Returns, those are valid subpoenas according to the Second Circuit u. S. Court of appeals today. That means the banks must hand those materials over to the congressional committees that issued those subpoenas. Which means the president s financial records and tax records are that much closer to public disclosure. On any other day stories of that magnitude would be like tearing up the joint in terms of their bombshell news value. But today even major news like that falls into the shadow of this. The impeachment report. The report on the investigation into President Trump interceding with a foreign country, interceding with the nation of ukraine to help him in his Reelection Campaign next year. Now, the basics. The purpose of this report is to summarize what the Intelligence Committee has found thus far in its investigation of President Trump. Tonight that committee, the Intelligence Committee, voted to convey this report to the Judiciary Committee. What the Judiciary Committee will now do is they will review this evidence as part of their own decisionmaking process as to whether articles of impeachment should be drawn up against President Trump. If the Judiciary Committee does decide to draw up articles of impeachment, they will vote on those as a committee. Those articles would then be conveyed to the floor of the United States house and the full house would then vote on those articles of impeachment. If a majority of the house of representatives votes for any one of those articles of impeachment, President Trump will be impeached. Which is basically the constitutional equivalent of him being criminally charged, him being criminally indicted. If it does get that far, if even one of the articles of impeachment against President Trump does pass the house, if he does get impeached in that way, which frankly seems likely at this point, the president will go on trial for those charges in the United States senate. That trial in the senate would be overseen by the chief justice of the United States supreme court, john roberts. And honestly well cross that bridge when we come to it in terms of what that means and what might happen in the u. S. Senate. But it does look like thats where were heading right now. It looks like were heading now towards the president being impeached in the house and facing a trial in the u. S. Senate and potential removal from office. And weve sort of seen this coming down the pike but now its kind of official. Its under way. What a time to be alive. Whether or not you have been paying close attention to the impeachment process from the beginning, this report, this impeachment report that was just released from the Intelligence Committee over to judiciary tonight, and it was released to us, the public, this afternoon, this report is clearly designed to make the whole thing pretty simple. Whether or not youve been paying attention to this before now, this report is written in such a way that you kind of cant miss the major point. I mean, its a big report. Including everything is 300 pages. But they start it with a short readable executive summary. And that executive summary itself starts with a single short sort of pressie of what exactly happened here, all nutted up clear and direct and irrreducible. And heres how it starts. Quote, the impeachment inquiry into donald j. Trump uncovered a months long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election. President trumps scheme subverted u. S. Foreign policy toward ukraine and undermined our National Security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his president ial Reelection Campaign. The president demanded that the newly elected ukrainian president publicly announce investigations into mr. Trumps own political rival, the political rival that he apparently feared the most. Former Vice President joe biden. And the ukrainian president was also supposed to publicly announce an investigation into a discredited theory that it was ukraine, not russia that interfered in the 2016 president ial election. To compel the ukrainian president to do his political bidding, President Trump commissioned two official acts on these public announcements of investigations. Number one, a coveted white house visit. And number two, critical u. S. Military assistance that ukraine needed to fight its russian adversary. So thats right at the top. Thats the opening of the executive summary at the start of the impeachment report. The whole executive summary runs 22 pages. Thats like how it starts. Heres the bottom line. Now, that said, on the off chance that you dont have the patience or you dont have the time to read the whole 22pagelong executive summary, theres an even shorter approach you can take if you just want to read the preface to the report. Theres a preface to the report from the chairman of the committee that did this investigation where he makes it even more clear and even more direct not only what the president did but whats wrong with what the president did. This is from the preface. Quote, the president engaged in this course of conduct for the benefit of his own president ial reelection, to harm the election prospects of a political rival, and to influence our nations upcoming president ial election to his advantage. In doing so the president placed his own personal and political interests above the National Interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the u. S. President ial election process, and endangered u. S. National security. This is from the preface of the report, which is only four pages long. Its four pages plus like a bunch of thank yous to the staff who did the work on the report. But that said, if you dont feel like you have the time or the patience to read the 22page executive summary, if you dont even feel like you have the time or patience to read those four pages, if that fourpage preface is still not going to get itself read, dont kid yourself, im never going to get to it, theres an even quicker way to get to the point here, which is an old cramming for the test