Consequences of elections. All of it as the 11th hour gets underway on a thursday t night. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 1,029 of the trump administration. A day between this weeks public impeachment hearings, the president flew to the friendly confines of a trump rally tonight in louisiana, while there is word of a new witness ready to break ranks and go against the white house order to remain silent and defy congressional subpoenas in this impeachment inquiry. The Washington Post reports that mark sandy, a career employee over at the office of management and budget, will appear in a closed door session with lawmakers on saturday if subpoenaed. This has been confirmed by nbc news. B the post writes that he would be the first omb employee to testify in the inquiry after omb acting director russell t. Vogt and two other political appointees at the agency defied congressional subpoenas to appear. Sandy could provide insight into the process by which some 400 million in military and security aid to ukraine was held up. They go on to add, he was among the career staffers who raised questions about the holdup on the aid. Well, this comes ahead of the Second Public hearing in this investigation, of course, which begins in less than 12 hours now. Tomorrow, 9 00 a. M. , the former ambassador to ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, will appear before the house intel committee. She was abruptly removed from her post earlier this year. And while it is not unusual in that line of work for ambassadors to be recalled, in her closeddoor testimony, she told impeachment investigators there was,he quote, a Concerted Campaign against me, and that the department had been under pressure from the h president t remove me since the summer of 2018. She said a senior ukrainian official, quote, told me i really needed to watch my back. She also testified to having powerful adversaries working against her in ukraine. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his ginowindicted associates l and igor. At yesterdays hearing, top diplomats george kent and william taylor, who replaced yovanovitch, by the way, describe the effort to oust her. Over the course of 2018 and 2019, i became increasingly aware ofbe an effort by Rudy Giuliani and foothers, includin his associates lev parnas and igor fruman, to run a campaign to smear ambassador yovanovitch and other officials at the embassyr in kiev. Formerss ambassador yovanovih has been treated poorly, caught in a weapon of political machinations in kivon and in washington. Bloomberg news reports tonight that giuliani is now under scrutiny from federal prosecutors in manhattan for possible Campaign Finance violations and a failure to register as a foreign agent. Tomorrow, house investigators willow hear from another key witness, david holmes. We justs, learned his name yesterday. He is the guy who apparently overheard trump on a cell phone call with the Eu Ambassador in a restaurant inas kiev. He is scheduled to testify in closed session tomorrow. The Associated Press reports thate a second u. S. Official w also able to hear the president on that cell phone call. Nbc news has not spoken to anyone whopo has confirmed that particular bit of reporting. Next week, witnesses with firsthand knowledge of trumps conduct will testify publicly, including lieutenant colonely, alexander vindman, who was on that july 25th call, the aforementioned ambassador gordon sondland, and dr. Fiona hill, who took part in several meetings at the heart of this investigation. House t speaker Nancy Pelosis still being very cautious about steps beyond these hearings and whether well see actual articles of impeachment drawn up, but today she did use the word bribery to describe the evidence against the president , and she took no prisoners when it came to the defense spread by trump and his republican allies. And if the president has something that is exculpatory mr. President , that means, if you have anything that shows your innocence ny then he shod make that known, and thats part of the inquiry. Given that republicans have been arguing that yesterdays witnesses only heard things secondhand, im wondering if you think it would be worth waiting for those who have heard things firsthand, like john bolton and mick mulvaney, to testify vacheryl, cheryl, dont fall into the secondhand stuff, really. That is such a fraudulent proposition put forth by the republicans. They know it, and thats why theyre talking about process rather than the substance of what we have heard. I just wont even dignify what theyre disaying. Well, there is also this. This is substance, but its the visual kind. Just before the president left the white house, cameras and reporters observed an animated conversation with his attorney general w barr in the oval offi. Shortly after that, ap photographers caught barr talking with white House Counsel pat cipollone. Here for a leadoff conversation of all of it, Philip Ruckers here with us inph new york, the pulitzer prizewinning White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post. In washington, tamara keith, White House Correspondent for npr, and peter baker, chief White House Correspondent for the New York Times and coauthor of the recent and timely book, impeachment an american history. Good evening and welcome to you all. Phil, id like to begin with you. Ame what does mark sandy bring to the investigation, bring to the conversation . Remind us the omb role in this story. Yeah, so markb sandy, brian is a career official at the office of management and budget, which means hes not a political appointee of president ol trump and therefore, hes decided to defy the order, or the wishes, rather, from the white House Counsel and the president himself, trying to prevent all of these executive branch