momentarily as attorney general merrick garland believes he had every right and his team believes every right he could appoint jack smith as special counsel. we are going through this now. 93 pages. the printer is cracking up behind me. the bottom line is this documents case goes completely away for donald trump. there was a hearing that was originally scheduled for next week to talk more about this appointments issue. judge cannon issues this on the day of the beginning of the rnc. so right now donald trump still has one pending case against him in federal court that is here in washington, d.c. that is his alleged attempts to try to overturn the 2020 election. special counsel jack smith received a blow to that case just a couple of weeks ago with the supreme court. that seems to be somewhat delayed right now. but this is big news. no question that this case is

completely dismissed. bill. >> dana: what's interesting is that you said 93-page ruling. i'm curious why it would take so many pages because she is not ruling on the merits of the case. she is ruling that the special counsel should never have been appointed and i wonder about the -- how it will reverberate throughout the department of justice. does that mean that other situations like this would also be dismissed? >> it's a great question. we're waiting to see some clarity from d.o.j. on page two of 93 it says the appointments clause sets as a default rule that all officers of the united states whether inferior or principle must be appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. jack smith was not confirmed by the senate. i assume we'll hear an argument from doj that past special counsels john durham, robert mueller to name a few in recent memory also were not confirmed that way and allowed to continue their work.

that's what we're probably going to hear from d.o.j. but a major, major coup and win for former president trump who comes to have this last weekend. >> bill: keep reading and we'll give you a moment to do that. trey gowdy, you were down in lower manhattan when the felony counts were announced, 34 of them in lower manhattan. your reaction initially to what we are hearing out of florida. >> i spent three years guessing at what opinions said without reading them. this is not at all new for me. we're talking about a d.o.j. regulation. you are not talking about a statute. special counsel is a regulation promulgated by the department of justice. i would argue the difference is john durham had been senate confirmed as a u.s. attorney. other special counsels had been senate confirmed. jack smith was never senate confirmed. i think we borrowed him from the international criminal court. that's where he was. so if you combine the skepticism

about a regulation being able to confer prosecutorial power without senate confirmation with clarence thomas's dissent in the immunity case, you get this opinion. judge cannon wonder never been vetted or confirmed by the senate and not a d.o.j. employee have the power to indict anyone, much less a political figure, literally anyone. >> dana: do you read anything into the timing of her decision and announcement coming 41 hours after the assassination attempt? >> i don't. having written 93 page opinions working for a federal judge it was weeks in the works. i think in a weird way the timing is unfortunate. it will be overshadowed. i'm really curious her analysis but i am not surprised that someone said -- it would be like me saying okay, dana, i want you to go be special counsel and

prosecute. you haven't been senate confirmed. has there been a background check done? >> dana: i'm not even a lawyer. >> you don't have to be a lawyer. >> dana: that's right. >> bill: a couple other things we should point out. the biden document case was not pursued. and to a lot of people observing this they thought this is apples to apples in many ways and if you decide one direction on one case, why not keep the same direction with regard to another? that's now apparently happened. another thing that i want to point out. in michael goodwin's piece in the "new york post," so he was on board the trump plane with byron york from "the washington examiner." goodwin writes, we also said that we, quote, we hear that biden will order the department of justice to drop the prosecutions of trump. no public sign of that. that's what goodwin writes. the we hear is from donald trump. can you think he may have had a

heads-up about this? >> i don't know about that. i have long maintained that if you really want to unify the country, pardon donald trump and pardon hunter biden and just start all over again. no father is going to watch his son or daughter go to prison. pardon your political rival. talk about unifying the country, he mentioned the word unity more in his inaugural address than any president except one. you know that. >> bill: the inauguration address of joe biden. >> he talked about unity. so if you really are interested in doing more than talking about it, what would be more unifying than actually pardoning your political rival and say we'll fight it out in november but not a courtroom. >> dana: i have actually said he should have done that even before then. you could also see that turn about could be fair play, right? president trump could say don't worry, joe, i've got you, i will pardon your son.

let's talk about the issues. >> bill: with regard to the jack smith case regarding january 6th, the one federal case still alive as of this hour. >> yes. what you'll have is raise the same issue in d.c., trust me, she will reach a different conclusion. you will have a split. >> dana: then the supreme court has to make the decision. >> it will go to the d.c. court of appeals and it -- it's the 11th circuit court of appeals. d.c. court of appeals. a split in the circuit and go to the supreme court and have it resolved. >> bill: but didn't the judges say you didn't go through the facts enough and why they sent it back? he has to prosecute it. >> this is a question of law. not a -- there is no dispute that jack smith hasn't been senate confirmed. that is not in dispute.

