i'm chris cuomo. welcome to "prime time." the first week of public impeachment brings major new evidence just today. tonight we have our best investigative and legal minds to test all the different angles that arose including a cnn exclusive that will be first here on prime time, new reporting on rudy giuliani's

associates and a never-before-known connection to president trump, putting them at the heart of this ukraine scheme. why did an indicted man with a shady past think he was on a james bond-style mission for our president? what do you say? let's get after it. look, it happened just this weekend. it's been so long. just this evening we got firsthand testimony showing president trump knew about the push for investigations and was monitoring the pressure campaign on ukraine. how do we know? a state department aide who says he and two others, okay, that's called corroboration, that they heard president trump on a call with ambassador sondland the day after the july 25th call between the two presidents. i then heard president trump ask, "so he's going to do the investigation?" ambassador sondland implied that he's gonna do it, adding that president zelensky will do

anything you ask him to. after the call ended, david holmes, the state department aide, said he asked sondland, is it true the president doesn't give a bleep about ukraine? ambassador sondland agreed that the president did not, saying the president only cared about big stuff. what was big stuff? good question. sondland replies, by big stuff he means what benefits the president, like the biden investigation that mr. giuliani was pushing. so, we've now heard from three respected officials who were all deeply concerned by how this president was pinching ukraine for what they all saw as campaign assistance. however, testimony aside, the worst move of the week for the president's defense came from the man himself. while former ambassador yovanovitch told her story of

being smeared by giuliani, trump proved why she was concerned by trashing her on twitter in realtime. chairman schiff hears about the tweet, shows it to yovanovitch while she's still under oath. she calls the president's tactic very intimidating. republicans tried to paint people of integrity as deep state sneaks, yet another of trump's campaign assets in that whole cause went down. who? roger stone. he became a convicted felon today. a jury convicted the president's long-time political adviser on all counts, mainly lying to and obstructing congress. if the charges withstand any appeals, that would make mr. stone the seventh trump person convicted of or admitting to lying to investigators. so all this is swirling in the air. it's all very troubling to the president, so much that he

tweets an attack in realtime during testimony. but then what happens? mr. trump ignores advice from the pentagon and just tonight pardons two officers and restored the rank of a third, all facing war crime allegations. the leadership of the defense department reportedly made every effort to convince him not to do this. so why did he do it, especially tonight? another distraction? maybe. but we have our eye on what matters. let's bring in our investigators, mr. mccabe and mr. bacon. thank you, on a friday night. out of the corner of my eye, i saw mostly nodding so i know i didn't get anything out grossly wrong. when we look at this week overall, we have this dovetailing of law and facts. the political part, not your bailiwick. but in terms of what came out

and what it manifests in the case going forward, big spots for you. >> the big spot was what you just talked about, what does the big stuff mean in that conversation that mr. holmes testified about this evening. >> the conversation with the ambassador. the reason they heard it is because the president was speaking so loudly, the ambassador had his phone away from his head. they heard the president, a very identifiable voice, they said the big stuff is ukraine, he's asking about the investigation. so what? >> it means stuff that benefits the president personally. that's what this is all about. this is about the president abusing his authority. he has authority to do lots of things with respect to the foreign relations of the united states, but he doesn't get to benefit himself personally over the interests of the united states. that's the problem. that's what the abuse is. he's doing it for himself, to keep himself in power, to help himself politically. that's one of the things that really jumped out to me. >> so that's the take on it. what's the pushback?

