he told ukrainians to work with rudy he told ukrainians to work with rudy. rudy and hisis associates press ukraine -- >> we will leave this portion of yesterdays presidential im

he does probably with rudy. with people like myself or people that were around, he was like, everything good? good. it would be like those type of things where it made you feel that rudy would fill in the dots. that we've accomplished -- when he says to others, go talk to rudy, that has a meaning? >> absolutely. >> just to be clear on this, meaning on this encounter, he never said to you, i appreciate what you're doing on this mission, anything. >> no. he thanked us. he said thank you for everything you are doing and basically -- again, there was a lot of people there. wasn't a full blown conversation but rudy filled in the dots afterwards when we -- i mean, we stayed there. plus he left the room for us to use. he walked out the room and we let the people come in there and take pictures. >> his interaction with you particularly at that time, you felt he knew what was going on? >> absolutely. absolutely. >> and that's the way he operates? >> not only that. rudy would tell me he's talking to him. listen, all of my

>> rudy giuliani. >> this letter that you gave to the house, the first line in it, a letter from rudy giuliani to president elect zelensky says i'm private counsel to donald j. trump, i represent him as a citizen, not as president of the united states. quite common. president and private citizen are not the same. he's making a very clear point that he's not representing the interests of the united states at large of american national security he's representing the interests of donald j. trump. >> that was always the point. >> that was always made. >> that was always clear, he doesn't represent wherever we went he said i don't represent the government. i represent the president of the united states. >> so anything rudy giuliani wanted the government of ukraine to do that wasn't official u.s. policy, that was a personal benefit to the president of the united states. >> well, you know, when i was doing it i thought it was all and the same, but obviously now i can see what the situation, the way it is it was strictly for him but again i thought he was the -- our leader, he's the chief, he

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through rudy giuliani. no one can say that rudy and the president weren't singing from the same hymnbook. >> what we heard from lev was something different and what we haven't heard before. remember what republicans have been saying in defense of the president, that zelensky not only did he ultimately get the money but he didn't even know it was being withheld. he didn't know so there was no way this was a quid pro quo. we know as early as may, zelensky was concerned about this biden investigation and the investigation into burisma and the pressure he was getting from the white house. what we heard from lev parnas was confirmation of that. related to the vice president and relating to who would attend his inauguration. remember he was elected in april. and according to lev parnas, he relayed to zelensky's associates that nobody from the administration, vice president would not attend, because they were not being aggressive enough in terms of these investigations. once again, reiterating that zelensky knew e

we put rudy on the phone and rudy relayed to him that we were there on behalf of the president of the united states. >> that you were there to speak on behalf of president trump. >> yes, those exact records. >> mr. parnas says when he was taking meetings to advance this scheme, taking meetings with various government officials in ukraine he says it was the regular occurrence, when the meeting started he would put rudy giuliani on the speaker phone in the room and mr. giuliani would say explicitly that as the president's personal attorney he could affirm that lev parnas was in that meeting in ukraine to speak on behalf of the president of the united states donald trump. in may of last year, may 2019, mr. giuliani started speaking with reporters about his plans to travel himself to ukraine to try to enlist the ukrainian government's assistance to help his client, president trump, basically in his re-election effort. he said he was going to ukraine to try to get them to announce investigations into vice president biden because that would be very helpful to his client. in the resulting fi

i would love to have rudy on the team. rudy is on my team. but i'd love to have him up there. but it could be that he'd have a conflict. it could be. but rudy giuliani is somebody that i think the press has been very unfair to. greatest mayor in the history of new york and one of the greatest

call rudy. same thing he told the three amigos in may, call rudy. now he's telling zelensky, call rudy. th then he says, i will ask him to call you along with the attorney general. rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. if you would speak to him, that would be great. talk to rudy. >>> that's pretty remarkable, right? head to head -- head of state call. not talk to my secretary of state. not talk to my national security advisor. talk to rudy. >>> now, it's interesting, too, that it's not just rudy, right? i will ask him to call you along with the attorney general. now, that was quite a shock when this call record was released, right? the attorney general shows up in this call record. a couple times he shows up in this call record. and that's when the department of justice immediately issues this statement. we've got nothing to do with this. we don't know anything about this. the ink is barely dry. this thing's been released. we don't know what this is about. we haven't talked to him about it. we haven't gone to ukraine. w

