Investigation into joe biden. Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia of texas detailed the role that Rudy Giuliani has played as the president s back channel to carry out this scheme. Colorado congressman jason crow, a combat veteran explained why the military aid held up by the Trump Administration was so important to ukraine in its war with russia and how the hold on that aid violated the law. Floridas val valero focused on the white house meeting that the Trump Administration dangled for months as one of the quids they might get if they coughed up the quo. Hakeem jeffries spoke of the july 25th phone call between trump and the ukrainian president , volodymyr zelensky. California congresswoman, zoe lofgren, veteran of the last two impeachments, she talked about the coverup once the ukraine scheme was discovered. The house impeachment managers presented emails and Text Messages and call records and dozens of video clips. I stopped counting at 50 different video clips showing, among other things, the testimony of current and former Trump Administration officials. They also presented evidence that has come to light since the president was impeached by the house, including a letter that Rudy Giuliani wrote to the ukrainian president asking for a meeting. That letter was turned over to the house by giulianis side kick lev parnas just last week. It was described on the floor of the senate today. Congressman jason crow showed documents released under court order by the White House Office of management and budget just last night, documents heavily redacted released thanks to a freedom of information act request. So well talk about what all of this means and where this is going. But one takeaway from the first day of the case against donald trump in his Senate Impeachment trial is that, yes, they have amassed an impressive amount of evidence about what happened despite the white house ordering that the entire administration should give them nothing and defile their subpoenas. The drama now is in the prospect of how much more evidence there is in the documents and witnesses the white house has thus far refused to make available and that republicans senators thus far say they dont want to see. During our presentation you will see documentary records. Those the president was unable to suppress, that exposed the president s scheme in detail. You will learn further evidence that has been revealed in the days since the house voted to impeach President Trump, even as the president and his agents have persisted in their efforts to cover up their wrongdoing from congress and the public. And you will see dozens of new documents providing new and Critical Evidence of the president s guilt that remain at this time in the president s hands. And in the hands of the department of defense and the department of state and the office of management and budget even the white house. You will see them and so will the American People if you allow it. If in the name of a fair trial you will demand it. If in the name of a fair trial you will demand it, if there was a theme today, a recurring theme, it was not only the factual record of what happened but this insistent demand of every senator, all senators from both parties, that the evidence is theirs for the taking, there for the asking if they could possibly justify why they didnt want to see it. That has remained to be seen. Joining us now is Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer who has been, of course, at the center of this impeachment trial. I know youre just out of the chamber. Thanks for making time to be with us. Thank you, rachel. Its always good to be on. Let me just ask how you feel it went today. This was first day of laying out the case against the president. I thought the managers just did an incredible, incredible job. They were all good, but particular adam schiff. His closing speech, which i hope many of your viewers saw, is one of the tour deforces i have seen in my decades here one of the ten best speeches ive heard. There are two points about it. People say, well, one is, this is first time many of our republican colleagues have heard all the facts put together in a very cogent way. Most of the time get the snippets from fox news which doesnt really tell much of the story at all and they distort it. But here for the first time they saw the whole thing. When schiff did his last half hour, his last 45 minutes, they were all intently looking at him. I look around and most of the time they dont want to hear the argument because of the pressure theyre under to go along with trump, even though i think a good number of them know in their hearts that hes wrong and that donald trump did all the things that were laid out tonight. But tonight they were wrapped on him. And you never know how this is going to work. Not Mitch Mcconnell and donald trump will do everything to prevent four people from joining us in our quest for witnesses and documents. But with powerful speeches like schiff, with republicans hearing twhoefl narrative and the whole story for the first time who knows what happens . And then just one more, theres a second point. How did we get the few changes . Pressure, public pressure matters. And americans who saw this presentation not just liberals but moderates and even republicans have been moved by it. And that puts pressure on some of these republicans. When mcconnell did his resolution, the public pressure to have a fair trial and a fair resolution was so strong, that he had to make a few changes. He had to give us three days, the managers three days instead of two. He had to submit the house record of evidence. That didnt happen because mcconnell wanted to. He was pressured by his senators. Now, the big