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Impeachment Witness Testifies He Heard Trump Ask About Biden Investigation One Day After Zelensky Call; Ousted Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch Testifies As Trump Attacks Her Online; Roger Stone Convicted On All Counts; Ignoring Pentagon, Trump Intervenes In War Crimes Cases; Sources Reveal Secret Trump White House Meeting With Rudy Giuliani Associates Lev Parness And Igor Fruman. Aired 9-10p ET

Aired November 15, 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: Sentencing will be in February. That's it for now. I'll be back 11 pm Eastern time tonight with another live edition of 360. Until then, slow news night, I'll hand it over to Chris Cuomo for "Prime Time." Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Well, it's really like 7/20 (ph). That's why you stumbled over because you are doing double duty, because you are our Ironman. Have a great weekend, well deserved.

Everybody, I am Chris Cuomo. Welcome to Prime Time. The first weekend of public impeachment brings major new evidence just today. Tonight, we have our best investigative and legal minds to test all the different angles that arose, including a CNN exclusive that will be first here on Prime Time, new reporting on Rudy Giuliani's associates in a never-before known connection to President Trump, putting them at the heart of this Ukraine scheme.

Why did an indicted man with a shady past think he was on a James Bond style mission for our President? What do you say? Let's get after it.

All right, look it happened just this weekend. This weekend, look I'm like it's been so long. Just this evening, we got firsthand testimony showing that President Trump knew about the push for investigations and was monitoring the pressure campaign on Ukraine. How do we know?

A State Department aide who says he and two others, OK - that's called corroboration - that they heard President Trump on a call with Ambassador Sondland the day after the July 25 call between the two Presidents. I then heard President Trump ask, so he's going to do the investigation? Ambassador Sondland replied that he's going to do it, adding that President Zelensky will do anything you ask him to.

After the call ended, David Holmesm the State Department aide, says he asked Sondland, is it true the President doesn't give a bleep about Ukraine? Ambassador Sondland agreed that the President did not.

Sondland stated that the President only cares about big stuff. What was big stuff? Good question. Sondland replies, by big stuff he means what benefits the President like the Biden investigation that Mr. Giuliani was pushing.

So we've now heard from three respected officials who were all deeply concerned by how this President was pinching Ukraine for what they all saw as campaign assistance. However, testimony aside, the worst move of the week for the President's defense came from the man himself.

While former Ambassador Yovanovitch told her story of being smeared by Giuliani, Trump proved why she was concerned by trashing her on Twitter in real-time. Chairman Schiff hears about the tweet, shows it to Yovanovitch, while she's still under oath. She calls the President's tactic very intimidating. Republicans tried to paint people of integrity as Deep State sneaks.

Yet another of Trump's campaign asset is in that whole cause went down. Who? Roger Stone. He became a convicted felon today. A jury convicted the President's longtime political advisor on all counts, mainly lying to and obstructing Congress. If the charges withstand any appeals, that would make Mr. Stone the seventh Trump person convicted of or admitting to lying to investigators.

So all this is swirling in the air, it's all very troubling to the President so much that he tweets an attack in real time during testimony. But then what happens? Mr. Trump ignores advice from the Pentagon and just tonight pardons two officers and restored the rank of a third, all facing war crime allegations.

The leadership of the Defense Department reportedly made every effort to convince him not to do this. So why did he do it, especially tonight? Another distraction, maybe but we have our eye on what matters.

Let's bring in our investigators Misters McCabe and Baker. Gentlemen, thank you on a Friday night. Basically out of the corner of my eye saw mostly heads nodding, so I know I didn't get anything grossly wrong.

When we look at this week overall, you have this dovetailing of law and facts, and how this will play out politically. The political part, not your bailiwick, but in terms of what came out and what it manifests in the case going forward, big spot's for you.

JIM BAKER, FORMER FBI GENERAL COUNSEL: The big spot I think was what you just talked about with respect to what is the big stuff mean in that conversation that Mr. Holmes testified about this evening.

CUOMO: The conversation with the Ambassador, the reason they heard it is that the President was speaking so loudly, he says that the Ambassador had the phone away from his head, so they heard the President's very identifiable voice. And he says the big stuff is Ukraine, he's asking about the investigation, so what?

[21:05:00]

BAKER: The big stuff he says it means stuff that benefits the President personally and that's what this is all about. This is about the President abusing his authority. He has authority to do lots of things with respect to the Foreign Relations of the United States, but he doesn't get to benefit himself personally over the interests of the United States. That's the problem, that's what the abuse is.

