Murray, thanks to both of you. Thanks for watching our msnbc special. Find me on weeknights. Its the beet, 6 00 p. M. Eastern. It started as a 30minute phone call between two president s. It erupted into a fullscale scandal that now threatens to bring down donald trump. Today im announcing the house of representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. Our president sacrificed our National Security and our constitution for his personal political benefit. Theyve been trying to impeach me from the day i got elected. And you know what . They failed. Youve seen the headlines. Tonight well dive deep into the part of the story you havent heard. And key players will reveal for the first time what really happened. As we go on assignment. The conversation just after 9 00 a. M. On july 25th started out friendly. President donald j. Trump calling his newly elected counterpart, ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. This is from the official notes of the phone call released b
earlier this year, the new prosecutor did an about-face. stating that the burisma case and the bidens involvement might be worth a second look. why the change of heart? when i interviewed letsenko he said he d met multiple times with the president s personal lawyer, rudy giuliani. were you in regular contact with him? no, no. it was there were irregular contacts. but yes, i have spoken with him. maybe ten times. ten times? maybe. always about this issue? this and other even political issues. why, having closed the burisma case, would letsenko want to reopen it? he was trying to save his position by constructing this conspiracy theory together with giuliani. he was looking for a way how to ensure that he will remain at his post.
favor, though, president trump says, because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it. all you have to do is look at the transcript that the white house released where the president of ukraine says, we want to buy more javelins. and the next word is the president saying, i d like to ask a favor, though. president trump has a very specific favor in mind. it involves his old nemesis, hillary clinton, and a baseless conspiracy theory propagated on the fringes of the internet that claims the hacking of democratic computers during the 2016 election was not carried out by russia to help the trump campaign, as u.s. intelligence agencies universally concluded. but instead, was the work of ukrainian operatives to help hillary clinton and frame donald trump and russia. as with much of the republican conspiracy thinking about the origins of the mueller
trump before the call and with president zelensky after. there was preparation and follow-up. possible evidence that president trump s highly unusual request for a foreign government to investigate a domestic rival was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but part of a long-term strategy. and there s more evidence, much more, in the form of text messages among the president s men. special envoy to ukraine textini ambassador sondland on july 19th, six days before the call. volker most important is for is zelensky to say he ll help investigation. so volker, an initial representative of the united states, metre with rudy giulian the president s personal lawyer, about getting the president of ukrainepr to help investigation. the texts show that u.s. diplomats wanted to make sure
playing a president on tv. he won office in a landslide with a campaign promise to fight corruption and to end ukraine s war with its vastly more powerful neighbor, russia. zelensky knows u.s. military aid is vital to his country, and he s eager for it to continue. i would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. we are ready to continue to cooperate for the next stages. specifically, we are almost ready to buy more javelins from the united states for defense purposes, he says. javelins are shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles ukraine s army needs to fight off russian-backed forces. so far, so normal. talks of bilateral relations and defense. but this is president trump. his response to the request for javelin missiles is personal. one white house official reportedly called it crazy. i would like you to do us a