another day like nothing we have seen before, and it is not over yet. good evening. i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm jake tapper. this is a cnn special report. the impeachment inquiry. tonight it includes the whistleblower complaint alleging that president trump abused his power of office. and white house officials abused a system meant to secure national security secrets. >> so there is all that and reaction to it from the president using language more fitting for guys who answer to

boss. the bizarre comment by the president's lawyer rudy giuliani who told a writer that when this was all over, he would be the hero, not the whistleblower. >> we have reporting now on how quickly the word was spreading in the administration with the whistle-blower complaint. evan perez joins us with that. >> it appears the administration was grappling with what to do about this complaint. we know the complaint first came in on august 12. it appears on august 14th is when the general counsel for one of the intelligence agencies reaches out as required to the justice department to alert them that there is been this complaint from an employee from this agency and that it has to do with this phone call that involved the president, the ukrainian president back in july. so that sets on the course that we see has now come forward, because we know according to the "new york times" which first reported the story that they also were notified at the white

house that this complaint had come in. >> the justice department? notified the white house? >> the intelligence agency notified the white house. this is all happening much more quickly than we thought because it's not for another week or so that the inspector general for the intelligence agencies begins the formal notification saying that we have a referral. we want you to investigate. >> do we know how much the intelligence agency or the justice department told the white house about this whistle-blower complaint? >> we know they were notified that it had to do with the phone call because the justice department sends lawyers over to the white house to review the transcript of the president's phone call. we know that happens in the days said right after they learn about this. the lawyers come back to the justice department and notify other officials. we have been told previously by justice officials that attorney general bill barr gave knowledge of this much later and learned his name was mentioned by the

president in this phone call. of course, then, once the formal referral comes in from the inspector general, everything sets off then. the criminal division begins investigating and determining whether to open a full blown investigation. they ended up deciding that there wasn't a crime and decided not to open a full blown investigation. what it tells us is that they were grappling with this for much longer than we realize. >> thanks so much. >> new tonight we have video obtained by bloomberg talking about the whistle-blower's source. >> i want to know who is the person that gave the whistle-blower, who is the person that gave the whistle-blower the information? because that's close to a spy. you know what we used to do in the old days when we was smart with spies and treason? we used to handle it a little differently. >> talking at the u.n. quite a set of allegations.

the letter starts off with the words urgent concern setting the tone for the whistle-blower's detailed nine-page complaint. in the next paragraph, quote, i have received information from multiple u.s. government officials. here the whistle-blower is admitting to not witnessing much of the behavior in question. the accusation from the unnamed officials comes next. the president of the united states is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election. the whistle-blower goes on to say this includes among other things pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the president's main domestic political rivals. the complaint says rudy giuliani and attorney general william barr appear to be involved, as well. the white house transcript of a july phone call between president trump and ukraine's president shows trump asking to look into joe biden and his son and mentioned both giuliani and barr multiple times. the complaint was filed on

august 12th and the whistle-blower says over the past four months more than a half a dozen have informed me of various facts related to this effort. the whistle-blower seems to be saying this effort by trump, giuliani and possibly barr has been going on since april which is when the ukrainian president took office. the whistle-blower says i was not a direct witness to most events. this line has already been used to try to undermine the complaint with the president calling this another political hack job. the whistle-blower voices concern the actions by the president and others pose risk to u.s. national security and undermine the u.s. government's efforts to deter and counter foreign interference in u.s. elections. the complaint details the july 25th phone call between president trump and president zilinski and says he used the remainder of the call to

advance his personal interest, mainly he sought to pressure the ukrainian leader to help actions to help the president's 2020 re-election bid. the whistle-blower goes on to say the white house officials were deeply disturbed by what had transpired in the phone call and witnessed the president abuse his office for personal gain. the complaint also says in the months prior to the call, trump did not want to meet with zilinski or talk with him on the phone until he saw how zilinski chose to act in office and wanted to see if he showed a willingness to quote play ball. according to the complaint in the days following the call senior white house officials had interphened to lockdown all records of the phone call. the whistle-blower wrote this under scored that white house officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call which leads to the next allegation that some were directed by white house lawyers

