Everything is on the up and up, if this was a peft call, you would want even to go and tell your story and the fact they havent done so to me is incredibly telling. Mark, garrett, who i hope is getting a chance to read through these 17 pages of the summary, the preface to the report. Ive asked you this before. Listen, if theres no wrong doing and perry or mulvaney wanted to fund the president , republicans, you got your shot to call some people. Over to katy tur. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Were following Breaking News at this hour. The Intelligence Committee has just released its report on the impeachment inquiry. House democrats say in no Uncertain Terms the president personally solicit Election Interference from a foreign governmecountry, quote, the evi overwhelming and so, too, is the evidence of his obstruction of congress. Joining me now is garrett and
jake. Also with us, former intel staffer, mika. Everybody, welcome. Garrett, you were just talking with stephanie and ali, but i think we need to reset here. The top of a new hour. House democrats on the Intel Committee have yus released their report. This is i guess 12 hours, a little bit more than 12 hours or almost 24 hours, frankly, after the republicans released their prebutt ta prebuttal to this. Is there anything unexpected . Well, so far, the the report lays out in specific detail the actions that a the Intel Committee believes could be impeachable. It goes through laying out a scheme directed by the president , they say, to withhold this military aid in furtherance of his own agenda. If you were to watch the
hearings of the last week, you are seeing less of a focus on some of the external players in here. Not a will the of talk about ambassadors. About marie yovanovitch, but a focus on the president on his Chief Of Staff and on the withholding of this money as an effort to induce corruption into the 2020 election. This is what this breaks down on. Whether this is a case about the 2016 election, which is the core of the republican counter report. Their counter argument is that democrats are trying to overturn the 2016 election. No democrats say in their report. This is about a president whos true trying to rig the 2020 election in his favor and it lays out all the ways in which he does this. Now im going through, theres six roman numerals here. Six key sections here. The first five all deal with this effort on its face. The last deals with the obstructive effort by the administration after the fact to prevent witnesses from coming forward. To block documents that were subpoenaed and the like. You can see how this could shape
into potentially two articles of impeachment when we get down that line here. The actual actions of the white house regarding ukraine, withholding of the aid, the conditioning of white house meeting, those two sort of quid pro quos, not to go back to speaking latin here then the obstructi obstruction. All of this laid out in a 300 page report thats 150 pages of content and another 150 pages of notes. So democrats showing their work here as we go through this and to be frank with you, im just beginning to dig into this. Its a pretty dense almost academic document here and i think i can just say that that also speaks to why democrats found those public hearings so important. We learned this if mueller. Americans, by and large, are not going to sit down tonight and read a 300 page report, but theyll watch these hearings, theyll listen to these witnesses and democrats hope that will keep them in line in supporting this inquiry. Theyre laying out their argument here and what ive
notice d from the snippets ive been able to see, one talks about obstruction. Republicans have said they have no smoking gun. No direct link between the president and anybody directly forcing ukraine to start investigations in order to get a white house meeting in order to get that security. There wasnt that direct link. But they are saying, democrats are saying, that that is not there because the white house obstructed. Theres a certain portion i believe you just pointed this out on twitter, the white house is using or the democrats are using all of the witnesses that the white house refused to let testify as evidence of the white house was trying to obstruct this investigation. And potentially hide something that could be negative for the president. Democrats made this point all along that they were not going take it lightly if the administration did not participate. Send up people to testify and send documents. They were going to r consider it in their impeachment articles and thats what they have done here. Which to be frank, if you talk
to a lot of democrats who look at the evidence and say it seems bad, but not as cut and dry as theyd like it to be, not that they doubt it, but as the public might want it to be, obstruction is quite cut and dry, they say. They say the administration didnt make people available. They didnt send documents that they believed should be available and thus, they were not r participating in a lawful investigation. This administration has at times bristled many times. Congress has a role here and the administration did not throughout the process, acknowledge that and democrats are at this point ringing them up on that and remember b, this happened under nixon as well. This is not a foreign idea. The Administration Must under most circumstances, participate. Here, they did not and they might see the consequences for that. Jake, theres also another portion. Democrats seem to be questioning whether sondland was telling the
truth. This portion sticks out. A call on september 9th, which would have occurred in the middle of the night is at odds with the wait of the evidence and not backed up by any records the white house was willing to provide ambassador sondland. So ambassador sondland said the president told him there was no quid pro quo and he relayed that to diplomat bill taylor in that series of Text Messages that were released a few months ago. Weve all read them. And there was a question, a weird, fivehour delay between sondlands last text message that said it was crazy to withhold aid in order to start investigations and sondland replied five hours later, let me be clear, theres no quid pro quo. He was on a call with the president and democrats are questioning whether he said theres no quid proquo to stond land. And the white house, there are no responsive documents about this call and again, the white house and nancy pelosi keeps saying this. If you have exculpatory evidence
