only about ukraine. that could send a message to people as well, congresswoman. are you worried about that? i think putting the country through an impeachment inquiry is such a serious thing, we shouldn t do it lightly. for me it s something i never came into congress to do. it not something i go into gleefully or lightly at all. it crossed a threshold in national security. it is different. explain that. look at it in this context because you re new to this particular world, even with all the intel experience. now you re in a world where nobody expects any integrity on in level sadly. and i hope that changes. so sad. they say they all do what he did. they say biden did it with his son. people say this is what they do and now you re going to throw somebody out of office for doing what the industry norm is in washington? what do you say? i say it s not the industry norm. it is not the industry norm for the commander in chief, the most
between president trump and the saudi crown prince, mohammed bin salman and between the president and vladimir putin. why? these are certainly unusual moves that must be explained. it s not clear if those calls were given the same level of super secrecy that we now know came with the call to ukraine s president where the president asked for an investigation of the bidens, but it is another crack in a wall of silence. there was an even bigger blow, i would argue, today shedding light on mounting concern in the white house. the u.s. special envoy to ukraine, kurt volcker, resigned today, just one day after the whistle-blower report came out. why? not clear yet. but he is mentioned in that whistle-blower report and we ll look at how he fits into this ever more tangled web around his
then ukraine picked it up before the rogue prosecutor came in. remember, the rogue prosecutor was in trouble and rogue for ignoring cases like this and many other corruption cases to the dismay of his government and others. so to help force a change in that fragile regime, biden acting on the official of the united states, went to kiev, announced a billion dollar loan to the government, but there was a catch. look, guys, i m leaving in six hours. if the prosecutor s not fired, you re not getting the money. son of a bitch, got fired. and they put in place someone who was solid at the time. now, why would you get rid of a weak guy and put in a solid guy if you wanted to help your kid who was being investigated? allies of this president will point to his bravado there as somehow proof that he s dirty. see, biden was using american funds to pressure ukraine too and try and kick out and end
like us, vote us out. it s not something that s an abuse of power. what s the counter? it is an abuse of power. let me back up. the president has authority as commander in chief and the head of foreign relations for the united states to classify information. that s true under the constitution. but it has to be for that purpose. it cannot be for the purpose of protecting him and his administration from embarrassment because he says things that are actually contrary to the national security interests of the united states or unlawful. and i mean unlawful in the sense of unconstitutional, in dereliction of his duties as commander in chief and in dereliction of his oath of office. so he gets to classify information but only to protect the national security. that s what he can do. what if the national security risk is there s too many leaks? they re killing me in here. we have to protect these things. ukraine is a sense it have situation, they re a fragile place, mbs, have to keep this
i think mr. volcker is a serious professional and he understands this is a crisis right now and he owes his clear and objective responses to congress. what do you make in your analysis with your experience in the intelligence community of mr. giuliani? now, one problem is he told me he was doing this on his own. i asked him specifically are you working under color of authority of the president, certainly the state department would fit into that. he said no. then later here said yes, he is working with the state department. he seemed to be telling the truth. those texts he put out with volcker seemed to suggest he was working. is there a situation or a circumstance where that is okay for a civilian to be working with the state department doing these types of things with ukraine? it s highly unusual. i don t know if it been done in the past but it is highly unusual, not something i ve seen in 15 years in government. i think mixing political and person with professional and national s