that's a throwback. >> greg: juan gives the punch line to jokes first. >> kimberly: "special report" is next. >> bret: thank you. we never get pie here. house republicans rail against the fbi and the justice department as concerns emerge about bias and a secret society. the president's attorney general talks of the special consul in the russian investigation. what will come from that and why won't the nfl improve and add encouraging people at the super bowl to stand for the national anthem? this is "special report" ." good evening. i am bret baier. coming to live tonight from the white house one day after the end of the government shutdown and write in the middle of political sniping. maybe eventually open warfare between congressional republicans and the nation's top law enforcement authorities.

the rush of collusion investigation has now reached all the way into president trump's cabinet. attorney general jeff sessions spent several hours in an interview with special counsel robert mueller and his team. this comes as house and senate republicans on several committees are raising serious questions of the fbi and doj for what many see as unchecked bias and perhaps even a conspiracy against the president based on newly released texts. we have fox team coverage. mike emanuel on capitol hill. we begin at our washington bureau with chief intelligence correspondent catherine herridge. >> of the same day a justice department official confirmed the special counsel interview, text messages suggest senior investigators were skeptical the russia probe would uncover any wrongdoing. two days after special counsel robert mueller took over the russia probe, newly released text messages between peter strzok and lawyer lisa page

suggests they discuss the merits of joining mueller's team. strzok writes "you and i both know the odds are nothing. if i thought it was likely, i would be there no question. i hesitate in part because of my sense and concerned there is no big "there" there." republican lawmakers said the text are more evidence of clinical bias. >> i care about the department of justice and the fbi and it breaks my heart that we are having to have this conversation about two agents and only wanted to get the president. >> another republican who read the texts to the fbi officials talk about a secret society within days of president trump's victory. >> there was a society of at least two people that had a desire to keep donald trump from becoming president and then an expressed intent to work against him after he was elected president. >> in the cryptic texts, strzok writes "i have a sense of unfinished business.

"now i need to fix it and finish it." fbi blames the technical problem in a five month gap in the texts and would not comment on whether the bureau had taken physical custody of their phones. >> it's no coincidence we are missing text that run from when the russia investigation was launched right up to the point where you have the point of the mueller investigation being launched. >> president trump called the missing text one of the biggest stories in a long time. the senior democrat called out republicans for undermining mueller. >> he shouldn't be thwarted anyway and it's a diversion they are trying to do. it's not good for the country. >> president trump said the white house has no advanced notice of attorney general jeff sessions special counsel interview last week. >> i didn't but i'm not concerned. >> the president denied media

reports that christopher wray threatened to quit after pressure to remove his deputy andrew mccabe, a longtime lieutenant of fbi director james comey. >> not even a little bit, no. >> those close to the president tell fox news they expected sessions would be interviewed but they didn't know the timing. white house spokesman said they were emphasizing transparency and their cooperation with the special counsel. >> bret: thank you. there are growing the medications issues between the law enforcement agencies and house republicans. chief congressional correspondent mike emanuel has the story from capitol hill. >> we can certainly support transparency and we believe that at the house intel committee to make that decision. >> sources say there's anger and frustration among g.o.p. members of the house intelligence committee with the fbi and the department of justice. some have suggested the bureau and doj have been stonewalling on the committee's requests for documents, text messages, and

other information. >> it's been tough. we've been trying for months now to get the department to give us access to this information. >> intelligence committee republicans expected to vote in the next couple weeks to make public a four-page classified memo detailing improper activity by some at the fbi, including surveillance abuses. >> we also have to do our oversight responsibility with regard to the department of justice and the federal bureau of investigation. in doing that, we have uncovered concerns. >> if approved, it would be sent to president trump who would have five days to say whether he has objections. >> it was deeply disturbing, anyone has been in law enforcement, any american will find that once they review it. >> andrew ames told fox, "the fbi has requested to receive a copy of the memo in order to evaluate the information and take appropriate steps if necessary to date the requests." another strain between investigators and the fbi is

