john berman here in for anderson. if these aren't signs of the season, they sure look like signs of something, perhaps something big. an influential christian voice calls out the president for unchristian conduct, the first sign of stress between him and his base. it's been that kind of week. there's new reporting that says vladimir putin may be directly responsible for the president's ukraine obsession. according to a former top official, the president believes what he believes, in the president's own words, because putin told me. it has been that kind of week. the kind of week that sees a president impeached for only the third time ever, that sees his trial delayed for the first time ever. a week that sees polling emerge showing that despite all of the above, donald j. trump is still a political force to be reckoned with. a week like no other except now that the president heads for his florida vacation, the fear is we may see one more.

we'll talk about all of it tonight and then some starting with new cnn reporting on concerns among people close to the president about what he might do next. cnn's jim acosta joins us now with the very latest. jim. >> reporter: yeah. >> what is the latest on how president trump wants to handle the senate impeachment trial? >> reporter: john, i've been talking to my sources. we've all been talking to our sources over here at the white house all day long. the latest is that it sounds as though the president is coming around to this idea advanced by senate republicans that a lengthy trial filled with witnesses is just too dangerous to his political future. you know, he's gone through this impeachment process, and as painful has it has been and as much as he wants to be exonerated and as much as, yes, he wants to bring in witnesses, he wants the whistle-blower, he wants hunter biden and so on, mitch mcconnell, lindsey graham, his allies in the senate have impressed upon him and his top aides over here, people like pat cipollone, the white house counsel, that that's too dangerous a road to go down. it sounds as though tonight the

president is listening. the question is whether or not he's preparing to leave joint base andrews in just a few moments to head to mar-a-lago for the holidays. the question is what happens when he gets to mar-a-lago because as we know he'll be meeting with friends, confidants, longtime outside advisers and so on. the donald trump that emerges from that period of time may be different than the one right now. but for right now it sounds as though he is listening to these words of caution coming out of the republicans in the senate. >> yeah, because people in the senate don't necessarily want mick mulvaney or john bolton there because who knows what they'll testify to. the president can get himself worked up into a lather down at mar-a-lago. is the public posture, what's being said outside, the same thing as what's being said behind closed door? >> reporter: the public posture is the president is not distracted by this, that he's focused on the work and so on. bologna. the president is obsessed with his impeachment. he is fixated on this. he is angered by this.

his own daughter, ivanka trump, conceded to cbs in an interview earlier today that he's angry about all of this. and so, yes, i mean the president is looking for some kind of vindication at the end of this process. the problem for the president is he is not going to remove this stain from his legacy. he is not going to un-impeach himself, and that is why republicans, his allies in the senate and so on, have been trying to say, listen, just get through the senate trial process, and you still have a chance and a good chance according to a lot of his allies and confidants in getting re-elected. that is where his allies and his advisers are hoping he will focus his energy on as we head into the new year. but no question about it, john. one of the things we've noticed all week long talking to our sources, talking to officials inside the white house and people who speak to the president is that he is unnerved by this. this is embedded in his skin, and he knows that history has rendered a very painful judgment, and it is one that is going to be attached to his

name, you know, in the history books from here on out. the question is how it all affects him and affects his psyche moving forward, and i think at this point he's trying to listen to these advisers saying be cautious. you can make matters worse for yourself if you try to push this too far, john. >> jim acosta at the white house, thanks so much for being with us. more now on the maneuvering between the house and senate, pelosi and mcconnell, and of course the president. joining us, a juror when and if it comes to that. senator richard blumenthal, member of the judiciary committee and a democrat from connecticut. thank you so much for being with us. will there be a senate trial? >> there will be a senate trial. it is required by the constitution. the issue of when the articles of impeachment will be sent to the senate is a decision for nancy pelosi to make and very understandably she wants some assurance that it will be full

