ed. garlique good evening. tonight for the first time, two key witnesses in the impeachment inquiry told lawmakers what they told lawmakers we now have the transcripts of, their depositions before the three house impeachment committees. these are two longstanding state department professionals with seven decades of experience between them. michael mckinley, former senior adviser to secretary of state pompeo, and marie yovanovitch, former ambassador to ukraine. she was forced out of her post. he resigned from the foreign service and gave two reasons. because what they said is so significant and at times mysterious, we're going to do something a little bit different tonight and read some of the most important passages word for word. we'll try to link up the moments that really build a narrative that according to these two officials, illustrate a state department in washington operating at cross-purposes from diplomats around the world and a white house that was undermining those diplomats for purposes that seem to have more to do

with president trump's political interests than national security. we'll start with the sworn statements of ambassador michael mckinley. quote, the timing of my resignation, he testified, was the result of two overriding concerns. the failure in my view of the state department to offer support to foreign employees caught up in the impeachment inquiry and, second, by what appears to be the utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic political objectives. in other words, as both he and ambassador yovanovitch made clear in their testimony, using the people and institutions of government, or as you'll see bypassing them, for private personal aims. their testimony reflects what they saw and heard as people connected to the president from in and out of the government worked to influence the government of ukraine and squeeze it for the president's political advantage. specifically the president's ukraine uninvoienvoy kurt volke gordon sondland.

quote, what is clear is both volker and sondland were enga engaging the ukrainian government in conjunction with rudy giuliani on domestic political issues. it's clear from yovanovitch's testimony that giuliani's efforts in the ukraine, involving her specifically, dating back to late last year. quoting her now, basically it was people in the ukrainian government who said that mr. lutsenko, the former prosecutor general, was in communication with mayor giuliani and that he had plans and that they were going to, you know, do things, including to me. it became clear, she said, that the goal was removing her from her post. one point of contention, her alleged role in blocking giuliani's effort to bring ousted ukrainian prosecutor viktor shokin to the u.s., apparently in pursuit of giuliani's political mission for the president. following longstanding protocol, an american consular officer denied him a visa because of his alleged ties to large-scale corruption. now, remember president trump and giuliani, they are now claiming that all they cared

about was fighting corruption in ukraine. but the guy they are trying to bring to the u.s. is himself considered corrupt by diplomats who actually know about corruption in ukraine. ambassador yovanovitch picks up the story. quote, and the next thing we knew, mayor giuliani was calling the white house as well as the assistant secretary for consular affairs saying that i was blocking the visa for mr. shokin and that mr. shokin was coming to meet them and provide information about corruption at the embassy, including my corruption. now, keep in mind rudy giuliani is the president's personal attorney at the time. he had no formal role in government, hasn't sworn to serve u.s. national interests. he's working for the president, doing whatever he can for the president, and we should also point ought has business dealings himself in ukraine. so maybe there's a money motive for giuliani as well. as you might imagine, none of what giuliani was saying about the ambassador made ms. yovanovitch a favorite back in washington. but as she testified, the career foreign service officer felt stymied, saying, quote, it's not like a sent in a formal cable

outlining everything, she says. it felt very, very, very sensitive and very political. and this, she said, was making top ukrainian officials uneasy. they describes a conversation with the ukrainian interior minister in february. question: what were his concerns as expressed to you. yovanovitch replied, so he thought it was very dangerous that ukraine, since its independence, has had bipartisan support from both democrats and republicans all these years and to start kind of getting into u.s. politics, into u.s. domestic politics was a dangerous place for ukraine to be. it became dangerous as well for her. donald trump jr. tweeted about her in march, referring to her as a joker. she was signaled out during a segment on hannity by name. sondland, she says, told her -- and i quote -- you need to go big or go home. you need to, you know, tweet out there that you support the president and that all these are lies and everything else. so, you know, obvious will that was advice. that was advice that i did not see how i could implement in my

