Ken Starr on Mueller report: Trump team should be celebrating

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Ken Starr on Mueller report: Trump team should be celebrating

Mueller delivers Russia probe report to DOJ; what happens next? Panel reaction and analysis on 'The Ingraham Angle.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," March 22, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: I'm Laura Ingraham and this is “The Ingraham Angle” from a colossally busy Washington tonight. After 675 days filled with wild speculation, everything from President Trump is guilty of treason to his son is about to be indicted.

Well, it's finally over. Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered his report to the Attorney General Bill Barr, late this afternoon. Now we don't know exactly what specifics are inside the report but we do know that Mueller is not recommending any further indictments nor has he included any inside the report.

Now throughout the hour, we're going to be naming names on who started this farce, who fueled it during that 675 day period and members of the media in the halls of Congress who owes the nation a big apology and perhaps their jobs tonight and in just a moments, I'm going to be joined by an expert panel, people with first-hand knowledge of the process going forward, from the Whitewater independent counsel Ken Starr, Robert Ray, Sol Wisenberg and from the Watergate investigation, John Sale.

You do not want to miss this. No better panel on television tonight but first, Chief White House correspondent John Roberts is at the White House with what comes next plus some new details for us tonight. John.

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Laura, good evening to you. Well, first of all the White House is pretty confident that this is over, particularly since Robert Mueller says he will be departing the office of the Special Counsel in the next few days.

And I am told that the President is just glad that this part of the investigation is over. Now what's not clear is when we're going to hear from William Barr as to what is in that report, when the hands of summary to Congress. We're told that nothing is likely to happen tomorrow, that the earliest it might happen is Sunday because there's an awful lot of material to go through.

He has to determine what's classified, what might be subject to executive privilege and then there's also the idea of will William Barr consult with President's outside attorneys, Jay Sekulow and Rudy Giuliani about this report that he is going to write for Congress. Will they be allowed some input into it as well?

That remains unclear at this point. There really isn't a whole lot of precedent for what is going to transpire over the next couple of days so a lot of it really will be plowing new ground. Also unknown is whether the President's legal team is going to write a response report.

I'm told tonight that it all depends on what is in the Mueller report and what's in that summary as to whether or not Jay Sekulow and Rudi Giuliani would put together some sort of response but I do know that they had been working on one now for several months.

Now one of the other great unknowns here is what happens in Congress when William Barr submits his summary report to Congress, will Congress take a look at it? Democrats in Congress particularly take a look at and say okay, we're satisfied with this or if it sort of goes a distance to exonerating the President but only a distance.

Will they start asking for the entire report? Will they then start asking for the source materials? A campaign official tells Fox news tonight that the Democrats are being hypocritical in calling for the release of the entire report, "what it doesn't work in their favor, they try to change it."

And then if this report when it comes out completely exonerates the President of any wrongdoing in regard to collusion with Russia, will the Democrats then have to go back to the drawing board recalibrate and figure out what they're going to attack the President on from now until November 2020.

Remember Laura, Rod Rosenstein in a letter that he sent to then Judiciary Committee Chairman, Chuck Grassley in June of last year said when you're writing these reports, it's incumbent upon prosecutors not to talk about misconduct among people who are not being charged.

So even if the President was found to have committed some sort of misconduct, the fact that he is not being charged with anything, we know that because Mueller says, he's not going to bring any more indictments may mean that there won't be much about the President in this report, we'll see. Laura.

INGRAHAM: John, thanks so much and joining us now from the Whitewater Independent Counsel, of course Ken Starr, Robert Ray, Sol Wisenberg and Former Assistant Special Watergate Prosecutor John Sale. Ken and Sol are also Fox news contributors.

Ken, I want to start with you. Apparently tonight, we're getting word in seeing some video, there's another event going down there in Palm Beach but it's celebratory mood, should they be celebrating?

KEN STARR, FMR WHITEWATER INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: Well, I think so because there are going to be no more indictments but we should also be celebrating because what we've seen I think, is a vindication of law in the face of politics and media and the like.

What we saw today in Bill Barr, the Attorney General's letter is a letter that simply is grounded in the law. What we're seeing in reaction from Capitol Hill is well, wait a second, we know you want to talk about the law and what the traditions are of the Justice Department that you don't drag people's names through the mud, that you say Mary Row or John Doe hypothetically are really very bad people but we chose not to indict them .

You know the regulations that came into effect in 1999 after the experience with the independent counsel statute including the report to Congress that led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Congressman, we don't want any more of that and these regulations I think are very carefully calibrated to protect these kinds of basic privacy interests and the reputational interests of people who are not being charged.

