Were complaining the lack of direct testimony that democrats were bringing, Rudy Giuliani would be the ultimate direct witness. He certainly would. Joy vance, thank you for joining us. The 11th hour with Brian Williams starts now. Tonight the late warning of another Government Employee breaks the silence on the Impeachment Inquiry as we are hours away from a veteran former ambassador who says she felt threatened by her own government while working for the u. S. Overseas. What words were they talking about . Cameras capture the conversation between the president and his Attorney General despite waiting for the helicopter in the backyard. The speaker compares the president to nixon and spells out the crimes she believes hes
guilty of. All of it as The 11th Hour gets underway on a thursday night. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 1,029 of the trump administration. A day between this weeks public impeachmentme hearings. The president flew to louisiana tonight for a rally. Back in washington, a new witness whos ready to break ranks and go against the white house ordered to remain silence. The Washington Post reports that mark sandy a Career Employee over at the Office Of Management And Budget will appear in a closed door session with lawmakers on saturday if subpoenaed. This has been confirmed by nbc news. He would be the first employee to testify in the inquiry after omb acting director russell
t. Vought and two other political appointees at the agency defied. They go onto add he was among the Career Staffers who raised questions about the holdup on the aid. This comes ahead of the public hearing of this investigation of course which begins in less than 12 hours now. Tomorrow at 9 00 a. M. The former ambassador to ukraine Marie Yovanovitch will appear before the house intel committee. She was abruptly removed from her most earlier this year. It is not unusual in that line of work for ambassadors to be recalled. In her closed doors testimony, she told Impeachment Investigators there was quote a certain campaign against me and that the department had been under pressure from the president to remove me summer of
2018. She testified having powerful adversaries working against her in ukraine, Rudy Giuliani and igor fruman and parnas. Over the course of 2018 and 2019, i became increasingly aware of an effort of Rudy Giuliani including his Associates Parnas and fruman to run the campaign to smear ambassador yovanovitch and other officials at the u. S. Embassy and kiev. Ambassador yovanovitch had been treated poorly. Bloomberg news reports that Rudy Giuliani is now under scrutiny from federal prosecutor in manhattan for Finance Violation and failure to register as a foreign agent. Tomorrow house investigators
will hear from another witness, david holmes. Hes the guy who apparently over heard trump on a Cell Phone Call with the Eu Ambassador and a restaurant in kiev. Hes scheduled to testify in close sessions tomorrow. The Associated Press reports a second u. S. Official was also able to hear the president on that Cell Phone Call. Nbc news had not spoken anyone who confirmed that particular reporting. Next week of firsthand knowledge of trumps conduct will testify publicly and including Alexander Vindman who was on that july 25th call, Ambassador Gordon Sondland and fiona hill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is being cautious about steps beyond these hearings and well see actual articles of
impeachment drawn up. Today she did use the word bribery to describe the evidence against the president and she took no prisoners when it came to the defense spread by trump and his republican allies. The president had something that means you have anything that shows you are innocent, then he should make it known. Thats part of the inquiry. Republicans argued that yesterdays witnesses heard things secondhand, i am wondering if you think it is worth waiting for those who heard things firsthand like bolton and mulvaney. Oh, dont fall into the secondhand stuff really. Thats such a fraudulent proposition put forward by the republicans. They know it and thats why they are talking about process rather than the substance we heard. While there is also this. There is substance, it is the visual kind before the president left the white house. Cameras and reporters observed and animated conversation with his Attorney General barr in the oval office. Shortly after that, a photographer caught barr talking with white house counsel. Here for our lead off discussion, Phillip Rucker is here with us in new york. In washington tamyra keith, White House Correspondent for npr and peter baker, our correspondent for the New York Times and coauthor of impeachment book. Phil, i would like to begin with you. What does mark sandy bring to the conversation, remind the omb role in this story . Mark sandy is as career
official at the Office Of Management And Budget. Hes not as political appointee of President Trump. He decided to defy the order, trying to present all of these lawyers testifying. It was the omb that was involved and stopping the 400 million aid from flowing into ukraine. The aid went to ukraine but there was a delay, it was ordered according to reporting by the president , sets forth by mulvaney and the omb director and mr. Sandy should shed much more light and details in the process inside. And what the system was for documenting that. We should repeat these witnesses that have come forward
are about to appear in these hearings. They are not limited in their testimony to whats on the deposition indeed, mr. Taylor, gave us new details we did not know. What is yovanovitch likely able to add to the story tomorrow . Well, what she does not know a lot about is what happened after she left. So she does not have a lot of visibility on july 5th phone call. She knows a lot about what happens leading up to her firing and the campaign that was led by Rudy Giuliani to have her ousted and at one point the president s son was tweeting she should be fired. The president has the right to fire any ambassador he wants. But, she is somebody who was working in the Civil Society group. She was working to push back
against corruption in ukraine and so she is a figure who has some insights into what was going on in ukraine and this sort of alternate channel, this side channel of Foreign Policy that was being led by Rudy Giuliani. Peter baker, meanwhile this was on thursday in ukraine. A nation involved in the Military Effort against russia and it really was until the two Rett Van Diplomats yesterday spoke with empathy and passion about ukraine and the ukrainian people that we had our attention focused back on that conflict and the ongoing trouble. You tweeted out a photograph that i would love for you to describe along with the ver verbiage that came with it. President trump authorized legal assistance. The biggest symbol of that was these javelin tight weapons that he supplied. My colleague out there has pointed out to us, javelins are not allowed to be used in the war. Theyre stored at a safe location and not on the front line. What ukrainian soldiers were doing was creating fake javelins to give the silhouette of what a javelins would look like in order to scare off potential russian tanks. Even when we talk about what president has had, it comes with limits and loopholes and conditions on it that have not been useful to the ukrainians as
