announce special attention should be paid to interference in the u.s. ukraine is trying to say something that sounded okay. and on the right side this is what, according to the new intel report giuliani added in, in bold you see the burisma/biden issue. it had to say burisma and the 2016 elections. we rely on you and our other panelists as well. i have not seen something that direct and damning that shows rudy giuliani and donald trump are trying to ghost write for the ukrainians what the investigations are. it has to have the b words, biden and burisma. uh-huh. those side-by-side changes are incredibly powerful, with the insertion of a couple of phrases, they changed the entire meaning of what the ukrainians
information that s come out the past few months, out of the hearings, out of reporting. and i find it really hard to believe that anybody who manages to read the report, even the executive summary, which is 10, 20 pages and lays out the chronology, cannot escape the conclusion that there was a quid pro quo. it wasn t just because ambassador sondland said there was when he testified but you see it again and again and again being forced on the ukrainians. to break out your point in pieces, quid pro quo, and the report makes that allegation, it s a type of bribery, which is an impeachable defense. that is a question that people out there can argue about, but it makes it clear that the fact pattern here is that there was conditionality. ukrainians want favorable action from the white house, a meeting, phone call or military aid, they
supporting and corroborating ukrainians knew about this before it was publicly reported. those are some of the most important factual highlights for you to know about, this ukraine plot, in this report. there s more evidence on obstruction, there s stuff i haven t even mentioned yet on implicating the top republican on the intelligence committee in some of this and on one of giuliani s associates and the other mysterious calls coming from inside the white house. we always like to tell you what we re going to do with the facts on the beat. we have reports on those items as we go through the hour tonight. former u.s. attorney joyce vance, mother jones david korn and emily bazzalon. david, is this a damning report? what does it do for the growing case for impeachment? what is foremost important about this report is that it is a wonderful synthesis of the
were about to say. and this, as you say ari, this isn t about typical for foreign affairs, which involves horse trading for favors. this is about a favor that has nothing to do with the national security of our country. this was about a favor that was for the president s personal political advantage. he was trying to extract something of value from the ukrainians that would help him cheat in 2020, and he did that by withholding an act that he was supposed to take, an official act that was turning over aid that congress had already allocated for the ukrainians. this, i think, on every level resonates as impeachable conduct, probably as criminal, too. emily, as someone who specializes in basic legal storytelling. we read you and you re quite good at it. what do you think of the evidentiary story of the report? it s so important at moments like this where we take a step
extort ukraine so there wouldn t be a fair and free election in 2020. this report has a lot in it that you have to care about, regardless of what you think is going to happen in the house or the senate. this is a report about efforts on the record now, because the record suddenly has been released to steal an election, to subvert your democracy. as i said at the top of the broadcast, not a drill. it puts new heat on giuliani, because you can bet new york prosecutors have them, too, or are about to get them. and for the pressure on ukraine, the report also debunks another trump defense that he couldn t have done anything all that wrong if the ukrainians never knew the function of the extortion. if they didn t know the aid was being frozen for these reasons, how big of a threat was it? that s an interesting defense if it were true. however the evidence shows multiple people testifying,