Its wednesday october 2nd. Im Ayman Mohyeldin alongside Yasmin Vossoughian. Congressional sources well nbc news that the state departments Inspector General has asked to hold an urgent briefing from staffers from several house Senate Committees today. It comes as secretary of state mike pompeo resists efforts by House Democrats to interview five current or former state Department Officials as part of their impeachment inquiry centering on a scandal. Writing i am concerned with aspects of your request that can be understood only to attempt to intimidate bully the distinguished part professionals of the department of state. He went on, let me be clear, i will not tolerate such tactics and i will use all means at my disposal to prevent and expose any attempts to intimidate the dedicated professionals. And nbc news confirmed monday that the secretary of state was on that call, in his letter, pompeo acknowledged that he had received the subpoena and would respond by friday. Meanwhile, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs oversight committees hit back with their own letters. In the letter, the chairman argued that pompeo should not be making any decisions about witness testimony bus he is now a witness himself in the impeachment inquiry. And appears to have a conflict of interest. The chairman writes this, given the secretarys own potential rule and reports of other state Department Officials being involved in or knowledgeable of the events under investigation, the committee may infer that he is trying to cover up Illicit Activity and misconduct including by the president. This would be a blatant coverup and clear abuse of power. The chairman released a statement that said in part, any effort to intimidate witnesses to prevent them from talking to congress including state Department Employees is illegal and will constitute evidence of on instruction. The president is ramping up his impeachment inquiry rhetoric as well, first that it was treason then indicated it would cause a civil warlike fracture in the country. Now he claim what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a coup. The notion that democrats are trying to violently overthrow the president is not new in far right circles but it has been used by congressional aides and allies to describe the impeachment push. Make no mistake about this, this is nothing less than an attempted coup detat and a run around the ballot box. This is an attempted coup by the intelligence community. Well, it is worth noting that a coup refers to the illegal and at times violent overthrow of a leader. Impeach is the Legal Process for removing the president as laid out in the constitution. New polls show that support for impeachment continues to grow a week after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the democrats probe, 44 of americans feel that President Trump should be impeached and removed from office. According to the latest monmouth poll, up nine points since august. Its dropped to 52 . Meanwhile, americans are divided on whether congress should hold impeachment hearings against the president. The 44 to 47 split is within the polls almost fourpoint margin of errors. The cnbc poll found that President Trumps lob approval has fallen to its lowest level of his presidency, hitting 37 , down three points since may. Down two points since his previous low in june and september of 2017. Joining us from washington, politics from Bloomberg Anna edgerton. Anna, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it. Talk to us about the polls. What do you make of it . Obviously showing an increased interest in impeachment and lower Approval Rating for the president overall. Absolutely. And thats something that democrats are going to be watching very closely. Their tank this week especially while congress is at recess an at home, is to talk to constituents to find out where the center of gravity is amongst the American People. And trying to figure out whether or not this has Popular Support to go forward. Nancy pelosi, the House Speaker has resisted in the past. And she had an interesting line back when herstfirst elected fo speaker. She said you should not impeach for political reasons but you should not impeach for political reasons as well. She made the decision along with house members. Weve gotten to the point that the offenses of the president are so grave that you cant not impeach him at this point. It is part of her constitutional duty to defend the constitution and go forward with this process. Now, the task faults to her and her members to sell this to the American People as exactly that, as defending the constitution. Let me ask you about mike pompeos comments as secretary of state, essentially stone walling the documents. Where does it go from here, in determines of what democrats have to obtain the documents theyve subpoenaed . This is not a new problem for the committee, as well as the house judiciary committee. Theyre going to fight to protect the subpoenas in the court system. And theyre going to try to force these witnesses to testify. You did bring up a very interesting point in your intro that pompeo is a witness in this, and thats one that has made this case so difficult to pursue. Its that the people who control the levers of control at these requests are themselves implicated. If the secretary of state was on the call, then working with the state