[♪] judge jeanine: new questions after transcripts of james comey's testimony are released to the public. we are following several major developing stories tonight. the release of the comey transcript. the latest details in the mueller investigation, and president trump's announcement his chief of staff john kelly is leaving the white house. we have a stellar guest lineup standing by to tackle all the breaking news with congressman jim jordan, congressman darrell issa, tom fitton.

and dan bongino to name a few. first, chad pergram with the latest and newest details of the comey transcripts. >> on 245 occasions former fbi director james comey told investigators he didn't know, couldn't recall or couldn't remember things when asked. at the end of the session he said they rehashed hillary clinton's emails, but there was not a lot of that in the transcript. the key number to remember may not be 245. four. here is the most of significant part of the transcript. comey said the fbi opened investigation on four americans to see if there was any connection between those americans and the russian interference effort. those four americans did not include the candidate. that means president trump. had different 90s interview comey defended special counsel robert mueller, says he admires

mueller and would bet his life mueller would do things the right way. he says he doesn't have mueller's phone numbers and they aren't friends in has been and lot of criticism directed at peter strzok, his text messages and whether he had anti-trump bias. comey told them it was strong who helped him draft the memo about hillary clinton. comey says it's hard to believe strzok was in league with clinton and against trump. comey said that he had confidence in the fisa process and the warrant to surveil carter page. though when asked to sign off on a major political campaign, he said he didn't know. he said he felt president trump asked him to halt the probe during their february 2017 meeting and said that's why he wrote this memorandum. he said president obama did not ask him to investigate the trump campaign.

this isn't over. comey appears before the committees on december 17. so many conservatives aren't satisfied with this investigation. republican florida representative matt gaetz says the way the committees handled this reminds him of the death rattle of republican oversight. judge jeanine: my next guest had a front-row seat for james comey's defendant money. congressman jim jordan. you were in the room at the time. 245 times comey who was the head of the fbi in one of the most of important cases in the nairn can history, a nice a warrant funded by the clinton campaign and hillary clinton to spy on someone working in the trump campaign says he doesn't really know or remember that part of it. did you believe him? >> well, you are right.

245 times he says don't remember, don't recall and don't know. the biggest take away was the don't know part. specifically he didn't know much about christopher steele, the guy who they used his work product, the dossier to get the warrant to spy on the trump campaign. he never met chris steel and didn't know the relationship. that christopher steele was passing information top bruce ohr. didn't know christopher steele was terminated for talking to the press. didn't know he talked to the price and didn't know he continued to work with christopher steele. i was mostly struck for that. here is the key player who put together the dossier that was responsible for getting the warrant, he didn't know a lot about him? those were his answers yesterday. judge jeanine: he and his lawyer went over all the areas where he could blois contradict himself.

but for a case of this significance when he went to the president of the united states to talk about an unverified dossier, from the time that he heard about it, the time that he approved the warrant in the fbi, and he had to do it, you and i both know two or three or four times, he go to the president, talks by the, and never says to his staff, why do we get this from, who is this guy christopher steele. you and i both know from the public information that christopher steele was paid for other information, and was a confidential informant. this any way to get this guy in jeopardy or perjury and lying? >> i think you make a good point. on january 6, 2017, he goes to new york and briefs president trump about the dossier. he think it's important enough

to brief the president-elect but don't know anything about got it who wrote it? christopher steele toll bruce ohr that he was desperate to stop trump from being president. he doesn't know any of that information but he's going to brief the president about this. as we know it was quickly leaked. cnn and "buzzfeed" printed the entire dossier for the country to see. that was hard to figure out. how did you not know anything about the guy who was your main source for this whole thing. judge jeanine: anybody who has been a prosecutor or head of the fbi. he's a political operative. but i guess one is left with, jim, and this is nothing on you because you fought so hard. but one is left with certain questions like will the clintons verb be held accountable. will jim comey.

