These are the words the Jan 6 Committee is trying to put into Trump's mouth: Levin
Fox News host Mark Levin gives viewers a history lesson on the presidential election of 1800 and slams the left's Jan. 6 Committee for criminalizing politics on 'Life, Liberty & Levin.'
This is a rush transcript from "Life, Liberty, Levin ," July 31, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
TREY GOWDY, FOX NEWS HOST: I hope you have a great week ahead. Until next week, you can find us on "The Trey Gowdy Podcast."
Good night from South Carolina.
"LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN" is up next.
MARK LEVIN, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello, America. I'm Mark Levin and this is LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.
We have two guests coming up, great guests: Governor Kristi Noem and Peter Schweizer, but before we speak to our guests, as is my want, I want to give you a little bit of history that you probably haven't heard, and we're never taught. It's the election of 1800.
There are really four candidates for President as it turned out. They were supposed to be two. John Adams was running as a Federalist, of course, seeking re-election, and his main opponent was Thomas Jefferson running as a Republican.
Jefferson was running with Aaron Burr that was the ticket, Jefferson Burr as the Vice President. But back then, before the 12th Amendment, whoever got the most electoral votes would be the President, and for reasons I don't need to get into, although it is very exciting, Aaron Burr, decided that he had a shot at being President, given the fact that the Federalists were playing games, they knew that Adams couldn't get the presidency. And having decided that, they then decided to try and stop Thomas Jefferson.
They had a problem though, even though Hamilton despised both Jefferson and Burr, he despised Burr more. They were both New Yorkers, and he had very, very bad experiences with Burr.
Jefferson was furious about all of this. He was furious that the Federalists were playing games, he was furious that Burr had stabbed him in the back. And in the end, as pointed out in "The Smithsonian," a piece written on November 1, 2004, an excellent piece as a matter of fact, by John Ferling, the Federalist decided to back Burr, hearing of their decision, Thomas Jefferson told John Adams that "Any attempt, to defeat the presidential election would produce resistance by force in incalculable consequences." That's Thomas Jefferson.
Huh? What else? "Burr's was not the only intrigue, given the high stakes, every conceivable pressure was applied to change votes," every conceivable pressure. "Those in the deadlock delegations recorded daily, but no one was lobbied more aggressively than James Bayard, Delaware's lone congressman, who held in his hands the sole determination of how his state would vote."
This was the guy that would make all the difference in the world. He was pressured, he was lobbied. Bribes were even offered.
"For weeks, warnings had circulated of drastic consequences if Republicans were denied the presidency. Now the danger seemed palpable. A shaken President Adams was certain the two sides had come to the precipice of disaster," and that "A Civil War was expected."
"There was talk that Virginia would secede if Jefferson were not elected, some Republicans declared they would convene another Constitutional Convention to restructure the Federal government so that it reflected 'democratical spirit of America.'"
"It was rumored that a mob had stormed the arsenal in Philadelphia and was preparing to march on Washington to drive the defeated Federalists from power. Jefferson said he could not restrain those of his supporters who threatened 'a dissolution' of the Union. He told Adams that many Republicans were prepared to use force to prevent the Federalists 'legislative usurpation' of the executive branch."
Wow. I think Jefferson would be serving 50 years by about now. "In all likelihood, it was these threats that ultimately broke the deadlock. The shift occurred sometime after Saturday's final ballot. It was Delaware's Bayard, who blinked and he abstained."
So the State didn't go for either side. And that's how Jefferson won.
"The final mystery the election of 1800 is whether Jefferson and his backers would have sanctioned violence had he been denied the presidency. Soon after taking office Jefferson claimed that 'there was no idea of using force', his remark proves little."
"Yet during the ongoing battle in the House, he alternately spoke of a ceding to the Federalist misconduct in the hope that their behavior would ruin them, or of calling a second Constitutional Convention. He probably would have chosen one or both of these courses before risking bloodshed and the end of the Union."
Why do I tell you this? Because Jefferson made statements, affirmed the statements that Donald Trump never made, the Committee is trying to find ways to put those words in Trump's mouth. He didn't talk about a Civil War. He didn't talk about any of that stuff. He didn't talk about violence so he wouldn't be able to stop. Now, they're whining about 187 minutes where he put out a video and told people to stop.
