and his superior lingered. And Jeff Sessions like, I don't know -- I mean that -- that's like the double thinking and the president is like get out, get out, get out, get, get out, so it could just be me and Comey. We can have this conversation and that is problematic.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: But here's why it's problematic, OK? He didn't obstruct justice. He just made Comey feel weird inside. I feel so queasy inside. Look, a lot of people make me feel uncomfortable. I take the subway every day. They can't be arrested for making me uncomfortable. This is like a Rorschach test. You can see whatever you want in this. If you don't like Trump, you see him as a nefarious demon. If you love him, you think that he's an innocent victim. If you're in the middle, you see a guy Comey who got fired by a guy who fires people when he thinks he can't trust you. That's as simple as that.

PERINO: But trust you to do what?

GUILFOYLE: That was -- that was what the hearing was.

GUTFELD: Well, it's clear that you can't trust Comey because the only person he wanted to take notes on was Trump.

(CROSSTALK)

STIREWALT: Well, what I was going to say was how impressed I was today with Comey but also with the Senate. I was impressed for -- at a time when people in America wonder do systems work? Can things function? Can we do this or does it all devolve into partisan garbage every time? Does it turn into absolute -- just an absolute disaster every time we try do something?

Everybody in that room acted like an adult. Everybody asked good questions. People took their obligations seriously. They rose to the moment. I think we need more of this for the country to show people at home, it still works. The Republicans --

(CROSSTALK)

STIREWALT: I thought he did just fine.

GUTFIELD: A lot of questions could be answered.

STIREWALT: Well, John McCain did not have a --

(CROSSTALK)

STIREWALT: John McCain did not have a super day. But as he said he stayed up too late watching the Diamondbacks game.

GUTFELD: He was making a subtle point.

FOWLER: I agree with Chris on this point. I think what we saw was actually bipartisanships that's been absent from Washington for almost a decade.

GUILFOYLE: Yes. They were well prepared --

FOWLER: They were well prepared. They had a good conversation with Comey. I think Comey was a very excellent witness. He had no notes. He spoke from the heart. He went into detail and explained a lot of the situations. And I think to some extent, he benefited the White House in certain places when he sort of explained how things happened. But he also benefited, you know, people who are out there saying that we think that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians.

GUTFIELD: I saw such a different hearing than you guys. I'm sorry. I saw an emotional salvo, his opening statement. He was the good cop who had been done wrong. It was like an Aaron Sorkin drama --

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFIELD: But it was emotional. He felt pain, he felt hurt. He was wounded man.

GUILFOYLE: That was his biggest compliance.

GUTFIELD: Yes. He was like the guy who was dumped.

FOWLER: He got fired for pretty much nothing.

GUTFIELD: He can get fired. He can get fired.

(CROSSTALK)

FOWLER: But the FBI -- the reason why the FBI is created the way it is, they'll have a 10-year term, it's because we could be outside of the political forum. And what happened here was, if Donald Trump really hated Comey so much, he should have fired him on January 21st. The fact that he waited --

PERINO: He was been criticized for that.

FOWLER: No, I don't think so. I think it would have less --

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: It would have been -- at least that he would have fired him before he had a private meeting with him.

GUTFIELD: Thank you.

STIREWALT: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFIELD: Maybe he was being nice. Maybe he was giving him a chance.

PERINO: Why was he giving him a chance?

GUTFIELD: Whenever you get a new boss it's always happened.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFIELD: Every time I get a new boss, I get fired.

STIREWALT: Frankly speaking --

GUILFOYLE: Well, standby for that.

STIREWALT: Frankly speaking --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Can I just say one thing about the hearing as well? I know we would want to go this other thing. The other thing that happened today was that members of the Senate committee, Republicans and Democrats all agreed that yes, the Russians were trying to interfere. And they tried a lot of things. And then they also all agreed and you heard James Comey said and it wasn't his rational moment. He was just clearly saying, he said, yes, the Russians were trying to do all of these things. We all should know that we should all be really aware of that. No, at this point, they do not have any evidence. They did not actually alter or change one vote.

GUILFOYLE: No, absolutely.

PERINO: That was really important. So I think that there are -- there are some good things from the bigger picture that we know.

STIREWALT: Yes.

PERINO: We should really be aware that Russia is not our friend.

GUILFOYLE: Yes, I think that was made abundantly clear. And as you mentioned earlier, Mr. Comey accused the White House of lying about his firing.

And Comey confirmed that President Trump was never personally under FBI investigation as we discuss a fact that President Trump's attorney called vindicating.

GUILFOYLE: OK. And so that was the press and everyone was waiting for today, Dana, after this concluded -- OK, what would President Trump's personal attorney come out and say? Overall, it seemed like this was a good day for them. And if you're counsel for the president --

PERINO: I think they did their best spin, right? Yes. And I also think that the other thing they show that the president went to his event with the religious leaders and gave a speech that was just roundly praised by everybody in the room. He also -- this week, he announced a whole slate of judges to be confirmed. The Senate had actually said that they'll probably get those send before the August recess. You have the Senate moving forward on the health care repeal and replace bill.