to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which they are typically stored. instead, they were told to use a separate electronic system that's used for highly classified information. some officials reportedly told the whistleblower this is an abuse of the system and was not the first time under this administration that a presidential transcript was placed into this code word level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive rather than national security sensitive information. i spoke about that earlier this evening with the former director of national intelligence james clapper who was concerned. >> our first guest can speak to it as well as the reporting that you just heard. cnn legal analyst jim baker and cnn national security analyst. samantha served on the president's security council. let me start with you. reporting that the d.o.j. knew about the whistle-blower a week

before they got the referral and that according to the "new york times," the white house knew, as well. is that improper? what's your read on this? >> it's concerning to me. when i heard that, i was not thrilled about it. i think i have no reason to question the acting dni or anybody that works for him in terms of the integrity or their effort to proceed in good faith in a very difficult situation. but having said that, it did concern me when i heard that they had gone both to the white house and to the justice department to talk about this when the center of this case obviously has to do with the president and also then in the call the attorney general is named several times. so i'm not sure that they did the wrong thing. i can understand why they did it. it did make me quite concerned and especially now that we hear about the level of involvement of the department without the attorney general recusing himself from this matter, i will

not leap to the conclusion. it doesn't look good. that's why we're talking about it. it doesn't give the american people confidence or some section of the population confidence that everything was done in exactly the right way. >> if you look at the whistle-blower complaint which everybody can go online and read for themselves, the very first paragraph talks about an allegation about president trump who obviously works at the white house. and an allegation about attorney general barr who obviously runs the justice department. sam, let me ask you, are you surprised to hear that the justice department and the white house were in the loop and so early? >> i'm very surprised to hear that the white house was in the loop and then subsequently or before they were contacted, the white house counsel reportedly directed officials to scrub the transcript from the top secret system and to transfer a document on to the code word system.

you might have a situation in which white house counsel was aware of this complaint and aware of concerns and was also involved with giving directions to members of the directorate of intelligence to really do something quite irregular with respect to transferring the transcript on to the code word system. at the same time, joke, i am very surprised to hear from the department of justice that attorney general barr did hear about the contents of this call until reportedly weeks after it happened. the department of justice issued that as a statement a few days ago. that would be another gross irregularity. attorney general barr was mentioned by name on the call with the president and he is saying that he did not have any knowledge of the fact that he was named in the call despite the fact he was named by the president of the united states and somehow other officials at the state department went to do follow-up work with the ukrainens and contacted rudy giuliani but did not contact the department of justice to follow-up. >> let me read something from the complaint. what sam was just talking about.

it says and this is the whistle-blower writing this. according to white house officials i spoke with, this was not the first time under this administration that a presidential transcript was placed into this code word level system solely for the purpose for protecting politically sensitive rather than national security sensitive information. as a legal matter, jim, am i wrong in believing that even if that's inappropriate, it's not illegal unless they put it in the code word level system because they thought it was evidence of a crime and trying to cover it up as opposed to they thought it was politically a hot potato? >> i don't know that the placing of the material into the system is illegal, but it looks like guilty knowledge on their part. that's why we're talking about it. i'm a former fraud prosecutor.

i would have been excite today have somebody i was investigating do something this blatant which to me shows they knew something was wrong if if was done solely for political reasons. and not national security reasons, then that looks terrible. and yes it raises questions. and that's why we're talking about it now because it looks inappropriate. looks like they are trying to cover something up. >> and sam that's certainly was speaker pelosi said. she said it was a cover up. having worked with this system, this code word level system, in order to make something like this happen, in order to take the transcript, notes, whatever it is and put it, lock it into this system, how many people would need to be involved? and at what levels would the national security adviser know? break it down for us. >> you struck the nail on the head. where is john bolten. there was not a single head of state call that the national security adviser was not a part

of. he would have received the draft transcript that several members of the white house situation room would have transcribed in real time. the white house situation room director would have been involved. with respect to the scrubbing itself, at that point, another member of the team would have had to take that action. and then once the order was given to transfer this document on to the codeward system, a member of what we call the directorate of intelligence which is part of the national security counsel would have had to actually implement that action. so we are not talking about a huge group of people. the common thread here is that they all reported to john bolten. he is now a private citizen. i think there are a lot of questions about why so many people under his direct leadership took a series of steps to cover up this kind of activity. and it is worth noting that it is prohibited under executive order to classify information to cover up personal embarrassment or violation of the law. not to mention of course the

