the president is above the director. therefore, the president is not subject to the jurisdiction of the director. therefore, it doesn't meet the definition of "urgent concern." therefore, the inspector general is done. the inspector general can't investigate anymore. that's the inspector general's reading of the department opinion, that he is no longer allowed to investigate this. is that you're reading, as well? >> chairman, not necessarily the president, but the allegation has to relate to the operation of intelligence activity with the responsibility and the authority of the director of national intelligence. >> i'm just trying to get to whether the president is somehow beyond the reach of the law. >> no, sir. no person in this country is beyond the reach of the law. speak about the way it should be, but i'm trying to figure out whether that's the way it is as a practical fact. the inspector general believes

that based on the pending request of the deferment of justice, he is no longer allowed to look into this because it doesn't meet the definition of an "urgent concern." because it involves the president. is that your understanding of the department opinion, as well? that the inspector general no longer has jurisdiction to look into this? >> it is my understanding that both the inspector general and i and my team are waiting for -- we were waiting for the resolution of executive privilege to be determined. it is now no longer executive privilege. i'm not sure exactly what the statute has, as far as what michael can do. but we also are looking for a way -- now, if i did not send it forward, as you know, under urgent concern within the seven days, then the statute would allow the whistle-blower to come to you and still be protected. >> director, my -- >> to be accommodating. >> my point is this.

the department of justice has said, because this doesn't meet the statutory definition, because this involves the president, the inspector general has no jurisdiction to investigate. now, if this inspector general has no jurisdiction to investigate because the president is above the agency, no inspector general has jurisdiction to investigate. that's the effect of that opinion. do you disagree? >> i believe the opinion was based on the reading of the statute, and whether or not the situation here is compliant and comes underneath the statute. the office of legal counsel opinion was that, based on the criteria, that you are required to have in order to support this legal statute, it does not. it also said that because of that is not a matter of the intelligence community.

however, you may go forward, and i have. >> that's the key issue, director. because it involves the president, it does not involve the intelligence community. that is the sum and substance. the effect of that is the inspector general has told us that he no longer has jurisdiction to investigate. by the logic of that opinion, nor does any other inspector general. now, as you point out, this was referred to the justice department. referred to the fbi and justice department. that department, under bill bar bill barr, and with breathtaking speed, decided there is nothing to see here. decided, "we don't believe it says violation of the campaign finance laws, therefore we are not authorizing an investigation." the fbi is not authorized to investigate any of this. any of this. so the igs can't do it,

according to the department of justice. the fbi can't do it, because it doesn't meet their threshold that makes it worthy of investigation. so at this point only this committee and this congress is in the position to investigate. i want to ask you, going to the whistle-blower complaint, whether you believe these allegations are worthy of investigation. the whistle-blower says, "i have received information from multiple u.s. government officials that the president of the united states is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 202020 u.s. election." you would agree that should be investigated, would you not? >> chairman, the horse has left the barn. you have all the information. you have the whistle-blower complaint. you have the letter from the ic ig. we have the office of legal counsel opinion. and you have -- >> we do, but would you agree -- >> i agree there should be

investigation. >> you agree there should be an investigation? >> i agree it should be a matter of the chair in this committee. >> i'm asking you, as a career military officer, someone whom i greatly respect and i admire your service to the contrary, what do you believe that there is a credible allegation by a whistle-blower corroborated by apparently multiple u.s. government officials, that the r of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election? do you believe that should be investigated? >> i don't believe it is corroborated by other folks. the whistle-blower said he or she spoke to about a dozen other people. this is secondhand information. i'm not criticizing the whistle-blower -- >> yes, but the inspector general took those two weeks, as you well told us, to corroborate that information. we don't know which of these

officials they spoke to. they found it credible. you told us you have no reason to believe otherwise. am i right? >> i had no reason to doubt a career inspector general lawyer in his determination on whether or not it was credible. that is something for michael to determine. >> let me ask you this -- the whistle-blower also says that over the past four months more than half a dozen u.s. officials informed of various facts related to this effort to seek foreign interference. you would agree we should speak to those half a dozen u.s. officials, would you not? >> i think you have all the material the committee needs, and i think it's up to the committee how they think they need to proceed. >> i'm asking your opinion. as that of our intelligence agency, do you think that we should talk to those other people and find out whether the whistle-blower's right? >> my responsibility is to get you the whistle-blower letter, the complaint, and the information released. i have done my responsibility. that is on the slowed down my shoulders of the legislative

