Transcripts For MSNBCW First Look 20191119 : vimarsana.com

Good tuesday morning, everybody. It is november 19th, im yasmin vossoughian, alongside Ayman Mohyeldin. Today kicks off week two of public testimony in the impeachment probe. There are two hearings scheduled for today. The first starts at 9 00 a. M. With two officials who were on the phone call that sparked the formal impeachment inquiry. Top ukraine expert on the National Security council, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and top russia aide to Vice President mike pence jennifer williams. Both officials are expected to challenge President Trumps claim that his july 25th phone call with the president of ukraine was perfect. Williams characterized it as politically motivated, unusual and inappropriate. And vindman was so concerned that the call undermined National Security that he reported it to the nscs top lawyer. The president has attacked both witnesses as quote never trumpers. However the latest attack on vindman, a decorated army officer, is coming from republican senator ron johnson. In a letter to jim jordan and devin nunes dated yesterday, johnson writes this. A significant number of bureaucrats and Staff Members within the executive branch have never accepted President Trump as legitimate and resent his unorthodox style and his intrusion on to their turf. They react by leaking to the press and participating in the ongoing effort to sabotage his policies and if possible remove his from office. It is entirely possible that vindman fits this profile. Another hearing is scheduled for this afternoon, where we will hear testimony from President Trumps former special envoy to ukraine kurt volker as well as tim morrison, a former white house National Security official. Volker was the first witness to testify in the impeachment probe. In fact, he denied participating in an effort to pressure ukraine but Text Messages he gave to Congress Show that he had talked to ukrainian officials about launching investigations in exchange for a meeting with President Trump. According to the new york times, he is expected to tell lawmakers that he didnt realize that others in trumps orbit were trying to secure, tying security aid, excuse me, to a commitment to investigate the democrats. Meanwhile, former white house National Security official Tim Morrisons testimony could help confirm trumps efforts to orchestrate a quid pro quo with ukraine. In fact, he previously testified that Eu Ambassador Gordon Sondland had told a ukrainian official that military assistance would probably be unfroze physician the government announced investigations into democrats. Morrison listened to july 25th phone call of the president with ukraine and thought it could be damaging to u. S. ukraine relations. House impeachment investigators have released the transcript of last fridays closed door deposition of state Department Official david holmes who overheard the july 26th cell phone call between the u. S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and President Trump. When holmes joined sondland at a restaurant in kiev. According to the transcript, holmes told investigators that quote during the lunch, ambassador sondland said that he was going to call President Trump to give him an update. Ambassador sondland placed a call on the global phone and i heard him announce himself several times along the lines of Gordon Sondland holding for the president. Holmes explained that quote while ambassador sondlands phone was not on speaker phone, chi hear the president s voice through the ear piece of the phone. And the president s voice was very loud, and recognizable. And ambassador sondland held the phone away from his ear for a period of time presumably because of the loud volume. Holmes testified that he heard sondland tell trump that he was in ukraine and went on to state that president zelensky quoteunquote loves your ask, and so he is going to do the investigation, unquote, and ambassador sondland reported that he is going to do it, adding that president zelensky will do anything you ask him to do. And a candid impression of the president s views on ukraine, in particular holmes asked sondland if it was true that the president did not give an expletive about ukraine to which sondland agreed. Holmes claims sondland that the president only looked at quoteunquote big stuff, like the biden investigation that Rudy Giuliani was pushing. Holmes yesterday was added to the list of witnesses who will testify publicly in the house impeachment inquiry, and is scheduled to testify publicly on thursday. So a House Committee has also released a transcript of the november 6th deposition of undersecretary of state for Political Affairs david hale. According to the washington post, hale described a nebulous effort advanced by Rudy Giuliani, and conservative Media Outlets and eventually endorsed by President Trump himself, to sear and then remove Marie Yovanovitch from her post as u. S. Ambassador to ukraine. The post reports that hale testified that he thought that the effort was unfair and that yovanovitch was doing an exceptional job. He said he advocated for the state department to issue a robust defense of her work. But was ultimately overruled. Most likely in quotes by secretary of state mike pompeo who he determined twice had called giuliani in the time frame when the statement was being considered. According to the transcript, hale said that pompeo reached 0 tout fox news host sean hannity about pushing quote the narrative about yovanovitch, hannity on his show last night denied the conversation even took place. Regarding withheld Security Assistance to ukraine, hale announced that the skepticism was global in nature and he had no issue with the socalled irregular channel or of the diplomacy. Hale is expected to appear in open hearings tomorrow. Joining us on the set, msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos, good to have you with us. How incriminating do you think the state Department Official david holmes testimony, based on what we have seen from the closed door deposition, is likely to be in the public forum. He is given a very accurate account, at least by his own words, of what he heard on that phone call between sondland and the president as we just recapped there. It may sound like a minor thing but there is a major piece of homes testimony that will affect the testimony of Gordon Sondland coming up this week. And its this. Gordon sondland largely testified that hey, i was told to go talk to Rudy Giuliani, i was told to ask ukraine to investigate corruption. That would have been fine. But i didnt know anything really about this whole Biden Burisma stuff. I never would have been behind. That thats how sondland appears to be threading the needle, that corruption investigation, fine, biden, not so fine, but i didnt know about that. Now, now you have holmes saying essentially after this phone call that sondland turned to him and said, as you almost said the very bad word, that the president doesnt give a bleep about this stuff, he cares about biden. Thats really compelling testimony. And it contradicts directly sondlands testimony. And then sondlands testimony is the keystone that brings together trumps only complete ignorance about what everybody else was doing and only knowledge about his phone call which he says was perfect. And we know that sondland has direct access to the president , at least based on that account, that he is speaking to the president directly, couldnt just say this is what i heard from giuliani because at the end of the day he had that phone call