potential misuse of intelligence systems in order to hide embarrassment related to the president. >> appreciate both of you. thank you so much. coming up next, testimony from the man who did not follow the law and give the whistleblower complaint to congress. what acting dni joseph maguire had to say and what rudy giuliani who is all over this complaint is himself complaining about tonight as our cnn special report continues. at verizon, we're building the most powerful 5g experience for america. that's why the nfl chose verizon. because they need the massive capacity of 5g with ultra wideband, so more screaming, streaming, posting fans...

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the acting director of national intelligence spoke in an open hearing, that's not what commanded the most headlines. >> it was dramatic watching the dni walk a very fine line in some of his answers. and it did provide context to the report that eclipsed him today. >> on august 26, the inspector general forwarded a complaint to me. from an employee in the intelligence community. >> the acting director of

national intelligence testifying today before the house intelligence committee trying to explain why he did not share the whistle-blower complaint with congress within seven days as required by law and explaining his view that it was subject to a president's ability to claim executive privilege. >> we consulted with the white house council's office and were advised the information was subject to executive privilege, a privilege that i do not have the authority to waive. >> reporter: it was, he noted, an unprecedented legal situation in many ways. >> this appears to be the first intelligence committee whistle-blower complaint that has ever, ever been withheld from congress. is that right, sir? >> congressman, carson, i believe that it might be. once again, i said in my statement, it is a fact as far as i'm concerned unprecedented. >> reporter: many democrats said they were stunned that upon

receiving a complaint that fingered the president and the attorney general for possible wrong doing, magire first consulted the offices of those two men, the justice department and the white house. >> you first went to the office of legal counsel. and then you went to the white house counsel? >> no, no, no sir. we went to the white house first to determine, to ask a -- >> that's all i want to know. you went to the white house first. so you went to the subject of the complaint for advice first about whether you should provide the complaint to congress? >> reporter: he said he would not discuss his private conversations with president trump, but he did make one exception. >> did the president of the united states ask you to find out the identity of the whistle-blower? >> i can tell you emphatically no. >> republicans today largely took a different approach, trying to under mine it all,

questioning the integrity of the whistle-blower and attacking the democrats in control of the committee. >> on page one, the complaint reads, quote, i was not a direct witness to most of the events described. this seems like a very important line to look into. >> i want to congratulate the democrats on the roll out of their latest information warfare operation against the president. >> the intelligence committee is not an appropriate place to try articles of impeachment. >> he offered testimony that boosted the whistle-blower in many ways saying that he or she did the right thing and followed the law every step of the way and acknowledged the transcript of the president's phone call with the president of the ukraine boosted the complaints' credibility. >> would you say that the whistle-blower's complaint is remarkably consistent with the transcript that was released. >> i would say that the whistle-blower's complaint is in alignment with what was released yesterday by the president. >> and as for allegations of a

cover up -- >> do you agree that the definition of a cover up is an attempt to prevent people from discovering a crime? >> i'd say that's close. i'm sure there is others, but i don't disagree with that. >> in the whistle-blower's complaint, the whistle-blower alleges that immediately after the president's call with the president of ukraine on july 25, white house lawyers moved quickly to direct white house officials to move electronic transcripts from one computer system where it was normally stored to a secret classified information system. is that right? is that what was alleged in the complaint? yes or no? >> all i know is that is the allegation. >> i'm asking you that. >> that's an allegation. >> the intelligence community inspector general also testified today going before a closed door session with the senate intelligence committee. >> i spoke to kamala harris.

