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Holmes Testimony: "Never Seen Anything" Like Trump-Sondland Call In Restaurant; Hale: Pompeo Spoke To Hannity, Giuliani About Yovanovitch; Holmes: Ukrainians Felt Heat, Understood That There Was A Quid Pro Quo. Aired 9-10p ET

Aired November 18, 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, ANDERSON COOPER 360: --like when your relative repeats the same sentence minutes after he's already said something. Intimidating witness is easy, but being one, that's not, in Congress, or on The Ridiculist.

And the news continues. Want to hand it over to Chris for CUOMO PRIME TIME. Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST, CUOMO PRIME TIME: Thank you, my friend. I am Chris Cuomo and welcome to PRIME TIME.

We have breaking news coming in literally right now. There's new witness testimony that just dropped, and provides a window into this week's coming impeachment hearing storm.

And other news tonight on how the President may be hoping to retaliate against those testifying. This is the week of the heavy-hitters in the impeachment inquiry. If it doesn't make sense at the end of this week, it never will.

So, we have breaking news. Let's get after it.

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CUOMO: All right, first, we can get past the headline about the diplomat who overheard the EU Ambassador, Sondland, on the phone with the President, OK? We now know a lot more about that experience, about that reaction, about why it mattered, OK?

Phil Matting -- Mattingly is on Capitol Hill. We don't usually do this. But I don't usually get this kind of information that I can't process alone.

Phil, thank you for jumping up for me on this. What do we know about Mr. Holmes?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, Chris, we obviously -- we got a look at the 10-page opening statement on Friday night, and it was explosive, and in various levels, it was explicit as well.

But the one key thing that David Holmes was unveiling to lawmakers was this lunch that he had with Ambassador Gordon Sondland, where he overheard Gordon Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the EU, call President Trump, and then he overheard President Trump talking explicitly about investigations, about the relationship between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky.

One of the things we didn't know is one, how was he able to hear all of this? And two, how was his recollection so crystal clear in his mind? And I think there's a couple of things that are interesting here.

First and foremost, he made clear that they could hear President Trump because President Trump spoke so loudly that Gordon Sondland moved the phone from his ear.

But why he remembered all of these vivid details? Take a look at this.

"This was an extremely distinctive experience in my Foreign Service career," Holmes testified, "I've never seen anything like this, someone calling the President from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful language. There's just so much about the call that was so remarkable that I -- I remember it so vividly."

Chris, that's the explanation. No notes, no recordings, but remembers it vividly, and also says in his testimony, he recounted that call several times to several officials, making clear that when he testifies publicly, come Thursday, which was also just announced today, he is going to have a vivid picture to give to lawmakers, has a vivid picture laid out in the 200-plus pages of -- of this deposition.

And it's not just about the call, Chris. It's about several elements of the U.S.-Ukraine foreign policy that he goes in-depth on with an on-the-ground perspective.

CUOMO: So, Holmes is Thursday. Sondland is Wednesday. So, that means that Sondland will not have the benefit of what Holmes said this time. Remember, what a difference that made for Sondland, right?

He gave one story in closed session. Then, they came back to him, after there were the other closed sessions, he had to modify in a huge way. Once again, he can't bank on what Holmes says, even with reporting like yours, Phil, to guide his own testimony. That's really interesting.

All right, stick with me for a second.

Let's bring in Jim Baker of FBI fame.

One question first is the obvious. What is the relevance of the new detail for Mr. Holmes?

JIM BAKER, FORMER FBI GENERAL COUNSEL, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL SECURITY & CYBERSECURITY, R STREET INSTITUTE: It's more detail about that conversation that was quite shocking when we first heard about it. And it lays out exactly why he remembers it so clearly.

And so, it makes him, I think, a very effective witness, who's going to be hard to attack at the hearing. So, it just -- it just -- it bolsters and makes more effective the significance of his testimony. It makes him a better witness.

CUOMO: I'm no Jim Baker. But one question he's going to have to answer is why didn't you tell Taylor? When he came in, and we were all asking him, "How do you know any of this? What do you know? You don't have any first-hand experience?" why didn't he tell him? Phil Mattingly just reported he told other people about the call but

it just didn't get to Taylor?

BAKER: Yes, that's a legitimate question, and he should be asked those kinds of questions. And look, I mean I -- I don't know. Based on what we've heard before, it seemed like this was kind of Crazy Town with Giuliani and the three amigos running around--

CUOMO: Right.

BAKER: --and so on, as they've been described.