He's doing it for himself, to keep himself in power, to help himself politically. That's one of the things that really jumped out to me.

CUOMO: That's the take on it. What's the pushback? Sondland is a bum, I don't know him, I don't know what he's talking about. And by the way, even if all of that stuff is true from his perspective, what's wrong with going after the Bidens? Yovanovitch, Kent and Taylor, they all said Biden being on that Board was a potential concern for us, and so it was for the President, everything's OK.

ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Here's the problems. Presidents and people in government don't go after American citizens overseas by essentially casting them onto the mercy of a foreign government. If the President thought that the Bidens had done something illegal, the way to handle that is to make that referral to the Department of Justice.

The fact that he never did that shows us that what he was interested in here was not investigating corruption, it was in collecting opposition research on the Bidens for his own benefit, and that's what makes this impeachable.

CUOMO: So what's damning is not the what, it's the how.

MCCABE: That's right.

CUOMO: That if you want to go after the Bidens, fine you've got a specific treaty with Ukraine, you've gotten your man there, Mr. Barr at the DOJ, do it.

MCCABE: That's right.

CUOMO: But if you don't want your hands on it, because then it's not as effective Politics 101, if I'm running against you and I take a shot at you and say you're dirty, not as effective as if he says it.

MCCABE: Right.

CUOMO: Is that what you think this comes down to?

BAKER: Well it's clear that they that they wanted the President and his - and Mr. Giuliani and others, wanted the Ukrainian President just to go and say something on CNN--

CUOMO: And announce it.

BAKER: --and announce it. That was the key thing that they were after, because that would be the thing, no matter what happened with the investigation. If it took two years and they never found anything, that would be irrelevant. It's the fact that, during - the existence of it during the during the election period.

CUOMO: I think Yovanovitch is a bum, she stunk in Somalia, she stunk everywhere, how's that witness intimidation? MCCABE: Look, Yovanovitch was number three in the list of American patriots who sat in that hearing room over the last couple of days and showed what true sacrifice and commitment to this government means.

The big take-away for me was, I kicked myself for not having built my cases in the FBI with witnesses who are from the State Department, because they were incredible. Great recollection, backed up with contemporaneous notes, incredible detail, things that you could corroborate in their stories, if you were going to go deeper and more expansive in the investigation.

I think all three of them did really well. The key with the Yovanovitch, she is essentially the victim in this case, if it were. When you put a criminal case on trial, if possible you always want to have the victim testify, even if the victim doesn't have direct evidence of the defendant's guilt, you want the victim to testify because it personalizes the crime. That's what Yovanovitch did today in this hearing.

CUOMO: So they say maybe witness intimidation is another article of impeachment. OK, maybe. Is there a possibility that removing Yovanovitch, everybody says as if it's a bygone conclusion, he can do it anyway he wants.

We did some research, maladministration which is where, yes, you can remove me for whatever reason you want, but if you do it for bad reason in a way that belies the abuse of your power, there is some precedent - this is very thin area - but that you could be impeached for that as well. Do you buy that notion?

BAKER: Well they talked about that in the - when they were framing the Constitution and decided not to include that particular phrase--

CUOMO: Right.

BAKER: --and came up with the phrase high crime - treason, bribery, high crimes, and misdemeanors instead. But it's intended to cover--

CUOMO: Instead of maladministration.

BAKER: --instead of maladministration. It's intended to cover a range of abuses of office. That's what it's about, abusing your power for a variety of bad reasons to be determined by Congress, because the framers didn't want to try to predict everything that a bad or corrupt President could possibly do.

The House and the Senate need to figure that out as time evolves.

CUOMO: It's interesting.

BAKER: But he just doesn't get to do whatever he wants with the office, he doesn't get to just use that power any way he wants to.

CUOMO: It was interesting to see the Republicans shift this week from nothing happened, because everything turned out OK, to this was OK to do because who Biden is. They haven't even gotten the heavy artillery yet. That comes next week. So I will rely on you both very heavy, rest up this weekend, thank you so much for being of so much benefit to the audience, appreciate you both.

BAKER: Thank you.

MCCABE: Thank you.

CUOMO: Thank you gentlemen. All right, we do have some breaking additional Ukraine news on our watch. Sources are telling our Vicki Ward about a secret meeting between the President of the United States, Lev Parness and Igor Fruman.

