>> all right, martha raddatz from turkey. martha, thank you. >>> here at home now, to new charges tonight. fraternity members facing charges in the death of their underage fraternity brother. authorities say the 19-year-old was drinking at a frat party at an offcampus house, saying he drank himself to death. here's abc's marcus moore now. >> reporter: five fraternity members facing charges tonight in connection with the alcohol poisoning death of their underage fraternity brother in january. authorities say 19-year-old noah domingo, a uc-irvine freshman and member of sigma alpha epsilon, drank himself to death during what was supposed to be a fun and safe offcampus party at this house. >> someone's not breathing and they're not okay. >> someone's not breathing? >> yeah, they're not okay. like their whole body is, like, blue right now. >> reporter: this chilling 911 call captures the chaos of that night as the desperate caller tries to get help for domingo. >> he just drank. he just drank too much. >> reporter: of the five char

here now co-anchor martha raddatz. >>> good morning. welcome to "this week." it started with one whistle-blower. now less than two months later, a fu set to reach a critical phase. the first public testimony that will likely shape public perceptions of the investigation

>> all right, martha raddatz with us live tonight. martha, thank you. >>> and next, two federal prison guards on duty the night accused sex trafficker jeffrey epstein died appearing before a judge today and now claiming they are scapegoats in this case. prosecutors say michael thomas and tova noel falsified records. allegedly caught on surveillance cameras appearing to sleep or shop online. the pair have now pleaded not guilty. >>> now, to the race for 2020 tonight, the newest presidential candidate, billionaire former new york city mayor mike bloomberg making his first campaign appearance at a diner in virginia. saying he knows how to beat president trump. but one of bloomberg's democratic opponents, elizabeth warren, already saying he's trying to buy the nomination. abc's linsey davis from california. >> reporter: the billionaire former mayor of new york city kicked off his campaign for president of the united states at a crowded diner in norfolk, virginia. then, a low-key announcement in a hotel ballroom. >> we cannot afford four m

tonight, with the help from our partners at nat geo, martha raddatz with the story of this medical warrior. >> reporter: in the western tip of syria, the rain doesn't come often. instead, airstrikes pound down from the a constant in the civil war that has plagued this nation for eight years. years. years. year. deadly chemicals poison syria's people. the patients covered in dust, suffocating, come here to dr. ammani balure. by some estimates, nearly half a million people have lost their lives, 6.6 million displaced. above ground, entire neighborhoods left destroyed and desolate. so below ground they went. here, 65 feet below the surface is a hospital they call "the cave." >> it's scary, because you feel, you don't have any, anyplace safe. >> reporter: here in the cave, dr. ammani is in charge, the lead doctor at only 28 years old, a nearly impossible feat for a woman in syria, but not for a woman like her. you wanted to do what girls don't get to do. >> i dreamed of it. i know i can do something different. i have this idea very early when my sister get married 13. >> reporter: 13. >> yeah,

let's bring in our ringer, abc's martha raddatz who is hosting "this week." she's down in washington. martha, good morning to you. let's start with this impeachment saga that's going to begin to publicly unfurl in washington on wednesday. do you think the democratic presidential candidates are correct to wring their hands publicly about the fact this process could be a distraction, one that really ultimately could impair the party's odds of retaking the white house? >> i think it's a distraction. it most certainly is. it's a very important event on capitol hill. there will be a lot of attention focussed on that. but indeed, people won't be following the race quite as much, and i loved hearing whit say that he's out there, and he's talking to people, and they're not concerned about that. they want to talk about issues, but you can be certain reporters are going to continue to ask those candidates about impeachment, and how it is impacting the race. there's very little time before iowa and new hampshire. if these impeachment hearings go on and on and after the h