So, in that crazy world, this probably at the time seemed like just another one of those, right, another one of these things that was going on, so that may be the explanation. We don't know. I'm speculating. But he will have to answer that question. And so, I think it's a good question for him.

CUOMO: Yes, it's going to -- it's going to come early and often. All right, Jimmy, stick with me. We have a very rare opportunity tonight. So, you've got a reporter breaking the news. You got me as the anchor trying to figure out with Jim Baker how it fits in.

But you know who it really matters to is someone who may have to make the call on this President, and we have with us tonight, Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, who's been listening along.

Senator?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Thank you.

CUOMO: Thank you very much.

MURPHY: Great to be here.

[21:05:00]

CUOMO: Sorry, but this is--

MURPHY: Yes.

CUOMO: --this is the newer normal. You know--

MURPHY: Life moves fast.

CUOMO: --things just come up.

MURPHY: All right.

CUOMO: So, Holmes says to you, to your ear, as someone who may have to be a juror in this, "I remember it crystal. Never heard anything like it. Had to move the phone away, so that's how I heard, and they discussed the investigations, and that this guy will do whatever you want."

Impact?

MURPHY: Well it stands to reason that Gordon Sondland, someone who's never been a diplomat before, somebody who paid a million dollars for his post in Brussels, wouldn't have been acting on his own, right?

Somebody who's never done this job before is clearly not going to engage in a complicated extortion campaign with a foreign government, unless he is confident that he is operating under orders from his boss, the President of the United States, who gave him this job.

And so, we've always understood that this had to come from Trump. And what we believed, and what I believe, is that the reason why the White House is preventing people like Rudy Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney from testifying before Congress is because those were the people that were getting the orders from Trump.

Now we know that Sondland was getting these orders as well, and was potentially having multiple conversations with the President. And so, you have this window into Trump's decision-making, and the orders that he was conveying to his team.

But again, it's only a partial window, because everybody else who is executing on the President's orders are being prevented illegally from testifying before the impeachment inquiry.

CUOMO: And Sondland, his friend, tells Holmes and the others, "Oh, yes, the President doesn't care about Ukraine, except for the investigations." Not the best thing that he could have said to try to protect his friend, the President.

All right, now, we have more breaking news. Let's go back to Phil Mattingly. So now, we also have an understanding of what another big witness who the Republicans wanted because they think it will help their case.

This is a man named Hale, H-A-L-E, who works -- David Hale, who works -- I'm trying to avoid first and last names because there are too many names, and too many of you tell me you're too confused.

But Hale works for Pompeo, has information about Pompeo, what do you know, Phil Mattingly? MATTINGLY: Yes. We'll simplify it, and say, he's a very senior official at the State Department, Under Secretary for Political Affairs.

And look, one of the questions last week was the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, who was summarily pushed out by Trump -- by President Trump and his allies.

And one of the biggest questions was why didn't Secretary of State Pompeo do anything about it? Yovanovitch herself raised the question. Obviously, multiple people from the State Department said they tried to raise that up through the chain, and nothing ever came of it.

What David Hale testifies is that Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, not only spoke to Rudy Giuliani twice, according to Hale, during the time frame that the smear campaign, according to other State Department officials was ongoing, he also reached out to Sean Hannity.

This is something that had emerged on his program at one time or another, as Trump allies were pushing the narrative that Marie Yovanovitch was a bad actor, who didn't like the President.

And he reached out, according to this testimony, still going through it right now, that he actually reached out, spoke directly with Sean Hannity, about the allegations, about what was being pushed.

And while Hale doesn't know the specifics of that call, he knows it occurred, and he also knows there were two phone calls with Rudy Giuliani.

Now, he said he doesn't have the details or a transcript of what any of those calls were. But it came during the time period of the campaign to oust Marie Yovanovitch.

And he said, when it was asked why Secretary of State Pompeo didn't do anything publicly, Pompeo said, at least according to Hale, that he wasn't going to do anything if there wasn't anything that he needed to take action on, meaning, he didn't believe, at least according to Hale, that any of the allegations rose to the level of being true, and therefore he wasn't going to say anything.

Now, State Department officials, who have testified, and we saw two Career State Department officials testify last week, said that was a problem in and of itself that he wouldn't come out and defend.

But there does appear to be at least some behind-the-scenes work by Pompeo to reach out to Trump allies, and Trump's personal lawyer, to at least try and address this.

Obviously, we know now, it didn't have much of an effect. Marie Yovanovitch was sent home or sent back to the United States. But Pompeo was doing something. What is still a question? How much? Obviously, State Department officials many feel like he didn't do enough.