role as ambassador and as foreign service officer. so let's think about this for a moment. the advice she says she got from the ambassador to the european union, sondland, who is a major trump supporter and donor, was to say nice things about president trump, which is pretty amazing when you think about it, that the eu ambassador tells her that the president of the united states of the united states is basically a sucker for compliments and can be manipulated by flattery. another lesson she learned was that the road to the president also goes through fox news. here's she's describing efforts she heard about to stop the attacks on her. quoting the ambassador, what i was told by phil reeker was that the secretary or perhaps somebody around him was going to place a call to mr. hannity on fox news to say, you know, what is going on? i mean do you have proof of these kind of allegations or not? and if you have proof, you know, tell me. if not, stop. and i understand that call was made. i don't know whether it was the -- or somebody else in his inner circle, and for a time, you know, things kind of simmered down. by may, however, she was removed

from her post. as for her departure from kiev, she describes a conversation with the foreign service director, the director general, perez, who ordered her home. quote, she said that there was a lot of concern for me, that i needed to be on the next plane home to washington. i was like what? what happened? she said, i don't know, but this is about your security. you need to come home immediately. you need to come home on the next plane. and i said physical security? i mean is there something going on here in the ukraine because sometimes washington has intel or something else that we don't necessarily know. and she said, no, i didn't get that impression. but you need to come back immediately. and i mean i argued with her. i told her i thought it was really unfair that she was pulling me out of the post without any explanation. i mean really none and so summarily. this is not, it is safe to say, how any of this is really supposed to work, not the ambassador's removal, not career first aid through twitter, not alleged phone calls to hannity or the president's tv lawyer scuttling about gathering dirt, not any of it.

or as ambassador mckinley put it in his testimony, in 37 years in the foreign service in different parts of the globe and working on many controversial issues, i had never seen that. four administration officials were supposed to testify today. none of them showed up. more transcripts are due out tomorrow. i want to talk about all of this. joining me now is david gergen, carrie cordero, and john dean. david, i'm wondering what you make of the transcripts that have been released today. >> i'm very -- we should be very glad they've been released. it gives the granular view is much more sobering and dispressing than what we had heard before today. i think the details show you this became a cesspool. our own state department became a cesspool. it's one thing for an american ambassador to be called home because there's a physical threat to the ambassador coming from some thugs or, you know, rebels outside the gates. it's another thing to be threatened by your own

government with your physical security being threatened when they asked her to come home. then the president in that phone call with zelensky, the president of ukraine, they started talking about her and the president of the united states says, she's going to go through some tough things. she felt, i think quite rightly, that was threatening to her, and she remains threatened to this day. anderson, it may take as much as a generation to restore the foreign service and to attract the kind of talented people we need on the front lines. >> really? you think the damage that's already been done is that great? >> yes, i do. >> to an entire generation of foreign service officers. >> i worked with a lot of young people that -- they very reluctant to go in. you have no idea what's going to happen to you. >> also whether the white house or washington cares what you're doing or believes in it. in fact, it's quite clear they don't care. john, what does it say about the administration that a u.s. ambassador was being smeared by

the president and his allies on the global stage, and the ambassador wasn't even convinced she was physically safe and had to learn about this from ukrainian officials? >> it's amazing. she's like somebody who was hit by a train and didn't even know she was on the tracks. and she said that she couldn't even imagine, as late as her testimony, the six and seven months she'd been through already. now, what happened, anderson, in her revelation point, was very interesting. when she heard the rumor of the report in "the hill" publication, the interview with lutsenko. i happened to look at it because it prompted my interest in reading the transcript. and the interview is a setup. they're all leading questions to lutsenko. it's like "the hill" was in the loop on this whole thing, so i assume they're going to be a witness at some point. >> there's a reporter from "the hill," i think, who has been

mentioned who, you know, was doing a lot of this reporting early on. carrie, after reading the ambassador's transcript, it's almost difficult to overstate just how much havoc rudy giuliani -- i mean it seemed was allowed and able and encouraged to wreak. and it also seems really -- i mean for the president to be claiming and, you know, his supporters to be claiming this was all concern about, you know, corruption in ukraine, the server, the bidens, all the people it seems like -- or many of the people that giuliani and the president are kind of relying on for all their inside information were people who were allegedly corrupt and had been removed from office because of it. >> right. well, i mean that was a fake response and a cover story for what was actually going on. i think what's interesting as we learn more of these details is that, anderson, the essential facts that we learned about

