One of most prominent hosts in cable news says President Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia during the 2016 campaign, but Democrats and the media keep chasing the story to distract from what she considers the real conspiracy inside the Obama administration to make sure Trump either would not get elected or would remain mired in scandal.

Former Westchester County, New York, prosecutor and judge Jeanine Pirro hosts “Justice with Judge Jeanine” on the Fox News Channel.  She is also the author of the new book, “Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy.”

Pirro says the outrage over Trump’s comments about whether he believes Russia meddled in the 2016 campaign is a perfect example of the left trying to advance its narrative.

While Republican figures from both sides of Capitol Hill, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, distanced themselves from Trump’s comments, Pirro says the liberal rage was just par for the course.

“Anything Donald Trump says is going to cause the left to have a breakdown.  Honestly, they’re just looking for something to complain about,” said Pirro.

Following Trump’s Tuesday statement that he does believe U.S. intelligence reports that Russia meddled in 2016, Pirro is ready to move on but she says the left cannot do the same.

“The president said, ‘Look, I misspoke.’  To me, that’s the end of that, but that’s not enough for the left.  Look, the left is determined to disenfranchise the American voters, and the the left is determined to make sure that everything the man does to make America great again is something that they think is anti-American or illegal or obstructionist,” said Pirro.

Pirro firmly believes the perpetual outrage is an intentional smokescreen to distract Americans away from the real scandal.

“There is truth in the book as it relates to a collusion on the part of the Obama administration, who wanted to make sure that in the event that the unthinkable would happen and Donald Trump is elected president, they would have an insurance policy.  That insurance policy is the Russia collusion investigation,” said Pirro.

She says the FBI’s refusal to file charges against Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information on her private server shows objectivity was never the intent inside the Obama administration.

“It’s laughable, except that we’re talking about the presidency.  We’re talking about dark forces in American history, who are looking to take down a duly elected president,” said Pirro.

Pirro believes the make-up and conduct of Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation betrays an obvious agenda.

“Their mission is to find anything and everything.  As they scour everything and as they try to squeeze father against son and lawyer against client, they are determined to find something.

“Will they?  Who knows?  All I know is, there’s no collusion with Russia, there’s no obstruction,” said Pirro.

She also says she can’t figure out Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the Mueller probe.  Pirro says on one hand, Rosenstein made the case to Trump for firing former FBI Director James Comey and then promptly created a special counsel to determine whether that firing constituted obstruction of justice.

Pirro, who once shared office space with Comey in New York, isn’t buying his public Boy Scout persona.

“This guy was called Cardinal Comey by his own people behind his back because he’s got this holier-than-thou approach.  ‘I’m the good guy.  I’m saintly,” when it’s hogwash,” said Pirro.

She says the only collusion worth investigating should center on Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

“The only collusion going on is Hillary Clinton selling 20 percent of America’s uranium to Russia, with a payback of $145 million into the Clinton Foundation and a $500,000 quick cash deposit for Bill’s 20-minute speech with a Kremlin-connected company.  Nobody wants to talk about that stuff,” said Pirro.

Pirro will continue to focus much of her TV program on these issues.  She admits the show was not designed to address politics this much, but she’s eager to keep hammering away for as long as possible.

“Initially, I fully expected to be talking about crime (on her show), because that’s my wheelhouse.  But to be honest with you, there’s more crime in Washington every day than there is in criminal courtrooms across this country,” said Pirro.

“I am in this for the long haul,” she said.

Listen to “Ocasio-Cortez & Dem Division, Jews on a List? Trump’s ‘Clarification'” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are more than happy to center another good martini around avowed democratic socialist and New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, this time for sowing dissension among Democrats for her public criticism of Rep. Joe Crowley, whom she defeated in the primary. They also shudder as a state official in Austria wants all observant Jews to register with the government if they want kosher meats. And they shake their heads as President Trump’s clarification of his comments in Finland is less than credible.