Why would one of them have the feeling that the President wanted them to be his James Bond, after what he heard?

[21:10:00]

Wacky story, hear it from Vicki Ward working her sources, a CNN exclusive next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: All right, a CNN exclusive on a Friday night. New reporting that describes a secret White House meeting between the President of the United States, Rudy Giuliani, and the two men now facing federal conspiracy theories and charges, all right.

We know at least of those guys, you got Lev Parness, OK. He later bragged about his secret mission for the President in Ukraine. How did he get that idea, is it a legitimate idea? CNN's Vicky Ward is breaking this news.

[21:15:00]

Vicki, thank you especially on a Friday night of being with us. Let's start with the assumption. President says, I don't know. I don't know what Rudy was doing with this guy, I don't know what's going on, ask Rudy. You say?

VICKY WARD, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I say my reporting shows that last December, Hanukkah Party at the White House, over 500 Republican donors, Lev Parness, Igor Fruman, the two gentlemen Trump claims not to know went with Rudy Giuliani into a room with the President where they strategized about a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine.

This is the first time that we know of that the President directly talked to Lev Parness. This is according to Lev Parness, according to what he told two sources contemporaneously that Lev Parness, who speaks fluent Russian, Chris, would be tasked with going to Ukraine where he and Igor Fruman have contacts high up in the government to give them the President's message.

Lev Parness talked about this as a secret mission, a crusade. He said, I'm working for the big guy in Ukraine in government circles. It was widely known that he had had this White House meeting that he was backed by the President. CUOMO: So Rudy's lawyer comes back and says this guy's delusional, this meeting never happened, I don't know why he thinks that. Why should we believe it did?

WARD: Well, as I said to Rudy's lawyer, so how come Rudy Giuliani spent so much time with Mr. Parness and Mr. Fruman, and not only that was tied in with them financially? Furthermore, you do see this secret mission did start and actually in its early stages is quite successful.

Lev Parness and Igor Fruman go to Ukraine in February, they meet with President Poroshenko, they tell Poroshenko, you need to start, you need to announce public investigations, and in return there'll be a state visit in the United States.

And guess what, it worked, it all worked actually until--

CUOMO: Until what?

WARD: --because Lutsenko gives an interview in which he says we're going to start investigations in April. But it all goes wrong when the woman of the moment, Marie Yovanovitch who testified today is fired. She is fired as we know because Lev Parness and Igor Fruman and Rudy Giuliani pushed for her to be fired.

They had financial interests that they perceived her to be an obstacle to. Once she's fired, it sort of like everybody finally woke up.

CUOMO: And what does that tell you now in the new reporting?

WARD: What does it tell--

CUOMO: What is the new reporting tell us about what we should believe at this point?

WARD: Well I think it's what's concerning about the new reporting is that it puts the President firmly in the Lev Parness and Igor Fruman camp much earlier than the July 25 phone call when he gets on the phone and there's talk of a quid pro quo.

What it shows us is basically there was this idea of a quid pro quo what are we going to do in Ukraine back in December.

CUOMO: Now here's the problem they'll have. Parness wants to speak, he has new representation, there's a whole story that you unearthed about why he and Fruman don't have the same counsel anymore. Let's leave it for people, they can read it online if they want.

But the upshot is this, he wants to talk, he says he wants to talk to investigators. They are going to need to destroy Parness, which this President seems to like to do very much, where that's warranted or not.

The problem is that, if they go after Parness too hard, do they risk throwing Rudy under the bus with him?

WARD: Well, you are entirely right. Lev Parness really wants to talk to investigators and what the people--

CUOMO: He was very insulted that the President said he didn't know him, and now when he got indicted that the President went bad on him.

WARD: This is what's so interesting actually that at the end of the day, Lev Parness is clearly a sort of very emotional man that if the President hadn't said he didn't know him, he might not now have turned.

I mean this was - I say in my article Lev Parness worshipped the big guy. (inaudible) Michael Cohen, Chris. They're all going to stand in line--

CUOMO: Very charismatic man.

WARD: Yes.

CUOMO: --being that close to someone that powerful--

WARD: Right.

CUOMO: --can really bring strong feelings for people and make you willing to do just about anything.

