Today in service to the duty ofse our constitution and the country. We are introducing two articles of impeachment charging the president of the United States, donald j. Trump with committing high crimes and misdemeanors. Our president holds the ultimate public trust. When he rubetrays that trust an puts himself before country, he endangers the constitution, he endangers our democracy and he endangers ourd national securi. Its the president redoubles his campaign about an elusive deep state, a reminder of how we got here in the it was Donald Trumps owne white house staff. Donald trumps only political appointees andca u. S. Ambassado testifying against the demands of the president about the facts of a quid pro quo in which military aid and a white house meeting were withheld from ukraine unless they announced investigations into the bidens and a debunked russian inspired Conspiracy Theory about 2016. Heres why donald trump is being impeached. It is improper for the president of the United States to demande a foreign governmen investigate a u. S. Citizen and a political opponent. Was there a quid pro quo . The answer is yes. He was being involved in a domestic political errand, and we were being involved in National Security foreign policy, and those two things had just diverged. Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret. Everyone was informed via email on july 19th th. Days t before the president ial call. Such conduct undermines the u. S. , exposes our friends, and widens the Playing Field for autocrats like president putin. Our leadership depends on the power of our example and the consistency of our purpose. Both have now been opened to question. And in the face of those facts, facts that even today are undisputed by this president and this white house, a frantic counter offensive from the president and his ag today. A two front war against the fbi. Trump attacking his hand picked director, Christopher Ray on twitter about the ig report that found Serious Problems but debunked his serious theories. The president s twitter feed, quote, i dont know what report current director of the fbi was reading but it wasnt the one give ton me. With that kind of attitude, he will never beat able to fix the fbi. And trumps wing man, mr. Barr coming in with a broadside against his own departments in respect general. In one area, i do disagree with the ig, and that was whether there was sufficient predication toe open a full bln counterintelligence investigation specifically using theig techniques that they did collect intelligence about the trumphe campaign. Now, heres where the attacks on chris wray start to make a lot of sense. Wray singing a very different tune. Is the fbi, was it part of a deep state . Well, i think thats the kind of labelha that is a disserviceo the 37,000 men and women who work m at the fbi. Thats not a term i would ever use. So the fbi did not spy on the Trump Campaign . Well, thats not a term at the fbi we use to describe our work. O do you have any evidence tt the fbive targeted the Trump Campaign unfairly . Ca i dont. Thats where we start today with some of our favorite reporters ande friends. Joining from capitol hill, garrett haake, phil rucker, with us at the table chuck rosenberg, carol lee, and michael steele. I want to get to what is obviously the big history that was made today, articles of impeachment, but there is this sort of i i think a way to describe it as a shiny object, this offensive being orchestrated b for the purpose sort of riling up and reanimating Donald Trumps base before they hear any of the facts from the ig report yesterday. What do you make of Christopher Wrayat finding himself today in the uncomfortable position of being attacked by donald trump on twitter, and contradicted by the ag . Its okay to be uncomfortable and okay to be contradicted if youre speaking the truth. What directorpe wray did was spk the truth. The ig report found, the ig found and reported that there was no political bias or political motivation that infected the work of the foik. Thats what director wray said. If youre contradicted for telling the truth, if youre uncomfortable because someone i attacking you for telling the truth, guess what, you told the truth. What do you think this feels likedo for the men and women of the fbi today . Ive always thought they have two reactions. One is theyre sick of it and they want to do their work and they do good work. Theres a piece of the president s tweet that you didnt highlight in which he said the fbi is badly broken. Thats a lie. The fbi is not badly broken. The fbi is a superb organization and as citizens we should be grateful for the mens and wome who work there. Its not a perfect organization, and there are things they need to fix, and the Inspector General highlighted that as well. On oneli hand, there are peoplen the fbi sick of this thing, want to do their work and want to stop answering questions when they go to neighbors backyards. On the other hand, i would guess theyre angry. Their integrity was called into question and it needs to be defended at the highest levels. Ideally by a president , at least by an attorney general, and that is not happening. Phil, its an extraordinary public display of for angst than i would have predicted. The attorney general yesterday releasing two separate paper statements. I was a press