President of finland. And the president of finland, honestly, did nothing to deserve this. The next u. S. President will presumably need to do like a big state dinner for finland, or maybe just send them a nice flower arrangement to make up for what their president today had to sit through and get roped into at the white house alongside President Trump who was really having a very emotional sort of out of control over the top day. Part of what appears to have set off the president may be the no Uncertain Terms on which the house is now moving ahead with these impeachment proceedings against him. Late last night the heads of three house committees that are involved in the impeachment, they wrote to, and i think this is important, the number two official at the state department. They didnt write to the number one official, secretary of state mike pompeo. They wrote to the number two guy under him at the department saying this. Dear mr. Deputy secretary. We are writing to you because secretary pompeo now appears to have an obvious conflict of interest. They go on to describe reports that secretary pompeo was himself a participant in the call in which President Trump solicited help from a foreign country from ukraine against joe biden ahead of the 2020 election. The chairs say, quote, if true, secretary pompeo is now a fact witness in the impeachment inquiry. He should not be making any decisions regarding witness testimony or document production in order to protect himself or the president. Since this letter went out late last night, secretary pompeo has confirmed that those reports are true, that he was a participant on that call for which the president is now being impeached. They continue, any effort by pompeo to prevent witnesses from testifying or withhold documents from the committees shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the impeachment inquiry. Then they say this. Because clearly they are not playing. The chairman pointing out to the number two official at the state department that if officials at that department like, say you, for example, mr. Deputy secretary, if any officials at the state department interfere with the impeachment inquiry, if they, say, block witnesses from testifying, the Committee Chairman warned the deputy secretary those officials, quote, may be subjected to liability. Excuse me, may be subject to liability under several federal statutes, including one that could result in five years in prison for obstructing congress inquiry. This was late last night. Secretary pompeo, you yourself, sir, are up to your neck in this impeachment scandal. You are conflicted because you are implicated in it. You should, therefore, not be making decisions about anything having to do with the inquiry into this matter as far as the state department goes, and, you know, here is the people running the impeachment inquiry writing to the lower level officials at the state department, his deputy saying pompeo shouldnt be involved in the decisions at all. You should be making these decisions. If you are thinking about interfering or trying to block witnesses the way pompeo has been threatening, that may put you in violation of federal laws that would put you in prison for breaking them. So think hard about that. So that was the signal late last night, the sort of were not playing around here signal from congress in terms of this impeachment proceeding. That were not playing around here theme was made explicit today by the one Committee Chairman who is heading up the inquiry as it moves forward. Any effort by the secretary, by the president or anyone else to interfere with the congress ability to call before it relevant witnesses will be considered as evidence of obstruction of the lawful functions of congress. They just need to know that even as they try to zwruundermine ou ability to find the facts around the president s effort to coerce a foreign leader to create dirt that he can use against the political opponent, that they will be strengthening the case on obstruction if they behave that way. Were not fooling around here. Were not fooling around here. That is evident in the way they are talking about these proceedings now. Again now in their ninth day, and in how they are pursuing these proceedings. Tomorrow congress is expecting to depose President Trumps special envoy to ukraine who, depending who you believe, was either suddenly fired or he suddenly resigned late last week after his name surfaced in the whistleblowers complaint about what the president did with ukraine. Today a federal judge elicited a commitment from the Justice Department that the Trump Administration will not destroy and will properly retain all records of the president s meetings, calls, and other communications with foreign leaders, documents about the administrations Record Keeping practices and policies and all records about efforts by the white house or other executive Branch Officials to claw back or otherwise limit access to records about officials communications with foreign leaders. So no morlocking this stuff up. Certainly no destroying it. This is a voluntary commitment to the court to do this, to preserve these records and make sure they are preserved frorl. I have to tell you the Justice Department only made this voluntary commitment today that these records would be preserved. They only made this in the face of the all but certain prospect that a federal judge was going to hu an emergency restraining order forcing the administration to retain those records of the president s calls with foreign leaders and any record of how those materials like that are being handled. You can see why its a very p p propicious night to have Hillary Clinton here. Somebody who has seen these things from so many different angles, including as secretary of state. Before that, there are two specific things that have broken