Carter Page: It was not an attack on me, it was an attack on Trump

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Carter Page: It was not an attack on me, it was an attack on Trump

Former Trump campaign associate Carter Page speaks out on FISA abuse on 'Hannity.'

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," May 31, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: All right. Welcome to this special edition of Hannity: Act 2, "The Deep State's Day of Reckoning".

Now, tonight, we are inching closer and closer to real truth, real justice and holding those who abuse power at the highest levels accountable. For over two years on this program, we watched a political witch hunt like we have never seen in American politics before, based on lies and smears and outright conspiracy theories.

And just like we've been telling you all week, the Russia hoax has now completely unraveled. The Mueller report is over, it is dead, it is buried. We have now had four separate investigations. Oh, the FBI nine- month investigation, House Intel Committee, bipartisan Senate committee, and even the Mueller report -- no collusion, no conspiracy with Russia.

And as we predicted, it's now boomeranging right on to those who did abuse power, did try to influence the outcome of an election and then overturn a duly elected president. Act 1 is over. The curtain is beginning to rise. Act 2 begins.

There is a new sheriff in town and his name is Bill Barr. And earlier today, he weighed in on the origins of the Russia probe. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Like many other people familiar with intelligence activities, I had a lot of questions about what was going on. I assumed I would get answers and I have not gotten answers that are satisfactory. And, in fact, I have more questions. Some of the facts that I learned don't hang together with the official explanations of what happened.

JAN CRAWFORD, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: What do you mean?

BARR: That's all I really will say. Things are just not jiving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Things are not jiving. On this show now, we have been honest from the start. And in the process, over two years, we have been digging deep. We've uncovered, yes, the biggest abuse of power, corruption scandal in modern political history, maybe in all of our history.

So, tonight for you, we have a special show. We have brought in together the all-star ensemble cast, those that have every step of the way been helping America get to the truth and exposing the spying scandal, this Russian conspiracy theory since the start.

So, tonight, for the full hour, we're going to break it all down. We're going to do what we do night after night. We're going to stick to the facts and the truth. We're going to be honest, and when every one else, the 99 percent of liars that push hoax and conspiracy theories, the media mob, as they continue to be wrong, a rigged investigation into Hillary Clinton to save their favorite candidate, the dirty Russian dossier, FISA abuse fraud, literally, purposely misleading, committing a fraud on a court on multiple occasions, using spies and informants to deep state efforts to undermine a president-elected by you, the American people, after they first tried to steal an election.

Tonight, we shine a spotlight on all of this and tonight, we're taking it apart piece by piece, because we are only days away from the release now that the classification has occurred of major documents that will all expose the real election scandal, the real efforts to spy on the Trump campaign, FISA applications, 302s, Gang of Eight intel material, exculpatory material. As I said, an avalanche is coming.

The cascading down with truth for the American people. There's no stopping it now. It's not a matter of if. It is when this all becomes public, so the gig is up. For the hate-Trump media mob, their Democratic allies, they've been pushing lie after lie after lie for 2.5 years ago.

And also remember this which is really important, because how this all started, a phony investigation, it all started because Hillary Clinton should win 100 million to zero. And, by the way, if you voted for Donald Trump, you are a smelly Walmart voter. I like Walmart. And, by the way, you're an irredeemable deplorable that clings to your god, your guns, your bible and religion. That's what the Democratic Party thinks of us.

A massive amount of top secret classified material was found on her unsecured private server in a mom and pop bathroom closet called and managed by Platte River Networks. Yes, that's a crime, 18 USC 793. She committed real felonies and she had a clear intent when she destroyed the evidence by deleting 33,000 emails, Bleach Bit on the hard drive, busting up devices with hammers and removing SIM cards.

Where's all the Democratic and media hysteria about real obstruction, with a real crime, real intention? Oh, that's right. One standard for the Clintons, one standard for Democrats and one for everybody else.

Look at your screen. Look at what the violation is, 18 USC 793. We've talked often about it.

So, why was Hillary Clinton cleared? Why did they rig that investigation? Why did Comey and Strzok -- you know, why did they change in May of 2016 before they ever interviewed Hillary or the other people involved? Why did they change it from the legal standard of gross negligence to extreme carelessness?

There was clear, overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence that this secret classified information was mishandled and put on a server which made it illegal, multiple felonies. Clear, incontrovertible evidence she destroyed the 33,000 subpoenaed emails and did all of the things to eliminate all the evidence. And remember, the Strzok and Ppage text about the Trump voters, remember, smelly Walmart people, Hillary, remember, win 100 million to zero.