job to get witnesses and documents hasnt occurred yet, but i am very hopeful that what happened tonight will move the public, and they will move some republican senators in our direction. And its a process. This is going to continue, and i think the next two days will be as powerful as today was. In terms of the publics position on this, the public is with you on the issue of witnesses. On the eve of the trial there was a cnn poll which said 69 of the country wants there to be witnesses. Theres a reuters poll that came out tonight that says 72 of the country wants there to be witnesses at this trial are and that includes large majorities even of republican respondents to that poll. What is the mechanism by which that Public Opinion, that strong Public Opinion in favor of witnesses moves four republican senators . Mcconnell and trump, what they want to do is never even have the trial and never even consider witnesses. They wanted to dismiss it originally. Because of the pressure youre talking about, because even in one poll, 64 in one poll, a plurality of even republicans and rankandfile republicans almost always side with trump. But they wanted witnesses. It pushed they had to kick the can down the road and delay the issues of witnesses. I think we made progress the last few days in the focus on witnesses yesterday when i offered those amendments and the republicans had to vote on them, and their constituents saw exactly where they were. We made more progress today. And its going to be a process. Am i certain well succeed, far from it, but do i think theres a chance if we keep at it . Yes. If we dont, and its still apparent to the American Public what an unfair trial this is, how theyre so afraid of the evidence, it will make the value of on acquittal zero. But obviously we prefer a fair trial and we hope that we can get four republicans with everything thats happening to be for witnesses and documents. The fact that the publics with us, the fact that theyre moving in that direction may help push republicans in that direction. Senator, its chris hayes here. I wanted to ask about good to see you. I wanted to ask about the room. We were discussing before obviously we dont have a camera or eyes on it. Theres reporters in the gallery and theres sketch artists, but a notable number of senators not in their seats for long stretches has been reported. And i just wonder no. If you feel the body is living up to the moment on both sides of the aisle, theres a level of seriousness that you would like to see. Well, you know, i rarely see more than ten members out of their seats at a given time. Weve had all members there for most of the time. The attentiveness that impresses me is the one i mentioned before, that a lot of our republican colleagues who have never heard the whole story, have never heard a narrative and have gotten so much of their news from fox news, which is so deliberately biased and leaves out most of the major facts is really indicative. So no, i just the room is a very, very positive thing, and i was amazed. I look around and a lot of times admittedly the republicans are sitting in their seats and their talking to each other and they dont want to look at it. When schiff had his last 45 minutes, they were all glued to him, and that says something, i hope and think. Chuck, its claire. Let me ask you, if you get the four votes, what happens then . Is it in order for you, then, to offer an amendment for each witness that you want and can mitch offer an amendment, say, for hunter biden . Is it clear under the rules whether this goes in amendment by amendment, or is it required that you guys do a negotiation at that point . No, its not required we do an negotiation. Well, they have tried to running the trunk indicate theate. But if we win that vote, we can get individual votes on each witness. One point on hunter biden. I think the republicans dont want him actually because it would make a circus of the whole thing. Trump and the hard rights might want him, but a lot of those in the middle dont want him. They could bring any name up to the floor, i suppose. I dont think they will. I dont either. If the republicans begin to break, leader mcconnell may come to me and say lets negotiate. He doesnt do that unless he doesnt think he has the votes. Well try to work something out, but we will work something out, i think, that at least gets the four witnesses and four sets of documents that weve requested. Theyre essential. Senator, theres been a little bit of reporting that the white house has a sort of break glass in case of emergency plan when it comes to john bolton, that if there is going to be bolton testimony, theyre going to make sure its deemed classified and the public will, therefore, never have access to it. Do you believe thats in the works and what would you do if they try to do it . Well, im not sure their classification deeming would hold up, number one, but number one two, anytime they try to make it even more secretive, i think theyre going to have to really they would lose so much on the public side of things and probably a good number of republican votes if they tried to do that. But i dont doubt for a minute, rachel, that they will do everything they can, the white house, trump, will do everything he can to stop testimony. But we are fighting the fight since i sent the letter four weeks ago. Weve made witnesses and documents the central issue. Weve won over, as you mentioned, a majority of the American People. If we ke if we keep pushing and fight. I wont bet the house on it but i wont say its not going to happen for sure. Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. Thanks loots. Thank you, byebye. There are four u. S. Senators who are whom the proceedings have a larger opportunity cost than the other 96 senators in that chamber, and they are the four democrats who are contenders for the democratic president ial nomination. They are all the off the campaign trail at this point, so they can fulfill their Constitutional Responsibilities to be in washington. One of those senators is senator elizabeth warren, democrat of massachusetts. She join us now from the capitol. Senator warren, we really appreciate you taking time to join us tonight. I know its been a very long day. Its good to be here with you, though. So you told me when it started to seem this impeachment trial might be convening sometime during the campaign, you told me you had no qualms whatsoever, theres no question, there was no looking back that you would obviously be there and you do your constitutional duty and that you didnt much mind what affect it might have on the campaign. How does it feel now that youre actually living through it . Well, as i said to you back then, some things are bigger than politics, and this is one of them. This is about the impeachment of a sitting president of the United States. I took an oath to uphold the constitution, no one is above the law. And this is our chance to talk about that. And to have this trial. But i have to say, its turned out somewhat differently than the way i thought, and that is how blessed i am with people all across iowa, all across New Hampshire and South Carolina and nevada and across the country who have said let us help out. So people across the country have gone to elizabeth warren. Com and they volunteered and theyve said we can help do some calling or they pitched in five bucks or people have come in to do doorknocking. People are picking it up. Julian and Julian Castro are out for me. I have other surrogates coming in. This is part of what it means when you build a Grassroots Movement and that its not just scooping up money and running tv ads. Its all that time spent out there fighting the fight together. And so now im pinned down here in washington and this is where ive to be and should be. But lots of other people are saying were still in the fight, well carry it forward. Were still there to talk about a government that doesnt work for a thin slice at the top but before all of us its amazing to be a part of. Today was not as long as yesterday, but we know theres going to be long days ahead. I wanted to ask you, given the themes of your campaign and given the way the impeachment is unfolding and its unpredictable nature and some of the surprises weve seen already, do you think there is any possibility that this impeachment ultimately can be less divisive for the country and more unifying for the country . Everybody thinks this is just going to make everything worse in terms of democrats and republicans hating each other and not being able to see the same set of facts with the same set of eyes. Could this process be beneficial to that divide in the country . I think were seeing Something Different unfold. I sat there today and listened to this long, long series of speeches and they were terrific. Our house folks were managing this were just terrific. But lots of details and moving parties and so on. But at its heart, really, a Pretty Simple claim, and that is the president of the United States treated government like, hey, something thats just there to help him and his buddies. Oh, and one of the central actors is this guy who bought an ambassadorship for 1 million. And then spent a big part of his time out there trying to do what the president wanted him to do to squeeze ukraine, to throw some dirt on Donald Trumps political rivals. What really comes through as you hear that is it just corruption, just corruption. Theres no other word for it. And its not just specific to donald trump. Its this notion right now of this whole administration, how, hey, its all about what helps donald trump personally, what helps his business, what helps him political, what helps his friends, how they make money, how they buy and sell in our government, in the things that we do together. And i think this is exactly how we beat them in november. And that is drew draw this contrast that we have had a government that has worked better and better and better for the rich and powerful and theyve just taken it over. That that they truly have p perverted our government. We have this chance, this grassroots moment, this movement where we really have a chance to turn that around and make this government work for everyone else. You know, as you know, one of the first things i did is the biggest anticorruption plan since watergate, and a big part of it has already been introduced administrate house. There are more pieces to it. Think about what that woman would mean, we beat back the influence of money and we do what the American People want as to us do. We can pass a wealth tax and beat back the gun industry and actually do something on gun violence. We can make sure that puerto rico gets the aid that they need. We can do the things we need to do as a country, the things we agree on. We can expand social security. We can actually make government work for the people. I think thats what 2020 is going to be all about. Are there any conversations happening across the aisle . I know you senators are not used to being alone and all of you with assigned seats with no phones and no other work you work do all day long. Are any other conversations cross the aisle. Were not hearing crossparty conversations are happening and it would seem thats been important factor if theres going to be persuasion in either direction . Fair question, but right now its been pretty much the two sides, as you say, deputies talking to democrats, republicans talking to republicans. But