rob hur actually -- was rob hur in federal service at the time they picked him to be special counsel? so like john durham is different. john durham was a u.s. attorney and senate confirmed. jack smith is like going to wal-mart and finding a prosecutor. no offense to his -- but -- >> dana: you could have picked anybody off the street. >> anybody in the world. how can that happen? >> dana: we want to bring in james comer from kentucky and chairman of the house oversight committee here to talk about, of course, the investigation into what happened at the failed assassination attempt of president trump but this news just coming on board that the documents case for president trump has been dismissed by the judge there. your reaction, sir. >> well, my first reaction is the democrats' efforts to weaponize the legal system against donald trump is unraveling. i think that was the right decision. i think when hur made the decision not to prosecute joe

biden for his obvious mishandling of classified documents, i think that sealed the fate for this case. i think trey gowdy is the expert and certainly he has done a tremendous job explaining why this never should have made it this far to begin with. i'm glad that all these cases that i considered legal warfare against donald trump are falling to the side and the american people can focus now on electing the next leader of the free world and basing that decision on the issues and facts. >> bill: jonathan turley says the dismissal of the classified documents case is a seismic development. i've always said the march a lag owe case with the greatest threat to the president. bill barr had a similar opinion that the documents case was the one where the president could be the most vulnerable. sir, now that's gone.

james comer. >> absolutely. you have the two best experts on all of this. at the end of the day if you look at what we've learned from the mishandling of classified documents, the f.b.i. staged photos. there were lots of problems. the media was alerted to be there versus how the biden handling classified documents. they were given a week's notice to go in and clean up. robert hur never disclosed which documents joe biden mishandled. which was an important part of our investigation with respect to the biden influence peddling scheme. two specific emails and robert hur knew which two emails we had in possession, that appear to be classified documents that hunter biden was sending to these ukrainian oligarchs. we never were given the information as to which

documents were mishandled. if you look at how the hur case was handled, this was clearly the right decision by the judge and i applaud that decision. >> bill: one more question for you. you have called for a public hearing to take place one week from today that would include the head of the secret service kimberly cheatle. sir, will that happen? >> i'm 100% confident it will happen. we have been communicating back and forth with the director. by next monday she should have a lot of answers to a lot of questions that not only the oversight committee has but the american people have. we will receive a briefing tomorrow, the oversight committee is going to receive a briefing as to what they know thus far. but on monday we'll have a full scale committee hearing that will hopefully deliver some answers that every american has about what went wrong and try to determine if we're in better shape moving forward to protect not only donald trump, but also

joe biden and i believe we should have secret service protection for robert f. kennedy as well. >> bill: thank you for your time. a public hearing perhaps a week from today on live television, we'll follow it. >> dana: who is on the phone? shannon bream is on the phone. shannon, if you could give us your initial reaction as our chief legal correspondent. >> this was something that had come up in the -- it was something that justice thomas gave a lot of attention to in concurrence and jack smith was worried about that they would go this way. he recently, you know, pushed back on this idea that justice thomas's concurring opinion in the immunity case could be applied. in that way it could put him in this exact spot. justice thomas questioned the issue of special counsel, that office, had been created properly and because of that, he questioned the very

underpinnings of jack smith's appointment. there was a lot of back and forth and smith's office was worried and aware of the possibility that they could be facing this in this case because, of course president trump's team would look at every possible thread in that immunity case in order to be able to push back on all the cases that were still pending and because of that you have the strong concurrence from thomas saying i agree with the whole thing but not sure the special counsel was properly created and jack smith's role is deeply under question. the trump team made very good use of that concurrence and today it ends up to what i feel like, you know, i think is a pretty stupendous decision. so literally in this case that judge cannon thought that's enough the whole case goes. >> bill: thank you for jumping on the phone.