Well, they were the lead investigators in this case and then immediately turned on Donald Trump. After Strzok who was the one that interviewed Clinton and actually allowed two other people in the room at the same time, that never happens.

He was writing Hillary's exoneration in May, that didn't interview her until July 2nd of 2016, Comey cleared her on July 5th, 2016. But not before Cheryl Mills was granted immunity, not before the infamous tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton and the attorney general at the time, Loretta Lynch.

So, what did Lynch know? When did she know it? Because Strzok and Page also say that, oh, Loretta Lynch rigged Hillary's investigation. Horribly flawed, an injustice, and if we want to save this great democratic republic that we inherited, that so many sacrificed and died for, we must have equal justice under the law, equal application of our laws and we must be ever so vigilant to be a constitutional republic.

After Clinton lost, then the insurance policy kicked in. All roads lead back to the dirty Russian dossier bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton, the DNC, with funneled money through her law firm, into an op research firm. And then, yes, a guy, a foreign national that put these Russian lies together.

Then those Russian lies bulk of information as the Nunes memo, the Grassley-Graham memo says, to literally spy not only on Carter Page but a back door to spy on all things Trump campaign, all things transition team Trump, all things President Trump, put together by Christopher Steele who didn't even standby his own work, an interrogatory in Great Britain said, I have no idea if any of this is true. He was also being paid by Fusion GPS, but really paid by Hillary.

And remember, DOJ official Bruce Ohr, at the time the fourth highest ranking member of the DOJ, he was warning in August of 2016. Steele hated Trump and Hillary paid for it and none is verified. Now even the "New York Times", of course, two years later in this show, says the dossier was likely Russian disinformation from the very beginning. And the State Department official, John Solomon, broke the story that Kathleen Kavalec was also sounding the alarm after meeting with Steele days, 10, 12 days before the first FISA application was signed by Jim Comey.

Night after night, we have literally been unpeeling the layers of this onion and ripping the mask off all of this corruption, trying to get to the truth to expose what has happened here. This was an attempt to literally fix a presidential election and destroy a duly elected president. There is a deep state. And now, the day of reckoning has come, and, by the way, the time for accountability is now.

All right. Joining us now, you look at this great panel we have. Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett, Fox News investigative reporter Sara Carter, investigative reporter, lead guy at "The Hill", John Solomon, former deputy assistant attorney general, Victoria Toensing, former U.S. attorney Joe diGenova, American Conservative Union chair, Matt Schlapp, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Fox News correspondent-at-large, Geraldo Rivera. This guy, Judicial Watch president, Mr. FOIA himself, Tom Fitton, is here, and Fox News contributor, former Clinton pollster Doug Schoen, that sees his party imploding before his eyes and will admit it.

First of all, and I mean this with all my heart. We wouldn't be here today, they probably would have succeeded had it not been for every single one of you. I applaud all of you for your deep digging and the hard work and the tough analysis.

And you as a former liberal, really being fair and wanting our president to succeed. Thank you all. I give you all a big hand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you.

HANNITY: I am just a talk show host.

If all of this happened and we are all right. We already know the Russia hoax is over. How do we fix this? Where do we begin?

I don't think you fix it unless you start at the beginning, which was the Hillary rigged investigation.

JOE DIGENOVA, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: The only thing that will bring accountability to the Obama Justice Department and FBI is a federal grand jury. The president of the United States picked the perfect man at this great inflection point in history, Bill Barr. He will not be stopped. He's going to get to the bottom of this. And that's exactly the only thing that will bring the truth out. A federal grand jury, testimony under oath, subpoenaed documents, get it done, and that's where we're headed.

HANNITY: And you believe all of that will happen?

DIGENOVA: Mr. Barr is the perfect man at the right moment in history.

HANNITY: Victoria?

VICTORIA TOENSING, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think what is scary is I do not believe that the 2016 election was the first rodeo on this kind of activity. There is evidence a FISA court opinion in 2017 that talks about the Obama administration violating FISA going back to 2012. There is also evidence of how they went against their political opponents. If you remember, Mike Flynn was a thorn in the side of the Obama administration.

HANNITY: Could you imagine the deputy FBI director bragging you don't need an attorney and the FBI director saying he took advantage of the chaos, setting up a 33-year vet?

