definitely nothing wrong with the mike flynn investigation. this is what's in the inspector general report. quote, the initial cross fire hurricane, the russia investigation, was to determine which individuals associated with the trump campaign may have been in a position to received the alleged offer of assistance from russia. after conducting open source and database inquiries, intelligence analysts on the cross fire hurricane team identified three individuals, carter paige, paul manafort, and michael flynn associated with the trump campaign with either ties to russia or a history of travel to russia. on august 10th, 2016, the team opened separate counterintelligence requests under code names assigned by the fbi. six days later on august 16th, a counterintelligence case was opened on flynn under another code name assigned by the fbi. each case was designated as a sensitive investigative matter because the individual subjects were believed to be prominent in a domestic political campaign. inspector general then explains the predicate informat

the case against mike flynn fall apart. it was going to expose the dastardly fbi for only having pursued flynn because of some political vendetta against flynn or donald trump. whatever else they thought this would give him. you might imagine the judge today having the opportunity to see this report might be annoyed. the inspector general report out today does discuss the fbi opening their investigation into mike flynn and they conclude that it was no problem. ig took a hard look at it t seems pretty kosher, definitely nothing wrong with the mike flynn investigation. this is what's in the inspector general report on flynn. quote, the initial investigative objective of cross fire hurricane, the russia investigation, was to determine which individuals associated with the trump campaign may have been in a position to have received the alleged offer of assistance from russia. after conducting preliminary open source and fbi database inquiries intelligence analysts on the cross fire hurricane team identified three individuals, c

maybe the judge won't have -- supreme court ruling, the judge might -- and so now mike flynn has had his scheduling sentenced again. it's not going to be wednesday while the president is going to be impeached. his sentencing is going to be next month, toward the end of january. the only real drama now left in the flynn case is whether there's going to be some sort of ethics finding against his lawyer. but also the question of whether prosecutors might actually revise their earlier request to the judge that he go easy on flynn. initially prosecutors said flynn should get credit for earlier cooperation. now that flynn has switched his legal defense to somebody he found on fox news, now that he's no longer cooperating and, in fact, is trying to use this case to undermine all of the prosecutors' cases against all of the other russia-related defendants, it is possible that prosecutors could now go back to the judge and say, hey, judge, if you're thinking about throwing the book at him, we will no longer mind if you do that. and this concludes today's cautionary tale about hiring your defe

the last two men roger stone and mike flynn are awaiting sentencing next year. and the president's recent comments are any indication they may be in for some good news. >> roger stone, are you going to pardon him, sir? he's been convicted of felonies. >> am i going to pardon him? i haven't thought of it. i think it's very tough what they did to roger stone compare to what they do to other people on their side. i've known roger over the years, he's a nice guy. lot of people like him. he got hit very hard as did general flynn as did a lot of other people. they got hit very, very hard and now they're finding out it was all a big hoax. >> it was a big hoax. we already know president trump has demonstrated a willingness to use his pardon power on unorthodox recipients. joe arpaio anyone? is this a sign he's willing to do it again? joining us now voice vance. what a pleasure to see you again. thank you for joining us. >> good to be with you. >> is there anything you're looking for in the coming weeks as a sign the president may be getting ready to pardon either roger

the fbi by that point was not only pursuing that case against mike flynn, they were also pursuing a counter intelligence and criminal investigation into russia interfering in the 2016 presidential election and that crucial question of whether russia had any help from the american side when they did that. in the context of that ongoing investigation by the fbi, president trump by that point had repeatedly pressured fbi director james comey to promise him loyalty, and comey would not do that. he demurred from that. he took careful note of all his interacti interactions with the president, but he told the president he wasn't going to be loyal to him not in the way the president wanted. the president then fired fbi director james comey. that ultimately would lead to robert mueller being appointed to special counsel and all the rest of it. but it is still amazing that the very day after trump fired fbi director james comey, the day after firing comey that's the day he brought that guy, russian foreign minister sergey lavrov as well as the russian ambassador into the oval office. two visits to th

