Meadows: Today was a bad day for James Comey

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Meadows: Today was a bad day for James Comey

Reps. Mark Meadows, Devin Nunes and John Ratcliffe react to DOJ IG report on fired FBI director James Comey on 'Hannity.'

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," August 29, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to “Hannity.”

We begin tonight with a Fox News alert. Earlier today, as we have accurately predicted right here on this show, the inspector general released the first and what will be a series of damning reports regarding a variety of topics.

Now, today's report as we previously told you, this is the small baby one, very narrow in scope dealing specifically with only one issue. That's former FBI Director Jim Comey and his memos. And in just a moment, we're going to break down all the details in what was a devastating rebuke of the former FBI director.

Now, while today's narrow I.G. report is, yes, small in scope, the big report by the inspector general on FISA abuse is expected to be detailed, brutal, and devastating in its conclusions. We can tell you that we expect that report to determine that those FISA warrants, the four warrants on Carter Page, the back door spying on the Trump campaign transition, then presidency were, in fact, illegally obtained. That's what we are expecting.

And, remember, Comey signed three of the four warrant applications and the original one which was October 2016 before the election, but he told Trump something else in January, just before he became president of 2017.

Now, today was the released of what is only a narrow sliver of information, and it's brutal - a small part of what will be coming in the weeks ahead. Still the report, it was a stunning and harsh rebuke to the former FBI director. But let's be clear, this report is exactly what a few weeks ago we told you exactly what it would be, we were not wrong. It's narrow, limited in scope with referrals that the A.G. has declined to act on as of now.

Now, all of this we reported to you weeks ago. Now, tonight, we do know James Comey is in fact not the super patriot he claims, we know him to be a leaker and a liar. The inspector general of the Department of Justice found that the disgrace former FBI director, quote, set a dangerous example for the 35,000 current FBI employees. And today's report was an unprecedented rebuke of an FBI director surrounding his nefarious plot to seek revenge against President Trump. By the way, it shows how political he was from the very get-go.

And as it turns out, America's self-proclaimed super patriot is nothing more than a dirty, corrupt former bureaucrat that will be in serious significant legal jeopardy as this all unfolds. After he was fired, we know today that he lifted sensitive and in some cases classified government memos about conversations that he had with the president of the United States. And then Comey stored these documents at his home and leaked these sensitive documents and the contents of them. One of the memos to the press using a close friend, now a lawyer, as a conduit -- that went to "The New York Times".

He also used a personal email address to disseminate classified material to his own lawyers. He's supposed to get the approval to the FBI. He didn't get the approval.

Among the many serious violations, let's go through the list. The inspector general found that, quote, Comey's retention, handling, dissemination of certain government memos violated the department and FBI policies and his FBI employment agreement. Comey did not seek authorization from the FBI before providing sensitive government memos to his attorneys. You're supposed to do that.

Additionally, Comey did not seek FBI authorization before providing the contents of memo 4, through Richman, to a reporter. That reporter at "The New York Times".

Comey told the office of the inspector general that he did not notify anyone at the FBI that he was going to share these memos with anyone.

Comey violated applicable policies and his employment agreement by failing to either surrender his copies of the memos to the FBI or to seek authorization to retain them. Now, once he knew the FBI had classified portions of the memo 2, Comey failed to immediately notify the FBI that he had previously given a memo 2 to his attorneys.

And despite knowledge that memos contained classified information, Comey did not appropriately mark memo 3 with classification banners, portion markings or a classification authority block. Comey violated Executive Order 13526, and Intelligence Community, Department, and FBI policies governing marking of classified information.

Comey was not authorized to disclose that statements that he attributed to President Trump in Memo 4, which were relevant to the ongoing Flynn investigation. Comey was also in clear violation of the FBI's, well, prepublication review policy.

Now, I can go on and on because this memo today went on and on. There are 79 pages, 79 devastating pages documenting Comey's gross misconduct. And this is just as I said -- this is one small sliver. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

Today's report is solely and very narrowly focused on Comey's illicit leaking and mishandling of sensitive government memos, and retaining such. Now, that's just one small little part of Comey's web of corruption. Now, this is low-hanging fruit if you're looking for the bigger picture.

So, while the Attorney General Barr is declining to prosecute what are clear criminal violations for now, we expect several more damning bombshell reports in the coming weeks, including the big FISA report. And as we have mentioned, the investigation into FISA abuse will likely detail how Comey and others, well, that they committed premeditated fraud against the FISA court.