we'll see you soon. kayleigh mcenany joins our conversation and on your computer. >> i'm pouring through this 93 page opinion from the judge. to shannon's point you see where she cites justice thomas's concurrence and worth mentioning jack smith on friday urged the judge do not reference justice thomas's conquerens, not a law of the land. justice thomas went so far as to say when you negate the appointments clause in such a fashion you are essentially hailing back to the british monarchy and not the way our system is designed. she appears to have bought that argument and goes on to say for these and other reasons as the supreme court has emphasized the appointments clause is more than a matter of et quit or protocol. significant structural salve guards of the constitutional scheme. she sees this as an executive -- and it is a strong argument. the trump team played it brilliantly and ignored jack

smith friday and said dismiss the case on monday. >> dana: does this case end? there is no chance they would try at the justice department to bring this case back up against him? >> they'll appeal it to the 11th circuit. i'm going back 30 years. i can't remember what i had for breakfast. i think it's the 11th circuit court of appeals. it will be appealed but won't know the answer between now and november and willing to bet one of the first things if there is a president trump, that he does is pardon himself. so the whole thing is mute. ironically enough it would not impact someone like a rob hur. you have three buckets. independent counsel that's gone. that statute lapsed. special counsel where you were senate approved. those are still alive, i think. then you have special counsel where there was no senate involvement which is jack smith. and those are dead in florida. whether they are alive in the district of columbia, probably so. you will have a split and the

supreme court will resolve it. >> bill: help us understand that's possible. you get a special counsel with so much wide range authority and i do believe endless amounts of money to pursue. it could go on for years, without senate approval. that seems like you have the potential to stack the deck against any political opponent, democrat or republican. >> i remember i think i was interviewing then a.g. holder and said i'm an expert on the d.o.j. regulation because i wrote it. d.o.j. wrote this regulation and if you think about it, if there is a conflict of interest, you do want there to be someone else to handle the case. but you have to go through all the current u.s. attorneys, all current d.o.j. employees, you don't just go pick someone off the street and then empower him or her with all of the resources. think about bob mueller. bob mueller came from where, willmer hail? he wasn't in d.o.j. when they

plucked him out. weissmann was doing what when they went and collected all these people to investigate russia collusion. that under cannon's opinion, none of that would have happened. >> bill: david, what do you have? >> trey was talking about robert mueller and we remember the trump russiagate, if you will in the first years of the trump presidency. robert mueller was not senate confirmed but judge cannon is making the argument she is not looking back. she is saying that this specific case is brought before her and regardless if another special counsel in the past was senate confirmed doesn't matter here. she said the court is convinced that the prosecution breaches two structural corner stones of our constitution. the role of congress in the appointment of constitutional officers and the role of congress in authorizing

expenditures by law. the key word expenditures. jack smith has spent about $10 million. remember, he does have two cases but a lot larger than some of what these other special counsels have spent over time. speaking of special counsels, from i believe 2002 to 2016, there was one special counsel, pat fitzgerald. from 2017 to now we have had four special counsels. mueller, john durham, robert hur, and jack smith, who is taking up two cases. that gives our viewers a little bit of perspective of how special counsel happy we've been over the past several years. >> bill: wow. david. thank you, david spunt. get back at it there in washington, d.c. >> dana: we bring in jonathan turley and andy mccarthy. you know these guys and happy to have you here. let me start with you, andy mccarthy, your thoughts. >> well, i think this is merrick garland and joe biden being

caught on the axle of their own politics. there was not any reason for there to be a special counsel in this case. the biden justice department investigated trump for two years before jack smith was appointed. he was appointed because garland knew there were going to be cases brought against trump. he knew that trump would make the political claim that biden was using his executive prosecutorial authority against his political enemies. so in order to create the illusion of independence of the prosecution of trump jack smith was put in for that purpose. the problem is constitutionally speaking, his position is not created by congress and he is neither nominated by the president nor confirmed by the senate. and the roster that david just ran through, most of those special counsels were confirmed u.s. attorneys. pat fitzgerald was a united

states attorney. john durham was, david weiss is. there is lots of authority for the attorney general to appoint any confirmed united states attorney to any matter he wants to appoint that u.s. attorney to. but what he can't do is create a position and then fill it from somebody outside the government who hasn't been nominated by the president or confirmed by the senate. >> bill: it always seemed that eileen cannon was a bit hesitant. she was the judge saying hang on here a little bit. and think about this, professor turley. these cases were proceeding in new york. the carroll case you said you couldn't do that. the 34 felony counts that kept going with judge merchan's case in his courtroom and eileen cannon put her voice into this saying wait a minute on this and

