i'm jamie colby. thanks for watching "strange inheritance." ♪ watching. "lou dobbs tonight" starts now. ♪ ♪ lou: good evening, everybody. tonight we begin with breaking news on the biggest scandal in american political history only gets worse by the day for the obama white house. senators ron johnson and chuck grassley today released a list of names recently declassified by the director of national intelligence richard grenell. this list contains the names of many of the top obama era officials who were requesting the unmasking of general michael flynn between election day 2016 and president trump's inauguration in january. on that list is president obama's chief of staff dennis

mcdonough, as well as former vice president and presumptive democratic presidential nominee joe biden. that's right, that's the same joe biden who only yesterday lied directly to the american people about his role in the unmasking and investigation of general flynn. >> what did you know about those moves to investigate michael flynn, and was there anything um proper done? improper done? >> i know nothing about those moves to investigate michael flynn -- >> you say you didn't know anything about it, but you were reported to be at a january 5, 2017, meeting where you and the president were briefed on the fbi's man to question michael flynn -- plan to question michael flynn over those conversations he had with the russian ambassador, kislyak. >> i thought you asked me whether or not i had anything to do with him being prosecuted, i'm sorry. i was aware that there was, that they had asked for an investigation, but that's all i

know about it and i don't think anything else. lou: all he knows about it, and he doesn't think anything else. well, it turns out there's quite a lot of something else. indeed, his request for the unmasking of general flynn. if the request of the -- the request of the obama chief of staff dennis mcdonough made on january 5th, that's the same date that president obama and vice president biden were meeting with justice department's sally yates, national security adviser susan rice, the director of national intelligence, james clapper, fbi director james comey and cia director john brennan, as i said, in the oval office. it was after that meeting that yates was asked about general flynn's contacts with the russian ambassador by president obama himself. i -- a request so shocking to yates that she was, quote, having a hard time processing it and listening to the

conversation at the same time. it is now clear how president obama learned that information that so shocked yates, and it's understandable yates was shocked. others on the list of the unmaskers included former fbi director comey, cia director brennan, former director of national intelligence clapper and former u.s. ambassador to the united nations samantha power. a majority of those requests were made between the 14th and the 16th of december, 2016. a time when the number of reports in the left-wing national media had been leaked, obviously, by intelligence sources about flynn's contact with turkish contractors and when president obama announced russians were responsible for hacking the democratic national committee, a shocking claim that according to transcripts released last week by the house intel committee are simply

untrue. the president of crowd strike, sean henry, told the house intelligence committee in december 2017 not that crowd strike had examined and found evidence that russia had hacked those is servers but, rather, information had been taken from dnc servers but could not conclude it was taken by russians. we'll take all of this up tonight with a star-studded lineup of general michael flynn's attorney sidney paul, devin nuñes, former trump deputy national security adviser kt mcfarland and national security expert fred fleitz. our first guest tonight is also playing a major role on fisa reform as the senate debates it this hour. senator rand paul introduced an amendment requiring a warrant from a traditional federal court instead of fisa to spy on any american. joining us tonight is senator rapid paul. senator, good to have you with

us -- rand paul. i want to compliment you for proceeding to help try to reform this fisa process. but first, if i may if, your reaction to those names from the obama white house, the obama administration seeking the unmasking of general flynn. >> i think it's startling, it's troubling. that the vice president would unmask the president rival, you know, we've had accusations in the past year you may recall of people saying, oh, you're using government to go after a political rival. well, it sounds exactly like this with proof. essentially when you unmask someone, you're illegally listening, you're illegally having a wiretap on their conversation. so we may have had justification to listen to foreign target, but when the foreign target is talking to an innocent american in the normal course of business, you're not supposed to unmask the american unless you have probable cause they're involved in some sort of crime.

