you like intrigue and you like all of that, you will love "declassified". >> we certainly will. be sure to tune in to "declassified," untold stories of american spies and it premieres this sunday night at 9:00 p.m. all of our jewish viewers, have a happy and healthy new year. erin burnett starts raight now. this is cnn breaking news. good evening. i'm erin burnett. we begin with breaking news. the white house tried to keep secret, cnn learning this hour the white house also tried to limit access to prdzesident trump's conversations with muhammad bin salman and vladimir putin. the conversation with the saudi prince was treated differently and occurred when trump was siding with the crown prince over the murder of journalist

jamal khashoggi. another part of the whistle-blower complaint may be true to quote the complaint again and according to white house officials i spoke with, this is the whistle-blower. this was, quote, not the first time under this administration, but 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. we don't know if these additional calls were put on the super secure system, but what we do know happened to them is stunning and we have more on that in just a moment. i want to make sure you also know this. these developments are coming as the white house itself is admitting a key part of the whistle-blower complaints regarding the call between trump and the president of ukraine is true. the white house confirms tonight the transcript of trump's call with the ukrainian president was filed in that separate highly classified system at the direction of national security council attorneys. the big question this hour is who told those lawyers to do something so unprecedented and

outside protocol, because according to "the washington post," a transfer could only happen at the direction of someone at the highest levels such as the chief of staff of the national security adviser. pamela brown is out front in washington. pamela, you broke this story on the phone calls. stunning. the whistle-blower complaint says more calls were treated in extremely rare ways. you now know what some of them were. tell us what you know. >> reporter: that's right, erin. white house efforts to limit access to president trump's conversation to foreign leaders extended the phone calls with saudi crown prince muhammad bin salman and vladimir putin and this is according to people familiar with the matter and familiar with those calls. both the leaders who maintain controversial relationships that we just mentioned and both of them maintain controversial relationships with trump, they were among the presidential conversations that aides took remarkable step, erin, to keep from becoming public. in the case of trump's call with prince muhammad, officials who

ordinarily would have been given access to a rough transcript of the conversation never saw one according to one of the sources. instead, erin, a transcript was never circulated at all which the source said was highly unusual particularly after a high-profile conversation. the call which the person said contained no especially sensitive national security secrets came as the white house was confronting the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi which u.s. intelligence said came at the hands of the saudi government. with putin's access to transcripts after one of his conversations there was also tightly restricted according to a former trump administration official. it is not clear, erin, if they took the additional step of placing that in the same, highly secured system that now held the infamous ukraine call and which helped spark the whistle-blower complaint that was made public this week. calls aside from the u crane conversati

ukraine conversations that weren't placed there as well. we should note the attempts to conceal the information with the discussions with prince muhammad and putin illustrate the extraordinary effort to strictly limit the number of people with access to the conversations with foreign leaders. we are told this really picked up steam, this practice picked up steam after there were conversations leaked between the leaders of mexico and australia and president trump. putin, as well, as you'll recall, also leaked that out. this is when the practice went into place over the past -- more than a year ago. the white house did not comment about the limiting of the access with the saudi leaders. >> pamela, this is a pretty stunning development. i will be joined by the foreign affairs committee to talk about this. you also have new reporting on trump's reaction to -- well, he hasn't had a chance to retook the what you're breaking right now, but to what the whole broader story is exploding and how he spent his day. >> that's right. there really is a sense in the

white house that they're basically in crisis mode. they're trying to figure out how to respond to the fallout from the whistle-blower complaint, from the impeachment inquiry and all that has transpired this week. there were meetings throughout the day between president trump and his white house counsel as well as his personal counsel including jay sekulow who came into town for these meetings to figure out a strategy moving forward. i did speak to jay sekulow that as of now no war room has been created and what is clear is they're trying to figure out what the next steps are. >> pamela brown, thank you very much, with some very, very significant new reporting this hour. >> i want to go now to the chairman of the house, and i appreciate your time. so let me start with your reaction to this latest breaking news that we now know that there are two more kacalls, at least, that were highly restricted and

