for an entire year. thanks for everything that you do, rachel. thanks for watching. ari melber is next. i will be back in t minus seven hours. good night from new york. good evening. welcome back to our series "impeachment: white house in crisis." tonight we join you for the first time since the house judiciary committee voted to approve those two articles of impeachment against donald trump clearing the way for the house to clear the second impeachment. now tonight we have a whole series of experts to help us break down the charges against president trump and also how to watch what's coming next. we will also look at why democrats chose to go with this narrow case for impeachment. i have another story that relates. the origins of the russia probe and a justice report that

debunks many of donald trump's claims about bias in that issue, which of course relates to the impeachment issues. but we begin with a look at the events that have led to the congress moving towards articles of impeachment. >> the house committee on the judiciary is introducing two articles of impeachment. >> a clear and present danger to our free and fair elections. >> where is the impeachable offense? >> why don't you just let him cheat in one more election? why not let him cheat just one more time? >> there are in crimes. it says it. there are no crimes. they're impeaching me, and there are no crimes. >> abuse of power, obstruction of congress. >> the question now is in article one of the resolution, impeaching president donald j. trump for abusing his powers. >> mr. chairman, there are 23 is and 17 noes. >> the article is agreed to.

abuse and obstruction, that is the core of the argument as this week the entire congress is set to vote on whether to impeach president trump on those grounds, which would tee up a senate trial on whether to remove donald trump from house. this is expected to begin as soon as the first week in january. speaker pelosi moving forward uniting her caucus with what many are calling the narrowest case against donald trump. one article on abuse of power, one on obstruction of congress, all about the ukraine plot. tonight we will dig into the evidence for these articles. this is what the house is currently on the precipice of using to try to impeach the president and it is what the senate will ultimately evaluate. they will begin with the first article, abuse of power and that is of course the whole show because it is about the accusation that donald trump, quote, used the powers of his

high office to solicit the foreign government in 2020. now, the argument here is that trump pushed the ukrainians to publically push the investigation into joe bidden. in the notes of his call, you see him asking the ukrainian president to look into biden, not, say, corruption in general. the congress is arguing that in the articles the key to the case, donald trump wasn't saying this once and hanging up the phone. that might not be impeachable say democrats. but in these new articles, they argue that he used agents within and outside the u.s. government to pursue the plot. there is evidences of that as well from the public record, impeachment hearings, from nationally televised interviews. >> secretary perry, ambassador volker and i worked with mr. rudy giuliani on ukraine matters at the express direction of the president of the united states.

>> so you did ask ukraine to look into joe biden? >> of course i did. >> and then you have the crux, that donald trump wasn't just asking these investigations. no. the evidence that he conditioned two things on the announcement of these investigations that would try to dirty up the bidens, one the millions of dollars in military aid and, two, a much kovcoveted white ho meeting where there was again evidence. >> i think it is crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. >> the possibility of a white house meeting was being held contingent to an announcement. >> was there a quid pro quo? the answer is yes. >> the answer is yes, an admission under oath by someone who still works for the president. the articles also then make the case that it's important to understand how donald trump and the white house reacted when busted. the argument is, and the

evidence suggests, that donald trump did relent on the quid but kept demanding the quo giving up the extortion because they released the money. but they still kept pursuing that corrupt thing. the article is noting that after everything donald trump persisted in, quote, openingly and corruptingly encouraging ukraine to take these investigations. >> we do all the time with foreign policy. >> i would think if they were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the bidens. it is a very simple answer. >> a very simple answer. and who is being honest? well, you could put it like this. mulvaney and trump both honestly, apparently admitted to some of this and then walked back or muddled those admissions. the public statements are only one part of what democrats say is a growing mountain of evidence which will be the basis for this week's vote in the house, which will then tee up a senate trial and ultimately lead to the congress, that is the

house and the senate, basically presenting america with a question: do you leave this question in place or you take the extraordinary step of removing him? we begin our coverage tonight with our experts, the former sdny prosecutor on the several side and a prosecutor in that same office as well as the eastern district of new york. bankers, gangsters, the whole thing. you guys have a lot of experience. when you look at and when viewers see that evidence laid out, it looks like a strong case. and what we saw in a lot of the hearings over the past week was republicans saying, pay less attention to the evidence. look at the process, look at the speed, look at the witnesses, things are generally unfair. how do you handicap and what does it mean? >> look, if you don't have a great argument against the evidence, then you make the only argument that is available to you, which is the process. the problem is now the stage is going to shift. now the republicans are going to

