Fox News "Life, Liberty, & Levin" - Transcript: Sen. Ron Johnson says President Trump's reservations about supporting Ukraine have been consistent
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MARK LEVIN, HOST: Hello, America. I'm Mark Levin. This is "Life, Liberty & Levin." Senator Ron Johnson. How are you, sir?
SEN. RON JOHNSON, R-WIS.: Great. Nice to be here.
LEVIN: It's a pleasure. Republican Wisconsin. One of the reasons I wanted you here is because two Sundays ago when you tried to actually talk and explain yourself on "Meet the Press," Chuck Todd kept cutting you off.
And I thought it would be important to bring you back here on my program, to hear what you had to say, but also because of your position in the United States Senate. You're the chairman of a Committee that sort of oversees the activities with Ukraine and the United States, among other positions you hold in the United States Senate.
Now we have this document that came out, the President's phone call, a transcript of it, with the President of Ukraine back in July. And people are trying to -- Democrats and the media in particular -- say that the President was seeking a quid pro quo. I don't read this in here.
You have some background on this. You had a meeting with the President and others in May of this year, you want to tell us about it?
JOHNSON: Sure. We'll again, and just on that transcript, I read that and I think it's a pretty gracious phone call on the part of the President, but I went to Ukraine on May 20th to attend the inauguration of President Zelensky. I went there with Secretary Perry, Gordon Sondland, who is the Ambassador to the European Union and Kurt Volker, who is the Special Envoy to Ukraine.
So the four of us were pretty much that delegation. We felt it was important coming back, we were pretty impressed with Zelensky, we thought was important to meet with the President and really get him supportive of Ukraine.
And so we had a meeting in the Oval Office on May 23rd --
LEVIN: Of this year.
JOHNSON: Of this year, and again, just making that point, we really had a couple of ask, I mean, invite Zelensky to the Oval Office as quickly as possible to show support and appoint an Ambassador that could get the strong bipartisan support.
Again, we just really were encouraging the President to show a strong support for the people of Ukraine. We were -- I was certainly surprised with the President's reaction, which has been consistent throughout this.
And first of all, he talked about the level of corruption in Ukraine and Mark, there's all kinds of smoke about Hillary Clinton campaign, the D.N.C. being involved in the 2016 election.
But then again, not just that specific, but just general. President Zelensky got a mandate from the Ukrainian people, 73 percent to end the corruption in Ukraine, so it's obvious, Ukraine is a corrupt place, and any Presidents ought to be asking a pretty hard question -- is this a place where we really ought to be providing a lot of support to?
And then secondly, and he has been very consistent on this, why isn't Europe stepping up the plate? You know, why aren't they showing that kind of support?
So those was those two main reasons. And so I think the four of us left that meeting, realizing we've got a sales job to do. We all supported Ukraine, we want to make sure the President is supportive of it. And that was the first start of certainly my knowledge of the fact that President Trump had some real reservations about providing full support for Ukraine.
LEVIN: Full support for Ukraine, so he had reservations about sending money to a corrupt --
JOHNSON: We weren't even talking about that at that point.
LEVIN: So he won't even talk about any support.
JOHNSON: Right.
LEVIN: For a corrupt regime, he viewed it that way. And plus, where's Europe? Why aren't they stepping in? I mean, after all, Ukraine is a bulwark against Russia as an example.
So that's, as you point out pretty consistent with how the President thinks about NATO, why aren't they stepping up or Syria or whatever it is. So it seemed pretty neutral in the sense of he wasn't seeking anything from anybody. This is just his viewpoint.
JOHNSON: Right.
LEVIN: Now, later you had a phone call with the President on August 31st of this year. Tell me about that, and why was there a phone call?
JOHNSON: Well, I had a trip scheduled to visit President Zelensky in Ukraine on September 5th this year. And the day before, or a couple of days before, I'd heard that the President was considering or was holding some of this military support, which by the way, he has provided the lethal defensive weaponry that Obama didn't provide. So he has already provided this in the past.
But now, he was reconsidering ending the fiscal year, and so I first called up Gordon Sondland the day before, asking what was happening here. And it was at that point --
LEVIN: Ambassador.
JOHNSON: Ambassador Sondland and during that conversation, and I can't tell you exactly how Gordon described this, but there was something in the works and they're trying to do something -- you know, President Zelensky had to do something in order to really free up that support.