in this case there was never an allegation of that, so it's excitement by the obama people to say what can we do to try to damage the incoming administration. so this is a great abuse of power, but it's what i've been talking about in general about fisa. fisa's intended to go after spies, foreigners and terrorists. it should not be used to go after political opponents, and that's what they did. they weaponized fisa to go after president trump. so my amendment tomorrow says you can't use the fisa court to go after campaigns or americans, you go to a regular court. and as you know, you can get a warrant to listen to an american if you think they're doing something nefarious. you just go to a judge, and a lot of times it's granted. but then the person is notified at some point and contest the warrants, and there's adversarial process with lawyers on both sides. that doesn't happen in fisa, and i'm fine for foreigners to be in fisa, but i think american campaigns should not be investigated by a secret court.

lou: if there's any confusion amongst the agencies using fisa, the tipoff should be it's the foreign intelligence court. it is not the federal intelligence court. and you make a a great point and, i think, an important reform in your amendment. but i don't sense that there's a great stomach amongst the leadership of either the republican senate or the democratic house to reform fisa. they want to be expedient, they want to ask -- to act as if nothing happened here, as if this were a hoax against president trump instead of an effort to overthrow a president. >> it's the usual slight of hand. even republicans who pretend to be the president's friend are defenders of the deep state. many of them have been defenders for decades up here of the deep state. we've been wanting to reform it to make sure it doesn't abuse american civil liberties, but they're caught up in saying, oh, we don't want president trump to

know this, but we've got to figure out how to put forward a bill that pretends to fix the problem. this is a parlor game in washington. there are some good reforms. i voted for senator lee's reform today, i think it's a good reform, but none of it really prevents this from happening again. what happened to carter page could still happen even when this bill passes, and i think that's a travesty. lou: and the chief justice of the united states presiding over those fisa courts has been quiet and passive and, in my judgment, irresponsible giving his responsibility for the, for those courts. it would be nice the hear from him supporting senator rand paul, supporting reform. it would be with nice the see some courage just in a few more pockets that extend beyond far too few representatives of the american people including you, senator paul. thank you for doing --

>> and this is -- lou: -- great work. >> yeah. well, it's a good point. you know, deafen knew you yes, sir will be on in a few minutes. when he tends a letter asking for information and they find they did something wrong, the court sat on it, did fake reform if, and then they finally admitted we've got to do more, but it took a whole lot of effort to try to get them to even admit they made a mistake and that there was malfeasance in the fisa court. lou: and very quickly as we conclude here, senator, emmett sullivan, the judge in flynn's case, general flynn's case, is now playing political guams. perhaps we shouldn't leave it just to reform of fisa, but reform of the politicizeed the federal district court system. your thoughts. >> yeah. i don't understand how a court can have a case without a prosecutor. i've never heard of that.

i guess a court can appoint a prosecutor, but that, to me, sounds like a judge not being a judge, not being impartial, but actually becoming part of the prosecution, and that's a really big mistake. i hope that's not what's going to happen here. lou: senator rand paul, we thank you very much, and we wish you all the best of luck as you move to reform a corrupted fisa court system. thank you, senator. appreciate it. >> thank you. lou: republicans have flipped a house seat in california for the first time since 1998. mike garcia, a former navy pilot, ahead by 12 points with 76% of precincts reporting when his democratic opponent conceded. democrat katie hill resigned that seat in november. garcia runs again for a full term in november. republican tom tiffany also keeping wisconsin's 7th district republican in last night's election. sean duffy resigned that seat

back in september. well, stocks selling off nearly 2% today after federal reserve board chairman jerome powell clumsily forecast more stimulus might be needed to support america's damaged economy. with that, the dow fell 517 points, the s&p lost 50, the nasdaq dropped 139. that selloff taking place because we have a federal reserve chair who doesn't at times seem to understand markets nor his own responsibilities to maintain stability. up next we'll take up the latest revelations on unmasking general michael flynn when defense attorney sid isny paul joins us as does the ranking minority member of the house intelligence committee, congressman deafen nunes. deputy national security adviser to president trump, kt mcfarland, national security expert fred fleitz all join us here this evening.