In that case, Comey swore that the evidence in the FISA application was verified, that it was corroborated. That it was true. And multiple renewals, by the way, similarly were verified, corroborated, and true.

The warrant request was marked "verified" at the very top of the document. In other words, the FISA application, verified. It's right there.

Now, the evidence was not true. It was not accurate and it was never verified. In fact, we have pointed out on this program -- we now know it was unverifiable. Its claims deemed unverifiable.

And when the FBI finally got around to looking into the veracity of it, oh, they determined 90-plus percent if not all of it was false. Yet the warrant was used as the bulk of information to get the warrant against Carter Page but also a backdoor to spy on the communications of the Trump campaign, the Trump transition team, and the president.

And according to Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett, quote: It can be a felony to conceal relevant information and deceive the FISA court. A half a dozen statutes make it a crime to perpetuate a fraud on the court, including deprivation of rights, 18 USC 242, perjury, 18 USC 1621, 1623, and false statements, 18 USC 1001. And, of course, you can add to that several obstruction of justice and fraud statutes that all would be applicable.

Now, those are devastating charges Comey and others could be facing in the coming weeks. But that's not all. Another massive investigation which I believe will become the biggest part of all of this abuse of power, well, that surrounds the origins of the witch hunt. Now, that probe now being conducted by the attorney general and by John Durham is now focused on how James Comey, how John Brennan, James Clapper, others, weaponize the powerful tools of intelligence that we entrust to these brave men and women in our intelligence community. And now, they weaponize them against all things Donald Trump.

Now, whether or not the Obama-Biden administration, this is going to be the big question in all of this solicited foreign intel agencies, well, to circumvent American law to do the spying that they can't do on the Trump campaign and other Americans. That would be a really serious crime.

Now, the bigger issue becomes, why did President Obama begin a counterintelligence investigation against an incoming president? He will have to answer those questions.

Now, there is no counterintelligence campaign. That doesn't happen. It's never conducted, unless it is a president's. That means the president had to have knowledge and we know from the Strzok-Page, of course, texting, that, yes, he wanted to be informed, the White House wanted to be informed every step of the way.

You might also remember the odd email from Susan Rice to herself on the very day of Trump's inauguration. Remember this -- she randomly documented a conversation with President Obama about the Russia witch hunt, writing, quote: President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law enforcement communities by the book. Wow.

So, Donald Trump is being inaugurated as president, that all happened weeks ago, why did she feel the need to write that CYA, note to self? Why did she feel the need to send herself a memo on Obama's last day and Trump's first day?

And, more importantly, Obama, Biden, Rice, Lynch, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, what did all of these people know about this counterintelligence investigation and when did they know it? And what was the justification for it?

And as for super patriot, Jim Comey, he's still living in that alternative reality of his. He's claiming on Twitter today and elsewhere, that today's report totally absolves him of any wrongdoing. Just the opposite, Jimbo.

He tweeted out, quote: I don't need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a "sorry we lied about you" would be nice.

Well, I have news for the holier-than-thou St. Comey, today's I.G. report, while it dedicated to his rampant misconduct, read the report, Jim, the one that called you and your actions dangerous, saying you are a dangerous example for every other FBI employee that worked for you. That's only one small part of the DOJ's ongoing effort to hold you accountable.

And, by the way, Jim, the only thing you should be sorry about is -- I gave you my best advice. I told you, you have the right to remain silent. I told you to exercise that right because anything you do say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law.

Joining us now with more is investigative reporter -- he's the executive vice president of "The Hill" -- John Solomon.

All right. We reported, it's funny, maybe I didn't say it loud enough, or often enough, I'm pretty good at doing that usually, but everything that happened today, we reported what happened. That this would be -- this would be the first in a series of reports, this is not the FISA investigation of Inspector General Horowitz. This was narrow in scope, dealing with James Comey and his memos.

JOHN SOLOMON, THE HILL EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Right.

HANNITY: And I thought the wording was frankly devastating for Comey. Your thoughts?

SOLOMON: Yes, listen, I think today is the ultimate vindication of the decision by the Trump Justice Department and President Trump to fire James Comey. He was incompetent. He was incapable of following his own agency's rules, his own employment contract.

This report paints a devastating picture. He took, stole, removed secret documents, sensitive documents from the FBI. He put them in a safe. He gave them to his lawyers -- one of those were classified when he gave them to the lawyers.

He authorized a leak. The only good sliver of information in this report for James Comey is that his lawyers didn't leak the classified information from the memos to the one reporter they talk to. Every other step of the process here today, James Comey was indicted for bad judgment, bad activities, bad violations of the FBI code of conduct.