TOENSING: Let's go back to 2014 when they set him up with that Russian woman and had people immediately start typing they were having an affair and we know that's false. She is now suing. If that were true, you think she'd be suing. She just filed a lawsuit last week.

There is evidence that this started in the early days of the 2nd term of President Obama and they just got better.

HANNITY: Does this go to the Oval Office? You are jumping ahead of me? But I planned on getting that.

TOENSING: Absolutely.

HANNITY: John?

JOHN SOLOMON, THE HILL EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: You know, dirty tricks, character assassination. They have been in elections for 40 years. What distinguishes this election is the fact that the United States government, the FBI, possibly the CIA and the NSA, were involved in carrying out a political dirty trick. That should concern us all.

Never in my lifetime have I known the FBI to do these things that are now in open and for all of us to see. It has to be --

HANNITY: Even when we had the Church hearings and --

SOLOMON: No, not --

HANNITY: Nothing compares?

SOLOMON: You can't ever find a time in history where the FBI and CIA sought to change the results of an election. Here, you may have that as the final outcome of this investigation.

HANNITY: You know, I have an FBI flag pin on and a CIA pin both given to me. And the reason is and I make this distinction almost every night, because my family was in law enforcement. My mom was a prison guard for 25 years, my dad a family court probation guy, everybody in my family was cops and two guards that made the FBI.

This is not about the 99 percent. Ninety-nine is that about right? Ninety-nine, good cops. Not what you say -- dirty cops.

DIGENOVA: Dirty cops, James Comey led the way.

HANNITY: When you first said it, I remember flinching on my show but I knew you were right.

Sara?

SARA CARTER, CONTRIBUTOR: I can't agree with them anymore that's already been said, but what I can say is this, this was a full disinformation campaign. And the reason why I say this, and we have never seen anything quite like this, is because they used the tools of the intelligence community, the tools we entrust our federally armed officers with and our CIA.

HANNITY: The most powerful in the world.

CARTER: Powerful agency on the planet. And they used it against their own political system. This is something that has never been seen before.

All you have to do is listen to Attorney General Barr to understand that this is exactly what is happening.

And as far as Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, Victoria is 100 percent right. Michael Flynn was a thorn in their side. But he came from their administration. He knew where the bodies were buried. He understood what was going on. And as soon as they saw him joined up with Trump --

HANNITY: They were afraid?

CARTER: They were terrified. They were terrified.

HANNITY: This is how we treat 33-year veterans that we have the FBI director and the deputy FBI director bragging they set them up?

CARTER: That's right.

HANNITY: That they told them not to get a lawyer when they already surveilled him illegally, unmasked him illegally, and leaked raw intelligence. Am I wrong on any of those points?

CARTER: You are not wrong on any of those points. Another point brought up here. This was not their first rodeo. And I think that's what scares them the most, Sean.

What terrifies them is that an investigation is not just about Trump. It's about what Barr is going to uncover. This has been going on for at least a decade, for at least a decade. And these agencies are terrified their power will be pulled from them and that they're not gong to have the same type of tools and capabilities they had in the past because they abused them.

SOLOMON: That's exactly right.

HANNITY: You two got this started in March, way over 2 years now. I remember the conversation we had that night. At different times, you thought people in this room were illegally surveilled and unmasked. Was that true?

SOLOMON: I had my concerns. We've been warned that there's some surveillance going on. Can I prove it? No, and it never stopped me for a second.

I want to say something though because when you talk about the tools and what Sara just said is so true, the guys who met me at the mailbox back in March of 2017, all I -- I can't tell you much, but I can tell you that the intelligence systems being used to carry out a political dirty trick. And why did they approach me. I asked them, why are you approaching me? Because we need these tools to catch terrorists, we need these tools to get spies, and if we get caught abusing them, we may lose them in America.

HANNITY: In other words, we had the premiere law enforcement agency in the world, the FBI.

SOLOMON: That's right.

HANNITY: Premiere intelligence agencies in the world, that's why I wear this for the 99 percent, not the 1 percent upper echelon.

Gregg Jarrett, you wrote the number one bestseller, "The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump".

Wow! Pretty good title. Very accurate. What happened?

(LAUGHTER)

GREGG JARRETT, LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I would like to say I was prescient, but I wasn't. I actually examined the facts, the evidence and compared it to the law and the inevitable conclusion was that these were rampant act of corruption. It's no coincidence on the very day that James Comey cleared Hillary Clinton, his FBI is meeting secretly in London with Christopher Steele, armed with the first memo of his dossier. And the agent, Michael Gaeta. who saw that document and read it, said I have to alert headquarters immediately.