part of that is because we are spending so many hours listening. And i got to say, that almost never happens in the United States senate. I mean, people stand up and speak a lot, but mostly people are yak yakking, standing in back and so on. Right now thats not happening. The seriousness of this moment has mostly meant that people are sitting down and listening. And even if theyre not sitting in their seats, as they ought to be, theyre standing up in the back or even in the cloak room where this is all on closed Circuit Television the whole time. In other words, its not it doesnt have the feel of a social moment. It has the feel of an historic moment and the people are paying more attention to the facts. This is one, if we do Pay Attention to the facts, then we will have a fair trial because that means well get the witnesses, well get the documents, and then were on a very different path. Senator elizabeth warren, democrat of massachusetts, leading 2020 parking lot candidate. Thank you so much for your time tonight, senator. Great you have to here. Thank you. We have more ahead this very busy news night. Coming up were going to be joined by a key witness for the democrats in the house on the constitutional underpinningings. A lot more to get to. 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Were back now, honored to have you with us for our continuing coverage. Impeachment trial of president donald trump. Im joined newly here at the desk by my beloved colleague, lawrence odonnell, the host of the last word. Thank you for being here, my friend. Former senator claire mckavlg is with us. Maya wily is here, civil rights attorney and joined by noah feldman, harvard law professor and constitutional expert. He was a witness for the democrats during the Judiciary Committees public hearings as part of the impeachment inquiry. Professor feldman, thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. This is my first chance to talk to you. So i have to ask you questions first. Absolutely. Feel free to toss it to anyone. Is this a trial . You heard a lot of commentator tear saying if theres no evidence its not really a trial. Thats definitional. Are they and judges . Those of us who dont expect this to look like the senate or perry mason. Doesnt look like either. Does it meet your constitutional understanding of what a trial should be. Its close but i dont know its there yet. Bottom line, they are both the jury and the judges, so thats already something unusual. Thats already not the llaw an order perry masonry paradigm. But they have heard witnesses, and thats pretty central to the idea of a trial. In between nonpresident ial kbeefrm impeachments, they always have witnesses. And the fact finding was supposed to happen in the shournts counthouse of representatives is counter to what has always been done. The real facts were always expected to come out in the senate. Why are they making a decision on witnesses . Obviously the democrats tried to make amendments to the resolution to subpoena witnesses yesterday in the outset. Republicans ruled those down. Republicans say they want to make the decision about witnesses after the house impeachment managers have presented the prosecutions case and after the president s counsel have presented the case for the defense. Why would you didecide on witnesses then . Does that have parallel in a real trial . No. Its a clever solution that they came up with because in the clinton trial there was a lot of ambivalence because of what the nature of the testimony was going to be about. It was super embarrassing, as we all recall. So both sides agreed to delay the decision until that point, ultimately. Because they wanted to put it off because they didnt want to make the decision because they were hoping they didnt need a witness. Because it wasnt good an either side. Back in the day when we thought collective embarrassment, there was embarrassment about the content of the testimony. Here the republicans are saying they follow precedent but they are lessening the pressure to have witnesses at all and the democrats are pushing back as strongly as they can against that and hoping they can generate enough support that in the middle of next week when this vote comes the public will say, yeah, we were cheated. We didnt get our trial, so, therefore, bring the witnesses in. If you can get those handful of centrist republicans to make that move, maybe it can happen. The public support for witnesses at the trial is stunning. When the cnn poll said 69 of the public they wanted witnesses at the trial, i said thats an interesting poll, makes me curious about the sample size and the end here. I wanted to know more seems like a terrible poll. And then reuters comes out with another poll that shows support for witnesses even higher. So the public is there. That does, i think, create on the senators. Its a question of how you interpret that. You ask people who arent following the trial, theres a trial, shouldnt there witnesses . They would say yes. Thats an intuitive sense. Lawrence, as somebody who worked in the senate and knows the senate very well, i was asking about how well does this stand up as a trial. How well does this stand up as a senate . The chief justice made the mistake yesterday of calling the senate the worlds most deliberative body, an old title it had for a long time that it lost a long time ago. He didnt say it just as an honor ific. They have not earned it. Im not sure they ever had it, but lets pretend they did. They lost it a long time ago. So as Senate Impeachment trials that ive seen, which there are now exactly two. Youre not supposed to live to see more than one. But this is disgraceful compared to the clinton trial. Really . Disgraceful. The