GUILFOYLE: And he gave the speech in Ohio.

PERINO: And you know that the debt ceiling is coming. There's already discussions about that, Iran Sanctions Bill Act. Actually the policy is able to move forward at the same time. So I think that the White House -- they're not out of the woods by any means on this issue. This was like -- basically like putting another log on the fire. There's a lots of inconsistencies. The Democrats are going to press. And the president didn't comment today. And we might hear that he might -- he hasn't commented yet.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: And I think that that was also a different strategy. But I also just go back to what James Comey was talking about, about the FBI. It's one of the reasons that this backfired politically for President Trump. Because they thought that the Democrats would be thrilled. Because they don't like James Comey either for what they think he did to Hillary Clinton. And they believe that the FBI didn't like him.

Now maybe there were a few disgruntled employees but the truth is, James Comey is actually widely respected all across the country. He is known U.S. attorneys for years. He was the district -- the U.S. attorney here in New York. He was down there in Virginia. He worked at the Justice Department. He has been at the FBI for eight years.

GUILFOYLE: Right.

PERINO: So he's got allies all over the place and that's why there was a revolt. And he has felt some obligation to say something about the institution.

STIREWALT: No tweets.

GUILFOYLE: No tweets. So let me stay on the --

STIREWALT: And if this is --

(CROSSTALK)

STIREWALT: If this is what and I really believe this is a moment of opportunity for this administration in a way that we haven't seen before. Because if they take to heart the seriousness, the gravity of this issue, how high the stakes are for them and they get serious, if the president doesn't tweet rage, if we don't have incoherent statements, if they speak with one voice and as Dana said, crucially most importantly, his voters need to feel, not just his voters, the whole country needs to feel like there's an agenda, it's moving. Something is happening.

PERINO: And it is.

STIREWALT: We're getting action. We're joining staff.

GUILFOYLE: Yes. As Dana pointed out, he's quite busy this week, getting a number of things done. And in fact, this went and it was handled very well. Comey gave his testimony which again was consistent with what the president said. I mean, he kept saying over and over, he told me I was not under investigation, three times.

And then this was confirmed today. It was confirmed in the statement yesterday. If I'm the president's attorney, I'm very happy because I didn't hear anything about obstruction of justice or collusion. I had my client's testimony and statement essentially validated, prior consistent statements. So that's a credibility push right there.

STIREWALT: Right, but you would also tell your client, I know, because --

GUILFOYLE: Yes. Well that James Comey gets queasy and wants to blend into the curtains and he's terrified --

STIREWALT: You would also tell your client, you would say listen to me. I'm going to go out and say this was a great day for us. We killed it. I'm going to have this great press conference. But you better know that you could be in big trouble on this and you better straighten up, fly right and sit tight. Keep that collar up and stay off the Twitter.

FOWLER: I agree there, but I disagree with how this White House handled it. I thought this White House is truly flat-footed today. You had one thing from this lawyer, you had no Cabinet secretaries, no White House --

PERINO: That's fine. This is exactly what I would have done.

(CROSSTALK)

FOWLER: If you didn't have GOP senators, the president come out and say, this is malarkey. All you had was a well-paid New York attorney, come out and fill the kitchen sink --

PERINO: He's doing his job.

FOWLER: He's doing the kitchen sink as opposed in Comey's testimony.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't want --

FOWLER: But if that -- it was in his statements --

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: Why would you want everybody --

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: -- and being inconsistent. It's a problem.

FOWLER: Last week, we had the same conversation about the street fighters. And Lanny Davis model and I would hope the president kept it. I think today was a bad move for him.

GUILFOYLE: Well, he had these people --

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: Right. If you have one person who is consistent on their messaging -- no, you don't want people giving any giving any inconsistent statements and then everyone would sit here and criticize and say, why do you have so many people on, good day for the President. They're stepping all over themselves. And this person said --

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: I got to go back. It's not a good day for Comey. Come on. Rubio made a really good point about the only bad things that -- I mean, the only things that are generally bad things and that -- there was that -- one important point that was never leaked that he wasn't being investigated. So that shows a partisan agenda going -- that's involved in the leaking itself. And then saying that the leaking was in response to a tweet? That's kind of dishonest in itself.

And it's not a legitimate response to a tweet, because a tweet is transparent. When you tweet something, your name is behind it. When you leak something, your name is not behind it. So that's how it is.

GUILFOYLE: And we found out who --

PERINO: No, I disagree.

GUILFOYLE: -- leak today

GUTFELD: Yeah.

GUILFOYLE: The head of the FBI. I mean --

GUTFELD: Yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

FOWLER: It it's not leak. It wasn't classified. It was his work.