Anyway, I put in a request to talk to the President, and he called me back on the following day on August 31st. And I was trying to convince the President in that phone call to give me the authority a few days later to say that the support is on its way. Trying to talk the President into it.
Once again, the President was incredibly consistent and said, Ron, I mean, you know how corrupt a place this is. You know, it's -- so he made that point. And then he really hammered on the lack of European support.
He talked about Angela Merkel. You know, Ron, I asked Angela, you know why don't you fund these things? And he says, you know, Angela tells me because you guys will. So Ron, we're schmucks. We're schmucks.
So that was his -- that was the reason he gave me. I, then brought up this rumor I'd heard that well, is there something in the works? Is there -- I mean, does Zelensky have to do something or does Ukraine have to show you something in order for this support to be released?
And that is where he made the adamant vehement, angry denial. And again, I describe it as expletive deleted, no way. No, no, I would never do that.
Who told you that?
At which point I feel a little guilty. Well, though it was Gordon. That was that conversation.
I went on the record, I guess, last Friday, with The Wall Street Journal, laying that out after the text between Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker were made public.
I thought it's important to have on the public record that when I spoke to the President, well, before this whistleblower complaint was made public, out of the blue, he didn't know I was going to raise that issue.
His immediate reaction was an adamant, vehement and angry denial. No, I would never do that. So I thought it's important to get that fact out on the table.
LEVIN: I think it's crucial. I just want to underscore the point.
In May, he says, look, I'm concerned it's corrupt over there and why doesn't Europe step up and give them support? You talked to him on August 31st. He says basically the same thing. I already told you, Ron, he says, they're corrupt over there. Where the hell is Merkel and Germany? Let them provide him with support.
Never discussed with you any kind of quid pro quo, is that correct?
JOHNSON: Correct. I'm the one that raised the issue from my phone call to Gordon Sondland. Again, I wasn't quite sure what was in the works. So it's all rather nebulous. But, you know, I described it enough where he got ticked off and he did not like hearing that and he vehemently denied it.
LEVIN: And it was until -- my recollection is, September 9th, give or take, it could have even been later that we begin to learn about this so- called whistleblower, there are leaks coming out of Capitol Hill that a document is sent to them on the ninth and the Intelligence Committee, according to the timeline.
So it's not the President coming up with an after the fact explanation for what took place. It's the President of the United States doing exactly what the President has said since, which is, no, no, no, they got the support. But I needed to make sure they weren't going to basically, you know, run away with the money. They weren't going to abuse the money. And also we wanted support from other allies. Is that accurate?
JOHNSON: There is a fair record of U.S. support getting wasted in Ukraine.
Just going to banks and not anybody knowing where that ever goes to. So again, there's a history of this. And there's no dispute that there's a lot of corruption in Ukraine. So it's a legitimate concern the President had and he was consistent in expressing that concern.
LEVIN: You're a United States Senator, you hold a couple of powerful positions in the United States Senate. One of them is your relationship with Ukraine. You've been there several times you told me. You kind of know the actors over there. You have discussions with the President of the United States in real time on this support, on this aid. You're trying to lobby him to provide it. He eventually does, having absolutely nothing to do with a whistleblower or whatever.
And yet, your message is being drowned out. There is static out there.
They would rather listen to Adam Schiff trying to connect the two, trying to push a quid pro quo. There's no quid pro quo in this telephone call.
You're telling me now, back in May of this year, August 31st of this year, you talked to the President, nothing of this sort ever came up. It was a consistent argument he made. They are corrupt, I don't want to just give them money and where the hell of the Europeans? Is that correct?
JOHNSON: Yes, and Mark, you know, I'm from the private sector. Once I entered the public realm, what has really been reinforced to me because you know, I listen to you, I listened to Rush, I'm a fan.
I've always known the bias in the media. But what I've really -- what's been really, really reinforced to me is the bias in the media is revealed far more in what they don't report, what they're not curious about versus the very overt and real bias in what they do report.
So it really is. If they're not curious about something, if they're not reporting it, it's not a news story, and that's what drives conservatives.
That's what drives me. It drives you. It drives President Trump nuts.
LEVIN: Now, you've been looking into this Ukraine matter for a long time, long before the last month or two. Was Ukraine involved in the 2016 campaign? On whose side and how?