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call out obamagate for what it is. listen to, take a look at his outrage on the deep state and radical dems' efforts to overthrow president trump. >> i find it unbelievable that the outgoing administration is surveilling the incoming administration. that is incredibly wrong, at the minimum unethical. lou: unethical. my goodness. donald trump jr. tweeted about the senator's timid response saying, quote: we need more doers like richard grenell and a lot less talkers. we've got more than our share of talkers. when you talk tough on tv every night but do none of what you talk about, people do notice and lose patience. enough b.s., do your jobs. well said, don. that's all i can say about that. the judiciary branch as big a

part of this corruption as any agency or department. judge emmitt sullivan wants to hear from outside legal groups before ruling on whether to drop charges against general michael flynn. flynn's attorney sidney powell says that we all know exactly where this is coming from. to guiled us through this -- guide us through this, sidney powell, former federal prosecutor and defense attorney for none other than general flynn. sidney, great to have you with us. your comments, as usual, are spot on, and you identify much of the issue. this is, to see these names, these are some of the top officials, i mean, only missing is president obama's, frankly, when you go through the list at the white house. i mean, this is stunning stuff.

you had to be even surprised the vice president, the chief of staff of the white house are on that list. >> well, actually, no, lou. unfortunately, i was not surprised. there are some names i wasn't expecting because it goes a lot more broadly than i realized like people in the treasury department and all of that. but what i find particularly interesting is we have to look back at april 2015 when sally yates came into the department of justice. that's only a month after president trump announced his intention to seek the presidency. she immediately shut out the inspector general from the national security division of the department of justice. and then, as i mentioned last night, before loretta lynch left office around the middle of december, she and clapper greatly expanded the reach of the intel community's daily briefings to a lot more people. if you put those in the timeline

of the unmasks and the strzok-page text messages, it puts a lot of pieces of the puzzle together. lou: this flurry, 15 and 16, december 2016, that's a -- we saw a lot of bizarre reporting based on, obviously, intelligence sources during that time. but to see this as you say broadly across the administration, we had ambassadors, we had u.n. ambassador, the chief of staff the, for crying out loud, their interest in this was feveredded. it was, it's inexplicable to me that so many people would be contemporaneously asking for an unmasking which is a rare, rare behavior for any public official even in, outside the intelligence agencies.

>> yes. to put that in perspective, in his entire 33 years in the military including as head of the defense intelligence agency, general flynn only unmasked one american, and that was because he was talking to a middle eastern terrorist in the middle east at the time. and this entire scenario is absolutely atrocious. it's criminal. the more they found general flynn was innocent of anything, the more evidence the fbi came across that exonerated him of anything, the harder they worked to set him up for whatever they could make up against him including all of the unmasks that you see and how widely it went. lou: well, the -- >> and they intensified the smear campaign. lou: -- at the same time. absolutely. >> yes. lou: but to -- >> and that's when they started the smear campaign.

lou: right. and to so broadly and feverishly deepen this request for unmasking of general flynn, this -- it makes it, i mean, it's on its faces the political. it is driven purely by politics. it's extraordinary. your thoughts about why the judge is not reacting to this instead of a dog whistle from a former president, and suddenly judge sullivan is a friend of, friends of the court briefs. >> well, of course, this is just broken. i haven't even had a chance to study it all myself. hopefully the judge will see what is actually going on here and respond accordingly. there are all kinds of legal issues that are raised by the order entered yesterday requesting brief of amici, and

we intend to address those fully in whatever forum is most appropriate. lou: what forum can you anticipate? judging sullivan is looking -- judge sullivan is looking foolish here as well as incompetent because he has had a fraudulent case in front of him now for how many years? and he has not interceded and said to the prosecution you're trying to defraud my court, and i take that personally. but that has not been his response. it has been to be complicit with the prosecutors in carrying out a travesty against general flynn. >> well, it's billion going on for three -- it's been going on for three years now, as you know. it's only since last june that the truth the has started coming to light with the filings our team has made. and i really thought that he would have, he of all people who is the judicial hero from 2014 would have gone and been very