>> because i spoke to rudy. rudy would talk to me. we spoke about this every day. everything going on was discussed between me, victoria, rudy, the team. >> so president trump is supposed to go, he decides not to go. vice president pence -- >> he sends him instead. yeah. basically, to go there and get it straightened out that zelensky was supposed to make another announcement and that didn't happen. that's when bolton, secretary bolton, went over there. i think he has a lot to say. i'm not going to talk on his -- i think he's a key witness to his conversation with zelensky, and when he came back and why he left, got fired, however you want to look at that. >> let me make sure i understand what you're saying. when vice president pence went over there september 1st, in president trump's stead, you have reason to believe that vice president pence was tasked at that meeting with getting president zelensky to announce investigations of joe biden specifically and to tell him they wouldn't get their aid until they -- >> i don't know exactly what he was -- it's all -- like

here's what rudy giuliani said to the daily news defending that letter.et me see if you can make sense of it because he uses some legal words here. i'm not sure if they belong here. he says, it is a very helpful letter. it proves i was seeking information as a private counsel seeking exculpatory evidence for his client. neal, doesn't there have to be a case in which you're seeking evidence? >> well, i do think that this is helpful in a way. it's helpful to rudy giuliani because, you know, one of the things i think that giuliani has to fear is the president is going to say, oh, giuliani was a rogue actor doing this all on his own, and what i think mr. giuliani is saying there is, oh, no, i was doing this at the direction of the president, which is very good for rudy giuliani, very, very bad if you're donald trump because it's now undercutting that basis for a possible defense that you were going to make, and we heard mr. parnas tonight say something similar to rachel. he said that the biggest lie and the reason why he was coming forward was trump's claim t

it's rudy. when you get a chance, give me a call and bring me up-to-date. >> last night at this time, we had gotten two documents dumps from the house from lev parnas. since then we have gotten hundreds and hundreds pages more from the committee, more evidence from lev parnas. and this includes lots of stuff. much of it is really, really incriminating. one thing in particular is becoming exceedingly clear, and that is this corrupt ukraine scheme goes way beyond the president. this is a scheme that involved the highest levels of the republican party, including the co-chair of the republican national committee. here are texts from lev parnas to that guy. going to ukraine thursday. i just got back. i'll give you a call tomorrow, my brother. he calls everyone, my brother. tomorrow is the big day. it's going to break tomorrow. the thing that broke was news that a ukrainian prosecutor announced he was announcing an investigation to interfere in the 2016 election. someone who has been painstakingly com

then rudy came back. he told her go speak to pompeo. rudy went to speak to pompeo.er meeting at the white house, where he told bolt on the fire her. he told pompeo to fire her. rudy got into it with all of them again. at one point he told madeleine to fire her. so, i mean, that was becoming comical because i couldn't understand you are the president. that one of the things, when i say comical, it's not more comic am. at that point it was an firmation to me there was people against the president of the united states if they're not listening to his orders. so and that's why i think the smear campaign started coming about. i think it was like a boost to them to help them, if the media started like egg him on, that there was really something there, that he would tweet and fire her. >> they couldn't get it done through normal channels. even with the president, himself, being involved in those somewhat normal channel itself and so they started the smear campaign to try to create media annualtation against ambassador yovanovitch. maybe that would make it possible for the p

they said, call rudy. i called rudy, what do we do? rudy's first response was don't worry about it, forget it. i was like, don't worry about it? please help me get an attorney. rudy came back, i have a great, john dowd. we were like, okay. we got excited. i didn't know who john dowd was. i knew he was the president's attorney. it was a very, like, you know, exciting situation even though it was, you know, all this going on. it's still, you know, like in the "loony tunes." i called john dowd. introduced myself like rudy connected us and at first everything was good. then, like, 15 minutes later i get a call from him saying we have a problem that i'm probably not going be able to represent you. i said, what happened? i've been speaking with jay sekulow, you know, because i was the president's attorney, i'm still kind of doing work for the president, there's a conflict of interest unless he wants to waive it. i don't think the president is going to waive that conflict. at that point, john dowd didn't know who i was also. he didn't think i

