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tv   CNN Tonight  CNN  December 20, 2022 6:00pm-7:00pm PST

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♪ a cyber-attack can grind everything to a halt. cisco security keeps your company moving forward. because if it's connected, it's protected. cisco. a busy night of breaking news. as we've been reporting the house ways and means committee expected to continue that trend when it releases its first summary after voting to make public years of the former president's tax returns. we can say the news continues, so let's hand it over to laura coates and "cnn tonight."
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good evening, everybody. i'm laura coates, and this is "cnn tonight." and look, there is a lot going on this evening. and we have with breaking news on capitol hill. we'll begin with that tonight because the all-powerful house ways and means committee, which is led by democrats as you know for now, voting tonight to release the former president donald trump's tax returns to the public. the committee's vote was along party lines, and it's a giant defeat for trump. he's fought for years now to keep all his tax information private citing audits and the like. also tonight a source saying the ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy is on his way to washington, d.c. at this very hour. he'll meet with the president of the united states tomorrow at the white house as expected and may also address a joint session of congress. and now here's a cnn exclusive tonight saying trump's former white house ethics lawyer told cassidy hutchinson -- remember she was the star witness of the
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january 6th hearings. that person apparently gave her the advice to give misleading testimony to the committee. and yes, i said a white house ethics lawyer, so you try to figure that out if you can. i want to start now with cnn chief congressional correspondent manu raju who is live on capitol hill tonight. manu, a lot is going on. let's begin with those taxes. when are we going to learn more about these taxes and maybe even see them? >> reporter: yeah, we could actually see these very soon, and it could be a significant amount of information that donald trump has spent years trying to protect and not release to the public, contending he was under endless audit, going to court to battle them, ultimately turned over to congress just a few weeks ago. and now tonight in a party line vote house democrats voting to move ahead and release these to the public. what we are talking about here is six years of trump's tax returns including tax returns for eight affiliate businesses. we also expect to see irs audit
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reports as well as two reports, the joint committee on taxation, which is a nonpartisan group that analyzes taxes. we expect that report to come out tonight as well as the committee's report analyzing these tax returns. that also will be released tonight according to committee officials. now, when i asked the chairman of the committee, richie neil, about whether or not those returns, the actual returns themselves would be in public, he said they'll come out within days. how quickly do you expect -- >> it's going to take a few days but we believe it's only days. it won't go well beyond that. the staff is on top of it. one of the things we're going to take great pains today and you might have heard the end of the tonight when you were in longworth and that is the redaction to take place to protect some very important information, social security numbers, pin numbers, banking accounts, those sorts of things. but the ways and means staff,
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and i have faith in the republican staffers that then serve as a check on what it is we want to do. but they want to reach an accommodation that those protections are built in. >> reporter: that information will take a little bit more time to play out, but time is of the essence here. democrats are only in power, laura, for just a couple more weeks before republicans take control of the house on january 3rd, which is one big reason why republicans crying foul as democrats in their final days of power here moving to do something they've been demanding for some time, seeing donald trump's tax returns enpublic, and we should be able to see those very soon. >> i mean, part of the reason there's been the delay as you know is the claims because he was being audited he couldn't hand things over through the candidacy and now at this point in time it's been a four-year window, really. what are they saying now about whether trump was being audited? was he -- is he still?
