Report to congress. By the way, an ig appointed by this president , who looked at this evidence and established in his view this was credible and urgent. Belying the point that somehow this was a rogue operator. If you dont mind, if i can follow up, we know from the New York Times reporting last night that the department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, his memo, in part, concluded that this document, after reading this document, its a partisan person. Its somebody who doesnt like the president. That is part of the reason why initially he said to the administration, we dont have to give this to congress. The question is, does that even matter . Lets say thats true. Lets say this person voted for voted against donald trump. Does it matter . Hold that thought. Listen to this line. This is remarkable. This is from the classified appendix. This is very important. I quote, according to white house officials i spoke with, this was, quote, not the first time under this administration that a president ial transcript was placed into this code worded level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive rather than National Security sensitive information. Not the first time and the whistleblower source on that, dana, is a white house official. They say politically sensitive but not National Security sensitive. Right. Thats the key issue. That gets thats on the first page of the whistleblower complaint saying that this does not include differences of opinions concerning Public Policy matters, which is the core of this. This is about a National Security question. I have to say, when you see that line its not the first time it happened, the president spoke to a lot of World Leaders where he has taken steps to conceal the record of the conversation. Hamburg with putin, even confiscating the translators
notes. Just a point on how serious this is with regard to moving this into a special system. What theyre doing is they are taking this out of a system in which people with a top secret security clear answance might lt this. You have to have special access. It limits the number of people who can look at it. Who would have access to that . It really depends with my Security Clearance with extremely sensitive programs, someone who have to read me into that program. Any time i received any information related to that program, there would be a record of that. In this case, anyone who first of all had the appropriate clearance, but anyone who went and accessed this information, there would be a record of who did that. Would the Attorney General have access to that . If he did, he would there would be a record he went and accessed that information so you could control who would see that information and you would know if control is a key word. It seems to be about controlling
the information flow. The reason we are showing you live pictures of the chamber there is shortly the Acting Director of National Intelligence will face questions on this that we have in front of us. Its going to be a remarkable two hours of testimony. These conversations that have been moved into the secure storage area are the official conversations that took place. This complaint details many unofficial conversations that are taking place between trumps emissary, rudy giuliani, and the Ukrainian Government which the complaint says was circumventing the regular channels. In particular, that he was gathering evidence for Attorney General barr this is in footnote nine on page 5, his investigation into the origins of the russia investigation. Let me tell you, when theres an open investigation in the Department Of Justice, the proper channels for getting evidence or information from a foreign country is for theDepartment Of Justice to go through state, which then contacts the embassy in that country which uses the legal attache at the u. S. Embassy to talk to the Law Enforcement agency there. Theres an official chain of custody of whatever information they get. Rudy giuliani is not the fbi. As far as i know, hes not the state department. This he is all over this complaint as going around i dont know. Acting like scooby doo and gathering evidence. I need to go to evan perez with more on this. One of the things i think will jump out to people, after they read the complaint and the letter from the Inspector General, is the fact that the Justice Department did not do any interviews with these witnesses, these people that the whistleblower says would have been able to corroborate what the whistleblower is reporting, the concerns that are being raised, multiple white house
officials allegedly are saying these things, raising these concerns about the actions, not only of the president but the lawyers inside the white house who are trying to conceal some of this, trying to con ttain so of the damage. Why werent those interviews today . We were told by senior justice officials that this was an assessment being done of this whistleblowers complaint. Whether or not it merited opening a fullblown formal investigation, a decision was made after several weeks of being looked at inside the Justice Department by Career Lawyers that it did not meet that standard. The question is going to be, why wasnt it done . Why wasnt more done because of the seriousness of this . We are talking about the president of the United States. Were talking about perhaps an allegation of interference, looking to get interference in the 2020 election, which is a big priority for the administration, for the Justice Department, for the fbi. We know the fbi got a separate referral from the icig. They deferred to the Justice Department on this issue. The question will be, why was this treated so differently from, say, the Hillary Clinton email case . To that point as we reported earlier that there were criminal referrals that came from the Intelligence Community, went to the Department Of Justice, gloria, the Department Of Justice made a determination there was no there there without doing interviews . Without doing any with any without doing any work. This they called it partisan. Are they saying, its just trump . He didnt mean anything by it. I want to add one more thing, which is sort of in the classified appendix, whats been declassified. The whistleblower says, i learned from u. S. Officials that around may 14th, the president instructed vicepresident pence to cancel his planned travel to ukraine to attend the inauguration. It was also, quote, made clear, unquote, to them that the president did not want to meet
with the president until he saw how he, quote, chose to act, unquote, in office. Then later on in this it says it depends on his, quote, willingness to play. You have officials saying we sent rick perry to go because the president didnt want to elevate thats two pieces of leverage. The leverage then is the Military Assistance it appears and a face to face meeting. With the vicepresident. I wont meet with you until you do so. Thats a quid pro quo. You could see this as you know, officials dialing 911 from in the building. They are. Thats really the takeaway here if you take a step back. Yes, this is all reported by this whistleblower. Assuming that what this whistleblower is saying is accurate and it is easily to find the facts that Jeffrey Toobin is so fond of, by interviewing these officials, that what you have here are
people inside the white house, working for the president who are so alarmed by what they are not just seeing but being probably being asked to do, they are calling 911. They are calling the Fire Department saying, please help. This is not normal. This is not okay. We know its not the only time. Who is going to be john dean . Who is going to be in the white house and say, i cant do this anymore . Or somebody who left the white house. Who is going to say theres a cancer on this presidency that i am no longer going to be a part of . Its not just the white house. Its not just the white house. Look at how the Justice Department, it appears, has been corrupted by their involvement with this presidency. Look at how they became part of the coverup of this process. To your point, the question about quid pro quo how could