GUILFOYLE: I totally disagree with that. If not his own personal work --

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: No, it is not. He is the director of the FBI.

FOWLER: He wrote the memo.

GUILFOYLE: If I can for once one second, please. He is the director of the FBI. He prepared those statements, OK? And that memo contemporaneous with his experience with the president, with his conversation to memorialize it. And the court of law, that's called work product. Because he did that and the conversation was part of his job, government pay as the head of the FBI.

So therefore, guess what? If I'm going to court, I'm getting all of that. That's a work product, that's discovery. So when he says that he is sending this to his buddy, the professor at Columbia -- trust me.

GUTFELD: And you can't trust the Columbia professor. Hey, John Roberts is waiting for us, Kimberly.

GUILFOYLE: No, obviously. John Roberts, John Roberts. Counsel to the president Kellyanne Conway talked with Martha MacCallum tonight where she downplayed the hoopla surrounding Comey's testimony. We might get that in a moment but I do believe we have John Roberts ready.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: Today, the White House's business as usual. The president hosted he's usual array of meetings, everything single day he's doing something at that White House to move his agenda forward. And today was no different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: All right. And joining us, and there he is, the man of the hour. With more on the reactions of the Trump administration, Chief White House correspondent, John Roberts. Can you settle some disputes here for us?

JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS: Hey, good evening to you, Kimberly. You know, we haven't heard from the president officially on all of these today. But I'm told by a source familiar with the matter that the president was very pleased with the testimony today on Capitol Hill from James Comey. First and foremost, because Comey finally said in public and repeatedly that the president was not the target of the investigation. And that he was not seeking to shut down the Russian investigation.

The president was also, I'm told, interested to learn that Comey outed himself as the leaker and that he admitted he leaked the information in order to prompt the appointment of a special prosecutor. Now to the president's thinking, it proved the he was right all along about not being under investigation and that people were leaking information to try to harm him. Two other questions being ask around here tonight.

First of all, why was Comey so sure that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was going to recuse himself from the Russia investigation? It wasn't until about three weeks later that Sessions recused himself and if you remember, that was after his meetings with the Russian ambassador became public. Comey knew about those meetings. Did he know that the information was going to come out?

The other question being asked around here, is the president, who is new to politics and protocol, think that it was OK to have a private meeting with the FBI Director and here's the reason why. Back on January 6, the very first time that James Comey met the president. It was during that intelligence briefing at Trump Tower. He at the end of the meeting asked everyone to leave so that he could speak privately with the president about that unverified dossier. Did that precedent say to the president, "Hey, it's OK" after a meeting to have a private meeting with the FBI director? One of the questions being asked around here.

Another question, why did Comey didn't think it was necessary after that meeting to write things down? Why did he think that the president was going to lie to him when it was Comey who asked the president for a private meeting and Comey who told the president about all this salacious information that was included in this dossier? So some things to chew over in the days ahead I think after the testimony today. Kimberly?

GUILFOYLE: All right, John, thanks for that update. Fascinating day indeed. Greg, we're going to stick the roundtable with a quick good reaction.

GUTFELD: Trump alone with Comey, probably wrong to do it. Maybe violated some policy but it's what he does. He violates stuff. He didn't break the law. I don't think that's anything new. However, leaking to prompt a special counsel, that's a D.C. version of tattling.

Again, it's really weak. I find him to be the most timid head of the FBI ever. Why don't you just ask Trump what he means? Instead of going, I'm so confused. I'm so confused. Yes, why don't you just say, what do you want? Tell me what do you want?

PERINO: One of the things he said is that he was trying to protect the president from that -- from answering that question. He was trying to back off. I mean, when you're in there with the commander in chief, the leader of the free world, it's just a different thing than like being --

GUTFELD: I've never been in that situation.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: -- that the real work is being done by Bob Mueller.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's exactly right.

PERINO: I -- he is the special counsel and we did have a little news from them today. One of his deputies said that he believes that this will be wrapped up in three months. That is good news.

GUILFOYLE: Absolutely. I'm sure the White House would be happy about that too.

STIREWALT: So I think Comey definitely got his revenge on Trump. He outplayed Trump. Trump wanted to humiliate Comey. He -- the way he did the firing, the embarrassment, all of the stuff. He wanted to send the message to Comey and all of that stuff.

And as it's -- in life as in politics, when you try to do it with bravado and you try to stick to the other guy and you try do it that way, what goes around comes around.

GUILFOYLE: All right, a comment --

FOWLER: Listen, all I got to say is I don't understand why everybody is beating up on Comey here. The real -- the reason why we are here --

GUTFELD: That's just me.

STIREWALT: Yes, just you. But the reason why we are beating up on Comey is because Donald Trump is reckless. This is recklessness by the president. Meeting with him alone, his crazy Twitter fingers, these all recklessness by the president of United State, which is why we're here today.