abc's martha raddatz has more. >> reporter: as far as president trump is concerned, his standoff withr. the navy secretary fired and the navy s.e.a.l. at the center of a war crimes case keeping his coveted s.e.a.l. trident pin and his rank under trump's own orders. >> with eddie gallagher, you know that story very well, they wanted to take his pin away and i said, no, you're not going to take it away. he was a great fighter. >> reporter: gallagher, while acquitted in the deadly stabbing of a teenage isis fighter in iraq in 2017, was found guilty of posing inappropriately with a corpse and sentenced to four months' time served. the president repeatedly intervening on gallagher's behalf, including publicly slamming the navy for starting the process for a review that could have stripped gallagher of his rank and full benefits. >> this is all about ego and retaliation. this has nothing to do with good order and discipline. >> reporter: secretary of defense mark esper firing navy secretary richard spencer. in an interview with cbs the former head of the navy was asked what message this sen

meanwhile, as some americans martha raddatz reports some troops are rolling into the country to guard the oil fields. >> reporter: so the u.s. now has troops leaving northern syria but hundreds and hundreds going into eastern syria. so in the end we could have about 700 troops remaining in syria despite what the president said. >>> president trump said he would pull nearly all 1,000 u.s. forces out of syria. the mission to the oil fields is being conducted despite that pledge. >>> back here at home, the weather played quite a trick on trick-or-treaters across most of the country. this video from syracuse, new york, area shows the heavy rain and wind that kids had to brave across the northeast to get candy. and farther south there was a threat of tornadoes. now, let's take a look at your friday forecast. >>> well, good morning to you. we are talking about windy conditions here across the northeast. that's going to be the big weather story as that storm system pulls away. all areas shaded in purple here, wind gusts, 40 to even wind gusts higher than that from new york city to boston as

tonight, abc's martha raddatz. >> reporter: tonight, chief petty officer edward gallagher at the center of a high stakes showdown between the navy's top leadership and president trump. gallagher was acquitted of war crime charges in the killing of a teenage isis prisoner, but convicted for posing in a picture next to the teen, defiling a corpse. but last weeshgs president trump granted him clemency. >> they tried to frame mel as a criminal from the get-go. >> reporter: but just days after gallagher was granted clemency, the navy started a process that could lead to gallagher being kicked out of the s.e.a.l.s and losing the try dent pin that identifies him as a member of that elite community. now president trump has stepped in again. today, in a stunning public reversal, tweeting, "the navy will not be taking away eddie gallagher's trident pin. this case was handled very badly from the beginning. get back to business!" just before the president's tweet, gallagher's attorney appeared on fox news, blasting rear admiral collin green, the officer spearheading the effort to remove gallagher f

let's go to martha raddatz. this also directly ties secretary pompeo to so much his work. >> reporter: it does, and we have both talked to secretary pompeo, and he has been evasive about what he knew about this parallel track. he'll say that relevant decision makers at the state department knew the important details of our efforts. the suggestion that we were engaged in some irregular or rogue diplomacy is absolutely false. he backs this up with some emails directly to pompeo. we don't know what he knew, but i'm sure there will be a lot of questions about that. >> chairman schiff has now entered the room. dan abrams, as he takes a seat, one of the things that sondland complains about is the state department won't give him the documents he needs to prepare himself. >> he's saying the process isn't fair because he can't get access to the documents that he needs to prepare. one of the things we're going to hear about again and again is rudy giuliani. that's a name you're going to hear because he says he wants to ma

here now co-anchor martha raddatz. >>> good morning. welcome to "this week." it started with one whistle-blower. now less than two months later, a fu set to reach a critical phase. the first public testimony that will likely shape public perceptions of the investigation and the future of the trump presidency. the central question -- was it an abuse of power for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate a political rival at home? was he acting to further his own personal and political interests by withholding military aid from a key u.s. ally? with all the rhetoric flying from both sides of the aisle and president trump's own >> aions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the constitution. >> september 24th, house speaker nancy pelosi formally opens an impeachment inquiry after a bombshell whistle-blower complaint raised concerns over trump's july phone call with the ukrainian president zelensky. >> the conversation was perfect. my phone call was perfecto. >> according to a white house memo detailing that call, trump tells the ukrain

