we all have a purpose in life - a “why.” no matter your purpose, at pnc private bank we will work with you every step of the way to help you achieve it. so let us focus on the how. just tell us - what's your why? >> john: brand-new at 2:00, the biden administration keeps insisting there are no formal records of visitors to the president's private house in wilmington while classified documents sat unsecured for years. but now sources with the secret service tell fox the agency has names and is ready and willing to name them. welcome back as "america reports" rolls into hour number two. i'm john roberts in washington. a big friday eve, sandra. >> sandra: it is, the first hour flew by.

i'm sandra smith in new york. we will get the latest in the twist of the classified document scandal, ongoing at this hour, quickly becoming president biden's biggest headache, i should say biggest headache yet, right? new at 2:00 with the fox news alert. >> john: still early. a question we are hearing more and more, and harder to answer, what in the world is happening in the nation's school. from critical race theory and rewriting history, redefining centuries of science, the push to go woke in the nation's classrooms is no longer causing controversy, but real world consequences parents say are hurting their kids. >> sandra: supporters say it's making sure every student is regarded equally. angry parents say the focuses on differences like gender and race only serves to further divide us. in fairfax county virginia, and the merit awards scandal has the governor taking action, a total

of 17 high schools in three virginia counties admitting to withholding national merit awards from exceptional students there, not just in the case of weeks or months, but in some cases for years. their parents say holding back their children so often students don't feel left behind. >> john: the virginia governor pushing for change in a bill that would require schools to notify families of awards. >> there's clearly been an effort to bring down the standards for our students in virginia, to stop celebrating excellence. it's just absolutely atrocious for families. these issues are not just in virginia and this is something that we all have to pay attention to. we have to take care of parents and our kids. >> sandra: and we are. fox team coverage starts now. former education secretary bill bennett is standing by and we

will speak with a parent whose son had his merit award delayed. first garrett tenny on another scandal critics warn extreme example what can happen when woke goes too far. >> keisha hamilton from jackson public schools in michigan says whiteness is another term to describe systemic racism and if people are upset about a tweet last month she posted calling whiteness evil, it's on them to better understand it. here is her post that set off this fire storm. whiteness is so evil it manipulates and says i won't apologize for my dishonesty and trauma inducing practices and thinks you should applaud to be manipulate and be dishonest. a lot of upset parents attended this week's school board meeting where they blasted hamilton's post as divisive and hateful and called for her resignation.

>> how can children with white heritage feel safe when a board member posts racists statements against whiteness? >> the posts were made to incite and divide with no explanation of her supposed intention until after she incited all this anger. >> a lot of other folks also came to support hamilton and her tweet, and at the end of the meeting she had this to say to her critics. >> we have to ask ourselves what are we angered over, the fact that it was said or the fact it was true or is the issue our incomprehension of how policies and practices established by the white majority are impacting each of us. >> the superintendent of jackson public schools tells us the board is not considering taking any action over hamilton over her tweets as she describes as her expressions of freedom of speech. >> sandra: thank you. now back to virginia, the

investigation is heating up into more than a dozen virginia high schools over why they fail to give students their prestigious merit awards in a timely manner. frustrated parents at those schools are demanding answers. lydia hu is here with more. the fairfax superintendent is meeting with parents. what is she saying now, lydia. >> she is meeting with them and the public dialogues and apologizing to them and say she understands why they are angry and acknowledging that trust has possible rebuilt. it's interesting when we first heard about this scandal, this delay in notifying students of their merit status, this was a situation that was called unique and blamed on human error, but sandra, now we are getting a very different message. watch this. >> i would venture a guess it's not unique to northern virginia. just happens to be that we are in the middle of this conversation right now. >> the number of schools involved in the controversy continues to grow. according to the virginia governor's office, we now have

17 schools across three counties that delayed notifying some students of their national merit status, and news broke just yesterday on the show with you, sandra, when the virginia governor told you he's going to take action with new legislation to require schools to notify students and parents immediately of awards or scholarship opportunities moving forward, but for some families, it is too late. >> what i didn't know, martha, was that fall my son had gotten this national merit commended student award. they kept it a secret from me. and he is now a sophomore in college. i'm paying out of state tuition. >> of course the parent is wondering what her status, her son's status would have been at the college, perhaps a scholarship if he had been able to include it on the application. school districts are promising changes, firming up procedures on how and when to notify students and parents. as changes come, the virginia

state attorney general's office is launching an investigation. he wants to know whether discrimination is at the root of all of this. thomas jefferson high school, predominantly asian student population. if you look at national merit semifinalists, analysis by a publication in virginia says 75% of them are asian students. he's asking some questions about that. >> sandra: just remarkable, as they should. lydia, thank you very much. >> john: parents say administrators are refusing to explain why the delay occurred, questions remain whether it was intentional as part of a woke equity push. a fairfax county parent had his son's merit award delayed. he is still a senior, you uncovered it. we put the question to the governor, glenn youngkin and he said it's far and wide beyond thomas jefferson. >> we are led to believe there are three counties, our three largest counties in virginia, 16

