From the wall street journal. Moments ago from the Washington Post. The post is reporting President Trump pressed the leader of ukraine to investigate joe bidens son during a call between the two leaders at the center of this extraordinary whistleblower complaint. That follows this report in the wall street journal that broke moments before that which has them reporting President Trump repeatedly pressured ukraines president to investigate bidens son, urged him about 8 times to work with Rudy Giuliani to do that, who of course is the president s personal lawyer. Nbc news hasnt confirmed reporting in either the journal or post, which broke moments ago, but were working on that. Were talking to one of the reporters at the journal in a moment. The potential bombshell, have to put the word potential there, report comes after guilliani admitted he asked ukraine to investigate biden and his family, and he justified the president doing so, too, even without confirming the president did indeed do that. Also comes out that the president was pressed by Kristin Welker about what he may have said in communications with ukraine. It is a partisan whistleblower, it is just another political hack job. Did you discuss joe biden, his son or his family . It doesnt matter what i discussed. I had a great conversation with numerous people, i dont even know exactly who youre talking about. Do you know the identity . I dont know the identity of the whistleblower. I hear it is a partisan person. Did you mention joe biden during the conversation . I dont want to talk about any conversation other than to say, other than to say great conversation, totally appropriate conversation, couldnt have been better. Have you read no, i havent. I just tell you it is everybody has read it, they laugh at it. And of course all of this is happening against the backdrop over battle of the disclosure of the whistleblower complaint at the center of this which the administration blocked from being officially sent to congress. According to New York Times and the Washington Post both, they report that the complaint from an Intelligence Officer involved the president making some commitment or promise tied to ukraine, although the wall street journal reporting indicates that one of their sources did not believe the president offered specific quid pro quo to the ukrainian president in cooperation for investigating bidens son. Of course, it may have been implied. Folks, these are serious allegations facing the president. If the big scandal of 2016 was the president knowingly accepting foreign assistance to help his president ial Campaign Even if he didnt quote collude to do it, could the big scandal heading to 2020 be the president seeking more foreign assistance . Joining me on the phone, one of the reporters on the breaking the wall street journal piece, dustin voles. Appreciate you taking a few minutes to do this. You have reporting that eight times the president asked the ukrainian president to work with Rudy Giuliani but in reporting you cant specifically say he dangled the aid. How do you know, is this the same phone call or could we be talking about two or three Different Communications . Great question, chuck. Thans f thanks for having me on. We know there was a call in july between the president and the president of ukraine. Were told during that conversation there were eight times in which the president mentioned working with his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to talk about bidens family, look into concerns on bidens family. We havent heard there was quid pro quo related to military aid but what we know from yesterdays house intelligence meeting with the inspector general, the intelligence community, it sounds like the whistleblower complaint at question here involves a series of episodes. So were talking about one specific call in july with the ukrainian president but we dont know what else is in the complaint that goes beyond this conversation. Sounds like one of your sources was reading from the transcript or read a transcript of this call. It means this transcript is readily circulating, do you get that sense and that were going to see this or theyre intent on trying to Block Congress from getting access to it . I cannot predict the white houses next move any better than you can, chuck. You know, i will say i cant discuss our sourcing on the story, but what i can say is typically when there are conversations between the president of the United States and head of state of another country, there are memos, handwritten, contemporaneous notes and transcripts that are shared among National Security council staff, if needed, relevant cabinet secretaries and others. Certainly if there are transcripts of this floating around, there would have been a number of people, small number, but a number of people that may have seen that. Whether or not were going to see any of the notes come to light remains to be seen. One of the more intriguing facts that you seem to uncover also that was sort of lower in the story i believe, hope i am not conflating a couple of the reports, that Rudy Giuliani told you that the state department set up his meeting with the y ukrainian president. That would be out of the ordinary, wouldnt it . Yes, it would. We said the meeting was between guiliani tamiani and top aides. Mr. Guilliani said the meeting was set up by the state department, so he briefed the state department on the conversation after the fact. The state department declined to comment for the article. And i know this is a bit of a semantic, maybe it isnt, depends who has jurisdiction of this, who has this transcript . Is this in the state department or is this in dni . Is this in the white house . I say that because there seems to be some argument that this isnt the purview of the intelligence committee. If it is not, is it the purview of Foreign Relations . You know, is that semantic matter here . That is one of the key