starts now. ♪ if it is friday, democrats are shifting into a new higher gear already on the impeachment inquiry. just moments ago, issuing a subpoena for the secretary of state and announcing that they will be deposing a lot of those officials already named by the whistleblower. one name not on the house subpoena list yet, rudy giuliani. but he does seem to be at the center of this growing scandal. how long until the president's personal attorney is in the hot seat too? and joe biden sits back accusing the president of trying to hijack the election. and we're about to hear from him for the first time in public since the whistleblower revelations. welcome to friday and the end of quite a week. and welcome to "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd here in washington. democrats are fast tracking their investigation into the president in ukraine.

which is at the heart of their impeachment inquiry. and breaking news, three house committees, including the intelligence committee which will be taking the lead, announced inthat secretary of state mike pompeo had been subpoenaed for documents. and these committees tell pompeo that your failure or refusal to comply shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the house's impeachment inquiry. the committee also announced that they scheduled depositions for five state department officials over the next two weeks. and nearly all of those witnesses were mentioned by name in the whistleblower complaint that was made public yesterday. as we told you, that whistleblower complaint is your guide to a witness list. and in the letter to pompeo, democrats note that giuliani's recent public statements have raised troubling statements about the state's department's involvement. and yes, seemingly at the intersection of every avenue of this scan dam is the president's personal attorney and friend rudy giuliani. we're learning that the full

picture of how alarmed some who white house officials were with giuliani and we're learning just hugh little giuliani seems to care about that. in fact here he is responding to reporting in the new york times that secretary of state mike pompeo himself was angry at the role giuliani was playing with ukraine. >> if it weren't to me, nobody would have uncovered and faced massive corruption by the vice president of the united states. in fact i'm a legitimate whistleblower and his state department, you know, asked me do this. so mike, if you are unhappy with me, i'm sorry, but i accomplished my mission. i have no idea if he is unhappy with me or not. i frankly don't care. >> and we're also learning the extent of his communications with ukranians. with the help of some incredible reporting by richard engel who spoke on camera with ukraine's former prosecutor general that was at the are center of some of this, bottom line it is hard to see how they fast track the work

without going through rudy giuliani. he is all over the call with zelensky and frankly all over the place in what he is telling us he's been doing. so let's try to dive into what we're learning. with me now are kelly owe do'do, she's cover capitol hill for years, richard engel and peeter baker. kelly, i want to start with you. you had one of the first scoops of the day that seemed to confirm yet another aspect of the whistleblower report, a portion of it at least which is that yes, there is a different more secure server and yes, this phone call transcript if you want to call it that or notes did he said up on that special server, but -- and why don't you fill in the but. >> well, as the president tries to discredit the whistleblower or rudy giuliani says it is only hearsay information, white house officials do acknowledge that

lawyers took the notes and did in fact put them behind code word protection on a special server that would typically be reserved for the highest level secrets. and what is important to know about this is now officials are also saying, kellyanne conway in particular, that after the early days of the trump administration, when some of the president's foreign leader phone calls which are typically classified by their very nature to protect those conversations, that there were leaks that ended up being embarrassing to the president. he was criticized for the way that he interacted. that they tightened up some of the procedures. and so a big question is, how long of the foreign leader phone calls ended up behind this higher level of security. but the white house acknowledges that the call that has directed all of this attention and impeachment inquiry was protected in the most secret place, the code word protected secret server. so very few people could have

access to it. so it is affirming a detail that the whistleblower put forward in the complaint. >> and it is important. so far many of these details that the whistleblower had in the complaint, they continue to check out. peter baker, as usual you got the president's personal ire today. i want to set that aside. do they have a strategy yet? and is there a rudy giuliani/donald trump strategy and then a white house strategy that are not -- and can they co-exist? >> a great question. i don't think that they were necessarily ready for this this week. you know, as the president himself said earlier, they thought impeachment was dead. and so they are suddenly trying to ramp up to counter the obvious momentum that the democrats in the house have right now driving toward an impeachment. you know, they had some ideas in place for back in the summer, back in the spring when they were worried about robert mueller's report.