department to fullfy these requests is a complicated issue. Same thing when it getting to attorney general william barr. If youre going to involve the Justice Department but the attorney general himself as complicated that gets to the problems with the committees. Talk to us to the thoughts on escalating on rhetoric that the president is using by calling the inquiry a coup. Its not necessarily surprising that the president is definitely in a defensive crouch. He has echoed the comments used on fox news. I think the first person to use this yesterday was newt gingrich. A bit rich looking at his role in the bill clinton impeachment. But he is trying to cast this aasen ilLegal Process, as not a legitimate part of the way the constitution is set up. And the more doubt he can cast on the process, the better that is for his defense and for him trying to win over the American People to his side as well. So to that point, do you think that were going to see the president hit the campaign trail more, if you want to use that, he loves to hold these types of rallies . But is that his safest place to kind of go on the offensive and try to frame the narrative of what is happening in congress . Oh, absolutely. That is where the president is at his most comfortable and it was interesting to see his speech at the United Nations last week on the very day that nancy pelosi announced this impeachment inquiry. He was very kind of low energy, actually to quote the president. You could tell he was not in his most natural environment. But when he gets to these rallies, you can tell that he just kind of lights up and feeds on the crowd energy. And thats where youre going to see the true President Trump come out. And youre going to see what he actually thinks of the process. And how he thinks the American People should understand it. Anna, thank you so much. Well talk to you again. Thanks. And former Vice President joe biden has a 20point lead in South Carolina that is according to a new early state poll. Biden sits at 37 in the latest Winthrop University poll. Hes head of massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren at 17 . And vermont senator Bernie Sanders who rounds off the top three, he comes in at 8 . However, over half of South Carolina democratic voters said they may change their minds for the upcoming primary. A third, 34 has said they have made their choice. Johnson johnson has reached a 20 million settlement. Its agreed to pay health care and Cuyahoga County in cash to nonprofits for opioidrelated programs in those counties. Johnson and johnson did not admit wrongdoing, and the pharmaceutical responsible for the opioid products have said it accounted for less than 1 of opioid prescriptions in the United States overall. However, they did release a statement saying it reached a settlement to avoid the Research Demands and the meaningful address of the crisis. And a former Dallas Police officer who shot and killed an unarmed neighbor inside his own home has been found guilty of murder. A jury returned a verdict against amber guyger after six hours of deliberations. She skikilled 26yearold botha jean last year. She said she mistook it for her own apartment and thought she was an intruder. The sentencing phase begins, she faces 5 and 99 years in prison. Jean was killed 20 days before his 27th birthday. Still ahead, House Democrats say President Trump may have lied to Robert Mueller during the russia probe. Well talk about what that could mean for the escalating legal push with legal analyst danny cevallos. And later, the president s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, gets his own lawyer. Those stories and more and a check of weather when we come back. Unpredictable crohns symptoms following you . For adults with moderately to severely active crohns disease, stelara® works differently. Studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. Stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. 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Plus, get 250 back when you buy an eligible phone. Thats simple. Easy. Awesome. Call, click, or visit a store today. Welcome back. Lawyers for the u. S. House say President Trump may have lied about his knowledge of contacts between wikileaks and his 2016 president ial campaign. First reported by politico, the accusation is included in a court filing obtained by nbc news that is related to the house judiciary committees legal bid to obtain classified grand jury material from the mueller probe. In the filing, the lawyers write, quote, that not only could those materials demonstrate the president s motives for obstructing the special counsels investigation, they also could reveal that trump was aware of his campaigns context with wikileaks. House chair said Paul Manaforts testimony showed that he, quote, recalled the president asked to be updated about wikileaks efforts. The lawyers write this, the text redacted and any under lying evidence to which it may point are critical to the committees investigation. Those materials therefore have direct bearing on whether the president was untruthful. And further obstructed the special counsels investigation when in providing written responses to the special counsels questions, he denied being aware of any communications between his campaign and wikileaks. All right. So with us here on set nbc legal analyst danny cevallos. Danny, in your