person, not a great one, but i knew if you had something you knew about for a long g time, you got all your comments on one piece of paper and hit send at one time. A statement, it appeared encouraged or perhaps coerced out of doctmr. Durham, the u. S. Attorney out of connecticut tapped to run the alternative origins of the russia investigation and a pace of tweeting and retweeting from the president that included the smears against his sitting fbi director, and if ousted, Christopher Wray would become the third fbi director not to survive investigations or the defensest of investigations int the russia probe. Yeah. Nicole, thats all correct. And itsco been a pretty extraordinary couple of days when you look at the way this department of justice and the fbi are being run. Its important to keep in mind that President Trump has been cross wise with the fbi director wray forh some time now. There have been a number of flash points over the last few months. None, however, as extreme as what we saw on twitter from the president this morning. And bill barr, trump finally has the attorney general hes wanted. Somebody who is echoing the president s points, highlighting some of his conspiracies, and really turning against his own departments, inspect general, his own fbi in favor of advancing the president s cause, in this case, making the case, making the point that the russia investigation was begun under wrong pretenses and that trump was somehow a victim of Law Enforcement in this country. Garrett haake, the story they really, really, really dont want us to focus on today, the history that donald trump made today when two articles of impeachment were announced against him making him the fourth president ever to face impeachment, and if impeached, as hes expected to be in the house, hell be the third president in our countrys history to have been impeached. Thats right. And two verys tightly focussed articles putting to bed a debate that had been going on on capitol hill for a while about whether or not democrats would try to n include anything from e Mueller Report orny any of the other instances where they believe thewh president might he conducted himselft in an impeachable fashion. Instead, what we see is one article on the abuse of power focussed again tightly on ukraine. And another on obstruction of congress, not moreti broadly obstructionre of justice. Some folks surmised it might have included elements of the Mueller Report. Partmu of that is political. These are simple to understand charges. They follow around one specific incident orar set of incidents. And its something that i think the democratichi leaders believ they can get the votes for. Although, i will say it was striking. Both pelosi and hoyer, said theyre not counting votes on this. They see this as a vote of conscience for all those who will be taking it. That llsaid, you dont generall see pelosi put something on the floor unless she knows she has the votes for it. That will be the case next week, perhaps even early next week when this these two articles move to the floor. This entire process moving very quickly. No change in thatmoer today. We could see the markup, the formalar amendment process for e articles begin as early as tomorrow evening. And garrett, you and i both watching the scheduling changes because it affects our planning for the holidays, but this is not about us. Its about the different. Let me show you what adam schiff said today. Cross pressure from the media or within the democraticre party o even from republicans about why they wont turn to the courts to compel more testimony from more firsthand witnesses. Lets watch adam schiff and talk about it on the other side. Some would argue why dont you just wait . Why dont you just wait until you get these witnesses the white house refuses to produce . It has taken us eight months to get a Lower Court Ruling that dawn mcgahn has no absolute right to defy congress. Eight months. For one court decision. If it takes us another eight months to get a second court or maybe a Supreme Court decision, people need to understand that is not the end of the process. It comes back to us and we ask questions because he no longer has salute immunity, and then he claims Something Else that answers our privileged and we have to go back to court for another 8 or 16 months. The argument why dont you just wait amounts to this. Why dont you just let him cheat in one more election . Why not let him cheat just one more time . Why not let him have foreign help just one more time . That is what that argument amounts to. Garrett, if cars would shift, needed an exhibit to underscore his point at the end, lavrov is in the oval office today. There are no known notes. While theyve been banned from all sporting events, not banned from the american president s home. Fryeah. Nice for the democrats to get a visual aid in the form of this meeting with lavrov at the white house. Schiff has been one of the most consistent messengers for democrats on the impeachment inquiry. I think what hese gets at theres really important. I would love to see good quality polling on this o question. Democrats haveon tried very har to focus the impeachment inquiry, make it forward looking, make it about an urgent threat right now and a threat to the 2020 r election. When republicans talk about the inquiry, youca hear them talk about