schools that failed to notify students of national merit recognition. and i'm taking action. >> it's now actually 17, up from 16. thomas jefferson said it was human error. do you see something more sinister? >> yeah, 17 is not human error. >> sandra: this happened two years ago, it's been revealed to her family, to her son. she says she's working three jobs, has since had to send her son to an out of state school because he was not awarded the merit scholarships. this delay has serious cost to families who then could not properly apply for their colleges with the merit awards. i mean, there is some real world consequences here that a lot of

these parents are speaking up about. >> right. not just the acceptances, it's the scholarships you can achieve, and there are scholarships available through people's employers, scholarships available even as you go thru your academic career at a university. kay accolades like this are important to put on the resume. these are kids sometimes 16, 17, 18 years old. not like they have a laundry list of accomplishments like somebody that's in their craft for 20, 30 years. these type of achievements are important, they need to learn how to put them high and proud on their resumes so they can use it to apply for other scholarships, grants and other accolades. >> john: a lot of people have an idea what this is about, and the push for equity keeps coming up. your son as we mentioned is a senior at thomas jefferson. he should have gotten notification of the national merit scholarship in probably mid-september, he did not get it

until late november after he applied to some colleges he wants to go to to study engineering. you spoke with a fellow named brandon about it. what did he tell you the reason the things were delayed? >> i spoke to him shortly before thanksgiving and told me they had delayed giving these to the students because they wanted to find a discreet time to hand them out to the students where they wouldn't feel so bad if they did not get the award. >> john: what does that mean even? >> it's -- we have a fundamental problem, john, the schools have stopped focusings on academic excellence. if the school was focused on academic excellence as opposed to the other things they are focused on, they would have handed the awards out immediately, so exciting when they received them. they wouldn't have been worried about the students feelings that didn't get them, not worried about how can we do it in a secret way, they would have given them to the kids. >> sandra: and who is to say the kids not awarded them, who is to say that does not hurt them,

too. we have to have something to aspire to or to work towards and it shouldn't take away from them. there is this equity coach that was hired, have you been given any details on that, so far we have seen a report an equity coach hired for $450,000, paid over a period of months. who was behind the decision to do this? what are you learning as a mother? >> what we have heard so far, some of the reports that i've seen is that our new superintendent, dr. reed, hired this equity coach under a single course contract. it's something she has to answer some questions about because that is not permissible in fairfax county. they are supposed to bid these types of programs out so why she hired a $450,000 equity coach without the normal procurement procedures is needed. >> thomas jefferson has long been ranked the number one public high school in the nation, and it's always been in pursuit of academic excellence.

by and large, the majority of the school population is asian-american and they think they are overrepresented, so we have to take steps to make sure they are not, and they have even restricted emissions to asian-americans. but if a prestigious school like thomas jefferson starts to reduce its standards for who can get in and does not focus on academic excellence, does it not therefore hurt that school's stellar reputation? or thus far stellar reputation? >> it sends the wrong message to parents, wrong message to kids. you should be really working hard to be able to go to thomas jefferson high school. a lot of kids work hard in grade school, middle school careers, because they want to go there. the school has some amazing facilities, it's a wonderful gift the commonwealth of virginia has placed in that governor's school and kids are proud when they get accepted there. proud of how hard they worked and proud of all the school stuff they work on. it's a really, really special place with lots of amazing kids.

i don't want to see that changed. >> sandra: as a mother, do you -- what's this conversation been like with your child? what are you hearing from other parents about how people are handling what we are learning about this? >> parents are frustrated. parents started getting frustrated during the pandemic when the school was closed for far too long, especially in northern virginia. they saw the school system put things other than academics at the top of the priority list, and we are looking at solar panels, looking at electric busses, looking at all sorts of other initiatives that the school wants to do. but academics needs to be number one, the primary objective of the school system and if we return to that, these types of one-time errors might not happen so frequently. >> john: as parents of fairfax public schools, my twins went there and may go there in the future, the superintendent before michelle reed came along

was roundly criticized, they almost ran him out of town on a rail because of covid and now michelle reed is embroiled in this controversy. some parents met with her recently. what did the parents want and governor youngkin said we are going to put through legislation to make it illegal to do what happened to your son. what do parents really want here? >> parents want to be involved. they don't want to be left in the dark. they want a seat at the table, they want to have a voice in what he is going on in their public school system. this is something that governor youngkin ran on, his parents matter campaign and you are seeing the parents demanding it in all aspects. >> john: we hope your son gets into the school he wants to when he used to go to college. thanks for sharing your story. >> sandra: bill bennett, i imagine you have a lot of thoughts on this. perhaps you could spell it out for the audience. what do you see is at stake

