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CNN Live Event/Special
House Judiciary Committee Holds Impeachment Hearing; Soon: House Judiciary Will Resume Impeachment Hearing; DOJ I.G. Releases Report on FISA in FBI Trump Campaign Probe; A.G. Barr Disputes Findings of I.G. Report. Aired 2-3p ET
Aired December 09, 2019 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:00:00]
CASTOR: Now turning attention to the -- the Ron Johnson letter, if I may.
CALLEN: Yes.
CASTOR: On August 31st -- Senator Johnson's getting ready to travel to Ukraine -- on September 5th with Senator -- Senator -- with Murphy and he -- he wanted -- Johnson wanted the aid released so he calls the President and he actually sought permission to be the bearer of good news.
CALLEN: Right.
CASTOR: The President said I'm not ready to -- to lift the aid. And he had this -- Senator Johnson -- I mean, he -- he writes a 10 -- 10 page letter, very -- very detailed, and he -- he gives some -- some remarkable detail. And I'd like to read it, it's on Page 6.
I -- I asked -- this is Senator Johnson speaking -- he said, I asked him whether there was some kind of arrangement where Ukraine would take some action and the hold would be lifted. Without hesitation, Senator Johnson says, President Trump immediately denied such an arrangement existed and he started cursing and he said no way -- President Trump said no way, I would never do that. Who told you that?
And Senator Johnson goes on to say that -- that President Trump's reaction here was adamant, vehement and angry. Senator Johnson goes on to say that as of August 31st, the President told him but -- I'm -- you're going to like my decision in the end.
So I think that's very important context on what the President's state of mind was, at least as of August 31st.
CALLEN: Right. He fully expected, do you agree, that the aid would eventually be released after the 55 day pause?
CASTOR: Yes.
CULLEN: Right?
CASTOR: Absolutely.
CULLEN: Yes. I want to thank you all for your presentations. Mr. Castor, I believe you've been talking for approximately 75 minutes today and I want to thank you for that.
CASTOR: My wife thanks you, as well. She likes it when I do the talking when she's not around.
CULLEN: Time permitting today, I'd like to cover four or five areas -- distinct areas. There's a lot of facts the American people have not heard and there's a lot of contradictions in certain people's testimony. Is that fair to say, Mr. Castor? And I'd like to talk about some of the people in this story that have firsthand knowledge of the facts.
We have Ambassador Volker, Ambassador Sondland and Secretary Perry. You had the opportunity to talk to two of those three people. Is that correct?
CASTOR: Yes.
CULLEN: And the Democrats report would like us to believe that these three individuals were engaged in some sort of cabal or some sort of nefarious venture, but that's not true, is it?
CASTOR: No.
CULLEN: In fact, these three people were, at all relevant times and even today, acting in the best interest of the American people. Is that true?
CASTOR: That's right, and with the highest integrity.
CULLEN: That's right. I think everyone testified that Ambassador Volker is one of the most experienced diplomats in our foreign service.
CASTOR: Across the board, all of the witnesses, including Ambassador Yovanovitch, talked about the integrity that Ambassador Volker brings to the table.
CULLEN: But there's a lot of people with firsthand knowledge that we didn't talk to. Is that correct?
CASTOR: Yes.
CULLEN: Now I want to talk about the President's skepticism of foreign aid. The President is very skeptical of foreign aid. Is that correct?
CASTOR: He is deeply skeptical of sending U.S. taxpayer dollars into an environment that is corrupt because it's as good as kissing it goodbye.
CULLEN: And is that something new that he believes or is that something he ran on? CASTOR: This is something that he has ran on, it's something that -- he has implemented policies as soon as he became President. Ambassador Hale, the third ranking State Department official, told us about the over -- you know, overall review of all foreign aid programs and he described it as almost a zero-based evaluation.
CULLEN: Right. And you had the opportunity to take the deposition of Mark Sandy, who is a career official at OMB. Is that right?
CASTOR: Correct.
CULLEN: And he had some information about the reason for the pause. Is that true? I think that he had a conversation with an individual named Rob Blair and Mr. Blair provided some insight into the reason for the pause.
[14:05:00]
CASTOR: Sandy was one of the few witnesses that we had that was able to give us a firsthand account inside of OMB that the reason for the -- for the -- for the pause related to the President's concern about European burden -- burden sharing ...