i would have talked to rudy and i don i don't like the ambassador. how does it square with your understanding of the story? >> i think this tape really serves to corroborate what lev parnas has been saying. and what is so interesting is that that dinner, according to lev parnas and according to all our reporting was a very small dinner, 15 people, interestingly rudy giuliani was not there. >> so the idea that the president would have been talking to rudy about it that night is impossible. >> no, in fact, i've reported in the past for cnn that really rudy and lev parnas only come together and start working on ukraine six months later after lev parnas has found a way to get rudy paid by his company. what's interesting about that tape is also it doesn't come to abc news from lev parnas according to his lawyer. the person who made the tape and who's not commented about it was actually igor fruman. according to joseph bondy, lev parnas's lawyer, there was a general discussion among a small group of people. the tape is an hour and a half long, and the subj

officials to work with rudy. he told ukrainians to work with rudy. rudy and his associates pressed to ukraine for investigations into the president's political rival. giuliani said quote biden will not get to election day without being investigated. keeping all this in mind let's turn to the president's first official act, soliciting for an interference. as we mentioned him the 2018th and early 19 rudy giuliani and his associates lev parnas and igor fruman were busy soliciting information from corrupt ukrainians to help president trump. they pursued a month-long campaign to dig up dirt on biden in late 2018 and early 2019 parnas, fruman and giuliani met extensively with two corrupt ukrainians -- yuriy lutsenko to gather information would president trump it as you will recall viktor shokin was correct. can't described shokin living far in excess of his government salary he never prosecuted anybody known for having committed a crime and too covered up crimes that were known to have been committed. and remember because viktor shokin was corrupted vice p

rudy about it that night is impossible?> no. in fact, what i've reported in the past for cnn that really rudy and lev parnas only come together and start working on ukraine six months later after lev parnas has found a way to get rudy paid by this company. what's really interesting about that tape is that it didn't come to abc news from lev parnas according to his lawyer. the person who made the tape and who's not commented about it was actually igor fruman. according to joe bondi, who is lev parnas' lawyer, there was a general discussion among a very small group of people that the tape is an hour and a half long, and the subject of the ukraine in general came up. now, lev parnas has said that he had problems with the ambassador, she was an obama appointee. i think it's worth remembering that in the indictment that lev parnas is under from the southern district of new york, they do talk about lev parnas' business ties and, you know, there's a notion that maybe the ambassador was an obstacle to parnas and fruman's business a

officials to work with rudy. he told ukrainians to work with rudy. rudy and his associates pressed ukraine for investigations into the president's political rival. guiliani said, quote, biden will not get to election day without this being investigated. keeping all this in mind, let's turn to the president's first official act soliciting foreign interference. as we mentioned in late 2018 and early 2019, rudy giuliani and his associates, lev parnas and igor fruman, were busy soliciting information from corrupt ukrainians to help president trump. they pursued a months-long campaign to dig up dirt on biden. in late 2018 and early 2019, parnas, fruman and guiliani met extensively with two corrupt ukrainian prosecutors, yuriy lutsenko and viktor shokin, to gather information they believed would help president trump. as you'll recall, shokin was corrupt. george kent described shokin as, quote, a typical ukrainian prosecutor who lived a lifestyle far in excess of his government salary, who never prosecuted anybody known for having committed a crime, and who

officials to work with rudy. he told ukrainians to work with rudy. rudy and his associates pressed to ukraine for investigations into the president's political rival. giuliani said quote biden will not get to election day without being investigated. keeping all this in mind let's turn to the president's first official act, soliciting for an interference. as we mentioned him the 2018th and early 19 rudy giuliani and his associates lev parnas and igor fruman were busy soliciting information from corrupt ukrainians to help president trump. they pursued a month-long campaign to dig up dirt on biden in late 2018 and early 2019 parnas, fruman and giuliani met extensively with two corrupt ukrainians -- yuriy lutsenko to gather information would president trump it as you will recall viktor shokin was correct. can't described shokin living far in excess of his government salary he never prosecuted anybody known for having committed a crime and too covered up crimes that were known to have been committed. and remember because viktor shokin was corrupted vice p

he told rudy to speak to pompeo. rudy spoke to pompeo. they got into it.ing at the white house where he told bolton to fire her. bolton didn't want to pyre her. rudy got into it with all of them again. at one point he told madeline to fire her. so i mean, that was becoming comical because i couldn't understand -- you're the president. when i say comical, it's not comic comical, but at that point it was more affirmation to me there was people against the president of the united states if they're not listening to his orders. that's where the smear campaign was coming about. it was a boost to help them if the media started egging him on, if there was something on, he would just tweet and pyre her. >> they couldn't get it done through normal channels even with the president himself being involved in the somewhat normal channels. so they started to smear campaign to try to create media agitation against ambassador yovanovitch, and maybe that would make it possible for the president to evade or elide direct channels and do it with the support of the conservative