But, you know, the Russia hoax had been involving in the previous months. The instigator was John Brennan, the CIA director, who was outsourcing spying on a political campaign --

HANNITY: Slow down. I want to make sure highlight this. So, people -- we have laws against turning the powerful tools of intelligence on the American people. So, Five Eyes is a term we've all heard, and we have allies, and you are saying you believe that intelligence activities that would be illegal turning tools against the American people without a warrant was outsourced to our allies to circumvent the laws?

JARRETT: That's right.

HANNITY: Am I right?

JARRETT: You know, you can't spy on American citizens on U.S. soil. Why were all of these people lured overseas? Why were these undercover agents doing their dirty work overseas? Because that way you get around American law.

You know, back in the '70s, the CIA and FBI got caught red-handed abusing their positions of power. And Congress had to pass new laws.

Over the years, they have been eroded by the likes of Clapper and Brennan and Comey.

HANNITY: Stay right there, we got to take a break. We're just getting started.

Our audience, these great patriots that all found the truth for us, they're 0.0001 percent, they will be with us for the entire hour.

Also, when we come back. FISA abuse, that scandal, it is about to be blown wide open. We expect the inspector general report on this, Michael Horowitz, to be coming out any day now, as we continue tonight on HANNITY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CALIF: Well, I will say, on the FISA application, especially, that, you know, you heard Comey call it a mosaic. Let's just find out, people need to see what's there because I think they would cringe if they knew what the government was willing to do to its citizens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: House Intel Committee ranking member Devin Nunes on our show last night discussing FISA warrant abuse committed by, yes, upper echelon, high ranking officials in the FBI. Why? To spy on the Trump campaign.

Oh, Jim Comey said, we didn't spy. He signed the first FISA warrant.

A U.S. citizen who was caught up in this massive scandal, our next guest on this HANNITY Deep State special, Carter Page.

I know you're listening. I know this impacted you. You lived through it but you in a sense were being used as a conduit into all things Trump campaign but you were spied on how many times?

CARTER PAGE, FORMER TRUMP CAMAPIGN ASSOCIATE: There were four applications, Sean. And who knows? The details as they keep coming out, it just keeps getting worse and worse. So, we shall see.

HANNITY: Do -- look, one American citizen, Carter, should not -- these are civil liberties, constitutional liberties. It bothers me that, you know, short of Alan Dershowitz and a friend, Doug Schoen is here, not many on the left seem to care. It's like the ends justify the means.

What do you want the American people to know now that you were a victim of this?

PAGE: Well, I've -- my feelings about it throughout the whole time is that, really, this was -- as you were alluding to, it was not an attack on me. It was an attack on candidate Trump and the entire Trump movement. It continued as President-elect Trump and his new administration.

So, really, that's where the greatest damage was. And so --

HANNITY: How many times did Stefan Halper meet with you?

PAGE: You know, I really lost track, Sean, multiple times.

HANNITY: Did you know he was a spy? Did you know he was there to spy on you?

PAGE: No, it was at a point in my life when I was under so much pressure with these false stories starting in September 2016. And, really, I was being shunned by pretty much everyone except for a few family members and long term friends.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: -- the intel community that you would tell us?

PAGE: Now, it's being exposed that I was an informant for both the CIA and the FBI. It's actually funny because the reports with Brennan and Clapper saying we don't want to expose informants. Well, if you read the Mueller report, they talked about Alexander Vlatov (ph), someone I was talking, a Russian based in New York that I was giving information to the FBI about. So --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: When they interviewed you, they knew you did nothing wrong? They knew you were an American citizen that was debriefed often?

PAGE: Absolutely, absolutely.

HANNITY: All right, Carter. Thank you for being with us.

PAGE: Thanks.

HANNITY: We'll bring back our panel here.

Matt Schlapp, you know, there's a political side of this, but I don't think civil liberties should be the one thing we're going to disagree on. That will be a thing that is sacred, Bill of Rights, our constitution, the rule of law, equal application of our laws, equal justice.

MATT SCHLAPP, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION CHAIR: Yes, that's right. You take a step back from President Trump. And I remember serving in the Bush administration, when a lot of these extra powers, I know Mark Levin and others are writing about presidents abuse their powers.

But the presidency got extra powers. Why? To go after terrorists.

