Page 88 - The Loop News Today

The report also accuses key administration officials of being involved in the scheme, and this now sets up the next phase of the impeachment inquiry-- hearings before the house judiciary committee that begin tomorrow. nancy cordes is at the capitol gh and, nancy at 300 pages, there is a lot in this report. >> reporter: there is, norah. the report essentially lays out all the evidence for impeachment, and the house intelligence committee which did the digging, just voted to hand those findings ov...

Regard to the white house call and the white house meeting, the answer was yes. everyone was in the loop. >> did you consider that, professor? >> i did consider that, yes. >> and did you also consider the findings of fact that the intelligence committee made including that, and i quote, from finding of fact number 5, the president withheld official acts of value to ukraine and conditioned their fulfillment on actions by ukraine that would benefit his personal political interests? >> i did rely o...

Presidents personal lawyer was in touch with the office responsible for freezing that military aid to ukraine. personally on the phone with him, at&t records show at the peak of the pressure against ukraine this past he placed multiple calls to the white house switchboard and situation room. so he was in the loop, so was the president. the phone lines also showed back in april giuliani received several calls from the omb, which controlled military aid to ukraine. and thats when giuliani was lead...

>> professor gerhardt, when a president prevents witnesses from complying with congressional subpoenas, are we entitled to make any presumptions about what they would say if they testified? >> yes, maam, you are. and i might just point out that one of the difficulties with asking for a more thorough investigation is thats exactly what the house has tried to conduct here. and the president has refused to comply with subpoenas and other requests for information. thats where the blockage occurs. th...

To the issues of investigations and everything is held up until these statements get made and pence nodded in response. the idea that there are a number of senior administration officials not just president trump who are tied up in this. >> right. as ambassador sondland famously said, everyone was in the loop. i think this is the committees version of everyone was in the loop and there is a point they talk about this dramatic crescendo within a months long campaign driven by president trump, bec...

Received supports the narrative that the president -- importanting it himportant iimportant, it has to be about the president and his advisers -- that he was conducting and making a public announcement about a political investigation that would assist the president. thats the key. and whats important is that the testimony highlight the presidents conduct, because impeachment is about the president. it has to show its not just his advisers, it wasnt people in his circle doing things on their own ...

Starting with the presidents 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 presidential 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 pr...

Aisle. >> we did have a discussion and we had to make a judgment as in any case one would have to make. and we were trying to get as much information as we could. weve been thwarted obviously by the president who wont make any witness available or any documents available. but with the bravery of many of our public servants, we got an immense amount of evidence and we feel confident that the evidence we have is more than sufficient to proceed with the impeachment inquiry. and on the other hand, w...

Take a look. >> was there a quid pro quo? the answer is yes. i followed the directions of the president. we did not want to work with mr. giuliani. simply put, we were playing the hand we were dealt. mr. giulianis requests for a quid pro quo for arranging a white house visit for president zelensky. he had to announce the investigations. he didnt actually have to do them, as i understood it. everyone was in the loop. it was no secret. >> mia, would we have learned all this and would we be on the ...

Send him on a 16 hour trip to bagram air base in afghanistan to visit the troops there with only a very small handful of people being in the loop. lets bring in a former secret service agent under president obama and also cnn law enforcement analyst. good to see you. so lets talk about first this blob. as they investigated what this thing was, the white house on lockdown, is that the kind of response that you are expecting? >> yeah, the secret service and law enforcement partners reacted very qu...