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House Democrats Move Closer to Articles of Impeachment; Interview With Rep. Denny Heck (D-WA); Democrats Expect House Vote To Impeach Trump Christmas Day; FBI Official Under Investigation After Allegedly Altering Document In 2016 Russia Probe; Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang is Interviewed About His Presidential Campaign. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired November 21, 2019 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:17]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world.

I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM with breaking news coverage of the Trump impeachment hearings.

Tonight, House Democrats are moving closer and closer to impeaching the president of the United States, after a final round of testimony that included a very powerful rebuke of a Republican conspiracy theory, Mr. Trump's former top Russia adviser, Fiona Hill, condemning GOP claims that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 presidential election, calling in a fictional narrative.

Also testifying, the American diplomat David Holmes, who directly tied the president to the Ukraine pressure campaign, as he described a phone call he overheard involving Mr. Trump and the E.U. ambassador, Gordon Sondland.

Let's bring in our CNN political correspondent, Sara Murray.

Sara, this testimony today was so compelling.

SARA MURRAY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It was, Wolf.

I mean, Fiona Hill very swiftly debunked this GOP conspiracy theory and then David Holmes recounted for the cameras the stunning conversation he overheard between President Trump and Gordon Sondland.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY (voice-over): A U.S. diplomat in Ukraine recounted for lawmakers the moment he realized that President Trump cared more about having Joe Biden and his son investigated than anything to do with Ukraine.

DAVID HOLMES, COUNSELOR FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS, U.S. EMBASSY IN UKRAINE: The four of us went to a nearby restaurant and sat on an outdoor terrace.

Ambassador Sondland selected a bottle of wine. During the lunch, Ambassador Sondland said that he was going to call President Trump to give him an update.

MURRAY: The phone call David Holmes overheard came July 26, just a day after Trump spoke with the Ukrainian president.

HOLMES: While Ambassador Sondland's phone was not on speakerphone, I could hear the president's voice through the earpiece of the phone. The president's voice was very loud and recognizable.

When the president came on, he sort of winced and held the phone away from his ear like this. And he did that for the first couple exchanges.

I heard Ambassador Sondland greet the president and explained he was calling from Kiev. I heard President Trump then clarify that Ambassador Sondland was in Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland replied, yes, he was in Ukraine, and went on to state that President Zelensky -- quote -- "loves your ass."

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 do."

MURRAY: After the call, Holmes pressed for more clarity.

HOLMES: I asked Ambassador Sondland if it was true that the president did not give a "expletive" about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland agreed that the president did not give an "expletive" about Ukraine.

I asked, why not? Ambassador Sondland stated that the president only cares about big stuff. I noted there was big stuff going on in Ukraine, like a war with Russia. And Ambassador Sondland replied that he meant big stuff that benefits the president, like the Biden investigation that Mr. Giuliani was pushing.

MURRAY: Rudy Giuliani's problematic role reemerged, as Holmes and Fiona Hill, a former top White House adviser on Russia, described how Trump embraced Giuliani's conspiracy theory, also championed by some GOP lawmakers that Ukraine meddled in 2016.

HOLMES: Mr. Giuliani was having a direct influence on the foreign policy agenda. My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland stated -- quote -- "Damn it, Rudy. Every time Rudy gets involved, he goes and F's everything up."

FIONA HILL, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL OFFICIAL: Ambassador Bolton had look pained in the course of that discussion, said that Rudy Giuliani was a hand grenade that was going to blow everyone up.

MURRAY: Alarm bells were also going off about Ambassador Gordon Sondland's role. HILL: He was being involved in a domestic political errand, and we were being involved in national security foreign policy, and those two things had just diverged.

MURRAY: Hill recounted Sondland's deal with acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to arrange an Oval Office meeting between President Trump and the Ukrainian president.

HILL: He said that he had an agreement with Chief of Staff Mulvaney that, in return for investigations, this meeting would get scheduled.

MURRAY: She recalled how John Bolton, then the national security adviser, told her to report it.

HILL: Specific instruction was that I had to go to the lawyers, to John Eisenberg, our senior counsel for the National Security Council, to basically say, "You tell Eisenberg," Ambassador Bolton told me, "that I am not part of this -- whatever drug deal that Mulvaney and Sondland are cooking."

MURRAY: Amid made the impeachment sparring, both Hill and Holmes offered sharp warning to lawmakers.

HILL: I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine, not Russia, attacked us in 2016.