the idea that impeachment would overrule voter who is made their decision in 2016. Its back ward looking. The idea is this was settled in 2016. Let the next election settle it. Democrats have been trying hard to make an argument here that the nexte election is put in jeopardy by the president s conduct, ande its really that question, do you think this is about overturning the will of voters o in 2016 or protecting e will of voters in 2020 that is so central to whatever ongoing debate might kpi in the minds of undecided voters and americans or perhaps even undecided members of congress trying to figure out how they might vote come next week. Michael steele, its an important political point. I think the idea that this is not about punishing donald trump, itssh about protecting america, if you see a few weeks down the road some cracks in the gop fire wall, not enough to convict him, but enough to make it symbolically bipartisan vote on s conviction, i think it wil be the message of protecting future president ial elections from russia meddling. I think theres a lot of value to that point, and the way congressman schiff put that narrative, focussed the narrative i think is important not just for democrats and the politics ofra doing impeachment but for the country to come into the conversation. Whether or not they spent the last eight months paying attention tosp this, they will when it goes to the senate. Everyone loves a good trial. This is oj on steroids. It involves the president of the United States, and i it involve something that is massively big. And it has all kinds of narratives related to what the president did r or didnt do in history and all of that. So people will tune in. So its going to be incumbent that schiff begin to set that tone now, and what it does is it tells republicans in the senate i get you. I know where you are. I know you got him breathing on one side of your neck. You got the House Republicans breathing on the other, but heres a roadbr that you can ge on. All of you y wont, but you can get on it. And to your point, nicolle its a little bit of a safe harbor. Its about what happens in the future. Were not relitigating 2016. This is not undoing the election. This is about looking at 2020 and beyond, and the proper role, the proper balance between executive authority, executive behavior, veoversight by the congress, et cetera. T let me ask you about the other big headline we started with today. If barr is so confident in his supreme power, why do all this stuff . I mean, you and i worked with republicans, and the ones who really dont care about the press dont do National Interviews and complain about the press. The ones who really believe the durham investigation is going their way, dont force a statement out of durham, the person running the investigation. The ones who really think the president doesnt have any worries about gop support in the senate dont do what they did in the last 24or hours which is tw written statements from the justice department, one in my personal opinion seemingly coerced written statement from mr. Durham. And a quick pivot to a Media Campaign that is even more barr, somewhat unprecedented. My estimation on that is all of this activity is a tell. And the tell is the constitution gotcha. This doesnt pass constitutional muster. This doesnt get you on that sweet side, on the right side of history. Soof what you try to do is you game the system. Its like a good prosecutor knows, andro weve heard it sai before, if you argue h the fact thats one thing. If you argue motion, thats another. If you aint got no argument, you make a lot of hand smokes and move about. What you see happen right now with barr and others is theyre making a lot of hand motions because the more confused the public is going into next years trial, the better it is for them. And you want to diminish, you want to dumb down this conversation to the point where people look and go, well, i dont understand whats happening. Well,i you know, mark in th new york timesar has a great pie about turning the trump bases attention toward the durham investigation, the additional barr sanctioned investigation, if you will. Barr accompanied, barr assisted. I dont know what we want to describe it. He has traveled with mr. Durham to foreign capitols to participate in the investigation. He writes the attorney general and supporters in congress followed a script. Engaged in a cover yo photographed campaign of fox news appearances and testimony to createes expectations about finding proof of a deep state campaign against mr. Trump, and then when the proof does not emerge, skew the results and prepare for the next opportunity to execute the play book. Heres the problem. Have to bet that the trump base will accept that jim comey, a registered republican, i think, andy mccabe, a registered republican, bob mueller a registered republican, horowitz, all met in some tree house and hatched some plot and they all came to the same conclusion. The investigation into russia was necessary and c called for Donald Trumps campaign and its 150 plus contacts were worthy of investigation. All the tactics as Christopher Wray said were justified even if they werent all used perfectly as the report suggests there were problems. And then theyre putting all their eggs in this one other guy, mr. Durham who is going to find something