so you will remember during the interview on abc, another one with martha raddatz, he had this to sayd that he was actually on the call. here it is. >> the "wall street journal" is reporting that president trump pressed the president of ukraine eight times to work with rudy giuliani to investigate joe biden's son. what do you know about those conversations? >> so you just gave me a report about a whistleblower complaint none of which i've seen. as for was i on the phone call, i was on the phone call. ment phone call was in the context of now i guess i'd been secretary of state for coming on a year and a half, i know precisely what the american policy is with respect to ukraine. >> what does this tell you big picture about the degree to which foreign policy may have been and becoming even more transactional and personally focused rather than just u.s. foreign policy about. >> two dynamics here. one is it is perplexing to see mike pompeo go from sort of brushing this off and being vague about it and sort of just not professing to not know much about the call and the context of it and th

martha raddatz, some concerns over colonel vindman's security. >> reporter: exactly, there's been so much said about colonel vindman that there are reports this morning that the army would provide security for him and possibly move him to a military base to ensure his safety if there are any threats. they would move both he and his family to a military base. you know, you look, the optics of this this morning when lieutenant colonel vindman arrives sitting in that uniform because that uniform tells the story of his life, tells the story of his combat. he was injured in a roadside bomb. he was a combat infantry badge. he is an army ranger. that combat infantry badge means he came under direct fire when he was in iraq. the entire family has served in the u.s. army. his older brother, his twin brother is still active duty. you see on the right sleeve when he walked in this morning that he has two small slashes. each one of those is six months in a combat zone. >> it appears he's entering the hearing room right now. of course both colonel vindman and jennifer williams will take the oath,

i don't know now, the martha raddatz. that same secretary of state mike pompeo acknowledged being present for the call himself. he played dumb on national television on sunday. didn't he know he'd be caught. yesterday we learned a former aide michael mckinley told members of congressmen he spoke three times about a public show of support for ambassador yovanovitch, the target of rudy guiliani's smear campaign but that i would to get that commitment. in october he told abc he never heard anything from mckinley. here he goes. >> you know from the time that ambassador yovanovitch departed ukraine until the time that he came to tell me that he was departing, i never heard him say a single thing about his concerns with respect to the decision. >> so you were never asked? >> not once, not once, george, did ambassador mckinley say something as to me during that entire time period. >> he's not telling the truth. >> no, he's not. i think one of the things we've seen over the last few weeks is that the career diplomats who testifie

. >> remember pompeo lying on tv to martha raddatz? lied to martha raddatz on abc.to everybody. >> flat out. >> i'm sure the people of kansas, the good people of kansas are going to feel really good about this guy running for senate. >> this is incredible. later that same month, sondland discussed with mr. pompeo the possibility of pushing the ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky to pledge during a planned meeting with mr. trump in warsaw that he would take the steps being sought by mr. trump as a way to break the log jam in relations between the two countries the people said. pompeo expressed his approval of the plan, they said, but trump later canceled his trip to pola poland. the paper notes that the disclosures link pompeo more directly to the trump administration's pressure campaign on ukraine. yet it isn't clear how specific sondland was in his communications with pompeo about what was being asked of the ukrainians. sondland is going to be testifying less than two hours from now. >> i would say you could read the rest of that story by michael schmidt of the

our chief global affairs anchor martha raddatz tracking all the fallout. good morning, martha. >> reporter: good morning, george. navy leaders risked their jobs after publicly disagreeing with president trump over the handling of this case which they saw at the heart of the navy's fundamental values and discipline, and this morning, after an extraordinary back and forth, the navy secretary has been fired. this morning, the navy's top civilian official, secretary richard spencer, is out of a job, forced to resign over his handling of eddie gallagher, the navy s.e.a.l., acquitted by a military court of war crime charges in the killing of a teenage isis fighter, but convicted of posing with the dead teen's body. the navy responding by demoting gallagher in rank. >> this is all about ego and retaliation. this has nothing to do with good order and discipline. >> reporter: the controversy has pitted the trump administration against the u.s. navy. in his resignation letter to president trump, spencer writes, i no longer share the same understanding with the comman