Hour. Ali velshi is here. That would be wild if there wasnt a mention of emoluments in the konsz constitution. Even without it. If you look at the way business operates, the way we operate, the way politics operates, you protect against seeming like seeming like. For your own pocket. Even if the impression is there you protect against that. This was the danger when people didnt take the emoluments clause seriously when we discussed it. It becomes more and more on normal. We started discussing it the way he was inaugurated, talking about the trump d. C. Hotel and it has been a consistent issue ever few months since then. New stories arise, does donald trump, is he working for himself, is he working for the American Public, his golf course in scotland the blind trust thats not blind. The air force stopping and staying inviting everybody from the
g7. They say they vetted a number of other properties. David was trying to figure out if they did, calling the other Properties Around the country. This needles at us, this is not a resol sved issue. We have a lot of people during the hand offs. One day well let everyone in the room to show how Much Movement there is in the last 60 seconds. Good to see you. The most graphic evidence yet that the president of the United States has betrayed his oath of office. Here is how adam schiff described it. The whistleblower wrote i have received information from multiple u. S. Government officials that the president of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election. It also reads the president s personal lawyer, mr. Rudolph
giuliani is a central figure in the effort. Attorney general bill barr appears to be involved as well. One of the whistleblowers biggest allegations is the white house tried to hide the records of the phone call between trump and zelensky. The whistleblower wrote, white house officials told me that they were directed by white house lawyers to remove the electronic transcripts from the Computer System in which such transcripts are typically stored. Instead the transcript was loaded into a separate Electronic System used to handle classified information of a sensitive nature. According to white house officials i spoke with, this was not the first time under this administration that a president ial transcript was placed into this codeword level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive rather than National Security sensitive information. The complaint goes on to say that multiple u. S. Officials
told me ukrainian leadership was led to believe that a phone call between the president and president zelensky would depend on Whether Zelensky showed willingness to play ball on issues aired by mr. Giuliani. Thats about mr. Giuliani and a former top prosecutor that joe bidens son hunter was involved in corruption when he served on a board of a ukrainian gas company. The complaint was made public just before the acting director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, appearing before a House Intelligence Committee where he faced tough questions about his handling of the complaint. You were not directed to withhold the complaint is that your testimony . Yes, that is absolutely true. So you exercised your discretion to withhold the complaint from the committee . I did not. What i did is i delayed it because it did not meet the
statutory definition of urgent concern. Why would you then as your first action outside of the Intelligence Community go directly to the white house to the very entity that was being scrutinized and complained about in the complaint why would you go there to ask their advice as to what you should do . Congresswoman, the allegation that is made by the whistleblower is secondhand information. Not known to him or her firsthand. Did you discuss this subject, this whistleblower complaint with the president . You can say, i did not discuss it with him, if thats the answer. That doesnt betray any privilege. And you can say i did discuss it with him but im not going to get into the content of those conversations. That question you can answer. Chairman schiff, once again, you know, my conversation no matter what the subject is with the president of the United States is privileged conversation between the
director of National Intelligence and the president. Do i have your assurance that the whistleblower will be able to testify fully and freely and enjoy the protections of the law . Yes, congressman. Lawmakers had this to say about what we learned today. We are profoundly concerned with the breakdown of this whistleblower system. That has been manifest over the last month. That a whistleblower who was deemed credible, had a complaint that was deemed urgent that a complaint that was intended to come to congress would be withheld to congress and would do so on the basis would be withheld on the basis of advice given by the subject or subjects of that complaint. I think what the dni did was broke the law. The law is very clear. The dni shall convey the complaint to the Intelligence Committees. Not the whole congress, to the Intelligence Committee. Carefully balanced to protect the our intelligence and to protect the whistleblower. Lets go to capitol hill to tom mall ski, hes a member of the committees subcommittee on oversight and investigations, served as Assistant Secretary Of State for democracy, human rights and labor. Congressman, good to see you. Thank you for being here. One of the things we heard in the conversation between Committee Chair adam schiff and the director of National Intelligence is will this whistleblower be able to come forward and enjoy the protections afforded them under the law. The president is reported to have told a number of staffers at the United States mission to the United States a couple hours ago that the people who informed the whistleblower are, quote, close to spies, and you know how we used to deal with spies in the old days. The implication is he used the word treasonous, the implication
is whistleblowers, people concerned about the conduct of the president of the United States are treasonous. Its very revealing, because what it shows is that, once again, the president defines treason as a betrayal of him personally. Rather than betrayal of the country. He doesnt understand the difference between himself and his country. And thats at the heart of this problem that he has sub board nated our Foreign Policy, the defense of our National Security to his own personal, political interest. He expects every government in the world to serve his interests rather than demanding they do whats in the American National interest. I want to speak about the American National interest for a moment. You tweeted yesterday about the allegations about joe biden and the ukrainian prosecutor, you wrote i was Assistant Secretary Of State when this happened, All Of Us Working On Ukraine wanted
this prosecutor gone because he was not Prosecuting Corruption, so did the europeans and the imf. It did not come from joe biden, he just delivered our message. Give me the context, you were there. Whats the context around this . Because there is spinning going on about what joe biden was involved in with respect to this former prosecutor . The context very simply was that ukraine needed loans from the International Community, the imf, the International Monetary fund, was supporting the ukrainian committee, we were providing Loan Guarantees and it was clearly spelled out to the ukrainians that a condition for that assistance was they had to improve their fight against corruption. They had to reform the prosecutors office, the prosecutor was supposed to be Prosecuting Corruption and by late 2015 it was clear to us that this Chief Prosecutor in