treated in ways that the president was siding with him over the u.s. intelligence in the dismemberment of jamal khashoggi and vladimir putin? >> it doesn't sur please me at all because the way this white house has apparently worked is unconventional. >> just something that makes you scratch your head and what were you thinking. >> unconventional and inkofrnable. >> both wrapped into one. >> in the case of the crown prince, the saudi crown prince, ordinarily pamela's reporting there would be a group of people that would be given a rough transcript of what transpired in this phone call. nothing was circulated at all and highly unusual after a high-profile conversation. you know how these things are done. how unusual would such a thing be? >> it is very unusual and it leads you to believe that something is hiding something or

somebody wants to keep things from getting outside and this is the same secretive attitude that we have found straight on which is one of the reasons why we issued the subpoena today, and i signed the subpoena because we really want to find out what's happened. as chair of the foreign affairs committee and our committee we have a jurisdiction over the state department and so this is just the tip of the iceberg. >> and this is for the secretary of state mike pompeo. you've produced documents that he's refused to hand over in the whistle-blower case regarding the ukrainian call and the ukrainian president and trump's conversation. have you had a response yet from secretary of state pompeo? >> no, we have not. we'll give him some time. we just subpoenaed him today. subpoena is the last thing we should do and we only did it because they turned a blind eye to whatever we asked for. we asked for information. we asked for documents and we

were stonewalled. not even so much as an answer. >> just ignored you. >> this administration thinks that congress doesn't have the right and the checks and balances we all learn from the kids in grade school. this administration seems to feel that it doesn't apply to them. >> so, you know, obviously, there are multiple sources on our latest reporting and one of them a former u.s. official. are you going to be trying to subpoena these individuals? do you even know who to subpoena at this point? >> i think those are things that will be determined down the line, but one of the things that's sure is in this impeachment inquiry, we are working together, and it's the foreign affairs committee and it's the other committees, as well and the intelligence committee and the oversight committee. >> three committees are all working together and there will be other chips happening soon. >> will you move to get access to the transcripts which we now

know were walled off in some way. >> well, since we just found out about it, but i think we have more than just a little bit of an interest in it, and again, this is the whole thing, you know. we wanted to know what the state department knew about the call which the president of ukraine. >> right. >> we wanted to know rudy giuliani was doing and with the state depend. these are things that -- and i would have much rather not had to sign the subpoena, but they chose to ignore us so we were left with no choice. >> the white house is reporting now an important part of the whistle-blower complaint which is that the transcripts were moved to this secure server by virtue of what's in them never would ordinarily be. the national security council attorneys and pamela is

reporting specifically. we know at least who one of those individuals are, but the question is were they doing it at the behest of someone else? that is what they would have had to do. those attorneys would have only moved the transcript because someone directed them. >> it certainly seems logical. >> chief of staff mick mulvaney or john bolton who was then in the white house or mike pompeo. do you think it went that high? >> i have no idea, but i'll tell you, we'll find out about it. you know when our career ambassador to the ukraine was dismissed back in may, i said then something smelled, something was not right. they wanted to move her out, and i think we're going to find out that that was a central start to what continues to be this crisis and over things that they're being sneakily about and that they're not telling us about and

that they tried to hide. you can't hide from the truth. the truth always wins in the end. >> so what is the timeline here? you say you don't want to rush pompeo. you want to give him a chance to respond to your subpoena even though he didn't respond to your requests before that. we are hearing others say they want to vote on impeachment in october. is that what you were looking at? >> i personally don't have any time table. i don't think we should drag anything out and i think we should do it as officially as possible, but we should be thorough. we should be fair and i think we will be. >> i appreciate your time. >> thank you upon t. david gergen has advised four presidents including richard nixon and bill clinton, the last two to face impeachment and the former counsel for the assistant attorney general carrieordero and john dean, former nixon

white house counsel and central to that, as well. john dean, what do you make of it, reporting that there were at least two more calls that were treated in highly, highly unorthodox ways and we're not sure if they were put on the server and transcripts were not put out and theywentto extraordinary lengths to prevent people hearing what the president really said to the crown prince of saudi arabia during the time he was siding with him during the cia in the brutal murder of jamal khashoggi and the call with vladimir putin. >> i suspect every white house has a similar problem and that is a special place to put very sensitive files. as david will recall there was something called the special files at the nixon white house that i was actually asked to set up, and they were not accessible, but to a few people. >> they weren't necessarily classified information and it was not to circulate and yet it