seven weeks ago when the whistle-blower's complaint became publicly known and then when the white house released the transcript, and then just a few weeks ago when the white house chief of staff mick mulvaney basically admitted what had transpired in terms of holding out aid in exchange for political information from ukraine, is that the underlying facts really haven't changed. and what happened was that the president was using his foreign policy authority to get dirt and political information that would benefit him. and what i think becomes more clear through these details in these new transcripts is how much the institutions and in this case the state department have been under pressure from not just the president and not just people in the white house, but from people outside government like rudy giuliani. so when i hear others,

president's defenders or maybe affiliates in congress or others who are observing from the outside, commentators say, well, the institutions are holding up, you know, this is just a lot of bluster that comes out of the white house. these aren't things to be really worried about. these transcripts show that the institutions are under tremendous strain. >> well, also, david, strain from the guy who's running the state department. i mean we talk about secretary of state pompeo. his former adviser, mike the mckinley, who we've just been reading about, he says that on three occasions he broached with the secretary the idea of making a statement of support for the ambassador yovanovitch. that contradicts what pompeo himself said about mckinley last month on abc. i just want to play this. >> from the time that ambassador yovanovitch departed ukraine till the time that he came to tell me that he was departing, i never heard him say a single thing about his concerns with respect to the decision -- >> so you were never asked to --

>> not once. not once, george, did ambassador mckinley say something to me during that entire time period. >> so obviously now it's a he said/he said. >> you know, if mike pompeo was brave and smart, i think he would ask to appear before the committee under questions and deal with it. >> under oath? >> under oath. under oath. >> why do you think that would be an advantage? >> because i think it's important for the country that we not have a secretary of state who seems compromised or potentially compromised in a very, very serious situation. and in a state department whose morale is broken. >> clearly, he doesn't care about that or the president doesn't care about it. clearly, he's the president's guy there in a way that other secretaries of state haven't even been because at least some of them believed in the institution itself. >> right. well, i have to believe mike pompeo arrived with a pretty good reputation. he was a strong figure in benghazi against the democratic

administration. but nonetheless -- you know, he was at west point. he was number one in his class. he's a really smart guy. so people thought he's going to be another adult in the room along with mattis. it turns out in order to survive in this white house, you've really got to kiss the ring of the president regularly, and it compromises your own department. >> we're going to have more with the panel in a moment. new reporting on how this is going down at the white house and what is being done to prepare for day two and more transcripts. later, after yet another legal setback, only the supreme court stands between the president and prosecutors getting a look at his tax returns. i'm a work in progress. so much goes into who i am. hiv medicine is one part of it. prescription dovato is for adults who are starting hiv-1 treatment and who aren't resistant to either of the medicines dolutegravir or lamivudine. dovato has 2 medicines in 1 pill to help you reach and then stay undetectable. so your hiv can be controlled with fewer medicines

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and condo insurance can be. i love her! man: can i find an investment firm that has a truly long-term view? it begins by being privately owned. with more than 85 years of experience over multiple market cycles. with portfolio managers who are encouraged to do what's right over what's popular. focused on helping me achieve my investors' unique goals. can i find an investment firm that gets long term the way i do? with capital group, i can. talk to your advisor or consultant for investment risks and information. president trump spent the run-up to the impeachment inquiry transcripts suggesting they would be tampered with by the intelligence committee chair adam schiff, that he would put out phony transcripts. as of tonight, no complaints from republicans about the veracity of the transcripts.

