president committed perjury and lied during the written answers to robert mueller. the trial of roger stone, who acted as a long time informal political advisor to the president introduced evidence that president trump may have lied to robert mueller about the e-mails in his testimony he provided to robert mueller. i think that reinforces exactly why the president s attorneys have no appetite for him to personally testify at the impeachment inquiry. you recall at the time there were negotiations between the president and mueller about whether he would testify in the investigation, rudy guilliani said they did not want to be part of what would be a perjury trap. you had his personal attorney admit from their vantage point they could not trust their
as if i m a theater critic in this [laughter] chris: that s exactly what we that s where we are. it s all about narrative and when it s engaging the american people chris: who was effective, who wasn t. right. on the merits, i think it s fairly obvious that president trump demanded a quid pro woe quo from the quid pro quo. whether that s impeachable, never mind whether he should be removed for that, reasonable people can differ. that said, i think that these hearings have not been sufficiently dramatic to put the kind of pressure on 20 senate republicans that will lead to ever removing the president from office. in terms of sondland, he s just a wildcard because he s had to change his testimony because he clearly was the president s political guy who really had no place doing anything like this to begin with. he s the ambassador to e.u., and ukraine s not a member of the e.u., he is clearly scared of being caught in a perjury trap not trap, perjuring
so, first of all, i hate acting as if i m a theater critic in this [laughter] chris: that s exactly what we that s where we are. it s all about narrative and when it s engaging the american people chris: who was effective, who wasn t. right. on the merits, i think it s fairly obvious that president trump demanded a quid pro woe quo from the quid pro quo. whether that s impeachable, never mind whether he should be removed for that, reasonable people can differ. that said, i think that these hearings have not been sufficiently dramatic to put the kind of pressure on 20 senate republicans that will lead to ever removing the president from office. in terms of sondland, he s just a wildcard because he s had to change his testimony because he clearly was the president s political guy who really had no place doing anything like this to begin with. he s the ambassador to e.u., and ukraine s not a member of the e.u., he is clearly scared of being caught in a perjury trap not trap,
decision. they may say that it s fine to turn over the tax returns but they also may say there could be some merit to the president s argument. we are going to issue an order precluding the returns until we have a chance to decide the merits of the case which could take months or a year. neil: let me ask you about the move the president raised to go ahead and testify on the house. what you think of that? that would be a high-risk endeavor. we know for one thing that the democrats would view that as an opportunity to catch the president in some sort of perjury trap. i think that would be their objective here if the president were to testify. it is interesting. the president said he strongly considering it. he could always testify about producing written statements or written answers to the committee. if he were to show up and take questions, it s hard to imagine more risky for them or their present to get up and testify. neil: i do remember with
as if i m a theater critic in this [laughter] chris: that s exactly what we that s where we are. it s all about narrative and when it s engaging the american people chris: who was effective, who wasn t. right. on the merits, i think it s fairly obvious that president trump demanded a quid pro woe quo from the quid pro quo. whether that s impeachable, never mind whether he should be removed for that, reasonable people can differ. that said, i think that these hearings have not been sufficiently dramatic to put the kind of pressure on 20 senate republicans that will lead to ever removing the president from office. in terms of sondland, he s just a wildcard because he s had to change his testimony because he clearly was the president s political guy who really had no place doing anything like this to begin with. he s the ambassador to e.u., and ukraine s not a member of the e.u., he is clearly scared of being caught in a perjury trap not trap, perjuring