we should point out the other people targeted for removing their clearances are andy mccabe, jim comey and sally yates. i actually don't think any of them have clearances any more. just talk about the tactic. >> it's not a new one. donald trump is 72 years old. he's been doing this kind of stuff for about 50 years, you know. in new york he went after regulators and local politicians who got in the way of his business. when he went into atlantic city and the fbi was looking at possible organized crime ties there, he went after the fbi. this is not new behavior. and i think one of the long-term obscenities that is going to come out of this administration is this free-wheeling tarring of individuals who don't have the same kind of power the president has. and then this undermining of institutional credibility. you know, just in the last week he's famously called the media the enemies of the state. he's labelled the russian investigation a witch hunt. last week he referred to fact checkers. fact checkers as bad people, right. >> facts are bad for him. >> right, because the facts are bad fo

andy mccabe is knee deep. i don't see peter strzok book deal. steve: i bet he writes a book and fills in gray spaces that he did not talk about on capitol hill. brian: do it in big texts. steve: bruce ohr. ainsley: always yelling in capital letters. sorry. steve: show up and be grilled on august the 28th. so you were still talking to christopher steele after he was fired by the fbi and you got information from your wife. and you passed it to the fbi. how does that all work? brian: i just wish the anti-trump people would seat horror of what was going on at the fbi and have the equal outrage. they would have much more credibility when they criticize the president. the sixth fbi official that's been fired or resigned since president trump took office. ainsley: none of of this would have happened or brought to light if hillary clinton had won. hand you over to jillian watched earlier. your dad was on with you. jillian: my parents are off to the corner. steve: hey, mom and dad. how are you. jillian: we are going to reveal my ancestry later. soldier k

. >>> president trump amping up pressure on the fbi own its handling of fired deputy director andy mccabe'sssages, tweeting, and i quote, why isn't the fbi giving andrew mccabe text message to judicial watch or appropriate governmental authorities. fbi said they won't give up even one. i may have to get involved. do not destroy. what are they hiding. mccabe wife took big campaign dollars from hillary people. joining u now is that conservative watch group trying to get the text messages. judicial watch president tom fitton. why can't you get your hands on any of these text messages? >> it's a lawsuit. so we're representing a retired supervisor in the fbi, jeffrey danic who we all suspect there are text messages he has. they haven't given us one text message and they just gave us a file, something with the court on friday. the president is on top of it saying that text messages aren't covered by the freedom of information act. open as far as we can tell, the fbi is the only executive agency that takes that position. so. >> this is a government phone that's being used. you're requesting text m

some of my democrat colleagues were going to h andy mccabe to finish out his time at the bureau. i don't know if you remember that. i can't forget it. of course his lawyer says it was a railroad job. his only other job is to say my client made up his mind that hillary clinton was innocent and made up his mind that donald trump should be impeached and did this on the government phone and violated other fbi options. that's his other option. if you pay someone enough, they will say damn near mig. particularly lawyers. he got a lawyer that says it's political. >> martha: the inspector general also said there were a few other fbi agents who had sent similarly biassed text messages. what is going on with them? will we hear more? do you think the peter strzok firing is enoughculture? >> yes, we wrote asking for the names of the bureau and doj employees. apparently according to the doj and bureau policy, they don't rise to the level of their names being shared with congress. i am sure they are under investigation. just like a referral from horowitz on strzok. there was a refer on these.

