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Source: Alexander Vindman Believed Trump Personally Withheld Aid As A Way To Force Ukraine To Announce Probe Into Bidens; Witness After Witness: "The Substance" Is Bad For Donald Trump; Donald Trump Supporters Get Personal In Attacks On Witnesses; First Impeachment Vote Tomorrow; Donald Trump's Russia Ambassador Pick Confirms Testimony On Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine Role. Aired 9-10p ET

Aired October 30, 2019 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[21:00:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: News continues. I want to hand it over to Chris right now for "CUOMO PRIME TIME".

Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: All right, thank you my friend. I'm Chris Cuomo and welcome to "Prime Time". Are Democrats about to snag their biggest impeachment witness yet? We have big news on that front. And we have a key Senate player here tonight with a Ukraine connection of his own.

Plus, one of the biggest assaults on a key witness, Colonel Vindman is about to get blown up in this show in just moments. So what do you say? Let's get after it. The President's Former National Security Adviser John Bolton, is he the next big witness. A source tells CNN he was invited for next Thursday. His lawyer said tonight it's not going to happen without a subpoena. That's arranged easily enough these days.

Meanwhile, a Bolton top NSC Deputy just resigned on the eve of his appearance before impeachment investigators. Tomorrow Tim Morrison, why would he be important? He can back up what Bill Taylor testified to as to the understanding as to why there was a quid pro quo. And CNN has learned that Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman also tied the President to a Ukraine quid pro quo in his testimony on Tuesday, as was expected.

And also, according to sources, he told investigators he was convinced the President was personally blocking $400 million in military aid to force Ukraine to publicly announce an investigation into the Bidens, even before Vindman heard that July 25th phone call.

So with that let's bring in Senator Chris Murphy. He was in Ukraine last month. He said he raised red flags to President Zelensky about not getting dragged into American politics. The Foreign Relations Committee Member, Democrat from Connecticut, joins us now. Good to see you, Senator.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY, (D-CT): Thanks for having me.

CUOMO: So what can you tell us about Ukraine's President's mindset towards what we're dealing with here?

MURPHY: First of all, I had heard back in the spring from many of my friends in Ukraine and those who go back and forth to Ukraine that Zelensky as a brand new President, someone with no prior political background was very worried about these overtures he was getting from Rudy Giuliani and the demands that were being made of him to get involved in the American election.

And of course that just stands to reason, any foreign leader would be concerned if they are getting visits from the President's political operatives asking them to get involved in the President's political campaigns. So part of the reason that I went to Ukraine in early September was to, you are know, raise this with Zelensky and tell him that, you know, he really should stay out of American political campaigns and that he should conduct his business with the State Department.

What was interesting about the meeting, amongst other things, was that before we even really sat down and engaged in what a normally diplomatic pleasantries at the beginning of the meeting, Zelensky went straight into the question of the aid, he wanted to know why he could get that aid, why it was being held up, it was of dire concern to him because he knew they were going to be Ukrainians who died on the front with Russia if that aid were not released.

At the end of the meeting I recommended that he stayed out of American politics and he agreed with me. Of course it was just weeks later we learned the extent of the corruption but at that moment in early September, he was very focused on getting that aid restarted and seems to be really crying out for help in terms of how he could convince the administration to change their mind.

CUOMO: And just so we understand, why did you know at that time to ask him to stay out of American politics?

MURPHY: Rudy Giuliani in May was openly bragging about his attempts to try to get Zelensky to investigate the Bidens so this was, you know, not a secret from anyone. I actually wrote a public letter to the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the spring asking for an investigation because it seemed as if there was this shadow foreign policy trying to corrupt the Ukrainians that we needed to ask more questions about.

I don't think it was a surprise to anyone. I spoke to Ambassador Taylor as well about this while I was there. And he expressed concern at this back channel again at the time I didn't know that he actually was involved in these conversations, but he clearly was alarmed when we were there in early September.

CUOMO: So let's look at the President's state of play. How big a deal with John Bolton be to you, the Former National Security Adviser?