JOHNSON: Look, and this is, according to POLITICO. Chuck Grassley and I have an oversight letter referring to that article. It is written by Ken Vogel, who now works for The New York Times and again, he is talking about the potential of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the D.N.C. involvement, working with potentially corrupt actors in Ukraine trying to dig up dirt on President Trump or candidate Trump at that point in time, Paul Manafort.
But you know, it's also very possible and people don't really realize this as well, but you know, Hillary Clinton had a primary. There was one Joe Biden, potentially getting into that race as well. Is it just possible or plausible that maybe the D.N.C., maybe the Hillary Clinton campaign was also trying to dig up dirt on Joe Biden back then in Ukraine?
So no, there are so many questions. I'm really not throwing out any accusations. I'm not making any allegations. I'm just saying there's so many questions that remain unanswered. And they really remain unanswered, because by and large, the press has no curiosity about trying to get the answers to these things.
LEVIN: What did Hillary Clinton's campaign and the D.N.C. do with Ukraine?
Feed them information?
JOHNSON: Well, they certainly encouraged information to be revealed by Ukrainian actors. I mean, you have the black ledger that showed Paul Manafort being paid. At the same time you had that same black ledger showing that people associated with the Democratic Party were paid, but that doesn't get covered. That wasn't revealed.
That wasn't -- to my knowledge -- highlighted by the Ukrainian officials.
So it seemed to be at that point in time, pretty one sided.
LEVIN: So back then, the corrupt, older Ukrainian government was trying to help Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump?
JOHNSON: If I am making a bet, they thought Hillary Clinton had the best chance of becoming President and to Ukraine, I don't care who you are in Ukraine, in their government, the relationship with America is pretty darn important.
So you understand what their motivation would be there.
LEVIN: Well, you know, the irony here, Senator is, the really only connection between a politician and the Russians was the Hillary campaign and the D.N.C. paying for the dossier.
JOHNSON: Yes.
LEVIN: And they turn that on Trump. And you're telling me now that with Ukraine, again, it was the Hillary campaign and the D.N.C. and they're trying to turn that on Trump and turn it into an impeachment event?
JOHNSON: Right. When people say that the only campaign that was literally cooperating and colluding with a foreign government, it wasn't the Trump campaign, it was the Hillary Clinton campaign.
LEVIN: I want to pursue this when we return. Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget most weeknights, you can join me on Levin TV, Levin TV. Sign up by calling 844-LEVIN-TV, 844-LEVIN-TV or go to blazetv.com/mark, blazetv.co/mark. We'd love to have you. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: Senator Johnson, you mentioned this Ken Vogel piece at POLITICO, January 11, 2017. Headline is, "Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire." And I want to read you a partial quote from the article, "Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump and did so by disseminating documents implicating a top Trump aid in corruption and suggesting they were investigating the matter." I'm going to assume that was Manafort.
Ukrainian officials also reportedly, quote, "... helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers." That is damnable and yet it kind of just went under the radar. Never heard about it again.
Is it conceivable that a C.I.A. Director, John Brennan, in particular, this sort of thing is going on and he wouldn't know about it?
JOHNSON: I suppose, conceivable. But, you know, the headline says it backfired. I would argue, it didn't backfire. This was just used, maybe this was part of the insurance policy. They have this information and look at what's happened to the Trump administration.
You know, Chuck Todd cut me off when I started talking about the December 15, 2016 text from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page.
LEVIN: I'm not going to cut you off.
JOHNSON: Okay.
LEVIN: Can I quote it?
JOHNSON: Yes. Go ahead. I think you've got that.
LEVIN: December 15, 2016 text from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page, quote, "Think our sisters," that would be the C.I.A. --"
JOHNSON: Intelligence agencies, right.
LEVIN: " ...have begun leaking like mad, scorned and worried and political. They're kicking into overdrive."
JOHNSON: Again, this is during the transition, a little bit more than a month after the election. Six days before that is the first story that breaks and the C.I.A. has actually attributed this leak.
LEVIN: The story is December 9, 2016, Boston Globe, Washington Post, headline, "C.I.A.: Russia tried to help Trump win." "The C.I.A. has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency." Is that what you're talking about?
