heroes sunday december 8th at 8 p.m. eastern. i want to head over to chris right now for "cuomo prime time." >> thank you. i am chris cuomo. and welcome to prime time. are democrats about to snag their biggest impeachment witness yet? we have big news on that front. and we have a key senate player here tonight with a ukrainian connection of his own. plus, one of the biggest assaults on a key witness, colonel vindman is about to get blown up in this show in minutes. so what do you say, let's get after it. the president's former national security adviser john bolton, is he the next big witness. a source tells cnn he was invited for next thursday. his lawyer said tonight it's not going to happen without a subpoena. that's arranged easily enough these days. meanwhile, a bolton top nsc deputy just resigned on the eve of his appearance before impeachment investigators.

tomorrow tim morrison, why would he be important? he can back up what bill taylor testified to as to the understanding as to why there was a quid pro quo. and cnn has learned lieutenant colonel alexander vindman tied the president to a ukraine quid pro quo in his testimony on tuesday, as was expected. and also, according to sources, he told investigators he was convinced the president was personally blocking $400 million in military aid to force ukraine to publicly announce an investigation into the bidens, even before vindman heard that july 25th phone call. so with that let's bring in senator chris murphy. he was in ukraine last month. he said he raised red flags to president zelensky about not getting dragged into american politics. the foreign relations committee

member, democrat from connecticut, joins us now. good to see you, senator. >> thanks for having me. >> so what can you tell us about ukraine's president's mindset towards what we're dealing with here? >> first of all, i had heard back in the spring from many of my friends in ukraine and those who go back and forth to ukraine that zelensky as a brand new president, someone with no prior political background was very worried about these overtures he was getting from rudy giuliani and the demands being made of him to get involved in the american election. and of course that just stands to reason, any foreign leader would be concerned if they are getting visits from the president's political operatives asking them to get involved in the president's political campaigns. so part of the reason that i went to ukraine in early september was to, you are know, raise this with zelensky and

tell him that, you know, he really should stay out of american political campaigns and that he should conduct his business with the state department. what was interesting about the meeting, amongst other things, was that before we even really sat down and engaged in what a normally diplomatic pleasantries at the beginning of the meeting, zelensky went straight into the question of the aid, he wanted to know why he could get that aid, why it was being held up, it was of dire concern to him because he knew ukrainians would die on the front with russia if the aid were not released. i recommended he stayed out of american politics and he agreed with me. it was just weeks later we learned the extent of the corruption but at that moment in early september, he was very focused on getting that aid restarted and seems to be really crying out for help in terms of how he could convince the administration to change their mind. >> and just so we understand, why did you know at that time to ask him to stay out of american politics? >> rudy giuliani in may was openly bragging about his attempts to try to get zelensky to investigate the bidens so

this was, you know, not a secret from anyone. i actually wrote a public letter to the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the spring asking for an investigation because it seemed as if there was this shadow foreign policy trying to corrupt the ukrainians that we needed to ask more questions about. i don't think it was a surprise to anyone. i spoke to ambassador taylor as well about this while i was there. and he expressed concern at this back channel again at the time i didn't know that he actually was involved in these conversations, but he clearly was alarmed when we were there in early september. >> let's look at the president's state of play. how big a deal with john bolton be to you, the former national security adviser? >> so, you know, i don't know

that we should expect that john bolton is ultimately going to be the white knight here. he has a broad belief of executive power but from fiona hill's testimony we know he was uncomfortable of a drug deal being manufactured by mick mulvaney and others on the ukraine beat. so i expect that he will like live fill out a few more details in a story that is just crystal clear. >> you don't have any questions. you believe you know what happened and you know why. >> i think the testimony from taylor, the statements that sondland has made, the details that fiona hill and colonel vindman fill in just make it absolutely clear that this aid was being held up, the white house meeting was being denied in order to get the ukrainians to investigate the bidens and launch investigations into the clintons. i think it's clear as day at this point. i don't know how republicans can deny that after all the testimony that they've seen at this point. >> if you watch the show, they find new ways every night. i still think the big question is going to come down on your shoulders about whether or not this is worthy of removal. i think there's still arguments to be made of why it's not worthy of removal but we'll get to this later.