WARD: Right, until the President said he doesn't really know you, he's got nothing to do with you. And in the same way, the President sort of turned on Michael Cohen, the President turned on Lev Parness and now Lev Parness wants to stand up and tell his story.

Rather like Michael Cohen, he's a flawed person, he's not got a perfect track record.

[21:20:00]

But I think you're going to see that his counsel will argue, well just because someone's not a perfect person doesn't mean they haven't got a true story to tell.

CUOMO: Now, it'll be very interesting to see how this story plays.

WARD: Yes.

CUOMO: But one person who will have to read it very closely, which many may not think, Ambassador Sondland, because this could be his future.

WARD: Right.

CUOMO: If he has one understanding of why he did and said what he did that now takes him to a different place with the President, he's going to want to read this story.

WARD: He is.

CUOMO: Vicky Ward, thank you very much for helping us understand what's in the morass a little bit better, appreciate it, have a great weekend.

WARD: And to you, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, there's an exclusive, you'll see it on cnn.com. Did Republicans just risk losing their biggest line of attack on the open impeachment hearings? I'm going to bring back in a GOP lawmaker who says if there's reason to impeach, he would. So, what would be reason to impeach, what is missing so far, what's he looking for? Next.

[21:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: So, one week in, Congress has heard from three people saying they were concerned by how the President's lawyer and others went about trying to get investigations into the Bidens. And we just heard from a fourth tonight behind closed doors, but the reporting is, and the statement that they put out says that the President's pal said that Trump only cares about the Bidens.

Republican Ted Yoho was in the hearing room today. Any new concerns? Congressman, welcome back to Prime Time, and may I salute you and by extension all those in the Republican Party who were in that hearing for how you treated Yovanovitch today. You accorded her the respect that the service deserved.

I know you weren't there, but by extension, they treated her the right way, that's a step in the right direction. What do you make of what came out today?

REP. TED YOHO (R-FL): What I saw was somebody, Marie Yovanovitch and the Democrats were trying to make it all about her being a victim. She got removed from office, from her position. And as we all know, that's at the discretion of any President, and President Obama has done that in the past, all Presidents remove people for whatever reason. They don't have to have just cause. And so, I thought it was not a lot of came out of that hearing is what I saw and I took out of that.

CUOMO: So you're right that of course a President can - people serve at the pleasure of the President in that capacity that we're talking about as an Ambassador. However, if it is true that the reason Yovanovitch was smeared by Giuliani and his two indicted associates, and that the President believed them and that she was in the way of getting what they wanted out of Ukraine, does that concern you as an abuse of office?

YOHO: No, because if you read further and you read other testimonies, she was a friend of President Poroshenko, and President Zelensky felt that she - her loyalty was to him, and so he was uncomfortable--

CUOMO: Do we know that she was actually a friend with Poroshenko? I do not remember her acknowledging that in the testimony today. She is an American, right?

YOHO: Yes, I mean the transcripts--

CUOMO: We don't think that she's a plant, right?

YOHO: Well she was born in Canada with Ukrainian or Russian parents. We've seen many stories and read many reports on that.

CUOMO: But hold on, Congressman, do you in any way believe that she may not be loyal to this country, are we doing another Vindman here?

YOHO: No, I did not say that.

CUOMO: Oh OK.

YOHO: You brought that up.

CUOMO: No, you brought up that she was born in Canada and that she's got Ukraine parents, what does that mean?

YOHO: But you brought up that too, was she was may not be loyal to this President. There's reports that President Poroshenko wrote her letters saying how he supports her. And I mean those are facts that are out there. So again, it goes back to, does President Trump or any President have the right to remove somebody, and the answer is yes.

CUOMO: Right, but there is such a thing as maladministration. And I just want to be clear, because we went through this once before. She serves--

YOHO: Well, if there's maladministration, all of Congress is guilty.

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO: Well, we'll take that up at another time, I'll take that as an admission of guilt though, Congressman. Duly noted.

Let me ask you this, just to be clear about this, because this does matter.

YOHO: Yes.

CUOMO: You do not think that former Ambassador Yovanovitch has any marks on her character or her loyalty to her office or this country?

YOHO: That's a tough question. I mean I can go back to when she got a - when she got approved by the Senate under the Obamas who groomed her and told her what to say about President or Vice President Biden and his son. So was she withholding information, I don't know what did she know at that time, what were the investigations.

CUOMO: Why was she good enough for Reagan and Bush?

