Rudy Giuliani: Strzok's defense is ridiculous, pathetic

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Rudy Giuliani: Strzok's defense is ridiculous, pathetic

Rudy Giuliani, attorney for President Trump, speaks out about FBI Agent Peter Strzok's House testimony on 'The Ingraham Angle' and says the Trump team is 'farther away' from a possible interview with Mueller.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," July 12, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: We expect big protests here in London. We'll broadcast tomorrow again from London and then we'll be in Helsinki on Monday. As always thanks so much for being with us. Let not your heart be troubled, there she is Laura Ingraham standing by. It's three am, time for a beer for me, hi.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Hannity, the last time I was in Helsinki, you're ready for this? 1983.

HANNITY: Of course you've been to Helsinki, I've been to Helsinki never, yeah.

INGRAHAM: No OK on the way to Helsinki from Leningrad to do my semester abroad in Leningrad when I was in college but we all started in Helsinki and then we got on the scary Soviet trains, we went across the borders, all the Soviet soldiers jump on and they look through all your stuff. It was very dramatic but Helsinki's a beautiful city. A lot of drinking goes on in Helsinki though Hannity so be careful. And beautiful people.

HANNITY: I'm looking forward to it. And by the way just so our audience knows, Laura Ingraham was a hell raiser in college. She went to Dartmouth with Dinesh D'Souza and they made a lot of trouble and noise when they were there, I'm just saying.

INGRAHAM: Not me, Hannity it was a great show-

HANNITY: Wait a minute, I read about one other offense. Oh remember it was in, oh forget it. Have a great show.

INGRAHAM: You better watch out. I have a whole hour now to fill with stories about you so I'd be careful. You better go to the pub now, Hannity.

HANNITY: That's a month. I'm going to the last pub open. Have a great show.

INGRAHAM: You're right have a great rest of the morning. Good evening from Washington, I'm Laura Ingraham, this is 'The Ingraham Angle.' What an amazing show we have for you tonight, bombshell testimony on Capitol Hill tonight from that anti-Trump texting FBI agent Peter Strzok. We are going to have full analysis of the racketeering from a top law maker Rudy Giuliani and a lot more. Also a bombshell report by The Hill's John Solomon that the FBI may have received, get this, multiple versions of that Russian dossier. Mr. Solomon will be here to explain.

And across the pond President Trump, as Sean alluded to, is in England tonight and we will have exclusive footage no one's seen, of what the British folks really think about this President. Plus Michelle Malkin joins us to discuss an exclusive interview Trump just gave a to a UK newspaper. But first, when a Trump hating FBI investigator Strzok out, that's the focus of tonight's Angle.

Barton and Bailey would have undoubtedly been proud. They may not have been elephants though, or jugglers or trapeze artists flying through the air, but for hours and hours and hours today, former FBI investigator Peter Strzok was talking a tightrope that Republicans desperately tried to knock him off.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN RATCLIFFE, R—TEXAS: You're asking us to believe that when you say things like, "F Trump and stop Trump and impeach Trump" that those are just personal beliefs and that when you say those things you never crossed that line?

PETER STRZOK, FORMER FBI INVESTIGATOR: Sir I am asking you to believe and I am offering you evidence.

RATCLIFFE: You have under oath been as clear as a bell on that.

REP. TREY GOWDY, R—S.C.: How many interviews did you conduct that were related to the alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign?

STRZOK: The special counsel's equities has instructed me not to answer questions about the ongoing investigation.

REP. JIM JORDAN, R—OHIO: Did you know that he was meeting with representatives from Fusion, including Glynn Simpson?

STRZOK: I cannot discuss the content of the operational matters.

GOWDY: And your testimony is Bob Mueller did not kick you off because of the content of your text?

STRZOK: It is not my understanding that he kicked me off because of any bias. I don't appreciate what was originally said being changed.

GOWDY: I don't give a damn what you appreciate Agent Strzok.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Would he get kicked off for having bad breath? I mean it's ridiculous. Meanwhile of course we saw Democrats stretching out the nets to save Strzok at every turn using explosive denunciations and every lame parliamentary trick in the book.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BOB GOODLATTE, R—VIRGINIA: Mr. Strzok, you are under subpoena and are required to answer the questions. Are you objecting to the question? If so, please state your objection.

STRZOK: Mr. Chariman I object.

GOODLATTE: (The gentleman does not have standings to object. No point of order.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The point of order should be heard.

GOODLATTE: No point of order here. I move to subpoena Steve Bannon in our House Intelligence investigations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The motion has to be heard immediately Mr. Chairman.

GOODLATTE: Motion is not germane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I move to overrule the motion of the Chair.

GOODLATTE: The motion made to table

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I need a Pepto-Bismol, that was very dramatic. Now when that tactic got old, the Democrats tried to change the subject altogether.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are three thousand children separated from their moms and dads and the government doesn't know where their moms and dads are. That seems like something that the judiciary committee should be investigating.

