i want to head over to chris for "cuomo primetime." chris? all right, thank you, anderson. i'm chris cuomo. welcome to "primetime." it is a critical day for america as we start to examine the proof against the president of the united states and a pending impeachment investigation. what do you say? let's get after it. >> this is c nn breaking news. >> the latest is that congress has the whistleblower complaint. it may not all be unredacted and available to all members of congress freely, they have to go into a skiff, which is an acronym for a safe room. that's why you have lawmakers saying i have to go back and read more and see more. we'll teak yake you through wha in that complaint and cross

reference it with what the law is and how it pertains to what came up in that phone call and all so much that happened before it and after it. it's not all about the call. and we all saw the president's words on that call. tonight we have some big players to figure out what it means. we have congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez. she's here to talk about this and her latest big plan for america. and so is the president's personal lawyer. no, not that one, the other one, jay sekulow. but speaking of which, this has all been rapidly unraveling since our sitdown with rudy giuliani last week. he gave mixed stories, but a very clear intention to put biden on the hot seat. however, it has turned out to be the opposite of what their intention was. the efforts of mr. giuliani, maybe on behalf of the country, maybe on the behalf of the president, now has him and the president in the hot seat.

but what does it mean? and where does it go? that's a question for democrats. let's bring in one of the major players, the chairman of one of those six committees operating under pelosi's impeachment choir umbrella, congressman engel, he heads the foreign relations committee. thank you for joining us tonight, especially at this time. >> it's my pleasure to be here, chris. thank you. >> let's start broadly. what do you think we're looking at in terms of the level of consistency in the phone call, the coordination and action of different government agents before and after and the complaint? >> well, unfortunately it reminded me of what the country went through under richard nixon all over again, brought back ugly and bad memories. we on the foreign affairs

committee are requesting documents from the state department, which is in our jurisdiction, and if we don't get them, we are going to subpoena them on friday. so we think we'll get much more information then as well. >> what are you looking for, congressman? just so people understand, when you are save state department, just for the audience's edification, there seems to be no mall suggestion that rudy giuliani who said to me originally, i did it all for myself, i did it all for my client, i'm april lollowed to dd now it seems the ukraine government thought he was acting under authority. what do you want to know from them? >> i want to be know exactly what they've seen or heard the president do. when you talk about rudy giuliani, he wasn't working for the government. he's the president's private lawyer. >> but he says the state

department asked him to go. do you believe him? >> no, i don't. and i think it's mixing apples with oranges and trying to make it look good but it really isn't good. you know, you would think that given all the hoopla about russian interference in the previous presidential election, that the president would be very careful this time around and not use or try to use a foreign leader, but he apparently learned nothing. if you read the transcript, i mean, anybody can read the transcript and you can see what the president was trying to do and say and he was obsessed with biden and wanted to, you know, use the office of the presidency for his own personal vendetta. >> so do you believe the president of the united states abused his power in his dealing with ukraine? >> well, i think he abused it just on the basis of what they sent over. can you imagine -- the white house sent this over thinking it would absolve the president. so how much more is there to

come that we haven't seen yet, that we don't know about yet? >> you think on the face of the transcript alone, you see an abuse of power? >> oh, there's no doubt about it. when you're the president of the united states and you control things and you remind the president of ukraine how much money we've given ukraine and what we've done, implicit is that is play ball with me and if you don't, we can yank the money back. >> where does it become atypical of one power using leverage against another? >> it's atypical -- first of all, generally speaking, when someone becomes president, they put their estate or whatever holdings they have in a private trust. this president hasn't done that. there are foreign governments that think they can curry favor, the whole emoluments question with him, if they stay at his hotels and do things. there is so much conflict of interest and potential conflict

of interest. here it is with ukraine as well. remember, he withheld some aid to ukraine that the congress voted for. so it just one thing after another after another. >> he'll say but we eventually gave them the aid and they did have problems with krucorruptio and there was an issue with biden and i was just asking him to do what he needed do to get to the bottom of some matters. at what point does it become something in your estimation that is worthy of impeachment, which means removing somebody from office maybe and maybe a nullification of an election? >> well, let me first tell you that back in may, i became alarmed when the u.s. ambassador to ukraine, a career ambassador, very highly thought of, was summarily removed. i said it publicly then. i really thought it was a disgrace then. and it was obvious to me now why she was removed, because they wanted -- they knew she wouldn't put up with any of this

