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May 23, 2006

Special Report Roundtable - May 23

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DENNIS HASTERT, (R) IL: We want to make sure that we take care of the constitutional prerogatives of the House. We will continue to work on that. At the same time, we understand that they want to -- it's important to pursue the process that the Justice Department is trying to pursue. But there is a way to do it and my opinion is that they took the wrong path.

ALBERTO GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the Department of Justice is doing its job in investigating criminal wrongdoing. And we have an obligation to the American people to pursue the evidence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: So what are both those men talking about? They are talking about the FBI search over the weekend pursuant to an order signed by a judge here in Washington to search the offices of Democratic Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana. This after the FBI had said in court filings that it had found, among other things in its investigation of Jefferson, wads of cash wrapped in tin foil inside food containers in his home freezer.

Some analytical observations now from Fred Barnes, executive editor of "The Weekly Standard." Mort Kondracke, executive editor of "Roll Call" and Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio, Fox News contributors all.

So Mara, what are the nature of these objections, these constitutional objections that you're hearing, Jefferson is a Democrat, of course, the objections come most noisily from Republicans.

MARA LIASSON, NPR: There is bipartisan agreement. This is kind of an interesting twist to this story because right now you have this bipartisan agreement that the Justice Department overstepped its bounds, that this is a separation in powers issue. And both the minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Dennis Hastert are as one on this.

The thing that's interesting on it is this search of Jefferson's office is a distraction for the Republicans. It's a distraction from the gift that Jefferson gives them which to say, ah, Democrats have corruption issues too. And hey want to get back to the story of how Republicans are the only ones corrupt.

HUME: Something about the cash in the tin foil in the freezer. You kind of can't get through describing this - They may be objecting but it's the cash in the tin foil in the freezer.

LIASSON: Nancy Pelosi a long time made it clear that the democratic party was going to pretty much cut Jefferson loose and she doesn't have good relations with him and she certainly has never defended him and she wished, of course, the Democrats would rather have this not happening because they would like the only people to be in trouble the Republicans but Jefferson is in a heap of trouble.

MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": On the constitutional this is the first time in American history so far as anybody can determine that the police have raided a congressional office looking after criminal evidence. There have been lots of scoundrels in the Congress of the United States over 200 years who have been put in jail for taking bribes and doing other stuff without the FBI having to raid the offices. So the question is why did the -- why did the Justice Department have to do it in this case?

HUME: You heard what Gonzales said.

KONDRACKE: Gonzales said there were unusual circumstances.

HUME: He also said they used to be able to -- they previously have always been able to do it by subpoena and they couldn't in this case. And wouldn't exactly explain why.

KONDRACKE: Jefferson has not -- this stuff has been under subpoena and Jefferson has not complied with the subpoena. That's the instant reason. But, they have got so much else.

LIASSON: The cash in the freezer wasn't in his office.

KONDRACKE: They have got $90,000 in the freezer. They have got -- allegedly anyway. They've got videotapes and audiotapes and confessions from other people. I mean, I don't know why they have to get this evidence to put him away.

HUME: What's the constitutional argument? Does it hold water in your judgment, Mort?

KONDRACKE: Look, Richard Nixon claimed that executive privilege gave him the authority not to give over documents connected with his -- the prosecution of Watergate. The Supreme Court when it got to the Supreme Court said no have you got to hand it over. I think in this case if the Supreme Court gets it they will probably say they have got to hand it over.

HUME: Fred?

FRED BARNES, "WEEKLY STANDARD": Richard Nixon. I didn't think this had anything to do with Richard Nixon.

HUME: It was constitutional precedent.

BARNES: It has a lot to do with Roger Jefferson. Remember him, the senator from Iowa? Sure, he was driving into Washington one day from Northern Virginia where he lived in the HOV lane but he was only one person in the car. He was the driver. He was stopped by the police I have immunity because of the speech and debate clause in the Constitution.

HUME: Because he was on his way, he said to do his official duties.

BARNES: He was on his way to do official duties. Well, the police didn't buy that and they shouldn't have. And the notion this is some major constitutional issue, I think it has anything to do with the separation of powers is utterly ridiculous. It has nothing do with that. This has nothing to do with Congressman Jefferson's legislative duties whatsoever. They were going there to look, investigating a crime where they already had a lot of evidence and were obviously looking for more. He is not protected by the speech and debate clause.

What if you have had a congressman who was keeping large quantities of cocaine in his office? Does that mean that if investigators at the Justice Department heard about it they couldn't raid that office? Of course they could. This is entirely legal. And I am giving the Justice Department the benefit of the doubt. I think it was probably necessary for their investigation.

KONDRACKE: James Traficant tried to claim the speech and debate clause as a defense. And that was also .

HUME: Say who he was -- Who is he?

KONDRACKE: Congressman from Ohio famously corrupt and is he in jail now I believe. Anyway, the question here is you have got the FBI by itself determining.