REPRESENTATIVE SHEILA JACKSON LEE, D—TEXAS: What we have not done is investigated the children being stolen away from their families. Nor have we looked at our president meeting with Mr. Putin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Strzok you are before this committee for one reason to serve as a monumental distraction. They need to identify a villain. Mr. Strzok tag, you're it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: No you're it. All these games, hi-jinks, games, circus. Stay with me here because there were moments when the haring went from circus light to a complete side show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPR. LOUIE GOHMERT JR, R—TEXAS: And I've talked to FBI agents across the country, you've embarrassed them, you've embarrassed yourself. And I can't help but wonder, when I see you looking there with a little smirk, how many times did you look so innocent into your wife's eyes and lie to her about Lisa--

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Chairman that's outrageous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Credibility of the witness.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Chairman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Oh well I understand that passions are running high but I have a question here. What did that accomplish exactly? Now at some point the obfuscation and the hyperbole on both sides tend to cancel each other out. And most Americans watching the house oversight proceedings for any length of time today probably thought to themselves, "Is this really what it's come to? At times it seems like they were more like contestants in both parties and they were competing for the sound bite of the day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STRZOK: I never prejudged anything. Not in this case, not in any others. And second--

GOWDY: Agent Mr. Strzok you mentioned the use of the word impeachment?

STRZOK: That was used in the content of me not knowing what this would lead to.

GOWDY: Agent Strzok are you kidding?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are two people that are thrilled and excited today. There are two people. The folks over at Fox News and the Kremlin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have never seen my colleague so out of control.

GOHMERT: If I could give you a purple heart I would, you deserve one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well the veterans must have felt really good about that little line but that didn't work. But set aside all that for a moment and we're at the same point, basically, that we've been at almost for the past year or so. The FBI agent in charge of two of the most important political investigations of the past decade, was steeped in animus toward candidate and then President Trump. At a time when he was supposedly impartially overseeing the Clinton email investigation, he was pretty much actively rooting for election victory.

He agonized, when you read in the text messages, about the possibility that Trump would win and he assured his then lover that he would not let that happen. But pay no attention to that because there's no bias there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STRZOK: There is no act of bias so this false assertion that you're making that political personal belief must equal bias, that somehow we've merged those two words together in the dictionary is one of the triumphs that's been going on recently that I cannot disagree with more. I and the other men and women of the FBI everyday take our personal beliefs and set those aside in vigorous pursuit of the truth, wherever it lies, whatever it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Ok so I have a question. So do the men and the women of the FBI who run really high profile investigations, do they really carry on a running commentary via text message about the subject of their investigations and what they hope happens to the key players therein? I don't think so and I certainly hope not. But that is precisely what Strzok did. Now there is no doubt of course as it's repeated over and over again today that FBI agents are like everybody else, they are entitled to their own political opinions and they have them.

But the blatant biases revealed in Strzok's texts and the specificity therein, how he discussed them with his girlfriend are troubling and they remain so. He claims to take great offense and he was sitting up very straight and looking down his nose at the thought that anyone should believe from his own writings that he meant to stop Trump's election and create that insurance policy that he referenced to guarantee Trumps' defeat.

But that is what he wrote. And he wrote it, as he said today, when he thought no body was looking but his girlfriend. Strzok's continuing denials of bias are as incredible and maddening as today's hearing. And that's the Angle. Joining me now for reaction is former Republican Chair of the House Oversight Committee, Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz, with me here in the studio Richard Goodstein, a former advisor to Bill and Hillary Clinton and GOP Congressman Ron Desantis who attended today's hearing.

Congressman I have to say that I was looking forward to this, I know he already testified behind closed doors. But I thought at times it wasn't working for the Republicans, I got to say. I think Peter Strzok did not come across particularly well, kind of priggish and to me kind of snooty and indignant, I never think that works well for a witness. I like Louie Gohmert a lot, I thought that moment, that exchange with Gohmert and Strzok, I don't think that was good. And I wouldn't want to be one of the Republicans on that committee when that went down.

REP. RON DESNATIS, R—FLA.: Well look I mean it was a day but I would say, I mean reading the text is one thing but then to have him sit there and say, "I said I was going to stop Trump, I didn't mean the FBI, I just meant the American people would not--" It wasn't credible just like his explanations were not credible to the inspector general, he was not a credible witness and I think his explanations did not hold water. And so the idea that he is doing this, and he did act with bias as the IG said with the Huma Abedin emails and how he was focusing on Trump-Russia collusion so I think the public got to see the bias.

And here's the thing, we pressed on this and he would not answer these questions. What was the basis for the collusion case? You won't tell us about Papadopoulos. He barely talked about the dossier so that's the troubling thing is that you have the bias but then you have this investigation which we still have no there there. He even said ten months after it, "There's nothing here, I'm worried that there's nothing here"

INGRAHAM: And there were lot of interesting moments. As I'm saying there weren't interesting moments, there were. It just was for what, ten hours and you could have gotten some of these points but just the way it is, there's so many people on the committee but that was difficult. But I want to get to Richard here because through the hearing Strzok did insist that he had no bias. But the IG Report as Congressman Desantis referenced said the following, 'When one senior FBI official, Peter Strzok, was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official, Lisa Page that 'we'll stop' candidate Trump from being elected. It is not only indicative of a biased state of mind, but even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate's electoral prospects. We concluded as the IG again, that we did not have confidence that this decision by Strzok was free from bias.' Richard.

RICHARD GOODSTEIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: So here's what's not plausible to me. The intelligence community says the Russians meddled to help Trump hurt Hillary. The said intelligence committee, Republicans and Democrats said the exact same thing. The president meanwhile is saying, "Well I'll ask Putin if he did it and if he didn't, well maybe--

INGRAHAM: Why are you not answering the question?