sondland's a bum. i don't know him. i don't know what he's talking about. even if all of that stuff is true from his perspective, what's wrong with going after the bidens? yovanovitch, kent, taylor all said biden being on that board was a potential concern for us. so it was for the president. everything's okay. >> here's the problem. presidents -- people in government don't go after american citizens overseas by essentially casting them onto the mercy of a foreign government. if the president thought the bidens had done something illegal, the way to handle it was to make the referral to the department of justice. to shows us he was doing it to collect opposition evidence on the bidens. that's what makes this impeachable. >> so what's damning is not the what, it's the how. if you want to go after the biden, fine, you've got a specific treaty with ukraine, you got your man there at the

doj, mr. barr, but you don't want your hands on it. is that what you think this comes down to? >> it's clear that they wanted the president and his -- mr. giuliani and others wanted the ukrainian president just to go and say something on cnn. >> an announcement. >> announce it. that was the key thing they were after. no matter what happened with the investigation, if it took two years and they never found anything, that would be irrelevant. it's the fact that the existence of it during the election period. >> i think yovanovitch is a bum, she stunk in somalia, she stunk everywhere. how is that witness intimidation? >> yovanovitch was number three of american patriots who sat in that hearing room over the last couple of days and showed what true sacrifice and commitment to this government means. the big takeaway for me was i kick myself for not having built my cases in the fbi with witnesses who were from the state department because they were incredible. great recollection, backed up

with contemporaneous notes, incredible detail, things you could corroborate in their stories if you were going to go deeper and more expansive in the investigation. all three did really well. the key with yovanovitch, she is essentially the victim in this case. if it were. when you put a criminal case on trial, if possible, you always want to have the victim testify, even if the victim doesn't have direct evidence of the defendant's guilt. you want them to testify because it personalizes the crime. that's what yovanovitch did today in this hearing. >> they say maybe witness intimidation is another article of impeachment. okay. maybe. is it possible that removing yovanovitch -- everybody says he can do it any way he wants. we did some research. maladministration, which is where, yes, you can remove me for whatever reason you want, but if you do it for bad reason in a way that belies the abuse of your power, there is some

precedent -- this is very thin area, but that you could be impeached for that as well. do you buy that notion? >> they talked about that when they were framing the constitution and decided to not include that phrase and came up with the phrase -- treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors instead. >> instead of maladministration. >> it's intended to cover a range of abuses of office. that's what it's about, abusing your office for bad reasons to be determined by congress. the framers didn't want to try to predict everything that a bad or corrupt president could possibly do. the house and the senate need to figure it out as time evolves. >> it's interesting. >> but he just doesn't get to do whatever he wants with the office. he doesn't just get to use that power any way he wants to. >> it was interesting to see the republicans shift from nothing happened because everything turned out okay to this is okay because of who biden is. they haven't even gotten the heavy artillery yet. that comes next week.

i'll rely on you both. rest up heavy this weekend. appreciate you both. thank you, gentlemen. we have some breaking additional ukraine news on our watch. sources are telling our vicky ward about a secret meeting between the president of the united states, lev parnas and igor fruman. why would one of them have the feeling that the president wanted them to be his james bond after what he heard? whacky story. hear it from vicky ward, working her sources, a cnn exclusive next. with fidelity wealth management you get straightforward advice, tailored recommendations,

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a cnn exclusive on a friday night. new reporting that describes a secret white house meeting between the president of the united states, rudy giuliani and the two men now facing

federal conspiracy theories and charges. we know at least of those guys you got lev parnas, okay. he later bragged about his secret mission for the president in ukraine. how did he get that idea? is it a legitimate idea? cnn's vicky ward is breaking this news. thank you, especially on a friday night, of being with us. let's start with the assumption. the president says i don't know him. i don't know what rudy was doing with this guy, ask rudy. you say? >> i say my reporting shows that last december, hanukkah party at the white house. over 500 republican donors, lev parnas, igor fruman, the two gentlemen trump claims not to know went with rudy giuliani into a room with the president where they strategized about a shadow foreign policy in ukraine.

this is the first time that we know of that the president directly talked to lev parnas. this is according to lev parnas, according to what he told two sources contemporaneously, that lev parnas who speaks fluent russian, chris, would be tasked with going to ukraine where he and igor fruman have contacts high up in the government to give them the president's message. lev parnas talked about this as a secret mission, a crusade. he said, i'm working for the big guy. in ukraine, in government circles it was widely known he had had this white house meeting, that he was backed by the president. >> so rudy's lawyer comes back and says this guy's delusional. this meeting never happened. i don't know why he thinks that. why should we believe it did? >> well, as i said to rudy's lawyer, how come rudy giuliani spent so much time with mr. parnas and mr. fruman and not only that was tied in with them financially?