and she likes to point out exculpatory means it could clear you, if you have that evidence, provide it to congress, which would take it into consideration. Thr two ways this cuts. The administration has thrown in this lot saying this is a crooked and broken investigation and not just investigation, but at the same time, by doing that, it is it has undermined its case. That it did everything on the level. The white house has not made any points and its not provided evidence that they didnt do things that democrats have accused them of doing. So its a difficult case the white house is trying to make. We did nothing wrong, but were not going to provide dock men tear evidence and key witnesses the tell you we did nothing wrong. So this is not coming out in a vacuum. The democrats have released this. 24 hours after republicans leased their prebuttal to this. Its as if the republicans and democrats are arguing, but not about the same thing x and in
different dimensions. Theyre just not accepting the same facts. Republicans are accepting the facts that were laid out by a multitude of witnesses and testified to what was happening in ukraine with the president wanting investigations. If you were on the house sb Intelligence Committee, how do you engage with that . Directly, do you ignore it . The strategy . I think its a real challenge here because the republican prebuttal ignores some clear facts and just claims that they dont exist. Saying things like there was no conditionality when everyone saw sondland testify that there was at least as far as the white house meeting and he didnt know about the military aid. There are things where the republican report is clearly just Cherry Picking what has happened here so i think you have a really difficult time arguing when one side is not really looking at all of the facts presented. Ari, youve just joined me
onset. How do you do this as a lawyer yourself, what do you do when the other side is refuse tog acknowledge the truth sfl zbr ill show you with the visual aid. We have the whole report. We dont claim to have read it all because it is this thick. Hundreds of pages and were going through it as team work as youve been going through it with our colleagues and experts. One thing that jumps out to me in what were actually learning here, is this is a two pronged attack. Many said will it be a three or four. One, the misconduct alleged against donald trump and two, the obstruction. I would note the obstruction is not in doubt at all because the president has said that he wont participate with a fair process. Hes attack ed the the process, but everyone knows hes not participating. So the last hundred pages of this go over that. The first 140 pages or so go through what we learned in the hearings with new evidence basically laying out the case
that donald trump didnt just do a single phone call or request or favor, but rather that there was an orchestrated, very formalized conspiracy to try to get this attack on joe biden executed through the help of a Foreign Government and through that help being allegedly extorted. So i think were seeing the outlines e here. The Judiciary Committee can build on this case under the rules, but this report says theres two big things trump did wrong. One, misused the power of his office to win reelection and two, engaged in a cover up u to obstruct the investigation. Lets bring in peter welch, a a member of the house Intelligence Committee and Oversight Committee as well. Congressman, this report is coming from your committee. Two things involved here. Are you confident that this will be enough to convince the republican colleague that is the president is a danger to the 2020 election . Well, i do. It certainly convinced me and
ari got it right. This report all goes back to the president saying i want you to do me a favor though. What this report does is show how determined, ferocious, rerentless the president was in employing every person and tool he could to then ukraine to do his bidding on the investigation of biden. Thats whats really depressing, frankly, but also shocking. Then secondly, it creates an historical context, where previous president s who have hated impeachment inquiries, johnson, nixon and clinton, every one of them produced witnesses and ef single one of them produced documents. President trump has taken the unprecedented position that the separation of powers doesnt exist and apply to him. So thats a real threat to the three branches of government. And the constitutional order. In this 21st century environment, people who wont be convinced at all by any evidence, hard to move them. But this is a r very compelling, comprehensive document about president ial abuse and obstruction. The republicans are saying theres no direct link between the president and withhold thg aid in order to get investigations. In order to get ukraine to investigate the bidens and the 201 election. Theres thebb they say theres direct link there. Do you think it would have been wiser or more beneficial to convince the American Public if you went through the Court Process of trying to haul these witnesses in or do you believe that it just would have taken too long and we would have been too far down the line into the 2020 election . It would have taken far too long. Number one, i think we have plenty of evidence, again
starting with the president s phone call then Gordon Sondland saying that everybody was in the loop. Secondly, the president himself is the one who could have expedited by Doing What Nixon and clinton did. Make witnesses make documents available. Then third, the president ial strategy is to deny congress has any authority. By the way, that doctrine would apply if it were republicans in the majority trying to do an inquiry into a democratic president as well. So a really dangerous president that President Trump is attempt ing to assert here. But his fwoel was to run out the clock and obstruct and have we played that game, i think he would have been successful. Republicans are just refusing to engage with what the witnesses testified to. In fact, theyve said the witnesses all have a political ax to grind. They dont like Donald Trumps unusual or his nontraditional way of conducting diplomacy. And why they testified and theyre just being used as democratic pawns. How do you, how do you have an