>> rudy giuliani. >> but wait. there's more. >> much more. >> president trump is not the only person that lev parnas directly implicates. we'll bring you what he says about vice president pence and acting chief of staff mick mulvaney and former national security adviser john bolton. next. i'm bad. you're stronger than you know. so strong. you power through chronic migraine, 15 or more headache or migraine days a month. one tough mother. you're bad enough for botox®. botox® has been preventing headaches and migraines before they even start for almost 10 years, and is the #1 prescribed branded chronic migraine treatment. botox® is for adults with chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more. effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and

rudy giuliani's entanglement there on behalf of the president. and now he says he would testify in a senate trial. >> i would testify, i would do demonstrations, i give lectures and summations or i do what i do best, i would try the case. i would love to try to case. i don't know if anybody have the courage to give me the case, if you give me the case, i will process it as a racketeering case. let's see if i can still do it. >> seems lunlikely that the preponderance will call his testimony or take him up on his offer to try the case. >> joining me now is hans nichols and our national security correspondent, natasha bertrand. hans, rudy says he'll testify, does the president want him to? >> to prosecute the case or at least defense. when you heard what rudy said there anyone who has the courage to do that. only one person that can hire rudy giuliani to defend the president of the united states, that's the president of the united states. last night seemed like a black tie oaudition. there were a lot of fall-out party and they were heading into the

rudy giuliani associate lev parnas. parnas is now speaking out and directly implicating the president in ukraine -- in using ukraine pressure, a campaign at the center of this impeachment charge. let's go to our congressional correspondent, phil mattingly, another momentous day in the impeachment of the president. first of all, take us through what we saw. >> reporter: no question about that. it started today with the seven house democratic impeachment managers walking those two articles of impeachment over to the united states senate floor and when they arrived, it set off a series of events, a series of somber events that have only been seen three times as it relates to the president in the country's history. take a watch. >> all persons are commanded to keep silent on pain of imprisonment while the house of representatives is exhibiting to the senate of the united states, articles of impeachment against donald john trump, president of the united states. >> the managers on the part of the house will now proceed. >> do

it wasn't just trump and rudy.d made it clear that a number of high-level officials in the trump white house and some people outside the white house were aware of what was happening as it was happening. sondland said he had e-mails to support his account. and again, sondland specifically used the words "quid pro quo." >> these e-mails show that the leadership of the state department, the national security council and the white house were all informed about the ukraine efforts. i shared concerns of the potential quid pro quo regarding the security aide with senator ron johnson. we kept the leadership of the state department and the nfc informed of our activities and that included communications with secretary of state pompeo they knew what we were doing and why. everyone was in the loop again, everyone was in the loop. >> seth: think about that. he just said, "everyone was in the loop," which makes clear once again that these guys are the worst criminals in the world. they orchestrated an elicit scheme to pressure a

but i don't know, maybe they were clients of rudy. you would have to ask rudy.don't know. >> i don't know about them. i don't know what they do. okay. i mean, it's just -- this is now lawyer after lawyer after lawyer saying they're getting the personal of the president of the united states. that's a lie he said there. >> it's one of many lies. i don't know that that's particularly new, that the president lies. this really shines a light on, i think, the criminal organization aspect of this. i mean, think of it for a second if we go back to the senate trial. the president has expressed interest in having jay sekulow who is now up to his ears in this, rudy giuliani who is up to his ears in this, and alan dershowitz who is being sued as part of the jeffrey epstein case. lawyers are supposed to be clean, not the people involved in the mess. and the letter that giuliani sent to zelenski, he cites he wants to bring victoria tensing who is representing a corrupt oligarch that the u.s. is trying to extradite right now. these people are all criminals. and they're working

