Key House Judiciary Committee meeting to consider articles of impeachment against President Trump over the ukraine situation. That upcoming Public Meeting where the committee will formally mark up the text of those two articles of impeachment. Just sort of like a bill, believe it or not. It gets marked up. It was described by one democratic source, though, as basically their last appeal to the nation before an impeachment vote. Today, one of the president s impeachment counternarratives took center stage in a dramatic hearing. Im talking of course about the president s attacks on the fbi and his efforts to discredit the russia investigation completely. Trying to paint it as a politicallymotivated coo attempt against him. Except the justice departments Inspector General michael horowitz, an independent watchdog, said he didnt find evidence that political bias influenced the fbis decision to launch the inquiry into the Trump Campaign. And they didnt find evidence of bias when the fbi opened investigation into the four individuals associated with that campaign. They didnt find evidence of bias when it used informants. And they said there was no evidence of bias when it decided to initially seek a fisa warrant on Trump Campaign advisor carter page. But lets be Crystal Clear here. The ig did find some alarming instances of fbi misconduct related to its applications to secretly monitor carter page. And he could not say whether political bias did or did not influence some of those specific decisions down the road. And, by the way, its not its not only political bias that could have influenced. Its possible confirmation bias. Prosecutorial bias. Not all bias is red and blue in america. Especially, for investigations of this magnitude. And, yes, the facts in this report are important. But once again, the facts are being distorted more by spin, and in some cases, conspiracy theories. What has been described as a few irregularities becomes a massive criminal conspiracy. They couldnt believe trump didnt want him to believe didnt want him to win. And when he won, couldnt tolerate the thafact that he wo this was an attempted overthrow. And a lot of people were in on it and they got caught. They got caught red handed. I think when you step back here and say, what was this all based on . It its not sufficient. The question really is, what was the agenda after the election that kept em pressing ahead after their case collapsed . Now, the facts have been warped to defend the president here. Counter narratives have been pushed and president ial conspiracy theories taken hold as part of this broader information war. Frankly, thats helped the president in his fight against the facts of this impeachment investigation. Joining me now, nbc news capitol hill correspondent garrett haake. Justice correspondent pete williams. Also, msnbc legal analyst. Garrett, let me start with you and some nuts and bolts. So were going to have this markup tonight. And, again, markup is washington speak for sort of i guess editing a bill. Except this isnt any ordinary bill coming out of Judiciary Committee. It is an indictment of the president of the United States. Yeah. Thats right. And i wouldnt expect to see any edits actually taking place. Yeah. You had the matinee today of the ig hearing. Tonight, starting around 7 00, youll have the start of this markup. Itll stretch over two days. And, yeah, democrats, ultimately, whose resolution this is, dont anticipate there being any substantive changes to the document that was released yesterday. But what a markup process does allow for is an almost unlimited offering of amendmentsme. And i suspect youll hear from republicans tonight offering tons of amendments some relating substantively to the ukraine scandal. Some perhaps not relating to it at all because this is meant to be a freeflowing process by which a normal bill would be improved before it heads to the floor. This will be a fairly freeflowing process. And i suspect whether its late tonight or some point tomorrow, this is going to get kind of nasty. I was just going to say. Is it going to get ugly . Are we going to see crazy roberts rules of order arguments . And points of order here and points of order there. And trying to disrupt this process. Ive had my head in my parliamentary procedure playbook all day, chuck, trying to prepare for this. Yeah, i do. I think youre going to see every every variety of parliamentary trickeration used here to try to slow this process down, gum it up. And again, you know, for republicans, ive said this a couple times in different context. They dont necessarily have to win the arguments in these public hearings. They have to try to get people to turn off the television. And so if they can bog down this process and make it seem very dense and not interesting to people who might otherwise care about the impeachment of a sitting president. They can kind of call that a win. All right. Lets from what you could glean from senators as they left the horowitz hearing today, garrett, what do they feel was accomplished with this hearing . Both the republican side of the argument and the democratic side of the argument. Im going to try to take a really positive view here, chuck, and say if theres one big legislative takeaway. One thing that could actually change for the future based on this hearing. It was a bipartisan agreement that there are problems with the fisa process here. Problems with the way it was followed by the fbi and perhaps with the way the system is set up at all. That there was some bipartisan agreement, perhaps not on the specific solutions, that those need to be addressed