by jumping into the attorney general's shoes and saying i'm going exonerate her. no prosecutor would ever try the woman. you guys with all due respect to get to this guy now, two or three weeks before the beginning of the year. i'm embarrassed for you. i really am. >> it should have happened a long time ago. judge jeanine: jim, why didn't it. you are a fighter. >> we have been pushing for it. >> who stopped you. >> it's the house readership and the chairman who decide these things. we have 0 get rod rosenstein in front of us. it's been almost 12 weeks since the "new york times" reported the rod rosenstein said he was thinking about wearing a wire to record the president and thinking of invoking the 25th amendment and we have yet to ask

him question one. we need to get rod rosenstein in. judge jeanine: do it. you guys come on and talk about it all the time. you know i love you but enough of this nonsense. the american public has had it with you guys. >> mark meadows and i are pushing to get this done. judge jeanine: i said with obamacare ryan should have been gone and i took a lot of heat for it. that was a year and a half ago. this guy doesn't have the american people's interest at heart. jim comey decide he's going to take all these notes and leak them to his friend at columbia law school who is a non-government employee, an egomaniac who has to be at the center of everything. he's used to keeping this close to the vest because he's part of and close to the deep state and

he's going to get away with it, isn't he. >> the meeting he had with the president in february where the president said could you see your way clear to make sure mike flynn is okay? comey goes back and memorializes it. he then has a meeting with his top people. and i asked him yesterday, why didn't you if you were so concerned about this, you have to memorialize it. i later leaked to it daniel richmond. why didn't you share it with the attorney general? why didn't you share it with the top law enforcement individual in our government? his answer was we thought jeff sessions was going to be recusing himself at some point. i think it point to comey the same way he handled the kin on investigation. they wanted to keep there is information tight. he wanted to create a record to

promote this idea there may have been some obstruction. i don't think there was. but i think was trying to generate and create this and didn't share it with anybody at the justice department. judge jeanine: sanctimonious, arrogant individual. jim jordan, not you. next another man who was in the room with james comey, congressman darrell issa is next. and he's leaving washington at the end of the month so he can't hold anything back. what's his take on the testimony. find out next. this isn't just any moving day.

this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. judge jeanine: as we continue to golf several developing stories on just ty, including transcripts of james comey's meetings with lawmakers, and congressman darrell issa is up in a moment. but first better late than never, my open. it's time for the left to fold

up their fantasy tent. if they hate donald trump so much maybe they should focus on winning the 020 elect instead of the russian collusion nonsense that's been wasting our money and twiergd our nation for two years. a nonstop personal vendetta by mueller and his trump-hating prosecutors is so intense they beat hair leftist chest any time they issue an indictment against someone, anyone, most of of whom live in russia. or have been indicted for event that preceded trump. or for lying to the fbi which relater find out wasn't

considered as a lie by the fbi acted. stories so -- or is so serious one guy got a whopping 14 days in jail. none of this has tied the president to russia. but you wouldn't know it from these guys. >> a lot paper here. but the president of the united states directed a crime. >> we have a sitting president of the united states who commit two felonies while running for president. >> if history means anything in the trump era, donald trump will be, must be impeached because of the crimes prosecutors say he committed in the michael cohen case. >> robert mueller is saying here congress, here is an impeachable offense, you decide. >> i think what the totality of today's filings show, the house is going to have little choice the way this is going other than

to start impeachment proceedings. judge jeanine: did the president direct a felony? if michael cohen who is probably one of the most of flawed prosecution witnesses i have ever seen is relied upon to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that donald trump circumvented campaign finance laws, they might as well be whistling dixie up the mis. number one, if the president direct any payment, why? what was his state of mind? what was he thinking? what wasn't he thinking? do you think michael cohen knows? maybe he didn't want his wife to find out. maybe he didn't want his family to find out. maybe he was trying to prevent any tarnish on his brand. or maybe to simply get the woman off his back. it wouldn't be the first time a

high-profile person paid to get rid of a nuisance lawsuit. there is a presumption of innocence in he criminal case and every criminal investigation, and never a presumption against that without evidence that acts are done for purely criminal reasons. and don't forget, it was citizen donald trump's money that was used and not campaign money for whatever might have occurred before he was president, unlike another president impeached for acts that occurred with a young intern in the oval office while he was president. so far 30 million taxpayer dollars for this nonsense is nonsense. especially because barack obama was in a position to actually do something about so-called russian interference but did nothing except to tell putin to knock it off.

