Giuliani. Giuliani was pushing for ukraine to look into bidens son, hunter, too, as he said last night in a denial turned admission that was like something out of a few good men. Did you ask the ukraine to investigate joe biden . No. Actually, i didnt. I asked the ukraine to investigate the allegations that there was interference in the election of 2016 by the ukrainians for the benefit of Hillary Clinton for which there there are you never asked anything about hunter biden, you never asked anything about joe biden the only thing i asked about joe biden is to get to the bottom of how it was that the man appointed dismissed the case against so did you ask ukraine to look into joe biden . Of course i did. You just said you didnt. You have to see past the passion and see the purpose. Giuliani came with a plan to provide cover for the president , which we will deconstruct for you tonight in detail. And how do we see the proof of it . Well, just today. The president followed his lead. He did not deny that he, too, personally asked the Foreign Government to probe his political opponent. Listen. It doesnt matter what i discussed but i will say this, somebody ought to look into joe bidens statement because it was disgraceful where he talked about billions of dollars that hes not giving to a certain country unless a certain prosecutor is taken off the case. So somebody ought to look into that. We will show you why what the president discussed does matter and why he discussed it matters even more. And the facts and questions that are driving both concerns we will lay out, especially now that this president has to explain the same action that hes calling out biden for, withholding aid to ukraine. Why did this president release 250 million in ukraine aid only right after congressman schiff asked for information about the whistleblower . As for biden, hes coming out swinging, quote, if these reports are true, then there is truly no bottom to President Trumps willingness to abuse his power and abase our country. Lets start filling in the blanks with two top investigators. We have Preet Bharara and andrew mccabe. Thank you both. Preet, when we are looking at this situation and trying to understand what matters, what pops out to you first . You have, as you discussed in the intro, a repeat situation. You have someone who has taken the country through whatever you think about the results, whatever you think about bob mueller, weve had two years in which theres been an amazing amount of scrutiny and discussion about the sitting president of the United States when he was a candidate and thereafter trying to gain an advantage electorally against an opponent with open arms asking for help from a foreign power at the end of the day there wasnt a crime, at the end of the day the office of Legal Counsel says you cant indict a sitting president , but thats what weve been talking about. Here you have a situation where if the facts are true and theyre unfolding in a rapid rate over the last couple of days and will continue to do so, at bottom you have sitting can president once again acting like a recidivist, seeking assistant from a foreign power to arm a political rival, the person who might be his opponent in the general election next year. Thats crazy given what hes already put the country through. And is it illegal . I knew you were going to ask that and ive been thinking over the last couple of days about how to talk about this and its natural for someone who is a form are prosecutor, my expertise is in proving cases beyond a reasonable doubt and what elements you need to make a crime. I want dont want to create an atmosphere where the only thing that matters is if you commit a crime. As we understand and everyone understands now, you can indict a sitting president. Whether its a crime or not, it doesnt mean a whole hell of a lot. I want to make sure the people understand whether or not for technical reasons for substantive reasons you can make out the element for conspiracy to commit Campaign Finance fraud or extortion or can still be wrong even if it isnt . If it is true hes doing these things, its an abuse of power and congress can act. If this is okay, if the president of the United States can call up foreign leaders and withhold aid or threaten, you know, various sanctions or other things in exchange for having them do something to harm the political opponent, then what can he not do . Do we really want Rudy Giuliani to be flying around the world and figuring out what buttons to push on the part of foreign leaders, whether its in russia or china or japan or anywhere else to figure out a way to harm a political opponent . Thats not what we do in america, whether or not you can make that a criminal case. That takes us to Rudy Giuliani and my suggestion that he came last night with an obvious agenda. It wasnt just distraction, i dont want to talk about the president , i dont want to talk about joe biden, needs you, me and everyone listening to believe that they have a deeply bona fide conviction, deep and bona fide, that biden was corrupt, his son was corrupt and there are legitimate questions of interest to United StatesNational Security because then if the president asked about it, even if he withheld aid because of his concern about it, well, then its not about his personal agenda or just wanting to hurt an opponent. Let me give an example of what happened last night. If the president of the United States said to the president of any country i have i am not going to give you money because your country is corrupt, you got straighten out these problems sure enough today what did the president say . Doesnt matter what i talked about but somebody should look into biden. That was terrible what he said. Its about the corruption, not about the advantage. Thats right, chris. Theres clearly so much to unpack here, but part of it is a return to the timehonored Rudy Giuliani strategy we saw deployed so effectively of donald trump. The strategy is dont look at this, look up here. Lets not talk about what i did, its about what you did. Again, as you said, mr. Giuliani came on Television Last night and laid out a Conspiracy Theory that if you actually parse through the information that we know about the actions that were taken in ukraine and the previous corrupt prosecutor and the fact that, you know, there is absolutely no evidence to indicate that either biden did anything improper and that the earlier investigation of Hunter Bidens activities with respect to that Energy Company were basically cleared before any of this stuff happened, but put all that aside, mr. Giuliani threw out some very compelling and inflammatory conspiracy theories and those are the things that will capture the attention of mr. Trumps supporters and will carry them through, hopefully, if youre Rudy Giuliani, this period. Rather than suspecting the president of having done some improper, theyve given them an inflammatory and salacious story to point to and say, no, its not about what the president did, its about what the other side did. So this is just what weve been watching and going through for two years. But i should say one thing as well, just to tack on to some of preets comments. The simple fact that we now have quite possibly, were not sure because we dont have all the facts yet, but we may have a president of the United