ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp on with Justice: 5/13/2017

President Trump in just a few minutes. But first to my panel tonight, American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp and Democratic strategist David Goodfriend. Join me now in D.C. All right, gentlemen, you were listening to the interview. I'll start with you, David. What did you think? Well, first of all, I really like the way that you acknowledged his good works and said to him, but Mr. President, all of this is being drowned out, in effect, by this Russia story. Why not put it away? Why not just say, let's have an independent investigation? I thought that line of questioning was good, and I thought that his answer was interesting. He said, I want to get to the bottom of it. I want the truth to come out. He said, we should take our time. These are all things that would suggest that he's open to a really fair inquiry. And the only thing that I, I try to put myself in the other side's shoes here to try to understand what's going on. Just imagine for a second, if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency and then fired James Comey, what would be the reaction of your organization or your network? That's why you're getting those sort of kind of over-the-top reactions, I think, in cases from a lot of people on my side of the aisle. Put it all away by having the independent investigation, giving it to somebody who is separate. But, but, but, if you've got a House panel and you've got a House investigative committee and a Senate and you've got the FBI, I mean, let's, you know, maybe you should bring in the UK, too. They can invest. Let me, let's go through this a little bit, which is, look what happened in the Obama years. You had eight years, not one special counsel. You had the gun running over there on the border giving criminals guns. You had Hillary Clinton's email problems. They trailed a Fox News reporter, an AP reporter. You had the IRS going after Tea Party opponents. Issue after issue after issue. No special prosecutors, because guess what? There are laws to handle these things, and I think the Republicans should have been more aggressive. But look at the Democrats. After eight years of not nary a word about a special prosecutor, within weeks they're saying we have to have one. And the judge is right, which is once you have these overlapping investigations, actually it doesn't provide the political clarity the country needs. And the president's right. They can do this quickly. We've been talking about this for six months. You know what, Judge? Not one example of one illegal action. Not one Russian name. There's nothing to this. It's an investigation in search of a crime, and it really needs to come to a close. Let me ask you this, David. How do you prove a negative? How long do you investigate a case and then say, you know what? We can't come up with anything. It's over. I mean, how long will this overshadow the things that he's doing? Look, that's exactly what I think got James Comey in some hot water, was when he came out publicly and said, I'm ending an investigation, then came out publicly again and said, now I'm starting again. Well, he violated Justice Department ethics. Well, but you're asking, how does it come to a close? There does come a point with every prosecutor where they have to say, either I've got the goods or I don't. But this is politics. That is illogical. Well, that's a problem with leaving it in the hands of those committees. It is politics as long as they've got it. Get it to a prosecutor. What's great about James Comey is he has dinner with the president of the United States, just the two of them. The president talks about it. What happens the next day in the press? We get to hear all of James Comey's point of view, the pushback on the president of the United States. He's a political operative. I know he's a talented lawyer, but the fact is he likes being a political persona. And here's the thing on this investigation. He loves to leak. He's never leaked one example of anything close to wrongdoing. They don't have the goods on the president. Oh, you mean the FBI? OK. You mean just like the Hillary Clinton emails? David, you have to admit this. Even though Comey comes out on July 5th and lays out all of the wrongdoing which would amount to a prostitution, in my mind. He probably indicted her. But think about all the leaks on Hillary Clinton up to that point that Comey came out. We knew everything. He didn't tell us anything we didn't know. And there's been no leaks. That's a good point. There's no information that's damning as to the FBI. Well, you don't know that. I don't know that. You don't know that. None of us knows it. Has this country ever been this wild? I mean, we had four men die in Benghazi. Did you see people up in arms, you know, saying, I want to get to the bottom of this? No. But I think the point here is not James Comey. It really comes down to this. If you want to put somebody's suspicions to rest, and there are suspicions coming out the wazoo here. If you want to put some suspicions to rest, then you do have a transparent, non-political actor. That's what the Republicans have to do, but not the Democrats. How about this? Let's get out of this. We've got 30 seconds. Let's get out of this. It depends on who he picks to run the FBI. I agree with that. If he's unimpeachable, this thing is going to come to a close because there's nothing there. Well, I agree that the choice really matters. And I don't think... Someone from law enforcement or another lawyer? Law enforcement. A cop. A cop who's unimpeachable. I like the idea of an investigator, just somebody who's not seen as a partisan political hack like James Comey. Okay, but should they be a lawyer too, or a cop-cop? I don't know. They don't have to be a lawyer. You never need a lawyer. I agree. I think we got in a mess with the lawyer. Matt Schlapp, David Goodfriend, thanks for being with us tonight. And still ahead, President Trump opens up to me about his late brother. But next, former U.S. Attorney Joe DeGeneva on the shakeup inside the Justice Department.