Many questions remain unanswered since the FBI’s Aug. 8 raid on the Florida home of former President Donald Trump.
“First of all, make no mistake about it. There are rules that the president is not supposed to keep records,” veteran journalist and lawyer Greta Van Susteren says. “The public records—I’m talking about the non-classified ones—do belong for the most part to the American people, so they have to be turned over to the [National Archives]. Usually, when a president leaves office, they’re sorted through and they decide what’s the president should have, what shouldn’t have.”
“That’s one group of documents. The second are our classified documents,” Van Susteren adds. “And the question is, does [Trump]Are you allowed to have classified documents? Clearly, he’s not supposed to have classified documents. He’s no longer in office. You have to make sure classified documents are in very secured places.”
Van Susteren joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to dissect the FBI raid and the polarization surrounding it, China’s growing aggression, and her new show, “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” on Newsmax TV.
Listen to the podcast or read the lightly edited transcript.
Samantha Renck: Greta van Susteren joins the podcast today. She is the host of “The Record with Greta Van Susteren” on Newsmax TV. Greta, thank-you so much for being here today.
Greta Van Susteren: I’m very happy to be here. Thank you so much for asking.
Renck: Yes. Renck: Of course.
Van Susteren: Well, in many ways, it’s the same show I’ve ever had, whether it was at CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Voice of America, [or]Gray Media because I view news through a legal perspective.
Now, I don’t mean it’s a legal show. It’s not that at all. However, law school teaches you how look for facts. In fact, you take a course called “Evidence,” which is just all about facts and about what can be shown. And that’s the way I approach journalism … I look for the facts, whatever they may be, and I try not to tell the viewers what to think. I just say, “Here are the facts. You come up with your own thoughts and opinion.”
Now that’s not to say that opinion shows are not important. They are extremely important because it’s good to have a robust debate and have opinions. My goal is to continue to [say], “However the chips may fall, they may fall. Tell me the facts, and that’s what I’m interested in.” So that’s how I would describe the show.
Renck: Absolutely. There has been a lot of news to cover, as you all know. I want to start with the raid that happened last week on President Donald Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago. … There’s a lot of questions that remain unanswered.
The political divide in support of the raid was significant. A survey from Politico/Morning Consult 84% of Democrats voted for the bill, while only 15% of Republicans voted. What do you think this partisan divide is? Do you think the FBI should release more information about the raid to dispel any suspicions that it was politically motivated
Van Susteren:All right. Well, you’ve got about 15 questions here, so let me try to take them apart, and re-ask if I forget one of them.
Renck: Yes.
Van Susteren:All right. First of all is that, regrettably, we’ve gotten to the point in this country where we don’t wait for the facts. Instead, we take sides. So I’m not surprised by those numbers, because President Trump is a Republican. I’m actually expecting Republicans to be more supportive of him, and the Democrats [to be]He was not supportive. So those numbers don’t surprise me in the least bit. These numbers are what I expected.
The second thing is that, look, this is a developing story, and we’re going to learn new facts every single day this week and next week. A new fact could change if someone who is looking at it fairly, and not through a political lens and taking sides, might think of of what’s going on. So that’s an important consideration, is to recognize that we don’t have all the facts.
The Washington Post reported Friday night that they thought so. [the] nuclear code was involved … [and]It spread quickly on Twitter. Well, I don’t think the nuclear code was involved. And secondly, … I do know or suspect that they changed the nuclear code all the time. That was just an electrifying thing that set people ablaze and only fuelled the division in this country between Republicans, Democrats.
Now let’s go to what happened. First, let’s be clear: The president is not allowed to keep records. The public records—I’m talking about the nonclassified ones—do belong for the most part to the American people, so they have to be turned over to the archive. Usually, when a president leaves office, they’re sorted through and they decide what the president should have, what he shouldn’t have. That’s one group of documents.
The second category is our classified documents. The question is: Is it possible to do this? [Trump]Are you allowed to have classified documents? Clearly, he’s not supposed to have classified documents. He’s no longer in office. You must ensure that classified documents are kept in highly secured locations.
Now let’s look at the process. I don’t care if it’sPresident Trump, President [Joe] Biden, President [Barack] Obama, [or] President [George W.]Bush, the process must be uniform and equal for everyone. This is how things are.
Although every story is different and every factual situation is unique, they subpoenaed all documents. [Trump]In June. They got records, and the Department of Justice wasn’t satisfied. They thought that the president didn’t comply, or there were more records, or they’re hidden or partial, whatever. What would happen is that the Department of Justice would take that subpoena to court, and they present it to the judge to say, “Judge, we have a lawful subpoena, and the president hasn’t complied.”
The president would then have opportunity to his lawyers to say, “Look, we did comply,” or, “The subpoena’s overly broad,” or, “We don’t have the documents,” or whatever.