flynn, papadopoulos and used the most powerful intelligence community in the world as a political weapon. these leaks that are coming out prior to the final results of the durham investigation, they are coming from a guilty man, and he is very worried, and he should be because he's at the center of the firestorm. these leaks are an attempt to shape a narrative, but it is very telling that attorney general barr just said in an interview the u.s. attorney for connecticut has -- [inaudible] -- for larger than the inspector general. he is looking at not and the fbi, doj but the whole intelligence community but also at private individuals. that's why we're seeing the leaks. that's proof that john brennan is in big big trouble. lou: thank you very much, i appreciate it. good to see you and see you soon. >> merry christmas. lou: merry christmas, happy new year and happy holidays. follow me on instagram, twitter, lou dobbs. like me on facebook and instagram at lou dobbs tonight. a former senior state department advisor, christian whiteman, robert ray among our guests monday. please join us for t

jesse: it's between two years since mike flynn pled guilty to lying to peter strzok and other fbi agents. his sentencing keeps getting pushed back. that's because the i.g. report is getting released monday and that may affect the sentencing. his attorney, sidney powell wants the case thrown out for government misconduct. this looks like a railroad job the more and more you study it. one of these lawyers prosecuting flynn, he illegally accessed trump transition emails and selective live edited the email and used flynn's son against him to make this plea. what's going on here? >> yes, jesse. it's a very sordid story. the flynn case evidences the very worst of our justice system and how much power the department of justice has, especially a special possible possibleo -- a special prosecutor. we are in the process and have done extensive briefing exposing the truth of what happened here. i hope to find more from the the inspector general's report and we are waiting for the judge to issue an order compelling the government to produce more evidence. they have not given us the documents includi

flynn, former deputy campaign chair rick gates, former associate, george papadopoulos, roger stone, all are convicted of federal crimes. trump university settled a $25 million fraud lawsuit last year. last month, president trump admitted misusing his own charitable foundations, he was ordered to pay $2 million. you want the american people to believe this guy cares about corruption. >> i do. you take him at his own word, what he said. >> look at the record. >> that's what i'm saying, look at the record. when you talk about impeachable offenses, we did a 14 hour hearing last week, all these hearings in the basement, haven't presented any direct evidence to show the president was involved in any crime. you talked about three previous impeachments, each one of those there were specific criminal acts, mountains of evidence to prove had been committed. we don't have that here. our ultimate concern, jake, is founders were very specific in warning against a single party impeachment, they knew it would divide the country. they knew people would go to their corners. didn't want to damage the

flynn, papadopoulos and used the most powerful intelligence community in the world as a political weapon. these leaks that are coming out prior to the final results of the durham investigation, they are coming from a guilty man, and he is very worried, and he should be because he's at the center of the firestorm. these leaks are an attempt to shape a narrative, but it is very telling that attorney general barr just said in an interview the u.s. attorney for connecticut has -- [inaudible] -- for larger than the inspector general. he is looking at not and the fbi, doj but the whole intelligence community but also at private individuals. that's why we're seeing the leaks. that's proof that john brennan is in big big trouble. lou: thank you very much, i appreciate it. good to see you and see you soon. >> merry christmas. lou: merry christmas, happy new year and happy holidays. follow me on instagram, twitter, lou dobbs. like me on facebook and instagram at lou dobbs tonight. a former senior state department advisor, christian whiteman, robert ray among our guests monday. please join us for t

flynn and another individual from the campaign. where you at that briefing, august 17th, 2016? speaker repeat that? >> laura: august 17th, 2016, were you one of the individuals in the room being briefed by the government about the russians? they didn't name the third person, but peter strzok was involved in drafting the fbi portion of that briefing, specifically the way the asian involved, the special agent involved, was discussing the matter with the campaign, as strzok was involved in the counter intel investigation. how is that right? >> this is very, very troubling to me. let me tell you what a low level, peripheral person like paige or papadopoulos, were not on the inside of the trump campaign. if the fbi had information that those people may be involved, unsecure activities connected to foreign powers, they should warn the campaign, normally. the right thing to do is to say mr. president, campaign manager, these individuals, we have troubling information about them. you should be very careful with them. we suggest you should

x trump aide to general mike flynn and george papadopoulos were convicted and george has already gone to jail and served his time with us. the cnn agenda was set before this came out. they wanted to cherry pick it, they did, and let's remember this is the network that has now hired andrew mccabe, who was fired for lying as a contributor. >> laura: it's pretty lucrative. all right, tammy, let's go to you now. here's another talking point that the media endlessly regurgitated this week. >> that is a lie that the attorney general told today to help donald trump. >> he is the president's lawyer. >> he continues to lie on donald trump's behalf at every opportunity. >> what should not surprise us as william barr continues to lie. any other attorney general would be forced to resign. >> laura: tammy, is that what they tried to do post mueller? this is it now? the media are blaming bill barr for this? second time attorney general? >> it's interesting. the democrats know what durum and barr are finding. we don't yet. the media, the friends of the democrats know what they are going to find, so