and fair, not the sham and charade that mitch mcconnell is apparently going to give the president. and what's striking about the report that you've just heard, excellent reporting by jim acosta, is the assumption by the president that he can set the terms of his own trial. and that assumption is well warranted by mitch mcconnell saying he's going to take his cue from the white house. he has said there's no chance that the president will be removed, and he in effect is making himself and his republican colleagues complicit in the cover-up, the denial of documents and witnesses that are necessary for a full, fair proceeding, and that's why we are insisting that there be some agreement on those documents and witnesses before, not during the trial. >> you're insisting, but what if mitch mcconnell does not agree? would you support house speaker nancy pelosi holding on to the articles of impeachment indefinitely? >> no one wants an indefinite

delay. neither i nor, i believe, nancy pelosi. there will be a trial. but there is a court of appeals to this proceeding. it's the electorate, the court of public opinion. and right now the numbers in your own polls are absolutely staggering. 71% of the american people want documents and witnesses as they would in any trial. more than 60% of republicans. so my colleagues are going to be going home these next two weeks, and they're going to be hearing, in effect, those numbers. and i believe they're going to have to think not only about the judgment of history but about their constituents' judgments, and i really feel they will be complicit in the continuing threat to our democracy, our democratic institutions if they fail to provide a full, fair hearing. >> have you heard from your colleague susan collins or senator cory gardner or mitt

romney, some of these republicans who might be incl e inclined to push for witnesses? do you have any indication that they would side with democrats in calling for a trial with witnesses? >> there's no question, john, and that is the question of the day, that they are contemplating seriously and considering how this trial has to be conducted. mitch mcconnell is nothing without his enablers. he needs those 51 votes, and i've been talking to anywhere from five to ten of my colleagues directly or indirectly who are seriously considering how they will be haunted by this decision if they deny a full, fair trial. and i'll just be very blunt. there's a saying that courage is contagious, and so is cowardice. they need to step forward, and i hope that they'll be hearing from their constituents over these next couple weeks.

>> but so far -- and i have to let you go here. so far you haven't seen any sign that one of them will step forward and say they will want witnesses, have you? >> i have seen signs that one or more will step forward. i hope that courage will be contagious. i've talked directly to a number who are seriously considering, without committing, that they will ask that there be witnesses and documents. and remember, john, one last point. the witnesses that we have asked to testify have direct knowledge. they have the information and evidence that republicans themselves have said they want to hear. these witnesses and documents were sought by the house. as a prosecutor, i would say right now the evidence is overwhelming. i'd rest my case. but the american people deserve to hear these witnesses and documents. >> senator richard blumenthal, hope you have a wonderful new year. thank you so much for being with us. >> same to you. thank you. >> more on what is next. we're joined now by senior political analyst david gergen

and a bona fide impeachment expert, jeffrey engel, founding director of the center for presidential history at methodist university. with speaker pelosi and mitch mcconnell, you really do have two of the preeminent masters of congressional strategy. they are at the top of the top historically speaking. how do you think this ends? >> it's not clear. you're absolutely right about these two veterans. they're both wily, and very strategic and tough. they do not give in easily, and you've seen that this past week. mitch mcconnell hasn't been moved at all, and nancy pelosi is hanging right in there. both of them have a lot of support in their caucuses. how this ends, listen, i do think there's legitimacy to what nancy pelosi is trying to do, certainly in the short term, it's to shine a light on the unfairness of the people on the democratic side who have never been given access to documents,

who have never been able to interview the key witnesses, that this should not be resolved without those people coming forward. i think they have a very good claim on that. i also think it's important for nancy pelosi to know what the process is going to be because as someone pointed out to me today, a good lawyer pointed out to me today, if there are going to be witnesses, you want managers on the democratic side who are good at cross-examination. if on the other hand there are not going to be witnesses, then you want lawyers who can make powerful arguments because the oral argument becomes everything. so that's one reason for waiting. but in the long run, i think this has to come to a conclusion. i do not think the democrats can stand out there for week after week. they're going to look too cute, and the country is going to want to wrap this up. i do think they've sacrificed -- if they're not careful, sacrificed some of the high ground. >> they do have a couple weeks over the holidays where there won't be as much pressure. >> a couple of weeks to take a breath. you know, step back and take a