CUOMO: So, Hale says that Pompeo reached out to Hannity, reached out to Rudy twice about the narrative against Yovanovitch. You don't know yet, as you're looking through the transcript, what Pompeo's disposition was in those phone calls.

Was he telling to lay-off Yovanovitch? Was he saying he wants to help get -- get Yovanovitch?

Keep reading my young brother, and let me know what else you find in there, and just, you know, tell them in the control room, I'll come right back.

Let me go to Senator Murphy though. This don't -- you know, look, you can't make it up, all right? I mean I've never -- once again, I've never heard of anything like this before.

I know Hannity. If I don't know what's going on, I'll leave him out of it. It's weird for a Secretary of State to be calling somebody like me or a Hannity to talk about an ongoing story.

I got to know more about that, and I'm sure you do too, because why he's calling him makes all the difference.

[21:10:00]

But the Secretary of State who did not back Yovanovitch when she testified that she asked for it, who did not defend Taylor, who did not defend any of his people yet. He says, "I defend all of them."

But when asked specifically about those who have testified, he named none as deserving his support. Your read?

MURPHY: So, listen, Mike Pompeo let Marie Yovanovitch hang out in the wind. And ultimately, he mounted no serious defense against this conspiracy theory that was being developed by Rudy Giuliani, Sean Hannity, the President, and the President's family.

So, it's very clear that the Secretary chose the political interests of the President, his efforts to extort the Ukrainians for his reelection goals, over the reputation of his employees.

But what I think is also important here is that it's just further confirmation that Rudy Giuliani was really the point person when it came to Ukraine. Mike Pompeo's name didn't come up in that July 25th phone call with the President.

He referred the President of Ukraine to Rudy Giuliani. And it appears that, through these phone calls, Mike Pompeo was either coordinating with Giuliani, or perhaps, taking orders from Giuliani, because the President had identified and continued to identify Giuliani as the person who Ukraine policy was going to go through.

Giuliani, who's representing the President's personal political interests, not the national security interests of the United States, that's unacceptable in a democracy.

CUOMO: You could apply the same rationale to his having to testify now. I don't know how he cannot go in front of Congress. And if you had a trial, I don't know how he escapes not being compelled to be a witness. I mean he's obviously too central to what was going on.

Let's do this. Phil Mattingly is helping us process the information, two big pieces of information. We now understand a lot more about why this diplomat, Holmes, who's testifying on Wednesday, he's the guy who said, "I heard this guy Gordon Sondland with the President," we now know why he remembers it so well.

And now, we have somebody who worked for the Secretary of State saying he spoke to Rudy twice, and Sean Hannity, at least once, about what to do with his Ambassador Yovanovitch.

Big news, what does it mean? Our best minds right after this break.

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CUOMO: All right, I'm back here with Connecticut Senator, Democrat Chris Murphy. It's good to have you. You are getting quite the education in how--

MURPHY: Yes.

CUOMO: --the reporting business works.

MURPHY: Where -- how you do this every night these days.

CUOMO: In real time. But we're lucky that, you know, CNN's got a huge organization. You get people in the right place. Phil Mattingly is on Capitol Hill. I'll be back with him in a little bit. He's racing through this transcript that we just got our hands on.

Another thing that Holmes, the diplomat -- and I know there's so many names, forgive me. We're going to put up a big board when we get to more of a crisis point about voting and stuff, and we'll show you everybody. I know their names. So, there're too many.

Holmes worked with Taylor, Yovanovitch, before Taylor, the two ambassadors. There's a picture of him if it helps.

Another thing that he says he can verify first-hand information is that Ukraine was definitely aware of a pressure campaign by the United States and them, OK?

You can call it quid pro quo. I don't, because that is a nonsensical term. Everything is a quid pro quo.

"Senator Murphy, if you come in tonight, I'm going to ask you about the news, and we'll get to what's going on with impeachment." "OK, I'll come on." That's a quid pro quo. But it is not wrong because there's no corrupt intent.

Now, to corrupt intent, Mr. Holmes says "They wanted a meeting, Ukraine, and they were talking about what they had to do to get the meeting."

And then, when the President met with Putin, instead of meeting with them, I guess, in Warsaw, that was to them, according to Mr. Holmes, a signal that "Oh, wow! If we don't do what they're asking us to do, we may see him move towards Russia."

MURPHY: Right. So, what -- what happened was that Trump was supposed to go to Warsaw and meet with Zelensky.