aggressive about the prosecution's brady violation. but so far he's adopted the government's position on everything, and that can't keep standing in light of all the brady violations that are disclosed by the government within the last ten days to two weeks. it's absolutely astonishing -- lou: can you discern -- >> [inaudible] lou: can you discern anything other than a partisan political position for his actions in not taking the recommendation of the department of justice to drop the case against general flynn? >> i can't explain any legal basis for it right now. lou: sidney powell, as always, good to have you with us. thanks, appreciate it. >> thank you, lou. lou: we'd like to hear your thoughts on all of this -- thank you. share your comments. follow me on twitter @loudobbs and on instagram @loudobbstonight. all that and a programming note,

tomorrow evening treasury secretary stephen mnuchin, investigative reporter john solomon among our guests. we invite you to join us. we hope you will. and up next, stay with us for more of the revelations on obamagate exposed day by sorry day for the radical dems. former trump deputy national security adviser kt mcfarland with us. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ there are times when our need to connect really matters. to keep customers and employees in the know. to keep business moving. comcast business is prepared for times like these. powered by the nation's largest gig-speed network. to help give you the speed, reliability, and security you need. tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. and a team of experts - here for you 24/7. we've always believed in the power of working together. that's why, when every connection counts... you can count on us.

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♪ ♪ lou: obama's attorney general eric holder weighing in, and he says attorney general william barr, quote: is doing all that he can to weaken the very institutions that he leads. holder, the first attorney general ever to be held in contempt by the house of representatives, he refused to

turn over documents on the fast and furious scandal. by the way, that scandal is still very much alive. just last week mexico's president lopez obrador demanding answers about the scandal, about fast and furious for which the united states and this attorney general in the minds of the mexican government remain responsible. joining us tonight is kt mcfarland, former deputy national security adviser to president trump. she's author of the new book "revolution: trump, washington and we the people." kt, let's start with the broad unmasking of general flynn, your boss. in 2016 through the inauguration. are you surprised? i asked sidney powell, she was not, but are you surprised by the names that we see: biden,

the vice president, dennis mcdonough, the chief of staff, samantha power, united nations ambassador, for crying out loud. dozens of requests to up masking this man -- unmask this man, most of them between december 14th and 16th, 206. >> i guess what i'm surprised at is the scope of it and the number of people involved. i mean, it's just, it's like a stampede of unmaskings. but i looked more carefully at the dates. one of the justifications for investigating general flynn and investigating the trump administration for russian collusion was supposedly a phone call that happened on december 29th between general flynn and ambassador kislyak. i write about it extensively in my book, i talked to general flynn before the call, i talked to general flynn after the call. but if that was their predicate event, that was the thing that got them so convinced that there was collusion with president trump and with general flynn and with the russians, then what the

heck were they doing a month before when they were having all these requests to wiretap and then unmask? one of the reasons the intelligence community gets around the fact that they're not supposed to be wiretapping americans is because they're listening in on foreigners' phone call, and then when the foreigner is talking to somebody, what they can do is say, well, we're going to up mask that. they're not directly wiretapping general flynn, they're indirectly wiretapping general flynn. and the fact that they were doing it when there was a flurry of articles at that same time in mid december about general flynn's criticism of the cia and his intention and president trump's intelligence to look at the intelligence agencies, to reform them and to streamline them marley the cia -- particularly the cia, i think this was a preemptive strike against general flynn and an attempt to take down the trump administration before it ever began. lou: and the involvement of clap arer, the cia director brennan,

it's clearly, clearly motivated in part by those very chieftains of u.s. intelligence and the animosity they felt toward the man who was not putting, was not having any of it from an intelligence community that was poorly serving, he judged himself, the president-elect and soon to be president -- >> you know, but i think also, it's also, look at this, the people you just mentioned, clapper, brennan, comey, etc., who are they? they are the people who were going behind closed doors in congressional testimony to the house intelligence community and saying, look, there's no evidence of russian collusion, we've looked, we can't find any. and yet it's those same individuals that went out in public and said, oh, president trump, he's a russian asset. or the trump administration is playing the song that vladimir putin ising writing.

