We will begin with the times investigative report how donald trump blocked aid to ukraine until he got publicly caught blocking aid to ukraine. And later in this hour we will hear from times reporter Jesse Drucker, who has coauthored the most valuable reporting yet on the trump tax cuts and how they kept pushing even after the law was passed to get the Trump Treasury Department to accept interpretations on the law that reduced corporate taxes even more than was intended to get those reduced. This is so lost in the trump era because there is so much novel corruption in the Trump Administration for journalists to pursue. But this story about the trumps tax cuts and how theyre working is an important story about how it has always worked in government, how this sort of stuff has always worked, how rich corporations never stop trying to turn tax law, especially in their favor. This is the dirtiest version of that story that i have ever seen, and i used to work in the United States senate on tax policy. And i can tell you this is not a story of business as usual, this is a story of business out of control in what is a virtual corporate takeover of the Trump Treasury Department. We are very fortunate tonight to have New York Times reporter Jesse Drucker bring us that story. Later in this hour. We begin with the headline that appeared it on the fold of the New York Times today. Inside the ukraine freeze, the 84day clash of wills. Chronicling the 84day drama in meticulous and incriminating detail. Haberman and yozetti, the article read, quote, interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials, congressional aides and others, previously undisclosed emails and documents, and a close reading of thousands of pages of impeachment testimony. The story unfolds with the suspenseful rhythm of seven days in may, the 1960s drama written by rod serling as it released new scenes of the drama when donald trump first asked ukraine, and he was asked to release his hold on that aid to ukraine because as the very last line of the New York Times article says, quote, he got caught. People throughout the Trump Administration worry that it was illegal to hold up the aid. Some of the permanent staff in the office of management and budget and the Defense Department were almost certain it was illegal, and they did everything they possibly could to force the release of the aid. The people who were holding it back were all political appointees aligned with the president. They were all political and governmental incompetents who no other president would put in their positions, including white house chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who sent this email to a trump appointee at the office of management and budget, saying, im just trying to tie up some loose ends. Did we ever find out about the money for ukraine, whether we can hold it back . That was on june 27th. The person receiving that email was robert blair, who said that it would be possible to hold back the aid, but he added, expect congress to become unhinged. Of course, congress did not have to become unhinged to break up that scheme that the thentrump National Security adviser john bolton was privately calling a drug deal. All congress had to do to unravel the whole thing was to announce in a relatively low volume at the time that it was going to investigate the situation after politico reported at the end of august that the assistance to ukraine had been frozen. That is when donald trump got caught publicly, and not long after that, the aid was released. But donald trump had actually been caught a month before that, on august 12th. And the president and all the president s men knew that. Because it was august 12th when a whistleblower in the Intelligence Community filed a report describing in general terms what was going on. The president was holding up aid to ukraine while asking ukraine to conduct an investigation of joe biden. It took 30 days but that whistleblower debate forced the president to release the aid. In the meantime, a scene occurred in the white house that will be central to the impeachment trial of the president of the United States. The scene is described in this way. On a sunny, late august day, National Security adviser john bolton, secretary of defense mark esper, and secretary of state mike pompeo arrayed themselves around the resolute desk in the oval office to present a united front. The leaders of the president s National Security team seeking to convince him face to face that freeing up the money or ukraine was the right thing to do. One by one they made their case. This is in americas interest, mr. Bolton argued. Weve gotten some really good benefit from it, mr. Esper added. Ukraine is a corrupt country, the president said. We are pissing our money away. And the aid remained blocked. Tonight, its obviously become impossible to have anything resembling a fair trial in the Senate Without the testimony of the president s men who were standing around the desk in the oval office pleading with the president to release military aid to an ally in the middle of combat, and the president refused. Refused once again to deliver that aid. We all know that donald trump is a very talkative man. In a meeting like that, he wasnt going to limit himself to just the two short sentences that New York Times reporters have managed to extract from their sources about that scene. What else did donald trump say in that room that day, and what else was said to him . The United States senate has a sworn duty to find the answers to both of those questions. Leading off our discussion tonight, democratic congressman Lloyd Doggett of texas. Hes a member of the ways and means committee. Also former u. S. Attorney chuck