A former high-ranking CIA official says President Trump’s refusal to stand by the U.S. intelligence community while on stage with Russia’s Vladimir Putin is “devastating” and believes Trump’s efforts to walk back those words on Tuesday was thoroughly meaningless.

Herbert E. Meyer served as special assistant to Reagan-era CIA Director William Casey and also as vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council.  He’s also an accomplished producer and author, most recently writing the booklet, “Why is the World So Dangerous.”

As a Trump voter, Meyer says the president’s inability to decide whether U.S. intelligence or Vladimir Putin is telling the truth about meddling in the 2016 campaign, is deeply disappointing.

“He’s done a lot of good things and I’m supporting him.  What he said in Helsinki was appalling.  There’s just no way around it.  He can apologize.  He can back off, but you cannot unring a bell.  What he said, the entire world heard it.  Sorry, that was devastating,” said Meyer.

Meyer says Trump’s logic in granting equal weight to multiple U.S. intelligence reports and Putin’s denials would be considered ludicrous in any era of U.S. history.

“If somebody got up and said, ‘I don’t know, some people say the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor, but I was talking with the Japanese Prime Minister and he says they didn’t do it.  I have complete confidence in our military, but I’m not sure who attacked us at Pearl Harbor,’ we would say that man’s an idiot,” said Meyer.

In addition to the lack of confidence Trump’s comments inflict among the various intelligence agencies, Meyer says the president isn’t even consistent with his own allies in Congress.

“He trashed not only our intelligence community, but the committees in Congress, Devin Nunes’ committee for example, that issued an extensive report a month ago on what happened,” said Meyer.

Nunes, R-Calif., chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Meyer says a damage to morale is significant damage to any organization and the intelligence agencies are no exception, but he says the repercussions are far more broad.

“It’s devastating, not just to the intelligence community.  It’s devastating to the United States.  If you are an ally of our country now, you can’t pay any attention to what he says, because if it bounces badly he’ll just say something else,” said Meyer.

On Tuesday, Trump read a statement indicating he did accept the conclusions of intelligence professionals that there was meddling in the 2016 campaign.  But Meyer says the clarification still carries two problems, starting with the fact that it comes too late.

“When he walks it back today, it’s meaningless.  It’s like saying, ‘I think you’re a liar.  Oh no, I don’t think you’re a liar.’  It just means that words don’t mean anything anymore,” said Meyer.

“Why should anybody pay attention to what he said (Tuesday)?  He’s only issuing a clarification because it blew up in his face.  I was just watching it on TV when you called me.  He doesn’t believe a word he’s saying.  He’s sort of mumbling it and reading it.

“He’s not only the country’s president, he’s the guy I voted for, and what he’s saying is just awful,” added Meyer.

Meyer is confident Putin is loving every minute of the controversy.  Her doesn’t believe Putin is changing any major policy or plans based on his perceived diplomatic victory, but there’s little doubt that the Russian leader considers Trump’s comments a big win.

“Putin’s primary objective in office is to humiliate the United States.  That’s what he wants to do.  Now you and I can say that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what he wants to do.  If he could throw a banana peel under our feet, he would rather do that than have another one percent economic growth in Russia,” said Meyer.

Meyer says Trump is causing all sorts of trouble for himself by conflating Russian meddling with political collusion in his own campaign, when the two are distinctly separate issues.

“He folded the two of them together and made everything confused,” said Meyer.

So, is there an avenue for Trump to repair relations with our intelligence agencies?  Meyer’s short answer is no.

“The president and I are the same age.  Guys our age don’t change.  Sorry, what you see is what you get.  Words don’t mean anything.  He could say anything.  He can go out to Langley and give a speech and all that.  It doesn’t mean anything.  He stood on stage with the leader of Russia  and trashed American intelligence,” said Meyer, who finds himself wincing as an American and as a Trump supporter.

“He’s wounded himself and that’s very bad for the United States, whether you’re Republican or Democrat.  We have a president with a self-inflicted wound and that’s bad,” he said.