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>> this will be a key take away in the debate going forward. presidents are required to go under a mandatory audit after they take the oath of office. according to the committee that did not happen with donald trump. in fact, they say in april 2019 donald trump was -- an audit began over donald trump's returns, and that only began they believe because the chairman of the committee richie neil who you just saw sent a letter to the irs at that exact time, april 2019 asking about those tax returns. they said then that's when the audit started over trump's returns. and they said it was an audit never completed. all those returns, those six years of returns they have obtained, the audits were not actually completed for donald trump. and i also asked about the contention of trump and he said he's always under audit. he's never seen an audit pleated. neil declined to comment on that specific issue saying these are issues we're still looking through as well. one other point, laura i asked both chairman neil and the top
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republican on the committee, kevin brady, whether or not there was anything concerning in those returns. brady said this is still being looked at by the irs and decline today comment. neil, too, also declined to comment. >> has the former president or any other republicans commented on where we are right now? >> reporter: yeah, we are hearing some push back like the top republican on the committee crying foul criticizing the democrats for weaponizing donald trump's perm financial information saying this was not the proper way this should be handled, calling it a sad day for a democracy and going on and defending donald trump. trump's spokesman himself put out a statement earlier also where he essentially accused the democrats of going -- taking this action saying this unprecedented leak by lame duck democrats is proof they are playing a political game, they are losing. if this injustice can happen to
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president trump, it can happen to all americans without cause. very little they can do here given they've lostthality battles for years in court. ultimately democrats won, which is why they have the returns and why they're still in power in the house taking action to release them. >> manu, what a night and what a beginning. we know a couple of days, thank you so much for your reporting as always. i want to bring in and turn to our political commentators here at cnn. also norm eisen, cnn's legal analyst, and also a former house judiciary counsel in trump's first impeachment trial. also we have rust buttener, the investigative reporter for "the new york times." i want to begin with you, because you have extraordinary expertise specifically as it relates to trump's taxes. you took a deep dive into some of those taxes back in 2020 and now we're waiting for any moment -- maybe it'll take days to get information. i'm wondering what do you think so far about what we've learned
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just tonight alone about these new developments. >> i found it just starkly alarming that the presidential audit that is supposed to happen of every president appears to not have happened to this president the first couple of years he was in office if i understand what some of the congressman were saying correctly. that's really alarming. we've never had a president write a more complicated financial picture than donald trump. it has to be the best case for why such an audit should exist, and they didn't do it. i have to wonder if it was somehow wrapped up in this long-standing audit of a mass refund you got about ten years ago. we're also apparently going to hear more of what we revealed in 2020, which is that he's had enormous business losses over the years. he's been in some financial pressure, and he rarely ever pays much income taxes. >> on that point, and i'm glad. i want to make sure we're all very clear about this
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delineation between these two things. there's the audit he claims to be under why he couldn't release as a candidate and then there's the mandatory -- and that seems to be the help legislative this committee is talking about. on the point part of the feedback that you're hearing is the idea, well, we have seen some of the information, right, through your own reporting back in 2020 and beyond. i'm wondering one of the things the congressman has had to say the former president claimed tens of millions of dollars in losses, but with no supporting documents to actually stanchiate those claims how is that possible? and did you experience that segment of it in your own reporting? >> i heard the congressman talk about. it's an excellent question. i think what he was talking about was when the irs started the audit they didn't ask him for those supporting documents, which would be a usual process
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during audit. and the tax return themselves don't show that, that would have to be in other records they would obtain. we have some records of audits, ongoing audits that i can see, but, that, again, doesn't show the underlying process of the examination and all the sort of guts of the thing, requesting records, analyzing those records. but i think that's what he's referring to. he wasn't required -- it's pretty extraordinary if they did an audit and they're looking at something that's resulting in millions of dollars -- tens of millions of revenue due to business failures and other write offs that they didn't ask for documentation of those. that would be pretty extraordinary. >> let's bring in our panel here as well because, i mean, getting right down to the issue, gentlemen, you've got the idea of the curiosity when he was a candidate the first time being candidate. i wonder if he really had as
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much money as he says he had, did he have the empire. there was this curiosity in this fig, and then there was why don't you want to hand over this information. now we're on his third election bid i'm wondering first of all do you think the release of the information now and the request at this point is as crucial or necessary or warranted? what do you think? norm? >> i do think that it's justified. the law of the united states is that the house ways and means committee, chairman neil who's been very careful, laura, has the power to obtain these returns and to publish them. that is the law of the land. they've done a balance, and you're looking here at an individual who flouted -- and it was my job in the obama white house to clear the obama taxes for release. he flouted that modern practice of releasing his taxes. they were the most serious constitutional questions about
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payments from foreign governments so-called emoluments. i litigated them. domestic emoluments, that may be in the tax returns. now his business has been convicted for two counts of tax fraud with a larger investigation continuing as to him. he's running again. i think on balances, yes, i'm concerned about the privacy. but these considerations far outweigh it. he's waived any right to claim the privacy. >> i don't see it that way at all. i have no sympathy for donald trump in this. he violated a whole bunch of norms. not this norm but other norms. and he's a shady businessman. i think he lie about his wealth, all that stuff. he deserves the trouble he's invited for himself for years and years. >> by the way, we do have the report. manu is going through it as we speak. >> just because the chairman has
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the power doesn't mean he should do it. and i've heard nothing from anybody from various congressmen i was meeting and elsewhere that provides a -- that has a connective tissue and a legislative purpose which is the reason why he has every reason to look at them, but to release them publicly creates a moshl hazard and bad precedent and just feels punitive. and i don't think that's a good precedent for the country to release private tax returns because he has it coming. that's not a legislative purpose. >> their purpose in part the idea of the mandatory audit that has to happen when you have a president -- and i'm not saying that's all encompassing but that's the stated reason the democrats have talked about. and it was not done, and their whole legislative oversight function was to figure out why that wasn't the case and what loopholes may be there. >> we've said no one is above the law. it looks like mr. trump put himself above the law. if that's true.