And I literally remember sitting in a conference room in the White House turning to lawyers who I still respect to this day and saying, doesn't it scare all of us that the government is going to have this expanded power that could look into almost anything it wanted, and if people in Congress don't ask the right questions, they could get away with that? And doesn't that scare people?

And when I was told over and over again by these lawyers, don't worry, there are people in place, I wonder who they were, that have the best interest of the country, they will always safeguard these programs and we will make sure people of sterling character get to make the final decision. And so, going back to what you said about Obama, Biden, Lynch, James Comey who I have a distinction of refusing his political check for his first job in the Bush administration.

What did the AG said? It just didn't pan out, or it just wasn't making sense, it didn't jive.

The point is, n all this is that, take a step back from President Trump who has been so maligned. This will happen again if we don't stop it.

HANNITY: The scary thing is we might not be looking at the people we need to be looking at. My government is looking at me, I'm OK, I know they will respect the constitutional rights of all Americans, just like there's process if you are on a call with a foreigner, you're identified as an American, you're not supposed to be unmasked, which happened at a massive level.

Pam, you have these awesome powers. As the attorney general, you had the ability and got warrants against people. Then you see what we are discussing here. Put it together how profound that is and how dangerous?

PAM BONDI, R-FORMER FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Sean, it's not power; it's responsibility. When you take an office like it's about responsibility. When you see it as power like all of these corrupt people have, that's when you're in trouble. And the most frightening thing to me is they use their responsibility as power, and anyone who got in the way was collateral damage to get to the end of what they wanted to do. And I've warned people in this room. I believe they were probably illegally taped. They would do anything--

HANNITY: I've been warned. I'm still here. Geraldo promised me a cake with a file. He did.

(LAUGHTER)

BONDI: They would do anything they could do to take out our President. And all of these great people in this room and you did not let it happen. And people - we're not scared, these people, to come up to speak the truth and fight against it. And what Matt just said, we've got to keep doing that.

HANNITY: Geraldo, what I - we've become such dear friends. I'm going to celebrate your 50th year in broadcasting in amazing ways that you have no idea. But here's the thing. You've always said you never understood, you want Donald Trump and the country to succeed. Now, this has gone on for 2.5 years of his Presidency and still he has an incredible record on the economy, on promises he made.

GERALDO RIVERA, CORRESPONDENT-AT-LARGE: We get one President at a time. And I think that all Americans should unite behind the President. But I want to back up just one second to what happened this morning.

William Barr's interview on CBS was kind of under-stated and matter of fact. But the implication of what he said is so profound. What have we experienced? We have experienced some of the most powerful people in our government, Comey, Clapper, Brennan, using the power of the United States government to prove that the candidate Trump, President-Elect Trump, President Trump was a traitor, was a spy for the Russians, was a person whose loyalty lay outside the constitution, outside of the United States, and had sold his soul to the neo-communist devil. I think that this is so atrocious that that would be their motivating impulse, shows how distorted their hatred of the President--

HANNITY: Geraldo, if Donald Trump cured cancer and gave every American $10 million and even adopted their insane New Green Deal agenda, they'd still hate him. And - look, you've been in this business for a long time. Truth matters. Facts matter. And the American people have been - 99 percent of the media went with the lies, the conspiracy theories. And they're not admitting they are wrong that they thought for a few hours yesterday Mueller gave them what they wanted again until Mueller had to be corrected and put out a joint statement with the Attorney General saying, oops, ah, I was wrong.

RIVERA: It's not just those people. It is also - look at history. Wouldn't history have been so profoundly different if William Barr had been the initial pick to be the Attorney General of the United States by Donald Trump? I'm--

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: You're going to - you're giving Joe a heart attack. He's - yes, it would've been. We'll take a break. We'll come back. Deep state actors, they are defiant. They're all about to be exposed. Who are they? What is going to happen next? We'll explain, as this edition of HANNITY continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to “Hannity: Act Two, the Deep State's Day of Reckoning.” Now, as the walls begin to close in on all of these deep state actors who tried to undermine Donald Trump's Presidency, well, former top intel brash John Brennan, James Comey, Clapper, among so many others, they are scrambling now to justify their dubious actions, rewrite history, and are actually now creating a circular firing squad. And we're noticing they're turning on each other, which is probably a good sign. We continue with our live panel here.

I always do this at the end. We kind of know the story. This audience has stayed with us. So I want to kind of move a little bit because I don't want to rush the end part here. Tom Fitton, you keep putting in FOIA request after FOIA request. Who is in trouble? How badly? And will it happen? That's the question I get asked by my audience the most.