and even that i don't believe. as for the testimony of holier than thou james comey who thinks the rules don't apply to him and fought so hard to testify in an open setting. why did you want your testimony before house and judiciary and oversight committees to be in public. jim, you readily admitted 250 times that you didn't recall or didn't remember. honestly, it would have been and is less embarrassing for to you do it behind closed doors. but slippery jim says he doesn't remember important facts about the most of important fisa case in american history that required his approval. he thinks it doesn't matter where the fake dossier came

from. yet he still has total confidence in the fisa process that he corrupted. now i don't have to go over this again. comey has been found by the inspector general to have mishandled the clinton email investigation. to have lied before congress not about exonerating hillary before the investigation was done. and to be an admitted leaker of sensitive information that he wanted to get to the "new york times" through his friend. when asked if he would have fired the lovers on his after, peter strzok and lisa page, who opry communicated their hatred and disdain for candidate donald trump. comey says he can't answer in the abstract. doesn't deny he would have allowed them to stay on the clinton investigation in spite of their hate as long as they

gave an explanation. no surprise, jim, since you are a pal of the clintons. the most of shocking is comey's role in the theater of the absurd. a fake dossier paid for by a woman who is his friend running for president. and he is best friend with the special counsel in charge of the case. and he doesn't remember key details like the party who funded it in the most of blatant display of public corruption and personal political cover in american history. shame on you, jim. and that's my open. tell me what you think on my facebook and twitter hashtag judge jeanine. congressman darrell issa was there yesterday and joins me now. what struck you yesterday in that room yesterday with comey

pontificating to you guys. >> unless he has early onset of alzheimer's, there is no way you can write two things. either he wasn't doing his job and he wasn't paying attention or he per injured himself about -- just perjured himself about things he knew and said he didn't know. saying you don't know when you do is perjury. he did a lie of amnesia rather than simply not telling us the truth. judge jeanine: as you leave congress, this is the last few weeks that you have got. i don't know if you haired me with congressman jim jordan. but i'm embarrassed. i'm furious. i'm frustrated. the american people have had it. i have seen you in oversight and

government reform. i have seen you go after people. what can the american people expect going forward? will the clintons ever bay for what they did which was the real russia collusion? will we find out who did the unmasking of people like michael flynn. will anybody like samantha powers and the rest of them be held accountable? what do we have to look forward to. >> if people will recognize some people in congress did their job and they were thwarted by the leadership. they won't do it again. they will realize standing on principle to do the right thing may or may not cause you the majority. but playing the defense will lead to you losing and not get the job done.

congressman jim jordan and others fought with their hand tied behind their backs. judge jeanine: how did it not advantage paul ryan to allow you guys to bring contempt charges. was he working goes the president. >> he wasn't working goes the president. but he announced he was leaving about a year ago. so he's been a lame duck for quite a while, and chairman goodlatte although he's a good man, i don't think he saw the reality that you have to do everything immediately because the other side is running out the clock on you. when he finally started going after comey, comey delayed this pore week and weeks. you have to start quickly because the fbi, the department of justice institutionally knows how to slow you down. judge jeanine: i don't care if paul ryan is a lame duck or goodlatte is a nice guy.

joe blow watching this show knows you have to get in there and fight. you had the power and you didn't benefit us by it. it was a game where we get punched in the gut where people were laughing at us. jim comey getting out there and saying oh, no, we have to reopen this investigation which was nonsense. the fed in the southern district forced him to do it and the nypd. there is so much i can go through. so much my viewers know. >> because you said i have nothing to lose, i can say what i believe. let me tell you something you do need to make sure your viewers understand. jim jordan, mark meadows and a team of people who made sure that these hearings, trey gowdy, made sure there were hearings two years ago, three years ago, in fact are the reason hillary

clinton isn't president and donald trump is. if hillary clinton had gone the away with it in front of the voters she would be president today. i want to commend the people i serve with who fought against leadership that always wanted to say don't make waves. fought to make sure the american people when they went to the polls and voted for an elected donald trump unthey had a choice of a man who would do what he said or a woman who lied about everything she ever did. judge jeanine: my viewers and i personally are sad you are leaving. we think you have done a great job. i don't know if anyone congratulates you in the end. but we thank you for your service and thank you for being honest and for doing what you did. thank you. >> thank you, keep fighting. judge jeanine: no worries. tom fitton from judicial watch

next. a new foil tore dan bongino tonight. we'll have a spirited debate next. a gas hike.