YOHO: Times change. That was Presidents ago and new information came out. I don't know, you'd have to ask her, and that would start a whole new investigation.

CUOMO: She was confirmed under Bush, she started under Reagan, and now you have questions about her loyalty. YOHO: I'm not questioning her loyalty. I'm just telling you that President Poroshenko, he wrote the letter saying how he really liked her and he approved of her. President Zelensky didn't feel comfortable with that kind of loyalty to Poroshenko. So that's what goes into this factor today and I think that got back to President Trump.

President Trump may have had other reasons, it sounded like he did, and so he removed her. And that's really, how does that factor into what the Democrats are trying to do, impeach a legitimate President and we're a year away from it, let the American people decide in the next election--

[21:30:00]

CUOMO: The concerns with being --

YOHO: -- instead of sucking all the oxygen out of the room.

CUOMO: I totally --

YOHO: -- and we are not getting done what we need to for our nation.

CUOMO: I think you're not getting done what you need to because the politics of opposition is getting too rewarded by the parties right now, and you're playing to the fringe on each side. But that's a discussion for another day.

I think that I hear your argument and I do not dismiss it, that what does impeachment do to this country, is it the right vehicle?

The concern it seems is that this President won't stop abusing his power this way. If he had come out and said, you know what, I don't like what Biden did, I think it's wrong, but I shouldn't have done it this way, I should have the DOJ investigated him, and I'm doing that right now, you guys would be in a very different position.

But he will not say that, so it puts the onus on you. Why was it OK for --

YOHO: Yes, but you're talking about - you're implying that he did this to investigate Biden.

CUOMO: Yes.

YOHO: I think he - the way I see it, he was investigating the 2016 election where we know CrowdStrike was in Ukraine, and Putin even said that his people and the Ukrainians were more concerned about getting --

CUOMO: Well, Putin certainly said it.

YOHO: -- Hillary Clinton, listen --

CUOMO: Putin certainly said it.

YOHO: -- to get Hillary elected. CUOMO: And his intelligence people put this out to distract from their own interference. I've heard this three times now in the hearings and you seem to accept it as well. You really think that there's a chance that Russia did it --

(CROSSTALK)

YOHO: -- they had that up there?

CUOMO: You really think that there's a chance that Russia didn't interfere in the election like the intelligence communities tell you, including Trump own appointees, but that it was Ukraine?

YOHO: I think it's -- there were people that interfered in the election.

CUOMO: Yes, you mean the Russians.

YOHO: There's a slim line between Russia and Ukraine that there's Russians that are in Ukraine that could have done this. I think the important thing is somebody interfered in this election and we as Americans --

CUOMO: Not someone.

YOHO: -- we all need to come together.

CUOMO: Russians did it, that's why you guys put on the sanctions, that you voted for in such unanimous fashion, which is so atypical for you guys.

YOHO: We went after --

CUOMO: That's why it was so insulting when the President stood next to Putin, the man responsible putatively, and said I believe him, I don't think they would do this. That's why it was so insulting to so many people. Yes?

YOHO: Well, you don't know what the context the President was in, when he said that.

(LAUGHTER)

It's like, I don't want to get into this right now, we're dealing with these other issues, and so again going back to the impeachment -

CUOMO: So I'm going to say I believe Putin?

YOHO: -- let's go back to the impeachment.

CUOMO: But I'm saying, look if you're going to question Yovanovitch's loyalty, that didn't bother you when the President stood next to the man responsible for interfering in our election, Congressman, and said, yes I believe him, I don't think he did it, he says he had no reason to.

YOHO: I'm not saying anything about Yovanovitch's loyalty. All I know is--

CUOMO: You said a few things about it.

YOHO: -- what President Zelensky said that he didn't feel comfortable with her because she felt --

CUOMO: Zelensky thanked the President for telling him about the problems with Yovanovitch in the transcript of the call.

YOHO: Right, but he also knows that Yovanovitch had gotten letters from Poroshenko saying how much he liked her and he felt her loyalty could --

CUOMO: But don't we want --

YOHO: -- Zelensky felt her loyalty was probably closer to Poroshenko, the person he beat in the previous election.

CUOMO: But what do we care what they say about the relative leverage of a US diplomat, when they're working for us. Don't we want foreign powers to like our diplomats and work with them and have a good relationship?