trick which i swear i never used in school, which is to just look at the headings. You ever use this trick . Watch this. Its magic. Its like the Childrens Book version of a president climbing his way to being impeached. Watch. Here we go, first heading. The president s request for a political favor. Then, the president removed anticorruption champion ambassador marie yovanovitch. Then, the president s handpicked agents began the scheme. Then, the president froze vital military assistance. Then, the president conditioned a white house meeting on investigations. Then the president pressed president zelensky to do a political favor. Then the president s representatives ratcheted up the pressure on the ukrainian president. Then, the president s Security Assistance hold became public. Dun, dun, dun then the president s scheme unraveled. Then the denouement, the kicker, the thing that runs in the middle of the credits to keep you sitting in your seats. The president s chief of staff confirmed the aid was conditioned on investigations. All right, so they are covering all their bases here. Even if you dont feel like you have time to read the 300pagelong impeachment report there is a 22page executive summary just for you. But even if you feel like you cant read those 22 pages, donate worry, theres a fourpage preface that nuts it all up. Even if you dont feel like you can read the fourpage preface, you can read the first four paragraphs which nut it up even more tightly. Even if you dont feel like you can absorb those paragraphs here in 78 words is exactly what happened. And which is why this president is on his way to being impeached. 78 words that even have like a plot twist and a denouement. I mean, we get it now, right . The president decided he was going to demand help from this foreign country against joe biden for his reelection effort. He took out the responsible anticorruption ambassador there and had his own guys take over the dealings in ukraine for the purposes of this scheme. Those guys and the president himself pressured and pressured and pressured and pressured ukraine including blocking a white house meeting they really wanted, holding up military assistance to that country. Then the whole thing only fell apart when they got caught doing it and it all became public. And so now hes being impeached. I mean, you can read all about it at any length now. You can read about it in fulsome detail at 300 pages. Or you can boil it down to 78 words. But its all the same story. You know what . Theres even more options for you. If you prefer roman numerals, if thats an easier way for you to organize things you can also just turn to page 34 of the impeachment report. To find the key findings of fact handily summarized in points roman numeraled 1 through 9, over the course of 2 1 2 pages. Thats all their key findings of fact which lays out the same story told over these 300 pages, same story in the executive summary, same story in the preface, same story in those 78 words. Nobody needs to write up their own disingenuous supposed summary of these findings bill barr to throw people off the scent of what this investigation actually found. In this case the impeachment investigators in the house of representatives took no chances. They made sure they summarized this puppy themselves so there can be no misunderstanding. Even if you literally dont have the time or patience to read a full 100 words about it, they will still give it to you in a small enough format that you can digest it and understand it between here and the next errand that you have to perform without stopping. So thats what we got today. Well see what the Judiciary Committee decides to do with this evidence. Theyve got a singular role when it comes to the process of impeaching a president. Theyre going to hold their first impeachment hearing tomorrow at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Its also worth noting that the Judiciary Committee is going to consider this evidence gathered by the Intelligence Committee in this report today, but theyre also made clear theyre holding open the possibility theyll take additional evidence from other congressional comittees as well, other committees that have been investigating other aspects of the president s behavior that might reasonably be considered high crimes and misdemeanors for the purposes of an impeachment proceeding. Well have more on that in a moment with a leading member of the Judiciary Committee whos also a part of house leadership overall. But i will tell you just as a person whos paid a lot of attention to this story and spent a lot of time absorbing this new material today, heres what i didnt expect about this impeachment report today. And maybe i should have expected it. But what i didnt expect was that in laying out everything they found in this impeachment investigation, including the committee, you know, organizing their findings into section 1, the president s misconduct and section 2, the president s obstruction of the impeachment inquiry, in seeing them lay out and organize what they found, i guess i should have expected it but i didnt really get it until i saw it all laid out in this report today. That having them break it down and lay it out in this format makes it much easier to see the rationale for breaking all this evidence and all of these allegations up into separate articles of impeachment. It is really one story about what the president was trying to do and the leverage he brought to bear on this foreign country and how wrong that is. Its one story. But when you see them lay out that evidence and how they got that evidence and the different sorts of crimes and high crimes and misdemeanors that might be implicated here, you can see how this might evolve at the Judiciary Committee into articles of impeachment against President Trump. Nbc news reported today that the Judiciary Committee is considering consolidating all the evidence about President Trump pushing this Foreign Government to help him in the 2020 election into an article of