INGRAHAM: Oh, that's being waved off tonight though. I was watching the other networks and that that concern is being waved off saying Sol, I'll go to you, this is no long standing rule, this can be dispensed with and Chuck Schumer today came out, he looked like he just lost his best friend but he came out today and said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK SCHUMER, D-N.Y., SENATE MINORITY LEADER: The White House must not be allowed to interfere in decisions about what parts of those findings or evidence should be made public. It's imperative for Mr. Barr to make the full report public and provide its underlying documentation and findings to Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now Sol, I thought Mueller was the gold standard. He - two years, the Democrats, Mueller, Mueller, Mueller, he's great. And now he does this reporter, apparently it's not going to give the Democrats what they want and they're like no, we want to see your documents.

What would this mean for those to be turned over and is there a legitimate reason for doing so.

SOL WISENBERG, FMR DEPUTY INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: Well, I'm for turning over as much as can be turned over in fairness and in accordance with the law, first of all there's no way it's going to all be turned over, it can't be under the law turned over right away if there's any grand jury material on it.

That's through government rule 6E and you have to have a court order even before you can turn that over under seal to Congress. We had to get a court order, Leon Jaworski had to get a court order. If there's any grand jury material that is turned over, there has to be a court order.

So that's number one but you know Bill Barr has already said, I want to be transparent, I want to turn over as much as I can. I will - I will say this, I very much agree with the philosophy that says you should not smear a person if you're not going to indict them and I think this report will follow that principle except I think that they will, it's very clear that they're fixated, the Mueller people have been fixated on the obstruction question with respect to President Trump.

And I think what you will find is a discussion of efforts to stymie the Mueller team. I think it'll be done in a very dispassionate way. I think they have a different view of President Trump precisely because he can't be indicted. I think, they may go after him a little bit when they talk about obstruction.

I don't think there's a criminal case for obstruction but I think they'll talk about it.

INGRAHAM: Well, Adams Schiff, Robert, tonight on another network continued to say, given the fact and he said, given the fact that there's all this information out there that the President obstructed the probe, we need all the information. So it was like this report isn't even coming out and it's not going to reveal you know, what we now is probably not going to reveal all of what they wanted.

It's almost like they're fantasizing this away in their commentary tonight and I guess what else do they do? They spent two years using words like treason, collaborator with Putin and so forth and Robert, now they're at this point - I want to play a sound bite for you where Eric Swalwell, who's one of the President's chief critics in Congress.

He's talking about moving the goal post away from even obstruction to just a general honor code, let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ERIC SWALWELL, D-CALIF.: I think the American people want to know whether this President violated conduct, whether he violated not only the law but that honor code that we all count on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Robert, what's the honor code they're talking about?

ROBERT RAY, FMR WHITEWATER INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: I have no - I have absolutely no idea. The - I mean, the only thing that's applicable are the standards that are - that are embodied in the constitution and you know, I guess arguably by implication, the impeachment process which gets to really only one question and that is whether there is a violation of the public trust?

But I mean you know in general here beware of efforts to move the goal posts and which part of over meaning O. V. E. R. do the Democrats not understand. I think you know, some perspective is important here. It's an investigation that was conducted over a period of 22 months. It is now concluded.

That's the end of it. Now if Congress wants to in their infinite wisdom, through House Democrats to conduct their own investigation, that's one thing. They do have subpoena power.

But the administration should and would be correct in doing so, resist any efforts to essentially dump raw data over into the Congress voluntarily. I do think that Congress is entitled and I agree with Sol on this point. As to the President alone, the Congress is entitled to Bob Mueller's findings, the basis for why he either decided to bring charges or not in this instance, not to bring charges.

That much I think is something that Congress appropriately in its oversight capacity is entitled to and should get. And I don't think frankly, I don't think that the administration is going to resist that and I think -

INGRAHAM: No.

RAY: --cooperatively the message that seemed to be sent today by this letter is that Bill Barr in conjunction with Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller in these remaining days and I think this will happen fairly quickly will be delivering up those findings to the Congress in an appropriate fashion.

INGRAHAM: Well, John, I think they want to pull Mueller up to testify on Capitol Hill. Maybe bring Bill Barr back again because again, it's always the narrative shifts when they don't get what they want, we have to shift to another point although there are still media folks who I think the real collision is the media with the DNC, with some people perhaps you know, previously in the FBI who are keeping this thing going.

But Chris Hayes last night was saying this about what he would believe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Let's say, Mueller says look, all these things happen, the President acted in all these ways but fundamentally there was no actual explicit collusion or even goes further and says you know, the President, we exonerate the President, I don't know if you can really do that.