>> well, he -- >> rudy at one point?, he was representing the president, and then he came in and he was supposed to be representing parnas and the other man. >> and he said that parnas legally represented him. >> yes, and working on the president's legal team, and so therefore some of this would be attorney/client privilege, and now, of course, the president is saying that he doesn't know anything about parnas and he doesn't have any recollection of him, and the white house is saying that you can't trust parnas, because he has been indicted. this is a pattern though, right? so basically the president is either tangentially or the people connected to the president, rudy giuliani, who the president doesn't deny has said that this is my personal lawyer, people connected to them, they get indicted, and then it is, oh, well, you can't trust this person, and they are not trustworthy, and they just got indicted, but why are all of the people, and even in the outer circles of being able to be connected to the president? that iss

we put rudy on the phone, rudy relayed to him basically we were there on behalf of the president of the states. >> you were there to speak on trump's behalf? >> those exact words. >> and parnas says vice president mike pence also knew exactly what was going on in ukraine. >> do you know if vice president pence was aware that that was the quid pro quo? that was the trade and that that in fact is why his inaugural visit was called off? >> i'm going to use a famous quote by mr. sondland, everybody was in the loop. >> when nbc asked the vice president about this he said he didn't know parnas, and everything he said was false. >> what's the most striking thing you heard in that conversation? >> well, look. parnas has made a lot of allegations here. and, certainly, you know, bringing in vice president, bringing in attorney general barr, which he did. saying he -- that the president knew exactly what he was up to. but be cautious about parnas. what was striking to me is all the series of questions that were not asked of him, starting with the criminal charges that he is facing in the southern

rudy was greatest crime fighter and rudy is somebody that, frankly, having him on my side was a greator for me, and it has been a great honor for me. rudy giuliani -- rudy giuliani did a phenomenal job over a long period of time in fighting crime, and frankly, he's a very legitimate guy. a very straight shooter. i didn't know about a specific letter. if he wrote a letter, it wouldn't have been a big deal. rudy was always -- it was very important to rudy that i be a great president, and that's okay with me. it was very important to a lot of people because our country was going to hell, and now our country's on a path that we haven't seen in decades and decades. we've never done better. go ahead. >> no, no, not you. >> with the trial starting next week, what's your view on how long it should take? >> i think it should go very quickly. it's a hoax, it's a hoax. everybody knows that. it's a complete hoax, the whole thing with ukraine. so you have a perfect phone call. it was actually two phone calls. you people don't report that. there were two calls. they were both perfect calls. in fact

rudy was always -- it was very important to rudy that i be a great president. that's okay to me. it was important to a lot of people because our country was going to hell an now it's on a path that we haven't seen in decades and decades. we have never done better. go ahead. no, no, no. not you. >> the trial starting next week, what is your view on -- >> very quickly. it is a hoax. it is a hoax. everybody knows that. it's a complete hoax. the whole thing with ukraine. so you have a perfect phone call. this is a call -- actually two. you people don't report that. two calls. they were both per forget calls. in fact, probably among the nicest calls i have ever made to foreign leaders. now, you have the perfect calls an everybody says it now. before they knew they were so good because fortunately they were transcribed, you had other people saying terrible things about the calls. you had a fake whistle-blower that wrote a report that bore no relationship to what was said. everything was false. you have now the ukrainian president and the foreign minister of ukraine saying there was not

rudy, did you do it?e, i did. [ laughter ] >> seth: this has been "serial." [ laughter ] although personally i have to say the weirdest thing about this rudy podcast story for us is that we accidentally predicted it a few months ago when we first covered rudy's attempts to dig up dirt on joe biden back in may. >> seth: the best thing about rudy is he just admits everything we probably wouldn't have needed the mueller report if we had just given rudy a podcast. [ laughter ] oh, my god, we're in rudy's head, you guys [ light laughter ] it's like in a movie when the fbi agent has to start thinking like the killer. in fact, to predict rudy's next move, i've been doing the same thing he does, smoking cigars, reading my ipad and sitting on my own balls [ laughter ] [ applause ] you know, i bet rudy doing a podcast would really help trump. can abt he always makes a convincing argument >> we got an anonymous wrong. donald trump, like hunter biden says, i didn't do anything when president trump said, i didn't do a