over the christopher steele dossier. lawmakers complaining that the fbi has obstructed their efforts. it's a 35 page collection of memos written by christopher steele, former british intelligence agent, during the campaign which suggested a conspiracy between the russian government to help donald trump defeat hillary clinton. that's why trey gowdy says people should see his memo. >> people are going to be troubled but what you want me to do is talk about prison and people going to jail. that's part of what we don't want. we don't want people making decisions based on a four page memo. >> justice department official says doj and fbi have been instructed to turn over all appropriate documents and texts as quickly as possible. fox is told that includes more than 1,000 pages of classified documents. >> bret: mike emanuel live on the hill. thanks. a lot of coverage of this today on all sides. wisconsin republican senator ron johnson, chairman of the senate

homeland security and governmental affairs committee, released those text messages today. tonight along with senator chuck grassley, johnson has sent a letter to the justice department's internal watchdog asking some very pointed questions. senator johnson joins us now from capitol hill to tell us what they are. thanks for being here. >> how are you doing? >> bret: what are you looking for? >> we want more information. we want to know why those text messages were missing for five months. exactly how that, how they say that information where it's saved. we are sending out letters to preserve records to the private sector people that stored those things, google. certainly verizon, telephone companies. this is all about making sure that whatever information is out there is preserved that eventually the iraqi people understand exactly what happened inside the highest levels of the fbi. >> bret: when the doj sent

this letter saying there was a glitch that prevented those five months of texts from being released to you, did you buy it? >> i am suspicious. i want to get to the bottom of it and it -- so many experts in i.t. with a those messages are somewhere they need to be retrieved. the timing is very suspicious. from mid-december of 2016 after the election until the day that robert mueller was appointed and then those texts. they occurred two days later when strzok and page were talking about their careers. i think considering whether or not they wanted to join miller's investigation. the conclusion, one of the reasons they were reluctant to do so, according to peter strzok is because his gut sense was there is no big "there" there. this nation has been dragged through this investigation so far. no conclusions yet. one of the lead investigators,

one of the deputy assistant director of the counterintelligence division that had been working on this for those five months, those texts have gone missing is saying his concern is there is no big "there" there? that is jaw-dropping. >> bret: when pressed, the senate minority leader today said this is all of it, the memo and this, part of a distraction effort by republicans to take away from the mueller investigation. take a listen. >> i think there has been a great deal of activity on the other side intending to either divert attention from mueller or stand in his way. i don't think mr. nunes has played a constructive role to say the least and we are all worried about it. mueller has to be allowed to do his job. >> bret: your thoughts. >> from my standpoint, these are federal records and we are

involved in the hillary clinton investigation and i've been saying for a year and half after former director comey granted immunity to cheryl mills june 10 and then june 27 bill clinton and loretta lynch met. on july 1, loretta lynch announced she's going to let director comey make the call. yet in these texts, we find out she already knew director comey wasn't going to press charges. >> bret: let me read that. text number four. "holy cow. "new york times." lynch will accept whatever comey and career prosecutors make. no political appointee input." strzok says "timing not great but whatever. i wonder if that's why not, no coordination."

>> top officials in the fbi, loretta lynch new before she said she was going to let comey decide that he wasn't going to prosecute. and then comey testified there was no coordination between the department of justice, loretta lynch, and the fbi. that's coming into question. what this is all about is further evidence of corruption, more than bias. corruption of the highest levels of the fbi. the secret society, we have an informant talking about a group that was holding secret meetings off-site. there is so much smoke here. >> bret: lets stop there. secret society? secret meetings off-site of the justice department? you have an informant saying that? >> yes. >> bret: anything more about that? >> we have to dig into it. this is not a distraction.

this is biased, potentially corruption, at the highest levels of the fbi. robert mueller used to run the fbi. he's in no position to do an investigation over this kind of misconduct. i think at this point, we probably should be looking at a special counsel to undertake this investigation. congress is going to have to continue to dig. >> bret: do you think attorney general sessions in his current capacity, which he has taken himself out of the russian investigation, has the ability to call for another special prosecutor to analyze this part of the investigation? >> i really don't know but when you see this kind of bias, corruption in the fbi, you have to ask a question, are there similar individuals, highly biased political operatives burrowed into the department of justice as well? does attorney general sessions really have a department he can rely and trust? this is deeply concerning and we're going to continue to dig.