here, with schools now willing to scrap merit awards, merit scholarships for the sake of equity. >> well, what a great refreshing and candid guest there, and a lot of life here. you know, justice brandise said sunlight is the best disinfectant, and thanks to parents and fox we are getting sunlight on the problem. underlying this is more important, a lot of trust in what the schools are doing. you have to believe when you send your children there that you can trust the adults there in that place to do the job that they are assigned to do. and that breakdown of trust can be totally destructive. it's why people might pull their children out of school temporarily or not as john was just saying, and then you have the nonsense in michigan this person says all this stuff about whiteness and people say why should my child be in a school

like that. it's a very good thing that these parents are engaged and involved. we know they are engaged and involved in these three counties outside of washington. we think they are in many other places. covid opened the door, it let in the light. a lot of parents saw what was going on. and now taking action. they don't want to be in the dark as your last guest said and they shouldn't be in the dark, teachers should turn the light on for them. >> bill, as the last guest said, the schools have been saying this is human error, and said one school is an error, 17 is looking like a pattern. what governor glenn youngkin told us yesterday on our program when he thinks it's about. >> let's just remind ourselves that we do have a superintendent of schools in fairfax county who claimed that equal outcomes for all students at any cost was her top priority, they have hired in equity consultants to drive this

mentality and not just inconsistent with virginia values, but inconsistent with american values. >> john: equal outcomes at any cost. you are never going to have equal outcomes. you may be able to level the playing field so everybody has an opportunity, but some kids are going to flourish and others are going to fail. the outcomes can never be equal, bill. >> yeah. and the lead-in, the voice over said they want equal regard for students. equal regard for students is proper. equal evaluation of students is not. anybody who has had children know you love them all equally. you also know they have different gifts and abilities, and you can evaluate them on that basis. so no, this is -- this was a cover-up, this was denial, and now it's coming to light. look, my worry, john, is that a lot of people, more people than are necessary, are going to leave the public school system.

now, we educated our kids in catholic schools, that's our faith, our belief what we wanted to do. 70%, 80%, the american people are going to be educated in the public schools no matter what individual choice you make we need to pay attention to what's going on, and that means restoration of trust and back to the standards and the beliefs for which the schools are instituted. and you are right about t.j., it's a great high school and they should not be diluting it. >> sandra: do you trust, bill, knowing what you know about the school and education system in this country that this attorney general can get to the bottom of this? glenn youngkin said, the governor of virginia, said this should be illegal. >> oh, which attorney general, attorney general of virginia, yeah, i trust him rather than the attorney general of the united states who was talking about arresting some of these parents, if i'm not exaggerating. look, you don't think this is a

potent issue? glenn youngkin was elected largely on the basis of this issue and he's got a great team, by the way. his secretary of education and others. but this is a very powerful t issue. but we cannot lose this system and so we have to fight for it and i'm so glad to see these parents fighting for it. but yeah, i do trust the attorney general to look into it knowing that the attorney general of virginia is looking into it, i think these people are going to straighten up their act. this is the restoration of trust and proper authority. >> john: this whole idea of equal outcomes, bill, like saying a college saying we want to make sure that every ncaa basketball player makes it to the nba. it's just not going to happen. but the bigger question is -- >> or to be more candid, more candid, john, more white players in the nba, please. because we don't have enough white players.

baloney. you pick the players on the basis of ability, whatever their color. >> john: the point i was trying to get to here, bill, started one with school, now it's 17, but is it broader than that? michelle reed, superintendent of fairfax schools, listen to how she responded. >> nationwide how many high schools this happened to? >> i do not have any idea nationwide. i do know anecdotally there are a number of other locations, i don't believe anyone is at this time raising their hand to draw attention to that. we here in fairfax county at the moment are sort of carrying that water. >> john: she suggested it's not just virginia, it's just virginia that got caught. >> sure. yeah, no, it's not just virginia, and you saw michigan what was going on there. it's elsewhere. but i can tell you as the former

secretary of education of the united states, nobody knows what's going on at all the schools in america. only the people close to the schools know what's going on, thus the importance of these parents engaged and involved. >> sandra: not to mention, bill, the parent we just spoke with, the parent had no idea, the parents were not told an equity coach was hired for $450,000 for just nine months of work. >> exactly, exactly. no, no, it's outrageous, and what is equity coach there for, to dispel the standards, get rid of the starnts. no, at least, you know, these issues are coming to light so they can be addressed. but you know, you got to ask these questions of school. you know, we asked our questions of our schools, sometimes the schools called us because they had questions about our guys. but so be it. let the conversation take place. but let it be marked by candor,

intelligence and good will, not deception and not cover-up. >> sandra: thank you for joining us, appreciate it. >> it's a big deal, it's a big deal. >> sandra: it is indeed. we'll have you back soon. >> john: we got a lot of great information about that and one of those things you are scratching the surface and you know that as you get deeper and deeper it's going to go, the tentacles will go deeper and deeper. >> sandra: and thanks to the mother for speaking out. we learned some parents are fearful of speaking out, a lot of them have kids in the school system or the child who was neglected of the award and they fear any repercussions from speaking out, and that's an important aspect to this. it is hard for these parents to see something/say something because they don't want any form of retaliation. >> john: and you can expect that, you know, they want to make sure their children are treated fairly. >> sandra: indeed. >> john: and if they speak out, maybe they won't be in the

