Day 967 of the Trump Administration. Just tonight, theres a new problem with the way House Democrats are going after and trying to use what are normally secret grand jury materials from the mueller investigation. The democrats argue they need them for an impeachment inquiry. The Justice Department, though, is pushing back saying the democrats havent made it at all clear that this is an impeachment inquiry. This question is now before a federal judge. In court papers, trumps doj specifically mentions the messaging by the democrats have been all over the place, specifically, they say, quote, the speaker of the house says the investigation is not a true impeachment proceeding. They add the committees own description of its investigation makes clear that it is too far removed from any potential judicial proceeding. The filing even cites news media reports on the democrats conflicting descriptions of what they are doing here. It includes two stories. From Andrew Desiderio who joins us in just a moment. In fact, we at this humble broadcast have noted this same thing earlier this week. And we aired the following as proof that no two democrats are saying the same thing on impeachment. For anyone that was confused, we are in the midst of an investigation. We are Holding Hearings for the purpose of investigating the possibility of voting for articles of impeachment against the president. I think chairman nadler described the proceedings well. What were doing tomorrow is adopting procedures enabling us to do it more effectively. Its a bit technical inside baseball maybe. Essentially the impeachment inquiry has already begun. People can call this whatever they want to call it. I dont want to get caught in semantics. Do you support moving forward with articles of impeachment against the president . I mean we should move forward on things leading up to that. The only vote that is ultimately going to matter is whether we vote to impeach him. Todays move by the Justice Department comes one day after the House Judiciary Committee voted to ramp up, as you heard chairman nadler allude to, its investigation of donald trump involving more hearings, more aggressive tactics when it comes to handling witnesses. Tonight, jerry nadler spoke out about the latest effort to thwart the investigation. Weve been very clear for the last several months in court filings, in public statements, and in proceedings in the committee that we are, in fact, conducting an investigation, preparing to decide whether to recommend articles of impeachment in the house. This is another instance of the Trump Administration trying to cover up and hide from congress and from the American People, in this case from congress because the American People wouldnt see the grand jury information, all kinds of information. Meanwhile, the i word, impeachment, appears to be on the president s mind of late. Just this morning he asked, quote, how do you impeach a president who has helped create perhaps the greatest economy in the history of our country, done more than any other president in the first two and a half years despite phony and fraudulent witch hunt illegally led against him . You dont impeach president s for doing a good, great job. It came up last night when he spoke to a gathering of House Democrats in baltimore. I told nancy pelosi, you have to do something other than try to impeach somebody that didnt do anything wrong. You have to. I said, its hard to impeach somebody who didnt do anything wrong. The Mueller Report is out. Theres no collusion after two and a half years. The president also got a big assist today from his loyal House Minority leader Kevin Mccarthy who criticized the democrats for their handling of the investigation. The leadership doesnt even know what the committee is doing, let alone the conference itself. They cant determine whether theyre working on impeachment or not. The democrats are making it an issue and its a wrong issue for them to even talk about. Then theres this. As all this unfolds, the Washington Post is reporting that House Judiciary Committee is negotiating to bring exattorney general Jeff Sessions to the hill to testify before them. The Mueller Report detailed how trump had pummeled sessions and tried to pressure him to reverse his recusal from the russia matter. According to the post, sessions lawyer says the only way his client will testify is only under subpoena. Next month they will try to force don mcgahn to come before them in a hearing and former Trump Campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is scheduled to give public testimony before that same committee on september 17th to answer questions about possible obstruction of justice. All this leading us to our leadoff discussion on a friday night. For that we welcome annie karni, White House Reporter with the New York Times. Jonathan allen, nbc National Political reporter, and Andrew Desiderio, congressional reporter for politico, returning veterans. Andrew, because your name was invoked, ill begin with you. What does this dustup with justice mean for those House Democrats . Right. This is exactly what House Democrats have told me all week that they feared, the idea that essentially the inconsistent impeachment messaging