The arrest made in the murder of a key witness of former Dallas Police officer amber guyger. Nothing to sneeze at, a warning as flu season gets underway, why it could be one of the worst in years. And solid gold, simone biles leads the u. S. To its fifth team title in the World Championships and makes more history for herself in the process, today, wednesday, october 9th, 2019 from nbc news, this is today with Savannah Guthrie and hoda kotb. Live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Hi, everybody, good morning, nice to have you with us on a wednesday morning. We want to get right to our breaking news from overseas, that buildup of turkish troops at the border with syria poised for a major offensive against a key u. S. Ally, and it comes in the wake of the president s decision to pull troops out of that area. That decision drawing fierce criticism here and abroad from republicans and democrats. Nbc chief correspondent Richard Engel is in istanbul with the latest. Whats the situation there. Reporter good morning. Turkish Officials Say that all of their military preparations are now complete. All they need is the order to go. With turkish troops and hardware massed on turkeys southern border, this morning, a senior turkish official says an assault is imminent against u. S. Allies, the kurds of syria. Turkey says it got the green light to go ahead from President Trump in a phone call with turkeys president last weekend, according to a turkish president ial spokesman. U. S. Troops, the thousands in syria who fought shoulder to shoulder with the kurds against isis have been ordered to stand back, not resist and let it happen. U. S. Officials tell us many of the troops in syria feel thats wrong. President trump says its overdue to hand the isis fight to someone else. We have been in syria for a long time, and it was supposed to be a very short hit, and a hit on isis, but it didnt work out that way. Reporter a growing chorus of u. S. Officials, including some of the president s supporters describe it as a historic betrayal of the kurds who lost 11,000 men and women fighting with u. S. Forces. One of the reasons it was so concerning is because it seems so impulsive. Reporter many current and former u. S. Military commanders are deeply disturbed to abandon their allies who worry they will be massacred by turkey. General botel just retired as commander. The overall sentiment is one of disappointment, that were letting down our partners. Reporter President Trump says he did coordinate with turkey about their operation but advised them not to go too far against the kurds whom turkey calls terrorists. Turkeys specific goal is to create a buffer zone, 20 miles deep, 250 miles long inside syria right on top of where the kurds live. Another fear, that tens of thousands of isis fighters and their family members now guarded by the kurds could break out in the chaos. A fears shared by the family of journalist james foley who was murdered by isis in 2015. They can continue their reign of terror on us. No one is going to hold them accountable. They can go ahead and find a way to regroup, and to me thats a very frightening thought. This is such a volatile region, richard, you pull one string and unintended consequences everywhere. How much of a crisis might this create. Well, in this case, these are intended consequences, the kurds have been warning publicly openly for months, intensifying over the last several days that they could face ethnic cleansing if this goes ahead. There are about 2 Million People who live in this kurdish enclave that could be invaded by turkey, in addition to the dead and injured that they expect. There also could be a refugee crisis with many people trying to escape towards iraq. Tens of thousands of isis family members, isis members, fighters, who could escape. This could lead to a great deal of chaos and bloodshed. Richard engel on the ground there. In the meantime, things are escalating in the impeachment investigation in a defiant letter to democratic leaders, the president s lawyer says the white house will not cooperate saying the investigation is invalid. That letter was sent just hours after the Trump Administration blocked a key witness from testifying on capitol hill. Overnight, House Speaker nancy pelosi fired back. She accuses the white house of trying to hide the truth. Weve got complete coverage, including a newly revealed memo from the original whistleblower. I well start with nbcs kristen welker. Good morning. Reporter good morning to you, the white house is escalating its standoff with House Democrats, refusing their request for documents, claiming their inquiry is unconstitutional and urging House Speaker nancy pelosi to abandon the entire impeachment effort. Democrats are returning fire, accusing the white house of trying to put the president above the law. Thimorning, the white house at war, in a stern, 8 page letter, the white House Counsel telling House Democrats it rejects the impeachment inquiry as unconstitutional, arguing it violates basic due process saying the president , quote, cannot permit his administration to participate in this partisan inquiry because it would inflict lasting institutional harm on the executive branch. The letter accuses democrats of trying to reverse the results of the 2016 election. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warning if the white house continues to Block Congress it will be regarded as further evidence of obstruction adding mr. President , you are not above the law, you will be held accountable. Overnight, other democrats lashing out. Enough is enough. If in fact he wants to continue to obstruct, then we will say hes obstructing the fundamental rights of congress to do its job, and that will become part of the impeachment. Reporter the dramatic escalation comes as House Democrats subpoenaed gordon sondland, the ambassador to the European Union after the white house blocked him from testifying hours before he was set to appear tuesday. Sondland is a one time trump donor at the center of questions about what the president may have promised ukraines leader if he helped investigate joe biden. Mr. Trump arguing sondland would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court. Republican allies backing him up. We fully understand why the Administration Made the decision they did. Reporter now, the white house is arguing that the inquiry is illegitimate until the households a vote to open one. The constitution says the house of representatives has the sole power of impeachment. When asked if they would cooperate, an Administration Official said they would not discuss hypothetical situations. Savannah. More details are emerging now about how white house officials reacted to the president s phone call with the leader of ukraine, and theyre coming from a newly revealed memo written by the whistleblower at the center of all of this. Nbcs chief White House CorrespondentHallie Jackson has that part of the story this morning. Good morning. Savannah, good morning. This is an unusual look into at lease of the conversations the whistleblower had with the white house official whos describing the conversation between President Trump and the ukrainian president in stark terms. Crazy and frightening. Thats how one white house official is set to have described that controversial call between President Trump and the leader of ukraine in which the president asked for help investigating political rival joe biden. Thats according to a newly revealed memo written by the whistleblower, separate from the complaint of the impeachment inquiry. A source with direct knowledge confirmed its contents to nbc news as reported by the new york times. The memo says the white house official who listened to the july call described the conversation as completely lacking in substance related to National Security and that in the officials view, the president had clearly committed a criminal act by urging a foreign power to investigate a u. S. Person for the purposes of advancing his own reelection bid in 2020. The official visibly shaken by what had transpired according to the whistleblowers memo. No comment from the whistleblowers attorney though the president has repeatedly insisted he did nothing inappropriate. The perfect call. Its just a scam. Its a scam by the democrats to try and win an election that theyre not going to win in 2020. There was no anything. But the whistleblowers complaint at the center of the house impeachment inquiry, democrats are defending the process. Protecting the whistleblower is absolutely essential so theres no retribution or anything for speaking truth. Hallie, overnight, the president is seizing on a report about the whistleblowers political bias against him. What more do you know about that. Reporter the president overnight is tweeting about a report that the whistleblower had a professional tie to one of the 2020 Democratic Candidates but the Intelligence CommunityInspector General while acknowledging that there may be arguable political bias on behalf of the whistleblower still concluded that the allegations appeared credible. The whistleblowers attorney said that partisanship is not involved here, and keep in mind that the whistleblowers description of that ukraine call largely matched the summary that the white house itself put out. Savannah. Hallie, thank you so much. And now to troubling new allegations about former today cohost matt lauer were revealed overnight. Morgan radford joins us with that story. Good morning. The soon to be released book catch and kill written by ronan farrow was obtained overnight, and contains an interview with a former employee whose complaint that led to lauers firing. We want to warn you some of the details are very graphic. For the first time we are hearing from the woman whose complaint led to matt lauers firing, the former nbc news employee whose identity has been kept anonymous by nbc news at her request is now speaking out publicly. The woman, brooke nevils, sat down with ronan. Nbc news has not obtained a copy of the book, but variety did and released details of her interview overnight. In the book, nevils alleged lauer raped her in his hotel room at the sochi olympics. According to her account, she had been drinking heavily and went back to his room twice, to receive her press credentials which lauer had taken as a joke, and the second time he invited her back. She had no reason to suspect lauer would be anything but friendly based on prior experience. Once she was in his hotel room, she alleges lauer pushed her against the door and kissed her before pushing her on to the bed, flipping her over, asking if she liked anal sex. She says she declined several times. She was in the midst of telling him she wasnt interested again when he just did it. Nevils saying it was painful and that she wept silently into a pillow while it happened, adding when lauer asked if she liked it, she said yes. Nevils also saying it was not consensual in the sense that i was too drunk to consent, it was nonconsensual that i said several times i didnt want to have anal sex. Back in new york, nevils said she had more sexual encounters with lauer, saying she was terrified about the control he had over her career. Sources close to lauer emphasized that she sometimes initiated contact. Nevils who had been working for meredith vieir eventually told vieira in 2017 what happened according to the book. Vieira urged her to go to the Human Resources department with a lawyer. Which she does. The day after that meet, lauer was terminated for inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace. She went on medical leave in 2018, and was eventually paid 7 figures by nbc. Nbc news has reached out to matt lauer for exhibit and this morning he released alert saying it is categorically false, ignores the facts and defies common