JOHNSON: Precisely. Now, Mark, one of the things I had my staff do -- this was I think July of 2017, we issued a report because of all these leaks. And so I had a seasoned reporter on my staff from "The Washington Post," one of the few conservatives. And, you know, we looked with Alexa search, and said, let's take a look at all these news stories that are talking about a leak.
And in that --
LEVIN: This document here?
JOHNSON: Yes, in just 125 days, 126 days, there were 125 leaks into the news media. Sixty two of those had to do with national security, and that compares to in the same time period, nine in the Bush administration and eight under Obama. Sixty two national security leaks.
And this is where this whole narrative began back in December with Trump, you know, the campaign being aided by Russia and then finally turning into Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.
And that's resulted in the Special Counsel and has done great damage, I would argue to this democracy.
LEVIN: You think the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. set up this President, don't you?
JOHNSON: I have my suspicions. Let's put it that way. And again, when you've got Peter Strzok texting Lisa Page about his sisters are leaking like mad. What are they worried about? He talks about them being political. They are kicking it overdrive. And that's all I asked Chuck Todd. I said, hey, you've got John Brennan on your show. Why don't you ask him what he was leaking? Or what the C.I.A. might have been leaking?
What was he potentially worried about? But Chuck didn't ask John Brennan that question at all. But I'd like to ask that question to John Brennan.
LEVIN: Do you think in part this phony Russia scandal was pushed and developed to take attention away from the Ukrainian scandal and the Ken Vogel piece where he is writing in POLITICO, basically Hillary Clinton and the D.N.C. were colluding with a corrupt Ukrainian government?
JOHNSON: Or let's face it, the exoneration of Hillary Clinton in her e- mail scandal. We started that investigation, my committee back in March 2015. We did yield to the Inspector General who issued his report on that.
But again, I think there's real corruption in that.
LEVIN: This quote that I read from this Ken Vogel piece, you pointed out the piece, January 11, 2017, Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire.
And again, it has some detail about what took place. That's what the President is talking about.
JOHNSON: Yes.
LEVIN: This conversation about this newly elected President. He's saying this went on, something took place here. Can you look into this? Do us a favor and help the Attorney General and so forth? We're looking into these things, and now we have a U.S. Attorney who is looking into these things.
This is what he is talking about.
JOHNSON: And if the news media would have done their job, if they would have, you know, just paid even 10 percent of the attention to this, as they have the whole Russian collusion narrative, which again, I think is just spoon fed to them leak after leak after leak.
LEVIN: But we know by a senior level of the F.B.I., among others.
JOHNSON: Precisely. So again, had the news media paid any attention to that, this could be a whole different story.
LEVIN: This is remarkable. So we have the President of the United States now being confronted by a Democratic House of Representatives, that is conducting an investigation, cutting out the Republicans, going around the process that was in place for three prior Presidents who faced formal impeachment hearings, taking testimony behind closed doors, cherry picking pieces to leak out to the media, which is more than happy to just write what they give them.
Not allowing the President's counsel to be present, not allowing cross examination of witnesses, not allowing the Republicans to subpoena witnesses that happened in Nixon and Clinton, pushing this narrative on Ukraine, when in fact, the big story is, Hillary Clinton and the D.N.C. went to the Ukraine where their surrogates did to try and take out the President of the United States.
JOHNSON: Mark, that's all old news. And a guy like Ron Johnson is just a conspiracy theorist, as is Ken Vogel, as is John Solomon.
You know, you'll be part of that too, because now you're airing this. So that's always been my concern. You know, when we began the whole Clinton e-mail investigation out of our committee, you couldn't obtain the information. There's a criminal investigation. So that always hampers congressional investigations.
You know, many years later, we still don't have all the information.
There's so many unanswered questions, but when we start developing it, by the time we lay it out for the public, why are you worried about that? I mean, it's just all old news. I mean, you're just conspiracy theorists.
That is my big concern.
And from my standpoint, as I hear the Adam Schiff's of the world talking about, you know, this Ukrainian call was the greatest threat to our democracy and to our Constitution. No. The greatest threat to our Constitution is potentially a duly elected President of the United States having his administration sabotaged by former members of a previous administration.
You know, people potentially in the C.I.A., potentially in the F.B.I. I mean, what was the insurance policy? Why did Peter Strozk before agreeing to be part of the Mueller investigation before he is fired? Why did he say his concern was there's no big there, there.
