Night. Well, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 1,049 of the trump administration. And the New York Times broke a the story today with the heat on Rudy Giuliani. In the midst of the ukrainian investigation rudy has decided theres no better time for a trip to Eastern Europe interviewing people about ukraine. More specifically working on a new project to discredit the democrats case against the ec president. According to the times, giuliani was in budapest tuesday meeting with an ousted ukrainian prosecutor trying to dig up dirt on the president s political rivals. The times reports giuliani then traveled to kyiv on wednesday seeking to meet with other former ukrainian prosecutors whose claims have been embraced by republicans. Former prosecutors who faced allegations of corruption all played some role in promoting claims about former Vice President biden, a former United States ambassador to ukraine, and ukrainians who disseminated damaging information about mr. N Trumps Campaign chairman Paul Manafort in 2016. Those claims have been at the base of the campaign to push ai ukraine into opening inquiries that would benefit trump heading into 2020. The times and nbc news report Rudy Giuliani is using this trip to help produce a protrump, li antiimpeachment documentary for the conservative cable outlet oann, one america news network. Meanwhile, the Associated Press is reporting federal prosecutors investigating rudy and his two indicted associates, we know them as lev and igor, have interviewed the head of ukraines stateowned gas company as part of that inquiry. This all comes a day after the house intel report revealed multiple calls in april and august between giuliani and somebody at the office of management and budget which we now know was involved in the freeze on nearly 400 million in u. S. Military assistance for ukraine that was approved by congress. Today trump dismissed his lawyers phone calls. Mr. President , can you tell us why your personal attorney Rudy Giuliani would need to talk to the Budget Office . I really dont know. Sounds like youd have to ask him. Sounds like something thats not so complicated. But youd have to ask him. No big deal. Somebody said he made a phone call in to the white house. What difference does that make . I dont know. Is that supposed to be a big su deal . I dont think so. For the record, nbc news is reporting that an omb official says no one can identify anybody who spoke with giuliani during the months identified with the call logs. Hs on capitol hill this was day onl for phase two. The house judiciary committees public impeachment hearings. Four constitutional scholars weighed in on trumps conduct st during a session that stretched past the eighthour mark and began with this from the committee chairman. No other president has vowed to, quote, fight all of the subpoenas, unquote, as President Trump promised. In the 1974 impeachment proceedings president nixon produced dozens of recordings. In 1998 president clinton physically gave his blood. President trump by contrast has refused to produce a single t document and directed every witness not to testify. Republicans focused on the three experts called by the democrats and implied they were not fully qualified to testify. What is really interesting today and for the next few weeks is america will see why most people dont go to law school. No offense to our professors. For the opinions that we already know, out of the classrooms that maybe youre getting ready for finals in, to discuss things that you probably havent even had a chance unless youre really good on tv or watching the hearings for the last couple of weeks, you couldnt have possibly actually digested the adam schiff report from yesterday or the republican response in any real way. Now, we can be theoretical all we want, but the American People is really going to look at this and say, huh . After that it was time for the witnesses to respond. T mr. Collins, i would like to say to you, sir, that i read transcripts of every one of the witnesses who appeared in the live hearing because i would not speak about these things without reviewing the facts. What has happened in the case today is something that i do not think we have ever seen before. A president who has doubled down on violating his oath to faithfully execute the laws and to protect and defend the constitution. President trump has committei impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors by corruptly abusing the office of the presidency. The memorandum and other testimony relating to the july 25th, 2019 phone call between the two president s, President Trump and president zelensky, more than sufficiently indicates that President Trump abused his office. After reviewing the evidence thats been made public, i cannot help but conclude that this president has attacked eacl of the constitutions safeguards against establishing a monarchy in this country. If what were talking about is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable. The sole republican called witness was not so much a defender of the president as he was an advocate against this e proceeding. Im not a supporter of President Trump. I voted against him. Im concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and an abundance of anger. Its not wrong because President Trump is right. His call was anything but perfect. Ll its not wrong because the house has no legitimate reason to investigate the ukrainian controversy. Its not wrong because were in an election year. There is no good time for an impeachment. No. Its wrong because this is not how you impeach an american president. As that hearing was getting under way, the republicans in