GUTFELD: But it's words, not deeds, Richard.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: I love having an inappropriate president. What's so wrong with having an inappropriate president?

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: And it's words. It's not -- no one is dying. We're acting like he killed somebody. No, we had a private conversation.

He had a reckless conversation. Who hasn't? That's what he did for a living.

GUILFOYLE: Right. We'll see if special counsel will make a determination but no laws were broken thus far based on what you heard today and the statement released yesterday. The president of the United States, he has the right to be able to speak to whoever he wants when he wants too.

We're going to play one of the biggest bombshells of the testimony ahead. Comey says he was directed to downplay the Clinton investigation by his former boss, next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: So remember when you were a kid and you got an ice-cream cone and it dropped to the cement right as you licked it? That's how it must feel today to be a Democrat. Here you think Mr. Comey was going to deliver Donald Trump on an edible platter and instead, you get Loretta Lynch.

Comey told under oath that President Obama's attorney general asked him to call the investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal, "a matter" not an investigation. Roll it, Francis:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMEY: The only other consideration that I guess I can talk about in an open setting is, at one point, the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me. But that was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude, I have to step away from the department if we're to close this case credibly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

It confused me and it concerned to me. I would file that under "wow." And it raises more questions than my question-raising farm. First: When does the hearing on this revelation begin? Lynch gave campaign language to Comey to cover up an investigation to help Hillary's campaign. That's inappropriate. We're talking Al Franken in a mesh thong inappropriate.

GUILFOYLE: But not illegal.

GUTFELD: That's true. And how great is it -- this is wonderful. How great is it that Hillary is still causing the Democrats fits? The Loretta Lynch thing is only an issue because she had to deal with the Hillary "matter." Hillary really is the Democrats' unrelenting mother-in-law who comes to visit when they least want her.

So, in a hearing meant to hammer Trump, the previous crew gets nailed. It's like when a stink bomb goes up before you have time to throw it, you end up smelling bad the rest of the day.

Which is what happened to Lynch, Hillary and yes, even Comey. His decision to obey undermines this persona of a folksy everyman just trying to do his job. But it seems he'd do just about anything to keep his job, including look the other way.

GUILFOYLE: So interesting.

GUTFELD: Did you understand it? Do you want me read it again? Let's do this thing again.

FOWLER: What are you accusing him of?

GUTFELD: What am I accusing him, he will?

GUILFOYLE: That he wanted to keep his job --

GUTFELD: That's Loretta Lunch. I think that what she did is wrong.

STIREWALT: He obeyed her instruction to call it a matter --

GUTFELD: Yes, yes..

STIREWALT: -- because he wanted --

GUTFELD: According to the testimony, that's kind of what he implied. He didn't like it. It made him feel uncomfortable because everything makes him feel uncomfortable, Chris. Mean people make him feel uncomfortable.

STIREWALT: No, I get it. But when he talked about Hillary Clinton and he called it an investigation/

GUTFELD: Yes, he did, he did. But he didn't tell -- he didn't question her. He didn't feel that was inappropriate. He didn't leak that. Why didn't he leak that?

FOWLER: Did you miss the big press conference that he gave talking about Hillary Clinton's e-mails?

GUTFELD: Yes. I know. But he didn't --

FOWLER: Clearly, it is.

GUILFOYLE: Well, and if President Trump's conversations were so inappropriate, he did not sort of resign like he did before with that?

GUTFELD: Is that a big deal.

STIREWALT: Right.

GUTFELD: All right.

STIREWALT: James Comey unquestionably has a bad habit of placing himself in a position above everyone else. He did it in this case, he did it in the Hillary Clinton case, he said I have deemed that no one here -- he did it in '04. No one here is decent enough, only I, James Comey, have the moral government (ph) so that I can stand above all of this and make a judgment.

And when he does it, he gets himself in trouble. That having been said, he did it with Hillary Clinton and then he did with Donald Trump. I had to go outside the lines because I was the last honest man.

That has been a problem for him. But in this case, he roasted Hillary Clinton.

GUTFELD: I know, I know.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: This interesting thing that we sjust found out now. We just found out now, which is obviously has something to do with the tarmac --

STIREWALT: But that was gross what she -- what the attorney general did was great but that's not on Comey.

GUTFELD: Well, kind of. No, it's on her. Did you miss the first part of the monologue?

STIREWALT: But he didn't --

(CROSSTALK)

STIREWALT: But he didn't obey.

GUTFELD: He kind of did.

STIREWALT: Not really.

GUTFELD: He did -- yes, he did.

FOWLER: Can I just --

GUTFELD: Yes?

FOWLER: Can I just say this?

GUTFELD: Sure.

FOWLER: So today, this is an overall bad day for the Justice Department and the United States, whether it's Jeff Sessions' Justice Department or Loretta Lynch's Justice Department. The high road here is this, the Justice Department should be beyond reproach. Today, we found out that both Jeff Sessions and Loretta Lynch are below reproach. Period.