Listen to “Buckley’s Russia Lesson, Wallace Grills Putin, Excessive Summit Outrage” on Spreaker.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America learn from the late National Review founder William F. Buckley that the left drew a moral equivalence between the USSR and the United States during the Cold War, and they warn President Trump not to make the same mistake. They also compliment Chris Wallace of Fox News for asking pointed questions about election meddling to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but they fear the interview and Putin’s weak answers will soon be forgotten. And they fret that the left has taken fair criticism of the Trump-Putin summit to preposterous extremes by labeling it as morally equivalent with 9/11, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Kristallnacht.

Prominent conservative Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is battling allegations that he helped cover up sexual abuse at Ohio State University, and a longtime conservative activist believes the controversy is simply an effort to tarnish Jordan and block him from becoming Speaker of the House.

“The deep state strikes again,” said Richard Viguerie, who pioneered direct mail in political campaigning.  He is also chairman of conservativehq.com and author of “Takeover: The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It.”

“Anytime conservatives look like they’re making any progress or gain in dismantling the deep state or challenging their position, authority, or power, they do whatever is necessary to set the conservative cause back.

“That’s all this is.  They’re in a panic mode that Jim Jordan could be the next Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives,” said Viguerie.

While not at Ohio State 20-30 years ago, Viguerie says grassroots conservatives across the nation have the highest regard for Rep. Jordan, one of the founders of the House Freedom Caucus.

“I put Jim at the very highest level of character, of values.  He’s a very serious person.  To the extent that I know him, I have nothing but the highest admiration and respect for him.  Quite frankly, every conservative without exception that I know at the national, state, and local level feels the same way,” said Viguerie.

Numerous former Ohio State wrestlers are also coming to Jordan’s defense.

But “deep state” is a general term.  If this is nothing but a smear campaign, who exactly is behind it?  Viguerie says the answer should be pretty obvious.

“Who benefits?  Who would benefit by the establishment staying in power?  That’s who you can look to for the perpetrators of this,” said Viguerie.  “Without naming names here, the Republican establishment, the Washington, D.C., establishment is going to benefit by the present leadership staying in power.”

Viguerie says the GOP congressional leaders are a major disappointment to many grassroots conservatives on a host of key issues, starting with health care.  He says Republicans passed full repeal of Obamacare time after time when leaders knew it would never become law.  Once the GOP controlled Congress and the White House, things changed.

“They wouldn’t bring it up for a vote anymore.  They were afraid that it would be undone,” said Viguerie.

Jordan was perhaps the most vocal conservative House member demanding an up-or-down vote on a full repeal.

Viguerie says there are other issues involved as well.

“They don’t want to dismantle the administrative state, build a wall, (pass) serious immigration reform that really controls the border,” he said.

He believes the D.C. establishment fears Jordan because many conservatives see him as a leader.

“In the 60 years almost that I’ve been involved at the national level of the conservative movement, he number one thing we’ve needed all those years above anything else is leadership.

“Jim Jordan, through the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, is providing that leadership, one of the very few Republicans in the country that is actually providing leadership that the grassroots can look up too,” said Viguerie.

But for Jordan to be a threat, he would have to be in a position to win the support of a majority of House Republicans in the next leadership election.  House Freedom Caucus members have historically fallen well short in challenging the likes of former House Speaker John Boehner.

Viguerie says Jordan is in position to win that kind of support within the House GOP Conference.

“The grassroots is very unhappy with the present leadership.  I think there’s a lot of people who voted with establishment candidates in the past and realizing that the establishment is not producing for the voters, for the American people.

“With a new Congress coming in here (following the 2018 midterms), I think a conservative candidate like Jim Jordan would be very, very competitive,” said Viguerie.

Listen to “Dems Disown Feinstein, Putin Summit Disaster, Ocasio-Cortez Embarrassed” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America analyze the California Democratic Party’s decision to endorse California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s rival in the general election, Democratic state Sen. Kevin de Leon. They also criticize President Donald Trump for his inability to confront Russian president Vladimir Putin about multiple issues, especially election meddling, noting that the president seems more worried about defending his 2016 win than exposing the truth. And they laugh as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, stumbles her way through an explanation about why Israel is an occupying force on “Firing Line.” They also finally resolve the biggest question in film: “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russians, accusing them of hacking key individuals and institutions and even, stealing the information of some 500,000 voters.