These fictions are harmful, even if they're deployed for domestic political purposes.

[18:05:03]

MURRAY: They described the perils of the false Ukrainian meddling narrative.

HILL: This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.

DANIEL GOLDMAN, DEMOCRATIC COUNSEL: Why would it be to Vladimir Putin's advantage to promote this theory of Ukraine interference?

HOLMES: First of all, to deflect from the allegations of Russian interference, second of all, to drive a wedge between the United States and Ukraine.

MURRAY: And Holmes left lawmakers with an urgent reminder: The Ukrainians never got that White House meeting and they are still under pressure to please the American president.

HOLMES: I think that continues to this day. I think they're being very careful. They still need us now going forward.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, Mick Mulvaney has a new lawyer, and he and his lawyer have something to say tonight about Fiona Hill's testimony. His lawyer put out a statement, saying: "Fiona Hill's testimony is

riddled with speculation and guesses about any role that Mr. Mulvaney played with anything related to Ukraine."

It goes on to say that this inquiry continues to be a sham -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Well, he should come forward and testify. And he's got strong views.

MURRAY: Fiona Hill said that today.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Let's hear those views.

Let's bring in our experts, our panelists.

Abby, I want to play another clip. This is Dr. Fiona Hill speaking about these Republican conspiracy theories. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country, and that perhaps somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did.

This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: She said -- she basically said what other experts have also pointed out, that it was the Russians and Putin that came up with this narrative that they didn't get involved in the 2016 election; it was Ukraine.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And that the idea that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election is just completely unfounded, in the context, some of the other testimony that we heard yesterday from Ambassador Volker and also from another top NSC official, Tim Morrison, who replaced Fiona Hill, which was that the idea that the Ukraine conspiracy theory was a legitimate function of the government, that it was OK for President Trump to seek that kind of investigation, was perfectly normal to them.

And it wasn't until they learned that Burisma equaled Biden that they realized that there was something weird or nefarious going on. She makes it very plain that the Ukraine conspiracy theory is not normal. That is not true, and that it is not a not a normal and appropriate function for the government to be pursuing an investigation into something that did not happen.

And so it really undermines this idea that all of these people were just completely clueless about what was going on for months and months, until finally they woke up and realized that the Burisma investigation had to do with Biden.

Both elements of this were inappropriate.

BLITZER: John Kirby, but, clearly, the president, Rudy Giuliani, his point man, as far as attorney, they believe in this Ukrainian conspiracy theory.

JOHN KIRBY, CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: Yes, and that's certainly unclear as to how much this relates to his personal dealings and financial interests in Ukraine and the gas industry.

And how much is it to try to feed President Trump's desperate need to not want to admit that Russia had a role in helping him get elected, because it challenges the legitimacy of his presidency?

But I agree with Abby. Look, I mean, I was at the State Department for the 2016 election. I did see the intelligence. And without getting into the details of it, I can assure you that it was focused on Russia and what Russia was doing.

And it was more than just cyber-intrusions, Wolf. It was across the spectrum of propaganda and misinformation to feed discord into our system. I saw nothing about Ukraine. And it is unfounded. And it's clearly just an effort, I think, by Rudy to advance his personal financial interests there, and by the president to cast any legitimacy concerns off of him and onto Hillary Clinton.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: And Fiona Hill also did something that we have seen from very few witnesses thus far, that she encouraged the lawmakers to take a step back and look at what we are discussing in a more broad term here, because she said that Russia is prepared in 2020 to go at it again, that they're going to attack the U.S. elections again.

And she made the case for lawmakers to consider the fact that they need to be together in 2020, and made the case that Russia is watching this impeachment inquiry unfold, and to be careful of what they are saying, because it is being broadcast to the world.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: It also goes back to the question one more time, what is the relationship we keep wondering about between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin?

He criticizes everyone, but not Vladimir Putin.

BLITZER: All right, hold those thoughts for a moment. We have got a lot to assess.

But joining us right now, Democratic Congressman Denny Heck, who questioned the impeachment witnesses today. He's a member of the Intelligence Committee.

It was a long day, a very historic and important day, Congressman. Thanks so much for joining us.

[18:10:00] Let me get your reaction to what we heard from Fiona Hill describing

the pressure on Ukraine as a domestic political errand, in her views.

What was your reaction to all this testimony today?

REP. DENNY HECK (D-WA): Well, it was one of the elements of the crime, her description of actually what went on here.

