Transcripts For CNNW The Lead With Jake Tapper 20191104 : co

Today released the depositions of two key witnesses in the impeachment inquiry and provided much more detail about the shadow ukraine policy that is leading to the president s likely impeachment. For his part, President Trump continues to attempt to defend himself, mainly by attacking his accusers and lying about them. For instance, claiming that the whistleblower complaint has been proven false even though it has not. Multiple former and Current Trump Administration Officials who have testified have backed up the whistleblowers allegations that American Foreign policy and taxpayer dollars were being used to force Ukrainian Government officials to investigate former Vice President joe biden and his son. In addition to his attempt to change how Foreign Policy is conducted in the United States, the president has not just challenging the testimony of those who are bringing the facts to the public, hes personally going after them. Pushing false information about them. Calling for journalists to expose the identity of the whistleblower. Echoing deranged calls for the whistleblower to be criminally investigated and even threatening to reveal what he suggests will be damaging information about one official, a Lieutenant Colonel, iraq war veteran and purple heart recipient who fought and bled for the u. S. Overseas and also testified despite all of this the steady stream of damaging information about the president and his dealings with ukraine continue to flow. We learn new details today from former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, removed from her position after a Rudy Giulianiled Disinformation Campaign and ambassador michael mckinley, a former adviser to mike pompeo who resigned this year in disgust as cnns Alex Marquardt now reports. Reporter the impeachment inquiry today reaching new heights as transcripts of closeddoor testimony were released to the public for the first time. Explosive comments made under oath by former ambassador to ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and michael mckinley, a former top aide to the secretary of state who resigned in protest. Yovanovitch telling lawmakers that what was led by Rudy Giuliani was not good policy. Kind of a partisan game that cut the ground from underneath the u. S. Embassy. Ukrainians were wondering whether i was going to be leaving she said. Whether we really represented the president. Yovanovitch said that late last year she learned from ukrainian officials about a Concerted Campaign that giuliani and a former prosecutor had plans and that they were going to, you know, do things, including to me. A senior ukrainian official warning her to watch her back. That Smear Campaign orchestrated by this irregular channel was successful in removing a u. S. Ambassador and tarring her reputation. Reporter after attacks from trump allies like don jr. And giuliani, yovanovitch say 33year veteran went to ambassador Gordon Sondland, say point man for the president on ukraine for advice. His response. You need to go big or go home. Tweet out there that you support the president and all of these are lies and everything else. Mckinley for his part said he was disturbed by the implication that foreign governments were being approached to procure negative information on political opponents. And what appears to be the utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic political objectives. He went to secretary of state mike pompeo three times for a show of support for yovanovitch. But pompeo didnt respond which is directly at odds with what pompeo told abc news. I never heard him say a single thing about his concerns with respect to the decision so you were never asked not once. Not once, george, did ambassador mckinley Say Something to me during that entire time period. Reporter officials at the state department were reluctant to show support yovanovitch was told in case the rug would be pulled out from under them by trump. Finally, trump pulls yovanovitch out of ukraine in may. She said she was called at 1 00 in the morning and told to get on the next flight to washington. Very bad things about her for a long period of time. Not good. Reporter this is just the beginning of the transcripts being released. There is much more to come. There have been 13 hearings behind closed doors so far. Tomorrow were expecting to see two more transcripts, those of the Eu Ambassador Gordon Sondland and the former special envoy to ukraine kurt volker. Thank you very much. Lets dive into this with our experts. And jackie, let me start with you. And yovanovitch testified that the ukrainian interior minister told her around february, i really needed to watch my bag, yovanovitch said. In part because giuliani and his associates were trashing her and pushing ukraine for dirt on biden. Quote, to start kind of getting into u. S. Politics and u. S. Domestic politics looking forward to the 2020 campaign and whether this would hurt former Vice President biden i think he felt that was very dangerous tear rain for terrain for another country to be in. So the investigation into the bidens and other investigations. And you have meetings in the background. You have Rudy Giuliani meeting with some officials. So yes, this Pressure Campaign has been going on for a while but it took a while and the president had been listening to his to the kind of other parallel track, the nonofficial advisers when it came to ukraine and sort of poisoning the well. And that fell back on this ambassador despite any kind of internal push like you saw with mckinley to bolster her and to back her up. And anna asked about the shadow giuliani trump policy yovanovitch said is it was za distracting in many ways and ukrainians thought whether i would leave or cut the ground out from underneath us. So not an easy position to be in if you are the ambassador. You know, i found the transcript of that testimony today so upsetting and troubling. Because, look, people need to understand that Career Service officers work for decades, oftentimes in lowly positions and dangerous countries and in countries where there are hardships, separated from families, making less money than they would in the private sector. That is what it takes to become an ambassador. It takes decades of Foreign Service, career work. And for them to be treated this way, i could only imagine what the morale could be today at the state department if theyre reading this and listening to this. And shame on pompeo for not having stood up for her. Shame on donald trump for speaking about a u. S. Diplomat this way to a foreign government. And to ambassador yovanovitch, thank you. Thank you, maam, for your service, and thank you for your patriotism and willingness to speak the truth. And chairman rogers, so yovanovitch is at