Confessed to the entire super obvious trump team crime. Did he also mention to me in past that the the corruption related to the dnc server . Absolutely. No question about that. But thats it. Thats why we held up the money. Now, there was a report so, the demand for an investigation into the democrats was part of the reason that he withhold funding to ukraine. The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation and thats absolutely appropriate. Withholding the funding . Yeah. To be clear, you just described is a quid pro quo. It is funding will not flow y unless the investigation into the democrat server happened as well. We do that all the time with Foreign Policy. Yeah. Bad idea. Even the reporter, that was Jonathan Carl there, trying to help mulvaney understand what was happening. So, cue cleanup on aisle five. Mulvaney released a statement to walk back the very damaging comments as if they never happened at all. Then hours later, rick perry, Donald Trumps energy secretary, and the third member of the vaunted three amigos, put in charge of trumps mess of a ukraine policy, announced that he will be resigning so one of the three amig os overseeing u. S. Policy on ukraine is getting out of dodge, and the two others, trump donor trumped Ambassador Gordon Sondland and kurt volker have given testimony. So trumps defense seems to be falling apart, to put it charitably, and his loyal subjects appear to be falling out of line and this may just be the beginning, friends. Joining me now is neal, former acting solicitor general of the United States and i dont know if youre old enough to remember the old benny hill sketches but that was the only thing i could think of when looking at this attempted the attempt here is to make what donald trump did with ukraine look completely normal and proper, and instead, they have literally, essentially, convicted him. Yeah, i dont remember those sketches, i dont think i was alive for them but the striking thing here is that mulvaney, when he went out to the cameras, he was try to defend the president. This is their defense, which is, i did it. Imagine what the prosecution is going to say. It is its outrageous what they did. I mean. Thats the first thing. Listeners should understand theres two Different Things going on. One is, has an Impeachable Offense been committed under the constitution . And the second is, has a crime been committed . And the trump team has tried for the last month to basically say its all about a crime if theres a quid pro quo, was there bribery. But the problem with that is twofold. Number one, President Trump, in that transcript, which he released, which you were talking about a moment ago, confessed to the Impeachable Offense, which is abuse of power, which is going and saying to a Foreign Government, hey, can you help me with my campaign and get some dirt on my political rival . Thats impeachable so you dont need a quid pro quo for that. What happened on thursday is that mulvaney put the nail into it and said, oh, it wasnt just that there was an Impeachable Offense, there was also a crime that was committed, this quid pro quo, that we held up the aid in order to get them to agree to investigate joe bidens son. Yeah, and let me put you one more this was such an extraordinary press conference. Its hard to believe he did it on purpose. Right . That this is what he meant to do but this was Mick Mulvaney again and this is in a White House Briefing which, again, normally press secretaries do this. Its normally the press shop that does these and ooifr never heard of a chief of staff just coming out and him doing the press secretaries attempting to do their job but here he is trying to explain and also explaining why giuliani, whos Donald Trumps lawyer, was in charge, apparently, of u. S. ukraine policy. Here he is. Get over it. Theres going to be political influence in Foreign Policy. You may not like the fact that giuliani was involved. Thats great. Thats fine. Its not illegal. Its not impeachable. The president gets to use who he wants to use. The president gets to set Foreign Policy and he gets to choose who to do so as long as it doesnt violate any law, okay, and he doesnt violate laws regarding confidential information or classified material, anything like that, the president gets to use who he wants to. Neal, okay, lets break this down a little bit. You were acting solicitor general in the United States, you are a professor of law. Lets break this down into two pieces. Part number one, get over it. Theres going to be political influence in Foreign Policy. Normal . Not normal . Oh, beyond abnormal. I mean, supremely imagination tierly antinormal. You cant get over it. If you go back, joy, and look at what our founders said during the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, this is exactly what they warned about and why they put the impeachment clause in the constitution. You have madison, franklin, even jerry, the guy who was opposed to putting impeachment in there altogether because he thought it would weaken the presidency, but all of them center on this central idea, which is that our founders believed that one of the greatest dangers to our republic was a president who would go and get the help of a Foreign Government to reelect himself. So, im not going to get over it and i dont think the American People are, and you