>> bret: do you have any problems on the reports that sessions put pressure on the fbi director wray to fire the deputy director mccabe? that was coming from the president. he denied that david do you believe that to be true? to go attorney general is in charge of that department knew that if he has concern about people under his command not doing their job or they have this enormous political biases we've seen with lisa page and peter strzok, that would be his responsibility to terminate those employees. >> bret: you are welcome back anytime. thank you. here at the white house, new examples of president trump's america first economic and trade policy. the u.s. is slapping tariffs on imports of two products. the makers are not happy. kevin corke reports joins me with the story. >> good evening. it's very interesting. this is the president's first major move to level the global playing field which he has long suggested has been tilted

against american companies. he is getting ready to take a trip to a major economic summit in europe where his "america first" policies will likely be at odds with global political and business leaders. >> our companies have been decimated and those companies are going to be coming back strong. >> it was a move that could be summed up in two words. "america first." president trump signed executive orders calling for stiff tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines. >> our companies will be not taken advantage of anymore, and our workers are going to have lots of really great jobs with products that are going to be made in the good old usa. >> the president's directive calls for penalties of up to 50% on washing machines and his highs 30% on solar modules as well as restricted quotas to limit the number coming into the u.s. market. a direct response to u.s. industry pleas for help to stem the tide of a recent flood of

cheap imports. which led u.s. appliance giant whirlpool to file a petition for relief from south korean appliance manufacturers samsung and lg. china expressed "strong dissatisfaction" today, calling the u.s. decision about abusive trade remedy measures. the trade barriers come by way of a 1974 law that permits companies to seek relief if they can prove serious injury from a sudden surge in imports. robert lighthizer said the trump administration will always defend american workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses. in targeting imported like washing machines is often complicated by the fact that many of the parts used to create the items are american-made. this is the president prepares to travel to the world economic forum in davos, the first u.s. president to attend since bill clinton. experts warned the president's

penchant for aggressive policies could overshadow the gathering. >> is this a harbinger of things to come? the president has a number of divisions on steel, aluminum, chinese intellectual property theft. >> the president's chief economic advisor doesn't seem concerned. >> the president believes we can have win-win agreements. america first is not america alone. >> interesting there, bit of pushback from a usually reliable ally. you may remember south carolina's governor an early proponent of the president's campaign in 2016 and whose estate has recently opened a 380 million dollar samsung facility, calling the president's decision to impose these tariffs on imported washing machines a bad decision. likely one we will see more of. >> bret: tested there in davos davos. the remaining 11 countries in

the trans-pacific partnership, the tpp, have revised their agreement in the wake of the u.s. withdrawal. leaders of canada and india came out against the protectionism in the global economy today. president trump withdrew the u.s. from the tpp right after his inauguration. google talk with the white house legislative director here in mi. up next, secretary of state says russia is to blame for the use of chemical weapons in syria. first here's what's some of our fox affiliates are covering. in louisville, shooting a high school in southwest kentucky leads to students dead and 17 wounded. the 15-year-old suspect taken into custody. state police commissioner says the student will be charged with murder and attempted murder. in honolulu, and earthquake triggers a tsunami watch in hawaii. magnitude 7.9 earthquake. the tsunami watch was issued for hawaii.

canceled an hour and half later. live look at orlando from fox 35. one of the big stories there tonight, astronauts from the international space station take a spacewalk to install a new mechanical hand on the facilities big robot arm, the first of two original hands on the canadian built arm replaced last october. work on this one will be completed next week. that's tonight's live look outside the beltway from "special report." we are at the warehouse tonight. we'll be right back (keyboard sounds)

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♪ >> bret: "special report" live at the white house. learning multiple americans among the dead from the weekend terror attack at a hotel in kabul, afghanistan. state department is not saying

who or how many were killed or injured. afghan officials say 14 foreigners were among the 22 fatalities. they say all six taliban militants who stormed the hotel were killed. pentagon moving a dozen of its thunderbolt jets to afghanistan to provide close air support for american and afghan troops. the newly arrived planes flew their first combat missions after arriving at the airfield. the jets are part of the 303rd expeditionary fighter squadron from missouri. last weekend's partial government shutdown did not stop the pentagon from killing 150 isis fighters in an air strike in eastern syria saturday. the attack targeted one of the last remaining pockets of isis control near the border between syria and iraq. top u.s. military officials believe isis leader al-baghdadi is hiding somewhere in the area. america's top diplomats calling

