Finance laws. Bill barr leading the Justice Department saying, nothing to see here. Bill barr who pushed for this letter and transcript to be put out. Thank you, kaitlan. Great reporting. Thank you for being with me. Im poppy harlow in new york. Jim and i will see you in d. C. For special coverage tomorrow morning. My colleague, indicate bolduan continues coverage now. Hello, everyone. Im kait bolduan. As you can see, it has been a morning of Breaking News. The white house released its account of the july phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President zelensky. The first details we have of what led to the whistleblower complaint against the president , the call is only part of the allegations laid out in this complaint. The rest of it we have we do not know. The white house account though does reveal President Trump said the following to the Ukrainian President. If you could look into it, it
sounds horrible to me. Trump there explicitly talking about former Vice President joe biden. Much more on this throughout the hour. Remember, this is just the first step in what is now history making, a formal Impeachment Inquiry underway. Soon the white house says it will be releasing the whistleblower complaint. How much, what it looks like, we dont know, which the white house had previously been withholding from congress, a complaint thats now at the center of the House Democrats impeachment investigation. Lets go to washington right now. Pamela brown is standing by. Pam, the president just said he did not from this call, that he did not apply any pressure, absolutely no pressure to the Ukrainian President. Can you layout please what are the details that they released of the call . We will go ahead and just let the viewers decide if the president is accurate with that because we now have the conversation in this memorandum that is provided by the white house of the president s call
with president zelensky and ukraine. We should start off with after the pleasantries the president made reference to all of the help that the u. S. Has given ukraine. Here is what he said. A lot of the European Countries are the same way, so i think it is something you want to look at, but the United States has been very, very good to ukraine. I wouldnt say that it is reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good, but the United States has been very, very good to ukraine. Now, he doesnt explicitly say here that we will, you know, withdraw some of that help if you dont investigate joe biden, but he is certainly teeing up what he says is a favor later on in the conversation. We should also note that president zelensky thanked President Trump for u. S. Support of defense, which would be military aid. It was after that when the president followed up to say, i would like you to do us a favor though. From there on page 4 of the fivepage transcript, kait, the president says and after
zelensky, president zelensky brought up Rudy Guilliani, the president said, the other thing, theres a lot of talk about bidens son, that biden stopped the prosecution, and a lot of people want to find out about that. So, whatever you could do about that would be great. If you could look into that, it sound horrible to me. There is no direct evidence to back up the president s allegation that joe biden, the president s political rival, democratic president ial candidate, had the prosecutor in ukraine fired in order to end the investigation into a company tied to his son, hunter biden. Joe biden has publicly talked about the fact that he wanted that prosecutor fired and pushed for it because he didnt do enough to combat corruption. In response to this, president zelensky of ukraine said, since we have won the absolute majority in our parliament, the next Prosecutor General will be 100 my person, my candidate, who will be approved by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in september. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. That prosecutor, kait, were told is actually in office. You are having president zelensky saying, yes, once my new prosecutor is in place we are going to reopen this and look at this. It is notable even though President Trump mentioned bidens name one time during the consideration, he referred to this investigation, his desire for it to be reopened multiple times, saying that his own Attorney General bill barr and his personal attorney Rudy Guilliani would be reaching out to the ukrainians on the matter. So he made it very clear there that this was a top priority for him. Now, republicans are saying and we heard Lindsey Graham say it, that theres no explicit quid pro coulquo, but we know h the president talks. He wont come out and say something. We learned that with the mueller report, his intent to fire robert mueller. He rarely comes out and
explicitly says it. He teed up the conversation, talking about u. S. Support to ukrainians and put in what he said, i would like you to do me a favor, and then bringing up joe biden. Also in the bigger context, it is not the first time that President Trump has pushed for a political rival to be investigated. We reported previously, kait, that the president pushed his thenwhite House Counsel and acting Department Of JusticeAttorney General to investigate Hillary Clinton. He would often bring it up. Push for doj to investigate hilary clinton, and now we have this clear example of the president pushing the president of ukraine to reopen an investigation that he believes would be damaging to his political rival, joe biden. So this is really significant, and now we are learning there was a criminal complaint from the icig to doj out of concern it could be a violation of Campaign Finance laws, and doj declined to move forward with