argument . How do you make a case to the American Public when the side youre arguing with refuses to acknowledge what they heard and saw with their own ears and eyes . Two things. We have to try to speak to the American Public. I think that in the Intelligence Committee hearings, on the democratic side, we try to play it as straight as we could. And let the witnesses tell the story. And i think on our side, there was a minimum of speech, doing that thing that members of congress do to hear themselves talk. Seco secondly, what youre commenting on now is really a situation that i think is an affliction in politics and in journalism. Where there is not a willingness to have a common set of facts whereupon which you have your argument. So thats a challenge. President trump exploits that hes very good at just asserting things that are absolute and utter falsehoods, but folks who
want to support the president will go along with that approach. So one of the things that youre arguing here or that republicans are arguing is that ukraine is a problem and the president was right to look into corruption in ukraine. He was right to ask about the 2016 election because ukraine meddled. Our Intelligence Community did not find that ukraine meddled. Our Intelligence Community found that russia was the one that attacked our elections. Republicans keep pointing out a politico article talking about ukraine talking to alexandria chalupa, negating to go into that article, which says this was not a Top Down Effort like the russian effort in order to attack the elections. David hail, who is a Foreign Service officer, he testified today in front of the Foreign Relations committee in the senate. Senator mendez asked him about ukraine meddling. Let me just play what he said. Its coming up. Give us a second to load it into
our computers. Youll see it in just a moment. You know, apparently, we dont have it unfortunately. Hail said but i can read it. We have it here. Mendez says are you aware of any evidence that Yukraine Interfer nd the election. Hail says i am not. Mendez said i appreciate dr. Hills testimony bf the house. The former National Security adviser for europe and russia who said that nearry is a fictional narrative being perpetrated and propagated by the Russian Security services themselves. Do you have any reason to disagree with dr. Hill . David hail says i do not. He said that today and yet we had senator kennedy on the air with my colleague, chuck todd, on sunday. Saying yes, ukraine meddled. Are you confident that the argument is going to go anywhere in the senate when you have senators who are supposed to have a brief iing about russia
attacking refusing to go to that briefing or not looking and seek ing out that information then propagating russian talking points. Well, i have a lot of worry about that. I have a lot of worry that the senate is not going to allow the republicans, to take an open view of the evidence, but senator kennedy is trying to challenge hills account that it was a fictional narrative. In doing that, after Director Mueller testified, by the way, on july 24th, the day before the president s call to ukraine, that he feared that russian interference was the new normal in the day and that, the president asked ukraine to get involved in the 2020 election. That is just, those are facts. And in fact, we have a responsibility just as journalists have to try to come somewhat near the truth and get that out. And then have a contest about what should we do about it. So i dont know whats going to happen in the senate. We in house have a institutional responsibility. The political calculations i think were thrown out the window once the transcript of that call from President Trump to President Trump zelensky was released. So we have to proceed to do our constitutional duty and lets hope that the senate and all the members there if the house acts, will do theirs. Congressman welch, thank you for joining us. Back to ari. You found something in the documents. One of the Big Questions here has been okay, are we going to get a readout of everything we watched in those hearings and prosecutors do that, too, a summary, or new information. I can tell you, we have new information. The kind of stuff that would be Breaking News, Blockbuster Front page stories if it were a story. Its just coming from the government itself. According to the spell jensen committees report, im holding newly released logs of Rudy Giuliani in august with the white house and zbres interestingly with the Office Of Management And Budget. What is Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney for the
president of the United States, need to do with the Office Of Management And Budget . Well, that goes to one of the central questions in this entire alleged plot, which was was Rudy Giuliani illicitly involved in extorting a favor . Why we have any contact with omb. I think about bill taylor having that video link Conference Call about the Security Aide and saying that there was something from omb in the room off camera who said weve been told by the Chief Of Staff who was told by the president , to withhold the security aid. Why would Rudy Giuliani, whos not a member of the government, is the president s personal attorney, is there any legitimate reason for him b to be on the phone with an omb official . Youre asking exactly the right question. He doesnt have lines of authority. The omb deals with Government Matters of a highly sensitive nature. Hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid and Rudy Giuliani making these calls and reading again here from this report, this is new Breaking News that we have from the Intelligence Committee. They describe how mid afternoon, someone using a telephone number
soes qulassociated with the omb mr. Giuliani, a call lasting for nearly 13 minutes and also details again in this new material, each time texted or called people in the white house or omb. Ill put both these up for viewers. Sometimes the news is breaking so we havent turned this into easier to use graphics, but its pretty hot stuff, including whats suggested to be potentially a call from the white house or from the president himself. Just digit one, meaning its an unidentified number, but according to the call records that the committee has obtained, theyre showing late in the night, you had a four minute call with Rudy Giuliani, plus calling the white house switchboard, plus you have these attempted calls coming from an unidentified number. That doesnt mean and for vi viewers, that the house Intelligence Committee is saying this is the president or naming it. What theyre saying is number one, the white house and the president have basically obstructed and defied any