furthermore, you do see this secret mission take start. and in its early stages it's quite successful. lev parnas and igor fruman go to ukraine in february and meet with president poroshenko. they said you need to announce public investigations and, in return, there will be a state visit in the united states. and, guess what, it works. it all works, actually. >> how does it work? >> it's because lutsenko gives an interview in which he says we're going to start investigations in april. but it all goes wrong when the woman of the moment, marie yovanovitch, who testified today, is fired. she is fired, as we know, because lev parnas and igor fruman and rudy giuliani pushed

for her to be fired. they had financial interests that they perceived her to be an obstacle to. once she's fired, it's like everybody finally woke up. >> what does that tell you in the new reporting? what does the new reporting tell us about what we should believe at this point? >> i think it's what's concerning about the new reporting is that it puts the president firmly in the lev parnas/igor fruman camp much earlier than the july 25th phone call when he gets on the phone and there's talk of a quid pro quo. what it shows us is basically, there was this idea of a quid pro quo. what are we going to do in ukraine, back in december? >> here's the problem they'll have. parnas wants to speak. he has new representation. there's a whole story that you earthed about why he and fruman don't have the same counsel anymore. they can read it online if they want. but he says he wants to talk to

investigators. they are going to need to destroy parnas, which this president seems to like to do very much, whether it's warranted or not. the problem is if they go after parnas too hard, do they risk throwing rudy under the bus with him? >> well, you're entirely right. lev parnas really wants to talk to investigators and, you know, what -- >> he was very insulted that the president said he didn't know him. and that when he got indicted the president went bad on him. >> what's so interesting is at the end of the day, lev parnas is an emotional man. if the president hadn't said he didn't know him, he might not now have turned. this was -- i say in my article, lev parnas worshiped the big guy. shades here of michael cohen, chris. they're all going to stand in line -- >> a very charismatic man being that close to someone that powerful can bring strong

feelings for people and make you do just about anything. >> until the president doesn't really know you, has got nothing to do with you. the same way the president turned on michael cohen, the president turned on lev parnas and now lev parnas wants to stand up and tell his story. rather like michael cohen, he's a flawed person. he's not got a perfect track record but his counsel will argue just because a person isn't a perfect person doesn't mean they don't have a true story to tell. >> one person who will have to read it very closely, which many of you may not think, ambassador sondland because this could be his future. if he has one understanding of why he did and said what he did that now takes him to a different place with the president, he's going to want to read this story. vicki ward, thank you for helping us understand what's in the morass a little better. appreciate it. have a great weekend. >> and you, chris. there's an exclusive. you'll see it on cnn.com. did republicans just risk losing their biggest line of attack on

the open impeachment hearings? i'm going to bring back in a gop lawmaker who says if there's reason to impeach, he would. so what would be reason to impeach? what's missing so far? what is he looking for, next. (alarm beeping) welcome to our busy world. where we all want more energy. but with less carbon footprint. can we have both? at bp, we're working every day to make energy that's cleaner and better. and we see possibilities everywhere. to make energy that's cleaner and better. there's just something different to a disney movie. (vo) verizon knows you love all things disney. i think we've watched every single movie at least twice. four times. 100 times. (vo) that's why your unlimited plan now comes with disney+ on us for a year. because the network more people rely on gives you more. well you remember what happened last year. you can't bring a backup thanksgiving to my sister's house. it's not like we're going to walk in with it. we'll bring it in as we need it. ...phase it in. phase it in? yeah, phase it in.