thought, in terms of trying to establish if the president potentially lied in those letters submitted to bob muellers office if it is proven to be true. What legal implication does this have for the president of the United States and impeachment inquiry . There are two major issues, and this is something that came up during the Mueller Investigation, ands, number one, did the president and his team work with wikileaks in some way to obtain damaging material about an an opponent. And separate from that, did the president lie to the mueller team about his involvement . Because as distasteful as it is, there is a situation where receiving information in a passive way from wikileaks may not be a crime. If he simply was made aware of the information in wikileaks, as many people were, that may not be a crime. But no matter what, even if its not a crime, deceiving the mueller team about it suedly becomes a crime. So there are two different very independent grounds for inquiry here when it comes to the wikileaks. If he did lie to mueller, i think that is the question, what does that mean for the president if he did lie to mueller, to lie to a special investigator . Anyone who lies, intentionally lies to a government agent or government investigation is immediately guilty of a special crime, an obstruction of justicetype crime called false statements. So, anytime you have the president if he committed false statements which, by the way, is a very commonly charged crime. Because theres some weird human instinct when fbi agents show up at your door everyone tries to talk their way out of trouble. I have to tell you, they already know the answers to the questions, most of them, that theyre asking you, so dont try to deserve them. So, you can see it happens at all levels from high on down to low, people try to deserve government investigators, and its a crime. Considering how long the mueller inquiry went on for, around two years or something, isnt this something that mueller would have rooted out at one point or another . Do you think its smart to be pursuing this line now . It is to the extent theres still information not known to congress because its not known to the grand jury . Thats the key. Grand jury materials are ordinarily kept secret for good reason. But there are exceptions. And the house is arguing that one of the big exceptions is an impeachment inquiry. Thats a judicialtype proceeding. Its been released in other situations like bar disciplinary hearings for lawyers. So it certainly follows that an impeachment inquiry is within the exceptions to keeping grand jury material absolutely secret. It doesnt mean it has to be kept secret forever. I just quickly want to get your take on whether or not you think it is smart to pursue these two separate lines of questioning. You have the impeachment inquiry relating to the ukraine call. And then you also have them pursuing, obviously, things relating to the Mueller Investigation. Do you think its smart for the house to continue these two separate investigations . Its so interesting, the question is whether or not are they overextending themselves. And arguably, are they clouding the issues by expanding their inquire so much . When the genesis of the recent furor is the recent ukraine call and then expand it out to the Mueller Investigation and who may have lied in the Mueller Investigation. I understand the house trying to collect as much evidence as it possibly can but at the same time, everyone has limited resources, the house has no exception. Who makes a decision on the grand jury decision if it gets handeds over . Probably the d. C. Circuit, probably the superior court but the d. C. Circuit. One more question were hanging out. Always a pleasure. Thank you very much. Lets switch gears and bring in nbc meteorologist bill karins with a quick check of weather. Good morning, the weather headlines, its the temperatures. Its incredible, unusual, historic, whatever you want to call it. We had over a dozen, at least two dozen alltime records broken record. That means the warmest temperature ever recorded in that spot in october, ever. So, today, were going to have another 200 record highs likely. Well probably see more alltime highs. Yesterday was 101 in montgomery, alabama. Theyve never been 101 in october. And guess what, theyre going to do it again today. Two days in a row of 100 degrees. Atlanta, 95, richmond, 98 degrees. A lot of these are temperatures weve never seen in october before. Louisville, 98 degrees. New york city, the worst youve been in october, 90. Even thats a close call. Its not that it gets any cooler. The northeast does. But on thursday, were still in the 90s throughout all of the areas of the south. It will get cooler in the ohio valley by friday. But the deep south has to wait to monday or tuesday to finally get cooler air. How rare is this october heat . Well, in new york, the last time it was 90 degrees in october was 1941. Washington, d. C. , you have a chance of being 96 today. The last time you were 96 was 1941. So 75 years is how long its been since it was this warm in the i95 corridor. And atlanta, we figure 96. Youve never hit 100. There is an outside shot today. I think you guys get the picture. The temperature forecast is beyond disbelief. Ive had one person tell me in the south its been august for like nine weeks. Thank you, bill. Still ahead, north korea fires off