YOHO: Absolutely, and I think that's a great point, because the President Zelensky--

CUOMO: But we don't believe that's why Trump said bad things about her, right? We've never had anyone testify --

YOHO: If President Zelensky --

CUOMO: -- that Poroshenko's affection for Yovanovitch is why they went after her. Go ahead sir.

YOHO: If President Zelensky is not comfortable with Ambassador Yovanovitch, according to your own words, we want a President in a foreign country to like and trust the people we send over there. Obviously, he didn't feel comfortable with her and President Trump had other reasons, and so he removed her. But yet none of this really plays into why we're having an impeachment trial. None of this is impeachable.

CUOMO: Well, it would be impeachable, I don't know about removal, I think that's - we got to get down the road there. But if you abuse your office for your own personal gain by withholding Congressionally exercised aid, that falls right into the category of maladministration of people in political positions of trust, doing things for their own benefit that the founding fathers wanted you guys to look at, is it not?

YOHO: Yes, but was aid withheld? No, it got paid.

CUOMO: It was withheld. It then got paid after you guys started asking questions about it.

YOHO: But we withheld foreign aid to a lot of countries. President Obama did it, President Bush did it.

CUOMO: The question is why.

YOHO: It depends on the nations.

CUOMO: I know, I'm talking about Ukraine.

YOHO: We are withholding it from Central America right now because of the amount of corruption, and there still is corruption in there, and why should we give Americans - the Americans' hard-earned taxpayers to countries.

[21:35:00]

And I think if we send a strong signal that says you guys need to tighten up your act over there, we're not going to give you the aid, I think that's a good thing that the American people would be happy about.

CUOMO: Congressman, I hear you 100%, you should think that people who have corruption in their mindset should not think they're going to get money from us for free.

YOHO: Absolutely.

CUOMO: If the facts here keep showing what they're showing right now that this was not done for that, but for political advantage, I want to bring you back and figure out what that means to you.

YOHO: I'd be happy to.

CUOMO: Congressman, always welcome on this show, it's good to have you Congressman Yoho.

YOHO: Chris, you take care.

CUOMO: God bless down there in Florida, I'll speak to you soon.

YOHO: All right buddy, take care, have a good weekend.

CUOMO: All right, Congressman has his doubts. Look, I mean this is not an easy case to make to get Republicans onboard. So let's bring in two of the top journalists on the impeachment beat to examine what week one means to week two and the overall trial (ph).

Look at those two, how could they not know anything. It's got to be good. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: So President Trump and his allies insist their dealings with Ukraine were only about battling corruption, so that everything they did was OK. But today's witness dismantled that argument, one even drawing a direct line to the President himself, and it's somewhat damning.

But where does it leave us. Political journalism all-stars Elaina Plott, Philip Bump are here. Thank you both, especially on a Friday.

[21:40:00]

CUOMO: Now, Ted Yoho is a good reflection of the state of play of how Republicans want this. That Yovanovitch - I'm not making any - don't say I'm - don't say I'm saying anything bad about her, but she was born in Canada.

PHILIP BUMP, CORRESPONDENT, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Right.

CUOMO: And she's got Ukraine parents and that Poroshenko liked her. So, you know, you'll add it up, one on one on one, seven. What do you do with that in terms of what it tells us about where we are?

BUMP: Well, I mean - so obviously, impeachment is inherently a political issue and so, for all of the concerns about how much we focus on what the politics of this are, obviously we need to pay attention to that. And one of the things we're seeing here, something that we've already known about Trump and his base of support since he took office, which is that it's not - he is given the presumption of innocence by default, which of course in the criminal context is what we're all meant to do.

But, whatever is thrown at Donald Trump is seen as invalid inherently by his base and so all he needs to be able to do is just come up with a couple of talking points to sort of diffuse what's out there at the moment and he can keep moving forward. And so, what we see is each time one of these witnesses steps forwards, Yovanovitch or Taylor or whoever it might be, they are very quickly dismissed as inauthentic and not trustworthy simply because that's what people are already assuming about anyone who says anything bad about Trump. And so, that's what we're seeing here today.

CUOMO: So what do you do with the Sondland revelation today from the State Department aid that the President was speaking so loudly that he had the phone away from his face and several of them heard the President say what's going to happen with the investigations and then Sondland said to them afterwards, he only cares about the big stuff like the Bidens. What does that do in terms of the sense of detachment that was necessary early on for the President?