we're obsessed about the july 25th phone call. what about the july 30th phone call between the united states president and putin? the president was asked about it and he said we just talked about siberian wildfires. that strains credulity. how interested are you in that call and is there any chance of access? >> so i'm interested in that call. listen, i think we've got to be a little careful about making demands for, you know, a large number of private communications between the president and others. i think when we have evidence from whistle-blowers that there has been corruption or illegality committed on a phone call -- >> that's different. >> yeah, then i think it's appropriate for us to ask for the transcript. if we're just sort of fishing with suspicions, even though they may be reasonable

suspicions, i think we want to be careful about the precedent. >> i agree. the question becomes does anybody being interviewed in the depositions now or later hearings bring up that call. today you had sullivan before your committee. he's the selection by the administration to be ambassador to russia. he gave the president cover on ukraine. he said, yeah, i look, i know what happened in the call. the president said these investigations were relevant and part of policy but there was no quid pro quo. does that answer make you comfortable with him as the diplomat in charge of russia communications for the united states? >> well, you know, listen, john sullivan's an honorable guy, i like him but his ann doesn't make sense. the bulk of his testimony was that he was kept in the dark, he

had no knowledge of any of these entries into the ukrainian's and investigations into the bidens until the whistle-blower came forward. so i have no idea that he can now represent he knows there was no quid pro quo when in fact he has seen the reports of the testimony that make it clear that there was a quid pro quo and he has no present -- he has no realtime knowledge because he is trying to save himself by suggesting that he was in the dark. so you can't have it both ways. you can't say that you didn't know anything about it but you're absolutely certain there was no corruption, especially when all of the testimony from career public officials, from member of the trump administration makes it very clear that there was a quid pro quo. and as you know, because i said this before on the show, i think there was a quid pro quo but i frankly don't think that you need to prove it for this to be corrupt. i think a president asking for investigations into his political opponents is corrupt, potentially illegal, even if there isn't a demand on the other side or withholding of support or aid on the other side. >> after mueller we had people saying if a foreign power comes to you and offers it, contact

the fbi, stay away. now asking a foreign power for help isn't a problem? anyway, senator chris murphy, i appreciate your perspective very much, an important time in our history. thank you for being with us. >> thanks. >> now, there's one name that keeps coming up in each of these testimonies, even again today. the name that we cannot forget is rudy giuliani. i know that's gone quiet, you're not seeing him anywhere and that's with good reason. but we have to remember what he means in this narrative. prosecution or not, he is completely relevant to understanding what happened here and why. let's shine a light on what we know next. so ...how are you feeling? on a scale of one to five? one to five? it's more like five million. there's everything from happy to extremely happy. there's also angry. i'm really angry clive! actually, really angry. thank you. but what if your business could understand what your customers are feeling... and then do something about it.

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many in his orbit disagree. it was the substance of a drug deal in his own white house. when you focus on the substance and follow the facts, you will land squarely on rudy giuliani. a whole lot of trump's own people thought giuliani was doing something wrong. let there be no mistake what his mission was. he told up right here on this so. >> so did you ask ukraine to look into joe biden? >> of course i did. >> you notice you don't see him much on tv anymore. you can attribute that due to he's under investigation. and he's been told he's making things worse for potus. let's be clear. he asked a foreign government to go after a 2020 candidate. it's his behavior that has witness after witness, trump's own people, military heros, career public servants and big money political donors of his and former fox newsers calling

the former mayor, quote, a hand grenade and obstacle to u.s. foreign policy. we know bill taylor was worried about giuliani. remember, taylor is the top diplomat in the ukraine, asked by pompeo, the secretary of state, to do that job. even the one guy trying to give potus cover, ambassador sondland, testified he was disappointed by the president's decision that we involve mr. giuliani. still, we have hard evidence thanks to the text messages. giuliani was right in the middle of the effort to withhold the white house meeting and military aid the ukrainians needed. even today, trump's number two diplomat said giuliani was pivotal in the removal of the ukrainian ambassador. listen. >> you were aware there were individuals and forces outside the state department seeking to smear the ambassador. >> i was. >> and were seeking to remove her. >> i was. >> and so you knew mr. giuliani was one of them?