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so one week in, congress has heard from three people saying they were concerned by how the president's lawyer and others went about trying to get investigates into the bidens. we just heard from a fourth tonight behind closed doors, but the reporting is and statement they put out said that the president's pal said that trump only cares about the bidens.

republican ted yoho was in the hearing room today. any new concerns? congressman, welcome back to "prime time." may i salute you and by extension all those republicans in the hearings today how you treated marie yovanovitch today. you weren't there, but by extension, they treated her in the right way. that's a step in the right direction. what did you make of what came out today? >> what i saw was somebody, marie yovanovitch, and the democrats were trying to make it all about her being a victim. she got removed from office from her position and as we all know, that's at the discretion of any president and president obama has done that in the past. all presidents remove people for whatever reason. they don't have to have just cause. and so i thought it was not a lot came out of that hearing is what i saw and took out of it. >> so you're right that of course a president can -- people serve at the pleasure of the president in that capacity that we're talking about as an ambassador.

however, if it is true that the reason yovanovitch was smeared by giuliani and his two indicted associates and that the president believed them and she was in the way of getting what they wanted out of ukraine, does that concern you as an abuse of office? >> no, because if you read further and read other testimonies, she was a friend of president poroshenko. and president zelensky felt her loyalty was to him. so -- >> do we know that she was actually a friend with poroshenko? i do not remember her acknowledging that. she is an american. she's not a -- >> she was born in canada with ukrainian and russian parents. we've seen many stories and read many reports on that. >> hold on. do you in any way believe she may not be loyal to this

country? we are doing another vindman here? >> no, i didn't say that. you brought that up. >> you brought up that she was born in canada and has ukraine parents. what does that mean? >> you brought up she may not be loyal to this president. there's reports that president poroshenko wrote her letters saying how he supports her. and i mean, those are facts that are out there. it goes back to, does president trump or any president have the try to remove somebody, and the answer is yes? >> but there is such a thing at maladministration. i want to be clear because we went through this once before. she served -- >> if there's maladministration, all of congress is guilty. >> we'll take that up at another time. i'll take that as an admission of guilt. >> duly noted. just to be clear about this because this does matter, you do not think that former ambassador yovanovitch has any marks on her character or her loyalty to her office or this country? >> that's a tough question. i mean -- >> really? >> i can go back to when she got

approved by the senate under the obamas who groomed her and told her what to say about vice president biden and his son. was she withholding information? i don't know. what does she know at that time. >> why was she good enough for reagan and bush? >> times change. that was presidents ago. and new information came out. i don't know. you'd have to ask her, and that would start a whole new investigation. >> she was confirmed under bush, she started under reagan and now you have questions about her loyalty. >> i'm not questioning her loyalty. i'm just telling you that president poroshenko, he wrote the letter saying how he really liked her and he approved of her. president zelensky didn't feel comfortable with that kind of loyalty to poroshenko. so that's what goes into this factor today. and i think that got back to president trump. president trump may have had

other reasons. it sounded like he did so he removed her. that's really -- how does that factor into what the democrats are trying to do, impeach a legitimate president and we're a year away from it. let the american people decide in the next election instead of sucking all the oxygen out of the room, and we're not getting done what we need to for our nation. >> you're not getting done what you need to because you're playing to the fringe on each side, but that's a discussion for another day. i hear your argument, and i do not dismiss it that, what does impeachment do to this country? is it the right vehicle? it seems this president won't stop abusing his power this way. if he came out and said, i don't like what biden did. i think it's wrong, but i shouldn't have done it this way. i should have the doj investigate him and i'm doing that right now, you guys would be in a very different position. but he will not say that, so it puts the onus on you. why was it okay -- >> but you're talking about --

you're implying he did this to investigate biden. >> yes. >> he was investigating the 2016 election where we know crowdstrike was in ukraine and putin even said that his people and the ukrainians were more concerned -- >> well, putsin certainly said it. putin certainly said it and its intelligence people put this out to distract from their own interference. i've heard this three times in the hearings. you really think there's a chance that russia -- you really think that there's a chance that russia didn't interfere in the election like the intelligence communities tell you, including trump's own appointees but that it was ukraine? >> i think it's -- there were people that interfered in the election. >> yeah, named russians. >> there's russians that are in ukraine that could have done this. i think the important thing is somebody interfered in this election and we all need to come