know, i want to push back a little bit about what you said earlier that, you know, that this was maybe an accident by mulvaney or Something Like that. This is a guy mulvaneys press conference was 39 minutes long. It was studied, it was careful. These are scripted answers. So this was the defense that they wanted to run. It wasnt like he just walked in and did some press spray out, you know, in front of a helicopter or Something Like that. And that defense crumbled and thats why you saw him trying to take it back and say, oh, i didnt really say any of this and joy, i think the most important thing here is, like, backsies does not work when youre talking about the impeachment of the president of the United States. You dont get to just say, oh, get over it and then say, oh, i didnt say any of that. We have it on camera. He said it. And by the way, lets just remind people that as, you know, hes also budget director and also chief of staff. He is the guy who signed off on holding back the money, so you know, and very quickly, before i go to my next question, could it be that he did it deliberately because hes trying to save himself . I mean, theres all sorts of theories going around. My theory is actually a lot simpler, which is just simply that the president has surrounded himself with a bunch of people who dont believe in the rule of law and they have been getting away with it for three years. And so they get used to it and they just think, oh, i can just say trump once said i can go on to fifth avenue and shoot someone and it wont this statement which im reading a little bit of what he said, you may not like the fact that giuliani was involved, thats great, thats fine, but its not illegal and its not impeachable. On the question of whether or not it is legal for Donald Trumps personal attorney to run Foreign Policy, this is somebody who was never confirmed by the United States senate, he is not the secretary of state, he has no role in our government. Is it legal for a private citizen working for the president to run our Foreign Policy . It depends. I mean, there are some times in which a president can deputize someone to carry out a Foreign Mission or Something Like that. I mean, you do it because of the interests of the United States. The problem here is that this shadow Foreign Policy was not carried out to benefit the United States. It was carried out to benefit donald trump, and that thats what makes it at least impeachable, and potentially criminal as well. All right. Lets play adam schiff. This is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee reacting to this mulvaney contre temps. Things have gone from very, very bad to much worse. The idea this vital military assistance would be withheld for such a patently political reason, for the reason of serving the president s Reelection Campaign is a phenomenal breach of the president s duty to defend our National Security. Neal used to have the job of arguing for the administration before the supreme court, thats part of the job of the solicitor general. If you were writing the related impeachment articles to this part of the scandal, what would they be . They would be very simple. The president abused the nations trust. He put his interests above those of the American People with respect to our Foreign Policy with the ukraine. The congress had appropriated this money for our nations interest. He withheld it for his own personal benefit. Thats article i. Article ii is called obstruction of justice and it involves the fact that this president is not turning over any information to the white house to the congress and directing his members of congress and his ambassadors not to testify. Many of those are in open rebellion, those ambassadors this week did testify despite what the president said because they believe that the congress and the American People should have the truth. Thats what nixon was the one of the articles of impeachment nixon faced. I think it applies here. Its just those two articles. Its straightforward and simple. Its an open and shut case and honestly, i think im a pretty good lawyer, but if i had to defend the president here, i have no idea what i would say because hes tried four different stories, all of them have fallen completely apart. Yeah. Lets go to rick perry, the other member of the three amigos who is now resigning. This is his interview, of course, on fox news and here he is. I think he was straightup with what he said. You know, i think there are people straight up how . There are people trying to connect dots when the facts by basically saying that there was no quid pro quo in the sense of what those folks out there would like for it to be. That were going to give you this money unless you go investigate joe biden and his son. I never heard that said anywhere any time in any conversation. Heres the problem with what he just said, that hes defending mulvaney, even though mulvaney described a quid pro quo to the point where the reporter said, that is a quid pro quo. Hello. You also, then, have allegations that rick perry had some things that he wanted as well, meaning some of his friends to be on the board of a different gas company, the stateowned gas company in ukraine, so it appears that he was part of this scheme to replace the government in ukraine, which is trying to be a democracy, with a more corruptible