>> i believed he was, yes. >> so imagine how confusing that must be for ukrainians. their president badly wanted a meeting. their military desperate for u.s. aid with good reason, yet multiple u.s. officials, including volker, special envoy, worked at the mccain center, was asked to do this, they were telling him giuliani doesn't represent the united states government, but he sure did represent its president. that's why they're reaching out to lieutenant colonel vindman. his job was to know the ins and outs of the u.s./ukrainian relationship, to be in touch with ukrainians, to be that go between. these attacks about him working both sides are b.s. and the people making the attacks know it. the questions about why the ukrainians would need help to sort this out from him, it ignores the chaos caused by when this president made aid

contingent on political benefit. it was evidenced by his personal attorney. and my next guest suggested that vindman, who sounded the alarm about trump and ukraine could have committed espionage. the former d.o.j. official now says he's been taken wrong. what does he mean to say? what does he think about those attacks? what does he think about the situation next? mean this one? (ernie) rubber duckie! (cookie) what about a broken cookie jar? (burke) again, cookie? (cookie) yeah. me bad. (grover) yoooooow! oh! what about monsters having accidents? i am okay by the way! (burke) depends. did you cause the accident, grover? (grover) cause an accident? maybe... (bert) how do you know all this stuff? (burke) just comes with experience. (all muppets) yup. ♪ we are farmers. ♪ bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum

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state tv, aka fox news, has been crushing ltc vindman. here's one of the ugliest examples.

>> here we have a u.s. national security official who is advising ukraine while working inside the white house apparently against the president's interests and usually they spoke in english. isn't that kind of an interesting angle on this story? >> i find that astounding and some people might call that espionage, but it doesn't actually seem to add any new facts to what we know. >> john yu is the man speaking there. former u.s. deputy assistant to the u.s. general. welcome to "prime time." i respect you taking this invitation. >> thanks for having me on and giving me a chance to i hope clarify what i was trying to say. i wasn't questioning lieutenant colonel vindman's patriotism. i have a lot of respect for people who wear the uniform. who are decorated for service in

afghanistan and iraq. what i was focusing on, it seemed to me the ukrainians were engaging in espionage and i really regret the choice of words but i was thinking about ukrainians engaging in espionage, not lieutenant vindman. >> look, if you say you're sorry, that's good enough for me on this show but i want to go through it. you're a smart guy, i've done my homework on you. laura ingram was trying to assassinate the character of vindman. that's what she does. she's a proxy for our president, she's a brilliant legal mind, a talented communicator and she was trying to protect this president. how could you have thought she was talking about ukraine when she was talking about vindman? and these ugly suggestions he was working both sides. you know they came to him for help with giuliani. he was doing his job. how could you let her get away with that? >> i really do think that the ukrainians are the ones engaged in espionage. >> how is that espionage? you thought that's what she was

referring to? go ahead, explain. >> i was listening to her description of the story and what i focused on was a foreign government trying to call an official at our national security council and get advice on how to agree with rudy giuliani, who i agree with you has gone completely off the reservation. that's an effort to make a contact and engage in espionage. not on lieutenant colonel vindman's part. i don't have any doubt he did the right things in reporting his concerns up the chain of command. i want to make clear. i'm not questioning his patriotism in any way. >> what do you think about laura ingram doing exactly that? i know you like going on fox news, i know you defend the president from time to time. i have no problem with that. you're welcome on this show to do the same thing. but you're going to go on a show and listen to someone impugn the character of a man you're now calling a patriot? >> what i wanted to say, was

that actually lieutenant vindman's point was not materially important to the story. he was confirming the facts of what we already knew, which was that president trump had made a call with the president and had seemed to ask for a quid pro quo between releasing ukrainian aid and conducting some investigation into hunter biden and his service on a natural gas company. >> you don't have any question on what actually happened here, do you? do you need any more proof that the president clearly wanted an investigation of the bidens and clearly they were holding up aid in a meeting until he got a public recognition that that would happen? >> no, actually, i don't have any doubts about that because you can read them in the transcript of the phone call that the white house released. that was my point was that lieutenant colonel vindman shouldn't be the key character in all this. he's just confirming all the facts laid out in the previous testimony and in the telephone call. >> two points.

