Over new evidence. Will the senators consider it . And if so, which new evidence. And from the oval office, President Trump is denying that he knows lev parnas, a close associate of his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani after parnas implicated him in the ukraine scheme. Joining me on capitol hill with the latest on impeachment, next step, cnn National Correspondent athena jones. Where do we go from here . Well, as you mentioned, jim, the next fight is about the rules. That is what well see on tuesday when the senate comes back in. Tuesday, 1 00 p. M. After the Martin Luther king holiday to begin this trial in earnest. Thats one of the things theyll be doing. Voting on a resolution, laying out the rules of this trial, whether or not and when new evidence and witnesses will be discussed. And hearing from a lot of republicans, folks like senator Lindsey Graham of south carolina, Marsha Blackburn of tennessee who said, look, it was the houses job to spell out this case. Its not the senates job to allow this new evidence and witnesses and to help the house do the job they should have don comprehensively. Thats the argument were hearing from folks like graham and blackburn and the majority of the Republican Caucus in the senate. But there are a handful of republican senators to watch. These are moderates. Folks like susan collins. And susan collins, interestingly, tweeted out this just in the last couple of days clarifying where she stands on the issue of witnesses. Youll remember, in recent days she said im open to witnesses. I just think it should be done later. Later stage of the process. So there you have that tweet. Her spelling out stepbystep to make it clear where she stands, that she believes in having the clinton model of impeachment in which case both sides make their case. Senators get to ask questions, and then the issue of evidence and witnesses is decided. There had been some question that arose because she raised questions about lev parnas evidence that she is now presenting and whether it was necessary to hear from that. Shes strongly suggesting that she would be one of the folks to back the idea of witnesses and new evidence. Well have to see if a total of four senators do end up siding with democrats on that issue so that they can get to 54 votes and force it. Forgive me for being cynical. There may be comfort with the clinton model. At least parts of the clinton model they like and parts they dont like. Athena, thank you. Growing pressure to allow new evidence and witnesses as lev parnas makes new claims against the president. Here he is with anderson cooper. To my knowledge, the president fired her at least four times. Maybe five times. Once in my presence at a private dinner for a superpac in washington, d. C. , at the trump hotel. And the conversation, the subject of ukraine was brought up, and i told the president that our opinion that she is bad mouthing him and that she said that hes going to get impeached, Something Like that. I donts know if thats word for word. You said that at the table where the president was . Correct. And his reaction was, he looked at me like he got very angry and basically turned around to john and said fire her. Get rid of her. We should be remember in the president s call with the ukrainian president he said yovanovitch was going to go through some things. The president s words. Yovanovitch removed in april of last year. In the end, a year after the dinner that parnas described. He also challenged one of President Trumps key talking points that he did nothing wrong and that there was no pressure when he asked the ukrainian president to investigate the bidens. Zelensky himself has come forward and said i didnt feel any pressure. There was no quid pro quo. Thats a total lie. They are still theyre still rocked to this day. Theyve still not recovered and i dont know when they will. The president has repeatedly denied knowing parnas at all, though a number of pictures have come up with two of them together. Some video as well. Parnas is willing to testify if he is subpoenaed during the Senate Impeachment trial. Not clear if either democrats or republicans want that. Joining me to discuss, michael gerhardt, professor at the university of North Carolina and susan hennessy, former National Security attorney. Michael, gop senators, Marsha Blackburn among them, are blaming the house in effect saying, well, the house didnt call these witnesses. The house didnt have these documents. So that was their responsibility. Of course, that belied by the fact the white house deliberately blocked witnesses and documents. I wonder if you could make clear to folks given your knowledge the difference with the clinton impeachment trial because going into the trial, those witnesses and documents were already considered at the time. Were already available to the house. Thats correct. So lets take a step back initially and remember that what senator blackburn said is completely wrong. In the law, we have a word for it. Its called bs. It has nothing to do with actual history. In the history of the houses impeachment, the house has never taken the position it has to do the senates work for it. The clinton situation where ken starr came in and talked about a lot of evidence hed taken behind closed doors interviewing, deposing, asking questions of people under oath and that evidence, that referral that he put together was sent to the senate and the senate had witnesses. In the history of the United States senate, no completed impeachment trial has ever happened that lacked witnesses. Witnesses have always been called. Thats the senates job, and thats the problem facing republicans. If they take the position of no witnesses, they have done something historic, and its not good. Most republicans seem comfortable with that. At the same time, you have this possibility of how the trial is going to play out. Two parts in effect saying, okay, listen. Well leave that question of witnesses to a later date. Lets first consider the arguments here. That