shenanigans and the president wanted to install his own people. >> has she been interviewed about this? >> not to my knowledge. >> should she? >> yes, i hope she'll come from an interview because there's an lot that's going to follow from the there. >> you so you don't believe this is it just about the phone call. you believe the phone call is a window into a dynamic that need to be discovered in. >> absolutely. i think if anybody looks at this without a jaded eye, they will come to the same conclusion, too. >> do anything who have an "r" next to their name when it comes to their office, does any of them agree with you? >> i don't know. we'll see. i mean, we -- we are coordinating six committees, including mine, foreign affairs. we want to find out what went on, we want to find out if there are any other documents.

again, if the white house is releasing this phone conversation claiming exoneration, my goodness, it points all over the place, it's anything but exoneration. so what more phone calls are there? what more threats were made to foreign leaders? it really boggles the mind that the white house thinks somehow or other this exonerates the president. you're the president of the united states and you try to enlist a foreign leader to go after a political vendetta of somebody that you see as a political enemy, well, that's using his power of his office for his own personal game. anybody knows that that's not the right thing to do and it shouldn't be done. >> the question becomes how wrong is it, how egregious, how it will be reflected by the feelings of the country. there's a lot of wood to chop here. we see what your focus is on it,

chairman, and we appreciate here at the beginning of this assessment you coming on to set the table for us. thank you very much. >> el with, thawell, thank you. it's my pleasure. i always watch you at home. >> hopefully you'll be on the show more and watching from home less. you'll be pivotal in this pros process so congressman eliot engel, thank you. >> congressman engel is the old guard. congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez is the new guard. she's been waiting for speaker pelosi to come around. how does she feel about what seems to be the democrat plan of being all in on this ukraine matter? and what is the big plan that she has for you? next.

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otezla. show more of you. sources tell cnn nancy pelosi said today she wants them to focus their allegations on ukraine. so how does one of the more progress of members of her caucus feel about her actions. let's ask congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez. welcome back. >> good to be here. thank you these are big decisions, big move, big burden of proof on your party. how do you feel about let's focus on ukraine and this set of circumstances? >> i think it's an understandable directive. the judiciary committee has long been investigating many of the violations of the president, but this ukraine allegation is head

and shoulders one of the most serious and urgent allegations that we have seen come out of this administration to date. and so i think it's completely understandable that we've seen this. i think it's an allegation that frankly has united more members of the party on impeachment than any other. so for that i think it's an understandable decision that we make. that being said, i do think it's important that we continue to tell the story of the other violations, whether it's emoluments, whether it's having diplomats staying at trump properties. i think all of these things need to be looked into, but this ukraine allegation is incredibly serious and very urgent. >> so explain to the audience why it rises against the other ones. we all get the irony that the mueller stuff trying to figure out if the russians head the president in the election.

but he was reaching out to a foreign power in a way that seemed about his political fortunes going forward. we get that. why should it rise about all the other things? >> one of the things we've been seeing by the president is he has been engaging in continuing escalating disturnibing behavio. this is a very serious matter of national security. we're talking about the president using the full power of the united states government in order to pursue and manufacture a politically motivated investigation against a political opponent. but what also makes this urgent is that this is about something that is going to happen. the 2020 election. we have the opportunity to act now to prevent a profoundly destabilizing action, an intervention in our democracy before it happens.

i think that is a profoundly urgent action that we need to take right now and everything else is just as serious. all of these transgressions against our democracy are extremely serious, but we are investigating things unfortunately that have already happened. when it comes to ukraine, we are talking about potentially meddling in the 2020 election that has still yet to happen. >> so you have the idea of preemptive action versus what so much of this country believes is a presumptive disposition, which this is what you guys do, you use your power, you use it to help yourself, you'll take information on any opponent you can get and this is what they all do, that's what he's doing and it not really a crime. maybe you like it, maybe you don't, maybe you see substance, maybe it just style but to nullify an election? why is it that important? >> this is completely different.