CUOMO: Right.

MURPHY: He did not. He sent Pence instead. And they were worried that that was a message ultimately that they were not going to get a meeting. And, in fact, that is likely what it was.

Now, I met with Zelensky on September 5th with Senator Johnson. And much of that meeting was dedicated to this topic.

How do we get Zelensky in front of Trump? How do we break down this impasse at the time we knew that the aid had been withheld? But we didn't know for certain that the extortion campaign was being effectuated by the Ukraine team.

But there was no doubt that the number one priority for Zelensky was getting in front of this President, so that he could try to get the President what he wanted, because this was life and death for Zelensky, right?

He had soldiers dying on the front in Eastern Ukraine because the United States wasn't there to support them. And so, this wasn't a -- a -- a matter that he could sit quiet on. He literally had troops, their lives, depending on this aid being turned back on.

CUOMO: Question mark. From the Trump defense perspective, Zelensky, to your recollection, did not mention, "I'll do these Biden investigations. I'll give you one (ph)," he never brought that up?

MURPHY: Right.

CUOMO: Their argument is well then if it were so important, if it was such an attempted bribe, or extortion, or whatever you want to call it, why didn't he mention it to you?

MURPHY: Well he was very interested in how he could get the aid turned back on. And I'm not sure he's going to admit to two United States Senators that he is being extorted behind the scenes by the American President. But what was interesting about the meeting was that normally they start with some diplomatic formalities. This meeting had none of those.

[21:20:00]

Zelensky sat down, and wanted to immediately talk about the aid, and express to us how dire the situation was on the Eastern border, and how we needed to do everything possible to get that aid turned back on.

But I don't think it's shocking that he wasn't prepared to reveal to us the -- the -- the demands that were being made on him.

CUOMO: Now, you and Johnson were there. But you weren't together the whole time. He is now, it seems, the new flank against Vindman.

They tried the "You know, Vindman kind of cloak -- cozy with the Ukrainians. You know they called him," that blew up in their face.

Now it's Ron Johnson, Senator Johnson saying, "You know, this guy cut me off in a meeting, and started putting something forward like it was all his opinions, and he didn't agree with the dem -- with the Administration, and he seems to be the exact model of a Deep State guy that's out to be against Trump."

What do you think of that?

MURPHY: Well this is certainly part of the Republican narrative that there is this Deep State of anti-Trump bureaucrats that are part of some grand conspiracy in order to topple the President. That is simply not true.

These are civil servants who saw corruption happening, who saw a President engaged in illegal behavior. They raised objections privately. And now, when asked to testify, they are telling the truth. And that's what a public servant is supposed to do.

You have an obligation to follow orders, even if they're orders that you disagree with, unless those orders are unethical, unless they are illegal, or unless they are corrupt. And, in this case, the story is being told very clearly that what they were being asked to do was outside of the bounds of ethical behavior.

CUOMO: At this point, and what you understand so far, zero to 10, where is the needle for you on this President acted with corrupt intent, this was an attempted bribe, and he put himself first before the United States with Ukraine?

MURPHY: I think that the President of the United States is given massive powers.

And the one covenant that he makes with the American people is to use those powers for the national security benefit of the United States, not to be used for his personal, political, or financial gain.

The President broke that covenant.

CUOMO: How confident are you of that?

MURPHY: Listen, I think the story is completely crystal clear.

CUOMO: 100 percent.

MURPHY: I think that this testimony from over a dozen witnesses makes it clear that the President was using a meeting at the White House, and taxpayer dollars, in order to try to get a foreign government to benefit himself politically, and to help destroy his political rivals.

You cannot do that as the President of the United States. That is not allowed in a democracy. What separates the United States from tin-pot dictatorships is we don't allow the Executive Branch to use powers that they are given by the American people for their own personal political benefit.

If this isn't impeachable behavior, I'm not sure what is.

CUOMO: Senator Murphy, thank you very much. I'd like to apologize. But this is the reality. This is how information comes in. This is how we have to process it in real time.

MURPHY: Good to be with you.

CUOMO: Thank you for being with us tonight

MURPHY: Yes.

CUOMO: Pleasure's mine.

All right, we're going to get back to Phil Mattingly after this break. He's going through the transcript.

There's also from David Hale, who's he? He works for -- for Pompeo. Pompeo is huge in this situation. All these diplomats work under him. But he's been so quiet.

And we have Jim Baker from the FBI to help us make sense of what the news means in terms of fitting into the understanding of what was right and what was wrong, next.