obviously, a classified briefing, she wasn't at liberty to give details. i spoke with house intelligence committee member who we saw a moment ago and had more room to talk about his side of the proceedings. >> i want to get to your questioning of the acting director of national intelligence. but first, overall, what is your reaction to the substance of the whistle-blower complaint? >> we are in the midst of a national nightmare involving presidential extortion and the whistle-blower complaint lays out that the president sought to use our taxpayer dollars to benefit himself in a presidential election. and we are also in the midst of an ongoing cover up. >> if the allegations are true, i'm wondering what does it say to you that senior officials work to move or as they say lockdown details of the call with the president of the ukraine? does it imply that those officials knew the conversation was problematic and that this was -- you have said it's a cover up. that's obviously the phrase that

speaker pelosi is using. >> the conduct that the whistle-blower describes is a consciousness of guilt to move the president's transcripts from an open system into a more classified system as an abuse of the classified system, but demonstrates that those individuals knew it was wrong. what's really concerning to me is that the president brought the culture of corruption to the white house and there are so many people involved in this who never did come forward. >> do you have any reason to believe the white house is going to let the other officials -- i think in the whistle-blower complaint, the whistle-blower says maybe as many as a dozen people were aware of this. would the white house let other officials cooperate with the congressional investigation? we have seen that has not been the case thus far? >> we are going to seek that, but we don't expect that. we have seen the stone walling of the past. here we are not powerless anymore.

we don't have to wait on the courts. we have the president copying to the act. he has admitted to the crime. the words in the transcript that he released shows the president trying to leverage u.s. dollars that are not his to seek a benefit for his election. so i really encourage my colleagues to move swiftly to hold the president accountable. >> in the questioning of the drerk of national intelligence today, you raised the possibility that the transcripts of other calls with foreign leaders could have also been moved in a similar fashion which is also indicated or suggested by the whistle-blower. is there a realistic way to actually find that out? >> we will need more whistle-blowers to come forward. of course, we are going to do our responsibility in congress to try to seek the transcripts which are not protected and should not be classified. but you can can only imagine a leopard doesn't change his spots. if he's acting this way with the president of the ukraine who he just had a conversation with,

and didn't have a relationship with, what was the conversations with putin sound like? enter saudi arabia, those are all issues that i think we should resolve to see if this president is involved in other shady dealings. >> you called the whistle-blower a true patriot coming forward with the allegations. what's your reaction to the president demanding to know who the people are who gave the information to the whistle-blower and suggesting their actions are tantamount about being a spy. >> those are not the words you would ever hope to hear out of the mouth of the president of the united states. that's what you would hear from an organized crime boss. those words and those implied threats fit into the conduct described by the whistle-blower of a president offering this deal to the ukrainians and then his team seeking to cover it up.

it all fits into a pattern of misconduct by the president. >> appreciate your time. thank you. >> my pleasure. the man who says he will be the real hero at the end of this is talking. coming up next what rudy giuliani said just about 30 minutes ago. more towers. more coverage! it's a network that gives you ♪freedom from big cities, to small towns, we're with you. because life can take you almost anywhere, t-mobile is with you. no signal goes farther or is more reliable in keeping you connected.

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rudy giuliani just did what some is in the administration wish he would not do. go on air and say things. a short time ago, he was on fox news where he responded that secretary of state mike pompeo is unhappy with the statements from giuliani who says he was working with ukrainian officials at the behest of the state department.

here's giuliani's response. >> in fact, i'm a legitimate whistle-blower. i have uncovered corruption that this washington swamp has been covering up effectively for years. and his state department asked me to do this. if you're unhappy with me, i accomplished my mission. i have no idea if he is unhappy with me or not. i frankly don't care. i'm the president's lawyer. >> you heard giuliani say he is the real whistle-blower. he said it is impossible that the whistleblower is a hero and i'm not. and i will be the hero. these morons -- when this is over, i will be the hero. >> rudy giuliani's name is mentioned 31 times across the nine-page document. once a federal prosecutor and new york city mayor, a very different seeming giuliani is

embedded deeply in this controversy, not just as the president's personal attorney but as the man who has met with ukrainian officials to among other things push for them to focus on the bidens. here is randi kaye with the story. >> in that july 25th phone call, president trump offering up his personal lawyer rudy giuliani as his personal envoy to the ukrainian president now to the complaint which says trump mentioned giuliani multiple times. giuliani told cnn he has quote no knowledge of any of that crap. and true to form, giuliani has gone on a twitter attack calling the whistleblower's information questionable and targeting democrats and the media, too. meanwhile, according to the