none of the other four found. Its reckless. The thing about the president shi base is that theye primed for this. This is how he won the election this. On this is how hes continued to maintain the support that he has which is obviously not as its not anything close to a majority. And its just that hes the victim. Hes always the victim. And they are out to get us. Andge whoever they is could be anybody at anyth given time. Any of the people you mentioned. And you know, now he is going to pivot to this report, and cherry pick things out of it whether its everyone will kind of come away from it with what they would like to see in it. As he did with the ig report, and well see that happen here. So it almost is a foregone conclusion. Not that it doesnt matter whats in the report, but it doesnt in the sense that the president s going to say what he wants to aboutto it and hes gog to find things in there that suit his narrative, and his base is, again, primed to continue to hear this sort of narrative, in which the president is always the victim and theye are out t get him. Phil, try to tie these two big headlines together for us. We know donald trump didnt want to be impeached. He will be. We know donald trump and his supporters pointed to horowitz for years as the investigation that was there sort of counter programming to the mueller probe. How do the two blows land among people who still tell the truth at the building you cover . Part of what President Trump and his allies are doing is i think theyre trying to connect the things not related. The impeachment inquiry has nothing to do with the horowitz report or durham investigation. Trump wants to create a lot of sort of noise and pick up all this dust so his supporters out there who are reading his tweets and are seeing the coverage on other cable nedworks thats more favorable to trump are drawing conclusions about trump as a victim, asou a victim of the de state as the president puts it. As a victim of the witch hunts that have been ongoing now for three years and counting. And that they need to rally to his defense to get him reelected next november. Thats the kind of line and language i think were going to hear from him tonight on the campaign trail in hershey, pennsylvania when he does his rally, and thats the kind of language he even used last week in monday london in his meetings at nato. I was there, and asked him a question about this horowitz ig report, and he saids no, no, n the report that really matters is the one that the u. S. Attorney durham is working on. Thats going to beor the explose report. Thatsxp the one everyone shoul Pay Attention to. And according to his sources, its going to be very damning. Thank you for spending some time with us. After the break, one of the men falsely accused of treason by the president se exonerated from theer attacks launched against m byla donald trump. We speak to his attorney about what comes next for former acting director of the fbi, andrew mccabe. And russia in the house. Donald trumps house, to be specific. Whymp are top russian officials back in the west wing on the day articles of impeachment are announced describing Donald Trumpsun abuse of power and withholding military aid for u. S. Ally, threatened by none other than russia. All those stories coming up. Sto. As a counterintelligence investigator, you have to ask yourself why would a president of the United States do that. All the same sorts of facts cause us to wonder is there an inappropriate relationship, a connection between this president and our most fearsome enemy, the government of russia. Are you saying the president is in league with the russians . Im saying that the fbi had reason to investigate that. That was one of Donald Trumps favorite and most frequent targets, a man he describes as a dirty top. Former acting director of the fbi, andrew mccabe, a man exonerated from the smears from the president today thanks to the results of the impartial wash dog, the ig for the doj. Michael horowitz. That report concludes this. The fbi had an authorized purpose when it opened cross fire hurricane. The investigation into the Trump Campaign to obtain information about or protect against a National Security threat or federal crime. We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions. Joining me now former department of justice Inspector General, and a man who happens to be Andrew Mccabes lawyer. Whats your thoughts on the scope and what turned out to be dramatic and force m forceful conclusions from mr. Horowitz yesterday in. It was a broad vindication of not only mr. Mccabe but the top leadership of the fbi and the fbi as a whole as having an authorized purpose for the investigation and a valid factual predicate for it. Those are the two fundamental conclusions that the ig came to, and it seems supported by the facts. 170 interviews of 100 witnesses. 