Glad you could join us. So we start with the impeachment inquiry facing u. S. President donald trump. Hes long insisted he did nothing wrong blocking nearly 400 million in military aid to ukraine. But a new report by the Washington Post shows there was debate in the white house on whether it was legal after the fact. The post cites a confidential white house review and three people familiar with the records. Cnns Jeremy Diamond has more. Reporter the white house has been conducting an internal review of President Trumps decision last summer to withhold nearly 400 million in security aid to ukraine. Now according to the Washington Post, that review is turning up hundreds of documents that suggest that white house officials and officials in the office of management and budget were working to draw up a legal justification for that move after the fact. Again, this reporting suggests that this was yet another instance of a scramble by officials to essentially catch up with another one of President Trumps decisions. The office of management and budget, though, is denying that anything improper took place. Heres a statement from a spokeswoman for the office of management and budget, rachel semmel. She says, to be clear, there was a legal consensus at every step of the way that the money could be withheld in order to conduct the policy review. Omb works closely with agencies on executing the budget. Routine practices and procedures were followed. Now, a Senior Administration official also told me that the legal justification for this temporary freeze on the aid was provided in late july alongside the formal notification that this aid was being frozen. This official suggested that perhaps the discrepancy involves the fact that this was something that was in the pipeline, that was verbally communicated as early as late june, but ultimately didnt actually make its way into a formal notification in late july. There is also in this Washington Post an august email exchange that is highlighted between the white house chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and the acting director of the office of management and budget ross vogt, which suggests that mulvaney was asking for an update on that justification several weeks after that notification actually occurred. Two Senior Administration officials who i spoke with said the request for an update didnt necessarily mean that the rationale, the legal justification wasnt already in place. But what is clear is that this is leading to increased tensions inside a white house that is facing the potential for President Trump to be impeached. We know there have already been tensions between mulvaney and the white House Counsel pat cipollone. Tonight, two Senior Administration officials were once again expressing frustrations with the white House Counsels office. One of those officials said mulvaney has not yet been informed of any of the findings in that internal view, and another official criticized the white House Counsels office suggesting they were responsible for the leak of these emails. That official said seems like amateur hour in the white House Counsels office. We have reached out for comment to the White House Press office as well as the white House Counsels office but we have not yet received a reply. Sources say the house could vote on impeaching President Trump by christmas, but thats still a month away, and lawmakers arent finished yet. The House Intelligence Committee and two other panels are writing a report detailing their findings, which will go to the judiciary committee. And the intelligence chairman says there could be more hearings to come. We dont foreclose the possibility of more depositions, more hearings. We are in the process of getting more documents all the time. So that investigative work is going to go on. What were not prepared to do is wait months and months while the administration plays a game of ropeadope in an effort to try and stall. Were not willing to go down that road. Whats more, the evidence is already overwhelming. The remarkable thing about this and weve done this with literally no documentary production from the administration is the facts are really not contested. Its really not contested what the president did. And for analysis, im joined now by jacob pair key lass. He is an associate at a Foreign Policy think tank at the London School of economics and political science. Good to have you with us. So do want to start with the Washington Post report, which indicates that there was an effort made to justify the withholding of this 400 million in military aid to ukraine after the fact. Where does this take the whole impeachment inquiry . Does it move the needle forward . Well, i think it supports the narrative thats already been emerging through the depositions, through the public hearings, through the closeddoor testimonies that preceded the public hearing, which is to say this was a decision taken by the president and then the legal justification, the attempt to fit it into a broader policy framework came after. Thats needless to say not the way policy is normally made and it suggests there was an attempt to build in a rationale justification or a legal justification for these actions rather than those actions flowing from justification in the first place. I dont think in and of itself the revelations in the post necessarily change the fundamentals of the equation, but i think they should be seen as another piece of evidence supporting this broad narrative that weve seen emerge over the last couple of months. Right. But there seems to be a difference. Certainly when you look back to the nixon era where in that situation, nixon ended up resigning rather