Final draft of the mueller report. He indeed isof one of the unwitting narrators of the mueller report. Well, tonight judge jackson of the Federal District court in d. C. Ruled that don mcgahn must comply with a subpoena from house judiciary and testify about trumps efforts to obstruct the mueller investigation. She writes, the Justice Departments claim to unreviewable absolute testimonial immunity is baseless and asmu such cannot be sustain. Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American History is thatam president s are not kings. You may recall the House Judiciary Committee went t to court in august to enforce its subpoena, which the president promptlyh blocked. Mcgahn has returned to his old law firm now of jones day in d. C. Hes been out of the white house since early 2017. His Attorney Says hell testify unless a stay is granted. Tonight the Justice Department alerted us itju will appeal the ruling while trying also to block its enforcement. Yet the ruling sends a clear message to other current and former officials who are highvalue witnesses but have not testified, and that would include a mulvaney and bolton. Tonight House Intelligence Committee chairman adam schiff says hes open toan hearing mor witnesses buthe adds his commite plans to submit its report on the investigation to judiciary sometime next week, that it could include an article of impeachmentud based on obstructn of congress. Amid all of these developments, there is new reporting from the Washington Post that an internalsh review over at the white house has unearthed emails between the chief of staffls mi mulvaney andff budget officials about finding possible legal reasons for withholding that aid to ukraine that was approved by congress. Now, these were in august after trumps julyte 25 phone call wi the 2 new ukrainian president. There is also new reporting on the criminal investigation surrounding those two associates of Rudy Giuliani, lev and igor. Federal prosecutors are exploring a wider range of potentialg crimes here than we previously knew about, including but not limited to money laundering, obstruction of justice, wire fraud, and failure to register as a Foreign Agent as part of its investigation. Theyre also reporting the feds are scrutinizing giulianis consulting businesses and looking at donations to a protrump superpac. Tonight giulianis own lawyer says his client has not received any subpoena requests and adds hes done nothing wrong. This weekend giuliani was back on cable, and he was asked about his recent contact with his client c and friend, donald tru. I do not discuss my conversations with my client. You canti assume i talk to him early and often and have a very, very Good Relationship with him. And all of these comments, which are totally insulting ll yeah. Su i mean eve seen things written like hes going to throw me under the bus. Right. Tthat, i say he isnt, but i, have insurance. Its ridiculous. We are very good friends. He knows what i did was in order to defend him, not to dig up dirt on biden. This goes back a year ago before biden hadnt even decided to run for president. Shortly after that he sent out this message about that insurance comment, and we quote. Truth alert. Made several ive times of having an insurance policy if thrown under the bus is sarcastic and relates to the files in my safe about the biden familys fourdecade monetizing of his office. If iof disappear, it will appea immediately along with my rico chart. This afternoon, trump was asked about hiswa thoughts on his lawyers words . What do you think of Rudy Giuliani saying he has insurance . Oh,iain i dont know. Rudy is a great guy. I think maybe the press isnt treating rudy very well, and i think thats unfair. Butth rudy was a great mayor ana great crime fighter. Here forim our leadoff discussion on afo monday night, barbara mcquade, veteran federal prosecutor, former u. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of michigan. Ashley o parker, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the Washington Post. And peter braaker, coauthor of the new book impeachment, an American History. Barbara, ive got to start with you. How big, how consequential or not is tonights court ruling . The ruling with regard to the mcgahn testimony, i think, is very significant. It doesnt reallys come as a surprise, but its a very important step because whats i says isrt that witnesses cannot hide behind this c concept of absolute immunity. The judge says it doesnt exist, and these witnesses do have to testify, including don mcgahn. Now, as a practical matter, the department of justice says it willde appeal this decision, so think they have the ability to sort of run out the clock on this opinion with regard to mpicgahn. But it could be used to empower other witnesses to testify in the impeachment proceeding. The House Committee can wave it around. It may not be binding on any other witness, but its certainly Persuasive Authority that suggests they do have to testify when thcalled. Ashley parker, lets talk about Rudy Giuliani. We heard the president there about his good friend and great crime fighter from this very city. Has his change has there been a change in rudys standing tt youve been able to detect on the inside . Has the distancing begun among all others but the president perhaps . P well, the distancing has begun frankly a little while ago. Rudy giuliani is someone who in the ispresident s orbit has ver few allies except the president himself. There has long been frustration about what rudy would go out and say on tv, say to reporters, accidentally text to reporters, pocket text to reporters. There was frustration i was just talking to people inside the white house today about they blame giuliani for getting the president specifically spun up