clinton trial was the rules were arrived at with 100 of the senate. The reticence about witnesses was shared as noah just said on both sides. There was nothing every c procedural. The result was not a foregone conclusion, probably was by the time you got to the trial. But as you led up to the trial, there were many Democratic Senators who were searching through this evidence to see how they were going to vote. Were they going to vote for or against their democratic president. We are now talking about a maximum universe of possibly four republican senators. And were not talking about them as considering the possibility of voting against their president in the end. Were talking about the possibility that they might, if they feel especially open to this, they might say yes, this should follow as professor feldman just said, every impeachment trial thats ever come before us and we should have witnesses. And thats the most we are currently hoping for from a universe of four republican senators. Whats your Claire Mccaskill tally . It depends on who the fourth would be. If theres lamar alexander, widely respected in the caucus, retiring, institutionalist whos been part of many negotiations over the years, someone whos tried to hold on, he and Chuck Schumer talk all the time. If he were to break, i think we could get maybe double that. Just a quick parenthetical, whats really important about him breaking, alphabet bly, hes the first senator in the roll call. He votes first. You could have three or four out there after him who were undecided and that would do it. So that would be key. But ive got to agree with lawrence in one important respect. Im not saying the fault is all of Mitch Mcconnell. There is enough blame on both sides of the aisle that have contributed somewhat to the current climate. But he gets a lot of it. Just the senate being lousy . Yeah, and no longer working and it always being about just what the leader wants. He has really heightened the art of controlling his caucus in a very partisan way. I was surprised that nobody broke on those amendments. In the old days, people would have broken on those amendments because its very hard to explain other than thats the way the clintons did it, well, were not going to talk about sex this time. They all know that. These are not stupid people. So it is very disappointing to me that none of the members that i know well that are bright, intelligent, and generally good people did not take a very small, tiny step to say, you know, yeah, we probably would have witnesses and documents. If they decide on witnesses and documents, what they think they would do is they would have this would be a bunch of stuff that didnt happen in front of us, depositions behind closed doors. I dont know if they would be videotaped or not, do we know . They might. They understand that in the clinton case. They did not clinton case. Depositions behind closed doors, all senators would have access to the product of those depositions whether it be a tape or a transcript, and then based on that, they would decide whether or not that witness was going to have live testimony or their deposition was going to used in some way. You expect it would follow the same clinton ways . I think it probably would and that could be a good thing for the house managers, for they prosecution. If we get john boltons testimony, the white house would say executive privilege, hes going to disclose all sorts of secrets about foreign policy, which is obviously absurd, but theyll say that. But i bidoing it behind closed doors, you can solve the privilege questions instead of having to litigate them. Anything secret happened, it happened behind closed doors is no one else is going to know about it. Is that how you see it, maya . Definitely. One of the things thats so important about the point is it goes back to this notion of precedent. Weve only had two impeachment trials in the history of the country, and yet were taking the clinton impeachment and talking about what was very unique. What noahs point about look, the reason this was behind closed doors in the first place was because it was icky. Now its become a precedent that you dont have live witnesses when in the Andrew Johnson trial, you actually have 41. Not to mention judicial judges, that people dont Pay Attention to. So i just think to the extent theyre also looking at precedent, its likely theyre going to treat this precedentlely, but it has very much the advantages. It is remarkable when the clinton impeachment happened, i was sort of am i life was such a thing that i didnt have a tv, i wasnt Pay Attention, i had other stuff going on in my life. But i remember living through that as clearly this is the pointless, nilistic, scorched earth miserableness. And now we are trying to reach those heights again in terms of the bipartisan cooperation that that represented. One more point, though, that i think is really important that comes out of what everyone is saying here. If they dont, if they dont have any evidence come into this trial, we might see this problem on steroids over the next decades because if this gets treated as the new precedent when weve barely had any to speak of outside of judges that no one pays any attention to, then that actually does go to whether its the constitution itself thats on trial and the impeachment power itself thats on trial. If i could say following mayas terrific point there, you know, one of the problems with the precedent is it didnt work well if you dont have enough of it. One is from literally the 1860s, you cant really say you have precedent. You dont really know what to do. And thats why we had this fight act whether there can be witnesses because its been so long since the last impeachment