Good morning, everybody. It is monday, december 9th. Im yasmin vossoughian. Ayman is wrapping up his time off and will be back tomorrow. We begin this week with fastmoving developments in the impeachment investigation. At 9 00 a. M. Democratic investigators will present the evidence theyve uncovered to the House Judiciary Committee and republicans will have another chance to refute it. Chairman jerry nadler says he expects the committee to introduce articles of impeachment by the end of this week, a track that could have the president impeached by christmas. We have a very solid case. I think the case we have if presented to a jury would be a guilty verdict in about three minutes flat. While the white house has declined an invitation to participate in the hearing, the president appears consumed by the issue tweeting and retweeting more than 100 times since yesterday, mostly about impeachment, and republican senator ted cruz of texas on, quote, meet the press yesterday advanced the debunked theory that ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. Thats despite a briefing by u. S. Intelligence officials warning the narrative is being promoted by Russian Security services. Do you believe ukraine meddled in the america election in 2016 . I do, and i think theres considerable evidence you do . You do . Yes, and chuck, let me say senator, this sort of strikes me as odd because you went through a primary campaign with this president. He launched a birtherism campaign against you. He went after your faith. He threatened to spill the beans about your wife about something, he pushed a National Enquirer story. I appreciate your dragging up all that garbage. Thats very kind, go ahead. Let me ask you this, is it not possible that this president is capable of creating a false narrative about somebody in order to help him politically . Except thats not what happened. The president released the transcript of the phone call. You can read what was said on the phone call. Yeah, and the bidens. You yourself thought the biden part was troubling. Chuck, chuck, let me point out a game that the media is playing. You know, a question that youve asked a number of people is youve said to senators sort of aghast, do you believe that ukraine not russia interfered in the election . Now that that in a court of law would be struck as a misleading question. Of course russia interfered with our election. Nobody looking at the evidence disputes that the president of the United States does. Look, on the evidence russia clearly interfered in our election, but heres the game the media is playing, because russia interfered the media pretends nobody else did. Ukraine blatantly interfered in our election. The sitting ambassador from ukraine wrote an oped blasting donald trump so a pair of President Trumps staunchest congressional allies, denied trump asked ukraine to investigate his political rival in pursuing a probe of joe biden. The president asked a leader of a foreign country to investigate his political rival, so one simple question to start. Is that appropriate . Well, one, he didnt do that. I dont agree with your premise. He talked about investigations. If you look at the transcript, i think he said will you do us a favor based on the United States going through a lot, talking about 2016 elections, and when you see that, dana, i think probably the biggest thing is this president has gone through so much. Can you explain to the American People why you think its okay for the president of the United States to ask a foreign nation to investigate a political opponent and withhold a white house meeting at the same time . I reject the premise of the question and thats what the president was doing. I think the president was acting on a sincere, longly held view and skepticism of foreign aid. I think he was acting on concern about ukraine being the third most corrupt country in the world and i think he was reflecting specific concern about this biden connection to burisma. It was george kent who said we were so worried about burisma our own embassy had to pull out of a public private. Lindsey graham issued a stark warning to House Democrats. Waere not going to turn the senate into a circus. I will tell schiff what youre doing is very dangerous for separation of power. Adam schiff is doing a lot of danger to the country, and he needs to stop. Mueller spent two years looking at trump. This whole ukrainian stuff is a joke. They got the money. They got the meeting with the president. They didnt investigate joe biden or hunter biden. There is no there there. And defense secretary mark esper declined to answer whether he was aware of any political consideration regarding the Trump Administrations hold of nearly 400 million in u. S. Security aid to ukraine. You were the secretary of defense this past summer when a lot of these actions were going down with with regard to ukraine. Did President Trump ever explain to you, tell you why he was holding up u. S. Military aid to ukraine, an ally that was and is in a current war with russia. Im not going to get into that. Theres obviously an inquiry underway on capitol hill. On late july is when i assumed office. Youd been acting earlier in july. I had for a couple of weeks and i was out of the game a couple of weeks. When i came onto the scene, the three things we were looking at were this, one was the aid necessary, vital to the ukrainians in terms of defending against russia, number two, had the ukraines addressed corruption, and that was a con impressional concern. And number three, were other countries in the region, other allies and partners assisting