1 million pages of documents. These are not conclusions that were arrived at quickly or easily. It was the result of a lot of hard work by a dedicated career staff and Inspector Generals office. I want to ask you a little more i think people who havent worked in government dont understand what an ig is, how independent they are and they have their own staff. They maintain their independence by being staffed from the bottom to the top by independent investigators. I wonder if you can explain that. Sure, the inspectors general are established by shtatute, by law, they for the most part nominated by the president , confirmed by the senate. There is no fixed tem of years. They stay as long as they want, essentially, unless they end themselves engage in misconduct which is extraordinarily rare, and they recruit a qualified career staff. And i would add that in the statute as qualifications for being nominated to be Inspector General, youre supposed to be nonbipartisan. Its the only political appointee in any Cabinet Agency that is supposed to by law by nonbipartisan. I think thats an important thing for anyone to remember, and the department of justice ig since the creation in 1988, i think has maintained that reputation. Have you ever seen an ig report come out, the fbi director come out and accept the good and the bad as Christopher Wray did in the interviews we witnessed exonerate the individuals who had been attacked but address with 30 or 40 fixes, is that a proper response in your view . Absolutely. You solicit responses from the agency thats been examined in the review and you hope they accept your findings and conclusions and accept the recommendations, and that is exactly what director wray in whats appended to the ig report. Thats completely standard and to be expected. And so what explains what is not standard or even i didnt expect, which was an attorney general who goes on a media blitz undermining the findings of the Inspector General, forcing out a statement from someone running a parallel investigation, and then the president attacking his fbi director who accepted the igs conclusions . Well, as is the case for a lot of what weve seen over the last three years, theres never been anything like that. Attorneys general up through today, up through before President Trump was elected, the president stayed out of ig reports. And attorneys general generally reacted in the same way the director wray responded which is okay, i understand what you found. I understand your conclusions. I see your recommendations. I think they are good. We will accept them and implement them. I have never seen either when i was the ig or under my successor, any attack by the attorney general on the fundamental findings of the igs work. I think it undermines the igs stature, his independence, and you wonder about the motives for doing so. Let me ask you about the motives. What barr is attacking is that the investigation was predicated. Ive gone to law school, the law school of chuck rosenberg. That means there were essentially probable cause. Andy mccabe was on my show. His book came out. We played the clip where hes essentially explaining to people outside of Law Enforcement that when you see enough suspicious activities, its your job in Law Enforcement to investigate. It doesnt mean you made a decision. You simply have an obligation to investigate where you suspect there might be crimes. What does it say to you that bill barr doesnt think there was any reason to investigate . I dont know what his basis for saying that is. The ig interviewed scores of people. The people who decided to open the investigation. And there was a broad and deep consensus the information they had was enough to open the investigation. If you put the threshold to high c if you say youve got to have information beyond a reasonable doubt, youll never open any investigation. So you need a low threshold. Thats why you investigate. You have some preliminary information that seems worth following up on. And then you launch an investigation to see whats there. Thats exactly what happened here. They had some provocative interesting, intriguing information that they thought they needed to follow up on. The people interviewed by the igs office said repeatedly, it would have been a dereliction of duty not to pursue this and not to conduct the investigation. We know this is a president who would like to investigate some people. Its been reported he wanted to investigate Hillary Clinton and jim comey. His allies in congress sought to impeach rosenstein for not pursuing those. What keeps you up at night when you see a president and attorney general so disdainful . Checks and balances, selfpolice, its one of the pillars that hold up a democracy. What do you think personally when you know mccabe and what hes been through, jim comey was here, all the people who have been smeared by donald trump in terms of their motives for investigating the campaign and the ties to russia cleared yesterday by the ig, exonerated from the smears, the accusations of treatson. Its troubling we have a president who targets people for an investigation. Its troubling once people are exonerated after a thorough investigation, the conclusions are not accepted and instead you have a second backup duplicate investigation thats designed to come to a different conclusion. You mentioned before the statement that seeps like it was coerced from mr. Durham. First its weird for a prosecutor to comment on an ongoing investigation. We know people criticized for doing that. Second, to directly criticize the findings of an 18 month investigation and a tremendous amount of work is something that really i cant even understand and wrap my head around. It is completely inappropriate. Its unpress lecedenunprecedent in some peoples minds including mine, it should be grounds for a disciplinary