tonight that are both on their own gobsmacking, and these are both stories we are expecting to keep developing. Both of them since i sat down and started talking to you, i have been handed new developments on both of them. So its clear these stories will continue developing through the night, including this hour. The first of these two stories concerning Vice President pence. Its this front page story in the Washington Post. The byline is greg miller, greg jaffe and ashley parker. The headline here, i mean, its sort of a plot twist this this impeachment story. Quote, trump involved pence in efforts to pressure ukraines leader. It wasnt just the president. It was the Vice President. And this is a fascinating story. I think this will go down as a landmark story in the saga from the Washington Post tonight because it involves not only an account of Vice President pences involvement in the very simple scandal for which President Trump is now being impeach impeached. It includes lots of sort of spin and anonymous claims from Vice President pences camp, people sort of trying to defend him, and on the other side from Unnamed White House officials who are clearly not in camp pence, who are clearly trying to let it be known that pence was part of this scheme. And so this article represents to some degree a little of the human drama here at the top which may be allies of the president and allies of the Vice President turning against each other as these impeachment proceedings go forward. From the post, President Trump repeatedly involved Vice President pence in efforts to exert pressure on the leader of ukraine. Following trumps july 25th phone wall, President Trump used pence to tell president zelenskiy that u. S. Aid was still being withheld while demanding more aggressive action on corruption. At that time, again immediately following trumps call with zelenskiy where he asked for help against joe biden, quote, the ukrainians probably understood action on corruption to include the investigation of former Vice President joe biden for which President Trump had earlier pressed them. So the basic timeline is that President Trump personally intervenes to withhold military aid from ukraine. He then also withholds further support from ukraine in ways that are important to their new president. Not just in terms of military aid, but denying them visible signs of support from the u. S. Government, including white house trip or a meeting with President Trump or call with President Trump that they could announce. Denying ukraine that sort of support, denying them the military aid. When trump finally got on the call with the president of ukraine in late july we know from the white house, that call that they released, that President Trump heard the specific request from president zelenskiy for military assistance for his country. Trump responded immediately by saying i would like you to do us a favor though. He then immediately asked the president of ukraine to, among other things, take Law Enforcement action involving his potential 2020 political rival joe biden. That very simply is what President Trump is being impeached for. We know from the Washington Post after that call where President Trump asked ukraine for help in his to 20 effort against joe biden, we know that after that call the person from the u. S. Government who went over to ukraine and reiterated to that same president , hey, you are not getting u. S. Military aid unless you carry out these investigations, that person was Vice President mike pence and he did it in person. And if you step back from this, that means that if President Trump is going to get impeached for this, President Trump is going to get impeached for this, it kind of looks like Vice President pence did the exact same thing, except in his role in this he may have been even more explicit in threatening ukraine with with holding of military aid unless they did what trump was asking them. Now, the spin here and the sort of attempted defense by allies of the Vice President is a little bit labored. Quote, officials close to pence insist that he was unaware of trumps efforts to pressure zelenskiy for damaging information about biden. That means Vice President pence is conceding, he is admitting to telling the president of ukraine that their military aid was being withheld. He admitted to tying that to demands that they do some sort of investigation related to some sort of corruption. But he is trying to say that he didnt realize when he was pressing them about investigations having to do with corruption that that might have been perceived as a demand having something to do with joe biden. Thats the limits of the Vice President s defense here. How credible is the Vice President s defense here . Why might mike pence conceivably have known about this demand recently made by President Trump . That ukraine needed to give him something he could work with against biden for 2020 . How could mike pence have possibly have known about the content of that conversation between President Trump and zelenskiy and trump pressing zelenskiy specifically to give him something on biden . How could pence have known about that . Well, quote, perhaps most significantly, one of pences top advisors was on the july 25th call between President Trump and president zelenskiy when trump made that specific ask about joe biden. Also quote, the Vice President would have had access to the transcript of that call within hours of it taking place. And now heres where we get the anonymous white house officials throwing Vice President mike pence under the bus. Quote, white house Officials Say pence likely would have received detailed notes of the president s call with zelenskiy in his Daily Briefing book on july 26th just one day after the call took place. Those same officials also telling tthe Washington Post tonight that that detailed record of