seems to be where many republicans are settling right now. Do you see that as being somewhat, i guess, misleading or a signal whats going to happen is theyll listen and say theres no reason to call witnesses. Theres a reason to suspect this is just about trying to kick the can down the road. Not that youre not going to call witnesses and bury it later. That said, keep in mind the optics of yesterday. The chief justice swearing in the senators, then signing this oath book in which they pledge to do impartial justice. Theyll now have to sit there quietly and listen to this evidence. And so i think we are to ask ourselves whether or not that might change the minds of a few key senators who have already indicated some willingness to hear witnesses. That doesnt mean youll have 67 votes for removal, but i think theres a real possibility that the end of that really overwhelming presentation of evidence, republican senators, three or four that will join with the democrats to say, look, we at least need to hear from some additional witnesses in this case. Listen, we often will talk about romney. But i spoke to John Barrasso yesterday. He said hes at least open to the question of witnesses. Michael, given your experience here and covering this closely, lay out what you think the president s defense is likely to be. I think the president s defense is likely sort of take two different paths. The first path is that he just did nothing wrong. Youve heard this already. And hes going to argue that whatever happened can put can say some things that may be hard to prove but the defense will be, look, theres nothing bad that happened here. And so the president does this all the time. You might hear that a lot. The second, i think theyll argue that the money was released. And, therefore, the harm, whatever harm was produced against was minimal. No harm, no foul, and, therefore, this is a lot about nothing. And you might hear multiple arguments, even contradictory ones saying it didnt happen, but even if it did happen, its not impeachmenable. The gao comes in and says it was illegal to hold that aid. Now, you have many republicans saying, this is a partisan organization. Its led by someone who was appointed by obama. If you look at the gaos history, its a nonpartisan organization. And the argument they are making here is not an outlandish one because i know there were folks in the pentagon concerned that Congress Passed this money, appropriated this money. Thats congress job. Its a problem if were not spending money as congress appropriated. Gao is not a partisan organization. Its a nonpartisan organization. I think that they are plainly right as a matter of law that the administration was not allowed to do this. That they were violating the law. We saw administration attorneys being concerned with that. And the reason why it might be significant, gao isnt a judge. Its not a court. Nobody is going to go to jail over this. But by saying the president has broken the law and the administration has broken the law, that does make the impeachment case cleaner and clearer for the american public. You dont have to have a statutory offense or violation of law and order to impeach the president. But the idea that the president didnt just do something that was wrong or unpatriotic. He actually violated the law. I think thats something thats going to be easier for the public to understand why the house took this extraordinary step of impeaching him. The law is quite clear on it, is it not, that if Congress Appropriates the money, that money has got to be spent. The president there are laws passed after nixon that specifically prohibited a president from saying, you know what . Congress may have appropriated it, but i disagree. Thats completely correct. So lets just remember basic constitutional law. Its the president s job to enforce the policy that congress makes. The policy here was to appropriate money for ukraines National Security. Thats the policy. Its not up to the president to modify that, to change it. Particularly to suit his personal interests. There was no grand objective, no objective for changing congressional policy. It was all done for the personal benefit of the president. Michael gerhardt, susan hennessy, thanks for your expertise on this. Any moment now, secretary of state mike pompeo, hell be making an appearance at the state department. We should note that so far hes not responded at all to reports that ambassador of the United States, Marie Yovanovitch, was under illegal surveillance in ukraine. Why isnt he saying anything about her. Also, were now learning u. S. Troops were injured in that Iranian Missile attack. The pentagon initially saying there were no casualties. Why did it take so long . They are saying now they suffered symptoms of traumatic brain injury from those attacks. And a cnn exclusive. The wife of andrew yang has broken her silence. She says that she was sexually assaulted by a doctor and having to watch her accused attacker walk away with what she says was just a slap on the wrist. Well have more. Dont get mad. Get e trade, dawg. Secretary of state mike pompeo set to appear at any moment as he appears with the foreign minister of pakistan. So far hes not said a word following the release of stunning messages that suggest former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine Marie Yovanovitch may have been illegally surveilled before she was forced out of her post. Involved in that, a close associate of the president s personal attorney. Kylie atwood is here with me now. Youve been asking about this, i know, repeatedly in the state department. Ukraine. The thing theyre investigating is the surveillance of the u. N. Ambassador. Why has pompeo stayed silent . It would be a simple statement to say, of course, were concerned about the safety of our ambassador. Weve gotten some kind of drips of information from lawmakers on the hill. So house lawmakers have said they have been assured by Diplomatic Security at the state department that they are going to be