request to get bottom of this if theres an innocent explanation, theyre not providing it and number two, mr. Giuliani, who stands in the center of this plot, is having these ab normal contacts with the Budget Office. This is striking new stuff. Theres more than 15 calls. This is page 116 if youre following at home. In the report. This is august 8th, 2019. And were seeing 16, 17, looks like 20, 20 calls between Rudy Giuliani and the white house. Or Rudy Giuliani and omb and sam are Text Messages. When youre look iing at the om stuff, if you look right before that, theres a text message between Rudy Giuliani and a white house number at 2 21 13. An hour later, theres a call with omb that lasts 12 minutes and 56 seconds. Omb to Rudy Giuliani. Theres a couple of zero time calls from Rudy Giuliani to a,
the omb number. Maybe that was a pocket dial or butt dial then at 15 57. 3 57, 40 odd minutes the call with the omb number, theres a 22 sexd call with tsecond call the white house switchboard. A 17 second call. A couple hours later. Seems like hes trying to get ahold of somethibody and is not being put through with the duration of these calls. This adds to the evidence people saw in those public hearings because this is all happening, this log is august 8th. On august 9th, we know from public tennells that became public, and im reading again from this new report you have, sondland saying potus wants a deliverable on august 9th, you have ambassador volcker saying weve consulted with everythion quote, including rue di, lets get back on the phone. So we knew there was a lot of plotting going on. Whats new is not only is Rudy Giuliani in the center of this
plot, we knew that. But Rudy Giuliani is having what sounds like lengthy conversations with the Budget Office and a day later, the socalled three amigos and these others are meeting up saying rue dis in the loop. And according to this report, and the president will have his rely plis, but the report is alleging, quote, quid pro quo, in this section. Can you make a sound and convincing case without hearing directly from Rudy Giuliani . Yes. Two answers to that. What this report is saying is we have heard from Rudy Giuliani. We have the call logs. We have incriminating texts. Multiple people putting him at the scene of what may be a high crime of the abuse of the office of the presidency and you have him speaking out in public. The other thing ive noted reading through this in past times, a lot of references in here to fox news. To john solomon and the hill. To the president s democrats say
his incriminating phone calls with fox news. So the notion these people havent been heard from at all doesnt wash because theyve been heard from in public, they just wont go under ooet. The people who have gone under oath have largery corroborated the accounts. To broad it out again, its not just call records. What this report does as 300 plus pages is say to the white house, we see your defiance and your bluffs. Heres the actual story. Do you care to respond . We have judiciary hearings coming up. Seems like they dont care to respond though. Thus far, not in a setting that puts pressure on them so theres a lot of bluff and bluster ant tweets. But i think the question is it because having to go sit under oath and make these arguments on twitter, on fox news, to individual reporters, a lot easier to do it there. There are a lot less consequences doing it there than they would have if they sat under oath in front of a
congressional committee. It is legal to be wrong on twitter. It is legal to lie on the internet. Its legal to lie to reporters as corey bragged about. Hold on a second. Jake is also with us. A part you want to surface. I want to make a comment and give some context omb element of this, which ari and you were very right in pointing out. Omb is an agency that deals with highly complicated matters of the federal budget. Implementing them, making sure money goes to the right departments. Foreign aid is a small part of it, but its almost impossible, im not making an accusation here, just having covered these matters for a long time, i dont a universe in which the president s personal attorney would be in touch with an agency that dolls out money and manages the federal budget except for the matters that were talking about. It doesnt make any sense to me given what we know about the federal government and what omb
does. Could Rudy Giuliani just be freelance iing there . The president has put some distance. Hes tried to put distance between himself and Rudy Giuliani. Oh, Rudy Giuliani was u doing his own thing, basically a paraphrase of what the president said. Any reason Rudy Giuliani would have u the phone number for somebody at omb and would call that person to talk about anything other than financial matters relating to what hes doing in ukraine . I cant understand it to be honest with you. I mean, freelancing in this context like okay, you could get yourself to to understanding freelancing but look iing calli the omb which manages the federal bureaucracy, i dont know if youre answering the phone, what do you say, what is the president s attorney doing calling omb except for a purpose that we either know or have not even begun to dream about. It just doesnt make any sense here. And you, but what you said is
right. Cant get to the bottom of these things without talking to Rudy Giuliani and understand why he was calling the Office Of Management And Budget. You Surgeonly Cant Exonerate the president without talking to Rudy Giuliani. When you line up omb, line up the white house calls, line up the date on the timeline and the three amigos, it looks bad so Rudy Giuliani, if this was perfectly normal and innocent and there was some other reason for him to be on the phone with an omb official, he could sit in front of Consciogressional Committees and he could sit down and say here is what we were talking about. This has nothing to do with what you are alleging and i will say this under oath, but since hes not doing that, it does lead one to wonder if you dont have exonerating information, why are you hiding from people who are willing to hear it . And also these call logs and just by my quick glance, appear to have come from a Document Production from at t. So not, this is not voluntary