branch on this committee. >> "i've also concerned that this undermines the u.s. government efforts to deter and counter foreign interference in u.s. elections." you would agree, if there's a credible allegation along those lines, that we should investigated? >> i agree, if there is election interference. the complaint is not about election interference. it was a classified, confidential, diplomatic conversation -- >> involving election interference sought by the president. that doesn't take it out of the realm of seeking foreign assistance. it makes it all the more pernicious. wouldn't you agree? >> [scoffs] as i said, i don't disagree with the ig ic's assessment that it was a credible matter. >> there was a there was a bully further says, "he saw the help e

reelection bid." you would agree that should investigated? >> necessarily, sir. it was a bit skewed by the federal bureau of annunciation. >> no, it wasn't. that affirmative justice concluded that this would not violate the election laws. no one could understand how they could reach that conclusion after the two years we've been through, but nonetheless, they didn't authorize the fbi to investigate it. you would agree someone should investigate this, wouldn't you? >> if i didn't, i would not have referred it to the justice department and to the fbi. >> then i'm glad we are in agreement. the whistle-blower says, "they told me there was already discussion on going with white house lawyers about how to treat the call, because of the likelihood in the officials were telling that they had witnessed the president of uses office for personal gain." you would agree that should be investigated, wouldn't you? >> all i know is that the allegation. >> is credible and therefore

should be investigated, right? >> again, it is hearsay. secondhand information. it should come to this committee for further investigation. you have it. you have the documents. >> i just wanted to confirm that we are in agreement, that the committee should investigate it. they also said, "donald trump expressed his conviction that the ukrainian government would be able to improve ukraine's image and can do not completely in the station of cases that have held back cooperation between the u.k. and united states." this is the use whistle-blower citing the ukrainian readout. do you agree, they are talking about corruption cases, it's talking about investigating biden and his son? and that has held back -- the failure to do that has held back cooperation between our two countries. that should be investigated, right? >> i don't agree with any of that. i did not agree that it should be investigated. i complained of my requirements under the documents.

it's up to the chair, the ranking member, and these committee members to decide what to do with that information. i am in no position to tell the chair or the committee to do an investigation or not do an investigation. >> okay, i find it remarkable that the director of national intelligence doesn't think credible allegations of someone seeking foreign assistance in a u.s. election should be investigated. let me ask you this -- the whistle-blower further says, "in the days following the phone call, i learned from multiple u.s. officials that senior white house officials had intervened to lock down all the records of the phone call." do you have any reason to believe that the whistle-blower's allegation there is incorrect? >> i have no idea whether it's correct or incorrect, sir. >> someone should find out though, right? >> excuse me? >> someone should find out if it's incorrect, shouldn't they? >> i don't know if it's an incorrect allegation. i just do not know. again, that is the business of the executive branch of the white house and the office of the white house --

>> corruption is not the business, or it shouldn't be, of the white house or anyone in it. >> the white house decides to do what their privilege communications and medication, i believe that as a business of the white house. >> do you believe that's true even if it involves crime or fraud? i'm sure you are aware there is an exception to any claim of privilege. privilege can't be used to conceal crime or fraud. >> any crime or fraud or instances of wrongdoing should be referred to the justice to permit of investigation, as i did >> the whistle-blower further alleges that white house officials told the whistle-blower they were directed by white house lawyers to remove the electronic transcript, that is of the call, from the computer system. in which such transcripts are story story. instead, it was loaded in a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature.

one white house official described this act as an abuse of the electronic system. i do not know whether similar measures were taken to restrict access to other records of the call, such as contemporaneous handwritten notes taken by those who listened." we should find out, shouldn't w we? >> chairman schiff, when i received a letter from michael atkinson on the 26th of august, he concurrently sent in a letter to the office of white house counsel asking the council to control and keep any information that pertained to the phone call on the 25th. it was a lengthy letter. michael would be able to address it better. but i do believe the ic ig -- i know that the ic ig has sent a letter to the white house counsel requesting that they keep all this information. >> but you would agree that if there's a credible allegation from this credible whistle-blower that white house officials were moving these records into a system that was

not designed for that purpose, in an effort to cover up potential misconduct? that ought to be looked into. you would agree with that, wouldn't you? >> to the best of my knowledge, when this allegation came forward, this whistle-blower complaint on the 12th of august, i have no idea what the timeline was as far as whether or not the white house, the national security counsel, where anybody involved in that conversation, what they did with the transcripts, where they put them. i just have absolutely no knowledge, nor the timeline of that. it is not something that would be under my authority or responsibility. >> the whistle-blower makes a series of allegations involving mr. giuliani. cites a report in "the new york times" about his trip to ukraine to press them to pursue investigations that would help the president and his 2020 reelection bid. do you agree that if the president was instructing his

personal lawyer to seek, again, for an open u.s. presidential election, that that would be improper? i believe mueller described such efforts to seek foreign assistance as "unethical, unpatriotic, and very possibly criminal." would you agree with director mueller, that to seek foreign assistance that way would be unethical, unpatriotic, and very possibly in violation of law?" >> i believe that mr. giuliani is the president's personal lawyer. whatever conversation the president has with his personal lawyer, i would imagine it would be by a client-attorney privilege. i am in no position to criticize the president of the united states on how he wants to conduct that, and i have no knowing of what mr. giuliani does or does not do. >> let me ask you about a last couple allegations of the whistle-blower.