impeachment thats based around the idea of abuse of power. And theres precedent for that. Abuse of power was the subject of the third article of impeachment that was brought against president Richard Nixon. Here if nbcs reporting is borne out, abuse of power as an article of impeachment, that would encompass all the stuff about President Trump pressuring ukraine to give him help in his 2020 reelection effort. But if you follow this through, if you did isolate that in one article of impeachment, if you isolated President Trump trying to get foreign help for his reelection effort in a single impeachment article, well, that would leave room for a second separate impeachment article based on President Trump making that demand of ukraine a transactional thing. See what i mean . So him telling ukraine to help him with his reelection effort, that would be one article of impeachment, abuse of power. But if they did it that way, that would leave room for a second article of impeachment. On top of that you could have a second article that was him withholding a white house meeting in order to get that help with his reelection effort and him withholding military aid from ukraine in order to try to get that help from ukraine for his election. That part of it, the kind of leverage he brought to bear on that country, the stuff he knew that country wanted and needed that he wouldnt give them unless he got those investigations, that could be a different article of impeachment. And that doesnt necessarily have to be abuse of power. That second one, if you isolate it that way, that conceivably could be an article of impeachment based around the idea of extortion and bribery. Right, conditioning an official act on receiving some benefit from yourself, thats bribery. If youre an official who can control whether or not an official act happens and you say no, im not going to do that official act unless you give me a Little Something for me, thats bribery. And bribery is explicitly in the constitution when it comes to the description in the constitution about impeachment. Article 2, section 4, the president , Vice President and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. If they are going to break out into its own article not just the president trying to get help for his reelection effort but the specific issue of the president making official acts of the u. S. Government conditional on him getting personal political favors from ukraine, that means we could be looking at an article of impeachment against President Trump for bribery, which is explicitly in the constitution in terms of what you use impeachment for. And if they are going to do that, i feel like i can see more clearly and with the new evidence presented in this report we got today that we hadnt seen before, you can sort of see the Building Blocks of how that might work. Theres a lot in this report that was just released today that supports the seriousness not just of the president trying to get help from ukraine to help him get reelected but on the issue of the president holding up specifically that military aid. Theres a whole bunch of evidence here like nuts and bolts proven stuff about how serious that was and how people involved in it at the time knew how serious it was. For one thing they knew it was illegal. On pages 71 and 72 theres this. President trump freezes the military assistance to ukraine, and Agency Experts repeatedly objected to the hold on Security Assistance to ukraine. Ing page 75, quote, Senior Agency officials raised serious concerns about the legality of the hold. Nevertheless President Trump continued the hold despite agency concerns about legality. How did they pull this off if it was illegal . Well, they had to macgyver something. They had to invent a weird system to try to keep the whole thing looking legal. What they had to invent at the Budget Office to make it seem sort of legal, what the president was doing, is they needed someone to keep signing off on holding up the military aid every two to six days. Now, thats not usually how this works. Every two to six days they needed a new authorization to keep doing this thing. Otherwise, they thought it would look too blatantly illegal. Naturally this is not the normal course of business. And so they had to take the career white house staffer who would normally be in charge of this kind of thing, who knew exactly how weird and potentially illegal this was, they had to take him off the job and give that job to a trump political appointee instead. Thats on page 78 of the report. What they were doing at the Budget Office to cover up this illegal scheme to withhold this military aid to ukraine, what they were doing at the Budget Office was so bad that two different white house officials quit their jobs rather than be part of this scheme. From page 80, quote, concerns about whether the administration was bending if not breaking the law by holding back this vital resistance contributored to at least two omb officials resigning including one attorney in the Office General counsel. Nevertheless, at the direction of President Trump, omb continued to implement the hold. So its a serious thing, right . Its one thing hes trying to get help from ukraine to help him in the next election. That itself is going to likely get him impeached on abuse of power grounds. But him withholding this military aid in order to get him help from ukraine. Its so serious it puts this agency really into crisis. People start quitting in protest, they have to start removing people from their jobs, they have to start installing new people who will do this. The reupping of the illegal potentially illegal authorization has to happen every couple of days. I mean, thats getting nuts. And now on top of all that we get something we never knew about before today from this report, which is phone call records. Including, surprise, the news that at the time omb was in this crisis, that omb was macgyvering together this slapdash effort to try to make it look legal that the president was illegally