you can see some of that playing out now, going after individual democrats for caving into the left, that is the phrase they use, by going along with impeachment as an inquiry. the president's own strategy clearly is make it about biden, biden, by kidbiden. he is the corrupt one here and at least muddy the waters so that you can't impeach me if you are not looking in to him. but i think that rudy is off on his own at times. rudy giuliani has his own, you know, style that seems to be in contrast even with itself. >> and i think the question with rudy is what has he been doing in ukraine. and who has he been meeting with and which part of this. and for that, richard engel, you have spent some time in ukraine this week trying to get to the bottom of this. you spent time with apparently one of the investigators that helped fan the flames of this

biden news and at the same time has retracted it. what have you learned and can we trust with what is coming out of the ukranian government whether this current one or the previous one? >> so you listen to that astonishing quote that you played from rudy giuliani, how he is he saying that he is the re whistleblower here, how he uncovered massive corruption by the biden family in ukraine. so the truth is, he didn't uncover massive corruption by the biden family in ukraine. but he has been looking for it. and he has been -- and the president has been pressuring the ukranian government to cough it up. what we have learned is that rudy giuliani has been on this dirt digging mission around the world, but focused primarily on ukraine, talking to officials, talking to then current now former ukranian prosecutors in

order to get information about the former vice president and his son hunter biden. and this goes back primarily to a period just after the revolution here. there was a revolution that overthrew the government in 2014, a new pro american government came into power. and in this very sensitive time, hunter biden took a job as a consultant for an energy company here in ukraine. now, nothing illegal about that. but it did according to giuliani and according to some officials in this country and independent investigators, it did have the whiff of impropriety. so now giuliani is digging into this, president trump you saw in that phone call wants the new ukranian government to reopen its files and find some dirt on biden. so we spoke to the former and he said prosecutor and he said that he met or spoken to giuliani at

least ten times. >> that is amazing. let me play a quick excerpt of that interview that you had. here it is. >> did you find any corruption by then vice president biden or abuse of power or corruption by joe biden's son hunter? >> i can declare that i don't know any possible violation of ukranian law. once again, ukranian law by sa giuliani put in touch with a political investigative columnist of some sort where he gave another version of events? >> so there have been multiple prosecutors here. and this particular prosecutor

was involved in investigating this energy company that hunter biden had a contract with, received money from. and cleared the company. said that there was no wrongdoing by biden, no wrongdoinging by joe biden. but today when i spoke to him, he said yes, i did clear the company and he just said that in the quote you just played, but he went on to say i've been talking with rudy giuliani to say, well, there was no wrongdoing here in ukraine, but maybe if the united states wants to find wrongdoing or abuse of power that was committed in the united states, that he'd be willing to cooperate with giuliani or those close to president trump to help them on their investigation. so he is showing a willingness to tell what he knows to president trump and his personal envoy rudy giuliani. so also important to understand that ukraine is in a very weak

position here. they are fighting a war, they are dependent on the trump administration. president trump has cut off funding almost $400 million in military funding for ukraine. and so in that context when president trump is pressuring the president of the country, when the president's personal envoy is rooting around for information, and this country is fighting for its survival, you can understand why they would be willing to basically cough up whatever they have or tell the white house whatever it might be looking for. >> let's me switch half gears here to the news of the last hour. which is the pompeo subpoena, kelly o'donnell. do we have an indication yet how cooperative or uncooperative that the white house counsel wants everybody to be? >> we don't yet. and remember, mike pompeo himself is a harvard law graduate so he understands these

issues very carefully. and part of what he is being requested for here is that as secretary of state, he is the ultimate cuss stotodian of docu and that is what the three committees want responsible for the inquiry. and also interesting in just the way that this has all played out, when you look at the letter from the committees, so much of it is about rudy giuliani, his recent television appearances, his tweets in the footnotes, rudy giuliani twitter. i mean that is the world we're living in now. they are cited here because giuliani has talked about his interactions with state department officials. and this has also reached a subpoena level because committees had in prior letters to the secretary of state asked for information about various pieces of information from the department of state and got nothing. so we have already been in a posture where the state departments that not provided information. so it would be a big change for the secretary of state to