wait a minute on that. she seemed to be the one bucking the trend. andy, is that a fair read? >> i think it's a fair read with respect to some things. although i think she is giving him a fair trial, which is not something that has happened to trump in washington or new york. the problem with this issue is not peculiar to judge cannon, her detecting of it. justice thomas wrote about this issue in the immunity case. attorneys general have filed a court brief on this issue pointing out and explaining why the appointment was unconstitutional. >> bill: thank you, andy, stand by. >> dana: jonathan, you tweeted this was the three-point shot for trump. the easier basket was the d.c. case despite a far more favorable judge for jack smith. tell us more. >> this is a seismic decision because the immunity decision

that was issued by the supreme court was the second of a 1-two punch for jack smith. previously the court had reversed an obstruction charge that impacted trump as well. so those two cases have ripped the wings off his case. they were all looking to see how jack smith would handle it in d.c. he has a very motivated and favorable judge. she has been an ideal choice for jack smith. the assumption was that she would do her level best to keep that case going even after these hits. few people expected the florida case to be the one that disassembled first. what judge cannon is saying here is essentially look, there is this weird anomaly in the constitution. we have a process of which u.s. attorneys are nominated and they are then confirmed by the

senate. and yet the attorney general can't just go onto any street in d.c. and pick any person and make them a special counsel with greater authority than the u.s. attorney. and that's what she is trying to get at here saying where is the footprint for this in the constitution? where is the authority to create jack smith within the first three articles of the constitution? so it's a huge win for trump. other courts have really dismissed this claim with very little briefing. so this will create a conflict. there are good arguments on both sides here. but you couldn't have more favorable news for donald trump. i've said from the beginning, the florida case was by far the greatest threat to donald trump. the new york case, the manhattan case in my view has layers of reversible error. it will be in the courts for a

while. judge merchan did a particularly poor job in that case and i don't even see the viable crime in that case. but putting that aside, florida was the greatest challenge. there is also an irony here. jack smith has always been undone by his appetite. he has always gone for the greatest number of charges, the most aggressive approach. it got him reversed 8-0 before the supreme court in his previous major case. this is another example of overreach. if he had simply brought an obstruction charge against trump, he very well could have had that trial before the election. but he decided to pile on these classified documents charges and i can tell you, i've been cleared defense counsel in national security cases, when you have that many classified documents it is like invading russia in winter.

it goes very slowly. >> bill: well done. phil holloway on x. it can be appealed by the government. trey, as you said. it will take a long time and scotus would likely uphold it based on the decision rendered by justice thomas. andy mccarthy, you said we have lots of stuff going on now. back to trey gowdy for his thought on that and more. >> well, i don't know the latin word for that but let's go with this analysis. independent counsel, which has lapsed, that was passed by congress. ken starr. it is gone. it was passed by congress. you have the john durham's of the world who had been senate confirmed in the past. very important. robert mueller you can argue had been senate confirmed in the past as f.b.i. director, although not recently. jack smith to the best of my recollection has never been confirmed by the senate because he hasn't been if front of the

senate. so it is a three-part analysis and jack smith doesn't pass any of the parts. could you go replace him with a current u.s. attorney or someone else in the department of justice and reinstitute the case? arguably so. but not between now and november. >> bill: the trump team argued and donald trump said this many times we're in open negotiations with the federal government on these documents. so we'll take him at his word and yet you had this raid in mar-a-lago that he was highly offended about. came without warning or notice and if this had gone to trial, we would have had an argument, the federal government would have said that's our material, it doesn't belong to you. and trump would have said okay, well, i was negotiating in good faith to give it back to you. meanwhile, you got documents in joe biden's garage behind his

corvette, documents in his attic, documents in the university of pennsylvania, washington, d.c., documents -- and that case was just put to the side and forgotten about. >> dana: not only that the case was put to the side but the big point about that robert hur said he was an elderly man with a poor memory and why it got put aside. not of the appointments clause or the merits. that started this whole thing is the president actually able to do the job not just in the next four months but for the next four years, which is what the democrats are asking. i want to ask you on the politics of this, the democrats seem to have really believed that trump's legal problems were going to be something that put 20-pound weights on his ankles as he tried to run a marathon. it hasn't turned out it has been even with the convictions and now this dismissed. i feel like the democrats need to argue on the merits of their policies. >> they do. their threat to democracy argument for the time being completely nullified giving what

happened on saturday. think about the news cycle for president trump over the last three weeks. immunity case victory, debate disaster, will joe biden be the nominee, july 11th sentencing moved to september. now classified documents dismissed and he is coming into the rnc for all intents and purposes as a hero. >> dana: having survived the attempted assassination. >> absolutely. i wouldn't dismiss the fervency of jack smith and d.o.j. the day after the july 11th sentencing was moved. the day after a "washington post" article popped saying they're pursuing these charges all the way to inauguration cited a former merrick garland official saying the clock doesn't run out until january 20th and cited current officials who agreed. this is a huge, huge loss for them but only a federal judge. they will try to appeal this. we'll see what the 11th circuit says. it is worth taking a moment to pause the way in which special counsels have affected politics.