to protect civil liberties. Not of future president ial campaigns necessarily but americans of all stripes going forward. The political machinations from all of this will not surprise you. I mean, republicans saw this largely as a, you know, the there was a largely defense of the spying language used by the president. The ig was absolutely resolute in not using that kind of language. And democrats, again, kept pointing back to the defending that none of this puts any doubt on the mueller reports findings. And that there was no political bias at the start of this investigation. Defending it as as a legitimate, necessary probe. Garrett haake starting us off there on capitol hill. Garrett, thanks very much. Let me turn now to pete and ben. And i want to get at something here with both of you, which is having to do and, pete, you had it in your interview yesterday with bill barr. This dispute over was there a proper predicate here to open this investigation . Im going to play some clips here from mr. Horowitz, senator graham, and senator coons. Take a listen. It was opened with the proper predicate, sufficient predication, by a person who was not one of the text message persons. And senior to those people. The confidential human source operations, while permitted by fbi policy, should cause everybody to give pause as to whether that policys sufficient to provide accountability over decisions. And finally, that the fisa process here was not used appropriately, properly. And the rules were not followed. For a moment, lets assume that there was a lawful predicate to open up a counterintelligence investigation. What has been described as a few irregularities becomes a massive criminal conspiracy. President trump has called the entire russia investigation a witch hunt and a hoax. But your report found that the fbi had an authorized purpose when it opened its investigation into whether individuals associated with that campaign were coordinating with the russian governments broad efforts to interfere in our 2016 president ial election. Which was grounded in protecting our National Security. And i want to point one other thing up here. And its a timeline that we put together of 60 days in 2016. Before july 31st, pete. On june 9th, the trump tower meeting happened. On july 18th, the gop platform mysteriously changed to somehow take away the lethal weapons to ukraine. July 22nd, wikileaks publishes hacked dnc emails. July 27th, fbi learns about papadopoulos intel. Also the same day trump says, russia if youre listening. July 31st, opens investigation into the Trump Campaign. Heres what im confused about. Did the fbi share the rest of that timeline as part of the predicate . Or was it just the papadopoulos thing that was used as the predicate . Because i dont understand the attorney generals view given all of this that was taking place into the runup of the opening of the investigation. Its just the papadopoulos statement from the australians. And as as the Inspector General characterized it in his report, it was conveyed to the fbi as a suggestion of a suggestion that russia was going to be able to offer this. Now, of course, its in the context of the fbis knowing that the russians are hacking into the democratic computers. So thats the thats the two plus two here. I think what the attorney general is saying is and by the way, horowitz says in his report. Followed the rules. Question, he says, are the rules right . Is the predicate should there be Something Different when youre looking at a First Amendment activity like a president ial campaign . Thats a question he raises. But he says, nonetheless, lets apply the rules that existed at the time. The fbis decision to open the investigation met the admittedly very low bar for doing this. I think what the attorney general is saying is, well, shouldnt the fbi, given that its an investigation of a president ial campaign, at least have gone back to the original australian source . And said, what did you hear . But thats thats his thats his view. Ben wittes, how do you look at this . This idea that theyre trying to single out just the one papadopoulos thing as saying thats the only reason. But, again, in context, youre like, that became, like, the sixth dot. Right. I have never understood the predication question as a close call to be honest. Okay. To be the in the context of russian hacking of, you know, Democratic Committee servers. A trusted Foreign Government comes to you and says somebody associated with the Trump Campaign has been, you know, got drunk in london. And is boasting about their having, you know, a lot of of emails. Right. And i i that is just something that calls out to be investigated. Shame on the fbi if they had not opened an inquiry based on that. And that is essentially what horowitz says. He doesnt except for the shame on them part. But the the standards of predication is not a particularly high standard. And, you know but this doesnt feel like it was a low bar that they met. They i mean correct. Thats what i mean. Its not like they just had a, yes, you can there is a low bar. But they didnt but they more than met they more than cleared that bar. I agree. And ive always thought it was a very strange criticism that when given that group of circumstances, that there was even a question whether a counterintelligence issue is raised by that. But i will say, you know, the criticism has always been a little bit confused. Because on the one hand, people criticized the opening of the investigation. And on the other hand, they also suggest, and the ig rejects this, that the in fact, the investigation started earlier than