I can't remember another time in my 30 years covering the FBI that I saw an FBI director referred for prosecution and called a detriment to his agency the way he was today. It was a very bad day for James Comey.

HANNITY: I've got to believe that the inspector general's report, we believe your sources have told you and I know my sources have told me, that the inspector general has already concluded that the four applications were obtained illegally. What can you tell us about what will be the big report, not today's narrow report?

SOLOMON: Yes, listen, I think we ought to wait and see what ultimately comes out. You never know how these reports ultimately end up when they are edited and written and reviewed, and all the fair comment comes in.

I think -- I have been told there is a preponderance of evidence that all four of the FISA warrants were deeply flawed, that the representations of information being verified were not, and that they learned a lot of information from Christopher Steele about what the FBI knew about the flaws, that may be the headline of that report. That Christopher Steele made the case for the FBI that they knew what they were doing was wrong and yet no one stepped in the way of it. That could be an interesting turn of events, but let's see what the I.G. reports.

I think we learned a lot today, but it's the first quarter of a long football game.

HANNITY: All right. John Solomon, thank you.

Now, today, President Trump, he did react on Twitter to Comey's report, writing, quote: Perhaps never in the history of our country has someone been more thoroughly disgraced and excoriated than James Comey in the just released inspector general's report. He should be ashamed of himself.

Now, in recent history, no current or former FBI director has been a singular focus of an I.G. report. Jim Comey, well, he should be ashamed.

Joining us now with reaction, the president's attorney, Jay Sekulow.

There are a lot of different aspects of this. I thought the words were harsh and devastating. This is a tiny sliver.

JAY SEKULOW, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: Yes.

HANNITY: Very narrow.

He signed three of the four FISA warrants. He also, in my view, was involved in protecting Hillary Clinton in that investigation.

And what level he may have and what will be the Durham-Barr report is anybody's business, but, you know, a counterintelligence operation has to be started by a president, that would be Obama.

So, on all three of those issues, tell us where you come down.

SEKULOW: Right. Well, I look at the 70 pages here, and this is 70 pages of bad news for James Comey.

Let's start with factual determinations by the Office of Inspector General -- an inspector general, by the way, that was appointed by President Obama.

First one, the biggest one, that is James Comey said these were his personal recollections, personal information. Here's the conclusion of the Office of Inspector General: The memos were FBI records.

Once that determination is made, Sean, it puts in play various statute rules and regulations of the Department of Justice. Another conclusion from the report itself, let's use those words. Comey did not seek authorization before providing memos two, four, six, and seven to his attorneys. That's a conclusion.

Next one, Comey instructed Richman, that's one of his attorneys, to share contents of memo four but not the memo itself, he says, with a specific reporter for "The New York Times". Comey did not seek FBI authorization before providing the contents of that memo, through Richman, to a reporter.

Then the conclusion: For the above reasons, we concluded the memos are FBI records as defined by statute, regulations, department, and FBI policies, and Comey's FBI employment contract. Because they are official FBI records, Comey was required to handle the memos in compliance with all applicable department and FBI policies and the terms of employment agreement which he did not.

Now, how James Comey is considering this a victory -- what's his victory? He barely beats out an indictment, that's his definition of victory?

So, this was the head of the FBI who the inspector general said was a horrible example for the FBI.

Now, you said it's --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: The word was dangerous. Jay, the word was dangerous.

SEKULOW: Yes, dangerous. Yes. So -- yes, dangerous, which is almost like an understatement here.

You, John just meant -- my friend -- our friend John Solomon said we are in the beginning of the first quarter, we're in the -- we're in the pregame show. This is just the beginning.

So, here's what everyone has to put in perspective: this was the head of the FBI. Should President Trump -- should have President Trump fired James Comey? Here is a 70 pages reason why. By the way, this was not the first time James Comey has violated rules, regulations of the Department of Justice. We've already had reports on that. So, that's number one.

Should have the president fired him? For a hundred reasons, 70 pages of which are lying out right here.

Number two, this is just the beginning. There's another series of investigations going on. You mentioned the FISA abuse, the issues there, how this whole thing started -- this what -- remember, James Comey's leak is what appointed Bob Mueller.

And we just saw last month the charade of that hearing, that was going to be the crescendo of the entire, you know, Russia, you know, collusion nonsense. And you saw it play out in living color in everybody's room, the people that watched it on their television sets, and what did you see? They had nothing because there was nothing there.