GUTFELD: All right. What do you think, Kimberly?

GUILFOYLE: You know, I think it was -- yes, very bad day I think for Hillary Clinton. Bad day for Loretta Lynch, bad day for Comey, very bad day for Comey's, you know --

FOWLER: Don't forget Jeff Sessions.

GUILFOYLE: -- phone a friend, the Columbia professor that was not good for him, Jeff Sessions --

FOWLER: Bad day.

GUILFOYLE: Yes, not a great day for him either.

FOWLER: Bad day.

GUILFOYLE: But if you're -- when you're handing out all these bad day cards -- the president doesn't get a bad day card.

(CROSSTALK)

FOWLER: At the top of Comey's.

GUIFOYLE: I don't think so.

(CROSSTALK)

GUIFOYLE: If Comey thought it was so bad, he should have got all the quiz.

(CROSSTALK)

GUIFOYLE: . type one up, and then hit save draft.

FOWLER: K.G., I love you. I love you, I do. But with that being said, let's be real. The beginning of Comey's testimony started with saying the president is a liar, right, which we find out to be true because he told Lester Holt in the interview, that I indeed fired James Comey because of the Russian election, not because of this memo, not because of anything else. That means our president is a liar.

GUTFELD: You're telling me that somebody in the White House that has lied? This has got to be a first. We need that breaking news sound to come in right now.

(CROSSTALK)

FOWLER: Every other word. Don't believe him. Every other word.

GUTFELD: Yeah, we know who we elected.

FOWLER: Don't believe it.

PERINO: Well, we know who we elected. Thoughts, Dana?

PERINO: Well, we mentioned '04, and in fact, I think it was Tom Cotton, the senator from Arkansas, who asked James Comey to talk about -- in 2004, he went to the bedside of Ashcroft and all this stuff happens. It sounds similar, right? But here's a big difference. George Bush didn't fire him because the aftermath of the consequences of firing him -- he probably did, but there were -- there would have been consequences for it. There are consequences for things that you do. The other this is that.

GUIFOYLE: If he thought that was so bad that he thought about resigning and he didn't.

PERINO: That's right.

GUIFOYLE: . would you still be doing your job as FBI director? No, I would still be.

PERINO: The big difference too is that, actually, it was about a program for intelligence. We're on a war footing and we were able with congress in order to get the policies worked out and put in legislation in a way that everybody could accept. That's one of the ways you handle thing in Washington. It's kind of old fashion. The other thing is that the tarmac meeting with Lynch and Clinton, I think this is -- there wasn't enough questioning about that in terms of how inappropriate that he think that was at the time. We all thought it was highly inappropriate. Then, how inappropriate might it have been -- you can see why people would asked why is it inappropriate for the president to ask everybody to leave and meet with the FBI director? There are parallels here both sides.

FOWLER: Enormous.

PERINO: . having a problem.

GUTFELD: All right, let's move on. Let's play some more sound from the Comey hearing today. Here's the former FBI director on the subject of Russia's meddling in our election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did it with purpose, they did it with sophistication, they did it with overwhelming technical efforts, and it was an active measures campaign driven from the top of that government. There is no fuzz on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: Chris, this is really the overarching message here. The fact that -- no matter what's going on, they did -- they may not have hacked the election but they undermined our institution just by having us go through all this.

STIREWALT: Right. And the grave necessity for both parties is, is to understand Russia is -- as some guy who's running for president once said, America's number one geopolitical foe. And it was something Democrats didn't use to take seriously. Now there are some Republicans who -- and I think it's a relatively speaking.

GUIFOYLE: Good day also I like to say for Romney, then.

(LAUGHTER)

STIREWALT: Every day is a good day for Romney.

GUIFOYLE: You know why, the hair.

STIREWALT: He doesn't have to be secretary of state.

GUTFELD: The best looking guy that ever ran for president.

STIREWALT: And he doesn't have to be secretary of state.

(CROSSTALK)

STIREWALT: But this has been a good experience for America because we've had Democrats have to come to terms with what Russia represents on the world stage, and now Republicans are having to come to terms of, yeah, they were definitely involved in this election and that's too bad.

GUIFOYLE: So they interfered, but no votes, there was no manipulation or hacking of the voting system machines or anything like that. And there was also today no evidence of collusion by the president or by his transition or his campaign with Russia so far, anything that we've heard of. And there was also no evidence of obstruction of justice, and also no resignation contemplated by Jim Comey, who has thought about that in the past, when he has been that disturbed by behavior, actions, conduct.

GUTFELD: Richard, this interference in the election happened under President Obama, why wasn't he impeached?

FOWLER: Oh, lord.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: The Russians.

PERINO: Oh, Carrie Underwood reference.

FOWLER: So I would give you the fact -- we, the Democrats have said for a long time that the Russians gauge our election, even though people don't believe us.

GUTFELD: I thought we all felt that way.