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CUOMO: All right, thanks for joining us tonight on PRIME TIME. We have breaking news. I want to go back to Phil Mattingly.

I'm just thinking about why this matters, what you're reporting on for us, about David Hale, who works for Secretary of State, Pompeo. Here's why.

Ambassador Yovanovitch just testified, remember? And she was taken out. Now, there is no argument that the President can remove a diplomat. They serve at his pleasure. It's not the issue.

It's whether or not the reason that Yovanovitch was removed serves as a window into a potential abuse of power. Simply stated, is her removal proof of what he was trying to get out of Ukraine that she saw as wrong? That's where this reporting fits in.

Phil, thank you for racing through the transcript, trying to get us more context. What have you learned?

MATTINGLY: Yes, I think the framing -- you have the framing right. And that is that this was considered the first chapter, the -- the decision to oust Marie Yovanovitch, the smear campaign against her, and what that led to after the fact.

And one of the interesting things, we've heard bits and pieces of from various State Department officials, most notably George Kent, last week, who testified publicly, is that people inside the State Department were talking about a statement of support for Marie Yovanovitch. But they didn't know what happened. It just never came to fruition.

What David Hale has is actual details of that process. And he was actually -- he testifies about dual statements.

One statement from Marie Yovanovitch herself that would essentially be a statement of loyalty, and kind of a laying out what a Foreign Service Officer does, loyalty to the President, and to the Constitution, while at the same time a statement of support from the State Department.

He said he personally was responsible for drafting a 10-page statement that was largely laudatory in terms of who Marie Yovanovitch is -- was, what she did over the course of her career, and why she was an important piece of the State Department and the Foreign Service.

Here's where it gets interesting. While those dueling statements or duel statements were being laid out, eventually it came to nothing. And what he says as to why is the most interesting thing about it.

There was only a few people that could have possibly stopped that statement, given the fact it was at his level. He is senior State Department official.

He said, "Given my position in the State Department, it could only have been someone more senior to me. The Secretary most likely had -- would have been that person."

While he didn't know it definitively, he makes very clear, in his eyes, the only person who could have stopped that statement was Secretary Mike Pompeo.

When he was asked by investigators why that statement might have been stopped, he noted that one of the biggest concerns involved was that any statement of any kind related to Yovanovitch would, quote, provoke the President, and get a public response from him. That is why that statement idea died, Chris.

[21:30:00]

CUOMO: Phil Mattingly, thank you so much being on the spot for us tonight. Appreciate it.

All right, so let's bring in Jim Baker, obviously of FBI fame and pedigree.

So, what is the analysis here? So, they didn't want to give -- they wanted to give Yovanovitch support. She asked them for support. They decided no, maybe because they thought the President would jump all over them. So, what?

BAKER: So, the -- it -- it's -- the issue with her is that they wanted to, and were inclined to try to get her out of the way, unless she was willing to play ball, unless she was willing to acquiesce in this sort of irregular channel, and the goals of the irregular channel that -- that Ambassador Taylor described.

They needed to either get her out of the way or have her sort of join the team. This is -- this is what was -- it seems to me what was going on.

They were trying to achieve these other objectives, and they were going to either do it, by forcing the -- the career people to go along, and -- and compromise their values, quite frankly, or they were going to do it through the -- through the Giuliani Channel.

It just bespeaks a foreign policy sort of gone -- gone awry.

CUOMO: Yes.

BAKER: And -- and, as you were saying earlier, I -- I simply don't know how Secretary Pompeo was not dragged in.

If he doesn't come in and to -- to talk to the impeachment inquiry, then the Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees need to ask him like how were you conducting and supervising the Foreign Relations of the United States with respect to Ukraine.

CUOMO: But they don't want to--

BAKER: It doesn't seem as though he was in charge.

CUOMO: They don't want to subpoena him. I don't need to -- you know, you guys don't know Jim as well as I do.

BAKER: Yes.

CUOMO: But I mean, you know, legal expertise of the different master nations (ph) of a prosecution was his expertise. But they don't want any more litigation. So, that's why--

BAKER: Well they--

CUOMO: --they're not subpoenaing people anymore. They're going to wait for the cases to play out. And they're just going to keep going because they think they have enough.

I don't know if they're right, by the way. But that's why they're not subpoenaing him. I just don't know if they can keep that up. Now--

BAKER: They shouldn't even have to subpoena him though. He is a Senate-confirmed cabinet official, and he has an obligation to appear before Congress, and answer questions. He shouldn't have to be subpoenaed. That's ridiculous.