provide information. but again, this is the power of a subpoena in what is now an inquiry of impeachment that changes things. and it would seem more likely that they would be compelled to provide information. and i'm not a lawyer, so if there is a way out of that, i don't know what it would be. it is a subpoena ands a you mentioned, the deposition that would happen would be government employees who worked for the department of state. those would typically happen behind closed doors. >> peter, i don't want you to speculate about how this will end, but i will say this, there is a familiar pattern here with the president. in that you could just have -- you just have this feeling that rudy giuliani is turning -- may end up being the shield here, but just because you are the president's shield, the president may move away as you become that shield. do you get an indication -- i'm already feeling it from people

around the white house who wish rudy giuliani would be the one thrown under the bus. is that where this is headed? >> a great question because of course the extent to which rudy giuliani's travels and interactions were ukranians were known by president trump is something that we don't know. broadly speaking the president did know and was encouraging. in fact he tried to facilitate it by talking to the president of ukraine as we saw with that rough transcript released this week. but did he know everything that rudy giuliani was doing, how closely was he reporting back to him. these are all questions that we haven't had. so how much distance could he put between him and rudy giuliani should he choose to do it. you know, it is not easy to imagine. so far he has embraced mayor giuliani, not willing to cut him off. we don't know what would happen if push come to shove. hard to imagine how he could resist a subpoena, but he might make the argument of legal

privilege there. the committees will definitely want to hear from rudy giuliani because he is in the middle of all of this. >> and we'll get into that, but that is one of those that he is at the center and you have to subpoena him, but it is like the scorpion and the frog. so who those. thanks very much all of you. up ahead, the need for speed. democrats want the impeachment investigation to take weeks not months and the subpoenas are starting to fly in order to keep up with that pace. plus we'll be live in las vegas as joe biden speaks publicly for the first time since the release of the whistleblower complaint. of the whistleblower complaint of course i have- ever since i started renting from national. because national lets me lose the wait at the counter... ...and choose any car in the aisle. and i don't wait when i return, thanks to drop & go. at national, i can lose the wait...and keep it off.

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noted, rudy giuliani's recent comments are a big part of this development. let's bring in the panel for this one. julia ainsley, michael steele, and came writtorinne jean pierr. julia, let me start with you. i just want to take a step back. to think how long mueller took. >> i know. >> and all of that. and we have gone in four days, mark murray, my pal tweeted this, in four days we've gone from is pelosi going to back impeachment to subpoenaing the secretary of state. >> right, we're so far past those questions. and i think it is a lot easier for people to digest and maybe a reason why it is moving so quickly politically because it is finally in front of us. think about how many tentacles the mueller probe had. it got to the point where why do

i care about michael flynn's business associate, what does that have to do with trump and russia. this is straight in front of your face and the only difference is how people are interpreting it wednesday win go got the notes and then the complaint, a lot of people say how do they come back from this, this is so clear evidence. but we already have so many answers. including the fact that there will not be a further criminal inquiry that we know of into this. the fact that -- >> and i'm wondering will bill barr get subpoenaed. >> good question. >> so they went fast today. the recess, it is interesting, i do a lot of -- i talk to a lot of affiliates on fridays around the country. and to a person all of them the question was why are they taking a recess. because to the nonwashington crowd, it wait a minute, you just made this momentous decision and now -- and i get

it, jewish holiday, columbus day, it is fraught with peril to cancel these recesses. but are democrats at all hinky about that? >> it might have helped to stick around and put the pressure on. but committees will stick around, they will continue to do their work. i think it is fascinating that they which choosing to go after michael pompeo who is implicated by rudy giuliani. they seem to be trying to go drive a wedge between those two potentially out of hope that one or both will start revealing things that they wouldn't as a way of protecting themselves if they feel like things are getting serious because there are a lot of people that speaker pelosi identified as people that democrats will want to go after. >> and i want to say something about them going into recess. what will happen when they go back to recess? they will go back into their districts and we know that the polling is moving faster than we thought. i think that we've seen about three pollings in the last 24 hours. so i think that there is something that is really

important about going into their district, the intel committee will do their job, power through. so interesting to hear what they hear back. >> and why this seems different, simply we have the president's voice and even though we read it, i heard the president in it. so at least again, it is not mike flynn's business deal. it is the president. so it is at least i get it, i understand what it was. >> it is also prospective rather than retro spceipt row receipt d spec difference. and i remember a week ago today we were thinking does it actually feel different or are we just so shell shock that had we can't tell anymore. i think they are getting toward the right answer on the recess. there is momentum to these things. there is a feeling of urgency. i do think that having the intel committee continue to work is smart, but i do think that they