together. >> russians did it. that's why you guys put on the sanctions that you voted for in such unanimous fashion which is so atypical for you guys. that's why it was so insulting when the president stood next to putin, the man responsible and said, i believe him. i don't think they would do this. that's why it was so insulting to so many people, yes? >> you don't know what context the president was in when he said that. i don't want to get into this right now. we're dealing with these other issues. >> so i'm going to say i believe putin? >> let's go back to the impeachment. >> if you're going to question yovanovitch's loyalty, that didn't bother you when the president stood next to the man responsible for interfering in our election and said, yeah, i believe him. i don't think he did it. he said he has no -- >> i'm not saying anything about yovanovitch's loyalty. >> you said a few things about it. >> president zelensky said that he didn't feel comfortable with her because -- >> zelensky thanked the president for telling him about the problems with yovanovitch in

the transcript of the call. >> right. but he also knows that yovanovitch had gotten letters from poroshenko saying how much he liked her, and he felt her loyalty could have -- zelensky felt her loyalty was probably closer to poroshenko, the person he beat in the previous election. >> what do we care what they say about the relative leverage of a u.s. diplomat when they are working for us. don't we want foreign powers to like our diplomats and work with them and have a good relationship? >> absolutely. and i think that's a great point. >> but we don't believe that's why trump said bad things about her. >> if president zelensky -- >> if poroshenko's -- >> chris? chris? if president zelensky is not comfortable with ambassador yovanovitch, according to your own words, we want a president in a foreign country to like and trust the people we send over there.

obviously, he didn't feel comfortable with her and president trump had other reasons. and so he removed her but yet none of this really plays into why we're having an impeachment trial. none of this is impeachable. >> well, it would be impeachable, i don't know about removal. i think that's a -- we've got to get down the road there, but if you abuse your office for your own personal gain, by withholding congressionally exercised aid, that falls right into the category of maladministration, of people in political positions of trust doing things for their own benefit that the founding fathers wanted you guys to look at. is it not? >> yeah, but was aid withheld? no. it got paid. >> it was withheld. it then got paid after you guys started asking questions about it. >> but we withheld foreign aid to a lot of countries. president obama did it. >> the question is why. >> it depends on the nations.

>> i know. i'm talking about ukraine. >> withholding from central america right now. because of the amount of corruption and there is still corruption in there. why should we give the americans' hard-earned taxpayers to countries and if we send a strong signal that says you need to tighten up your act, that's -- >> i hear you 100%. you should think that people who have corruption in their mind-set should not think they're going to get money from us for free. if the facts here -- >> absolutely. >> -- keep showing this was not done for that but for political advantage, i want to bring you back and figure out what that means. >> i'd be happy to. >> always welcome on this show. it's good have you congressman yoho. god bless down there in florida. i'll speak to you soon. >> all right, buddy. take care. have a good weekend. congressman has his doubts. look, this is not an easy case to make to get republicans on board. so let's bring in two of the top journalists on the impeachment beat to examine what week one

means to week two and the overall picture. look at those two. how could they not know anything? it's got to be good, next. frequent heartburn? not anymore. the prilosec otc two-week challenge is helping people love what they love again. just one pill a day. 24 hours. zero heartburn. because life starts when heartburn stops. take the challenge at prilosecotc dot com. so, you bought those "good enough" paper towels? [daughter laughs] not such a bargain. there's only one quicker picker upper. bounty, the quicker picker upper.

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argument, one even drawing a direct line to the president himself. and it's somewhat damning but where does it leave us? all-stars elena plot, phillip bump are here, thank you both, especially on a friday. ted yoho is a good reflection of the state of play of how republicans want this. yovanovitch, i'm not making any -- don't say i'm saying anything bad about her, but she was born in canada, and she's got ukraine parents and that poroshenko liked her. so, you know -- you add it up, one and one and one is seven. what do you do with that in terms of what it tells us about where we are? >> obviously impeachment is inherently a political issue. for all of the concerns about how much we focus on what the politics of this are, we need to pay attention to that. one of the things we're seeing here is something we've already known about trump is that it's not -- he's given the