the president s call with zelenskiy, which we have all seen now, which shows President Trump plainly pressuring zelenskiy to give him dirt on biden, that fivepage document should also have been part of the briefing materials that pence was given to take with him to warsaw to prepare for his own meeting with the ukrainian president. Quote, officials close to pence contend that he did travel to warsaw for a meeting with zelenskiy on september 1st, but these officials close to pence say that pence did travel to that meeting, quote, probably without having read or at least fully registered the transcript of trumps call with the leader of ukraine. So this is the Vice President s defense against his own impressive, i guess . First, he didnt know about it. Yes, one of his top advisors was on the call. Yes, the Vice President had access to the transcript of that call. Yes, the transcript of that call was given to him the day after the call. Yes, the transcript of that call was dwich to him again as he was preparing to talk to that leader overseas. Yes, the Vice President s allies concede that it is possible that the Vice President actually read the transcript of that call. But even if he read it, who is to say whether or not it registered . Who is to say whether or not it sunk in to that big brain . Thats the defense . Quote, in his meeting with zelenskiy, pence conveyed the news that hundreds of millions of dollars in u. S. Aid to ukraine was not going to be released amid concerns about the countrys lagging efforts to combat corruption. We will not give you this military aid unless you do something on corruption. Quote, at that point ukraines president had already spoken to trump and was familiar with the president s demands, which were, once again, that ukraine needed to investigate joe biden. Come up with some sort of corruption investigation about biden that trump could use for his election. So the sort of open and shut nature of the impeachment proceeding against President Trump now is he has been caught. He admits, the white house has provided the evidence that President Trump really did call a foreign leader and solicit help from the government in producing something he could use against one of his democratic rivals. Open, shut. Thats what he is going to be impeachment impeached for. There are a number of things around what President Trump did that make it worse, right . Including the fact that he had just personally intervened to block hundreds of millions of dollars to military aid going to ukraine right before he made this demand on them about what kind of favor he needed from them. And, in fact, he raised the prospect of what he needed as favors from ukraine immediately in conversation right after the ukrainian president asked him about the military aid, right . So thats bad as a contexttual matter in terms of the way the president handled this. He was holding the military aid. Oh, you want military aid . Do me a favor though. The president is already there. When it comes to the Vice President though, it appears to be more direct. Vice president mike pence appears to be the pro in between the quid and the quo. He appears to have been the one responsible for explicitly linking the issue of this military aid with ukraines behavior on, quote, corruption. At that point the Vice President had every reason to know was a direct followup to the president demanding help versus biden for 2020. In his defense, to, i guess, potentially being impeached himself on these matters, if his defense is that he definitely didnt know that biden had come up in the discussions with the ukraine, i mean, except for his advisor listening on the call, except for him having access to the transcript of the call, except for him being given the notes of that call, except for him being given the notes of that call again, except for his advisors admitting he probably read the notes from the call explicitly about joe biden, but maybe he didnt get it . I mean, that is not the worlds strongest defense. But that is what the Vice President is leading with. That feels like an important new development. That is just breaking from the Washington Post. One other one. The other story that has broken late today, which we dont have total clarity about, but it seems bad and its continuing to break over the course of tonight, its a story that we tried to give you a heads up about last night on the show. It involves this unusual request from the Inspector General at the state department who yesterday contacted a whole bunch of congressional committees and told them that he had an urgent request for them. He needed to see the committees right away today to give them documents concerning the state department and ukraine, which of course relates to the impeachment proceedings underway involving the president. Well, the Inspector General for the state department delivered that briefing to the committees today. So we have now seen what some of these documents are. And you can, therefore, feast your eyes upon this. Have you seen this yet today . Have you seen the visual . This is not like something we con dkt cobbed to make this look crazy. This is the real thing. This is the envelope in which these documents were reportedly delivered which means i think the perpetrator we are looking for here might be a producer of wedding invitations. Do you see that . Secretary pompeo, attention ruth. We think that is secretary pompeos secretary. Somebody who knew her well enough to call her by her first name. In the upper lefthand corner, the return address, the white house in this calligraphy. He was in on this briefing today, and as i said, we are not entirely clear what this sort of information is, but as best as we can piece it together from nbc news reporting, from some cnn reporting that broke tonight, from comments made by congressman raskin, the best we can piece