employees from testifying. He could provide Important Information to congress because the omb that was involved in stopping that aid, that 400 million in aid from flowing into ukraine. The aid eventually went to ukraine, but theretu was a dela. It was ordered, according to reporting by the president , set forth by mick mulvaney, the acting white house chief of staff and the omb director, and mr. Sandy, the omb staffer, could shed much more light and detailmo on the process inside that office for how that aid was stopped, what concerns were raised by w himself and other career employees at the time and what the system was for documentingfo that. Tamara, we should repeat, these witnesses that have come forward are about tose appear i these hearings are people who have given their depositions in closeddoor sessions attended by both parties. They are not limited in their testimony toit whats on the deposition. Indeed, mr. Taylor yesterday gave us new details we didnt know. What is yovanovitch likely able to add to the story tomorrow . S well, what she doesnt know a lot about is what happened after she left. So, she doesnt have a lot of visibility on that july 25th phone call, but she knows a lot about what happened leading up to her firing and the campaign that was led by Rudy Giuliani to have her ousted. At one point, even the president s son wasoi tweeting that she should be fired. Now, of course, the president has the right to fire any ambassador he wants, but she is somebody who was working with Civil Society groups. She was working to push back against corruption in ukraine. And so, she is a figure who has some insight into what was going on in ukraine and this sort of alternate channel, this side channel of Foreign Policy that was being led by Rudy Giuliani. Peter baker, meanwhile, this was thursday in ukraine, a nation involved in a military effort against russia, and it really wasnt until the two veteran diplomats yesterday spokera with empathy and passio about ukraine and the ukrainian people that we had had our attention focused back on that conflict and their ongoing trouble. You t tweeted out a photograph yesterday that id love you to describe, along with the verbiage that came with it. Yeah, right. Look, one thing that President Trump can rightly say, and his defenders made that pointsa yesterday, is that he did something that president obama didnt do to help ukraine he authorized lethal assistance, not just nonlethal assistance, not just night goggles and blankets and food and rations and so forth, but actual, you know, basically guns. And the biggest symbol of that are these javelin antitank weapons that he has been very proud ofat supplying. But what often gets missed in this conversation, as my colleague andrea kremer, whos based out there, has pointed out to us, is that javelins are not allowed under the u. S. Conditions to actually be used in the war. Theyre stored in a safe, secure location, not actually on the front lines. Instead, what the ukrainian soldiers have been doing is creating sort of fake javelins with empty ammunition boxes and straw and so forth to give the silhouette of what a javelin would look like in order to scare off potential russian tanks. So, even when went talk about t lethal assistance that President Trump has had, it comes with limits. It comes with, you know, loopholes andw, conditions on i that have not been asns useful the ukrainians as they would like. I think its a useful reminder of the struggle that goes on there. Phil rucker, ive never been successful in getting you to speculate wildly. Id love to hit one tonight. What do you think was going on in the Oval Office Late today . Marine one is idling, and its not quiet when it is. It is very clear your ride has arrived, if youre the president , but he stayed behind in the oval office. And heagain, all we saw was jesticulation and both men with his a. G. Talking in the oval office. Yeah, brian, to be a fly on that curved wall, right . Exactly, the wall with no corners. The truth is,no we really dot know what was being discussed in that moment, but there are a couple things to keep in mind about attorney general barr. Ab he is in the middle of personally overseeing this investigation into the investigation. Thats the probe that the Justice Department has launched into the origins of the russia investigation, something President Trump carese personay very deeply about. Perhaps that came up in the discussions. This is something that barr himself has traveled to several Foreign Countries to try to get totr the bottom of, and theres desire among thean president s conservative allies for a conclusion of that investigation to be reachedf sometime this fl as a way to kind of detract attention away from the impeachment awproceedings, as i that would be possible. And one thing to remember from a couple years earlier in the trump administration, this has happened before. There was that moment when the president was late to get on marine one and was in the oval office yellingth at don mcgahn, the white House Counsel, reince priebus, then chief of staff, steve bannon, the chief strategist. Its all documented in the mueller report. But it wasoche one of those rag that the president had about comey, about h the russia investigation. And so, this is not the first time weve seen a moment like this. The l bulletproof glass is s thick, it gives everything a green cast, and yet, we can still see often, especially given the lighting, whats going ongh inside the oval office. Tamara, so, were under way. These hearings are a given, and they continue tomorrow. Weve been led to believe theres no war room, per se, in this white house. But has anything about the reaction machine changed in these intervening 24 hours . Well, they have certainly amped up their communications, the