then if it passes the democratic house, it will act like a bit of an indictment against sitting president to be presented at the potential trial of the sitting president. right now i m going to walk through the key evidence on the ukraine plot with you. later we ll turn to obstruction, other new evidence and later in the hour to some new revelations about the nature of this propaganda plot. we ll break this down, all the key parts of the report, with key evidence and experts that you see on your screen. here is what you need to know about what democrats say is an impeachable plot. they gather evidence from all the witnesses. trump s abuse of power was not confined to one phone call with a foreign leader, that it was a multi-step conspiracy stretching over months. can you see it all laid out over here that lays out trump s
expert i want to walk you through something you need to know about if you re going to discuss any of this in the days and weeks ahead. what the democrats say is another impeachable offense, that trump covered up and obstructed the probe. this is the key. it is the democrat s answer to donald trump s very brazen month s long defiance to this. the only two presidents who have ever been impeached both faced articles of impeachment for, guess what, defying congress and obstruction. tonight s new report says despite that history, donald trump may have gone further as he is the first and only president in history to defy all aspects of the constitutional impeachment process and the investigation laying out examples like defying 71 requests for documents, attacking and impugning people who are cooperating with the investigation or law enforcement, including, count them up, 100 statements against the whistle-blower, who is protected under federal law. also blocking testimony from
before the call about those demands, to announce toes political investigations in public. right here, that is a lot. it s backed up by the evidence. now if this new report was documenting a shadow or rogue plot, the white house could have, of course, stopped it when it was exposed. this is where the cover-up is key and why the news tonight shows congress moving toward impeaching president trump on multiple grounds, on more than one ground. let me explain to you exactly what we re learning. the report shows that as the plot raised, quote, alarm within the u.s. government and military, the trump white house didn t stop the behavior yet covered it up. showing more of its cards, teeing up potential impeachment for what looks like obstruction, abuse of power and the bribery scheme, which is why the evidence is important that this
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
into. it s a straightforward account that is rather damning. joyce? you know, i think david s absolutely right. and the key thing that i take away after having read most of this report is that schiff comes up with what mueller was lacking in the russia investigation. schiff has the evidence that president trump, as he says in the report, personally and with agents inside and outside of government directed this scheme as it was in operation, directed a scheme that was an effort to extort a foreign country, to get evidence, to get information that trump could use for personal advantage to cheat in a campaign. so, this is sort of like the russia investigation, but the obstruction didn t work in this case. joyce, i want to walk through some of that key evidence. it is possible that a president could do some of the things in