information that was handed over by anybody. I believe from my looking while you guys were talking, this is from a subpoena to at t. I wonder if Rudy Giuliani is surprised by this right now. Thats an important point about the important investigative process and why subpoenas matter, why elections have consequences. Why the white house defiance has gotten them so far. One, a loft these whats app messages which were drafted by sondland, Ultimately Gabecame T proof thats become public and were seeing at t complying and thats giving you information about the white house that the white house has tried to keep secret. I have a new thing here thats interesting. For viewers who have been following along, weve been talking about this period in august where the negotiating has been going on and we talked about these newly released Text Messages and phone call logs that showed Rudy Giuliani talking to the very office that controlled the money that democrats alleged was part of the effort to extort ukraine. Incriminating. Bad. Also bad is this comparison of draft statements. New in the report here on the left, what youre looking at and
again were just getting this now is an august 12th statement from ukraine. This is saying hey, well do gagss in general. On the right, youre looking at something the democrats say is very incriminating. The giuliani, volcker, sondland draft. Burisma. This is the keyword for biden. You can think of burisma as the word biden. It is the company that basically the Vice President s son had been on board of and thats the center of the effort to investigate the bidens, which this report alleges was a quid pro quo deal that donald trump wanted to do to help him win reelection. What has been added here in the giuliani edits, which come right after these incriminating contacts with the money office and Everything Else we mentioned is quote, lets include those involved in burisma and the 2016 elections. This is bad for the white house because this goes beyond what any individual witness has said and we see it up here on the screen on the lower right hand
of the screen, you can see a better version of the copy and the understood line in black. So giuliani and sondland added this. Correct. This again goes to did you want to clean up corruption in certain part of the world r or were you going after the bidens and when you had a statement on the left that talked about just cleaning up corruption, it says quote, on the left, complete a transparent unbiased investigation of all available facts. Thats more defensible. That wasnt good enough. They wanted burisma in it and the u. S. Allies here of the president apparently according to this, wrote it. Mika, they say that donald trump just Mepgsed Biden in that call with president zelensky on the 25th, he mentioned biden in passing. It was not a big thing, not to be taken too seriously, but even if it was, it was perfectly acceptable to be looking into biden and burisma because it was
a corrupt country and the president was very interested in corruption. Because this Statement Talks about corruption in general, the initial draft system, the giuliani volcker and hes a ukrainian official, the statement takes it a step further and mentions those two, mentions burrisma, the 2016 election. The same thing the president mentioned on the call. How can you argue it was just a one off when it keeps coming uch over and over and over again. We saw this in am ambassador taylors testimony where he was saying look, we tried to get a Generic Anticorruption statement out that would have been consistent with our longterm policy, but that wasnt good enough. They wanted a mention of burisma. One of the few things that was omitted from that initial call record was that actually zelensky said back to trump when he says biden, yes, we will look
into burisma. So its not like this is some in passing curious reference to biden that had never come up before. The three amigos has been talking to him to make it clear this Isnt About Corruption generally. This is about an investigation into one american citizen. Not the whole situation in ukraine and that person happens to be the son of the president s most feared political rival. I want to ask a question about mike pence. But first, garrett, you want to jump in on these phone calls . Theres another set of call logs in here that are notable. Nunes in april when giuliani was first stating to get on the ground in the ukraine and talk publicly about the investigation into the bidens, theres a several minute call with nunes
then later on in the call logs, theres calls between nunes and parnas, the associate of Rudy Giuliani currently under federal indictment. Nunes has been outside player in the drama, but based on these call logs, which again appear to be turned over pursuant to his sub b ppoena and not previously reported, looks like hes going to have explaining to do. I thought nunes is suing over reporting his connection to lev parnas. Hes not engaged with the allegation, but he was suing saying its all a bunch of fake news, right . Hes a fairly lety jous person. My recollection is that hes sue ing about conversations about a meeting that a he had. This is now call logs, phone calls of several minutes in duration. Hes not suing about that but perhaps in the future he will. This looks to be straightforward here. Connecting the Ranking Member of the Intel Committee to folks
involved in this inquiry and in fact under federal indictment. Ill just add one other thing from page nine, one of The Big Picture summary items here that democrat reaches, there were so many other officials in the government either knowledgeable or involved they say up to and including the defense secretary, the Chief Of Staff and the Vice President. Republican pence was someone who Democrats Wanteded to get a lot more information from alopg the way. They had a state Department Employee who was detailed to the Vice President s office come and testify both in closed door and in public. But they were stone walled by the Vice President s office. One member that i think well hear a lo lot of of 71 different either requests for documents or subpoenas, that were blocked by the administration. They argue in this that its as clear cut of case of obstruction as you could possibly find and i think theres maybe some validity to that argument. Drats will haemocrats will have easier time arguing obstruction
than some of the other points in this report. From page nine, its about pence, potentially others that were Knowledge Aable or active participants. Our investigation determine eed this call was neither the start nor the end of President Trumps efforts to bend u. S. Foreign policy for his personal gain. Rather, the it was a dramatic crescendo within a months Long Campaign driven by President Trump in which senior u. S. Officials including the Vice President , the secretary of state, the acting Chief Of Staff, the secretary of energy, thats rick perry, and others were either knowledgeable or, knowledgeable of or active par tis pants in an effort to extract from a northern nation the perm or political benefits sought by the president. Rick perry is no longer the secretary of energy. Is it easier to get him to testify now . Potentially. He might fall under the District Court ruling made about mulvaney, excuse me