why wouldn't ukraine when confronted with this bizarre situation where a guy who has no business and no role in u.s. diplomacy is hammering them for very specific things that are very curious reaches out to someone they know who is in charge of the relationship to say what do we do? you really think that's espionage? >> i think on the foreign federal government's part it is. usually you would talk to the state department, diplomats on the scene. the national security is a very sensitive body. >> they talked to volker and everybody they could because this was crazy time what was going on. >> and i don't blame the ukrainians for trying to do what they did. >> you just said it was espionage. >> to try to call an intelligence official of the national security counsel sounds on their part like espionage. i think the russians and ukrainians have been up to all kinds of things to our national detriment. i think we're being played

sometimes for fools by them and i have no doubt that what they're up to is espionage. >> do you think that could be a component of what's going on with mr. rudy giuliani, that he winds up working with two people to advance the president's interests who are now indicted and have all these connections to russian funny money and getting amounts of money that oddly resemble the amounts they gave him? is that part of the components there? >> oh, yes. i think people in our government or actually in the circle of private people around the president are getting played by the intelligence services of other countries. i think that's an inescapable conclusion. >> i see that with russia but i don't see how ukraine is playing the president. what happened with ukraine was the president putting an agenda on him. is there any other way to see it? >> what the phone transcript shows is the president wanted them to conduct an investigation. he wanted them to do a favor and then we're seeing these contacts, these communications where the president and rudy

giuliani are trying to -- and ambassador sondland are trying to pressure them into doing an investigation of the cost of a meeting and later foreign aid. i don't disagree with you. the hard question on impeachment now is not the facts that have happened, it's whether this is a high crime or misdemeanor, whether this should be decided in the senate in a trial or at the ballot box in november. >> i think it's a legitimate argument. you can hear good faith arguments about why this isn't worthy of removal. i think we're a little far from that. the idea of triggering the mechanism, abuse of power like this, this is not only what the founding fathers were worried about, we just came out of the mueller probe, john, where the only thing that both sides agreed on was you're not supposed to mess with foreign powers, the president did this literally on the same day mueller was saying mr. trump's not out of the woods, how do you take this as anything than the president is willing to abuse his power no matter what?

>> you've had me on your show before. i've been happy to say that. the framers were worried and wanted to get at people who put their personal interests about foreign policy but they were also worried about impeachment being used as a tool to control presidents. >> federalist papers number 65, alexander hamilton said this cannot be just about numbers, if you have more, you get to get rid of the person. no question. and i think we have to go through this but here's my thing for you, john. do you regret not saving to the host of that show, hey, don't talk about vindman like that, we don't know that he's a never trumper. don't accuse him of being a spy, this is ugly stuff, this is beneath this as americans. we don't make that kind of xenophobic and jingoistic arguments about our own.

>> i wish i had said, and i didn't have time to. i didn't know the facts, i didn't know about lieutenant colonel vindman and i wish i had said let's find out more and hear the facts before rush to any judgments. i didn't mean to rush to any judgments, chris. i really appreciate what you're saying and i do share your views on this. i think i made a mistake in not being clear in what i thought. >> i'm happy to give you the opportunity to clarify it. i'm not into the gotcha contest. that's the other place where you are hang out, that's what they're trying to do and i understand why. we both know they can't deal with the facts in this situation. one last quick question. rudy giuliani's investigation is criminal and national security, it's an intelligence investigation. do you think that there is legitimate concern on what you know so far in terms of there being teeth to looking at him? well, if you look at the facts that are coming out or just the suggestions that are coming out