FOWLER: But we now know that it is true. And so, here's my thing, like I said, I think what we learned today was we saw bipartisanship in the senate. And I think there's two tracks here, you have this investigation happening with a special counsel, and that is one thing. And you have the senate investigation, the senate investigation is fact-finding, and hopefully this will urge our members of congress to modernize our voting system so we won't be able to get hacked by the Russians, period. And hopefully, when the smaller investigation is done, we'll figure out what happened and what didn't happen. With you, Kimberly, is on this point of, yes, the president wasn't under investigation. If you notice, every statement that has been in released, the key word there is past tense, wasn't, right? And the White House cannot, as of today, they can't say the president isn't under investigation.

GUIFOYLE: Are you breaking some news? There's no evidence.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: But that would be true for everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: I'm currently not under investigation.

FOWLER: I know that I'm not currently under investigation.

PERINO: How do you know that? You don't know that.

FOWLER: You don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

GUTFELD: I know what you've been doing.

STIREWALT: All of this stuff here, this was a piece, this was a little window into what's going on. As you point out, what's Mueller is doing is the real thing. The best news arguably out of a tough day for the White House is may be what Dana said.

Dane: Three months.

STIREWALT: It could be three months from the finish line. And that this could be over.

FOWLER: It could be a bad finish, though.

STIREWALT: But as Trump said to Comey -- I thought is very revealing that Comey said was that Trump told him, hey, if I've got any satellites, anybody who works for me who did bad things, let's find that out. I want to know that now, not later. So this is the president saying and that was the key part of Rubio's line of questioning, which was, Trump was not looking to quash the investigation. He said if you got it, let it rip. Let's get there. I want to find out about it. If I have satellites, people who work for him presumably, that did wrong things he wants to know about it. So if this moves to a terminal phase quickly, within, three months that would be great news for this administration because they could get over it and move on.

GUIFOYLE: And they want to get things done. They want to accomplish their agenda.

FOWLER: If that would be the case, I would hope the president would urge some of these individuals that seems -- that could be involve to move a little bit quicker. He tweets all these stuff about the Democrats and mainstream media but he never once tweeted and say, hey, can we get some information so we can move on?

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: Maybe this going to take too long to explain, Dana, but I do think McCain got a raw deal on what he was trying to explain.

PERINO: I think that McCain was trying to get to the point that you're making in your monologue about the Lynch piece.

GUTFELD: Yeah.

PERINO: People made fun of him said it was confused -- I actually thought that the hearing at large was actually very good. It seems like he was disturbed like, wait a minute, am I the only one who heard him say that there was this lynch piece, and so he was trying to drill down on that. The other thing that's happening right now and from the bigger picture standpoint is the senate is also moving forward with sanctions on Russia, as well as Iran because now it seems like there is agreement, bipartisan agreement, on the senate intelligence committee that Russia was trying to do these things. That this sanctions actually might be a bipartisan endeavor by the president at the end of the day.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: There's a lot of things I hate and I can't keep track anymore. All right, a lot of Democrats suddenly love James Comey again after his testimony today. You'll hear some of the reaction in the mainstream media.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PERINO: We continue tonight with our top story, James Comey historic testimony on Capitol Hill today. You probably remember that Mr. Comey upset many Democrats with his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, especially his decision to announce the probe had been reopened just 11 days before the election. Here's how Democrats reacted to today's testimony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOWLER: Well, I found it quite stunning. It's not every day you have a former director of the FBI saying that he couldn't trust the president.

FOWLER: What we saw today was that the president demanded loyalty. He wanted the case against his friend, Michael Flynn, to go away, and that he obsessively hounded the FBI director.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: We saw confirmation in Director Comey's resolute testimony, detailing the frightening reality of President Trump's pattern of contempt for justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: And here's a flavor of how the media is reacting to Comey's day on the hill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOWLER: There is no other way to walk away from Comey's testimony today, without thinking that the former director of the FBI thinks the president of the United States is a liar.

FOWLER: The assumption of the critics to the president of his pursuer, you might say, is that somewhere in the line of the last year, the president had something to do with colluding with the Russians, and yet what came apart this morning with that theory.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: He might not be a Democrat, he might not be Republican, but boy, is this guy political. He's not just a boy's scout. He wants to affect something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: OK. There's a mix of things, but what Chris Matthews was saying was actually good for President Trump.

STIREWALT: Right, very much so. And to the end, the Democrats are playing this wrong. They need to be highly conscious. If you set this up -- was it you who said, on an edible platter? Donald Trump on an edible platter?

GUTFELD: A taco.

STIREWALT: A taco bowl. If you as a Democrat say, and Comey will destroy and all things are coming, and you do all this stuff, we were talking basically about -- how long is that? Two hour?

PERINO: Two and a half hours.