i know about joe biden, hunter biden, also rudy had a personal thing with the metaphor stuff. >> rudy response. >> my response is that he is someone i was close to, obviously i was misled by him. i feel very bad, god father to his child and spent a lot of time. i still feel sorry for him, i will not respond to him for each and every one of the misrepresentations he has made, because there are so many. if i am called as a witness i am prepared to do it. in fact, i wouldn't mind being called as a witness for a lot of reasons including being able to reveal the unbelievable amount of corruption that went on between the democratic party and the ukraine all throughout the obama administration. i think people will be astounded to know the hundreds of millions of dollars that he illegally passed hands between americans and ukrainians. >> laura: i got it rudy, but everyone watching tonight is going to think, i just know how to place out. you have been doing this for decades, they will all say rudy giuliani will not respond to the allegation that the president was directing him to direct lev pa

i would love to have rudy on the team. rudy is on my team just so you understand. i would love to have him up there but he could have a conflict. it could be. rudy giuliani is somebody i think the press has been very unfair to. greatest mayor in the history of new york and one of the greatest crime fighters of the last hundred years and he hates to see what is happening because he knows corruption better than anybody. okay, >> kennesaw, how do you feel? >> kenneth starr is a terrific man. i made that statement because i didn't think bill clinton should have been impeached. i didn't know kenneth starr. i didn't think bill clinton should have been impeached and i was pretty vocal about that. what i did know is he was very smart, very tough, very talented but in a certain way i was sticking up for bill clinton and i still feel that way. what he did was nothing good. a lot of lying going things, with me there is no lying, no nothing, they have nothing. they don't even have a crime. they say this is really one who has ever been impeached and didn't commit a crime. i did

not only rudy giuliani.arr was attorney general barr was basically on the team. >> joining our conversation, former republican congressman, now an independent, david jolly, joins us. let me come to you because i think that the idea that lev parnas's credibility is on the line and the narrow question of barr is a false hood we could easily knock down with donald trump's own words. as transkriebcribed in the call released. it's donald trump who brings barr in the criminal scheme. trump who says to zelensky, talk to barr. it's donald trump who throws his attorney general under the bus. and lev seems to have maybe pressed the gas a little bit with his recusal today. >> and barr is the administrator of the department that is investigating lev parnas. it is right for parnas's attorney to say you have a conflict and you can't officiate this. more importantly i think what parnas is doing, what we saw in the interview with rachel is he is saying to the southern district of new york, i will serve up these individuals

>> i spoke to rudy. rudy would talk to me. i mean, we spoke about this every day. >> so president trump is supposed to go, he decides not to go. vice president pence supposed to go? >> he sends him instead. supposed to go there and get it straightened out that zelensky was supposed to make another announcement and that didn't happen and that's when bolton, secretary bolton went over there and it i think he has a lot to say. i'm not going to talk on his behalf but he's a key witness to his conversation with selensi z when he came back, got fired however you want to look at that. >> let me understand. when vice president pence went over there in president trump's stead, again, you believe or have reason to believe that vice president pence was tasked at that meeting with getting president zelensky to announce investigations of joe biden specifically? >> yes. >> when asked if bolton knew, what the administration was pressuring ukraine to do, parnas said, "100%." "he knows what happened there." >> the drug deal he described and wi

rudy gotten in a lot of trouble and he always continues to be close to rudy. this is the general pattern of when someone gets in trouble with the law who's close to trump, trump distances himself. >> ashley, the parnas telling of the numerous attempts by the president to have our ambassador to ukraine, yovanovitch, fired kind of border on pathetic in the telling of lev parnas. why do you think there were repeated attempts by the guy at the top of the administration that were unsuccessful, why was he rebuffed in his efforts having made the decision that she had to go? >> well, i think he was rebuffed because a number of people in his administration including some who recently went up on capitol hill and testified under oath about this felt it was a very bad or if not dangerous and problematic idea. that's one of the reasons he was rebuffed. in lev parnas, just of how this administration functions and operates generally. when luke you look at some of t people where parnas said trump told to fire the ambassador. he's not going to the state department, he's turnin