the senate met with the white house legal team, as one does, to discuss the trump defense. And House Democratic caucus gathered to block out their next moves in their process. Trump is now back at the white house after attending the twoday accelerated nato summit in the uk. Earlier today he took time during his meetings to lash out at the democrats. Its a disgrace. You have a loser like a stone cold loser, adam schiff. These people, you almost question whether or not they op love our country. And thats a very, very serious thing. Do they in fact love our country. Meanwhile, the Washington Post is reporting that john durham, the prosecutor who was handselected by trumps own attorney general to investigate the russia inquiry, has told the department of justice Inspector General he has no evidence to support that theory that the russia case was concocted by the home team, u. S. Intelligence. Today trump offered this praise for durham despite having never met him. I dont know mr. Durham. Ive never spoken to him. But hes one of the most respected Law Enforcement or u. S. Attorneys anywhere in the country. Hes a tough guy. Hes had an incredible track record. A hes actually sort of nonpartisan i guess from what i hear. Here for our leadoff discussion on a wednesday night, mieke eoyang, attorney and former staffer for both the house intel and Armed Services committees. Jeremy bash, former chief of ess staff at cia and the pentagon and notably former chief counsel to house intel. And anita kumar, White House Correspondent and associate editor over at politico. Good evening and welcome to you all. Mieke, counselor, is this a good time for Rudy Giuliani to travel to Eastern Europe . I dont think theres any good time for Rudy Giuliani to travel to Eastern Europe. But whats very clear about this is the brazenness of giuliani and trump in their pursuit of dirt on the bidens. We are in the middle of an impeachment inquiry. Its entered phase 2. The president knows the er republicans are unlikely to remove him. So his personal attorney is now doubling down on the kind of activity that got him into this trouble in the first place and meeting with these exact same corrupt prosecutors who are pushing a narrative that we know now started with Russian Intelligence Services to try and discredit his most feared political rival. Jeremy bash, there is a stor from political comedy lore that when Richard Nixon tried to say chutzpah once it came out as shutspa. Having said that, is Rudy Giuliani redefining chutzpah in our very eyes . Absolutely. Ry in an opening cartoon in Alan Dershowitzs book chutzpah which is how you pronounce it is a cartoonist saying id like to buy this book chutzpah and id like you to pay for it, to the cashier. Hes engaging in the interference as we speak which is fundamentally an argument for impeachment for the democrats because their argument is its not just to punish past behavior, its actually to prevent an abuse of power today and to prevent trump and his allies from trying to rig the 2020 election. If that werent the issue we could potentially wait for the election. But because theyre trying to interfere in the election we have to act now. Anita kumar, when news breaks on capitol hill over at the white house that rudy is on another ukrainerelated trip, do republicans raise a ruckus at all or one you could hear . I didnt hear anything. You heard sort of official washington kind of saying what . Hes there right now . But from trump people, trump world, you heard a lot of people say, well, this is exactly what President Trump does, right . This is a page out of his playbook. He gets criticized for things and then just turns around and does them anyway. Im reminded, its a completely different issue but im reminded he was told that he was under investigation on, you know, using his properties. Was he unfairly profiting from the presidency in his nf businesses . And then he says hes going to hold the g7 at one of his properties. So its exactly the same way that Rudy Giuliani is just going about the business that hes under investigation for. Just sort of a different attitude. And someone said to me its just a new york attitude, its the way they are, and its somethink the president likes in him. Thats why they get along. Theyre very similar in that way. Mieke eoyang, 20 minutes ago the president started tweeting. Well put it on the screen as id read it to you. T when i said in my phone call to the president of ukraine, i would like you to do us a favord though, because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it, with the word us im referring to the United States, our country. I then went on to say i would like to have the attorney general of the United States call you or your people. This based on what i have seen is their big point, and it is no point at all except for a big win for me. The democrats should apologize to the American People. Does that make legal sense, mieke . No, it doesnt make legal sense. When he says id like you to do us a favor, what hes asking for is clearly in his personal political benefit. And in fact when the ukrainians said, hey, will the attorney general make a formal request to us through the appropriate Law Enforcement channels, the gh attorney general declined to do so. So we know this isnt actually about a legal proceeding and punishment of wrongdoing. We know this because they were only interested in the appearance of an investigation. They didnt care about an actual investigation. We know this because Rudy Giuliani is making a documentary, not taking depositions. None of this is about real legal action. This is all about showmanship and political theater. Jeremy bash, take a second and tell us