about biden, ukraine, and burisma. And so, again, you saw the president sou comments. He was supportive. Rudy has one key ally. That is the president. As weve seen in the past, the president is loyal until suddenly he l is not. So thatis is a tricky spot for giuliani to be in, but it is one so far hes managed to navigate and again is safe and is fine until the president decides that something has changed. Peter baker, id like to read you a quote that you already know a well. Speaker of the house pelosi, this was back in march. Its a standard she held on to until the ukraine story broke. It wasst recognized by the democrats as something easily understandable, easily explainable perhaps, of course when compared to the mueller report. To in march, nancy pelosi said, impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless theres something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, i dont think we should go down that path. Peter, the question to you, have they met that standard . Is anyone whispering to the contrary among democrats who may have impeachment remorse at this point . Yeah, i think democrats think that the first two have been satisfied, compelling and overwhelming. Its the third one that hasnt, bipartisan. Thats definitely not the case. Ifth they thought these public hearings they just wrapped up after two weeks would change the dynamics, would change some republican csminds, not many bu at least a few, that didnt work out. The evidence laid out a pretty strong pattern of behavior. I think aro lot of people walke out of there saying that the facts of the case arent really that much in dispute. But it didnt turn the politics of it and this is a political process as much as it is any kind of legal process. Its invested in the hands of elected hofficials, and the republicans have decided to stand strongly behind President Trump. They either dont see a problem with his phone call and the other pressure on ukraine, or they do see a problem with it but dont think its impeachable, especially heading into an Election Year when the voters are about to decide anyway. So any chance that the democrats had of turning some of the republicans seems to have slipped away at this point. So is there buyers remorse . Among some democrats there is someem nervousness, i think. The idea of a party line Impeachment Vote is not unheard of. We saw that 21 years ago with president clinton. It doesnt get them to where they want d to go and leaves th president with a likelihood of an acquittal in the senate. So, barbara, again the question is o,legal, and it goe to you. Is there no way the democrats can compel the testimony of a mulvaney or of a bolton . Well, i think with this new Court Opinion that they have today, they did have stronger Legal Authority than they had yesterday. But i think theres nothing to stop bolton or mulvaney from filing their own lawsuit. This case would not be binding on that. And then having multiple cases going up to the court of appeals, which actually could be strategically less beneficial to thera democrats. Theyve got a very good opinion in the one they got today that will be appealed and perhaps all thend way to the Supreme Court, and theyll gethe very good rulings their likelihood of getting a good ruling there i think is stronger than what they might get elsewhere. If mulvaney and bolton are inclined to testify, they may be able to use this opinion as cover. One strategy iis might be inclid to use no ones asked me but if i were advising the House Committee here is theyve got sufficient evidence to i go forward with suimpeachment. Go ahead and impeach. Have the vote. Then when you get to the trial in frontri of the senate, at th point if up need to pull out all the t stops, perhaps at that ste you could add the testimony of mulvaney and bolton to see if that makes a difference with republicans. Reand, barb, in your view, since we y talk about the destruction or the attack on on our institutions here, so often on so many broadcasts, largely as a former fed, when you look at the courts, have they held . I think they have. Weve seeny some delays. One of the things i think weve seen is how excruciatingly slow the courts can be. Co mmhmm. So trump has been able to sort of slowwalk some of these things. But ultimately the decisions have come down very consistently in favor of the rule of law. So like the decision we saw today, not a surprise. I feel reasonably confident that at the court of appeals we could get the same ruling. I think the real test will become if these cases go to the Supreme Court where we now have some trumpappointed justices, and that will be the real test tost see whether our institutio hold, but so far so good. Peter baker, we learned the deputy chief of staff is departing thede west wing. He is a longtime veteran of the trump administration. Weer learned from your colleagu Maggie Haberman tonight on social mediaab that he does a l of the true work and a lot of the heavy lifting behind the scenes in thehe west wing. Did you his nowst about to be former boss mulvaney, do you think, survive ukraine . Yeah, its a great question. Look, Mick Mulvaney was seen to be kind of on thin ice even before the ukraine thing happened. He was at odds with john bolton. Hes at odds with pat cipollone, the white house counsel. He andll the president do not, u know, always seeno eye to eye. Theo ukraine thing obviously became an even bigger problem for mulvaney when he went out to the Briefing Room and admitted out front in front of all these reporters that there was o in ft a condition on theat military a to ukraine, on them conducting investigations of democratic supposed Conspiracy Theory of 2016. Then he tried to take it back. So thed question for him at th moment is, you know, does he do more