have full control of the process. they are the ones that are going to be able to vote in the rules they like. they are going to be the ones that will have the advantage here. they are no longer going to be able to complain about the process. now they will have to confront that evidence. as we have seen through all these hearings, that evidence is pretty damning. >> and that process is moving pretty quickly. some of us follow this day in and day out. some say, whoa, a month ago one thing was happening. there were these hearings. next week they're holding a vote to impeach the guy. this is real. a lot of people think, what do impeachment and love have in common? i'm sure you know the answer. you can't hurry love. you just have to wait. and a lot of people were waiting for impeachment, not hurrying it. and then all of a sudden hurry up and do it. i want to play chairman schiff's argument for why that is. the republicans have an argument that democrats are out to get trump either way. chairman schiff makes a different argument and hurrying impeachment. take a look.

>> the argument, why don't you just wait, amounts to this: why don't you just let him cheat in one more election? why not let him cheat just one more time? >> that's the right question when you are talking about whether these articles demonstrate an impeachable offense, because, remember, impeachment means not just the -- and you say this all the time on the show, ari. it is not whether the president did something wrong. it is how serious is it? because it is a very big decision to remove a sitting president. and what adam schiff is saying is it is very serious and it's very serious because it is our elections. it is very serious because it's our national security, which also includes our elections, and we have an election that's going t to be coming up in 2020. remember that donald trump doubled down in october on china opening investigations on the bidens and suggests he would

use, again, his office of the presidency in his trade talks with china around that. i mean, he said it explicitly. this motion that donald trump is not going to keep doing this when he has made it clear in his own words that he will really helps them in addition to taking the evidence that barrett was talking about and that you have mentioned, really demonstrates exactly the democrats' point, which is this isn't going to stop. >> it's not going to stop. if that is the case, donald trump and rudy giuliani say we're still at it. giuliani says, i've got the briefing. i've got the material. if you are not paying attention, there is sometimes the mistaken inference that is something is happening out in the open, it must be okay. but a lot of crime and a lot of mistakes happen out in the open depending on who you are looking at. and, yet, the republicans have also -- we're going to hear this in the senate -- argue maybe it

is bad but not a felony. lindsey graham was pushing that as recently as october. take a look. >> are you open minded if more comes out that you could support impeachment? >> sure. i mean -- i mean, show me something that is a crime. if you could show me that, you know, trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing. >> as lindsey graham obviously knows the standard for impeaching a president is not that he or she committed a felony. that is not the standard. it is not what it says in the constitution. that's not what the founders meant. he knows that's not the case. if republicans are waiting and if the new standard is that you have to be able to prove that a sitting president actually committed a violation of the criminal code, then we have completely undercut the whole notion of impeachment and taken away any power this has, and it

is not what it is in the constitution. >> let me read from the articles here because we're in a different place now that we have it. there was months of discussion about whether to impeach for mueller or impeach for this other stuff. now we really have them. it says ukraine rather than russia interfered in the 2016 election, was a conspiracy theory or a smear that donald trump was hoping to prove. why is it important at a basic level to even bother including that? the going after bidden, everyone talked about making that simple. that's more simple than putin wanted to frame this country that he's partially invaded. >> at least the way i read that article was, one, to say there is not a defense here that donald trump was trying to do something legitimate because we have a debunked conspiracy theory that his own team was telling him repeatedly was debunked that he himself had --

so he had no really good reason to believe it except that he has this call with president zelensky of ukraine the day after robert mueller testifies on his report of his probe, and, so, it's -- >> let me push back on that, though. just in a logical frame, and i say push back, but it's not like you wrote these articles. but if the argument is keep it simple and post-mueller, yes, donald trump did this. but you could also argue there was evidence in the mueller probe which was substantial evidence and five incidents. this brings it back as your answer just did. aren't the democrats wringing back mueller through a sidebar by getting into this re-hash. >> the democrats absolutely are leaving the door open to talk about a pattern of behavior. they say explicitly in both articles that what they are alleging is abuse of power. what they are alleging as