also need to think about an announcement and having a televised event every day. shows like this, people -- >> even if just an hour or two public and then you go behind the scenes for classified info? >> even if it is after the classified or before the classified, you need to feed the beast. >> and house democrats are suddenly realizing that they have an ability to affect public opinion. they had the conviction to impeach, but they wanted the public to get there. >> rather than driving the story. >> and what they didn't realize is that lot of voter s looked a this and said there must be something there and now they are saying maybe there is something there. >> i want to center the discussion on mr. giuliani. first it will be there will be a debate among democrats on whether do you call him as a witness. adam schiff was not ready to commit to that earlier today. sorry, guys. we'll try to get that.

>> will you call giuliani to testify before your committee? >> well, i'm not going to comment on specific witnesses that the point. but clearly he is a central figure in all of this. it certainly appears from the record of that phone call between the two presidents that someone had laid the ground work. ukraine understood what it was going to be asked for. and i suspect that rudy giuliani had a large hand in that. >> i want to put up the full screen. seven guys from the daily beast here, democrats are split as to whether giuliani's would do more harm than good and some expressed concern that hauling a loose cannon like him would risk a replay of the circus created by corey lewandowski. like i said, scorpion and frog. he seems to have all the answers, but he may not give them. >> yeah, and it is so hard not to draw a parallel to the last

investigation and how the president used his personal attorney in the past. this is a lot of michael cohen written all over it. and will the president fall into the same fallacy of thinking that rudy giuliani will be faithful to him just like -- >> or simply take the bullet. >> and you have a president who used his personal attorney to essentially be his fixer and carry out this work and then of course the other question is was he using his attorney general in the same way or was he suggesting that he might? >> i get the feeling that there are a bunch of republicans that would love to not deal with impeachment but pin this on somebody. so that if they get an opportunity -- yeah, that giuliani, you know, the president was misled by his attorney. like i can almost hear the john thunes of the world grabbing on to that like a life raft. >> as a historical fact, the "washington post," this day in

2008 rudy giuliani was leading the republican presidential race by four points, six ipts fpoint. yes, if the president will go along with it and the president defines loyalty as something that he receives rather than something that he gives, and the other interesting split i think that i'll be watching is people in this administration who have a political future and people who do not. mike pompeo has a political future or wants to. rudy giuliani does not. >> that is an interesting point. >> and i'm sure pompeo witched that he had parachuted out of the administration and went to go ahead and run for senate. >> it is still there. >> it is still there. he refuses to rule it out. >> that is true. he has refused. and i'll say this, this week has been amazing in this way. this is the first time democrats have controlled the message. every time who controls the message? donald trump. they have been able to lead this

and he was caught flat footed. >> which is what makes the recess so risky. >> good point. >> gives -- you might give a vacuum that trump gets to fill. >> especially for two weeks. >> the people happiest about this recess are senate republicans. they have had the most awkward time. so many have literally said i've not read the complaint. >> like seven pages. i mean -- >> yeah. there is an audio. >> an audio book if you are really lazy. >> middle schoolers who get assigned more homework than this and they are purposely deciding not to read it because they don't want to comment on it. >> one of the funnier things that people have put together. >> two weeks ago we were talking about sharpies and a hurricane hitting alabama. two weeks in this environment is a very long time to stay on top and drive the message without the members in town. >> all right. we'll pause it here. the big table. stick around. up ahead, a live look at las vegas.