GOODSTEIN: Well here's the answer it's about Strzok.

INGRAHAM: Why are you over on Putin? This is what the Democrats did today.

GOODSTEIN: Strzok could singlehandedly have blown this whole campaign to high heaven by disclosing what he knew. He could have even gone to jail at some point.

INGRAHAM: Let me explain to you why that a real lame point. That's was recycled over and over again and you know why that's lame? Because it would have been so overtly obvious. It would have been so obvious and stupid for him to do that, easily traced back to him in an ethical violation of the rules and he wouldn't have done that. That's lame.

GOODSTEIN: But the point is if he was such a fanatic and all his critics are saying that he was so fanatical that he biased the thing so badly. He was so fanatical, he would have gone to jail to stop Trump from getting elected. How?

INGRAHAM: That's just a lie because he's not that stupid, that's why. He's not that's stupid, he might have thought he was talking to his girlfriend but he's not that stupid enough leak the fact that this investigation was going on right before the election. It would have gone right back to him. It would have been obvious. He would have been in a potential--

GOODSTEIN: The public would have--

DESANTIS: But he did though. The New York Times did publish on October 30th that this investigation is going on they said no ties to Trump. He didn't have the goods that's why he didn't say anything.

INGRAHAM: Jason I also want to get your reaction to this, Mark Meadows was asking Strzok today about Obama's knowledge of the Russian collusion probe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARK MEADOWS, R—N.C.: Were you aware of any discussion that took place with regards to Russia collusion investigations that took place with the Obama administration's executive branch?

STRZOK: I am certainly aware of conversations that occurred with Obama administration officials.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: It took a long time to get him to finally say that, I think we were going to cut the sound bite, alone it was three minutes just pulling teeth to get him to respond to that question. All along many of us have a hard time believing Jason that the White House at least wasn't regularly updated as one those text messages revealed. What was your sense about that aspect of the White House being updated and informed about this Russia collusion investigation and candidate Trump?

JASON CHAFFETZ, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well it is one if the deep concerns and there is this triangulation between the DNC and what was going on in the Hillary Clinton campaign. Bruce Ohr, the development of this dossier and then how it was funneled back into the FBI. Was that information then fed inappropriately to the Pfizer court in order to obtain warrants?

I thought Jim Jordan had one of the best sets of questions where he got Peter Strzok to admit, under oath, that yes Bruce Ohr was involved. His wife, of course, Nellie was involved working at Fusion, at a company that company that had less than 20 employees and the whole triangulation does involve the DNC. It does involve political actors that would have, naturally some ties into the White House and I think it's still an open and valid question.

INGRAHAM: Jason you were head of the Oversight Committee. Goodlatte, whom we have enormous respect for on this show, has done such great work on immigration and many other issues. At the beginning of that hearing today, the Democrats had clearly planned, and Ron you probably agree with this, to get this thing off track as fast as possible. Objection objection, talking over each other, it was like a major swarm. If Jim Sensenbrenner when he had that gabble in his hand, I have a feeling that that room would have been cleared if that thing kept going. But Goodlatte kind of let roll on a little while. Did he think that was a smart move because the Democrats really dominated I'd say for the first ten minutes of these objections.

CHAFFETZ: I think one the things that the American people would see is the Democrat's antics. It was pre-scripted that they were going to have a recorded vote, you have clerks in the room. I can tell you normally when you have a hearing you never have the clerks in there so the chairman must have known there was going to be a recorded vote. But it did get out of control, he did trial to gabble him down. And when you have a poor witness with a message that you don't want, that's what you do. You yell, scream, interrupt and act outside of the rules and it got away from him a little bit.

But that's the way they act and that's what the Democrats do and that's what America sees. I can't believe they actually want to give him, Peter Strzok, a purple heart. I mean that's where the Democrats are coming from I guess.

INGRAHAM: I got to say that was among the more embarrassing comments. There was a few moments that I don't care if you're Democrat or Republican, this is something that you would see on Saturday Night Live, where Peter Strzok was actually asked to read his own text like nobody would want to be in that position. He had to read his own texts, let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STRZOK: OMG he's an idiot. Trump is a disaster, I have no idea how destabilizing his presidency would be. Ms Page said, "He's not ever going to become president right, right?" "No, no he's not we'll stop it. What the f happened to our country Lis?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK read it again that way.

STRZOK: Sir did you not hear it? You just want to hear it for me to repeat it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please.

STRZOK: OK sir, sure, happy to indulge you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And the Tony academy award. Richard I think the point that we've always been trying emphasize is that this wasn't just a run of the mill FBI agent. This was the guy who was the lead investigator in two of the critical investigations really of the last I think 20 years in politics, maybe since Iran Contra. And to hear him reading those, what a blanking disaster et cetera, et cetera, it dramatized it in a way that when you just read the transcript, you don't really get. I like that moment, it was a little dramatic but I like it.

INGRAHAM: Can I just say that you had a list of Republican house of senate members, Republicans in the cabinet who said equally damning things during the campaign and since Donald Trump was elected. I won't repeat them here because they're effectively a little of color, by Republicans, including somebody who's on the air with us right now.