government that would do things that benefitted trump people. Could that be a legal problem for rick perry . It very well could be. I mean, i think the first thing to say about that remarkable interview is, i dont know what straightup counts for in texas, but i think nobody with a straight face can describe this what President Trump has been saying as straight up and clear. I mean, its been convoluted. He first said he didnt say it, then he admitted saying it, then he said its okay, now were at the get over it phase. The explanations keep on shifting. But nothing has undermined the central core of what that whistleblower said to the director of National IntelligenceInspector General a couple of months ago. Yeah. With respect to perry himself, he might face some criminal liability, perhaps even also an Impeachable Offense, you know, i think the facts will have to come out on that and we just dont know them yet. We didnt even get into the emoluments clause which could be a whole other set of Impeachable Offenses donald trump could face. For now, the one thing that is clear is they all admit it. This is the beauty of it. They all said, yeah, we did it. Neal katyal, thank you so much for your time this morning. And coming up, Rudy Giulianis wicket is getting stickier. Thats next. It was love at first slice pizza lovers everywhere meet o, thats good frozen pizza one third of our classic crust is made with cauliflower but thats not stopping anyone o, thats good Liberty Mutual customizes your Car Insurance, hmm. Exactly. So you only pay for what you need. Nice. But, uh. Whats up with your. Partner . Not again. Limu thats your reflection. Only pay for what you need. Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty do you recall, not long ago we would walk on the sidewalk all around the wind blows we would only hold on to let go blow a kiss into the sun we need someone to lean on blow a kiss into the sun we needed somebody to lean on all we need is someone to lean on work so hard give it everything you got strength of a lioness tough as a knot rocking the stage and we never gonna stop all strength, no sweat. Just in case you forgot all strength. No sweat secret. All strength. No sweat. Rudy kbiepz combines it all though, youre right. First of all, its shadow government and bad Foreign Policy. A man with little or no expertise, no security clearance, a working in the shadows and moving forward with national policy. What role is he playing, a personal attorney for the president operating under the state department . This leads to extraordinary mistakes, one that were witnessing in plain view. All the president s men are under scrutiny but perhaps none more than his personal attorney,ty lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Nbc news is now confirming that giuliani attempted to secure a visa into the United States for the man who is at the center of the madeup fake Biden UkraineConspiracy Theory that donald trump, his friends, and his Administration Keep pushing. Diplomat george kent told congressional investigators this week that giuliani tried to secure a visa for ousted ukraine prosecutor Victor Shokin who was fired in 2016. Shokin helped giuliani invent and shape the story that he, shokin, was let go by the Ukrainian Government at the urging of former Vice President joe biden so as to thwart any investigation into his sons work in the ukraine. Joining me now to face the legal ramifications for all of trumps cronies are joyce and barbara. Joyce, ill start with you. Giuliani just keeps getting sucked deeper and deeper into this. He obviously was working closely with the two men, two of the three men who two of the four who have been indicted by the federal government for a scheme to get foreign money into the United States to politicians in some cases to get what they wanted but now were finding out that he also tried to get a visa for this same guy, Victor Shokin, to get him into the United States. How much legal trouble, in theory, is Rudy Giuliani skating into . So, in theory is the operative term here, joy, because in a normal world, where doj was conducting a criminal investigation, Rudy Giuliani would have a lot of exposure. Obviously, the evidence hasnt all been put together, but it looks at a minimum like hes involved in conspiracies, both to violate Campaign Finance law, you cant seek contributions from foreign individuals for u. S. Election, and also some sort of a bribery and extortion scheme. But thats a normal world. And we know that bill Barrs Justice Department has declined to open investigation into the whistleblower complaint. Theres no indication that theyre investigating here, although one would like to think that the Southern District of new yorks investigation may ultimately bring giuliani in but no official word that this is something thats receiving attention in washington, and so that leaves congress to do a lot of the heavy lifting here. Its much better for this to live inside of the Justice Department because were talking about criminal exposure. The hope here is that the Southern District of new york, led by jeffery berman, will charge on this independently and that there wont be interference from washington. Yeah, and barb, let me play for you, frank, friend of the show, he was on deadline white house talking about rudys situation and about the people that he is