So this is a big deal. We have a piece in "The Washington Post" a couple of weeks back and they're very excited and it is titled, "What crimes might the January 6 Committee say Trump committed?" by Amber Phillips, "Obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress" is one of them. And in part, they talk about stopping lawmakers from certifying Biden's win.
They aim to show that the attack on the Capitol was not a spontaneous outburst, but that Trump and his allies specifically planned to disrupt the congressional counting. They have no evidence that Trump did that. None whatsoever.
But what if the counting didn't go forward? And what if there were legitimate concerns raised by senators or House members?
See, here's the problem. We have prosecutors in the US Attorney's Office in Washington, we have an Attorney General, we have a media, we have politicians in Congress, who don't understand how the Electoral College works.
All these electors' votes from the different states are sent to the Archivist of the United States, certified by the State. The Archivist sends them to a joint meeting of Congress on January 6th by Federal statute, why does he do that?
If the election is over, if the election is done, if the President has been chosen, why does he do that? Because it's not done until Congress says it's done.
Congress is the last check. Not the Courts, not the ballot boxes -- Congress, which is why Jamie Raskin, one of the members of the January 6 Committee objected -- objected to a Republican President at one time. Why? Why? Because he wanted to prevent a Republican from being President, which is why the chairman of this Committee, Bennie Thompson, objected -- objected why? Because he wanted to prevent a Republican from being a member of the presidency.
So this happens, the system is built for objections. The system is built not to rubber stamp; otherwise, why involve Congress at all? Why is Congress voting on anything? Why is Congress certifying anything? Because it's not over until Congress says it's over.
So when people say that Trump was trying to reverse an election, it's not over until Congress says it's over. And we've actually had situations like this one with Jefferson, where it wasn't over until Congress made the final decision, and we've had other situations like that.
So he is not trying to stop lawmakers from certifying Biden's "win."
"Conspiracy to defraud the United States." Here's another nasty sounding criminal statute. That's an agreement to obstruct a lawful function of the government by deceitful or dishonest means and they point out pressuring Vice President Pence to reject State's electoral results on January 6.
Pressuring Vice President Pence? I just told you that Members of Congress have objected to electors in state -- entire electors, right?
Number one, the Vice President of the United States is the President of the Senate. So senators like Barbara Boxer, and she did in the past, can object but the President of the Senate, who is also the Vice President, he can't object?
Here's the dirty little secret that you're not hearing from the legal analysts, you're not hearing from the media, you're not hearing from anybody. Now, you'll hear it.
We're not 100 percent sure what the Vice President's role is. Look at the Constitution, does it tell us? No. Look at the 12th Amendment. Is it clear? It's ambiguous.
Look at the Federal statute they all rely on from the 1880s. Is that clear? No, it's convoluted, which is precisely why Republican and Democrat senators are now proposing a bill to clarify what the role of the Vice President is, when he oversees this process and they want it to be purely ministerial, where he has absolutely no ability to make any independent decisions.
So why are they doing that? Because it's not clear if he did. I'll give you a perfect example. What if we learn after the "election" that there was all kinds of bribery taking place, a bribery scheme in let's say a state that turned out to affect the outcome of the election? Now, is the Vice President of the United States overseeing the process of the President of the Senate? Can he object? Can he send it back to the States?
Or he must be rubber stamp it and say, "Look, I know but there's nothing I can do. I've got to wait for one of my friends in the Senate to say something and they're not really of the mind to do it or the House or whatever," so he can't do anything? Is that what the framers had in mind? I seriously doubt it.
Well, what did they have in mind? They didn't tell us.
How do you build a criminal case around that? Oh, he pressured the Vice President, but the Vice President, he resisted. So what? That's exactly the way the system is supposed to work. It's not supposed to be criminalized.
What other criminal statute that they have in mind? The Committee wants to tie Trump directly to the leaders of the mob that attacked the Capitol, seditious conspiracy.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, have you seen any of that? Any of the e-mails? Any of the texts? Any of the firsthand testimony? Anything on a graphic? Anything on a video? Anything by anybody, anywhere despite the fact that this Committee has free rein? You haven't seen any.
There has been no conspiracy to defraud the United States. There's been no obstruction. There's been no seditious conspiracy. Oh, but what about the so-called fake electors? That is to be resolved by the United States Congress. That is not a crime, either.
You might not like it, you might think it's weird. You might think it's unethical, but it's not a crime. So to criminalize politics, to criminalize many of these things that have gone on in this country through its history, to completely misunderstand what the Electoral College is all about, and when the election is finally over, which is why they meet on January 6th to make that decision, is to take the criminal law process and project it on top of the Constitution, to pervert it.