TOM FITTON, JUDICIAL WATCH PRESIDENT: Well, something ought to happen. I think the President is a crime victim. Carter Page obviously is a crime victim. And you had top officials, I think it can be strongly suggested, misused their office for political purposes, mishandled classified information to target someone over politics, otherwise misuse government resources to target and spy on people over politics. And the President is the number one victim.

And who benefitted the most from that? Hillary Clinton and her co- conspirators in the Obama administration who avoided the consequences of her email misconduct. In many ways, the targeting of Trump on Russia froze the Justice Department from engaging in full accountability and cleaning up over the Hillary mess. And that's over--

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: --over to you.

FITTON: Mrs. Clinton has as much to worry about as some of these deep state actors, in my view.

HANNITY: Doug, you are unique. You're a Democrat. You're a Clinton Democrat. Sorry to hear that.

(LAUGHTER) HANNITY: Still love you anyway. You see what is happening both between this and the New Green Deal--

DOUG SCHOEN, CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.

HANNITY: --and you see a disaster politically coming for the Democratic Party.

SCHOEN: Right. I see, Sean, that the Democrats are moving so far left as a party. The Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren remain (ph). My party is now at its mess level, getting behind Joe Biden. The left is going to try to undermine him and make an election that is likely to be very competitive, less so. One other word, Sean--

HANNITY: By the way, I'll make a statement. I already have a dossier on creepy, crazy, sleepy Uncle Joe.

SCHOEN: But let's have a real election rather than what everyone here, in the most compelling way, has described. Let me say one more thing. As a partisan Democrat, I respect everyone here. Many of these people are my good friends. What I believe as a Democrat is we need to know the facts of what happened. I'm glad we had a Mueller report. I'm glad we've been able to assess it. Let's do the same thing as Joe Digenova said on the Democratic side because what the FBI allegedly did, what the Clinton campaign allegedly did, what Comey, what Strzok, what Page did, this needs to be aired completely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

SCHOEN: I say this not as a partisan Democrat--

HANNITY: You say it as somebody who loves this country.

SCHOEN: I love this country, and I want to have real elections where we debate ideas, not go through this process.

HANNITY: Now I want to begin this lightning round. Who is in trouble? Do you see indictments and convictions? Everybody that I - we've been doing this for over two years. When is it coming out? When is it happening? We've got declassification. We have an AG investigation. Michael Horowitz and Huber, Durham in Boston now. Where are we going, Joe? Where is this going to end?

JOE DIGENOVA, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: What we need is a real federal investigation of the former federal investigators.

HANNITY: Wow!

DIGENOVA: Bill Barr is going to do that. Will there be convictions? I don't know. Jury trials are river boat gamble. It doesn't matter. What we need is an expose of the entire process. What Geraldo Rivera said is so scary, so frightening that any American who doesn't think we need to get to the bottom of that is out of his or her mind.

HANNITY: We lose the country?

DIGENOVA: This is so seminal to what we are as a country. We have to know what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, all of these people did. If we don't find this out, if Barr doesn't get to the bottom of this, the body politic of this country is going to be just rent asunder.

HANNITY: Tipping point for the country?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, of course, because we have to stop it now. If we don't, it will happen again. These - this just doesn't start. As I said before, this has been going on.

HANNITY: That's scary. Take a break. We'll come back. By the way, when we come back, two people personally impacted by Mueller's partisan witch hunt, as we continue, and what will unfold in the days and weeks ahead. Straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A Fox News Alert. Police now giving an update on that mass shooting at Virginia Beach. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RALPH NORTHAM, D-VA: Good evening. This is a horrific day for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Our hearts ache over the senseless violence that has been inflicted upon the Virginia Beach community today. My deepest condolences and prayers go to the families of those who left home this morning and will not return tonight. They were all someone's child, and many were someone's parent. They were heading into the summer weekend. That they should be taken in this manner is the worst kind of tragedy.

Their families are facing painful loss and grief. They each leave a hole in a family, in their neighborhood, in this community, and in our commonwealth. We mourn with their loved ones, but sympathy doesn't fill that hole. We must take care of these families. These horrific tragedies test our souls. Grief doesn't pass quickly. It lasts far beyond these coming days, and these families will need support in the months and years to come.

