imagine a situation where he comes and we see him testify? so, listen, under normal times, brianna, i would tell you that the documents would be produced. he would testify. if he didn t testify he would be held in contempt and it would be that simple. we re not in normal times. norms are being changed every single day. and you know what, it is an open question. let me tell you why. congress absolutely has subpoena power. they re issuing subpoenas for legitimate legislative purposes and the documents should be produced. number one, you look to the inherent power of congress to hold someone in contempt and they never use it in modern times so under inherent powers nothing will happen. you look to statutory powers, you need the u.s. attorney, brianna, in order to force a contempt citation. well guess who controls the u.s. attorney? the executive branch controls it. and giuliani is the private attorney to the president. so guess what happens if you try to issue a statutory contempt? that
former national security adviser john bolton warns of north korea s threat just weeks after leaving the white house, he slams president trump s north korea policy saying kim jong-un will never give up his nuclear weapons. wolf blitzer is off today, i m brianna keiler, you re in the situation room. announcer: this is cnn breaking news. we re following breaking news. three house committees investigating president trump just issued a subpoena to his personal lawyer rudy giuliani for documents that are related to ukraine which is at the center of the impeachment inquiry. president trump now says his team is trying to identify the whistle-blower whose complaint about his ukraine call helped launch the impeachment inquiry in our poll just released shows support for impeaching president trump growing among independents and republicans. we re going to talk about the breaking news and more with
when people say to me on the phone, well, he acted that way in the calls because that s donald trump. but that is not that is not okay. that is what i m asking. you re right, the surprise factor is definitely diminished over time severely. if barack obama he likes to bring up barack obama. if barack obama had done one-tenth of what he s done, barack obama would have been out the first day. and there is a difference from doing things in an unorthodox way which is what he promises and doing thing detrimental to our society and the global community. huge difference. but the problem, brianna, quickly, is look, he gets his protection. it doesn t matter what the house wants to do. he ll be protected in the senate. you could impeach the president, i don t care. you ll get two-thirds of the votes, 67 senators. it will never happen. so he feels he could act with impunity and continues to happen and not only that, but gets worse. jamie? i want to say i know everyone keeps sayin
say, witnesses it is highly problematic. let s understand that the whole purpose of the whistle-blower is not to have any policy dispute. we could debate night and day about policy. but if there is a lawful violation so that you could come forward and legitimately tell of the lawful violation without disclosing your identity, without being retaliated against and without the president making suggestions about this is what we do with whistle-blowers. and so, look, the bottom line is then you get to the point, brianna, will the whistle-blower get to tell their story or will their identity be protected or leaked? where will it occur. and there are so many outstanding questions but you have to protect whistle-blowers because you set a precedent if you don t. it is way beyond problematic. it is outrageous when you have the president of the united states implying that he s going to go after the whistle-blower. he called this person a potential spy. stephen miller said it is
voters or a jury, to let something slide. yeah. you know what, brianna, it is just we re living in such polarizing times and i think what the president constantly attempted to do is ensure his base and to come up with conspiracy theories and to otherwise throw out information whether it is about corrupt biden s son, right. mind you, no corruption found. prosecutor doesn t facts don t matter. it just matters what the president throws out there and so it is nice if we could have a legal discussion but the president moves it from a legal discussion to a political discussion to say, look at those democrats, look at what they re doing. they want to bring up this impeachment issue for that? really. i m talking about a foreign leader getting involved in this country s elections. it doesn t matter. it is insane what is happening now. and it is the spinning and spinning that we re hearing in the polarization and that becomes a problem. i think there is a great danger and we talk about h