Transcripts For MSNBCW MSNBC Specials 20191118

New york. But first the impeachment goes public. The impeachment inquiry into donald j. Trump, the 45th president of the United States. Efforts to gin up politically motivated investigations. Is this what americans should now expect from their president . The witch hunt, it is a joke, sham, hoax. This is not impeachable conduct, what is . We are now in the official part of this critical public phase of the potential impeachment of donald trump. In the coming day we will see one key witness after another come forward, including key trump aids with direct testimony about the president s alleged role. These hearings will build on the system outlining this plot. I think its crazy to withhold Security Assistance for help with a political campaign. The possibility of a white house meeting was being held contingent to an announcement. The meeting was the Security Assistance would not come. The president s comments were focussed on two things, 2016 and the bidens; am i right . I believe so, yes. What was communicated to you was that the president wanted investigations into 2016 and the bidens. That was my understanding. How could our system fail like this . How is it that foreign corrupt interests could manipulate our government . Which countrys interests are served when the very corrupt behavior we have been criticizing is allowed to prevail . In recent days we have seen a dramatic shift in how some of the Top Democrats in the house are moving towards what they see as Donald Trumps abuse of power. Several describing it as, quote, bribery. That is one of the only two impeachable offenses listed in the constitution. Chairman schiff was the first to use that term in an npr hearing on the eve of the hearings. First of all, as the founders understood bribery, it was not as we understand it in law today. It was much broader. It connoted the breach of the public trust in a way where youre offering official acts for some personal or political reason, not in the nations interest. And then very interestingly, after these official hearings began, just within the last few days, Speaker Pelosi getting even more emphatic. Quid pro quo, bribery, bribery, and that is in the constitution attached to the impeachment proceeding. The bribe is to grant or withhold military assistance in return for a Public Statement of a fake investigation into the elections. Thats bribery. What the president has admitted to and says its perfect, i said its perfectly wrong, its bribery. Quote, its bribery from the speaker of the house. Lets get into it with max baukus. Also served as u. S. Ambassador to china for president obama. Melissa murray, a former then clerk to judge sotomayor. Good evening to all of you. Hi. Great to have you. Senator, your first time on this special, i begin with you. You are the member of the panel who is actually adjudicated a senate trial of a president. What does it mean when we see the house explicitly laying out the evidence and looking at the potential article . Bribery being an article of impeachment. Hes going to be impeached. The question is what is the senate going to do . I think the house committee, House Intelligence Committee has done a good job in a noon circuslike way given the facts out why President Trump has probably bribed or tried to bribe the president of ukraine. But i still think clearly this has become very political. Democrats are going to impeach him. Whats going to happen in the senate . My sense is thus far thats a close call what the senate does. It depends what else comes out of these hearings. If it makes it more clear that hes prescribe ees bribed or a people back home will want their senators to do something about this. You have been in that institution, you have been in those courtrooms, there is a lot of speculation on the outside. What you are saying is on the inside, even the republicans who have their own pressures will still ultimately respond to the evidence . I think they will up to a point. But this is because very partisan. The divide is so great. This year it is much different than nixon era or the clinton area. This time the Republican Party is way right wing. Trump has got them all galvanized so republican senators are much more beholden to him, trump, than they were to the republicans at that time. On the substance, do you think that the president has done things that merit removal . I do. I think he should be impeached. I think that he has abused power. Whether there is bribery or abuse of power in the general sense of the term and i think its so bad that we should not wait until the next election for the voters to decide. We have to set the precedent today that when you do something illegal, and he did do something illegal, clearly illegal, he should be removed. For viewers that may or may not recall, you are speaking as someone who has tried very hard to work across the aisle in a bipartisan way. You were even criticized for that. You are also from a red state. You are not speaking from the bright blue resistance. You are speaking from that vantage point. Take a look at the questioning this week, including what we are seeing as increasingly the bribery case. This was Daniel Goldman leading the question. Whether it is a quid pro quo, bribery, extortion, abuse