that they can get away with saying no one really remembers what happened, lets make up the rules from scratch. We already know what weve done. But there is no precedent here. One of the things the house managers say if you allow this to happen, they are implying this means a democratic president could do this. No no, it doesnt. The only precedent youre establishing now is the Current Republican Party will not vote to impeach or remove a republican president who does this who is named trump. Thats the only precedent thats been established here. If a democratic president does any of this, every republican would vote for impeachment and removal. So precedent has become a joke in this congress. Well take a break. Thank you, noah feldman, appreciate you being here. Constitutional expert, witness for the democrats during the Judiciary Committee public hearings. Really cool that we had him here. Lots more ahead tonight. Stay with us. Best director, and best picture of the year. When the murrays head to work. Their dog michelangelo gets to work, too. Todays job . Own. The. Bed. Stinkeee. Good thing they use new gain ultraflings with two times the oxi boost and febreze, for ultrabig, ultrastinky loads. Fresh again. Gain. Seriously good scent. And if you love gain flings, youve gotta try the dish soap. And my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. Ahh no, come on. I saw you eating poop earlier. Hey my focus is on the road, and thats saving me cash with drivewise. Whos the dummy now . Whoof whoof so get allstate where good drivers save 40 for avoiding mayhem, like me. Sorry hes a baby . News since weve been ant air tonight. The Trump Administrations blanket refusal to turn over documents for the impeachment trial is facing some new challenges on a number of fronts tonight. First, you should know that the New York Times has filed an interesting brief a compelling brief arguing the white house claiming privilege in order to withhold certain ukrainerelated documents from obm, the times is arguing tonight that those privileged claims are invalid because privilege cant be used to cover up wrongdoing. You will recall the Government Accountability office found withholding aid the ukraine was a violation of the law. So evidence cant be held to cover up the wrongdoing by the government, and so those materials should be made public. That is moving in the courts as of tonight. At the same time, at the end of tonights proceedings, house impeachment manager zoe lofgren brought up an improperly classified piece of testimony from a staffer for Vice President mike pence. Zoe lofgren has read this classified testimony and basically made the case on the floor tonight that theres no good reason for that testimony to be classified. She pointedly said that covering up wrongdoing is not a proper reason to classify something. Chief Justice John Roberts tonight in a somewhat surprising den mont to tonights proceedings allowed that that piece of classified testimony, which he described as a single page of classified testimony, will be made available to senators. Thats not being made available to the public because it is classified. Theres criticism at the fact that it is classified and all 100 senators will now have access to it. Theyll have to go to a secure room, a classified setting in the capitol in order to look at it. I want to bring into the conversation now sherrilyn ifill, counsel at the naacp Legal Defense fund. Great to have you here. Thanks for having me. Let me ask you about the privilege claims here. One of the things thats been interesting over the course of these proceedings is we the public g kekeep getting new information, heavily redacted materials and lots of privilege claims, deliberative privilege claims from the white house in terms of what were allowed to see. Chris hayes was describing that as a battleground here, one of the core issues that were having conflict about in terms of what we know about the president s behavior. Yeah. Its important. The concept of privilege is a core one and a critical one. My fear is that its being used in ways in which it was never meant to be used. Its being used as a blanketed way of simply saying anyone whos ever been in the room with me cant talk to you. My fear is that its distorting the whole concept of privilege, and the use of it i would call it the abuse of privilege, should be concerning. When i watch these arguments and i see all the lawyers, all the senators who are lawyers, you know, in that room and who really know what privilege is and who know what the limitations of privilege are, but who are willing to go along with these arguments that in any other context would recognize. Whether these privilege claims are proper and theyll be adjudicated and somebody will force this and im going to make the courts weigh in on this and were going to force these materials out and then in 2029 somewhere down the road, people who are the next generation of cable tv people will be talking about these Court Rulings and they wont be able to remember what they were about. These things take forever, right . What worries me is we tend to think that were going to be around in 2029 having this kind of conversation and it will be a very different country in 2029 if we dont begin to address it particularly as it relates to the rule of law, some of the excess weve seen. Thats what holds us from one administration to another, from one year to another, from one generation to another as a country. And the topsy turveyness of the rule of law i think suggests that we may be on the road to this being a very different country. When we get to this place where this is all going to be washed out, it may not matter because we just may be in a very different place as a