So, now, we've got the report that the guy that was in charge of the FBI was violating its policies and rules and regulations. That is not something that James Comey should be celebrating. Instead, he should be embarrassed.

HANNITY: Jay Sekulow, thank you for joining us.

All right. Joining us now with more is Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, former U.S. attorney Joe diGenova, former deputy assistant attorney general, Victoria Toensing.

Good to see you all.

Joe, Victoria, let me start with you two, because there's different buckets here. First, your reaction to the report today, then, of course, if it's, in fact, true that those warrants were illegally obtained, that's bucket two. And then bucket three is, there is no counterintelligence investigation, Joe diGenova, without a president of United States' approval.

So, walk us through those three areas.

JOE DIGENOVA, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Well, today, we learned what we already knew, that Jim Comey is a liar and he violated the law. And there's no question about it.

We know that the FISA warrants, all four of them, were illegally obtained. We'll say this, if, in fact, the FISA report is issued in its full form, then there will be no prosecutions because the Comey report was held up, this one that came out today, until they decided whether or not to prosecute Comey. They're going to do the same thing on the FISA report.

But when all is said and done, when you get to the end of the road, the issue is Susan Rice's January 20th, 2018 email where she outlines in great detail how President Obama knew about, authorized, and instructed people to, quote, operate by the book, in a counterintelligence operation against candidate Trump, President-elect Trump, and President Trump.

I want to know when is Barack Obama going to be interviewed by John Durham and the FBI.

HANNITY: Do you believe that will happen?

DIGENOVA: I believe it will. I believe it must.

HANNITY: Do you believe that, Victoria?

DIGENOVA: In fact, there is no way you can finish this investigation without interviewing the former president of the United States because -

HANNITY: Under oath?

DIGENOVA: -- his national security adviser said, bingo, he was at the head of it.

HANNITY: It has to be under oath, sir?

DIGENOVA: Sure.

VICTORIA TOENSING, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's a 1001, though, Sean.

HANNITY: Yes.

TOENSING: So, it doesn't matter. If the government interviews you, it's the same kind of situation.

Let me -- let me just point out something, with taking all the politics and the special counsel world out of this, what James Comey has said -- this was the new Comey rule that he thinks is fine. If an FBI agent takes evidence to a prosecutor and says I think you should start an investigation and the prosecutor says, no, I'm not going to pursue this, then the FBI agent is allowed to go to the local media and the leak something so public pressure is put on the prosecutor to pursue an investigation. That's exactly what happened and Comey says that's just fine and dandy. I want an apology.

HANNITY: Gregg Jarrett?

GREGG JARRETT, LEGAL ANALYST: Well, this was a damning denunciation of James Comey for abusing his position of power, stealing government documents, leaking them, giving a classified document to unauthorized people who didn't have security clearance, mismarking deliberately classified documents, I mean, the list goes on and on.

He should have been prosecuted for stealing government documents under Criminal Code 641 and for mishandling classified documents under the Espionage Act because he kept a classified document in his home, not a secure, not an authorized place, and he gave them to people without security clearance.

If you or I did that, my goodness, we would be indicted. We'd be cuffed and hauled off to hoe scow.

HANNITY: And, Gregg, if they determined that these FISA warrants were obtained illegally, those that signed it and we now know the bulk of the information used in the application was in fact unverifiable and that eventually we found out the FBI even determined over 90 percent of it was garbage, if not 100 percent, is that a crime?

JARRETT: Yes, it's six different potential felonies because deceiving a court, and concealing evidence to judges is not only deprivation of rights under color of law, it's a fraud, it's conspiracy to defraud, it's a false statement. It's perjury, its obstruction of justice, take your pick.

HANNITY: All right. Tom?

TOM FITTON, PRESIDENT, JUDICIAL WATCH: This report is important because it outlines the seditious criminal conspiracy against President Trump. Comey admits he gave -- went and gave President-elect Trump a briefing on the dossier to see what he might say because he was investigating him as part of this Crossfire Hurricane investigation. So, this whole Russia-gate smear, he was throwing in the president's face to try to get evidence against him to destroy him.

He started creating these FBI files in case he might need to get to them later, and then he leaked them in violation of the law.

The simple issue here is that he leaked the FBI files of President Trump and it's a terrible mistake by Attorney General William Barr not to prosecute him for that. It was a poor example he set for the rest of the FBI in doing so, but the idea that he wouldn't be prosecuted for doing it, it sends a signal to everyone else, if you're politically connected, you can get away with it. If I were the president --

HANNITY: All right. Let me get, Joe, to respond.