presumption of innocence by default. but whatever is thrown at donald trump is seen as invalid, inapparently by his base. all he needs is to be able to come up with a couple of talking points to defuse what's out there and moving forward. they're quickly dismissed as inauthentic. >> what do you do with the sondland revelation today from the state department aide that the president was talking so loudly that he had the phone away from his face and several of them heard the president say what's going to happen with the investigations and then sondland said to them afterwards, he only cares about the big stuff like the bidens. what does that do in terms of the sense of detachment that was necessary early on for the president? >> exactly. what you have to remember is that a key underpinning of the republican talking point defense right now is that nobody who has

testified thus far has any firsthand knowledge of the events in question. particularly ironic, of course, because they have flocked most people who would have firsthand. holmes represents one of the first people who was there and listened to this call that taylor revealed in his testimony on wednesday, which makes sondland's testimony next week, which will be public, even more meaningful. will he confirm what was seldain his opening statement. >> can he keep himself safe and not do damage to the president? obviously, he'd like to do both of those things, right? >> we've already seen president trump yesterday. he told reporters, i don't actually know sondland that well. this is someone who -- >> big donor to him. gifted an ambassadorship. and he had this phone call with him. >> phone calls.

personal linkage there. creating distance is a go-to trump move in moments like this. that could happen even more leading up to next week. >> every time it happens if it gets uncovered, lev parnas isn't just another guy with money in his pocket or promises of money in a picture, he's in a meeting. and if it's so easy to dismiss them, why was he so close to rudy. what does it do? >> i mean, again, all of us are sitting here very aware of hat the evidence is that exists that donald trump acted in a way that is not typical for a president, to put it generously. we know that he had these conversations. we know that rudy giuliani was very active in trying to push to have these investigations done by ukraine. we know all these things to be true, right? the question is, what evidence can there be? your conversation with congressman yoho was very representative of the fact that it's not as though there is new evidence that's going to come out that's going to change

people's minds. so having sondland say, well, i don't recall all these various things and already once had to be, like, all of a sudden, i remember -- >> imthe guy who delivered the, this is the deal. >> on september 1st. that sondland is this person and may have to come back and say, i suddenly remember this as well. what does that change? what does that mean for this process itself? it's hard to see where any dents can be made. >> at the end of the day, it's not hat the reasonable man and woman in the box will say. it's well or not there's something that could come out that would make people who don't want this to be an abuse of power that rises to the level of impeachment have to feel otherwise. what would that take? >> i think for -- you talk to republicans and they still feel quite confidently that the only thing that would cause them to change their mind at all is if evidence of a quid pro quo were more explicit perhaps than they feel it is right now. >> it was an attempted bribe what they said up.

you'll not get the aid. you'll not get the meeting if i don't get the bidens. >> you forgot, you have to say quid pro quo in the text message or in the conversation. >> quid pro cuomo is how i'm known. >> this is the firepower next week. at the end of next week if we feel or they say i'm not impressed by any of this, i don't know where it goes. thank you so much on a friday night. some of the best minds in the business. appreciate you for my audience. philip bump, elaina plott. republicans defending the president. i think they took a step in the right direction but then they were undercut in two big ways by the president himself and that's the closing argument. the state of play, next. me. yeah? so what do you see? i see an unbelievable opportunity. i see best-in-class platforms and education. i see award-winning service, and a trade desk full of experts, available to answer your toughest questions.

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trump's big donor, ambassador sondland saying trump only cares about the biden investigations and trump being caught on a call with him basically proving just that, and then the bully in chief himself proving why the former ambassador to ukraine was worried by giuliani's smear campaign all came together with him trashing her in realtime. here's the tweet. everywhere marie yovanovitch went turned bad. she started off in somalia. how did that go? then fast forward to ukraine where the new ukrainian president spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. point of order, zelensky thanked the president for giving him the information about yovanovitch. so he must have so he must have been smearing his own. so for all the efforts of his defenders to tamp down potential charges, he may have added one with that tweet. listen to schiff. >> it's very intimidating. i mean, i can't speak to what the president is trying to do, but i think the effect is to be

