Former FBI Director James Comey joins CNN's Jen Psaki on MSNBC to endorse a political candidate. Former Director of the FBI James Comey gives his thoughts on the possibility of a Donald Trump re-election and why he thinks Joe Biden should run for president in 2020.
00:08:30.940And listen, we haven't seen this determination from prior congressional committees.
00:08:34.920If you remember for a while, Paul Ryan didn't want to hold the FBI's feet to the fire and Russia collusion.
00:08:39.720A lot of people felt like the investigation into Benghazi got cut short, that there was a place to go that now there isn't.
00:08:48.800And so I think you look at the investigation now and you go, well, in the past, the Republicans lost their will and they stopped.
00:08:56.960James Comer seems to have a lot of moxie.
00:08:58.940He's determined to get to exercise the full authority of Congress and to get the American people the full truth.
00:09:04.160Not part of the truth, not the truth that the FBI wants to manipulate.
00:09:08.060He wants the full truth sitting out there in plain view.
00:09:10.660And it appears he's on that course today.
00:09:12.940And on that course, since really now we're reaching back to 2020 again, the election year of 2020 with so much going on, this looks like another effort.
00:09:26.840I'm saying it looks like I can't say that it is, but it looks like another effort on the part of the FBI to hide evidence that would have been very difficult for President Biden,
00:09:39.460then a candidate for President or Vice President, to explain.
00:09:45.520We can't even get the FBI to let go of that thing.
00:09:50.080The Secret Service, the FBI, each one of these agencies, the Internal Revenue Service, you name it, the Justice Department, the FBI,
00:09:57.760they have built ramparts around Joe Biden, who is on his face, absolutely corrupt.
00:10:08.000Yeah. Well, listen, you're 100 percent right that the protection racket, there's been a political protection racket inside the FBI.
00:10:16.260That's a problem. There shouldn't be politics in the FBI.
00:10:18.700The FBI should not look at the defendant.
00:10:20.820They should look at the crime and treat each defendant the same way.
00:10:23.120But that's not been the way that the Justice Department has worked since at least the summer of 2016,
00:10:28.960when the Steele dossier and the other allegations of Russia collusion now long disproven came in.
00:10:34.520And since that time, you see a very partisan FBI.
00:10:37.160And over the weekend, you saw just how partisan it was.
00:12:52.820That's what a banana republic expects to have happen.
00:12:54.980And at this point now, I think most Americans have learned the FBI got involved in election politics where it doesn't belong.
00:13:02.960When you go back to 2016 and preceding the election of 2016, even, when the FBI is trying to frame a candidate,
00:13:16.220the FBI is trying to frame, and successfully so, the National Security Advisor,
00:13:21.800when the FBI director is complicit in all of this, we're looking at, in my opinion, the FBI in 2016 and 2020 putting their heel in the throat of the American people
00:13:36.920and denying them their right to know, as well as carrying out an effort to overthrow the president of the United States.
00:13:48.680I mean, it's far more than just, to me, John, a thumb on the scale of justice.
00:13:53.800They threw the scale of justice up against a brick wall.
00:13:56.860And it's just not what we've expected.
00:13:58.840We've expected our intelligence community to stay on the sidelines.
00:14:01.780They expected the FBI to stay on the sidelines of elections, to be apartisan, and to focus on facts and evidence,
00:14:08.040and treat every American, regardless of their political stripe, with the same fervor of investigation and the same protection of civil liberties.
00:14:15.200And that's not been the case in the last seven years.
00:14:18.320And I've been covering the FBI for well over 35 years.
00:14:21.800The last seven years have been its most devastating in terms of loss of public confidence, loss of public trust,
00:14:28.280loss of the trust of members of Congress and the judiciary.
00:14:33.920Just think about the FISA court and all the things the FISA court has exposed about FBI wrongdoing.