what we are talking about here is the president essentially participating in what looks like a series of events that looks like extortion. withholding aid to an ally and then, quote unquote, asking for a favor to essentially benefit yourself politically, not in the interest of the united states of america, but in the interest of your own reelection. >> you don't believe he held up the money because they're dirty or he wanted the europeans to help and he's just trying to get to the bottom of who interfered in our election in 2016 and there's reason to believe it started in ukraine? >> the first red flag is that his personal lawyer is there. that is not normal -- that is not normal in a democracy. >> you could have stopped right there, congresswoman. none of it's normal. rudy told me on the show he didn't go there about biden, he did go there about biden. he went there on the own, only

told the president about this after the fact. he said he did it on his own, now he said the state department cape cod h asked him to go. how does it get us to impeachment? >> one of the things i think we see is, first of all, he shouldn't have been there to begin with. >> fair point. >> whether he was there, whatever the guise is that he's saying, he should not have been there. moreover, it doesn't even matter about his presence, the president of the united states in this transcript and has admitted himself to have brought rudy giuliani into the conversation with the president of ukraine, and that in and of itself, it doesn't matter where he was physically, is a violation of our sworn duties and our oath to the constitution of the united states. >> any worry -- you have so many ideas for the country and i want

to talk to you about what a just society is, it's kind of new dealy where you're going with this. so you're going to go out there with your country. obviously you've run your race, but as a collective party, are you worried that right now we haven't measured since the ukraine stuff, we haven't measured since rudy came on the show and escalated the process, it was 57-37 against impeachment. are you award that there are people in this country who are looking for new leadership and more way and more decency andless dand le and less disaffection, are you worried about it hitting the wrong way with the people? >> i personally do not believe in fulfilling my obligations to my job based on polling data. i think we need to do our job. we've been elected and sent here by the people. united states of america to fulfill all of our obligations to the constitution of the

united states. much of these polling numbers came out before this really shattering allegation. >> true. >> so that polling data is not reflective of a shift that has united almost the entire democratic caucus, plus an independent member that was forced to leave the republican caucus because of the blatant ignoring of this law breaking and rule breaking behavior out of this administration. so i think the ground has shifted. i don't believe in making decisions based on polling. i believe in our ability to organize the public, to educate the public, to talk to the public about why not just we as members of congress must impeach the president but why all people in the united states of america must recognize and understand that we need to put our country first before our considerations of reelection. and that goes from members of congress all the way up to the president of the united states. >> i hear you on that issue.

as we get more meat on the bones of what's going on there, you know we'll invite you back to weigh in on what are the right moves and wrong moves and why. but this idea of a just society, that people should go look at your web site, you got all the plan, you guys are so locked up right now. you're passing lots of stuff in the house because you have the number. you get nothing done in congress and the senate until, frankly, two votes to get disclosure on this matter around ukraine that came through. this is so ambitious, it's like the new deal. people have to look at it. you're attacking poverty, you want to create opportunity for people in housing, economic guarantees, security, how to define it. t tell me about the ambition and thenthe obvious question, how do you get any of this done? >> when we talk about impeachment and small wins, this is what we need to do in the short term, about you we need a plan for our country in the long term. right now i think that is our responsibility to set that out.

to set out a long-term vision, our benchmarks and to say this is where we want to go as a nation. and we have to establish an advanced society here in the united states of america. what that means is that we have to push the bounds, we have to start treating housing as a right, we need to start protecting renters and updating the federal poverty line. our calculation for the federal poverty line is based on 1955 spending habits that assumes one income earner, a stay-at-home mom. we need to update our poverty line, address the housing crisis in this country. we need to stop treating people who duly paid their debt to society, the formerly incarcerated as outcasts for the rest of their lives. we need to become a modern society. we need to honor workers rights, the right to unionize, the right to establish worker cooperatives and we also need to join the