CUOMO: Well except the President feels otherwise. And obviously--

BAKER: I -- I -- I get it. But I know that's the reality.

CUOMO: That's the reality.

BAKER: But I'm just saying it's -- it's -- it's crazy. It -- it--

CUOMO: And you have to dovetail that. You know, I was thinking of asking you, "You ever hear of anything like this before?"

BAKER: No, there's not.

CUOMO: But obviously the answer is "No." I have never heard about it. I've never read about it. I've never seen anything like it. The only question is how we play it out, what the consequence is for what is becoming all too obvious.

Jim Baker, I will be relying on you very heavily, very often. Be well and thank you.

BAKER: Thank you.

CUOMO: All right, now, a lot of breaking news tonight that gives us more of an understanding of why this mattered, why it was wrong. So, let's put it into a context of the arguments that will be made for and against the significance of this reporting.

Cuomo's Court, next.

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CUOMO: All right, let's bring in Cuomo's Court, Asha Rangappa and Ross Garber.

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CUOMO: You know, I just had a -- a little moment of clarity guys while I was in the break. There are so many names, so many acronyms. But you know what?

It's OK, because what we're learning tonight in this breaking news is that all these different people from different agencies, and names, and titles, they're all saying the same things, Asha.

Now, we have this guy, Holmes, who worked with Taylor, and Yovanovitch, before him, who he was going to have trouble explaining how he knew what was going on, on a phone call that he wasn't on that Gordon Sondland was on.

Forget about the fact that you're using a cell phone in Ukraine that Russia has completely wired, so they could probably hear it too, if they wanted to.

But now, he explains in detail and a new transcript that Phil Mattingly has been going through for us, "I heard him because he had the phone this far away from his head because Trump was yelling at him, and saying, "I want the investigations."

And then after the call, I talked to Sondland about it, and he told me exactly that. And I'll never forget it because I've never heard anything like this before from someone in Sondland's position, or from a President."

Significance in making the case?

ASHA RANGAPPA, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: So, in terms of the, you know, allegations against the President, I think what this does is really decimates his Reagan defense, the defense that he had no idea what was going on that this was some kind of rogue operation that, you know, Sondland and Giuliani were -- were running without his knowledge.

This would actually directly implicate him in giving those orders, as Senator Murphy said, in your last segment.

As far as the intercept, Chris, I just want to note that, you know, I think it's -- it's almost guaranteed that Russia picked up that call. Our Intelligence services would not be intercepting that call unless there was advanced consent.

So, you know, that's just additional leverage that Russia could potentially have of something that they know that our own, you know, government doesn't know.

CUOMO: Right.

RANGAPPA: So, I just wanted to emphasize that.

CUOMO: Thank you for that clarification.

Ross, so let's say they say to Holmes, "Ah, I don't buy it. You know, if you knew this so much, why didn't you tell Taylor? He came in here. He didn't have any of this. You should have fed it up to him."

Now, in the transcript, Holmes says he did tell several different people. But you don't need him. You've got Fiona Hill, another name, who also was working in the White House as a Russia expert.

She says in her transcript that we now have our hands on. She's going to be in live testimony this week, so will Mr. Holmes. She says that the Ukraine was aware of being pressured for the investigations with the leverage being the aid and a meeting.

What does that mean?

ROSS GARBER, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, TEACHES IMPEACHMENT LAW AT TULANE LAW SCHOOL: Yes, so look, the information is coming in so fast, you're right, lots of names, lots of facts. This week is going to be fascinating. I still have three big questions that haven't been answered yet.

One is what did Trump actually know. So, you know, we know he was interested -- it's not a shock that he was interested in an investigation of the Bidens, for sure.

Did Trump know though that there was pressure, that there was an exchange of an investigation for aid? Did Trump know that? That's one.

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Number two is what was the President's intention? So, did the President intend to benefit himself financially, or politically or, and again, it's his intention, was it his intention to actually address corruption issues in Ukraine, and -- and viewed this as a way to do that? And -- and that's the second issue.

And three, I'm interested in knowing where was everybody else on this? You know, could the President be in a position to say, "Wait a minute. Look, I did these things. But I did them out in the open. And I have white House Counsel, and I had a personal lawyer there, and

I have a Chief of Staff, and I've got a National Security Adviser, and I've got a National -- NSA lawyer, and I've got all of these people"--

CUOMO: And everybody said it was OK.

GARBER: --"military." And nobody told me not to.

CUOMO: I -- I got you, all right.