00:14:39.160And the gap between the FISA court's recent ruling is recently, just a couple weeks ago,
00:14:44.120and the rhetoric of Christopher Wray, who keeps saying everything's fine in Dodge when everybody knows it's not.
00:14:49.540And I want to take something that I wrote this morning, because I think it's really emblematic of what the concern you're raising.
00:14:56.760I wrote a story this morning from several documents that Chuck Grassley has made available over two years.
00:15:03.060Put them all together, because they've come out piecemeal.
00:15:05.340But when you sew them together, you get a very clear picture of what happened.
00:15:09.580Now, we know that Russian disinformation was used to go after Donald Trump.
00:15:13.800We know that Russian disinformation claims were used to stop the American public from understanding the Hunter Biden laptop
00:15:19.780and all of its allegations of political corruption were true.
00:15:24.280The 51 members of the intelligence community falsely misled us.
00:15:28.140It turns out, according to these documents I reviewed this morning,
00:15:32.180that the same Russian disinformation claim was circulated inside the FBI
00:15:36.940and used to shut down and thwart certain avenues of inquiry into the Biden family corruption
00:15:42.700right in the middle of the 2020 election.
00:15:45.360And Chuck Grassley has put this evidence out in plain view for everyone.
00:15:49.060Let's see, I pulled it together this morning.
00:15:50.920So the Russian disinformation wasn't just a deception for the American people.
00:15:54.860It became a false predicate for shutting down any investigation that dare look at the Biden family corruption
00:19:59.060I think that the understanding how much the Republicans ceded ground and how much the Democrats gain ground in the art of politics over the last decade
00:20:10.060is going to be something that will be studied for decades.
00:20:12.240Democrats weaponized every aspect of politics and governance from secretaries of states to ballot harvesting to FBI investigations.
00:20:24.620It's Democrats that are feeding the dope to the FBI on Donald Trump.
00:20:28.600Now, obviously, it's a willing, willingly received information because of James Comey's biases.
00:20:34.660You see those on display this past weekend.
00:20:37.120But they've weaponized every aspect of it.
00:20:39.700And the Republicans have sat by there for the last six or seven or eight years.
00:20:43.780Basically, well, we're outraged, but we're not really actually changing anything.
00:20:47.040And this moment now, these next 15 months before, 16 months before the general election of 2024, will determine whether we become a one-party country or we still have a two-party system.
00:21:00.720Republicans must muster a significant counteroffensive against these things.
00:21:14.960They have to cut the budget of misbehaving agencies.
00:21:18.160They need to create punishments for those who feel tempted or have already been tempted to weaponize government, to settle political scores, or to influence elections.
00:21:27.680If they don't do it, they will have no one to look when they realize that Republicans are a minority party for perhaps decades to come.
00:21:35.500Democrats are playing nuclear war in many times.
00:21:38.020Not always, but many times, Republicans have been playing tiddlywinks.
00:21:41.500It's an uneven game, and the country's suffering for them.
00:21:44.820I do see signs now that Republicans are getting in the game.
00:21:48.140I see big donors talking about ballot harvesting and early voting.
00:21:52.400I see very determined Republicans talking about defunding pensions of people so that a future person has a thought,
00:22:00.180oh, you know, I might lose my pension over this even if I don't get prosecuted.
00:22:04.080If they follow through on that, it's great.
00:22:06.620If they don't follow through on it, I think the Republicans are moving themselves to a permanent minority party,
00:22:12.100much like we saw in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s in the Congress.
00:22:16.280And it'll be harder and harder to win elections when Democrats keep exercising so much dominance on the world they are on the national stage.
00:22:24.480I don't know that they have the power to unilaterally influence the budget and make it stick.
00:22:59.880One, the Democrats have done a better job demagoguing on it.
00:23:02.740And two, a lot of Republicans get weak-kneed because they don't want to ruin the great credit history of this country.
00:23:09.020So I think his theory in getting this debt deal done, which I think a lot of his right side of his party ruse,
00:23:15.220was to take that weapon out of the Democrats' hands.
