♪ >> washington journal continue. host: we are joined by tom fitton, president of the group judicial watch, here with us to talk about a number of issues, including the investigations into president trump ahead of the impeachment efforts last year and the year before. first of all, tell us about your group, judicial watch. guest: judicial watch is a nonprofit educational foundation

that seeks to educate the american people about what the government is up to. the way we do that is by using the freedom of information act to gain access to government information and also the legal process to confront and expose government illicit behavior, misconduct, and activity that is outside the law. host: i saw your piece in "the washington times" yesterday. subpoena hypocrisy. the justice department used -- what were you aiming to get at in this editorial? guest: judicial watch had sued for secret subpoenas that schiff had issued that targeted the phone records of the president's lawyer, rudy giuliani. he got those phone records, then he used those records to uncover more phone records.

you call people when you are talking on the phone, obviously. he published those phone records. he secretly subpoenaed phone records and then publish them. they included the phone records of rudy giuliani, devon nunez, the president's lawyers, a journalist, john solomon, so then i hear this noise about schiff being the target of a grand jury subpoena, and him complaining about it. when in fact, he is telling us in court that we can't get access to the records and he is telling the court that this is essentially unreviewable. that the congress can issue subpoenas without going through a grand jury, without going through a federal court, without having to tell anyone.

it was rudy giuliani and president trump, but it can be anyone. anyone watching now can have the records subpoenaed. this is a power that the pelosi house says it has, and those of you who are watching who support nancy pelosi and adam schiff and hate donald trump, just so you know, this is a power that if unchecked republicans can use. host: on those phone records, did adam schiff get any pushback from the bench on these requests? guest: no. he did not go through the court, he just sent the subpoenas to, reportedly at&t or other phone companies, and they turned their records over to him. the targets of the subpoenas had no ability to object, because i don't think they found out until the records were published in impeachment reports and efforts

that schiff was pushing. host: you said individuals targeted by those subpoenas had not known because they were previously kept under wraps, right? guest: right. there was no court process, so it was not like you could object to the court once they were obtained. the records at issue, we don't know what if anything he is being investigated for, whether he is caught up in a broader subpoena. those records are subject to grand jury protections in terms of secrecy and other protections. now those recipients can argue to the courts what they need to order to protect their constitutional rights. that wasn't available to the targets of the schiff subpoenas. they are saying that this right is unbridled. host: you said he published these records.

published, i assume, in the committee records. what was adam schiff's intent in doing that? guest: to harass the president. you know, i know what he did. his intent i speculate on. i speculate that he abused the sixth amendment and the rights of the president and the constitutional rights of the targets of the subpoenas and those whose records were published as part of a jihad against president trump. now he is complaining that the justice department was asking questions of him secretly. contrary to what he did, it was under court process. you know, it is interesting. we hear from the justice department that they are independent of the body and white house. joe biden complains about subpoenas to journalists, so the justice department says they are going to do -- to stop doing that, practically speaking. now we have the justice department shutting down its investigation into schiff.

i think it is interesting how quickly the justice department jumped to squelch investigations into the president's allies in the media and, chris -- media and congress. host: tom fitton leads judicial watch. (202) 748-8001 four republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000. for all others, (202) 748-8002. in 2019 your group filed suit against adam schiff and the judiciary committee. what happened in that lawsuit? guest: we didn't win. the lower court ruled the debate clause protects the secrecy of these records. the appellate court also agreed. it is interesting, because we did not sue under foia, because congress exempts itself from the

freedom of information act. we sued under the common-law right of access to government records. at least one of the judges on the appellate court said this is an interesting issue, and she could not overrule the circuit here, but certainly the issue of whether or not the public has a right to access these records deserves balancing with the speech or debate privilege congress has. it pops up again in the january 6 debate, because we cannot get records from the police force at the u.s. capitol because that hope of perforce is not subject to foia. there is this secrecy around january 6, because congress immunized itself, or attempted to, from the transparency requirements other government officials follow. host: on january 6, would you be in favor of a 911 style investigation into it? guest: commission is a political

process. i'm talking about a legal process that judicial watch is pursuing. these records should be public, and the public and decide what to make of them. we have asked for the video records. we have not gotten them. we have asked for records about the shooting of ashli babbitt. have not gotten them. i don't know what they are hiding. we aim to find out. host: you accused adam schiff of running a spy operation. explain that a little bit more in detail. guest: when someone takes your phone records without you knowing about it and then publishes them, that is a spy operation. that is what schiff was doing. when you look at the records that were published, there was no there there. it was just a smear operation. this is concerning.