The Democrats are pushing hard. They're pushing hard the Attorney General. They're pushing hard the US attorney. The US Attorney, we're told is now investigating Trump. These are three of the crimes are looking at.
They've gone after his lawyers, they want to see the phone calls, they want to see that texts. They want to see what? That a candidate was fighting hard to win, challenging what was going on in the States, and of course, many of the States don't have clean hands. There is, you know, Article II of the Constitution, where only the state legislatures -- the state legislatures can make the law through which electors are chosen.
Early in our history, the very earliest, the state legislature selected the electors. They didn't vote, they selected the electors. Well, some of them did, but most of them didn't. And so the state legislatures had all the power.
Today, it could be a State Supreme Court, majority Democrat, it could be a Governor who's a Democrat. You see that all occurred in the State of Pennsylvania, and so forth and so on. And all these cases, hundreds of them were brought by a law firm and other law firms in Washington, DC trying to change the election laws.
They were working their Democrat politicians in the Courts, working in the Governor's Offices and so forth, and many of them succeeded.
Now, like it or not, they're free to do that, too. They're free to do that, too. But the other party is free to respond. And the final say is in the Congress of the United States. It's not in the US Attorney's Office. It's not by the Attorney General of the United States. It's not even in the Courts.
The final say is Congress. That's why it all winds up before a joint meeting of Congress where the Vice President oversees the process. That's why a Member or Members of the House and the Senate can object -- object to the election, and they have -- members of this Committee and nobody has been arrested, nobody has been charged with obstruction.
Nobody has said that they're turning democracy on its head. None of those things.
I'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: Welcome back, America.
It's a great honor to have Governor Kristi Noem here, the first time on this program. The second time I've ever interviewed her, once on radio and now.
You have a fantastic new book out that I've read, "Not My First Rodeo: Lessons from the Heartland."
Kristi Noem, you're considered one of the great Governors in this country. It's a small state, and yet you're one of these standout Governors. Why do you think that is?
GOV. KRISTI NOEM (R-SD): Well, Mark, I think it depends on who you talk to. But I will tell you that our people in South Dakota are incredibly happy and I would say it's because they're free.
You know, we've seen incredible changes in our country the last several years. We've watched the media use fear to control people, and the left use fear to promote an agenda that's fundamentally remaking the America that we live with each and every day.
So throughout this pandemic in South Dakota, I made very different decisions than most of the other governors. We never did any mandates, never once shut down any businesses or said people couldn't have gatherings, never once even defined what in the central business was, told people we would trust them based on what authority I had under the Constitution and didn't grab other authority that I did not have, and we're seeing the results of that in South Dakota.
So it's interesting when you look from state to state and see how they're doing today. We're leading the country with our economy. Our kids are outperforming kids in every other State in educational outcomes. I have less than 700 people in South Dakota that are on unemployment today, because when the President offered those elevated unemployment benefits, we were the only State that said "No, thank you."
Our people want to work. So you know, it's an experiment in what our founders envisioned this country would look like. In South Dakota, we actually did it. And now I think it is bringing hope to the rest of the country.
We've got people moving to South Dakota in record numbers, and they're moving there because they want to be like us.
LEVIN: You see, the Federal government here wants to get in the face of these States in every direction, whether it's healthcare, whether it is the economy, whether it is natural resources and so forth, farming, ranching.
You look at this, you look at the inflation rate. What can a State like South Dakota do to fight that sort of thing? I mean, you're a lady from the Midwest. It's a little state, it's a small population. The economy is relatively small. And then you have this iron fisted central government constantly trying to shut down your activities.
NOEM: I am so grateful that the last several years when I was going through the pandemic, other challenges in South Dakota as Governor that President Trump was in the White House because I was able to be on offense every single day, I was out there with a President that was letting me do my job and I was able to focus on economic development, focus on making sure that our State was low regulations, that we were low taxed.
It's been a complete fundamental change since Joe Biden went into the White House. All we've dealt with now is being a defense.
And my best tool that I have as Governor, now, if I don't have somebody in the White House that understands their job and leaving us alone as States, is that I have to sue them. I have to use the Federal Court system to push back on their overbearing regulations, mandates that are coming down and impacting my people.