in the newspapers, i can see why his old office, the southern district of new york and the u.s. attorney's office has opened an investigation. it does seem he was working with ukrainians working with sources abroad and funneling the money to the campaign. that doesn't mean he's guilty but i can see why he's under investigation. >> in terms of political analysis, you can't say the president didn't really mean it that way because rudy giuliani answers all that. he was doing a parallel shadow operation to get done what the president wanted to get done. i did not want you staying with kind of b.s. going on over there. i know why they're doing it. i wanted to give you a chance to not be a part of it. thank you for coming on the show. >> look, you got to be fair to people in this situation, they're not being fair to vindman and it's good to hear someone say i didn't mean to be a part of it.

now let's take it to the court and understand what's going on, what matters here, what the big questions are that rudy giuliani is going to be at the center of. cuomo's court, brilliant minds next. let's get some legal ♪ when you look at the world, what do you see? ♪ where others see chaos, we see patterns. ♪ connections. relationships. ♪ when you use location technology, you can see where things happen, before they happen. ♪

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let's get some legal perspective of what's going on

and what's going forward on impeachment. asha rangappa and elliott williams, good to have you both. i was glad to give yoo a chance to walk away from that statement. he's a professor at berkeley, not a place to be in the front of b.s. while ukraine could be involved in espionage by reaching out to vindman, how? i don't understand that argument. >> i was astonished that he even said that. to be clear to your viewers, espionage is the closest crime we have to treason. it involves passing classified information or defense secrets. it's giving up secrets to an enemy. the idea that ukraine would be involved by calling a channel of the white house as they were calling to clarify what the president just told them, which would be incredibly normal.

but even if what you said what was going on, what he's suggesting is the ukrainians believe vindman was vulnerable to compromise. it makes no sense. he should have just apologized instead of doubling down. by the way, he's a former deputy a.g., he's a former law law school graduate. you don't drop the word espionage lightly when you know when that word means. he should have never said that. >> he was basically getting a bulls rush from ingram and didn't really know the facts so he was listening along. john yoo said what he said and did what he did. the tactic employed by ingram and others is very clear, elliott, they can't handle the truth, they can't handle the facts on this one so they must find scapegoats and destroy the process. do you believe that that is going to work well for them going forward?

>> you can see it's sort of slipping away. the process argument has failed on impeachment. it's turned out to be a bit of a dud. the republicans in the house of representatives for the last couple of weeks have been saying you have to have a vote in order to proceed with an impeachment hearing and that's falling apart because there's now going to be a vote tomorrow on an impeachment proceeding. so now i think they are -- for instance, ron johnson, senator from wisconsin just i guess in the last day or so had said, well, even if the president engaged in this conduct, i don't believe it's removable or impeachable conduct. they're shifting their strategy -- >> he's a senator, elliott. this might be the part he weighs in. it's whether or not it's worthy about removal. >> but it's a republican members of congress engaging on the subject of the matter. you may see that in the house as well. everyone universally in the senate and house were talking about the process points and now they're turning to the

substantial because that's all they have. you saw some of that last night on fox news. the three of us here would be the first to say that live television can be challenging but, again, as asha had said, john yoo statements are indefensible. if he was capable of writing memoranda justifying torture in black sites around the world, he knows what the word espionage means and should have just apologized. >> i hedge my risk by having better minds around me all time. i see good faith arguments for removal by republican senators, i see arguments coming our way of what he did was wrong, it was abusive of his power, but, but ukraine didn't give him any dirt, the election is in tact from that perspective, he gave them the aid, they're doing okay, they like us just fine, there is no damage, he's a first-term president and election is less than a year away, it's not worthy of removal, let the election decide. >> yeah, what makes an act a

crime or a high crime is your state of mind when you do it and what you are intending to achieve, even if it doesn't come to completion. and elliott can corroborate that you don't actually have to complete the bank robbery or the murder. the intention to do it is enough. and what we have here is a corrupt intent to use the office of the presidency, the most awesome, you know, powers that we give to an individual in this country for a personal benefit, which, you know, is unacceptable for that office. now, i think the best defense that he has and as elliott mentioned, they're trying out a lot of them is he's too inept or incompetent to know what he's doing is wrong. i think that counsels toward removal because if you don't know that it's wrong, you're not