holding up military aid to ukraine and omb officials are quitting in protest and saying we cant do this, this is illegal, and theyre installing their own trump political appointee to take over the process because all the career people keep sighing at meeting after meeting hey, this is illegal, we cant do this, at the same time thats going on at that agency, hey, look at that, now we know, somebody at that office, somebody at omb is repeatedly on the phone with Rudy Giuliani . Wait a second. Rudy giuliani, the president s personal lawyer who has no government job, is on the phone with the office of management and budget . Quote, in the middle excuse me, in the midafternoon of august 8th someone using a telephone number associated with the office of management and budget, omb, called mr. Giuliani and the call lasted nearly 13 minutes. Mr. Giuliani called the omb number and the white house situation room several more times that evening. I mean, this is an agency, this is the white house Budget Office. Right . This is the office of management and budget. Theyre in charge of disbursing the money the federal government sends. Its a Big Deal Agency way lost people who work there. Serious people. Heres a serious agency with a real job to do. Thats in the middle of a crisis here because of the president ordering this illegal hold. People are quitting, people are being yanked out of their jobs after pointing out that the orders coming down from the white house specifically from the president are likely illegal. The agency is defying its own staff warnings. Staff keep telling him, hey, holding up this aid is illegal, we cant do it. And in the middle of that the president s lawyer Rudy Giuliani is on the phone directly with that agency, with the office of management and budget, while that is all going down. Oh. And its not the only time. Giulianis on the phone directly with omb. Back in april as well. Whats that about . I mean, knowing mr. Giulianis history its possible those are butt dials. Have you ever accidentally butt dialed a White House Agency . I havent either. But why would the office of management and budget need to talk to Rudy Giuliani, who again is not a Government Official . For one thing we didnt know it was part of the impeachment inquiry they got these call records. Among the things weve learned from these call records is that for some reason the president s lawyer who was deeply involved in the scheme was on the phone personally with the agency carrying out the overtly illegal part of this repeatedly during the scheme. Also from those call records we learn bizarrely that the Top Republican congressman on the Intelligence Committee, the very vocal trump defender devin nunes, he himself turns up in these call records that were obtained by his own committee. He turns up in these call records talking with Rudy Giuliani during the course of his scheme. And he ends up in the course of these call records talking to other people involved in this scheme as well. How could devin nunes, congressman, be participating in the official investigation of this scheme without ever disclosing his own apparent involvement with all of the people who were this scheme . Well get to that a little bit later on. But all of this super serious stuff they turned up about the withholding of military aid to ukraine, particularly if it looks like thats going to be its own separate article of impeachment, potentially a bribery article of impeachment, that whole investigation also points up that for all the stuff they were able to unearth here there is definitely a cost to obstruction. Theres a cost to the country. Theres a cost to us knowing what happened here when people refused to testify. Its not just some washington fight thats about who thinks theyre more important than somebody else and who likes to take a hard line because they think it makes them sound tough on tv. Theres a real cost to it. Take john bolton. He was the third trump National Security advisor to resign or get fired when he left the administration in september of this year. On page 80 of todays report we get confirmation that President Trump and john bolton met one on one in august to talk about trumps reasons to keep holding up the military aid to ukraine. A oneonone meeting between the president and john bolton specifically on that subject. What happened at that meeting . We dont know. Bolton wont say. Refusing to testify. Additionally it has always been of intense interest to me since we first started covering this scandal, the timing of john bolton leaving the administration. He quit or was fired, depending on who you believe, on september 10th. That was just as congress was starting to stand up and yell about Trump Holding up that aid to ukraine. Its just as congress was learning that a whistleblower had come forward to say it wtrup personalitiesly who was holding up that aid and he was doing so for illegal reasons because he wanted joe biden investigations at the cost of handing that money over. John bolton quit or was fired on september 10th just as congress is making noise about that, just as the whistleblower complaint is becoming known to congress and one day before the military aid to ukraine is finally released because of all that public pressure. He leaves the administration september 10th with a fight over whether he was fired or resigned. September 11th the aid gets released. Is that a coincidence . Is the holding up of this military aid part of why john bolton quit or why he got fired . Dont know. Were not allowed to know because john bolton wont say. Heres page 143 of the report. Quote, on september 10th ambassador john bolton resigned from his position as National Security adviser. His Deputy Charles cupperman became acting National Security adviser. The committee was unable to determine if ambassador boltons departure related to the matters under investigation because neither he nor dr. Kupperman agreed to appear for testimony as part of this inquiry. And thats the final point here. The president trying to obstruct