Look, Wolf, is where a criminal proceeding -- and it's a little bit analogous to -- not exactly the same thing -- the jury would bring back a unanimous verdict, and it wouldn't take them 10 minutes of deliberation to get there. The facts are in. He did it.

And now the only thing that remains to be resolved is, what is it that we in Congress are going to do about it?

BLITZER: Your Republican colleague Will Hurd of Texas, a former clandestine CIA officer who's not seeking reelection, he says, yes, it was a bungled foreign policy. But he also says it doesn't necessarily rise to the level of impeachable conduct.

Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. WILL HURD (R-TX): An impeachable offense should be compelling, overwhelmingly clear, and unambiguous. And it's not something to be rushed or taken lightly.

I have not heard evidence proving the president committed bribery or extortion.

I also reject the notion that holding this view means supporting all the foreign policy choices we have been hearing about over these last few weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, Congressman, what's your response?

HECK: Well, Wolf, first of all, if the debate we were having was, gee, what he did was wrong, but does it or does it not rise to the level of an impeachable offense, I actually think that that would be really healthy for America, because, clearly, what he did was wrong.

The second question, whether or not it rises to an impeachable offense, obviously, is an individual judgment of each member of Congress.

But, Wolf, that's not what they're saying. That's what Will Hurd, not running for reelection, is saying, but that's not what the rest of them are saying. They're saying he didn't do anything wrong whatsoever, when, in fact, he did, when, in fact, the evidence that he did something wrong is overwhelming.

BLITZER: She -- Dr. Hill also warned that some of your Republican colleagues were still spreading that false narrative that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

What's the risk of amplifying that message?

HECK: That Ukraine was the one that actually interfered in our election?

BLITZER: Yes.

HECK: Well, there are multiple risks on multiple levels.

First of all, it throws into question America's commitment to Ukraine. It weakens them. That, therefore, strengthens Russia's hand with respect to Ukraine. They like this very much.

I dare say that Vladimir Putin is sitting in front of his fire in his easy chair rubbing his hands in glee at exactly what he has managed to pull off here, namely, cast doubt away from himself, when the intelligence community unanimously said, he's the one who did that, and put it onto Ukraine, thus calling into question our support for Ukraine, as the president did, on the predicate of a completely debunked conspiracy theory and false narrative.

It's bad all the way around. It compromises Ukraine's national security, and in so doing that, it compromises our national security.

Let's remember, Ukraine is the front line of defense against malign Russia investigation, today, Ukraine, tomorrow, Georgia, the day after, other places in Europe.

This is critically important for our national security and, frankly, for our values. We're talking about a nascent democratic republic, a fledgling democratic republic, who is finally getting on the right track,. It behooves us to support them.

BLITZER: All right, so what happens next? You're on the Intelligence Committee.

What, are you going to draft a report and send it to the Judiciary Committee, so they could prepare articles of impeachment? Is that what happens next?

HECK: That's part of the next transition phase. That's exactly correct.

But, in the meantime, as it turns out, we continue to get additional information. And, in the meantime, frankly, and what I would like to see happen next is that Ambassador Bolton and Secretary of State Pompeo do exactly what the very brave and courageous people who work for them did, which is to step forward and put patriotism for their country ahead of their own personal interests.

Colonel Vindman, Dr. Fiona Hill, Tim Morrison, all of whom work for John Bolton, they came forward. Ambassador Bolton, it's your turn.

Secretary of State Pompeo, the assistant secretary of state, David Hale, and the political officer from Kiev, David Holmes, who stepped forward today, they came forward. Secretary of State Pompeo, it's your turn.

And, Mick Mulvaney, you know better.

BLITZER: Let's see if they accept that invitation. All right, so far, they have not.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

HECK: You're welcome.

BLITZER: All right, just ahead, the Republicans' defense of the president torn apart by one impeachment witness after another.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:19:34]

BLITZER: We're following all the breaking news on impeachment, after a second week of very dramatic televised hearings that ended just a little while ago.

There was new testimony directly tying President Trump and his personal political agenda to the Ukraine pressure campaign, one witness blowing apart a GOP conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help Hillary Clinton.

[18:20:00]

And there was some very strong testimony, Jim Sciutto, from David Holmes, the counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, who overheard that phone conversation between the president and Gordon Sondland, the E.U. ambassador.

Listen to this chunk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: He made clear that he had direct and frequent access to President Trump and Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and portrayed himself as the conduit to the president and Mr. Mulvaney for this group.