a good fit for that job. so i don't really see a good argument. of course, it's political, they can use any reason, just as any jury can, to not remove him. i don't think the fact that it was not actually completed isn't a good one, especially since he's encouraged other countries to do the same thing at this point as well. >> what you fancy legal types called incohate crime. it was not completed but is still bad because of what it intended to do. >> elliott, i think the reason that argument won't work as well as mine, she's smarter but it is my show and my head is bigger in the windows, is that rudy giuliani was all over it. his boy was pushing all the buttons for him on his behalf, circumventing a system that was in place to do it the right way. that's why rudy was involved,

elliott. if they wanted to go after corruption, even a u.s. citizen in ukraine, we have an agreement between the two countries with the whole protocol in place and it goes to the d.o.j. he would have known that if he wanted to do it the right way if he cared about corruption. he had his guy doing this. rudy is the key. >> in mob prosecutions, that's called a bag man. when you have someone being the fall guy for the underlying offense that you've committed, let's look at what starts with the whistle-blower report, is corroborated in that call memorandum and is corroborated in the testimony of pretty much everybody we've seen thus far, rudy yelling at you, blowing your hairline back. what this was -- this is at the

president of the united states's direction, the president of the united states sought to seek favors from a foreign country. the president of the united states sought to carry out investigations of a political rival. the fact that he had someone carrying out the offense for him, again, that's, look, we can all use another term, legal term, accomplice liability. >> ooh. >> you like that? when you enlist someone else to commit an offense, you're guilty of the offense, too. let's not pin this all on rudy giuliani when in fact it is the conduct of the president of the united states that is at issue here. the mayor, mayor giuliani has his own matters to take care of, his legal matters to be concerned about but at the end of the day this is the president's responsibility here. >> ask michael cohen, asha, how it goes when it's donald trump or you who is going to wind up paying the price. michael cohen made his mistakes but the fact that the president

is not punished for any of the stuff that michael cohen did and he's sitting in jail right now, rudy giuliani has got to be worried. >> rudy giuliani should be very worried about his own personal liability. you know, he does not have the kind of immunities and protections that the president enjoys. but as elliott -- >> nor the support. >> exactly. >> remember, politicians will decide the president's fate. >> that's right. but going back to the president's conduct, which is really at issue because as elliott pointed out, rudy giuliani was acting in service of the president. so whatever he did was doing it for the president's benefit. and i'll just point out that not only has every witness who has come forward so far appeared to corroborate both the whistle-blower complaint and each other, i have not yet seen any exculpatory evidence or information coming out in any of the reporting from these witnesses that would mitigate what trump was trying to do in terms of giving republicans any kind of hook to, you know, to give him a defense which is partly why they're struggling and throwing spaghetti against the wall hoping something sticks. >> they tried to attack the

credibility of a witness like vindman yesterday by calling hi the espionage point and so and so. >> vindman was a mistake for them. they're going to learn from this one. they picked the wrong guy. the reason they went after him, he's been the most effective. he was on the call, he's got the pedigree, he's been there. asha, elliott, i don't say it enough. i love you guys. thank you for making my show better. >> remember russia? the closing has been architected to play off this conversation that we had. they're the country that meddled in our last election. the president and his defenders, i think they need a refresher. i think that this situation that we're in right now and where we're going, including rudy giuliani, will benefit from the briefest look of where we've just been. that's the construction of the argument next.