HUME: No, no, no. A court warrant.

KONDRACKE: They had a court warrant but they are sorting out which materials in Jefferson's office are criminal afternoon which are legislative materials without any -- you know, without any specific determination. What I suspect is going to happen is that Jefferson is going to claim that some of these materials should be excluded from the trial because of speech and debate. And then it will go higher up in the court.

HUME: Question for each of you very quickly, will this case ever get to trial? Mara?

LIASSON: I think so.

KONDRACKE: I think he will plead guilty.

HUME: Fred?

BARNES: Plead and quit Congress.

HUME: Do you think he might plead?

LIASSON: Yeah, OK.

HUME: You were thinking whether it might be enough to get to trial.

LIASSON: Yeah.

HUME: We are unanimous here. You heard it here first. Won't make it to trial. When we come back with our panel talk about Al Gore and the possibility of his political renaissance. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: I am Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States of America.

The Arctic is experiencing faster melting. If this were to go sea level worldwide would go up 25 feet.

This is what would happen in Florida. Around Shanghai, home to 40 million people. The area around Calcutta, 60 million. Here is Manhattan. The World Trade Center Memorial would be under water.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: That is a piece of Al Gore's new movie called "An Inconvenient Truth" and it is playing to considerable praise in some quarters raising the question anew is Al Gore on the right track in his arguments about global warming. That's point A. Point B is Al Gore about to make a major political comeback. Well, panel, what do you think? Mara?

LIASSON: Let's see, I guess I would say yes and no. I don't think he is about to make a major political comeback in the sense is he going to run for president which of course is the question that follows him around in all of these screenings and what you saw there he does a slide show, very high tech sophisticated slide show that this movie is a documentary about.

But I do think that he has found an issue that seems to be gaining a lot of traction. He has been talking about it for many, many years, decades, even. And today when the president of the United States was asked whether he was going to see the movie, he said he doubted it but he basically, immediately launched into a discussion of how his energy plans, his energy policy will deal with the greenhouse gas issue and you have to put aside whether or not the greenhouse gases have been caused by mankind or natural effects but to focus on the technologies that will protect the environment from it.

Now, if George W. Bush is agreeing with Al Gore at least on some of what he is saying I think that says that Al Gore has hit on an important issue.

KONDRACKE: President Bush's position was in the beginning that greenhouse, that global warming was not a problem or at least that mankind was not responsible for it. Now the administration official position is that it is a fact and that mankind is contributing to the problem. The question then is what to do about it. And Al Gore's traditional position has been basically to close down the industrial economies of the West by eliminating or by whacking back on emission of carbon or uses of carbon fuels.

Which would cause mass unemployment and deprive the Third World of development and all that kind of stuff.

There is an alternative which presumably would be technology which seems to be what Bush is talking about now and Gore has talked about in the past. And then there is the possibility, too, of, you know, building dikes around Manhattan Island if that's the case.

But I think the international consensus and even in among conservatives except for certain people like Senator Inhofe claims this is the biggest hoax ever perpetrator on the world. Even a lot of conservatives and even evangelicals are now coming around, conservative evangelicals are coming around to say it's a real problem and it's even a spiritual problem, moral problem.

BARNES: They should know, huh, Mort?

HUME: Mort your BELTWAY BOYS partner is very big on building the dikes around Manhattan. Right, Fred?

BARNES: You notice the key word at the beginning of what Al Gore said, you know what that word was? If? If. And, look, there is an hysterical position on global warming and then there is reasonable position. The hysterical position is to say that sea levels based on some glaciers in some places melting based on that sea level is going to rise 20 feet. That's hysterical.

Look, they are melting in some places. It's getting colder in Greenland. Look at Alaska where the glaciers are. It was warmer earlier in the century, the 20th century, then it got colder, now it's gotten a little warmer again.

Problem is the people like Al Gore exaggerate wildly and draw these conclusions that are just not substantiated by any evidence. I don't care what President Bush says. It's not known for certain or anywhere near certain whether the small increase in temperature over the last 100 years is caused by man or not. It's just simply not known.

If you go back and these hysterical projections are based on computer models which basically don't work if you use those -- the computer models and go back to the data at the beginning of the last century it predicts much more global warming than actually happened, more than double the amount that actually happened. So, look, the question is whether you are going to take a reasonable approach and say it's gone up a little we have to do some things or being hysterical about it like Al Gore.

LIASSON: Look, I think there is a consensus forming when you have the president of the United States give a state of the union address we are addicted to foreign oil, former oil man, I think that things are changing.

BARNES: For strategic reasons said .

LIASSON: You don't think he really believes it?

KONDRACKE: On the issue of Gore, and his politics, I think the answer is that he will be back.

BARNES: Yeah. I agree.

HUME: For the presidency?

KONDRACKE: Yeah, indeed.

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