MURPHY: So, you know, I don't know that we should expect that John Bolton is ultimately going to be the white knight here. He has a very broad belief of executive power but from Fiona Hill's testimony we know that he was deeply uncomfortable with what he called a drug deal that was being manufactured by Mick Mulvaney and others on the Ukraine beat.

So I expect that he will likely just fill out a few more details in a story that is just crystal clear.

CUOMO: You don't have any questions. You believe you know what happened and you know why?

[21:05:00]

MURPHY: I think the testimony from Taylor, the statements that Sondland has made, the details that Fiona Hill and Colonel Vindman fill in just make it absolutely clear that this aid was being held up, the White House meeting was being denied in order to get the Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens and launch investigations into the Clintons. I think it's clear as day at this point. I don't know how Republicans can deny that after all the testimony that they've seen at this point.

CUOMO: Well, if you watch the show, they find new ways every night. I still think the big question is going to come down on your shoulders about whether or not this is worthy of removal. I think there's still reasonable arguments to be made on the side of why it's not worthy of removal but we'll get to this later. Let me ask you two quick things. We're obsessed about the July 25th phone call.

What about the July 30th phone call between the United States President and Putin? The President was asked about it and he said we just talked about Siberian Wildfires. That strains credulity. Five days after the Ukraine call that's what he talked to Putin about? How much interested are you in that call and is there any chance of access?

MURPHY: So I'm interested in that call. Listen, I think we've got to be a little careful about making demands for - you know a large number of private communications between the President and others. I think when we have evidence from whistleblowers that there has been corruption or illegality committed on a phone call between the President and a foreign leader--

CUOMO: That's different.

MURPHY: --then I think that's appropriate for us to ask for the transcript. If we're just sort of fishing with some suspicions, even though they may be reasonable suspicions, I just think we want to be careful about the precedent of expecting that all of these private communications be made public.

CUOMO: I don't disagree. I think that this question is the better part on that. You want to candor in those kinds of conversations. The question becomes does anybody that's being interviewed in the depositions now or in later hearings bring up that call because may be he had the same people on both and there will be something.

Let me ask you something else, today you had Sullivan before your Committee. He's the selection by the administration to be Ambassador to Russia. He gave the President cover on Ukraine. He said, yes, I look, I know what happened in the call. The President said these investigations were relevant and part of policy but there was no quid pro quo.

Does that answer make you comfortable with him as the diplomat in charge of Russia communications for the United States?

MURPHY: Well, you know, listen, John Sullivan's an honorable guy, I like him but his answers doesn't make sense. The bulk of his testimony was that he was kept in the dark, that he actually had no knowledge of any of these entries into the Ukrainian's and investigations into the Bidens until the whistleblower came forward.

So I have no idea that he can now represent that he knows there was no quid pro quo when in fact he has seen the reports of the testimony that make it clear that there was a quid pro quo and he has no present - he has no real time knowledge because he is trying to save himself by suggesting that he was in the dark.

So you can't have it both ways. You can't say that you didn't know anything about it but you're absolutely certain that there was no corruption, especially when all of the testimony from career public officials, from member of the Trump Administration makes it very clear that there was a quid pro quo.

And as you know, because I said this before on the show, I think there was a quid pro quo but I frankly don't think that you need to prove it for this to be corrupt. I think a President asking for investigations into his political opponents is corrupt, potentially illegal, even if there isn't a demand on the other side or withholding of support or aid on the other side.

CUOMO: After Mueller we had people saying if a foreign power comes to you and offers it, contact the FBI, stay away. Now asking a foreign power for help isn't a problem? Anyway, Senator Chris Murphy, I appreciate your perspective very much, an important time in our history. Thank you for being with us.

MURPHY: Thanks.