States and his personal emissary exorting or in fact possibly extorting a Foreign Government to commence a criminal investigation of the United States citizen is remarkable. I dont know that i have ever seen or heard any such thing from a president or any other head of agency, you know, in my 21 years in government service. Yes, do u. S. Law enforcement officers and the fbi work with foreign partners . Absolutely. But that is when we have an ongoing, fully authorized criminal entry, we reach out through mutual assistant treaties and ask for information. We dont have the president of the United States get on the phone and put pressure on a foreign country to start essentially persecuting a u. S. Citizen. That is remarkable. There are a couple of boxes i need you guys to stay and check. I need to know the difference between exort and extort. And i want to game out what else we need to know that would matter and why. And, third, unpacking a little bit about the biden considerations we know the ukraine considerations. Rudy also brought up allegations about china. What do we know . What are the open questions . There are facts to report. Lets take a break, well lay out more information and well be back with bharara and mccabe next. Walking a dog can add thousands of steps to your day. Walking this many . 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On august 12, the whistleblower filed their complaint. At the end of august, President Trump effectively put a hold on military aid money. On september 1st, the v. P. Met with the ukrainian leader. Eight days later house committees started investigating. And by september 12th, right after adam schiff started to ask questions about the complainant, the aid was lifted. Thats where we are now. Were back with Preet Bharara and andrew mccabe. My suggestion is if the president believes that there is real corruption, he is clear to ask the ukrainian president about it and arguably clear to say im not giving you money if youre corrupt. You have to look at all the circumstances. We live in an actual world where people apply common sense and there are consequences to what you do and there are motivations, strategic and otherwise, for taking certain actions. There are a lot of countries that have a lot of corruption, and i i dont want to know what donald trump is saying to those leaders of those countries. Whats unique about ukraine is there was a unique benefit to donald trump not to talk generally about corruption but to talk about a specific case, a specific person whose last name happens to be biden, which in the context of a runup to a general election means it would be a favorable thing politically for donald trump. The funny thing about all this stuff is we have all these debates and conversations on television and peoples living rooms and around the water cooler but theres no courtroom, no judge. At the end of the day, whether its a criminal case or not, you had reasonable people to sit and decide what was the motivation of donald trump to make this call and to pressure eight times in the course of one conversation do this thing with respect to hunter biden . Every ordinary rational thinking american would say he did it for one reason, given by how much he cares about corruption in his own cabinet and his own agencies and within his own foundation and his own company that the only reason to do that thing was to get an electoral advantage against a person who credibly could be his opponent. You cant get distracted by generalized nonstatements they make because sometimes we have to apply common sense. It applies equally or greater to the second argument by giuliani about hunter biden in china. The idea that the president or his counsel would feel its outrageous that somebody who is a child of a high Office Holder in the United States would be doing business with china when theyre negotiating with china, well, this president has a daughter who works for him in the white house who went as an emissary of the United States government to china while she was working on the business side with china literally getting trademarks at the same time that she was sitting down with the chinese president. So why does it bother them in one case and not the other . Well, chris, consistency has never been this administrations strong point. I mean, youve pointed it out perfectly. There is absolutely they seem to be throwing out the allegation about some sort of inappropriate relationship between hunter biden and china, although not backing it up with any proof that im aware of. I havent seen a credible allegation of fraud or corruption or anything like that, and then completely ignoring the interactions, the business dealings of the president s own family members. So its not i cant explain it for you. It not rational. Did giuliani give him the cover he needed . Preets right. This isnt going to be a trial, this isnt about felonies. This is something thats added to an impeachment where youre never going to get republicans to go against the president anyway. But the idea of if people believe that this president says you know what, there are real questions about this president , im allowed to ask other president s whether or not theyre cleaning up their house, it doesnt matter if the guy is running against me or not, there isnt enough for legitimate corruption, is that enough . Well see. I think it probably will be enough for mr. Giuliani and President Trump. Their strategy is to just launch the theory into the wild and have it create some sort effective distraction. It has worked for them in the past and no reason to believe it wont work for them in the future. I gross theyre probably concerned about the information from the whistleblower giuliani already setup going after the whistleblower is how they often lie and all that stuff. Preet, last question to you, what do you want to know Going Forward . Theres this legalistic back and forth between the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community and the acting dni person in which theres a debate about whether or not the statute requires that complaint be delivered to the intelligence committees. Its common sense not just what happens in the courtroom, those things overlap. You also have to cut through the legal nonsense a little bit when you talk about stuff like this. So the Inspector General has said that what is in the complaint goes to the very core back and forth. What i do know is the president of the United States and andrew is completely correct, the consistency is not a strong point of this administration. The president said over and over again today and yesterday i think no bad conversation, everything was fine, all swell, but at the same time doesnt want to be trance parent about whats in the complaint. Its a little bit like nothing to see here, but then you cant see it. And the time for trust and the representation made by president and white house. Preet, andrew, thank you very much. Appreciate you both. Have a very good weekend. Ahead, more deconstruction. What the president s lawyer put out into the universe about biden and his son last night. He may have said it in a new way, but its not new information, so lets do this. Whats legit, what are the open questions, what are the facts . Weve laid it all out for you next. 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