this together, and i reserve the right for this story to evolve, what we can best piece together tonight is that the Inspector General from the state department went it Congress Today to hand over a packet of information which had apparently arrived at the state department in this weird envelope with calligraphy on it. It is material which purports to have originated at the white house. The stuff was apparently sent over from the white house to secretary of state mike pompeos office in may of this year via his secretary, ruth. Congressman raskin today described it as a packet of propaganda, disinformation, and conspiracy theories, indicating he does not think highly of the content of this pact of information. Nbc news has published some of the images. These pages appear to bolster that description of this being Conspiracy Theory stuff involving ukraine. But based on the timing and conse content of this material and the weird way it was delivered from the white house to secretary of state pompeos office and then it ended up in the hands of the Inspector General who ultimately felt Like Congress needed to see it given the impeachment proceedings underway, the forst emerging here is that this stapled and calligraphiednd a highlighted stack of nonsense printed out from the internet may have been the grounds on which mike pompeo and the state department basically fired the u. S. Ambassador to ukraine. This veteran nonpolitical career diplomat who, in the middle of all this, was randomly yanked abo yanked back from her posting. She was recalled early from that post just as this campaign appears to have started in the white house to put this incredible pressure on ukraine to get that government to help trump get elected. In congressman raskin described this material today as a material that appeared to have been designed to sabotage the u. S. Ambassador in her job in ukraine. Nbc news says the Inspector General characterized this material. He handed it over to Congress Today as, quote, what he knows about the circumstances surrounding the abrupt recall of the former ambassador to ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. This packet was 50 pages, including lots of wild right wing conspiracy theories about the ambassador that are all debunked but have been circulating in right wing media. And if this is in fact what mike pompeo was circulating at the top levels of the state department, if this is, in fact, what was delivered to him from the white house and then circulated within the state department ahead of Marie Yovanovitch being fired, if this was, in fact, the basis for the recall of that u. S. Ambassador, while the president and the Vice President were simultaneously trying to press gang the government of that country into helping out President Trump in his potential campaign against joe biden in 2020, i mean, the fact that, you know, that whats in this packet of material handed over to Congress Today by the i. G. , the fact that its a bunch of nonsense sort of makes it more relevant and not less because it tells you how they are running the place. It raises further serious questions about mike pompeo, who may turn out to be in as much trouble as the president and potentially the Vice President. According this the Inspector General today, there is a Senior State Department official who talked to the Inspector General about this material. According to the senior Justice Department official, he informed the Inspector General that secretary pompeo told him this packet came over, this pile of disinformation and conspiracy theories about the ambassador to ukraine, quote, came over. The official presumed that meant that it came over from the white house. That Senior State Department official who talked to the Inspector General about this material has already given that information to the Inspector General. He is obviously a key witness for whatever is going on with ukraine and the white house and the state department, which is now the basis of this impeachment proceedings. That official is also, dingdingding, one of the state Department Officials mike pompeo has been trying to block from testifying this week in the impeachment proceedings against the president. Congress asked for a deposition with him. He is one of the people mike pompeo is trying to block from testifying. I wonder why he wants to keep that guy from testifying . So the president is freaking out. Fine. A day that ends in y. The impeachment proceedings are ramping up. The administration is legally required to preserve all records of the president s meetings an phone calls with foreign leaders which they have been occasionally hiding on a stand alone high security server thats supposed to be reserved for things like covert actions. The Vice President , mike pence, appears according to this report in the Washington Post appears have committed the same offense for which the president is about to be impeached. His defense is, who me . I didnt know anything. Now the paper trail is starting to emerge for what substituted for normal government policy towards that part of the world. Towards that specific country while the president was trying to enlist that countrys government in his reelection effort, which is illegal. It is littill legal to solicit foreign help with a u. S. Election. It is also the grounds on which trump is being to be impeached. We know that congress in the impeachment proceedings has the names and has already planned depositions from a bunch of the key people direct witnesses to what happened here, including a number of them from the department of state. Other than that, a pretty normal day. Former secretary of state, former democratic president ial nominee Hillary Clinton is going to join us here live next. Its a good night for it, right . Well be right back. melissa somebody would ask her something and she would just walk right