but that has he stroifnld a protest of president macron's policies. judge jeanine: a lot of developing news to get to with my political panel. let's jump right in. dan bongino joins me along with ay aramesh. the white house today says that there was nothing of value in the mueller filing. while trump tweets they totally clear him. >> what planet are you living

on. your campaign chair. your personal fixer and lawyer for 12 years are either going to jail or pleaded guilty or in hot water. mr. president you have a lot of turbulence ahead. bubble up and sit in your seat. stop' tweeting, you are giving us evidence. these are predicate. stop tweeting. >> they always tell you all the stuff. but you have notice what they leave out in is zero evidence of collusion. for the last two years, $30 million later. we have taxi cab confessions, we have fara violations. we have a fibber and another guy. why are they going to jail? because we have $30 million -- >> cohen. he's been recommended for four years. too where is the collusion. >> cohen said right during the

campaign they sat down at the trump tower talk about business in russia. trying to get in touch with putin giving him a $50 million apartment. when a presidential candidate comes out and says hey, wikileaks, we are talking about julian assange jeopardized american lives, jeopardized classified information but i want dirt on hillary. if that's not treason, i don't know what treason is. >> meeting with the russians is a bad thing? >> that was a filibuster. it bothers you. does it bother you that the russians who shipped to meet in trump touru are connected to hillary clinton? >> what planet. >> the lawyer -- come on, give me a response.

you will see that you are going to be embarrassed by this. the lawyer worked for fusion gps that was working for hillary. >> the cousin of the guy who went to somebody's march mitzvah. that is the evidence? the smoking gun. >> i got him on the record that meeting with the russians was bad. but apparently working with people who are russian is nothing. the intel people who showed up at the scene. do you know who his lawyer is? >> a neighbor who has a cousin and is connected with bananas. >> his wife was a higher-up -- judge jeanine: ari, focus. $100 million from the russia company they sold uranium to. 20% of american uranium.

don't interrupt me. $500 thousand in bill clinton's pocket. >> those are not facts. i have got news. 2019 is going to be a great year because these guys are in so much trouble. judge jeanine: let's talk about michael cohen. we talked about michael cohen. let's talk about mueller. jim comey said i'm not friend with mueller. who is he kidding? >> it's odd he found these taxi cap confession stuff and other nonsense with him. you pointed out a fact that ari is running from. bill clinton took $500,000 from a bank that was intimately involved in gaming the financial viability of the uranium one sale. you have a problem meeting with russians, but you don't have a

problem taking money from a russian bank? that doesn't strike you as odd? >> the republicans in the senate don't have the guts to impeach the president. >> hold on. judge jeanine: don't tell me to hold on. >> the day after the president lose the election and melania leaves him. judge jeanine: leave melania out of it. she is a class act. >> michelle obama is a class act. if we can write a book without plagiarizing, i would be friend with melania. but she is going to leave the president. judge jeanine: you are out of line, ari. >> does it bother you the

clinton dossier she paid for -- that doesn't bother you. he's paying off porn stars. and it bothers me the family values in this country. paying off here and prostitutes. judge jeanine: even christopher steele admits he can't verify the dossier. the head of the fbi. don't laugh at me. >> it's so out of whack. judge jeanine: the head of the fbi, a fraud on the fisa court. he said he can't verify it. >> trump is going to have a lot of sleepless nights. we picked up 40 seats. >> he won back the senate.

these guys are terrified. theyv are conspiracy theorists, there is zero evidence of collusion and they are panicking. next they will tell us cone was arrested for jay-walking and we should impeach the president. judge jeanine: michelle malkin is still ahead. tom

judge jeanine: my next guest says special counsel mueller is

insinuating russian collusion. before i get into comey and mueller, i want to talk about a decision that didn't make a lot of news but to me is extreme lire significant. a federal judge apparently gave judicial watch you as the president of judicial watch the ability to do additional fact finding into whether hillary clinton's use of a private email server was deliberate and an effort to thwart freedom of information. why now and what does it mean? >> the judgment has been waiting for other court cases to come to a conclusion to see weighs was out there to be found. he's upset about what the justice department and the state department did in terms of keeping away from the court and judicial watch information about this email scheme it was judicial watch's litigation that uncovered the clinton email server and all those emails. they were forced to admit to the