white house has, has amped up their communications to their surrogates, both sort of in the broader conservative community and then also on capitol hill. So, although they are not sending talking points to the pressin particularly there he been a few little bits but there has been a steady stream of information sent to the president s surrogates. And it was interesting during the hearing, President Trump was not doing his usual playbyplay and television criticism. He was busy with president erdogan. So, it will be interesting to see in a day with a lessheavy schedule tomorrow whether the president is watching the hearing and commenting on it or if hes going to continue the tack of just retweeting allies who are saying things that he likes. Peter baker, the coverage on the righthand side of the ledger has already gotten personal tonight. Mr. Hannity said that, apparently, during the yovanovitch deposition, she was moved to tears. He wondered if the same thing would happen, perhaps even on cue, at tomorrows hearing. Your News Analysis piece tonight has an incredible driveby takedown of ambassador taylor by the president s former lawyer. Yeah, it does. Most of the republicans yesterday tried not to go after ambassador taylor in a personal way. He obviously came across with a great deal of gravitas and credibility. As there wasnt any effort to tear him down in the way that the president has torn down other witnesses. But i did get in touch with john dowd just to see what he had to say, the president s former lawyer. Si hes never one ton shy. And he referred to ambassador taylor as im forgetting the exact words you probably have them in front of you, but basically a im being told in my ear, pitiful, insubordinate what . With no trustworthy information. Yeah, exactly. And thats what im sure President Trump and some of the people around him actually think, but they were trying very carefully not to go there yesterday. John dowd gave voice to what they were thinking. This is somebody whos part of the deep state in their view, somebody whos part of the conspiracy to take down the president , who doesnt actually have any firsthand knowledge. Its hard to make that case in public. They tried instead to focus on the issue of the secondhand quality of his testimony, and it was my colleague, sheryl stoleberg, you showed asking Speaker Pelosi about s it. She mayr want to brush off tha question, butnt its a legitima question. If ambassador taylor didnt heaa the president say these things, then does it factor into how much weight to give his testimony . It would obviously be moree useful to the democrats to hear itth from somebody like john bolton orm mick mulvaney, who actually are in the oval office every iday, or at least was in the case of john bolton before he was pushed out or left to his ownt accord, depending on who u believe. On but they havent been able to get those two. Theyre refusing to testify. Doesnt look like the democrats are willing to wait for any kind of court action to compel them. They think they have enough tot go with what theyve got, and they may be right for a partyline vote. But it probably wont change any republican minds. And the corollary to your point, peter, is that the argument for hearsay probably has aea time limit, a timer on before that runsme out. Ourre thanks to our big three returning veterans for starting us off g tonight, Philip Rucker tamara keith, peter baker. Greatly appreciate it, gang. Coming up for y us, Speaker Pelosi today uses that word bribery againstat the president. Well ask a former federal prosecutor her take on the democrats case thus far against trump. And later, with a stroke of a pen, another candidate has entered the 2020 race. Lets be honest here, it wasnt suffering from a shortage of democrats. Now they have two baseball teams worth. The 11th hour just Getting Started onst this thursday evening. In sight of the Washington Monument. Evening. In sight of the Washington Monument turn on my tv and boom, its got all my favorite shows right there. I wish my Trading Platform worked like that. Well have you tried thinkorswim . This is totally customizable, so you focus only on what you want. Okay, its got screeners and watchlists. And you can even see how your predictions might affect the value of the stocks youre interested in. Now this is what im talking about. Yeah, itll free up more time for your. Uh, true crime shows . British baking competitions. Hm. Didnt peg you for a crumpet guy. Focus on what matters to you with thinkorswim. Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. What President Trump has done on the record in terms of acting to advantage a foreign power to help him in his own election and of the obstruction of information about that, the coverup, makes what nixon did look almost small. Almost small. The first impeachment hearing in a generation is now history. The second comes up tomorrow morning. Today the speaker gave trumps crime a name, as she sees it. The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry and that the president abused power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid in a white house meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival. Bribery. And that is in the constitution attached to the impeachment proceedings. Nick fandos of the New York Times points out the speakers explicit allegation of bribery, a misdeed identified in the constitution as an impeachable offense, was significant, even as ms. Pelosi said that no final decision had been made on whether to impeach mr. Trump. It suggested that democrats are increasingly working to put a name to the president s alleged wrongdoing and moving toward a more specific set of charges that could be codified in articles of impeachment in the coming weeks. Back with us tonight is barrett berger, a fo