mueller resulted in 34 charges, eight guilty pleas, one conviction. robert hur the well-meaning elderly old man line that set off the age argument and jack smith and the raid on mar-a-lago. special counsels have framed the body poll particular over the last decade and it is now called into question. >> bill: we'll need a billboard. there is a lot of action on the legal front including what's happening in new york. sentencing had been scheduled prior to the republican convention. that was punted after the u.s. supreme court rendered its decision two weeks ago. now it's on the calendar for 60 days from now in judge merchan's chambers early september, if that still stands. we don't even know if it will stand or not. b bret -- bret baier is working the phones. >> we just got off the phone

with the former president and he said this. i am thrilled that a judge had the courage and wisdom to do this. this has big, big implications not just for this case but for other cases. the special counsel worked with everyone to try to take me down. this is a big, big deal. it only makes this convention more positive. this will be an amazing week. he said again and again that this was a big, big decision. he pointed to justice thomas and the questioning in the supreme court on this very issue about the special counsel. but seemed to indicate that he thought that this would have implications for other cases. he did confirm that he will make a v.p. choice today and he said bret, there are other surprises to come. i don't know what that means. i wanted to get reaction from the former president.

>> bill: if he will make his choice today will we hear it today? did he answer that? >> yes. we'll get a v.p. today. and he said there are other things to come. i don't know what that means. the big reaction was that he is thrilled and he was really praising judge cannon, who he said from the beginning had the demeanor that she was not going to put up with garbage. and he thinks that this has big implications for other cases as well. he is thrilled. think about this moment, though, as you guys are talking about the legal implications, the political implications of all of this in the wake of what just happened on saturday. he is alive, you know, for just centimeters of a bullet going by. he is now praising god that he

is here. he is projecting that he is going to try to unify a convention and give a different message than he originally was thinking he was going to give. he tore up the 20-page speech and has reworked it and thinks that this is the time for the country to come together. we'll see if it delivers by the time he gets to the stage. but this moment right here, this decision is another amazing positive thing for former president donald trump. >> dana: it is really incredible. the election for a long time felt it was sleepy. we didn't have the primary season that we thought we would and all of a sudden now it's minute-by-minute we're having incredible stories drop. thank you so much, bret. we want to bring in laura ingraham, host of the ingraham angle. an angle i want to tee up for you. i imagine it's possible what the democrats will now say it's the end of our democracy if the

courts don't let democrats prosecute their opposition. >> well, i'm going through the opinion now and it is a very reasonable conclusion if you believe in an originalist view of the constitution, namely that the founders understood that each branch of government had its defined role. and within that role, the executive branch, judicial and legislative branch have to operate with respect for the original language of the organization of this government. and the special counsel, as it is called, independent counsels are slightly different the way they are set up, but the way they operate is really extra constitutionally by an originalist understanding. what do i mean by that? there is little to no accountability, right, on the part of a special counsel.

occasionally their office will report their budget and expenses to congress but there is very little executive oversight. so they operate really as a separate entity that is acting as a check on an american citizen, in this case a former president of the united states. yet directed supposedly by the executive branch. cannon's opinion is in line with my ex-boss justice thomas and, of course, scalia and alito, likely gorsuch. if this case is appealed, as it may be, in any unlawful conclusion of cannon is appealed, what will the supreme court ultimately do? that's an open question. given the current makeup of the court. it is not clear that the court would affirm her ruling on the illegal nature of this appointment under the

appointments clause in the constitution. i'm not sure about that. i think it could be a split court. it could be inconclusive meaning it would go the way of cannon's ruling. i don't want to get too wonky here. for people to go on television, i watch this coverage right now, to say this is a radical decision, absolutely is not radical. any law student knows there is a divide among legal scholars and judges on the current federal courts in their understanding of the way these statutes and these appointments are considered. it is entirely reasonable to conclude that this is not a constitutionally permissionible delegation of power for an office that can turn our country upside down, which is what has happened. >> bill: thank you for jumping on the phone. we'll see you later this evening