international community by signing and ratifying the u.n. convent on economic, social and cultural rights. we need to catch up to the rest of the world and then we need to lead the rest of the world not just on climate change but on social issues and on economic issues so that we can actually act like a humanity that is existing in the 21st century. >> give me a quick take on the obvious pushback, which won't just be process, you guys can't get anything done right now except you're saying it's theoretical, it's a plan for the future. the other one is, boy, you can't reach in my pockets fast enough, you want to give something to everybody to get out of prison, make it easy, here as an undocumented immigrant, give them everything. everybody wins except the hard working men and women in america just struggling to get by, you just want to help everybody else. what's the pushback? >> this is us reaching in our pockets and deciding how we're already spending the money we're

already contributing to society. america is at its wealthiest point that we've ever been and yet we're at one of our most unequal points that we've ever been. you would not know that our country is posting record profits because 40 million americans are living in poverty right now. and if the poverty line was real, if it was at around what some people think it should be, about $38,000 a year, we would be shocked at how much the richest society on the planet is allowing so much of its people to live in destitutewe're not talking about paying for somebody else. we're talking about getting our own rent under control. we're talking about making sure that food is on our kids' tables. this is not about other people. this is about saying if you contribute to our society, you deserve to benefit from our society, not just corporations getting tax cuts and fossil fuel companies getting rewarded for their extraction and dooming future generations. >> it is a very stark picture of

the politics of contrast with what's being offered up by the president right now. timing is not great because you guys are dealing with impeachment. i wanted to get the idea out there. you're always welcome on the show to talk about what you think matters. the phone is going to be ringing. this period is going to matter a lot. what you guys decide to do and most importantly why is going to be something we have to hear directly from as many players as possible. so hopefully we'll see you soon, congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez, be well. >> thank you, be well. >> president trump, we have breaking news. there's a new reckoning of an earlier phone call. "the new york times" has it. what happened on that call? is it what we just learned the first time giuliani came up between our president and the ukrainian president? and if not, in what context and what does it really lead to us believe? new details next. ♪ ♪ around here, the only predictable thing

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once again we're going through breaking news together, you and i. the transcript of the call we saw today wasn't the first time president trump encouraged ukraine's president to work with giuliani. it happened back in april as well. let's go through that, let's bring in another one of his lawyers, not rudy giuliani, jay sekulow is here to make the case. counselor, always a pleasure. >> thanks for having me. >> check a box of transparency here. did you have anything to do with

rudy's efforts with ukraine? >> no, that was not something i was familiar with or involved with at all. >> so you weren't brought in for legal advice -- >> i will never discuss what legal advice i give the president of the united states, who is my client. so i'm not going to answer that question. but i will tell you this was not something i was involved in. i didn't know the players of who was doing what here. this is something the fair was involved with. he understood the ins and outs with. this is not something i deal with. i've been busy on other matters as well, as you know, the last couple weeks especially. >> i just wanted to make clear for my audience and myself what your role is. i'm asking as a point of legal analysis, not as somebody involved in the activities as we know. on the face of the transcript, i do not see the one phone call as dispositive of anything. do you believe it is a fair question to look into why the

president of the united states was trying to get the president of ukraine's cooperation in looking a the an american citizen? >> well, i don't think there's anything to look into in the sense that the president has voluntarily provided the transcripts of the conversation. you're telling me, which i'm not aware of the con tengtents of t april conversation but the president earlier today said he was going to release that. and the white house may have released that tonight. >> we know there was another call and that rudy giuliani was involved in that call, too, several times. "the new york times" has it, we to don't have it. >> i haven't seen it. it would be not fair for me to comment. on the issue of what we have on the transcript. i think it's important what you don't have. what you don't have is a quid pro quo. you do this, i'll do this. >> why is that important? >> the democrats that have been on your network and others have

been saying that's what this is. but i think there's an important point here, chris, as a lawyer you understand this, nancy pelosi went to the podium yesterday for this formal impeachment inquiry. substantively, it was no different than anything was two days before, but she said this before the transcript was finish you'd. let's be realistic and real honest. this is politics. this is not a bob mueller type of situation where you're looking a the various rules and regulations to see how they fit into a scenario. >> but that's what impeachment is. it's a vote. as president ford said, an impeachable offense is whatever congress says it is. >> that includes not just the house of representatives but the senate. >> for removal. >> no, for conviction. it n it's not just removal. i do not believe it's going to ever get to that point. >> i don't think mitch mcconnell will ever have a try.