as for the white house reaction, cnn's jim acosta is there for us tonight. has the president said anything so far about the transcripts? >> reporter: not a whole lot, anderson. we should point out he's having a rally in kentucky right now. standing behind him onstage are some supporters wearing t-shirts that say "read the transcript." i think the president and his supporters are referring to the transcript of his phone call with the leader of ukraine, not these transcripts that are being released up on capitol hill. but as the president was leaving the white house earlier in the evening, anderson, he was going after ma lrie yovanovitch, the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine. at point he was asked whether there was a smear campaign orchestrated against her. he did not deny that. keep in mind that is the former ambassador who said in this transcript that she felt personally threatened by the president and the president all he had to say about yovanovitch is the president of ukraine did not have kind things to say about her as well. >> in the transcript of the actual phone call, if memory

serves me correct, is was actually president trump who brought up yovanovitch saying, you know, not great things about her and she was going to go through some stuff. i'm paraphrasing. >> reporter: that's right. >> his line has been, you know, that adam schiff is somehow going to doctor the transcripts. >> reporter: that's right. he's gone after adam schiff. we've seen that. he also is continuing this campaign against alexander vindman, the national security official, lieutenant colonel in the army, and, you know, essentially said to reporters last night that vindman is a never trumper and that he has evidence of this, and that we're all going to find out what this evidence is. he hasn't produced that at this point. the other thing we should point out -- >> which by the way, he also said that about the birth certificate of president obama for the longest time, that he had detectives in hawaii and they were finding remarkable things. >> reporter: we have seen this movie before. he has been going after the credibility of the whistle-blower as well.

at this rally in kentucky, saying, wait until you find out what this whistle-blower has been saying. you're going to find out. going back to what you were saying, this is a tactic that the president has used time and again. he will often tease things out as if this is another episode of the apprentice. and on next week's episode, you're going to find out what the whistle-blower really had to say when in fact that evidence and that information is never presented to the public. back now with the panel. john, i mean the notion of somehow these transcripts being faked and manipulated when not only are witnesses able to look over their own testimony before these things are released -- i mean there are republicans sitting there as well. so i don't even understand that whole notion. i mean it's just ludicrous. >> anderson, one of the more interesting redactions is right at the outset of the transcripts where they redact the names of everybody who is in attendance. so that shows how few

republicans probably did attend these sessions. we don't know because in these editions at least, that information is not revealed. so the redaction actually favors the republicans for their no-show. you're not going to be able to mess with these transcripts. the witnesses know what they said. they would be outspoken if there was something that was not properly included in there. and they're pretty haunting documents, and they're going to be even worse when they're played out live. >> carrie, do you think it's a mistake for democrats to not try to compel rudy giuliani to testify given how central he clearly is in all of this? obviously, you know, there's political considerations based on time lines. >> i think the democrats -- my own view is they would be wasting their time with rudy giuliani. i don't think his testimony -- i think if he ever were to testify, it would be a circus. he's not going to be cooperative. so i think it would be like the lewandowsky hearing. i don't think they should waste

their time on him at all. they have good witnesses already. they've done their closed hearings. they have bill taylor. they have lieutenant colonel vindman. they have marie yovanovitch. they have ambassador mckinley. they have people who have credibility, who have given a lifetime of service to the country, who are nonpartisan and who have come forward and testified under oath to the facts. and so amongst those witnesses and maybe a couple others, they'll determine which ones they want to have come in public and give more testimony. but i don't think they need rudy and, you know, there is transparency now. the republicans have been in all of these testimonies, in all of these hearings. they have now released some transcripts. there is now public information about what the process will be. so there's a lot of information out there. >> david? >> i think there's a lot of information, but the day is going to come very quickly when we're going to have televised hearing. i think in televised hearings,

the country deserves to hear from josh bolten under oath. he's one of the people at the center of all this. we deserve to hear from giuliani under oath, from mulvaney under oath. anderson, as i go back to think about these things, remembering another crisis and another administration when reagan was president in the iran-contra scandal broke. the president was in deep trouble. there was talk of impeachment. what did he do? he said, look, we're sending everybody up that the hill wants to hear from. we're going to send every document up. we're going to clean house inside, and we're going to play this totally open, totally straight. and guess what? it went away because it was still a kries, still a blot on his record, but he did it the right way. >> john, we're a long way away from how reagan handled this. you know, we expect more transcripts tomorrow. i mean that may not be the last