The official said that the order had come from the president and had been conveyed to OMB by Mr. Mulvaney, with no further explanation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: What's key here is that a central GOP argument, really the core of their defense, is, there's no direct line to the president.

The fact is, when you listen to a string of witnesses, and Holmes as well, that's just not a credible argument, because Sondland, despite his waffling yesterday afternoon, claimed throughout he was speaking and working for and carrying out the orders of the president. That second point there, he's talking about an OMB official speaking

about the delay in Ukrainian aid. That OMB official said, this comes directly from the president. That's how it was communicated to the people out in the field.

So, that argument, it's just not a credible one for them to make. And it just strikes me that what it gets at is that, at the end of the day, obstruction works. It works here, because the way to test that would be, drag Mulvaney under oath and say, he says your office said this office came from the president. Drag Bolton in front.

And the truth is, the president has blocked them. It appears a judge is not going to rush them before the committee. So that strategy for the White House...

(CROSSTALK)

MURRAY: Yes, but you don't the GOP clamoring to say, none of these witnesses can talk about having a conversation directly with President Trump, so we need to hear from the people who did. We need to hear from Mick Mulvaney, John Bolton. We need to hear from Secretary Pompeo.

They're not pushing the White House on this. They're basically saying, well, it's the White House's decision. Instead, we're just going to hammer these witnesses, saying, well, you have never had a conversation directly with the president.

GANGEL: Again, no defense. If there was a defense, these people would be coming forward.

One of the things that was also striking about David Holmes was the level of detail in everything he talked about. Gordon Sondland yesterday said he wasn't a note taker. David Holmes is a note taker.

We just -- practically verbatim descriptions, how the two tables were put together. But why it's so important is, if you look back at Sondland's testimony, how many times did he say "I don't remember" at a very specific point in his testimony?

Whenever it got close to the president, to Donald Trump, everything was very vague.

And to your point about these other officials coming in, and where is John Bolton, you cannot lie to Congress. And one of the problems for these people who were firsthand, for Mulvaney, for Pompeo, Pence, Perry, if they came to testify, nobody wants to be Michael Cohen sitting in jail.

BLITZER: All right, everybody, stand by.

We're getting some new and important information about the timing for a full House vote on impeaching the president of the United States.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:27:54]

BLITZER: All right, following breaking news.

After the last scheduled public testimony in the impeachment hearings, House Democrats are now preparing for the next critical phase.

Our congressional correspondent, Phil Mattingly, is getting new information for us.

What are you hearing from lawmakers about the next step forward?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, there's one thing lawmakers really on both sides, but certainly inside the Democratic Caucus, are sure of, and that is that there will be a vote to impeach Donald Trump.

When that vote will happen, likely in a couple of weeks. Here's what's going to happen now. As you noted, the public hearings, at least in the impeachment inquiry phase, are now complete. Over the course of the next week, the staff of the Intelligence Committee will be drafting a report laying out their findings.

Those findings will be transmitted to the House Judiciary Committee, where the actual impeachment hearings and the drafting of potential articles of impeachment are expected to occur. Should be some public hearings during that process as well.

But, Wolf, the bottom line is, Democrats are not waiting. They are not waiting for administration officials or former administration officials who they're waiting to see if they would be willing to come testify. They have said no up to this point.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi makes clear, there will not be rope-a-dope in the courts. Democrats are moving forward. And that means a vote is likely coming in the weeks ahead to impeach President Trump.

Here's another thing we know for certain. At this point in time, there have been no cracks in the Republican opposition to this process. We have obviously seen it play out in spades during the public hearings. But I have talked to a number of senior Republican aides over the course of the last couple hours.

I have asked them, is there anyone in your conference that you're worried about right now? Is there anybody you think may actually end up joining the Democrats in a vote to impeach the president? To a person, every single one of them has said no. They believe their conference is together.

And so we have a state of what we have seen over the course of the last couple of weeks. Democrats believe they have made their case, believe they have the evidence to move forward, believe they will soon impeach the president of the United States.

Republicans, at least on the House side, almost certain they will join together in unity in opposition -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Phil Mattingly up on the Hill with the latest on that front.

Let's bring back our analysts.

Abby, this is going to move relatively quickly. If there are articles of impeachment, a vote in the full House of Representatives on the floor by Christmas, a full-scale trial in January in the Senate, that's going to be moving dramatically.