For instance, they just recently told us, Mark, I don't know, we have the strongest bill in the country that we just signed into law to protect girls sports, to say only biological females could play in women's sports in our State, and this White House has threatened to take away all of our school lunch resources for poor and underprivileged kids if we don't comply with their mandates.
So it's interesting to me that not only have they hurt my timber contracts to crush my lumber industry, not only have they mandated certain activities on their Federal lands, such as National Parks and Bureau of Land Management practices, not only are they coming forward with higher taxes and more spending, they're also coming out to create a leftist agenda that's extreme, they're willing to hurt children to create an unfair environment for women to succeed.
So it never ends. My best opportunity for pushing back on this Federal government that way that it operates in Joe Biden's America is to take them to Court and sue them. But unfortunately, what happens then, is I end up on defense all day just trying to protect my people from the high inflation, from the high taxes, the high food costs that they're dealing with each and every day that hurt their budget so badly.
LEVIN: Governor, when we come back, this is this not to illustrate the disconnect between people who come off the East Coast or the West Coast, people who are in Washington, DC in that bubble, in that whole social environment, many of whom have never even come to South Dakota have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to timber. These are ideologues trying to project their views on your State.
And do you think that you are uniquely, not necessarily qualified, but the way that you grew up as your book points out, "Not My First Rodeo," to see this and to fight it and confront it?
That's my question, when we return.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JON SCOTT, FOX NEWS CHANNEL ANCHOR: Welcome to "FOX News Live," I'm Jon Scott in New York.
Rescuers in Eastern Kentucky fear the death toll from heavy floods will continue to climb over the coming days and more rain is on the way. It is being described as historic flooding.
At this hour, at least 26 people are confirmed dead, another 37 are missing and Kentucky's governor says it might take weeks to find all of the victims. Shelters have been opened for the many left homeless, but heavy rain is hampering rescue efforts.
Damage to roadways and bridges is also massive. Rain is expected to continue throughout the coming week.
The sports world mourning the loss of NBA legend, Bill Russell who passed away peacefully today at the age of 88. The star Boston Celtics center won 11 World Championships and became the first Black head coach of a major US sports team. He is also being remembered as a champion of Civil Rights. I'm Jon Scott. Now back to LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.
LEVIN: Welcome back, America.
I think, Governor Kristi Noem, you're uniquely qualified by your upbringing in many ways to take on this Federal Leviathan. I think so because I've read your book, I see how you grew up. You had a very tough father, you worked on the farm. You became independent very, very quickly. The book is "Not My First Rodeo." Explain that.
NOEM: You know, I think it is interesting. Right now, this country is hungry for a little bit of the American West, and I think when we're having this discussion about our history, the importance of civil debate and discussion, and really, we're pushing back on critical race theory and those who would remake our republic, it's good to reflect back on the way of life that built this country.
And a lot of the blessings I had as a child growing up in the west on a ranch making a living off the land, producing the food with my family that feeds this country, there are lessons to be learned from that.
You know, I think one of the best gifts that my parents ever gave me was impossible things to do, and I think we're crippling our children in this country, Mark, by doing everything for them.
We've got parents and grandparents who think they need to get up every day and protect their kids. My parents did the exact opposite. What they did is prepared me for life, gave me hard things to do, which created us as kids to be problem solvers, gave us confidence to take up the next biggest challenge in front of us.
So those life lessons that I learned growing up are things I think we need to come back to and appreciate about America that built America, and we need this next generation to turn around the agenda that the left has grabbed ahold of that would cause us to lose our liberties.
And so this story, you know, people heard a lot about me probably during the pandemic because Rachel Maddow and Elizabeth Warren and all the liberals were calling me dangerous and irresponsible and reckless.
I want people to read this book and to really understand why I made the decisions that I made. Why I believe in our Constitution, why I was so focused on trusting people, letting them use personal responsibility. It really is the way that our government was intended to function and it created an environment in South Dakota now that I believe is a testimony to the country.
Our state is bringing hope to people because we just proved that what we, as conservatives always believed that it works and all we need to do is now point to the consequences of what adhering to those principles, what those consequences are and what they can bring and the success that they that they yield for pursuing the American Dream for so many people across this country.
LEVIN: How and why did you get into politics? You explained it in the book.
NOEM: When I was young, going to college, my dad was killed in an accident. He was 49 years old at the time and it was tragic for our family. He was kind of Superman.
