Giuliani to manufacture dirt on the president s political opponents and arrested trying to flee the country. Maybe ill ask rudy to say a few words. Tonight what we know about the two men. Is Rudy Giuliani now under investigation . And what did the president know and when did he know it . What conversations have you head with lev parnas and igor fruman . I dont know those gentlemen. You were in pictures with them. And Hillary ClintonsCampaign Manager john podesta what he makes the push to impeach trump. And as republicans stews over defecks the new call from conservative lawyers who say a speedy Impeachment Inquiry is necessary. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The first arrests of the impeachment era happened today and washington, d. C. Airport attempting to leave the country with one way tickets get this only hours after they lunched with their Business Associate and lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Let me take a minute to explain these two suspects who probably are not that familiar with you. Theyve been floating around the coverage of the ukraine scandal. Theyve been close to Rudy Giuliani from The Beginning. Theyre american citizens, naturalized. Theyre described in the federal indictment and reporting as businessmen, although to be honest their Current Business is sort of unclear. Theyve been working hand in hand tightly with Rudy Giuliani on the ukraine operations since the very beginning. Theyve been setting up meetings in ukraine, acting as intermediaries abroad, meeting
with people in the trump circle. They have been a crucial part of the scheme by Rudy Giuliani and President Trump to apply maximal pressure to the Ukrainian Government to manufacture dirt on the president s political rival to interfere in the next election so that trump could win the next election. Theyve been part of this impeachable act from The Beginning. Theyve been so integral to it that shortly after the indictment was reported they have subpoenaed by the house committees leading the Impeachment Investigation. In fact, today was the day this guy on the left, not the one with the saucily unbuttoned shirt, the guy dressed a little more modestly, was supposed to give a deposition before those committees. And the guy with the open shirt was supposed to do that tomorrow. And yes that is don junior on the other side of the table with those two gentlemen. A few days ago the president s former lawyer and now john dowd wrote a letter to congress in the most professional font
comic sans explaining that they couldnt appear, and im quoting here, they assisted mr. Giuliani in connection with his representation of President Trump. In other words, their one big happy legal team. And im quoting their own lawyer here, im not making this up. He said it. They assisted mr. Giuliani in connection with his representation of President Trump. So you cant talk to them, congress, sorry. That was a week ago. The Wall Street Journal reports those two gentlemen had lunch with giuliani himself at the Trump International hotel in washington on wednesday. That would be yesterday, giuliani and the two men having lunch. And we know from the u. S. Attorney hours later, thats hours after lunch with giuliani at the trump hotel parnas and
fruman were a refsed at a d. C. International airport as they were about to board a one way flight. Theyre trying to have foreign nationals heres how jeffrey berman, a trump appointee explained it. As alleged in the indictment, the defendants broke the law to gain political influence they sought political influence not only to advance their own financial interests but to advance the political interests of at least one foreign official, a Ukrainian Government official who sought the dismissal of the u. S. Ambassador to ukraine. They were advocate frg the dismissal of the u. S. Ambassador to ukraine. That sure sounds familiar. Oh, right, its because the journal reported last week that trump himself ordered that u. S. Ambassador to ukraine removed after complaints from giuliani
and, quote, others. Take a listen to how the president responded today when asked about communications with men who according to their own lawyer was part of the president s legal team. What conversations have you had with lev parnas and igor fruman. Fruman . I dont know those gentlemen. Its possible i have a picture with them because i have a picture with everybody. I dont know them. I dont know what they do. But i dont know maybe they were clients of rudy. Youd have to ask rudy. I just dont know. Its true. The president isnt going to remember everyone who takes a picture with them and his Vice President and personal attorney and his son. But he would remember members of his legal team who had dinner with him personally just last spring right before they donated to his super pac. Just to keep track of all this, two men from the former ussr who told congress they were part of the president s legal team and were acting with Rudy Giulianito push the Impeachment Scandal were rested last night while attempting to leave the country with oneway tickets. Joining me now are two people who know the ins and outs of this story who earlier today broke the story about the arrest. And reported back in july parnas and fruman privately lobbied ukraine to bid to help President Trump win in 2020. Can you take us through what this indictment alleges about what the scheme these gentlemen were involved in was. Sure, so its actually a pretty complicated set of allegations. There are basically two sets of allegations. One has very little to do with the dealings with ukraine and with giuliani. It has to do with a Marijuana Business they were trying to get off the ground in nevada. And then allegedly getting money from a Russian National to benefit this business, Making Donations to try to grease the