But do you trust whatever the outcome of this thing is whatever it says?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: So again John, Mueller, they built up as professionalism and reputation and a lot of us conservatives were concerned about the makeup of by his prosecutorial team the Democrats build him up into the you can't couldn't question Bob Mueller but now you can't trust the report when it comes out.

Where does this leave us today in the public sphere, looking at the prosecutorial priorities of this country? The Justice Department? How did this period effect the integrity or the trust I would say that people have in institutions like the American media?

JOHN SALE, FMR ASSISTANT SPECIAL PROSECUTOR: Well, Laura, I can tell you practicing in this area, excuse me, that there is a lack of confidence, the confidence has been shattered but you know Mueller has been held up as a deity. Everyone saying, let's wait for the Mueller report.

And I have never said it's a witch hunt. I think it's a legitimate - was a legitimate investigation but what everybody's forgetting is, he's a prosecutor. He's not judge, jury and executioner and the devil's in the details and we really don't know what the specifics are but I think the President is entitled to have his representatives read it and prepare response because prosecutors are advocates, they're not the be all and end all.

And furthermore, I want to say one other thing where I've gotten some push back from some of my good friends who are more on the Left. I've said that during the course of this period, the President is entitled to the presumption of innocence and the people come back to me and they say, well, that's in a court room, only in a court room but this is the presidency and an investigation like this is a cloud over any President and like any citizen, he's not above the law but he's not below the law either.

So why are we not assuming he didn't do anything wrong and one other thing, in Watergate, we are road map which a judge allowed grand jury material to go to the Congress but we didn't draw any conclusions, we didn't exonerate and we didn't find anyone incriminated. We just provided citations and evidence and let the Congress make its own decision.

INGRAHAM: All right, I want to get all of your reaction to some of the worst of the worst reckless accusations from our former Intel Chiefs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you still believe the President could be a Russian asset?

ANDREW MCCABE, FMR DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FBI: I think it's possible. I think that's why we started our investigation and I'm really anxious to see where Director Mueller concludes that.

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: More and more, I come to a conclusion that after the Helsinki performance and since that I really do wonder whether the Russians have something on him.

JOHN BRENNAN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: I used the term that this is nothing short of treasonous because it is a betrayal of the nation. He is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Ken, aid and comfort to the enemy, treasonous, we had renowned historians, Pulitzer Prize winners saying the same thing. Any repercussions here especially for as we call, the deep state folks?

STARR: Well, on the deep state, we shall see. I do have great confidence in Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General. We'll see what his report and I know there have been comments, why don't we see that report but it's very simple.

I don't - didn't expect Michael Horowitz to issue any report about possible wrongdoing within the deep state until after Bob Mueller had finished his work. I really think this should be a time but it's not going to be because we are living in the age that we're living in where people say look, here's someone, Bob Mueller, very respected, attacked by the President, attacked pretty vehemently by the President and who assembled around him people who clearly were not friends of the President to put it mildly.

And now he is determined that there is no basis for bringing criminal charges against the President, that's a separate issue and those close around him. In short, when we go back to the May articulation - May 2017, why he was appointed? The issue is, was there collusion or crimes committed under the umbrella of collusion?

And he clearly must have concluded that there were not such crimes or the investigation would still be under way so I think it should actually be a time of celebration that our President was not involved in the campaign in colluding.

Were there contacts and communications? Of course, there were but we've seen final point, we've seen what I've called for a year now contra indications of collusion in the two huge indictments that Bob Mueller and his team brought against the Russian individuals in the Russian organizations, not one word in those very detailed indictments suggests collusion and that tells me a lot.

INGRAHAM: Sol, we had Jim Comey who kind of started this all when that memo of his, the memo to the file after his conversation with the President was sent over to his pal at the New York Times, who leaked it to the New York Times, a professor at Columbia and now he's saying which is interesting, in an Op-Ed saying, that he doesn't care what the investigation uncovers even though he started the whole thing.

So he kind of thought where this is going in the end and he had gone on this book tour, speaking you know, not favorably obviously toward the President and clearly wanted this investigation to happen and now it's kind of skedaddling away from it, thought there.

WISENBERG: Well, there's a reason they call him Saint Jim, that's all I'll say, he's got kind of a God complex but I think you raise an important point. I think it's important to make a distinction between a Former Director Comey and Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok and the FISA, the alleged FISA abuses that we're going to find out about.