"i learned from u.s. officials that on or around the 14th of may, vice president pence was instructed to cancel his planned travel to ukraine to attend president zelensky's inauguration on 20 may. the second tenant the secretary of energy led the donation said. it was also made clear to them that the president did not want to meet with mr. zelensky until he saw how zelensky "chose to act" in office. i do not know how this guidance was communicated, or by whom. i also do not know whether this action was connected with the broader understanding described in the unclassified letter that a meeting or phone call with the president and president zelensky would depend on whether zelensky showed the willingness to play ball." do you know whether mr. pence, vice president pence's trip was

pulled? because of an effort to find out first whether ukraine was willing to play ball? >> chairman schiff, no, i do not. i have no knowledge of any of that, until this information came to me from the ic ig. i have absolutely no situational awareness or no knowledge of any of those facts. >> would you agree, if the vice president's trip was canceled in order to put further pressure on ukraine to manufacture dirt on mr. biden, that that would be unethical, unpatriotic, and potentially a crime? >> i do not know why the vice president of the united states does did not do . i do know what the allegation was within the whistle-blower complaint, and i do not know whether that allegation is accurate or not, mr. chairman. >> finally, the whistle-blower says, "on july 18th, and office of management and budget official informed the agency

that earlier that month there were instruction to suspend ale help to ukraine. no one knew why this instruction had been issues." senator mcconnell said the other day that he spoke with the with the secretary of defense and secretary of state and he didn't know why the instruction had been given. doesn't that strike you as suspicious, director, that no one one on the national security staff, no one in the senior leadership, apparently, of the party here in congress, that approved the aide, understood why he was suspending aid? doesn't that strike you as just a little suspicious? >> chairman schiff, i'm just unaware, to be honest with you, how those decisions are made. again, no situational awareness of what happened. >> as a military man, if this military aid was withheld from an ally that is fighting off putin's russia, and it was done so to be used as leverage to get dirt in a u.s. political

campaign, don't you think that should be investigated? >> i have no reason to believe -- i do not understand, i have no situational awareness if that was withheld or why it was withheld, mr. chairman. >> i can tell you, we are going to find out. director, i want to thank you for your tenance today, and for your service, as my colleague underscored. mr. welch. i completely share sentiment. no one has any question about your devotion of the country. no one is any question about your acting in good faith. i want to make that very clear. i think you are a good and honorable man. like my colleagues, i don't agree with the decisions you made. i agree with the inspector general's view of the law, and i am deeply concerned about the message this has sent to other whistle-blowers about

whether this system really works. if a subject of a complaint can stop that complaint from getting to congress, then the most serious complaints may never get here. i want to thank the whistle-blower for their courage. they didn't have to step forward. indeed, we know from the whistle blower complaint, there are several others that have knowledge of many of the same events. i would just say to those several others that have knowledge of those events, i hope that they, too, would show the same kind of courage and patriotism that this whistle-blower has shown. we are dependent on people of good faith to step forward when they see evidence of wrongdoing. the system won't work otherwise. i have to say, to our friends in ukraine who may be watching, just how distressing it is. that, as their country fights to liberate itself from russian oppression, as it fights to root out corruption in their own

country, what they would be treated to by the president of the united states would be the highest form of corruption in this country. that the president of the united states would be, instead of a champion of democracy and human rights and the rule of la law, would instead be reinforcing a message with the newer ukrainian president, who was elected to root out corruption, but instead the message to that president would be, "you can use your justice department. just call bill barr. you can use our justice department to manufacture dirt on an opponent." that that's what democracy is. "you can use foreign assistance, military assistance, vital assistance, as a lever to get another country to do something unethical." the idea that a fellow democracy democracy, a struggling democracy, would hear the messages from the president of the united states, i would just say to the people of ukraine --

we support you in your fight with russia. we support you in your struggle for democracy. we support you in your efforts to root out corruption. what you are witnessing and what you are seeing in the actions of this precedent is not democracy. it is the very negation of democracy. this is democracy. what you saw in this committee is democracy. as ugly as it can be, as personal as it can be, as infuriating as it can be. this is democracy. this is democracy. i think you, director. we are adjourned. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> harris: nearly 3.5 hours of watching the much-anticipated testimony of the acting intelligence chief, amid the growing showdown over the whistle-blower complaint about