ELAINA PLOTT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "THE ATLANTIC": Exactly. So, what you have to remember is that a key underpinning of the Republican talking point defense right now is that nobody who has testified thus far has any first-hand knowledge of the events in question, particularly ironic of course because they have blocked most people who would have first-hand--

CUOMO: Bolton, Pompeo, Mulvaney.

PLOTT: --knowledge from testifying. Holmes represents one of the first people who was actually there and listened to this call that Taylor revealed in his testimony on Wednesday, which makes Sondland's testimony next week, which will be public, even more meaningful. Will he confirm what Holmes said in his opening statement--

CUOMO: What if he doesn't?

(CROSSTALK)

PLOTT: What if he doesn't? I mean that--

(CROSSTALK)

PLOTT: Exactly.

CUOMO: --Can he keep himself safe?

PLOTT: Exactly.

CUOMO: --and not do damage to the President because obviously he'd like to do both of those things, right?

PLOTT: Right. And we've already seen President Trump yesterday, he told reporters, "I don't actually know Sondland that well." This is someone of course--

CUOMO: A big donor to him. He was gifted an ambassadorship.

PLOTT: $1 million to his inauguration.

CUOMO: And if we had this phone call with him.

PLOTT: Phone calls, you know, back to terrorists in Italy, just pretty personal linkage there. Creating distance I think is a go-to Trump move in moments like this, and that could happen even more leading up to next week.

CUOMO: But every time it happens, if it gets uncovered, right, like Osama and he were on the phone, Lev Parness isn't just another guy with money in his pocket or promises of money in a picture, he's in a meeting and if it's so easy to dismiss, then why was he so close to Rudy? What does it do?

BUMP: I mean, again, all of us who are sitting here are very aware of what the evidence is that exists, that Donald Trump acted any way that is not typical for a President to put it sort of generously, right? We know that he had these conversations; we know that Rudy Giuliani was very active in trying to push to have these investigations done by Ukraine. We know all these things to be true, right?

The question is what evidence can there be? I mean your conversation with Congressman Yoho is very representative, as you said, of the fact that it's not as though there is new evidence that's going to come out which is going to change people's minds. And so, having Sondland who was very judicious in his first testimony in saying, "Well, I don't recall all these various things," and already once said to be like, Oh, all of a sudden I remember this very--

CUOMO: That I'm the guy who delivered--

BUMP: Right, this message.

CUOMO: --this is the deal.

BUMP: That's exactly right, on September 1. That Sondland is this person and he may have to come back next week and say, "Oh, I suddenly remember this is" as well. What does that change? What does that mean for this process itself? It's just hard to see where these - where any dents can be made.

CUOMO: But at the end of the day, it's not about what the reasonable man and woman in the box will say; it's whether or not there's something that could come out that would make people who don't want this to be an abuse of power that rises to the level of impeachment have to feel otherwise. What would that take?

PLOTT: Well, I think for - you talk to Republicans right now and they still feel quite confidently that the only thing that would cause them to change their mind at all on this is if evidence of a quid pro quo were more explicit perhaps.

CUOMO: How much more explicit than this?

PLOTT: --than they feel it is right now.

CUOMO: I mean it was an attempted bribe with a set up.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: You're not going to get the aid; you're not going to get the meeting if I don't get the Bidens.

BUMP: Right.

CUOMO: That can only be that.

PLOTT: Well, you forgot, Chris, you have to stay quid pro quo in the text message or in the conversation.

CUOMO: Quid pro quo?

(CROSSTALK)

PLOTT: Right, yes.

CUOMO: All right, look, we'll see what the next week brings. I'd love to have you back as we wrap up the week because this is the firepower next week. At the end of next week, if we feel or they say, I'm not impressed by any of this, I don't know where it goes.

PLOTT: Right.

[21:45:00]

CUOMO: But, but thank you so much on a Friday night. Some of the best minds in the business, appreciate you for my audience.

BUMP: Thanks.

CUOMO: Thank you.

PLOTT: Thank you.

CUOMO: All right. Philip Bump, Elaina Plott, great to have them. Republicans defending the President; I think they took a step in the right direction today, but then they were undercut in two big ways by the President himself. And that's the closing argument; state of play next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: All right, after one week, here's the state of play. One step up and then two huge steps back for Republicans after this first week of impeachment hearings. The first-hand account about Trump's big donor, Ambassador Sondland, saying Trump only cares about the Biden investigations and Trump being caught on a call with him basically proving just that, and then the bullying (ph) Chief himself proving why the former ambassador to Ukraine was worried by Giuliani smear campaign, all came together with him trashing her in real time.