would have here, before you take the step of acting against bruce ohr, we have seen in the case of andy mccabeformer deputy general of the fbi, any official would say, investigation bruce ohr. they should look at the response, not the president. he's not the first line of defense. >> shaun turner, you worked in the obama white house, the obama administration, can you imagine what would happen if obama were revoking the security clearances of former intelligence offici officials, what would happen then? >> people would be outraged. it is the president's prerogative to revoke anybody's security clearance if that's what he wants to do. but what's startling is the fact that there's no due process. there's a set of guidelines that govern the behavior you must engage in if you hold a security cleemp clearance, it's very restrictive and it limits what you can do in a great way. we would like the administration to say there are some individuals out there who we believe have violated the st standards in regards to holding a security clearance, and we should hold an investigation. this is just i didn't

the director, james comey, andy mccabe, peter strock's firing today. and i think there's a couple different important consequences of that. the first is about the president's legal liability in this scandal. last june after he was fired, fbi director james comey testified on congress that president trump had improperly pressured him about the fbi's open investigation into trump national security adviser mike flynn. now, at the time, comey said he recognized the president's request to him concerning flynn to be both improper and highly unusual. and so according to his fbi training, he knew what to do next. he immediately wrote down what had happened in that conversation with the president. he wrote in it memo form right after that conversation. he then shared the contents of the memo with senior fbi officials. they could corroborate on the interaction that he just had. >> who did you talk with about that? listing the cloud, stopping the investigation at the fbi, and what was their response? >> the fbi during one of the two conversations, i think the fir

they suggested that andy mccabe should be fired.at opr made a recommendation that strzok not be fired. he deserved a demotion, 60-day suspensi suspension. the fbi direct i deputy directo and overruled that. >> the question is why. we know the president called for this. but you would hope the president wouldn't have any role in something like this. >> i do think it raises the specter of there being some sort of political consideration here. the fbi deputy director is very well respected. i think nobody should suggest here that the deputy director made this decision in order to politically retaliate against strzok. when you look at the landscape here, the criticism coming from the administration, the criticism coming from congress, i do think the deputy director may have decided that the best thing to protect the fbi from future political attacks was to fire strzok. even though that isn't political retaliation in a direct sense, it is using political considerations to decide the professional status and termination of a career employee

and kaitlan, i understand andy mccabe's attorney is responding to this news. what is he or she saying? >> reporter: andrew mccabe's attorney, melissa schwartz, tweeted out a statement pretty quickly, just now saying that andrew mccabe's security clearance was deactivated when he was fired, according to what they were told was fbi policy. she goes on to say, you would think the white house would check with the fbi before trying to throw shiny objects to the press corps. now that, of course, is some criticism we saw when the white house first announced they were considering revoking the security clearances of most of these people that are on this list. they have added a few new ones today, including the former fbi director, james comey, who said he also does not have his clearance any more. so they essentially said the white house was just saying this, not really -- they were actually concerned about these officials still having access to that information, but simply trying to make a statement about people who have criticized the president. and brooke, that was t

remember when andy mccabe got fired, they explicitly found three charges of lack of candor. they backed it up with a lot of evidence and it turned out that the decision was consistent all the way through. here i'm not saying that this is indefensible because i don't think there is. i think we could find ten good reasons to fire him. >> laura: the august 8th 2016 text message to lisa page. where he said we are not going to let that happen. she gets worried that -- we are not going to let that happen. what does that mean? i know the inspector general didn't -- he didn't say you can't show a decision he made, but i don't see how that is in any way we are not going to let that happen. it wasn't saying i don't like trump, that's one thing. we are not going to let that happen is a collective description of something the two of them could possibly do together in their positions. >> and i think his testimony in that was not credible. my only point is you have to articulate the reason why you are firing him and if you don't, what they're going to say is it's due to political pressure

he attacks the wife of andy mccabe, the former fbi director. and it's as though he's saying women can't work in the same areas as their husbands, because they create a conflict of interest. so professional women in america sit down, stay at home if you don't want to get in the way of your husband's job. we're not talking about that yet. i find those comments to be deeply offensive. but this president's misogyny is so on view front and center that we haven't fully unpacked what it means for women in our society. >> kimberly atkins, last word. >> i mean, i free with joyce. that reel you played, you left out "nasty woman." we've seen time and time after time the president use more vitriol when he speaks of women, particularly women of color. his own words speak for themselves. and it's the silence of leaders from his party. he's the top elected republican. i saw a tweet from senator jeff flake. the silence from others in this party is deafening. >> deafening indeed. thank you so much for spending some time with us. >>> after the break, donald trum