we hear from some of these witnesses. you know what it's like and how public testimony can really change the dynamics of an investigation. that being said, all those sorts of comments were made about, you know, what would happen when mueller testified. and clearly, you know, for a lot of democrats, that's not what they anticipated. >> no. witnesses are hard to read in advance how they're going to appear, and there's no telling how some of these witnesses who do have great credibility might be in front of a television camera. we just don't know. but i think the education process that public television or public viewing of the hearings will provide is really essential. this just can't go too far in being transparent and the committee really educating the american people about the seriousness of what's going on here. the fact that -- the

ambassador's testimony where she said that the state department is being attacked and hollowed out from inside is just a chilling line when you hear it -- when you read it. >> john dean, thank you very much. david gergen, carrie cor dare rover, appreciate it. up next, a member from the house committee who listened to a great deal of the testimony we've been discussing. pain happens.

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i can worry about it, or doe. something about it. garlique helps maintain healthy cholesterol naturally, and it's odor-free, and pharmacist recommended. garlique briefly recapping our breaking news, house impeachment investigators today released lengthy transcripts of two interviews conducted behind closed doors last month. those of former u.s. ambassador of ukraine marie yovanovitch and state department senior adviser

michael mckinley. both testified they were deeply concerned about domestic political interference in u.s. diplomacy with ukraine. now, this as all four high-level white house officials who were scheduled to testify today didn't show up. one of the members of the house intelligence committee who sat in on much of the testimony we're learning about today is democrat val demings of florida. i spoke with her shortly before air time. congresswoman demings, of all the concerning details in these released transcripts, i'm wondering what stands out to you the most. >> well, anderson, the thing that really -- a couple of things stand out to me the most. number one, it is just, i think, appalling that the president of the united states and his enablers would totally try to impugn the good reputation of ambassador yovanovitch because they did not want her to be a part of their basically shady operation that they were doing

in ukraine. the other thing that really, i think, is very disheartening is when ambassador mckinley expressed his concern about the department of state secretary pompeo not having the basketbck foreign service officers, when he complained about the morale being low, the men and women feeling like they did not have the support of the department of state, that he received no response. and when he received no response from the secretary, he felt like no response was a response, and he felt like he could no longer be of service in his current capacity. and so because of the shady operation that was going on involving the president and those around him, i think two good career service -- foreign service employees were basically displaced or left the state department. >> chairman schiff today said that the house committees aren't going to delay their work and

wait for the court to decide about testimonies of aids like charles kupperman and perhaps even john bolton. why do you think this to be -- or do you think this needs to be done at a rapid pace? i understand the political calculation with the upcoming election and this kind of sucking the oxygen out of that. but isn't there something do be said for getting as much evidence as you possibly can? >> well, certainly there is. and from the beginning, we said we wanted to do a very methodical, a very thorough, but also a very timely investigation. i believe a lot has happened over the last month and a half. finally we've had persons who were either associated with the administration or with the department of state and others who were willing to obey a lawful subpoena and come in and give testimony. i certainly believe that we are making every effort to get every bit of information and testimony that we can in this

investigation. but as chairman schiff said today, anderson, we are moving forward, and we will consider those who the president instructed not to appear, who chose to follow that unlawful order as another article of impeachment. >> you think there should be more than one article of impeachment? >> well, it certainly seems like the president is on a roll, and i would think that all that is going on with him, we know now that the president abused his power by trying to get a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 election. we know that persons were directed to remove the call record of the president's july 25th call onto a secret server. we know that the president has instructed several people to not appear and cooperate with congress. and so i do believe that the

president is really -- the evidence is really clear, convincing, and pretty overwhelming. >> your republican colleague, congressman jim jordan said that democrats, quote, cherry-pick which transcripts they release and when. what's determining the order in which transcripts are getting released? >> well, i mean, if you think about it, ambassador yovanovitch and ambassador mckinley were two of the first ones that were interviewed by the intelligence committee. and, look, i know the republicans are struggling to defend that which is indefensible. but, you know, i was glad to see these transcripts being released so that the american people could see exactly what the ambassadors said during their testimony. >> i think volker went before, but i hear you on jim jordan's point. there's reporting tonight also that as the inquiry moves into the public phase, republicans are considering actually moving

