Managers are hiding behind closed doors. Sarah, whats your impression of whats happening behind closed doors . Reporter yeah, fred, some of those seven house managers have been huddling in the Speakers Office behind closed doors all morning. Wii seen a handful of them leave. Congress map adam schiff, val demings, not really wanting to answer our questions about how it was going. Adam schiff told our cleric that those preparations were coming along fine. We also saw counsel for House Democrats coming out, bill burke, eisemann hauling big boxes. Were just 48 hours from the senate trial, and theres a big fight continuing on whether the senate will call witnesses. Thats something democrats today were expressing concern about as well as other aspects of this case. Take a listen. If the senate decides, if senator mcconnell prevails and there are no witnesses, it will be the first senate trial that goes to conclusion without witnesses. There is no question that working with a foreign power, t
Welcome back to msnbc live on this saturday morning. Im geoff bennett. And im yasmin. It is january 245th, 2020. Today, the stage is set for the president s defense to begin its arguments. This after democrats presented their case over three days. The morning papers capturing that drama. And the New York Times, quote, branding trump a danger democrats cap the case for his removal. The Washington Post echoing that with democrats focused on trumps care as they argue for the president s removal. And then there is the usa today. That edition of the paper this morning, looking at the day ahead. President trumps defense lawyers promising a compelling case in the impeachment trial. Here is how democrats concluded their arguments against the president. Take a listen. By july of 2019, white house officials were aware of serious allegations of misconduct by President Trump. The white house itself released refused to produce a single document or record. The president of the United States issued a
Welcome back, im ari melber. The senate has updated their dinner break to say the senators will reconvene momentarily. One senator was supposed to join us in an additional interview and they had to go back to the floor. Any minute this trial could reconvene and we will bring it to you. Our panel of experts is here and we are joined by my colleague, Lawrence Odonnell, host of the last word with Lawrence Odonnell and as noted, Senate Veteran on the staff side. I want to show you something we have not had time to bring up. We counted up how the time was used. In day one when it was all that rules fighting, potential witnesses, they used most of their time, 56 . You might say not all of it, but quite a lot. Compare that, lawrence, to the Trump Defense team using a paltry 12 . What does that tell you about the strategy . I think that tells us what is going to happen when they take over for the defense. The volume is going to be much higher. There will be yelling. There will be passionate gu
And when people in the government get worried, sometimes what they do is they draft memos because when theyre concerned about getting caught up in something that doesnt seem right, they dont want to be a part of it. So on that day, mark sandy and other colleagues at omb drafted and sent a memo about Ukraine Military aid to acting director vought. According to sandy, the memo advocated for the release of the funds. It said that the military aid was consistent with American National security interests. It would help to oppose russian aggression and it was backed by strong bipartisan support. But President Trump did not lift the hold. Over the next several weeks, omb continued to issue funding documents that kept kicking the can down the road. Supposedly to allow for more of this quote interagency process. Well, inserting those footnotes throughout the apportionment documents stating that the delay wouldnt affect the funding but heres the really shocking part. There was no interagency pro
Funds do not roll over to the next fiscal year. This confirmed the fears expressed by coop ersan difficult and others, concerns discussed within the relevant agencies in late july and throughout august, approximately, ultimately 35 million of Ukraine Military assistance, thats 14 of the dod funds remained unspent by the end of the fiscal year in order to make sure that ukraine did not permanently lose the 35 million of Critical Military assistance that had been frozen by the white house, congress had to pass a provision on september 27th, three days before the funds were to expire to ensure that the remaining 35 million could be sent to ukraine. Now, george kent is an anticorruption and rule of law expert. He told us that american anticorruption efforts Prioritize Building Institutional Capacity, support for the rule of law, not the pursuit of individual investigations, particularly of political rivals. Here is how he explained the approach. U. S. Efforts to counter corruption in ukrai