(CROSSTALK)

FITTON: And quickly, Sean.

HANNITY: All right. Quick.

FITTON: If I were the president, I'd sue Comey.

HANNITY: I think the president should stay out of it, if you want my advice. Let the attorney general do his job.

Joe?

DIGENOVA: I'm very pleased with the way Bill Barr is proceeding. He is a giant of an intellect and a guy who has honor and integrity for the department. He's the new Robert Jackson of the Department of Justice. If there are prosecutable cases, he will bring them.

HANNITY: Do you believe there are?

DIGENOVA: Oh, I do.

TOENSING: Not this one. Not this one, Sean. It wasn't.

DIGENOVA: But not the last one.

HANNITY: OK, thank you both.

DIGENOVA: You bet.

HANNITY: Thank you, all four of you.

All right. When we come back, yes, James Comey, Mr. Super Patriot, was just rebuked by the former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Congressman Devin Nunes, Congressman Mark Meadows, Congressman John Radcliffe, they know this story better than anybody.

That's next, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TRACE GALLAGHER, CORRESPONDENT: Live from America's news headquarters, I'm Trace Gallagher in Los Angeles.

An investigation into billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's inner circle sheds disturbing new details about his alleged sexual crimes against teenage girls. "The New York Times" reveals federal authorities have been refocusing their probe of Epstein since his suicide in a Manhattan jail cell earlier this month. The investigation reportedly now targets more than a half dozen Epstein employees, girl friends and associates whom prosecutors say helped lure young girls into his orbit.

Authorities are said to be considering firing sex trafficking or coconspirator charges against some of those associates. Since his death, a number of Epstein's alleged victims have gone public with detailed accounts of how they say he sexually abused them. Their attorneys vow they will get justice in court. When news breaks out, will break in. I'm Trace Gallagher.

Now, back to Sean Hannity.

HANNITY: All right. Now, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he is also taking aim at disgraced former FBI Director James Comey, tweeting out the following: It is important to follow established policies and procedures especially when the stakes are high. We should be most on guard when we believe that our own uncomfortable circumstances justify ignoring principles respected by our predecessors, citing his June 2018 letter.

Here now with reaction to today's breaking news: we have Congressman John Ratcliffe, Congressman Devin Nunes, Congressman Mark Meadows.

Good to see you all.

Let me start with the general overview, Congressman Mark Meadows. Your reaction to today and what is coming?

REP. MARK MEADOWS, R-N.C.: Well, obviously, today was a bad day for James Comey. Only in Washington, D.C. can you have 70-plus pages of bad news and expect an apology?

Here we are today with not only the director of the FBI willfully and deliberately breaking protocol, we now understand why Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe thought what they were doing was OK. But I can tell you, the inspector general's report and the John Durham report coming out will be more damning than this and this was not a good day for the FBI's former director.

HANNITY: Let me go to you, Congressman Devin Nunes, because you've done a lot of work here. And as we have been discussing, you can't have a counterintelligence investigation unless there's a president that has authorized it and is informed about it, that brings all of this, especially into the office of Barack Obama.

What questions you -- well, one, do you believe he needs to be questioned? Number two, why did they have a counterintelligence investigation into an incoming President? And number three, what do you believe we are going to learn when the big FISA report comes out especially if in fact the IG concludes that these warrants were obtained illegally?

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CALIF.: Well, thanks Sean. For a long time I have been very hesitant to get too far out in front of the IG's capabilities. I believe what today is another example of a building block it's an important information so specifically the House Intelligence Committee Republicans have referred to the Department of Justice criminal referrals based on conspiracy.

Gregg Jarrett ran through a number of what those conspiracies, what laws were broken under that conspiracy so I don't have to go back through that. With that said, looking at this what do we now know today a very important piece of evidence that was lost a lot of people?

James Comey came in brief to the Congress in early July of 2017. He then went to brief President-elect Trump. The Inspector General found that he was acting as part of the investigation. So Comey himself was involved in the investigation, followed up with that the cross fire hurricane team that was running the investigation of the President and his team, they actually determined the classification of this so very important piece of evidence that would build into the conspiracy complaint that we have sent to the Department of Justice.

HANNITY: All right, let me go to this John Ratcliffe, it was pointed out to me by Jason Chaffetz your former colleague that it was you who first said that there is on top of FISA application, the word "verified," is that true?

REP. JOHN RATCLIFFE, R-TX: It's true.

HANNITY: Go ahead.

