From our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 1,033 of the Trump Administration as a new week is under way, another dangerous week for this presidency courtesy of the House Democrats running the impeachment inquiry. Theru next round of live televid hearings set to start just hours from now. There are nine more witnesses scheduled to appear just this coming week. Late tonight, two more witness transcripts were, released. More on that in a moment. Tomorrow the hearings resume with two officials who were listening in on the july 25 call with the new president of ukraine. Pence adviser Jennifer Williams and National Security staffer Lieutenant Colonel alexander vindm vindman. Washington post reporting vindman is expected to testify about hi alarm over trumps request to investigate his political opponents. We get a preview of williams testimony over the weekend when a transcript of her november 7th deposition was released. She told investigators she took notes of the call and that, q
I want to show you as she stepped out to the cameras today and made it clear the speaker says congress can impeach President Trump for bribery. Quid pro quo, bribery. The bribe is to grant or withhold military assistance. Thats bribery. Its perfectly wrong. Its bribery. Bribery. And that is in the constitution attached to the impeachment proceedings. Thats bribery. Thats the speaker of the house making headlines today. Pelosi making it plain that she views this as a potential way to impeach trump, that an article of impeachment would be based on accusation that trump demanded ukraine investigate bidens in exchange for money as a bribe. In this case, its your money. Remember, thats donald trump misappropriating money that taxpayer dollars were supposed to go to this other country. Now, this is new. This is the first time Speaker Pelosi has made these specific bribery case against donald trump. Shes obviously the top democrat in power. And several other key democrats have also recently d
Announcing investigation into the president s rivals. And this morning the Washington Post reports that President Trump asked attorney general william barr to publicly clear him of breaking any law on that call with ukraine. The post says the attorney general refused. The president is denying this report. He put it out in a new tweet just moments ago. Joiningous the phone is josh dawsy, part of the team that broke the story this morning. Let me just read for our viewers what your reporting found. President trump wanted attorney general william p. Barr to hold a News Conference declaring that the commander in chief had broken no laws during a phone call in which he pressed his ukrainian counterpart to investigate a political rival. Though barr ultimately declined to do so. People familiar with the matter said. The request from trump traveled from the president to other white house officials and eventually to the Justice Department. The president has mentioned barrs demurral to associate
Of all and ill start with kaitlan with you. Listen to this. This is sondland making this very significant statement earlier today. I know that members of this committee frequently frame these complicated issues in the form of a simple question. Was there a quid pro quo . As i testified previously, with regard to the requested white house call and the white house meeting, the answer is yes. He makes it clear, absolutely, totally discarding what the president and his allies are saying for weeks. And what the white house are relying on and what the president was reading from earlier was the conversation where he had and called the president to ask if there was a quid pro quo and he said the president got angry and said there was not one and that he didnt want anything from ukraine. But what they are they are ignoring is what he started his testimony with today that yes, in relation to the aid to the white house to the white house call and the white house meeting, there was a quid pro quo.
Your interview they believe lev parnas should be on the witness list. What do you think what do you think developed here as some of the more interesting witnesses that youd want to hear from who lev parnas has been talking about . Well, i think that thats interesting thats an interesting approach and i think thats the right way to look at it that mr. Parnas is obviously speaking from his own perspective. Hes talking about situations he says he was in and things he says he saw and things he says he heard, but he is to the extent that what hes saying can be corroborated by either other peoples testimony or by documents and Text Messages and that sort of thing, what hes really pointing at is other people who should be asked questions. And other people who can explain what really happened. And he identified, i think, himself, some of the key people who could explain things in terms of what really happened and how culpable the president was and how culpable other senior officials are. Defin