cr ukraine was not bringing cases against anyone, ironically not even this company that joe bidens son was involved in. So the State Department told the ukrainians you got to have a new prosecutor, our embassy told them that, the European Union told them that, the president of france, germany told them that, the International Monetary fund and its president told them that. The European Bank for reconstruction and development told them that. And among many other senior people sent to deliver the message was Vice President biden. So maybe donald trump thinks that the entire world was engaged in a conspiracy to somehow protect joe bidens son but thats crazy. This was european policy, the policy of the International Community and was the right thing to do. Congressman, in stating reasons for why the congressionally approved again subsequent to all of this by the way, a lot of funding i
went to ukraine and donald trump said part of it is he wanted to put a hold on the funding because other governments should do more, europe should do more, europe funds much more than the United States does on these fronts . Absolutely. Im always for our allies doing more and more, but theres no question that ukraine is getting a lot of support from the European Union and a lot of other international institutions. Its clearly not why our military aid to ukraine was suspended at a moment when russia was attacking ukraine. All of the evidence points to one conclusion and that is this was done as part of an effort to give Rudy Giuliani leverage to get the dirt on the Vice President former Vice President. Tom malinowski good to talk to you again. Nbcs Kelly Odonnell joins us now from the white house. Kelly, the president s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani is
responding to the whistleblower complaint. Hes obviously not a white house response, and i think thats the important thing to be clear about here because people might be unclear as to why Rudy Giuliani was doing work for the State Department in ukraine, hes not a government employee, hes Donald Trumps personal lawyer, but whats the response from him anyway . Reporter well, Rudy Giuliani is embroiled in this as almost an emissary for the president , yet as you point out he is not a government employee, he is not a State Department employee, he is the personal lawyer of the president. And it was unclear at the time these events were happening that he was even tasked with anything related to doing an investigation of matters related to ukraine or the bidens. Thats all now coming to the surface. And Rudy Giuliani is attacking the claims within the whistleblower complaint. Hes going right at the heart of that, saying that the whistleblower was providing hearsay evidence, as if that
would not be admissible in a court of law, he lays that out in a series of tweets and in a conversation with our colleague, kristen welker, saying that somehow would not be admissible. Certainly in a state court of law that might be a standard you might apply. Thats not what were talking about here, the whistleblower is someone from the Intelligence Community who through his or her work was able to obtain information about this with a presumed level of expertise, according to what weve learned today, and presented this information, and its to be evaluated. So giuliani is attacking the person who brought forward the complaint much like the president has. We also heard from President Trump whos back at the white house after a morning of planned fundraising that was tacked onto the end of his United Nations visit and the president talked about the democrats who are dealing with this potential impeachment and the investigation today, and talking about those who are putting this forward saying dont look at
what i did, look at what others have done. Heres what the president had to say. Its another witch hunt, here we go again. Its adam schiff and his crew making up stories and sitting there, its just really a disgrace. That was a perfect call. But adam schiff Doesnt Talk About joe biden and his son walking away with millions of dollars from ukraine and then millions of dollars from china. Walking away in a quick meeting walking away with millions of dollars. He Doesnt Talk About joe biden firing a prosecutor. And if that prosecutor is not fired, hes not going to give him money from the United States of america. Reporter attacking the investigators, the process, attacking the complaint and talking about the bidens, not addressing the underlying and what some called grave concerns raised in this complaint. Ali . Thanks very much, Kelly Odonnell at the white house for us. Lets dig deeper into the complaint and the hearing today, joining me former democratic congresswoman elizabeth holtz, currently counsel at a law firm and author of the case for impeaching trump. Clint watts is a former fbi Special Agent now a distinguished research fellow, also an msnbc National Security analyst. Clint i want to pick up with you, the idea that this Whistleblower Comes Forward with the complaint and Rudy Giuliani saying its hearsay, wouldnt be admissible in the court of law, thats not the point. The whistleblower goes with a complaint and provides a road map of which is what happened, this is you could sniff it out, find out whether im telling the truth or not. The whistleblower is not a prosecutor, hes not taking the case to trial and not trying to try Rudy Giuliani. When he or she, we dont know
who it is, was trying to reveal what they believed to be unethical conduct in a personal nature, not a National Security nature. Its not in terms of of the interest of the United States. So when you look through the claim, it sources many other sources. It looks like theres people in the white house that were talking about conduct there. Looks like something from the Intelligence Community. Even sites out to the hill, news sites and points out these Different Things and puts it together, like an Intelligence Officer would do. They would do it in the course of their work. So it looks like an Intelligence Officer saying we need to look at this, this is not done for National Security purposes its, in fact, inviting election interference. Liz, thats the point we need to look at this, a whistleblower complaint is not as clint said, meant to be a case presented to a jury. Its ive seen something that is worrisome. You are the people i would bring it to, so im bringing it to. Rudy giuliani is throwing mud, the president is throwing mud, wants a firing squad, take care of whistle blowers, but thats not the point here. The point is theres a process to protect the government too from crazy allegations. So that this allegation, before it would go to congress had to be vetted by the Inspector General, who had to determine that it was credible, that the person was credible and that there was an urgent concern about. Which happened. Right. He did. He did a preliminary investigation. I dont know how many people he talked to, he may have talked to a lot of people, we dont know what investigation he conducted. But theres a barrier at the beginning, some Filtering Process to ensure that whacko complaints are excluded. This was deemed to be a credible complaint from a credible person as a matter of Urgent National concern. What is the Urgent National concern . That the president of the United States is using the power of his
office, the awesome power of his office to bludgeon and bully a small country in Eastern Europe to