of power of the office of the presidency, the fact of the matter, as you understood it, is that Security Assistance and the white house meeting were not going to be provided unless ukraine initiated these two investigations. Ambassador somlin described conditioned for the Security Systems and the white house meeting in those terms. I just want to bear it bears repeating that according to ambassador taylor, who is a vietnam veteran, lifelong Public Servant in the United States government, there was an effort to steal hundreds of millions of dollars of funding and use it in a barter to help the president get reelected. I think what the democrats did yesterday was run the hearing in a professional way. It was great that schiff decided to table many of the republican motions until the end. In these hearings wednesday and throughout the week. Yes, throughout the week. The real thing that happened here that i think was important was that they emphasized the credentials of kent and ambassador taylor. These are not never trumpers. Theyre not people in the resistance. Theyre career professionals that have served both siends of administration, republican and democrat. And over and over again they both saw a shadow channel of Foreign Policy so unorthodox that it really gave them pause and made them wonder if they could continue to do americas work on an International Stage and made them think that the president s actions here were not about rooting out corruption in ukraine, but rather were about helping the president in the 2020 election. All right. Ruth marcus, walk us through the view in washington as these hearings are now underway. Well, the view in washington is these hearings are now underway depends entirely, i think, on which side of the aisle you are sitting on in washington. And so i think to some extent senator baukus belief that some of his colleagues have their votes up for grabs, what they might think privately about the president is one thing. But as long as Public Opinion is as incredibly split as it is between republicans who are strongly in support of the president and democrats who are just as strongly opposed to him, that is how the senate first of all, how the house is going to split. And second of all, how the senate is very likely to split. Thats just reality. Let me play for you as well just on the substance one of the other revelations this week that after the famed phone call with ukraine the president was following up and was sort of literally dialing for dollars and still trying to get somlin to be his guy to hold back the money unless he got the election help he wanted. Called President Trump and told him of his meetings in kiev. A member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking the ambassador about the investigations. He told President Trump the ukrainians were ready to move forward. Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked ambassador somlin what President Trump thought about ukraine. Ambassador somlin said he cared more about the investigations of biden which giuliani was pressing for. Ruth, it seems like quite a bang to start. I mean, you have covered other impeachment processes that took a lot longer. This story is literally under a few months old. And the star witness at the first hearings this week lays out the plot. Well, the velocity of this story has been amazing. We read the original rough transcript of the phone call, and were flabbergasted at the audacity of the president soliciting a Foreign Government for help against a political rival and all the evidence thats developed since has only gotten worse for the president. The thing that was astonishing about the testimony this week was that i think we expected to put this very sober public face of the Longtime State Department officials and others on to this testimony. I dont think we were necessarily expecting something new. Certainly not a bombshell like this of an overheard conversation with the president of the United States to which the takeaway was he doesnt care about ukraine. That is, he doesnt care about u. S. National security interests as much as he cares about going after the bidens. Just pause and take that in. Yeah. You take that in, senator, and you are talking about the abuse of National Security powers. I mean, this is military money. It could have been a bomb, right . It could have been a battleship. According at least to these witnesses. They are saying this is how the president rolls. He does not care about the rules or the constitution. Thats the evidence. Again, i keep stressing that because when we hear the other side or if there is a senate trial, we will be covering that as well. But these hearings this week were laying out the evidence. Then the question is at what point do you have enough evidence to make up your mind . We want to take a quick look at a younger senator baukus at that point in the later point in the clinton trial. Take a look. We know that there is virtually no chance that any additional evidence is going to change their minds. Peoples minds are made up. We, though, have numbers here that show support for impeachment has grown as this evidence has come out for the public and one out of ten republicans in some polls have already shifted on this, suggesting peoples minds