INGRAHAM: Well you're repeating what the Democrats just did.

GOODSTEIN: I'm just saying you're saying Strzok is horrible and he's off beat. A lot of people were saying that not just people--

INGRAHAM: Richard I will say talking more loudly doesn't make your point any more cogent. I love you but that is just a lame tactic. Here's what I will say, the people like Ben Sasse who criticize Donald Trump, first of all number one, Ben Sasse has literally no constituency. Number two he's not the lead investigator and to use the critical investigations of the FBI for the last 20 years. So to say well, "Ben Sasse doesn't like Donald Trump, so are we going to bring Ben Sasse up?" That's a ridiculous point. God a first year law student would know that.

GOODSTEIN: What's perverse is that Strzok sat on the dope about Trump and Russians and he helped put out about Hillary's emails so it's a twisted to look at it that somehow he helped--

DESANTIS: He had this about something about Russia.

INGRAHAM: I don't think any of us at this table would want to be investigated for something that we were accused of by someone who had an innate animus toward us. And be satisfied and says, "Oh no it didn't affect my outcome" We'd all be like what what are you leading this investigation for? Hold on.

MEADOWS: Strzok was one of the millions of people who probably had those views. He's the only person in America who opened up a counter intelligence investigation against Trump's campaign.

INGRAHAM: Well he also signed off on a Pfizer warrant. There was a moment where Peter Strzok seemed to contradict whether or not he was under a particular kind of investigation. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DARRELL ISSA, R—CALIF.: So you think it's OK for the target, and you are a target, of an investigation to determine what should be delivered rather than if you will, to government right?

STRZOK: Sir I'm not aware of any investigation I which I'm a target.

ISSA: Are you under review by the FBI office of professional responsibility?

STRZOK: Yes sir.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: OK well OPR is another wing of the government so he is under investigation. Are we knit picking here? That's the problem, Republicans sometimes can get into the position where they are perceived to be knit picking on issues that are not the primary issues.

DESANTIS: Well he's also under investigation by the inspector general for the Trump-Russia collusion because that IG report was just about Hillary and it did spill over into some of his text messages. They're actively looking at his role in that and when I asked him questions he said he wasn't a subject in that, he is the subject.

INGRAHAM: Jason before we let you all go, what are the grounds for an FBI general counsel to shut down questioning and answering questions from congressional oversight committee hearings like this? He kept relying on that, is that valid?

CHAFFETZ: It's absolutely not valid and I can tell you that as the former chairman of the oversight committee there is no attorney-client privilege between a government employee and government attorney, there is none. And the other point is no, they have no privileges and you have concurrent investigations.

INGRAHAM: That's what I thought. All right Jason thank you. Great panel guys and up next, Giuliani on all of this. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: Well that last segment was a lot of fun so let's get right back to our top story the testimony of the anti-Trump texting FBI agent Peter Strzok on Capitol Hill today, I think it just wrapped up a five minutes ago. That thing never ended. To discuss we are joined by the president's top lawyer in the Mueller probe former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. Rudy this was like a marathon today and there was a lot of silliness in this thing.

The Democrats were pulling out all these parliamentary tricks and they were talking about kids in cages, they were back to the immigration, I don't know what that had anything to do with what was going on. But Strzok started off his testimony today with a prepared statement and it was almost as if he was projecting himself to be this great saviour of the representative democracy that we have, let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STRZOK: In the summer of 2016 we had an urgent need to protect the integrity of an American presidential election from a hostile foreign power determined to weaken and divide the United States of America. This investigation is not politically motivated. It is not a witch hunt, it is not a hoax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Superman.

RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well I mean with a text saying that he had to stop Trump. He had a whole secret plan to stop him, the names he called Trump. He should never have been involved in the investigation. We shouldn't have to worry whether he was biased or not. If I were running that investigation I never would have let a partisan like that, nor would I have hired Jim Quarrels or Wiseman or the other people that Mueller has hired who have donated money to Hillary, cried because she lost then found to be some of the most unethical prosecutors in the history if the justice department, particularly Wiseman. You go hire an unethical prosecutor to investigate the President of the United States? You're going to get an unethical investigation.

INGRAHAM: Today he kept saying when he was pressed about these text messages, at one point they made him read his text messages which--

GIULIANI: Which he doesn't remember.

INGRAHAM: Well he says, "Well yes I wrote those words but that's was late night texting and you have to know the whole context" It's like the words were there, he wrote them but he doesn't want to own them.

GIULIANI: I think he said he didn't remember the 'Stop Trump' one. Them he can't remember his intent if he doesn't remember doing it.

INGRAHAM: We have a lot of forgetful FBI agents up there--

GIULIANI: I will tell you I spoke to about five FBI agents tonight, including a former high ranking one, a very high ranking. Actually they're glad because they see him as a complete renegade, a complete scoundrel and a criminal. He's not an FBI agent and every organization has some really bad people. This guy is a really bad guy and the reason the Democrats look so bad is they were stupidly defending. That whole thing of, like your former Democratic guest here, "I'm innocent because I didn't leak illegally"

INGRAHAM: That's what Zoe Lofgren was saying. She said, "None of this came out, they could have leaked this information" Lofgren and so many others said that.