here for day one and night one of the convention. >> thank you. >> bill: andy mccarthy, jonathan turley, i know you are still out there and come on back in the conversation. david spunt points out this paragraph on page 40, quote, in the end, there does appear to be a tradition of appointing special attorney-like figures in moments of political scandal throughout the country's history but very few, if any, of these figures resemble the position of special counsel smith. mr. smith is a private citizen exercising a full power of a united states attorney and with very little oversight or supervision, end quote. andy, that seems to be a critical line. your reaction. >> it sure is. you know, there is a lot of talk about how there has been many appointments of independent prosecutors in our history but this is very different in a constitutional sense, even though those cases are similar,

which is why i think people have said challenges like this have been dismissed before as jonathan noted a few minutes ago. most of the special counsels who were appointed were appointed either pursuant to a statute or it was a situation where somebody who was already a u.s. attorney was taken from his or her district and assigned to another case, which the attorney general has unquestioned authority to do. this is a situation where you have a prosecution against not only a former president, but someone who was actually a major party candidate for president, who was brought by somebody who purports to be an officer of the united states but is not filling a position that was created by congress and was neither nominated by the president nor confirmed by the senate. that is very different. we have had -- dana pointed out mueller, i think, before.

mueller's appointment was not challenged in those prosecutions. you can point to hur, who just did the investigation of biden. there was no point when he recommended against charges, there was no point in challenging his status because he never indicted a case. but i think if he had indicted a case it is likely his status would have been challenged. it is a very unusual situation. >> dana: jonathan, one of the things judge cannon dealt with. she is a judge appointed by trump. that immediately brought just a ton of criticism her way saying she is unqualified, she is not the right person for it. it should have been taken away from her. all the ideas of judicial independence thrown out. as laura ingraham said she doesn't read it as a radical opinion in any way. i can just assume that the vitriol coming this judge's way will be strong despite the calls

for unity but she really doesn't deserve that. >> she doesn't. the irony is perfectly crushing. these are the same people that criticized donald trump for attacking judges because of their who appointed them or their politics or other personal attributes and they insisted this lacks respect for the courts. they are now doing precisely that. they are accusing her of slow walking this case. you take a look at reviews of cannon from before this case, she was known as a judge that was extremely deliberative. that would hold hearings to allow argument on issues to get it right. she hasn't changed her -- the way she operated for this case. now look, there are good arguments here. this is the outlier among the cases. jack smith is not someone who goes quietly into the night when

he faces adverse legal decisions. so the key here is that whatever happens, it is not going to happen before the election. basically this is like telling one of the teams in the super bowl we just found out you aren't part of the nfl. so this is a major issue that could affect other cases, including the one in d.c. i expect the court of appeals would give it an expedited look if jack smith tried to push it forward. but the attacks on judge cannon are really reprehensible. she is clearly trying to get this right. you can disagree with her without saying just because she was appointed by trump she is a robot. if you look at the decisions after the election, many of those decisions that went against president trump were decisions written by trump appointees. i'm glad you raised this because these attacks really need to stop.

>> dana: agree. >> bill: stand by, professor and andy mccarthy. back with kayleigh mcenany and trey gowdy. reading this for 15 years to 20161 special counsel. in the past seven years we have had five. i always think of our system as a rubber band effect. sometimes it gets stretched too far and then it corrects itself. maybe this is one of those moments. >> it appears to be. i think broadly what we've seen as an american public has gotten sick of lawfare dating back to mueller. should special counsels ever have been allowed and the appointments clause and you look back to mueller. that was two years. that defined half of the trump presidency. 34 people charged. and then you have to think politically how does this affect the biden campaign. they are already in a crisis, threat to democracy, messaging im din i shalled.

lawfare this prong of the strategy gone and polling, the nbc polling thought biden was leading with three points? he is losing. what are you doing if you are at biden campaign headquarters? >> dana: crying maybe in fetal position. >> i'm old school. i think you ought to read the opinion before you criticize the judge. the fact that you disagree with the conclusion that a judge reached does not mean the judge is crooked. i think we will wind up with that system where if you've been senate confirmed, maybe you can be special counsel. if you've never been vetted by the people's house or the senate, then you are like an average lawyer. so why would a private citizen be able to investigate the leading presidential candidate of a major political party? if you think about it, the reason the left is mad is because they don't like the result. but if you read the opinion, just like the supreme court opinion on immunity, you correct

