of the impeachment inquiry. he is the president's personal lawyer. but now, his own actions in ukraine, ones that are being called "shadow foreign policy," have put him and his associates under the microscope. - the goal of this was to defraud the american public. there was a reason that the former president was doing this, and the reason was in order to be able to tell the american public that joe biden and his son were under criminal investigation. they're not disclosing that there's nothing to it. this quote, unquote "objective investigation" was bought and paid for. - i would think if it was necessary... - we can survive without a trip to dc. we can survive without, you know, any, like, energy deals with the us, or pretty much anything, with one huge exception, our military assistance, because we're a country fighting a war with what used to be a superpower. and we rely on that military assistance to survive. - when zelensky took office, his top foreign policy priority, certainly, was to show his people that he will maintain the relationship with the united states. - [speaking russian] - so you have to be seen with the american president. you have to pay a visit. you have to do a phone call. you have to go to the oval office and have a meeting. that's how you demonstrate to your people that you are maintaining the alliances that are most important to ukraine. president trump understood that perfectly well, and he withheld it as political leverage. - first, he delays a call with zelensky until zelensky will pressure his prosecutors to start the investigation. when zelensky won't do that, finally trump gets on the phone with him. and he's held up aid to ukraine... [tense music] which is really alarming when russia was on its doorstep. then trump has the phone call with president zelensky and asks zelensky to open up the investigation, look into joe biden. - and in the call, which donald trump forever refers to as "the perfect call," he tells him, you know, "i need a favor from you, though. i need you to do something for me." - i'll read the first sentence, but the whole transcript is-- it's useful to read it all in context. but the first sentence was where the then-president says, "i would like you to do us a favor though, "because our country has been through a lot, and ukraine knows a lot about it." and then he goes on to say, "i'd like you to look into something and open an investigation." - what's stunning about this moment is that the people in the national security council who have to listen in on this call, many of cannot believe what the president has just said. he has asked a foreign leader to investigate an american citizen-- or two or three. - it's hard to imagine something more despicable. - this is an nbc news special report. here's savannah guthrie. - morning, everybody. it's 10 a.m. on the east coast, 7 a.m. out west. we have breaking news this morning. it's tied to the now impeachment investigation into president trump. a lot of this renewed attention is focused on the president's phone call with the leader of ukraine and whether there was an inappropriate ask during that call. - we are now starting to see the actual testimony from the depositions in the impeachment inquiry so far, the transcripts, and they are as damning as expected for the president and his allies. - there's no law that says you can't take in information from a foreigner. this was an innocent man who was being framed by a group of scoundrels. - where do we stand with this? and the role of rudy giuliani, in particular,