they were -- putin is writing. they were deceiving the american people for three years, and they took us into this divisive, nasty place that they knew all along was a fraud. lou: yeah, the point that you made all of this preceding by two weeks to a month the reasons they claimed that they were putting general flynn under sur is vail lance -- surveillance, preposterous like so much all the top officials of that administration, they were lying about that as well. we have just received the latest words from the president who is on video just from moments ago from the white house reacting to this very issue. let's listen to president donald trump. >> well, the unmasking is is a massive, it's a massive thing. it's -- i just got -- it's, who can believe a thing like this? and i watched biden yesterday on "good morning america" being

interviewed by one of your colleagues, george stephanopoulos, and he said he knew nothing about anything. he has no idea, he knows nothing about anything. nothing at all. and then it gets released today that he was a big unmasker. so how do you know nothing if you're one of the unmaskers? it's one of the very big stories, and i suspect you'll have, if it's possible, even bigger stories coming out. lou: a big story, bigger stories coming out, kt. we know it is already the biggest political scandal in this country's history finish. >> absolutely. lou: your thoughts, your thoughts tonight. >> president trump has promised me on several occasions when i've talked to him and met with him that there were abuses done by the intelligence community and others, he's called them dirty cops, and he said that he's committed to get to the bottom of it. who did it, what dud they do, how did they do it and when did they do it. so my question to the entire obama administration hierarchy,

who knew what? and why did they do it? why were they doing this? why were they spying on a presidential administration before it even took office? lou: and as we wrap up here, kt the, i also want to say thank you and commend director of national intelligence ric grenellment i want to also thank -- grenell. i want to thank senators ron johnson and grassley of iowa for their role in making certain the more than people's right to know is final hi being observed -- finally being on receivedded. kt, thanks for being with us, we appreciate it. up next, congressman deafen nunes calling for more criminal referrals for robert mueller's special counsel team. congressman nunes joins us here next, please stay with us. we'll be right back.

♪ ♪ lou: joining us tonight is republican congressman devon nunes, ranking member of the house intelligence committee, member of the house ways and means committee as well. congressman, great to have you with us, and these, these names participating in these requests for the unmasking of general flynn are so much broader than anything i expected and, frankly, reach much higher than i expected in the obama white house. all the way to the vice

president, the chief of staff. my god, this is extraordinary. this is deserving, this greatest political scandal in american history, of the name obamagate, is it not? >> well, i told you it gets a lot are worse, lou. if you remember -- lou: you did. >> this is the first time that most people in the united states ever heard of the house intelligence committee, had ever heard of me. it's because, you know, we used to do real work down working with patriots across the globe. and when i first came out publicly and held a press conference and said that i had seen very troubling activity of using intelligence reports and intelligence apparatus to spy on trump transition officials and they were doing unmaskings, this is -- you're getting a glimpse of what i saw at the time. and i would actually say, lou, it's even worse than this.

you're only seeing the folks that up masked general flynn. the reality is there were a whole lot of other americans on the trump transition team that were unmasked, and those need to be made public also. lou: absolutely. and you concern me because we're talking about reform or support of the fisa by the senate and by the house at this very moment, and i don't sense -- as i told senator rand paul earlier -- i don't sense the stomach in either the house or the senate leadership to go about real reform despite the efforts of the radical dems and the deep state to try to overthrough a president of the united states. overthrow. >> yeah, it's quite, it's quite incredible. and you can imagine at the time when i first learned of this and then you remember when i came out and made this public, i was very careful, you know, not to