However, a former federal prosecutor says while it’s vital to know how Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 campaign, there’s still no connection to the Trump campaign and still no basis for why a special counsel is on this case.

Andrew C. McCarthy served as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and led the successful prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and plots against other New York-area landmarks.

He says the biggest question in his mind following the announcement of the indictments was whether Trump knew this announcement was coming.

Knowing now that Trump was aware, McCarthy finds it very interesting that Trump gave the green light for the news to go public just before his Monday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland.

“It seems to me, since he was given a heads-up that this was happening, he had an opportunity to direct that the indictment not be unsealed.  He didn’t do that, which suggests to me that he and his advisers actually think that having this will strengthen their hand when they meet with Putin,” said McCarthy.

On Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictments against a dozen figures connected to the Russian intelligence and military communities.

The Trump administration quickly released a statement pointing out that no Americans, much less any Trump campaign figures, had any connection to Russia’s alleged meddling.

“Today’s charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result,” said White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters in a statement.

“This is consistent with what we have been saying all along,” she added.

McCarthy says Trump’s argument that no campaign official has been charged when anything related to a Russian conspiracy clearly holds true.

“It’s perfectly natural and appropriate for them to say yet again that there are no indications in this indictment of any conspiratorial relationship between the Russians and the Trump campaign,” said McCarthy.

Just as when Mueller issued indictments against 13 Russian entities in February, known as the troll farm indictments, McCarthy says no evidence has turned up yet to justify the existence of a special counsel on this matter.

“When I see this indictment, I thought what I thought when I saw the troll farm indictment, which is why do we need a special counsel for this?  It doesn’t seem to me that there’s any reason that we needed a special counsel.

“The Justice Department, which was investigating Russian interference in the election – with the FBI – before Mueller was appointed, certainly could have handled these cases,” said McCarthy.

But McCarthy is also clear that he believes an investigation into Russian activity during the 2016 cycle is highly warranted.

“I don’t think anyone sensible has ever questioned the legitimacy of the investigation as it pertains to Russian interference in the 2016 election.  That ought to be something that everybody agrees needs to be done and needs to be run down,” said McCarthy.

He’s also chiding the president for regularly tweeting condemnations of the Mueller team.  While McCarthy believes Trump sees the investigation is a ‘witch hunt’ specifically as it relates to his campaign and not to possible Russian involvement, he says the persistent denunciation of Mueller is a bad move.

“I think we all know when he says that what he’s talking about is the allegation that his campaign colluded with the Russians, of which there remains no evidence, much less charges.

“But I don’t think it’s helpful that if he knows you’re about to release a set of charges that confirm what all of us have suspected for some time, which is that the Russians did conduct this operation against our election, I don’t know that that’s the best time to be taking shots at the prosecutor,” said McCarthy.

But do these indictments advance the plot much into the Russian meddling?  McCarthy doesn’t think so.

“Other than putting some names and some interesting specifics like the Bitcoin aspect of it and the fact that they made that into a money laundering conspiracy, I don’t think that we’ve learned a lot that we didn’t know already on the basis of what we’ve been told by the intelligence community regarding its investigation,” said McCarthy.

But while we may not have learned much today, McCarthy says Mueller clearly has learned some new tactics.  After the troll farm indictments, the special counsel got a bit of a surprise that he made sure didn’t happen again this time.

“The problem that Mueller ran into in the troll farm case is that he indicted three of these companies that really turned out to be Kremlin fronts.  Much, I think, to his surprise and chagrin, one of them retained counsel in Virginia and showed up and demanded to get the discovery and get ready to go to trial,” said McCarthy.

McCarthy says it’s highly unlikely that any of the 12 Russians indicted on Friday will ever face prosecution.