out russia over chemical weapons use in syria. this comes as the administration tries to keep fighting between two groups considered friendly to the u.s., turkish military and syrian kurdish militia from escalating. benjamin hall has the latest. >> to u.s. allies face off after turkey launched a major offensive against u.s.-backed kurds in syria. the assaults called operation all of branch aims to push back kurdish groups from the border. over three in -- 300,000 civilians at risk. secretary tillerson said he understood turkey's border concerns with the focus should remain a isis. >> we are engaged with turkey and we are engaged with the leadership of our coalition and asking that both sides show restraint. >> turkey's president has vowed to crush the kurdish militias which he says are terrorists uncalled for america to join. >> translator: why are you

finding isis with terrorist organization? >> if turkish forces move east, they would come into direct contact with u.s. forces and u.s.-trained kurdish groups who are widely credited with helping to defeat isis. pitting two u.s. allies against each other. in a rebel held district outside damascus, the regime accused of using chemical weapons. secretary tillerson pointed the finger at russia. >> russia ultimately bears responsibility for the victims and countless other syrians targeted with chemical weapons. >> one concern is that a turkey pushback, as they push back the kurds, they may look to rush out rather than to achieve their strategic goals. when isis was strong, there was a coalition of groups who came together to counter the threat. now they are being defeated, many groups and countries are

turning on each other to take advantage of the vacuum. >> bret: benjamin hall in london. thanks. up next, white house legislative affairs director on what happens now that the shutdown is over. will there be another one in less than three weeks? t i'd be e to quit smoking, i was such a heavy smoker. but i was able to do it with chantix. i did not know that chantix would reduce my urges so significantly. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. chantix reduced my urge to smoke. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be life-threatening. stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these. tell your healthcare provider if you've had depression or other mental health problems. decrease alcohol use while taking chantix.

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and 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d. all with a great taste. boost gives me everything i need... to be up for doing what i love. boost high protein be up for it ♪ >> bret: welcome back to "special report" coming to you live from the white house. the president has picked a chair for the federal reserve. senators voted to confirm jerome powell to lead the nation's central bank. stocks mixed. dow dropped 4. s&p 500 up 6. nasdaq gained 52. federal employees back at work today after the shutdown. the big questions and ideas for how long. this short-term spending bill expires in less than three weeks. let's get the lay of the land from the president's legislative

affairs director marc short. thanks for being here. this is -- you are over the hump. white house signaled this was a win in your eyes but you have much more negotiating to do. >> you are right. complicating it is the reality of the state of the union speech and democratic and republican retreats. we have a lot to do. we hope democrats don't repeat the effort of shutting down the government. i think their position is, in order to get a spending deal, we need a budget cap deal. we are close to that. the democrat position is to not agree to a budget cap deal until we get daca legislation passed and i think that's what's befuddling to us. we are making progress on daca but you're holding americans hostage over a separate issue. >> bret: the daca issue comes with border security. you have to have it, according to the white house. senate minority leader said he

is polling the deal he put on the table for a border wall. here's senator schumer today. >> are republican leaders don't want to go ahead on their own. they are afraid of president trump. they want to know what he will do but he doesn't tell them to do anything. he usually tells them, you do it yourselves. we get paralysis. we are pleased with how things came out. we are better off today when it comes to the cause of dreamers than we were for five days ago. we've gotten a commitment from senator mcconnell but he made it not just to democrats but a good chunk of his own caucus. >> bret: your thoughts. >> seems like negotiating with schumer is like negotiating with jell-o. one day he is against the border wall, the next day he is for it. we want the four pillars because we don't want to be in the same place we were before. the reality is we need a physical barrier. we also need an end to chain migration in the visa lottery. were happy to negotiate on the

daca population. they've asked us to consider beyond 690,000 permit holders to say would you consider those we think are in the shadows and afraid to come out and we have said yes. we will consider it. we have shown a willingness to negotiate. they have shown a willingness to negotiate. we're going to get a deal. >> bret: on the number, is that 1.6 billion? 20 billion? what's the number that you need appropriated for a wall? >> the department of homeland security and customs and border patrol agents on the front lines put together plans submitted to congress that's roughly about $20 billion for the physical barrier. 33 billion in all when you include technology and other elements. keep in mind the democrats a few years ago authorized $40 billion for border security. they have shown a willingness to go that far but the game that's always played in washington as they authorize dollars without appropriating it. we want to make sure this is something the people vote on and say yeah, one day we will give you the money but then never do it.