. >> kevin, i'm reminded of mike flynn, the national security adviser short time talking to reporters from the white house podium and the press room early in 2017 saying iran, you're on notice. >> right. >> this is escalating now for sometime. >> it has. look. i'm going to bring caution to the discussion against connecting to anything in the past and reminding readers and viewers to the last few months. iraq is in turmoil as the reporters saying fighting for an identity and new leadership. it's wrong to talk about iran and iraq or the iraq government or american interests or the pfm militias as giant blocs. since the end of the iraq war and since as the isis war wound down what is happening in iraq on the military side is that these pmf iranian-backed militias that fought isis basically in coordination with americans, iraqis, the iraqi government plan to fold some of them into the official iraqi security structure with the u.s. blessing. and that these are not all bad guys, just because they're iranian-backed, iraqis fighting for freedom. they want good things. good relations. that wa

he gets tied in with people like steve bannon and paul manafort and mike flynn. all of whom were soft on russia or pro-russia and anti-ukrainian. trump's view of the world was shaped by the likes of manafort and bannon and others. he committed to this line of thought that russia's not so bad. russia should be our ally. putin gets bad wrap. ukrainians are the villains here. he cannot go back from there. >> it's interesting, colonel, that talk about the president's allies that they are all in on some of his ukraine theories given that think might be directly tied to vladimir putin. >> indeed. trump surroundings himself with third raters. he has to be the big cheese. he has to be the smartest guy in the room. if you look at the people that's been around him with a few notable exceptions that didn't last very long, they are people who aren't expert in anything except a bit of wheeling and dealing. people who embarrass the the country every time they open their mouths. at the end of the day, the reason all of this really matters, why it's not just ukraine wasn't perfe

guilty convictions and guilty pleas by mike flynn and manafort and roger stone. the american attorney general does not believe his own department inspector general's report. if there is reasons for concerns today, what's the evidence that he's looking at the facts? he's choosing to ignore the facts. he's looking at possible necessity of policies and procedure changes. >> is it in here, too? >> what i am seeing here for example in the report is to the fact that wow, the fbi does not have any written policy on the president and his campaign so they went with a policy they had and he complied with it. so what i think you are going to hear is a steady drum beat now saying oh, the fbi got to rewrite their policy, they should not be looking into the campaign, it is intrusive. yeah, it is intrusive but they followed the rules. there was not a misconduct in opening and conducting the case. one instance i am reading. the fbi went above and beyond. cooperating source were wired in thisce investigation. fbi policies said a field supervisor can approve that. they went all th

flynn caught in the middle of the russia investigation, so she's going to be fascinating, we've got steve forbes, robert wolf a lot of fun people, liz peek is with us, you should be watching. >> david we certainly will be we'll see you right at the top of the hour. david: see you. lauren: talk about community living how one city joined forces to help fill the food gap , we'll have that story, coming up in just a bit. to the outside world, you look good, but you don't feel good. with polycythemia vera, pv, symptoms can change so slowly over time you might not notice. but new or changing symptoms can mean your pv is changing. let's change the way we see pv. you track and discuss blood counts with your doctor. but it's just as vital to discuss changing symptoms as well. take notice and take action. discuss counts and symptoms with your doctor. visit takeactionpv.com sivan. davidsivan. deirdre: a warning from cdc, avoid fresh express chopped sun flower kits, no deaths have been reported but three people have been hospitalized. what is experiencing kidney failure, official are investigat

agents to the white house because it's chaotic and he can get them in to talk to mike flynn. watch this. >> something i probably would haven't done and gotten away with in a more organized administration, more organized administration. so if the f.b.i. wanted to send agents in to the white house itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the white house counsel and there would be discussions and approvals and who would be there. i thought it's early enough, let's just send a couple of guys over. >> martha: it sounds like he was pretty involved to me, kimberly. >> yeah. in fact, if you go through the report, there is all kind of the reasons to wonder about comey's claim he was distant from this. there is another example in the i.g. report where the former attorney general loretta lynch tells the i.g. in the spring of 2016, comey and mccabe went out of their way to pull her aside and tell her that the f.b.i. got a tip on carter page and that the russians might be trying to use him for information. why would he know all about that if he was a guy who was just