congressman jordan over to the house intelligence committee. do you think that's a smart move on their part? >> anderson, i came to congress with 27 years of law enforcement experience. i've conducted numerous investigations. i have always been in search of the truth. if congressman jordan is interested in joining me in that effort, i welcome him to the committee. >> congresswoman demings, i appreciate your time. thank you very much. >> thank you. potential impeachment is not the only battle the white house is fighting. up next, how americans just got one step closer to possibly seeing the president's tax returns as soon as next month. we'll look at the last-ditch effort to keep them private.

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tonight the battle over releasing president trump's tax returns appears headed for the supreme court. that's the vow from one of the president's attorneys after losing an appeals court decision. the manhattan district attorney is hoping to succeed where house democrats have not. the prosecutor is demanding eight years of returns from the president's longtime accounting firm. the legal team argues the president is immune from investigations while in office but the appeals court says that

doesn't block the enforcement of a grand jury subpoena. investigative reporter david cay johnston is one of the very few to uncover any of the president's tax returns. he joins me along with cnn legal analyst shan wu. >> david, if this decision stands, you say president trump could have a serious problem once a manhattan grand jury gets the tax documents. what do you believe they could show? >> well, donald lost two income tax fraud trials, and in one of those trials, the tax return introduced in the case was shown to his longtime, now retired tax preparer, jack mitnick, who testified that was his signature on the document, but he did not prepare that tax return. donald has a long history of filing inconsistent documents with different government agencies. cy vance's grand jury has access

to the new york state tax authority records and i suspect they're going to prepare them to the mazers records to see if trump altered the tax returns he filed, which would be fraud in all likelihood. >> shan, jay sekulow, the president's attorney, says that the issue raised in this case goes really to the heart of our republic and that the, quote, constitutional issues are significant. is he right there? >> i think he's wrong, anderson. certainly in the president's mind, these are dear to the republic, his republic. the supreme court, unlike any other courts, has the discretion over what they will take, and they issue a writ to those cases they believe are important enough to hear. they're not going to do that here is my guess. >> you don't think the supreme court will take this case? >> i don't think they'll take it. the reason for that is because these are actions, which as was laid out in the appeals decision, these are actions that pre-date the president becoming the president. so he wants to argue absolute

immunity, executive privilege. but none of those apply because this wasn't something that he undertook for his job as president. executive privilege, an important privilege, is meant to give the president the benefit of confidential advice to run the country. running the trump business is not the same as running the country even though he may think so. so it's just not going to be applicable here. >> so if they didn't take it, then the ruling by this judge in the appeals court, that stands and the tax returns are released? >> that's exactly right. and the court often does that. they'll let a lower court decision stand because supreme court justices like to think of themselves as being minimalists. they only want to take those cases that they think are really essential for the country to take. and when they can, they'll duck the issue because they don't want to reach out and decide things unnecessarily. i think here they're going to say thanks, but no thanks. >> david, efforts by the president to hide the contents of his tax returns, they've been going on for decades and he's largely been successful in keeping them under wraps, hasn't

he? >> he's been quite successful other than the 2005 few pages that i got and the 1995 returns that "the new york times" got. we won't see these returns. they'll be turned over grand jury rules that are secret. if there is an indictment or a civil lawsuit brought by cy vance, then we'll first see specifics that are alleged as part of a crime. then as the case goes forward, we'll see the returns put into the record. and trump has ten days under an agreement with cy vance to appeal to the supreme court. so that will get resolved quickly. >> so, shan, we should know within ten days? >> well, he has ten days within which to seek the appeal. i'm not sure how -- >> to file it. >> yeah. i'm not sure how fast the court will decide on that. >> i see. and how long does the court sometimes take to decide whether they'll look at a case or not? >> they usually move relatively quickly. i mean normally they would look to the next term. so i would expect them to turn

it around relatively quickly. it's a little hard to predict but i think they'll expedite. >> and the agreement here, anderson, is this term. it will be this term. >> fascinating. thanks so much. appreciate it. tonight the president still actively trying to unmask the ukraine whistle-blower who is protected by, well, the law. my next guest knows firsthand what it's like to have your cover blown. her name was leaked in a different administration. former cia operative valerie plame on the conseqences of the president's unlawful request ahead.