cupper mann. The former white house counsel. Don mcgahn. This is somebody whos no longer than official. Not someone closely involved in National Security and is not as close of an adviser than the Chief Of Staff so while there may be individual questions or answers that perry and the white house could claim Executive Privilege on, you would think perry falls into that same budget as mcgahn, as somebody whos not el l jibl. He would have to show up and you know maybe invoke Executive Privilege. I am not a lawyer though. Ari may have better sense on that. The nunes stuff is really interesting. I want to go to more of the new material were learning from the evidence. Katy, one of the questions was why was the white house taking such a risk in looking so quote, unquote, guilty, by not releasing anything. I think part of the answer is here. This is just some of the call
records. Why do i say that from the white house per spspective . Heres a question we can answer today that we couldnt have any day before today, that is how early did Rudy Giulianis contact with the Budget Office begin . In august when they were cutting this crooked looking deal . No. And someone just flag ged in th footnotes, april 24th. Omb calls recipient, Rudy Giuliani. Why is that important . Because that shows this has happened to an organized degree that people inside the Budget Office, the money office, are thats call rer, are calling Rudy Giuliani. We alsz know people resigned. People were so corned ant This Quote Unquote Irregular Action that all sorts of whistles were blown but you go back to april
24th, omb calling giuliani. Later in the day. Calling him again. 13 minutes, caller, omb. On the receiving end. Rudy giuliani. He is not a budget expert. No. He is not in the u. S. Government for this activity. And he stands at the center of a plot to potentially illegally seize omb funds to extort ukraine. I would say this right here is some of the worst stuff we have seen because these are just Chicken Scratch notes, but wep by august, omb was pulled directly into freezing the money to get that statement to get the biden probe. And two officials resigned over the withholding of aid. We know that from testimony. Ill do you one better. April 12th, 2019, omb calls Rudy Giuliani. So even, so even before april 24th. This was a call only three segds long so it didnt go through. Who know ifs another call was made on a different line. The another thing about this
is really interesting, you see Rudy Giuliani here on april 12th, talking to the president s lawyer and sometimes lawyer on television, for seven minutes and 50 seconds. That gives you a sense of when they were in touch. We dont know what they discussed. Lev parnas and nunes, april 12th. Around the same time that omb is mysteriously initiated contact with Rudy Giuliani. The lawyer in me would say a one minute call is not that substantive. 12 minute kaus provide r more of an opportunity to discuss, but it says that mr. Parnas and these others who have been indicted have been with were having contacts at the heist level of the white house and the republican side of the Intelligence Community thats in the minority of this very report. Its fascinating. The negative one phone number this calls Rudy Giuliani quite a bit, how would i guess how would we go b about figuring out what negative 1 is. Does at t know what it is . Is it unusual to list negative 1 as a phone number and not a place . The report here, unidentified or anonymous number inside the white house makes it sound important. I dont read thus far, and i havent fipished. We know its inside the white house . Ive seen it referred to as negative 1 as a white house number okay. Of import. I have not seen, just looking. Yeah, i have not seen it identified as who it belongs to. Obviously in an investigation like this, people say oh, could that be the president. That is sometimes a potential inference. This report in the footnotes ive read is not saying that to date. Lets bring in jonathan allen. I know youve been reporting on Kamala Harris up until just now, but you have more information on Rudy Giuliani. Its interesting, you go through this r report, his name is in here more than 500 times. This clearly shows and this is a News Bombshell by the way, this
sbel where she knows Committee Report were just all of us going through it as fast as we can. The Intelligence Committee held back a lot of what it had from those hearings as it was trying to go through the witnesses and trying to get information from them, but also holding back some of what it had. Giuliani is all over the place here and obviously at the center. What we heard from those witnesses in the Intelligence Committee hearings was that if the wanted them to work through Rudy Giuliani. And here according to this report was running the whole operation. The other thing thats important to remember, is that mulvaney is also current ly the director of the Office Of Management And Budget. Really good point. Hes not running that office at the moment, but everybody in the Political Office over there was at the time mick mulvaneys
political appointees. His people over there and continued to be through very recently until some of those folks started dropping out of the investigation. Anything he was involved in from the white house perspective, anything in the political shop, those things, theres a Big Connective Tissue there. We obviously dont know who was on the other end of those calls, if those were political numbers, you can bet those were people connected to mulvaney. He stood at the White House Press podium and press Briefing Room and said yes, this was a quid pro quo. Yes, the president wanted those gass. So what, we do it all the time. He said this in front of reporters. To reporters and seemed to shrug it off. He later tried to walk it back and say thats not what he said, but again, he was on camera saying it so presumably, if Congressal Democrats were able to get him in front of the them, they would be able to ask him
