FOX "Hannity" - Transcript: Scandals

Interview

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HANNITY: Well, apparently he does, because he's now fleeing the country. You know, the day that he is supposed to testify before the committee, well, John Kerry's going to be in Mexico. How convenient.

So just to recap, two cabinet secretaries face subpoenas, another high-ranking official has been held in contempt. It's pretty clear to me the president has completely lost control of his administration, and instead of fixing the mess and being transparent, like he promised, well, he spent today at a Democratic fundraiser in my next guest's home state.

Joining me now is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Congressman Darrell Issa. Congressman, welcome back to the program.

REP. DARRELL ISSA, R-CALIF.: Well, thanks for having me on. And thanks for covering each and every one of these issues that mainstream media is simply pretending didn't exist.

HANNITY: Are we being lied to on a regular basis? A really simple question to me. Are we being lied to about Benghazi? Are we being lied to about the "IRS-gate"? You know, how is it that 40 veterans died while waiting for care with the VA? Are we all being lied to repeatedly?

ISSA: We are being lied to. The ball is being hidden. It's interesting that Secretary Kerry wants to go to Mexico. I suspect it's not to talk about Fast and Furious, where this administration lied for over 10 months until the truth finally came out, and they asserted executive privilege so they wouldn't have to deliver the documents that show how high the conspiracy to protect, if you will, from the truth the American people.

In this case, the latest scandal is that for all this time with all these subpoenas for Benghazi, the State Department said they would comply fully and even implied that they had. Then, in a week in which we received over 800 documents, tucked in is the result of a FOIA that should have been delivered to us more than a year earlier, that shows very clearly it was never about CIA and intelligence. It was always about a spin from the White House from almost moment one.

HANNITY: Didn't Beth Jones over at the State Department -- did she not tell the president of Libya on the morning after the attack that, in fact, our State Department knew that it was Ansar al Sharia that was responsible for the attack? Wasn't that the very next day?

ISSA: Well, you know, Secretary Kerry famously votes for things before he votes against them. It appears as though Beth also tells the truth before, in fact, the spin goes against that. It's one of the reasons that on one of the channels, Libya's head of state was saying that it was a terrorist attack, while Ambassador Rice was saying it wasn't. This is exactly the kind of web you weave when you first decide to deceive, and the deciding to deceive very clearly same from the White House. That's the reason that Trey Gowdy and a select committee --

HANNITY: Right.

ISSA: ... as of later today, will begin work on getting to the bottom of what happened at the top, at the White House, in this scandal.

HANNITY: So they knew -- so our State Department knew the very next day, and we were telling the Libyans that we knew it was Ansar al Shariah, and then the very next day, it evolved into a spontaneous demonstration. In other words, an elaborate lie emerged.

I guess the question is -- and the White House, did they not also say that they were not responsible for the talking points except to change the name of the consulate? That's all they said they were involved in, right?

ISSA: That's exactly one of the false statements where I suspect that Chairman Gowdy will be inquiring from each of these people whether they knew that simultaneously, these talking points were being created separate from the edits they talk about. And if they did, then there were a series of people at high and higher level who lied, basically, on behalf of the president. And then, as you know, in Denver during the debates, the president continued to perpetrate those false statements.

HANNITY: All right. And -- and did Lois Lerner lie when she said these -- or not Lois Lerner, when the administration claimed that these were rogue agents in Cincinnati, that was the talking point in that particular case, where we now know that Tea Party groups were intimidated and silenced and harassed by the IRS, and we learned that 10 percent of Tea Party -- 10 percent of their lists, in fact, were used by the IRS to audit, when the usual auditing percentage is about one percent. Is that -- was that a lie about Cincinnati? Didn't the people in Cincinnati say they were taking orders from Washington?

ISSA: Sean, you've got it exactly right. The two big lies were, one, that it had anything to do with the people, the hard-working people in Cincinnati. It didn't. It was at Washington, at Lois Lerner's level. And two, very clearly, only conservative groups were targeted for special treatment, if you will, and this treatment included asking inappropriate questions and trying to get the contributor list of the organizations.

HANNITY: And what about as it relates to the VA? Here are brave men and women, they risk their lives, in many cases, they come back injured. And we make a solemn promise to them that they're going to be well taken care of. We have as many as 40 people that died waiting for care. They apparently have two lists to cover up the fact that they're not treating the veterans the way they deserve. We now have some people -- we've done investigative reporting on this program. Should Shinseki go?

ISSA: Eric Shinseki is a good man who's tried hard, but the fact is, years ago, he told me he had to change the culture at the VA and it was hard and he needed to do it. Fact is, in his sixth year as secretary, there's no time left. If you can't change an agency in a fraction of that time, you're not going to do it in a year or two more. That's the really sad truth. It's not that he isn't a good man, it's that he's failed.

HANNITY: All right, so let me just sum up here. So on the issue of the VA, we've been lied to and they tried to cover things up. On the issue of rogue agents in Cincinnati, we've been lied to and they tried to cover that up. On the issue of Benghazi, they were active in writing the talking points that they said they weren't involved in, and also an elaborate web of lies was built in the leadup to a presidential election. We know in July of 2010, the White House knew that people were going to lose their policies, they were going to lose their doctors and pay more money, and they made a conscious decision not to tell us.

What does it mean when the American people are regularly, routinely being lied to by their government? What is their recourse? What should happen here? What will happen here?

ISSA: Well, there's no question that this is an administration that's ideologically driven, willing to play fast and loose with the truth. Even today, they're still trying to spin the idea that it wasn't just conservative groups, and I suspect it's only a matter of time before the president says there isn't a smidgen of corruption again. They will say or do anything, including lie about what you've caught them in the act on.

HANNITY: Yes.

ISSA: Having said that, the most we can do in Congress is let the American people know the whole truth, force the truth out, subpoenas, other things, and then ultimately, in some cases, go to the court, as we did yesterday.

HANNITY: Yes.

ISSA: But let's understand something. In a democracy, real change comes when the American people decide to have it, and I certainly think this administration is one that has worn out its welcome.

HANNITY: You know, it's funny. If Chris Christie had lied and there was a smoking gun e-mail that he knew about the whole bridge incident, you know that these very same liberals would have been calling for his resignation. So interesting double standard.

Congressman, good to see you. Thank you.

ISSA: Thank you, Sean.

HANNITY: Sad when your government lies to you this much.

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