past them because she didnt know they were talking to her. deborah i just could not hear. I was hesitant to get the hearing aids because of my short hair, but nobody even sees them. avo our nearly invisible hearing aids are just one reason weve been the brand leader for over 70 years. deborah when i finally could hear for the first time, i started crying. I could hear everything. avo get special anniversary savings and your chance to win a seven day hawaiian cruise. Call 1800miracle today. Pain happens. Saturdays happen. Aleve it. Aleve is proven better on pain than tylenol. When pain happens, aleve it. All day strong. Interview is former secretary of state, former first lady, democratic president ial nominee Hillary Clinton. She has a book out with her daughter Chelsea Clinton called the book of gutsy women, favorite stories of courage and resilience. It is stoppitopping the charts. How are you . The last time you were here, the Mueller Report had just come out. I asked you how you were doing and you said personally things were great, but you said as an american you were feeling, and i quote, oh my gosh. Yes. Are you still feeling oh my gosh. Now ten alarm oh my goshs. Really . Yeah. I mean, i think this incredible series of events that we are living through right now are overwhelming in their intensity and velocity, but they also are so sad and distressing to have a government that is now engaged in behavior that puts our National Security at risk in order to further the president s personal and political interests. It is tragic. So everything youre doing and others who are actually reporting on it is so necessary. In terms of the National Security risk here, obviously what the president did and has copped to, about becaubecause in the white house records that were released, tells us something about what he was trying to do. In terms of the danger here, the president did put our support for ukraine in a way that made it contingent. He also has seemingly deliberately reduced public impressions that the u. S. Supported ukraine. He denied them a white house visit until he could promise he could get what he wanted. Why is that dangerous . What can you tell the American People about why its important for us to support ukraine . First of all, look what he did. He, obviously, used taxpayer funded assistance, passed by the congress on a bipartisan basis, to both threaten an intimidate the new president of ukraine, to investigate his political opponents for the purpose of advancing his own reelection. Now, that has so many elements in it and its one of the reasons why i think its broken through to the American People. It also is troubling that ukraine has been a subject of constant pressure from Vladimir Putin and the russian interests in ukraine. So you have the Trump Administration, the president , the Vice President , others actually pressuring a new president who has a part of his country invaded and occupied by russian troops, and putting this poor new president in this vice. You think you are going to get military aid from us . Well, we have a favor to ask of you. Now, we know that the aggressiveness of putin has been unchecked and, in fact, i would argue actually accelerated in both rhetoric and potential adverse actions to our interests because of what trump has made clear that he supports and looks to Vladimir Putin. So ukraine is a very specific example of what is at stake. But i dont think its the only example that we could find if we looked at the transcripts of the calls with Vladimir Putin, for example. We still have no notes, no reporting about the many meetings and the many calls. We do know that in the oval office early in his term trump basically said to the foreign secretary of russia, sergey lavrov, to the then ambassador, kislyak, hey, i dont mind that interference in the election, winkwink. So this is about ukraine, but ukraine is the canary in the coal mine about what this president and his allies have been up to. One of the revelations brought to light by this impeachment scandal is white house lawyers appear to have directed an effort to hide transcripts of the president s phone calls with foreign leaders, including the zelenskiy call in question, including we reportedly calls with putin, calls with the leader of saudi arabia, and others. For me it raises this interesting question because i feel like as a civilian watching these things, just as an american who tries to follow these matters, i am not sure how much we should ever expect to see. And so im troubled by these reports that there is an effort in the white house involving lawyers in particular trying to hide this stuff in places where it doesnt belong. But how do you see this in terms of what sorts of communications should be shown to the public . You said youd like to see transcripts of his calls with Vladimir Putin. What of those things should we see and what should be kept secret . The understanding i have of this particular call, and the way calls operate is, you know, pretty elaborate. If you are going to have a call between our president and a president leader of another country, there is a whole process before that call is placed. People are prepping and briefing. They are trying to figure out what is the goal of the call. What is the foreign leader want, what do we want in return, what are we talking about. So the president is given talking points and people are in the room usually. Whatever appropriate personnel from the white house or maybe other agencies. So the call is placed. The call is made, and the call is usually listened to or, at the very least, quickly reported out. Now, this is part of the transparency we should expect. Maybe not the exact words, but the fact that our president spoke to Vladimir Putin or spoke to, you know, the president of ukraine. Thats part of the information that the rest of the government, that