RATCLIFFE: I was going to say, one of the points that your viewers need to take away from today Sean is something folks haven't really talked about. I know they aren't going to read the whole IG report but they can go to page 60 the conclusion of the Inspector General and it tells you everything you need to know about Jim Comey and every decision that he made throughout all of these investigations.

The Inspector General, the Obama appointed Inspector General Watchdog said that Jim Comey did one thing any FBI agent much less than FBI Director should never do which is to allow their personal opinions, their personal animus, their personal desires to influence official conduct.

And Jim Comey promised us that he never did that. But on page 60 the Inspector General finds that Jim Comey engaged in the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information in order to achieve a personally desired outcome. That outcome was to get in this case a Special Counsel to stop Donald Trump. It calls into question literally all of the actions and all of the decisions made throughout by Jim Comey in his tenure.

HANNITY: This is such a narrow sliver of what will be a cascading amounts of information that are coming in. To stay with you Congressman Ratcliffe, we now know the Inspector General, his big report that is coming on FISA abuse. We know that the information from the Nunes report who is sitting right there and from the Grassley-Graham report, that the bulk of information to obtain that - those warrants was Hillary Clinton's brought and paid for dirty dossier that James Comey in particular and the FBI and DOJ were warned on multiple occasions that Steele had a political agenda, Hillary paid for it and none of it is verified.

Now at the top of the FISA application says it's verified, you go with unverifiable information, does that to you mean perjury, premeditated fraud on a court, denying constitutional rights of other citizens, obstruction of real justice, to all of those laws now come into play based upon your knowledge of FISA applications?

RATCLIFFE: Sean, I think anyone that worked on and signed off on those FISA applications is going to get tremendous scrutiny and should for that reason. The Steele dossier I can tell you was front and center in that FISA application.

But beyond that and back to Jim Comey and some of the decisions that were made, information that was not in there that I have seen, exculpatory information that was not presented to the court and the court should have been allowed to look at - the Steele dossier as bad as it was, at least the judges were able to look at it and determine the whiten sufficiency of that evidence. The bigger problem for a lot of folks is there was exculpatory information that wasn't presented to the court.

HANNITY: All right. Also little birdie's beginning to tell me I might be over another target Mark Meadows, and that is that apparently the FBI may have treated Hillary Clinton on the issue of Russian interference into her campaign, they didn't treat her campaign the way they treated Donald Trump. Does that sound like something that's over the target to you?

MEADOWS: Well, I think you are over the target. There are always two different standards, one for the well-connected and one for the rest of us. But I can tell you, one of the interesting points and John Ratcliffe just pointed this out was when you look at the information that was not included.

Here's what we have to look at in today's reporting. We know that Papadopoulos wasn't working out for the FBI so they moved onto the dossier. We know that in October 2016, they knew that they had credibility problems with what we now know as the Steele dossier. So what did they do? They embarked on the economy Comey dossier which is part of the memos, and what they left out?

They didn't tell the President when they were briefing him. They didn't tell him that the DNC paid for it. They didn't tell him that Christopher Steele had credibility problems it wasn't in the memos that was concerning to me. I believe they were there trying to get information and trying to entrap the President-elect at the Trump Tower.

HANNITY: I think it's important that our country know this. Without you three, Jim Jordan and a few others, we wouldn't be here today. You guys have been dogged and diligent and committed to getting to the truth and we're getting there slowly. Thank you all.

When we come back Senator Lindsey Graham just sent a letter to the Attorney General Barr about the documents he would like to be declassified as it relates to FISA. Governor Mike Huckabee, Andy McCarthy they're next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Earlier today, Senator Lindsey Graham submitted a letter to the Attorney General Barr requested the declassification of very specific documents relating to the FISA process as it was applied to Carter Page and of course then a backdoor into all things Trump world. Now you can see them on the side of your screen, take a close look at all of it.

Here with reaction, Author of the brand-new book, "Ball of Collusion" the plot to rig an election and destroy a President. Fox News Contributor Andy McCarthy and Former Arkansas Governor and Fox News Contributor Mike Huckabee.

Let me get your reaction to all of today's events. This is a tiny very narrow sliver but when the Inspector General reports that those FISA warrants were illegally obtained and applications had unverified, uncorroborated information as the bulk of information, doesn't that sound to you like a setup?

MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS: I think it does. The tragedy is this could go all the way up to the top, let's hope it doesn't. I think that would be sad for the country that a sitting President and the top lieutenants--

HANNITY: You're talking about President Obama be clear.