[18:30:00]

PHILLIP: Yes. And it seems actually to be a sign of some degree of confidence on the Republican side that if they can move pretty quickly and they can hold down the fort and get this over and done with well early into 2020 and move on with the rest of the year.

I think probably that confidence is bolstered by what we saw in the hearing on the House side today when Congressman Will Hurd, who was widely viewed as someone who could be potentially getable for the Democrats, basically said, I don't see an impeachable offense here.

I think it really encourages Republicans to really just get this thing over with rather than drag it out, which was an alternative that would put some pressure on some Democrats running for president but, essentially, I think, would only increase the sort of the pain factor of all of this for everybody involved.

BLITZER: I want to play this clip. Several of the witnesses this week, John Kirby, gave their thoughts on the Biden Burisma. Burisma, the natural gas company in Ukraine, Biden's son, Hunter, was on the board. Listen to some of these key chunks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOLDMAN: Was it apparent to you that when President Trump, Rudy Giuliani or anyone else was pushing for an investigation into Burisma that the reason why they wanted that investigation related to what President Trump said here, the Bidens?

HILL: It was very apparent to me that that was what Rudy Giuliani intended, yes.

GOLDMAN: And, Mr. Holmes, you also understood that Burisma was code for Bidens?

DAVID HOLMES, U.S. DIPLOMAT: Yes.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): You never put Burisma together with the Bidens?

GORDON SONDLAND, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE EUROPEAN UNION: I didn't.

TIM MORRISON, FORMER NSC OFFICIAL: I proceeded to look it up on the internet. I Googled it.

GOLDMAN: And did you find that it had some association with Hunter Biden? MORRISON: Yes.

KURT VOLKER, FORMER U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY TO UKRAINE: I was not made aware of any reference to Vice President Biden or his son by President Trump until the transcript of that call was released on September 25th, 2019.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: So how do you explain those discrepancies?

KIRBY: It's difficult to explain. I mean, look, one company, obviously a big company and an important company in Ukraine but one company, and nobody thought to ask, why Burisma? Why is the president so fixated on this one natural gas company? And all you have to do is Google it. And in 30 seconds or less, you can see the connection to the Biden family and to Hunter Biden.

So it is unusual. And I thought it was particularly interesting that Sondland and Volker -- Volker is no longer as a career service officer, came in as a political appointee as a special envoy, they're the ones that say, hey, we didn't put this together, but the career officials, the foreign service officers, the non-partisans, to them, it was pretty --

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: And, by the way, Holmes testified that Sondland also put two and two together. I mean, this is in his opening statement after the call, the famous call in the restaurant in Kiev, he said that it's big stuff that benefits the president like the Biden investigation, he didn't say the Burisma investigation, which I don't know is connected to Biden, so, again, Sondland's protestations yesterday afternoon in claims of ignorance.

BLITZER: Let me get Preet Bharara. And this is a really sensitive and important aspect of this, including potentially legally.

PREET BHARARA, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, no, absolutely. I think it's a significant thing. And impeachment will be right around the corner and then we'll see what happens in the trial in January.

BLITZER: Well, walk us through that.

BHARARA: So we do this about every 20 or 25 years after not having done it for a century and then waiting for another century before we did it. I was on the Hill this past week for some other business and spoke to a couple of members of Congress who were thinking about, I think, a very important questions that I don't think we discussed yet today, and that is what would the actual scope of the articles of impeachment be?

So for the last several weeks, things have gone very quickly and we've been focused very, very laser-like on the Ukraine scandal. But remember, we still this long 400 something page report from Bob Mueller, volume two of which contains evidence in many people's minds of a series of crimes committed by the president of the United States. So I think an important focus for all of us thinking about this, and most importantly for the members of the Judiciary Committee, will have to be decided, is in the rush to get this done because there's a political clock and because attention spans of people is sometimes short, do they have Ukraine plus Mueller or just Ukraine? And I can tell you from my conversations that there's a lot of debate about that.

And depending whether or not the Mueller information is also included in any articles of impeachment, that could delay or accelerate the impeachment proceedings going forward.

BLITZER: Really important stuff. There's a lot more we're following on all the breaking news, investigations of the origins of the Russia probe. Stay with us. We have new information. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:35:00]

BLITZER: We've got some breaking news that we're following right now as Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez is learning new information about the origins of the Russia probe. And, what, there's somebody under investigation right now?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. This is an investigation that began and was found as part of the probe that's being done by Michael Horowitz, the inspector general for the Justice Department.