the congress of the American Public and press deserve to see. You dont have to have the exact wording, but what happened here from the report of the call itself that came out of the white house, plus the whistleblower complaint, is there was nothing classified. There was nothing that should have been kept from the rest of the government. This was embarrassing and potentially impeachable because of the way the president was pressuring the president of ukraine. And, of course, there can be very serious calls that never see the light of day until 30, 40 years from now. But this was not one of those. This was hidden by the white house lawyers because somebody in that room who was observing the call or hearing the president s end of the call went, oh, what are we going to do . What did he just say . We cant let anybody see that. So instead of circulating the call, because there are a lot of people working in the Defense Department about the military aid. There are people in the state department who want to know whats happening with ukraine. We better deep six this. Put it on the most classified system, the place where you would keep information about the raid on Osama Bin Laden in the prior administration, and dont let anybody see it. That as much as the call itself is what bothered the whistleblower. If you read the complaint, he spends, or she, whoever it is, spends time saying, look, here is the substance, which bothered me, but then heres what they did with it. So, yeah, some calls you are not going to see. Certainly in any contemporaneous way. Other calls, they should be shared with the people working on the problems and the rest of the government. If there were white house lawyers or officials who directed that kind of effort, what did he say, we need to hide this, which is what the whistleblower is indicating, should those officials bear some consequences from that . I dont know that what they did is illegal, but certainly it seems improper. It certainly deserves questioning. Thats whats going on with the impeachment inquiry. I was on the staff of the 1974 impeachment inquiry, and you should follow every thread to see where it leads and you should look at anything that could amount to abuse of power or obstruction of justice or contempt of congress. If people were a part of it, as they were in the nixon administration, then, yes, they should be held accountable. If the Justice Department wont bring charges for anything that turns up in the impeachment investigation, they are not going to charge the president no matter what he does clearly, but if other officials up to and including the Vice President are found in this impeachment inquiry to have obstructed justice, to have destroyed records, to have lied to investigators, any other number of things that may turn up, if this Justice Department under william barr says we are not bringing prosecutions on any of these things, are there any further remedies . It starts to feel laike there will never be consequences. That depends. It depends who is in the white house and who is at the Justice Department in 2021. Thats why the stakes of this election have just exponentially increased because what were dealing with is a constitutional crisis. And i have said over and over again, we have got to be able to do two things as democrats. We have to be able to have a deliberative, serious pursuit of the impeachment inquiry. We have to continue to make our case about all of the bills that the house, democrats have passed that have gone to the senate to die and, you know, Mitch Mcconnells graveyard. We have to do both of those things simultaneously. But if there were to be a change in administration and certainly a change in attorney general, because what were seeing with this particular attorney general is full throated support of every Conspiracy Theory that could possibly hurt democrats and help this president , which is deeply disturbing to those of us who remember attorney generals quitting over a president trying to order them to deep six evidence back in the nixon administration. So i think that there will be consequences, depending upon, you know, how this impeachment inquiry plays out. And lets not forget that the evidence right now is very damning. The American Public really grasps that. This is an abuse of power that has broken through. So if its determined by the house that they are going to present articles of impeachment, that puts a lot of republican senators up for reelection in a very tough spot. So i dont think we are anywhere near the number of scenarios that could be played out from this day forward in the investigation. We will be back with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Stay with us. Hillary clinton. Stay with us saturdays happen. Pain happens. Aleve it. Aleve is proven better on pain than tylenol. When pain happens, aleve it. All day strong. Pain happens. Saturdays happen. Aleve it. Aleve is proven better on pain than tylenol. When pain happens, aleve it. All day strong. Barbara jordan in many ways had an unparalleled keir rear. 1966th first africanamerican elected to the texas senate. By 72 the First Southern black woman serving in the house of representatives. By 76she was the first woman and first africanamerican keynote speaker at a democratic convention. But what made Barbara Jordan a household name was the nixon impeachment inquiry. Here she was in her first term in office which is important here serving as a member of the Judiciary Committee while considering whether or not to impeach nixon. Nobody knew at that point how th that Committee Vote would turn out, but this speech sta s. T. A. R. T. Ed to make it clear. Earlier today we heard the beginning of the preamble to the constitution of the united states. We, the people, its a very eloquent beginning, but when that document was con completed completed on the 17th of