are not yet made up. Well, i think that in the house, minds are made up. I think in the senate minds are pretty much made up. I think that it depends what other evidence comes out. If President Trump has to, in fact, dy vivulging his tax retu there could be more evidence of something egregious. We dont know yet. The trial in the senate has not occurred yet. I think there will be one, but well see. I want to turn to memory as a person who has been around the courtroom, you know that memory is the first place you pretend not to know things, right . You are not necessarily purgering yourself and denying. So here we go. The current president is veriy y l lit gous. He knows this. He may have lied to mueller, which is a separate felony. Some people get convicted for it. And then second now hes saying he doesnt remember anything about somlin or talking to him. Take a look. I know nothing about that. First time ive heard it. In any event it is more secondhand information, but i have never heard it. Do you recall any conversations. No, not at all, not even a little bit. So gordon somlin has to be calling his lawyers at some point. I imagine there will be an addendum to the addendum he filed. But just take that in. He was speaking so loudly it could be overheard by someone not even on the same piece. Is that what bothers you, that hes a loud talker . We knew he was a loud talker. It goes to show how unorthodox this is . If i may, does it show the president may think this is wrong and he doesnt want to do it again through all normal channels. Somlin is a donor an alleged patsy. He is not the secondary of state. It is not the shadow government that things are happening that couldnt happen in the original register. Thats really important. It also links the president to this in a direct way, and he can talk about it being secondhand evidence or third hand evidence, but we could actually find out where he was at the time and hear from people who had firsthand information if the white house would allow these individuals to testify. That goes to my final question to ruth. Take a look at these photos, ruth. We have gordon somlin on the other end of that call, plus laura cooper and david hale. He and President Trump seem to have the worst memories of anybody in government. But somlins memory keeps getting refreshed. In a normal world, he may have to worry about perjury charges. Now we will have the testimony from the other end of the phone call, from the person who witnessed, overheard the president on the phone. And i think the person whose comments this week might be the most dangerous are the president s because when he says i dont remember having this phone call with gordon somlin, hes going to have a hard time coming back and saying, oh, this never happened. I distinctly remember that the phone call that i dont remember actually didnt happen and i never said i care about the bidens. So he has backed himself into a little bit of a corner, i think. It is a lot, a lot to process and having much veterans here does help us. I want to thank ruth, senator baukus and senator murray. Doj might have been pulled into a coverup of the coverup. Also, well break down whos who and why aids keep changing their story. And my interview with the prosecutor who ran the office now investigating Rudy Giuliani. All that plus more on the big week ahead and we will answer more of the questions you sent us in this special trump ukraine impeachment crisis. Si. Handsfree sliding doors, stow n go seats, man, yall getting a hook up and yall dont even work here. Pacificaaaaa but in my mind im still 25. Thats why i take osteo biflex, to keep me moving the way i was made to. It nourishes and strengthens my joints for the long term. Osteo biflex now in triple strength plus magnesium. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. Even a ernie lost rubber duckie . burke you mean this one . ernie rubber duckie cookie what about a broken cookie jar . burke again, cookie . cookie yeah. Me bad. grover yoooooow oh what about monsters having accidents . I am okay by the way burke depends. Did you cause the accident, grover . grover cause an accident . Maybe. bert how do you know all this stuff . burke just comes with experience. all muppets yup. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum were reporters from the new york times. No flights. No roads. Were trying to figure out what animals are being affected. Galapagos is a really challenging place to work. El nino is starting to go haywire. Everywhere is going to get touched by climate change. Puberty means personal space. So sports clothes sit around growing odors. Thats why we graduated to tide pods sport. Finally something more powerful than the funk. Tide sport removes even weekold sweat odor. Its got to be tide. But maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. Because there are options. Like an unjection™. Xeljanz xr, a oncedaily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. Xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. Xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections like tb; dont start xeljanz if you have an infection. Taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra can increase risk of death. Serious, sometimes fatal infections, cancers including lymphoma, and