damage to the president on the amoutside . I thinkde as long as he is seens somebody who has insurance, to use a phrase, that makes him a little mmore, you know, solid his current position. Butrr i dont think it means he necessarily has the kind of, you know, authority to do the job. Remember, he is 11 1 2 months into the job as an acting chief of staff. Now, you know, as he points out and he repeatedly pointed out everybody in that white house is an acting position because this is ag president who tends to g rid of people on a whim. But still not to have that full title suggests obviously that he never had the full confidence of the president. Ashley, you couldnt see us but we last saw you when we admired your superb work as a comoderator of the atlanta debate. This next question has to do with 2020. Given your immersion in the middle of the democratic field and your observations of same, what do you think bloomberg is going toin do to that dynamic jt taking the stage we saw in atlanta . Well,in its a great questio and part of what he does is just the fact of mayor bloombergs entry into the race is an indictment of the democratic field and of the democratic frontrunners, and thats something that people in trumps orbit are acutely aware of. You know, i was talking to someone today who said they thought that bloomberg could be in many ways formidable. In some ways they think he taps into what trumpk taps into. On the other hand, they also make the argument that hes a billionaire. He has name recognition. He comes out of new york. He has a lot of his own money to spend. But they say he doesnt sort of have that movement that trump has, that ability to show up in a small town, in a rural area, and to just pack an arena and get the crowd into a frenzy. So i think it remains to be seen what heto will actually do. But i think the fact of him has already injected a little more fraughtness and uncertainty into something that was already fraught andth uncertain for democratic voters and for trump world thats watching quite clo closely. Also ashley, this newg etho of getting into the race late andnt saying, look, were goingo be all about super tuesday, my apo apologies to myiowa, New Hampshire, et al. That is not a way to engender deep feelings in iowa and New Hampshire among other places. Its not. Its not a traditional way to win the nomination of a major party. I remember when Rudolph Giuliani entered, and his big strategy was a to wait until florida. It has not been successful in the past. In these early states you have a lot of activists who care passionately for good reason. Itly doesnt mean it cant be done, and certainly having mayor bloombergs money is going to help. But its really g an interestin test kind of for democracy and also just for this early nominating process and the importance or lack of importance potentially of these first four states. Much obligedse to our big the on a monday night of this holidayshortened new week. To our inhouse counsel barbara mcquade, ashley parker, to peter baker, thank you, gang. Coming up tonight, the members of the president s party who know t better but would sti rather pass along russian talking points if it means not crossing trump. And later, a partyswitching data terminal inventing News Organization owning new york billionaire gets into the democratic ratice. What could go wrong . The 11th hour is just Getting Started on this backur to work monday nightar with the arrivalf the official White House Christmas tree. Th tree these folks dont have time to go to the post office they use stamps. Com all the services of the post office only cheaper get a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again. Welcome back. And just for some context here, the following is a member of the United States senate, republican senator john no relation kennedy of louisiana on fox news yesterday morning. Senator kennedy, who do you believe was responsible for hacking the dnc and Clinton Campaign computers, their emails . Was it russia or ukraine . I dont know, nor do you, nor do any of us. The entire Intelligence Community says it was russia. Right. But it could also be ukraine. Im not saying that i know one way or the other. This from john harwood over at cnbc, and we goaquote. Heres a republican senator disseminating russian intelligence propaganda fabricated to harm the United States. Hes doing it because it helps him politically. And cheryl lynn eiffel over at the Naacp Legal Defense Fund writes this, quote. The next question should rightly be why did you and seven other republican senators travel to russia on the fourth of july 2018 . What was the purpose of the t p trip . With whom did you meet . Are there notes memorializing the conversations you and the other senators had with russian officials . The senator is repeating russian propaganda. Just last week former nsc aide and foremost russian expert dr. Fiona hill labeled the notion of ukraine meddling in the 2016 election a fictional narrative. And the times report about how members of the u. S. Senate have been briefed that russia has engaged in a yearslong campaign to frame ukraine as responsible for 2016 meddling. Earlier today, former fbi special agent clint watts, a frequent guest on this broadcast hell be back tomorrow night said he was among those who briefed senator kennedy on Russian Election interference in 2017, and he added this. Were in very dangerous ground at this point because the whole idea of ukraine was inserted into our country by russia, who just attacked us. They are doubling down on their victory. Theyre advancing it right inside our country again. And how is it happening this time . Its not because people are falling for it. Its because people are willingly advancing that conspiracy. Okay. Then just tonight on