had to be there so other people could see what was in the file in the event that they needed access to it. so i think this is what's happened. they just wanted to put this away where others wouldn't get to it. >> what's the significance of that, david gergen? >> first of all, do i think we need to say right up front the presidents need to have privacy on national security calls of importance, and i think trump had been burned two or three times by leaks before this. i don't think it's wrong for the white house to try to bring extra protection for sensitive conversations. having said that, what distinguishis these calls from others is they're being put in a file because they're politically sensitive and not because they're national security related, but because they have political sensitivities in those files and that's what makes it so suspicious especially when it comes to dealing with the crown

prince of saudi. >> the politically sensitive nature of bolt of those dick -- put the question marks around this. >> the question is what was the motivation to segregating the information in a cls phied system there it. there's no law owe place, why did they segregate these specific calls and why it was the call with the ukrainian president and now that we're report willing on -- and both of whom involved in activities that they expressed disagreement with the u.s. intelligence on. when it comes to putin the president has rejected the intelligence community's

assessment in the 2016 election. when it comes to khashoggi, the administration and the president would not accept what was the intelligence information being reported about the complicity and the responsibility for that murder. so both of those were situations where the president is in a different place than what the actual intelligence reporting is which is why this is a completely legitimate area of intelligence oversight by congress. >> i want to bring in dana bash in here. just to remind people, from what we understand the timing of this particular call with the crown prince of saudi arabia, what we were hearing the president say publicly was backing his version of things which was, you know, completely opposite to the conclusion reached by the president of the united states' own cia. here's president trump. >> the king firmly denied any knowledge of it. he didn't really know, maybe --

i don't want to get into his mind, but it sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. >> i hate the crime. i hate what's done. i hate the cover up, and i will tell you this, the crown prince hates it more than i do, and they have vehemently denied it. >> dana, that's the context for a call that we now know they went to sort of extraordinary lengths to never even circulate a transcript at all and limit the people who actually saw what the president said to the crown prince. >> as our colleagues here have been saying, it's an incredibly sensitive issue politically, geomrit beingly and erin, i'm not so sure that we will get an answer to the question that carrie just posed, the important question which was why was it these three? why was it just these three as far as we know that was put into the special class if i kaegsz

unless there is another john dean in this white house who is going to be willing to come out and say so because the indications that we're already getting is that this white house is going to stonewall and congress will ask the questions to those questions and whether or not they will get away with that it is unclear for the courts and it is unclear if the democrats want to wait that lock and if it's tenable for them to go forward without the answers, we'll see, but it would be nice to get the answer, but it's a question of whether people are willing to admit it or to give the real truth. >> john dean, i guess let's poesz thpose that question to you. multiple sources and a former white house official, the reporting on the call with the ukraine and certainly people in the white house had enough concern that they're willing to talk to a whistle-blower who certainly knew how to write an incredibly detailed and appendixed report. there are people who want to say

something. the question is is there something like you who will come out and say it to the country. what do you think the odds are? >> well, it could evolve to that. it's hard to say. one of the things about the whistle-blower is he was not or she, were want alone. there was a collective voice in that very well-written piece, that there was clearly interchange between other members of the staff and the whistle-blower and he or she decided to take action and go through a process that did not exist in my day. that didn't come into existence until '89. what happened is i got into a fight where they thought i'd mack a good scapegoat, and i didn't think i'd make a very good one. so that's the reason i decided to blow it up. [ laughter ] >> i believe it's when you see tensions rise and people start to feel that way, you don't know

how people act until their backs are against the walls and i guess only time will tell if it develops. you heard chairman engle, three subpoenaing the secretary of state is part of the impeachment inquiry. they want the documents about president trump and rudy giuliani and the government and rudy giuliani and how he was operating as a private citizen and the personal attorney of the president and the vis-a-vis, the ukraine and foreign policy. so what do you think that will yield, carrie? is he going to comply? they said they haven't yet heard from him. n he is certainly, the administration has adopted a request for information. so it certainly seems they have adopted an overall approach to challenging, so i tend to expect that they will find ways to w l challenge these subpoenas or delay responding to them.