this impeachment inquiry. Its half of this report, its second two of this report. And its half of this report with an exclamation point because the obstruction efforts by the president have affected our ability to actually figure out what happened here. And more broadly than that, its a its sort of one size of a crisis in this country. If a president commits crimes and tries to enlist Foreign Countries to help him get reelected, thats one size of an american crisis. It is a whole different size and shape of an american crisis if the president tries to use the powers of the presidency to get away with that crime or any other crime. And so we get this sort of war cry from the Impeachment Committee about how important obstruction is basically and why he ought to be impeached for that in addition to his behavior in office. Quote, donald trump is the first president in the history of the United States to seek to completely obstruct an impeachment inquiry undertaken by the house of representatives under the article 1 of the constitution, which vests the house with the sole power of impeachment. President trump ordered federal agencies and officials to disregard all voluntary requests for documents and to defy all duly authorized subpoenas for records. He also directed all federal officials in the executive branch not to testify even when compelled. No other president has flouted the constitution and the power of congress to conduct oversight to this extent. No other president has claimed for himself the right to deny the houses authority to conduct an impeachment proceeding, to control the scope of a power exclusively vested in the house, or to forbid any and all cooperation from the executive branch. Even president Richard Nixon who obstructed congress by refusing to turn over key evidence, even nixon accepted the authority of congress to conduct an impeachment inquiry and permitted his aides and advisers to produce documents and testify to congressional committees. If left unanswered President Trumps ongoing effort to thwart congresss impeachment power risks doing grave harm to the institution of congress, to the balance of power between our branches of government, and to the Constitutional Order that the president and every member of congress have sworn to protect and defend. The impeachment inquire afrom protecting the constitution and protecting the country from the president s obstruction, that not being a side issue here, that being a central issue, is part of that war cry you should look tough a chance, just look at how the report ends. At the very end of the report, what they land on is the evidence they collected about the president intimidating witnesses. And specifically the president going after the whistleblower who came forward within the Intelligence Community to expose what the president had done and the danger it posed to american National Security. They end on that in this impeachment report, saying if that is not punished the precedent of that witness intimidation, the precedent of that whistleblower intimidation and retaliation will become normalized, will become the way of the world when it comes to the u. S. Presidency and whats seen as acceptable behavior. You know, if they do end up breaking this all down into smaller separate articles of impeachment rather than just one big thing, if the attacks on the witnesses and the attacks on the whistleblower are broken out into their own article or articles of impeachment, well, just note on this day that the impeachment report ends, it closes, the very last thing in the report are three quotes from three republican u. S. Senators, who have all condemned the president s attacks on the whistleblower in this case. Three u. S. Senators who are all republicans who all believe in standing up for whistleblowers as a general matter and who have all specifically condemned President Trump for his treatment of the whistleblower here. By ending with them, by ending with republican senators condemning the president s behavior and calling out the seriousness of it, the question that is called here is a big deal, right . And its going to end up being a big deal for all of us. Whether those republicans, republicans like those senators, are only willing to condemn this president s behavior when theyre asked about it or whether they will actually stand up in public and cast their vote accordingly too. Oh oh oh ozempic® announcer people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of onceweekly ozempic®. 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The impeachment report on President Trump that was released to the public today and is being conveyed to the Judiciary Committee now, it represents the finding of an investigation that isnt done. Which is interesting, right . Theyre still sending out subpoenas. They still apparently expect to hear from more witnesses. They will still learn more about this thing that they have investigated. Heres why they say they didnt wait until the investigation was totally over with before producing this report. Heres why they said they needed to produce this thing and move on now. Quote, there remain unanswered questions, and our investigation must continue even as we transmit our report to the Judiciary Committee. Given the proximate threat of further president ial attempts to solicit foreign inference in our next election, we cannot wait to make a referral until our efforts to obtain testimony and documents wind their way through the courts. Quote, on october 3rd, 2019, even as our inquiry was engaged in this President Trump declared anew that other countries should open investigations into his chief political rival saying, quote, china should start an investigation into the bidens and that, quote, president zelensky, if it were me, i would recommend that they start an investigation into the bidens. When a reporter asked President Trump what he hoped ukraines president would do following the july 25th call, President Trump seeking to dispel any doubt as to his continuing intention responded to the reporter, quote, well, i would think that if they were honest about it theyd start a Major Investigation into the bidens. Its a very simple answer. Quote, by doubling down on his misconduct and declaring that his july 25th call with president zelensky was perfect, President Trump has shown a continued willingness to use the power of his office to seek foreign intervention in our next election. And so we cannot wait because that next election is barrelling down upon us. Chairman schiff says in his report, quote, this is urgent, and the risk is grave. We have a president who publicly urged Foreign Governments to intd fehr in our election to help him in the 2020 election even as he was faactively in trouble for that kind of conduct already. 