september in 1787, i was not included in that we the people. I felt many years George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation and Court Decision i have finally been included in we the people. Today i am an inquiz tore, an hyperbole would not understate the soul upness that i feel right now. My faith in the constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and i am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the demlution, the destruction of the constitution. Hilly rodham was a young staffer on that committee. She wroets in her new book that commanding rhetoric, passion and moral clarity she says brought tears to her eyes. Back with us is secretary of state 2016 democratic president ial nominee Hillary Clinton. Thank you. And congratulations on this. Thank you. The book of gutsy women, is an encyclopedia of gutsy woman. It could have been a lot longer. There are a lot of women who certainly deserve to be in it. But it was an effort by my daughter and myself to highlight some of the women that we were inspired by. And i was listening to that clip of Barbara Jordans speech during the hearing on articles of impeachment against president nixon and i remember watching it as a young staffer on the impeachment inquiry and it did bring me to tears. Its worth repeating, i am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the sub version, the destruction of the constitution. I think thats the time we are in now, too, rachel. I talked earlier before the break about the fact that the American People are very focused and are very able to sort of grock it get their heads around this claim is for which President Trump looks likely to be impeached. You talked about the need to follow the questions where they lead and figure out who else was involved and whether other serious abuses were committed. How do you think of this in terms of how long this process should last . How directly the house should go at the president s conduct thats already been in some ways tightly defined in terms of what he did that he should be impeached for . I think the speaker made it very clear its going to proceed expeditiously. I cannot put a timetable on it. I went to work in the impeachment inquiry staff in january of 1974, and there was a lot else going on. There had been lots of hearings. There was a Senate Select committee that the thencentsen from alabama, as i recall, was chairing, and there had been or north carolina, and there had been a grand jury. There was a lot of to other activity. It wasnt until the tapes were finally released. And remember what happened. The Nixon White House tried to provide edited versions of the tapes. Right. One of my jobs, along with other lawyers on the staff, was to sit in a soundproof booth with great big earphones on and listen to the tapes, look at what the white house said the tapes said, and see what it actually said. Correct, essentially, their mistakes in the transcripts . Exactly. Were those transcripts dleb literally constructed by the white house to be more exculpatory than they were . Thats our conclusion. By july is when Barbara Jordan was making that speech. Remember, republicans on the Judiciary Committee voted for those articles of impeachment because it was so clear how wrong it was, the abuse of power, obstruction of justice, contempt of congress that was going on at that time. There were so many other officials caught up in what happened in watergate. I was thinking this week about John Mitchell who was president nixons attorney general who went to prison for 17 months because of watergateera abuses exposed through this. He was loyal to nixon to the very end. Right. Went to prison himself. Otherhimself. Other cabinet officials were implicated. Right now it seems like both the vicepresident and the attorney general and the secretary of state, mike pompeo, your successor at the state department, may themselves have been at least aware, if not participants in what the president is going to be impeached for here. As a former cabinet secretary, do you have advice on the right way to comport yourself in this situation . I mean, they do all seem like theyre up to their necks. Well, i think what many in the Nixon White House and administration concluded was the right thing to do was tell the truth. Tell the truth. And that would be advice that should be given to anybody caught up in this because its clear that the president has made a series of decisions to benefit himself and his political fortunate at the expense of other matters in our government. And the people you point to are certainly aware of that. Think of all the people who have left. And one of the people who left early on, someone who was on the National Security council, mr. Bossert, i think. Umhmm. He basically said, look, we tried to convince the president not to buy into all these wild conspiracy theories that people like giuliani and others were pushing at him. And he bought it. He bought all of the conspiracy theories, all of the crazy wacky ideas about all of the, you know, things that were being done to him and now hes on this pursuit of trying to prove that russias systematic and sweeping influence in our election didnt happen because people who he wants to have around him now have totally free reign. Others who were trying to pull him back, trying to say no, mr. President , theres no evidence of that, theyre gone. So those who are left and i hope some of the republicans in the house, and particularly in the senate, need to start thinking about putting country over party. We have Margaret Chase smith in this book. Margaret chase smith, a republican woman senator from maine who was the only member of her party to take a public stand against joe mccarthy from the very beginning. She eventually brought a few of her republican colleagues with her. But she not only attacked mccarthy and his tactics