legal questions being fought over now between democrats on the House Intelligence Committee and the director of National Intelligence and their legal guidance from the Justice Department. Again, i mean, what types of notes and transcripts, our story doesnt go into detail what types of notes there may or may not be, but deciding whether or not theres an intelligence activity involved here is one of the key issues of dispute and why the director of National Intelligence decided i needed to consult the Justice Department on this, so now the director of National Intelligence has his hands tied becausesq he is bein told you cant share it with congress, even though theyre threatening to sue him. I will let you go. Thanks for taking a minute or two to explain what you found here. Shall apprecia much appreciate it. Joining us, Kelly Odonnell. State dinner day is busy even without news. War and peace is on the line with iran. We have this breaking story. Is the white house extra scrambly with the ukraine story . Is there a different vibe there or is this just sort of the typical organized circus that is the trump era sometimes . Reporter theres certainly a clash of moods because theres all of the pageantry and getting ready for pomp and ceremony of a state visit day, all of the tension are reporting out a story like this that has potentially very enormous consequences for the white house. We have tried to get any kind of additional clarification from white house officials. Weve been given no comment repeatedly, talked to multiple officials that will not engage on this issue beyond what the president himself has said. Broadly, chuck, i think one thing that might be helpful for viewers is to understand when calls like this happen between President Trump and another world leader, what is unclear to us now from talking to multiple officials about what kind of notes exist. So when we use the word transcript, viewers may think theres a recording and every word is transcribed. Often there are note takers, it may be someone writing down the substance of whats discussed, may not be word for word. If someone later looks at the material, it may not give us every nuance of what the conversation included. Certainly topic areas and so forth. We dont know in the july 25th phone conversation what the specifics were. Was there any kind of recording, was it simply note taking. We dont know the specifics. That may ultimately become important, certainly for a world leader, those are classified. That would be part of the reason why the administration wants to keep this under wraps. Big questions here. The president called out this whistleblower, declaring the person partisan, though doesnt know the identity, called out on reporters to investigate joe biden, seeming to reinforce the story line that is playing out separately about what may be in the complaint, so he seems content to have people pursue that, even though it might be in fact part of what the controversy around him ultimately continues to add oxygen to that, yet the president would not acknowledge that he actually talked about biden, if in fact he did, he would not address that when pressed by reporters in the oval office. Look, theres something here that can be trumpy sometimes. Does he know exactly whats in transcripts . He knows he is not in jeopardy, he is toying . Is he nervous about he doesnt know what he said maybe or is he bluffing through it. Reporter it is a question. It is an unknowable. You and i have seen him so long, what do you sense he is doing, he knows what he said or is trying to bluff out of what he said . Reporter certainly if he talked about the bidens, people will think thats inappropriate because joe biden and any member of the biden family, that could be viewed as using his office to seek information on a political rival and people will certainly critique that. If he did not discuss or in any way hold over the ukrainian president military aid authorized by congress for the ukraine, if he knows he didnt discuss that, again, i am in the speculation area here, maybe he thinks thats a safe base. So we dont know. But the president kind of set up a strong man force saying build it up, build it up, build it up. Thats what he was chiding reporters, so there would be a greater fall. We saw that during the russian investigation. It is hard to know. But the president definitely was trying to be dismissive about this today. Right. Reporter and we have some road to cover before we know all of the answers on this. And the wildcard now, somehow Rudy Giuliani in all of this. Reporter chuck, isnt it hard to imagine touching the hot stove of a political leader, hard to imagine touching the hot stove again. You would think they would then again, maybe they thought they were in the clear. Anyway. Kelly odonnell, thanks very much. The whole episode raised a ton of legal question. Julian epstein is a former democratic chief counsel, went through impeachment wars of the late 90s. Robert lit, former general counsel for the director of National Intelligence. Basically, theres nobody like bob litz. I was told book him again. Julian, bob, yquestion for you both. Bob, start with you. How does new reporting change the brewing legal battle here where it seems as if theres a line here, the white house is trying to argue that sure, there may have been political conversations in there, not connected to the aid. Does this change anything . The first thing you have to say is the point you made earlier, that we dont know if the conversation that the wall street journal is reporting is the only conversation that took place. Given the fact that initial reporting specifically referred to a promise by the president , and that there was reference to more than one conversation, there may be more. The fact is were seeing only small portions of the story, and until we see it all, were not really going to know what the implications are. Having said that, as you pointed