our your phone records being published, i ask you, dear viewer? i don't know. we don't know, because congress says they can do it in secret. host: to any of the people who had their records subpoenaed by the intelligence committee, did they have any legal recourse on that? guest: maybe. maybe. i am no lawyer. i defer to the lawyers. host: our guest is tom fitton. let's go first to okeechobee, florida. good morning, democrats line. caller: hey, good morning. the host, ok, tom, i'm going to get to you in a minute. you, the host, ok? i am a republican. i called the republican line already and the phone rings and rings. finally i got hung up on twice.

i called the democratic line, and boom, there i am online. you need to get that fixed. mr. tom fitton, i watch you religiously. you are the only one who is getting down into the dirt trying to figure out what is going on in this country. i wish there was some way we could get those cockroaches out of congress. that means our republican cockroaches hiding in the walls. they need to be removed. you, tom, congrats, buddy. i'm going to fall you to the end of the earth. goodbye. host: tom fitton, any response? lakeland, michigan. derek, you are on with tom fitton. caller: good morning. good morning, america. tom, thank you very much. i believe investigative journalism is pretty much dead, but you give up -- you give extra life to that and i appreciate your educational foundation. i have three quick things. one is, we heard many times that

no one is above the law, not even the president. we now know that hunter biden smokes crack -- which i believe is illegal in the united states -- he buys prostitutes and escorts -- which, once again, is illegal in the united states. the second question is, the governor of virginia. as any journalist gotten an answer on whether he was dressed up as a ku klux klan member or in blackface? third question, what do you think of the organization lawfair? they are tied up in the impeachment process. host: tom fitton, do you care to tackle any of them? guest: the hunter biden issue is one of these elephants in the room in washington, d.c.. there is a federal criminal investigation. under any other circumstance --

we already solved that during the trump administration you would have had a special counsel. we need a special counsel to investigate the hunter biden issue. because he is the president's son, and there is evidence that implicates the president and some of his miss dealings. secondly, respect to the third topic about lawfair, i don't know about them specifically, but there is this group of folks who have ins with the justice department and the deep state establishment that have defended the indefensible. that is just part of the firmament here in washington, d.c. i forget what the second issue was. do you remember? host: i don't. i remember the third, not the second, like you. we have a question on twitter asking about, when is judicial watch going to publish the cost

of trump's golf outings, like they did for obama? guest: we have in the past published the costs. other media have done their own analyses, which go beyond what we did for obama. talking about trump's costs, initially in the first part of his administration i was on every major network talking about it. when we were talking about obama we didn't get the same media coverage. the media is interested in the cost of the respective presidential travels, i thought that was quite interesting. obviously there were not interested in what obama was doing as much as trump. i said it about trump and i will say it about joe biden -- the cost of the presidency is too much. it costs too much for him to travel. there has got to be cheaper ways for him to do it. host: let's hear from connie on our republican line.

go ahead. caller: morning, everyone. mr. fitton, first of all donald trump never did anything wrong to be impeached for. and i wanted to say about joe biden and the trip to russia, his first comment when he was asked about the assault on the white house, his comment was, a police officer was killed. that was a lie. someone interrupted him with a question. they wanted to shut him up, and it did, thank goodness. the only person killed at the white house was just, as you mentioned, ashli babbitt.

i wonder if her family got six or $12 million because of her being killed? we are in a backward country right now. host: tom fitton, care to respond? guest: to be clear, ashli babbitt was killed in the capital on january 6. i don't think they have gotten any money from the government yet. i agree, there was no good-faith reason to impeach donald trump, and it was an abuse of that constitutional power. it was used twice. it was an assault on self governance. host: i want to ask you about reporting from the new york times. the headline says hunting leaks, democrats focused on records from apple. their aides and family members.