The judge would decide and settle the dispute. Both sides would have an opportunity for a settlement. That didn’t happen.
Instead, the Justice Department took a huge leap and waited for eight weeks before going to obtain a search warrant. And that’s something very different than the subpoena. And with the search warrant, it’s a one-sided deal. Done all the time, there’s nothing illegal about a search warrant. But this is the process.
They went into court and they said, “We need to get a search warrant.” And the president’s not there to say, “Look, I’ve given you everything.” He’s not there to say, “The records aren’t there.” He’s not there to litigate, it’s one-sided.
A subpoena is generally issued when there’s an emergency. You see them often in drug cases, when there’s a pile of cocaine on a kitchen table and you have to hurry and get a search warrant because you can’t litigate the subpoena. Because by the time you litigate the subpoena, the cocaine has been snorted up someone’s nose.
So they get the subpoena on Friday, one-sided; they say it’s an emergency and they say what they want. They wait for Monday until Friday to execute it. And that’s where all the lawyers say, “Wait a second. If it was such an emergency, why didn’t you do it on Friday? What makes it an urgent situation? Did you think that the president was going destroy documents?” Well, if you did, he should have done it on Friday.”
So that’s the problem, is that it becomes looking very heavy-handed on the part of the Department of Justice.
They should have filed the subpoena in June. They chose not. They got a search warrant about five to six weeks later. And then once they get the search warrant about noon on Friday, they don’t bother to execute it until Monday. What was the urgency?
And that’s the whole issue of process and what gets a lot of people very agitated. It doesn’t mean President Trump should keep documents or have documents. I don’t even know what he has or doesn’t have, but the process, when the process is heavy-handed in one direction, it’ll create all sorts of problems with people looking at it and it’ll create all sorts of suspicions, and people will be pointing fingers.
And that’s what I think is the mistake the Justice Department did, is that it looks like they didn’t treat him fairly. They should have litigated his subpoena in June.
Renck: The FBI’s trust has suffered over the last few decades. What can you do to restore trust in the FBI, given what happened last Wednesday and what you just talked about?
Van Susteren:First of all, I work daily with FBI agents to solve cases and share stories. They are unbelievable— thousands of very good men and women every single day working really hard to do a good job and do a fair one and keep us protected and to solve crime.
The problem is that the high-profile ones that go askew, like this one, naturally poison everybody—or a good portion of the population—against the FBI. We look at the arrest of Peter Navarro a couple weeks ago, President Trump’s former adviser. He tends to be obnoxious in dealing with law enforcement, and law enforcement sometimes will give you a little harder time when you’re obnoxious, but he was charged with two counts of obstruction of Congress. These are misdemeanors.
Navarro lives directly across the street of the FBI. They could have stopped by his house and knocked. Instead, he was at Reagan National Airport, across the river. He wasn’t at the international airport, which might have suggested he was fleeing. But at Reagan, to fly down to Memphis, I believe, to do a TV program with Mike Huckabee.
They arrived at Reagan Airport looking like gangbusters and put handcuffs and leg cuffs around him for two misdemeanors. I practiced law in this community for many years as a criminal defense attorney— nobody gets that from a misdemeanor. A misdemeanor doesn’t even get you time.
… Why did they do that overkill? And that’s the problem, is that they should have first tried to get [Navarro] at his house and see if he’d volunteer. These are misdemeanors. These are not felonies. This isn’t armed robbery.
But when you have high-profile people like Peter Navarro treated like that, people begin to think that it’s the entire FBI. It is not true. That is some people, some decisions, but it’s not the entire FBI. As I mentioned, I work with some very smart, dedicated FBI personnel who are dedicated to protecting and helping us.
Renck: I would like to shift topics to the China threat. Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker, visited Taiwan just over two weeks back. There’s also a group of five US lawmakers that arrived in Taiwan over the weekend. Between Speaker Pelosi’s visit and this new group of lawmakers who were in Taiwan, we’ve seen China really ramp up their aggression toward Taiwan. Your number one concern is the Chinese Communist Party.
Van Susteren: War. … This was not a deliberate thing, but they had a shutdown in Shanghai recently because of COVID. And it created in this country, I don’t know if you were aware of it, but they created a shortage of the CT scan contrast dye.
There were hospitals that were short of the contrast dye and had to figure out which CT scans they were going to do and which ones they weren’t. If you have suffered a stroke, you will need a contrast dye immediately. You will need a stent if you have a stroke. Some of the other CT scans, you don’t need, and they were delayed.
The simple fact that all or most of the contrast dye is made in Shanghai by an American company is proof enough [means] that if they cut off our supply, if they cut off that that production … it hurts every single American in this country who might face a health crisis.
So, yes, war is a concern. But I worry about the economic implications because we have gotten so overly dependent on China for things that we don’t even realize. I mean, contrast dye, you’d think you can walk into a hospital and get a CT scan. Well, maybe there isn’t enough dye.