obstruction are patterns of behavior of donald trump as evidenced in -- they don't specifically say, but in the mueller probe and both in terms of what he -- the number of contacts with his campaign and -- and russia, russian operatives and also in terms of obstruction of justice. they don't say it that explicitly, but the sentences are clearly about that. >> let me fit in a break because you are staying. and part of what you are saying is that article one necessarily brings in aspects of article two, the obstruction of congress and these larger questions of donald trump's defiance, and that's not something the congress is necessarily courting. it is what donald trump did as what they view as his criminal style. i'm going to fit in a break as part of our special. when we come back, a closer look at this second article as mentioned, the obstruction of congress. and we'll break down speaker pelosi's impeachment strategy, a

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welcome back to our msncb special. the full house is prepping a vote this week to impeach president trump. tonight we're taking a closer look at the articles of impeachment against the president. the abuse of power in the ukraine plot has obviously drawn the most attention. the second article bears down on a strong precedent used in the impeachment proceedings of both johnson and nixon, obstruction of congress. >> president trump engaged in unprecedented, categorical and defiance of the impeachment inquiry. this gives rise to obstruction

of congress. >> president trump has obstructed congress fully, without precedent and without basis in law. if allowed to stand, it would decimate congress's ability to conduct oversight of this president or any other in the future. >> what you're listening to there is the two chairman of the intelligence making their case. now, is that fair? is that rhetoric? well, they lay out how the white house has been discouraging information and basically building on what democrats have laid out in those hearings, including testimony from donald trump's own aids who say they're not allowed to talk and they can't even get e-mails or evidence to support their testimony to be accurate. 71 specific individualized requests have been denied requesting officials not to

testify. 9 witnesses have been scheduled not to appear and donald trump's defiance in a way could feel like old news. but that's what makes this significant. congress is doing something that, if you think about it, in the busy weeks we've had, take a step back. donald trump is doing things he thinks he can get away with. he wants to normalize them. if they become normalized, other presidents might get away with them, too. congress is saying no, you cannot deny lawful subpoenas. this lawlessness now has ko consequences. what they're about to vote on is donald trump's allegedly impeachable cover-up. i want to bring in to our discussion jason johnson, mia and barrett are back as promised. jason, your view about the necessity and the accuracy of this congress saying, this isn't another dispute. congress and the president have disputes all the time.

this is something larger. this is impeachable. >> yeah. so ari, here's the thing. people don't show up to congress all the time, right? there is all sorts of committee hearings where people don't show up. they claim they're going to rsvp. they're tired. that happens in congress. members of congress understand that not every single committee meeting is necessarily going to be viewed. but this is different. this is an investigation by congress, so when subpoenas go out and the president of the united states publically says, nobody in my administration is going to go. when the administration refuses to give e-mails and documentation, when people are testifying in front of those committees and the president of the united states actively threatens them and engages in witness intimidation, those are impeachable offenses. not only is this not normal, it is dangerous. we have never seen an example of presidents withholding individuals, withholding information and threatening individuals that are actually

going to testify in front of congress. >> i appreciate you laying it out so clearly. sometimes we reach for quotes or bars around here, as you know. sometimes we go into the crates, the history, can actuthe cultur. i want to go back into the bars of barbara jordan in the political history to think about how within these proceedings which then, that was watergate, and now ukraine can sometimes become a blur and seemingly endless. and then a moment breaks out or someone speaks with the gravity of their office and you are reminded of this time. starting with jason and down the line, everyone's reaction to both what jordan once said and what the democrats need to summon as they go towards next week house floor vote if they want to create some wreckening for the american public. she spoke to eloquently about the subversion and diminution. >> i am not going to sit here and be an idol spectator to the

diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the constitution. if the impeachment provision in the constitution of the united states will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th century constitution should be abandoned to a 20th century paper shredder. >> jason? >> she's got bars. i mean, and this is the reality that i think nancy pelosi needs to channel. if this is not impeachable, then basically nothing is impeachable. if we can't hold the president accountable for ignoring a branch of government and trying to subvert an entire election then we have no true power. so i like that channelling. i hope nancy pelosi can do her own remix. >> first of all, i want to say just the symbolic power of a black woman who did not get the benefit of the protection of the