I'm also praying for those who were injured in this tragedy and hoping for their full recovery. Along with the pain of their own injuries, they face the loss of their co-workers and their friends. I want to commend the local and state law enforcement officers, the first responders, the medical teams, and all others who acted swiftly to respond to this situation. Their actions likely saved lives. And they have experienced scenes and injuries no one should ever have to face.

My thoughts continue to be with the victims and their families. To them and to the City of Virginia Beach, I offer the full support of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Tonight, we are all about Virginia Beach.

I'd now like to turn the podium over to our Mayor of Virginia Beach, Mayor Dyer.

MAYOR BOBBY DYER, VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA: Today is Virginia Beach's darkest hour. A senseless crime happened and imposed tremendous grief upon the people of Virginia Beach, the commonwealth and this country.

When we get through the shock of it all and we get through the details that we must go through over the next day or two, I believe that our community, Virginia Beach, along with our neighbors and our other cities in Hampton Roads and our commonwealth and our country, we'll be there for not only the families, because that's when they're going to need us going forward, but we're going to show that Virginia Beach is a city of resolve and dedication. And we are going to be there for all the families, the friends and our community in a big way.

And with that, I thank you, and I would like to turn this over to Chief Cervera for an update.

JAMES CERVERA, VIRGINIA BEACH POLICE CHIEF: As I said earlier this evening, as we are able to gather more information, we will give that information out. So this is the additional information that I have at this time. Again, it will probably change a little and it may increase as we move forward, as we're investigating this case.

Right now, we have a team of investigators, detectives from the City of Virginia Beach being assisted by forensic technicians from the FBI and the state police in processing this most horrific scene. We're in the process of identifying victims and making notification to their families. I can tell you that we do have an additional victim to report. We now have 12. One victim succumbed to the injuries on the way to the hospital. We also have four additional victims being treated at area hospitals, and we have reports that others may have self-transported. So, as we get more information on that, we will begin to release it.

Our process is always to notify family members prior to releasing names. We do know who the suspect is. We have not been successful in notifying certain family members. Once we are able to do that, we will release his name once. We're going to mention his name once. And then he will be forever referred to as the suspect because our focus now is the dignity and respect to the victims in this case and to their families.

I can tell you that when the initial call came out of an active shoot in building two. Building number two in our city houses information technology, planning, public works and public utilities, plus a printing operation. This building has a potential of having over 400 city workers at one time or other in the building.

When the original call came out, immediately four officers responded. Two were seasoned veteran supervisors from the Detective Bureau and we have two K-9 handlers who were assigned to our special operations unit. They immediately made entry into the building. Due to the sound of gunfire, they were able to locate the floor on which the suspect was committing his crimes. They immediately engaged with the suspect.

And I can tell you that it was a long gun battle between those four officers and that suspect. We recovered a .45 caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines that were emptied at the time. The suspect was reloading extended magazines in that handgun, firing at victims throughout the building and at our officers.

I want you to know that during this gun battle, basically the officers stopped this individual from committing more crimes in that building. When the suspect went down due to his injuries, our officers then immediately rendered first aid, as they were removing him from the building to the waiting EMS personnel. I need to say that a second time.

Even though he was involved in a long-term moving gun battle with these officers, when he went down, they did what cops do and they rendered first aid to this individual. He succumbed to his wound. We have found victims on all three floors of the building as well as one victim who was outside in a vehicle.

Right now, as many as 90 people have sought support from the Family Assistance Center. And again, we are in the process. Our goal now is to identify everyone in that building as quick as we can, so we can make the proper notifications to the families of those victims.

Do we have any questions?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, you were saying outside. What was the relation to the victim outside? I mean, not the relation, but what did you say with a vehicle? I just want to--

(CROSSTALK)

CERVERA: An individual was in his vehicle when the suspect shot him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, there were reports that this was a disgruntled employee. Had he been recently fired or were there any indications of any workplace trouble?

CERVERA: I have no information at this time as to the background of the individual other than he's a city employee. Again, as we work through all of this, we'd be able to give more information out later.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was current up until the shooting?

CERVERA: That's correct.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chief, I want to make sure I understand what you're saying. So he started shooting victims outside before entering the building?

CERVERA: There was one victim outside. He entered the building. He was armed with a .45 caliber handgun that had a suppressor on it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you tell us more about the extended magazine?

CERVERA: I'm sorry?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you tell us more about the magazines?

CERVERA: They were extended magazines. In other words, they have more ammunition than a regular magazine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) Chief, in terms of the numbers, 12 people were killed and then the gunman was the 13th person that was killed or is that-

(CROSSTALK)

CERVERA: We have 12 victims--

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Victims.