they could provide information and could fight for other information and it's for documents. depending on what types of privileges they want to assert. it depends on what the specific documents are. so it just depends on whether the administration is going to continue with their blanket approach of challenging all requests for congressional information. the difference in this case is that now there is an open, acknowledged impeachment inquiry on the part of the house and so there is the support of the speaker for these demands for information by all of the different committees. >> and so, dana, the context here is who are they going to be able to hear from? who are the american people going to be able to hear from and what kind of performance will it be and when i use that word i'm using it specifically talking to somebody that i know you've been able to speak to today, rudy giuliani. he wants giuliani to come in there and he wants him to testify and giuliani today is all over the map, he will, he

won't. maybe if trump tells him he can. you just spoke to him. what is he saying? >> well, he is saying a lot of thing, but on this particular issue he spoke to our colleague michael warren and he said he's not and he doesn't have any intention on testifying and he sees himself as the president's private attorney and it would breach attorney-client privilege. as you said, that could change if the circumstances change in regard to what congress thinks that they have or more specifically, it could change if somehow, some way they could get ambassador volcker to testify or come forward. if he disagrees with some of the things that giuliani is sending to me and many, many other reporters that suggest that the state department not just know about giuliani and officials with potentially the president, but he helped set it up.

so there's a lot that we don't know about how far down the house will go that could change giuliani's mind which will probably happen many times. >> david gergen, this comes, kurt volcker and dana just referenced the special envoy to ukraine which replaced the ambassador when trump, and he, of course is in the report and in the transcript as part of who trump was having to work with rudy giuliani, and we have learned tonight that he has resigned. do you read anything into that. three sources, by the way, confirmed that to cnn this hour. >> no, i don't know why he resigned and i'm not so sure what to say about it. overall, we're headed for a showdown very quickly on whether the administration will start its new policy of making the documents available and they were very good about turning over all of this stuff in the last few days or they're going to go back to the old policy of stonewalling. i think it is more likely

stonewalling and very importantly in the letter that was sent to pompeo was a direct threat. if you do not comply with this, it will fuel our view of obstruction that you're the administration that the president is obstructing and that's a big charge. let me say something on the related -- >> we've been talking about how underhanded these deep conversations with the ukrainians are and the president trying to cut a deal, a quid pro quo, and we find it very reprehensible in many ways. at the same time today, the president of "the new york times," he came out a few minutes ago, a little while ago, the president met with the head of the nra and in that, they discussed how much money the nra gave to the trump campaign in the next year in exchange to which the president would back away from gun con terrell legislation. it's the same idea as a quid pro

quo, and it's yet system is skrupt are corrupt. >> i'm glad you did bring that up. thank you, david. >> thank you. >> decades ago, attorney general john mitchell helped bring down richard nixon during watergate. could bill barr be a threat to president trump's presidency and elizabeth warren speaking out about impeachment and election interference. she's speaking in an exclusive interview with us tonight. >> that isn't right. it's a violation of the law. no one is above the law in this country. woman: what gives me confidence about investment decisions? rigorous fundamental research. with portfolio managers focused on the long term. who look beyond the spreadsheets to understand companies, from breakroom to boardroom. who know the only way to get a 360 view is to go around the world to get it. can i rely on deep research

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volcker was named in the whistle-blower complaint released to us yesterday. it comes as nancy pelosi says, another administration official, the attorney general, has gone rogue. >> i do think the attorney general has gone rogue. he has for a long time now and since he was mentioned in all of this it's curious that he would be making decisions about how the complaint would be handled. >> all right. and my panel is back with me. so john dean, let me just start with you. do you think speaker pelosi is right. she's referring obviously to the attorney general bill barr who was named in the complaint as worked with my attorney general and rudy giuliani often in the same sentence with the ukraine president. >> i think her assessment is correct. it's a question of where he's gone rogue or from whom, and i think it's from the american people and into trying to be a defense counsel for the

president, and that's not been the post watergate tradition. there's no law that spills this out, but after watergate, the justice department took a lot of independence and there were rules and regulations about contacting and dealing with the department that seemed to have fallen apart under this president. >> i mean, dana, bill barr has repeatedly defended the president on controversial issues. he's been his wingman and been his supporter, just a couple of times like this. >> my administration is finalizing a plan to end the rampant abuse of our asylum system. >> where people are abusing the asylum system. >> i'm going to be signing a national emergency, and it's been signed many times before. >> your declaration of an emergency on the southern border was clearly authorized under the law, and consistent with past