was this sort of a tit for tat for the metadata sock by the phone records sock by the intelligence committee? guest: i think it was done before that was done. what i find interesting about those news articles is that you don't know what the investigation was about. was it about leaks? who is being investigated? who was the target? when news articles are vague like that it has someone has something they don't want coming out. i want more information about why adam schiff was the subject of a jan -- of a grand jury investigation. the media coverage has been, how dare anyone investigate adam schiff? i don't believe it can be the case that a congressman or journalist get to be immune from ranger investigations and lawful subpoenas. whether i trust the justice department to investigate jaywalking, that is another matter. i think the justice department

has proven itself incapable of fairly investigating anyone, but certainly adam schiff is not immune from the investigations. that is what the rule of law is about. host: has it become too politicized on both sides as a new administration comes in. why do you suppose it has become that way? guest: we could talk a long time about that, but typically when you are talking about politicians caught up in the investigations by the justice department, almost nothing normal happens. it really kind of distorts what ought to be a fair investigative and prosecutorial process. and that is true for both democrats and republicans. usually the republicans have been most recently on the wrong end of that. host: what was the issue that led you to where you are now in terms of your group? why did you start it? guest: it was around a few years before i joined it.

we had the clinton corruption back when we were founded in 1994. we have got this transparency crisis that has been going on at the federal government for years and years. under the obama administration things metastasized in terms of lawlessness by the federal government. you know, president trump was targeted by some of the folks that engaged in the lawlessness throughout the obama administration and now we are back to square one in terms of contempt for the rule of law. that is especially true in the immigration area, where joe biden has effectively shut down large portions of border enforcement, and virtually all interior enforcement of our laws. it is very dangerous. it is one thing to be secretive, it is one thing to have government officials get away

with breaking the rules. it is another thing when doing so places innocent americans in harm's way. host: let's hear from ann. go ahead. caller: i have a couple of questions. he said you are nonprofit, did not say you are a right organization. you forgot to mention that, that you are out for the republicans or the trump party, shall we say. you are on their side. that is number one. guest: that is not true. we are not. caller: oh, please. number two, how much did he make off of the secret service? how many hundreds of thousands of dollars did that miserable human being make off of the secret service? and how much did he steal from americans? guest: are you talking about joe biden or president trump? caller: who do you think i'm talking about? guest: i ask, because joe biden

initially was getting rent from the secret service when he was vice president. we uncovered that and investigated that. other media have investigated that the secret service paid trump for the use of his facilities, which is something that happens in the ordinary course. host: the amount that the secret service paid overtime, was it about what any president over a course of four years, about what they would spend four their needs to cover a president when he traveled? guest: you know, it depends on where the president is traveling. he was staying in mar-a-lago, so you have to pay mar-a-lago prices. they use hotels around there, presumably. when president obama flew to hawaii for his extensive vacationing the prices were significant, for obvious reasons , it being in hawaii, to put up secret service to protect him. host: let's go to jimmy in

virginia on the independent line. caller: yes, good morning and thank you for taking my call. they talk about the attack, you know, january 6. let's talk about a real attack that happened. it is called benghazi, and nothing has been happening. that was an attack on this country, when 13 people were killed, and everybody seems to forget it. we saw obama sitting there. we saw hill the witch sitting there. of course biden, his usual idiots self. nothing has been done. where is the investigation going with that? let's ask why hasn't this harris chick gone there and seen what is going on? and the huge number of people coming to this country. i guess they want to keep adding onto the democrats and get as many votes as they can.

let's get with real issues as to what is happening in this country. host: tom fitton, any response? guest: four people were killed in benghazi, and judicial watch investigated what i consider to be the most significant nongovernmental investigation in recent history. our investigation led to the disclosure of documents that led to the select committee on benghazi, and also our foias uncovered the clinton emails, the disclosure of which changed the course of history, it can be argued. did we get the full accountability we wanted? no, but we got significant accountability in large measure thanks to judicial watch. host: do you think donald trump abused his authority and asking the former attorney general to investigate people like adam schiff? guest: i don't know if he did

that. certainly he is within his rights to do so if there is evidence of crimes. asking the justice department to do its job -- i think adam schiff should be investigated as regards to leaking information, for a variety of reasons. this idea that the justice department thinks it is independent of the president, that is unconstitutional. the president has the right -- and frankly should pursue it more vigorously -- to get the justice department to do its job. to investigate -- especially very public issues of corruption. hillary clinton's emails, for instance. the justice department refused to look at it again under president trump. they think they answer in many ways to no one with regard to their decision-making or