me if i'm wrong, it was barack obama who ordered the assassination of an american citizen overseas. nobody wants him prosecuted for that. >> dana: you have the walk-on music there for you as they get ready to rehearse at the rnc. >> bill: we have a statement from the former president on x. as we move forward in uniting our nation, that word again, right? uniting, after the horrific events on saturday this dismissal of the lawless indictment in florida should be the first step. followed quickly by the dismissal of all the witch hunts. the manhattan d.a.'s zombie case and the a.g. scam and it continues. on the surface would you expect some of these other cases to go bye-bye? >> new york is a mess. you will have to go back and litigate official versus unofficial acts. you have hope hicks who is doing things while she worked for then

president trump. it is a unmitigated disaster. i think the chances of them being sentenced any time between now and november are not very good right now. i think -- good luck to judge merchan sorting out that opinion. >> dana: his language. >> dana: i thought it was the signal. >> what could biden do to shake this up? pardon. don't just say this in an oval office address, show us. >> dana: we're totally sober saying this to everybody. only 9:45 in the morning in walk. a final thought from you jonathan and andy mccarthy. >> i think with judge merchan, the assumption is that he will say a lot of this is unofficial conduct to preserve the conviction. i have gone through that case after the immunity decision and i was frankly -- i sat in that courtroom and surprised at how much of that case falls into the second bucket of the three buckets laid out by the court.

a lot of it is stuff that the court says is presumptively official and protected. so he will have a tough time trying to make this cat walk backwards to preserve that. for donald trump, of all of the cases that could be dismissed, this would be at the top of the list. this was the greatest threat and for now at least it's gone. >> dana: andy mccarthy. >> i think it's a tremendous missed opportunity for president biden. i have a column up at national review this morning calling on biden to be serious about what he said in the oval office and either direct the justice department to dismiss the cases against trump or pardon him and encourage the states to dismiss their cases against trump as well. these cases aren't going anywhere. this is a cost-free exercise for biden. particularly after the biden

justice department dismissed against him basically the same espionage act charges that jack smith put 32 into an indictment against trump. the thing for the president to do if he wanted to signal the nation coming together was dismiss the charges. he could have risen above it all. i think he should have done that in florida before judge cannon did. >> bill: thank you to all of you. don't go far. we have no idea what may happen in the next minutes. >> dana: we appreciate all of you and we'll be right back with more coverage after this. >> bill: james comer is telling us they'll get a private briefing tomorrow and significant news regarding the secret service and we'll bring it to you and bret reports that today is the day we get a v.p. don't go anywhere. we have it all for you as we continue. and stabbing pain in my hands, so i use nervive. nervive's clinical dose of ala reduces nerve discomfort

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>> there are those of you at home who thought this might be a scripted week. far from it. it's monday morning, already feels like wednesday afternoon. the documents case has been dismissed in florida. much more on that in moments. meanwhile in bethel park, pennsylvania, south of pittsburgh about 20 minutes. that is where thomas matthew crooks, age 20, lived with his family. want to get to jonathan serrie covering that for us and get the latest at this hour. >> hi, bill. we've seen some activity outside the home that crooks shared with his parents before he died in that shooting where authorities say he opened fire on the crowd injuring former president trump and killing a beloved firefighter in the community. moments ago we saw members of an

f.b.i. team, two men wearing blue polo shirts, walk up to the crooks home that he had shared with his parents. they knocked on the door and after several minutes the door opened. they were allowed in. also saw investigators go to the homes of several neighbors trying to get a better idea of who crooks was. he posted very little, at least very little controversial elements on social media. there was no manifesto or anything like that. so they are talking to neighbors, anyone who knew anything about him, to get an idea of events leading up to that shooting. neighbors immediately across the street told investigators that they didn't know him very well. he was quiet. they would see him out sometimes mowing the lawn. but this is ordinarily a quiet neighborhood. after the interview with authorities, they told reporters that they look forward to this

neighborhood going back to being a normal, quiet neighborhood. for that matter the country, one neighbor said we look forward to the day that we can go back to having peaceful political discourse that doesn't end in violence. i know those sentiments are shared by many americans around the country. >> bill: wow, active scene there. thank you. want to bring in a former secret service for presidential division. one is called a site post assignment log. another is called a counter sniper survey. they would show what on those accounts from saturday evening? >> the site post assignment log is exactly as it sounds. that would show where every agent, every police officer and every combination of agent and police officers would have been posted at that venue. it would have had instructions

