‘Special Report’ All-Star Panel on bombshell Durham findings, potential Russian invasion into Ukraine

This is a rush transcript from “Special Report,” February 14, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: We are told that February 16th will be the day of attack. We will make it a union day.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: The path for diplomacy remains available if Russia chooses to engage constructively.

REP. BRIAN MAST, (R-FL): What this really looks like to most people paying attention is Crimea 2.0.

STEVE PIFER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: The Ukrainians are very, very determined. If the Russian military goes into Ukraine, they will be met with a very hot reception.

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We continue to see him advance his readiness and improve his capabilities and provide himself more options should he decide to take another — to take military action in Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: “He” being Vladimir Putin. Meantime the U.S. sending more troops to shore up NATO’s eastern flank, saying they are not going to be fighting in Ukraine. However, it is a dangerous tender box there every day.

Let’s bring in our panel, FOX News senior political analyst Brit Hume, Kimberley Strassel, a member of the editorial board at “The Wall Street Journal.” And Juan Williams, FOX News analyst. Brit, what do you make of these moves and Putin’s situation right now? It seems like the more we talk about it, that it’s going to happen every day, the more there’s another day of talks. Maybe that’s the purpose.

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Perhaps, Bret, but I think John Kirby sized it up right in military terms. And there’s no doubt that Putin has made this enormous build-up on the border. And what’s unclear me is if he decides not doesn’t want to do this, how does he climb down offer this perch he has climbed up on and save face? We don’t know, obviously, what he has been assured of privately. Perhaps he has been assured that Ukraine would not join NATO. But that wasn’t going to happen any time soon, if ever, anyway. So it’s hard for me to picture that as being great win for him that would allow him to say we got what we wanted, so we are backing off. So, my concern right now is, how does he back out of this if he decides to do so?

BAIER: Yes, and Juan, it doesn’t seem like there is any backing down.

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, today, you saw the video of the foreign minister Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, talking with Putin at this very long table, it looked like a staged propagandistic event. But Lavrov said to him there is an opportunity to continue talking. And so I guess that was a message that the Russians were trying to send to their domestic audience, Bret.

But I do think the message of today to the global audience is that there is a hope that Putin finds some kind of offramp, to pick up what Brit Hume was saying, that there’s some sort of offramp, whether it’s the Ukrainians, and we heard something from the Ukrainians today about, well, we have no immediate intentions of joining NATO. I don’t know.

And then also the U.S. saying we were willing to talk about military exercises on that eastern side of the NATO front. So, are these offramps for Putin, and will he take it, or is he stuck?

BAIER: Yes. Kimberley, your paper had a much broader look at the situation foreign policy wise about a new world disorder. Quote, “What Mr. Biden hasn’t done is explain to Americans the new global dangers and what must be done protect U.S. interests. The problem goes far beyond Ukraine. China wants to capture Taiwan and dominate the Western Pacific. The new Russia- China condominium means they will work together against U.S. interests. Iran is close to getting a nuclear weapon, and jihadists are far from vanquished.”

KIMBERLEY STRASSEL, “WALL STREET JOURNAL”: Yes, I think what you’re seeing, Bret, is this huge ramping up on the new threat to the United States. And yet you have a White House that seems utterly uninterested in actually stepping up to deal with national security issues. It has been focused almost entirely since the beginning of this administration on domestic programs pushed by progressives. You look at the way they handled Afghanistan. They just seemed to kind of want to get past it and continue to say it all went well.

Right now, they are dealing with this because they have to. But what would be great is we need a Biden who has decided that this is the challenge of his presidency, who is going to lead the western world in a response on this, and that’s going to be vital to the future security of the U.S.

BAIER: This next story, if you haven’t been watching this channel, you may not know about it, the John Durham investigation, the filing that came out late Friday over the weekend. Take a listen to some of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

BAIER: If you had to characterize the Durham Report as you know it now, is it going to be eye-opening for Americans?

WILLIAM BARR, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I’m very troubled by what has been called to my attention so far. But I’m not going to characterize it beyond that.

REP. JIM JORDAN, (R-OH) HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER: They spied on a presidential campaign. That’s as wrong as it gets. But then we found out from this filing a that they actually spied on a sitting president, which is even worse.

JOHN RATCLIFFE, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I think this conspiracy, and I do think there was a criminal conspiracy, is broad and deep. I would expect and anticipate based on intelligence that I’ve seen that there would be quite a few more indictments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Brit, is it wrong to say, looking at this, that this is a big deal?

HUME: I think it’s a big deal, Bret. And so far, the media’s reaction is shades of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was a solid story they refused to cover in the middle of a campaign. And they ended up with egg all over their faces for failing to do so. Now comes this story.

Look, in the near term, we might not hear anything more. The mainstream media may not pick up on it. But if further charges and indictments and information follow, as seems at least distinctly possible, the national media is going to have egg all over its collective face again. But I think in the end what is going to really matter the most is whether there are indeed further revelations and charges, criminal charges.

BAIER: Juan, I guess the other thing is to look back through the prism of how things were covered back then. Here is Donald Trump on “60 Minutes.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESLEY STAHL: We can’t put on things we can’t verify.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You won’t put it on because it’s bad for Biden.

STAHL: We can’t put on things we can’t verify.

TRUMP: Lesley, they spied on my campaign.

STAHL: But we can’t verify that.

TRUMP: It’s been totally verified.

STAHL: No.

TRUMP: It’s been, just go down and get the —

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: All right, it continues there. Juan, your thoughts?

WILLIAMS: Well, we heard John Ratcliffe, the former Director of National Intelligence, say today on FOX in terms of the high-tech company looking at these computers, there was no hacking. Nothing illegal took place there. The charge by Durham is against a lawyer who talked to an FBI lawyer and apparently didn’t sufficiently divulge that he had a relationship with the Clinton campaign. So that’s it. There is no —

BAIER: Wait, hold on. The filing suggests — the filing suggests that they are potentially telling this lawyer, this law firm, the Clinton campaign law firm is not standing up for you, so maybe you should start talking. At least that’s the inference as you read it.

WILLIAMS: Right. But what we know is the Mueller probe knew about this. They said it wasn’t worthy of any charge. Clearly you have — it’s not like there was no ties between Russia and Trump campaign. We know about Manafort, we know about Mike Flynn. Manafort was sharing polling data. So let’s not blow this out of proportion.

BAIER: OK, Kimberley.

STRASSEL: Look, we had the Clinton campaign via its law firm engaging private contractors who had secret government contracts to mine data related to Internet traffic in the White House. That’s enormous. That’s a huge deal.

And by the way, I just want to point out, the editorial page — we have an editorial coming up very soon on this, the next couple minutes, and it does have some news in it, too, about who that tech executive is and his defense.

BAIER: OK, we will watch for that. Panel, as always, thank you.

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