GIULIANI: And they also could have shot Trump. I mean you know, it is not a defense to this crime that you didn't commit another one. It's not a defense to bank robbery that you didn't hold up the candy store. I mean I could have help up the candy store and look I wasn't the one who held up the bank. I mean it's a ridiculous defense, pathetic for an FBI agent. The guy's also arrogant, smug, the deplorables, we're all deplorables. I'm a spiffy guy.

INGRAHAM: He reminded me kind of Jim Comey. The smell of the Walmart. You said that when you went down to Southern Virginia you could smell the Trump supporters and you said, "Oh no that's was just" He didn't want to say--

GIULIANI: In other words all those things that were secretly tweeted or that he secretly wrote in his texts, he didn't believe, he was writing it for fun. He wants us to believe that. Meanwhile he instigates an investigation of the President if the United States, then a candidate, totally baseless. To this day they can't find a single bit of evidence that ties President Donald Trump, to any kind of collusion.

INGRAHAM: What's the progress on Mueller--

GIULIANI: The progress on the Mueller investigation is that it's falling apart of its own weight.

INGRAHAM: They're hiring more people. They hired five more people, the Pfizer guys and they said they're going to conclude.

GIULIANI: They can hire ten more people. With this kind of support, like Mueller fires him but never finds out the extent of his taint. To this day we don't know the taint that he created in that investigation since he started it. That's the investigation we're dealing with right now with a bunch of people who have the same political view as he has.

INGRAHAM: They found out that Mueller did not in fact, that came out today, did not in fact ask any questions about his texts when he departed.

GIULIANI: So I had an assisting U.S. Attorney when I was U.S. Attorney. He's writing horrible things about the defendant or the subject of the investigation and he's with about ten other people. And I don't find out what he said to them, what he did, who he interviewed-

INGRAHAM: What does that tell you about Mueller?

GIULIANI: What it tells me is Mueller is asleep at the switch. It's being run by the same kind of Hillary party that he is, the same kind of horrible person that he is with this attitude about deplorable Americans like you and me. And they will frame Donald Trump which is one of the reasons why they are trying to set a perjury trap for him. And thank God that we're tough enough to smell that out.

INGRAHAM: What do you think about the fact that we found out today that Strzok still has the security clearance.

GIULIANI: I think it's disgraceful and I am ashamed of the Justice Department today. Why aren't they moving against this guy? Why is he still have a security clearance?

INGRAHAM: Well there's a Democrat that said he should get a purple heart, he said today.

GIULIANI: Is he still getting paid?

INGRAHAM: I don't know. Yeah I guess he's still getting paid.

GIULIANI: I think he's suspended, I think he's still getting. You are paying his salary and I am paying his salary and the guy is maybe the most flawed FBI agent since the guys who spied for the Soviet Union.

INGRAHAM: Any closer to an agreement with Mueller of some kind of limited questions?

GIULIANI: Probably further away.

INGRAHAM: Further away?

GIULIANI: When you see this kind of thing. You're a lawyer, would you walk your client into a kangaroo court? With guys who donated $36,000 to his opponent, cried at her loss party, represented the scoundrel who broke the-

INGRAHAM: I never understood the people who thought Trump should ever testify in this Mueller thing. Maybe written questions to certain--

GIULIANI: If you have an objective group of people that you can persuade, of course you'd consider testifying. But if you people that are like him, they don't even --

INGRAHAM: He's gone, though. Now they have a whole --

GIULIANI: But they've never unraveled the taint that they created. Nor do we know about the texts of the people that are there right now. I want to see their texts in 2016. What did they write about Donald Trump? Did they think I'm a deplorable and you're a deplorable, and the president is, and the 80 million people that voted for him? I want to know that.

INGRAHAM: You're going to stick around because we have a lot more to get to in the next block, because Peter Strzok's testimony comes less than 48 hours after reporter John Solomon drops the news of another FBI scandal. John is going to share the details. You will not believe this. Rudy will react, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: According to a new report by "The Hill's" John Solomon, the FBI may have been bamboozled willingly by multiple versions of that infamous Russia dossier. Why does this matter? The revelation comes from none other than FBI agent Peter Strzok who wrote an email to FBI leaders when "Buzzfeed" made the dossier public, remember, in early January 2017. He said "I have the PDF via iPhone. Comparing now. The set is only identical to what McCain had. It has differences from what was given to us by Corn and Simpson," meaning three different versions, count them. That likely means the FBI obtained all three different versions of the dossier from different sources, John McCain, far left "Mother Jones" reporter David Cork, and Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS. Republican Congressman Jim Jordan asked Strzok about the email earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JORDAN: Are there three copies of the dossier as evidenced by what you said in this email?

STRZOK: Sir, to be clear, I want to talk about this. I want nothing more --

JORDAN: You can say that all you want, but you are not talking about that. You're not answering my questions. Are there three copies?

STRZOK: Three copies of what?

JORDAN: The McCain copy, the "Buzzfeed" copy, and the one that you got from Corn and Simpson.

STRZOK: Sir, I can tell you I never had contact with Fusion, with Mr. Simpson, with Mr. Corn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Here to explain the significance of this development, stay with us, it's very important, John Solomon himself, the opinion contributor at "The Hill," and Rudy Giuliani who is listening to this, going this can't be really happening. John, why does this matter that there are three different versions of this salacious dossier floating around at different times that are clearly attacking Donald Trump?