future. >> sandra: breaking news coming into us from the supreme court right now, we have an official report from the supreme court on the abortion draft ruling leak investigation. we are going to get shannon bream up on this in just a moment, john, but just coming into us now. this says the marshal is reporting the investigators continue to review and process some electronic data that has been collected and a few other inquiries remain pending. >> john: here is the crux. investigators have found no forensic evidence indicating who disclosed the draft opinion, that's after 126 formal interviews, 97 employees, all of whom denied disclosing the opinion despite the efforts, investigators have been unable to determine at this time using a preponderanec of the evidence standard the person or persons who disclosed. so, no further along than they

were. >> sandra: sounds like it. shannon bream is joining us now. shannon, first look at this. what can you tell us? >> yeah, reading through, and it's not a super long report, so it's about 20 plus or minus pages we are looking at. what the court tells us is what we knew, the marshal there internal leader of the court and investigations there had already undertaken this. they also decided something newer learning they asked michael chertoff, he was a judge, to come in and also follow up on the marshal's investigation and do his own, and essentially what he found based on his investigation nothing additional he would have done beside what the marshal was doing and leaves us at this place, they do give us a definitive number of employees who could have had access to the draft. 82 people, they say, they say they followed up on all leads. to this point, they, after their investigation, michael chertoff coming in, and also doing his investigation, they narrowed it but have not gotten to a name or

person. they are continuing to review and process some electronic data that has been collected and a few other inquiries remain pending, so they say as far as those things, still sifting through a few things, and if they find something there the investigators will continue, so this is not over yet, but this is the first official word we have had from the court even acknowledging what kind of investigation they were doing, giving us a little bit more details about what they did internally, and then calling somebody in externally, and we don't have a name. but the investigation continues. >> john: shannon, in the absence of an obvious culprit, the best they can do at the moment is to try to change some protocols around the supreme court, they are recommending specific measures including restricting the distribution of hard copy documents, restricting email distribution of sensitive documents, rights management control how sensitive documents are used edited and shared, and

limiting access on outside mobile devices. it is quite extraordinary to me that they have all of the access to forensic evidence and weren't able to identify anybody, which means whoever leaked this draft opinion knew what they were doing. >> uh-huh. there are so many speculations, and first of all, a speculation that somebody printed a hard copy and handed it off to a reporter, even with that, though, based on what, how these documents are marked and tracked in the court, even from a printout i'm told if you had the hard copy you would be able to narrow the scope of who would have printed it. the court does have its own internal internet system and that they can communicate on each other -- with each other on that system that does not connect to the outside. it does not go to the worldwide web to the internet as we know it. they have that internally. there are justices who like to do it long hand on legal pads

and only like to distribute hard copies internally. so, it is very old fashioned in some ways inside the court but even still it did not stop that breach. that was a once in a lifetime of the court what happened last year. so they do have security in place. they are going to ramp up the security but there are ways and people if they want to be bad actors as far as maintaining the court's trust are going to find ways around. it happened once. the court wants to make sure it does not happen again. keep in mind as they say they have been sifting through electronic data, other investigations. the clerks who serve at the court, closest to the work the justices are doing, there are several of them per justice. they serve in a term that's generally july to july, so the clerks who were at the court and we don't have any idea that it was a clerk, but it's part of the investigation and part of the normal logical process you would want to wade through them because they had close access, the clerks there when the dobbs opinion was being drafted are

gone, they have been gone since july and many are fantastic supreme court producer, bill meres and i have been reporting that many have been asked to turn over phones, all kinds of information, many lawyered up and didn't do it. so there may be information that the investigations did not get to assess, whether it's the marshal or the follow-up by secretary chertoff. it's possible the clerks left without ever giving access to that information and they are long gone. so that's a part of the trail you just can't follow at this point. >> sandra: that makes things kind of difficult. shannon, if you could, i know you are continuing to go through the report. and jonathan turley, just reading through a bit more of what bill is highlighting in this report, he just sent over this bit of it. in following up on all available leads, the report reads, however, the marshal's team

performed additional forensic analysis and conducted multiple follow-up interviews of certain employees. focusing on certain employees, but the team to date has been unable to identify a person responsible, a person responsible by the evidence. does it say they have narrowed down to a few people with you cannot say for certain which of those few people it is? >> well, i think that there was an assumption that they have narrowed this down to a smaller group of people than those 80. the problem is that the supreme court had no ability to 0 in with any definitive basis on any individual in that smaller set. and this may be due to the fact

the culprit was not very clever, very careful. but there was some concern from some of us that the supreme court did not bring in, or reportedly decided not to bring in the fbi to lead the investigation. i mean, they are a few blocks away from the leading forensic investigatory body in the world. it was surprising that the fbi was not brought in to take the lead. now i can understand chief juts roberts would be concerned about an executive branch having free rein on investigation in the court, but there was always a concern whether the marshals were equipped to do this type of investigation. but i have to tell you that the only that rivals the leak itself in terms of the chilling impact is this report. i mean, this -- the report indicates that this person could well get away with it.