HUCKABEE: --within his national security. I'm talking about President Obama, absolutely would actually target a candidate for President, a president-elect and someone who became President and would use all of the intelligence and law enforcement apparatus to try to overturn or to prevent an election.

This is the kind of stuff of Banana Republics, not the United States of America. And I also want to say with Jim Comey out there doing high fives celebrating himself I want to know who's going to apologize to General Flynn?

HANNITY: Good question.

HUCKABEE: To George Papadopoulos, to Roger Stone? Who is going to issue them an apology? It ought to be starting with James Comey.

HANNITY: Let me go to Andy McCarthy, the title of your book pretty much says it all. You are the one that really has brought into focus that there is never a counterintelligence investigation; it's always the President's counterintelligence investigation. We have got a rigged investigation into Hillary, evidence was overwhelming incontrovertible on the obstruction side.

Then we got the FISA abuse scandal, they never verified what was in those investigations, then got the counterintelligence investigations, you're saying clearly that had to be Barack Obama's and Strokz and Page had tax going back and were saying White House wants to be in the loop on any new developments?

ANDREW MCCARTHY, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Yes, Sean, if you're going to do counterintelligence that's done for the President and I've tried to distinguish between counterintelligence investigations and criminal investigations. Criminal investigations are done to vindicate the rule of law in court and therefore court proceedings, judicial cases, prosecutions.

The only reason we do counterintelligence is to support the President's constitutional mission to protect the United States from foreign threats. I agree with my friend Governor Huckabee, this is something that's very alarming in the sense that it could have gone to the top. I think there is no question it went to the top. The question is did they have a good faith reason for crediting this investigation? And the more we see the more it appears--

HANNITY: It sounds like almost everything is predicated on what the FBI when they finally got around to verifying Hillary's dirty Russian dossier, they said we don't see any of this that true. You titled your book as "Ball of Collusion", the plot to rig an election and destroy a president. Do you Andy McCarthy believe that happened from the upper levels, upper echelon within our Justice Department, within the former administration and within our intelligence community? Do you believe all of that all will be proven?

MCCARTHY: Sean, it couldn't have happened without it, let me just turn it around and say what if it were really true that we had a presidential candidate who was an agent of a foreign power a hostile foreign power? What would be more crazy than if the President didn't know about that? Of course he had to know about it.

HANNITY: Governor, your thoughts?

HUCKABEE: Well, first of all Andy McCarthy has done all of us a great favor by the facts and details of his book. What he just said is the single most important thing I've heard in a long time. It had to have been done, if they thought that President Trump was a Russian agent but the fact that now we know that he wasn't somebody has got to come clean and explain why did you ever think he was what was the basis of that? Where did that information come from?

HANNITY: Someone has to be Obama considering it's his counterintelligence investigation?

HUCKABEE: All of the people who worked for him.

HANNITY: Thank you both. This is today is a sliver, this is just a very narrow part, this is about to blow wide open, thank you both. When we come back, MSDNC Lawrence O'Donnell tried to walk back his outrageous lie about President Trump last night. Trump organization they're still taking legal action, Dan Bongino and Geraldo Rivera - not a good day again, another Biden disastrous gaffe, we'll play it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Right, now as we have been exposing on this program night after night after night the media mob continues to put out fake news narratives over facts, this has gone on now for two and half years, don't expect it's ever going to change because the media is a mob they hate Trump, they have a psychotic rage, they don't seem to be capable of stopping themselves.

Latest example, MSDNC Lawrence O'Donnell was forced to apologize after pushing another fake Russia conspiracy exposing just how low the media mob will sink to try and destroy the President who tweeted "The totally inaccurate reporting by Lawrence O'Donnell for which he has been forced by NBC to apologize as no different than the horrible, corrupt, fraudulent fake news that I've had to put up with for years.

Oh like on fake news CNN, today you have a guest saying Donald Trump has killed millions more than Mao and Stalin and Hitler. Here with reaction Fox News Contributor Dan Bongino and Fox News Correspondent at-Large Geraldo Rivera.

Well, you two gotten a big fight on this show this week, I hope you settled your differences.

GERALDO RIVERA, CORRESPONDENT AT-LARGE: Oh, yes. Listen this is never--

DAN BONGINO, CONTRIBUTOR: I love Sean.

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: --how is that going, let us just agree.

HANNITY: You know Geraldo, you are going to celebrate 50 years, some of the best reporting you ever did was in Willowbrook in New York. You've done other things that are phenomenal in your career as a war correspondent for example.