precedent. >> they spied on me. they spied on our campaign. >> i think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. >> i think spying did occur. >> and that's why, dana, you're getting the criticism you're getting now and the skepticism. >> and it doesn't even include, you know, the big situation of him summarizing the mueller report in a way that set the narrative that didn't really represent the mueller report, right, before it came out. that was also the biggie. >> in this case, erin, it was striking to me that the attorney general has been pretty quiet. i think it's kind of telling. there isn't any indication that he, the attorney general was saying this to the ukrainian president that my attorney general would help take care of it. rudy giuliani was very open in real time in the summer saying that he was actively working on

trying to find political dirt on joe biden in ukraine. that's not the case for the attorney general. what is so many questions for him including when they got referrals based on this complaint, why did they decide there was not anything worth pursuing criminally? >> david, look, as we know, trump repeatedly told ukraine's president in the phone call, barr would be calling and barr would be in touch and that's in the transcript and it is not even in the complaint allegation and it's in the transcript that we have. the justice department put out a statement saying barr never had discussions with any of those people with giuliani or the president about any of the stuff, about ukraine. trump says to the ukrainian president and bill barr will follow up with you and according to the doj, bill barr doesn't have a conversation and nothing ever happens. do you buy it? >> no, not particularly. he deserves his day in court and maybe he didn't have any contacts as he says and that's

what these hearings are supposed to determine on controversial questions like that, but one thing is clear and that is the president regards him as his poodle and that bill barr ought to recuse himself now from further decisions -- >> good luck with that. >> yeah, i know. but the other thing -- it was a guy that had a good reputation. >> yes. he said i don't want to kick it away at the end of my career and he's doing the opposite and his justice department is getting the reputation that if there is a controversy that has any legal questions involved, send him over to the justice department because bill barr will strangle him in the crib. he'll make sure they never get outside the justice department and we would never know anything about this whistle-blower and the last thing we learned in the last 72 hours and had bill barr

been left in place. >> you know, carrie, if bill barr did now was going on with ukraine, if he'd heard anything and obviously, he did nothing, is that a problem? >> well, sure. i mean, he's a member of the cabinet. he took an oath of office to the constitution, so if he is knowledgeable and complicit in the president using his official position in foreign affairs to pressure ahead of a foreign head of state to do political favors then that certainly is a problem. what's clear simply based on the text of the phone call that was released from july 25th is certainly the president and we know this from just his behavior over the last three years, certainly the president views the attorney general and attorney general barr specifically, in much the same way as he views his personal lawyer. >> yeah. >> so all public indications are

that the president doesn't really distinguish between his personal lawyer, somebody like rudy giuliani and bill barr who is the attorney general of the united states. so that's a problem -- that's a problem for the public because that's the president's point of view. what's a little bit less clear is whether bill barr knew and has been engaged in conversations regarding digging up kirt on the bidens from a foreign government. if he's involved certainly that's problem attic and we don't yet have those facts. >> i want to tell you to respond to the breaking news of the envoy, mr. volcker resigning. i want people to understand why he's central. starting in mid-may they were deeply concerned about mr. giuliani's circumhave noting proes e to relay back and forth

between kiev and the president. >> state department officials including volcker and sondeland had spoken to mr. giuliani to contain the damage to u.s. national security and tonight mr. volcker is gone, resigning. >> and -- >> that's right. in addition to that, the complaint says that mr. volcker went in order to try to help the ukrainian president, alleges that a u.s. diplomat went to help a ukrainian president navigate the demands of a u.s. president. i mean, that is, if true, so stunning and that is the -- that would be the first question i would ask him for sure. you know, he is somebody who has a long career in diplomacy. he is a john mccain guy. he is the head of the mccain institute, and so he is somebody who is known to have a lot of integrity and would be

fascinating to see if he decided to come forward and talk to congress whether in public or private. >> i'm sure they will be asking him to do so. >> thank you all very much. next, we have more on the breaking news, learning this hour that the white house tried to restrict access to trump's phone calls with vladimir putin and the saudi crown prince, muhammad bin salman and elizabeth warren speaking out this hour in an interview on the impeachment inquiry. >> it isn't just about this president and it's about the next president and the one after that and the one after that.