We already know for sure, the FISA court wasn't told everything that Bruce Orr told the DOJ and the FBI. There's a difference between that and between Mueller's operation. Mueller was asked to do this and he did it and I know there are some people that disagree with some of Mueller's tactics and I think he should have been much more careful in the team he originally assembled.

But I'm unaware of one unethical thing that anybody on Mueller's team did and this will end up being yes, they were too tough with Roger Stone. Yes, they played hard ball--

INGRAHAM: That's was embarrassing.

WISENBERG: --with Corsi but nothing they did is - was improper under DOJ rules, nothing they did that I'm aware of, is unethical and I think Mueller is a great public servant. I've never agreed with him about everything.

But he's a man of integrity and the irony is, this will end up helping the very man who attacked him relentlessly, President Trump because no one has ever accused Bob Mueller of being anything other than thorough. And he's done this and he is said there is no crime connected with collusion.

INGRAHAM: Yes and Sol, you're absolutely right and Robert, you can chime in here. It is kind of ironic in the end, it looks like that Mueller, his conclusions benefit Trump and the Democrats who are praising Mueller are implicitly criticizing the Mueller findings if they don't get all the information.

And they're obviously skeptical of this idea, you didn't find any wrongdoing if that's what they find or not enough that rises to a level of criminality. At least they're skeptical of Mueller so it's kind of a flip deal here.

RAY: Yes, you can't you can't have it both ways and by the way, even The New York Times doesn't buy that.

In an editorial for tomorrow's paper, they say very pointedly that you know, one of the things that this has shown is that the rule of law prevails and second, which is what a Judge Starr just mentioned and the second thing is that the President is very fortunate that he had Bob Mueller as his prosecutor.

Along the way they take a cheap shot at Judge Starr but you know, that just goes to show that a lot of what's going on here is about you know, partisan political score settling, we're going to get past this and the good news is the news tonight really is that a full and fair and complete investigation was but--

INGRAHAM: But I got to jump in--

RAY: --it stopped before the end of the administration.

INGRAHAM: Yes, that's true but over the last two years, we've had the nation in this like vice grip of anxiety because of this investigation.

RAY: Sure.

INGRAHAM: While it's great to all of us in here tonight and say, well, isn't wonderful, the rule of a - yes, it is but it's - it begs the question. Should this investigation have been triggered the way it was, the FISA warrants that were clearly at the very least misleading as to the true provenance of that dossier.

How the dossier came into being? How it was distributed? Who paid for it and then of course you know, leak of the memo, all of that, it should never have happened.

RAY: Right, the President has a very clear position with regard to that and he may well be proven to be right. Now that may - we may not know that unless there's you know, further investigation along the lines that Sol is mentioning and we may not know that until we have - until we have the benefit of history.

I've already said that we should and I think it requires you know, not only release of what Michael Horowitz has been finding along the way but it's clear already as Sol has mentioned, that what happened, the games that were played with the FISA court essentially is that the department inside the department, there was a real debate about this.

It went from the FBI to responsible officials in main justice and the fact of the matter is they proceeded forward with an application to the FISA court and they did not fully disclose what they knew which is that the information was biased.

INGRAHAM: And at the same time, John Sale, there was pressure put on the process to not indict Hillary Clinton for her egregious abuse of government protocols and classified information handling.

So there was pressure, I think on Comey and the crowd and FBI not to do that, not to pursue that. So I think there's a lot that it's - and again, it's wonderful that it's turned out, it looks like the way it has for the rule of law and all of that.

But the fact that this happened to an individual, the President of United States and Lord knows what opportunities we lost in the process along the way, there was an albatross to this administration. Who knows what - maybe we would've been able to do something with Russia that would help the country, our security.

But you know, we certainly didn't. But I think it's - I don't want to let anyone off here as to how this whole thing started and Comey's cute little Op-Ed notwithstanding. I mean, I'm just - I think people want these questions answered so this doesn't happen again to anyone, let alone the President of the United States.

John, that's enough of my soap box here.

SALE: Well, it's unfortunate that the President has to be the victim of what really are needed reforms in the criminal justice system, I mean it's just as tragic if it happens to any citizen as when it happens to the President but with the President, we pay attention to it but you know, with the Mueller report, if we'll call it that now, it's going to come the Barr summary, the devil's in the details.

So I think the celebration is a little premature, it's a very good day for the President but let's see what happens, what details are there--

INGRAHAM: Well, john, it's a hell of a long way from the President was committing treason and was conspiring with Vladimir Putin against the American electoral system which is what we heard for about two plus years.

STARR: Yes, but Laura, that's why we have investigations.