rosenberg. He was the former counsel to robert mueller. He now hosts the msnbc podcast the oath. And Senior Adviser to president obama and hillary clinton, neera tanden. She was working in the white house during the clinton impeachment trial in the United States senate. Shes the president and ceo of the center for american progress. Congressman doggett, i want to get your opinion on the information in the New York Times report tonight that included emails, for example, that you did not get access to in the house of representatives during the impeachment investigation. Very powerful, lawrence. You really get a better understanding of why donald trump continually uses that old stalinist term about the press being the meaning of the people. What is really his enemy is truth. He cant stand the facts. The reason he has followed this mafialike stonewall defense, no witnesses, no people, no documents, is because the truth is powerful here and it shows what a lie he has pursued and the abuse hes provided of his office to have a senate trial without hearing the truth, without hearing the witnesses, it would be the first impeachment proceeding in American History with no witnesses. We do need to get to the bottom of this. If his associates, his chief of staff, his National Security adviser at the time, if they had any evidence to show his innocence, he would have been pushing them out long ago. Its clear that he has a blockade on the truth. He does not want any of these people to speak out because they can only further incriminate and elaborate on the wrongdoing that has occurred here. Our tax money being used to help donald trump win a political campaign, apparently looking back on 2016, he realized how vital foreign interference was to his success then, and he wasnt confident he could win again without more foreign interference. Chuck rosenberg, please take a look at that scene around the resolute desk in the oval office where you have the three cabinet level officials making their case to the president about releasing this aid to ukraine. And clearly we can tell the New York Times did a great job of delivering that scene, of reporting that scene. But its really, for example, one line, half a line from john bolton, half a line from the secretary of defense. It doesnt have a single word from the secretary of state who was in that room, in that conversation, and it has just those two lines from donald trump. We know a lot more was said by everyone in that room, and if this was a trial and you got to have those people on the stand as witnesses, i think we would learn a lot more about what was said in that room. Oh, absolutely, lawrence. In real trials, and i was a federal prosecutor for a long time, the prosecutors call the witnesses. And then when the prosecution case is done, the Defense Attorneys call witnesses if they so choose. Of course, they dont have to. There is a weird thing here. In a senate trial on impeachment, the jurors decide who gets called. The senators decide who gets called. And if you were to break that down further, its really those senators who control the chamber. So the republicans will decide whether or not anybody gets called. What kind of trial we see, how long it lasts, what sort of evidence is introduced. It is a trial, but its not anything like the types of trials that you see in federal courts around the country every single day. Or even the trials that you see on television. This is a political trial, and the jurors run it. Chuck, another point here. The evidence is moving underneath us as this trial approaches. That in itself is unusual. I mean, you as a prosecutor and defense lawyers, as you know, youre heading toward a trial date. The evidence is pretty much locked in, has normally in most cases been locked in for a number of months before you ever walk into a courtroom and start a trial. Here we are crawling up toward a trial, and there is evidence, like todays New York Times, that just keeps popping up. Yeah. Another excellent point. I mean, trials are locked down in the grand jury in the federal system. Occasionally you get a new document or new evidence, or maybe someone changes their story, and as prosecutors you deal with it. But the cases are, as you say, largely locked down. Not only do we see new evidence in the New York Times article, i can assure you there is a host of evidence were never going to see. Theres so much of it. You know, the federal government can be large and unwieldy. Sometimes it moves at the speed of a credenza. But when Something Big happens, when the president tries to influence his own election by getting dirt on a political opponent from a foreign country, lots and lots of parts of the government touched that. Defense department, state department, justice department, omb, National Security council. So we know that there has to be lots of people out there who have bits and pieces of the story. I presume were not going to hear from many of them, and perhaps, lawrence, not from any of them. Neera, in the clinton trial, mcconnell said hes willing to adopt the rules of the clinton trial, but as the case developed in the senate, the senate decided, yes, they would hear from some witnesses. They didnt hear from them actually in the senate but they kind of did it through the deposition method and that was added to the senate trial. Whats wrong with that approach here . The very, very large difference is that there was this special prosecutor who would form the basis of the case against bill clinton and he put an entire report together. And so there was a yearslong investigation that formed the basis of the inquiry in the house. Many, many depositions were taken. In fact, as you know, bill clinton himself testified via