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sources tell cnn that it wasn't just ukraine, the ukraine call that the white house tried to limit access to. sources say that there was at least one call with the russian president vladimir putin and a call with the crown prince of saudi arabia muhammad bin salman that also aides tried to restrict access to in highly unusual ways according to a source familiar with the situation. out front now, michael green. he created transcripts like all of these including the one between trump and the ukraine and he served in the george w. bush administration as the senior director for asia. mike, thank you very much. look, i am so glad you're with us tonight because you can give desperately-needed context. with the latest reported this hour. they witness to very extraordinary measures to limit access to at least one call with vladimir putin and a call with the saudi crown prince, a call that happened in the timeframe when the president was siding with the crown prince over the

cia in blame for the brutal dismemberment of jamal khashoggi. we understand the transcript was never circulated at all with that particular phone call. how unusual would that be that they would aren't even give a rough transcript to officials who would ordinarily see it and they never circulated a transcript at all. >> the president does have the right to limit distribution of these memorandum of telephone calls and usually the national security adviser makes that call. it is very rare that they're limited beyond the already narrow distribution of the secretary of state, but to put it in a server for compartmented national security and not diplomacy is unprecedented and it strikes me that although the white house was embarrassed that transcripts with the mexican or the australian leader leaked. those were embarrassing. these are different. these are relationships with leaders who were engaged in

highly, highly scrutinized and controversial acts where the president himself is in d disagreement with his government and they were put in this special server and restricted system after the fact and not because the relationship with the country was sensitive, but it appears it was done after. >> as viewers know, we do know the whistle-blower said the ukraine call was not the first time it happened with the secure server. we know they were treated in unorthodox ways and we're not sure if they were put on this server or not. >> mike, there are key issues here that we all need to understand. first of all, as you point out, the highly unprecedented nature of moving a call to the server in the ukraine call. so it happens, from your experience dealing with this. sometimes rarely or is it close to unprecedented. is that a fair word to use? >> i've never heard of and i've asked colleagues who were in the obama administration in similar

jobs and they've never heard of the memorandum of a telephone conversation being placed in a restricted, highly restricted server or system with the most compartme compartmented and classified information. very, very unusual. look, i worked for president bush and he was calling leaders about iraq and nuclear weapons and these were sensitive discussions and i never saw anything like this in that case. >> want to ask you about that just specifically because you did create transcripts like this in your role. you'd be on the call and you'd create it and check the facts and make sure it's there for the historical record. there are some people out there, mike, does this stuff just happen normally? they get to know each other at thooed events and they talk off-the-cuff and do each other favors and this is the nasty, dark side who don't see and that's all this is. is that possible or are those

people just wrong about how these calls happen and how they're handled. >> what's clearly different this time and you can see it in the memorandum and the transcript that was released was the president was asking for a personal favor for information on a political opponent. that is unprecedented as far as we know, and furthermore, he was doing it in a way where the intent was to conceal it in the server where it would not be known to the diplomatic service or the intelligence officials who were responsible for policy and that is a significant diplomatic event and things flow from that and the others would take actions and the intelligence community and maybe the secretary of defense need to know the gist of what was discussed because it will affect their interaks and their deployments of military equipment and their diplomatic interactions and that's why we've never seen this before

where a transcript was essentially hidden in a highly classified system. >> mike, thank you very much. i appreciate your time and perspective. >> thanks. presidential candidate elizabeth warren speaking in an exclusive interview next. (car horn - barely audible) (car horn - increasing in volume and intensity) (car horn - loud) jane, this is jim from onstar. i've contacted help and they're on their way. o.k. don't worry i'm going to stay with you until help arrives. thank you. that deer, it just, just came out of nowhere. walking a dog can add thousands walking this many?day. that can be rough on pam's feet, knees, and lower back. that's why she wears dr. scholl's orthotics. they relieve pain and give her the comfort to move more so she can keep up with all of her best friends. dr. scholl's. born to move. i felt i couldn't be at my best for my family.