name any names, not to name what agency this came from -- lou: right. >> and you may recall all of the people that were out there in the deep state including the media, 90% of the media that work for the democratic party, they unloaded on me and accused me of leaking information, leaking classified information. and remember when -- lou: right. >> -- i used to say i know when they're shooting at me, i know i'm over the target? that was when i really first learned. it was like, wait a second, you know, media, you should be appreciative of this, right? i mean or, you've always been a watching dog of the intelligence agencies and if they're spying on any american citizens. you should have been thank me. you should have been asking me, wow, what else do we need to know. instead what did the media do? the they asked very cleverly, where did you get this? who did you leak it to? you leaked. and then remember i spent eight months with an ethics investigation into me when, in fact, i was the only one who

didn't leak through this whole mess and all the other people did. so, look, i'm glad i'm through all of that with the help of the american people. we made it through. but that's why i continue to say nobody wants these bastards put in jail more than me. lou: well, i -- put me up there, right up there close. maybe not as much, but real close because i think millions of americans are so disgusted and appalled and ashamed of our government -- >> yeah. lou: -- and what has been tolerated by, frankly, both political parties as you well know. republicans who didn't is have the guts to issue a single damn subpoena while they were in control of the house and could have defended you, chose to be sheep and cowards. as well as sellouts. >> yeah. this was -- just remember though, lou, i want to make sure, i want to make sure that you and your viewers know, we did issue subpoenas. we did issue many subpoenas.

if you remember -- and i say me, i issued the sweep thats with the house intelligence committee. that's the only way we learned who had paid for the clinton steele dirty dossier. it was because of the subpoena that we sent. so i just want to make sure that you know that i did ask for subpoenas, and if i become chairman again, you can bet i've already got the subpoenas ready to go. lou: and there will be more criminal referrals you're seeking? >> oh, yeah. that's correct. we already are. we're working on additional criminal referrals now, you know, knowing now that the u.s. attorney in missouri has stood up, we're looking closely at the mueller team. i think i talked about that last week on the show. we're looking closely at them -- lou: right. >> because, you know, clearly what happened to general flynn and sitting on that brady information, that's not okay. that's not okay. the whole mueller team to not --

to spend $40 million and not to actually get to the bottom of who was colluding with russians when it was right in front of they are face. they had the information that steele possibly could be compromised by russians. where the hell was that in the report? that never came out. so why would mueller spend $40 million and not get to the bottom of that? why did they bring all these people from the outside that had these clinton connections? all of that has to be looked at including why did people at the highest levels of doj and fbi that were supposed to be overseeing mueller and helping mueller, why did they help to block us, republicans, from getting information? a lot of what you will see now will be looking at, you know, did they obstruct a congressional investigation, did they lie or mislead congress. and, look, we know that's a pretty low bar because, you know, roger stone right now has been convicted. he was accused of it and convicted in a washington, d.c. court. one can argue whether or not the jury was correct or not, but if

we can prosecute roger stone, we damn sure better be able to prosecute these high-level people that were on the mueller team and anybody at the doj and fbi that were involved in this fiasco. lou: the american people will never have faith in the justice department, the fbi or, frankly, several of our intelligence agencies until there is an accounting. congressman devin nuñes, thanks for all you do, have done and will do. we appreciate it. up next, john brennan trying to hide that russia was helping hillary clinton in 2016. the man who broke that story, national security expert fred fleitz, joins us here next. ♪ limu emu & doug [ siren ] give me your hand! i can save you... lots of money with liberty mutual! we customize your car insurance