breath. >> jeffrey, one of the things we've learned over the last few weeks and months is how few words are actually in the constitution about how all of this is supposed to be done precisely. just hypothetically speaking, what if nancy pelosi holds on to the articles of impeachment and doesn't transmit them to the senate? what happens then? >> nothing. nothing happens, which is to say we live in this perpetual limbo of knowing the president of the united states has been impeached. we've all actually seen it with our own eyes on two articles, but it would not move anywhere and we'd have this political albatross hanging over our heads for at least the next eight, nine months until the election. i think there's a real sense in which neither party wants to have this discussion going forward. the question is if we're going to have to rip the band-aid one way or another, knowing the numbers really suggest that donald trump is going to be not convicted at this point, the question is which direction do you rip? do you want one that actually

shows the american people what a full trial looks like, or do you want one that gets over quickly knowing that the end result is going to be the same? >> of course there have been witnesses before. andrew johns andrew johnson's impeachment trial, bill clinton's impeachment trial. the precedent is there, but that doesn't always matter in these situations. david, the president of the united states on his way to mar-a-lago. as we've noted before, he can get himself worked up down there. what do you think happens to him over these next two weeks as he stares this in the face? >> terrific question. i think it's exactly the right question to pursue. listen, in the nixon case and in the clinton case, the past two cases of impeachment or impeachment proceedings, the proceedings brought an end to the controversy. richard nixon left office, and we opened a new chapter in american history. and bill clinton essentially was very contrite. you know, he went back to work, and that ended the clinton thing. in this case, i think donald

trump is going to emerge very differently from nixon and clinton. he's not going to be contrite. he's not going to take responsibility. i think he's going to be embittered. he's going to be embittered for the rest of the time he is in office, and that makes it more difficult. but i also think that if he comes out of this, you know, feeling vindicated, he's going to be emboldened, and he's going to be doing things and saying go away, i'm going to do what the hell i like right now. that might be more dangerous. >> that brings me to my last question for you, professor, which is that he is the first impeached president to run for re-election. any sense of how it will play into it? will it even be an issue ten months from now? >> personally i think it's actually not going to be an issue. i think we have to remember the american people are most likely going to make their decision on who the next president will be or whether trump gets a second term based on things that happened in september and particularly october. but this really does, i think, cast a real shadow over the entire election in both

directions. if i could drill down for a second into the question of witnesses, which is clearly one that's going to be coming up as the senate debates what the rules should be. there's a real fundamental difference between the witnesses that appeared in the clinton case and the witnesses that we're talking about here because in the clinton case, everyone agreed upon the fact and they were really there just to present the case to the senators in dramatic fashion whereas in this case we don't know what all the facts are. so those witnesses are there to discover information, not just to present a case. >> jeffrey engel, david gergen, fascinating situation we find ourselves in. thank you so much for being with us tonight. >> thank you, john. >> have a wonderful holiday. next, a rare dissenting voice in the president's base calls for the president's removal from office. that, the backlash to it including from the president to himself, and what it says about the president's political standing. and later, new reporting on just how influential vladimir putin may have been on the president's thinking about ukraine and all that it's led up to. that and more when "360" continues.

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and secure all your devices from the cloud. so you can stop going in circles, and start moving forward. president trump spent the day not turning the other cheek. he lashed out several times at a magazine, which isn't exactly unusual for him except it wasn't "time" magazine he was targeting for putting someone else on the cover, for instance. it was "christianity today," which is read by his white evangelical base, for calling for his removal from office. editor in chief mark galli writes, quote, to use an old cliche, it's time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we're playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. galli also writes, his twitter feed alone with its habitual string of miss characterizations, lies and slanders is the near perfect example of a human being who is

morally lost and confused. and as if on cue, the president responded. quote, a far-left magazine or very progressive as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn't been involved with the billy graham family for many years, "christianity today" knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather have a radical left non-believe, who wants to take your religion and your guns, than donald trump as your president. by e.t., the president meant c.t., but, hey, he was rolling. this afternoon, the president picked up with this. i guess the magazine christianity today is looking for elizabeth warren, bernie sanders, or those of the socialist/communist bent to guard their religion. how about sleepy joe? the fact is no president has ever done what i have done for evangelicals or religion itself. big name leaders are circling the wagon, all speaking out in