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here we go. what's past is prologue said shakespeare, and the bard's instruction that a look back can show you where you are and where you're going is very useful now, i argue to you. after the mueller probe, the one thing both sides seemed to agree on was that foreign influence in an election is a no-no. witness trump defender number one. >> here's what i want you to tell every politician. if you get a call from somebody suggesting that a foreign government wants to help you by disparaging your opponent, tell us all to call the fbi. >> now, remember that. but also remember this. this president never seemed to accept that reality. in fact, the day after mr. mueller explicitly said the president was not exculpated by the report, trump got on the phone with the ukrainian president and asked for a favor, that he reopen an investigation into the company which hunter

biden served on the board for. the transcript of which was locked away on a secret server, and testimony about which the white house has repeatedly tried to block. so for those opposed to this impeachment, here's the question for you. what will stop this president from continuing to get help in this election and to abuse his power in general? just because he did this ukraine thing doesn't mean he'll do it again. that's what they say. but this was trump before mueller. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. >> oh, he's just joking. you still think that? then his campaign tried to get closer to wikileaks and to russian agents, and they got off the hook with mueller for failing in their efforts and being seen as too stupid to know it was wrong. but now when people cried foul about trump's play to ukraine,

what did he do? he doubled down. he asked china to do the same thing. >> china should start an investigation into the bidens because what happened to china is just about as bad as what happened with -- with ukraine. >> and that's what he's saying to your face. imagine what's happening behind your back. and if there were any hope of those close to this president taming his tendencies, once again we must turn to trump defender number one, senator graham. you remember what he just said up there? that foreign influence is a problem. now he says this. >> i have zero problems with this phone call. there is no quid pro quo here. >> so if ukraine offered you help, it's bad and call the fbi. but if you ask them, no problem.

the hypocrisy doesn't help, and it tees up another reason that a look back shows the peril of the president. you remember how random the accusations against paul manafort seemed? what was he doing? what was this ukraine millions, russian oligarch? what's all this? what's going on? now he's working free for the trump campaign. this doesn't make sense. it's so random. now rudy giuliani is in the same soup potentially. paid hundreds of thousands for who knows what by guys now under arrest for funneling russian money into campaigns, and giuliani's all over the place meeting with people in ukraine and once again working for the president for free, running the scam there. eerie coincidence, or was there some kind of agreement that he get value back for his services to the president? all we know for sure is that this president put us right back in a vulnerable place that mr. mueller warned about.

>> in your investigation, did you think that this was a single attempt by the russians to get involved in our election, or did you find evidence to suggest they'll try to do this again? >> oh, it wasn't a single attempt. they're doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it going into the next campaign. >> all right. now, on this point of russian interference, you saw what we learned from "the new york times" today, right? they've got a new bag. they're testing new disinformation tactics in this enormous facebook campaign in parts of africa as part of an evolution of their manipulation techniques ahead of our next election. this time, no fake accounts. no accounts set up in russia. they're employing locals, so it's harder to notice. facebook is going to know this, and what are they going to do about it? nothing. still an active participant in the disinformation campaign because it's basically allowing all political ads even if they contain lies. but maybe russia is just not up to new tricks but employing older, other methods, like moneying up people close to this president.

maybe they got close to rudy. maybe he didn't even know. but this president certainly has learned nothing and has certainly not been chastened by anything in the past. so if impeachment isn't necessary, how can those who defend this president but who went on record that foreign influence is a bad thing in elections -- how do you plan to stop him? i'm going to be asking this question a lot, and you should be listening carefully to the answers. now, that's my argument. when we come back, facebook tees up a bolo for us because what these platforms do matters so much in our democracy. bolo for you next. so ...how are you feeling?

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ceo jack dorsey tweeting, we believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. the question is good step? the trump campaign calls it an attempt to silence conservatives. how when it's all ads that they're doing this to? but anyway, be on the lookout because while this may have been nothing for twitter other than a jab at zuckerberg and company, it could set off first amendment litigation and make twitter itself a target of its biggest troll, this president. all right. thank you for watching. "cnn tonight" with the man, d. lemon, starts right now. >> i admire what they're doing. i think it's a good thing. i think it's a good thing. you take the ads out of it, and then you don't have to deal with the fakeness of anything. well, you have to deal with the trolls and all of that. that's the next thing i think they should deal with and the bots. they should check to make sure that everybody -- every person who pretends to be a person or whatever, every account is actually owned by a legitimate person.