them. And given those three things we decided to support the provision of ukrainian aid. At the end of the day, the bottom line is most of that aid got out on time, and at no time did it have any impact on United StatesNational Security. And you were never told about political considerations. Im not going to get into th that. The Trump Administration placed a hold on the aid as the president s and allies were pushing for ukraine to investigate the bidens and democrats. The administration released the aid two days after congress became aware of a formal whistleblower complaint regarding President Trumps actions towards ukraine. And the department of justice is expected to release a watchdog report on the fbis investigation of Donald Trumps 2016 campaign today. Inspector general Michael Horowitz signaled to the senate that the report is ready ahead of his testimony in front of the Judiciary Committee on wednesday. Nbc news reported last week that the Inspector General found no evidence that the fbi spied on Trumps Campaign according to people familiar with the draft of the report. The Washington Post reports that attorney general barr has told associates that he disagrees with the reports assessment that the fbi had enough information in july of 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump Campaign. According to people familiar with the matter, the New York Times reports that barr has also recently approved the release of new details about the former fbi informant behind the steel dossier that had previously been blacked out in the upcoming report. Meanwhile, the timing of the reports release has irked some of the former officials interviewed by the Inspector General who told politico the standard review period seemed rushed so that it would be made public in the middle of the impeachment proceedings. Lets talk about some of this. Joining me now from washington, congressional report eer for th hill olivia beavers. Good morning, thank you so much for joining us on this. Good morning. What impact here could this Justice Departments report into the fbi tes investigation regarding the Trump Campaign in 2016, what impact could that have on the president s and the republicans defense Going Forward . Well, the president is certainly going to seize on the parts of the report that he believes will benefit him. Early reports show that a lawyer horowitz found that a lawyer changed a renewal application to get a surveillance warrant on carter page, and if thats true youre going to have the president saying that they were unfairly spied on as hes been saying repeatedly, but its also the timing as you mentioned earlier. This is a great time for them, if they want to be hammering the fbi and trying to change the narrative amid impeachment, theyre really going to be pushing that they were that the deep state claims, the 2016 claims that washingtons been working against them since they came in and now the democrats are working against them now. So its really going to probably be something they seize on on the psasame day that judiciary its hearing. Are we confident the president has seen this i. G. Report considering the fact over the weekend he did tweet saying basically the most important thing happening on monday is the release of this Inspector General report . Its not entirely career. It wouldnt be surprising if you have several, you know, friends or allies of his feeding information about what they might have heard. Ive certainly been hearing some gossip or speculation on capitol hi hill, and that might be feeding back to him, and as you said, hes been touting it as this g revelation, and we still have yet to see what really is in the report. But i have heard from republicans that they do think these early sort of leaks are seeking to down play how serious the findings are. Thats just something were going to find out today. Once again dueling narratives are going to have the release of the i. G. Report along with the judiciary continuing their impeachment inquiry. Stay close. We have breaking news out of new zealand. Police say at least five people are dead after a volcano erupted on a small island off of new zeala zealands coast. The eruption happened on white island off the countrys east coast sending an ash plume 12,000 feet into the skyme. You can see it there in some of the video taken of people observing this. The Deputy Commissioner of the National Police said overnight rescue operations have been installed because its been too dangerous for police and rescue services to go to the island. 50 people were in the area at the time. New zealanders and tourists are among the missing and injured. Still ahead, new reporting that attorney general bill barr has warned President Trump that hes not being served well by rudy giuliani, this as giuliani claims to have new ukraine evidence to present to barr. Plus, joe biden comes to his son hunters defense as questions about his dealings with ukraine ramp up. What the former Vice President is saying in a new interview with axios. Those stories and of course a check on your weather when we come back. 