>> here's the point, though. you said this and you're right, we should not be looking at this in a vacuum. if we don't look at this in a vacuum, cnn pr n nn broke this,s the later of may 4th, 2018. in that letter, three members of the united states senate, that includes bob menendez, dick durbin and patrick leahy wrote a letter to who? the ukrainian prosecutor to urge him -- hold it -- to urge him to do what? continue in open investigations and continue investigations and then the three senators asked three questions, has your office taken any steps to restrict cooperation by special counsel robert mueller? did any individual from the trump administration or ak on its be half encourage law enforcement officials no the to cooperate with special counsel? was the -- and in the body of the letter which your network

actually got early, what does it say? you've made all this progress, but you're putting all this progress in jeopardy by what? by government officials saying if you do this, we may do that and that's not what happened -- the president didn't do that but that's in the letter from three united states senators. >> one point of stipulation and we'll continue the analysis. will you stipulate because you were citing cnn reporting, cnn cannot be fake news because you're using it for your benefit now as legitimate news? a yes is fine. >> i'm here on your network because you and i have an honest and fair and straight forward relationship and i'll continue to do that. >> i'm trying to create unity wherever i can. >> i appreciate that. that's great. let me tell you what i am concerned about. you know, this you come from a political family, a well established, well-known political family. this is politics.

a lot of it is political theat theater. >> i have no problem with the letter. i have no problem with our elected officials going to another country and saying, hey, we're good to you, i hope you're doing the right thing by an investigation that matters to us none of these politicians were seeking personal advantage the way the president was. >> hold it. who were they trying to investigate? the president. >> they're doing their duty. robert mueller was appointed special counsel. >> doing their duty and you're telling me in this transcript of the president and i have read line by line, you're telling me that was a violation of the law or of a statute? >> i'm saying it doesn't have to be and you don't kneeneed a quio quo. you need a president of the united states putting his own political interest first and using all of these arms of the government to do it. >> what did these three senators do? >> i do not see it as even close to an analogy. not even close.

i don't. >> you know why it's not close to analogy? in one there's a quid pro quo, in the other there's not. >> i don't know that there's a quid pro quo in either. >> let me tell you this, who raised the issue of quid pro quo? who did this? and what about senator murphy and his statement? if you look at biden, your aide's in jeopardy. is that a quid pro quo? >> i don't think quid pro quo is necessary for an abuse of power. i think if the president of the united states -- >> where is that in the law, though? >> this isn't about the law. this is about finding something worthy of impeachment or not. something can be wrong but not a felony. something can be wrong but not a felony. an abuse of power can be wrong but not a felony. >> this is a misdemeanor. >> you think it's okay for the president of the united states to ask the president of ukraine to help him with a political opponent? >> that's not what the president said in the transcript and you've read it and you know

that's not what the president said. he said he's concerned about corruption and joe biden bragged on television he gave a prosecutor in ukraine to be fired in six hours or a billion dollars will be withheld. do you think that's a quid pro quo? >> i think it was a quid pro quo but it wasn't done for personal advantage. >> oh, really? chris, chris, you know that's not the case. >> hold on, jay. the president says in the wall and the white house says in its talking points that joe biden was bragging about taking out a prosecution, which is a lie and a suggestion that he -- >> no. >> and the white house copied it. >> but the prosecution was doing the prosecution. you know -- >> here's why -- >> political theater. >> please, not tonight. >> why not go vote. you think this is an art -- chris, do you think this is

worthy of an article for impeachment? >> it's for the democrats to make but i think it's a prima facia case -- >> they thought it was going to be good for him. >> if you read the transcript -- >> i don't agree with you but that's okay. you can make your case here. but you're not letting me make my suggestion, which is this -- here's the difference between prosecution and prosecutor. joe biden is saying, yeah, i held up that money until they got rid of that bum prosecutor shokin. >> who was doing what? what was he investigating? >> hold on one second. he wanted it, ukraine parliament wanted it, the u.n. wanted it, the eu wanted it, other went democracies wanted it, they all wanted shokin out.

why would joe biden want him out? two reasonsone is because that's what he was told to do by the u.s. government. he was made the point person on ukraine. second, it's what ukraine did. the implication is he did it to help his son. >> implication, was the prosecutor involved in the prosecution looking at the son's business? yes. >> did hunter biden work for the business when shokin was looking at it? when he started the investigation, was hunter biden working for the company? >> but it was an ongoing investigation. >> he started the investigation -- the guy wasn't even working for the company. >> look, chris, can i ask you a question? is this any different than the nonsense we just went through for three years almost with bob mueller -- >> yes, you actually have the president obviously contacting a foreign pop p pwer to obviously him with a pli caolitical oppon.