rudy wouldn't do anything without the president just like i wouldn't do anything without rudy. >> theument made by a lot of republicans during the congressional hearings was not only that the president cares deeply about corruption in ukraine, this wasn't just about a personal benefit for the president, but that zelensky himself has come forward and said, i didn't feel any pressure. there was no quid pro quo. you've met with a whole host of people in his inner circle throughout the government -- >> that's a total lie. they're still -- i mean, they're still rocked to this day. they're not recovered. i don't know when they will. >> you have no doubt they felt this pressure, this was a -- >> oh, my god, of course, absolutely. >> existential threat? >> the main reason my life was threatened because of that. i mean -- >> so why do you think zelensky says, oh, no, there was no pressure, i didn't feel pressure? >> they're in an awkward position. i understand them. i'm not here to call them out and put them in the worst position. >> the awkward position if zelensky says whatever he actually f

you could argue none of this would be happening without rudy giuliani. i mean the attorney for the white house went on the air today, went on national television on the senate floor and tried to do two opposite things. number one is to minimize his role, literally called him a minor figure. but on the other hand, she also kind of validated him as always being right. it was almost as though she were playing to giuliani to signal that trump is still loyal to you, but then signal to the rest of the world that, oh, what he did actually doesn't matter. he's just kind of a colorful guy, right? it's like a very strange dance that she was playing. and again, kind of just raises the large question of what is going on between donald trump and rudy giuliani. and i think that when the history of this is all, you know, written, it's going to come down, and much of it is going to come down to this kind of odd kind of co-dependent relationship between donald trump and rudy giuliani. it's fascinating. >> and because we're living in a scorsesian movie every day, you glan

>> rudy giuliani. >> a lot there. we're going to unpack it. just so you can understand how central lev parnas is to all of this. here's who he is. born in ukraine. he's an american citizen who was living in florida. last year, he and his business associates were indicted on several counts of campaign finance violation. >> in 2018, parnas introduced rudy giuliani to former and current ukrainian officials. giuliani told cnn those officials provided damaging information on some of trump's political enemies. note this. parnas' company, which is named interestingly, fraud guarantee, paid giuliani half a million dollars in the fall of 2018 for consulting. so giuliani was working with parnas. >> yeah, and working for the president. and as you heard in that interview, president trump says he doesn't know parnas. but on at least seven occasions, he posed for photos. not just one photo. on at least seven occasion he's posed for photos with parnas and his business partner. cnn has learned that both those men had a private meeting with the president and w

>> the short answer to the question is i don't know who is paying rudy giuliani's fees. and if he is not being paid by the president to conduct this domestic political errand for which he has devoted so much time, if other clients are paying and subsidizing his work in that respect, it raises profound questions, questions that we can't answer at this point. but there are some answers that we as he has acknowledged, he's not there doing foreign policy. so when counsel for the president says this is a policy dispute, you can't impeach a president oaf policy but rudy giuliani was engaged in by his own admission has nothing to do with policy. it has nothing to do with policy. and let me mention one other thing about this scheme that giuliani was orchestrating and the consequence of the argument that they would make, that quid pro quos are just fine. let say rudy giuliani does another errand for the president, this time for the chinese and says we will give you favorable deal with respect to chinese farmers as opposed to american farmers. we will betray the american farmer in

giuliani and rudy giuliani worked for the president, he didn't have to testify. what does that do to the case now for calling witnesses in the senate trial? >> well, it really makes the case overwhelmingly powerful. just take the example of lev parnas. this is a guy who is at the heart of everything. if you doubt his truth, call him and cross examine him, but he's involved not only in the shakedown of ukraine but also in the president's obstruction of congress. we just heard him explain why he did not testify, although he would have wanted to, during the house investigation. you know, nobody expects senators to have a completely blank mind. they have preferences. they know who they would like to see come out on top, but that doesn't mean that they are free to take a solemn oath. to do impartial justice and then shut their eyes, shut their ears, refuse to listen to obviously relevant facts. whether it's from bolton or parnas or, perhaps, as we now know, maybe rick perry or mulvaney or pompeo. there are a great many people that anyone who actually is trying to get

rudy told him they'll see. the 13th, mike pence would cancel his trip go to zelensky's inauguration. that's what lev threatened on behalf of the white house. the way lev explained it and lev laid out this bomb shell assertion of vice president mike pence of his involvement in this scheme on this pressure campaign in ukraine to make a visit and all these other things that the ukrainian government wanted and needed from the u.s. government making it contingent on announcing that investigation which on the 12th they would not do. i mean the way lev explains it, that meeting happened on the 12th, he reported home on the night of may 12th and the cancellation of pence's visit happened on the 13th. that's what lev parnas alleges as explosive as it is. that last part checks out as well. >> we had already stopped the trip planning by that point. >> when did that happen? >> stop the trip planning? >> may 13. >> how did you hear about that? >> i was called by a colleague, chief of staff's office and told to stop the plan