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despite numerous administration officials corroborating what the ukraine whistle-blower warned about, despite the president's own on-camera calls for election interference from ukraine and china, and despite the rough transcript that he released that backs up much of the whistle-blower's account, president trump is still trying to blow the whistle-blower's cover. the latest from a few hours ago. >> i think that the whistle-blower gave a lot of false information, and you have to see who the whistle-blower is. the whistle-blower seems to have disappeared. >> well, he just leveled another attack at his rally tonight.

a reminder, this whistle-blower's anonymity is protected by law. i want to bring in former cia operator valerie plame, who has a valuable perspective on this. her cover was blown in the bush administration after her husband blew the whistle on the rationale for going to war with iraq. she's now running for congress at a democrat in new mexico. thanks for being with us. based on your own experience, you obviously have a unique vantage point on this. how important is it that the whistle-blower's identity remain secret not only for that person but for any other potential whistle-blower out there? >> good evening, anderson. thanks for having me. it's absolutely crucial. what the president is doing is illegal and if they come forward to point out mismanagement, corruption, wrongdoing. that their identity will be protected. i think what trump has been doing yesterday and reiterated again today, asking essentially for them to go out and dig

around and reveal the identity of the whistleblower is immoral. outrageous. we can't function as a democracy if you put the ice on those that seek to come forward and say, you know, that's not quite right. >> and it is interesting given the mueller report, we know had the president said, if you're listening, find those emails. according to the mueller report, russian intelligence set about doing just that. so the president clearly knows that giving public pronouncements saying this person should be revealed and that this person said things which are not true and equated them on a traitor or a spy. >> absolutely. we don't know who this whistleblower is yet, thank goodness.

most likely a male but we don't know for sure. clearly he is a patriot. he thought long and hard about what he was doing. by all accounts, he thought about it. this isn't just something he passed off. wrothds he could have any idea of the depth of it. how pro founs it would be. i've experienced that myself. not exactly analogous but being betrayed by the bush administration and going from complete anonymity to being in the law of media attention. and even though you might know what you did was right and your friends and family are telling you what you did was right it is a very disorienting experience. i feel for the whistleblower. it is hard now and it will get

worse. i'm afraid his identity at some point will become known. >> clearly the president believes there is a political advantage to continuing to focus on the whistleblower at this point he is extraneous to the inquiry. it has now been backed up. clearly there must be some reason for that. trump is good at the shiny ball technique. look at the shiny ball over here. pay no attention to the substance. the flagrant abuse of power. pay no attention to that. let's figure out who the

whistleblower is. and we fall for it. how long have we known that this is his technique and he's actually quite good at it? so we need to all take a collective breath. i'm looking forward to these proceedings going into the public's phase. and it will be very interesting to see what the actual impeachment articles are. is it just focused on the ukrainian issue? or will it be broader? >> right. >> will they include substance of justice from the mueller report as some democrats would clearly like that. just as somebody who knows the cia from a unique standpoint, from continue side. what do you think the impact has been? just the cumulative impact. we were talking earlier about the foreign service and the ambassador was saying, it has been hollowed out from the inside.

>> it painted me to their words of that ambassador being attacked and hollowed out. starting with the iraq war and going on up to today we have secretary mike pompeo who doesn't care that much about the state department as much as his proximity to trump. the years of experience out the door. and both at the cia and the state department. this is not good for our diplomacy. definitely not good for our national security when trump has

repeatedly denigrated the intelligence professionals are serving as americans, not as republicans and not as democrats. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. when we return, more revelations from the first impeachment inquiry transcripts released today. some concerns. rudolph giuliani shad owing in ukraine.

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they describe what was an alien world they scoured for political dirt and pressured it for political help.