>> no, hold it, hold it. you raised the crowd strike. that was in the context of what? server issues, issues that were raised -- >> what server issues? there there was that whole thing with -- >> it was a conspiracy theory. there's no server anywhere. crowd strike did the forensics on the dnc server. >> what about all the allegations about who had server actions, was it the russians, was it ukraine. look at the four pages and tell me that you think that's worthy of impeachment and i don't -- >> here's what i want to know -- >> no, look at the other four pages you have. >> i have questions about rudy giuliani's involvement with all due respect, i invited him back on the show, no reason for this to be personal and i think he's been inconsistent on things. was he there alone or on behalf of the state department?

did the president know? did he not know? was the state department involved? who gave different stories about holding up the funding, why was the a.g. involved? >> hold it. has there been any evidence of anything involving the aj.g., n? >> other than the president offering him up as hired help to the president of ukraine. >> you had rudy giuliani on you. >> this has been an issue that rudy has been very clear about -- >> he's been concerned about it for a long time. he hasn't been that clear. but he's been concerned about it. the president offered up the a.g. as hired help to the president of ukraine. >> would it not be appropriate for an attorney general to work with the attorney general of ukraine to -- of course that would be appropriate. >> i don't know it's

appropriate. >> there's no evidence of it happening. >> the evidence is the president saying i'm going to give you a call, mr. president, help you look into the biden stuff. why would our government not just look into the biden stuff? why would you not have them look into the biden stuff? why didn't the republicans look into the biden stuff when they were in the charge of the house? why didn't paul ryan look into it? >> i don't know why paul ryan didn't look into it. first of all, there's no evidence of the attorney general doing anything. but let me tell you this. >> he is mentioned in the letter a lot. >> the department of justice is -- three times. >> it's more than you and me. >> yeah, more than you and me. good for us. what does that have to do with anything? >> did the president then ask him to do it? was it okay for the d.o.j. to review this complaint? >> chris, was there an issue with ukraine and corruption in ukraine's recent vihistory? >> yes, 100%.

>> is it not appropriate for the u.s. giving aid to ukraine to be concerned about the corruption. >> yes. >> but i don't believe that's what it was about given the substance of the phone call. >> i disagree. >> i'm good with the disagreement. it's important for my office to hear the perspective of defending these allegations from the president's point of view. you do it very well. be well. i'll speak to you soon. >> you, too. >> coming up, what about the prosecutors? did the president abuse his power? yes or no? if yes, is it enough to warrant impeachment? why? cuomo's court is in session. next, brilliant legal minds. maria ramirez?

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we just got a rare opportunity in the mix here, not just political voices but we heard from the president's attorney. and there's a lot to unpack. let's take this up with really a pair of brilliant legal minds. preet bharara and robert ray. thank you both. preet, to you out there in san francisco, what did you take away from counselor sekulow? >> not much of substance. no disrespect to the counselor. it seems that if you come on your show and you're the lawyer for the president, you have to yell a lot, and you get extra

time, i guess. he focuses on distraction rather than on the substance, and a couple of different areas, i couldn't really follow the logic. i think it's important to take it apart for a moment because you're going to hear it from a lot of people, including from the president himself. one of them is this idea that there is nothing different between what is outlined in that transcript, that summary of the call between the president of the united states and the president of ukraine. there's nothing different between that and what senators and congress people and presidents for that matter do all the time, which is in the give and take of diplomacy and the give and take of legislation, they say, look, if you don't change your conduct or your behavior in this regard, we're going to do something different in the other regard. and to say those things are quid pro quos in the same way that we mean them if you're a proper or an impeachment authority is ludicrous in the extreme. the analogy would be if bob menendez or some other senator said, we want you to take such actions, and in some way it would benefit him or her personally, or it would knock out a primary challenger or a