than go through this process, and many experts seem to think these are very different times. We can attest to that for sure. What will it take to move the needle forward because there seems to be a lot of evidence on the table to suggest that the United States president picked up the phone and was trying to get another country involved in influencing the outcome of the election in the United States. Why is that no longer a problem for a president . Well, there are a lot of issues that go into that. Its a very different media environment. The degree of polarization and partisanship, the extent to which parties are unwilling to come to compromise is very different now than 1974. But the structure of these stories is very different as well. Nixon was very basically exercised himself trying to prevent the tape that he had made in the white house, that showed him participating in the coverup from being released. When the Supreme Court ruled they had to be released, that was the moment when the dam burst. This scandal started not in the first instance but very, very quickly after the initial revelation of the whistleblower report with the release of this memorandum of conversation, which demonstrated that the president had said, i want you to do me a favor in a conversation with the ukrainian president. According to the democrats reading of the situation, and i think what a lot of people understand is the understanding of United States code bribery, that that constitutes by itself the impeachable offense. And everything weve heard since then is kind of supporting that. Its sort of building the narrative around it. Its not a case where there is one enormous piece of evidence that still exists. I think that sort of narrative expectation, that there will be a smoking gun later on in this case, is leading to some of the confusion about, well, why isnt the Public Opinion moving . We may find the Public Opinion is simply set on this. The president , whose Approval Rating at been stuck at 40 to 41 for months if not years simply just isnt going to move up or down from there. Right. And republicans keep insisting anyway that simply that call and him asking for a favor, though, is not impeachable. So i mean in this day and age, it seems to be if you keep saying no and keep denying it, then that seems to be sufficient. Now, the problem for the democrats here is the politics of it, the optics, because for them, in one instance they couldnt let this go and they needed to do something. But the other side of this, theyre going to look like theyre playing politics. Well, i think the difference between this and the Mueller Report and questions about selfdealing and emoluments and other things that have been mooted as potentially impeachable offenses for the president is that this relates to an ongoing issue relating to an upcoming election. This is very much about joe biden as a candidate for election in 2020 and whether he would be a contender against President Trump. And i think the necessity in the minds of the democrats, in terms of the political strategy of it, the necessity of erecting some kind of barrier to the president from using his office to put his thumb on the scale of the 2020 elections made it a fundamentally different thing regardless of the possibility of actually removing the president , which remains quite remote given that the republicans control the senate and that a twothirds vote in the senate is necessary for removal. But i think theres an argument politically to be made for using the hearings, using the spectacle of impeachment to bring this in the public light in a way that it isnt if its simply getting written up in newspapers, to focus public attention on it as a way of changing the terrain on which the 2020 election will be fought. And on that front, i think its too early to say. We dont know whether Public Opinion will be moved significantly by this. But i think we have seen generally speaking a durable but narrow public support for the impeachment process. Right. It will be interesting to see how much of this the American Voter is following because thats i mean, you know, theres a numbing point to this, isnt there . So many thanks to Jacob Parakilas for joining us and sharing your analysis. We do appreciate it. All right. I want to turn from a scandal at the white house to a scandal at the pentagon. The u. S. Navy secretary has been forced out and convicted navy s. E. A. L. Eddie gallagher gets to keep his rank and job for now. We get the latest from cnns ryan brown in washington. Reporter one of the senior most pentagon officials fired sunday night due to the fallout from a highprofile war crimes case involving navy s. E. A. L. Eddie gallagher. Now, gallagher had been acquitted of several more serious crimes like murder but had been convicted of posing with the body of a dead corpse. Now, the navys efforts to punish him have become the subject of a highprofile debate with President Trump weighing in, saying that the navy should not strip gallagher of his status as a navy s. E. A. L. Several times, something that defense officials felt was undermining the navys discipline process. Now, Navy SecretaryRichard Spencer had said publicly that that process should go ahead, but the pentagon saying sunday night that despite spencers public comments, he had actually arranged secret talks with the white house to strike a deal where gallagher would be allowed to retain his membership in the navy s. E. A. L. S. The pentagon saying this is why spencer was fired and that gallagher will in fact retain his s. E. A. L. Status upon leaving the navy. President trump tweeting he had been disappointed with how the navy had handled the gallagher