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in an exclusive interview, elizabeth warren says she wants a senate vote on impeachment before the iowa caucuses. the senator who is running neck

and neck with joe biden in the polls speaking out to cnn tonight. she sat down with m.j. lee who asked if she has worries about the whistleblower's safety. >> i do. and i worry about this whole investigation as it unfolds. donald trump and his administration have made clear not just that donald trump is willing to break the law but that they're doing their best to try to cover this up and discredit anyone who's trying to get to the truth. >> reporter: as this process unfolds, do you have any reason to believe that any of your senate republican colleagues will vote to convict the president? >> you know, i don't know, but i see this as a lot more important than politics. donald trump has admitted, and it's right there in the documentation, that he has solicited a foreign country to interfere in our 2020 elections.

that isn't right. it's a violation of the law. no one is above the law in this country. and that's why it is so important that congress bring impeachment proceedings, to hold him accountable. it isn't just about this president, it's about the next president and the one after that and the one after that. this is our constitutional responsibility. whether you're a democrat or a republican. >> reporter: do you think that impeachment investigation should be narrowly focused on just the ukraine issue, or everything else about the president and his conduct while in office? >> right now i'd like to just see us do the ukraine issue. because it is so clear, and it is such a clear violation of law. the president is asking for help against one of his political rivals and asking a foreign government for a thing of value for himself personally. that's against the law. after all that happened in 2016

and the mueller investigation, the president of the united states knows that. this is not he somehow stumbled into it and didn't think about the consequences. no, he knew. he believed he could break the law and get away with it. and so did his administration. look, they didn't leave that transcript in the regular course of transcripts of phone calls with foreign leaders. why? because it wasn't a regular call. it was a call that violated the law. and so their immediate instinct is let's lock it up, let's make sure nobody can see it, let's cover it up so no one's there. that's why it is that this impeachment proceeding is so important on this issue. >> reporter: do you think it's important that all of this be wrapped up before voting begins in february? >> oh, i hope that it is. i'd like to see us get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible. >> all right. that was elizabeth warren

talking to m.j. lee. "out front" next. an exclusive investigation with lisa ling. ♪ ♪ yes ♪ hey sean hey dan ♪

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this sunday, lisa ling is back with an all new season of "this is life." in her first episode this season, she is taking on a topic arguably one of the biggest taboos in our society, pornography. and with the rise of online porn, it has become even easier to access for all ages. ♪ >> porn. every kid who has access to a computer or smartphone has access to porn. >> i was first exposed when i was 7 over 8. >> would you say that porn was your sex ed? >> our generation is consumed by pornography. >> it's the largest epidemic that not many people want to talk about. >> and lisa ling is with me now. look, i mean, just hearing that,

and you go into such great detail and at such young ages. this is upsetting, okay. it is hard to hear and is truly upsetting. what drew you to the topic for the series, lisa? >> look, erin, porn has always been around and online porn. but it's the ease of access that concerns plea. even if you have the most stringent filters, kids are smart. they can bypass these things. if you put a couple of words into google that aren't particularly lascivious, you can be astounded by what comes up. if you're a young child, you hear these words at the yard at 8 years old and you put it in google, if you've never had a conversation about what sex is, what relationships are like, what -- how our bodies even function, if can have a pretty damaging impact on you. and it can shape how you perceive sex and relationships, how you look at the opposite sex or even the same sex. and so i'm trying to encourage

parents, first of all, to wake up and recognize how easy it is to access just unlimited amounts of pornography -- >> you're saying even with all the restrictions and restraints that you may put on, the controls on your devices, it's still there. >> yeah, because all kids also -- all kids now seem to have devices. you know, after 12 years old. so if you put filters on yours, they can go and look at their friends'. but they can also bypass the filters because they're pretty innovative. >> quickly before we go, there are some places people go to get help. you're going to talk about that i know in the documentary. >> absolutely. you know, porn addiction is not a medically recognized disorder. but there are websites, there are communities out there where people are banding together and trying to help each other. >> wow. and then you can go and do that. i know there's more about that and you talked to a lot of those. it's among the amazing things lisa does, she's not affront of confronting it and trying -- not

afraid of confronting it and trying to help people. don't miss the season premiere sunday at 10:00. thank you so much for joining us. "a.c. 360" with anderson begins now. good evening, the whistleblower warned about it, and tonight cnn has reporting to back it up. our sources telling us that white house efforts to restrict access to president trump's conversations with foreign leaders were not limited to his call with ukraine's president which was put into a code word classified system meant for the nation's top secrets. other conversations were also roped off, though it is not yet clear exactly how. specifically we're talking about phone calls with saudi arabia's crown prince and russia's president, vladimir putin. tonight we also learned that the president's ukraine special envoy named in the whistleblower complaint and tangled up with the president's attorney general, rudy giuliani -- excuse me, the president's personal attorney, rudy giul