mike flynn plead guilty, he's now awaiting sentencing. he but replaced by h.r. mcmaster. he was fired and replaced by john bolton. john bolton was then fired under circumstances that aren't clear but immediately coincide went with the events of the impeachment scandal, which is such a big deal that bolton won't testify about what he knows about the scandal. but after bolton was fired, he did get himself a book deal and he did sign up to start doing speaking engagements and at bolton's first public speaking engagement after he was fired, he gave a shocking warning. he said, if president trump is re-elected and gets a second term is he thinks he'll pull the united states out of nato. nato, of course, is the transatlantic alliance set up at the end of world war ii to, among other things, provide a unified western counterweight and unified western check against what was then the soviet union. nato has shaped the western world since world war ii. that alliance is, arguably, why there has never been a world war iii. but the first thing john bolton said after he got fired as tru

flynn and carter page and others. >> what are the lessons learned for you to say, okay, at the end of the day, it's clear this was an unusual circumstance. everybody was in unusual position. frankly, there was concern that the person you would warn that they're going to be targeted for infiltration might have actually been somebody who was participating in the scheme. i'm referring to their campaign manager at the time. >> yep. >> so what did you learn from mr. horowitz? to say, you know what? maybe when it comes to presidential campaigns, we've got to do x. that's different from any other entity we deal with in the -- in -- in government. you see anything there? >> i think the thing that you have to be careful of is separating the support duties to a candidate and to a president. particularly, things like intelligence briefings from investigative matters. and a great deal was made in the hearing today of the fact that the fbi agent in the trump intelligence briefing was actually there as an investigator. and that was a lot of fuss. but really not about much because i think horowitz a

so he gets tied in with people like steve bannon and paul manafort and, got help us, mike flynn, an old akwancquaintance mine, all of whom were soft on russia. so trump who was never interested in foreign policy, trump's view of the world was shaped by the likes of manafort and bannon and others. and so he committed to this line of thought that, you know, russia is not so bad. russia should be our ally. putin gets a bad rap. the ukrainians are the villains here. and he just cannot go back from there. >> it is interesting, colonel, that talking about the president's allies, that they are all in on some of his ukraine theories given that they might be directly tied to vladimir putin. >> yeah, indeed. there's that, but also trump surrounding himself with third-raters. again, he has to be the big cheese. he has to be the smartest guy in the room. so if you look at the people who have been around him, with a few notable exceptions that didn't last very long, they are people who aren't expert in anything except a bit of wheeling and dealing, people who embarrass the country every time they op

mike flynn, paul manafort, carter page, as well as george papadopoulos but then you read it, and there's a lot of problems with it in you're in the fbi. ainsley: 476 page report they said there are no documents or testimony that revealed political bias, but they identified 17 significant errors of admission in the fisa applications, like who paid for it. >> yeah, so that really is the key and that was why a lot of people looked at it and said hey , there was a reason for that first fisa application, but, as the ig detailed, it was based on the dossier, the steele dossier, which was a bunch of made up stuff potentially and when the fbi knew that, they never went back, and they say that there were seven key errors or omisions in the first fisa application, which is what they were able to then use to wire tap carter page, and then there were 10 more in the three subsequent fisa applications. so ultimately, they used the fisa applications to spy on the president' team, but ultimately, the dossier was based on bad information. ainsley: john durham is the u.s. attorney in connecticut and he's

chair schiff: mike flynn lied? >> he was convicted, yes. hiff: paul manafort went as far as to encourage others to light? >> that is accurate. president's: the lawyer was indicted for lying? >> true. chair schiff: he like to stay on precedent with the president? >> allegedly, to him. your investigation is not a witchhunt? >> it is not a witchhunt. host: let's hear from betty, illinois. caller: i am glad you played that behind that lady the that just said behind the mueller report. my topic is impeachment. when you have a president that said that he could shoot down the middle of the street and nothing what happen to him , and you have a president that mocks people with disability -- my eight-year-old great-granddaughter said the president looked mean, he does not have a pleasant face. to get thing is president trump out of office. they say out of the mouth of babes comes gems, and that is what my great-granddaughter believes. thank you, and happy new year to everybody. host: the impeachment of president trump topping the list of top stories