prosecutions. or even to whether to ask questions. forget about prosecuting someone, they didn't even want to ask anyone questions on these issues. it didn't matter whether obama or trump was running things. host: let's hear from mike in the new jersey. go ahead. caller: good morning, c-span. thank you for taking my call and always having somebody totally different from my point of view, it makes you think. you said you were not a lawyer. what is your background to make you part of judicial watch? doesn't make a little bit of sense. is there constitutional knowledge that you bring to the table? pardon me. a woman earlier said you were not bipartisan. i think you are trying to make the argument that you work? i have watched you almost every time you are on c-span, because you certainly get my irish up,

she is a good thing. you seem to be very partisan. thank you for taking my call. guest: i am just a regular guy. i am running judicial watch. you don't need any special expertise to be concerned about our country and try to use a group in concert with other fine americans who work at judicial watch and our supporters to hold government accountable. our results speak for themselves in terms of whether i am prepared and i have the background to do the work. we are the largest and most effective government watchdog group in the country, if not the world. judicial watch is nonpartisan. just because them across get caught up in criminal investigations and their conduct is grievous in the office does not mean we are doing at to advance the interests of the republican party. judicial watch sued the trump administration probably more than any other group in america,

and we will sue the biden administration war than any other group in america, and whoever comes next. i have raised issues about the abuse of power by the justice department that applies to republicans and democrats. i concerns about congress are subpoenaing people. i want congress to be transparent. republicans have not been there for me on that. i think -- i have been critical of republicans in terms of their cynical approach to handling corruption issues. we are nonpartisan. host: we say good morning to john on the independent line. caller: hi. thank you for your great work. i wonder why it is always republicans -- there was a grand

jury and everything. i was wondering if you know anything about this report coming out? host: i'm having difficulty hearing the caller. guest: he wanted to know why republicans were seemingly prosecuted, like, and people like that getaway. comey was a republican and he got away. in many ways it is the deep state, who you know and your connections and the institutional prerogatives of the fbi. it should not be a surprise that the doj are hesitant to prosecute the leaders of the doj and fbi. with respect to the report, i don't know when it is coming out. i will be interesting -- interested to read the report. the worst corruption scandal in recent history, which is the

obama targeting of trump and the continuing of that targeting by his allies after trump came into office. that report, that and a quarter get you a cup of coffee. where is the questioning, as i have said? there is no evidence that durham has done any serious investigation of the matters he was asked to investigate. host: any indication of when that report is coming out? guest: i have known. it is now june. he was appointed in april 2019. there was one prosecution that kind of fizzled in some respects, and that is the end. there is no other activity we can see. host: t -- to pam in north carolina. go ahead. caller: mr. fitton i have watched you on fox mainly, and my question for you is this.

michael: went to prison in part due to paying hush money to a person that claimed to have an affair with donald trump, and donald trump was named as individual one cleanly the court filings. what i would like to know is, do you think that is fair? because donald trump actually signed one of those checks paying michael: back in february 2017. -- michael cohen back in february 2017. guest: i saw that. i thought that was corrupt. the justice department got him to sign off on that. he was never tried on that. i'm not even sure he committed any crimes related to that. this is a typical approach that

the justice department had toward donald trump. change the rules, change the confidentiality agreement for which money is paid, which is standard, and try to make it into a crime or campaign-finance violation. that was an abuse of power by the justice department and shows you -- again, the whole investigation of: was an abuse of trump and his right to have an attorney. host: tom fitton is president of judicial watch. >> the house of representatives is in recess until noon eastern today. when the house returns to session, members will debate a number of bills, including one to ensure the same burden of proof in age discrimination

claims as in other discrimination claims. when the house is back in session we'll have live coverage right here on c-span. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we're funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> a community center? >> no, it's way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers to create wi-fi so families can get the tools they need for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store. there is a collection of c-span products. browse to see what's new. your support will help

nonprofits. directory for members of congress and the biden administration. go to c-spanshop.org. >> "washin" continues. host: jeff asher joins us. he is the cofounder of ah datalytics. here to talk about the rise in crime in the country. welcome to the program. guest: thank you for having me. host: tell us about your company. what do you look at specifically? guest: we started about two years ago. we work within the terminal justice sector, doing data analytics for organizations that need help. a lot of police departments, criminal justice agencies, prosecutor offices that have no experience with doing data, doing analytics. either starting off from the ground floor, learning what your data infrastructure looks like, earning about the types of data you want to be collecting,