republic. We may be right now pretty much exactly one year away from every single document thats in contention now being released immediately to the congress, which, if theres a new president sworn in on Inauguration Day next year, that afternoon all of this will happen. The president s tax returns will immediately be sent from the irs to the chairman of the ways and means committee. Those senators and house members, but especially these senators should know that they are now possibly one year away from the full release of every single document thats in contention here, and their votes will be measured against that information when it comes out a year from now. The chance theyre taking, the presumption is that its not going to be a different president. And theyre taking that chance, i think, in some measure because of what we see today. Some people are forgetting that this actually is about the integrity of the 2020 election. Theres legislation like the shield act, which was sponsored by zoe lofgren thats designed to prevent foreign governments from being able to get campaign information, disclosures of foreign governments and political advertisements and so forth, and all those bills, there are about ten bills. Theyre sitting in the senate. Senate leadership will not allow those bills to move that are designed to protect our election. So the chance some people are taking is that they wont have to worry about what happens in january of next year and its important, especially for someone like me whos working on voter suppression, when we watch this, that were not just talking about the personal political fate of President Trump or any of the senators in the room. Were talking about the integrity of our elections. People may come out in droves, in our elections are not protected, if they can be hacked, if for any reason governments can do same thing thats been done in the past, these are all issues that go to the very heart of our democracy. For the people that i represent who struggled for decades and centuries to have the ability to be full citizens and participate in the political process, you know, all of the political talk, what undergurds it is our ability to participate as full citizens. Thats what makes us a democracy and ultimately thats what this is all about and we just cant lose sight of that. Adam schiff going so far in what appeared to be an ad lib to call these proceedings about the president cheating, using that phrase cheating, that he was trying to trig next election, thats going to be on the front page nationwide tomorrow. I think he did get he went out on a rhetorical limb by being aggressive on that point and put that squarely at the center of the narrative. Were going to take one quick break because were going to come back with a reaction from another senator who we have just wrangled on the way out the door from the capitol tonight. Stay with us. Well be right back. Its not some foreign thing that looks like something weve been fighting on the war on terror. Its as american as anything, and it is an excess tintial threat to the multiracial, pluralistic, equal, and open democracy that weve been fighting for in this country since people died on the battlefield in the civil war. Yo. With chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting. Chantix reduces the urge so when the day arrives, youll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. When you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking, or lifethreatening allergic and skin reactions. Decrease alcohol use. Use caution driving or operating machinery. Tell your doctor if youve had Mental Health problems. The most common side effect is nausea. Quit smoking slow turkey. Talk to your doctor about chantix. In 2016 i warned thatt donald trump was a dangerous demagogue, and when the Republican Congress wouldnt hold him accountable, i went to work helping run winning campaigns in twentyone house seats. Its time for the senate to act and remove trump from office, and if they wont do their jobs, this november you and i will. Im Mike Bloomberg and i approve this message. Managing lipids like very high tryou diet. Exercise. Tough. But if youre also taking fish oil supplements. You should know. They are not fda approved. They may have saturated fat and may even raise bad cholesterol. To treat very high triglycerides, discover the science of prescription vascepa. Proven in multiple clinical trials, vascepa, along with diet is the only prescription epa treatment, approved by the fda to lower very high triglycerides by 33 , without raising bad cholesterol. Look. Its clear, theres only one prescription epa vascepa. Vascepa is not right for everyone. Do not take vascepa if you are allergic to icosapent ethyl or any inactive ingredient in vascepa. Tell your doctor if you are allergic to fish or shellfish, have liver problems or other medical conditions and about any medications you take, especially those that may affect blood clotting. 2. 