00:23:19.520Now, the argument is, well, then you gave the barn away to have one weapon taken away.
00:23:23.020But the real question would be, does Kevin McCarthy and his team, can he sew together what will be a three-vote margin in the House, right?
00:23:33.200Because we just lost Chris Stewart from Utah, so the Republican margin is even small.
00:23:36.820It might even be smaller if Santos gets excommunicated from Congress.
00:23:43.700But do they have the will to say, you know what?
00:24:10.280We don't care if government bureaucrats don't get their salary.
00:24:13.400We'll make sure Social Security and Medicare go out, the main military stuff.
00:24:18.180But everything else shuts down until we get something we want out of this, and it needs to be substantial.
00:24:23.360If he does that, that will tell us that there's some courage that we haven't seen in the last few decades of Republicans.
00:24:29.260The truth of the matter is Republicans have been among the greatest spending givers anywhere.
00:24:37.280In the first two years of the Trump presidency, under the stewardship of Paul Ryan, the man who kept saying he was the deficit buster, the deficit nearly doubled from where Barack Obama left it.
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00:27:19.040John, I want to get right back to what you're talking about, and that is the leverage that the Republican House does have.
00:27:25.220And what would be the best possible use of their power controlling the House right now to bring this government to heel that is run now by the Marxist Dems and the deep state?
00:27:44.060There is a lot of discussion going on behind closed doors.
00:27:52.260The deal that Kevin McCarthy made has made him the most popular leader in Washington right now.
00:27:57.520He's way more popular than even Donald Trump, certainly way more popular than Joe Biden or any of his Democratic colleagues.
00:28:03.420That's unusual because he started at a very low popularity rating in January after the long, drawn-out speakership battle.
00:28:10.200He has some political capital to spend, and I think the question is, will he spend it in a way that substantially changes the government, or does he play it safe, a la the John Boehner and Paul Ryan strategies of speakers past?
00:28:25.480There is some fascinating discussions that I'm privy to, I've been able to report on, where there is a grand plan that Kevin McCarthy is talking to his lieutenant Saban.
00:28:37.060In order to pull it off, he's got to go to the Freedom Caucus, who are very disaffected with him because of the deal he made, and say, listen, I'm real popular right now.
00:28:45.160I'm willing to spend that popularity to get the sort of things you wanted in the debt deal, but I think they're best gotten in the appropriations process.
00:28:53.100We are going to substantially reduce outlays and authorizations, the two tools that Congress has to control spending.
00:28:59.840And if Democrats don't like it, I want you to sit with me in the trenches, and we'll shut down the government in the fall.
00:29:06.280We'll pick a battle and say, this bill ain't coming through.
00:29:10.840And we'll lock down, and we'll show people that a lot of government isn't worth keeping because we'll close it down, and most people won't know it's not open.
00:29:19.200And I think that that's an idea that he has.
00:29:21.340And they've identified some in the early conversations.
00:29:25.100Lou, I'll give you some things that they're talking about doing, right?
00:29:27.680Defunding the FBI headquarters, beginning the dismantling of the Department of Education and returning the money to block grants.
00:29:33.520It would get rid of a huge bureaucracy.
00:29:35.880Defunding the overly zealous environmental regulators who keep getting shut down in the courts.
00:29:41.420Stopping billions in wasteful spending on meaningless NIH studies.
00:29:44.520Every year, you and I find a million in NIH studies.
00:29:48.260None of it helps public health, as we learned in the pandemic.
00:29:52.520Stopping the Justice Department from redirecting court judgments that belong to the American taxpayers, but instead they're given to liberal advocacy groups as redirects.
00:30:00.180Those are all things that he's currently talking to his top lieutenants about doing.
00:30:04.260That could cut several scores of billions of dollars right away.
00:30:09.400Maybe even the hundreds of billions of dollars very quickly.
