REPORT-WI-01
Face of the U.S. Military; Cleveland Officials Announce Trump Supporters
Cannot Monitor Voting; Presidential Campaigns Reach out to African-American
Voters; One House Seat in Texas is Competitive; Presidential Candidates
Campaign in Battleground States - Part 1>
Emanuel, Mike Tobin, Peter Doocy, Casey Stegall>
Government; Race Relations; Congress; Polls; Elections>
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS HOST: This is a Fox News alert. I'm Bret Baier in Washington.
Breaking news tonight, two separate sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI investigations into the Clinton emails and the Clinton Foundation tell Fox the following.
The investigation into the Clinton Foundation looking into possible pay for play interaction between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the foundation has been going on for more than a year led by the white collar crime division, public corruption branch of the criminal investigative division of the FBI.
The Clinton Foundation investigation is a quote "very high priority". Agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people about the foundation case and even before the WikiLeaks dumps, these sources said agents had collected a great deal of evidence. Pressed on that, one source said quote, "a lot of it". And there's an avalanche of new information coming in every day -- some of it from WikiLeaks, some from new emails.
The agents are actively and aggressively pursuing this case. And they will be going back and interviewing the same people again -- some for the third time. As a result of the limited immunity deals to a number of top aides including Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, the Justice Department had tentatively agreed that the FBI would destroy those laptops after a narrow review.
We are told definitively that has not happened. And those devices are currently in the FBI field office here in Washington, D.C. and are being exploited. The source points out any immunity deal is null and void if any subject has lied at any point in the investigation.
Meantime the classified email investigation is being run by the national security division of the FBI. They are currently combing through former Democratic congressman, Anthony Weiner's laptop and have found emails that they believe came from Hillary Clinton's server that also appear to be new as in not duplicates. Whether they contain classified material or not is not yet known but will likely be known soon.
All of this just as we move inside one week until Election Day in what has become a presidential election unlike any other.
New state polls out tonight show movement. Donald Trump has flipped Nevada from Clinton's column to his own. He is expanding his lead in Ohio, Arizona, Georgia and Missouri. He is narrowing the gap in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Tonight both candidates are operating on overdrive, coming up with various scenarios to a path to 270 electoral votes.
We begin tonight though with the President's first public comments on the email scandal since the FBI's shocking decision last week to resurrect its investigation.
Chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge starts us off.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have made a very deliberate effort to make sure that I don't look like I'm meddling in what are supposed to be independent processes.
CATHERINE HERRIDGE, FOX NEWS CHIEF INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: But in a new interview, President Obama seemed to dismiss FBI Director James Comey's decision to reinitiate the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
OBAMA: People say crazy stuff about her. And when she makes a mistake -- an honest mistake -- it ends up being blown up as if it's just some crazy thing.
HERRIDGE: But this is not the first time Mr. Obama has seemed to put his thumb on the scale. In a 2015 interview with "60 Minutes", the President downplayed the discovery of classified emails on Clinton's unsecured personal server she used as secretary of state.
OBAMA: I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America's national security was endangered.
HERRIDGE: But the President has a stake in the outcome as the State Department revealed earlier this year he corresponded with Clinton using her personal email address.
JOHN KIRBY, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: I can confirm that 18 emails comprised of eight distinct email chains between former Secretary Clinton and President Obama are being withheld in full.
HERRIDGE: In her April FBI interview, Clinton aide, Huma Abedin told agents that she notified the White House when Clinton changed her email address so the President's high-security Blackberry would not block the emails. The President used an alias for these communications.
As FBI agents sift through a reported 650,000 emails found on a home computer used by Anthony Weiner and Abedin, his estranged wife, the White House dismissed questions the President's emails could be uncovered.
JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: If the public reports are true, nobody knows what's on that computer. And I'm not going to speculate about what may or may not be there.
HERRIDGE: The discovery of sensitive records on Weiner's computer could create real legal jeopardy for Abedin who signed a State Department separation agreement promising to return classified information or face criminal charges.
Five members of Clinton's team received limited immunity agreements. For lawyers Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, the Justice Department swapped access to their computers and in return promised to destroy them. With new confirmation the FBI is pursuing the Clinton Foundation experts said the deal showed bad judgment.