JOHN SOLOMON, "THE HILL": In counterintelligence, one of the most important things for agents to avoid is what's called circular reporting. Are we getting the same intelligence from different people and it's just an echo chamber. So they fire Mr. Steele. Remember, he had inappropriate contact.

INGRAHAM: In October of 2016, he shouldn't have talked to reporters. They had to nix their contact.

SOLOMON: That's right, he's out of there.

INGRAHAM: Really reliable, thanks.

SOLOMON: But somehow the Steele document keeps finding its updates walking into the FBI through these emissaries. John McCain, they gave it to him. He's a willing participant because he's not a big fan of President Trump after the election.

INGRAHAM: We need to talk more about the McCain angle here. God bless him, he's suffering. But no one wants to talk about that. We have to talk about that.

SOLOMON: We know from the testimony of Glenn Simpson that Glenn Simpson set that delivery up, that Glenn Simpson made sure that John McCain's people got that. That's in the Senate Judiciary testimony. Now you've got David Corn who wrote a story in October then decides to give the document to the FBI in November after he's already written a story. That doesn't make sense. Nothing wrong and October if you're trying to authenticate it. You've already written about it. Why did you give it to the FBI?

And then you got Glenn Simpson who we heard today might have used Bruce Ohr to get the document in. So now that whole chain of custody has been disrupted, and you've got people feeding in around and creating circular intelligence.

INGRAHAM: one investigator told her the following. I love this line. The dossier and its related dirt was on a circular flight path aboard a courier service called air Clinton, and the FBI kept signing for the packages. That's chilling. Rudy Giuliani, your reaction?

GIULIANI: Isn't that called collusion? Or conspiracy to gin up a totally inappropriate, totally illegal wire based on national security? And doesn't it, with no investigation doesn't it taints the entire Russian probe? How much of that information from that wire ended up being in the Russian probe? How much is it presently infecting it? And why doesn't Manafort's lawyers move to dismiss the indictment for taint? There'll never be an indictment of the president, so we'll never get a chance to do that. But we will sure want to investigate that in the counter report that we write to whatever kind of hatchet job might be done on the president, which I hope doesn't happen.

INGRAHAM: I want to share another part of this exchange with Congressman Jordan today. This was one of the best parts of the hearings. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JORDAN OHIO: The FBI did get documents from Bruce Ohr.

STRZOK: Yes, sir.

JORDAN: Did they get the dossier from Bruce Ohr?

STRZOK: My direction from the FBI, as I may tell you, the FBI received material from Mr. Ohr.

JORDAN: This is amazing. This is amazing. So Nellie Ohr works for Fusion, works for Glenn Simpson, and she is giving documents --

JACKSON: Regular order please. Let us bring the director of the FBI to answer those questions. The gentleman cannot answer. Asked and answered.

JORDAN: The America people --

JACKSON: He asked and answered. He could not --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Sheila Jackson Lee should've been thrown out of that hearing. We want to hear the answer to that question. You notice how when they are starting to get to the truth, the Democrats will start talking over the witness. That's not cool. I think Sheila Jackson Lee. She's a fun person, I like her. But they can't do that. This was happening all day long at this hearing. The moment they got close to something, talking over it. Why wouldn't they let him answer the questions?

John, I think people here "dossier" they say what does that mean? It's important because, as Rudy Giuliani said, without that these surveillance, the Carter Page surveillance, the kickoff of this investigation began even though they had not interviewed any witnesses. They got to that point today. He didn't remember or wouldn't say if he interviewed one person to justify the beginning of that Russia probe.

SOLOMON: You could look at something I wrote about a week ago where you see Peter Strzok writing an email saying we now have a pretext, an excuse to look at Carter Page. Then he puts it together, what is the evidence? It's the dossier paid by Hillary Clinton and a story leaked to Michael Isikoff that is based on the dossier. It's circular reporting, the entire beginning of this investigation violates all the norms of intelligence reporting.

INGRAHAM: Rudy, does this get in the head of the president when he's over there doing this --

GIULIANI: No, I talked to the president this morning. He is perfectly focused on what he's doing now in London. One of the things we're deprived of with President Trump is the argument that this interferes with the president. But it does interfere with the presidency, and that's a disgrace. Mueller should be ashamed of himself. Those Democrats trying to protect that liar, Strzok, today should be ashamed of themselves. And every FBI agent I know wants to see this guy drummed out of the Bureau and they want to see him not paid.

The problem with the dossier is, OK, they like the fake news. We have a deal with fake news. But it also led to a wiretap. And it led to a national intelligence wiretap. And it led to evidence that came out of that. And it led to evidence that was in the minds of Strzok and other people when they continued the investigation of Trump into Mueller. So how much of it is in infecting the investigation today? We may never know, which is why I think the investigation is totally phony.

INGRAHAM: When I hear insurance policy, every time I read that, it's got one line. Today it was like, no, these are texts. He kind of blew it all off.

GIULIANI: What does insurance policy mean? It means I have a certain set of things I'm going to do to stop this guy as a last resort. The mere fact that it didn't leak or didn't kill him doesn't mean that it wasn't illegal. It was clearly illegal, and that is why he is lying about it.

INGRAHAM: Do you believe the president in his meeting on Monday with Vladimir Putin, will he be able to be as open, effective, as focused with our relationship with Russia, with all that stuff out there floating?