could undermine their central claim to the grand jury information that was gathered as part of the mueller investigation. What the white house and the Justice Department have been able to do as a result of this filing is to take advantage of the fact that House Democrats havent identified a unified front on this issue, therefore, they do not have a right to this information. Earlier in the week it was more a political misfire. Now it has the potential to be a factual misfire in that it could hurt them in court. Annie, loved your contributions last night during the debate. Really enjoyed it around here. On tonights topic, the president seems to think that impeachment is a clear and present danger. He does. Just to be clear, in his speech in baltimore last night, he touched on impeachment. He touched on about everything he ever talks about. He gave a 68minute rambling speech that was supposed to be counterprogramming to the democratic debate that was going on at the same time. I dont think it stood out in the vast array of topics he likes to touch on. It was almost a laugh line for him. But we saw the tweetsz this morning saying you cant impeach a president whos dining great job. This morning saying you cant impeach a president whos dining great job. One thing that struck me is impeachment didnt coming up once at the debate last night among us the president ial candidates when being out front on impeachment used to be a real way to stand out in that field. There was no discussion of it in the debate. A lot of people trying to tried to target trump instead of targeting each other. That stood out. But, again, this confusion on what the House Democrats are actually doing, are they conducting an impeachment inquiry or conducting a probe to figure out whether they will impeach him, does seem to be standing exactly in their way. What surprises me is, they know the Justice Department is going to take every chance they can to block any handing over any grand jury information, anything. Thats what this administrations position has been on everything. Did anyone there not foresee that they would use this messaging issue to block this . John, what the reporting gets to is that impeachment is a term of art. It is a legal trigger. In other words, yes, we will break the seal on this confidential grand jury material if you are speaking with the authority of the house of representatives and youre going to impeach this guy. John, what has been behind the muddled messaging on this topic . Jerry nadler again tonight as he did in midsummer, appeared on cnn then came to this building to appear on this broadcast on this network tonight to say, in effect, oh, were so impeachy, you wouldnt believe it. Yeah. Impeachy as though it were a flavor that you could draw if jerry nadler were doing that, it would be the impeachiest. Whats behind it is Nancy Pelosis desire to keep control of the house of representatives in the next congress. Theres an electoral push there and desire. She wants to make sure that shes not losing house members and doesnt want to go too fast or force top votes opposite her on her members. For many of them it would be difficult to have a vote on impeachment. It would pit the liberal base in their districts against more moderate swing voters that they need to win. And so i think thats what weve been seeing for months and months. As a practical matter, this question of impeachment and the courts and whether or not democrats are moving forward, the courts have ruled on this in the past in terms of grand jury testimony. Going back to the nixon period and watergate, the houses power to impeach and investigating toward impeachment is something that is absolutely recognized by the courts as a reason to go and unseal that grand jury testimony for the congress to go look at it. And so if that was to be overturned, that would be a reversal of what the president has been before. I talked to a number of lawyers about this, folks who have gone back in the Justice Department as far as the johnson administration, so predating that nixon era. That doesnt in between court wouldnt change its mind based on what its seeing today, but its no wonder that the Justice Department under trump is making this argument. Who knows how far it goes along in the court. Maybe some of the justices the president has appointed to the Supreme Court will end up having a different view than the court has had in the past. But that impeachment power and the ability to investigate is one that is recognized, and the idea you have to impeach the president before you could investigate whether to impeach him or have the tools to investigate is probably at least a legally tenuous one. The democrats have to hope that same holding applies to them . Thats exactly right. And i think what this reflects is the competing political priorities within the House Democratic caucus right now. Speakers nancy pelosi has to balance two sides of her caucus, one, the more progressive flank that wants to have a more aggressive posture toward the president and wants to make it seem like they are on a path to impeachment. The second flank is the more moderate flank of the democratic party, the more vulnerable members in 2020 whom nancy pelosi