Whistleblower, and House Democrats painting themselves as the victim of a media conspiracy, and declaring, i am quoting now, were in a war. And forced flattery . The rough transcript of the ukraine call shows the countrys president is the latest leader to heap praise on President Trump in hopes of getting what they want with no compliment too over the top. I am wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. Breaking news this hour. The house impeachment inquiry into President Trump is rapidly picking up speed. Three house committees have just subpoenaed the secretary of state, mike pompeo, demanding documents pertaining to ukraine that he failed to produce so far. And Intelligence Committee chairman adam schiff tells cnn we could see impeachment hearings, more subpoenas as soon as next week, some democrats hoping for actual impeachment of the president possibly by thanksgiving. Well talk about breaking news with senator bob menendez, and correspondents and analysts are standing by. Lets go straight to capitol hill. Our Congressional Correspondent sun lynn serfaty has new information. Together, theyve now subpoenaed the secretary of state for documents. Reporter thats right, wolf, things are escalating very quickly for the administration this evening. Tonight, the secretary of state mike pompeo has been subpoenaed by the three very powerful committees here on capitol hill. Documents related to the ukraine probe, which of course is the new focus, new center of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Pompeo has failed to turn over documents that the committee requested, many times documents related to President Trump, related to his personal lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, and their role and dealings with the ukrainian government. This is to compel documents. They set a deadline of next friday, october 4th. All of this comes as the house Intelligence Committee is making moves of their own, and significant that theyre the committee leading the impeachment inquiry, adam schiff today telling cnn that he does anticipate likely a hearing next week. Significant given it is during a two week congressional recess. He told members of the committee to be on stand by, ready to come back to washington if need be. He says theyre moving as expeditiously as possible, subpoenaing evidence, hearing depositions over the recess. Top priority is getting that whistleblower in front of the committee. Many members of the Committee Want people like Rudy Guiliani, like the attorney general in to the committee as well. Thank you. The white house strategy so far is to attack the whistleblower, even as it continues to confirm the most damaging allegations in the complaint. Lets go to the chief white house correspondent, jim acosta. The president has been on a twitter tirade over this. He certainly has, wolf. President trump is continuing to lash out over the whistleblower complaint thats launched these impeachment maneuverings on capitol hill. The president was behind closed doors most of the day as the white house wrestles with whether it is time to beef things up in terms of its team for the fight thats coming up on capitol hill. One source close to the white house told me this afternoon a lot of people in the president s orbit believe the ukraine investigation is worse than usual for the president. Taking cover in a social media bunker, President Trump is painting the mysterious whistleblower as a turn coat that cant be trusted, sounding more and more like the socalled whistleblower isnt a whistleblower at all. In addition, all secondhand information that proved to be so inaccurate, there may not have been somebody else, a leak error s leaker or spy. The white house acknowledged its own National Security attorneys directed aides to move the rough transcript from the president s call with leader of ukraine to a highly classified system. Whistleblower, turned out to be a thing. Reporter the president is crying foul, describing himself as victim of conspiracy, organized by the deep state and media. These people are sick. Theyre sick. And nobody is calling it out. Theyre afraid to say the press is crooked. We have a crooked press, dishonest media. Reporter House Democrats appear to have seen enough, are making a list of figures that should testify under oath, including his personal attorney, Rudy Guiliani, who insists he was talking to ukrainian officials about joe biden with the blessing of some aides at the state department. They basically knew everything i was doing, so it is being done with the authorization and at the request and then i have a final one, a big thank you about how my honest, straightforward discussion led to solving a problem in the relationship. I think i should get some kind of award. Democrats want to hear more about that. I actually think that Rudy Guiliani is digging himself a deeper hole and i do believe that he is the political h henchman, not a person working for the state department. Reporter there are questions for william barr, mentioned by name in the call with the ukrainian president. I would. I think first, lets remember, he applied for the job by arguing against the special counsels work. He has acted not as an independent attorney general but a special counsel for the president of the United States, during the Mueller Investigation and certainly now. Reporter the president demanded resignation of adam schiff who mocked mr. Trumps ukraine call earlier in the week. Schiff, the president said, must resign and be investigated. He has been doing this for two years. He is a sick man. Biden hammering out new lines of attack for the upcoming campaign, saying i believe the election should be decided by the American People, not Foreign Governments. Mr. Trumps former faux is warning the president should be stopped. He has endangered us all putting his personal and political interests ahead of the interest of the American People. But this is ultimately about much more than donald trump, it is about us. Reporter tonight, white house officials appear to be souring on the idea of bringing in Cory Lewandowski to lead a Rapid Response war room for an impeachment fight at the white house. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is opposed to the idea we are told, and the president was angry when he heard about the proposal. One official put it to us earlier today, no one here sees a need to add anyone to the inside team at the white house. Thank you. Jim acosta at the white house. Want to bring in jim sciutto. The white house argues the decision to move documents around this call with the president of ukraine was designed to get it to a highly secure Computer System to cut down on leaks. First of all, what do you know about the secure Computer System . Whats clear, this system has never been used before. It is designed with code word access, so only certain people would have code word to access whats contained on the system. It is designed specifically to protect the most sensitive intelligence information. Things like the sources and methods behind classified intelligence acquired versus foreign adversaries. Operations involving osama bin laden, that being an example, or secret negotiations iran for a nuclear deal. Thats the way this kind of thing has been used in the past. To use it to shield from eyes within the administration, normal conversations with World Leaders that the white house finds politically sensitive would be an entirely new way to use the system. By the way, one indication that these calls put in the system dont meet that standard of being highly classified information, when the white house released that to the public, there were no redactions, the kind of thing you would see if it was previously classified, if there was Sensitive Information blocked out. And we