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public event since nancy pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry and since the whistleblower complaint was released. let's go to mike memoli who is at the event covering all things biden. so mike, we were expecting biden to address the ukraine issue at the very beginning of the event. so did he and how did he do it? >> reporter: yes, he did. and with apologies at the out t outset, i'll do my best jim nantz impression. but yes, sir, he began his remarks here with an explicit reference obviously to the events of the past week. he started by talking about the fact that he believes that the president may have not only violated the oath of office, but committed a crime. but then as he has in fundraisers behind closed doors throughout the pa west week tal about the fact that he thinks trump is trying to hijack the election. let's take a listen to what the

vice president said. >> in the weeks and months to come, it is the congress' job to pursue the facts and to hold donald trump accountable. in the meantime, my job, our job, is to make sure that above all else we beat donald trump. >> reporter: and so chuck, what is interesting is that we've had this discussion since the beginning of biden's campaign about his biggest strength in this race being his ele electability. so he is deferring the question of what happens next in terms of impeachment to congress. he wants voters to -- he focused on the fact that there are 70 polls that show him beating donald trump head to head. that is what he is trying to do here by distracting the voters. >> any change in attitude from the biden campaign about how to imagine all the

handle all the coming that will be coming at them? we talked about this before. any thought of a checkers like speech to go back this history, any thought of trying to more directly deal with this and deal with it once. >> reporter: it is interesting, in his fundraisers this week, at one biden actually talked about the toll that this whole swirl is having on his family. he talked about his conversations with his grandchildren, that they were concerned even at the start of the campaign about some of the memes they were seeing on social media. but we also know that sometimes what he says at a fundraiser is a test drive for what may come publicly. but we also know that there is still a lot of hesitation to talk about hunter biden. high conversations with hmy con been been focused on pushing back about whether or not he actually has any issues to address in terms of his own conduct. they don't want the conversation still to be about hunter biden, they say that is playing on

donald trump's turf and they don't intends to do that. >> mike memoli, thanks very much. up ahead, democrats want to make it a quick impeachment probe. so how soon can we expect to see a vote on the house floor? at fidelity, we believe your money should always be working harder. that's why your cash automatically goes into a money market fund when you open a new account. and fidelity's rate is higher than e*trade's, td ameritrade's, even 9 times more than schwab's.

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i think that we should move with purpose and expeditiously, not hastily though. and the matter is in the hands of the intelligence committee undell the leadership of adam schiff for whom we're very proud. they will take the time that they need. and we won't have the calendar be the arbiter, but we do -- there is -- it doesn't have to drag on. >> welcome back. that was nancy pelosi on this network today talking time tables on the impeachment probe into president trump. and with today's subpoena sent from house chairman to the secretary of state, it is clear that democrats do want to

attempt to proceed expeditiously. so the panel is back. she was also asked about the role of bill barr and the attorney general has played. here is joe's question to her about barr. >> let me ask you about the attorney general. >> he's gone rogue. i think where they are going is a coverup of the coverup and that is really sad for them. and to have a justice department go so rogue, and they had been for a while and now is just makes matters worse that the attorney general was mentioned. >> and you and i did a long sort of back and forth trying to explain bill barr's role in all of this. and in fact it seems like we've learned even more through the reporting from the "times." bill barr, at first justice tried to make it seem that he had not a lot to do with the

whistleblower report and then we're hearing that he knew it was making the rounds. >> it was making the rounds. now that i go back and listen to what they have said and you can pick apart the words a little bit, what the justice department still maintains is that bill barr did not know about this phone call until it became a whistleblower complaint. in other words, it wasn't that the president hung up the phone with the president of ukraine and then called his attorney general as one would question after reading the notes of that call. so it didn't come to him until that point. but we've been asking how involved was the attorney general in the decision to block the whistleblower complaint from congress. this was everyone before we knew about his direct involvement with the phone call and with that of the favor. and then also the question of why did they decide to leave the investigation on the table. and they said generally knew about it but did not have direct knowledge. i even had someone bring up the fact that he was on vacation at the end of august when all of this was coming around. but it is really hard to

understatistunder statist state bill barr's exposure here. especially if you are looking at that he is in chanlg ofin charg justice department and the fbi and they decided not to follow this very clear roadmap laid out in this complaint but instead to stick to the cursory notes and leave it there. >> and there was a separate referral sent to the fbi but the fbi simply deferred to the justice department's discretion that not must have to pursue a criminal investigation. >> and there is every chance democrats will want to get to the bottom of this because the allegation by the whistleblower is actually extraordinary that the president of the united states was trying to enlist the law enforcement apparatus of a foreign country and the law enforcement apparatus of the united states to go after a political opponent. >> but we don't know what they did with the fbi and that is a question that i've been having, i don't know if they ever went to the fbi if they really had a problem with the bidens, why didn't they go to the fbi. that is still a question to me