and responsibilities laid out in one or two sentences for what the responsibilities were for each of those posts and would have also included a diagram. for a venue this size probably a one-pager, a diagram that showed where every pivoted was at the venue. if i hold one post and see where another post is i take out my diagram and see where everyone? . >> dana: what do you make of the fact that there was an eyewitness trying to alert the secret service and police to the shooter on the roof and it was too late? >> what do i make of that? it's inconceivable. no reason to think it didn't happen. how many times do you see citizens walk up to a police officer in the streets of new york city and say something is going on and the cop takes 20 minutes to respond or just simply walks away? i think that's what happened here. you had a number of people in that venue pointed something out. whether they pointed it out to a secret service agent, police officer, state trooper, law

enforcement official, proper action was not taken. and that is a huge problem in itself. >> bill: the thing that sticks out to me what you explained about the site log here is that you are talking about the distances from the building to the podium. that is like the most critical thing in all of this now especially as we view it in hindsight. there seem to be finger pointing already. secret service saying we rely on local authorities to help us police the area and keep it secure. what's true about that? is that the normal course of action? >> you will hear the secret service continually talk about setting up a perimeter. you know what? the common sense here is if you were standing at that podium, standing on that x and you see a building 100 yards, 200 yards away, common sense dictates somebody has to address that issue. whether we put someone on the roof or put four cops in uniform on each side of the building, something had to be done.

that doesn't take a trained secret service agent to realize that building is in play and something has to be done about it. >> bill: we'll talk later in the week. a hearing set for today with kim cheatle in washington. a special guest. >> dana: we're thrilled to have doug mills. "new york times" photographer who has covered ever president since ronald reagan including george w. bush's administration. your work is incredible. a very good photographer. you have seen some incredible things. tell us what it was like saturday. >> frightening, very frightening. i had no idea anything like this was going to happen. i happened to be down as bill would know shooting with a wide angle lens before the president when speaking and a huge flag waving above his head and i happened to take pictures at the same time. when i heard the pops i guess i kept hitting on the shutter and then i saw him reach for his --

he grim yeased and grabbed his hand and i thought dear god, he was shot. it was a weird sound to me, once he went down i just ran around. ran to the side of the podium to try to see him. in those split seconds he was already covered by the secret service. blanketed. all i could see was them and guns out everywhere and everybody is yelling get down, get down. active shooter. i probably did not do the smartest thing by running right at it but that's what we do. >> dana: one of the things i was saying in the commercial break is that photo journalists are not just picture takers, you are journalists and capturing that moment and history. tell us about when you realized that you got the shot of the bullet whizzing by his head. >> it was a surprise to me. we were ushered into a tent, as

you know, an off-stage private tent where the president was right before the event and sending pictures to an editor of the president coming off with the defiant fist pump and i remember taking pictures of him when it happened. i started looking and sending them. sent them away and called one of the editors look at these closely. this might have been near the moment where he was shot. and so she called me back five minutes later and said you won't believe this and i said what. she goes we see a bullet flying behind his head. i was like oh my gosh. >> bill: you have got the camera right there. >> yep. 30 frames a second. i was down below shooting up so i could see him and the flag above him and it happened to be that lens at that time because, you know, literally 30 seconds before that i was on the other side of the stage shooting with

a longer lens shooting more detailed pictures of him speaking. >> dana: i would imagine you might be -- i'm sure your organization will be very interested to learn a little more about the security situation because you are vulnerable there, too. you are in the well i'm assuming. right there and there was line of sight to you as well. >> yes, there was. hindsight you think i've been thinking about going through my mind about what happened looking at people diving and covering. some of the former president's staff were jumping on top of each other to cover them and cover the other aides. they aren't even police officers and they were doing that covering each other. and everybody was yelling and -- >> dana: tell us about the moments that he tells the secret service give me a second. he says let me get my shoes and says wait and holds up the fist and says fight. >> yeah. when he -- obviously i didn't know how seriously he was

injured. i started thinking in my mind. having done this for many years they have to have an egress. i went to the closest step. when i saw him lift him up he is a live, it's good. i saw his hand come through and then it was like oh my gosh, yep, there he is. when he gave that defiant fist pump. he was so mad and defiant and then he said fight, fight, fight and then it was like this stark moment right after that where he must have just like all of a sudden come to him and hit him. he was completely drained and he could see a sea of people scattering everywhere. >> dana: and chanting usa. thank you so much. we'll be back with more.