EDWARD MACMAHON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: They potentially lost the ability to gauge what it is that's on the new computer as opposed to what was on the old computer if they're going to try to show that somebody withheld information from them. It may be impossible to prove.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HERRIDGE: And while we have been on the air this evening, we have just heard from the FBI who has said they will have no comment on Bret Baier's new information about the intensification of the investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
It's worth noting that when Fox first reported in January that the mishandling of classified information probe had expanded to include public corruption and the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton dismissed it as a scurrilous rumor with no basis -- Bret.
BAIER: We will follow it. There's a lot there.
HERRIDGE: Yes.
BAIER: Catherine -- thank you.
HERRIDGE: You bet.
Now to another story about bad optics and the Clintons -- it originates in the latest document dump from WikiLeaks and it involves what many would consider a huge conflict of interest between the Obama administration and its designated successor.
Chief national correspondent Ed Henry takes a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED HENRY, FOX NEWS CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A top Justice Department official involved with overseeing the investigation of Huma Abedin is a bigger pen pal with John Podesta than first known.
A new email raises conflict of interest questions because it shows Peter Kadzik gave Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman a heads up about her email problem in May 2015. Quote, "oversight hearing today where the head of our civil division will testify. Likely to get questions on State Department emails," Kadzik wrote Podesta. "Another filing in the FOIA case went in last night or will go in this a.m. that indicates it will be a wild 2016 before the State Department posts the emails."
The tip about Clinton's email production to the public slowing down was sent from his Kadzik Gmail instead of his Justice Department which would have been a public record. Now out because of WikiLeaks, which earlier revealed Podesta praising Kadzik, a college buddy, for representing him in Kenneth Starr's probe, writing, in 2008, "Fantastic lawyer, kept me out of jail."
Also out today an email with more evidence Clinton's own aides had deep concerns about pay to play allegations at the Clinton Foundation when she released personal tax returns in 2015. Spokesman Brian Fallon emailed colleagues that reporters would dig into quote, "overlap between paid speech hosts and campaign and foundation donors that could fuel pay to play story lines". Fallon added they could be vulnerable over Bill Clinton's consulting, especially the one with Laureate, a for-profit college that gave the former president nearly $18 million over five years to be an honorary chancellor.
Another email offers a window into major donors to the foundation who may want to collect favors if Hillary Clinton is elected. Even though the Clinton camp has been slamming former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort for ties to Ukraine that have gotten scrutiny by the FBI, Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk gave over $8 million to the Clinton Foundation and last year was relentlessly demanding to meet with Bill Clinton one on one or with other Western leaders to show pushback against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A foundation official writing, "I get the impression that although I keep saying WJC cares about Ukraine, Pinchuk feels like WJC hasn't taken enough action. I sense this is so important because Pinchuk is under Putin's heel."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HERRIDGE: Now Podesta nixed that meeting perhaps because the Clintons were sensitive about negative press involving donors. As for Kadzik, Justice officials note he sent Podesta public info and even Republican Trey Gowdy today is saying that as head of congressional affairs Kadzik is not a decision maker in the Abedin probe -- Bret.
BAIER: Ed -- thank you.
Let's get more on all of this now from Andrew McCarthy, former Justice Department attorney whose commentary in the "National Review" makes some serious allegations. He joins us tonight from New York. Thanks for being here.
ANDREW MCCARTHY, FORMER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ATTORNEY: My pleasure.
BAIER: First, you listened to that breaking news at the top of the hour -- your thoughts on all of this as it comes together.
MCCARTHY: Well the thing that stuck out to me most, Bret, was it seems to me like the Justice Department may be in connection with this fellow Kadzik setting up an argument that if you email from your personal address, arguably after hours, that that's not a government record. If that's going to be their new position on this, that is quite a substantial change in what we thought were the facts of the Clinton emails case.
With respect to the other new disclosures, I think it shouldn't be surprising to us that the Clinton Foundation has been the subject of investigation. It's a little surprising that it kind of emerged so suddenly in that "Wall Street Journal" report earlier this week.
But I do think it's -- you are always potentially making a mistake when you take an investigation that ought to be looked at all as one and disaggregate it. And the FBI has obviously done that in connection with, you know, putting the white collar stuff in one box and the classified information stuff in another box.