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this is new reporting. i don't want to draw conclusions. who is we? the congress has to know. they have 100-year-old law that says the trashy shall release to the ways and mean committee and request shall. trump flouted that and i'm worried about the precedent. now, i'm old enough to recall in the obama presidency the republicans were running the ways and means committee and did release tax returns. they had some irs conspiracy theory so they released private information then. it was wrong then. it's a tougher call here because if this allegation is true -- if manu's reporting is true and somehow he was placed above the law every president had to follow, what we should have done and should do now every major candidate for president has to release -- pick a number, seven years. joe biden has released i think 20, 30, 40, you know, and it should be a law, though.
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we shouldn't have to be fighting this and wondering gee wiz, in five minutes the republicans are going to control the committee and whose tacks are they going to put out? >> standby. i want to bring in russ on this point as well and get your take. just the agreement here on the one hand there's the precedent it could set of having given out information and a precedent that would be set if you didn't have the modern precedents followed from prior presidents. but one of the questions is there's a clock here, a sort of damocles for this particular president. they're considered a lame duck for a reason, and we're days away really from a new congress being sworn in, and they're not going to be as concerned as the democratic led house ways and means committee on this issue. what happens next then? this all has to be divulged now, but then january is a few weeks away. >> right. there is a real reason to -- for someone to look at these things. when you look at donald trump's income status and finance
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disclosure forms the first thing you realize is that our process for vetting whether candidates who are presidents have vulnerabilities in their finances that might make them subject to manipulation. but whether they're getting cash in places that aren't to do with business, they're basically bribes, masks of a business transaction, the tax returns don't capture that. the finance disclosure forms don't capture that. looking at donald trump's situation you could figure out reasons, ways to fix that in some serious way. again, like you said there's a clock ticking. the republicans are going to stop this action right away. there's a possibility if it's read into the record the senate finance committee will pick it up, or a committee down the road will pick it up, not so much to donald trump but trying to fix that baked in problem you have which is figuring out whether our presidents are subject to
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manipulation because of finances. >> a really important point. we're going to return to that as well as discussion on is this punitive for the sake of being punitive to donald trump? that's a talking point coming up right now, and a discussion has been had for a number of years now on what this would really mean? look, we now have the report on trump's taxes the house ways and means committee voted to release tonight. we're going to go through it and keep bringing you new information as we get it. and there's another major development tonight. ukraine's president will be in washington tomorrow. it's the first time that he's left ukraine since russia's invasion. we're live at the white house right after this. he country, people are working hard to build a better future. so we're hard at work helping them achieve financial frfreedom. we're p proud to serve people everywhere, in investing for the retirement they envisioion. frfrom the plains to the coast, we help americans invest for their future. and help communities thrive.