remember when the democrats were saying how dare republicans criticize folks like bruce ohr and andy mccabe peter strzok who are outstanding career officials who have done nothing wrong, and now investigations and firings and in one case criminal referrals later, we're hearing crickets from the democrats. maria: you make a really good point. let's look at that because you've got andrew mccabe fired from misconduct criminally referred, james comey fired under investigation, sally yates fired, peter strzok fired under investigation, bruce ohr demoted under investigation, [laughter] no coincidence that all of these people have been fired at the department of justice and the fbi and this is just the top level. there are many many more. >> yeah, unfortunately, a lot of my republican colleagues know that as a former u.s. attorney they think that i'm the last person on capitol hill to believe that the fbi and the department of justice aren't doing the right things for the right reasons, but with respect to these department of justice and fbi officials during the obama administration color me convi

he has people who back up his account, andy mccabe for one.s the real concern for the president if he does say it didn't happen. others are saying it did. >> and it comes in the final days, if you believe rudy giuliani's calendar, testifying with robert mueller. mueller wants to talk about obstruction. if the president said give him a break, that's a legitimate avenue for an interview about obstruction. only the president can answer his mind set. that's what bob mueller is telling rudy giuliani. rudy giuliani is now trying to make that conversation go away. >> the public negotiating that rudy giuliani has been doing about this potential interview is really astounding, in part because bob mueller stays silent. rudy giuliani just keeps kind of spinning these different versions of events. he did the same thing involving michael cohen and the stormy daniels payment where it was giuliani who then put forward the notion that trump actually knew about this after trump said he didn't. obviously what giuliani is trying to do is muddy the waters here, t

andy mccabe lied three times under oath, has been fired. sally yates, fired. strzok demoted, then fired. lisa page, demoted left the fbi. jim baker chief counsel at fbi demoted and left. i think all these people frankly should lose their clearance. >> congressman, should they all lose their clearance, people jim jordan mentioned? >> i don't see what they have them to begin with. what jim jordan said is absolutely correct. follow it, you will see. there is more the american people will need to see and hopefully we'll get that and bring it forward. if they haven't lost it or don't lose it they need to be questioned why they haven't. david: congressman wenstrup, thanks for being here. >> you get, thank you. melissa: a coordinated attack. the mainstream media teaming up all across the nation to take on the president. now he is responding. we'll tell you what he is saying next. >> world mourning the loss of an incredible legend. we have details on aretha franklin's tragic death. that is coming up after the break. ♪ you make me feel like a natural woman." with drive

investigation, we've seen things we've never seen before, like the fact that director comey was fired, andy mccabe was fired, jim ricky has left the fbi, former chief of staff, jim baker, who comes in for a deposition, first demoted, fbi chief counsel, that he left the fbi. lisa page, fbi council, demoted and left. of course, peter strzok, deputy head of counterintelligence, demoted, then fired. then on the doj said, you've got sally yates who was fired, and bruce ohr who has been demoted to times. these were the people involved in all of this, and have never seen where you have top people who ran the two key investigations are so many people be fired, demoted, had to leave, their respective employment. that is something that i have never witnessed before. again, this is why it is so important we have these depositions and we get the answers to important questions. >> shannon: now where we are as of the special counsel investigation. did you discuss whether you can answer those specifics are not, did you discuss with mr. ohr whether he or his wife had been contacted for interviews of the special c