complaint, about a week after trump's call with the ukrainian leader, giuliani travelled to madrid to meet with an adviser about the cases they had discussed. >> i never knew about the $250 million military aid. when you read the conversation, there is no mention. there is no mention of military aid. there is no quid pro quo. the president of the ukraine says i wasn't pressured. end of case. >> this case is anything but over. the complaint says multiple u.s. officials told the whistleblower they were deeply concerned about giuliani's actions and that state department officials including two ambassadors had spoken with giuliani in an attempt to contain the damage to u.s. national security. in response, giuliani told cnn at no time did either one of them say they wanted to contain the damage. it's all vintage giuliani. since signing on with the white house for the russia investigation, he has given

dozens of rambling interviews that are quick to go off the rails. >> shutup, moron. you don't know what you're talking about. >> sometimes contradicting himself within seconds. >> did you ask the ukraine to investigate joe biden? >> no. >> so you did ask ukraine to investigate biden. >> of course i did. >> you just said you didn't. >> and with ukraine he is pedaling whield conspiracy theories. >> it was ukrainian collusion with hillary clinton. and that joe biden family is -- it's written. it's all over the internet. >> randi kaye, cnn, new york. >> and joining me now to discuss, former nixon council john dean. rudy giuliani seems set on trying to show the world that he was not doing this alone and acting on the behest of the state department. he's showing text messages from the individuals at the state department. that wouldn't absolve him of any

allegation of wrong doing, would it? >> pno. it's just people are questioning what in the world was he doing and who was he doing it for as the president's private lawyer. that isn't a typical mission. so his illusion to the saying i'm doing this for the state department is something we can now run down and find if he did have any kind of authority and bhie did he. >> if the state department were working with giuliani, would it be documented beyond those text messages that giuliani is putting out there? >> well, i would imagine there

would be somebody in the state department who would say yes we talked to him and he was given this assignment if that was the case. i noticed in the article where he called everybody a moron, that same article, he says the state department is now going to try to distance themselves from me. so i think he may know he has overreached in what he is pretending is his authority. >> the state department, of course, is still part of the trump administration and trump is still hids client. in a phone call with the reporter at the atlantic, giuliani called himself both a hero and a whistleblower and he said that he was going to be proven correct, not the actual whistleblower. does that make any sense to you at all? >> not at all. in fact, i don't know what's happened to rudy. i remember when he used to speak in full sentences and logically. it's hard to find those now. in fact, the fact that he

represents himself as the president's attorney earlier today i did a search in all of the southern district to see if he was the attorney on any case. he is not. he is named as a defendant in 40 cases, but he's not representing anybody in court. >> at one point giuliani told a reporter i'm not acting as a lawyer. i'm acting as someone who has devoted most of his life of straightening up government. tonight he pointed out that he is an attorney. he is all over the place. >> he is. one of the things that happened to nixon in water gate, i asked the water gate prosecutors, did nixon ever have an attorney who you thought was competent? and all of the prosecutors said never. he never really did come up to the level of being well-represented in their eyes anyway. i think that's what we're seeing with rudy giuliani. trump has good civil lawyers. i don't think he has good criminal representation and has no idea how the law works.

>> all right, that thanks very much. with congress contemplating a possible impeachment of president trump, i'll talk with another veteran of watergate. stay with us. ♪

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just before the break we heard from john dean who uttered one of the most famous lines from the watergate investigation. >> i began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency. and if the cancer was not removed the president himself would be killed by it. >> the echoes of watergate are difficult to ignore. nixon had his tapes, president trump his transcripts. nixon's protector was attorney general john mitchell.

trump's appears to be attorney general a bill barr. >> both men accused of an abuse of power. another veteran of watergate joins us now. carl, after reading the whistleblower complaint, after seeing the testimony today, do you think this was a cover up?