STIREWALT: Two and a half hours interview about a few meetings and some notes. This was a snapshot that had slurp by Comey's intent into the public space. They were able to talk about it. They couldn't talk about it. They had already talked about all of these stuffs behind closed doors. Now they were able to talk about it in the open. They've had a little discussion about it. And the beat goes on. Democrats pleaded up to such a degree that anything short of instant twitterfried impeachment of Donald Trump seems like a disappointment.

PERINO: That's right. And also, Democrats we see they love Comey, they hate him. It's like they're on again and off again.

GUTFELD: They're on and off like porn stars in a hurricane.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: Is that a throwback to Kurt what-his-face.

FOWLER: Tucker did that earlier.

(CROSSTALK) FOWLER: This is a family show.

GUTFELD: I just notice the reaction of the Democrats and the media is often interchangeable. And we are the oasis of balance and the sea of barking bias, so I like it. But Scott has this great metaphor about how -- America is watching two movie screens, and in one movie screen, Trump is evil, and the other movie screen he's just fine. And every now and then, they collide. And today is a perfect example of when they collide when you have everybody is sitting around a table who would watch two different movies.

GUIFOYLE: And the Democrats are the ones that have the 3D IMAX.

(LAUGHTER)

GUIFOYLE: . I'm freaking out and itching. That's what they're doing.

GUTFELD: And I'm the one that snuck in a bottle of vodka.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: So Richard are you -- on Comey now?

FOWLER: No, I said all along, and I will say again, I think I said it on this show, I think Democrats have a bad strategy. This is a slow car wreck, right. We don't want to see.

PERINO: It's in the fast lane now.

FOWLER: It is.

PERINO: It really is.

FOWLER: It might be a fast car wreck. But the moral of the story here is you just have to watch the car wreck happens. Don't engage, don't push the car. Just let the car wreck happen. I do believe that this White House some over time, just based on their antics, will disintegrate, right. And so, because of that.

GUIFOYLE: I'm so sorry, go where?

FOWLER: I think his agenda could disintegrate.

(CROSSTALK)

FOWLER: The point I'm trying to make it, K.G., is this. I think Democrats needs to be very quiet and let the special counsel do its job. I think it's going to turn out -- we'll see what happens, but I don't see a solution to this that's going to be good for President Trump. I think we've got to be quiet.

PERINO: So if the Democrats don't do it, Richard is saying, if they see that all of this ground, and they're just holding the Russian bag all summer long, and the senate Republicans are moving forward on all of these other pieces of legislation, are they missing an opportunity or are they trying to be obstructionist?

STIREWALT: Well, it worked very well for the Republicans when they did it to Barack Obama. And they won back the house, they won back the senate, and they eventually got back the presidency through the sheer power of will, obstruction, and -- they used scandal.

PERINO: That's a big word for this show.

STIREWALT: They used scandals. They used Benghazi. They used.

PERINO: Obamacare.

STIREWALT: Obamacare.

PERINO: But those are all real.

STIREWALT: Right.

PERINO: IRS scandal.

STIREWALT: . and so Democrats are going to now say, OK, well, if it was good enough for you to do to us. Then, we're going to do it to you. Why not?

FOWLER: Here's the thing, we don't have to obstruct in this case because President Trump health care bill has its own problems amongst the Republican Party.

(CROSSTALK)

GUIFOYLE: But what are you going to do when health care passes?

FOWLER: It won't. He won't get 50 votes.

PERINO: I'll make you a $50 bet right here.

(CROSSTALK)

FOWLER: I believe -- if they've had anything, I think if they pass anything it will be closer to Obamacare -- way close to Obamacare.

PERINO: I'm not betting you.

(CROSSTALK)

FOWLER: It's going to be Obamacare light.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: The sun is going to come up tomorrow.

PERINO: Up ahead, did President Trump tape his conversations with Mr. Comey? We'll have a report, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: Welcome back to "The Five."

STIREWALT: After President Trump fired James Comey last month, he suggested, where else, twitter, that there may be recordings of his conversations with the former FBI director. Comey said today he'd be glad if that's true.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMEY: I've seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there're tapes. I remember saying I agree he's a good guy, as a way of saying I'm not agreeing with what you just asked me to do. Again, maybe other people would be stronger in that circumstance, but that's how I conducted myself. I hope I never have another opportunity. Maybe if I did it again, I would do it better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STIREWALT: Don't we all. Don't we all -- I mean, could there be anything better, Greg, than if there were actual recordings of life inside the Trump White House, and you could hear everything that was said in the oval office?

GUTFELD: I don't think anything good comes from recordings. I long for the days, the early '80s.

(LAUGHTER)

GUTFELD: Look, you know, we've got to ban the word Lordy, OK. Let's ban that tomorrow.

STIREWALT: Why?

GUTFELD: Because we don't have, one more thing. But you know what, right now, our collective eyes is being taken off the ball, where terror is on the uptick. People are dying all over and we're obsessing over a meeting between a very tall government official and -- who got nervous. He got nervous over his new boss. No one die, but there are people dying everywhere and we are obsessing over a meeting where somebody felt discomfort.

