Before christmas. The president has decided to not officially participate in the congressional hearings. He spent the last 24 hours tweeting and retweeting more than a hundred times. He has the benefit of the republicans in congress including now senator ted cruz spreading conspiracy theories. You need to remember no matter what you hear, it was russia that staged an organized topdown systematic attack on the 2016 election to help get donald trump elected. Meanwhile, there is new nervousness in the administration about the activities of Rudy Giuliani, one of the president s most loyal defenders says giulianis recent trip to ukraine was, quote, weird. And tthe Washington Post reports that its said giuliani has become a liability. Were waiting on the Inspector General report about the origins of the russia probe. This is report will reportedly debunk the claim the president s campaign was spied on by the fbi. We will begin with a morning of arguments on capitol hill. Suzanne malveaux is there. Reporter while most americans took a break from of all this, the committee did not. Nadler will hand over to the white house today. Were going to see democratic as well as republicans making their cay with their articles of impeachment expected the end of the week. The Judiciary Committee set to hold its final scheduled hearing on the matter in just hours. Lawyers representing both democrats and republicans on the Intelligence Committee will present findings from their respective reports. An official telling cnn the hearing will be conducted like a trial. We have a very locked case. The case we have if presented to a jury would be a guilty verdict in three minutes flat. Reporter the white house declining to participate in the hearing. Republicans defending that decision and Ranking Member doug collins calling for the hearing to be postponed. He says his party did not get sufficient time to review documents. Also demanding to add witnesses like adam schiff and the anonymous whistleblower whose report initiated reports about the calls to cnbc. The democrats are looking at a partisan impeachment of the president of the United States. This started with a partisan attack on the president of the United States based on a phone call where there were probably 30 people overhearing a phone call and leaking it to a whistleblower who then came out and they put together a narrative that tried to fit the facts. Reporter at the hearing, one democratic official tells cnn democrats plan to argue that President Trump has a pattern of abusing the power of his office saying that is why the ukraine matter is so important. Democrats holding a mock hearing over the weekend in preparations for fireworks. There is overwhelming evidence that the president sought to coerce ukraine to interfere in our election. Its a gross abuse of his office and the president also deeply sought to obstruct the investigation into that wrong doing. Reporter the evidence presented at this hearing will provide the framework for possible articles of impeachment which would come by the end of the week. Still unclear is whether evidence beyond the ukraine investigation will be included. Particularly any findings from the mueller report. I think that we should have articles in that resolution that clearly define where this president has undermined the constitution. It may be something that comes out of mueller. Reporter and later today, highly anticipated department of Inspector General report will be released. It will come out. It is about the origins of the russia investigation and whether or not russia meddled in the 2016 elections and what was behind that. It will say based on leaked reports the fbi did not spy on the trump campaign. Weve already heard from attorney general barr dismissing this report. Undoubtedly its going to add to the scrutiny of the impeachment hearings today. One disclosure after another today. Suzanne malveaux on capitol hill, thank you very much. Whats the one thing members of congress can say that will change minds about the fate of the president . Cnns special coverage of the impeachment hearings continues right after this. Wow thats ensure max protein, with high protein and 1 gram sugar. Its a situp, banana bend at the waist im tryin keep it up. Youll get there. Whoahoahoa 30 grams of protein, and one gram of sugar. Ensure max protein. This melting pot of impacted species. Everywhere is going to get touched by climate change. The wait is over. Tmobile is lighting up 5g nationwide. While some 5g signals go only blocks, tmobile 5g goes miles. Beyond the big cities to the small towns. To the people. Now, millions of americans can have access to 5g on tmobile. And this is just the beginning. Tmobile, the first and only nationwide 5g network. 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So it sets up a little bit of an awkward dynamic where norm eisen is going to be questioning barry burke. And so i think you have to wonder how entertaining is this going to be for the American Public given the constitutional lawyers we saw last week. You want to keep up the momentum on this. Its a presentation of evidence. They said they want it to be like a trial. But it seems like the more effective thing would be to cross examine each other instead of just talking democrat to democrat. Thats the thing. Will they have the guts to go after the counsel from the other side when the members get to do the questioning or the counsel gets to do the questioning. Were making this case. We went in there with the idea of making that case. Joe, what is the case that democrats want you or need to make today in what will be the last public hearing where there are questions of any kind . I think what the democrats have done has been deliberate and used building blocks. First, heres the ed. And then they had a presentation with the scholars on heres the law. Now i think todays going to be much sharper which was heres what the president did, heres why its wrong and here was what his ugly motives were. Its going to be a sharper presentation. I think if theyre smart, the majority counsel will go after the minority counsel. Because theyre arguing the republicans have argued from a position of ignoring the evidence and making a partisan argument. Of nothing to see here, nothing to see here, youre just atta attacking the process. I think there is drama in and democrats have two good lawyers. Three good lawyers. And i think steve caster has the hardest job today who is the minority counsel. One of the things republicans have said is you know what . Three months later after he froze it, the president are leased the aid, the military aid to ukraine. So no harm, no foul. Thats not what the house Judiciary Committee put out. Heres an excerpt from friday. A president cannot escape impeachment because of corrupting elections was discovered and abandoned. Theres been great reporting by us obviously and the New York Times and Washington Post about the timing of when he found out things obviously from the white house counsel. All of this was sort of percolating much earlier on, i think, than we originally knew. And so by the time its released in september, a whole lot has