want to make sure their dollars are there. >> bret: in between 1.6 and 20, you can move? >> absolutely. 1.6 was for one fiscal year. roughly 20 billion was over seven years. what's customs and border patrol estimated would take them to fill the gaps. >> bret: the biggest question is on chain migration. what happens with that? what is this pillar need to look like from a negotiating point of view? >> in our minds, we want to make sure nuclear families are protected. spouses and children. i think what's happened over time is that you've seen it abused by the process. you end up having ten, 15, 20 family members coming in on one person's visa. we start this year, the two terror attacks, i should say 2017. the pipe bomb and the individual who ran over americans in a truck. one came in via the visa lottery

and one came in via chain migration. >> bret: you heard senator schumer. some republicans said they didn't know where president trump was on some of these issues. you mentioned the state of the union. will there be markers in the state of the union that the president is going to lay down and say here's what i need? get this and we will have been deal? >> yes, i think you will hear the president talk about it in the state of the union. we have been pretty clear. when secretary kelly, the dhs secretary, went to congress and said we need this solved, we put it out. in september we give a long list of priorities, things were looking for is part of the daca solution. four weeks ago we said here's what we are finding on the four pillars on daca, border security, chain migration, visa lottery. and four pages, we laid out our priorities. we provided that the congress. people want to hide behind it and say we haven't been clear. the reality is the white house has been crystal clear in what we are asking. we will continue pushing that.

>> bret: do you think the president is going to be more involved than he was? >> he's been incredibly engaged. we've had 20 members of congress, bicameral, bilateral here to discuss what the path forward is. i think the president wants to have a conversation, get to a solution. the deputies will be the ones that would have a working group. we are happy to begin negotiations again. >> bret: is he willing to take the heat from the right side of his party if the deal is the deal? >> absolutely. if the deal enables us to provide security on the border and prevent future vulnerabilities, absolutely he will. >> bret: thanks for the time. when we come back, a veterans group wants to encourage everybody at the super bowl to stand for the national anthem. so why is the nfl say no?

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♪ >> bret: welcome back to the white house. you may have heard the super bowl is coming week from sunday, super bowl lii. new england and philadelphia will play that there is another battle taking place involving the nfl, veterans, and the national anthem. howard kurtz fills us in. >> it's been a tough season for the nfl with sinking ratings and constant controversy over protesting players who kneel during the national anthem. that controversy is casting a shadow on the league's premier showcase, the super bowl. the nfl has rejected a $30,000 print ad from a veterans group for the games program that addressed the issue with these two words: please stand. amvet had already modified the wording of the request of the company handling the program but the league has final say. amvet accuses the nfl of

corporate censorship. >> the nfl, bottom line, just denied us our opportunity for free speech. >> an nfl spokesman said the big game has never been a place for advertising they could be considered by some as a political statement. he said the super bowl will salute vets of the military on the field. the nfl had asked amvet to consider alternative wording. please honor our veterans. the group didn't respond in time. >> we didn't place this ad for any political reason whatsoever. it was our way of just getting the american public to stand in their beliefs. >> president trump kicked off a season of controversy by tweeting about the kneeling players and denouncing them. >> wouldn't you love to see one of these nfl owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say get that son of a bleeped off the field? >> the nfl wants the focus on the patriots and eagles, not

political ads. it is since any protest will draw huge media coverage, the league does seem to be blocking the other side's message. >> bret: thank you. pennsylvania's highest court is ordering state lawmakers to redraw congressional districts next month ahead of this fall's midterm election. doug mckelway tells us it's just the latest salvo in an ongoing war over where politicians can and should draw the line. >> change has come to america. >> >> on election night 2008, having the lost the white house and congress, that republicans began a plan to regain power. the first step was to redraw congressional districts. it worked. today republicans controlled 32 state legislatures and both houses of congress. >> the problem over time is that the science of data, the science of voter identification, has made both parties too good at doing it. >> districts have been drawn in

distorted ways. pennsylvania's seventh district. north carolina's 12th district is so narrow you could open your car doors and kill everybody in it. democrats are hardly immune. were maryland's third district has described as the most gerrymandered in the country. >> republicans and democrats have asked the court to find that overly manipulated districts that benefit one party or the other are unconstitutional. >> it's not an easy question for the high court which could hear as many as five gerrymandering challenges this term. >> how do you know when something is just a district and when something crosses the line into an unlawful partisan gerrymander? >> the court appeared divided over wisconsin's map. justice ginsburg asking "if you can stack a legislature this way, what incentive is there for a vote or to exercise his vote?"

justice gorsuch asking, should we specify a standard? >> losing almost 1,000 seats in the house, senate, governor, legislature over the obama administration, that's going to take a long time to repair. >> former attorney general eric holder and president obama have formed the national democratic redistricting committee. >> bret: thank you. was there a secret society of justice department officials plotting against president trump and what did the attorney general tell the special counselor mueller? the panel discusses the fbi text, the investigation when we come back.

