Besos in writing . I have the letter. Ill read it for you. Friday adjacent. What do you say . Lets get after it. All right. So this comes directly from the office of the special counsel. They say that Paul Manaforts 2016 meeting while he was Campaign Chair with an alleged russian operative named constantine kilimnik. They say its not a throw away. Its not a detail. Its at the heart of their investigation. And there is new evidence emerging tonight. Muellers team says it has proof that the president s former chair continued doing work related to ukraine in 2018 after he was indicted. Think about that. He continued to keep in touch with kilimnik and discuss ukrainian politics through last year. Ukrainian politics means russian politics because that was the context of the discussion. How to do things through ukraine that would be good for russia. Where does this come from . A transcript of a closed door hearing on monday. The big question, did the president know about the manafort meetings . Thats what democrats want to know, so does mueller. All right. Lets bring in one of the president s top defenders in congress. Judiciary Committee Member matt gates. Always good to have you on primetime. Thanks for having me chris. Do you share the concern about the manafort meetings . Why he was doing this and why he would lie about it and whether the president knew . A little early for us to tell. We need to see what the special counsel is able to produce in terms of evidence, but as you know, theres a lot of foreign agents that interact with candidates and campaigns and a lot of those were making donations to the clinton foundation. Its part of washington. Its an ugly part of washington and i think that we look forward to testing the evidence thats presented by the special counsel and whatever proceeding is available just like you like to test peoples assertions on your show. I have a question about what you just said, but do you agree that whatever that special counsel puts out should be delivered to the American People in the majority of substance . I do, chris. Im a transparency guy. And frankly i think its silly to suggest that this wouldnt be leaked anyway. Most of the information we dont want it leaked. I have no problem with that. Its a silly fight to be arguing about whether or not the full context of the Mueller Report is going to be made available. I believe you let everybody hash it out. But you know what william barr says. He said to at least one democrat, i dont know, the law may kind of handcuff me a little bit in terms of what i can do. Thats not what he said at his nomination hearing. He said thats my priority is to get it to the American People. Theres some stuff i may have to do. Seems like a reversal . Should we be worried . Theres always exemptions to the law but what youre talking about is whether or not theres going to be any evidence or any conclusions of law or fact that the special counsel comes to that would be hidden from the American People and regardless of what mr. Barr says i am just not someone that believes that you ever enrich the discussion by shielding information. Thats good to hear. Now, one of the counters that you used in there, the deal that became known, they looked at it and they wound up running it down and leaving it alone. We dont have any of that certainty. Thats not true. You had a whole look at it. Thats not true. Youre saying things that arent accurate. The Little Rock Field Office that the fbi right now has the case. Its an on going investigation and theyre analyzing it. So for you to say we have almost two years. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has had his investigation for about the same amount of time. And tons of people indicted and all of this information without him right but those indicts largely are ghost inindictmedicf russians that arent appearing. If she showed up and utilized our criminal process for discovery that would be de devastating for our Counter Intelligence mission in the united states. You cant say positively that it was clean. I said there were a lot. That was the ukrainian donations. How do you know that . If you already know they were given money then youre making my argument, not yours. Im saying thats the speculation that comes im not speculating. What im saying is russians and ukrainians gave a lot of money to the clinton foundation. Theres argument that they got favorable treatment. Youll recall the friend of bill designation that would appear on the ledger for large donors of the clinton foundation. So im only putting that in the context of the manafort information because it is an ugly part of washington. I think youre doing it a little bit out of convenience to distract from the questions. I answered your questions. We have never seen people go down like they have gone down around this president. Lets be honest. We have never seen a campaign with people they should have known to leave alone. The Hillary Clinton campaign Hillary Clinton was interacting with a lot of foreign actors and foreign agents. She knew a lot of those people. Very different context. And shes not president. You remember covering the trump campaign. They were from one rally to the next. They sure had a lot of time to lie about who they met with. What are you talking about . The president hasnt lied about anything. Its amazing that you jump to him. Im talking about all the people that have been convicted of it, matt. Lets not hash this out too much. I have two other things i want to talk to you about. Matthew whitaker. I dont understand whats going on here. I get being afraid of a subpoena, but the letter sent to the acting ag is, hey, let us know if the president wants to exercise immunity or privilege on any of these questions so we can hash it out before you come. Dont come here and surprise me with im not answering those questions. Thats all they asked for in the letter. Whitaker doesnt