president trump's call with the ukrainian president. that phone call sparked house democrats' impeachment inquiry. i should say, the whistle-blower's complaint about it, which we had not seen until today. chief intelligence correspondent catherine herridge just stepped out of that hearing on the hill and we want to go straightaway to her. we watched this. give us the context and the perspective now. >> l, harris, good afternoon. we just had the nation's top spy, the acting director of national intelligence, joe maguire, testified that the nation is in a unique and unprecedented situation. he testified that he doesn't know who the whistle-blower is, that he has never discussed it with the president. at this point he believes the whistle-blower has acted in good faith and follow the law. joe maguire defended his decision not to immediately share the whistle-blower complaint with congressional committees. he said he followed the letter of the law, and that the complaint did not meet the legal standard for an urgent concern.

maguire said it has to be classified in nature, a violation of the law, and it had to do with either funding, the administration, or operational intelligence activities. in this case he said it did not meet the standard because it had to do with a diplomatic phone call between the president and the president of the ukraine. maguire said he took this issue to the justice department internal lawyers for the executive branch, the office of legal counsel, and they also agreed that it did not be the urgent concern standard. so the clock stops on providing it to congress. maguire said he then had to sort through executive privilege issues, because it was a conversation with the president, and he said that's why it has taken about five weeks to get the information to congress. here's maguire from earlier today. >> opinions from the department of justice office of legal counsel are binding on all of us in the executive branch. i believe that the situation we have and why we are here this

morning is because this case is unique and unprecedented. >> as all of this was unfolding today, we were able to see for the first time in public the whistle-blower complaint, which is very lightly redacted. beyond the call between the president and the ukraine precedent, it also alleges that there was inappropriate handling of the transcript. so it raises the specter of a cover-up within the white house. here's maguire on that issue with congressman swalwell. >> there is an allegation of a cover-up. i'm sure an investigation, and before this committee, might lend credence or prove that. but right now all we have is an allegation, secondhand information from a whistle-blower. i have no foreknowledge of whether that is a true and accurate statement. >> what we just learned from maguire in the last few minutes, he says the inspector general for the intelligence community,

that's the internal watchdog that initially handled the whistle-blower complaint, sent a letter -- according to maguire -- to the white house asking them to preserve the records that surround the president's phone call on july 25th. finally what you saw play out this morning, harris, really for the three and a half hours, with a clear and stark political divisions between the members of this committee, republicans and democrats. it started with the opening statements. >> yesterday we were presented with the most graphic evidence yet, that the president of the united states has betrayed his oath of office. betrayed his oath to defend our national security, and betrayed his oath to defend our constitution. >> we are supposed to forget about all those stories. believe this one. in short, what we have with this story line is another steele dossier. >> that is a reference to the

opposition research by the dnc and the clinton campaign during the 2016 election. if you take it to the 10,000-foot level, what republicans say is when you look at the complaint it does rely on a number of media reports to kind of connect the dots on what they think happened in the white house, at the back up their allegations. at the end of the day, this is not the end of it. i think spielman maybe leaving shortly he's heading over to the senate side, where he's going to testify in a closed session before the end of the intelligence committee. >> harris: a pointed fact before you bring it up to the culture discussion -- i want to make sure this is true and correct. maguire at one point was asked -- i believe by new york congressman maloney -- why the whistle-blower complaint was given to the subject of the complaint before congress would see it. meaning, the president. >> sorry, repeat that again to make you make are you talking about the chain of events?

what he's testifying to was basically that it didn't meet the standard for this urgent concern. he said this was the finding of the lawyers within the justice department. they are like the lawyers for the executive branch. the argument from democrats -- i don't want over simple fiat -- but the argument by democrats is that a record with allegations by the attorney general and the president went to the very offices that are the center of the allegations. so you took that to the justice department run by bill barr and two white house lawyers to do with executive privilege. so what they're saying is that these are not objective entities that are looking at was a blur complaint. so we don't trust their findings in this case. that's really going to have to be for folks at home to decide, whether this assessment really is a proper legal assessment. >> harris: catherine herridge, thank you very much. you were spot on with understanding what i was asking. thank you. i want to welcome to "outnumbered," first timer jeanne is a zeno, political science professor at iona college. often joins me on "overtime"

