lately those alone have been damning to trump. or you know the drill, a trump loyalist will go to congress like this one, gordon sondland and things dribble out. it wasn t until days later when he was marching into congress that his lawyers told the wall street journal he actually confirmed there was a quid pro quo. and it was that same drill, this same damning format for trump today with what you see here as army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, a current white house staffer went through security and marched in to face this committee. his opening statement, he s the first person who was in on trump s ukraine call who has now testified. as we report on what s coming out of that, keep in mind how today s deposition could shift if the house passes this new resolution. because the public won t be limited to highlights or readouts or someone s interpretation. you ll be able to read the whole deposition or whatever isn t redacted once it s released. let me tell you, of all the deposi
trump s larger white nationalist project, of his project to take down this democracy, is that we have people who tell us that the truth is that they are the victims of a sham. and in many ways that is how they feel about it. part of what you re gesturing at is in a healthier civic system, the facts would be saebd and the established and there are arguments over removing a president who has done things in the view of the many terrible. but you re saying we re not there yet because we re laying out what happened. i m literally saying that these people have all the power to determine the narrative, but they are claiming that they are victims. and so this is why we have to engage many this drum beat with them and we can t move this process forward. well, i guess we are in some ways moving the process forward. i think you re right that the fact that our politics is so he polarized is putting pressure on this witness testimony to confirm things. and you re right about this too, that
let s be clear. vindman who testified today was there. here s how the washington post reports that extra punch of what it means to have him testify today. this is a story that was coming out late today as his testimony emerged. quote, vindman is the fifth person to say there was a quid pro quo. but here s why he s different than the others, though. he s the first white house official who was on the july 25th call. by contrast, ambassador taylor s significant allegation is secondhand relying upon another official telling him sondland had conveyed that quid pro quo to ukraine. and congress is taking at least four more depositions from witnesses this week alone. vindman, as of couple days ago, was not even billed as the most significant witness. and tonight, he has, in his uniform, shredded one of the few defenses president trump had left. i want to turn to our power pale to start our coverage tonight, michelle goldberg.
independent attorney general. and so you ve been doing this reporting. why? why is this who he is? well, i did this reporting partly because before barr was chosen, he wrote to me this striking memo. this is july 2018. and he is talking about how, in his view, the president alone is the executive branch. and he was making that quite extraordinary statement in the context of criticizing mueller s investigation. mueller an old and really good friend of his. barr says at the beginning of his memo, i m in the dark about a lot of the facts and then he just goes after mueller. and i thought to myself, why? is this a job audition? what is behind this? and then it turns out in the reporting i did recently, when you go back to barr s record in the 80s and 90s, you see that he already had this quite quite remarkable theory of executive power. and also a deep faith in conservative values that make someone like trump who is
be using that same room 20 years from now? yeah, i ll be be doddering m way in. i hope after donald trump this never happens again. i certainly don t wish anymore natural trauma as we ve zrused around here. the potential trial, in all seriousness, the potential trial of a sitting president because of things they ve done or suspected to have done is not a good thing. it s not a positive. it s nothing to take joy in and it keeps everyone quite busy in these fields. but, yeah, it s serious so we don t wish that again. but i do wish both of you another good 20 years and 20 more after that. thank you, gentlemen. coming up, democrats accusing bill barr of taking over the justice department also for trump s person gain. it relates to impeachment a lot more. i have a very special guest on that. and later, susan rice from the obama administration is on the beat. e from the obama administration is on the beat. as i do it, it seems like six