defense of the president and denouncing the magazine. mark galli joins me now. mark, you have had one heck of a day. we spoke this morning. i actually had the pleasure of reading you the president's first attack on you. there have been many more as the day has gone on. what do you make of his response and the reaction? >> well, i'm just trying to do my part so he doesn't talk about the failed cnn network, so i hope you'll appreciate my work here. >> why do you think -- >> no, seriously -- >> why do you think you got under his skin so much? >> well, i think because he imagines that c.t. magazine is attempting to speak for all evangelicals. one of the things he's mistaken about is what c.t. magazine is and who it's read by. so, for example, it is not a leftist magazine by any stretch of the imagination. it's a center magazine, center left, and the editor in chief happens to be center right. it's not a political magazine.

it's a religious magazine. he was acting like we had a political vendetta against him. you know, the whole point of the editorial was to raise the level of conversation above the political fray to try to talk about that in moral and ethical terms, terms like a magazine like christianity today knows something about. no, we don't enter the political fray when we don't have to. but every once in a while when the situation is grave and we think we need to speak out, we do so. but we're by far and away not a political magazine. and we're also, just to be clear, we're not a magazine of the evangelical right. the people on the far evangelical right who are very much pro-trump, they don't either us either. we don't get rid by the evangelical far left or the evangelical far right. as i said, we're centrist. so he may be worried that we will influence the far right. i don't imagine that that's going to happen. but i do think -- one thing is

clearly happening is that i'm encouraging readers in our orbit and around our orbit because they have vaguely sensed some of the things i've said in the editorial and they're glad there's someone in the public square saying them. >> and it was the ukraine situation. it was the actions that have led to his impeachment that pushed you over the line to call for his removal. why? what about that do you find to be, as you say, not apolitical but immoral? >> well, first of all, this is a cumulative effect of his presidency, and at some point -- and up to this point, the argument by the evangelical right, many of my good friends who are sincere believers and this is how they make their political judgment. they say, you've got to balance things. on the one hand, trump is strongly working for religious freedom, especially for christians overseas.

he's strongly pro-life, and the justices he's appointed. we can put up with or ignore his crazy tweets and his immoral actions because on balance, we're getting someone who's doing some good in the united states as far as we can tell. for me, the impeachment hearings made that argument no longer valid in this respect. i mean the mueller investigation, i found very confusing. i'm not a political animal, and i had a hard time following what exactly was going on half the time. the impeachment hearings, it became crystal clear very quickly that donald trump, president of the united states, had used his authority to influence the leader a foreign nation to harass and harangue the president's political opponents. that's a violation of the constitution. as such, that's immoral because the president of the united states has vowed to uphold the constitution. so that kind of clear instance -- i mean there have been a lot of allegations about

how the president uses his authority, and a lot of them are credible, but they're not just unambiguous. this one was unambiguous to me, and i felt that that turned me from a person who said -- was sympathetic to the balance argument to the one that said it no longer applies. >> mark galli, you've created quite a discussion today. i know it's been a very busy and long day for you. we appreciate you being with us and we wish you a merry christmas. >> thank you very much. same to you. "the washington post" says that president trump's conspiracy theory that ukraine somehow interfered in the 2016 election came from a unique source -- russian president vladimir putin. that when "360" continues.

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if you're looking for the source of the president's obsession with ukraine, new reporting in "the washington post" points to vladimir putin. putin told me is how a former senior official says the president put it. some perspective now from retired army lieutenant colonel ralph peters, a strategic analyst and author. colonel peters, the fact that the president believes this conspiracy theory about ukraine, not really surprising. but if it's true that one of the reasons he believes it so strongly is because putin told him it was true, putin told him so, what's your reaction to that? >> putin knows what he's doing. putin was an agent handler for the kgb. he is trained in identifying people's vulnerabilities, their weak spots. and trump is the perfect victim, the perfect recruit as it were. you have somebody who has had