He worked all the time. Even when we were on vacation, it was hard work. But when we lost him, I ended up quitting college, coming home, taking over all the businesses. We had a very large operation at the time.
I remember just a few months after he passed away, I had all these people working for me. We were trying to figure out how to get a crop in the ground and get through calving season with our cattle herd. And I got a letter in the mail from the IRS that said we owe death taxes.
And I couldn't figure that out at the time. I was 22 years old, and could not see how a family could have a tragedy. And all the sudden, owe the federal government taxes on everything that that family owned and threatened to take away their family business. So, it made me angry.
I started to show up at meetings, got passionate about tax reform. If you remember back then, Mark, Tom Daschle was the US Senate Majority Leader and he was from South Dakota, and so I started going to all of his meetings and talking about the importance of tax reform.
So I had been raised by a dad that said you don't complain about things, you fix them. And that's really the only reason I got involved in government and politics. I decided I couldn't just complain about tax policy, I needed to show up and be one of those who was willing to help fix it.
LEVIN: And as a Governor, I'm sure you're looking over the horizon, and you're seeing so many of the problems that your citizens face and your state faces are as a result of the Federal government just the ability to run a farm and a ranch. The price of fertilizer is through the roof, which is harming farming, the price of tractors the price of everything is through the roof.
So from time to time, do you take a gaze over that horizon? Look at the Federal government and say somebody need to put their foot down against this administration?
NOEM: All the time. You know, I've lived with this for years. You know, there is something special about farmers. You know, they go to the bank, they borrow money, they go buy seed, fertilizer, and chemical. They put it in the dirt.
They hope it rains, and then a few months later, there'll be something there they can go pick up and sell and pay their bills. You could farm for 20 years, make a good living, you can have one bad one and lose everything.
I've been talking about our food policy for the last 15 to 20 years as a national security issue. I've watched as other countries that our enemies have come in and bought up our fertilizer companies, or chemical companies bought our processing systems. And now, they're buying land all across the United States of America.
They're not dummies. China is not just strengthening their military and stealing our IP and manipulating their currency. They're also buying up our food supply chain, and when they own it, they will control us. And that is imperative that this White House figure out that we need to continue to grow our own food, keep farmers out on the land and every one of their energy policies, every one of their regulations they put out cripples the ability of the United States of America to feed itself. And that that is one of our greatest national security threats that we have in the near future.
LEVIN: Kristi Noem, you're a breath of fresh air. Really, the book is great, "Not My First Rodeo: Lessons from the Heartland." And I hope everybody watching will get your book and learn a whole lot about you because I think you're a figure for the national scene, if you're not already. God bless you.
NOEM: Thank you. God bless you, too, Mark.
LEVIN: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: Welcome back, America.
We have our old buddy, Peter Schweizer with us. Nobody better when it comes to figuring out corruption.
Peter, President of the Government Accountability Institute. His great book, "Red Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win."
Peter, let's focus in on Communist China.
Communist China has muscled up their military to the point where they are a grave threat to the United States, not just in the South China Sea, but all over the world. And they seek to be the number one superpower, if not in the next five years, certainly by the next 10 years. I feel like we are unraveling under Joe Biden and his administration culturally, politically, militarily with the woke attitude that's being pushed into our military.
The fact that we can't get enough volunteers to serve in our military because the kind of men and women who want to serve in our military, they don't want to hear about pronouns and critical race theory and all the rest of it.
And then we see that Biden wants to surrender our trade situation with the Chinese that Trump put in place. We see that he has backed off in targeting Communist China for a monitoring when it comes to stealing our intelligence information.
All the wrong signals being sent by this administration. I fear Taiwan will be invaded and that we won't have an effective response. Isn't part of the problem that we have a Manchurian President?
PETER SCHWEIZER, PRESIDENT, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY INSTITUTE: Yes, it is.
I mean, Mark, you're exactly right. When it comes to China's intentions, they're open, they're clear about it. They want to supplant us as the world's major superpower. They believe that our political system, that our economic system needs to be replaced by their own and the battle lines are different than something we've ever seen before.
You are quite correct about the military challenge, but what's troubling about China is it is not just the military threat, it is the cultural threat that represents. Institutions like TikTok et cetera that are working to undermine American society and so the question is in face of that threat, Mark, what is our leadership doing?
We've talked before numerous times about the financial ties that the Biden family has with Beijing, China, that is absolutely a factor here. And what you see is basically a retreat with a thousand small steps.