SALE: How can a person who is supervising Rod Rosenstein, this investigation, be a person who was talking about wearing a wire on the President. How could a person like that--

INGRAHAM: Yes, thank you so much, I didn't even think about that. All right, hold on a second, even though Mueller's down though and I think John is right, we got the Southern District of New York hanging out there, correct? And Democrats on Capitol Hill want to launch their own probes. Those - they - I don't think have - these things don't have anything to do with Russian election interference.

So the Trump organization's security clearances, handling of classified information, the list goes on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF.: Well, there are any number of examples that I could give you of information that we have obtained in our investigation, information that's become clear from the special counsel investigation, that may not be neatly summed up in a decision or our disclosure that we decided to indict a but not b.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The special prosecutor has a specific mandate to investigate only the possible - only the Russian interference in the election and possible collusion by the Trump administration or anybody else with that interferes with the election and only to look at crimes. The Southern District of New York also only looks of crimes.

We have to look at a much broader question.

SWALWELL: I don't see how he does not have indictments waiting for him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: No, the White House counsel's office is kind of fed up with all these requests and they basically are stiff arming the House Dems on these ridiculous requests going on and on and on and for the most part not responding.

Ken Starr, problems on the horizon though because look, they do have oversight power although lot of these matters have nothing to do with the President's conduct in office. But they're going to make hay of a lot of this.

STARR: No, there's no question but we've moved to politics and the 2020 elections. The Iowa caucuses, the Democratic debates, there are a lot of candidates and so what we're seeing is fodder for the political process but happily tonight, we're talking more about law than about politics.

And we have an Attorney General in Bill Barr who is going to turn square corners and he's going to go by the law. What we're hearing from Congress is, we don't want you to abide by your regulations, we want you to do something entirely different.

We essentially want you to become our agent, help us in the impeachment process and as you know Laura, that was in fact the structure of the old independent counsel statute which several of us served and happily that's gone away so it's been a new day.

And if - if Congress did not like the nature of the reporting requirements that have been in these regulations now for 20 years, then they should have held a hearing, talked to an Attorney General and said you know, we needed a little bit more information, we think when the occasion arises, we need more information.

These are minimalist reporting requirements and I think that's what Bill Barr is good. Now, I understand the other side which is we want maximum transparency but don't we want maximum transparency consistent with the rule of law so we shall see.

INGRAHAM: Sol, really quick, Southern District of New York. The Democrats are whispering about that tonight. Peril ahead for the Trump family, the President himself.

WISENBERG: Well, keep in mind, anything is possible but keep in mind that rumors you've heard to the contrary notwithstanding, the Southern District is actually part of the Department of Justice, they actually report to Bill Barr and have to take orders from him so I think, I'm very confident that Bill Barr will not do anything to improperly interfere with them but he'll make it very clear that he wants to be kept abreast of the investigation and I have great confidence in him.

RAY: As the department is required to be informed, anyone - and this is where the media has to be vigilant anybody who thinks that the Southern District of New York should be used as a stalking horse for the continuation of the Mueller investigation, I think they should have their head examined and it's going to require supervision and to be monitored by the Department in Washington.

INGRAHAM: Now Bill Barr was a brilliant choice and the Democrats trying to call his integrity at all into question, that tells you all you need to know so--

SALE: That's wearing thin already.

INGRAHAM: No, it's just not working. What a phenomenal panel, all of you, thank you for staying up with us tonight. We really appreciate it, the country appreciates it, thank you so much. And the delivery of the Mueller report today got me thinking.

How did we get here because from more than 2.5 years, there have been people inside the Obama Justice and Intelligence department and the FBI, the media trying to find evidence of a criminal conspiracy.

Yes, a criminal conspiracy between Trump and Russia. Now remember, this all began in the summer of 2016 during the campaign the FBI uncovered efforts by Russian actors to interfere in the election. They tried to verify with no success allegations that Trump associates were assisting in this effort.

And just two weeks after the FBI launched its counter intel investigation into the campaign known as - it was known as ‘Crossfire Hurricane.' This text was sent by FBI special agent Peter Strzok to his girlfriend then FBI lawyer, Lisa Page.

He said, "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office, that there's no way he gets elected, but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before your 40."

Now, by this time Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS had already been working with Clinton's campaign for months, and they were digging up oppo research on Trump in Russia, whether or not it was verifiable. Now, what was unknown to most at the time was that Bruce Ohr, an Obama DOJ official, was working with Christopher Steele as well as trading information on Trump and Russia. Now, Steele's completed work, of course, became known as that infamous dossier, which even intel officials who hated Trump thought was a fantasy.