with a left perspective and sometimes a mid-left perspective. >> jeanne: nice to be a newbie! >> harris: welcome! we also have ed henry. we often lean toward watching these things together, and walking back and saying, "what were the headlines," i will come to first on that. >> ed: i think joseph maguire was a very strong witness for the president. he pushed back on the democratic narrative, which was basically t committed some kind of a crime, is what they are saying. and now with the complaint, what's new today is that there was also an attempt to cover up. and that the cover-up could be worse than the crime. i want to stay very quickly -- we will go to the fax over the rest of the hour -- there are serious questions for the president and the white house to answer. this should not be soaked in the carpet. however, joseph maguire made clear that the narrative is wrong. he himself did not try to cover it up, that, as katherine said, this did not meet the legal threshold for urgent concern to turn it over immediately to

congress, number one. number two, this is not first-hand information from the whistle-blower. the whistle-blower does not have first hand info of the president or others in the white house engaged in wrongdoing and/or a cover-up. so it still secondhand information. does this warrant an investigation to get the facts? yes, clearly, it does. does this warrant and impeachment inquiry? not so sure of the about that. speaker pelosi said today at a news conference that she believed joseph maguire, the dni, broke the law. she accused him of breaking the law. that's the big deal. that this should lead to impeachment. i would add, finally, adam schiff, the man watching all this, for two years he said he had evidence of russian collusion. it did not appear. so yes, there are serious questions for this white house. but let's look at who's throwing the allegations. and their track record is not so good. >> harris: i wrote that down because i want to get one of the serious questions as we go on.

jeanne, i want to come to you. just talk a little bit about what ed was saying in terms of how this is kind of being used or talked about among democrats right now. >> jeanne: yeah, i think you're exactly right. as you listen to this, there are several issues. one is maguire's handling of this. the other is a potential white house cover-up. but i think the danger for democrats with some of these hearings is that they missed the big picture, which is whether the president abused his power. that is the grounds for a potential impeachment inquiry, and then impeachment. to me, some of this muddying of the waters does work to the the presidents advantage. i think democrats in the house in particular need to be careful of that. if they want to impeach and then move to a trial in the senate, they are going to have to approve not just that mcguire somehow mishandled or didn't make the correct assumption when he said it wasn't an urgent concern, but that the president abused his power with

asking the ukrainian president for a favor. that amounts to a quid pro quo, which they have said would mean grounds for impeachment. >> harris: emily, the attorney on the couch with us, what jeanne just said was very important. there are two different lanes. are we prosecuting the whistle-blower, or trying to figure out what happened in terms of what the president did or didn't do? >> emily: right, i think what was interesting about today's proceeding is it was somewhat focused myopically on that complaint and more specifically the acting director's response to it. as viewers were watching it, as we were watching it, we saw the big picture. we saw the forest for the trees. but the conversation was strictly run those decisions one after another and why he did them. if you think were interesting, first that congressman conley pointed out that different lawyers are different opinions. that there are clinics on both sides that are quite conclusive with, frank would come a lot of room for it to. if he thinks to point out -- the acting director made it quite clear that it's his team, he

kept saying. that his team brought the attention of the doj and it will see. for better or worse. his immediate triage was for executive privilege. this is a man of process. perhaps he was held captive by the process. perhaps it's to his detriment, but it seemed like he was this product of these decades of military service where his first inclination is to go through a bureaucratic process. subject of the complaint. >> harris: the term campaign issued a statement on the house until committee hearing just a few minutes ago. "this whistle-blower complaint is an even bigger host dominic hoax than the russian collusion. it's echoed by the biased big news media. we know this account was couple to give a bipartisan bureaucrat with no direct knowledge represented by an attorney for hillary clinton and donor to joe biden's campaign." democrats are trying to block the inevitable reelection of president trump because they know they can't beat him fair

and square at the box." >> kennedy: they'd better have something real, and they better have something big, if they are going to go through this entire process and suck all of the oxygen out of washington. they might. i don't think we've seen it yet. i don't think they've seen it yet. the problem is, if you take a look at the chart is being leveled against the president right now, they sound very serious. the problem is, if response will journalists go back and look at the same types of conversations and dealings and quid pro quo that's happened with passive illustrations, you might build a case that you seen the exact same thing with president clinton and president bush and president obama, over and over and over again, particularly with allies -- "allies" -- like saudi arabia and turkey. quid pro quo means "this for that." that's not necessarily illegal. i think every initiation of every president can say, "that's a get things done. we've got something they want. we have to exchange in order to get what is most beneficial for

us." the question is -- and i don't think democrats have done this yet. they have not drawn the line, when it sort of falls over the cliff of illegality. that's very, very important. that has to be completely stark. so people can look at this objectively and say, "yes, that was wrong. that was against the law." not, "that was untoward and i don't like and, therefore i don't like that." that's not enough for impeachment. >> ed: it also may have been proper for the president to say this. it may have been improper then, for the white house, according to the allegation -- we haven't established us as true -- secondhand, again, is that they then tried to put records of this phone call with ukrainian president because it was embarrassing, potentially troublesome, on some sort of a classified server. to lock it down, if you will, according to the complaint. so the public would never know about it. that might be improper. it might not be against the law. and even might not reach high crimes and misdemeanors for impeachment. i brought her point is, again, there could be really problems r