blood clots have happened. As have tears in the stomach or intestines, serious allergic reactions, and changes in lab results. Tell your doctor if youve been somewhere fungal infections are common, or if youve had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. Needles. Fine for some. But for you, one pill a day may provide symptom relief. Ask your doctor about xeljanz xr. An unjection™. Jim morrison told me that the call kaucould have been bet and that President Trump discuss that he meet with mr. Giuliani. And attorney general william barr. Welcome to our msnbc special trump ukraine impeachment crisis. A new focus tonight that upset the entire Trump Presidency with these hearings continuing next week. Barr and the doj are implicated in the plot. Way back in april, trump went on fox news suggesting barr could get involved in the ukraine investigation stuff, a bid to try to push a defunked Conspiracy Theory peddled of course by rudy gull yanny. I would imagine he would want to see this. People have been saying this whole the concept of ukraine, they have been talking about it actually for a long time. You know that. And i would certainly defer to the attorney general, and well see what he says about it. The concept of ukraine. Well, no, not exactly because hes not just talking about the country. Hes talking about getting help with the election and trump got more explicit on the white house lawn. I hope he looks at ukraine. I hope he looks at everything because there was a hoax that was perpetrated on our country. And it continued. Two months later trump dropping barrs name twice. Quote, ill tell rudy and attorney general barr to call because he wanted to extort a Foreign Government to go after biden, his rival. We know from witness testimony that set off alarm bells all over the government. Barrs role a key part of the original whistleblower complaint. And what happened next is extraordinary and still under investigation because the whistleblower complaint was part of what was passed over to the Justice Department, which of course is supposed to independently investigate any potential crimes. And they get referrals from the Intelligence Community that ask them to do that. But the doj curiously said they werent even going to open an investigation to look into this. Doj lawyers writing a secret memo saying they need not turn over that complaint to congress. In other words, dont even try to get the facts. Facts might be good for trump. Who knows . But dont start a probe to look at them and then keep it cquiet from congress. It involved their boss and as we know publically and in ways that should protect him. We dont have any evidence that mr. Barr did anything wrong to carry out Donald Trumps request about this ukraine plot. In other words, we dont have evidence. We havent seen it yet in any public hearing saying barr did x, y, z. But we know mr. Barr has engaged with trump on other conspiracy theories going to travel the world as part of this investigate the investigators, looking at the origins of the russia probe. I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump Campaign during 2016. We should be worried about whether government officials abused their power and put the thumb on the scale. I think spying did occur, yes. I think spying did occur. We have to look at that. Look away because that is the context for a chorus of voices arguing that mr. Bar within this impeachment scandal may be undermining the integrity of the Justice Department. Let me ask you about the attorney general. Hes gone rogue since he was mentioned in all of this. Its curious that he would be making decisions about how the complaint would be handled. I think where theyre going is a coverup of the coverup, and thats really very sad for them. Im joined by matt miller, former Justice Department in the obama administration. Your view of this . Well, i think first of all, the attorney general absolutely ought to recuse himself. It is hard to understand based on any legitimate reason why he would still be overseeing the departments role in it. I want to add Something Else to the bill of particulars that you went through. You know, as part of this investigation into the origins of the investigation that you mentioned, doj has already come out and said that this prosecutor that barr appointed is looking at information that he got from ukrainian individuals. So theyre looking at something from ukraine. We dont know what that is, but we know every other time information has come from ukraine to the u. S. Government, it seems to be either corrupt ukrainian oligarchs or officials that have been trying to smear u. S. Civil servants like the former ambassador or to other size carry out their particular interests. So there is Something Else happening at the department that i dont think we have quite gotten to the bottom of yet. And you think thats suspect how . Well, look, the department has been behaving very peculiarly here. Its not just the fact they didnt open a full investigation into the president s call. You might have seen a world where the department would have looked at it and decided it wasnt a crime. But they decided to do a very narrow lens of Campaign Finance questions. And how often just slowing you down because youre making so many great