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♪ >> no, i didn't. i'm not at all concerned. thank you very much. not even a little bit, no. >> the president said that director wray did not threaten to resign. how does he know that? >> i guess based on conversation he would've had with director wray. >> does he think there needs to be a staff shake-up at the fbi? >> we have 100% confidence and director wray. if anyone is going to make that decision, it will be the director and we will leave that in hands. >> bret: not even a little bit, the president said in the oval office today about the fbi director threatening to resign. that comes from an axial's piece from jonathan swann last night,

fbi director threatened to resin among trump-sessions pressure. we learned the attorney general and the former fbi director jeff sessions and jim comey both interviewed and talked with special special counsel mueller. "new york times" on the comey interview, focused on the series of memos he wrote about his interactions with mr. trump that unnerved mr. comey. mueller following the collision investigation and possibly obstruction of justice, but this all is released and comes out on the day in which these text messages between fbi agents basically dealing with the investigation are really raising some eyebrows on capitol hill. let's bring in our panel. in the washington bureau, stephen hayes, editor in chief of "the weekly standard." charles hurt, opinion editor for "the washington times." and with me mara liasson, national political correspondent

of national public radio. first, the sessions interview. the president says he's not worried about it. five hours potentially is what we are hearing. >> that's a long time. sounds like mueller is pretty interested in the possibilities of obstruction. what did comey think about his conversations with the president? does sessions know anything about the circumstances surrounding comey's firing? we know that when sessions testify before congress, he didn't remember a lot of things. he said over and over again i didn't recall this time i didn't recall that. maybe mueller wants to refresh his memory. >> bret: what about the timing, charlie? senator johnson on the text messages and all that's coming out in the past couple days. >> secret society? we have an informant talking about a group holding secret meetings off-site. there is so much smoke here.

>> bret: lets stop there. secret society? secret meetings off-site of the justice department. you have an informant saying that? >> yes. >> bret: anything more about that? >> no, we have to dig into it. >> bret: has to dig into it, charlie. obviously this investigation and the fact that you have these text messages missing is raising red flags on the hill. >> yeah, it's to the point that it truly strains credulity especially when you have things like the text message about the secret society and before that, the text message about needing an insurance plan in case, the unlikely event donald trump wins. there's some really strange things going on here. a lot of unbelievable questions that need to be answered. what's most alarming about it is that the questions don't seem to be getting answered right now. you have the doj, fbi.

they are answerable to congress, answerable to the white house, at least to some degree. even in that situation. they are not getting the questions answered and it's very disturbing and i think when somebody like trey gowdy talks about how were not even talking at this point about anybody going to jail or anything like that, i don't know why he would say something like that. i get it. i want all this to end, i wanted not to have happened. seriously screwed up things have happened and we need to get to the bottom of all of it. i hope people at the fbi and doj who are culpable for some of this are terrified. >> bret: steve. >> i think trey gowdy is someone who usually waits for the evidence to draw conclusions. i suspect that's what he was doing with the comment. is telling to me that trey gowdy has been outspoken as he has about these revelations. he's been a sober minded judge on these matters and is given

every benefit of the doubt to the fbi and the miller investigation that he possibly could. these things are troubling. the continued bias that we've seen through these text messages has to be troubling to anybody who believes in the fair application of the law. if you look at the kinds of things that have emerged in the past couple days and marry them with what we've learned before, it's very clear these were not just the private views of this couple having an affair. there was discussion about taking those private views and acting upon them in the public service, in the duty peter strzok had as a public servant. that's where you have i think real problems and this begs for additional questions to be answered by the fbi, doj, by those two in particular. these are real questions. this is a legitimate, substantive issue. >> bret: here are the

