John Kupperman News Today

House investigators have just released the transcript of their deposition with laura cooper. Shes the pentagon official whose testimony was delayed by five hours late last month when republicans stormed the secure hearing room. The transcript of coopers testimony reveals how some pentagon officials were sounding the alarm over the president s decision to withhold military aid to ukraine. Cooper testified that pentagon officials were increasingly worried about the aid being held up. And that they...

Iron man. Jimmy carter recovering from surgery to relieve pressure on his brain after falls. I asked him about recuperation just weeks ago. How did you have the resilience and strength, to be why, for showing up for habitat off falling and injuring yourself . I always put habitat first. We havent missed a habitat project in 36 years. So i didnt want to miss this one. This would have been special for us. Good day, everyone, im Andrea Mitchell in new york with breaking news on the most anticipated...

That you dont have to either withhold or receive the aid, it isnt the issue of what happened afterwards, its the pressure, its the, quote, extortion, as democrats would say. >> thats right, andrea. and as we all know, in the legal system, you dont actually have to have a completed crime for a crime to have been committed. you can attempt to commit a crime or you can conspire with other people to have committed a crime, all of which would satisfy a legal standard. for nikki haley to say there was...

Psy. robert, always good to see you. what are the -- i guess walk through the likelihood that were going to hear from either kupperman or bolton or mulvaney given -- given this hearing. >> boy, its hard to know what to expect. i do think its interesting. i mean, pete did a very nice job of laying out why the bolton/kupperman camp thinks that the interests of their side do not line up with mulvaneys legal interests. but i think that theres also something else at stake, which is that each camp is ...

They dont want mulvaneys involvement in possibly holding up the -- the aid and all the legal questions there to sort of kind of wash over their kind of national security reputation. so i do think theres this other dimension of whats going on. >> so this might get branched out into two separate suits. mulvaney might give his own suit or file his own suit. >> right. >> if its found that mulvaney has to testify or if its found that kupperman has to testify, does that mean that everyones going to ha...

Questions and a lot of confusion. nbc justice correspondent pete williams is following this story. pete, there is a hearing going on right now. can you make sense of this for us? >> well, we think its still going on. we dont know. its a conference call between the judge and the lawyers here. but because the courthouse is closed, we dont know whether its over yet or not. but heres the deal here. kupperman filed his lawsuit saying to the judge, ive got the subpoena from the house. ive got the whit...

Switching vehicles. theres the mcgahn lawsuit thats ongoing. that might raise the same issues and get to a more expedient judicial sort of decision. so i think that mulvaney is probably trying to intervene, in part, to protect his reputation so that he looks like not just the lackey of the president but someone who might want to have a political career after this all sort of shakes out. >> does it make it more difficult to potentially hear from john kupperman? >> i dont think it necessarily make...

Number two, they say, he may have already waved any immunity when he had that news conference and talked about a quid pro quo and number three, kuppermans lawyers say to the judge, you know what, last week, the house withdrew the subpoena for kuppermans testimony saying things have moved on. we dont need him anymore. allowing mulvaney to enter at this point is just going to bog it down and prevent you from doing what you ought to do, judge, which is to dismiss this lawsuit. so if mulvaney doesnt...

Even for a story full of twists and turns, the latest legal twist in the impeachment inquiry is odd. right now, theres a hearing going on where acting white house chief of staff mick mulvaney is trying to join a lawsuit against his boss, president trump. and if that werent odd enough, the existing plaintiff does not want a legal alliance with mick mulvaney. the lawsuit on impeachment testimony was first brought by former national security advisor john boltons deputy charles cooperman, who shares...

Mull vane ya wants to john kuppermans lawsuit. he would answer questions from lawmakers if courts were to compel him to. if he is allowed to join that suit, he would be going against his own boss. whipple, who wrote a book about it, said he could not think of any precedent for a chief of staff going to court given that mulvaney has been willing to do almost anything for trump, he told the "times". it is remarkable he is asking for a second opinion. >> john bolton is in for a $2 million book deal...