>> i think it's obvious that there is a cover up. if you read the whistleblower's complaint, it lays it out. in fact, it lays it out so much that there appears to be and others have noted this something close to a smoking gun in that summary. but more important than that, there is a road map that the whistleblower has given. it's not like john dean's road map in watergate. it's more like the revelations of alex butterfield that there was a white house taping system that led to nixon's doom. what we have now is that this whistleblower has talked really about a lock box system that may contain more and more evidence

it sounds like there are a lot of issues about whether other white house officials will be allowed to speak because of executive privilege by this white house. that lock box system, is it clear to you that that can actually be looked into since it's highly classified? >> i don't know. but there seems to be a good number of witnesses to all kinds of events and all kinds of memoranda that were recorded. we'll see. but what we have now is a whole different dynamic about the future of this presidency that was not there a week ago. if there is any doubt about it, we see not only the president's words about abusing power in the whistle-blower's complaint, we also heard the president live today on tape talking about killing spies, talking about offing the people who brought this information to the this information to the attention of the whistle-blower. so what we now see is a kind of corruption both of the original acts in which the president has tried to hijack the electoral system of our democracy through a foreign power. and it seems very clear from the summary that he's tried to do

that as much as nixon tried to undermine the electoral system. and then we hear these wretched, toxic, threatening words unlike anything i have ever heard from any president even including nixon on his tapes about really killing people. do we take it literally? no. do we take it as an indication of where this president's mind is? that i think is something that has got republicans very, very concerned. look, republicans were the heroes in water gate. they broke ranks with their president. is that likely to happen here? pretty unlikely in the senate. but at the same time, the fact that the president today put out that tweet saying republicans stick together and from what i heard from other republicans

that i have been in touch with, he's clearly worried in a way that he hasn't been before. there is some shaking of the republican ranks. >> it is interesting. his comments about these people in the white house who gave information to the whistle-blower are essentially spies and it's treasonous. >> he wants to see these people dead. >> his view is that by people telling the truth about something that happened, if what the whistle-blower is saying is accurate, that is tantamount to a treason against the country, when in fact, it is just reporting something that the president has done that is apparently inappropriate. >> this is exactly right what you said. and this is also why people like mattis and tillerson and mcmaster concluded that not only was this president really fundamentally corrupt putting

his own interests, financial interests ahead of the united states but also this president is a danger to the national security of the united states. that's what mattis meant when he left office. that's the meaning of his book. the president of the united states thought by those in his own national security bureaucracy, those closest working with him concluded he is a danger to the national security. that's what the whistle-blower's complaint would indicate, as well. we're in a very dangerous, scary place partly because of the way the president responds. remember, he's been very effective in setting the terms of the debate. we saw that with the mueller report. he and giuliani are not as mad as they might seem in terms of how effectively they have turned things off before. will they be able to do it again this time?

now there are serious doubts. >> appreciate it. thanks. fair to say, washington has not seen a couple of days like this for a very long time. we'll be right back.

and welcome back. jake, we sometimes talk about how hard it is to keep track of time anymore because of the cascade of news every day. these past few days have been remarkable in that way. after going through the reporting on the russia investigation for more than two years, this is moving incredibly fast. >> ah, yeah, and, in fact, what's most remarkable about this scandal is what has just played out in front of our eyes by what president trump and rudy

giuliani have said that they did. >> yeah. >> including the release of the transcript and you see president trump, you know, pushing the ukrainians to investigate his political rivals and rudy giuliani, especially a week ago with our buddy chris cuomo talking about, of course he did the same. it's all right there in front of the nation to look at. >> yeah. who else there is to talk to, the former ambassador to the ukraine, who was forced out, other people in the state department, i mean, rudy giuliani is running around saying he was doing this all at the behest of the state department. there's a lot of folks there to talk to. that's it for us tonight. jake, thank you very much. >> thank you, anderson. the news continues on cnn. more towers. more coverage! it's a network that gives you ♪freedom from big cities, to small towns, we're with you. because life can take you almost anywhere, t-mobile is with you. no signal goes farther

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hello and welcome to the united states, great to have you with us. ahead to hour, in the newsroom, the damaging whistle-blower allegations, the president tried to cover up with the leader of you ukraine. the shift in republican support away from don't trump as evidence mounts of wrong doing, and they turn on rudy giuliani. hitting back with a bizarre interview claiming i will be the hero.