financial problems, has interesting taste in women, has an ego that's easily played to, that craves praise. and so putin undoubtedly has been able to work him just brilliantly because if you're in the intelligence world or the espionage game, the best -- the best victim is somebody who wants to be a victim. >> the best victim is somebody who wants to be a victim. >> in other words, in somebody, you know, who is just susceptible. we hear a great deal, john, about trump won't listen to the facts. won't is the wrong word. the correct word is can't. he cannot -- once trump has settled on a line of thought, an idea, a concept, whatever you want to call it, once he has committed himself to something,

he has no reverse gear. and so it's just impossible for him to admit he's wrong about anything. and you also hear about how he doesn't like intelligence briefings. they have to be dumbed down. he doesn't listen to the briefers. again it's a question of can't. trump -- and we've all run into these people in our lives. trump has to be the smartest person in the room. and suddenly in washington where he's dealing with genuine subject matter experts, people who have committed their entire lives to studying russia or china or whatever, he's so far out of his depth that he just can't bear it. this is a guy with an eggshell ego and, again, back to putin, putin knew exactly how to play it. >> any thoughts about why he's so deferential to putin? >> well, i'm the minority that still believes there probably are embarrassing tapes, certainly financial issues. but, again, he wants to believe what putin tells him. and there's a fundamental issue here where in the beginning of

trump's campaign, when nobody thought he had a chance, no serious people in washington or in the academic world would bother with him. so he gets tied in with people like steve bannon and paul manafort and, got help us, mike flynn, an old akwancquaintance mine, all of whom were soft on russia. so trump who was never interested in foreign policy, trump's view of the world was shaped by the likes of manafort and bannon and others. and so he committed to this line of thought that, you know, russia is not so bad. russia should be our ally. putin gets a bad rap. the ukrainians are the villains here. and he just cannot go back from there. >> it is interesting, colonel, that talking about the president's allies, that they are all in on some of his ukraine theories given that they might be directly tied to vladimir putin. >> yeah, indeed.

there's that, but also trump surrounding himself with third-raters. again, he has to be the big cheese. he has to be the smartest guy in the room. so if you look at the people who have been around him, with a few notable exceptions that didn't last very long, they are people who aren't expert in anything except a bit of wheeling and dealing, people who embarrass the country every time they open their mouths. but at the end of the day, the reason all of this really matters, why it's not just, well, ukraine wasn't perfect or whatever, it matters because next year we have a presidential election. vladimir putin is going to pull out all the stops. you're going to see wide-ranging and often innovative russian strategies, and the russians want trump re-elected. >> colonel peters, some sobering notions. thanks so much for your time. have a happy holiday. >> thank you. you too. up next, how wine caves became a hot campaign topic. t-mobile is lighting up 5g nationwide.

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with the iowa caucuses only weeks away, just seven

candidat candidates made the cut for last night's debate. the topic of wine caves came up. >> senator warren calling out pete buttigieg for a lavish fund-raiser at a california winery. >> so the mayor just recently had a fund-raiser that was held in a wine cave full of crystals and served $900 a bottle wine. um, think about who comes to that. he had promised that every fund-raiser he would do would be open-door, but this one was closed-door. >> you know, according to forrest magazine, i'm literally the only person on this stage who is not a millionaire or a billionaire. so if -- this is important. this is the problem with issuing purity tests you cannot yourself pass. [ applause ] if i pledge -- if i pledge never to be in the company of a progressive democratic donor, i

couldn't be up here. senator, your net worth is 100 times mine. >> joining me now for their take on this, cnn contributor, "new york times" op-ed columnist frank bruni, and cnn senior political analyst and "usa today" columnist kirsten powers. frank, the piece you wrote in "the new york times" this morning, the first line says "does the road to the wine house run through a wine cave"? >> i mean that was the big, big moment or the big argument at the debate was pete buttigieg having held a fund-raiser at a wine cave in napa valley, and elizabeth warren, who is sort of the purity candidate, is saying that shouldn't be permissible. you shouldn't be hitting up billionaires to win the democratic primary or to win the presidency. pete buttigieg was making the argument, you don't disarm when you're about to face donald trump. you take every ally you can get. you take money where you can get it. that's a kind of bigger debate than just cabernet and cash. >> what struck me because i'm