[18:40:02]

And what he found was that there was an employee at the FBI who altered a document that was used in the preparation for one of the FISA warrants, one of the surveillance warrants that was done against Carter Page, he was the Trump campaign aide.

This document, whatever changes were made, was substantive enough to change the meaning of the document. We don't know a lot more about it. We don't know, for instance, whether without this change the FISA would have been approved or not but it is a substantial change that was made to this document. And Michael Horowitz confronted this FBI employee during one of the interviews that was done as part of this review and that person admitted to making that change.

Now, this is part of a criminal investigation that's being done by John Durham, who is the prosecutor in Connecticut, who was appointed by Bill Barr, the attorney general, to do a wide ranging review of everything that was used, all the intelligence that was gathered to begin what became the Mueller investigation. So, again, this is an altered document, there's a lot we don't know about this employee and what the motivations were. But it is a big deal obviously to make a change to a document, alter it in any way, and that's why it's --

BLITZER: So FBI agents under investigation. Clearly, this is going to reverberate and provide ammunition to the president and his allies that this whole Russia investigation was criminally wrong.

PEREZ: Exactly. I mean, look, this is exactly what people close to the president have been saying, that the FBI committed wrongdoing in starting this investigation. And so the question now obviously is what are the details are going to be part of the Horowitz report that's going to be released on December 9th and how much political hay the president's allies are going to make about it.

BLITZER: Let me bring Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney at the Southern District of New York. What's your reaction, Preet?

BHARARA: Well, that's kind of an alarming bit of news. Obviously, based on what Evan is saying, there's a lot we don't know. But the given -- the description he has provided, if there was an FBI agent sworn to uphold the Constitution who can be proven to have altered a document in connection with illegal proceeding, including the obtaining of a FISA warrant, that's really serious. It doesn't get a lot more serious than that.

And I'd like to know the details of what the nature of the change was, if there was a mistake in some way. Based on that reporting it doesn't sound like it was. I want to keep an open mind about it. But that's not a good thing. It's a terrible thing.

The law enforcement agents and prosecutors who work with them are sworn to uphold the Constitution, sure, but actually even exceed the protection of the Constitution. They have to be of the utmost integrity and the utmost candor and especially making a representation to the court, which is what a FISA application is. It's got be on the up and up.

And I know there has been political fighting about whether or not there was proper candor, and there was this back and forth within the House Intelligence Committee when the positions were reversed between Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff. And that looked like a lot of politics. This particular thing that Evan Perez has just broken the story on does sound serious to me it.

BLITZER: It does.

Jim Sciutto, what do you think?

SCIUTTO: Well, the key -- the republicans will look at this, and again, we don't know a lot here, but the essential charge has been that the probe opened on shoddy evidence or biased evidence, right, that they wanted to go after the president here.

And we know that the investigation was open based on multiple data points. You've heard this argument. It's all about the Steele dossier. Of course, it's not. We know this has been reported many times and confirmed that it was also Papadopoulos' meeting with an Australian diplomat talking about Trump campaign knowledge of the stolen emails, et cetera.

So you know there were multiple data points that went into that. This is significant because someone has been charged with a crime here. BLITZER: Not charged yet.

SCIUTTO: Someone who is considered, sorry, big difference. But there's the possibility of someone being charged with a criminal investigation. It does not appear to change what led to the investigation at the beginning and that would be the key point.

PEREZ: I think that's a very important thing. Look, I think we certainly talked to people who have gone in as part of this review that's being done by Michael Horowitz. And one of the things they say is that they expect that there were mistakes that are going to be uncovered because, obviously, the FBI is made up of human beings, they make mistakes, but they believe it should not undermine the reason, the raison d'etre for this entire investigation, right?

This investigation came about because of all of these, as you said, data points that showed that there were definitely some weird things happening between what the Russians were doing, undermining the U.S. election system and some of the activities of people related to the Trump campaign. So the FBI believes that there was a lot of evidence here that was more than enough to merit this, not only this FISA but doing this investigation as a whole.

And so the question is, is that what the president is going to see? We don't think so.

BLITZER: FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the courts that have to authorize this kind of surveillance. Excellent reporting, as usual.

Everybody stick around. We're about to get more reaction to the impeachment hearings from a Democrat, who was hoping to take on President Trump, the White House, presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, there you see him, he's standing by live.