with the president. Exactly. I have to say that there has been a lot of talk about hearsay in the last few weeks, and its true that holmes is what we call a precipent witness, he saw or heard these things firsthand. But i dont want to give that much credit to the word hearsay in this investigation. Because investigations commonly rely on hearsay and it is a rule of court that only applies in court and even then i can tell you having dealt with this personally, it often has so many exceptions they swallow the rule. The reality is hearsay is unreliable unless it is reliable. Could kurt find himself in hot water, since he revised his story once and could he be revising and recollecting things that he didnt remember the first time around once again during his testimony this week. The Amazing Things about these witnesses, we have hundreds of pages of sworn testimony to look at and the theme that emerges from sondlands prior testimony, this is someone who is trying to give too many right answers to the questions. In other words, there is a lot of what we call cya in this transcript, in that he is saying yes, i was given essentially an order by the president , go talk to Rudy Giuliani, i didnt really trust what giuliani was up to, it didnt seem right but i did it, you know, the code red was ordered and i went and did it, i followed the rule, but if it had been about biden and burisma, i didnt do nothing about it and i wouldnt have done it if i did. Just in general as you well know, kicking off week two of the public testimony, major player, sondland included, volker included, colonel vindman included as well. What are you going to be looking for . Again, for me, the entire week is sondland, he is the star, vindman is important, some of the others, volker is important, because sondland essentially says that trump told me, volker, and others, to go talk to giuliani but i sort of let the others take the point on that. That wasnt really my job. So it is going to be really interesting to see how these testimonies shape up. And to what degree they conflict, as they already have, with what sondland said in his sworn transcript. When you look at some of the Defense Strategies of the president , and his surrogates, to try and attack these witnesses, theyre going after somebody, a decorated war hero like Alexander Vindman, does that strategy legally work to attack the character of the person and try to say he is a never trumper, he has bias, in this, his words especially from ron johnson who is directly attacking colonel vindman who was defended by many republicans just a couple of weeks ago when the president first launched his attacks. This is exactly why these public hearings are so important, and such a clever move by democrats because the reality is, most citizens really dont know how the state department diplomacy, the Foreign Service corps works and were learning through the hearings and seeing people and evaluating them with our own eyes and they are credible, they have incredible character, theyre career Public Servants who have served under republican and democrat administration, and the theme i think, for people watching, is that no matter what you think about the reliability of the information theyre receiving, whether it be hearsay or whatever else, these people generally have impeccable credentials, their care is unquestioned and i think that is a major strategic benefit for the democrats. Quickly, cya, is that a legal team . That is a latin term, yes, coverous oris yes. Appreciate the latin. And another immigration crackdown, a new rule may force Asylum Seekers to go back to the Dangerous Companies they passed through. The white house tries to tamp down speculation after the President Trump made an unplanned visit to the doctor, and what his physician says about his overall health. Those stories and more when we come back. L health those stories and more when we come back. Oh theres no place like home for the holidays. cause no matter how far away you roam. When you pine for the sunshine of a friendly gaze. For the holidays you cant beat home sweet home. The United States Postal Service goes the extra mile to bring your holidays home. Im a verizon engineer, and im part of the Team Building the most powerful 5g experience for america. Its 5g ultra wideband for massive capacity and ultrafast speeds. Almost 2 gigs here in minneapolis. Thats 25 times faster than todays network in new york city. 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No kidding. Were doing all we can to make moving simple, easy, awesome. Go to xfinity. Com moving to get started. The Trump Administration is preparing to publish a rule that would send migrants who pass through guatemala, el salvador or honduras back to those Central American countries to claim asylum there instead of the United States. The rule would allow asylum officer the authority to determine if one of the three agreements the u. S. Has recently assigned with those countries applys to the immigrants they vet. If they do, Asylum Seekers could be fasttracked for deportation back to those three countries to claim asylum. There the new rule comes on the heels of two other tough asylum policies implemented the past six month, the agreements were negotiated this past summer by former acting security secretary kevin mcaleenan, in return for the asylum rule, the countries receive assistance for security according to the dhs. The Supreme Court put a temporary hold on a house subpoena yesterday for eight years of trumps financial records. The House Oversight committee subpoenaed the material back in april, after former trump lawyer Michael Cohen testified that the president quote inflated his total access when it served his purposes, and deflated the access when it reduced his rel estate taxes. The move known as an administrative stay does not mean the court might rule on the legal merits of the dispute but it stopped the clock to give the lawyers time to file papers. After losing in the lower courts to have the subpoena thrown out, trumps lawyers asked the Supreme Court to put the subpoena on hold while they pursue an appeal. And in a two sentence order the house must respond by 3 00 p. M. On thursday. And Jerome Powell met with President Trump yesterday to discuss the economy for the First Time Since february in what the president called a good and cordial meeting. The fed says the president requested the meeting and they discussed Interest Rates among other things. The fed released a statement yesterday saying that powell did not discuss the outlook for Interest Rates with trump. Except to stress that the path of policy will depend entirely on incoming information that bears on the outlook for the economy. Trump again tweeted later in the day saying quote i protested the fact that our fed rate is set too high relative to the Interest Rates of other competitor countries. In fact, our rates should be lower than all of the others. We are the u. S. Too strong a dollar hurting manufacturers and growth. President trump has long been a critic of Jerome Powell. Since he assigned him to his role in february of 2018. In recent days, he has called powell and his colleagues quote boneheads, and has asked on twitter who is our bigger enemy, jay powell or chairman xi of china . To be a fly on the wall for that meeting. Congressional leaders reached a deal yesterday, to extend government funding for four more weeks to avoid a governmentwide shutdown. The continuing resolution was unveiled by House Democrats and does not include funds for President Trumps border wall, trump has demanded money for the w