But despite that, "Buzzfeed" published the dossier in full, which sent the media into apoplexy. It didn't matter that it was tabloid trash. The die had been cast. Trump was, in their view, officially compromised. In the following months National Security Adviser Michael Flynn would be fired for speaking to the Russian ambassador after the election and lying about it to Pence, supposedly, and we would later discover he lied to other FBI agents as well, which is what he was eventually charged with. And that's somewhat been called into question.

But former FBI Director Jim Comey, meanwhile, became a central figure to the Mueller investigation after he was fired in May of 2017. Now, Comey leaked, as I mentioned earlier, these confidential memos that he wrote after his meetings with Trump to his friend Ben Wittes to writing about and ultimately get this put into "The New York Times." Now, why did this happen?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: My judgment was I needed to get that out into the public square because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: He wanted that out. So he had his own press operation. Eight days after he was sacked, Comey got his wish. And what have we gotten out of this Mueller report for an estimated $30 million in expenditures thus far? We have charged against a number of Trump associates, some close, some distant, and he barely knew most of them or worked with them, and they have been brought up on charges including false statements, tax evasion, bank fraud, and so on. But nothing, not one thing pointing to what was the big call here -- conspiracy or collusion between Trump and Russia. Now, despite that, the media and high level pols have been irresponsibly ringing the collusion bell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: And the picture of Russian collusion is coming into focus now.

SCHIFF: I can certainly say with confidence that there is significant evidence of collusion between the campaign and Russia.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: This is evidence of willingness to commit collusion.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL, D-CALIF.: It's so obvious that they were eager to collude with Russia. Now we're seeing the evidence that there was a conspiracy to cover up.

SARA FAGEN, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: Right now we don't have evidence of collusion.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC CHIEF ANCHOR: We have Manafort's evidence of collusion.

KARL BERNSTEIN, REPORTER IN WATERGATE SCANDAL: We are looking at the possibility that the president of United States colluded with a hostile foreign power to undermine the basis of our democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: By the way, most of them are on TV today, acting like they didn't get anything wrong.

And for the last 22 months, the Mueller investigation has been an albatross around the president's neck. There was rank speculation that Mueller would indict the president or his son or his son-in-law. But tonight, Mueller's work is officially done, no further indictments are expected, as I said. The much-awaited report now becomes a political football, one the Democrats can't wait to get their hands on.

Ranking Member of the House Intel Committee Devin Nunes and Byron York will join me now. In just moments, we'll break this all down. We're going to take a quick break. Stay there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: The faces on the other network looked a lot like election night 2016, and their anger, fury in getting that election wrong made a lot of them, at least, jump to wild conclusions about Trump and Russia, especially voices over at MSNBC. Let's take a walk down memory lane.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: We're about to find out if the new president of our country is going to do what Russia wants.

Whether or not Russia had help, whether they had confederates inside the Trump campaign when they launched this attack, the presidency is effectively a Russian op, right. If the American presidency right now is the product of collusion between the Russian intelligence services and an American campaign, that is so profoundly big.

This is not partisan warfare between Republicans and Democrats. This is international warfare against our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: No hyperbole there. Joining me now from the World Ag Expo, Congressman Devin Nunes, Ranking Member of the House Intel Committee, Byron York, chief political correspondent for the "Washington Examiner," Fox News contributor. Congressman, any indication when your committee could get its hands on this report?

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CALIF.: My guess is it's probably going to be next week at some point. We have no idea what's in there, of course. But I think what you're seeing tonight, Laura, is the unravelling of the biggest scandal in American history, the biggest political scandal in American history. I really believe that's what that is. I listened a little bit ago to what you were saying about the history of this. And I think people need to remember, this actually likely dates back to late 2015, early 2016. And this began nothing more, nothing less than a Clinton/Obama operation with a bunch of dirty cops at the FBI and career Justice Department officials that were all part of it.

INGRAHAM: And Carter Page got wrapped up in this, he's hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills. Roger Stone could go away for the rest of his life. Obviously, Manafort and everything he went through. Most of this stuff has nothing to do with what the underlying accusation was. Byron, you wrote a fantastic piece -- and how you dash it off so fast, I'm so jealous of you -- tonight about the things we need to learn from what happened, who got things really badly wrong, why it's important to note that.

BRYON YORK, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": First of all, it is important to say we don't know what's in the report itself. But there are a lot of things that we actually do know now, and they affect some of the things that we heard about most in the last two years. The first thing that is not in the Mueller investigation is, he did not charge anyone in the Trump campaign or associates with conspiring with Russia to fix the 2016 election, did not happen, no charges about that. He didn't indict some of the people who have been wildly speculated that they would be indicted, Donald Trump Junior and Jared Kushner.

