SEN. RON JOHNSON DISCUSSES THE UNEQUAL APPLICATION OF LAW BY FEDERAL AGENCIES
MARIA BARTIROMO: We need more information. And I know that James Comer is trying to request that. But you made a really important point that it was the Chinese bank that gave you the Hunter Biden records, not US banks.
SEN. RON JOHNSON: No. Again, that is a very interesting development right there. That bank from China. Let's face it, the Communist Party controls those types of institutions. They willingly gave us the documents that backed up the Treasury records. You know, and another example, by the way, of unequal application of justice. Remember how the FBI tried to pay Chris Christie $1,000,000 to have him verify the Steele dossier, which they knew was a Russian disinformation as early as October 2016. Yet when they got the Hunter Biden laptop, we whistleblowers told us that they were told, do not look at that laptop. We also have whistleblowers say that US Attorney Weiss doesn't have the resources he needs for a real investigation, the type of investigation that the American public should expect from the Justice Department. So now, I mean, we have we have a completely unlevel playing field here.
MATT WHITAKER EXPLAINS WHY THE HOUSE NEEDS DOJ COOPERATION
MARIA BARTIROMO: Jim Jordan, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is investigating this and he is investigating this, what he's calling an unprecedented, abused and politically motivated Trump probe. But is that going to be enough? He needs to get the DOJ. I mean, what can the Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee do? At the end of the day, they can make recommendations, but you need a willing DOJ to actually come down with a prosecution.
MATT WHITAKER: Yeah, This is going to put an interesting contrast in what we've seen previously. Remember, we were told that the Select Committee on January six had unfettered power to get whatever they wanted and no one should get in their way. And if you got in their way, they're going to hold you in contempt. And so now Alvin Bragg has been subpoenaed. The Congress has a legitimate interest which were outlined in their letter, which included the spending of federal money, the use of federal resources, the special counsel regulation, and how the interaction between state and federal prosecutors work. And so I think once if Alvin Brack doesn't show up and he's held in contempt by Congress, what does the Department of Justice do? Do they act like they did in the last Congress, or do they are they purely partisan like we think they are and they don't do anything and let it die on the vine?
ALAN DERSHOWITZ ON WHERE THINGS STAND IN THE POSSIBLE INDICTMENT OF TRUMP
ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Well, I don't think an indictment can actually come forward now after the comments made by Costello. He has proved that the main witness is going to be a perjuring liar on the witness stand, and that puts the district attorney in a terrible position. If he uses Cohen as a witness, he could actually lose his bar license. It's unethical to put a witness on the stand who, you know is lying. And he has to know that Cohen will be lying when he tries the case without Cohen, which is very difficult, or he does the right thing. He drops the case in, get Trump. I go through each of the four cases against Donald Trump, and I prove by precedent and evidence that none of the four cases has any basis in law. All four of them are politically motivated. And I think the worst and the weakest case is the one in New York, which is based on a sworn admitted perjurer who lied to his own lawyers. You know, recently a court said if you lie to your lawyer, you lose the privilege because that's so bad. But we know that that he lied to his lawyers. His lawyers have essentially broken the privilege and said that he lied to us. He told us he was the only one involved in this payment, that nobody else was involved. How is he going to explain on the witness stand? Did you lie now? Did you lie then? Nobody is going to believe him. So this is the possible case to bring against Trump. And I would hope that maybe grand juries finally would wake up and say, look, we're not ham sandwiches here. We're going to stand up for the law. And the law says, no, you don't indict under these circumstances.
MATT TAIBBI TELLS MARIA THAT THE ONLY WAY OTHER COUNTRIES CAN PROPOGANDIZE AMERICA IS THROUGH OUR OWN FAILURES
MARIA BARTIROMO: It would be an unprecedented step. But you also have these efforts by foreign adversaries to buy into US media. Look, take Russia. We talked last week about the potential of an acquisition of Forbes media. Now, I heard from one of those people, Shiv Camargo, who said, no, we are not attached to Vladimir Putin. And yet there are many people who feel that that group wanting to take over Forbes media is an issue. So what about that? I mean, the US media companies are U.S. owned with the exception of a Tik Tok or or perhaps if we see a Forbes media deal go through from a foreign adversary.
MATT TAIBBI: I think the opinion of Americans historically has always been that our democracy is vibrant enough that we can withstand propaganda from other countries by simply having a better argument, making a better argument ourselves to our own population. That's the principle of free speech. If other governments want to try to propagandize our population, I doubt they're going to succeed, frankly, unless we do a very, very bad job of talking to our own people about what our goals are.
MIKE POMPEO ON THE NEED TO REBUILD AMERICA’S INDUSTRIAL BASE
MARIA BARTIROMO: But can we actually exhibit that kind of strength now after depleting so many of our stockpiles? You heard what Ron Johnson said earlier in the show. He says we are we are not at the readiness place that we need to be because of the last couple of years of not only sending money and ammunition elsewhere, but also cutting back on defense.
MIKE POMPEO: Well, Senator Johnson has that partly right. I respect him a great deal, but we have a different view. I think it is incredibly important that we push back against what is a Chinese Russian effort in Ukraine. Right. These things are deeply connected. They're not separate ideas. His point is right in that we have depleted some of our stockpiles. We need to rebuild them. This is a long time coming in. The failure to reinvigorate and rebuild the American industrial base in the way that we need to. But, Maria, we can we can absolutely do this. We have the capacity to rebuild, to rearm, to refit, to to to build a military that is capable of the singular task, which is deterrence. This is what we did for four years. We deterred the Iranians, we deterred the Russians, we deterred the Chinese Communist Party. We deterred Chairman Kim. This happens with a strong military and an industrial base prepared to support it. And I know we can get this back. It's simply a matter of will focus and mission.
