honest. starting with someone who's a career employee and someone who knows the procedures, maybe boring as it's described in technical, but that's where you start, and then you go from there. once you understand the process, you know who are the witnesses that you should be asking for. obviously we know that mulvaney would be one of them, and that means the courts have a very important role and must act expeditiously because the decision about whether people can continue to ignore subpoenas, which i believe will be answered they cannot, is important, and it needs to be handled fast. so let's count on the courts to come forward and be significantly honest in this. >> nick ackerman, when you look at the money trail here, the question might be mick mulvaney, acting chief of staff for the president of the united states, he's the head of omb, and what was said today, again, when we learned from what holmes said,
marsh as well because we've heard from ambassadors, diplomats and policy experts. people might be wondering why are we hearing from an official from the budget office? >> right. so this has really become central, the office of management and budget, also known as omb. essentially for people who don't know, this agency doles out money that congress approves and make sure that agencies don't overspend and also make sure that the money that's been approved is spent. that's why this agency has become so central because this is where thine freezing of that aid occurred. mark sandy who just arrived on capitol hill for his closed-door deposition, he will be the first omb employee to testify behind closed doors. he's a long-time career employee. he's worked under administrations of both parties. and so far we have had very little visibility on the behind-the-scenes workings for all this all played out. democratic investigators are really hoping that sandy will shed some light on those
ignored house democrats' request to testify. so that is why sandy's testimony today is so significant for that reason. now, he is a long-time career employee. he's worked under administrations of both parties. and so far we have very little visibility on the inner workings for how all of this played out. of course democratic investigators are hoping that sandy will shed some light on the internal conversations when the administration took this really unusual step of freezing that $400 million in aid, which by the way was already approved by congress. he will likely be asked whether the freeze raised alarm for him, whether he expressed those concerns, was he told why it was happening, how involved was he in the process, was he cut out of the process at some point. we spoke with former omb officials who told us that freezing funds, that's usually a task for career officials. but in this case we know political appointees signed at least some of the documents
and there's still more new today as i was saying. our panel is here to unpack what's happened today and what we have learned. they will share their reporting as well as their perspectives on how this new testimony is affecting the narrative on day 53. but first, a closed door deposition with omb official mark sandy just finishing. sandy is a career employee who has worked under both republican and democratic presidents. his remarks are filling in gaps about nearly half a billion dollars of military aid to ukraine that was held up. a process in which the organization, the department he worked for, the omb played a critical role. in fact, mark sandy's signature appears on the very document that stopped and paused the aid to ukraine. this is why he is so important if you are a democrat on the house intelligence committee. now, let's backpedal just a little bit to find out what we've learned this week. wednesday, ukraine ambassador bill taylor and top state
guilty of. all of it as "the 11th hour" gets underway on a thursday night. good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 1,029 of the trump administration. a day between this week's public impeachmentme hearings. the president flew to louisiana tonight for a rally. back in washington, a new witness who's ready to break ranks and go against the white house ordered to remain silence. "the washington post" reports that mark sandy a career employee over at the office of management and budget will appear in a closed door session with lawmakers on saturday if subpoenaed. this has been confirmed by nbc news. he would be the first employee to testify in the inquiry after omb acting director russell
russia. what does it tell you? >> it's worrisome. very much so. ms. yovanovitch is a career diplomat. a career employee. bob livingston, former member of the house was also lobbying for her removal. it was clearly a political effort to stop her for reasons i can't even explain. and i would say to mr. sullivan and others, before you remove a professional diplomat who served this country under presidents of both political parties, there should be cause. in this case, there never was. >> given that ambassador sullivan there, deputy secretary sullivan basically said that if the president did it, it would be wrong, i find it interesting what some republicans, including republican senators are starting to say. i want to take the case of rob portman from ohio who says it's not appropriate for a president to engage a foreign government in an investigation of a political opponent. so he's saying he doesn't think what the president did is right.
witness to a complaint. now i believe the whistleblower has become a material witness to the process. if, in fact, the whistleblower. we know went to schiff's office maybe didn't speak to the congressman but spoke to his staff and got direction. then that person needs to explain what they did and how they did it and what was the chain of events that led. >> bill: it wouldn't make the witness unimpeachment >> it goes to credibility, intent and motive. i have to tell you it seems fishy that a career employee in a department did not know about an internal i.g. and what the process was and they went to the president's number one political enemy and got guidance from that office. it just doesn't smell right. >> no, i do think we have to keep in mind this is not a court of law. this is a political process and needs to have legitimacy with the american public. for that reason as much as we
is evidence of political interference in the annual process of auditing the president's tax returns. this is different from the ukraine matter but calls to mind one of the ongoing clashes between capitol hill and the white house seeking information about the president's tax returns and in this case an allegation of political interference. >> what's the worst case scenario in terms of where this will end up? >> it's a little difficult to know. the new development is that two inspector generals in the treasury department we believe are taking a look at this, have opened a review of it. the administration sources have suggested that there is not much to the complaint. the democratic chair of the house ways and means committee has said publically that he views the claims in this whistleblower's report which we believe he has reviewed as serious and that the allegations are true significant. and he added it's urgent that we
president said in that conversation with his ukrainian counter part. this week i suspect will be dominated by the depositions of two of the key figures in this. we have the u.s. ambassador of the european union. then we also have the dismissed ambassador to the ukraine. and i suspect that's on friday. that gives her an opportunity to tell her side of the story. remember all the text messenings that we got last week. they came out after the depositions were on the hill. so we may be in for another trove of text messages back and forth or other communications as officials and diplomats are trying to coordinate their strategy and set up a phone call and/or a visit. >> based on our reporting, a second whistleblower could -- may or may not be associated with the reporting coming from the "new york times." of course, there are reportedly six individuals who had knowledge of this particular back and forth.
without him, i would not have made this phone call. i didn't want to deal with the ukrainians. rudy giuliani defendainitely di it has been inveteresting to se the president shift strategy. he doesn't seem to like his own white house in how they are defending him. >> tom, something you know well here. this is not the first nor the second whistleblower in the impeachment inquiry that we're talking about today. there is another separate whistleblower related to the president's taxes. where are we? >> there are three whistleblowers in the headlines just now. and one that we wrote about in the "washington post" the last couple of days is a whistleblower from the internal revenue service, a career employee, who has reported to the inspector general and to the chairs of the house ways and means and the senate finance committee that he believes there