He was the lead investigator on the Russian collusion investigation by the F.B.I. So here it is, many months later, he is already thinking, you know, there's just nothing there. But he is happy to join the Special Counsel investigation of something that he thinks there's no big there, there.
LEVIN: I think that makes sense why they're running this out of the House Intelligence Committee. I think this way they can control what information gets out, what information is pursued.
It makes sense they are doing this behind closed doors. They don't want questions raised by the Republicans, many of whom know the information you know.
They really don't want to get to the bottom of the Ukraine matter. They want to use this phone call to set up the President of the United States.
I'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AISHAH HASNIE, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Live from "America's News Headquarters," I'm Aishah Hasnie in New York. Acting White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney insisting there was no link between military aid to Ukraine and an investigation of the Democrats.
Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Mulvaney argued he never mentioned a quid pro quo. He says his remarks last week were misconstrued, and he claims any request by the White House to Ukraine was centered on rooting out corruption.
Still, Mulvaney's words have added fuel to this Impeachment Inquiry into President Trump.
Meantime, in downtown New Orleans, a controlled demolition toppling two construction cranes dangling dangerously over a hotel under construction.
The city's Fire Chief says the cranes fell exactly as planned. Three workers were killed when that building partially collapsed eight days ago.
I'm Aishah Hasnie, now back to LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.
LEVIN: Senator Ron Johnson, Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker. She announces before the transcript of the phone call is even released that she has declared like Eva Peron, you know, that we're going to conduct a formal Impeachment Inquiry, which they've really been conducting, not a formal Impeachment Inquiry but going after the President -- Nadler and all the rest of them trying to pick their topics that they want to focus on.
She had to have known about the complaint because Schiff knew about the complaint from his staffer by then. She had to know of the complaint.
They thought they had the President of the United States with the secondhand C.I.A. operative Democrat with connections to Biden complaint.
But then the President says, you know what? I'm going to release this thing. And he releases the telephone transcript after conferring with the President of Ukraine.
But in and of itself, what does that do to a country? Releasing a transcript like this?
JOHNSON: Oh, it's incredibly damaging. It drives me crazy to hear the Schiff's and the Pelosi's of the world talk about this phone call as being the greatest threat to our democracy and our Constitution. No. The greatest threat is now you've really damaged any President's ability to conduct foreign policy.
What foreign leader is going to candidly speak to the President, either in private or over the phone when somebody is around? And oh, by the way, you know, there's a reason we have executive privilege.
In order to govern, a President has to have candid advice from his advisers. During this impeachment process, executive privilege would be weakened as well.
So the damage is being done to our democracy, the damage is being done to our Constitution. It is being done by Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, you know, whoever started this whole false Russian narrative, you know, Russian collusion with the Trump campaign that result in the Special Counsel that has produced all of this. There's the damage to our Constitution. That's the problem with our democracy.
CARLSON: Isn't it funny, they've taken the Special Counsel's report. They don't bring it up anymore. Throw it out the window, $40 million, two and a half years. The American people are dragged through this. A so-called legal analyst going on and on about how the President is going to be indicted or there's a secret indictment in the Southern District of New York under the campaign finance laws, none of it happens. Zero.
They keep working it. They bring Mueller in. Mueller falls on his face for obvious reasons. They still keep working it. They can't. And then they get Ukraine.
Ukraine -- they have a so called whistleblower, a guy who tips off Adam Schiff and his staff. The guy hires lawyers who really were out to get the President of the United States.
A secondhand guy gets information, who was tight with Biden, but heard stuff. You know, when I worked in the Reagan administration, if you had a C.I.A. guy, or gal who is gathering information on the President of the United States, who really has no business gathering information on the President of the United States, and then goes to a Democrat on Capitol Hill, and then dresses it up as a whistleblower complaint, you know what we used to call that in the Reagan administration? A spy. A spy.
And what you're telling me, this isn't the first time the C.I.A. has conducted itself in a way to sabotage this President or clearly the senior level of the F.B.I. Are we ever going to get to the bottom of this stuff?
JOHNSON: Well, I'm sure they are trying to. But yes, I mean, we, in our oversight capacity, we have read the text when, as Page or Strzok was talking to Page again about putting an Intelligence community guy in the transition with Vice President Pence, you know, try and get basically a stool pigeon involved and inserted right into the administration.