2020 election barrelling into view. Thats why we have this impeachment report tonight even though the investigation isnt even done. Joining us now is congressman hakeem jeffreys, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, hes also chair of the House Democratic caucus, which puts him in a senior Democratic House leadership post. Thank you for being here tonight. Its an honor to have you. Good evening. Great to be with you. Ive been trying to sum up whats new and what we found here and what is likely to happen next in your committee. What can you tell us about how the house as a whole and judiciary is going to move on this next . Were going to continue to move expeditiously because it relates to an Urgent National matter of concern and requires action and accountability. At the hearing tomorrow before the house Judiciary Committee you can expect well explore the concerns that the framers of the constitution had as it relates to potential aberrant president ial behavior. What were going to see is that the framers of the constitution had three particular concerns. A, abuse of power. B, the betrayal of the constitution for personal gain. And c, corruption of the election process. President Donald Trumps misconduct has managed to implicate the impeachment trifecta. Hes actually engaged in behavior across the board that the framers of the constitution would have found abhorrent. So were going to explore that. Were going to continue to follow the facts. Were going to apply the law, be guided by the constitution, and present the truth to the american people. In terms of that corruption of the election process you were just describing i was interested to hear chairman schiff today when he spoke to reporters but also to read in the report a real sense of urgency that this needs to happen fast, essentially, that this needs to happen right now and it cant wait. In part because there is a risk to the 2020 election that the president is still at this point actively courting for an interference in the 2020 election, that he doesnt see anything wrong with it, he certainly doesnt believe he should be impeached for it. Do you believe that the Judiciary Committee is sort of bound by that urgency, that theres a timeline by which you need to wrap up your proceedings in order to sort of try to keep the 2020 election safe from the president s behavior . Absolutely. I can say that Speaker Pelosi whos provided tremendous leadership, the entire House Democratic caucus, the intel committee, the Judiciary Committee, every single one of us feels a sense of urgency as it relates to what the president has done in the past, what he may be doing now and what apparently he believes he can continue to do because he hasnt experienced any consequences to date. Whats amazing here is the president clearly pressured a Foreign Government to target an american citizen solely for political gain and in the process solicited interference in the 2020 election beginning the day after bob mueller testified on the hill. And so there is a clear sense of urgency as it relates to what we have to do. Well continue to proceed in a serious, solemn and sober fashion. Thats what the moment requires. But it also requires us to act decisively so we can bring about some measure of president ial accountability. No one is above the law. Congressman jeffries, i know the white house told your committee they dont expect to have any representatives at tomorrows hearing, theyre not sending the president s lawyers. Do you expect that that will be a permanent state of affairs . Do you have any indication as to whether or not the white house is going to refuse to participate forever or does that just apply to tomorrows hearing . Well, that remains to be seen but as you so thoroughly covered a few moments ago what weve seen from the president and this administration is a pattern and practice of obstructive behavior. They continue to try to hide facts, hide evidence, hide documents, hide witnesses from the american people. If it was a perfect call when the president said do us a favor, though, then what is the explanation that we havent heard from bolton or mulvaney or secretary of state pompeo . So we continue to hold out hope well hear from the white house, and theyll decide to participate in the proceedings that are likely to take place next week, and theyre under a friday deadline to respond to us and to chairman nadler. Xhoongs hakeem jeffries, member of the Judiciary Committee, chair of the House Democratic caucus. Sir, get a good nights sleep. Well all be up early watching tomorrows proceedings. Thanks very much. Thanks, rachel. All right. Much more to get to tonight. Stay with us. More to get to to. Stay with us upbeat music no coverup spray here. Cheaper aerosols can cover up odors in a flowery fog. But febreze air effects eliminates odors. With a 100 natural propellent. It leaves behind a pleasant scent youll love. [ deep inhale] freshen up. Dont cover up. Febreze. Heres a rabbit that popped out of a hat in todays report from the house Intelligence Committee on its impeachment investigation. Turns out the lead republican member of congress on the Intelligence Committee thats been doing the impeachment investigation, turns out he himself appears to have been involved in