That's often a way that things that ought to be looked at closely fall through the cracks. So I'm glad to see they're doing it. I wish they were looking at it as one unitary whole.
BAIER: You charge in this column that the Justice Department appears to be holding back, getting in the way. I talked to Attorney General Loretta Lynch back at the end of February. Here is what she said back then.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: Who is the ultimate decider at the DOJ?
LORETTA LYNCH, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: It depends how the matter comes together.
BAIER: But the decider of whether to go forward is you, right?
LYNCH: Well, we will see what evidence develops and what facts develop and we will follow those to their natural conclusion.
BAIER: Does it concern you though that there is this perception that your Justice Department may in the end cut Secretary Clinton a break or do her a favor?
LYNCH: No. I think that with every case we handle it in the same way, whether someone has an interest in a case because it's interesting in the headlines or because they are personally involved in it.
BAIER: Bottom line, is there any double standard here?
LYNCH: There's no double standard in this or any other matter being handled by the Department of Justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: Andrew -- because the Attorney General met with former President Bill Clinton on that tarmac in Arizona, you say that took her out of the equation but didn't stop her, according to your column, from standing or trying to in the way of the Clinton Foundation investigation.
MCCARTHY: I don't see how that is disputable. I mean, as far as her meeting with former President Clinton is concerned, she herself said it was a mistake and kind of quasi-recused herself from it and actually deferred to the FBI director on the ultimate decision, which never happens in any other investigation.
So, you know, for her to say there's no double standard in this case and it's being handled the same way, even if we didn't have all these crazy immunity deals where the grand jury doesn't get impaneled and you give immunity in order to get evidence that you can usually compel, which also never happens in any other case, I would say that meeting was highly unusual.
But we're also seeing now that these wacky immunity deals that they gave were used, according to the "Wall Street Journal" report, to deny the agents investigating the Clinton Foundation case access to what was on the laptops of Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson.
And I simply point out that somehow that case seems to have gotten before prosecutors in the eastern district of New York, which just happens to be the district office that Loretta Lynch was the U.S. attorney in for six years before she was elevated to Attorney General by President Obama.
BAIER: Yes.
MCCARTHY: It also happens to be the office in which she came to national prominence because she was named U.S. Attorney in 1999 by President Bill Clinton, the same guy she was meeting with on the tarmac.
BAIER: Right. The immunity deal in part -- the limited immunity deal had a structure in it in which those laptops were said to be destroyed. Part of the news at the top was that they are not. They have not been and they are here at the FBI office --
MCCARTHY: Right.
BAIER: -- and are being exploited. We will see if that deals with the foundation or not.
Finally, very quickly, your thoughts on the President weighing in again today on the email situation after in October of last year what he said about it not being a national security threat.
MCCARTHY: Well, you know, I must say Bret, I think if I were the President and I had communicated with Mrs. Clinton some 18 times using an alias over a non-secure email system and then looked the American people in the eye and said that I didn't even know that she had private email or that she used private email, I would really stop talking about this case.
BAIER: Andrew McCarthy -- thank you, sir.
MCCARTHY: Thank you.
Like any successful businessman, Donald Trump is trying to close the deal on his own terms. Trump is hammering Hillary Clinton relentlessly over her multiple scandals. While Clinton is just -- is hoping and praying to run out the clock and stop him from making inroads in blue states across the country.
We have Fox team coverage tonight. Mike Emanuel is with Clinton team in Tempe, Arizona -- a red state where some feel the nominee is making a strategic error today. But we begin with chief political correspondent Carl Cameron with the Trump campaign in Orlando. Good evening -- Carl.
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi -- Bret.
For the last several days, slow and steady Trump has been rising in the polls. Now he is locked in and trying to push Clinton down in them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAMERON: At a mid-day rally in Miami, Donald Trump seized on new WikiLeaks emails to accuse the Justice Department of leaking information from the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email scandal to her campaign chairman John Podesta.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Assistant attorney general Peter Kadzik is a close associate of John Podesta. Kadzik was feeding information about the investigation into the Clinton campaign. Podesta forwarded the emails to Clinton's top staff and said additional chances for mischief.
CAMERON: On the day the email scandal broke, a separate WikiLeaks Podesta email warned another Clinton insider they email should be quote "dumped as soon as possible".