points. How often would you announce in the opening weeks of a news story, were not investigating this . Never. Never. Because it was your job. It is very rare for the doj to look at something they find i think most people call it disturbing and take the narrowest legal lens and decide to not look any further and decide if there are other criminal statutes implicated. At the same time they got the referral of this phone call, they were investigating Rudy Giuliani and they were investigating Rudy Giulianis two leagues who were now under indictment for their activities all in ukraine, all of which seem to be connected to the president and this extortion scheme hes been trying to execute. Another great point youre making. They announced we dont see this campaign to get ukraine to do anything as a campaign violation. And those people you just mentioned who are ukrainian linked, were just indicted on, among other things, campaign violations. Yeah, on campaign violations. Those people are in the middle of this. It is a complicated thing. When we look at the impeachment, were all looking at what the president did. But what the Justice Department looked at, theyre in the middle of this scheme where theyre incurring favor with one side, using that access to the white house on the other side of the atlantic to go sign up clients in ukraine and get information from those clients they could use to smear the president s political opponents. It was an access scheme. They befowere right in the middf this. The idea that in the middle of a criminal investigations the department would just say, oh, were just going to think about this one thing about the president , not look at it. And then the most critical part that you mention is were going to try to block the information from being turned over to congress so it could do its job. It just smacks of a coverup. And the idea that bill barr is not right in the middle of this, they have tried to shove is responsibility to lower level officials does not pass the smell test. They asked barr whether trump did ask him to hold a News Conference and he said, i dont remember. Any time the attorney general has a conversation with the president , you remember every detail. You come back and talk to your staff about every detail. I remember being briefed on these conversations many, many times by eric holder. The idea he wouldnt recall a conversation with the both cant be true. He would remember one way or the other. Yeah. It is dodgy. As you say, you have been on the inside. Those things are well documented and you do things when you are on the phone with the president. Matt miller, really appreciate your clarity here. Thank are yyou, ari. Our exclusive interview with the prosecutor who ran the sdny unit thats investigating rudy. And why the next hearings could be very difficult for one trump aid and the bribery case. Con Liberty Mutual solo pagas lo que necesitas. Only pay for what you need. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. 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Now, abbott technology can target those exact neurons. Restoring control and harmony, once thought to belost forever. The most personal technology is technology with the power to change your life. The amount of Student Loan Debt i have, im embarrassed to even say. We just decided we didnt want debt any longer. I didnt realize how easy investing could be. Im Picking Companies that i believe in. I think sofi money is amazing. Thank you sofi. Sofi thank you, we love you. I do not understand mr. Giulianis motives for attacking me, nor can i offer an opinion on whether he believed the allegations he spread about me. Mr. Giuliani should have known these claims were suspect. Did he peddle false accusations against you as well as the bidens . Yes, that is my understanding. Were back on our msnb special with a closer look at someones whose name come up a lot in this weeks hearings, Rudy Giuliani. The United States was undercut by the efforts led by mr. Giuliani. I became increasingly aware by an effort of Rudy Giuliani and others. Guided by mr. Giuliani. Mr. Giulianis efforts to gin politically motivated investigations. The investigations of biden which giuliani was pressing for. Affecting u. S. Engagement with ukraine. Those key impeachment witnesses testifying about how giuliani was guiding this channel in proper dip employple. Facing a criminal investigation by the sdny, the office he used to literally run. I am joined now by david kelly that also held that top job. Thanks for being on the special. My pleasure. When you see mr. Giuliani as a suspect in this probe being name checked that many times in the hearings, is that bad for him in the investigation or irrelevant . I think its probably largely irrelevant unless there was some information disclosed they didnt already know. My guess is there probably arent an awful lot of surprises, but it is really hard to say where they are with their investigation. When you look at the fact that mr. Giuliani stands as far as i know as the only person in the middle of the venn diagram and in the middle of the impeachment probe, what pressure does that put on him . He used to hear from a lot. He has gone quiet. I think there is a lot of pressure on him in both places in the congressional