the scheme the committee was investigating. There is at the very least this new circumstantial evidence that the Top Republican congressman on the committee doing this investigation was himself frequently communicating with multiple people involved in this scheme while they were carrying out the scheme. Shouldnt congressman devin nunes have had to recuse himself from the investigation . This is like like imagine youre a cop, youre investigating a bank robbery in your town. Then it turns out that the bank robber was your roommate and you were on the phone with him during the heist, right . What would the chief of police do to you if the chief found out thats the circumstance you were in with regard to that bank robbery and youve been part of the investigation into the bank robbery, right . That would be a problem for you working on that investigation. I doubt you would stay a cop for long. So this is a whole new plot point that will presumably have to be explained. But the whole reason we now have this information is that the impeachment investigation got call records, got phone call records. Im not sure we knew the house was going to get phone records. And from people who obviously didnt give their permission. Were going to talk about the evidence the impeachment investigation has obtained and what it might mean in terms of the provability of the claims of the impeachment with our guest chuck rosenberg, whos live here in studio, next. Live here in studio, next. Ng day, its the last thing i want to do. Well i switched to swiffer wet jet and its awesome. Its an allinone so its ready to go when i am. The cleaning solution actually breaks down dirt and grime. And the pad absorbs it deep inside. So, it prevents streaks and haze better than my old mop. 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Thats 8662950917, or tdameritrade. Com learn. I looitaly avel. Yaaaaass. With the united explorer card, i get rewarded wherever i go. Going out for a bite. Rewarded going new places. Rewarded anytime. Rewarded getting more for getting away. Rewarded learn more at the explorer card dot com. And get. Rewarded loud fan noise children playing Music Building experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. Sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first months payment. Joining us now here on set is somebody ive been looking forward to talking to all day. Chuck rosenberg is a former Senior Justice Department and fbi official, former u. S. Attorney. Chuck, thank you so much for being here to talk to us about this. My pleasure. I know youve had a chance to go through at least portions of the report. Let me just ask what you think we should be a, if theres anything here that surprises you or that seems particularly meaty in terms of us understanding what happens next. I thought they did a wonderful job, rachel, of just telling the story. If there was a failing in the Mueller Report, which i thought was extraordinarily substantive, is that the story was buried. It was hard to sort of get to it. Here, as you illustrated in the opening of your show tonight, they did a wonderful job of just laying it out. Thats what prosecutors do. They tell the jury theyre going to tell them a story, and then they tell them the story, and then they tell them what story they just told them. Yeah. So given that clarity obviously that avoids some of what happened to the Mueller Report in terms of the way it landed. Theres not going to be anybody whos gotten an opportunity like bill barr did to produce his own sort of his own spin, his own proverbial summary of the report that doesnt actually capture what its about. But in terms of guiding an investigation, what does this tell you about how the investigation has been conducted, the kinds of material theyve got access to . I for one was surprised to see they had call records. We didnt know they had subpoenaed the phone companies. We didnt know that. But if you think about the basic Building Blocks of a federal investigation i grew up on the criminal side, but the basic Building Blocks of an investigation. Phone records and credit reports and bank records. They dont tell you the whole story but theyre remarkably important investigative leads. I was a little surprised too to see they had call records. We should spend a moment talking about call records, what they tell you and what they dont tell you. Theyre metadata. They tell the person who receives the records that my telephone was in contact with your telephone for a certain period of time on a particular day. Sometimes you can get cell Tower Records and know roughly where you were and where i was, or at least where our phones were when that connection occurred. They dont give you content. And the content is what really matters. These are incredibly important leads, but what were they talking about . Thats what we need to know. On that point i want to ask you how this might interact with some of the criminal investigations here. If you can stick with us for one second. Chuck rosenberg is our guest. Hell be back with us after this. Stay with us. This stay with us i started a tiny investment business, and over 27 years, grew it successfully to 36 billion dollars. Im tom steyer and i approve this message. Im running for president because unlike other candidates, i can go head to head with donald trump on the economy, and expose him fo what he is a fraud and a failure. You ever wish you werent a motaur . Sure. Sometimes i wish i had legs like you. Yeah, like a regular person. No. Still half bike half man, just the opposite. Oh, so the legs on the bottom and motorcycle on the top . Yeah. Yeah, i could see that. For those who were born to ride, theres progressive. Yeah, i could see that. Our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition. For strength and energy whoohoo greattasting ensure. With nine grams of protein and twentyseven vitamins and minerals. Ensure, for strength and energy. Skip to the good part with alkaseltzer plus. Now with 25 more concentrated power. Nothing works