not sure this is the issue is going to decide the democratic primary, was the way they both went at it. you note this in your piece too. they were both at the top of their game in that exchange. >> if you liked pete buttigieg, you liked him doubly in that exchange because he was under fire and this 37-year-old mayor of an indiana city was cool as a cucumber. if you liked elizabeth warren already, you liked her triply. >> and joe biden was sitting there watching the whole thing, kirsten. he has not been seen as having had strong debate performances at least by the political professionals until last night, but a lot of people look at last night and say, this was a different joe biden. what did you see there? >> yeah. i think that he, in the past, has been criticized for being perhaps too rambling or not seeming enough on his game. and last night he was pretty much gaffe-free. also there often have been gafz

gaffes in the other debates. so i think he was seen as gaffe-free and strong and on his game. it couldn't have come at a better time, right? this is when people are just starting to focus. he's still leading the polls. he's not leading in iowa, but he's leading in the national polls, and i think this is the perfect time for him to be turning in a really good performance. >> did he have that look and feel of a front-runner, do you think? >> yeah. yeah, i think so. and i think that this is -- and i think the fact that he's been, you know, also so obviously -- and he took time to point this out -- you know, the person that donald trump seems to be concerned enough about that he would do the things that he did that led to impeachment, right? so that also sort of builds up his position as the front-runner by saying, like, look, trump is so concerned about me that he would actually, you know, get himself in this kind of trouble over me. >> frank, i know because we were talking about it in makeup, you think that joe biden had a strong debate performance as

well. who else do you think was a winner? >> i think amy klobuchar had a great night. i don't know if it will matter for her but she made the case and repeated it that she's someone who was won elections in the kind of state, in the kind of area that handed trump the presidency three years ago, four years ago. i think she was good with that. i think andrew yang had a good night for andrew yang. but, again, he's so far back, i don't think it's going to be candidacy change. >> yit only matters so much. >> it only matters so much if you're outside that top four because that top four has been so distant from the rest and so firmly ensconce. >> i think the most meaningful night was joe biden's. he's been a front-runner almost consistently since he announced his candidacy in april. yet we in the media have had a tendency to treat him as a hallucinatory front-runner. it's all going to disappear as soon as you touch it or get too close of it because he has so many gaffes, because so much is

based on name recognition. i think it's time to accept that joe biden could very well be the nominee, and if you were a person making a conservative bet and putting money on someone, you'd probably put it on him. >> the polls have been fairly consistent. the new cnn poll shows joe biden up at the top, bernie sanders doing very strong lly as well. but in the head to head matchups with president trump, there's been some slippage. biden is still leading outside the margin of error, sanders barely. why do you think that is? >> also in the poll, the numbers for what people think of the economy are incredibly high, historically high. and also in terms of how they feel the economy is going to be in the future. so people are not just positive about how the economy is doing now, but they're actually very optimistic about the future. those two things would always mean that the president's approval rating should go up. i would ask why isn't his approval rating higher with an

economy like that? with an economy like that, you normally would be seeing sort of stratospheric approval numbers and he's certainly not getting that. he shouldn't be -- at least in these matchups, and it's still a pretty tight race. i mean we're talking about still within four or five points, even the people who have lost ground against him. >> kirsten powers, frank bruni, great to have you here. have a lovely holiday. >> you too. still ahead, how a mining company secretly collaborated with a governor to lobby the white house all at the expense of one of the country's most beautiful and valuable wild habitats. (chime) (shaq) magenta? i hate cartridges! not magenta! not magenta. i'm not going back to the store. magenta!