3 of patients reported joint pain. Prescription power. Proven to work. Now with a new indication. Ask your doctor about vascepa. Let us pray. Sovereign god, author of liberty, we gather in this Historic Chamber for the solemn responsibility of these impeachment proceedings. Give wisdom to the distinguished chief Justice John Roberts as he presides. Joining us now is senator Chris Van Hollen, democrat from maryland. He spent the day in the Senate Chamber for the impeachment. I should also mention it was senator van holl whoen requested the gao investigation into whether the white house broke the law by withholding to ukraine. The g. A. O. Found they did. Thank you for being with us. I know its been a long day. Long days turning into the night. There will be longer days ahead too. So i hope youre eating your vitamins. Let me start by asking you how you think the last two days have gone and what your impression was today in terms of the house impeachment managers making the case. Well, rachel, i thought that the house managers put on a mountain of evidence to support their case today. And i think a lot of republican senators were not paying close attention to what had been happening in the house. They kind of had dismissed it as a partisan affair. But now theyre having to face facts. Theyre having to face testimony that was taken under penalty of perjury. And the house managers have done a really good job of undermining some of the president s claimed defenses. Right . I mean, the notion of a perfect letter. And theyre pointing out that everybody who listened in on this letter has to go find a lawyer. They talked about how zelensky said he didnt feel any pressure. And make the point that in fact they felt a lot of pressure. And of course it would be crazy for zelensky to say publicly he was pressured given the vindictiveness of this president. And other areas as well. The whole notion that the president cared about corruption when he essentially fired and got rid of our ambassador, marie yovanovitch,s because she was a corruption crusader, and that laid the way for the president to implement his scheme. I thought they did a really good job. And the president s counsels is going to have a really tough choice because either theyre going to have to accept these facts or try and contest the facts. And if they contest the facts theyre just going to make the case Even Stronger for the need for witnesses and documents to resolve any differences. Senator val hollen, its lawrence odonnell. If you do get john bolton into a deposition, which apparently would be the first stage of testifying in the way Mitch Mcconnell sees it anyway, if he reveals things that would interest you in other witness or another witness who is not currently on your list of witnesses that you hoped for, do you believe procedurally that you would have an option, a way of coming out of that john bolton deposition and then asking for a subpoena for someone else . Well, thats the big question, lawrence. Whether were going to get any witness like john bolton and whether were able to follow the trail of incriminating evidence to other witnesses. Which is exactly why last night the last amendment we proposed was an amendment that i put forward essentially saying that the chief justice should make the decisions in the first instance on motions for witnesses and motions for documents. You would think if our Senate Republican colleagues wanted an impartial proceeding they would support that. And when they voted against that they made it very clear they want to rig this process. Now, i may offer that amendment again later in this process if we get witnesses. And lets let the chief justice decide just like the judge in every trial around the country decides what evidence comes in, whats probative and whats not. And republicans may have voted against this once but i think theyre getting a lot of questions about why theyre unwilling to take the chief justice of the United States, who by the way was nominated by a republican president. Senator Chris Van Hollen of maryland. We know its been a long day. Tomorrow will be another. Thank you so much for being here tonight. We really appreciate it. Thank you. It is only because of senator van hollen that we know that the effort to withhold the aid from ukraine was illegal. Weve heard a lot of argument, rebuttal from the republican side, from the president s side, that theres no crime been alleged, that theres no illegal act that has been alleged here. It has made me wonder whether or not theyd consider charge them with conspiracy to violate the impoundment control act, which would be a criminal act. That would be up to the attorney general. A problem there. You could bring that as an additional article of impeachment or something at this point. The fact that awful these things are still being fought over in this way and to this degree and that this stuff is still being pride loogs even at this late stage its a very, very active investigation with a very kind of active Evidence Base as if it has volcanoes in it. It is. Were in the middle of it. Much more ahead with us here tonight. Stay with us. Much more ahead wie tonight. Stay with us [sneezing] you dont want to cancel your plans. [sneezing] cancel your cold. The 1pill power of advil multisymptom cold flu knocks out your worst symptoms. Cancel your cold, not your plans. Advil multisymptom cold flu. When you look at the world, what do you see . Where others see chaos, we see patterns. Connections. Relationships. When you use location technology, you can see where things happen, before they happen. With esri location technology, you can see what others cant. Which is why Xfinity Mobile data,is a different kindent. Of Wireless Network that lets you design your own data. Choose unlimited, shared data, or mix lines of each and switch any line, anytime. Giving you more choice and control compared to top wireless carriers. Save up to 400 a year when you switch. Plus, save even more with 150 off galaxy a70. Click, call or visit a store today. Well, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 1,098 of the Trump Administration. 286 days to go until the 2020 president ial election. House democrats started their marathon opening oral arguments in the impeachment trial, laying out why they believe donald trump should be ousted from the white house. The impeachment managers from the house have a total of 24 hours over three days to make their case. Today importantly they used about seven hours 15 minutes. Their al