hearings certainly he needs to be concerned. I mean, there has been some discussion, i have read reports about him, for example, maybe being the person that he threw under the bus, that he went rogue. If thats the case, he has an awful lot to worry about. Unclear whether or not the facts will support that or where it will go from here. But if im in that position and seeing all that, yeah, i get worried. Also, it suggests about what the prosecutors are going to see. If they havent seen it already by who theyre looking at, assuming theyre looking at this, hes got to be concerned that his name is coming up way too much and the prosecutors have to be very interested in that. The challenge for the prosecutors is looking at, i think, largely whats going on with the impeachment hearings. People look at this as not so much a criminal investigation or a criminal proceeding. It is a political one and it is about abuse of power, not about the commission of crimes necessarily. You mention that abuse of power, david. That hangs over all of this, including whether giulianis role was helping the president do something despite his lawful powers that went beyond him. You look at central casting. You also used to be a cop, right . Yes. With people who have these roles in government are given potentially great powers, the power to detain, to arrest, to convict and in some cases to kill, be that on the street or through the lawful process of execution. Thinking about that, i want to play for you mr. Giulianis Public Defense before he went quiet, which was not him saying, look, i can say whatever i want in politics. Its rough. Its tumble. No. He tried to come back into the protection of the government and claim that hes basically like a member of the Trump Administration or the state department, which obviously would grant him different powers. Take a look. I never talked to a ukrainian official until the state department called me and asked me to do it and then i reported every conversation back to them. And, laura, im a pretty good lawyer, just a country lawyer, but it is all right here, the first call from the state department, the debriefing in the state department. So why are they as an investigator, how critical is that distinction, especially in the impeachment hearings, whether he was acting at the direction of the u. S. Government or not. Two things. First off, he held up his phone, if im a prosecutor, i want to get everything thats on there and they may have already done that. Hes talked about this before. Essentially what hes saying is whats called a Public Authority defense. In other words, maybe i committed a crime, but i was authorized to do so. The challenge with that is that he kind of looks at a lot of things here or it conflates. If hes under the Public Authority defense, it means that hes acting in kind of a quasi official capacity. But he has come out and said hes the president s personal lawyer. You cant have it both ways. So i think hes going to have a tremendous challenge there about what he was doing and the, frankly, the Public Authority defense is fairly narrow. In other words, it has to be very specific instructions that you follow. You cant just have you go into what you want to do and you are off and running and i can blame the Public Authority defense. It doesnt work that way. And one of the things we heard over the week from some public defenders of the president as well, some of these witnesses are secondhand accounts. Wouldnt Rudy Giuliani be the firsthand to count. It appears that he has by his own admission has firsthand information and, yeah, sure. My guess would be that would be interesting to watch. There is a couple complications to that. One is hes going to claim thats attorneyclient privilege information, a lot of what he has to give. Or, two, the president will assert an executive privilege or, three, it is Public Authority. David, he wasnt exactly filing Court Motions in ukraine, was he . No. But thats not relevant. Hes kind of all over the map. They need to the problem is that think, ti think, that they didnt pick their theory and stick with it. Right. They have been all over the map. I think there is going to be a collision of those and ultimately a day of reckoning where you cant have it both where you cant have it all ways. It is one or the other. And whatever route they pick there will be certain legal hurdles that need to be met or overcome. As always, thanks for coming by. Appreciate it. And i should also mention david will be back with me for a special event in new york with several of the top federal prosecutors from the same office. You see it right here. Go to msnbc. Com sdny if you are in or near new york and you want to join us, it is at Columbia Law School thursday, december 5th. It is called independent justice. It will have david, me, barry berger and six former attorneys from sdny. Msnbc. Com sdny to get your tickets tonight. My special report connecting even more dots in the trump bribery plot. And later we will answer some of your questions. Anything you ever wanted to know about impeachment but were afraid to ask. Afraid to ask. As a struggling actor, i need all the breaks that i can get. At liberty butchumal cut. Liberty biberty cut. Well dub it. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. vo thewith every attempt, strto free itself,piders web. 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Before treatment your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches or coughs, or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. Nothing is everything ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance, so you only pay for what you need. I wish i could shake your hand. Granted. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. You mentioned something in opening statement. You said that he said that everything, and you had that in quotes, was actually contingent on the initiation of these investigations. What did he mean by everything . What he meant by everything was the Security Assistance and the white house meeting. Bombshells. Those are some of the bombshell remarks and the testimony thats come out public in these imeachment hearings adding to what is a case of bribery, detailing what Donald Trumps team was offering in exchange for the reelection help that trump won. Trump demanding a bribe to get reelected. These are producing more evidence of how it all worked. Thats not the only thing happening. If you divide the trump camp up here, it is not just that more people are admitting it. It is as these accounts go public, some of the people who used to try to deny it are moving and also admitting it. That is crucial to this case. So lets get into it. In terms of the players we know, you could say things are moving towards the bill tailors of the world. The first person that objected to this in realtime and away. Things are moving away from the trumpian defense of all of us. So we made an animated chart to show you. It starts over the summer, having the discussion about the probes. Somlin insisting no quid pro quo bribery. That was before there was an impeachment probe on ukraine. In private taylor objected and told somlin this was a bribery plot. Those are your two camp. Boom, the whistleblower blows up and adds to the taylor concern, filing a complaint about the bribery plot. At that point, lets be clear, those were the battle lines. Some people involved said bribery. Others denied it. Okay. Then go back to the chart. Enter mick mulvaney, admitting the bribery plot famously saying it happens all the time in a televised spectacle gaffe. Watch as mulvaney retracts that and goes back over, migrating into the no bribery camp because he reversed himself. However absurd you find that retraction, that was the white house had several people standing by trump. Mulvaney may be damaged but there were multiple people linking arms in the no bribery defense. The testimony is reshaping those defense alliances. So take a look at our chart. You have the army officer testifying on bribery, a top National Security counsel official and then, this is the most important shift to date and it just happened as taylor and other testimony goes public, sondland leaves the no briarry camp and actually says his recollection has been refreshed and there was bribery, adding to his past congressional testimony. This week he is also expected to say it in public under oath. You are looking at where the witnesses stand and where the story is going. A lot of people on the right now alleging the bribery plot, including sondland, trumps ally. You have mulvaney who retracted and then all by himself the president. Melissa murray is back with me. Thank you for being here throughout our special. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I walked through that because cases are about evidence. A lot of the evidence is testimony. Yes. What does it mean when we look on that chart and see sondland moving and trump increasingly isolated . He sees the the writing on the wall, bill taylor is virtually an unimpeachable, no pun intended witness, a career servant, saying i have no dog in this fight, i dont want to be on the record as wanting impeachment or not, i just want to tell the truth, and the truth, this is what i saw. All of a sudden sondland is, wait a minute, let me go back, i have to refresh my testimony, i remember now there was actually a quid pro quo and bribery are the fact that were talking about bribery has shown we are shifting into a new era in this proceeding. Were going into a new part of the inquiry. As senator baucus said, it is sure there are going to be articles of impeachment and the democrats have made a strategic choice to focus them on things that are actually explicit in the text of the constitution. Treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors, as opposed to the sort of amorphous category of high crimes and misdemeanors that hasnt been identified. Isnt that important because while abuse of power is a very serious thing, people of good will can disagree about that. There are a lot of people who would hear about wars they disagree with, mistakes in Foreign Policy, and say, that seems to me like abuse of power in the colloquial sense of the term. We saw with the clinton impeachment, was the conduct problematic, objectionable, was it impeachable, maybe a completely different matter. By focusing on bribery, its something the American Public can think about, even if in a modern sense as opposed to this constitutional sense, but they know what bribery is, they know its problematic, they