of smear and destroy, but she attacked her own party and said, why are we doing this . Stop it. Dont be preying on people. Dont be leading with fear. We need some republicans to step up, and for the life of me, i dont understand it. I know some of these people. I served with some of these people. And the fact that theyre letting this man run roughshod over our constitution, over separation of powers, over checks and balances, over the rule of law absolutely makes no sense to me. So the way that many republicans are protesting or showing their opposition is deciding not to run again, but they dont say anything. They just say, im not going to run again. You are also a predecessor to mike pompeo at the as secretary of state. One of the stories that were right in the middle of right now appears to be the state Department Secretary pompeos office trafficking in material, stuff foo from right wing media. This is material that was delivered to the white house by rudy giuliani. This was then delivered to mike pompeo for him to look into it. The Inspector General has now hand it had over to congress. From what we have learned about these materials, it seems like this was an effort to sabotage and to end the career of marie yavanovich, a veteran ambassador and Foreign Service officer. Right. First, i dont know if you know ambassador ivanovich or if you have any insight into this sort of effort against her. I do, and its disgraceful. She is a distinguished Foreign Service officer, nonpolitical. She was came up through the ranks. She was the ambassador to armenia, appointed under the bush administration. When i became secretary of state, i visited armenia. I know her work. Shes a serious levelheaded ambassador. A real credit to the Foreign Service. And so what they did and we now know giuliani was actually seeking advice from paul manafort. What they did was to say, okay, what are all the obstacles in our way of trying to peddle these conspiracy theories . Because remember, manafort was peddling conspiracy theories about ukraine during the 2016 election. Some of them aimed at me. So giuliani goes to the source. Okay, youre the guy who knows how to manipulate the press and everybody about ukraine. What do we do to get everybody out of the way . And she is clearly the target of this Smear Campaign in these materials that were delivered to pompeo. You know, there are 70,000 people who work for the state Department Around the world. Foreign service officers, civil servants, foreign nationals who work in our consulates and our embassies. And very few couple hundred political appoint ease. So the people who are carrying out our foreign policy, our diplomacy day in and day out are people who serve from administration to administration. They are not partisan. They are not even political. They are trying to represent the united states. So the idea that giuliani and his hin muenchmen would go afte experienced Foreign Service officer who had been an ambassador to ukraine, a country right in the bullseye of russian interference and aggression in order to clear her out so theyd have free reign inside of ukraine, to do what im not sure, except manaforts modus operandi included bribery, extortion and smear all the time. So, you know, i wish i could say i was surprised, but nothing they do any more surprises me. It is, it is truly distressing to see people who are in our government using it for ideological and personal and powerrelated partisan interests over and above the best interests of our country. Former secretary of the state Hillary Clinton, her daughter, author of gutsy women. Thank you for making time. Glad to be here. Well be right back. Stay with us. Stay with us groans hmph. food grunting menacingly when the food you love doesnt love you back, stay smooth and fight heartburn fast with tums smoothies. Tum tumtum tum tums with tums smoothies. Beauty editors have tried everything in search of a whiter smile. Their choice . Crest 3d whitestrips. Our exclusive formulation whitens safely for a 100 noticeably whiter smile. Guaranteed. Trust americas 1 whitening brand, crest 3d whitestrips. Pain happens. Saturdays happen. Aleve it. Aleve is proven better on pain than tylenol. When pain happens, aleve it. All day strong. The news is not going to let up any time soon. Tomorrow the former u. S. Special envoy to ukraine, curt volcker who was either recently fired or who recently resigned, were not quite sure, he is going to be deposed as part of the impeachment inquiry against President Trump in the house. There have been efforts by the state department, by secretary of state mike pompeo to block former officials and current officials from the state department from being deposed in this inquiry. Volker is going ahead. That may have something to do with the fact he is no longer working at the state department and they, therefore, dont have quite as much learn over him. Thats tomorrow. Also tomorrow interestingly, ambassador jon huntsman will be returning to utah from his posting in russia. Huntsman was the u. S. Ambassador to russia under President Trump until he submitted his Resignation Letter in august. That resignation is effective tomorrow. The exact reason why he resigned and the timing of it all remains somewhat of an open and interesting question. I have to tell you, though, i have a beat on a good source. Im going to be on the view tomorrow, his daughter is one of the hosts of the view. Do not tell her i want to ask her about that. Thats tomorrow at 11 00 eastern time. That does it for us. Ill see you tomorrow. Now its time for the last word is lawrence odonnell. Good evening, lawrence. Jon huntsman is going to be one of the most interesting maybe bolton from the Trump Administration. There are so many questions for the ambassador, including why did you stay as long as you
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.