GUIFOYLE: The Benghazi people died, right?

GUTFELD: Yeah. And by the way.

PERINO: We obsessed over that too.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: We did, they didn't.

(CROSSTALK)

STIREWALT: Kimberly, if there are tapes, you would be able to get them? Can the senate get them? Who can get them? What's the law?

GUIFOYLE: Yeah, they can compel the production to make sure that they come forth. But they'll have to listen to make sure that it's something that, you know, doesn't have any kind of privilege or, you know, top-secret clearance information in there. So that's what they would do. They'll review it.

STIREWALT: Probably was threatening or joking? Or not seeing like it was intimating tapes because if there's tapes that would not be necessarily be helpful, right?

GUIFOYLE: We call that a POTUS head fake.

(LAUGHTER)

GUIFOYLE: And Comey would be like, I feel queasy.

PERINO: And now they have a special counsel.

GUIFOYLE: And he wanted a special counsel.

(CROSSTALK)

GUIFOYLE: . wait a minute, and sent to his friend, meet my little memos, the covering case.

(CROSSTALK)

STIREWALT: And Richard, if Democrats could -- the head fake worked for Comey and then eventually against Trump as Dana points out because the net effect was about the special counsel.

GUIFOYLE: The net effect is the president has been vindicated, confirmed, three times told that he's not the subject of any Russia investigation.

(CROSSTALK)

GUIFOYLE: . as Dana said in three months.

STIREWALT: But you would say that it is fair to say, or I'd hope you say that it's fair to say.

GUIFOYLE: I love prosecutors, though.

STIREWALT: That there were half a dozen or a dozen moments where the president could have helped his case instead of hurt it in his dealings with James Comey. That they were better ways that it could have been handled, and that he might not necessarily had to have a special prosecutor.

GUIFOYLE: So perhaps just taken the path with less resistance.

STIREWALT: Right, the less.

GUTFELD: I think we can all agree with that.

STIREWALT: OK, we can all agree with that.

GUIFOYLE: less tumultuous.

STIREWALT: So for Democrats, as much as the head fake caused these troubles, for Democrats, though, they can't quite let go of this tape idea. I think -- and we're going to get Dana Perino's expert opinion, but I doubt there's a tape. I doubt there's any kind of tapes, but the Democrats are out there and they're like, oh, are there tapes? Maybe there's tapes.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: It's called a head fake.

FOWLER: If this is a head fake, then it is a bad head fake by the president of the United States because it got us to this. Like Greg said, we're talking about a couple of meetings and a tape, right. But with that being said, I mean, my thought on this, I want Americans to succeed as the president to succeed, that will be a reality. Sadly, this president.

(CROSSTALK) STIREWALT: That's extremely high-minded of you.

FOWLER: But sadly, this president mires himself down in these really stupid, icky things. This is an example of it. And this is why Democrats, not me, other Democrats are like, come on, let's get to the business of the country. Let's have a conversation about how we fix the Affordable Care Act. Let's spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure. I'll vote for that. But instead, we spent all day talking about the fact that you can't stay off of twitter, and you don't know how to manage your staff, and you can't control leakers, so we're here.

STIREWALT: But Dana, 48 hours, almost, the president -- we've seen message discipline.

PERINO: He's been head faking you. There you go.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Take all the TV's out. I thought it was funny.

(LAUGHTER)

PERINO: . the president was wandering around the oval office saying why isn't my download working yet? And the staffs were like.

STIREWALT: The WIFI broke.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: You've got to remember, we all learn this, every time you count this guy out, the next day, you've got to count him back in. Trump is harder to get.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: I'm sorry.

PERINO: And say something similar. I just want to be able to say that he uses twitter to great effect to help win an election. He uses it to inform people. He uses it to make us laugh. Confefe was actually funny. But then his staff is like, well, don't take him seriously. Don't take him seriously on twitter, focus on what he does. But then, the press secretary says, no, these are official statements. And then, the senior staff says, no, please ignore it. And today he announces the FBI director on twitter, and the staff didn't even know what's happening. Twitter is actually effective for him, and there's nothing that happened today that will make any Republican decide that they need to walk away from Donald Trump right now, and that's why that agenda in the senate it so important. Before the August recess, you're going to have several policy things would get done and he will be able to basically take a victory lap in the fall.

FOWLER: We'll see.

PERINO: . is my prediction.

GUTFELD: He's harder to get rid of than love handles.

PERINO: Those are hard.

FOWLER: Liposuction.

GUTFELD: I will never do that.

(LAUGHTER)

GUILFOYLE: We love you just the way you are.

(CROSSTALK)

STIREWALT: Guys, thank you so much for having me here. That's it for us. The coverage of today's Comey testimony continues right now with Sean Hannity. Goodnight, everybody.

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