So why go through the indictments?

“I think the point is to try to file a conclusive U.S. government investigative document that puts to rest any claim that Russia is not responsible for any of this,” said McCarthy.

Listen to “House to Vote on ‘Abolish ICE’ Bill, GOP Blows Strzok Hearing, Did Trump Damage Theresa May?” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America commend House Republicans for planning a vote on “Abolish ICE” legislation that Democrats have already begun to step away from. They also criticize tactics of some House Republicans during the Peter Strzok testimony, in which members seemed more interested in scoring a dazzling soundbite than effectively questioning the witness. And they question President Trump’s negative remarks about British Prime Minister Theresa May, noting the alternative to her government could be far worse.

A law professor who clerked for both Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy says President Trump made a terrific selection and is confident that Kavanaugh would be a justice who is faithful to the text of the law and not any policy agenda.

Justin Walker teaches at the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville.  He clerked for Kavanaugh in 2010-2011, and was thrilled to hear Trump nominate him to the high court.

“He’s impeccably credentialed.  He was a great lower court judge.  He’s going to bring independence and fairmindedness and brilliance to the job.

“I was also happy for him, may mentor and former boss, someone who has always been unfailingly kind to me, unfailingly supportive to all of his 48 former clerks.  Every one of us would say that any time we have a career decision to make, one of the first people we call to ask for advice is judge Kavanaugh,” said Walker.

Walker says that Kavanaugh is a hard worker, something he saw up close and that he heard from Justice Kennedy, whom Kavanaugh clerked for years ago.

“The thing he would always mention about Judge Kavanaugh is how hard-working he had been.  He would say, ‘Brett was always in his chair when I’d get here in the morning.  He was always in his chair at his desk when I’d leave at night.  I’d say, ‘Brett, you work too hard.  You need to go home.’  But then I’d come back in the morning and he’d be right there in his chair,'” said Walker.

As a result of Kavanaugh’s work ethic, Walker says he really didn’t need his clerks to do a lot of work but he did include them in robust discussion about the cases.

“He always wanted to know what the law says.  What does the text say?  I’m quite sure he never asked his clerks, ‘What do you think is the best policy outcome for this case?,” said Walker.

“He wanted us to dig deep with him in terms of trying to figure out the meaning of the law, starting with the text and then going to structure, precedent, history, all the tools a judge with solid legal principles uses in order to try to find the right answer,” said Walker.

And Walker says Kavanaugh leaves his own opinions out of decisions as well.

“I know Judge Kavanaugh believes it’s the job of the judge to say what the law is and not what the law should be.  Judges should not be in the business of inventing law that they think would make the world a better place,” said Walker.  “He approached every issue without passion or prejudice for any party or any political outcome.”

Walker says Kavanaugh also has deep reverence for judicial precedent, as one can read in the judge’s 1,000-page book “The Law of Judicial Precedents.”

“What I saw in page after page and chapter after chapter is Judge Kavanaugh talking about the importance of respect for judicial precedents and that the virtues of having that respect include keeping the law settled, promoting consistency, promoting predictability and furthering the rule of law.

“That’s not to say there aren’t extraordinary circumstances when a precedent should be overruled,” said Walker, noting critical reversals in history such as Brown v. Board of Education reversed the “separate but equal” logic of Plessy v. Ferguson.

“Only under extraordinary circumstances should a precedent be overrruled.  That’s what Judge Kavanaugh says in his book.  He says in the book that a change in the court’s personnel should not throw former decisions open to reconsideration,” said Walker.

Listen to “Hawley Leads McCaskill, O’Rourke Outraises Cruz, Cuomo Vows To Sue Supreme Court” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are excited after a new poll shows Republican Josh Hawley leading incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in the Missouri Senate race. They also think Beto O’Rourke and the Democratic Party are wasting money on the Texas U.S. Senate race, as incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz leads by 10 points. And they laugh at New York  Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who pandered to his constituents by making the absurd claim he will sue the Supreme Court if they overturn Roe v. Wade.