that somebody has to answer. >> and were there conversations between the president and the attorney general about this. he oversees the fbi as well. so all roads lead to him. >> and i think mr. barr knows mr. rudy giuliani's cellphone number as well. so that also feels like a next too a bit. >> i think that it is something to probe. i think -- i get the sense that the attorney general is a lot more careful than giuliani. and so i would expect that there may have been conversations,but given what a loose cannon giuliani has been, somebody with a career like the attorney general's he i think would be very, very careful about what he shared with giuliani. >> and, you know, we may come to the point where he claims that there may be a point where barr might be forced to have to name a special counsel. i imagine mr. barr is looking for every way to avoid that outcome.

but i don't -- you know, it is amazing how low he is trying to fly. >> the way that i see it, there is no difference between bill w barr, rudy giuliani and michael cohen. bill barr decided a long time ago before he even jumped into the position that he was going to be a fixer for donald trump. that he is donald trump's personal lawyer. >> you know, i understand that that is the way some people view him politically, but i think that he is trying to follow the letter of the law. >> but i'm saying that his past, he has very much been the president's personal lawyer. i get that you are saying that he is trying to avoid -- >> he believes in an overly strong executive -- >> but the problem is that his actions have been questionable at the least. >> and i think -- as you are pointing out, barr really is unpopular with base democrats. so i do think that getting him in a subpoena will be --

>> michael is right that he is someone -- let's not forget this is not his first rodeo as attorney general. i think a lot of us expected him to walk in with more separation and understand the tradition of the justice department. certainly there have been plenty of episodes throughout his shorten you're as attorney general that have called us to this table to discuss why he may decisions that he did like not moving forward with an obstruction probe, saying there could have been spying on the presidency. but the recusal question is interesting to me. we brought this up with senior doj officials. >> yeah, if he was named in the calling, how could he make this decision. >> and they said well of course he doesn't need to be recused because being recused of what investigation, there is no investigation. so it is a circular logic. >> and as you know about every five minutes rudy giuliani does another interview with somebody and that somebody is our partner sky news. and he has told sky news that he would love to testify before congress. >> well, that will be quite a

spectacle. >> and which i'm not surprised at. i don't think rudy giuliani fears anybody. he thinks that he can handle any incoming. and that will be a spectacle. >> democrats better have the goods when he comes in because he will be prepared to play games, deflect. he is very good at -- >> you better not miss. this is the super bowl. they need to be ready for this. >> they need to have their best ready to deal with him. and i would not give him the television at first. i'm sure if i'm giuliani i make the deal i don't come unless it is on television. they should try to keep him off -- >> democrats will not win the game of theatre with rudy giuliani. the only way that they can win is to have a counsel question him and to get him to answer things that they can then use either the articles or to pursue further information. >> or very carefully coordinated member questions with a very strong chairman shutting hill

do him down. >> and he wants the theater. he wants this.ill him down. >> and he wants the theater. he wants this.ll him down. >> and he wants the theater. he wants this. him down. >> and he wants the theater. he wants this. him down. >> and he wants the theater. he wants this.him down. >> and he wants the theater. he wants this.him down. >> and he wants the theater. he wants this. >> does the white house want it though? >> when you say white house, the president may want this. he loves theater. the white house -- and this is where i'm telling you, this is what we've all felt all week. what you just said. the white house petrified of every part of giuliani part of the story. but not the president. >> it is a huge gap. it is also clear that the white house is petrified about what is on this call. there were officials that spoke to this individual, lawyers that put it into a classified him for things that are usually national security sensitive. there is a fear there that somehow didn't come through in the president's consciousness. >> so i think the most interesting person to subpoena is john bolton. and he is supposedly the one that raised the most alarm bells about rudy giuliani's role in all of this.

and i don't think that he will be shy. >> he has less responsibility to silence than others that have left this administration. >> how fascinating it would be if john bolton is the hero of the house democratic caucus. i'll drop the mic right there. up ahead, just what is the value of political dirt? we've been trying to figure that would be out. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. you lost we" of course i have- ever since i started renting from national. because national lets me lose the wait at the counter... ...and choose any car in the aisle. and i don't wait when i return, thanks to drop & go. at national, i can lose the wait...and keep it off. looking good, patrick. i know. (vo) go national. go like a pro.