[21:50:00]

Here's the tweet: Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia; how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. Point of order, Zelensky thanked the President for giving him the information about Yovanovitch. So, he must have been smearing his own. So for all the efforts of his defenders to tamp down potential charges, he may have added one with that tweet. Who says? The Democrats; listen to Schiff.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIE YOVANOVITCH, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: It's very intimidating. I mean I can't speak to what the President is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): I want to let you know, ambassador, that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Witness intimidation could be the basis for an article of impeachment in and of itself, as could something called mal- administration, meaning the President has the right to remove Yovanovitch; she serves at his pleasure. However, if the reasons for the removal betray and abuse of power, it could be impeachable. The President's disrespect trampled defenders efforts to lay off the deep state BS, unlike with Taylor and Kent, the Republicans showed respect for Yovanovitch.

And in that way, they made some progress. They moved away from the absurd nothing-happened-here approach to the notion that Yovanovitch and Mr. Kent both saw potential issues with Biden's son being on the board of a Ukraine company and thus, it was a legit corruption concern for the President to raise it; listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): They are blind to the blaring signs of corruption surrounding Hunter Biden's well-paid position on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian company, while his father served as vice president and point man for Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, side point if it was that, obvious the Republicans were in power in Congress at that time and they were not exactly shy about investigating things, they never went near this. But here's the big problem with the argument as it stands right now after one week, it ignores how Trump went about this legit question of corruption in such a non-legit way. If you think Biden was dirty, you go to Bill Barr, the Attorney General, and say take a look.

OK, you don't want to do it that overtly; all right. The U.S. and Ukraine actually have a specific treaty for investigations just like this with setup protocols. No, you didn't do that. What the President did was insert his lawyer in a sneaky way, who worked with these indicted people off-room and this Lev Parness, who gets more shady by the day, now saying the President tasked him with getting Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in some James Bond deal.

The president says he doesn't know him. We have yet to hear testimony from anyone who was not troubled by how this was done and to what end. And for all the griping by the Right, it is their side, the White House, who's keeping Mulvaney, Pompeo and Bolton and maybe even documents from the Vice President away from these hearings.

Hey, if it's so clear, put him in the chair, tell us what happened and why, so this can have some clarity for the country. But you did this for just an announcement? You're so worried about these guys and Ukraine that you don't want to give them money, but you trust them to investigate on just an announcement? It doesn't make sense.

The big takeaway is that the facts remain obvious about what was done and why. And the biggest concern now may be the President's non-stop attacks of people in the process. Here's why; it could be a potential problem not just in the House, but in the Senate; why? The rules for the Senate trial on any articles of impeachment are done by simple majority vote. That means if three of the Republican Senators and there are four (ph) that aren't running again or retiring, if they say, "I'm not going with your rules. I'm not giving you a simple majority unless we get a secret ballot."

Well, what would that mean? Well then the Senate would act more like a jury in a criminal case. Ballots are obviously cast in secret, right? That's the norm. Now, if that were the case, former GOP Senator Jeff Flake says that he thinks like 35 Republicans would vote for removal. Let's say it's not even close to that, but it might create jeopardy for this President and get you close to a two-thirds majority.

Now, I know what you're thinking because I'm thinking it too. So these guys aren't going to stand behind their own votes; they're not going to be accountable to us. We're going to have more poor transparency? I don't like it. I got you on that, but here's the problem, here's their counter-argument. But what about what the President's doing? He's intimidating everybody. But we have to do it. This President's tactics that he put on display again today may be the reason for his biggest risk in this process.

[21:55:00]

That's my argument; what do you think? Let me know on social media. All right, two big stories tonight that may not seem related, but they are and that's the BOLO; next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: BOLO means Be On the Lookout. Remember this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGER STONE, AMERICAN POLITICAL CONSULTANT: I don't expect to be convicted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: He was wrong. Mr. Stone found guilty for lying too and obstructing Congress, all to protect one man, Donald Trump. That makes six Trump folk convicted or pleading guilty to essentially lying -- convicted or pleading guilty. We still have a long way to go in this impeachment inquiry but some of those closest to the President, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, VP, Chief of Staff, Secretary of State - they haven't offered answers about what they knew, what he knew and what actually went down.