constitution for generations saying i'm not going to allow it to be shred is -- i just think a moment to pause on. in addition and i'm absolutely on the same page with jason. the issue here is if donald trump gets to say, i don't have to give you a thing. in fact, i don't have to give you a thing even though i have not asserted a privilege that is specific to anything and then ignores the fact that the supreme court itself has said there is no absolute immunity for the president when it comes to these things. there has to be a negotiation. and some things are going to have to be turned over. then she's absolutely right here, and nancy pelosi and all of the democrats are absolutely right. but more importantly, the republicans should be deeply concerned about this themselves because do they really want to sign up for a system which says

a future president can just say no to them for any reason? >> barrett? >> yeah. i mean, i come back to looking at this through a former prosecutor's eyes. and i think about when we were making decisions about whether to bring a case or not. we never thought how is this going to make us look? is this going to make the office look good? look bad? it was has a crime been committed and what is the right thing to do. and she so beautifully articulated that same analysis that they did back then and that congress is having to confront right now, what's the right thing to do. >> jason, stay with me. turning back to our folks here on headquarters, though, impeachment central as it's become, i want to dig into why the obstruction matters when it is so blatant because everyone understands, whether you are a lawyer dealing with pushing deadlines or people buying time, there are all sorts of little ways, nixon cuts that goes on. but one of the things that was laid out is that this is part of

the trump play book of lawlessness, which makes it different from someone using legitimate, say, security or legal privilege. and then you say it might be abused, but if they have cooperated in other ways, there is some benefit of the doubt if you are being reasonable. i think that counts and applies even if you revile donald trump for a bunch of other reasons. there are rules here. mr. burk making the argument, i wonder how we'll see this if there is a senate trial, that, no, something much more corrosive is happening. take a look. >> president trump is re-playing the play book used in the prior department of justice investigation. in that investigation he directed his white house counsel to create a false, phony record and document and lie, denying that president trump had told him to fire the special counsel. he did many other things to try to interfere with that investigation. he attacked the investigators and witnesses and called them

horrible names, just as he has done here. >> yeah. i mean, there is nothing that gets to you more than obstruction of justice because it is the -- it is the way that we are able to do our jobs. it is the way we are able to hold people accountable is by simple things like subpoenas. and the law demands compliance with this. and when you don't get -- when you have add an mdministration t refuses to take the smallest steps to comply -- >> let's pause on that and remind everyone. we have a system of government with it is the executive that enforces the laws. so it is bad enough if a corporation or an accounting firm or some allege ed gangsters soon as they gets the document request starts burning or shredding documents. it is far worse if that is how the executive responds. >> absolutely. and i think the frustrating thing for congress and why congress decided that they had

to make this a stand-alone article for impeachment is their hands have been tied. they saw the mechanism of going to the judicial branch to try to have these things resolved was not effective. you have judges taking months and months to issue opinions. when you were on a timetable and facing a continuing threat, you have to have a more efficient way of doing it and you have to demand compliance. >> jason from washington, our other guest with 30 seconds to go, what do you see this coming week? >> look, they're going to vote for impeachment. it is going to be clear. it is going to go to the senate. but pay attention to this, ari. i want to see if there are any democratic defectors. if there is any over lap between democrats who don't vote for impeachment and those who didn't vote for nancy pelosi. they may think this is an opportunity for them to take a stand and be more indepent. >> that sets up what is the level of democratic unity and what happens in the senate. >> right. >> and how partisan or transpart

son does this get. my thanks to jason, mia and barrett. i appreciate it. we have a lot more tonight. we will look at speaker pelosi's impeachment strategy and why she's building this particular case against this particular president. at liberty butchemel... cut. liberty mu... line? cut. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. cut. liberty m... am i allowed to riff? what if i come out of the water? liberty biberty... cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ so chantix can help you quit slow turkey. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives,