can link it to the constitutions charge that congress has the authority and indeed the duty to impeach a president when he commits bribery. This is something weve discussed and been reporting on the beat as well. The other big difference is bribery is always about personal enrichment. Youre taking money or taking power, taking help with the election. There isnt a good defense to, well, i just needed that money, as there can be in some of the other issues. You see this in the example weve used from blagojevich. Absolute power to appoint a senator. When he sought a bribe for it. The thing he had unlimited for suddenly has a limit. Again, this is what the framers had in mind when they were laying this out. They did not understand bribery in the federal statutory law we know today but in this broader English Common law sense that was about the abuse of oy official power. Thats why its linked to treason, thats why its linked to high crimes and misdemeanors. Alexander hamilton said, these are the abuses of public men. They understood this about involving is the government, the giving of governmental in exchange for something of value and it was a problem. They also understood, there will always be credible temptation for people in power to use it to enrich themselves or hold on to power. Yes. These are ambitious people who become president. If there wasnt a hard cap on their ability to take the pentagon or Nuclear Weapons and use them to hold on and get reelected action of course they might feel that temptation, it has to be fought. Professor murray, thank you so much for being part of our coverage. Well be right back with some of your questions about the impeachment process and where we go next. employee enterprise car sales has access to over half a million preowned vehicles, most with tech features like blind spot detection, back up camera. [kristen gasps] employee because you never know what might be behind you. kristen bell does the sloth come standard . kristen bell vo looking to buy . Enterprise makes it easy. You wanna see something thatamazing . Ing. Go to hilton instead of a travel site and youll experience a whole new range of emotions like. The relaxing feeling of knowing youre getting the best price. Thesell work. The utter delight of free wifi. 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Its 5g ultra wideband for massive capacity and ultrafast speeds. Almost 2 gigs here in minneapolis. Thats 25 times faster than todays network in new york city. So people from midtown manhattan to downtown denver can experience what our 5g can deliver. woman and if verizon 5g can deliver performance like this in these places. Its pretty crazy. Just imagine what it can do for you. Weve asked you about some of the parts of the impeachment process you may want to know about. Weve gotten a lot of questions from you. Did trump request the ukraine president initiate investigation into the bidens or just that he announce the investigation for the sake of optics . Thats something under investigation, we may never know the whole story, but for constitutional issues it may not matter. Both options would allegedly serve trumps goal, to go after and harm a political rival, to get foreign help in doing that in order to get reelected. The smoke, not necessarily caring whether there was real fire. Another question asking, is there any potential legal consequence for politicians who slander or disparage these witnesses . Weve seen some of that against colonel vindman. Some republicans and Public Allies in the press questioning his loyalties, making ugly smears im not going to repeat. Let me tell you how that works. The constitution generally gives lawmakers immunity for any official speech. Out in the public realm, peel want to say ugly things . Most of the time, not always, but the vast majority of the time they are not going to run into criminal prosecution for using their free speech rights. So the answer, whether you like it or not, is a lot of those kind of smears will not be punished in a courtroom. Then quote the boxer mom sending us this question. What happens if the senate exonerates trump and he breaks more laws . Well, you have a big smart question there and i can tell you there isnt a simple answer. It is something lawmakers and attorneys and others are thinking through, because youre looking at uncharted territory. Deterrence though is a part of the argument for any impeachment process. For this president or others. It sends a message not only to the president but to everyone in federal government that there will be investigations, that there will be actual hearings, that you dont want to be on the wrong side of that. If donald trump were to be convicted, if any president s convicted in the senate that also is something that carries major consequences. I want to thank all of you for sending us great questions. I want to thank you for watching our recurring msnbc special. Hope to see you again monday night and every weeknight, 6 00 p. M. Eastern, on the beat. This Program Includes violent and disturbing content, viewer discretion is advised. Where is an agreement that says we have to stay in the middle east for the rest of humanity, for the rest of civilization, to protect the kurds . It never said that. We never agreed to protect th