CERVERA: --and a deceased suspect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, were any of the victims targeted or was all of this random?

CERVERA: At this time, I can't comment on that as we work through the investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know if all victims were city employees?

CERVERA: I cannot give you that because we are in the process of identifying the victims.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The numbers have changed a little bit. I just want to make sure we're straight with the number of victims who were taken to hospitals. Can we just get the sum total of what that number is now?

CERVERA: Well, I originally reported we had 11 victims.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir. 11 victims.

CERVERA: So we have an additional. One victim did not succumb to the wounds on the way to the hospital or at the hospital. And I am told that we have four others at the hospital right now going through surgeries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So my math brings that to nine--

CERVERA: Well, your math would say that we have 12 deceased.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir. I (inaudible). So I apologize. I just don't want to make an error, but before you had said that there were six injured?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Injured.

CERVERA: I did. And again, that was the information that I had at that time. It's been updated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So now it's 10 injured?

CERVERA: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

CERVERA: We have 12 deceased--

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two of the six injured--

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Succumbed.

CERVERA: Right. We have 12 deceased and we have four who were injured.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who are currently--

CERVERA: --going through - yes, going through surgeries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, have police had the opportunity to search the shooter's home? Had it found anything that's been of interest like additional weapons?

CERVERA: We're in a process of continuing our investigation at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were any other weapons found at the scene there? Reports said there was a rifle there as well.

CERVERA: We're in the process of continuing - that's the best I'm going to be able to tell you at this moment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, can you elaborate more on the extensive gun battle between the officers and the shooter?

CERVERA: I could tell you that there were numerous shots fired by the individual. Shots were fired from various places down the hallway at the officers, at one time returned. Basically, there are - the ammunition that they had. So when we talk about this kind of a situation, and many times when we talk about an officer involved in shooting situation, it may be minimal rounds by the suspect and by the police officers. This was well beyond that. This was a long time - the best I could describe it there was a long-term gun battle for the police officers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you put into--

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The timeline how long--?

(CROSSTALK)

CERVERA: I can't - I can't give you seconds and minutes because we don't - we don't have a stopwatch when we were engaged in this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know the time that the suspect is dead?

CERVERA: I'm sorry?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know what time the suspect died?

CERVERA: Shortly after we entered the building and confronted him. So the call came out right after 4 p.m. So it'd be somewhere after that. We don't have the exact time right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief--

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you tell us about security around these government buildings, how many police that are normally there? And are people allowed to enter these buildings with weapons?

CERVERA: The individual in question is an employee. He has access to the building. He came in with a weapon today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So he would not have been checked or--?

CERVERA: No, he would not have been.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, was any officers injured?

CERVERA: One officer did sustain a wound during the gun battle. Fortunately, his bulletproof vest basically saved his life. And we did - he was seen - he was tended to at the scene. But then we then brought him to the hospital afterwards to make sure that everything is OK with the officer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, when you say suppressor, is that a silencer or is that the same thing or--?

CERVERA: It's a suppressor - it's a sound suppressor.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was the gun recovered legally obtained?

CERVERA: We're working through ATF at this time. It's part of our investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And police - has your department recently - I know in the past you have prepared for a scenario like this. I mean, how recently was the last time you prepared for this?

CERVERA: We train continuously. We train not only as first responders for police, but we train with fire and we train with our EMS personnel because we know that when you have a major scene like this, you're going to need all first responders into that particular area. So we do train extensively, both on what we call table-top exercises as well as on all hands-on exercise in a building.

So I could tell you that we do train extensively. And how many weeks or months prior, I can't give you the exact number. But our officers and our EMS personnel and our fire personnel are highly qualified, unfortunately, in a situation of an active shooter case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, there were - of the four officers who entered, two were detectives and two were members of the K-9?

CERVERA: The K-9, that's correct.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

CERVERA: OK. Thank you. Just one final thing. And I've said it before and you heard the Governor and the Mayor speak of it. We have numerous victims and we have numerous families. Let's make sure that we keep their dignity and their respect as the number one piece of news that we're going to give out, and I know that our local media always abides by, because their lives are changed forever. The folks who work in that building, their lives have changed. I have a number of officers right now--

HANNITY (ph): Stay with us for continuing coverage of the shooting. We'll have live updates throughout the night. "The Ingraham Angle" starts now.

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