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. So people from midtown manhattan to downtown denver can experience what our 5g can deliver. woman and if verizon 5g can deliver performance like this in these places. Its pretty crazy. Just imagine what it can do for you. Some things are too important to do yourself. Get customized security with 24 7 monitoring from xfinity home. Awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Call, click or visit a store today. Welcome back. President trump said over the weekend that his personal attorney, rudy giuliani, wants to deliver information hes gathered on ukraine to congress, and attorney general bill barr. The president told reporters giuliani has not told him what information that he has found yet, but hes heard theres a lot to go through. Well, i just know he came back from someplace, and hes going to make a report i think to the attorney general and to congress. He says he has a lot of good information. I have not spoken to him about that information, but rudy, as you know, has been one of the great crime fighters over the last 50 years. He has not told me what hes found, but i think he wants to go before congress and say, and also to the attorney general and the department of justice. I hear hes found plenty. And nbc News White House correspondent Kristen Welker asked giuliani about trumps comments and whether he intends to give information to the attorney general and lawmakers. Giuliani texted this. All my conversations are privileged, and he can disclose what he is comfortable with. I am in the process of still analyzing what i received. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reporting that during several conversations in recent months, attorney general bill barr has counseled President Trump in general terms that giuliani has become a liability and a problem for his administration. That is according to multiple people familiar with the conversations. In one discussion, attorney general barr warned trump that he was not being wellserved by his lawyer. White house aides fear giuliani has used his role as the president s lawyer to promote the interests of private clients, they do not know who he represents. Giulianis conversations with trump are protected by Attorney Client privilege. Former white house chief of staff john kelly tried to limit ju giulianis reach so he would not interact with other white house staff. Former Administration Officials says kelly told others he did not want to be part of calls or meetings with giuliani. The Justice Department and the white house both declined to comment on the posts reporting. Giuliani did not respond to multiple calls and messages, and his lawyer declined to comment as well. With that lets get a check on your weather with nbc meteorologist bill karins who has just returned from a bout of sledding in upstate new york. Theres nothing like sledding. Im probably the only person who drove two hours to go sledding because the kids didnt have any snow. Is that all you drove up for . I saw my brother and his family as well. Lets give them credit as well. A little bit. Its a stay in bed monday morning in a lot of areas of the country. We have a rainy period for two Straight Days coming from the ohio valley, the east coast. The rain is moving through indianapolis. The rain has snuck up through the coastline, new york city some light rain. Its going to be moving through hartford and boston. On the cold side of the storm, we have a little snow around sioux falls heading to minnesota. Be careful in northern new england, theres enough cold air in place. Unusually well start awful with a litt start off with a little bit of snow. Because of the rain and periods of rain, baltimore, washington, d. C. , philly, newark, laguardia, possibility of significant delays today. Its just heavy rain occasionally, low visibility, low ceilings. The cloud levels pretty low. The same for minneapolis, a little bit of morning snow there too. Interstate 80 and definitely 95, especially late today could be some very heavy rain from new york all the way back up into the boston area. Yeah, this is a multipart storm. This is part one, and then this will be part two, and yasmin, part two may even end at some snow on the east coast. That could be nice. Then you wont have to drive two hours to go sledding. Head straight to central park. Ill meet you there. Thank you, bill. A feud breaks out between two Democratic Front runners, Elizabeth Warren and mayor Pete Buttigieg in a clash over transparency. What both candidates are calling for. Thats next. Idates are calling for. Thats next. Welcome back, mayor Pete Buttigiegs president ial campaign has released a summary of his work for mckinsey ask company after increased calls for more details about his work for the Consulting Firm thats been known to advise authoritarian and corrupt governments. He attempted to clarify what he did for the firm, writing in part this, the bulk of my work on these teams consisted of doing mathematical analysis, conducting research and preparing presentations. I never worked on a project inconsistent with my values, and if asked to do so i would have left the firm. Buttigieg asked him mckinsey has so far refused previous calls by the campaign to release buttigieg from that agreement. An hour after releasing the summary, chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot at a president ial forum in iowa pushed buttigieg to break his nda with the Consulting Firm. Watch this. You said you cant talk about your work at mckinsey because of a nondisclosure agreement, and you said today youve got to honor your commitment to mckinsey. Im asking you, shouldnt you break that nda so that you have the moral authority and the high ground against somebody like trump who hides behind the lack of transparency to justify everything that hes doing . So the feud between two 2020 front runners has escalated after senator Elizabeth Warren criticized mayor pete butte jumg for his fundraising practices. The massachusetts senator referred to the fundraising as a conflict. Will you release the tax returns for late 2000 . Look, this is about