You know, the Trump administration came in and said, hey, American institutional investors can't own shares of stock in companies that are linked to the Chinese military that are blacklisted.
The Biden administration comes in and says, no, that's okay. You can own those companies after all. As you talked about at the China initiative that's designed to clamp down on their theft of our technology to enhance their military. That initiative started under the Trump administration, the Biden administration has ended it.
Then you have the issue of general tariffs, tariffs on things like solar panels, the Biden administration is walking away from those tariffs and here is the stunning thing, Mark, all of these small steps, all of these concessions, there's not one thing that the Biden administration received in return for those concessions. They were absolute giveaways. They were absolute retreats. And it's an enormous problem, given the threat that we're facing from Beijing.
LEVIN: And this push by the Biden administration and his fanatics. This no growth green new deal climate change, so-called stuff. It's killing our energy industry. Nobody has fossil fuel like we have. We were energy independent under Trump and who does it empower at every level? The Communist Chinese.
Where do the solar panels come from? The batteries need material that can only be found in China and China allies. You take our fossil fuels off the table. We're not a superpower any longer.
Instead, we're wishing for air. You know, we're praying to the air gods and the sun gods and we're praying to the wind gods and whatever else we're praying to, without any real blueprint for reacting properly to this or transitioning property to this.
So it plays right into the hands of the Communist Chinese, doesn't it?
SCHWEIZER: Yes. Now this is a key point, Mark. What we are doing is we're moving from energy independence that the United States has had in recent years and we're moving to a point where we are going to be dependent on a foreign power for our energy.
I'm not talking about OPEC, it's worse than OPEC. It's Communist China. Eighty percent of the solar panels and solar technologies and wind technologies coming into the United States are coming from China, and what the Biden administration recently did, again, in a giveaway was get rid of tariffs that was helping the American solar industry try to compete, because the Chinese are dumping these technologies on the United States.
The Biden administration just got rid of those protections. We're going to be even more dependent on China for our energy needs, and so the question is, for those of us that, remember the 1970s, when the Arab Gulf States basically had a stranglehold on us, and we have the gas lines, what's it going to be like when Communist China continues to dominate and effectively control our access to our new energy sources? That's precisely what the Biden administration's green initiatives are doing.
I have no problem with some green initiatives, about more alternative energies. But why on earth would you get rid of tariffs that are helping our domestic renewable industry and hand it off to China is, is to me, a strategic failing on an enormous scale.
LEVIN: Solar panels and batteries. You need batteries for electric vehicles, the elements in a battery, many of them are not in the United States. They're not in our ground. They're not in our waters.
Many of them are in Africa, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and China. So China will have control over so much of our energy nerve centers, our electricity, our ability to transport, our ability to travel, to keep our homes warm, to keep our homes cool during the summer.
Why would we surrender this to the Communist Chinese when we are energy independent, or where? I mean, these are questions. Where are the Committees of Congress looking into this? Nobody, nothing.
We have Committees for everything. We have Committees on top of committees. But when it comes to the Biden crime family, we have absolutely nothing.
Where is the US Attorney investigation of this? I believe you told me at one point and I want to pursue this when we come back, Peter Schweizer, that the Biden's have received from China and other foreign governments or their foreign front corporations, over $30 million and that doesn't even create a curious interest by Nancy Pelosi or the Democrats for their tax returns -- they asked that from Trump -- or any kind of oversight hearing or special counsel.
They're worried about Donald Trump who is out of office, and they won't oversee Biden who's in office. So is the Democratic Party itself in on this corruption? That's my question to you when we return.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: Welcome back, America.
Well, the Communist Chinese, Peter Schweizer must feel they own a lot of our politicians, not just Democrats, but Republicans. They must feel pretty good about what they've done in building up their military, they must feel pretty good that Joe Biden is incapable of confronting them.
First of all, are the Democrats writ large part of the problem here, because they haven't held any oversight hearings involving the Biden's and secondly, the Communist Chinese must not feel really threatened by Joe Biden because now, they're dictating who can and cannot -- or they think they can -- visit Taiwan.
SCHWEIZER: The bottom line is that our political class and this administration basically have capitulated in the face of Beijing, not only in terms of the overall competition, but the demands that they make, this idea that the US Speaker of the House wants to visit Taiwan and they're going to threaten this administration militarily, and that our administration effectively is saying, hey, we don't think a trip like this would be a good idea, sets a terrible precedent.