needs to ensure that they win their reelections because many of their victories in 2018 were key to democrats winning back control of the house. So this is super important to her and those moderate members do not want to embrace impeachment for many reasons. Number one being its probably not popular in their districts, and b, they have republicanleaning districts. John, youre just back from houston. You were there to cover last nights debate. Consensus was the biggest moment kind of backfired a bit on a former secretary castro who went after joe biden. It appeared to all of us on memory, it appeared it was something he had in his back pocket and ready to go. Before we talk about it, heres both men reacting to it today. Your campaign has called what secretary castro called said to you is a low blow, a cheap shot. He said it wasnt personal. How do you view what he said to you in your exchange . I dont view it as anything. He just got his facts wrong. Were up there to debate. And thats what i was doing. I pointed out that Vice President joe bidens plan would leave out 10 million people. I think thats significant. So i would point that out again. John allen, question to you, was real damage done last night and or is this just something for us, for the chattering classes to chatter about . It will be interesting to see. Most voters arent into the weeds of the policy and certainly dont care a whole lot about the personality pieces of this. But there are important dynamics going on here about the differences between these Health Care Plans, and i think there are some things the voters care about in terms of, you know, which candidates are attacking, which ones might be trying to get in cheap shots, and also whether the Vice President is having difficulties that some of his rivals are suggesting. You know, i watched it happen live. I went back over the transcript. It looked like they were talking past each other a bit. The point castro makes about the Vice PresidentS Health Care plan would require some people to buy in and, therefore, there would be fewer people insured under his plan is a distinction. Bidens point that some of the other Health Care Plans would be extremely costly because they would cover everybody is also a salient point. I think we ought to wait and see what voters reactions are to this before we judge whos going to be hurt by it and who might be helped. I would say this. If youre Julian Castro and youre polling at 2 or 3 , somewhere along those lines, the likelihood this is going to be devastating to you beyond, you know, stocking away a little bit of what you have seems pretty small compared to the possibility that you might bring in some attention, bring in some money and attract a few people to your campaign. Annie karni, president s speech in baltimore last night, at the end of this broadcast, we have a compilation of the greatest hits contained therein. I said he spoke to House Democrats. That would be interesting. In reality, he spoke to house republicans. We heard the usual attacks on the usual suspects among the democrats. Annie, when you talk to people in this west wing, anyone connected to the campaign, when theyre being honest, hes got to have an opponent at some point. Is there one they fear more . I mean, it hasnt changed along with his status. Biden is still among the people i talked to that are connected to the Campaign Seen as the most difficult challenge for them to take on. It would be the candidate who is the hardest to make the socialist argument against, and they think that is a good and winning message for them. Its a candidate who could eat at trumps numbers with White Working Class voters in the midwest and the rust belt and states he has to win and states he won in 2016. That being said, they still feel confident about him and think hes a good candidate. If theyre being honest, looking at the field, they think Elizabeth Warren is the strongest natural talent on that stage. But they think that biden, because he can appeal to some of trumps voters, would be the toughest matchup head to head. Thank you to the three of you for helping along our conversation at the end of another long week. Annie karni, john allen, Andrew Desiderio, we greatly appreciate it. Coming up for us, as we continue on this friday night, the mystery surrounding the case of Andrew Mccabe, former number two at the fbi. Will he or wont he be indicted . Later, the president searched for a Fourth National security adviser as the job is vacant again. Where does that leave us in terms of north korea, china, russia, iran . The taliban for starters, as the the 11th hour is just Getting Started on this friday night. Customizes home insurance, so theyll only pay for what they need. Your turn to keep watch, limu. Wake me up if you see anything. [ snoring ] [ loud squawking and siren blaring ] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. What might seem like a small cough can be a big bad problem for your grandchildren. Babies too young to be vaccinated against whooping cough are the most at risk for severe illness. Help prevent this talk to your doctor or pharmacist today about getting vaccinated against whooping cough. 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