CUOMO: Now, there's one name that keeps coming up in each of these testimonies, even again today. The name that we cannot forget is Rudy Giuliani. I know that's gone quiet, you're not seeing him anywhere and that's with good reason. But we have to remember what he means in this narrative. Prosecution or not, he is completely relevant to understanding what happened here and why. Let's shine a light on what we know next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:10:00]

CUOMO: Very interesting. The President once again called on his proxies to focus on the substance, not the process. That's because he doesn't think he can do anything wrong but many in his orbit clearly disagree and with good reason. It's the substance of what he was doing that was compared to a drug deal inside his own White House. When you focus on the substance and follow the facts, you will land squarely on Rudy Giuliani a whole lot of Trump's own people thought Giuliani was doing something wrong. Let there be no mistake what his mission was. He told you right here on this show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Of course I did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: You notice you don't see him much on TV anymore. You can attribute that to being under investigation and being told he's making things worse for Potus. Because let's be clear, as admitted the President's Personal Lawyer asked a foreign government to go after a 2020 candidate. It's behavior like that that has witness after witness, Trump's own people, military heroes, career public servants even big money political donors of his and Former Fox Newsers calling the Former Mayor, "A hand grenade" and "An obstacle to U.S. Foreign Policy".

Now we know Bill Taylor was worried about Giuliani. Remember, Taylor is the top diplomat in the Ukraine for United States, asked by Pompeo, the Secretary of State, to do that job.

[21:15:00]

CUOMO: Even the one guy trying to give Potus cover, Ambassador Sondland the donor friend of Trump, he testified that he was disappointed by the President's decision that we involve Mr. Giuliani.

Still, we have hard evidence thanks to the text messages. Giuliani was right in the middle of the effort to withhold the White House meeting and military aid the Ukrainians needed. Even today, Trump's number two diplomats said Giuliani was pivotal in the removal of the Ukrainian Ambassador. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BOB MENENDEZ, (D-NJ): You were aware that there were individuals and forces outside of the State Department seeking to smear Ambassador Yovanovitch, is that correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was.

MENENDEZ: And just seeking to remove her, is that correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was.

MENENDEZ: And do you know Mr. Giuliani was one of those people?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believed he was, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CUOMO: So, imagine how confusing that must be for Ukrainians. Their President badly wanted a White House meeting and with good reason. Their military desperate for U.S. aid with good reason, yet multiple U.S. officials including Volker, remember him the Special Envoy, worked at the McCain Center, was asked to come back and do this, they were telling him Giuliani doesn't represent the United States government, but he sure did represent its President.

That's why they're reaching out to lieutenant Colonel Vindman. The Colonel's job was to know the ins and outs of the U.S./Ukrainian relationship, to be in touch with Ukrainians, to be that go between. So these attacks about him working both sides are B.S. and the people making the attacks know it.

The questions about why the Ukrainians would need helping sort this out from him, it ignores the chaos caused when this President made foreign policy contingent on his political benefit. And that evidence by being run by his Personal Attorney.

And my next guest faced major back lash after he suggested that Vindman, who sounded the alarm about Trump and Ukraine could have committed espionage. The Former DOJ official now says he's been taken wrong. What does he mean to say? What does he think about those attacks? What does he think about the situation next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:20:00]

CUOMO: State TV, AKA Fox News, has been crushing LTC Vindman. Here's one of the ugliest examples.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Here we have a U.S. National Security Official who is advising Ukraine while working inside the White House apparently against the President's interests and usually they spoke in English. Isn't that kind of an interesting angle on this story?

JOHN YOO, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT A.G. UNDER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I find that astounding and some people might call that espionage, but it doesn't actually seem to add any new facts to what we know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: John Yoo is the man speaking there Former U.S. Deputy Assistant to Attorney General. Welcome to "Prime Time." I respect you taking this invitation.

JOHN YOO, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT A.G. UNDER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Chris, thanks for having me on and giving me a chance to I hope clarify what I was trying to say. I wasn't questioning Lieutenant Colonel Vindman's patriotism. I have a lot of respect for people who wear the uniform. Who are decorated for service in Afghanistan, Iraq?

When Laura was reading me the facts of case, what I was focusing on was that it seemed to me the Ukrainians were engaging in espionage and I really regret the choice of words but I was thinking about Ukrainians engaging in espionage, not Lieutenant Colonel Vindman.