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house lawmakers voting on two articles of impeachment against president trump. it reflects a decision in the making from democratic leaders after looking at everything to decide to go in the narrowest case against trump. in past impeachment, as we have reported, there were more at the initial phase. 11 for johnson, 3 for nixon and republicans initially teed up 4 for clinton in public. speaker pelosi has made a strategic position to start narrow. there is a range of factors for that. they left out all kinds of records the democrats are on the

record are arguing are abuses of power or high crimes or impeachab impeachable, including bribery, more specific election crimes and self-dealing and self-enr h self-enrichme self-enrichment. then there is the big one, the obstruction of justice that bob mueller himself laid out, which democrats have talked about as potentially impeachable offenses. >> i think number one is emoluments. i think it's always been about that for me. >> this is a president who has equated neo-nazis with those who protest against them. >> i will fight every day until he is impeached. >> we are joined by new york times columnist who has been all over this. you know, some people follow. some people summarize. i think in your writing and your advocacy you have lead on this. >> thank you. >> it is interesting to see some of the smart d.c. predictions

fade and evaporate as they often do. so we come back to you on the substance. two articles, is that enough? >> so there is two different questions. is it enough politically? and i think i would obviously defer to nancy pelosi's judgment about what she thinks will get the most votes in the house, what she thinks will be easiest to defend for her front line members, if they are making decisions on these bases, then i think she's the expert. then there is the question of justice. has donald trump committed other crimes? has donald trump violated the constitution in other ways? and the answer i think is overwhelmingly yes. there are obviously other things that he deserves to be impeached for. you know, which is one reason why i really wish that these hearings had gone on quite a bit longer and that there had been quite a bit public airing of the scope of donald trump's corruption and wrongdoing since taking office. >> well, you raised that and certainly in the mueller case, there was an attempt to have the lead prosecutor go farther than

he wanted. that didn't play well for a variety of reasons. then there was an attempt to bring in resistant fact witnesses. that didn't go as well either. and, so, i wonder, did they really get gun shy when you could, and we have, gone through the mueller report, sometimes with quotes and what they call sound bytes and sometimes with other voluminous material. it seems to me mueller is above everything because mueller is your appointed prosecutor who found at least five. >> well, again, i think it depends what metric you are judging by, right? whenever i argue youed for impeachment after the mueller report, people would say the public isn't with us. the public isn't there yet. the public isn't convinced. it is always a political argument. i don't know any democrat that didn't actually believe that the

misdeeds enumerated in the mueller report didn't deserve impeachment. again, it is a political question. he obviously deserved to be impeached for those things. and those things are crimes. i think that that's important because some of the things that he's being impeached for might be violations of the constitution, but not indictable crimes. the things he's accused of doing in the mueller report he could be indicted for. it is one of the examples he's able to use the fact that he's in this office that he utterly shouldn't be in to protect himself from his own record of law breaking. >> yeah. that brings us back to the echoes where precedent doesn't resolve eriverything. nixon's problem was not that a few people did dirty tricks somewhere along the line. the reason that he reached a level of impeachment where the senate republicans were telling him he was out and he resigned because the cover-up, which is legally called the obstruction.

it seems so backwards. i guess i'm baffled and, you know, our lonely eyes look to you. i'm baffled that in this era, the thing that was worse than the first thing has now become overboard. >> well, i think that the nixon impeachment took place in a time when there was some common objective reality and even the most shameless nixon defenders kind of had to bow before it. they couldn't simply go to their own tv stations and say up is down, down is up, you know, pretend that trump was totally exonerated by the mueller report just as they're pretending that all of their deep state conspiracy theories have been substantiated by this report when it is the exact opposite. so we have no solidarity from republicans with their fellow citizens to acknowledge the reality that's in front of all of our eyes, and this is why i think so many people are tearing their hair out as they watch this process. and, so, because of that, i

understand why democrats wanted to go with the most cut and dry, the easiest to explain, the hardest to explain away, but it does mean basically that trump got to break some laws without answering for them. >> you're hitting on something really big and deep, which is why it's worth having time to talk this through. the founders got some things wrong. they got a lot of things right about human nature, which is why there is so many checks and balances. but they certainly -- they didn't predict airplanes, and they didn't predict the empirical decline, the decay of truth in american life, which is what you are talking about, which is a prereprerequisite. we're not done. we will be having you back. thank you as always for being here. >> thank you. still ahead, a very special guest on another important story that's unfolding. it's donald trump's justice department undercutting his