Can you imagine two and a half years, 99 percent of the media going with these lies, conspiracy theories, missing the biggest abuse of power story, what are they going to say, “Hannity” was right? I'm not going to wait for help to freeze over but we were right on every aspect of this.

RIVERA: Every aspect Sean, I used to think that it was just that President Trump got the worst press of any President in history, even worse than Andrew Johnson or Richard Nixon. Then I used to think that everything he said was being construed in the most evil way possible. But with Lawrence O'Donnell, it's something else Sean.

He told a lie about the President of the United States that if true would have made Russia gate all legit. He told the lie that Deutsche Bank lent Trump the money only after Russian oligarchs cosigned President Trump's loan from Deutsche Bank, this is obviously when he was a businessman before he held office.

If indeed - and Lawrence O'Donnell even said so. If indeed, the oligarchs had cosigned Trump's loan that would give Trump a motive to betray America because the oligarchs he was beholding to the oligarchs. They told the most fundamental lie, Eric Trump is absolutely right.

The Trump Organization and indeed the President's family have to draw the line in the sand here, they have to stop this, there has to be massive slander and libel suit against Lawrence O'Donnell who knew what he was doing.

HANNITY: One other things that we pride ourselves. We have a great ensemble cast here that has worked so hard on this story including both of you. And I look back from Richard Jewell, which I didn't rush the judgment and Richard Jewell said you're the only one that didn't I was a local guy in Atlanta. And then UVA, and then we've got Cambridge police, we got recently Nicholas Sandmann that kid with the MAGA Hat.

And then we got Ferguson Missouri in Baltimore, Maryland nobody in the media would vet Obama; nobody told Obama's failed record. Nobody but a few of us thought that Donald Trump could win this election in 2016 - they always get it wrong. Just like "The New York Times" said Dan, it got tricky, the tricky part is they screwed it up and want to apologize and fix it. Now they are going to move on to the next conspiracy.

BONGINO: Yes, Sean, we have a rule, it started as a joke on my show, we used to call it the Bongino rule wait 24 hours before reporting any Anti- Trump story because it will likely be debugged. Again that started as a joke two years ago.

I'm now very serious about it. I didn't report on this story yesterday because I'm telling you I knew it was going to be debugged as a hoax.

HANNITY: For the last two and half years I've dotted every "I" crossed every "T" we have not gone with stories that we knew are true until we had the right corroboration. Geraldo, it's one on one otherwise I forget it. If I was there might be fired a long time ago.

RIVERA: Absolutely Sean. They have a rule in every media but Fox News, anything you have to say against the President, the more negative, the better, let's go with it, and there is kind of a suspension of all the rules, a suspension of the code of honor, suspension of the need to be factually correct. I'm here, I just arrived by boat on Martha's Vineyard, Presidents Clinton and Obama are both here I'm told by the guy brought this boat over here.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: What a life, we don't want to hear this.

RIVERA: I think you do because, I bet Bill Clinton is smiling that James Comey has had his chops busted by the Inspector General.

BONGINO: Meanwhile I'm down here in a hurricane zone in Florida. I'm putting shutters on my house.

HANNITY: A tale of two “Hannity” friends all right. Good to see you both. When we come back, sleepy, creepy, crazy Uncle Joe Biden makes another massive blunder on the campaign trail, this time he got his facts mixed up about a war, we'll show you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Right, it's creepy, crazy Uncle Joe is under fire tonight for apparently telling a false war story about a 2008 trip to Afghanistan. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm pinning medals on, silver stars on, soldiers up in the upper Kunar Valley, young navy captain, navy, navy, up in the mountains in the Kunar Valley in Afghanistan.

They're behind a so-called forward before at operating base, behind these great big barriers on top of a mountain in a little cove in a God-forsake country. One of his buddies got shot fell down a ravine about 60 feet.

The four-star general asked me would I go up to the fob. This guy climbed down a ravine, carried this guy up in his back under fire. And the General wanted me to pin the Silver Star on him. I got up there, and stand as a God's truth, my word as a Biden. He stood his attention I want to pin my - I don't want the damn thing. Do not put it on me, sir, please, sir. Do not do that. He died. He died.

(END VIEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Right, according to "The Washington Post," "almost every detail in that story appears to be incorrect because Biden apparently never pinned this hero soldier with the high honor instead what appears to have happen is that Biden jumbled elements of at least three actual events into one story and confused it with pinning of an army staff sergeant on a different occasion.

Wow. That's not good. All right, we'll never be the destroy, rage, psychotic hate-Trump media mob. Let your heart not be troubled because Laura Ingraham is next. Have a great night.

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