CUOMO: John look if you say you're sorry, that's good enough for me on this show but I just want to go through it. You're a smart guy. I've done my homework on you. Laura Ingraham was trying to assassinate the character of Vindman. That's what she does, she's a proxy for our President, she's a brilliant legal mind, she is a talented communicator and she is trying to protect this President.

How could you have thought she was talking about Ukraine when she was obviously talking about Vindman? And these ugly suggestions that he working in both sides, you know for a fact they came to him for help with Giuliani. He was doing his job. How could you let her get away with that?

YOO: I really do think that the Ukrainians are the ones engaged in espionage.

CUOMO: How is that espionage? You thought that's what she was referring to? Go ahead, explain.

YOO: I was listening to her description of the story and what I focused on was a foreign government trying to call an official at our National Security Council and get advice on how to agree with Rudy Giuliani, who I agree with you from the last clip, has just gone completely off the reservation.

And I think that's to me an effort to make a contact and engage in espionage. Not on Lieutenant Colonel Vindman's part. I really actually don't have any doubt that he did the right thing in reporting his concerns up the chain of command. And I just wanted to make clear; I'm not questioning his patriotism in any way.

CUOMO: What do you think about Laura Ingraham doing exactly that? I know you like going on Fox News. I know you defend the President from time to time. I have no problem with that. You're welcome on this show to do the same thing. But you're going to go on a show and listen to someone try to impugn the character of a man you now calling a patriot? What do you think of what she tried to do?

YOO: Actually what I was saying and this is after the clip you showed, I wanted to say which I think I did, was that actually Lieutenant Colonel Vindman's presence or point was not actually materially important to this story, because he was confirming the facts of what we already knew, which was that President Trump had made a call with the President and had seemed to ask for a quid pro quo between releasing Ukrainian aid and conducting some investigation into Hunter Biden and his service on a natural gas company.

[21:25:00]

CUOMO: Well, you don't have any question about what actually happened here, do you? Do you need any more proof that somebody with your pedigree if the President clearly wanted an investigation of the Bidens and clearly they were holding up aid in a meeting until he got a public recognition that that would happen?

YOO: No, actually, I don't have any doubts about that because you can read them in the transcript of the phone call that the White House released. That was my point was that Lieutenant Colonel Vindman shouldn't be the key character in all this. He's just confirming all the facts that were already laid out in the previous testimony and in the telephone call.

CUOMO: Two points. One is, why wouldn't Ukraine when confronted with this bizarre situation where a guy who has no business and no role in U.S. Diplomacy is hammering them for very specific things that are very curious reaches out to someone they know who is in charge of the relationship to say what do we do? You really think that's espionage?

YOO: I think on the foreign government's part it is. Usually you would talk to the State Department, diplomats on the scene. The National Security Counsil is a very sensitive body.

CUOMO: They did though, they talked to Volker they talked to everybody they could because this was crazy time what was going on.

YOO: And I don't blame the Ukrainians for trying to do what they did.

CUOMO: But you just said it was espionage.

YOO: To try to call an Intelligence Official of the National Security Counsil on their part sounds to me like espionage. I think the Russians and Ukrainians have been up to all kinds of things throughout this entire investigation to our national detriment. I think we're being played sometimes for fools by them and I have no doubt that what they're up to is espionage.

CUOMO: Do you think that could be a component of what's going on with Mr. Rudy Giuliani that all of a sudden he winds up working with two people to advance the President's interests who are now indicted and have all these connections to Russian funny money and getting wires of money that oddly resemble the amounts they gave him? Do you think that's part of the components there?

YOO: Oh, yes. I think actually part of what's going on is that people in our government or actually in the circle of private people around the President are getting played by the intelligence services of other countries. I think that's an inescapable conclusion.

CUOMO: I see that with Russia but I don't see how Ukraine is playing the President what happened with Ukraine was the President putting an agenda on him. Is there any other way to see it?

YOO: What the phone transcript shows is that the President wanted them to conduct an investigation. He wanted them to do a favor and then we're seeing these contacts, these communications where the President and Rudy Giuliani are trying to - and Ambassador Sondland are trying to pressure them into doing an investigation of the cost of a meeting and later foreign aid.