do that. But then the doj says hes not coming there under threat of subpoena. Well, then just answer the question about whether or not youre going to exercise the immunity. Whats all the huff and puff about . Its a lot of washington gamesmanship. The reality is Matthew Whitaker is going to be a private citizen next week. So it seems ridiculous to be conducting an oversight hearing with a guy out of a job in a week. The real reason democrats want whitaker in is they want to hurt barr. Is if whitaker provides answers and barr deviates in anyway then thats problematic for barr down the road. I dont think this is going to go well tomorrow. I dont find Matt Whitaker to be a very compelling issue. I think hes largely an emissions volcano and this is a bad idea and its probably not going to be a great day. Let me play what happened at the hearing. Sound from you and one of the parkland parents and make your case to the people about why it was worth it. I hope we do not forget the pain and anguish and sense of loss felt by those all over the country who have been the victims of silence at the hands of illegal aliens. Hra would not have stopped many of the circumstances i raised but a wall, a barrier on the southern border may have and thats what were fighting for. Is there a process in the committee whereby if the very same people are repeatedly interrupting the time of the members that those people will be asked to depart the committee . He started saying that we should never forget those victims of gun violence that were attacked by illegal aliens and how that is a big issue that we need to solve. And the solution is the wall. So thats when i was able to stand up and say, what about us . Dont forget about us and our kids. So i guess, the only option that you have as a father is make sure that the shooter of your son is an illegal alien, so they can mention him. Matt, what is your response . What were you trying to achieve there and what do you think of how it went down . First let me say how sorry i am to mr. Oliver that he lost his son. These are senseless acts and were all on the same page to try to make them less likely. There are disagreements as to how to make gun violence less likely. He brought his pain and his anguish to our committee, but he wasnt the only one. Savannah is a 24yearold rape survivor. She told the story of how she was violently raped in a gun free zone because she couldnt carry her firearm with her and mr. Oliver was less than ten feet behind this rape survivor yelling and screaming repeatedly and i looked at her and she was scared. So i know people react to trauma differently, but i was not trying to get mr. Oliver thrown out or removed. I simply was asking the Committee Chairman what youre supposed to do in a circumstance where one person who is like two or three times the size of this young lady seemed to be doing things that were he didnt mean to intimidate her but they were intimidating her. She actually complained to some of us on the right that that was an uncomfortable setting for her. So i want to commend the democrat chairman. I think he did a good job of giving mr. Oliver a final definite warning that you dont just get to show up in washington and because a terrible thing has happened to you that you get to jump up and scream and yell. I hear you about that. But it looked like you were taking on the victims parents. Thats not true. It looks like that and something that had no bearing on the situation. Nadler feels the same way. Im sure he does. He wanted to have a hearing about gun violence and i wanted to highlight the fact that theres victims of gun violence that would be in a better position today if we did not have Illegal Immigrants using guns to kill people. Like they did with rocky paul jones when he was killed. We know the stats. But those are important, chris. Im not saying why is it that those people that were killed by guns from illegal aliens i know youre not saying theyre any less relevant. So why is it that your network tries to creatively slice and dice that audio to make it look look i was trying to throw a guy out. I didnt want to i had you on to make your case but im making a bigger point now. I accept your answer about it. You take it up with the parents and see if theyre okay with it. Thats part of being a congressman. What im saying is a wall has got no business in the discussion at a hearing about what to do about these Mass Shootings and crimes that maybe, maybe can be prevented. It looked like grand standing because it has nothing to do with the solution. The numbers dont match up and the politics dont match up. Do you realize that one out of every five people that the federal government charges with murder is an illegal alien. No, i dont know that. That comes from the bureau of crime statistics. That illegal aliens are three times more likely to be incarcerated than people that come here legally. Theyre incarcerated for coming in illegally. You know the spin on these numbers. The data shows that citizens are more likely to be criminal than illegal entrants unless you talk about the illegal entry. Im not making the argument that illegal aliens are uniquely like more inclined to commit gun violence. Im saying that its clearly a very preventable form of gun violence because if you end illegal immigration you made your point, i want to make mine. If you end illegal immigration and you had a wall some of these people that were dead at the hands of Illegal Immigrants that shot them if you had universal background checks. No, no, no, chris. I did not just talk about that wall. Thats just how you edit it. I specifically in my time talked about the fact that the state of florida had red flag walls that we converted our Mental Health system so people dont come out of jail and back to their arsenals. Just because thats what is in your clip, thats not what i said. Why would you bring it up at all. The reason