. >> and would you put andy mccabe in the same bucket, do you think he engaged in conduct that was detrimental to the bureau as a whole? >> i do. i think his judgment was poor and i think that the d.o.j. report showed that he had issues with regard to veracity, credibility and truth telling. that's a problem for the fbi. >> so, harry litman, talk about what it's like to sort of function in this parallel universe where you have a president who just obliterates norm after norm, there are seemingly no consequence. he may be found to object instruct justice and conspire with the russians. let's put that aside because that's mueller's work load. you have the department of justice like the fbi trying to live to a far different standard. how do you operate where there is no margin forrer error and y have a president who maligns chief? >> it is really rough, and you have people in the fbi and d.o.j. not simply at the highest lev levels, but the rank and file levels trying to figure that out. the real point, and he made it as well, there is no doubt there was no operational significance to what strzok

andy mccabe who corroborated james comey' memos. jim comey, the former ousted fbi director. pete strzok who sent those messages you and i have talked about earlier in the week to a colleague. director brennan stripped of his clearances. the other names on the enemy's list, it's closer to the date jonathan raised in late july, included former cia director former nsa director general hayden. i believe he was at one time a republican, certainly not a partisan figure, a staunch defender of bush-era policies. the president threatened to strip him of his clearances. he's targeted other national security officials who don't have a party affiliation or have been of assistance to democratic and republican administrations. what do you make of the brain drain? what do you make of the fact that many of these people were involved in the hunt for bin lauden? many of these people were involved in planning to take bin lauden out without a loss of life to americans, special operations forces? what do you make of what happened? are lives at risk because of the way this president is conducting

pressure on the attorney general to take certain action with respect to the then-acting fbi director andy mccabeand that month, july of 2017, just days after days where he was in some way placing pressure on the attorney general. >> he can hire and fire anyone he wants because he's the president of the united states. >> there's a legal argument, sometimes referred to as the unitary executive that says he can hire and fire anyone he wants but that doesn't mean he can do anything in his constitutional role. and what this president continues to struggle with, or perhaps just disregard is his -- the difference between his personal opinions and his weighing in as a private citizen and things he might not like versus he actually is in a constitutional role. >> because rudy giuliani in the statement that he released and dana bash reported said the president was expressing his opinion on his favorite me medium -- twitter -- for asserting his first amendment right of free speech. everything the president says as a sitting president, whether it's on twitter or official white house statement or news confer

andy mccabe lied three times under oath and has been fired. sally yates, fired.ft. i think all those people frankly should lose their clearance particularly when you have that kind of history where you've been fired, demoted, laoerking information, why should you have a clearance? i agree with the president. a lot more people deserve the same treatment. >> bill: you make an interesting case. more to come, 28th, bruce ohr. thank you for being here today. >> sandra: as we continue to talk about that the security clearances of several obama-era officials under review after president trump revoked former c.i.a. director john brennan's clearance yesterday. we're getting new reaction from washington that's next. mitzi: psoriatic arthritis tries to get in my way? watch me. ( ♪ ) mike: i've tried lots of things for my joint pain. now? watch me. ( ♪ ) joni: think i'd give up showing these guys how it's done? please. real people with active psoriatic arthritis are changing the way they fight it. they're moving forward with cosentyx. it's a different kind of targeted biolog

neil: that's what they were doing with andy mccabe number two at the fbi he was pushed out right beforekicked in, and they were trying to supplement the pension that he lost. what do you think? >> look, i just don't understand donating to people who are well off already and who have been fired. getting fired is just not a charity cause. i understand that it's a free market and that if people are actually wanting to donate to peter strzok that's fine; however one-time i spent $20 to have a single slurpee delivered to my apartment because i didn't want to go outside and that was a better use of money than donating to this. neil: what happened at ruby tuesday? can you share it? >> i don't want to because i might need to get another waitressing job in the future. neil: [laughter] okay but this is going to last for a while. this technology is there for anyone and everyone. politicians left and right so maybe you shouldn't be bashing it. >> i'm not bashing it in a general context. certainly, it has many good uses to it. i remember i donated to a gofundme page that was setup by the official pa