the white house. but the democrats have not established the facts before they jumped into impeachment. >> kennedy: have other presidents done the same thing? >> ed: let's get context on that. >> kennedy: has this administration done the same thing? >> jeanne: they've dumped into an inquiry. if they are drawn up, i agree with you. then they need the facts. >> ed: but the ground shifted from sue capozzi. >> emily: absolute coming of 220 democrats in the house. >> harris: this is what i call some of these hearings. if your buddy's grandstanding. "oh, my gosh, no! is to turn to jump through the high wire loop!" could they have done this better in terms of democrats? to go behind closed doors for its entirety, and talk with maguire before they walk out their performances? i don't know. again, just a really basic question. the much-anticipated testimony now, the acting intel chief, is over. the reason we have a camera shot of the hallway there is because on capitol hill we are waiting

for joseph maguire to exit. sometimes people will say things to the cameras. there is a scrum of reporters at all times. >> ed: it looks like the set-asides where he's going to go for. we will wait to see if he talks to reporters. >> harris: with the senate. real quickly, you were talking about this part of the whistle-blower complaint. i do not know whether similar measures were taken to restrict access to other records of the call, in terms of taking information out. according to this whistle-blower's complaint, of an insensitive nature. putting them aside, outside the computer system that everybody has access to. there is a question about contemporaneous handwritten notes that may have been taken, to those who were listening in. >> ed: this on the transcript, or some reasonable reassembly of a transcript of the call with ukrainian president. that was released yesterday. the whistle-blower complaint released today. to your question, there could have been john bolton and other officials at the time of that call taking contemporaneous

notes that may square with the transcript we saw yesterday or may go further. that maybe kept into that may be kept in a file we haven't seen. what jeanne is talking about, presumably they may try and subpoena get other records that could back up the president's account or maybe look like the transcript yesterday, which didn't tell a story. again, we don't have those facts yet. i will go back to what joseph maguire, one of the most important things he said that again and again, i'm paraphrasing. all we have is an allegation from a whistle-blower with secondhand information on the cover up. you're going to impeach a president, you need more than secondhand information about a cover up. >> emily: i want to point to a couple points in this complaint. it references a pattern. he says, "this is not the first time -- quote rather than classified, sensitive, intelligent-sensitiv intelligent-sensitive. >> harris: for timing and need to cut in a bit. we will be right back i'm emily.

there'll be an opportunity again. joseph maguire, the chief intel, the acting intel chief right now. he's expected and then go behind closed doors with his senate testimony today. we are awaiting his arrival from one section of capitol hill to the other, and as that happens, sometimes mics and cameras are there and we are all over it just in case. are we seeing it? there you go. >> kennedy: ask and you shall receive, harass! >> harris: sie? cubicle. what i was asking about previously, they started buying posters and have the performance we had with house intel. i don't know. we don't have the answer to tha that. jeanne is madly nodding that yes, they could. >> jeanne: leasing the democrats messes up your look at corey lewandowski pray that was not a good hearing for the democrats. i always say to know what you are going to get before you put it out there. nancy pelosi is very good at counting votes before he goes to the floor. the democrats in these committee

hearings -- >> ed: she pointed to something else. the lewandowski meeting was mishandled, and some of the robert mueller testimony. it didn't turn out how jerry nadler wanted to be. is that why adam schiff is taking more of a lead now? >> harris: that's interesting. >> ed: nadler's hearings have not gone the way democrats plan. >> harris: emily, coming back. >> jeanne: speaking of the quarries, he mentioned that for two years nadler has talked about what he has. the public remembered when cory booker stood there and said, "this is my smartest moment," and nothing happened. the public are members with their seeing. they're a member of the grandstanding. that also comes in a play. as pelosi mentioned, whether it's public perception, they have a memory for help congress has behaved. we've seen unfold before us and all these hearings. >> harris: joseph maguire is inside of the senate side. that's behind closed doors. we are covering it. we don't know how long exactly this could take. stay with us here on "outnumbered." as the news pops we are bringing it to you. noon board members. we have some great new ideas that we want