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let's check in with chris to see what he's working on for "cuomo prime time" at the top of the hour. c squared, what have you got? >> j.b., my man. we have some exclusive reporting about the money trail

>> we got some exclusive reporting about the money trail leading from one at least of rudy giuliani's associates through the ukraine gambit. we have a piece tonight from drew griffin. we have vicky ward with pick-up reporting on where parnas got his money, what kind of oligarch, where did he get it. my case on this show is giuliani may not have been a subject of having done something wrong but used by people, which could be just as dangerous. i would be remiss if i did not say i love you and i wish you and your family the best for the holy days. you are a model journalist and a model man. i am proud to call you a friend. you're a gift every day. >> happy holidays. you can unwrap me any time you want, chris. thank you very much. >> ooh, naughty. >> see you in a few minutes. exclusive new details in a story we've been following for months, a story of natural beauty, corporate money and the question of political influence.

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it's a story that 360 has been investigating and reporting on, the battle over plans to build a copper or gold mines in one of alaska's most pristine settings. alaska's governor not only has embraced talking points written by the company wanting to build that mine, he's also sent them practically word for word to officials in the trump administration. >> reporter: when the trump administration's epa removed the protections on this pristine part of alaska last summer, locals and environmentalists were shocked. the company that wants to build a copper and gold mine here was overjoyed. documents obtained by cnn reveal the pebble mine company was secretly coaching alaska

governor mike dunn levy's office in how to influence the trump administration to make a decision in the company's favor. in e-mail after e-mail pebble provides the governor's office with ghost-written letters, talking points for communications with the epa, with the vice president's office and to a potential investor in the mine. joel reynolds, with the natural resources defense council says governor dunn leavy essentially became a lobbyist for the mine. >> these are the type of activities a company typically pays somebody on their staff to do. in this case they're working directly with the governor and his staff to accomplish the goals of the company. >> most striking of all, this april 26th letter sent by the governor to the army corps of engineers, asking the corps to end a public comment period on an environmental study. pebble's staff wrote it first,

here is pebble's ghost-written letter for the governor, right next to the letter the governor actually sent to the army corps. compared side by side, the highlighted sections show the letters are nearly identical. reynolds, who represents one of many environmental groups suing to stop the mine, is appalled. >> essentially the governor has become a puppet for pebble. >> the documents include two other companies, letters from the governor that appear to have been copied and pasted from language provided by pebble. pebble even dictated the talking point for the governor's staff to use in a meeting with the environmental protection agency. when cnn asked for comment, even their responses were similar, with pebble saying it's not unusual for interested parties to suggest language to elected officials and the governor's office saying it is common practice for an administration to request briefing materials on a specific project. pebble's communication happened at a crucial time. they were desperate to protect one of the world's last and

largest spawning area. the company was so confident it was going to happen. the day before the governor met with president trump aboard air force i, it sent the governor's office this draft press release, which hailed the decision by the environmental protection agency in advance, though pebble says it did not receive any information about a pending epa decision. the governor did meet with the president and they did discuss mining and the epa did make an announcement on june 26th, but not entirely to remove the environmental protection. and in furious emails, a pebble official tells the governor's aide the epa announcements sends the market a screaming message that epa may still kill the project and that pebble can't raise the money it needs.

in announcement was worse than doing nothing. pebble asks for immediate intervention, a presidential tweet or try to get the epa to reverse position, reminding the governor's staff in another e-mail, the epa's lack of cooperation contradicts everything they were promised last week by the president. the very next day, epa trump appointees reversed course, told its top staff in seattle the withdrawal of protections is a now a done deal, one official told cnn, we were told to get out of the way and just make it happen. a month later the epa made that secret decision official, giving the mining company the win it needed. in response alaska's governor, john, didn't answer a single question, only giving us a statement saying he supports mining but the ceo of pebble mine, tom collier, met with us personally to stress two things.

first, that he and his company had no advanced knowledge of any decisions made by the epa and, second, that in his view it is fairly normal to have communications with the governor, even to the point of writing draft letters for the governor to edit and sign. john? >> common. is that so? drew griffin, thank you very much for that. the news continues. we'll hand it over to chris for "cuomo prime time." >> welcome to prime time. we have an exclusive tonight, new intelligence on that arrested giuliani associate tied to an oligarch who is tied to putin. there is a troubling money trail revealed. another question. is pelosi right to hold back the articles of impeachment or is it going to back fire on the democrats? hold on, it ain't the holy days yet. let's get after it. all ri