GARBER: I'm -- I'm interested in seeing if that hangs together.

CUOMO: I have those three.

GARBER: Yes.

CUOMO: Asha Rangappa has the look on her face of somebody who knows she's about to ace a test.

GARBER: Uh-oh.

CUOMO: What -- do you believe you have the answers to some of those questions--

GARBER: No, she doesn't.

CUOMO: --if not all?

RANGAPPA: I think with number one and number two, we have the answers. So, you know, Taylor testified that the order to withhold the aid would have had to have come from the President to the Chief of Staff to OMB.

You know, I think that that would be able to be verified, simply by calling Mick Mulvaney in to testify directly. But we know that it is unlike -- you know, that is the narrow situation that where the aid hold would have come from, which means that he would have known about that aid.

As far as this intention issue, I think that one thing that we need to emphasize was that what was being asked for here was not an actual investigation.

It was an announcement of an investigation. There were actually no steps taken to actually, you know, begin any process of helping the Ukrainians begin a real investigation.

There is zero national interest in having an announcement of an investigation that smears the target other than to help the person who is in the Oval Office and running next year against that person.

So, I think that the -- the intent argument also doesn't hold. I think the "He had no idea that what he was doing was wrong" may float. I'm not really sure how that really helps the President in terms of his fitness for Office. But I think number three might possibly be something that they could run with-- CUOMO: Well--

RANGAPPA: --if they try it.

CUOMO: --here's what we know. Those are good questions, Ross. They're going to have to be answered, not by Asha Rangappa, but by the Democrats in terms of whether or not they can work it up into a cogent set of articles of impeachment. We'll see if they can do it.

But those are the right questions, and that's great analysis, thank you both, all right?

GARBER: Good to see you.

CUOMO: Some big news has been buried by all this impeachment talk. The White House is standing by one of the President's closest aides whose White nationalist views have now been laid bare.

There are growing calls for Stephen Miller's resignation. You want to know why? I'll tell you, next.

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CUOMO: You're probably aware that most Americans are in favor of immigration reform. The problem is how this President talks about immigrants. That's what causes the division.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.

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CUOMO: Remember this, the Muslim ban, from the man who has demonized Islam, who told you that Islam hates us. It's this ugly us-versus-them that literally spared no one, not even children.

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TRUMP: And when you prosecute the parents for coming in illegally, which should happen, you have to take the children away.

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CUOMO: Now we know you don't have to do it that way unless you want to be harsh.

A lot of people wonder how a guy from New York, a place that is all about diversity, the son of an immigrant mother, a man who even pretended his own father was an immigrant from Germany, even though he isn't, how does Mr. Trump now arrive at this kind of ugliness?

It's a good question. Safe bet that political opportunism is in there. But there's another ingredient, poison from this guy, Stephen Miller. He is the architect of the animus.

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STEPHEN MILLER, SENIOR ADVISOR FOR POLICY FOR PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: At stake is the question of whether or not the United States remains a sovereign country.

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CUOMO: Now, I ask him on all the time to test his arguments. He never takes the opportunity. The scary part to discuss with Mr. Miller is where he gets his gall.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says it has the answer, thanks to a former Editor at Breitbart who shared hundreds of emails from Mr. Miller. We can now track policies and ideas directly from White Supremacist websites to the White House.

The emails are from 2015 and 2016, not when he was a kid, just before Miller joined Team Trump when he was still an aide for then-Senator Jeff Sessions. These are examples of what he was reading, what he was thinking, and how it infiltrated official policy.

Example one, TPS, Temporary Protected Status, it's a rule that allows people to stay temporarily because conditions in their home country are unsafe like after big disasters. It was actually first implemented by a Republican, Bush 41.

So, back in October 2015, when Hurricane Patricia slammed Mexico, here's the conversation from the Breitbart Editor, Katie McHugh and Mr. Miller.

McHugh, "This being the worst hurricane ever recorded, what are the chances it reach -- wreaks destruction on Mexico and drives a mass migration to the U.S. border?"

Miller, "100 percent. And they will all get TPS. And all the ones here will get TPS too. That needs to be the weekend's big story. TPS is everything."

McHugh, "Wow. OK. Is there precedent for this?"

And Miller sends a VDARE link. What's that? Tell you in a second.

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The link talks of disparagingly about the Obama White House inviting into the United States lots of Mexicans, decrying anchor babies.

What is VDARE? It's a site where White nationalists who consider themselves intellectuals, I see that as a contradiction in terms, they share opinions with one another. The SPLC has designated it a hate group. Remember the name, VDARE.