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♪ ♪ lou: national security expert fred fleitz recently reporting that former cia director john brennan worked to suppress intelligence that russia was, in fact, trying to help hillary clinton win the 2016 presidential election. brennan was aware russia preferred clinton over trump because she was a known figure having served as secretary of state. instead of reporting this to the house intelligence committee,

brennan provided intelligence that omitted the fact that russia was working to help hillary clinton when -- and instead claiming that they wanted trump. joining us now, the man who authored that report on foxnews.com, fred fleitz, fred, thanks for being with us. >> good to be here. lou: let's start with, first, the unmasking of flynn and the breadth of those in the obama white house who were involved. your thoughts. >> i'm really stunned. i worked on some legal appropriate unmasking as a cia officer. we have 39 individuals who made 53 requests after the election for the name of general flynn to be unmasked, and as kt mcfarland told you a little while ago, most of them took place in mid december before flynned had made any phone calls

to kislyak. it had nothing to do with an inappropriate phone call. it's very clear that flynn was part of a very determined and sophisticated effort to destroy him as part of the obama administration's efforts to wreck the trump presidency. lou: and that, indeed, seems to be the objective throughout, an unerring effort to an unerring, unwavering effort to try to destroy the president no matter how many of his associates, his top officials that he was bringing into government they had to destroy. flynn, flynn also at that time was criticizing intelligence agencies as was the president-elect at that time. do you think that that correlates in any way to that feverish effort to unmask general flynn? >> absolutely. he was a former director of the

defense intelligence agency. he knew where the bodies were buried. he was talking about reforming intelligence. i spoke with him in december of 2016 as did kt mcfarland about the urgent need to depoliticize and reform and streamline u.s. intelligence. career officers were afraid of him, and they were determined to take him out. lou: and they wasted no time in trying to do so. john brennan, his role here seems to grow not smaller or more to pick, but larger and more -- opaque, but larger and more vivid in all of this. he has much to answer for, doesn't he? >> he does. and, you know, lou, i had the prim of talking with you about this -- the privilege of talking with you about this in january 2017 just after it came out. remember all 17 intel agencies said russia intervened to help trump win. and we talked about how it wasn't all 17 agencies, didn't

follow the rules. well, in the summer of 2018 the house intelligence staff told me they had a report with evidence that brennan actually suppressed information that putin wanted hillary clinton to win and trump to lose. this was high quality intelligence that brennan suppressed oaf the objections -- over the objections of cia officers. instead he ordered that very weak intelligence that the russians wanted trump to win the election, cia officers protested that, but that was put into the report anyway. this report's been sitting at the cia since september 2018, and i understand there is a good chance that acting dni grenell is going to release it. lou: well, the public is now being served by their government. ric grenell, the dni, senators grassley and johnson, again, who deserve great credit. and, fred, you deserve considerable credit for getting

this out to the american public as well. it's outrageous. what is the next step, in your judgment, as we wrap up? >> first of all, i want to thank ed henry of fox news for confirming this story. i hadn't been able to get anyone to confirm it. it's just my word i talk abouted with these officers. i want to see general flynn sue the government and get damages for the way he was mistreated. it'd be great to seemy brought up on charges. -- comey brought up on charges. i'd like to see some justice for general flynn. lou: and by the way, fred, with us you don't need confirmation. we know who you are and we know your standards, and that is good enough for us. >> thank you. lou: fred fleitz, thanks so much. stay with us, we'll be right back. ♪

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♪ lou: senator rand paul on this broadcast tonight reacting to the obama here a officials. explosive developments today. those officials including one joe biden, who sought to unmask general michael flynn. >> this case was never an allegation of that. so all of these unmaskers i think it is sort of purient. excitement by the obama people saying what can we do to try to damage the incoming administration? this is a great abuse of power. i've been talking about it in general about fisa. fisa is intended to go after

spies, foreigners and terrorists. it should not be used to go after political opponents. that is what they did, they weep h -- weaponized fisa to go maria: good morning, happy thursday, everybody, thank you so much for joining us, i'm maria bartiromo, it is thursday may 14th, 6:00 a.m. on the east coast, in just moments my exclusive sit-down with president trump this morning, unmasking of michael flynn and just how high in the obama administration it went after the list of names unmasked revealed. >> this was all obama, this was all biden. these people were corrupt the whole thing was corrupt and we caught them. we caught them. maria: plus, getting america back to work and