[18:45:09]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Breaking news tonight, powerful and damaging testimony in the final scheduled impeachment inquiry hearing.

Joining us now, let's get some reaction from Democratic presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, joining us live.

[18:50:01]

Andrew, thanks so much for joining us.

As you know, both David Holmes and Fiona Hill, they testified that many people were aware of these conditions placed on the Ukrainians. What are the implications of this scandal beyond President Trump?

ANDREW YANG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, unfortunately, it's confirming some of our worst suspicions about the administration beyond President Trump. But when I talk to voters around the country, Wolf, I have to say, I get very few questions about impeachment. Voters are more focused what we can do to improve the conditions on the ground, what a candidate's vision is for the country, how we can rewrite the rules of the 21st century economy to work for us.

I know there are people very intent on impeachment proceedings day-to- day, but that doesn't line up with what I'm hearing from voters here on the ground.

BLITZER: So, would Democrat, you believe, be better off simply wrapping up this impeachment process sooner rather than later?

YANG: I do think that the more time that goes on, the less time the Democrats have to present a positive vision for the country that will get people excited and help us win in 2020. The fact is Donald Trump thrives on attention, even negative attention, and so, the concentration on the impeachment proceedings I don't think is going to work for the Democrats, particularly because not a single Republican has crossed party lines to say that they're actually in a fact finding mode in trying to figure out what's happening with this administration. They're more interested in being obstructionist and trying to find ways to defend the president and the administration.

BLITZER: Because if the House votes on articles of impeachment, let's say by Christmas, and presumably it will pass, the Democrats have a significant majority in the House of Representatives, they need a simple majority, there could be a trial in the Senate in January and that's leading up to the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina in February. What's going to be the impact on the campaign?

YANG: And as someone who's in the field campaigning alongside Senator Klobuchar and Senator Warren and Bernie and everyone else, I would hate to see half the field disappeared to Washington for Senate proceedings which looks like it really could be the case given the timing.

So, to me, that's one of the reasons why this impeachment process may not help the Democrats in 2020. I think that we need to be laser- focused on solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected and that's the best way to beat him come November of next year.

BLITZER: Well, that's an important point to be sure.

Speaking of 2020, you heard Dr. Fiona Hill say time is running out to stop Russia from interfering in the 2020 election. You mentioned in the debate last night that Americans feel like they can't even trust their own democracy right now.

So, what's the message to those Americans?

YANG: You know, this is something that deeply concerns me, Wolf, because this administration has had zero interest in protecting our voting systems and our infrastructure from Russian hacking and interference. And so, we're going into this election hoping for the best, but I've talked to people both in the technology world and in the infrastructure world and there is no confidence that we've changed anything since 2016 that would secure our systems from Russian interference.

So what I've heard is that the best thing we can do as Democrats is to win by such a significant margin that any hacking or interference in the margins won't affect the final outcome.

BLITZER: Let's talk about that Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta last night. It went on for more than two hours. You only got to speak for -- and we did some checking, you can see over there, about six and a half minutes or so. That's probably half that some of the other candidates got.

Do you think that that was fair?

YANG: You know, Wolf, all I can say is I miss CNN moderating these debates.

(CHEERS)

BLITZER: You got some supporters behind you, clearly.

YANG: No, no, I mean, they saw it last night, too. I mean, America saw it. I went 32 minutes without a question, and I was raising my hands trying to get a word in edgewise during that time.

So, when you all moderated the debate, it was straight up the middle, it was professional. We got real substantive topics like the wealth tax, like Bernie's jobs guarantee, what our vision for the country is moving forward. Whereas last night, I felt like I certainly had a lot more to say and a lot more to offer, though despite the time constraints I'm happy to say we've still seen tremendous results from last night's debate.

Our message about re-writing the rules for the 21st century economy for us actually rang loud and clear despite my limited air time.

BLITZER: Well, good luck out there on the campaign trail, Andrew Yang. Thanks so much for joining us.

[18:55:00]

YANG: Thank you, Wolf. And, Wolf, see to it, CNN get the last -- next debate after this next one. I'd love to see you again.

BLITZER: All right. We'll --

(CHEERS)

We'll have more news right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: There's breaking news out of Israel tonight. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now facing criminal indictment in three separate corruption cases. The country's attorney general announcing charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust against the sitting prime minister, a first in Israel's history. Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing. He describes the charges as an

attempted coup. He insists he will not resign.

Thanks for watching.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.