wheels to get this business off the ground. The other set of allegations squarely has to do with the work with giuliani. Those allegations are that they were making large donations to a protrump super pac. And part of that effort was to get more access to do what a Ukrainian Government official wanted them to do was get a u. S. Ambassador to ukraine pushed out. Tlsh there are hundreds of thousands of dollars and tons of donations to all kinds of republicans coming from these individuals, some of which are being returned. One of the people is a Congressman Michael Sala who gets a bunch of money from them. We know its Pete Sessions who lost in 2018 but he wrote a letter trying to get rid of the ukrainian ambassador. The very day, yeah, chris, they met with then congressman
sessions and they during the course of that conversation we interviewed both the congressmen and obviously we spent a lot of time with parnas. They both made it very clear Marie Yovanovitch was the center of their conversation, and they werent happy with her and she was standing in the way of President Trump and a lot of policies there and that she wasnt loyal to the president. And so that day he fired off a letter to then secretary mike pompeo basically just saying she needs to go, you should consider removing her from her position. He writes a letter, the president tweets about her, and eventually she was removed. She seemed an obstacle to the scheme that was being cooked up. What is the deal with these two . How do they get connected in any way, shape, or form to what essentially appears to be the inner circle of the president s attorney if not the president himself . That part is still a little unclear to us. But from what we know, they started making a lot of Big Campaign Donations in 2018 and then started talking to mr. Giuliani about his concerns about what ukraine had been up to in the 2016 election, starts introducing him to people in ukraine and seems to be delivering what mr. Giuliani wants. And so ends up in his inner circle. Michael, you guys were on these two from the jump back in the summer. What sort of tipped you off these were key players in this entire operation . You know, it actually started with one of our reporters, colleagues from the organized Crime Reporting project who
spotted them at a hookah bar basically with some other friends. And it was just on the eve of the inauguration of president zelensky. And we kind of worked backward from there. Who are these characters . What have they been doing swirling around ukraine and essentially working as operatives for Rudy Giuliani . And we were and in the course of that investigation we ended up interviewing mr. Parnas several times and he was quite open about the work they were doing setting up meetings with mr. Giuliani, with ukraine prosecutors and pushing very hard for information on the bidens and trying to get them to basically open up an investigation into joe biden and his son hunter and also to look into the origins of the release of the black ledger, which was the information that largely told people the millions of dollars that Paul Manafort had
taken. And that was really the origins of that work we did. Just to clarify the hookah bar was it in kiev . It was in kiev. It was a hookah bar on the balcony of the hilton hotel there. Amazing. All right, Great Reporting both of you. Thank you both. Thank you. Joining me now one of the members of congress leading the Impeachment Investigation into President Trump democratic congressman jamie raskin of maryland. Member of both the House Oversight and judiciary committees. First, your reaction to witnesses that the investigative committees have called being nabbed in an airport with one way tickets to vienna . Well, its starting to feel more and more like watergate i think to the people who remember watergate except its kind of an upside down watergate because these kind of characters were found first during the watergate break in and then they worked their way up to the president. Here the president started or was discovered first because of the fateful phone call where he kind of clinched the Shakedown Deal against president zelensky. But whats coming out now is the whole team behind the Shakedown Operation and all of giulianis people who were engaged in this very insidious shadowy campaign in ukraine to do a number of different political duties and execute a number of political schemes for the president. We found out today so these guys had ticket to vienna and had lunch with Rudy Giuliani. And Rudy Giuliani told the atlantic he was flying to vienna just coincidently. Do you want to know more . Are you going to get to talk to these people to your investigation into it and whether sdny does . I havent spoken to anybody about this but i am personally fascinated about what they were