and that's going to reduce the deterrent effect even more. >> john: and jonathan, i know that it was not the fbi as you pointed out investigating, it was the marshal of the court, are you surprised they were not able to definitively identify a culprit? >> well, these are highly intelligent people in the court, both on the staff and also in the clerk's ranks. these people -- obviously before they -- well, let me say this person, don't know if it was more than one, but this person obviously took great steps to make sure that there was not any type of forensic trail. but you know, the suggestions being made in this report to keep this from happening again are rather unconvincing. the list of things they want to do will not prevent a future leak. and the reason is people still

have to work off drafts. there are hundreds of drafts that go back and forth between clerks and their justices, between chambers. there's lots of ways to leak that information, including not using the hard copy but leaking the content. so the only way to really avoid this is first through this cultural commitment of integrity. now, someone shattered that commitment. but the other way is to deter future culprits by catching this one, and that does not appear to be happening. it appears that, you know, the court has been quite frank that they have reached a dead end even though they hope to continue to look for evidence of the culprit. >> sandra: jonathan turley, thank you very much for joining us on that. jonathan, before we let you go, just noting that we are still digging through this, but ultimately what we do know is

they have narrowed this down and that this report determines 82 employees plus justices had access to that report "in the course of their interview, several personnel acknowledged they did not treat information relating to the draft opinion consistently." so -- consistent with the court's confidentiality policies, i should say. remarkable we are at this point, jonathan, but i don't know. do you expect them to get to the bottom of it? >> well, i hope to. the thing is, this is a city that floats on the rolling sea of leaks. leaks are the currency in washington. the one island in that sea was always the supreme court. other leaks have occurred in history but not many. this was an institution that did not leak. and i guess it's a sign of our time, this age of rage, that somebody just shattered that history, that culture, that

sense of collective responsibility. and may not be -- and to think -- >> john: apparently, jonathan, they got away with it. may encourage folks in the future. hey, jonathan, thank you so much for your learn ed opinion on all of this. looks like at least for the moment we will not learn anything more about it. >> sandra: thank you to jonathan turley and shannon bream on that. as we get more information from that, and more reaction to it, john, we'll bring that our viewers. >> john: you get away with it once, you might just try it again. this could be the way we can in the future. we'll see. >> sandra: unbelievable, remarkable, that changed a lot of things, that moment. fox news alert following all afternoon, alec baldwin set to face charges in the movie set shooting death, it could send the actor to prison for possibly years. a live look outside the actor's new york city home, greenwich village, that's his apartment building there here in manhattan. waiting to see if we get

reaction from alec baldwin or see him coming or going after his attorney said he will beat the two charges of involuntary manslaughter. one of the charges carrying a mandatory five-year sentence. and as it happens in new york, a lot of people coming and going from the building at this hour, matt, do we expect to hear from him today, alec baldwin? >> sandra, we have ay and we ar hearing from the family of halyna hutchins, the cinematographer he accidentally shot and killed, and they wrote we want to thank the santa fe sheriff and district attorney and that charges for involuntary manslaughter are warranted with the killing of halyna hutchins. conscious disregard for human

life. it is a comfort to the family that in new mexico no one is above the law. baldwin faces up to six and a half years in prison, the reckless disregard for safety, carries an enhanced sentence. his attorney writing in part, this decision distorts halyna hutchins' tragic judge and terrible miscarriage of justice. mr. baldwin relied on the professionals who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. the film's armorer, hannah guitierrez reed was reportedly overwhelmed on the set, she faces the same charges, she handled the prop guns. her attorney said hannah is and always has been very emotional and sad about this tragic accident but did not commit

involuntary manslaughter. the charges are the result of a flawed investigation and inaccurate understanding of the full facts. assistant director of the film, david halls, signed a plea agreement for use of the deadly weapon. and wrote if david halls, alec baldwin and guitierrez reed had done their job, halyna hutchins would be alive today. and they did insist that baldwin pulled the trigger on the gun, something he has denied. >> sandra: we'll continue to watch live outside of his new york city apartment for any movement there, and whether or not he is going to come out and talk to the media as you can imagine, there are many gathered outside the doors in lower manhattan. matt, thank you. >> john: jonna spilbor joins us now. what are your thoughts about this, looks at the moment by listening to the statements from

alec baldwin's attorney and hannah guitierrez reed's attorney they plan to go to court to fight this thing tooth and nail. but already we have a guilty plea from assistant director david halls who pled guiltyy to negligent use of a firearm. someone has committed to wrongdoing. >> i'm sure he did that for a reason, maybe to help out prosecutors, but i've got to tell you, i am completely surprised by the criminal charges, at least as to alec baldwin. because yeah, i think this case, the buck stopped before him. when it comes to criminal liability, not civil liability, i always thought this case was -- he was civilly responsible and in fact, the civil suit with him as a defendant did settle already. that makes the criminal charges more surprising, and how about this, where is the person and seth kenny supplied the