faster for powerful cold relief. Oh, what a relief it is so fast hey fred its medicare open enrollment. E. Time to compare plans. Were fine with what we have. Thats what the johnsons thought until they tried medicares new plan finder. The johnsons . We saved a lot on our prescription costs and got extra benefits. How bout it, fred. Plans change every year. Use the new plan finder at medicare. Gov. Comparing plans really pays. Look how much we can save. Beyond the routine checkups. Beyond the notsoroutine cases. Comcast business is helping doctors provide care in whole new ways. All working with a new generation of technologies powered by our gigspeed network. Because beyond technology. There is human ingenuity. Every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected. To do the extraordinary. Take your business beyond. Joining us once again is chuck rosenberg, former Senior Justice Department fbi official. Chuck, thanks again for being here on a day like this. Wanted to point out one thing in the report that you were just describing about getting those call records and it being sort of metadata, whose phone talked to who elses phone on what day and for what time. Theres a reference in the report, i think we can put this up on screen yes. In contrast to mr. Giuliani and mr. Fruman, lev parnas has begun rolling production of Certain Records in his possession, custody or control in response to his subpoena, which the committees are evaluating. The committees expect mr. Parnass full compliance with the subpoena. So some of what theyve got from this guy under indictment in the Southern District of new york, what should we be watching for there . It strikes me that mr. Parnas wants to cooperate. He wants to resolve the criminal case against him. If you want to do that you should also be prepared to cooperate fully because if you want to sort of avoid prison or a lot of prison the best thing you can do as a defendant is cooperate truthfully and fully. It seems thats what hes doing now, rachel. In terms of trying to get credit from prosecutors for him trying to help in the Impeachment Committees. Correct. The Impeachment Committees cant keep him out of jail. But prosecutors conceivably can well, they could if they offered him immunity in exchange for his testimony. But presumably they wouldnt do that. That strikes me as highly highly unlikely. Assuming they dont offer him any sort of immunity, prosecutors are his ticket out. They have to be convinced hes completely truthful, hes been helpful in all of these different venues and it seems hes trying to help the impeachment inquiry. Parnas is the guy who can give you the substance that the call records dont give you. The call records tell you who to ask, and they help you construct the timeline. And timelines are incredibly important in investigative work because as you know things begin to come together, travel and conversations and Text Messages become more clear and more crisp on a timeline. The prosecutors can now ask parnas, were you on that call . What did you say and what did he say . And thats what really matters. Chuck rosenberg, former Senior Justice Department official. Chuck, great to have you here. Thanks. Thanks. Well be right back. Stay with us. Thanks. Well be right back stay with us s together. This time of year, thats really important. So were making it easier than ever to become part of our family. Thats why our chevy employee discount is now available to everyone. The chevy price you pay is what we pay. Not a cent more. Family is important to us. And we want you to be part of ours. So happy holidays. And welcome to the family. All the chevy family get the chevy employee discount for everyone today. [upbeat music] no matter how much you clean, does your house still smell stuffy . Thats because your home is filled with soft surfaces that trap odors and release them back into the room. So, try febreze fabric refresher febreze finds odors trapped in fabrics bubbles popping and cleans them away as it dries. Use febreze every time you tidy up to keep your whole house smelling fresh air clean. Fabric refresher even works for clothes you want to wear another day. Make febreze part of your clean routine for whole home freshness. La la la la la. [sneeare you ok . Fles] yah, its just a cold. Its not just a cold if you have high blood pressure. Most cold medicines may raise blood pressure. Coricidin hbp is the. 1 brand that gives. Powerful cold relief without raising your blood pressure. All right, that is pretty much going to do it for us tonight. I will tell you with the release of the impeachment report today, the impeachment inquiry does now formally move over to the Judiciary Committee. Tomorrow morning theyre going to have a panel of four constitutional law experts, three called by the democrats, one called by the republicans. Theyll be talking about the constitutional grounds for impeachment. Should be fascinating. Itll also be fascinating to see how the Judiciary Committee is going to handle this in terms of staff asking questions, members asking questions. Whether there are going to be hi histrionics and circus acts. Hearing itself starts at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Our special coverage here at msnbc starts off at 9 00 eastern. Well see you there. That does it for us tonight. See you then. Now its time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Good evening, lawrence. Good evening, rachel. And our first guest tonight is chairman adam schiff, which i cant wait to get to. Wow. But i want to make a note of something as we begin this hour of coverage and after your hour of coverage tonight and what a packed and historic night it is. We have had a Major Development, Major Development today in the campaign for president. Senator Kamala Harris dropping out of the race. And i think i didnt get every word of your show, but i think that amounted to a sentence or two. It was the first sentence but it was i know. And thats all i got
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