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visit tryfarmersdog.com to see your dogs personalized meal plan. do you realize that today marks 300 days -- 300 days since russia invaded ukraine. and as the conflict continues to rage on, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy is now planning to visit washington tomorrow. and this is his first foreign trip since the war began. cnn's chief white house correspondent phil mattingly joins us now with more. this is really significant that he's planning on coming. what can you expect? what are you hearing? >> reporter: yeah, laura, it's historic and certainly symbolic given the moment we're in right now with this conflict and geopolitically. but also it's very substantive. despite the fact ukrainian
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officials have been traveling the u.s. throughout the course of the war, this trip actually came together rather recently and very quickly. and at its core beyond the first face-to-face meeting between the two presidents since the war started back in february is what it will entail. there'll be in-depth discussions between the two presidents. president zelenskyy will also meet with president biden's top national security officials but it'll also include $1.8 billion in new security assistance. and inside that assistance the most substantial effort the u.s. has made yet. most notably the patriot defense systems. up to the last couple of weeks the white house was not willing to go down this path. they changed course and tomorrow the president side by side with president zelenskyy will announce they'll see boon on their way to ukraine. >> you've got the new congress coming in. obviously you're thinking about
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domestic extraordinary security concerns and precautions being taken with president zelenskyy now being outside of ukraine. and we understand there might actually include some sort of address to congress. we know you've seen it virtually throughout the course of this investigation, but what when are their plans for future aid now you've got a new congress coming in, there is a number you cite, but especially since the gop has been more skepical about spending on ukraine, is that part of the motivation on why he's coming? >> yeah, i think it's implicit in everything that happens tomorrow, and i think it really threads into why president zelenskyy is scheduled to give a prime time address to a joint session of congress tomorrow. it is still not totally locked in. you mention those security concerns. they're more palpable up on capitol hill, but he'll be visiting congress at the same time lawmakers are in the process of voting on an additional $45 billion in aid to ukraine. if you look through the scale of the usa assistance to ukraine over the course of the last
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year, you get a sense just how substantial it is starting with 13.6 billion there is and a $40 billion package as well. this current package as $45 billion, if you want to break out what this current package actually represents you get an understanding of the scope of things. it's not just military assistance. this package includes an additional $9 billion in defense assistance but also $12 billion for the u.s. to replenish in oats stocks and $13 billion as the country attempts to maintain some semblance and another $9 billion in humanitarian support. you think about the refugee and the scale of suffering particularly as civilian instruct has been targeted. if nothing else the size of this package and symbolism of this moment underscores one thing i've been hearing over and over again and there's no end to this war coming anytime soon and that means the u.s. support will continue, quote, as long as it takes, laura. >> thinking about the human cost
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at stake, it's yet to be quantified if ever it could be. new tonight as well remember that moment that they were talking about in the committee yesterday about somebody trying to encourage a witness to not be forthcoming? well, we've now learned a trump white house ethics lawyer urged the january 6th committee's star witness, cassidy hutchinson, to give misleading testimony. stay with us. listen, i'm done settling. because this is my secret.
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all right, we've got a cnn exclusive tonight. in the summary of its final report the january 6th committee claims it has evidence that a trump backed attorney urged a key witness to mislead the committee. we now know who that witness was and also the lawyer they are referring to. now, we've learned here at cnn it is the top ethics attorney in the trump white house who allegedly advised his then client cassidy hutchinson, a former white house aide, to forget that she remembered
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certain things. according to the committee the lawyer said, quote, they don't know what you know. they don't know that you can recall some of these things, so you say i don't recall is an entirely acceptable response to this. and on a particular issue that would cast a bad light on president trump the attorney apparently allegedly said no, no, no we don't want to go there, we don't want to talk about that. now in a statement to cnn he says, quote, i represented ms. hutchinson with her sole interest as she communicated to me, unquote. is there any doubt i'm going to the former ethics czar? norm, norm, norm. >> i'm acquainted with stephen. there's a family of former white house ethics chiefs.