this stuff on oath whether it actually was a quid pro quo and he would have to answer but so far, he has not sat for a hearing, testimony, he did file a legal brief asking if he needed to be compelled or had to listen to the white house. Again, the white house has blocked the pert nant players that could directly lipg the president with this direction to withhold aid in order to get ukraine to investigation his rivals. Theres also a really interesting piece of news out from the New York Times today. Ari, not sure if you saw it. This was the former Deputy Foreign minister in ukraine telling reporters that she knew about the withholding of the aid, ukraine knew about it as early as july 30th. July 30th. Thats five days after the july 25th call. It lines up with what laura cooper, the pentagon official said that she believed ukraine new about the withholding of aid
in exchange for investigations by july 25th. So this is another element that bolsters the argument that this was a quid pro quo. This was a favor for a favor. This was the president saying no aid unless you give me vesgagss. I think its really important because as we brought from the individual evidence stacking up today, the white house has been very sloppy because they havent landed on a defense. Are you denying, didnt do it. Mitigating . Some after it had happened, wasnt as bad. Edit all of it, dont care. The joy behar defense. Who cares. I say that because joy is a friend or was until this moment. Joy behar defense works on little stuff. Harder when its abuse of power. Abuse of military funding, missiles. Weve heard some of that. Also the full mulvaney. We do it all the time, get over it. They have recently, and you and i follow this for a living, they have gone back to a more of a it
didnt really work out and the hill republicans really like this defense because it sounds better. If they didnt know, if we didnt pull it off, if ultimately either the Biden Burisma investigation didnt happen or money got released or all this. Well under the law asking for a bribe is bribery. Its different from offenses where you have to complete some act. Asking is bribe bry. Conspiracy is conspiracy. Theose are felonies. High crimes . Only the congress will decide. The story youren pointing to undercuts that mitt xwags defense that well, maybe they didnt know. How could it be a threat if you didnt know i was armed . Oh, you did know i was armed . Th . And Sclen Zelensky said there was no pressure. Hes in a tough president because hes the new president of a country thats trying to fight off russian aggression. Russia an necked part nexus par
that country. Crimea, theyre in an active bar and desperately need not only the aid from the United States to help them by the an anti Anti Tank Missiles and javelins, et cetera. The military weaponry, but also the legitimacy that would be bestoued upon them in a meeting with the president. If the president is at the white house with president zelensky and he says this photo is fighting corruption, this is legitimate president , it soends sends a clear message to the russians that the United States has ukraines back. Without that, they are in a more precarious position and zelensky is in a position that President Trump is. He doesnt have the International Political will in order to stand up to the president to his face because he needs the bipartisan support of congress in order to get that aid. Dont pick a political fight
with the president of a party if thats only going to mean that party goes against you and makes it harder for you to get the aid you need. Youre speaking about what weve learned in the Public Record about the conditionsing of that meeting. Whats new today to sort of remix katy with the Intelligence Committee, the journalism and this report, its all sources, this report has a point of view. Its making a case against donald trump about the bribery plot. Do we have to go to something . Donald trump is arriving at 10 Downing Street in the u. K. Hes going the meet with a number of other official, boar ris johnson. The Prime Minister for the time being at least. Of the u. K. Theyre in the mild l of breck it negotiations. Theres another coming up. Hans, has the white house responded to the r report so far . We can see the president right now . Not directly from the president , but from stephanie grisham. It appears it had been written
beforehand. I say that because in keeping with what the president was saying earlier when he was really attacking adam schiff. He called him deranged. At the end of a one sided sham process, from grich m, Chairman Schiff and the democrats failed to produce any evidence of wrong doing by President Trump. This report reflects nothing more than their frustrations. Chairman schiffs report reads like the ramblings of a Basement Blogger Straining to prove something when theres evidence of nothing. Thats in keeping with what the president said, a crime in search of evidence. He went out of his way on several occasions to go after schiff. So president s going in a meeting at number 10. I dont suspect well hear from him from the rest of the night, but well have plenty of opportunities tomorrow and if form is anything like today, the president was awfully chatty. Ive seen him eye those cameras. Well see if he walks over there. He has been awfully chatty. Im sure well hear something from him tomorrow. Lets bring in counsel to the house Judiciary Committee during the nixon impeachment. Mike conway. You were raising a point about the potential significance of the these call logs. What do you want to say . Absolutely. So when the house Judiciary Committee and the nixon impeachment wanted to subpoena white house tapes, we got the president s calendar and found out who he talked to and who he talked to next. From that, we identified tapes to be subpoenaed. Even though president nixon d defied our prosecutors, it turneded out to be the Smoking Gun Tape that led president s resignation. So here we have these call logs. They can no longer deny context. The contacts are there. The question what happened in them and if the president refuses as he has all along to produce the information, produce the witnesses who could testify, i think we have circumstantial evidence that they were discussing the ukraine plot and at the highest levels of the
administration. Do those laws exist at the white house . Does that schedule exist at the white house . Oh, sure. There should be a call. There should be a call record at the white house that identifies who the president met with at every stage. Not the content, but who he spoke to. The call logs he had were down to e three minutes and ten seconds of a phone call. And those were the meetings we subpoenaed for the tapes. I just wonder if they keep those r records because the president isnt fond of anybody keeping notes. Nt fond of anybo keeping notes. Personal information or government information on a personal device. Mika, i know you wanted to jump