holding back on a president ial visit, one, but at the saum tmee withholding Military Assistance in light of what the president wanted from ukraine, how can that its a Willful Ll Lly Obtuse reading of the complaint. Its right there. They are talking about aid. Then he says, do me a favor. You dont get more quid pro quo than that. There was an understanding. I think we cannot get caught in the trap of unless it says only if you investigate the bidens will i give you the money. If that phrase isnt spoken that somehow its not there, we need to look at the common understanding. What you are seeing we will keep this going until they gavel in. You see members of the house Intelligence Committee. They are getting seated to begin this critically important hearing of the acting dni who
will have very important questions to answer. They were starting a few minutes late perhaps because more and more people were reading this. More people are reading this, giving everyone a chance to digest this and understand the severity of it. To jeffreys point about who was it your point . Who is going to come forward and testify . Dont forget, theres been a 77 turnover in this white house. There are a lot of people that have left this white house with a bad taste in their mouth for donald trump. That, of course, is Joseph Mcguire there, the acti ining director of National Intelligence. His long service in government, former head of the National Counterterrorism center. Someone who worked for republican and democratic administrations. He is a man widely respected in the Intelligence Community and National Community circles National Security circles. This is going to be quite a moment. He has only been in this job
for two months. Poor guy. I mean, it was going to be temporary. Now its way temporary. He is obviously in the witness chair. Im going to be fascinated to see what happens on the republican side. Yesterday, aside from a very few small cracks from senate republicans, they were in lockstep. This is going to be the test. First big test of, can the president shoot somebody on fifth avenue and get away with it . Its hard to read this in any other way than this is very, very bad. The Washington Post reporting that just yesterday, he threatened to quit if he was not allowed to, according the post fully testify that. He denied that. The seriousness of this makes you understand the position that the Inspector General was in and why the Inspector General went to congress and said, look, why the Inspector General said this was credible and urgent and
secondly why the Inspector General went to congress and said, i really want to talk to you about this, but they are holding me back. You understand why the white house was trying to hold him back. They understood one thing we should note because this is contained in here we will hear it, i imagine from some republican lawmakers. The gavel is in. Adam schiff, chairman of the house Intelligence Committee. Lets listen in. Without objection, the chair reserves the right to recess the hearing at any time. The president ial Oath Of Office requires the president of the United States to do two things. Faithfully execute his or her office and protect and defend the constitution. That oath cannot be honored if the president does not first defend the country. If our National Security is jeopardized, if our country is left undefended, the necessity to faithfully execute the office becomes moot. Where there is no country, there is no office to execute. So the duty to defend the nation is foundational to the president s responsibilities. What of this second responsibility to defend the constitution . What does that really mean . The founders were not speaking, of course, of a piece of parchment. They were expressing the obligation of the president to defend the institutions of our democracy, to defend our system of checks and balances that the constitution enshrines, to defend the rule of law, upon
which america was born that we are a nation of laws, not men. If we do not defend the nation, there is no constitution. But if we do not defend the constitution, there is no nation worth defending. Yesterday, we were presented with a most graphic evidence yet that the president of the United States has been betrayed his Oath Of Office. Betrayed his oath to defend our National Security and betrayed his oath to defend our constitution. For yesterday, we were presented with a record of a call between the president of the United States and the president of ukraine in which the president our president sacrificed our National Security and our constitution for his personal political benefit. To understand how he did so we must understand how overwhelmingly dependent ukraine is on the United States, militarily, financially,
diplomatically and in every other way. Not just on the United States, but on the person of the president. Ukraine was invaded by its neighbor by our common adversary, by Vladimir Putins russia. It remains occupied by Russian Forces in a long simmering war. Ukraine desperately needs our help and for years we have given it. On a bipartisan basis. That is until two months ago when it was held up in by President Trump. It is in this context, after a brief congratulatory call, and after the president s personal emissary Rudy Ghouliuliani made clear to officials that the president wanted dirt on his political opponent, its in this context that the new president of ukraine would speak to donald
trump over the phone on july 25th. Eager to establish himself at home as a friend of the president of the most powerful nation on earth had at least two objectives. Get a meeting with the president and get more military help. So what happened on that call . He begins by Engratrying To Enl the support of the president. He expresses his interest in meeting with the president and says his country wants to acquire more weapons from us to defend itself. What is the president s response . It reads like a classic organized crime shakedown. In not so many words, this is the essence of what the president communicates. We have been very good to your country, very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what . I dont see much reciprocity here. I hear what you want. I have a favor i want from you though. Im going to say this only seven times so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent. Lots of it. On this and on that. Im going to put you in touch with people, not just any people, i am going to put you in touch with the Attorney General, my Attorney General bill barr. He has the whole weight of the american Law Enforcement behind him. Im going to put you in touch with rudy. You are going to love him. Trust me. You know what im asking. So im only going to say this a few more times. In a few more ways. By the way, dont call me again. I will call you when you have done what i asked. This is in sum and character
what the president was trying to communicate with the president of ukraine. It would be funny if it wasnt such a graphic portrayal of the president s Oath Of Office. But as it does represent a real betrayal, theres nothing the president says here that is in americas interest after all. It is the most consequential form of tragedy. For it forces us to confront the remedy the founders provided for such a flagrant abuse of office, impeachment. This matter would not have come to the attention of our committee or the nations attention without the courage of a single person. The whistleblower. As you know, director mcguire, more so than perhaps any other area of government since we deal with Classified Information, the Intelligence Committee is dependent on whistle blowers to reveal