intimidating. >> i want to let you know, ambassador, that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously. >> witness intimidation could be the basis for an article of impeachment in and of itself, as could something called mal-administration, mean the president has the right to remove yovanovitch. she serves at his pleasure. however, if the reasons for the removal betray an abuse of power, it could be impeachable. the president's disrespect trampled defenders' efforts to lay off the deep state b.s., unlike with taylor and kent, the republicans show respect for u yovanovitch. and in that way, they made some progress. they moved away from the absurd nothing happened here approach, to the nothing that yovanovitch and mr. kent both saw potential

issues with biden's son being on the board of a ukraine company, thus there was a legitimate corruption concern for the president to raise it. listen. >> they are blind blaring signs of corruption, surrounding biden's position on the board while his fare served as vice president and point man for ukraine. >> side point. if it was that obvious, the republicans were in power in congress at that time. they were not exactly shy about investigating things, but here ago the big problem with the argument. it ignores how trump went about this legit question of corruption in such a non-legit way. if you think that biden was dirty, you go to bill barr, the attorney general and say, take a look. okay, you don't want to do it that overtly. correct. the u.s. and ukraine actually have a specific treaty for investigations just like this, with setup protocols. no, you didn't do that.

what the president did is insert his lawyer in a sneaky way, who worked with these indicted people, who get more shady by the day now saying the president tasked him to investigate the bidens in some james bond deal. the president says he doesn't know him. we have yet to hear testimony from anyone who is not troubled by how this was done and to what end. for all the griping by the right, it is their side, the white house, who is keeping mulvaney, pompeo and bolton and maybe even documents from the vice president away from these hearings. hey, if it's so clear, put them in the chair. tell us what happened and why so this can have some clarity for the country. but you did this for just an announcement, you're so worried about these guys that you don't want to give them money, but you trust them to investigate on just an announcement? it doesn't make sense. the big take away is that the facts remain obvious about what

was done and why. and the biggest dern nconcern n be the president's nonstop attacks on the people and the process. here's why. it could be a potential problem in the senate. why? the rules for the senate trial on any articles of impeachment are done by simple majority vote. that means if three of the republican senators -- and there are four that aren't running again or retiring -- if they say i'm not going with your rules, i'm not giving you a simple majority unless we get a secret ballot. what would that mean? then the senate would act like a jury in a criminal case. ballots are obviously cast in secret, right? that's the norm. if that were the case, former gop senator jeff flake says he thinks like 35 republicans would vote for removal. let's say it's not even close to that, but it might create jeopardy for this president and get you close to a two thirds majority. i know what you're thinking. i'm thinking it, too.

these guys aren't going to stand behind their own votes? they're not going to be accountable to us? we're going to have more poor transparency? i don't like it. i've got on you that, but here's the problem. here's the counter-argument. what about what the president is doing? he's intimidating everybody. we have to do it. this president's tactics he put on display today may be the reason for the biggest risk in this process. that's my argument. what do you think? let me know on social media. two wig stories that may not seem related, but they are, that's the bolo, next. there's just something different to a disney movie. (vo) verizon knows you love all things disney. i think we've watched every single movie at least twice. four times. 100 times. (vo) that's why your unlimited plan now comes with disney+ on us for a year. because the network more people rely on gives you more.

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all to protect one man, donald trump. that makes six trump folk convicted for pleading guilty to essential lying, convicted or pleading guilty. we still have a long way to go in this impeachment inquiry but some of those closest to the president, rudy giuliani, chief of staff, secretary of state they have haven't offered answers about what they knew a what actually went down. be on the lookout. because if the list of convicted trump associates tells us anything it begins a clear list starting with ambassador sondland next week. if you lie, you'll likely get caught. this president has saved no one to date from that fate. thanks for watching. "cnn tonight" with d. lemon right now. >> be on the lookout for all the best people. >> drain the swamp, and by drain, i mean put the biggest nastiest alligator that even you down the bayou way has ever seen up in this