representatives. >> when you look at these texts and the aggregate, it shows more than just an extreme level of intent bias and hatred against donald trump and for hillary clinton. it shows a manifest intent to act upon that bias. >> it's also troubling to me is that text johnny radcliffe found last night about the secret society. i have no clue what that means because that was not the phraseology i used. it's the day after the election, the same two people discussing a little bit later in the text the damage they had done with the clinton investigation and how they could "fix it" and make it right. >> bret: mara, we don't know what we don't know about the mueller investigation. it doesn't look good. >> it doesn't and i'm sure it's going to be investigated. eventually we will see the emails that still exist but there's also something else going on here which is the text

messages. the guy who wrote them was removed by mueller as soon as he learned about this in the summer. and a lot of this is part of undermining mueller's investigation, making it look like it's just a partisan witch hunt so that whenever he comes up with can be easily dismissed. >> bret: you don't have concerns about the substance? >> yes, i do but the reason that a lot of republicans are harping on this is because they want to make sure that when mueller finally does finish his report that they can say this was just part of it. as a long-term strategy, not a good idea to undermine the department of justice and the fbi. >> bret: charlie. >> i don't think any republicans in congress are going to stick their neck out to protect this president in any sort of unjust way. that strikes me as absurd.

i do think these issues are, it is shocking. and i think people's outrage in congress is very much well-founded. when you stop and look at the whole trump election in the first place, this is -- these are all the reasons why so many people came out for trump in the first place. it's not that he was a perfect person are perfect candidate are perfect whatever, it was that he was going to come in here and drain the swamp or whatever phrase you want to use. this sort of proves all of that. it's not only as bad as he said it was. it was even worse then he said it was. >> bret: quickly on the other friend, is this nunes memo dealing with fisa and what's believed to be allegations of serious abuse in fisa warrant's. we don't know if that's going to come out but democrats pushed back and say this is a

distillation by republicans. it seems like the text messages right now are crossing more of a bipartisan concern than the memo itself. >> that's true. i think democrats and many in the media are skeptical because it's been a concerted effort to get the memo released. it's interesting to me the democrats are primarily challenging devin nunes on process rather than on the substance of what his memo says. maybe that's because some of the memo is still classified and they feel like they can't talk about it. i would think if there's a substantive attack to be made, adam schiff is no week need attack dog. he likes to go after devin nunes. he's done a lot of that over the course of the investigations. one suspects that there was some more substantive attack, way of discrediting it, that he might be leveling it. >> bret: ten seconds. seems like the white house is inclined to release it. >> i think it will be released. >> bret: panel, thank you. when we come back, if you

laughed at the eagles fan who was running along the subway. we showed it to you last night. well, you know who you are. we will tell you how he's doing. with a senior living advisor from a place for mom to help find the perfect place for their mom or dad thank you so much for your assistance in helping us find a place. mom feels safe and comfortable and has met many wonderful residence and staffers. thank you for helping our family find our father a new home. we especially appreciate the information about the va aid and attendance program. i feel i found the right place. a perfect fit. you were my angel and helped guide me every step of the way thank you. the senior living advisors at a place for mom partner with thousands of families every month, listening and offering local knowledge and advice to help find the best senior living communities across the country and it won't cost you a cent. this is a free service. call today. a place for mom. you know your family. we know senior living.

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>> well, tonight from the white house, we showed you the video of the philadelphia eagles fan running into a pole while trying to chase down a subway train. he was excited. there he is again. first, he's fine. a little sore. he and the guys that shot that video sat down with our fox affiliate in philadelphia to talk about their 15 minutes of fame. >> people were genuinely concerned was i okay, was i dead. i heard that nick foles saw this video before playing the game. it could have led to the win. he was so energized after he -- he said i'm going to go out there and be a maverick.

>> that's it for this special report from the white house. one of these days president trump may join us on a tuesday. fair, balanced and unafraid. "the story" host by martha maccallum starts now. >> martha: breaking tonight, congressman matt gates is here with new developments exclusive to "the story." good evening. i martha maccallum. newly discovered texts between top agent peter strzok and he's lover, lisa page, show the two discussing the potential of working on the mueller special counsel team. you and i know are the odds are nothing. if i thought it was likely, i'd be there, no question. i hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern that there's no big there there. remember from last night that after the election, these two shocked at president trump's win also texted now part of a