thing and find out where the truth is the problem is bruce ohr, lisa page and peter disagree and andy mccabehen they interacted when they got the dossier, when they started the investigation. they all can't be telling the truth. i saw matt gaetz said we have to line these guys up all at the same time. ask them the same thing and don't do that behind closed doors. katie: speaking of telling the truth the president is warning big tech companies about censoring conservatives. >> i think google is really taking advantage of a lot of people. i think that's a very serious thing and very serious charge. i think what google and what others are doing, if you look at what's going on at twitter, if you look at what is going on in facebook they better be careful. you can't do it to people. you can't do it. we have tremendous -- we have literally thousands and thousands of complaints coming. in and you just can't do that. so i think that google and twitter and facebook, they are really threading on very, very troubled territory. they have to be careful. it's not fair to large portions. steve: you know, y

but you have now andy mccabe who has been exposed.e morted and bruce ohmort -- demoted. he said i was the one informing christopher steele and peter strzok and keeping andrew weissmann informed to eventually go to work for robert mueller all about what was happening behind the scenes with the so-called russia investigation and would be collusion. why was it narcotics department of justice official putting all these pieces together? well, maybe the first clue is his wife wases one who works for fusion gps who was hired to get dirt on donald trump. pete: honest question, what could his justification be? what is bruce ohr's justification for those contacts? it's a real question. i'm sure they asked him that. what is his defense? i would like to know. brian: here is the question trey gowdy said to him. he said have you ever worked a case like this before in your career? and his answer was no. do you think that has anything to do with the fact that your wife worked for the organization. you were the linchpin with christopher steele despera

. >> comey was fired, andy mccabe lied three times under oath. faces a criminal referral. fired.mer chief counsel demoted and left. lisa page demoted then left. peter strzok, demoted, left them. sally yates. these are the key people who ran these investigations. >> sandra: jim jordan telling democratic critics to look at the facts when it comes to the russia investigation. tomorrow dupree will join us. ♪ you shouldn't be rushed into booking a hotel. with expedia's add-on advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. add-on advantage. only when you book with expedia. >> sandra: president trump's battle with the media continuing this morning with another tweet storm targeting what he calls fake news. anonymous sources which he says often don't exist. the a-team is back. bill mcgurn, mo elleithee and amos snead. mo, what do you think of the president's tweets this morning? >> this president has spent years lying about his predecessor's birthplace even though he knew it was a lie. he spent years -- has since the election by lyin

notice andy mccabe had crowd funding they started looking into his background he went silent.king the president now. peter strzok, possibly he knows, peter strzok it will get worse. there will be more discovery. his fingerprints will be on more things, perhaps, just speculation, that lisa page said something behind closed doors where almost everybody gave her rave reviews for being candid. didn't like the president, but what these texts really meant. maybe he knows he has a problem coming down the pike there. i'm a little insulted in that i wish people could put their biases aside, say, what if this peter strzok was working on your case? what if he was working on a friend of yours? what if he was plotting, planning to destroy you? would you have possibly have this much, i don't know, empathy, sympathy for somebody going through a rough time? would the fbi be this gracious and do a six-month, do a 60-day suspension which led to a firing? would they be that kind to us if they felt we weren't being candid or working behind closed doors working against somebody, when he was workin

and i sense that they're going to look at him and he might end up like andy mccabe, like priester strzokmonths the bruce ohr because maybe there are things that he has done that has him this chain acting in inordinately obstinate towards the i president. the fact is other people who are normally on his side have noticed that he has gone over the line like james cla clap per and admirable mike malone. >> john is like a freight train and say what's on his mind. but john and his rhetoric had become, i think, an issue in and of itself. >> he has been incredibly critical of the president and i think that has put him in a political place which actually does more damage for the intelligence community, which is apolitical. steve: right, it's always been apolitical. what's interesting about mr. clapper, is he not fan of president trump's. for him to go out and say look, john brennan is he about as subtle as a freight train or however that sound bite because, that is a step towards spy vs. spy. ainsley: brennan was director under obama. he doesn't like this president and administration. ambassador