doing. Were they just trying to escape, were they trying to leave the country . Did they understand the heat was drawing in on them . Were they continuing to conduct other schemes on behalf of giuliani and the president . All these things are fascinating but the critical thing going on politically here, chris, is that america has woken up to the corrupt and lawless character of the white house. And everybody understands the basic contours of the ukrainian episode. The president of the United States engaged in a shakedown of a vulnerable american ally and partner in president zelensky in order to obtain political dirt on his political opponent back home. Nobodys ever seen anything like it. And that shake down is complete sellout of American Values and a sellout of our election. And what were seeing from this illegal funneling of money from abroad through a campaign
finance scheme that these guys were involved in is that they do not have respect for american elections. You know, i disagree with everything jim jordan says but i respect his right to be involved in our elections. Its not true of russian spies and ukrainian researchers and chinese operatives and the United Arab Emirates and the saudis and all these other people, theyre trying to get involved in our election . Why do they need to be bringing in all this power and money from abroad to interfere with this election . Were talking about this election in 2020. Its just an outrage and scandal after what they did to us in 2016. Final question about Marie Yovanovitch who is pivotal to this, had been the ambassador to ukraine. The target of sort of smears from Rudy Giuliani with the packet of files sent to mike pompeo, the target of these men
to the extent they were giving donations to meeting with a congressman she clearly becomes a target of Rudy Giuliani, don jr. And these indicted gentlemen and a whole lot of other people. She is supposed to testify tomorrow or be deposed i suppose tomorrow. Is it your understanding shes going to be there . I have no reason to think she wont be there tomorrow. Ive been out making some speeches for the last several hours so i dont know there have been any changes in these developments relating to her appearance. But i will say there was clearly a campaign of sabotage directed at her. Anybody who basically wasnt going to play ball and subordinate their professional commitment to the president was going to be targeted by them. And they did it. But weve got to remember this, chris, this isnt exactly
an Agatha Christie mystery at this point. We know what happened. Were trying to fill in basically were just filling in the details at this point. The crime was admitted to in the first page of this. Were just in Flashback Mode of how did we actually get there. Okay, theres more Breaking News at this hour. Two big stories coming up. Nbc news is now reporting exclusively tonight one of the former Trump Administration official slated to testify next week is going to reveal Rudy Giuliani and Eu AmbassadorGordon Sondland circumvented the National Security council and white house process to pursue a Shadow Policy on ukraine. And this comes as the Washington Post is reporting that least four National Security officials raised alarms about the Trump Administrations attempts to pressure ukraine for political purposes both after and before the infamous July 25th Call between president s trump and zelensky. And that is where we begin tonight with greg miller who broke this story. He joins me by phone. Greg, what have you learned . Well, what weve learned is, you know, i think its significant that there were alarms being raised inside official white house channels well before the whistleblower complaint is even submitted to the Intelligence CommitteeInspector General. Starting in july, early july, even before the July 25th Call you just described as infamous, you know, there are people going to the National Security councils top lawyer expressing alarm and concern about what is happening on ukraine, citing a series of developments over the preceding months that made them worry about what trump was doing and his attempts to extract political ammunition from kiev. Just to be clear, when you say white house officials here, and i know you dont want to out your sources and i respect that, but are we talking about people
hired by the president , that work for the president . I think youre going to find theres a combination here. There are stories that at least four i think thats a conservative estimate of the number of people involved here and trying to raise these issues internally. And so i think that there are people who worked directly for and interact daily with the president. And then there are others who are who are a little bit farther down the food chain. Theres an important quote in our story from one of the officials we talked to who say these people arent just swamped, this is not a deep state. These are people who have a conscience, and theyre really concerned and fearful this is not how the government should run. The idea theyre worried about the phone call before the phone call happens, that theres this concern that the president is essentially going to do something that abuses his power, that is corrupt, that is possibly criminal, which is part
of what the whistleblower complaint is about. Your reporting