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>> harris: the house intel, adam schiff talking with reporters after talking with the

dni chief. let's watch. >> it lays out a scheme to use the leverage of the president, to use the leverage of the vital military assistance to a foreign nation to provide or obtain dirt on at political opponent. it's hard to imagine a more serious set of allegations than those contained in the complaint. the complaint goes further, obviously, than the record of the call. in that it also alleges that there were efforts made to conceal this scheme, by moving communications onto servers that were designed for an entirely different purpose. there were designed, in fact, to contain communications of covert action and other highly- highly-sensitive department of intelligence information. it is a deep irony that the department of justice would say this is outside of the jurisdiction of the directional national intelligence, and yet someone felt that this should be

put in the place that is used for the protection of the most sensitive of classified information. but what we do know at this point is this. when the inspector general found this whistle-blower was credible, he was right. because what this whistle-blower said about the nature of that call has been borne out in great detail by the call record that has not been released. in a very substantial part, this whistle-blower has already been found to be credible. whether the other allegations that go beyond this specific call will be borne out has yet to be determined, and that will be the subject of our investigation. this whistle-blower has given us a road map for our investigation. but it's important to underscore that what we are able to cooperate already about the whistle-blower has been corroborated in detail by this record of the president 's conversation with the president

of ukraine. that gives added weight and urgency to the need to get to the bottom of the other allegations that are made by the whistle-blower. once again, i want to express my profound gratitude to the whistle-blower for coming forward. i'm grateful for the director for coming to the committee. for not requiring us to use coercion. yes, we provided a subpoena, but nonetheless, he came before a committee and he can before the committee voluntarily. while i believe that he has made the wrong decision in withholding the complaint, like my colleagues, i respect his service to the country. but we are profoundly concerned with the breakdown of this whistle-blower system that has been manifest over the last month. that a whistle-blower who is deemed credible, that they complaint deemed urgent, that a complaint that was intended to come to congress, would be

withheld from congress. and to do so would be on the basis of advice given by the subject or subjects of the complaint. it's all too apparent, all too palpable. it is indeed a a minor miracle that we got the complaint at all and we got the all. at the end of the day, what is alleged in this whistle-blower complaint goes to the very heart of the president's oath of office. that he faithfully execute the laws of the country, that he defend the constitution. if, as it alleged, if as this record of call already indicates, the president was instead of faithfully executing his office was use it on mike using that office as leverage to obtain dirt, to have another country manufactured dirt on his opponent, it's hard to imagine a more fundamental abuse of that office. so we are determined to get to

the bottom of this. i'm happy to respond to a couple questions. >> reporter: what are your next investigative steps? what targets emerge from reading this complaint and from the hearing today? what's the timeline under which you are hoping to work? obviously, recess begins friday for the next couple of weeks. >> we will be working through the recess. as i mentioned, i think the complaint gives us a pretty good road map of allegations we need to investigate. there's a whole host of people, apparently, who have knowledge of these events. that the whistle-blower makes reference to. we don't know how many, or any of them that have already been interviewed by the inspector general. we will be having a subsequent hearing with the inspector general, which you have requested. so we can determine what he was able to find and has been limited investigation. he only had 14 days to do it. but it looks like he did it for more substantial investigation that anyone in the justice department was willing to do. we will see what witnesses have

been interviewed, which haven't. we will do our best to identify those. we will obviously be bringing the whistle-blower in, and i was pleased the director committed to having the whistle-blower come in as soon as the issues are resolved for the whistle-blower's counsel. and we have the commitment of the director of national intelligence that there will not be some minder from the white house with a deferment of justice or anywhere else that is instructing him what he can and cannot answer, or what she can or cannot answer. that further testimony, we will hopefully identify some of these of individuals who can corroborate these deeply have been troubling allegations. we also want to determine what the documentary evidence is. we need to look at the allegation that this might not be the only communication of a potentially corrupt character that was shielded by this classified information computer system abused for that purpose.

we want to know what role rudy giuliani had in all of this. you want to know what role bill barr had any of this. we want to know what ukraine understood was expected of them before they even had this a july phone call with the president of the united states. we know what we have to do, and of course, we will be guided by the evidence we find along the way. >> reporter: what potential crimes do you see? >> look, i think there are a any number of potential crimes when the president is soliciting for assistance. there can be no claim of ignorance this time. when a president is withholding authorized funding of congress to use as leverage, if the president were involved in somehow extorting a foreign nation to dig up or manufactured dirt on his opponent, if there's

an effort to cover up any of this conduct, there are numeral potential offenses. but i have no confidence that this justice department led by y the attorney general will investigate anything. except the president's adversaries. or claims that give fodder to the conspiracy theories which the president -- the pedal with the president was pedaling with president zelensky. the inspector general's appearing out of the jurisdiction, according to the deferment of justice, to look into this. as the department is unwilling to look into this, this will file within our responsibility. >> reporter: in these different interviews with rudy giuliani, bill barr, lee subpoena for those transcripts that were allegedly stored that were separate from the individual? >> i'm not going to get into specific investigate of steps at this point. as i made clear in the questions i had for the director today, i

think each and every one of these allegations, giving their seriousness and that no one is looking into this and no one has been, apart from this committee for the last month, that these urgent matters need to be thoroughly investigated. we are going to move as expeditiously as possible. of course, it's been the history of this administration, prior to this very graphic exception of the publishing of this call record on the provision of the complaint, the declassify of the complaint, that this administration has attempted to obstruct our inquiry in any way and in every way. we will look to conduct this as quickly as possible. >> we are going to head back into this room. >> okay. >> reporter: president trump just tweeted that you have zero credibility and a fancy to hurt the republic and party. how do you respond?