00:30:13.040And if he's willing to put that plan together, get his entire caucus on and whoring in one direction like he did on the early bills, you'll be cutting the government by a lot more than the 1% target of this deal.
00:30:24.300You could cut it by 3%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, which would be historic, and it would send shockwaves.
00:30:30.420I think the American people would applaud it, and the Democrats would fear it.
00:30:34.360And I think that's what's going on behind the scenes.
00:30:35.880I don't know if he can execute it, but that is what my reporting shows is going on behind the scenes.
00:30:40.180Well, that is, I think, one of the most hopeful things I've heard in a very long time about what the Republicans can do, again, dependent upon their will.
00:30:51.100There has to be within that caucus the ability to, if necessary, step up behind Speaker McCarthy to execute it,
00:31:02.260but to especially restore this country to decency, to honesty, and forthrightness, transparency,
00:31:12.520and to make certain that no longer are the American people afraid of their government,
00:31:16.740but rather the bureaucracy is now afraid of the American people.
00:31:20.960We're watching a movement here in this country that people have to understand,
00:31:24.960and that is the left in this country has locked arms, whether it's in education,
00:31:32.180whether it is in any number of areas, academia, public education.
00:31:38.160They're destroying it, and with it, they don't mind a bit destroying the American family
00:31:43.380and the hard-working middle class in this country.
00:31:46.340They are the enemies of this Biden regime.
00:31:49.340You saw this, just flatly stated by the White House press secretary last week when she said there are children,
00:33:12.780But the reality is we have to stand up for what is ours, and if, as you say,
00:33:19.140if our children do not belong to us but rather the state, there's no more discussion is required.
00:33:26.400And for people, I see such hesitancy and, frankly, I think some considerable cowardice and people not being able to say we're going to be tolerant,
00:33:41.040but we're not going to be dominated by these crazy groups, whatever they may be.
00:33:46.880But in the issue of transgender, there's its mental illness on its, again, it's obvious, but no one wants to talk about that reality,
00:33:56.740and they instead want to make it a community standard.
00:34:00.480Your reaction to what has become a movement from what is a fraction, a tiny fraction of this country's citizens.
00:34:11.980Yeah, well, the reaction is, as a reporter, I've seen some of the most fast, impactful counter-reactions that I've ever seen in my life.
00:34:22.480What happened to Bud Light in a short few days, or Target, which is now $10 billion less valuable than it was a week or two ago,
00:34:29.820tells you that the American people have had their final button pushed.
00:34:33.780And so you're seeing very optimistic, if you believe in the country that we've had for the first 245, 46 years,
00:34:42.320you're seeing some things that are optimistic, right?
00:36:51.520We always give our guests the last words, John, your concluding thoughts, if you will.
00:36:55.340There is going to be a two week period where much larger pieces of evidence about the Biden family corruption scandal are going to come out.
00:37:02.580We're going to learn more about what was in this document shown today.
00:37:05.140We're going to learn more about what the IRS agent said.
00:37:07.880We're going to learn more about the Russian disinformation ruse that was used to shut down Hunter Biden things.
00:37:13.540This is a seminal moment for Republicans to, for the first time,
00:37:17.540reverse the fake stories of the Biden family corruption and impose the true ones so that heading into the 2020 election,
00:37:25.560whether Hunter Biden's indicted or not,
00:37:27.740Americans can make a better informed decision than they were allowed to make in 2020.
00:37:31.180I think the next three weeks are going to be interesting.
00:37:33.100And the counteroffensive is also going to come.
00:37:34.860I think it's highly probable that President Trump will be indicted once or twice in the next month.
00:37:40.260And so the Democratic machinery of taking their political opponents down through the law enforcement realm
00:37:45.600is going to accelerate, not decelerate.
00:37:48.160Even in all of this oversight that's going on now,
00:37:51.300Democrats don't seem in the slightest to lose any of their momentum towards weaponizing government further.