that. Right . And the attorney general has both challenged the predication. But hes also cast doubt on whether this was really what triggered the investigation in the first place. Right. And so one of the significant ig findings here is, yes, the the investigation really did start at this time. The way they said it. Yeah. And, number two, and it was adequate predication for the investigation. Pete, can you clear up something . Theres a clip that keeps going around from bill barr where he says the following. He says what i dont understand is why they kept pursuing it after their case collapsed. Is he just referring to carter page here . Yes. Yes. Okay. Because that that that is being used, as you might realize, in general on social media as a way to somehow he was talking about everything. He was specifically talking about carter page in that moment, correct . Right. And when he says it collapsed, what he means is and the ig goes through this. The ig says basically, first of all, the fbi didnt meet the standard for, you know, i cant remember what the phrase is. But, you know, extremely careful preparation for this. But as they kept going back and looking at claims that this Christopher Steele was making in the dossier, they kept finding things that were inconsistent with that. Went back to contribuhristopher steeles source. And as time went on, it became more and more clear to the fbi or shouldve been, the ig says, that this just wasnt going anywhere. I think that is he what he means by the case collapsing. And ben wittes, the irony to all this. Its my understanding, and speaking with people involved in the mueller report, that the steele dossier and carter page were tiny slices of what they were working on. You know, no aspect of any indictment that Robert Mueller brought depends on the steele dossier. And no aspect of any indictment that Robert Mueller brought depends on the surveillance of carter page. And so, you know, i dont want to diminish the igs findings or be dismissive of the igs findings on the fisa material because, frankly, theyre very upsetting. And this is not the way the process should work. But it is not a basis to discredit the work that Robert Mueller did or the substance of the presence in the 2016 election. These are threads of the investigation that the larger stream did not depend on at all. Important context. Im glad you put it in there. Pete williams. Ben wittes, thank you. Its pretty clear the fbi and some others are treating fisa applications as if theyre any other government bureaucrats paperwork and that is, clearly, is a problem. Its too loose. Anyway, thank you both. Up ahead, much more on todays testimony from the department of justices Inspector General. What impact could it have on the impeachment inquiry . Ill ask democratic senator sheldon. 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You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. [ dramatic music ]ing ] ahhhh ahhhh elliott. You came back our review identified significant concerns with how certain aspects of the investigation were conducted and supervised. Particularly, the fbis failure to adhere to its own standards of accuracy and completeness when filing applications with a Foreign Surveillance applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority, known as fisa, to surveil carter page, a u. S. Person, who was connected to the trump for president campaign. Welcome back. Lets get right to democratic senator Sheldon White house who is on the Judiciary Committee. Was part of todays hearing. Senator whitehouse. Let me ask this. What do you think the public got out of todays hearing . Well, i hope the first thing that they got was that a lot of the lies and spin that have been thrown at the fbi simply werent true. The idea are you confident that they got that . I cant speak for the public. But certainly, the evidence was there from which to get that. The claim that Obama Wiretapped the president through the fbi. No. Blown up. The claim that theres a deepstate conspiracy that is going after him. No. Wrong. Blown up. The complaint that this was all started with the steele dossier and that it was funded by the clinton campaign. No. Blown up. So i think those are the the key pieces. I think people can have some assurance that the fbi actually, by and large, went about doing a pretty responsible job in a very difficult situation, in which for the first time, you had a counterintelligence investigation had to be run into a president ial campaign because of the conduct of mike flynn and carter page and others. What are the Lessons Learned for you to say, okay, at the end of the day, its clear this was an unusual circumstance. Everybody was in unusual position. Frankly, there was concern that the person you would warn that theyre going to be targeted for infiltration might have actually been somebody who was participating in the scheme. Im referring to their Campaign Manager at the time. Yep. So what did you learn from mr. Horowitz . To say, you know what . Maybe when it comes to president ial campaigns, weve got to do x. Thats different from any other entity we deal with in the in in government. You see anything there . I think the thing that you have to be careful of is separating the support duties to a candidate and to a president. Particularly, things like Intelligence Briefings from investigative matters. And a great deal was made in the hearing today of the fact that the fbi agent in the trump intelligence briefing was actually there as an investigator. And that was a lot of fuss. But really not about much because i think horowitz and everybody agrees that when t