general election challenger and have a direct, you know, negative effect on something that's personal electorally or -- >> -- says the quo was helping them get trump with mueller. >> they're making a general point that anytime any person in elective office asks for something, that's a quid pro quo, that's a problem. the second thing he did was he suggested when you asked the question about is it a bad thing for a sitting president of the united states to make a particular statement to another person who has legal authority to maybe launch investigation or continue an investigation into a political adversary. he said let look at what's not there. there's no quid pro quo there. there doesn't have to be as you're saying in the impeachment contension. they always change the standard to what a couple of democrats said they might find. the standard is not what some politicians have said the standard is in advance of knowing what it is. the standard is what the law

says or what impeachment history has been. and just a final question is i hope you would ask guest who's are supportive of what the president did as reflected in that summary, is it okay for the president of the united states to pick up the phone and call bill barr, the attorney general, or a sitting united states attorney in new york or somewhere else and say, you know what? a lot of people say that elizabeth warren or bernie sanders is up to no good. i want you to investigate that. would they justify that on the ground that, no, he's just talking about corruption. if he throws in the word corruption a couple times when giving that directive or suggesting that to his own attorney general, if it's not okay with your own attorney general or your own united states attorney -- and i don't think it is. i think it's a horrible -- and that would be an impeachable offense on its own. then how can it be appropriate to do that with a leader of another country with all the foreign policy implications on top of it? >> i happen to have a brilliant lawyer who supports the president. what is your response? >> well, on the first point about personal political benefit, be careful about that

because, you know, if you think about that to its logical extension, anything that a president does potentially has impact to benefit personally him in connection with politics. so i mean you wouldn't want a standard with regard to quid pro quo to be, wait a second, it can be personally that would personally benefit the president. >> what if it's short of that and it's not a quid pro quo, but it is an point who opponent he run against? >> that draws a tighter connection. i get that. i think as a lot of people who have some sense about this whole thing, it's one thing to talk about errors of judgment. it's another thing to talk about ocasio-cortez. you just had her on, and i think you correctly made the point. since when are deviation from the norms of democracy an impeachable offense? and finally i will say, you know, all this nonsense about, well, it doesn't have to be a quid pro quo, yes, i've watched your show. you were correct to point out

that the constitution itself doesn't offer much guidance in terms of what would constitute an impeachable offense. but i'm here to tell you based upon history, which preet, you know, referenced just briefly, we've been through this now basically four times. andrew jackson, which ultimate led to a censure, andrew johnson with led to an impeachment and acquittal in the senate. bill clinton, we know what the results of that were. and obviously richard nixon, i think, probably the most extreme. >> quit -- >> before it ever happened. >> requires two things based upon history and experience. in my view and i think in the view of most historians who have looked at this and legal scholars too, well founded articles of impeachment require both high crimes and misdemeanors and an abuse of power. and it's not enough to just say that one or the other is sufficient. it's both. and just to run you through the history lesson, the reason that nixon ultimately would have been impeached and removed from office is because both prongs

were satisfied. >> all right. so here you believe that this is arguably an abuse of power, but you don't see it connected to illegal activity in a way that impresses you? >> i think be careful even about the abuse of power thing but i -- >> we don't want our presidents asking the president of another country to help find dirt on a political opponent, right? >> i think you can argue about whether or not that's an error in judgment. we also don't impeach presidents based upon errors in judgment. i will say with regard to an abuse of power, it really does have to be an actual abuse, meaning what was the abuse here ultimately? was joe biden's campaign hurt? was the money ultimately released? >> leshchenko reopened the case into the hunter biden situation. >> did anything untoward occur as a result of that? has any damage been sustained? >> preet, let me bounce it over to you. preet? >> it has never been the standard ever, and i love it when lawyers come on and say this because it's the best argument they can make, and maybe they think they can pull