that. Of course, bill barr is mentioned several times in the transcript. He is the Attorney General. It raises all sorts of questions about how it has been handled, kait. Pamela, thank you so much for laying it out. Theres a lot going on here today. Jeffrey toobin laughs at me off camera, it is the understatement of the year. Let me bring in evan perez. This has been your reporting, that the ig also reached out to doj over this. What are you learning . Thats right, kait. The referral from the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community came over to this building, to the Justice Department at the end of august. Both the Criminal Division here at the Justice Department and the fbi received these referrals. Now, they looked at this and they determined that there was not a crime here. I will read you just a part of a statement from the Justice Department spokeswoman, carey cooper, actually says the Criminal Division reviewed the official record of the call the call between the president s and determined based on the facts and
applicable law that there was no Campaign Finance violation and no further action was warranted. This is a closed matter as far as the Justice Department is concerned. They looked at whether or not because the Inspector General sent it over seeking an opinion whether it was a Campaign Finance violation. It is illegal for a campaign to accept a thing of value from a foreign entity. They tualked to the people that produced the transcript of the call and determined it was evidence that they could look at, and thats how they arrived at the conclusion. The big question as pamela raised was the role of Attorney General bill barr. Now, he is mentioned in the call. Multiple times the president says i want you to talk to my Attorney General, in addition to Rudy Guilliani, his personal attorney. According to the Justice Department no such communication
ever happened. Bill barr never talked to the ukrainians, never talked to the president about this. The first time he learned about this was when the referral came over to the Justice Department. There was no recusal by the Attorney General. There was no consideration of a recusal. So he was overseeing all of this. We know that under the rules the final determination here was made by brian benjakowsky, the head of the Criminal Division according to the Justice Department. Now, of course, the questions will continue. The president im sorry. Im sure the democrats on the hill will be asking questions about bill barr and whether or not he should have played a role overseeing any of this given the fact that his name is raised in the call by the president of the United States. This transcript, if you call it that, definitely raises questions about that and many other things. Evan, great reporting. Thank you so much. With me, let me bring in Gloria Borger, cnns chief political analyst. Gloria, in terms of response, we heard the president and how he
is reacting to it. Elizabeth warren called it a smoking gun. Lindsey graham today says that he doesnt see anything concerning here. He says the ask is not and ask and the ask and and ask isnt enough. That means what when you are looking at this this broadly, which we need to keep perspective here. This is kind of a test and people are retreating into their corners here. The president calls it a nothing call and Lindsey Graham says there wasnt and ask, but as pamela just outlined to you in great detail the president has a way of asking without asking. In fact, he did say he did say, i would like you to do me a favor. I think thats kind of and ask, dont you . So everybody is looking at this differently. We know from covering the russia investigation and the Whole Mueller Story that when Michael Cohen testified he said, you know, the president doesnt just
come out and tell you when he wants you to do something. You know when he wants you to do something. He doesnt have to say it. In the context of the conversation, kate, we are having here, you have zelensky saying, we want to cooperate by the way, zelensky is so unctuous and so complimentary of the president and saying, we want to buy more javelins. Then the president says, i would like you to do me a favor and he talks about the conspiracy narratives we have been hearing from Rudy Guilliani among others, about the stolen democratic emails. Thats one point where theres an ellipses in this transcript, i might add. Then he goes on later to talk about investigating joe biden. Before he says it sounds horrible to me, referring to biden and hunter biden, there is another ellipses in this transcript. I think the democrats would want