grounds for undermining the ig and speaking out on his own active investigation. It isnt done. What do you think is going through durhams mind . Do you think thats a statement he suggested putting out . I strongly doubt it. I dont know him. Hes been in the department for 35 years and has a pretty good reputation. I doubt hes issued statements about pending investigations very often at all. Andly bet you a lot of money hes never issued a statement that undermines an i give investigation. Thank you for spending time with us. Were grateful or the you. After the break Christopher Wray seems to find himself on thin ice for describing yesterdays Inspector General report as it is, a clean bill of health for the predication of the russia probe and some serious flaws in the fie za process. It may be his refusals to see other things that gets him in hot water. That story next. T gets him in hot water. That story next. And im still g, even though i live with a higher risk of strokeg, due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. So if theres a better treatment than warfarin, ill go for that. Eliquis. Eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. Plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. Eliquis is fdaapproved and has both. Whats next . Sharing my roots. Dont stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. Eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. Dont take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. 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[anchor voices ramp up together becoming indiscernible] you can provide the help and hope that survivors need. Are Critical Skills for scientists at 3m. One of the products i helped develop was a softer, more secure diaper closure. As a mom, i knew it had to work. There were babies involved. And they werent saying much. I envisioned what its like for babies to have diapers around them. Thats what we do at 3m, we listen to people, even those who dont have a voice. At the end of the day, we are people helping people. Itreat them all as if, they are hot and energized. Even those who dont have a voice. Stay away from any downed wire, call 911 and call pg e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. Did the government of ukraine directly interfere in the 2016 election on the scale the russians did . We have no information that indicates the ukraine interfered with the 2016 president ial election. Are you concerned that ukraine has a missing server from the Hillary Clinton emails . Fortunately i havent gotten into the ukraine thing yet. I dont know. Im not even sure about the nature of these allegations. What about the allegation that it was the ukrainians who meddled in the election, not the rugs. Are you satisfied thats not the case . I am confident the russians attempted to interfere in the election. I dont know about the ukrainians. I havent even looked into it, frankly. You know who did . Like everybody else thats in charge of that kind of stuff, the intelligence agencies, the republican led senate intel committee. And the way its supposed to work is the fbi director and the attorney general will be on the same page when it comes to debunked serious theories. While director wray reasserted what intelligence agencies determined to be the truth, that theres no information indicating ukraine hacked the 2016 election, attorney general barr said he hasnt looked into it, a known lie. Not that he hasnt looked into it, but it was ukraine. As testified to by the president s former Homeland Security adviser. Joining our conversation, National Security reporter for the Washington Post. What say you . On the ukraine hacking the election . Any of it. Look, it is a very tense time, i think. I think its a very tense time in the white house, doj and white house fbi relationship. You see that in what the president is doing and what barr is going. Wray is the odd man out in terms of public statements. And that puts him in a tricky spot. But i think the president if the president learned anything over the last three years its that firing the fbi director is a very, very, very big step. And the white house officials weve spoken to today insist were not there yet. Carol lee, wray is an odd man out because hes telling the truth. I mean, hes not just an odd man out because hes taken a contrarian view. Its the president , his attorney general, and the others. I mean, the idea that theres any open question about it being ukraine is ludicrous. Yeah. And what was striking about what the attorney general was saying is he sounded like congressional republicans. Its a line weve been hearing from them which is i dont know, i dont know. You know, maybe. Do you know . And you do know. He could call his fbi director and his fbi director would tell him that no, ukraine did not interfere in the election. And so thats what makes it so striking. And there isnt really anyone else besides wray really across the cabinet now that were in the third year who speaks out in this way. It used to be dan coats or Rex Tillerson or others. Theres no one else here. Hes on an island. I worked for two attorneys general and two fbi directors. They have access to the exact same intelligence products. Of course they do. If mr. Barr has a legitimate question about what happened in the 2016 election, he has the same stuff that the dni has, the