the wool over people's heads. the fact that you try to do something and other good people don't do the bad thing you told them to do doesn't exonerate you from trying to do the bad thing. the mueller report is replete with examples of this. in some ways the president of the united states was saved by the people around him, including corey lewandowski, who was a liar on television. the point is if the president of the united states called up every sitting united states attorney in the country, right, and said -- i never hear neb answer the question when they're supportive of the president. is it an abuse of power or potentially a crime for the sitting president to call up the united states attorney and say, i hear there's a lot of corruption in vermont. there's a lot of corruption on. and bernie sanders people say, bernie sanders and his kids are full of corruption. you should look at that. now change the example and say he's done that to every u.s. attorney in the country, and all of them have enough integrity not to do anything about it. would you really sit here and say, what was the effect of that error in judgment? no. you would call it an abuse of power, and i think it would be impeachable on those facts

alone. >> the president has the absolute right to suggest an investigation. he's the executive branch. that's an -- >> he's not given rights. he's given responsibilities. >> no. he's given the power to faithfully execute the law. if he wants -- if he wants to direct the united states. >> if wants to direct the united states attorney -- >> preet, let ray say it. >> preet, i'm very sorry -- >> he won't answer the question. >> sure he will. if he wants to direct the united states attorney to do something, he can do that. now, you may not like it. >> could it be impeachable if he asks him to do it? >> you know, the end result is directing a prosecutor, for example, to file an indictment i think might well be an abuse of power. we have a system in place. >> so you'd be okay with a president saying to a u.s. attorney -- >> i'd like you to look into this? absolutely. >> even if you were running against the person? >> i think you'd have to be very careful about that. >> that's an extraordinary

thing. can i -- >> i think you have to be very careful about that? >> might i respond? >> i think with regard to the error in judgment, i think you're unwise to travel down that road because it's filled and fraught with all kinds of peril, which is one of the reasons we have institutional norms that generally speaking prevent the president from dealing directly with the united states attorney a office with regard to an investigation. the president must go through the -- the norm is to go through the white house counsel. >> here you have him -- >> deals with the deputy attorney general and the deputy attorney general then deals with the u.s. attorney's office. >> that didn't happen here. the question is what happens if the president -- i believe the ag said today, nobody told me to do anything. >> right. so why are we talking about -- >> do we know that that's true? >> you're going to -- >> i'm not saying, do you know? >> i suppose we don't absolutely know it's true unless you have bill barr back to the congress to testify under oath. do you really think that's necessary? >> i don't think that guarantees that you're going to get an answer, right? he's turned out to be very clever, and he can reckon

things, and he could say, i wasn't told, but someone did suggest it to me. someone told me that he asked about it. i mean he's -- >> the department of justice apparently has come out today through a spokesperson to say that the president -- >> right. >> -- did not ask the attorney general and that the attorney general did not -- >> the remaining question for you, preet -- i want to end on this idea going forward. i don't believe it's just about the call or two calls. i believe that it is about a series of choices and directives made by the president and his lawyer over about a year. what questions do you want to know going forward that will inform how significant a potential abuse of power this is? >> yeah. i want to know the answers to all the facts with respect to what conversations were had. but, you know, i didn't get a chance to respond. >> please, go ahead. >> you let mr. ray go on for quite a bit. i think it's an extraordinary thing to hear a lawyer come on a program and even while he's speaking, trying to backtrack from what it seemed like he was saying, that there is a justification for a sitting president of the united states to be able to call up individual

u.s. attorneys and not say, hey, could you spend more time going after drug traffickers, but saying specifically, investigate a particular person who might be a particular harm to me. that's extraordinary. if that's the argument that lawyers who support the president are going to be making, i think we're in a lot of trouble. >> let's do this. let's see where the facts lead us. slee let -- look at that. preet had to go. then we'll see what choices the democrats make. preet, wherever are, thank you. robert ray, thank you. we'll be doing it again for sure. that's all for us tonight. it is a big night. let's get to "cnn tonight with don lemon" right now. preet knows how busy a news night it is so he's trying to make room for me so i can get all my stuff in. you know, chris, i've heard people say all day two things that have bothered me. one, this is a political rorschach test or it's just a rorschach test. the other thing is there's no quid pro quo. okay. if you read this thing, this isn't a rorschach test. it's all in there. he says, do