ammunition to the set, why isn't he getting charged? how do we know a live round or five made it on to the set. that's the crucial question, in terms of criminal liability but nobody is talking about that, we don't have those answers. >> john: david halls is saying mia culpa, hannah reed said not me, don't blame me, i didn't do this, and alec baldwin's attorney said the decision to distort the tragic death and a terrible miscarriage of justice, mr. baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun or anywhere on the movie set. he relied on the professionals with whom he worked who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. as sandra pointed out, went on to say we will fight these charges and we will win. what was it incumbent upon alec baldwin as the person to whom the gun was given before he pointed it at anyone to check it

to make sure that it was in fact a cold gun? >> i'm going to say in his argument, his argument will be no. when you are on set with independent contractors whose job it is to make sure that whatever element of the set is safe, they hand you a gun and they say it's cold. you should be able to rely on that. that's why this case was always a civil case, not a criminal case, especially when it comes to alec baldwin. it really feels right now, john, like this is just a chance for prosecutors to almost have their day in court, you know, when you have a defendant who is a celebrity, it adds a little something to your resume, and that does distort the death of halyna hutchins, it truly does and i read her husband, not only did they settle the civil suit, he is now going to be executive producer on "rust" which they want to continue to film, which means he'll get more money if that film is successful to

assist with his family now that he doesn't have a wife. this is odd all the way around when you look at it 360. >> john: it's extraordinary the way that hollywood works, that they would make the movie after the tragedy happened but it could increase the box office revenues and therefore accrue more value to the family of halyna hutchins. sometimes you just got to shake your head. judge janine, by the way, is going to be interviewing on "the five" the prosecutor involved in this, andrea reed. a quick little look this afternoon. >> we've heard that there were real problems on the set, including discharges of two live rounds. people walking off the set, saying it was unsafe. they did not want to work there. did baldwin know about this and did he do anything about it? >> well, we believe baldwin as a producer knows everything that

goes on on the set, and so yeah, there was a lot of problems, there was a lot of -- a couple accidental discharges, there was a lot of safety concerns that were brought to the attention of management, and he did nothing about it. so there were just -- this was a loose and reckless scene where safety was compromised, just to save money. >> john: when you look at the charge of involuntary manslaughter, and that is coming up at 5:00 this afternoon, when you look at the overall charge of involuntary manslaughter, is it merely the act of the gun and halyna hutchins death or could it be seen as part of a bigger problem that went unaddressed by alec baldwin? >> it actually could be both. but -- in terms of the criminal charge for involuntary manslaughter, i think what they are going to try to prove is he was doing something lawfully in a reckless manner and therein lies the rub.

who was the most reckless, you know, did the buck stop before you got to alec baldwin and one interesting thing, a.p. issued a report between 1990 and 2014, a total of 43, they think, deaths on movie sets in the united states. the number of prosecutions, one. one. so it doesn't happen very often. why now with these facts, i can't -- i can't wait for judge janine's interview this afternoon. >> john: it should be good. i want to ask you quickly about the kohberger case in idaho, and what investigators took away. one nitrate type black glove, eight possible hair strands, one possible animal hair strand, one collection dark red spot, two cuttings of a pillow, reddish brown stain, mattress covers with multiple stains, computer tower, vacuum, various receipts. if you are a defense attorney

and look at what they've got, how strong do you think their case is and as a defense attorney how do you try to poke holes in it? >> you know, i -- i find the list unremarkable. it's one thing to collect this evidence, another to connect it to the crime. the list that they have described can be in anybody's house. a glove, a computer, dog hair, a hair. ok, great. what i think is going to be most revealing is get into that computer forensically and find out what he was doing. the evidence that has not been confirmed, perhaps kohberger did try to d.m. or connect on social media with one of the victims and so far that's the only shred of evidence we have that he knew these victims. so right now i'm not worried about this as a defense attorney, i want to see what these items reveal. that's going to be where the rubber meets the road. >> john: thanks for your expertise, appreciate it. good to see you. >> thank you, same here. >> sandra: liberal cities

becoming a breeding ground for criminals and few more than new york city. critics say soft on crime policies is like a new law to let suspected criminals go back on the street without ever facing a judge. 69% of criminal cases were dismissed in 2021, to a new rule that prosecutors must hand over all evidence by strict deadlines. if prosecutors miss the deadline, the cases are simply thrown out and the criminals walk free. let's bring in tyrus. fox nation host and fox news contributor. you have seen what the soft on crime policies are doing to new york city. imagine this. >> the irony, when i first started hearing about prison reform i was all for it. because i was under the understanding we would look at instead of having people with drug addictions in jails, would get them in hospitals, and minor