TRUMP: They say having a dump -- we're having a dump of all of those emails.
CAMERON: The Clinton camp argues Podesta was short-handing for a document dump to the press. Trump calls it another cover up attempt and in Orlando, alleged a broad conspiracy.
TRUMP: It's been shown that a rigged system with more collusion possibly illegal between the Department of Justice, the Clinton campaign and the State Department.
CAMERON: Clinton is holding a 1.9-point lead in an average of national polls. The GOP's standard bearer has laid out his victory path choosing 13 battleground states in some of which he trails, for a final $25 million blitz of new ads.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Clintons, from dead broke to worth hundreds of millions. So how did Hillary end up filthy rich? Pay to play politics.
CAMERON: Trump knows he must win Florida. With six days left, he is up an average of seven-tenths of a point in recent polls.
In Pennsylvania, where Clinton had a ten-point lead in October Monmouth poll, Trump is now statistically tied, down four points within the margin of error. Trump's called the polls rigged when he's trail. Now that it's close, he does not want supporters relaxing.
TRUMP: The polls are all saying we're going to win Florida. Don't believe it. Don't believe it. Get out there and vote. Pretend we're slightly behind. You've got to get out. We don't want to blow this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMERON: for the last couple of days, Clinton has been escalating her attacks on Donald Trump's character. Today he said she's become unhinged. Tonight he's got a rally in Pensacola, Florida. Tomorrow it's Florida, North Carolina as well as Pennsylvania -- Bret.
BAIER: Carl Cameron, live with the Trump campaign. Carl-- thanks.
There are some political experts who feel Hillary Clinton's trip out west with just six precious days remaining before Election Day is a mistake. Senior political correspondent Mike Emanuel tells us why from Tempe, Arizona.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE EMANUEL, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: With polls tightening in many battleground states, Hillary Clinton is gambling less than a week before Election Day on turning traditionally red Arizona blue. Late today her surrogate in chief was protecting her flank in critical North Carolina.
OBAMA: If Hillary wins North Carolina, she wins. That means that when I said the fate of the republic rests on you, I wasn't joking.
EMANUEL: Clinton's trip west was announced when her campaign was riding high last week when aides were talking about trying to blow out Donald Trump and working on down ballot races. Still Clinton is defiant.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I am sick and tired of the negative, dark, divisive, dangerous vision and behavior of people who support Donald Trump.
EMANUEL: But now the FBI re-examining whether she and her aides handled classified information through unsecured emails and the daily drip of emails from WikiLeaks, Clinton has paid a political price. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll reveals only 38 percent of likely voters see Clinton as honest and trustworthy, down from 45 percent and 67 percent of Independents disapprove of Clinton's handling of questions on the email issue. Even 29 percent of Democrats in that survey respond negatively to her handling of the email matter.
In Tampa, Vice President Biden defended her.
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know some of the people listening are mad at Hillary. Let me tell you something about Hillary. Hillary has devoted her life to making sure women and children have an even shot.
EMANUEL: As for Arizona, the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls reveals Trump with a three-point edge over Clinton, 46.5 to 43.5 when you factor in the third party candidates. When it was closer, the Clinton team saw it as a place to put Trump on defense in the final days of the campaign.
Now Clinton is running new ads timed with his visit to Nevada and Arizona to make a closing argument to Latino voters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 27 million are ready to put up a fight and not be intimidated by hatred and spite.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
EMANUEL: The timing of this trip is awkward as open enrollment for Obamacare is now under way. And consumers here in Arizona are facing skyrocketing premiums and fewer choices, in some cases only one option to purchase insurance -- Bret.
BAIER: Mike -- thank you.
Up next, we begin a new series on the state of the U.S. military almost eight years after the Obama presidency came into office.
First here is what some of our Fox affiliates across the country are covering tonight.
Fox 17 in Des Moines, Iowa as police arrest a suspect in connection with the ambush deaths of two area police officers overnight. They say 46-year- old Scott Michael Greene has a history of confrontation with police and others. Late this afternoon, the President released a statement calling the attacks quote, "shameful acts of violence".
Fox 29 in Philadelphia as defense lawyers for Bill Cosby asked a judge to dismiss charges against the actor and comedian. They contend the charges are political in nature. Cosby has been accused of sexual assault by a number of young women.