Chris, I don't disagree with you. I think the hard question on impeachment now is not the facts that have happened, I think those have been proven out it's whether this is a high crime or misdemeanor, whether this should be decided in the Senate in a trial or whether this should be decided at the ballot box in November.

CUOMO: I think it's a legitimate argument. You can hear good faith arguments about why this isn't worthy of removal. I think we're a little bit a far away from that but the idea of triggering the mechanism, abuse of power like this, this is not only what the founding fathers were worried about, we just came out of the Mueller probe, John, where the only thing both sides agreed on was that you're not supposed to mess with foreign powers, the President did this literally on the same day Mueller was saying Mr. Trump's not out of the woods, how do you take this as a signal of anything other than this President is willing to use abuse his power no matter what?

YOO: Chris, you've had me on your show before, I've been happy to say that I agree with you on the fact that the framers were worried and did draft the impeachment clause about to get at President's who put their personal interests or national interests when it came to foreign policy but the other thing though they're worried about is impeachment being used as a tool by Congress to control Presidents.

CUOMO: 100 percent. Federalist papers number 65, Alexander Hamilton said this cannot be just about numbers, if you have more, you get to get rid of the person that this process will awaken all of the ugliest partisan impulse and it has to be better than that. No question. And I think we have to go through this but here's my thing for you, John.

Do you regret not saving to the host of that show, hey, don't talk about Vindman like that, we don't know that he's a never Trumper. Don't accuse him of being a spy, this is ugly stuff, this is beneath this as Americans. We don't make that kind of xenophobic and jingoistic accusations about our own.

YOO: Well, I wish I had said and I just didn't have time to - as I didn't know the facts, I didn't know about Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and I wish I had said let's find out more and hear the facts before rush to any judgments. I didn't mean to rush to any judgments, Chris. I really appreciate what you're saying and I do share your views on this. I think I made a mistake in not being clear in what I thought.

[21:30:00]

CUOMO: I'm happy to give you the opportunity to clarify it. I'm not into the gotcha contest. That's the other place where you are hang out, that's what they're trying to do and I understand why. We both know they can't deal with the facts in this situation. One last quick question Rudy Giuliani's investigation is criminal and national security, it's an intelligence investigation.

Do you think that there is legitimate concern on what you know so far in terms of there being teeth to looking at him?

YOO: Well, if you look at the facts that are coming out or just the suggestions that are coming out in the newspapers, I can see why his old office, the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Attorney's Office has opened an investigation. It does seem he was associating with - again these Ukrainians who might have been receiving money from sources abroad and trying to funnel the money to the President's campaign.

That doesn't mean Rudy Giuliani is guilty of anything but I can completely see why he's under investigation because of his relations with these people who definitely have violated federal law.

CUOMO: And I believe that for us in terms of political analysis, you can't say the President didn't know what he was doing? And that he didn't really mean it that way because Rudy Giuliani answers all that curiosity. He was doing a shadow parallel operation to get done what the President wanted to get done.

John Yoo, you're always welcome on the show. I did not want you staying with kind of B.S. that's going on over there. I know why they're doing it. I wanted to give you a chance to not be a part of it. Thank you for coming on the show.

YOO: Thank you.

CUOMO: All right. John Yoo. Look, you got to be fair to people in this situation, they're not being fair to Vindman over there and we have to call that out and it's good to hear someone say I didn't mean to be a part of it, good. Now let's take it to the court and understand what's going on, what matters here? What the big questions are that Rudy Giuliani is going to be at the center of? Cuomo's court, brilliant minds next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:35:00]

CUOMO: All right. Let's get some legal perspective on what's going on here and what matters going forward on impeachment. Cuomo's court is in session with Asha Rangappa and Elliott Williams, good to have you both.

Look, I was glad to give Yoo a chance to walk away from that statement. And I'm glad he did in part, you he's a professor at UC Berkeley, it's not exactly a place to be front run in this kind of B.S. But on the second part Asha, while Ukraine could be engaged in espionage by reaching out to Vindman, how? I don't understand that argument.