video link, which all of america ended up seeing. So thats very different from what we see here. In fact, when chuck talks about how we may never see these witnesses, whats really happening here is the president s the members of the president s Political Party are essentially obstructing this investigation themselves by trying to shape a trial thats not a trial at all. And i actually think the American People have seen many law order episodes, have seen many trials on television and recognize what is a trial and what is a farce. The facts of the New York Times story, and obviously, we will likely have more and more facts point to a situation in ledge, basically trying to cover up the president s misdeeds by adding to the obstruction, by forming a trial that is not a trial at all. And the challenge they have is that more facts will come out. The evidence is coming out as they try to obstruct, and their political coverup will be more and more clear to the public. Its a big difference. There was no evidence added to the case, in the clinton case, after the house impeachment. This was not new evidence that was added when they took that testimony. It was from people who had already testified in other venues along the way to that spot. Congressman doggett, was it part of Nancy Pelosis strategy in holding back the articles of impeachment knowing, for example, that there was a private organization out there with a civil freedom of information act lawsuit out there that was going to force out some of this information that the New York Times was using today, like the emails from Mick Mulvaney and others, and that the body of evidence, did nancy pelosi know that publicly the body of evidence would expand over time basically every day that shes holding on to the articles of impeachment . Well, i cant say precisely what she knew or didnt know about this, but i believe her thoughtful approach to not rushing these articles over there, knowing that the house has the sole responsibility here for impeachment under the constitution, that there is no need to rush it over there if there is only going to be the kind of sham proceeding that neera just described. I think in looking at that proceeding, chucks point is really important because it is each member of the senate who will be held accountable for whether there are any witnesses or not, whether it is a totally sham proceeding. Mitch mcconnell dominates, but he cannot block a senator voicing his or her views on a witness being called the way he has obstructed the many bills that weve approved in the house that have ended up in his graveyard, from gun safety to Election Security to Prescription Drug coverage. All those things hes blocked here, his power is more limited. And each senator, whether its mitt romney responding to those editorials you referred to, or Susan Collins, or any other members of the senate, they have to decide, are they going to be part of a sham trial or will they let the truth come through, whatever its source . Yeah, and chuck rosenberg, this is much more difficult tonight than it was even last week for those republican senators who could be under that kind of pressure, were going to see this editorial later in this hour from a salt lake newspaper urging mitt romney to demand witnesses. When you have that scene described by the New York Times, a scene that we did not know 48 hours ago had happened of pompeo, secretary of defense, john bolton standing around the desk in the oval office, pleading with the president to release that aid to ukraine, this is the heart of the case. This is the direct heart of the impeachment case right here, every word of that dialogue. The pressure on a mitt romney to come up with an answer as to why he supports or does not support hearing that testimony is only going to get greater with every day. I think thats right, lawrence. Were at an odd place right now where we are celebrating, where we revel in the fact that one republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of alaska, is going to abide by her oath. Thats the state of play right now. When someone says theyll abide by their oath, we celebrate that and we talk about it. Every republican and democrat should abide by that oath and we should hear the evidence. By the way, that scene around the resolute desk that you described so well in your introduction, those people spoke directly to the president. And so to the extent we keep hearing about witnesses who are one or two levels removed, to the extent we keep hearing about hearsay, thats no longer hearsay. Those are people who spoke directly to the president on the central issue in the case, and we ought to hear from them in the senate. Chuck rosenberg, congressman Lloyd Doggett, neera tanden, thank you all for starting us off tonight. Really appreciate it. When we come back, mike pompeo is going to ukraine this week, but first they had to make sure the acting ambassador to ukraine was fired and out of there, yet another ambassador of ukraine in the way and had to be pushed out. Thats coming up. Or make me feel like im not really there. Talk to your doctor, and call 8442342424. Where we can find common ground. Big enough to dance on. For a better us, donate to your local y today. You have power over pain, so the whole world looks different. The unbeatable strength of advil. What pain . What are you doing back there, junior . Since were obviously lost, im rescheduling my Xfinity Customer Service appointment. Ah, relax. I got this. Which gps are you using anyway . A Little Something called instinct. Been using it for years. Yeah, thats what im afraid of. He knows exactly where were going. My whole body is a compass. Oh boy. The my account app makes todays Xfinity Customer Ser