in on the call logs as well. What do you have . Its really interesting when you look at the call logs and how many of them are about Rudy Giuliani with his associates, lev parnas and fruman who have been charged in the Southern District of new york with a variety of crimes whenri they we trying to flee the country. Yesterday it t was reported tha they have a number of their Electronic Devices that they are trying toes turn over to house investigators. While we have the call logs that give youe the times and the metada metadata, its possible that the house could soon get the content of these calls at least as it pertains to Rudy Giulianis henchmen which may shed additional light on whats happening here. The information that the house could gather Going Forward is quite large. Ari . I wanted to add one other thing. We were speaking a little bit about how this unfolded and it is fascinating to watch the president still conducting policy, still the lawful
commanderinchief of the United States while his alleged abuse of Foreign Policy remains in investigation of an impeachment probe. In fairness to any president , whether you think this one abused the officeis or not, thi is his job n until its not and hes out there conducting Foreign Policy. Its a fascinating moment that we saw there. We continue to have fascinating Split Screens when hes overseas or sitting next to a Head Of State where hes embroiled in a scandal or controversy and is asked about it and responds. This a has been a continuous the throughout his presidency. That, looking to at the story that the white house has to respond to, and it was i would say rhysable which is a fancy word for laughable, that they said this exhaustive report with new evidence reads like a w blogger. It doesnt. In a world of tweets and instant hot takes and Donald TrumpsFoamen Eighting i dont know if you can describe it if you havent read
it. Thats also a fair point. Multiple fair points. They havent digested it yet. That doesnt mean you have to agree with this. Weve had scholars on msnbc who say really bad use of the military power, the Foreign Policy power, may not rise to the level of impeachment and you have that debate. I do want to make one additional point as we take it all in because some of this stuff weve been in the weeds. How many steps was in this plot . Was it just a phone call, just one thing. Whats interesting, were going to see more in the Committee Hearings tomorrow and to come, theyre outlandiining a sevens conspiracy. Step one, get rid of the ambassador who would be a good cop and tell on you. Number two, get giuliani in there. Step three, i get the money in there. Step t four, that coveted white house meeting, condition it on the money. Step five, ask for what they call interference in 2020. Step six, you got to have this
public. Its not enough to go after the bidens if nobody knows about it. If fareed isnt in on it, its not good enough. It may sound ridiculous but thats literally what the report and the evidence shows they were seeking. Sondland testified to that. Step tseven, the president conditions military aid, raising alarm and thats where seven and eight start to fold into the reactionol and the coverup. Why is this important, why am i going through the steps . Because one phone call, no matter how bad, does not a presidency make. You could come up with a scenario where a president said ridiculously bad things on a phone call, took it back, apologized, dealt with it. I dont know that i president gets impeached over one phone call. What theyre saying in this report is the phone call that we heard about thats been discussed so much, that was but one little piece of a wide ranging, organized alleged conspiracy with Rudy Giuliani calling the shots, controlling the llmoney, all that and that the seven steps you see here. Why are they seizing why
are democrats seizing on this ukraine phone call, the withholding of aid, whats happening with the g president interaction with ukraine in a wayth that they didnt seize on thedn Mueller Report . Thisle has gone so much faster. This has been a matter we are i believe on day 70 or 71 of the impeachment inquiry. That is light speed fast to get from we just found out about this, were going to open an inquiry, to this report is being submitted to the Judiciary Committee and articles of impeachment could be drawn up before the end of the year. We are already in december. Thats a big question. I dont have the whole answer. We can ask different democrats and different members of congress because some said mueller was enough and others didnt. May i gesture an answer . Sure. I think part of the answer is when bob mueller didnt find an electionrelated crime, i think a lotec of democrats paused and said is this the one to go to the mat on, even though obstruction is serious and bill clinton was famously publicly
rebuked by not only republicans but Many Democrats said that was bad and republicans didnt impeach him over it. But when mueller didnt find an election related crime conspiracy, i think it gave a lot of Top Democrats including Speaker Pelosi pause. What you see inlo this report a whats in a parallel investigation involving parnas, giuliani and others is an alleged election conspiracy. Theyre saying he abused his power in order to interfere not in the 2016 election but to interfere in the 2020 election, the upcoming election. Thats the argument the democrats are making, that it shouldnt be left to the voters in 2020 because it might not be fair. The president might cheat. Our breaking News Coverage continues of this Intelligence Committee impeachment report right after the break. Dont go anywhere. Rt achment repo right after the break. Dont go anywhere. Deep clean messes like this, this, and even this. But i dont have to clean this, because the selfcleaning brush roll removes hair while i clean. [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans now cleans itself. There are things we would change about work. And there are things we wouldnt. When work is worth it. Work is worth it. Work can be closer to home. Pay more. Make us proud. Careerbuilder. Work can work. Find your work at careerbuilder. Com Liberty Mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. I wish i could shake your hand. Granted. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Woman friction points, those obstacles that limit a companys growth. I try to find companies that turn these challenges
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