GIULIANI: I'll tell you, there are a lot of differences between him and Vladimir Putin. And the best thing is to try to iron them out. We'll probably not going to do that. Here's what the two men know -- they never colluded with Donald Trump. Whatever the Russians did, they didn't collude with Donald Trump. And the only crime committed is the hacking. Nobody thinks that Donald Trump was involved in hacking. He wouldn't know how to do hacking, nor would he do it. So once the information is hacked by the Russians, if that's the case, then everybody else is entitled to play with it. If they give it to you, you can report it on Fox.

INGRAHAM: John, last word.

SOLOMON: I'll say one thing. When the mayor was talking about the colluders, I think there's one other part. My own profession gets used in a way that I think is very concerning. You see reporters being part of the circular exchange, delivering documents as part of the circular reasoning. I think when we all step back, my profession needs to take a look at what we did and how we may have been played in all of this. I think that is another important part of this.

INGRAHAM: John Solomon.

GIULIANI: Thanks, John. Thanks for your work. "The Hill" does a great job.

INGRAHAM: Rudy Giuliani. All right, stop complimenting.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: Just ahead we have exclusive footage from the streets of London during the president's visit. You won't believe it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: President Trump is England tonight where of course he attended dinner, a beautiful setting, with British Prime Minister Theresa May at the birthplace of Winston Churchill. There were minor protests today, but major demonstrations are planned tomorrow in London where Fox News foreign affairs correspondent Benjamin Hall asked residents about the president's visit, which he shared with us exclusively.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN HALL, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Once just small local pub in London now rebranded to commemorate the president's visit, and pulling pints in his honor. It's also where supporters have started to gather from across the U.K. to discuss the president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Despite the media trashing him, he stands strong.

HALL: Meanwhile across town's as people brace for protests which are expected tomorrow, not everyone was as complimentary.

HALL: Are you happy that he's coming, should we be welcoming him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I don't think so.

HALL: Others managed a few more words.

Are you criticizing his policies or him personally?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A bit of both. A bit of both. His policies are to stir up as much trouble it as many nations as possible.

HALL: And some spoke straight to him.

And if you could speak directly to him and he was right here in front of you, what would you say to him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That he should learn to be kinder to people. That's basically it, just be a nicer person.

HALL: But of all the people we spoke to, most welcomed the visit.

I wondered if you have a moment to answer one question about President Trump's visit and whether you think the country should be welcoming him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure, why not? He is the president of the United States and he should be respected as such. I support him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HALL: So here in central London it really has been a mixed bag. They are people we spoke to who disagreed with President Trump's policies but respected him as a strong leader. There are others who said they wished the U.K. had a similar type of leader, especially now at such a precarious time for British politics. Laura?

INGRAHAM: And the so-called experts in the media have been overwhelmingly harsh in their assessment of President Trump's performance in the just concluded NATO meeting. But let's now talk with someone who actually served in the NATO arena, retired four-star Air Force General Philip Breedlove, the 17th Supreme Allied Commander of NATO joins us now. It is great to have you on, sir. Thank you for joining us. I was stunned --

GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE, RET, FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: Good evening, Laura.

INGRAHAM: Good to have you with us. I was stunned to see the media's reaction, their reaction. Every time they would hear from one of the actual NATO attendees, the prime minister, the president, they said it was a good meeting. It was frank, it was honest, sometimes brutally so, but we made real progress. It's very differently from the way it's all played out in the media day after day here. Does that surprise you given your experience in this complex arena of global affairs?

BREEDLOVE: No, Laura, it doesn't. And what we often see is like yesterday, a lot of the reporting were centered around the bilateral meetings, the extra meetings on the outside of the actual summit. And then much like what you have described, what I have been able to dig up is that the reporting on what went on in the summit, in the meetings, was much more collegial, much more forward leaning, and actually some pretty good results. We'll not know what the actual results are until the communiques and the official reporting comes out of NATO. But everything we are hearing now is that while there was some tough verbiage surrounding, the meetings inside came to some good conclusions.

INGRAHAM: General, what I don't understand about the analysis of all of this is it's almost like people believe our relationship with NATO should never change. Even if the Soviet Union is gone, we still have a problem with Putin obviously, but the world was a different place. This is 69 years of our relationship with NATO. I'm glad we have NATO. I think NATO is really important. But the mere fact that Donald Trump said you have to pay your two percent and you can't wait until 2024 when you are all out of office and Donald Trump won't be in office anymore to say we'll have it done by then. He said no, no, you're going pay four percent. This is kind of the art of the deal stuff that he did, but since when can't we demand that our billions of dollars are well spent and reciprocated at least in total by the other members nations?

BREEDLOVE: This is actually a line of logic that has been used by multiple presidents. But none have really had the effect to this point that President Trump has had.

Some of us, including me, occasionally have been a little concerned with his tactics, techniques, procedures, the verbiage that he used along the way. But we have to be intellectually honest enough to understand that despite that he is the one that has gotten the results so far, at least the beginning of those results.