So no, we have got such a treasure trove of unvarnished testimony, quite honestly, from those Strzok-Page texts, and we don't understand everything they're talking about.
Again, I can't tell you for sure what the insurance policy is. I can't tell you exactly what he means when there's no there, there, but it's unvarnished. It's backed up with other pieces of information that I think are quite revealing.
And my whole goal in this process is to lay out the timeline, you know, going back to, like, basically our investigation of the Hillary Clinton e- mail scandal and the texts that were being produced during that mid-year examination, and then how that all morphed.
Now, here's a little fact, did you realize that the F.B.I. met with Christopher Steele on July 5, 2016? You know what's remarkable about that day? That's the exact same day that James Comey held his press conference exonerating Hillary Clinton.
So he went right from right from that operation, you know, what can we do?
How can we produce an investigation that looks like it's real, but that we really don't fully utilize the grand jury? It's not a real serious investigation. It's really one about, you know, how do we exonerate Hillary Clinton to okay, now we're going to make sure that Trump never becomes President.
And when he became President, how can we use the same information to sabotage his administration? I don't know. Do I have all the evidence on this? No, but I've got an awesome lot of smoke. There's an awful lot of indication. And again, it's those Strzok-Page texts that are so unbelievably revealing.
And when you start stringing those things out in the timeline and you can take a look at news reports coming out. It's pretty powerful evidence.
LEVIN: And when you look at the political nature of these people, particularly after the fact. Comey, wanting now -- he is talking about what can I do to help impeach the President of the United States? McCabe, his wife was a big time Democrat running for office and he was, too.
The leaking that took place and you look at Brennan. Brennan all over television.
JOHNSON: MSNBC contributor. When was the last time you saw a C.I.A. Director do that?
LEVIN: It's unbelievable. And Clapper, too.
JOHNSON: When was the last time you had the Director of the F.B.I., the Deputy Director end up being the acting Director referred by the Department Justice Inspector General for potential prosecution. But when was the last time that happened?
Like that's earth shattering. I got pilloried in the press when all I said was, it didn't surprise me to hear a secret society because I had a whistleblower talking about secret meetings held off site.
And then I said, it shows me there's possible corruption at the highest levels of the F.B.I. I got creamed in the press. But I don't care.
Because bottom line is, I want to get to the truth.
I think the American people deserve the truth and I'm just tenacious enough to get. It takes a long time. It does. I have no patience. None. I've been forced to have patience because of this whole process.
LEVIN: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: Senator Ron Johnson, so you see what's going on in the House.
First of all, let me ask you this. You're sitting there in the Senate, you're watching this. What's your take on what's going on in the House against the President right now?
JOHNSON: Well, it's all part and parcel of the same thing. It's just their involvement in the sabotage of this administration.
I warned voters prior to the 2018 election, if you put Nancy Pelosi in charge of the House, it will not about effective governing. It is not going to be about creating greater opportunities for Americans. It's all going to be about investigations and impeachment.
Again, that was easy to predict. I'm not some grand soothsayer. And that's what we're seeing play out here. It's a completely unfair process.
I mean, the fact that Nancy Pelosi announced they are going to start this impeachment process before we even knew what was in the whistleblower complaint.
And of course, you know, Trump by releasing that transcript, I think he had to do it. It is unfortunate he had to do it, but that's some real damage being done.
But I think, certainly Republicans in the Senate, we see how grossly unfair this process is. And, you know, if and when it comes over to the Senate, I think McConnell has already said we are going to break -- you know, take it up, but we'll be in total control of what the process is going to be in the Senate.
And so if it's completely unfair in the House, I would say we'll take that into account in terms of how we view a trial in the Senate.
LEVIN: My concern is that the Senate not tying itself from the institution what's going on in the House, and not treated as this credibly serious event with extended hearings and a trial, and so forth, and so on, because you know, even in the in the civilian judicial system, you do have motions to dismiss.
I mean, you've got a situation going on here where one party is driving this. They have a small majority of 37 members, apparently several of them don't even want to do this.
You have effectively six Committee Chairman pushing this really, one, who is a liar, who lied to the American people about a number of things. And so my concern is the Senate sits there, the media is all excited. C-SPAN has its camera. And we treat this like, like it was done in the Clinton time, the Nixon time, or even the Andrew Johnson time and it's not. This is bogus.