for rudy and because i worked for victoria and because rudy worked for the president, we had three-wayrivilege, and that basically pat was going to be writing a letter to congress telling them that nobody is cooperating and that would protect us under the same order and he would follow-up with that. again, this was the president of the united states, so i mean, i thought, okay, i said here's all the information i have. i did my duty. i gave him whatever paperwork i had. >> that's a lot right there. and without delay, let's bring in barbara mcquaid, veteran federal prosecutor, former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan. all right, barbara, let's start right there. is that, what he just described, at all part of the normal legal world? >> there actually is validity to what he's saying there. imagine if your lawyer has a secretary or a paralegal who works for him. that person would fall under the realm of the attorney/client privilege just as much as the lawyer would. so if lev parnas was working as an assistant to rudy giuliani as a translator, whatever he was, he could be

talk to rudy and talk to barr.he department of justice -- >> and brar is flying around the world. >> the department of justice has said he knows nothing about this, but listen to parnas. >>> do you know if mr. giuliani was in contact with mr. barr specifically about the fact he was trying to get ukraine to announce these investigations? >> absolutely. >> mr. barr knew about it? >> mr. barr had to have known everything. >> did rudy giuliani tell you he had spoken to the attorney general specifically? >> not only rudy giuliani, victoria and joe, they were all best friends. barr was -- attorney general barr was basically on the team. >>> all right. so he had to have known everything. slightly different. >> he had to have known is not enough. there's questions, should he disqualify himself from any criminal indication that touches this at all? >> he oversees the sdny, who just implicated this guy. >> his implication is far more troubling than sessions. i would be troubled if he were involved in this, then you would be

rudy giuliani would was working with parnas. rudy giuliani is very close to the president.nd rudy giuliani sent a letter to parnas's lawyer how the president okayed parnas working by himself working with the president. >> okay. there has been a lot of structure put around the theories about what's going on with the president and zelensky and parnas. but what you see coming out now are just more and more facts that are substantiating what everybody has been saying all along. we have not seen any facts except for denials like the president said today, just sort of broad denials. that's counter-acting any part of the narrative that the democrats have been saying thus far. and that's what -- you for example at a certain point you have to look at what all the building blocks are building. i think that's what is happening here. there is just nothing on the other side factually to counter-act the narrative that is coming out. >> there are a number of documents, we just said it, that the house has that potentially will back up what parnas is saying. he has notes on ritz-carlton pap

it's rudy giuliani putting he was acting in trump's knowledge.takes pains to say i'm only the president's personal lawyer. i'm not -- i'm only representing him in paerersonal capacity. he's saying he is seeking this meeting because it's a personal favor to the president of the united states. there in black and white what we already suspected. this really is an incredibly significant document. one of the more significant documents to come out of this new trove of information. it shows rudy giuliani and lev parnas are in communication with the prosecutor in ukraine. we aren't talking about people having conferencversations amon themselves in is the president's team having direct communication with the presidenter while he was in office about the announcement of this investigation. really this is there are questions about whether or not he is credible. but the documents like these become so incredibly important because you don't have to rely on somebody's word. you can see it for yourself. now, if rudy giuliani wants to dispute it, he can say it's n

he told ukrainians to work with rudy he told ukrainians to work with rudy. rudy and hisis associates press ukraine -- >> we will leave this portion of yesterdays presidential impeachment trial to take you live to clermont new hampshire former vice president of democratic presidential candidate joe biden who was holding a camping event there. we will show you as much of this as we can't until our live coverage of the senate impeachment trial gets underway at one p.m. eastern. live coverage here on c-span2. >> hello. my name is bethany and i'm so thrilled to be your today with all of you as welcome vice president joe biden back to sullivan county. i'm sure he will feel right at home here with all of us here clermont is a blue-collar city and i am the daughter of a former president of the steelworkers union. joe should feel right in his element. we know he's truly one of us. first off, i want to highlight one of his highest achievements while he was serving as vice president. and telling how it affected my family. vice president biden worked hand-in-hand with p