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turning two a whole different topic, the origins of the russia probe has finally come out and it is making big headlines like these. the fbi was just fired to hold the russian probe and debunking claims of a witch hunt. even though the report debunks those claims, it shines a light on the failures and practices especially rewarding warrants. failures in the bureau's surveillance. parts of the warrant system have become a mess. donald trump's hand picked attorney general is seizing on this warrant issue. >> clear-cut evidence that the dossier that they ultimately relied on to get the fisa

warrant was a complete sham. they hid information about the lack of reliability even when they went the first time for the warrant. >> a complete sham. now let's remember the surveillance and related investigative techniques began with the four trump campaign advisers. three of them convicted. and the report found in bias or crimes. but this all has cleared one person, carter paige. when you compare the names listed in this report, flynn comes up 40 times. paul manafort over 200. carter paige, a whopping 614 times, which means paige averages out to twice a page in the report over the last two years. he spoke with the fbi for over ten hours, another six hours with the house intelligence committee, a bevy of television interviews. what does he have to say now? well, this key witness and

subject of the audit of doj staff, carter paige, is with me right here right now, one of his very first interviews since this whole report came out. thanks for sitting down with me. >> great to be with you again, ari. >> i'm glad to have you back wherever the story goes. i've got my report. it is a thick one. i noticed you brought yours. what do you think is important that comes out of this? >> i think the -- first of all, great initial work by the inspector general. i had concerns just because i hadn't been -- had the chance to provide any input and there was some privacy act questions. but in the end it was a great first step, and i think, you know, as you correctly eluded to and so many americans have been talking about just really serious, egregious misconduct. i'm very heartened that attorney general barr and the team at doj is going to continue looking into this serious issue.

>> an analyst well known in washington, he writes now that this has come out, if i were carter paige, i'd read this report with some grim satisfaction. paige has a right to be pissed off. the errors were not political. and he's referring to the fact that both things can be true. and this is a nuance that it can get lost reading here from the report, 17, quote, errors or emotions in the carter page warrant application. that's not nothing. but also, quote, no intentional misconduct on the part of the agents and as i mentioned no bias. do you accept that both there were mistakes with you but there was no larger anti-trump witch hunt found in this report? >> well, i know there is a witch hunt more broadly in terms of a lot of the direct collusion between outside actors and the fbi and doj. and we know this in terms that,

you know, the significant discussion of effusion gps, et cetera, the dnc and their direct involvement in this. i mean, this is clearly unprecedented in terms of serious election interference. >> and i understand your view. do you accept that this report doesn't find an anti-trump bias on the part of the fbi? because that's the other thing. you can divide this whole thing right now into warrants, that's you. >> yes. >> and then is the fbi out to treasonously take down donald trump? and i read the report. it says no. >> like i said, it is a first step. we will have to wait and see until we have the full details. as is stated in the report, they had a narrow scope talking to internal people within doj, and i think as we look more broadly, which i know some other people in the u.s. government are now doing, i think we'll have a much clearer picture. i think it is starting the national conversation and hopefully we'll learn a lot more

as this investigation continues. >> one of the things that was hard to know in real-time and we have had you on the show more than once and always tried to get your perspective because you learn more when you check with everyone. >> absolutely. >> one of the things that is hard to figure out in real-time is is carter page a secret russian spy or a person that got swept up in this? >> yeah. >> now i want to say this in fairness to you, both the mueller report and now this lengthy document that deals with you so many times finds you being swept up. you have been cleared. and, yet, do you think that donald trump makes it harder on people like you. you were at one point advising the campaign. does he make it harder when after you get cleared he goes out and asks, as he put it, ukraine or china to investigate his opponents? because it kind of then drudges back up the idea that, while you are in the clear, donald trump seems to really want foreign

involvement in dealing with investigations of his rivals. >> yeah. ari, listen, i have never met candidate trump, president-elect, president trump ever in my life, so i can't say. >> you were the foreign policy adviser at one time. >> a volunteer for a large team, yeah. >> a group. >> yeah. so i can't really speak in terms of factually. all i know is even just based on some of these allegations, which are being thrown around, i mean, what we've seen definitively with serious, hard evidence here is infinitely more serious in terms of, you know, the wrongdoing and as you said the 17 areas of misconduct. so, again, i think this is just a start and -- >> you say just a start. if the start of something that leads to greater public understanding of the truth, great. >> yes. >> if it's the start of re-litigating what now is and here done, that could go both ways. i want to play one of your appearances because i'm glad to