where you are on the understandable temptation of mission creep. The temptation that democrats must have on the precipice of this to reach back into the satchel of the Mueller Report and say look at all this stuff we found, nobody voted it, it never came to the fore. , this is at least one if not two more articles of impeachment. I oppose that, brian. I dont think this should be a kitchen sink impeachment. Although i think you could justify one. I think for the purposes of this inquiry it should be constrained to the ukraine issue. It should be the president s conduct in the runup to the july 25th phone call, the phone call itself, and the activities in the weeks that ensued until he got caught. Because therein he asked and solicited and demanded a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 election and he conditioned military aid and the white house visit on those actions. And those actions in and of themselves are more than sufficient to justify the impeachment inquiry and probably the conclusion that it is a high crime and misdemeanor. And mieke, because this intersects politics with law, the expression from politics is if youre explaining youre losing. It would require them to go back and explain, to coin a term, the origins of their case on obstruction of justice, for example. Yeah. Look, i think there are many people who do think that in the mueller case there was obstruction. But what we have here in this case in ukraine is a very clear case of obstruction that is actually even worse because it is preventing the house from conducting oversight of the president into the specifics that are happening here. So when people like professor turley and the president s allies argue, look, we cant go forward on this because the firsthand witnesses havent comn forward, they neglect to mention that the president has barred those firsthand witnesses from coming forward and has denied 7s document requests that the house investigators have asked for. I mean, this is also the definition of chutzpah. That they would say were holding it back and now you cant get us on the things that were withholding. Superb pronunciation. Well done. Thank you. Fantastic. Hey, anita, we just flashed the front page of tomorrow mornings Washington Post, as scholars opine trump primes for tv to trial. That reminds me of something i wanted to raise with you. Are the republicans overlooking from now until the end of the year the house phase and pushing all their time, attention, and resources onto what the r president keeps saying is his chance for a fair trial with witnesses, oh, by the way, its going to happen in the well of the u. S. Senate . Right. When we saw the white house this week or today not participating in the house judiciary committee, we will see by friday if theyll participate in the upcoming ones. But from everything im hearing the house is just sort of looking past this. There were eight hours today but they feel like the end result is its exactly the same. Its probably going to be a partisan vote. Probably entirely partisan. Maybe a couple people in either party might switch. But pretty much it didnt change anything from their point of view. They know where this is going to end up. W theyre going to move on to this trial. That is why the house is full speed ahead on the trial. They think its going to be much friendlier. Obviously in the republicanled senate, Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell has kind of said that. So theyre already looking on to how theyre going to do that trial. Re what is that going tone tail, who are they going to bring, in how is that going to work . Theyve just sort of moved on t that next phase. And you know what that means. Mishegas. Ou to our starting three for tonight. To mieke eoyang, to jeremy bash, to anita kumar, its been a long day, we covered a lot of ground, and our thanks for showing up. Coming up for us, the unlikely stars of todays hearings. Four constitutional lawyers talking about their lifes workt as Television Cameras looked on. Well go over all of it with a s former u. S. Attorney. And later, while a prominent republican was on tv at the hearing, he was in the news back in his home state for Something Else entirely. All of it as the 11th hour is [ electrical buzzing ] [ dramatic music ] ahhhh ahhhh elliott. You came back the first impeachment i spent all of thanksgiving day vacation sitting there reading these impeachment documents. Stanford University Law professor pamela karlan also spoke about the high stakes surrounding this impeachment inquiry. Because this is an abuse that cuts to the heart of democracy, you need to ask yourselves if you dont impeach a president who has done what this president has done, or at least you dont investigate and then impeach if you conclude that the House Select Committee on intelligence findings are correct, then what youre saying is its fine to go ahead and do this again. Meanwhile, the president weighed in on todays impeachment hearing. As we said, he said he had no representation there. But chairman nadler seemed ready for that comment and pointed out theres a reason no representatives from the white house were in attendance. They get three constitutional lawyers and we get one. Whats that all about . We had no representation. We couldnt call witnesses. We couldnt do anything. It is the most unfair thing that anybodys ever seen. They would have done much better if they gave us equal representation. I note that this is the moment in which the white house would have had an opportunity to question the witnesses but they declined our invitation. Back with us tonight, Barbara Mcquade, veteran federal prosecutor, former u. S. Attorney for the