misdemeanors like drug possession and things like that to be handled in a different way, and not in my wildest imagination was basically opening the floodgates. so with this thing, a speedy trial, they have to have a speedy trial. and if you have a savvy defense attorney, all he has to do is drag it out and the deadline is like less than 21 days, they throw the case out. regardless whether it's a misdemeanor, and carjackings are that. and your life is never the same. so it is shocking, it's not prison reform, it's blatant opening the floodgates and you have 'em boldered criminals, it's a career now. the consequences do not outweigh the benefit of stealing. >> sandra: the video on the screen here, all of these instances in new york city in recent months. just horrific incidents

happening in new york city streets, and in addition to the criminals that are walking in and threatening cashiers, they are stealing, walking out with massive amounts of goods from the stores to the point if you live in the city things are getting locked up, toothpaste, bars of soap, it's changing life and it can't last. >> no, it's going to turn parts of new york city into a third world country. the mom and pop shops will close down and the walgreens and cvs will close up shop, they'll just get rid of the store. where do they gets medications, groceries, all the things you'll have deserts in cities in the united states of america where it's basically the wild wild west and that's not what this country is supposed to be. >> sandra: it's going in that direction on the screen here. we had glenn youngkin from virginia, the governor there, put the attorney general on the situation with the high schools in his state that has been withholding merit awards for

students in this state for the sake of equity. tyrus, you used to be a school teacher, and you are a parent. >> that is the fruit of my labor. my student success is reflection on my prowess as a teacher and i want my kids to get their praise and i want other kids coming into my classroom go i want to be in tyrus's history class, they have won awards for working their butts on. i cannot understand any teacher that would be -- would not be outraged at their kids not getting the recognition, it's also a result of my education process. it's disgusting to me. >> sandra: the parents want the teachers fired or anybody a part of the decision making process fired. we keep talking and glenn youngkin was talking about this, the cost involved with the decision that was made, we talk about the equity coach hired without parents knowing, $450,000 this person was paid over nine months, gosh knows what decisions were made there. i don't know where you -- do you think this is more -- do you think there is more instances of

this? this is identified in virginia. >> unfortunately, probably there is. when you hear equity coach, inventing these jobs. as a teacher, one of the things you want to do, you want to build not just their knowledge, their self-esteem, you want them to grasp for the brass ring we talk about. and not fighting and defending for your students when they succeed, but yet everybody wants to talk about them when they fail. again, equity coach, that makes 0 sense to me, sounds like someone trying to teach you how to buy your first home, 0 sense. >> sandra: and cost, one of the mothers that has spoken up, and also the journalist who broke the story back in december when she learned her son's merit scholarship was withheld, she's working three jobs to send him now to an out of state school which by the way he's not getting merit scholarship money for because they never even knew that he received the merit scholarship to begin with. >> and again, it's borderline criminal. her whole lifestyle has to change, even though her son made the sacrifices, he hit the

books, he was not in the streets, not on the ipad, he did when he needed to do and those are the kids that should be the ones honored. even with the pandemic this young man did this and as a teacher i could not be prouder. >> sandra: you should get an award for carrying the belt around. >> it was ten pounds of gold, when i got it, it was 12 pounds of gold. matt, try to get it, february 11th, good luck. class dismissed. >> sandra: incredible, looks like it weighs 50 pounds. you are awesome. thank you for joining us on all of that. like any subject i bring up with him, yeah, i used to do this, used to do -- >> been fired a lot. >> john: an experienced individual. >> been around. >> john: close to 20 years since "an inconvenient truth" hit the theaters, al gore raising some

eyebrows about his rant of climate catastrophes, at the ultra exclusive world economic forum in davos, switzerland, most attendees arrived in jets. >> trapping as much extra heat as would be released by 600 hiroshima bombs, that's creating the droughts and melting the ice and raising the sea level and causing the waves of climate refugees predicted to reach 1 billion in this century. >> john: author and president of the copenhagen consensus center is here, bjorn, i covered his presidential campaign in 2000, i heard him make a lot of speeches but none approached the level of shrill that one did. how were you struck by what he

said? >> well, look, john, he's right that there is a problem with climate change, it's something we should fix, but he's dramatically wrong the way he exaggerate and it is like scaring the kids and making adults frightened for the future, and leads to bad policy decisions. he is says oceans are boiling, no, they are not. a billion people environmental refugees. back in 2005, the u.n. predicted 50 million environmental refugees by 2010, no such thing and they had to scrub it off the websites. they have to not make predictions for short-term but now say it happened in 2050. the underlying arguments are unrealistic. yes, there's a problem. no, we should not be

catastrophizing it, does not lead to good policy or helping our kids and everyone else not lose their minds over this. >> john: there must be something about davos, and maybe it's the altitude that affects the way people talk. listen to what john kerry said earlier in the week. >> it's pretty extraordinary that we select group of human beings because of whatever touched us at some point in our lives are able to sit in a room and come together and actually talk about saving the planet. i mean, it's so -- almost extraterrestrial. >> john: almost extraterrestrial they could get together the rich folks and sit in a room and talk about saving the planet when 1,000 of them at least arrived on private jets, each one producing four tons of carbon per hour, which to steal a line from al gore, which would be the same amount released if 350,000