they would like. It is a useful reminder. Phil rucker, i never have been successful in getting you to speculate wildly. What do you think was going on in the Oval Office Late today. Ma marine one is idling. He stayed behind the oval office and all we saw was speculation and both men with his ag talking in the oval office. Brian to be a fly on that curve wall, right . Exactly. We dont know what was being discussed in that moment but there are a couple of things to keep in mind about Attorney General barr. Hes in the middle of personally overseeing this investigation into the investigation that the Justice Department has launched in the russia investigation, something that President Trump cares deeply about. Perhaps, that came up in the
discussion to something barr himself traveled to several Foreign Countries to get to the bottom of. There is a desire on the president s conservative allies. Detracting attention away from the impeachment proceedings. One thing to remember from a couple of years earlier, this has happened before. There was that moment when the president was late to get on marin one and was in the oval office yelling at don mccgan an reince priebus. And so this is not the fers time we have seen a moment like this. The bullet proof glass is so thick, it gives everything a green cast and yet we can still see often especially given the lighting of Whats Going On. T tamyra, we are underway. These hearings are a given and they continue tomorrow. Has anything about the Reaction Machine changed in 24 hours . They have amped up their communications to their surrogates, both sort of in the broader conservative community and also on capitol hill. So although they are not sending Talking Points to the press particularly, there is been a steady stream of information sent to the president s surrogate. It was interesting during the hearing President Trump was not doing his usual play by play and television criticism. He was busy with president erdogan. It will be interesting to see in a day with a less heavy schedule tomorrow whether the president is watching the hearing and
commenting on it or hes going to continues the package of just retweeting allies who are saying things that he likes. Peter baker, the coverage on the right hand side, the ledger already got personal tonight. Mr. Hannity said he was moved to tears and wondered if the same thing would happen at tomorrows hearing. Your news and a. J. Sis piece tonight has an incredible driveby take down of ambassador taylor by the president s former lawyer. Yes, it does. Most republicans yesterday tried not to go after ambassador taylor in a personal way. He came across the great deal of credibility of any efforts to tear him down in the way that the president points down with other witnesses. I did get in touch with john dow. He never wanted to be shy. He referred to ambassador taylor as i dont have the exact words. I am being told in my ear. Pitiful and in subordinate with no trusty information. Theyre trying to not to go there yesterday. John gaifr voice to what people are thinking. It does not have any firsthand knowledge. They try to stay focus on the issue of the secondhand quality of this testimony. It was my colleague, cheryl asking Speaker Pelosi about it. Does that factor into how much weight to get to his testimony. It would be more useful from hearing from somebody like
mulvaney or john bolton who was in the Office Everyday or in the case of bolton, he was pushed out. But, they have not been able to get those two there fusing the testify, looks like the democrats are waiting for kind of core. They may be right for a party line votes. The to your point is that the argument for hearsay probably has a timer on it before that runs out. Our thanks to our big three for starting us off tonight. Tamyra keith, Phillip Rucker, and peter. Thank you, guys. The president will ask the former prosecutor her take on the democrat Criminal Case against trump. With a stroke of a pen, another candidate has entered the 2020 race. If was not suffering from a
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cover up, makes what nixon did looks almost small, almost small. The first Impeachment Inquiry Hearing in generation is now history. The second comes up tomorrow. Today the speaker gives trumps crime a name. The Devastatiing Corroborate and evidence in bribery. He threatened to withhold military aid and exchange for an investigation into his political rival. Thats in the constitution attached to the impeachment proceeding. Nick fandos pointed out. The speakers explicit
allegation of bribery a misdeed identified in the constitution as an itmpeachment. Moving specific set of charges that could be cod fified in the coming weeks. Back with us tonight. Please expand to us why it is significance and why is it important to label this bribery, berit . Bribery is something that most people understand especially people who have children. We all have a general understanding of that. This this is in the constitution thats a basis for impeachment along with treason and high crimes and misdemeanor, bribery
is identified. Much like other prosecutors, what shes doing is navorrrowinp the facts and d lthe law. This is the specific bases for which it could lead into impeachment. Remind us of what subset of the case that ambassador yovanovitch can speak into and fit into . She does not haves much knowledge of what happened in the call. What she can talk about is what happened before that. She can show this is apart of a broader picture that she was the target of this smeared campaign by Rudy Giuliani and others that were apart of this. Not outlandish but irregular. She can talk about what she thought was the issue and why she felt it. I am glad you mentioned rudy
giuliani, i have something for you from the cougguardian. In a Telephone Interview with the guardian in response to a question about whether he was nervous trump might throw him under the bus. Robert costello called who was also on the call then interjected hes joking. They are the investigating arm in this case. How much jeopardy does he face as of right now tonight . I think it is the Southern District of new york is looking into you, you are facing a lot of jeopardy. It is never a good day if the prosecutors of the southern
district starts to dig into a case to see if there is evidence against you. We heard from reporting earlier that one of Rudy Giulianis associate, parnas may be cooperating. If hes cooperating, that could be devastating for Rudy Giuliani. To get a corroboration, you have to testify of all the misdeeds of the people that you know. If parnas is cooperating, that would be including of everything he knows of Rudy Giuliani and the entire scandal. The District Attorney of new york, hes doing the questions today. To get it away from filibustering potential members of congress. Absolutely. And dan really led a master class yesterday and how do an
effective examination. I thought he handled it perfectly. They have the benefit of having depositions and transcripts and it was a friendly transcript. They did a great job of Fnot Ony Listing the facts but showing why they are important and why it is not a bad phone call or National