>> i'm always flattered when i'm attacked by someone of the president's. thank you. reported market she believes -- [indistinct] >> thank you. >> harris: we have just heard from the house intel chief, adam schiff. he was being asked about questions about the conversations we watch, because was public. with the acting dni chief, joseph maguire. then, toward the end, you heard him talking with some specificity -- we didn't quite get the timing of it --dash but they intended to bring in the whistle-blower for testimony before the house intel committee. what we've talked about on the couch as we were watching was whether or not i would be the public performance that we saw today. i say "performance" because no one really goes in there without the question scripted and all that kind of stuff. ed henry is with us on the couch. i don't know that you get as much when it's public like that. right now, maguire is in the

senate meeting. that's behind closed doors. we may or may not learn much detail about what goes on in there. >> ed: there will likely be some leaks but you don't get the grandstanding behind closed doors, number one. number two, you should don't like it should be different with it whistle-blower. they said they needed legal protections, should have been turned over to congress. if it's the legal definition of whistle-blower. by definition, that person would necessarily want to be public. they would want to do this behind closed doors. once they go public, the world will know the president, the president is going to know -- >> kennedy: unless that person has -- >> ed: legal protection. >> kennedy: or political aspirations, like corey lewandowski, uses moment in the center potentially want to senate campaign. >> emily: i noticed it was for only half a dozen officials that came. for arguments sake, that coaster meeting, there will be potentially identification or nonidentification of those people, depending on their protection, which may or may not ivory lead to a trove of information or nothing.

>> harris: can i just ask about the beginning of that document that we got today, that everybody got? because it's out. the whistle-blower complaint. very lightly-redacted, i would say. as you see it, this was a blur talks about more than half a dozen other people, that he gathered all this information. but he was not present for most of it, he or she. does not say they weren't present for all of it, but most of what transpired that is written about. what about those other people? >> ed: while this was happening on the outside, i noticed lindsey graham was talking to reporters saying he wants to know who these white house people are. >> harris: that's what i'm saying. will they lean in on that and find out if these officials are? >> jeanne: ed probably knows better, that the ig report is more complete and there were investigations and interviews done. so we may find out who some of those first ten people may have been. >> ed: with people inside the white house are more likely to be shielded by executive privilege. when he said he wants to bring in these white house people, the white house is likely to block that. >> kennedy: can ask the

question i really need answered? what is rudy giuliani doing in this capacity to that's what's most problematic here. >> ed: we haven't made the point, if the white house had something to hide, why did they turn over the transcript of the call and then the actual whistle-blower complaint within 24 hours of each other? if they are hiding something, they are doing a pretty bad job. public pressure obviously force it, but they've now put it all out there. >> kennedy: if public pressure with a mechanism, the president would have release his tax returns years ago. [laughter] so public pressure isn't always a driving force. >> jeanne: they knew this was coming, it was going to come up. so this is a way to get of it. >> emily: remember, the democrats heads pacific are humans why they were moving down that inquiry road. one was the content of allegations, and the second was the alleged stonewalling of the investigation prayed that would be a reason to release. >> harris: we are coming back on "outnumbered" in a few seconds. i've got to run upstairs for "overtime." stay tuned. >> ed: "ot, baby. with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis find

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>> kennedy: thanks so much to

the competent and delightful ed henry. [laughter] i hope you had a great time. >> ed: i had a wonderful time with all three of you, as well as harris. so stick around for her. >> kennedy: indeed. nothing happening today. that's a joke. it's a crazy day. keep it right here. we are back in eastern tomorrow. here's harris. >> harris: fox news alert, president trump reacting to the whistle-blower controversy just a short time ago. calling it another witch hunt. we are looking live now as the president has just arrived back at joint base andrews from the u.n. general assembly. big speech this week. events with foreign leaders. we see him descending the stairs there on and for air force one. he tweeted after the acting dni, joseph maguire, was just on capitol hill with the house intelligence committee in a public hearing. he said, the president, "it whistle-blower with secondhand information? another fake news story. see what was said on the very nice know i can pressure call. another