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we all keep in touch. and i think he tried when he was in the trump administration, he tried mightily, and that's not easy when donald trump is your client to keep the white house on its ethical course. it went off course and now it saddens me to say so, laura, because i know him. he's gone off course. i mean to tell a witness that they don't know what you know, that they don't know you can recall something, to not go there when there's a question, if that's true and the committee has done their investigation, and i believe cassidy hutchinson on this, he's gone badly off course. there was a sign he started representing the election deniers, an assault on our democracy even before we learned this, but this is really a sign that he's gone off course. and it's particularly tragic when it happens to somebody
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whose job is ethics. i think he's had serious ethics exposure now himself or maybe possible criminal risk depending on how doj accepts this information. >> the allegations of warning perjury in some way. >> yeah, as you know there's multiple weather criminal statutes, obstruction of justice. the committee has focused on that. obstruction of a congressional investigation, obstruction of an official proceeding in congress warning perjury possible. we'll see what doj does with it but i think it'll create ethics issues, and what can i tell you i believe cassidy hutchinson. >> there are some people out there who are not fans of lawyers. don't all lawyers tell their clients something like this? the answer is first of all, no, they don't do that. they want to encourage truth telling obviously. but there's also the idea that statement he makes, he was doing
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so in her sole interest. >> there's a report the committee alleges in fact paying him to represent her. these things happen, you know as a real lawyer i'm a member of the bar and i have a practice, right, but his real obligation is to defend her. but her allegation if true is very serious. the notion of being like the ethics cop in the trump white house is like sensitive trainer for kanye west. it's like you've got no hope, and this guy now he's going to have to lawyer up. and we're seeing this, all of -- not all. a great many of mr. trump's lawyers from rudy giuliani to john eastman who was replete in the committee's hearing yesterday to sydney powell. these folks are all themselves getting into trouble, and i do -- i can't think of anybody who got in trump's orbit and came out looking better. it just seems to disgrace
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everyone. >> you make a very interesting point because if you look at the names that were named yesterday, there was trump the client but others and meadows, all the people named by the committee were lawyered, right? eastman, clark, giuliani. so out of the six people identified in the criminal referral section, trump is like the neutron bomb of clients. >> i -- i think sort of the political take away from this is that the criminal referral thing which got all this and i think was a legitimate historical thing to do and a moral thing to do and all of that legally was sort of a nothing burger because
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it was investigate. things that give doj leverage for interviewing people, new leads that they can follow up on, the criminal referral stuff was nice theatrics but the actual meat of the transcripts of interviews was the stuff the doj is going to get the most out of. >> and of course the explanation of who's in that umbrella term of and others. and i note vice president mike pence made the comment yesterday in reaction to all of this that, well, it's not criminal but bad advice of a lawyer. there may be issues with that statement as well. everyone, stick around. we have more reporting on the tax returns that's come out in term of what's been published we'll talk about with manu raju in just a moment. research shows people remember commercials with nostalgia. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's one that'll really take you back. it's customed home insurance
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all right, we're getting some new information on the report the house ways and means committee voted to release tonight remember on trump's tax returns. we've got the cnn chief congressional correspondent manu raju live on capitol hill tonight and pouring through this report. manu, what are you seeing? there are actually two reports the committee released tonight. one was the committee investigation of this mandatory
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presidential audit program that the irs was supposed to do on sitting presidents. and how that was done when donald trump was president. another one is an analysis by the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation looking at six years of donald trump's tax returns as well as tax returns from his businesses. now, in the investigation into the irs mandatory audit program, the committee finds that it was not working, it was dormant as they say at best and concerning during the trump administration. they say that this is an important program to ensure the president does not have any conflicts of interest, financial conflicts of interest particularly as he signs bills into law. but in this case they say it was only conducted in the aftermath of richard neil, the chairman of the committee, making a request in 2019 to start to look into donald trump's tax returns. that's when the actual audit took place even though donald trump was president so from after the 2016 elections from 2017 all the way up to january
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of 2021. now, the committee goes onto say that in that investigation that the white house even in 2018, the white house press secretary contended that donald trump was under a mandatory presidential audit, but he was not at that time. now, they go into some -- concerns they have which was just a legislative response in fixing what they see are problems with this audit program. now, on the separate analysis over his tax returns we're still pouring through it. it's a very technical analysis looking at all the numbers that donald trump submitted in his tax returns. it gives a summary of these returns. it raises -- it says there are some issues that require further investigations like the number of deductions he took, charitable deductions, questioning whether they're business or personal and doesn't provide any personal judgment on that but only suggests perhaps there's an issue in which investigators or others may want to look further into, but this
