Lets impeach the president , isnt that a good idea . When all in starts now. Good evening from new york. Im joy reid. Chris hayes is in ohio covering tonights debate. Well, at this point its not a question of if the president of the United States, donald trump, committed an impeachable offense. Hes already admitted to it in public statements and in documents that the white house itself released. We know that when the president of ukraine said that he wanted to buy more american weapons to protect his country from military aggression by russia, donald trump immediately responded, i want you to do us a favor, though. And then he proceeded to ask that ukraine investigate former Vice President joe bidens son and give life to a nutty right wing Conspiracy Theory that would absolve russia from meddling in an election. And trump told the ukraine wherein president multiple times to talk to the man who had essentially become his personal fixer, Rudy Giuliani, about those investigative favors. Q
Yovanovitch from her position. It followed complaints from the president s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. And we now know he had the help of two associates with ties to ukraine. Two associates arrested and in court yesterday for Campaign Finance violations. Lets get to all of this. Let us start on capitol hill where the center of the universe is at the moment. Manu raju is there. So manu, the former ambassador is behind closed doors right now. What are you hearing . What is expected today . Well, there are going to be a lot of questions about the circumstances of her dismissal from her post earlier this spring. We do know that the president had bad mouthed her to the president of ukraine, zelensky in that rough transcript that was released by the white house criticizing her there. And we know also Rudy Giuliani was target or going after her. And we also know those two Rudy Giuliani associates who were arrested yesterday according to the indictment also had taken aim with her, even e
He was used and extorted. This is guy who pled guilty to his role in a criminal scheme, pled guilty to help prosecutors against the other people who had been charged as defendants in that scheme. Their response was to come after him including by mailing dead rats to him and his family. Which is not a subtle thing. Hard to miss that message. Even years later when he was appealing to the court to lessen his own sentence in that case he said years later that he was still afraid to make public some of the other threats that had been made against him and his wife and his child. Beyond the dead rats there was more, but he would only address those on a confidential basis for the court. He was trying to make the case to the court that he deserved more credit basically for flipping against these particular codefendants. Given the kind of risk he and his family took onto do that, he was asking the court to give him more credit to do that. And there were also his codefendant who was quote severel
Military aid in exchange for political dirt. A transcript released today from taylors closed door deposition shows what we can expect to see when he goes before the cameras next wednesday. Taylor told impeachment investigators that it was his clear understanding that Security Assistance money would not come until the president of ukraine committed to pursue the investigation of trumps political opponents. He affirmed that if they dont do this, they are not going to get that. And when asked are you aware that quid pro quo literally means this for that, ambassador taylor said, i am. Well, as house intelligence chair adam schiff suggested today thats the kind of powerful testimony that they plan to bring live to the American Public next week. So those open hearings will be an opportunity for the American People to evaluate the witnesses for themselves, to make their own determinations about the credibility of the witnesses and also to learn firsthand about the facts of the president s mis