georgetown now and still teaching there. Shes still being paid by the state department but shes no longer ambassador. She said when she read that rough transcript and it mentioned President Trump as in there saying to the ukrainian president that shes going to go through some things, yovanovitch, the question what did you understand that to mean . Answer from yovanovitch, i didnt know what it meant, i was very concerned. I still am. Question, do you feel threatened . Answer, yes. And she doesnt know what it is about and she has friends who fear for her safety. It must be jarring to read that. It is awful. This is the craziest thing about this. If the president of the United States wanted to remove an ambassador who is the president s representative in that particular country, he just picks up the phone and said i want to remove that ambassador, i want someone else in there. None of that has to happen. There doesnt have to be any dual track or diplomacy that put this grand scheme together. That is what is so shocking about this. This is the president s style of getting people to do other things for the president , including not being able to fire people that he wants to fire from his administration. Having someone else do it. This is all of that wrapped up into that very conversation that something bad is going to happen to this career diplomat. And it is okay to disagree with a career diplomat. That is okay. There is processes for that. To go through all of this mess just makes it look worse and worse and worse. And again it is tragic the way they handled this with a distinguished career diplomat who is doing what she believed was in the best interest of the United States. And she goes through the list of conspiracy theories about things that where it was accused of having done or thought and she said fon of them are true. And there is another person whose testimony was released, ambassador mckinley an adviser to pompeo and asked about his decision to resign, quote, the question, part of the reason you decided to resign is you couldnt be blind to what has happened with efforts to use the state department to dig up dirt on a political opponent. Is that fair as well and mckinley responds if i could under score, ive never seen that. He used to work at the state department. There is a segment of the public who thinks this is just politics. This is not normal. Absolutely not. I was a political appointee at the state department and youre told to check your politic at the door and people remind you of that and they are skeptical of people who come in and are political because the Foreign Service and civil serve runs that building and keeps it functioning from year to year and decade to decade. And anyone reading what ambassador mckinley, they dont have to read the whole thing, but exactly what you highlighted there, it is a reminder that this is not normal. And what Masha Yovanovitch did is what her job was, was to push back on corruption in ukraine. Something people across party lines agreed on within the government and several agencies agreed was a problem and that is what she did. Pompeo there was bad blood for him long before this because he was the one that led the benghazi investigation and brought many foreign career officers up to the hill under political auspices so there was already skepticism when he didnt stand up for them and it just poured more flames on it. Everyone stick around. We have more to talk about. President trump and republicans are attacking the whistleblower for doing the exact same thing the President Trump failed to do. And one of the states could decide the 2020 election, democrats want to hear what they have to say. Stay with us. Celebrating a successful business trip together is easy, if youre staying at holiday inn. Were there. So you can be too. Some farms grow food. This one grows fuel. Exxonmobil is growing algae for biofuels. That could one day power planes, propel ships, and fuel trucks. And cut their Greenhouse Gas emissions in half. Algae. Its potential just keeps growing. 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Paxella brown reports on the Trump Administration stonewalling. Reporter as President Donald Trump rolls out the red carpet for the World Champion washington nationals. America fell in love with the nats baseball. They just fell in love with nats baseball. That is all they wanted to talk about. That and impeachment. Reporter it is clear he is still seeing red when it comes to the impeachment inquiry. Continuing his attacks on the democraticled investigation and again spreading falsehoods about the whistleblower that started it all. I dont know if that is true or not. But what they said is hes an obama person. It was involved with brennan, susan rice which means obama. But he was like a big a big antitrump person. Reporter the president again demanding the whistleblower be unmasked. Despite his or her identity being protected by law. Trump erroneously tweeting, the whistleblower got it so wrong that he must come forward. Reveal the whistleblower and end the impeachment hoax. The whistleblowers attorney firing back telling cnn the fixation on the whistleblower is simply because the president and others are at a loss on how to address the investigations the underlying disclosure prompted. As the whistleblower attorneys offered republican lawmakers the chance to submit written questions directly without having to go through the committees democratic majority. Trumps response not good enough. Tweeting he must be brought forward to testify. Written answers not acceptable. Even though written answers were exactly what the president gave special Counsel Robert Mueller. My phone call was perfecto. It was totally appropriate. Reporter and now the president may also be changing his story with regards to his july phone call with ukrainian president zelensky and that the president has repeatedly claimed was perfect. It just came out and it was quid pro quo. Well there was none. There was no quid pro quo. There was a perfect call. There was no quid pro quo. But then noting on twitter that even if there was quid pro quo, quote, it doesnt matter. There was nothing wrong with that. It is not an impeachable event. Perhaps so. But read the transcript. There is no quid pro quo. Reporter and the president appearing to change his tune as more republican lawmakers are saying that the phone call did raise concerns for them. It is not something they would have done but that is it is not impeachable, jake. Well wait and see what the president has to say at the matter at the rally tonight and whether he continues to change his tune on that matter. Jake. Pamela, thank you. Lets chew over this. Mike rodgers, as the former chairman of the house intelligence committee, do you think that the republicans should take the whistleblowers