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report the joint committee of taxation report i'm holding up right here about five pages in length, very detailed getting through the numbers. we're still trying to learn all the nuances of this report but something the investigators on capitol hill the key committees have wanted to know what was in his returns. and this is ultimately what will be turned over. we do expect all the returns to be released after the deductions are redacted. we're getting a taste on what the committee was concerned with and how the irs looked at donald trump and what those taxes said. >> and we're all getting an early taste what this dense material is. and how it's going to be perceived by the general public even if it is released. manu raju, thank you so much. also yet another major story we're following tonight. there are two january 6th investigations, and they're converging in a very big way. the house select committee
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referring donald trump for criminal charges for his role in the insurrection. they're now sharing a trove of evidence with the justice department. that includes, by the way, transcripts of witness interviews that federal investigators have long been seeking. now, a source familiar with the handover says the office of the special counsel will ultimately end up with all of the evidence that the panel has already collected. meanwhile rusty bowers was among the witnesses that we saw testifying in public. the arizona house speaker shined a bright light on the pressure campaign on states to overturn the 2020 election results. >> did you tell the president in that second call that you supported him, that you voted for him, that you were not going to do anything illegal for him? >> i did, sir. >> nevertheless his lawyer john eastman called you some days later on june 4, 2021, and he did have a very specific ask
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that would have required you to do just what you'd already told the president you wouldn't do, something that would violate your oath. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> so does he think the committee made the right call to refer the former president for prosecution? well, let's ask him because rusty bowers is with us now this evening. mr. bowers, thank you for joining us today. i'm really chomping at the bit given the testimony we all remember so well and your personal experience with this -- the set of facts in this case. you were a very important witness for this committee, and i'm wondering what you make of the decision that they had to refer a president for criminal charges. >> well, "a," it's extremely disappointing that -- that the actions of an individual would lead to this and that would affect so many other individuals to support activity that in my
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view is contrary to law and is certainly contrary to the best interests of governance in the united states. i'm not a prosecutor. i'm not a member of a grand jury. there wasn't a lot of interplay with lawyers in this particular commission, but i think the information that was given by witnesses, by those who were with me and many others, shows a pattern that -- that is corrupt and manipulative and i believe hurts -- harms america's view of the presidency. now, are all presidents perfect? you know, grade school children walking around with nice little bow ties, no of course not. but there was a respect for this institution that i think was
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sorely lacking, and that's being very kind. so it's very disappointing that it comes to this. i'm not surprised by it. it's -- it's just hard. >> you know, the idea of it being contrary to law to me is a synonym for what's criminal. as a former prosecutor myself and thinking about what this looks like, and i'm wondering when you talk about the disappointment and the manipulation and the corruption, what stood out to you in terms of what you experienced personally versus what you actually heard that expanded on what you experienced as well with this committee? what was the moment that you said it's too far? >> well, when mr. raffensperger sitting right next to me said that -- and i watched the video of the president saying to him just go out and find me 11,000 votes or whatever it was, and i'm thinking was this like a raffle at the local wal-mart?
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this -- the idea that i could do that in my state and then over and over with other things with what he said to me, he was -- mr. jgiuliani was mostly the bul dog in our conversations. but he was very much present and very much supportive and wanted my quote-unquote cooperation. he never threatened me. i never felt i was being indimin intimidated per se, and i don't know if a phone call from the president of the united states might be intimidating. i never felt that way, but the overall package comes out that it's not only that it happened but that it was planned to happen and that there were many participants at many levels trying to get this to happen, to push it through. some of them interacted with me. others interacted with others, so it was -- it was a large
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deal. >> absolutely. the scope of it as well, rusty, thinking about do you want to see this president prosecuted? >> i think that would be a terrible thing to witness. i don't want it. it's not like i have some vendetta against donald trump. but that would be up to the prosecutors and up to those at the department of justice. they know better than i. i don't have any particular pleasure in watching this all unfold. i think it's extremely sad, and i would like to see people evaluate all of ourselves. and my dad once said, you know, you look at a good man, you try to be like him. you look at a bad man, you look at yourself real hard. and i just -- it's a bad example, and i certainly hope that we can evaluate our own lives at all levels and do better -- do better than this. >> well, my father always said
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give him the last word. and i'll give your father the same. so thank you so much. >> thank you very much for the opportunity. >> well, everyone, many have had the opportunity to travel recently, of course. it's been a long time coming for so many of us during covid-19, but travel could be nearly impossible in some parts of the country just in time for the holidays. we'll tell you what you need to know to be prepared right after this.