investigating this. But as you say, the state department and the secretary himself have not come out and said anything about the matter. And there are a few things that are really important here. The first of which is the ukrainians have already announced that they are going to be investigating this. And the other thing to consider is that its not as if the state department stays quiet when it comes to the security of u. S. Embassies and the u. S. Ambassadors writ large. Over the weekend i asked them about the security of the u. S. Ambassador to iraq. They gave me some lines on that front. They dont get into the details but they talk about it in broad strokes. They are making a choice not to do that here. It has been more than 48 hours since these developments that ambassador yovanovitch was being surveilled by these giuliani associates. Have they ever given you an explanation as to why the they hadnt said anything. And we should note that the secretary has never publicly defended ambassador yovanovitch at all. And he has done that for other ambassadors. The other thing as you know, secretary pompeo, a big part of who he is, are the benghazi hearings. So he was grilling then secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the state department for answers about what they did for the security of u. S. Diplomats around the benghazi attack. Obviously, this is an apples to apples. Ambassador stevens, obviously, was killed in that attack. Ambassador yovanovitch is safely back in the United States. But, still, he is someone who has pressed the state department for answers, and hes not providing any answers or any commitment to an investigation just yet. Accused the state department at the time of dereliction of duty. Kylie atwood, thank you. With me is democratic congressman mike quigley, a member of the intelligence and appropriations committee. Thanks for taking the time this morning. Thank you. Good morning. You heard the conversation there. Ukraine launched an investigation of yovanovitch and announced so publicly. Should the state department announce an investigation of this, and should we hear from the secretary of state defending a u. S. Ambassador . We should have already. We have we heard from the ambassadors testimony just how dangerous their jobs can be. She was literally in the line of fire. He detailed how we have lost ambassadors in the past. Its a dangerous job and a critical job. They face enough dangers on their own. We cant be any way hesitant to do Everything Possible to keep them safe and to make sure the other ambassadors know that well do just that. And that those who would threaten them would be halted. So i would like to think weve already heard about this or that we hear about it very shortly. Let me ask you about the ongoing impeachment trial now in the senate. Youve heard a number of republican senators, david purdue among them just yesterday saying that the senate should not consider new witnesses and new evidence. That that was the job of the house. Looking back, should democrats in the house have waited for courts to order witnesses to testify there, waited longer in effect before impeaching the president . I was torn on that myself because i was so interested in hearing from people like mr. Bolton and others. But i think in the final an analysis were talking about the possibleity of a year. The possibility this takes place after the november election. And clearly this president needs to be held accountable before that. Weve seen how long these courts have taken. If they had ruled that john bolton had to testify and he showed up and started taking the absolute immunity defense that others have, that courts have ruled against, that puts it off for three or four more months, and the appeals that go with it. So in the final analysis, you had to move forward to again, hold the president accountable and educate and inform the American People. Youre seeing the partisan lines form in the senate here with some exceptions because there have been republican senators who say theyre willing to hear from witnesses. But i wonder, as you look at this process going forward, do you believe that this would be a meaningful trial in the senate . A meaningful consideration of the witnesses and testimony or are you concerned that most of the republicans and most of the democrats for that matter have already made up their minds . Look, they take a sworn oath to impartial justice. The American People have asked for that. Over 72 want witnesses. They want the documentation. And they know what it looks like, right . They appreciate the fact that in trials, that people dont come there, the jury doesnt say hes guilty but go ahead, they hear all the testimony and see all the documents. Id like to think that that pressure will give at least four republican senators the intestinal fortitude necessary to demand just that so the American People can be educated and informed. Well take it a day at a time. Ive heard people say, well, dont do this unless youre sure you can win. Thats not how the constitution reads. We did our constitutional duty moving forward. Its the senates turn. I want to talk about another issue. You sit on the intelligence committee. What you hear from Senior Intelligence officials, both in public and private settings, important to you. A source telling cnn that top intelligence officials have asked congress to hold worldwide threats briefings. This is something thats done regularly and in public by Senior Intelligence officials that they be held behind closed doors. And the reason, of course, this request coming after last years testimony when chiefs, intelligence chiefs testified and drew the ire of the president for disagreeing with him. Let me just put one of those tweets on the screen. You get a sense. Intelligence seems to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of iran. They are wrong. And it goes on there. What is your response to this effort to now hold these in private . It seems to avoid the ire of the president. Its a horrible idea. In a