INGRAHAM: How many times have we heard about the Trump Tower meeting?

YORK: Hours and hours and hours with that.

INGRAHAM: Hours, and emoting about, oh, who called the unknown phone number? Oh, my God. At the time, but we knew it was ridiculous. I knew it was ridiculous. But they were so invested in this story, Byron, the money they made off this story, there's a lot of money they made off pushing this story.

YORK: The Senate Judiciary Committee actually released transcripts of interviews with five of the people in that meeting. Not many people read it. He did not subpoena the president. Remember how much we talked about that. And also, for his part, Trump did not interfere with the investigation. Bill Barr actually said that in his letter. And finally, he did not fire Mueller. How many times did we talk about that?

INGRAHAM: He was going to fire Mueller. He was going to interfere with the investigation, Congressman Nunes. It was a parade of horribles, that Donald Trump was going to shut it all down and it was all going to be blown up in the American justice system and never be the same again. But earlier tonight, your counterpart on the Intel chair, Adam Schiff, threatened to subpoena Mueller. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: I would first argue that the department cannot adopt a double standard and should cooperate willingly. But if it doesn't, we will have to subpoena the evidence. We will have to subpoena Mueller or others to come before the Congress and answer questions, because if there is evidence of a compromise, whether it arises to the level criminal conduct or not, it needs to be exposed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And moments ago, Congressman Eric Swalwell just committed to subpoenaing Mueller as well. Is that necessary? There's also talk tonight of subpoenaing the FBI's notes that were submitted to Mueller, Congressman Nunes. They don't want to let this go. If it's not the report doesn't deliver what they want, they don't want to let it go.

NUNES: So look, there's some reasons that I would like to talk to Robert Mueller, too, not the same things that Adam Schiff and Swalwell want to talk about. But here's the problem. He was supposed to, as Mueller was conducting this operation, this investigation, as he built that investigation out, when he found things that didn't directly do with the scope memo, what he was supposed to be investigating with, he sent those off, right? So he busted people like Michael Cohen, Trump's attorney. That's a good example.

Well, wait a second. You were looking at intel, you were looking at leaks of classified information, like Michael Flynn, General Flynn's conversation with the Russian ambassador that leaked out all over the place. There was no criminal referral there that was made public. There's other examples. You guys were just talking about the Trump Tower meeting. The Trump Tower meeting was an obvious setup where you had Fusion GPS, the Clinton campaign operative machine, that was involved in that entire setup. There's numerous examples like this. So I don't think people should forget this. This is a scandal. We are only really at the beginning of unravelling all the dirty cops that were involved in this.

INGRAHAM: I agree. I completely agree. I loved our first panel, but they were doing kind of the legalistic, it's great the system worked, the integrity of the system is intact. The integrity of the way the FBI was operating is in shambles, and nobody has gone to jail for it or been disbarred, as far as I can tell.

YORK: There's so much we need to find out. Remember, we've found out that the assignment to Mueller, here's your assignment from Rod Rosenstein, that was just for show, and he gave him a real assignment on August 2nd of 2017. And that's been a secret. We don't even know what his assignment was. Hopefully we'll find out.

INGRAHAM: Jon Meacham, who is an esteemed historian, got caught up in all of this. I want to play this sound bite really quick.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON MEACHAM, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: If, in fact, and this is subjective, if, in fact, Donald Trump knew about the Russian efforts on his behalf, then there's a live question about whether he gave aid -- he has been giving aid and comfort to the enemy, which is the definition of treason in the Constitution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Using the word "if," Congressman Nunes, does that soften the blow of having a Pulitzer Prize winning --

NUNES: These people that are out there, and we can name numerous media people, historians, they should all be embarrassed of themselves. These people have poisoned the minds of millions and millions of Americans. We were just talking about DOJ and FBI and the integrity. I listened to your first panel. There is no integrity left over there. Hopefully, Attorney General Barr is now going to put the Department of Justice on the right path. Until the inspector general and we get a real investigation of all of these crooks and liars that were involved in this scandal, Republicans, I guarantee you in this country, and conservatives do not trust the Department of Justice or FBI. I'm talking about the ones in Congress don't trust them.

INGRAHAM: Brennan, Clapper, Comey. Brennan, Clapper, there's one more. Brennan, Clapper, and --

YORK: The other one. Listen, I think Brennan should be singled out in this, not only because he accused the president of treason, but it was given extra respect by the fact that he was the CIA director until January 20th, 2017. People assumed that there was some secret knowledge that he had that laid behind some of his accusations. Very damaging.