case and he had been disappointed with the navys inability to reduce cost overruns, something he said had led to spencers ouster. Spencer himself writing a letter upon being fired saying he was a strong believer in good order and discipline in the military, saying thats what sets america aport from its adversaries, and that he and President Trump just had a fundamental difference of opinion about the importance of the rule of law and the importance of good order and discipline, something that he says led to his ouster. Ryan brown, cnn, washington. Well take a short break. Still to come, the results of hong kongs recordsetting elections and voters have set a strong message to the establishment. They say its time for change. Welcome back, everyone. Well, in hong kong, a Record Number of voters turned out to key local elections and handed prodemocracy parties a landslide win. Local media report the Democratic Candidates have won almost 90 of the seats across the city. Almost 3 Million People showed up to vote. They overwhelmingly rejected the establishment government, which is seen as closely aligned with beijing. Hong kong chief executive carrie lam says she will reflect on the outcome and listen to voters. Meanwhile, a prominent prodemocracy leader is celebrating the results. Did you ever think this was going to happen . Its a remarkable achievement and efforts of all the hong kongers that paid the price and sacrificed for the movement. I never imagined it will happen, but now we are the majority in the District Council to show our cause on freedom and democracy. And for more on the results, cnns will ripley joins me now from hong kong. Good to see you again, will. So how are people reacting to these incredible results, and how significant was this . Reporter well, certainly i think a lot of hong kongers, rosemary, are enjoying this period of calm. I mean this was the first weekend in months that there was no tear gas, there were no protests shutting down the streets, and instead you saw hong kongers by the millions lining up to peacefully cast their ballots. And the overwhelming message from voters was antiestablishment, prodemocracy. But this is a city where democracy has its limits. You had holden chow on your last hour. Hes a probeijing lawmaker who i interviewed ahead of this election, and i think he provides a much needed dose of reality in that hong kong may be able to elect its local leaders, but the higherlevel lawmakers who actually make laws in this city are chosen in a system that overwhelmingly favors probeijing voices. And that doesnt change despite the overwhelming result this mandate, if you will, that hong kong voters gave, you know, in their support of the protesters and in opposition to the establishment government. But the fact remains that government is still in control, and carrie lam, even though she says she will reflect on these results, she still is beholden to her bosses in beijing, and it was chinas foreign minister speaking earlier today when he said that there will be no election that will overturn the simple fact that hong kong is a part of china, and that is the way it is regardless of what happens on the streets here. So i think what we have to watch now is where things go. When the buzz of victory wears off and reality sets in, is this a newly energized Democracy Movement that is prepared to take to the streets with just as much force as before, or does this vote trigger some sort of meaningful dialogue to help to resolve some of the huge gaps that exist between what the establishment government wants and what prodemocracy protesters say many people hear want on the streets of this city. Indeed. Many thanks to our will ripley, bringing us the very latest on reaction from hong kong. Appreciate that. And as we mentioned earlier, i spoke with a proestablishment counselor who lost his seat in sundays race, and i asked holden chow to reflect on the overall outcome and his own defeat. Well, of course we need to admit that is a sort of big frustration for us. When we met the press this morning to carry out our concession speech, we will carry out and reveal on our own work and see what has gone wrong and how we can improve ourselves to do better and serve better in our community. So this is a frustration for us, of course, but as a political party, we also have to learn lessons from elections and hope to improve ourselves to serve People Better in the future. But on the other hand, people expressed their views via this election, and of course there is kind of resentment towards the government. And as a political party, we are bound to press the government to do better or to sort of listen to the people. That is one thing. But also we need to thank the people who support us yesterday, the volunteers and everyone who support us yesterday in the election. Holden chow talking to me earlier. Well, voters in uruguay are awaiting the results of the president ial election there. With over 99 of the votes counted. Center right National Party candidate holds a small lead over the candidate of the leftist ruling party. However, the margin is so narrow the race remains too close to call. Final results may not come until friday. British Prime MinisterBoris Johnson is promising to get brexit done if his conservative party wins the general election next month. He launched the partys manifesto on sunday. It includes promises to hire 50,000 nurses, freeze income tax, and establish immigration controls. The Prime Minister wants britain to leave the European Union by the current deadline of january 31st. I dont want to waste 2020 and two more referendums. I want it to be an exciting and productive year, a year of prosperity and gr