And what’s even more shocking—I did a story on this which is why I know this—is that most people weren’t even paying attention. You’ll have to Google this to find out this story. This one got lost. But I talked to doctors at hospitals and I said, “Yeah, we see a shortage of this because they have had to shut down Shanghai because of COVID.”
Here’s another problem. Another thing that amazes me is the fact that everyone knows that fentanyl poisons and kills people all over the country. And China’s one of the major suppliers through Mexico of the components for fentanyl. They’re just poisonous. It’s endless.
So I don’t know what I fear the most with China. I suppose I fear war less because it seems somewhat contained, but when you start destroying the economy and our health through fentanyl and not having CT scan contrast dye, that’s the kind [of thing] that we don’t even notice until it’s right upon us, and we’re not equipped to deal.
In the military sense, we have both naval ships and fighter aircraft. But if we don’t have any contrast dye for CT scans, we’re in trouble. If we don’t have semiconductors coming out of Taiwan, because we don’t make them here in the United States, we’re in trouble. Your toaster won’t even work.
Renck: It’s absolutely frightening. It’s really eye opening, I think, coming off of two and a half years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and just realizing how reliant we have been on China for so many years. And whether or not that will change, that’s yet to be seen.
Van Susteren: But it won’t because I mean, look, it’s top to bottom. Look at Hollywood. Hollywood will make a movie which completely degrades the United States, and it will be protected by the First Amendment. And I support their ability. I’m a big proponent of the First Amendment. They make blockbuster dollars here in the United States doing it, but that’s OK.
The minute they do a movie in China where there’s a huge amount of money for movies, they have to get the Communist Party to agree, and they will make adjustments to the movies so it doesn’t insult China, so that they can sell their movies overseas there. I mean, it’s just this sense of greed and wanting that extra dollar and [being]Willing to sacrifice our values regardless of what. It’s not just one person. It’s not just one political party.
Renck: What is your opinion on President Biden’s administration, their handling this potential crisis in Taiwan, and their attitude towards China?
Van Susteren: When you talk about questions of war, you don’t know if it’s handled right until it’s over. That’s the problem. Speaker Pelosi pointed a stick in President Xi’s eye. [Jinping]You can visit China by going there. On the one side, it could be said that it shows great strength as well as great courage and that we stand by Taiwan. Both Republicans and Democrats in the United States supported her. Although President Biden didn’t want her to do it at first, they supported her.
But now we’ve got another group going. Is that the right decision? I don’t know, but I will tell you that my gut reaction [is that] I don’t think you should poke a stick in Xi’s eye because I’d rather have him inside the tent than outside the tent. And I don’t think we should put him in a position where he’s humiliated with their country.
Pelosi announced the trip when she was elected. [the Chinese]They stated that they would first shoot flares, then move on to maneuvers to try and get her plane off track, and finally, they would shoot her down. Well, they didn’t do any of those things. So, she was there once she got there. [she]Did her trip, and got safely out of there.
Now what’s happened is we’ve humiliated President Xi. He appears weak in his own country. He’s trying to hang on to power in his country. And right now, it looks like he’s weak vis-à-vis the United States.
Now, with someone whose finger is on the nuclear bomb over there and with someone who’s got all that economic power, does it really make sense to poke him in the eye and humiliate him? I believe no.
A lot of people, Republicans and Democrats, think it’s better to show strength. I believe we can show strength by not being so dependent on our economic success that we allow him to live his life. That was a decision that was made jointly by many. I don’t think we’ll know if it was the right decision or whether I’m right until five years from now.
Renck: Greta, is there anything you feel Americans should remember in regards to the China threat?
Van Susteren: I think there’s not enough coverage. If you’ve watched my show since we launched … I’ve done a China segment every single night. I’ve even had the foreign minister of Taiwan on my show. I’m hoping to put the spotlight on it. I don’t know what everybody else is doing because I’m so consumed.
Especially with a new show, you’re really busy, you just don’t have time to watch the other shows. The only thing I see is during time when I sort of thumb through Twitter, when I see what’s going on Twitter. I don’t know what others are doing, and it’s not because I’m trying to act like I don’t watch other TV shows. It’s only because I don’t have the time. These are my friends. I’ve been in every network, so these are my friends. I just don’t have the time. I’m so consumed with trying to get my show up and running.
Renck: Greta. Thank you so much for being here today. It was an honor to have you join us. I just want to make sure our audience is aware that your show is on Newsmax TV weekdays at 6 p.m., “The Record with Greta Van Susteren.”
Van Susteren: I hope people watch it because I think, if nothing else, I want people to say it’s fair, factual, informative, never perfect. But I’m always striving to get it right. That’s my goal, is to try to get it right.
Renck: Absolutely. Renck: Absolutely.
Susteren:We are grateful.
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