fbi director has, the cia director has. Hes sitting here and telling us he just doesnt know. You know what . He is capable of knowing if he wants to know. Pick up the phone and get a briefing. Its astonishing to me that he maintains a falsehood. Its also astonishing to me if he doesnt know that he hasnt bothered to learn. That just sums it up for me right there. I started laughing when he did that oh, gosh, i dont know kind of look on the camera. Which is so much bs. You are in charge of a lot of information that you can access at any time to find out a very simple question. Answer to a very simple question. He doesnt want to know. He doesnt want to have it be put in a position, to chucks point, where he says one thing and then the facts catch up with him. It goes back to what i said before. The constitution is a stubborn thing. Facts are even more stubborn. When you combine them together, its a problem. All right. After the break, if you had one guess about what countrys leaders would be at the white house on the day that the origins of the russia probe were validated by the independent watchdog, which country would you pick . That story is nec. Now in one pot, and with tendercrisp technology, you can cook foods that are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. The ninja foodi Pressure Cooker, the Pressure Cooker that crisps. For the holidays you cant beat home sweet home. We go the extra mile to bring your holidays home. 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The most common side effect is nausea. Talk to your doctor about chantix. All roads seem to lead with putin with the president. Again, all roads lead to putin. The list goes on and on. It sure does. Take todays Oval Office Meeting with trump and Russian Foreign minister in the oval office. When the president met last year with lavrov, it was less than 24 hours after he had fired jim comey, an act he told avenue love had relieved, quote, great pressure. In the same meeting he also revealed classified information restricted even in the u. S. Government. As the speaker said, all roads seem to lead to putin and russia. I want to remind folks about what fiona hill said in her testimony. The notion that ukraine meddled in our election and russia did not is a russian intelligence operation. When we repeat what the russians want us to repeat, we are doing their bidding. We are doing their work. Were surrogate. Were paving the way for them. Its unimaginable to me weve fallen for this, not as a nation. But at some of the highest offices of the land that we believe the ukrainians meddled n the russians did not. Thats not what happened. The Intelligence Community is uniform in their assessment. Chris wray knows the truth and spoke it. The attorney general did not. Your colleague wrote one of the most haunting pieces about the putin trump relationship. Theres been five meetings, no notes kpied. Any read out today as to whether any notes were created or briefed to the press . We dont know that yet. We know just in the public exchanges is that theyre still having this sort of weird dance about russian interference and the election. A Washington Post reporter offered to give lavrov a copy of the Mueller Report if it would help him understand the disagreement that is on the surface here. But look, this is a game thats been going on, and its a frankly fairly disingenuous game for years about what the russians did in 2016. And lavrov said today he thought well, they didnt prove that we interfered with anything. And then when he was pressed on the point he said they didnt prove any collusion. So i dont think anything has been solved or improved or fixed. They continue to do a strange dance. Its strange. Its brazen. You know, mueller found more than 150 contacts with the russians. I mean, mueller also indicted what, 12, 10 to 12 gru agents. Its a no known at this point. And here you have the Russian Foreign minister standing next to the secretary of state saying russia didnt interfere with the election again, and then taking a car to the white house and being received in the oval office for a meeting with the president. And one of the criticisms of this today is that the optics of what message does that send to ukraine when you had a meeting that very meeting in the oval office with the president of ukraine was contingent on whether they investigate or he authorizes investigations into political opponent of the president s. So thats kind of the overtone. Theres always something. In 2017 it was like you said, the day after he the president fired jim comey, and today its with this whole ukraine issue hanging over him. So i keep thinking of with john mccain would do if he were alive. This is a little thing, but heads of state are heads of state. Its weird for them to meet twice. If john mccain were alive, i picture him in a uber ax banging on the door and saying what carol said. Your ally in the region is ukraine. Putin kills ukrainians. You extorted them to get the investigations. Cut it out. I mean, what is going on that no one says anything . Ukraine is just a piece on the russian soviet chess board. I cruise that term deliberately because i know who is running russia right now. And i think we all need to be aware a that romney had it right. At the time he said that russia was a problem, and that because theyre a geo political threat. Right . Exactly. I look at this and i kind of come back to a space, nicolle to something that chuck was saying about how these investigations have happened. All the information that flows through. If 17 intelligence agencies says that a happened, and this little hoard of republicans over here says no, b happened, then why isnt anybody upset about the 17 intelligence agencies, and shouldnt they be called for congress and shouldnt there be investigations . Theyreinept. Theyre clearly bad if 17 people looking at information says, this did not happen. Thats a great point. Im thinking of all of you and your papers great reporting about rudy, because tom boss sert was very public. He was on abc talking about how he passionate by pleaded with the president to let go of this ukrainian Conspiracy Theory and it would be, i guess, a testament to rudys power that the ukrainian Conspiracy Theory is now something that the s sitting attorney general wont knock down. Clearly, the president wants to believe this and clearly y l giuliani wants to make people believe that he has found evidence of this. I will point out that giuliani says, im going to present my evidence soon, and it just reminds me a lot of when we were waiting for the Mueller Report, giuliani kept saying, we will present a counter report, and the counter report always had some crazy number of pages in it, 57 pages, 120 pages. And in the end, there was no counter report. And it just didnt happen. And so, i do think that, you know, it will be interesting to see, when there comes a put up or shut up moment, is there anything actually factual to talk about about any of this . Because so far, its all been, you know, smoke and mirrors. When we come back, former fbi lawyer lisa page back in the news. Woman my reputation was trashed online. I felt completely helpless. My entire career and business were in jeopardy. I called reputation defender. Vo take control of your online reputation. Get your free reputation report card at reputationdefender. Com. Find out your online reputation today and let the experts help you repair it. Woman they were able to restore my good name. Vo visit reputationdefender. Com or call 18778668555. Billions of problems. Sore gums . Bleeding gums . Painful flossing . Theres a therabreath for you. Therabreath healthy gums oral rinse fights gingivitis and plaque and prevents gum disease for 24 hours. So you can. Breathe easy, theres therabreath at walmart. Thouwhich is Breast Cancer metastthat has spreadcer, to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. Ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr her2 metastatic Breast Cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. Ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients. Patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. Ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs that can lead to death. Tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including trouble breathing, shortness of breath, cough, or chest pain. Before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver or kidney problems, are pregnant, breastfeeding, or plan to become pregnant. Common side effects include low red blood cell and low platelet counts, infections, tiredness, nausea, sore mouth, abnormalities in liver blood tests, diarrhea, hair thinning or loss, vomiting, rash, and loss of appetite. Be in your moment. Ask your doctor about ibrance. Former fbi lawyer and senior official lisa page made an announcement on twitter today, writing this, quote, i sued the department of justice and fbi today. I take little joy in having done so, but what they did in leaking my messages to the press was not only wrong, it was illegal. Chuck rosen berg, she stayed quiet for so long, smeared by the president for so long, what do you think gets someone to speak out after years of being slimed . Ive seen this happen to my friends, i was lucky it didnt happen to me, but ive seen it happened to my friends and its so jarring. Its so hard for these good and decent Public Servants to even understand that a president of the United States is attacking them. It takes awhile to get your footing. Youre like, sure someone will make him stop acting out. Someone will make him stop or hell come to his senses and that just didnt happen. So, it takes awhile to find your voice. But im glad theyre finding their voices. And lisa page seems to have found hers. Well keep watching that space. Were going to sneak in our last break. Well be right back. l l be righ. We have local Senior Living advisors who can answer your questions about dementia or memory care and, if necessary, help you find the right place for your mom or dad. We all want whats best for our parents, so call today. My thanks to my guests on such a crazy day of news. Devlin, chuck, carol, michael, most of all, thanks to you for watching. That does it for our hour. Mtp daily with chuck todd starts right now. Welcome to tuesday, its meet the press daily. Good evening, im chuck todd in new york. Formal articles of impeachment against this president have been unveiled. Its just the fourth time in American History that any president has had impeachment articles against them. Today, democrats introduced two. Number one, abuse of power, number two, obstruction of congress. Moments ago, the house judiciary said they will start marking up the articles