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welcome back. president trump has admitted to asking a foreign government to help find dirt on his political opponent. the president's admissions about his interactions with president zelensky would seem to amount to a potential of violation. at least, it's enough to think they would open up an inquiry to see if there is any "there" there, but the justice department said what they discussed did not amount to a thing of value. with me now is richard katz. he's at the irvine school of law. he's basically every reporter's go-to guy on campaign finance issues. rick, it is always good to see you. it's my understanding, by the way, rick, that one of the reasons justice so easily dismissed the ability to investigate this as a crime was because, as the mueller report noted, it is hard to put a value

on opposition research, which i guess this might be. this seems to be the flaw in this law. is it? >> well, you know, first of all, we don't really know what the justice department thinks because all we know is they declined an investigation and they've talked to some reporters off the record. i've heard two different things, one is they didn't think opposition research could be a thing of value, and another thing i've heard which is quite different is we don't know how much it's worth. i think both of those arguments aren't really very strong. the federal statute says you can't solicit a foreign government or foreign entity to give a thing of value for purposes of a campaign. federal election commission chair ellen weintraub just tweeted out yesterday a memorandum which points out all the times the courts and the federal election commission have held that things like polling data and other information counts as a thing of value.

for it to be a felony, it would have to be worth at least $25,000, but, you know, you don't need to have an exact market price when prosecutors are trying to put, you know, some cocaine into evidence. they're not going to look at what the price is at cvs. they're going to call on some periods of time and say, what is this worth? if you're sending rudy giuliani halfway around the world to try to dig this thing up in a multi-mimulti multi-million-dollar campaign, it's at least worth $25,000. >> i'm going to put up the mueller report, page 227, and they are explaining why they were trying to file charges under the federal statute. a foreign entity that engaged in opposition research and provided opposition research to a campaign could make a better tendency to ingratiate the owner than things of value. at the same time, rick hasen, no division has treated the

voluntary opposition as a thing of fainancial research that coud amount to a contribution under campaign finance law. >> mueller didn't call him in for any kind of compelling testimony. he made a lot of different arguments as to why he declined to go after trump jr. i think a prosecutor could have gone forward with a case if there was the political will to do so. the idea that the justice department would decide in this case not to go forward, not release a memo explaining why and not have the recusal of someone who is involved in the case, all of those things together, it does not pass the smell test. >> by the way, if we do believe bill barr has to recuse himself, is this going to trigger that bill barr might actually have to appoint a special counsel? do you read the law that way? >> well, you know, i think this

is all secondary. all of this talk about whether or not trump committed a campaign finance violation, whether he committed a bribe or extortion, it's not the same standard as the standard of impeachment. i think the next thing is going to be, is this an abuse of power, and that's not the same thing to ask the question is this something illegal where he could be prosecuted? that could be down the line if p r -- they decide to prosecute him. he showed no concern about corruption anywhere else in the world or about anybody else in the world. >> but it is probably something that will be a political decision, not a legal one. rick hasen, as always, sir, thank you very much, and we'll be right back.

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hey, quick note before we go. tomorrow is our birthday. we're celebrating four years of "meet the press daily." a foul presidential term without impeachment. we launched the show on february 28, 2015. we've been here the equivalent of that entire four-year term, so how about that? thanks to all of you for being here with us that entire time, sticking with us through the good, the bad and the ugly and all my facial hair changes. anyway, that's all we have for tonight. we'll be back monday with more "meet the press daily," and if it's sunday, it's "meet the press" on nbc with my man

leading this investigation, adam schiff, and the number two republican in the house, steve scalise. "the beat" with ari melber, and ari, it's been 12 minutes and the president has contrad t contradicted himself. >> you're four years on the air and you mentioned your beard changes. with regard to your four years, sir, we're hoping you'll be like fdr and go four, eight and beyond. >> as they say in cable television, one year at a time. as for the beard, you brought it up. we love the full beard. you're fully bearded now. >> you're the inspiration, my friend. nobody does it better than you do. you grow a beard in half an hour. >> i'm like homer simpson. if i shave it, it comes back the same day and we just keep on keeping on. we have, as chuck mentioned,