court they had this material. the judge is furious that they didn't admit it earlier. and he's angry at the justice department by trying to defend the indefensible and explain away what went on. so he authorized judicial watch to take discovery on how the justice department and mrs. clinton were handling the email requests. we have 10 days to come up with a discovery plan. judge jeanine: does it mean you can put people under oath? >> we would take testimony of witnesses and gather documents, and the sort of other evidence gathering lawyers engage in as they are trying to comply with a court order. we have a court mandate to do this. judge jeanine: the interesting thing is, i had congressman issa and congressman jordan on. i wasn't too happy all this

stuff is happening just a few weeks before the democrats take over. we had the white house and senate and very little was done. congressman ices took solace -- congressman ic issa. but in the end will hillary clinton you believe ever be made accountable for all of the not just injustices, but all of her dalliances from the law? >> it will be up to bill barr, the new incoming attorney general whether he's going to allow james comey to have the final word as to what hillary clinton did. there is more information to be found. she not only violated laws against the mishandling of classified information. she took government documents, she destroyed them.

jeathem. judge jeanine: she deleted 30,000 emails. >> and the truthfulness of her testimony. i haven't heard this justice department describe what they believe james comey did. do they agree with james comey that no reasonable prosecutor would have brought a case? silence. but i'm tired of silence. that's all we can do is get the information out there and if prosecutors don't do their job, that's why the american people are unhappy and why the president ought to be extremely unhappy. judge jeanine: tom fitton thank you for what you are doing. you are getting information that congress cannot. i think sunlight is the best disinfectant. >> i agree. judge jeanine: syndicated column

nest and author michelle malkin is next. hi.i just wanted to tell you that chevy won a j.d.power dependability award for its midsize car-the chevy malibu. i forgot. chevy also won a j.d. power dependability award for its light-duty truck the chevy silverado. oh, and since the chevy equinox and traverse also won chevy is the only brand to earn the j.d. power dependability award across cars, trucks and suvs-three years in a row. phew. third time's the charm...

judge jeanine: welcome back to "justice" on this busy night of news. here with more reaction to comey's shocking testimony. michelle malkin joins us. i would like to start with the mueller probe and the left, and you know, msnbc, cnn, and everyone saying the impeachment is coming or the indictment is coming immediately. what say you? >> it's a rollercoaster of hyperventilation and still the same bottom line you outlined so well in your opening statement. there is still not one shred, not one iota of evidence of any kind of russian collusion. and president trump. yet they continue. and this is what they are going to do. they announced it the day before trump took office. the plan here, the plan all along has been resistance,

resistance. so of course they are going to be screaming bloody impeachment at the top of the lungs even though at the end of the day with this comey transcript and the release of it went redactions, still nothing nothing nothing. the bottom line, the dossier is still fake, mueller is a snake and comey is a flake. judge jeanine: let's talk about comey and mueller. comey is denying he and mueller are pals when just about everybody knows the two of them were part of the same team in the john ashcroft hospital room when comey went in and saved the world or at least america. we are relying on bob mueller and the fbi. their careers have crossed and they worked together for years. >> i have got whiplash. it was the anti-trump media and the "washington post" which had

a long piece about the best buds mueller and comey, now denying it simply because president trump tweet bit and tweeted about what the truthfully is. with comey especially too. he has more holes in his memory and his brain than taken industrialized colander. he denied knowing. as much as the i don't remembers bother me, it's the i don't know. 166 of them in that transcript about whether he knew christopher steele was work for fusion gps at the same time he was collaborating with the fbi. basic includes about the exculpatory evidence they legally required to present to the fisa court. what the american people need to be outraged about is the

political weapon used in that fisa court. judge jeanine: this fisa court knows it was used. it knows in the end the repeated signing of the warrants i believe three times on what is still today an unverified dossier paid for by a candidate and no one is saying boo. what is john roberts doing? what is the chief justice of the united states doing when his court was one upon which a fraud was committed? >> absolutely correct. where is the accountability for this. the weaponization, the the corruption tour fisa courts which were intended to protect our national security. now our known the protect operatives, and democrat moles. and the entire sloth which is committed to bringing our president down. it is a danger and threat to menace to our one safety. where is the accountability?