ASHA RANGAPPA, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: I was astonished that he even said that. To be clear to your viewers, espionage is the closest crime we have to treason. It involves passing classified information or defense secrets it's like giving up secrets to an enemy. The idea that Ukraine would be engaging in some intelligence operation by calling an official channel of the White House makes absolutely no sense since they were actually calling to clarify what the President had just told them, which would be incredibly normal.

But even if what you said what was going on, what he's suggesting is the Ukrainians believe that Vindman was somehow vulnerable to compromise which is the only reason that they would engage in that kind of activity. It makes absolutely no sense. He should have just apologized instead of doubling down.

By the way, he's a Former Deputy A.G.; he's a Law Professor as you said, Law School Graduate. You don't just drop the word espionage lightly when you know what that word means. He should have never said that.

CUOMO: The idea for him Elliot is that he was basically getting a bulls rush there from Ingraham and he didn't really know the facts so he was listening along. Look, I don't really care about John Yoo. John Yoo said what he said and did what he did. The tactic employed by Ingraham and others is very clear, Elliott, they can't handle the truth, they can't handle the facts on this one so they must find scapegoats and destroy the process. Do you believe that that is going to work well for them going forward?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, you can see it's sort of slipping away. The process argument has really has failed on impeachment. It's turned out to be a bit of a dud. The Republicans in the House of Representatives for the last couple of weeks have been saying that you have to have a vote in order to proceed with an impeachment hearing and that's falling apart because there's now going to be a vote tomorrow on an impeachment proceeding.

So now I think they are - for instance, Ron Johnson, Senator from Wisconsin just I guess in the last day or so had said, well, even if the President engaged in those conduct, I just don't believe it's removable or impeachable conduct. They're now shifting their strategy toward one where they are actually--

CUOMO: But he's a Senator, Elliott. This might be the part he weighs in. It's whether or not it's worthy about removal.

WILLIAMS: Well, but that's fine, but it's a Republican members of Congress now engaging on the substance of the matter. You may start to see that in the House as well. But the point is everybody universally both in the Senate and House was focusing on these process points and now they're starting to turn to the substantial just because that's all they have that is really what it is.

You saw some of that last night on Fox News. To some extent - you look, the three of us here would be the first to say that live television can be challenging but, again, as Asha had said, John Yoo statements are indefensible. If he was capable of writing memoranda justifying torture in black sites around the world, he knows what the word espionage means and should have just apologized.

CUOMO: So Asha, you guys are going to beat me up on this, I hedge my risk by having better minds around me at all time. I see good faith arguments against removal by Republican Senators, I see arguments coming our way of what he did was wrong, it was abusive of our power, but, but Ukraine didn't give him any dirt, the election is intact from that perspective, he gave them the aid, they're doing okay, they like us just fine, there is no damage, he's a first-term President and election is less than a year away, it's not worthy of removal, let the election decide.

RANGAPPA: Yes, what makes an act a crime or a high crime is your state of mind when you do it and what you are intending to achieve, even if it doesn't come to completion. And Elliott can corroborate this that you don't actually have to complete the bank robbery or the murder. The intention to do it is enough.

[21:40:00]

RANGAPPA: And what we have here is a corrupt intent to use the office of the Presidency, the most awesome, you know, powers that we give to an individual in this country for a personal benefit, which, you know, is unacceptable for that office.

Now, I think the best defense that he has and as Elliott mentioned, they're try out a lot of them is that he's too inept or incompetent to really know what he was doing was wrong. I think that actually counsels in favor of removal because if you don't know that it's wrong, then probably you're not a good fit for that job.

So I don't really see a good argument. Of course, it's political they can use any reason, just as any jury can, to not remove him. I don't think the fact that it was not actually completed isn't a good one, especially since he's encouraged other countries to do the same thing at this point as well.

CUOMO: What you fancy legal types called "Inchoate Crime".

RANGAPPA: An "Inchoate Crime" correct.

CUOMO: It was not completed but is still bad because of what it intended to do. Now Elliott, here is my thing I think that the reason that argument won't work as well for the President as mine, no disrespect to Asha, she's much smarter but it is my show and my head is bigger in the windows, is that Rudy Giuliani was all over it?