INGRAHAM: Gentlemen, thank you so much tonight. And Mueller's most impactful findings, the indictments, have revolved around Paul Manafort and Ukraine. But what is missing from this story? What surprising names from the Obama administration might be wrapped up in this? DiGenova and Schweizer have the breaking details, next.

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INGRAHAM: Now, remember, one of the most important findings from the Mueller probe revolved around Manafort and Ukraine. But are there bad actors being ignored in this situation? In May of 2018, former Congressman Pete Sessions sent Secretary of State Pompeo an urgent letter, imploring him to remove the ambassador of Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Yovanovitch, an Obama holdover, remains in the post today. She's reportedly demonstrated clear anti-Trump bias. She isn't the only part of Obama's orbit to have extensive exposure in the Ukraine. Former Obama White House Counsel, Clinton linked attorney Greg Craig may soon be charged by the Justice Department. He allegedly engaged in illegal unregistered overseas lobbying for the Russian-backed president of Ukraine.

And there are sources revealing to “The Ingraham Angle” tonight that Biden and other officials were actively involved in Ukrainian matters through Trump's inauguration. Biden even visited Ukraine 10 days before Trump was sworn in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: It's a great pleasure to be once more here in Kiev to reaffirm the depth of the partnership between our two peoples. This is my sixth visit to Ukraine as vice president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: So what do you need to know about this Obama connection in Ukraine, how it relates here? Here to tell us, Joe diGenova, former U.S. attorney, Peter Schweizer, investigative reporter, author of the book "Secret Empires," coming out in paperback on Tuesday. Joe, I bet the Obama administration did not see that one coming.

JOE DIGENOVA, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: No, they didn't. And, in fact, Laura, you mentioned that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, contrary to what a lot of people thought, was still in her job. I learned this evening that the president has ordered her dismissal from her post as the United States Ambassador to Ukraine as a result of her activities there, which were complained of by Congressman Sessions. She is known and reported by people there to have badmouthed the president of United States, Donald Trump, to have told Ukrainians not to listen to him or obey his policy because he was going to be impeached. And finally her activities have caught up with her.

INGRAHAM: And Peter, we learn now tonight from Joe that this ambassador has been removed, should have been removed a year ago. That's a separate story, what's going on in the State Department. But what do we need to know about Biden's frequency of visits to Ukraine?

PETER SCHWEIZER, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY INSTITUTE: Yes. No, it's very curious, Laura. He was the point person for the Obama administration to Ukraine. And of course, a very complex situation there between some pro- Russian factions, Ukrainian nationalists. In April of 2014, Joe Biden goes to Ukraine to meet with Ukrainian officials. As he's there, his son, Hunter Biden, is placed on the board of this corrupt energy company called Burisma. Burisma was founded by and run by a Ukrainian energy minister who was tied to the previous pro-Russian governments.

And we know from financial records that as Joe Biden is interacting with Ukrainian officials, his son over a 14-month period is connected to a bank account that receives $3.1 million from the Ukrainians. Dare I add that Hunter Biden has no background in Ukraine. He has no background in energy policy. And his job reportedly was regulatory compliance. What Hunter Biden knows about in Ukraine, who knows. So it's a very, very troublesome issue and I think has all the markings of payoffs going to the Bidens.

INGRAHAM: Joe, we've got to get your reaction to the report tonight real quick.

DIGENOVA: There's no question about it that this has all the markings of bribery and extortion, and it's something that deserves a full-blown investigation into the conduct of the Biden family in Ukraine. There's some very disturbing details about it that are about to come out in reporting by John Solomon. And I think once those details come out, I think there's going to have to be a full-fledged criminal investigation.

INGRAHAM: And revealing, perhaps, deep connections to how the Mueller probe started?

DIGENOVA: Oh, absolutely, because what happened was the ambassador there, who has been removed, was involved in generating false information about Manafort, other information that went into the so-called black binders.

INGRAHAM: All right, Joe, hold that. We have to take a break. We'll be right back. My final thoughts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: For the last two years, the nation's been sidelined, the president, in some cases, has been distracted by a probe that never should have been brought. That's the true outrage. We will not let this go. We will not stand by to allow this happen to anyone else in the United States if possible. And we're going to be covering the issues that matter to you, the border, what's happening with our healthcare and a lot more in the coming weeks. We'll be back here Monday.

Shannon Bream and the "Fox News @ Night" team take it from here. Have a good weekend.

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