you bring up the wall is because if you have the wall, fewer violent illegal aliens will come into this country and more americans will not be the victims of gun violence. That is a perfectly reasonable argument to make and im not trying to shutdown democrats that want to make a robust background check argument. In my state of florida we have background checks and i believe under the tenth amendment, those are the things we would leave to the states to be able to have those solutions, but the inference that somehow, if youre talking about guns and violence, you in no way can talk about illegal immigration, that you just have to have that off the table for discussion is ludicrous and its not the reality that our American Families live. But it is the reality because if youre going to talk about stopping the Mass Shootings that seem to be the only kind of gun crime that anybody cares about in this country that is outrageous, the only gun crime people care about are Mass Shootings . A whole lot of people care about the fact that when he was just arresting someone at a traffic stop got killed, a lot of people carried about him and for you to gist that all people care about is the Mass Shootings is so irresponsible of you. Im talking about politicians and responsibility to do something about it. Im trying to do something. These Mass Shootings keep happening and you do nothing except go on tv and say were not a lou away and now you say in front of a room of victims parents and you talk about the wall. Thats an issue. I advocated for the red flag laws in florida. I worked with republicans and democrats. Well then why bring up the wall at the hearing. Because the wall will help have fewer violent Illegal Immigrants in this country killing people. Thats obvious. So will access to Mental Health and universal background checks. So were not allowed to talk about illegal immigration at a gun hearing but now all of a sudden universal access to health care youre attacking a little slice of the problem. Its not just about the Mass Shootings, chris. Its your premise that only the Mass Shootings matter. The only ones you guys will even discuss. I discussed three other shootings. Theyre an article of convenience for you. You think its convenient for us that people are dead at the hands of illegal aliens. You think that we are yes. That is so irresponsible. Its irresponsible of the people that are doing it. You put a premium on certain lives and not others. Thats like saying democrats want there to be more School Shootings so they can have gun control. Thats what you say all the time. Absolutely not. The democrats must be so happy there was another mass shooting. I see it all the time. I have never heard that. You put on your show any member of congress saying that democrats want there to be Mass Shootings. No, im saying people on the right. Not elected leaders. I never had anybody on this show well, im talking about the Politics Around it that give birth to the kind of cynicism that allows you to go into a hearing about guns and mention the law. I will do that every single time i get the chance because i wall will mean fewer people will die at the hands of guns and illegal aliens. Where do you think a wall is on the list of reasonable moves to stop gun violence in this country. Its below red flag laws. Its below Mental Health conversion and by the way i mentioned all of those. I did mention those things. We did in the state of florida. Thats precisely what we did. We went after the root of the problem in Mental Health care and a broken system that just cycles people around like nicholas cruise was cycled around and were trying to fix the problem rather than have a basis to deny law abiding citizens their Second Amendment rights. Second amendment rights. You have them. Theyre secured in this country like nobody else in the world. I intend to keep them this way. You have more of this type of violence anywhere in the world even if you hold consistent for Mental Health. We dont have more mentally ill than other places in the world, not per capita but we have more of these shootings. We also have a lot of externalities that lead to violence. Im in total concert with you on attacking those things but its outrageous to suggest that you cant even talk about illegal immigration in the context of gun violence. You talk about it in a hearing about illegal immigration. And by the way, when you do it, you defend the president. He has created a brown menace. People exaggerating their criminality and the incidents of drugs and the incidents of terror and how it enters this country and how they get into this country. He has exaggerated all of it and given the solution that none of the people at the dhs or cdp would ever confirm as a top priority. Thats not true. Thats cynicism. Thats bad governance. Chris, more brown people are working and more prosperous under this president than at any time previously. Including those that are here illegally and he hires them too. He tries to say you should hate the same people he hires. Hes not saying you should hate anybody. He says you should follow the law. He calls them rapists and killers and gang bangers. The Democratic Party had in their platforms provisions that said illegal aliens were coming in and committing felonies and sent back and right back across the border to do the same thing. This new view of the left that we should be borderless i have to own every argument everybody makes on the right but the people on the left that say we should abollish i. C. E. , that border are immorale. They have to answer for those. Those arguments are the ones i have a right to challenge and when we have a hearing on violence, i have an obligation to point out the extent to which some of that violence, not all of it, maybe not even most of it, but some of that violence is preventable if we stopped illegal immigration. The kid is coming behind you, l