JOHNSON: Up to this point, it certainly is, you know, a completely unfair process. We'll see what the House does. My own prediction would be, the Senate will treat this as seriously as the House does.
LEVIN: Because you know, the only body that completes the House right now is the Senate. And that's what the framers had in mind when they set up the impeachment.
The House, a simple majority to impeach. The Senate a supermajority to remove. There's no discussion on how the trial is supposed to be handled.
We know the Chief Justice is the Chief Justice. He is the judge of the trial.
You guys have your rules that had been in place apparently for some time.
You can't change your rules. I heard it said we need 67 members to change the rules. But I know that's not true.
JOHNSON: No. That has Harry Reid's precedent.
LEVIN: Well, you have the nuclear option that you use when it comes to the Supreme Court. And the nuclear option is basically the parliamentarian says no you need a supermajority to change the rules. But you need a supermajority to overrule the parliamentarian.
JOHNSON: I always push back when people say that we would use a nuclear option. There was only one nuclear option and it was used one time. That was by Harry Reid.
Harry Reid then set the new precedent in the Senate that you can change rules with a majority vote. So Republicans have never, from my mind, we've never used a nuclear option. Harry Reid did that.
We've just followed his precedent, but we've done it sparingly. And we may part company on this. I personally think the 60-vote threshold on final passage has protected America from all kinds of --
LEVIN: I don't have a big government.
JOHNSON: Yes, so a lot of conservatives do. I would -- I would --
LEVIN: Now, hold on. I'm talking about when this specific, these charges --
JOHNSON: No, again --
LEVIN: When they come to the Senate, you should use it sparingly.
JOHNSON: Right.
LEVIN: And this is one of the times you ought to use it.
JOHNSON: Yes, and my guess, and again, I don't want to predict, I don't even know what would require a supermajority in those things. I think most of this stuff can be dispensed without changing the rules at all, which is 50 votes, just majority.
So I don't think this leaves --
LEVIN: I am only responding to what McConnell said, to change the rule, you need 67.
JOHNSON: No, again, I'm not sure we're going to have to change any rules.
I think the rules on a lot of these things may just be procedural and only require a majority anyway.
LEVIN: Is somebody's looking into this?
JOHNSON: Laura Dove and Senator McConnell are taking a look at what they need to do and again, listen to what Senator McConnell is talking about.
He said we're going to have to take it up. But we're going to control the chamber. We will control the rules.
I mean, Senator McConnell has been pretty fearless when it comes to making sure that we can appoint and confirm good justices down to the Circuit Courts and the Supreme Court.
So no, we've got to give the leader a fair amount of credit for putting in some real conservative judges on the bench and we had to do that by using Harry Reid's precedent.
LEVIN: Remember what Reagan used to say? Trust but verify.
JOHNSON: Right.
LEVIN: And I trust, but I want to verify. I want to hear what the United States Senate is going to do. Because I'm telling you from a constitutionalist perspective, if this is allowed to go through, and we were talking earlier about the release of phone calls, how that damages the Constitution, this process will become precedent. If it's not stopped in the United States Senate, we just willy-nilly go through a trial, even a truncated trial.
I'm just letting you know that a number of American people, a lot of Americans are very concerned about this and the Constitution that really allows one place to police this and that's the United States Senate. And you're telling me you guys are up to it?
JOHNSON: I believe so.
LEVIN: All right.
JOHNSON: Again, we're going to be watching what the House does and if it continues to be this unserious and this unfair, then we will treat it accordingly.
LEVIN: Beautiful. Don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, you can watch me most weeknights on Levin TV, give us a call at 844-LEVIN-TV, 844-LEVIN-TV, or go to blazetv.com/mark, blazetv.com/mark. We'd love to have you.
Oh and by the way, if you haven't gotten your copy of this, "Unfreedom of the Press," now more than ever. We'll be right back.
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LEVIN: Senator, we've talked about leaks, information in the paper, what's been going on in the Obama administration? Is it truly possible that the only human being in the United States who isn't aware of what's going on was Barack Obama?