By the way, I don't expect you would see the Chinese doing this if Ronald Reagan were in the White House or of John F. Kennedy were in the White House. They see weakness, they smell weakness, they also know that they have this commercial tie.
LEVIN: Or Donald Trump.
SCHWEIZER: Or Donald Trump. They know that they have this commercial tie with the Biden family, and it gives them leverage. And let's remember, by the way that we were talking about this competition over things like minerals in the developing world for electric vehicles, let's remember that the President's own son, Hunter Biden, was connected to an investment firm controlled by the Chinese government, where he was on the Board, and they actually were acquiring mineral assets in Africa that were being taken away from Western mineral companies.
So it's not just a question of turning a blind eye to what China is doing. You're effectively aiding and abetting what Beijing is doing in their competition with us. That's the state of play that we have in America today.
So no question. Beijing is emboldened. And frankly, they have reason to be.
LEVIN: Speaking of Hunter Biden, don't you question how this investigation is so limited? It's a US Attorney's Office in Delaware and that office probably doesn't even have the resources to conduct the kind of worldwide investigation that is necessary when it comes to Hunter Biden.
They have a Public Integrity Section in the Criminal Division, which has enormous resources. They have the main Justice Department that has enormous resources. They could have taken over this case, they could have lent resources to Delaware.
It seems like they're dragging their feet, and then we learned from Senator Grassley that he has whistleblowers coming to him out of the FBI saying they've been trying to cover up the laptop and everything else.
SCHWEIZER: Yes, of course, the FBI is supposed to investigate crimes, not effectively cover them up. And I think you're quite right. To have a US Attorney, however effective he may be investigate what is a global financial criminal enterprise is simply a mismatch or an overmatch.
I've said from the beginning that we needed to have an independent counsel, you cannot trust the Justice Department whose senior officials are appointed by the President to actually investigate the President's family, you need to have an independent counsel, not only to look into the criminal allegations here and what I think are actual crimes, Mark, but the American public needs to have a reporting. They need to have an accounting of what was uncovered.
If there is something that maybe the statute of limitations had passed on, the American public still needs to know the financial entanglements of the First Family with our chief rival on the global stage, which is Beijing, and you're not going to get that simply with a grand jury or with a Department of Justice investigation.
So this is a grave miscarriage. I still have hopes that the grand jury is going to lead to some indictments of Hunter Biden, but you're quite right. It is narrow cast, they are focusing on very specific issues, rather than the broader question of, is this family compromised? And the fact that they received some $31 million from four Chinese businessman with direct links to the highest levels of Chinese Intelligence tells you all you need to know about the need for this to be investigated by an independent counsel.
LEVIN: You know, Peter Schweizer, I'm waiting for the editorials and the commentators to say of Joe Biden and his family, not that he's just too old and he is not with it, but by character -- by character, he's not fit to be President of the United States.
When you look at his financial dealings and that of his family, it is sleazy as hell; that by character, he's not fit to be President of the United States.
Peter Schweizer, thank you for everything you do and God bless.
SCHWEIZER: Thanks Mark.
LEVIN: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: Welcome back.
I have a question for the Attorney General of the United States and US Attorney Graves in Washington: Why didn't you investigate or prosecute Chuck Schumer for violating 18 United States Code Section 1503 when he threatened two Supreme Court justices in the light of day?
I have a question for the same two officials: Why haven't you prosecuted a single person for violating 18 United States Code Section 1507, picketing or parading at the homes of Justices of the Supreme Court?
Why is that? Why is it US Attorney and Attorney General of the United States that you let the Colbert 9 go despite they were parading and trespassing illegally -- illegally in the Capitol Building -- literally two offices, the Cannon Building and the Longworth House Office Building. Why is that? Especially when the US Capitol Police Chief is furious about your pass on this.
And I also have a question for Judge Tanya Chutkan. Why did you give a five-year sentence to a man in Washington, DC, African-American who assaulted three police officers on January 6th, and by the way, I agree with you giving him a five-year sentence, but on the other hand, when a young man, African-American was strangling an African-American police officer and attacking two other police officers in the subway in the New York, why was he let out and 24 hours?
One gets five years, one gets 24 hours? Parading and trespassing is okay if you're from Hollywood, but not if you're from Peoria; protesting his hometown public grounds, but not if you are parents.
You people are corrupt as hell.
I'll see you next time on LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN.
END
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