out, the mere fact of the president asking a Foreign Government to intervene and try to dig up dirt on what he views as his primary opponent for the president ial election is something that i think people could view as extremely troubling. If i can go back a second to the question you asked dustin where the transcript would be, any of that is controlled by the white house. Those are people that determine whether theyre released. Becomes a privilege issue. Julian, this is in your wheel house here. What do you think, what is Congress Legal standing in this, what would your advice be to whether it is adam schiff at this point or if it is not in his jurisdiction, is it somebody else . How would you legally try to get hands on notes, transcripts, whatever you wan t to call it . There are two legal issues. One is whether congress has the right to the whistleblower information, whether the whistleblower is in fact covered by whistleblower laws. I think a relatively straight reading of the law is affirmative on both. The whistleblower is covered. I think regardless of the alleged executive privilege issues, given the context. Congress clearly has the right to the information. Thats the first issue. Second issue, is there a legal issue with respect to trump asking and using foreign aid to ask a government to interfere in the 2020 elections, parenthetically, while denying he asked a Foreign Government to interfere in the 2016 elections. So i think the question that youre asking is where is this story going. I think it hangs a lantern on a real systemic problem we have in terms of holding the executive accountable. The game the white house is playing now is yeah, we are going to thumb our nose at the law. We kind of recognize that the whistleblower is covered. We recognize congress has the right to the information. And even if theres a legal issue with respect to interference, what are you going to do about it . You can try to go impeachment, we know your caucus is divided, or try to go to the courts. If you go to courts to litigate access to the information, it could take one to two to three years. The enforcement process is so slow and so outdated, and so in need of updating. I think the best way to do this, if i were the Judiciary Committee or if i were at the intelligence committee, i would and i think the identity of the whistleblower will be known, i would get the whistleblower and subpoena the whistleblower and try to get the whistleblower to the hill. Theyll try to block him on executive privilege, but i think the whistleblowers attorney will find plenty of cover. I would try to hear directly from the whistleblower. In case people say he or she, whistleblower, none of us know if the whistleblower is he or she. I dont want anybody to read into he or she. I stand corrected. We dont know. Fair point. Bob litt, we talked about this yesterday. What advice at some point do you give the whistleblower . Somebody pointed out to me that this whistleblower is doing what a lot of people wanted Edward Snowden to do, work within the system, see if you can get the system to hear the alarm youre trying to sound. He decided not to do that. At what point do you think the whistleblower may find they have no other choice but to go around the system . Thats going to depend on the whistleblowers tolerance for risk. We know that the executive branch is taking position that the whistleblower cant disclose this. And i think that President Trumps comment today that the whistleblower was a partisan is an extremely dangerous comment because the most important thing for any whistleblower is to understand that theyre going to be protected from reprisal, retaliation. If the president of the United States without knowing anything about the whistleblower characterizes this person as partisan, he is signaling go on the attack against this whistleblower. If this person comes forward, start attacking them as a d disloyal person. Thats something the whistleblower has to bear in mind, the personal risk he or she will be taking when deciding whether to come forward. And if i can underscore a point, i think mr. Litt is exactly right. This is hanging a lantern on a problem that everybody should be worried about and focused on, which is there is no easy enforcement mechanism when you find a president asking a Foreign Government to interfere in an election, there is no easy enforcement mechanism on that, no easy enforcement mechanism with a whistleblower on a case like this. Legal processes are so outdated. Every single democratic candidate should be talking about reforming the accountability process, having in place a process to go to the courts, get disposition on these in weeks rather than years. This should be a central focus of reform for every single democratic candidate because the question youre asking is the right question. Is there a clear route for the democrats to hold the president accountable, the game the white house is playing is that there isnt. We can kick the can down the road, string it out for months if not years. Bob litt, is there risk in the white house strategy that there is a fast track . Are we going to a nixon tape showdown, is it going to be three years, what julian was saying, one to two to three years, or is there a way it is fast tracked . Julian is right. If it goes to the courts, it will take a long time before it gets resolved. I think the risk for the white house is either that the information leaks out or that the whistleblower decides to come forward, and at that point they lose control, lose the ability to stall things interminably. Thats when we may find out what this is all about. Thank you both for sharing your expertise with us. Thanks for having us. Joining me, kimberly atkinson, washington correspondent and michael steele, doug parnell. Kimberly, the basic question that the average viewer is thinking here, is this just another more of the washington fight over the legitimacy of dona