So, how does that connect to White House policy? Well the President has toyed with rolling back TPS, for years, since Miller came. And when a devastating hurricane hit the Bahamas, remember when he said this?

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TRUMP: I don't want to allow people that weren't supposed to be in the Bahamas to come into the United States, including some very bad people, and some very bad gang members, and some very, very bad drug dealers.

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CUOMO: They never substantiated this claim. They ran away from it, and with good reason.

Another example, Mr. Miller, September 6th, 2015, 3:41 P.M. "You see the Pope saying we must, in effect, get rid of borders. Someone should point out the parallels to Camp of the Saints."

Go Google that, Camp of the Saints.

Now, for the record, here's what the Pontiff actually said.

"Faced with the tragedy of tens of thousands of refugees who are fleeing death, the Gospel calls us to be neighbors to the smallest and most abandoned, to give them concrete hope."

Amen! Then he called for parishes to open their doors to refugee families, as he should, as Popes always have.

But Miller sees an existential threat, and invokes Camp of Saints. If White nationalists had a book club, that would be their number one choice. The book nameless depraved refugees invade France, the fear very real of that in the Trump White House.

Just weeks ago, the President nearly halved our refugee program.

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TRUMP: The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility. It won't be. You look at what's happening in Europe, you look at what's happening in other places, we can't allow that to happen to the United States. Not on my watch. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: That's how we were formed. That's how people like his mom came here, like my grandparents, like probably your family.

There's more. Miller's obsession with minority crime rates, the rebirth of seeing nationalism as a good label, the name has a toxic legacy all over the world, and the people who use it here are White nationalists.

Still, the White House is defending Mr. Miller. "I know Stephen. He loves this country and hates bigotry in all forms," says a Deputy Press Secretary.

He's not the only one with kind words for Mr. Miller. Here's America's most famous neo-Nazi, Richard Spencer, earlier this year.

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RICHARD SPENCER, AMERICAN NEO-NAZI & WHITE SUPREMACIST, PRESIDENT OF NATIONAL POLICY INSTITUTE: Stephen Miller and I were friends at Duke. I generally like Stephen. We worked on an immigration debate, which we brought Peter Brimelow to campus.

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CUOMO: Why is he laughing? Brimelow is the Founder of VDARE, same group I told you about at the beginning of the argument, the one pumping out anti-immigrant hape -- hate, the group that Miller was sending out links to.

As for a relationship with Richard Spencer, Mr. Miller says "No way." "I have absolutely no relationship with Mr. Spencer. I completely repudiate his views, and his claims are a 100 percent false."

Emails, interviews with other people involved in that immigration debate at Duke, they say otherwise. Let's put it to the side. The point is Miller's political ideas that the President often parrots are too often un-American and ugly.

You know, the President, news came out today that he wants to get rid of Vindman and others who are testifying in a way that he doesn't like, basically wanting to get rid of them for telling the truth.

Why would he keep someone like Miller, who's peddling divisive rhetoric about minorities and immigrants, who is telling lies about people in this country?

You know what they say. "You are the company you keep." Mr. Trump's oldest adviser just became one of the half dozen Trumpers caught lying to Feds, and a main policy adviser was known to traffic in divisive nationalism.

Is this a promise kept to bring us only the best? That's my argument.

Now, the BOLO. Biggest blow to the President's defense in his impeachment inquiry last week came from his own mouth. So, we got a big BOLO ahead of tomorrow's testimonies. Be On the Look-Out, next.

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CUOMO: BOLO. Be On the Look-Out.

POTUS faced a ton of blowback after his attack on former Ambassador Yovanovitch, as she was testifying last week.

Tonight, CNN has learned Trump campaign advisers have their fingers crossed that the President refrains from smearing LTC, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman tomorrow. Vindman is a scholar, and a decorated war vet, wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

It may seem obvious that attacking a military officer who put his life on the line for his country, not smart. But can this President curb his "Kill 'em all" mentality for anyone who doesn't serve his interest? We haven't seen him do it to date. Be On the Look-Out tomorrow.

Thank you for watching. CNN TONIGHT with the man, D. Lemon, gets an early start on the show now.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST, CNN TONIGHT WITH DON LEMON: Ah, you gave me a whole 10 -- 10 extra seconds. Listen, you did a great job with this. Look, 213 pages for Holmes' testimony, a 198, these are the highlights. And what is coming out of the -- this testimony is really quite surprising and quite shocking.