whistle-blower s allegations that president trump abused his office in pressuring the ukrainian president. okay, lots to get to. we will get straight to our panel. hands nichols, chief ethics white house lawyer under george bush, and ed rendell and msnbc legal analyst barbara, and we will start with hans nichols. hans, we have a lot to cover here. let s get to first potentially this second whistle-blower. what do we know? we know, according to the new york times, and they re citing people who have been briefed on it, that there is a second whistle-blower that is weighing, considering filing an official complaint. we know that this whistle-blower has also according to the times spoken to the inspector general of the intelligence committee, the ic ig, in that terminology. it is unclear if an actual second report, a filed report, is necessary, to trigger an investigation. because the ic ig, already has the information from this purported second whistle-blower.
but certainly on this day, on this saturday, it may feel like it is not a saturday in washington. rather, the middle of the week. there s been so much happening today, in the last 24 hours, we begin with yet another potential whistle-blower, that story coming into focus, the new york times reporting that a second ukraine-related whistle-blower is weighing whether or not to file his or her own complaint. the second person with claims to have been on the call was quote alarmed by the president s doings with ukraine, and has more direct information about that than the first whistle-blower, according to the new york times. now, secretary of state mike pompeo in addition to that missed yesterday s subpoena deadline, to hand over documents, related to ukraine. he spoke about that this morning. the state department sent a letter last night, to congress, which is our initial response to the document request. we ve all known there has been corruption in ukraine. the united states govern
been engaged in trying to push back against corruption in ukraine, for quite some time. meanwhile, the president blasting out a series of tweets today, he attacked everything from the whistle-blower s account, to the media, to senator mitt romney. and this comes a day after the heads of three big house committee, elijah cummings, adam schiff, elliot engel, they subpoenaed the white house and vice president mike pence for documents related to the house impeachment investigation. this came after repeated requests for the documents earlier this week that were ignored. we also learned overnight, from bloomberg, that following the first whistle-blower complaint, the president ordered a substantial staff reduction at the national security council. that s according to five people familiar with those plans. but that s not all for you. also, within the past 24 hours, u.s. officials tell nbc news that the c.i.a. s top lawyer courtney simmons elwood made what she considered to be a criminal ref
whistle-blower as a partisan person who should not be believed, who has hearsay and second-hand information, having someone else come out and corroborate that information i think undermines some of those arguments. hans, as we know, the state department, mike pompeo, did not meet the deadline, for the subpoenas that were issued to him. what s next? what are the ramifications? we don t know what ramifications are for missing these subpoenas. it basically gets down to standoff between separations of powers and we know that the white house is going to slow walk any effort to get additional information because the white house s view is that this isn t an official impeachment inquiry. they say they will not cooperate, at least won t cooperate fully, and expeditiously, until the full house votes to impeach the president, and then it goes back to the judiciary committee to start doing the investigation. so yes, there s a letter from house democrat, these three chairman, to the chief of st
good work but it is not working so maybe we need to come forward and say something. what are you watching for, charlie? i have to say, a few days ago, i thought all of the facts that were necessary to make a judgment about this were already in the public record, and that all of the focus on who is the whistle-blower, and what did that person testify before congress, was misplaced, because once the white house s own documentation showed what the call had, i thought we knew what we knew. and of course, trump went out and said it again in front of the cameras. there is really no doubt what he is trying to do here, he is doing it in maybe plain view. but then the texts that ambassador voeker turned over late thursday night showed me that i must be wrong, there must be a whole gigantic paper trail of stuff like that to add texture and remove doubt on those who are not sure what happened here, yet to be obtained. that s part of what congress is doing with the subpoena with the internal whi