And this is a live look at Progressive Field in Cleveland. The big story for Fox 8 there tonight, game seven of the World Series. The Cleveland Indians, a team that has not won a Fall Classic since 1948, host the Chicago Cubs, a team that has not won the World Series since 1908.
Coverage on the Fox broadcast network begins with pre-game show 7:00 p.m. Eastern time. That should be a doozy.
That's tonight's live look outside the Beltway from SPECIAL REPORT.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BAIER: Over the next five nights, we will bring you a series of reports, "How We Fight". Of all the duties our new president will have, none is higher than commander in chief. Given that and with Election Day less than a week away, we decided to take stock of America's Armed Forces -- how they're being deployed, how they have transformed in the past several years and what challenges they will face in the future.
In tonight's report, we look at how the world is changing and how the American military is responding to that change or is it the other way around? As our military has changed in the last few years, has the world revised its attitude toward us?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BAIER: On January 12, ten American sailors were captured by Iran's Revolutionary Guard after mistakenly entering Iranian waters. This video was later released showing them held at gun point, kneeling before their captors and apologizing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a mistake. That was our fault.
BAIER: Not so long ago, the world might have awaited a response from an outraged America -- likely fast and furious. Instead, the U.S. Secretary of State was soon sounding grateful to Iran.
JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I also want to thank the Iranian authorities for their cooperation and quick response.
BAIER: The entire episode seemed to point to a new world that's been emerging these past several years and a new military.
GEN. JOHN KELLY (RET), MARINE CORPS: At other times in the past, I don't believe the Iranians would have dared to have taken our troops and to treat them like that. I don't think they would have dared do that.
BAIER: Four-star General John Kelly recently retired after a 45-year career with the Marine Corps.
KELLY: For those people that determined that want to be our enemy, they should be afraid. I don't believe some of the countries are afraid of us.
BAIER: In this new world, along with America responding differently, certain countries seem to be prepared to be more aggressive.
GEN. MARK MILLEY, ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF: We're talking about great power war with one or two of four countries. You are talking about China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. I have grave concerns in terms of the readiness of our army forces to deal with that in a timely manner.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Weapons uncovered.
BAIER: What do you make of Iran's challenges to our ships in the Persian Gulf, the Russian buzzing of our vessels, the buildup in the South China Sea? It seems like these are bold actions or provocative actions.
RAY MABUS, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY: The Iranian buzzing and the small boats, the Russian low flyovers and things -- number one, unprofessional; number two, unsafe. We hope that we can deconflict these things but it's not going to keep us from doing everything we need to do to fulfill our mission.
BAIER: Ray Mabus, former Democrat governor of Mississippi has been secretary of the navy since 2009.
MABUS: The rise of Russia, the rise of China and particularly in the South China Sea, ISIS -- things that you don't, can't know what's going to happen.
BAIER: Secretary Mabus notes that the Navy has been ramping up ship building. Another sign of increased military response, since 2014 the Obama administration has been returning troops to Iraq, officially in advisory and support roles.
How many more troops can Americans at home expect to be going to Iraq?
ASHTON CARTER, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: If more is required and I'm sure there will be additional authorities and additional capabilities that will be required -- I will let our commander see opportunities to do that.
JAMES WOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: We have undertaken some military operations but the difference between war and fiddling around is that if you are at war, you better plan to win.
BAIER: James Wolsey who served as President Bill Clinton's CIA director thinks what we're doing simply isn't enough.
WOLSEY: The Obama administration, do a bit; and that is the recipe for losing in war. If you want to be respected, every once in a while when the circumstances are such that you really need to use it, you use the stick and you use it decisively.
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: In responding to these situations, American leadership is imperative. It's indispensable. There's no substitute for it.
BAIER: General David Petraeus former CentCom commander and CIA director would like to see more decisive action taken in Syria.
PETRAEUS: I have long advocated a safe zone be the no-fly zone. We just ground Bashar al-Assad's air force and just crater all runways. We tell the Russians that if you bomb our guys, the ones that we are supporting on the ground, the opposition, we're going to have to bomb your guys, Bashar al-Assad's regime forces.
BAIER: What's your sense of what has happened to the U.S. military in recent years?