So you didn't know or you were too dumb or you are not a real politician so you were not savvy to the fact that you're not supposed to do this. His boy was pushing all the buttons for him on his behalf, circumventing a system that was in place to do it the right way. That's why Rudy was involved, Elliott.

If they wanted to go after corruption, even a U.S. citizen in Ukraine, we have an agreement between the two countries with the whole protocol in place and it goes to the DOJ. He would have known that if he wanted to do it the right way if he cared about corruption. He had his guy doing this. Rudy is the key.

WILLIAMS: Yes, okay, well. In mob prosecutions, that's called a bag man. When you have someone being the fall guy for the underlying offense that you've committed, let's look at what starts with the whistleblower report, is corroborated in that call memorandum and is corroborated in the testimony of pretty much everybody we've seen thus far--

CUOMO: And Rudy, yelling at me, blowing my hairline back. WILLIAMS: Rudy, yelling at you and blowing your hairline back. What this was - this is at the President of the United States direction, the President of the United States sought to seek favors from a foreign country. The President of the United States sought to carry out investigations of a political rival. Now the fact that he had someone carrying out the offense for him, again, that's, look, we can all use another term, legal term, "Accomplice Liability".

CUOMO: Ooh.

WILLIAMS: You like that? When you enlist someone else to commit an offense, you're guilty of the offense, too. Let's not pin this all on Rudy Giuliani when in fact it is the conduct of the President of the United States that is at issue here. The Mayor, Mayor Giuliani has his own matters to take care of, his legal matters to be concerned about but at the end of the day this is the President's responsibility here.

CUOMO: Ask Michael Cohen Asha, how it goes when it's Donald Trump or you who is going to wind up paying the price for something? Yes, I still think, when the book is written about all this, Michael Cohen made his mistakes but the fact that the President was not punished for any of the stuff that Michael Cohen did and he's sitting in jail right now, Rudy Giuliani has got to be worried.

RANGAPPA: Rudy Giuliani should be very worried about his own personal liability. You know, he does not have the kind of immunities and protections that the President enjoys. But as Elliott--

CUOMO: Nor the support.

RANGAPPA: Exactly. You really do need to remember--

CUOMO: --nor the support, remember politicians will decide the President's fate.

RANGAPPA: That's right. But going back to the President's conduct, which is really an issue because as Elliott pointed out, Rudy Giuliani was acting in service of the President. So whatever he did was doing it for the President's benefit. And I'll just point out that not only has every witness who has come forward so far appeared to corroborate both the whistleblower complaint and each other.

I have not yet seen any exculpatory evidence or information coming out in any of the reporting from these witnesses that would mitigate what Trump was trying to do in terms of giving Republicans any kind of hook to, you know, to give him a defense which is I think partly why they're struggling and throwing spaghetti against the wall hoping something sticks.

WILLIAMS: Well, what they tried to do on top of that is attack the credibility of a witness like Vindman yesterday by calling him the espionage point and so.

CUOMO: Vindman was a mistake for them. They're going to learn from this one. They pick the wrong guy, you have to know who you're going at and the reason they went after him, he is been the most effective. He was on the call, he's got the pedigree, he is been there.

[21:45:00]

CUOMO: Asha, Elliott, I don't see it enough. I love you guys. Thank you for making my show better. I appreciate it.

RANGAPPA: Thank you.

CUOMO: All right. Remember Russia? The closing has actually architected to the play off this conversation that we just had. They're the country that meddled in our last election. The President and his defenders, I think they need a refresher. I think that this situation we're in right now and where we're going, including with Rudy Giuliani, will benefit from just the briefest look of where we've just been. That's the crux of the argument next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: All right. Here we go. What's past is prologue said Shakespeare, and the Bard's instruction that a look back can show you where you are and where you're going is very useful now, I argue to you.

After the Mueller probe, the one thing both sides seemed to agree on was that foreign influence in an election is a no-no. Witness Trump defender number one.