JOHNSON: Possible but not probable. Again, you go back into the Obama administration, whether it's, you know, not prosecuting some thugs outside of a Philadelphia polling station or, to me, the one that still completely gets under my skin is the fact that we never did find out, nobody is held accountable for Lois Lerner in what the tax exempt group within the IRS was doing where the Obama administration was using probably one of the more feared agencies of the Federal government as a political weapon against their opponents.
LEVIN: Against the Tea Party.
JOHNSON: Yes, precisely. By spraying out the Tea Party. So we never had an accounting on that, really don't know exactly what happened here. And again, I'll go back to you know, my investigation in the Clinton e-mail scandal.
I'd like to just read you the statute that I believe not only Hillary Clinton broke, but President Obama did. And I'm just going to skip a few words, but here's a relevant section under the Espionage Act. "Whoever having lawful possession or control of any document relating to the national defense, one, through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or two, having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody and fails to make prompt report of loss is subject to fine up to 10 years imprisonment."
The Inspector General of the Justice Department came up with the precedent on this that somehow that very clear wording has nothing about intent in it. None whatsoever, required in order to prosecute some measure of intent, malicious intent to actually store this in a place where it can get in the hands of a malicious actor.
I mean, I don't know where that all came from. But that's to the person that is improperly through gross negligence handling this. What about the person just has knowledge of the fact and one of the things I've never gotten an answer on is what do those e-mails between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were? What did those look like?
What did President Obama see in terms of the Clinton e-mail address? Did he see HillaryClinton@statedepartment.gov.classified? Or he's did he see hillaryclinton.com? Obviously known that this was not a secure site.
I think the point is that's why I think the entire Obama administration circled the wagons around Hillary Clinton and made sure she was exonerated because I think the President was culpable.
LEVIN: Because he had knowledge.
JOHNSON: He had knowledge.
LEVIN: Because he saw the e-mails.
JOHNSON: Yes.
LEVIN: He knew where they were from. He would have known the server they are from because of the e-mail address.
JOHNSON: And James Comey reports that one of those e-mails came from, you know, the territory of a hostile actor to America.
LEVIN: And so, your supposition that he would have had knowledge or could have had knowledge and nobody has ever questioned him about this.
JOHNSON: No, because remember, there's not a scintilla of scandal that occurred during the Obama administration.
LEVIN: All right --
JOHNSON: Ignore Lois Lerner, ignore Fast and Furious, ignore the Clinton e-mail scandal. Ignore Benghazi. No scandal. And the press just this takes that at face value.
LEVIN: It amazes me how he is President of the United States you know, Harry Truman used to say the buck stops here. The buck never stopped at Obama's desk. All of this is going on, swirling around him. The Intelligence agencies, the F.B.I. He is even briefed on some of it. Trump is the victim and he is under constant investigation in the Obama administration. That's the perpetrator and Obama is never questioned.
We'll be right back.
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LEVIN: Senator Ron Johnson, the media. You saw how Chuck Todd firsthand conducted himself on "Meet the Press." I see this more and more.
Republicans who go on these programs are attacked, Democrats go on their ass softballs.
Perhaps you heard Project Veritas what they did with CNN and Jeff Zucker, the head of CNN pushing, pushing, pushing impeachment. What do you make of all this?
JOHNSON: Well, first of all, let me say that free press is crucial to democracy and freedom. It just is. But it should be unbiased. And our press, our media is clearly not. They are part and parcel of the Democratic Party and the liberal left.
I mean, they've made it very obvious. I mean, they are -- they're not even hiding their bias anymore. And again, as I said earlier, their bias is revealed far more in what they don't report, what they're not curious about versus the very overt bias in what they do report on.
So it's unfortunate. Good thing, we have alternate media. We have the internet, but it's hard to compete when you've got the vast majority of the mainstream press completely on the Democratic side. It's one of our challenges as conservatives and patriots.
LEVIN: I think the President has been able to go around them with his tweets and so forth.
JOHNSON: I think that's -- the reason you had President Trump, and candidate Trump being so bold and being willing to poke stick in the press's eye and just unabashedly attack the press that resonates with conservatives because we know how grossly unfair the press has been to us.
And that's continues to endear him and actually strengthens his support with his main base.
LEVIN: Well, it's been a pleasure having you. Keep up the fight.
JOHNSON: Thank you.
LEVIN: All right, God bless you. Join us next time on "Life, Liberty & Levin."
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