INGRAHAM: Emmanuel Macron had very favorable things to say. Theresa May, it looked they had a fantastic night tonight in Britain. It's looks like the relationship with Angela Merkel, it's more honest I think than it was in the past with other presidents. I think honesty and transparency in this very complicated arena is better than just the niceties. Well, we hope you contribute more money, and then nothing happens. That's what Bush did and that's what Obama did. They both said contribute more money, and the pace of the contribution increasing somewhat, but not at the level that we need for a really vibrant and strong NATO. So I think Trump is trying to bolster NATO. He's not trying to help Russia, he is trying to bolster it.

BREEDLOVE: Well, the results have been good. And I would also say that we need to just examine the facts on the ground across the past few years. And actually some of it started in the Obama administration but it continued under the current president. And that is the United states has continued to increase its investment via the ERI, the European Reassurance Initiative, and now the EDI, European Defense Initiative. And we have increased our rotational presence of troops, et cetera.

And as we see the nations also coming on board during this summit and pledging their own troops and things, this is a good sign for the future.

INGRAHAM: General, thank you so much.

And up next Michelle Malkin is going to be here with more on the media's hysterical reaction to what has transpired over the last 48 hours or so. Stay there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: President Trump sat down with "The Sun" newspaper and leveled a number of broadsides against its current hostess, British Prime Minister Theresa May, including criticizing her soft approach to Brexit, saying, quote, "If they do a deal like that we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the U.K., so it will probably kill the deal."

Joining me now with a reaction, Michelle Malkin, host of "Michelle Malkin Investigates," which is fantastic, on CRTV. Michelle, there is so much I want to get through with you. But this was quite something. As they are sitting down to this beautiful, fancy dinner with all this pageantry, this story is breaking in "The Sun" where Donald Trump says you've really screwed up this Brexit, and basically goes on and says Boris Johnson would make it better prime minister. Your reaction?

MICHELLE MALKIN, HOST, "MICHELLE MALKIN INVESTIGATES": Look, when are the most extreme of media freaks not freaking out about Trump speaking truth that former presidents whether they had a "D" or an "R" by their name dared not ever air in public? He can't say that! He can't do that! He can't threaten that! And of course what they covet the most is an American president who serves as a doormat who speaks in dulcet tones and only the most obsequious phrases when dealing with Europe. You can't upend that applecart. Yes, he can.

And whether they were freaking out over the Iran deal or over North Korea, it's always an apocalypse. America is going to be left alone. And the record so far has been that when he says these things that the American people want him to say, he has gotten his way, which is our way.

INGRAHAM: Michelle, there was a moment today when Christiane Amanpour was interviewing the NATO secretary general. I was watching this in the gym this morning, I almost fell off the treadmill I was laughing so hard, because you could tell Christiane just wants the secretary general of NATO to at least appear to be annoyed by President Trump. But the mild mannered Norwegian seemed to say it was going pretty well. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Really concerned and nervous, hoping that this summit was not going to devolve into a debacle like the G- 7 summit did with disunity and pulling out of communiques. How would you say you accessed the unity and the success of this summit?

JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: This has been a very good summit because actually I had very open and frank discussions. There is no problem to have different views.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I don't know why, I just thought -- she was like, wait a second, is that all you're going to give me? It was a good summit? Say something bad about the president, please, right now because it's really awkward on camera for me. Michelle, this happened all over television today. CNN, John Berman was trying to get -- that fell flat. But I think the other leaders might not like the fact that Trump is demanding more things, but they have to deal with it because they need our help and we're allies. I think it has worked out great for us.

MALKIN: I think so, too. And Christiane should be very careful about in the future not asking questions that she doesn't know how are going to be answered like that.

But there's something else happening too, which is it's not just the media. And I note that "Politico" reported today that George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were in Arkansas nursing the wounds on behalf of so many of these - - right? Right?

(LAUGHTER)

MALKIN: You saw that? And they don't get it. They are on the same side as the globalists against Trump and America's interests. They keep doing that we're going to get another reelection of Donald Trump in 2020. Between the media and between the never Trumpers in both parties, keep it going.

INGRAHAM: Michelle, wouldn't you have loved to have been on the line when Trump called George W. Bush apparently on Monday about Brett Kavanaugh? I would love have heard that conversation. I don't like the fact that you didn't vote for me, that wasn't very nice, but Brett seems like a great kid. You have got to give Trump credit. He went with a Bush staff secretary and someone who was a great judge on the D.C. circuit even though there's all that animosity between apparently the Bushes and Trump. I thought it was a great deal.

MALKIN: A lot of gritted teeth.

INGRAHAM: Exactly. And more analysis on all this tomorrow on radio. Michelle, thanks so much.

And we'll be right back closing this out. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Now it's time for the last bite.

At today's Capitol Hill hearing, there were calls among Democrats to release the transcript of Peter Strzok's closed-door interview last month. That's when Strzok decided to call out a certain show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STRZOK: I am glad to hear that people are calling for the release of my private interview so that people can judge for themselves who I am, what I said, and the facts, and not something that's being or misrepresented at some 10:00 talk show or other place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: OK, come on, just say it, Peter, 'The Ingraham Angle.' And if you are such a fan, then by all means, stop by. Love to have you any time. And I won't call you Peter "Strozak" as that congresswoman in New Jersey did all day today. She mangled his name. One of my producers says it's like -- it's the brother of Prozac or Strozak. They couldn't even get his name right today. It's all the time we have tonight. Shannon Bream, take things from here. Shannon?

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