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i was born here, i'm from here, and i'm never leaving here. i'm a new york hotel. yeah, i'm tall. 563 feet and 2 inches. i'm on top of the world. i'm looking for someone who likes to be in the middle of it all, but also likes some peace and quiet. you hungry? i know a place, and few others nearby.
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it's the city that never sleeps, but hey, if you need the rest, i've got you covered. >> we've got a massive winter storm that's bearing down a very large section of this country. it's packing extreme cold and blizzard conditions. let's go right now to meteorologist derek van damme in the cnn weather center. derek, this is a huge storm. a lot of people plan on traveling this week ahead of christmas. tell me, what do they need to know about when the snowstorm is coming and of course, the bitter cold that might be along with it? >> when is it going to arrive? look, it's already impacting the northwestern portions of our country. of course, it's in its infancy. tomorrow, meaning wednesday, it's going to pick up some steam. and then thursday and friday,
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that is the two days, those are the two days that will deliver our block buster winter storm right before the holidays. terrible planning, but a potential here for blizzard conditions, flash freeze temperatures dropping 50 to 60 degrees fahrenheit in some instances, and the potential for bitterly cold, cold weather that is going to be dangerous in many occasions. so let's highlight it, get to the brass tacks, because this is the storm system that, again, impacting the pacific northwest, now making its way towards denver. denver, you will literally have a 50 degree temperature drop from thursday into friday as that cold front slides in and draws in the arctic air. then by thursday afternoon, we'll start to see our first snowflakes fly in and around chicago. this is when the storm is deepening. this is when it's getting its most intense. and by friday, we continue to see the winds wrapping behind it and blew all the snow that's falling on the ground in the great lakes, the plains, and into the midwest. with rain, and by the way, along the east coast. this is a look at the 70
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million americans that are under some sort of winter weather alert. and i want to pay attention to the blizzard warnings have just been hoisted across south central minnesota. now, we also have 75 million americans under windchill advisories. and this goes from the border of canada all the way to the gulf of mexico. and huge population density. i mentioned the storm is still in its infancy. there it is. you can see, not that impressive on radar right now. but trust me, it is coming, people. and it is going to pack quite a punch when it rolls through the central parts of the u.s.. in fact, this is some of the coldest air in denver that they've seen in 32 years. we are going to have temperatures across the united states, really, about 80% of the population experience temperatures below 32 degrees. 52 million americans below zero, that is incredible. >> i, mean i'm looking at my home state of minnesota right there. and the temperatures they're facing right now. everyone stay safe and keep apprized what's going on. thank you so much. you know, tonight, the powerful
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house ways and means committee is releasing its report on former president donald trump's tax returns. we're gonna have the very latest, so stay with us. all across the country, people are working hard to build a better future. so we're hard at work, helping them achieve financial freeeedom. we're invesesting for our cliens in the projects that power our economy.y. from the plains to the coasts,, we help americans invest for their future. and help communities thrive. if you used shipgo
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>> so, we have a major development tonight. we're getting new information on trump's tax returns. and our team has been combing through this report of the house ways incoming committee has voted to release tonight. i want to get right to democratic congressman of michigan, he's on the house ways and means committee, anything in the time to join us this evening. congressman, thank you for being here. now, you have seen these tax returns. and i'm wondering what did you learn given the fact that part of it we've seen some portions of his tax information, you've got the cases in new york, you've got the

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