[21:50:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R-SC): Here's what I want you to tell every politician. If you get a call from somebody suggesting that a foreign government wants to help you by disparaging your opponent, tell us all to call the FBI.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, remember that. But also remember this. This President never seemed to accept that reality. In fact, the day after Mr. Mueller explicitly said the President was not exculpated by the report, Trump got on the phone with the Ukrainian President and asked for a favor, that he reopen an investigation into the company which Hunter Biden served on the board for.

The transcript of which was locked away on a secret server, and testimony about which the White House has repeatedly tried to block. So for those opposed to this impeachment, here's the question for you. What will stop this President from continuing to get help in this election and to abuse his power in general?

Just because he did this Ukraine thing doesn't mean he'll do it again. That's what they say. But this was Trump before Mueller.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Oh, he's just joking. You still think that? Then his campaign tried to get closer to WikiLeaks and to Russian agents, and they got off the hook with Mueller for failing in their efforts and being seen as too stupid to know it was wrong. But now when people cried foul about Trump's play to Ukraine, what did he do? He doubled down. He asked China to do the same thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened to China is just about as bad as what happened with - with Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: And that's what he's saying to your face. Imagine what's happening behind your back. And if there were any hope of those close to this President taming his tendencies, once again we must turn to Trump defender number one, Senator Graham. You remember what he just said up there? That foreign influence is a problem. Now he says this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: I have zero problems with his phone call. There is no quid pro quo here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: So if Ukraine offered you help, it's bad and call the FBI but if you ask them, no problem. The hypocrisy doesn't help, and it tees up another reason that a look back shows the peril of the President. You remember how random the accusations against Paul Manafort seemed? What was he doing? What was this Ukraine millions, Russian oligarch? What's all this? What's going on?

Now he's working free for the Trump campaign. This doesn't make sense. It's so random. Now Rudy Giuliani is in the same soup potentially. Paid hundreds of thousands for who knows what by guys now under arrest for funneling Russian money into campaigns, and Giuliani's all over the place meeting with people in Ukraine and once again working for the President for free, running the scam there.

Eerie coincidence, or was there some kind of agreement that he get value back for his services to the President? All we know for sure is that this President put us right back in a vulnerable place that Mr. Mueller warned about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In your investigation did you think that this was a single attempt by the Russians to get involved in our election, or did you find evidence to suggest they'll try to do this again?

ROBERT MUELLER, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL: Oh, it wasn't a single attempt. They're doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it going to the next campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right. Now, on this point of Russian interference, you saw what we learned from "The New York Times" today, right? They've got a new bag. They're testing new disinformation tactics in this enormous Facebook campaign, and this part of Africa is an evolution of its manipulation techniques ahead of our next election. This time no fake accounts, no account set up in Russia.

They're employing locals, so it's harder to notice. Facebook is going to know this, and what are they going to do about it? Nothing. Still an active participant in the disinformation campaign because it's basically allowing all political ads even if they contain lies.

But maybe Russia is just not up to new tricks but employing older, other methods, like moneying up people close to this President. Maybe they got close to Rudy. Maybe he didn't even know. But this President certainly has learned nothing and has certainly not been chastened by anything in the past.

So if impeachment isn't necessary, how can those who defend this President but who went on record that foreign influence is a bad thing in elections - how do you plan to stop him?

[21:55:00]

CUOMO: I'm going to be asking this question a lot, and you should be listening carefully to the answers. Now, that's my argument.

When we come back, Facebook tees up a bolo for us because what these platforms do matters so much in our democracy. Bolo, for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Bolo time. That means be on the lookout. I just showed you what Facebook is doing or not doing about deceptive political ads. But Twitter of all platforms is going in the other direction, announcing today that it will stop accepting all political ads starting next month.

CEO Jack Dorsey tweeting, we believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. The question is good step? The Trump campaign calls it an attempt to silence conservatives. How, when it's all ads that they're doing this to?

But anyway, be on the lookout because while this may have been nothing for Twitter other than a jab at Zuckerberg and company, it could set off First Amendment litigation and make Twitter itself a target of its biggest troll, this president.

All right. Thank you for watching. "CNN TONIGHT" with the man, D. Lemon, starts right now.