to flesh that out. But to go back to your question, is it surprising that people are retreating into their own corners here . I dont think so. I think what the democrats see as an abuse of power some republicans will just shrug and say, you know, donald trump didnt have a firm ask and say, in exchange for this will you do this. I think the question they have to answer is how he made it appear as if the full force of the United States government was behind him in everything he was asking. He said, well, talk to the Attorney General, and the Attorney General is now saying i didnt know anything about this. So the president was representing something to the president of ukraine that, in fact, was not the case if you listen if you listen to bill barr. And then ask the question, who is Rudy Guilliani and why is he doing these things for the president of the United States. Gloria raised some really interesting points. Jeffrey toobin is here with me, kaitlan collins, samantha as well. Jeffrey, to the point, how explicit does a quid pro quo need to be . The point on the transcript on page 2 or a couple of different places, i will have to say we do a lot for ukraine, we expend a lot of effort, we spend a lot of effort and a lot of time, much more than the European Countries are doing and they should be helping more. I wouldnt say it is reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good, but the United States has been very, very good to ukraine. What is your take here . First of all, lets be clear that quid pro quo is not necessary for this phone call to be wildly inappropriate and potentially impeachable. Okay. The very notion of asking a foreign leader for dirt on a political opponent, independent of the issue of quid pro quo is troubling to many, many people. But there is also enormous evidence that there was a quid pro quo. If you read this transcript in its entirety, you know, i have been speaking english since i was a little boy. I know all of the words in english. You know lots of words. When someone says, i want you to do me a favor, that means i want you to do me a favor. That means i want you to do something for me. What he is asking for is political the dirt on joe biden. Thats what he is asking for. Indica as kaitlan pointed out earlier, erases that at the precise moment after zelensky raises the issue of we need money for our defense. Money, favor. Quid pro quo. Real quick, kaitlan because i will forget i want to ask this if it goes any further. Okay. And ask if it didnt happen if the ask happens and what the ask was does not occur, right . If he asked ukraine, ukraine doesnt investigate, doesnt provide the thing of value then in return, is that still a problem . It is a bit remember, this call is only july. This is happening in realtime. The problem for donald trump is that he got caught a meeting in three hours, by the way. Zelensky and trump are meeting in three hours, so right. And Donald Trumps problem is that he got caught, and thats why this is stopping. Okay. If he hadnt gotten caught, who knows what would have happened. Okay. So, kaitlan, on the most basic level then i know a lot of people are wondering this as i have been wondering since this was released, why did the white house release it . They thought it would clear the president and make him look good, dispel the drama surrounding the call and whether or not he tied the military aid to an investigation for joe biden, which they said didnt
happen. The people we talked to said the president didnt make any remarks about aid, and he doesnt, but ukraines president brings up military aid here. Which we should note days before the call is when the president directed mick mulvaney, chief of staff, to call the pentagon, freeze the military aid going to ukraine because they were reviewing it. They didnt provide a reason to the pentagon why they were doing so. Pentagon officials were confused why. Then this call happened and in it zelensky said, we look forward to your great support in the area of defense, they look forward to buying more Military Equipment and trumps next line is i would like for you to do me a favor though. The white house says trump didnt bring up the aid, but zelensky brought up the aid and immediately after that is when the president makes his request. The questions Going Forward here will be why did they release this, and in particular we know that the Attorney General bill barr was pushing for release of the letter against people of state like mike pompeo, who warned the president , dont
release this transcript, it is going to set a bad precedent Going Forward. The question is why barr would want it released since his name is essentially all over it and you see how the president sees Rudy Guilliani and bill barr through the same lens. That may be the least surprising thing. True. Sam, first, what is your point . Obviously to your point, pompeo wouldnt want this released. The president trashes a u. S. Ally, germany. He trashes the u. S. Ambassador to ukraine and it is detrimental to National Security. Any foreign leader that meets with the president has to expect that their communications will end up on the front page of the new yonew york times and on c. This is deeply damaging to President Trump and to president zelensky. He is an active participant in what i see as a quid pro quo. From this point from a National Security perspective we have to assume every communication the
president has, all of the work the