now know the Justice Department was actually informed about the whistleblower complaint weeks before there was formal referral at the Justice Department to check it out. It raises all sorts of new questions about how the Justice Department is handling it. A week before the referral by the Intelligence CommunityInspector General, it is another case of this administration and in this case the Justice Department, not following what is the practice, the intended practice with whistleblower complaints like this. So one week before the general counsel for the Intelligence Agency involved gave the heads up to the Justice Department that there was a whistleblower complaint about this particular call between the president and ukrainian president , and crucially that bob barrs name was mentioned in the complaint. It was referred to the Justice Department, they let the white house know a full week before formally it was handed to the Justice Department and other officials. It raises hard questions about one, why, and two, did it give officials a chance to see what are they going to do about it. We know what followed that, there were efforts to keep the complaint concealed. It is a remarkable delay. Thanks very much for that. Senator bob menendez is joining us. Thanks for joining us. Let me get Quick Reaction to breaking news, not one, not two, three house committees subpoenaed the secretary of state, mike pompeo, for documents involving ukraine. Youre calling him to testify as well. In your eyes, does he bear responsibility for Rudy Guilianis interference in state Department Affairs . Well, if Rudy Guiliani is telling the truth, then he definitely bears responsibility. Who is Rudy Guiliani as it relates to the state department or any official position of the United States government . He has none to my knowledge. He is not an ambassador, not a special envoy. He has no specific title. He has not been employed by the federal government. And in that regard, he is the president s private attorney obviously playing the role of henchman in attempt to dig up dirt on political opponents. This is outrageous. This is why i asked the Inspector General of the state department to investigate, as to what the state department did, what it knew, what the secretary knew, how was Rudy Guiliani facilitated, who was he given access to, what role was he allowed to play for the same documents, many documents the house is asking for, which the state department has not been willing to come forward with. So we have the president of the United States perversing, corrupting the use of his power to get a Foreign Government involved once again in our election and using the resources of the federal government, hundreds of millions of dollars of congress in a bipartisan way voted to give ukraine, to defend against russia being held up in an inordinate period of time, over two months, that preceded the call, all in an effort to get dirt on one of the president s political opponents. This is outrageous as it gets, even for this presidency. It goes to the core of our democracy and our constitution. I have to move on. Do you know if Rudy Guiliani has security clearances . Im unaware of any security clearance he has or any official role or unofficial role at the state department. In all of my intercessions with the secretary of state and with the state department, no one has ever told me that Rudy Guiliani plays any role at any level in any way with the state department. Members of the house Intelligence Committee, senator, want to hear testimony from Rudy Guiliani and from the attorney general, bill barr. What happens if these key witnesses refuse to cooperate . Well, this is where the house can play a much different role than we can in the minority in the senate. The house has the power to subpoena these individuals. If they fail to comply with the subpoena not just for documents, which i understand the house committees did today, can subpoena the secretary of state to come before their committee, if in fact he refuses to do so voluntarily. I would hope he does so voluntarily, i hope he would do so before the Senate Foreign relations committee. I hope chairman risch will take participation in doing the oversight, reviews, request for documents, and engagement with the secretary of state because this goes to the very essence of how were conducting Foreign Policy and National Interest and security of the United States. As you know, President Trump has attacked you personally this week, implying that you and your colleagues, democratic colleagues, inappropriately pressured a ukrainian prosecutor. The fact is, you were concerned the prosecutor was blocking Robert Muellers efforts to investigate ukraine, but how do you respond to the president s accusations, attacks against you . Well, this is the president and his version of alternative facts. Like when youre a fiveyearold caught doing something bad, wants to change the topic. The reality is this letter sent by myself and two colleagues was a result of a New York Times investigative piece that suggested the ukrainian prosecutor wasnt willing to provide information to bob mueller, special counsel, because of fear. Fear the Trump Administration would hold monies from ukraine that was critically needed. We basically said the rule of law should be that you engage and answer the special prosecutor, secondly, that in fact your monies should not be a threat at the end of the day, Congress Supports this, and asked specific questions. Far different than the president s effort to use a foreign power to engage in our elections to ultimately effect the outcome. The whistleblower complaint as you know, senator, raises the question of whether the transcript of other inappropriate phone calls are saved on that classified server. Is that something the house and senate for that matter should pursue . Absolutely. Look, i have been pursuing the question of President Trumps meetings and engagement with president putin where either there was no one present or the note takers notes were taken by the president. I wanted to know that conversation for quite some time. What we saw after the president stood side by side with putin at one of their meetings in a press conference, i think it was in helsinki, listening to the president give putin the okay, he said he didnt do anything, i accept it. Outrageous when all our intelligence agencies collectively said the opposite. I think what we have here is the coverup because theres no reason to take what we now saw as this document, which the produces was trying not to provide, and put it in a special server. That server is for covert activities, maybe actions taken by the cia or other element of government someplace in the world, maybe sensitive negotiations, north korea or iran. But it is certainly not about a conversation about getting dirt on your political opponent. Thats a coverup. What we have seen in the attempts to stop access to this, what we have seen with others, im concerned in the state department, what was two of our ambassadors doing engaged with Rudy Guiliani as relates to his efforts over there . Im concerned that it is not only the actions, it is now the coverup that seems to be taking place. Senator, thank you for joining us. Thank you. We have a lot more on breaking news. House democrats issuing a subpoena to secretary of state mike pompeo, demanding documents about the president s dealings with ukraine by next friday. With licensed agents available 247, its not just easy. Its havingjeromebettis onyourflagfootballteam easy. Go get em, bus ohhhh [laughing] cmon bus, cmon hey, wait, wait, wait hey man, i got your flag i got your flag, man i got your flag its geico easy. With licensed agents available 24 7. 49 nothing woo still fresh. 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