talk to you during because i'm o talk to you during this during the investigation, set to finish. i notice you haven't done a ton of interviews. you were on with sean hannity and on with mep. let's look at that exchange with hannity. take a look. >> do you plan on going after all of these people that did this to you? >> absolutely, sean. we have a team of terrence going through that document in great detail and i look forward to sharing that with initial thoughts with chairman graham and the senate judiciary committee. >> what are you getting at? >> well, i think as i directly alluded to, we're planning some very serious steps and i have a great team -- >> such as? >> well, it's early days. we're all still as you have been going through this very large document looking at specific causes of action, but i think it's just over flowing thus far -- >> but you're looking at

potentially new ways to sue the government for what you see is a violation of your rights? >> and the people that were in conspiracy essentially with the government or at leastco lugd right, going back to that old terminology. so early days, i have a great team, you know, some people that you may know. but we'll see. >> and you know my last question for you. do you recall do you feel a little like everyone treated you like you were out there and now you got this report and everyone coming back to you and embracing you? do you feel vindicated? >> i feel like there is a lot to be done for our country. originally i was a foreign policy guy and i thought about great steps that can be done in a foreign policy context for our country and that's why i was excited to be a volunteer with the trump campaign. now having been in depth in the law all those questions and controversies we talked about for years, ari, i'm excited we're in the process of doing some serious reforms.

i think the inspector general's appearance in front of the senate judiciary committee will be an important next step in that process. >> well, we're keeping an eye on a lot of it. the report has i would argue bad news for donald trump and bill barr. but it does have a lot of clearance for you as well as serious discussions about the warrant issue. i appreciate you coming back. >> thank you, ari. >> carter page, really appreciate it. when we come back, a another special thing we get to do on these sunday nights. we will dig into your new questions about this impeachment vote and what to expect. i will answer you up ahead. [ dramatic music ]

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it's called the internet. some things haven't. get ready for a reunion 3 million light years in the making. woohoo! -yeah! . welcome back. now we turn to something special we get to do on these evenings. we ask you. we've gotten a lot of them. keysclaudia posted this, why did the house only charge trump with two crimes? >> let's talk about high crimes

or offenses. they don't have to be felonies as articles of impeachment. this is what we were just discussing with michelle goldberg, democrats focus on ukraine thinking it was a clear cut case and that it is something virtually everyone in the democratic party can get behind. there are definitely those who think as i think this questioner does that maybe other things other high crimes to be included that would presumably mean getting into that obstruction of justice outlined by none other than that bob mueller, himself. here's another one from the boxer mom. hi mom, asking if trump is impeached by congress, the house, but not the senate, how can he still be running for re-election? well to answer that, you can think about it a little like the analogy of a trial. the impeachment articles are like the charges. you stand accused. the trial, though, ultimately determines the guilt or not guilty verdict. right? with impeachment that trial then takes place in the senate. only a conviction there would potentially lead to donald trump's removal from office, which if you are president is

the guiltiest thing. >> that comes into another question from one of you, dianne writing on facebook, after he's impeached on the off fans he is found guilty and removed from the president, can trump still run for president in 2020? well, this is interesting. the answer is it actually depends on what the senate does. here's why. did you know that the founders actually separated the question of conviction, which removes the president and disqualification which says you can never run again under the law. >> that means donald trump, if he were convicted or any president and then was disqualified. so, how does that work? it's a whole separate vote. the constitution allows senators to vote to disqualify a president from holding the presidency or any federal office ever again and these particular articles are arguing for that. they specifically say donald trump should ultimately be disqualified in the senate. but to be clear and this is why our viewers raise such an interesting question, the vote to disqualify him or any president under the constitution

would come after a vote on conviction. it would require only a simple majority unlike the simple majority needed to remove a president from office. i want to thank you. i got through some of your questions. i will be monday at 6:00 p.m. eastern on "the beat." see you then. [ music playing ] > . >> i was with my sister. i had to grow up without one. and in an instant she was gone. it changed everything. >> she dreamed of solving crimes. crimes claimed her first. >> with the gut wrenching fame, my daughter, please, please, don't let this be true. >> home alone