cars drove to davos, one jet by the way, flying just 13 miles. it has led some people to believe, or at least observe there is more than a little bit of hypocrisy going on here with the climate. >> oh, god, a lot of hypocrisy. but also a lot of money going on. i think if you play that clip a little longer you would have seen kerry saying what we need in order to live up to the climate negotiations is money, money, money, money, he actually said money seven times in a row. and you know, this is what is really the problem. you are trying to sell a real issue with a solution that's going to be so costly nobody can afford it and nobody will want it, and even if you managed to convince a few rich well meaning americans and europeans to do this, they have russians, the chinese, the indians, the africans, for obvious reasons have other more important priorities, so fundamentally, we need to recognize that these are

not the guys to listen to. what we need is a smart conversation about how we tackle climate change and that's all about innovation, that's about progress, about resilience. >> john: it's interesting the way the rich folks say i need to travel by private jet in order to get done everything i need to get done. john kerry said this about that about three years ago. listen here. >> if you offset your carbon it's the only choice for somebody like me who is travelling the world to win this battle. i believe the time it takes me to get somewhere, i can't sail across the ocean, i have to fly, to meet with people and get things done. >> john: i've got to fly to meet with people and get things done. almost like "saturday night live" skit, in order to save the planet, we've got to burn it down. >> well, at least it tells you something, right. it tells you that most of the elite is not willing to go along with the argument of saying you have to do with less, you have

to be a little poorer, a little colder, a little more uncomfortable. they are not going to bring that in. and of course the rest of humanity is not going to do this either. we are not going to tell everyone you have to do with less. what we have to do, how we solved the problems in the world, through innovation. if you can come up with green energy that's cheaper than fossil fuels, everyone will buy it. that's how you fix problems and that's what we have forgotten and to a large extent because there is a lot of money involved, a lot of subsidies, and so yes, in some ways it's great we get the quotes out because people laugh, but we need to get back and actually be smart about it instead of wasting hundreds of billions of dollars, we should be spending smarter, more effectively and actually help fix this problem, but in a smart way. >> john: quick one-word answer if i could. whole idea that kerry talks about, al gore talks about, everybody talks about about purchasing carbon credits to offset their emissions.

does it work, yes or no? >> not very much. >> john: all right. bjorn, thank you. >> sandra: breaking news from the supreme court that we just had for you, mike davis is joining us, president of article 3 chief nominations counsel, and former justice gorsuch law clerk. mike, i know you are calling into us, thank you for jumping on. the supreme court report appears to reveal that it has been unable to identify the person who leaked this unpublished draft of the opinion indicating the court was poised to roll back abortion rights. what can you tell us now that you have had a chance to look at that report? >> well, i do want to commend the chief justice and the marshal and the supreme court for putting out this 20-page report. they are being very transparent here, unusually transparent for the federal judiciary, it's disappointing they did not find

the person who leaked the draft dobbs decision, but maybe it should not surprise us. the person who leaked this is obviously lying to these investigators because the investigators interviewed all the employees within the supreme court who had access to the draft dobbs decision, including the law clerks. there are four law clerks for each of the nine supreme court justices. so they interviewed all of these law clerks along with the permanent staff. someone is clearly lying here, someone leaked this, and they did do a thorough investigation as former dhs secretary michael chertoff confirms, he did his own independent assessment of the marshal's report and did his own statement. so they are not hiding the ball here. the issue is the person who leaked this is lying, and i'm wondering, there are a couple questions i have. did the supreme court subpoena phone records, text messages and call records from the law clerks and their cell phones, and did they perform polygraph exams on

the law clerks, or people, maybe even a narrower universe of people they were interviewing for second or third round interviews, a polygraph, it's not clear from the report. >> john: real quick if you could, we had jonathan turley on a moment ago said these are smart people, they would likely know how to cover their tracks. 30 seconds left. >> yeah, to me it's obvious who did this, i mean, i would bet anything it was one of the 12 law clerks for the three liberal justices just because they had the access to the document along with the separate leak of the internal deliberations and the motive to do this to create chaos at the supreme court and cow justices to change their vote before dobbs came out. maybe whoever did it got away with it for now, but sounds like they are going to keep doing this investigation. >> sandra: appreciate you jumping on the breaking news for us and with us, thank you. >> thank you.

>> sandra: all right, john. another jam packed day. >> john: it happens every day about this time, you know, you've got a plan in place, you think it's going to be an ordinary regular day and then news happens. that's what happens. i love it, though. >> sandra: exactly. john, great to be with you. we will see you right back here tomorrow. thanks for joining us, everybody. i'm sandra smith. >> john: i'm john roberts. we will be back again friday, and doesn't that sound >> martha: all right. good afternoon. i'm martha maccallum. this is "the story." actor alec baldwin, an armorer hannah reed will be charged with involuntary manslaughter in the killing of helena hutchins. now baldwin is speaking with fox news about the case. judge jeanine pirro wrapped that interview a short time ago. she's here to tell us what she