abby phillip and jeffrey toobin and neil catiall, our special guest, author of impeach the case against donald trump. let me read what the new york times broke overnight. they wrote, president trump had already been briefed on the whistle-blower s complaint about his dealings with ukraine when he unfroze military aid for the country in september. that s according to two people familiar with the matter. lawyers from the white house counsel s office told mr. trump in late august about the complaint explaining they were trying to determine whether they were legally required to give it to congress, the people said. so he knew before the aid was released. he knew, neil, before he got on the phone with gordon sondland and said there s no quid pro quo. he knew there were questions about whether there was a quid pro quo. what does this tell us? it tells us a lot. president trump s defenders have basically not been defending the president as much as attacking the impeachment process. th
political party second. and chief among the values of our country is its commitment to the rule of law. no one, whether a senator or a president should pretend america is something less. joyce, i m going to actually ask all the lawyers to weigh in on this. but, joyce, what s your view about the depth of the problem the depth of the president s problems and about this broader point about how important the resolution of all of this is for the continued strength of the rule of law in america? so i ll start with the second part, john. i think this op-ed piece is dead on the money. and the fact that we ve seen george conway, kellyanne conway s husband, writing with neil catiall to a number of rule of law questions tells us what an urgent juncture our country is at. they are willing to put aside their political mantels for a little while, but, really, in this moment, we need to say there are things more important than republicans and democrats and who wins the next election and preservin
political party second. and chief among the values of our country is its commitment to the rule of law. no one, whether a senator or a president should pretend america is something less. joyce, i m going to actually ask all the lawyers to weigh in on this. but, joyce, what s your view about the depth of the problem the depth of the president s problems and about this broader point about how important the resolution of all of this is for the continued strength of the rule of law in america? so i ll start with the second part, john. i think this op-ed piece is dead on the money. and the fact that we ve seen george conway, kellyanne conway s husband, writing with neil catiall to a number of rule of law questions tells us what an urgent juncture our country is at. they are willing to put aside their political mantels for a little while, but, really, in this moment, we need to say