sense. Well put his entire response up on our website. And meantime nbc news is also responding saying matt lauer s conduct was appalling, horrific and reprehensible as we said at the time that is why he was fired within 24 hours of us first learning of the complaint. Our hearts break again for our colleague. In addition, nbc news chairman, andy lack said previously, our highest priority is to ensure we have a Workplace Environment where everyone feels safe and protected. We are absolutely committed to making this a reality. There can be no exceptions. We did reach out to ms. Nevils who has not returned our calls morgan, thank you. We feel like we owe it to our viewers to pause for a moment. You know, this is shocking. And appalling and i honestly dont even know what to say about it. I want to say that we i know it wasnt easy for our colleague brooke to come forward then, its not easy now, and we support her and any women who come forward with claims, and its just very painful for all of us at nbc and at the today show. You know, its very very difficult. Im looking at you, and im having a weird moment that we were sitting here just like this two years ago, and truth be told, savannah and i did a little prayer upstairs just to sort out what we were going to do. And i think its like you feel like you have known someone for 12 years, and i dont know if you guys have ever felt like that, you know someone, you feel like you know them inside and out, and all of a sudden a door opens up and its a part of them you didnt know. And we dont know all the facts in this, but there are not allegations of an affair, there are allegations of a crime, and i think thats shocking to all of us here who have sat with matt for many many years. So i think were going to just sort of continue to process this part of this horrific story and as you said, you know, our thoughts are with brooke. Its not easy what she did to come forward, not easy at all. I think i speak for all of us very disturbed to our very dist we have a commitment to keep you informed, and we will continue to do that we have other news to get to this morning, including new details surrounding russias interference in the 2016 president ial election. According to a new Senate Committee report, africanamerican voters were targeted by russian operatives more frequently than any other group in an apparent effort to suppress the vote which would help donald trump. 2 3 of the facebook ads from Russias Internet Research Agency were focused on race. The 85 page report called for congress to consider new stricter laws designed to prevent foreign interference on social media. The state of california is facing an historic power outage this morning due to the heightened fire danger pacific gas and electric is proactively turning off power to 800,000 customers in central and northern california, including parts of the bay area. It is the largest preventative outage in the states history, trying to avert wildfires. Pg e has been blamed for sefrlg fires in the recent years. Well, did we say good morning to al, get a first check of the forecast. Good morning, guys, they have santa ana winds, high wind warnings, red flag warnings out west theres going to be a big story over the next several days here in the east, weve got a couple of systems that may be developing tropical systems or subtropical systems. The Development Zone keeps them off the eastern seaboard you can already see heavier showers and thunderstorms back to the delmarva peninsula. Wet weather making its way through new england. Here are the two systems, low pressure drifts northward, both of them, wind and rain along the coast, the secondary system to the south gets absorbed by the first one and that becomes more powerful, extending from the mid atlantic to the northeast. Tomorrow the storm drifts southward with the rain tapering off for new england. Winds are a big problem from nantucket to boston, airport delays, high profile vehicles will have problems high wind warnings, northeasterly winds gusts of 60 Miles Per Hour coastal impacts, minor to moderate coastal flooding, and rainfall, some places in eastern new england could see coastal new england, could see 5 to 8 inches of rain were going to get to your local forecast coming up in the next 30 seconds im back in babys arms more glorious than a billion sunsets. We were found. Im back where i belong found by the hounds. Back in babys arms good morning. Im meteorologist kari hall. We are under a high fire danger for bay area hills, all areas shaded in red included in the fire danger as our winds increase and the humidity levels drop. This continues until 5 00 tomorrow evening so during this time, between now and tomorrow evening, we will have some gusty winds and some low humidity, and whenever we get a spark or if there is one little small fire it could spread rapidly especially in some of the more remote areas so well continue to monitor that. As our temperatures today will be cooler, reaching the mid70s and low 80s, we will have some more of that cool weather going throughout the forecast. Well go hour by hour with our wind forecast coming up in a few minutes. Right now ill send it over to scott and laura. Breaking news, were following the planned Power Outages weve been talking about for days already in effect at this hour in some locations. Overnight pg e started cutting power to more than 1 0 500,000 homes in businesses in the bay area. This is due to high fire danger and red flag warning in effect. For a live look see the large swatch of purple across the top is phase one in the north bay. A second phase is set to start around noon and last at least through tonight. Outages will impact parts of contra costa, santa clara, alameda and San Mateo County. In the second phase, 234,000 homes and businesses will be impacted. Lets check in with pete suratos, he is live in napa with the very latest. Power is out there, pete. Rorter