transpired. Yes, obviously it was ultimately released. But theres still a question of the timing and when and why. One of the big supposed mysteries has been will the democrats include part of the Mueller Investigation in the articles of impeachment . Will they go to russia or stick with ukraine . I think we more or less have the answer. If you listen to adam schiff over the weekend who leads the Intelligence Committee in charge of the investigative part of this, this is what adam schiff tell us. I can tell you as a former prosecutor, its always been, you know, my strategy in a charging decision and impeachment of the house is essentially a charging decision. To charge those that there is the strongest and most overwhelming evidence and not try to charge everything even though you can charge other thin things. Isnt that basically telling us theyll reference mueller as a pattern but not see a specific article on impeachment . Yeah. I think democrats have been signaling that for some time. I personally think theyre wrong. Just on what he was saying there, this most solid evidence that was built from grand jury testimony from a wide ranging investigation of two years as opposed to something put together in six weeks was on obstruction of justice and mueller. And what i think democrats are afraid of is that they lost the messaging war on mueller and the mueller report. And i think its important for to make the pattern of abuse and i think they can win back that war, but i think theyre looking at this and say lets not take any more risks than we need to. Weve got what weve got. Lets move forward. I think people have mueller fatigue. And more of the democratic voices have said dont go there. Why are we trejing back down muler . Thanks, guys. We have many more questions. We woke up to two articles today with these really big articles about Rudy Giuliani and new concerns within the administration about what the heck Rudy Giuliani is doing and how the current attorney general thinks hes a liability for the president. Next. Find great gifts at great prices. During the kay friends and family event. Come in and get 2550 off everything. Like this diamond necklace, now under sixhundred dollars. Every best. Gift. Ever. Begins with kay. The zip code youre born into can determine your future. Your school. Your job. Your dreams. 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Growing scrutiny this morning of Rudy Giuliani after his latest trip to ukraine. The Washington Post reports that in several conversations in recent months, attorney general barr has counseled trump in general terms that giuliani has become a liability and a problem for the administration. In one discussion the attorney general warned the president he was not being well served by his lawyer. Were back now with joe lockhart and laura. I think that analysis from bill barr, the clinical way of describing it is, duh. Hes observing what a clear to so many people. Sure. And the mayor former mayor is under criminal investigation in the Southern District of new york. His associates have been charged with Campaign Finance violations. We dont know the full scope of the investigation. Its in the early stages. But we know theres a counterintelligence aspect to it. And so i think the attorney general is counseling the president. Look, you want to be careful here. And we know that barr was not happy that he was mentioned on that july 25th phone call. He was not happy to be in the same breath as Rudy Giuliani. And so that i think is where you see barrs sort of caution coming from. Im not sure the president is listening to that advice since this weekend he was talking in quite optimistic terms about what Rudy Giuliani is going to unearth from his latest trip to ukraine. And i mean, the thing is that we know that Rudy Giuliani and often the president are susceptible to Bad Information and conspiracy theories. So rudy will come up with something while there and then come back and will have to get an earful of it. But it was reminiscent of a different time that donald trump went on a fishing expedition. So watch these two moments. He says he has a lot of good information. I have not spoken to him about that information. But rudy as you know has been one of the great crime fighters of the last 50 years. He has not told me what hes found. But i think he wants to go before congress and say and also to the attorney general and the department of justice. I hear hes found plenty. Were looking into it very, very strongly at a certain point in time i will be revealing have you got anything . Have you got something that suggests barack obama was not born in the United States . Were looking into it very strongly. You will be very surprised. Well, i guess were still waiting for that big reveal. That was when he was looking into president obama and hawaii. He had sent investigators to hawaii. Yeah. And rudy and the president s countermueller report still hasnt been revealed. Were still waiting on that one. Bill barr, i think hes just jealous because he thought he was the president s personal attorney. But thats another story. Listen. I dont know that the president and rudy are so much susceptible to conspiracy theories. I think they use conspiracy theories to create questions around it. Ipg they end up believing their own i think it magnifies it. To say hes susceptible doesnt do justice. I never hear skepticism. Then they trumpet it. All of these conspiracy theories have one thing in common. They are useful to trump as far as a defense. I think the giuliani thing, though, is the best republican argument out there is the democrats are moving too fast. You know, what do you mean trumps going to do it again . He wont do it again. Hes learned his lesson. Giuliani makes the democratic argument. Hes out there doing it now. Hes in ukraine trying to get information, trying to get the ukraine legislators to interfere in americas election. Thats what this is all about. Look, if youve lost matt gates, you know, right . Youve lost everyone. Matt gates, conservative republican who isnt afraid to jump into any partisan fight in the world thinks what giuliani is doing is sketchy. Listen. It is weird that hes over there. I believe that the president urging mayor giuliani to provide that clarity to the congress odd having him over there at this time. Whoa. Whoa seriously. Matt gaetz saying that. Hes probably talking to an audience of one there. The president is clearly aligned to him. Obviously we were playing the where is Rudy Giuliani game last week. The fact is hes under investigation. Theres a level of brazenness that fbi and Justice Department lawyers are looking at him. You would think hed keep his head down at the moment but hes not. Thats one of the reasons trump still loves rudy. Two reasons. One is rudys got stuff on trump and has hinted he might use it. Secondly, trump loves the brazenness. He loves gaetz. He loves these people who will spout anything that defend him. I really think at the oend the day he probably does convince himself its true. All right. Joe, laura, thank you very much. Meanwhile, we have breaking nauz for you. 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