joining us now is Senator Rand Paul
Senator thank you good to have you here
this evening thanks for having me
obviously you asked a question today
that was shut down by Chief Justice
Roberts anybody who wants to hear the
con the whole text of that question and
the names that you included it's on your
Twitter feed and you talked about it
today and I would direct them there but
I'd ask you not to say them here and I
would love to know what you wanted to
get out of the question and why you feel
it's so important to focus on the
origins of this investigation and to
bring that point home
you know my question did not identify
anyone as a whistleblower or refer to
anyone as a whistleblower but my
question did discuss two Obama partisans
who worked in the National Security
Council one of them now works for Adam
Schiff and one of them is someone who is
involved in the origins of the
impeachment inquiry so these two people
have been friends for a long time there
are stories and reports now that they a
few years ago were overheard saying you
know what we got to do everything we can
to bring down the president to take down
the president and lo and behold these
two friends are still intimately
involved and the story even thickens
from there there are three people
working for Adam schiff's staff who used
to work for the national security staff
they know this third gentleman they all
know vinman you know vinman's been very
prominent in the testimony and vinman's
brother so we actually have six people
who were Obama partisans who worked for
the National Security Council who all
are transmitting stuff back and forth
and my question is is did they have
discussions predating the official
impeachment inquiry may be predating
even by a year or two we know that Adam
Schiff was dishonest when he said there
was no contact it turns out they did
have contact in the days and weeks
leading up to the the impeachment
inquiry but it may well be that they had
contact even a year or two before and I
think people ought to be able to discuss
that so I was disappointed that that
question was shut down well I think that
you know the question of the origin of
this investigation just like the
questions of the origin of the Russian
investigation are certainly valid
questions to ask one of the problems I
think that's frustrating for people
watching all of this is that there's
really no no Forum here there's no
cross-examination I mean you know even
if your question had been asked you know
what what would be the best you could
have hoped for in terms of what would
happen when Adam Schiff got up and tried
to answer it well Adam schiff's not
really answering questions he would
actually have to have him in a
deposition on under Rose and that's why
people want to have witnesses Adam
schiff's got to be a witness but so is
Sean misko who's on his staff and maybe
several other people on his staff
because they need to be asked were they
coaching and helping this complaint not
only in the days preceding the
impeachment complaint but maybe even
weeks and months before were they simply
looking and waiting for some kind of bit
of evidence that they could Create and
Craft into an impeachment complaint and
that's not the way the Whistleblower
statue was meant to be it wasn't meant
to be some sort of blanket immunity from
knowledge but one of the telling
questions you know we've had hundreds of
hours of testimony now but Senator Burr
asked today he said well would it be
impeachable to hire a foreign spy from
Britain to get a dossier on someone like
what happened to president Trump because
they're now saying a lot of things are
impeachable and that's the problem with
having this low level or low standard
for impeachment is that you know I had a
lot of policy disagreements with
President Obama but I didn't call to
impeach him and that's the problem is if
we lower the standard and coming down
everybody's going to impeaching
everybody and it's going to be a
disaster for our country all right so
but there but there are other ways and
the name that you mentioned is is
someone else is one of the people that
you mentioned in your in your Tweet
before and he is still currently working
for for he's on the staff still correct
yeah Sean misco's sitting there he's
he's in the Senate chamber with two
other people there's nothing secret
about that um but but let me ask you you
know when for people who because I you
know just looking at your Twitter feed
today you know about half of the people
who respond think that you should be
arrested they think that you're a
communist and working for the Russian
government the other half I think you're
a hero which is not atypical for the
responses that you sometimes get because
you do put yourself out there
um on these issues but how you know for
anybody at home who says yeah I'd like
to know the answer to these questions
why doesn't the Senate Judiciary
Committee or the doj someone start to
look into this just as we saw happen
with the origins of the Russian
investigation is that going to happen
well maybe eventually but see I think
what we've done is we've overblown this
sort of idea of whistleblower protection
look I am a big defender of
whistleblowers Eric Snowden probably the
biggest uh you know uh Edward Snowden
probably the biggest whistleblower of
all time but many people want to put him
in jail and kill him even though he's a
whistleblower he he revealed something
we were doing unconstitutional then our
government actually changed we actually
passed laws because we were so worried
about what he revealed and yet a lot of
people have mixed feelings about it same
way with this whistleblower if this was
a concocted plot to bring down the
president that's not something The
Whistleblower statue is about but also
the Whistleblower statue doesn't
guarantee that you're anonymous it
guarantees that you're not fired so I
don't want to fire the Whistleblower but
I think the president deserves that this
whistleblower come forward and I never
identified anybody as a whistleblower
that's why it's unfair to exclude my
question I'm just identifying people who
are friends and who are against the
president and plotted against the
president I'm about to talk to Senator
Van Hollen and this is something that he
said earlier today and so I want to give
you a chance to respond to what he said
because he's he's going to you know I'm
sure build on that in a moment he says
this is absolutely repugnant doing this
would send a statement to any future
whistleblower if you use legal channels
to expose abuses of power you will be
retaliated against we live in a
democracy not an autocratic State what
do you say to that Senator
you know I think we're on different
wavelengths here we see what the
clintons did in purchasing foreign
information to go after president Trump
as being awful the fake fisa warrants
all of the FBI lying 17 times uh I think
all of that was a great abuse of power
and the great irony of this entire
impeachment hearing now is they're using
government to go after their political
opponents they're bad that they say
president Trump did it they're doing
exactly the same thing in a very
partisan way which every one of them
said during the Clinton impeachment was
a problem they're now doing exactly the
same thing so Hippocrates uh you know if
the shoe fits wear it but they're
they're hypocritical on all this last
question did you think there was
anything wrong with the phone call did
you see it as a request West for a
political favor in the in the coming
election against somebody who's likely
running against the president
the original legislation that we gave
money to Ukraine said that the president
has to investigate corruption and so I
think there's a lot of evidence that the
bidens are corrupt and that there was
corruption so he would actually be going
against the law if he didn't investigate
the Biden so I think what he did was
completely within compliance of the law
and this is just a partisanship thing
gone amok and ultimately the Democrats
are going to regret they did this
because they're they're making it very
very hard for the country to have
anything that we can do together it's
very polarized as devices if anybody has
seen it and I think it's a big mistake
for them to do it
um Senator thank you good to see you
thank you Senator thank you