CULLEN: Right.
CASTOR: ... in the region.
CULLEN: And he -- and in fact, in his conversations -- the President's conversations with Senator Johnson, he mentions his concern about burden sharing and I believe he referenced a conversation that he had with the Chancellor of Germany. And in fact, the whole first part of the July 24th transcript, he's talking about burden sharing and wanting the Europeans to do more.
But ...
CASTOR: Yeah, I mean, Senator Johnson was -- and President Trump were -- they were pretty candid and, you know, they believed that allies like Germany were -- were laughing at us because we were so willing to -- to spend the aid.
CULLEN: Right. Now I'd like -- you know, there's been a lot of allegations that President Zelensky is not being candid about feeling pressure from President Trump. And isn't it true that he stated over and over publicly that he felt no pressure from President Trump? Is that true?
CASTOR: Yeah, he -- he said it consistently, he said it in the United Nations, September 25th, he said it, you know, in three more news availabilities over the course of the period, including last week.
CULLEN: I want to change subject -- subjects and talk about something that Professor Turley raised last week and that is the partisan nature of this investigation. And you're an experienced congressional investigator ...
CASTOR: And Professor Turley, by the way, I mean, he's no Trump supporter.
CULLEN: That's right, he is a Democrat. That's right. And -- but Professor Turley cautioned that a partisan inquiry is not what the founders envisioned. Is that correct?
CASTOR: Correct.
CULLEN: And ...
CASTOR: The worst thing you can have with an impeachment is partisan rancor because nobody's going to accept the result on the other side.
CULLEN: And our Democrat friends have all of a sudden become originalists and are citing the founders and their intent routinely as part of this impeachment process.
CASTOR: I think that goes to the -- this -- this -- whether this constitutes bribery. You know, there's -- there's -- there's case law on bribery. And I'm no -- I'm no Supreme Court scholar or lawyer or advocate. But you know, there's new case law with the McDonnell case about what constitutes an official act, and that certainly hasn't been, you know, addressed in this space, and I -- I think Professor Turley mentioned it.
CALLEN: Right, and I think Professor Turley said that a meeting certainly does not constitute an official act.
CASTOR: I think it's the McDonnell case...
CALLEN: Right.
CASTOR: ... goes to that.
CALLEN: And Professor Turley pointed that out for us last week. Yes.
Since this inquiry's unofficial and unsanctioned start in September, the process has been partisan, biased, unfair. Republicans' questioning has been curtailed routinely. I think we saw that in Lieutenant Colonel Vindman's deposition. There were some, you know...
CASTOR: Yeah, we were barred from asking him questions about who he communicated his concerns to.
CALLEN: Right, very basic things like who, what, when, where. And instead...
CASTOR: And I would say, too, this -- this -- this rapid -- you know, we're in day 76, and it's almost impossible to do a sophisticated congressional investigation that quickly, especially when the stakes are this high, because any congressional investigation of any consequence, it -- it -- it does take a little bit of time for the two sides to stake out their -- their interests and how they're going to respond to them.
CALLEN: Right. CASTOR: You know, we learned with the Goodlatte-Goudy probe, you know, the first letter, I think, went in October of 2017, and you know, in December we finally got a witness.
[14:10:00]
And it was the following spring with -- in the Goodlatte-Goudy probe after a lot of pushing and pulling and a lot of tug-of-war, we -- we reached a deal with DOJ where we went -- we went down to DOJ and they gave us access to documents, and they gave us access to, I think, you know, north of 800,000 pages. But they made us come down there. They made us go into a SCIF, and these documents weren't classified. And you know, it wasn't until May and June of that year that we started this process, when the investigation had been ongoing, and -- and that is disappointing. Obviously, we all wish there was an easy button. But congressional investigations of consequence take time.
CALLEN: Right. And it took, I think, six months before the first document was even produced. And like you said, you had to go down there and review it in camera.
And then going back even further to Fast and Furious, the investigation of the death of a Border Patrol agent.
CASTOR: Yeah, yeah. I mean, Fast and Furious, we issued subpoenas. Mr. Issa had -- sent some subpoenas, I think, in February of 20- -- 2011, and we -- we -- we had a hearing in June with experts about proceedings of contempt. You know, what does it take to go to contempt? And that -- that was the first time, in June, when we got any production, and the production was largely publicly-available information. And we went -- and we spent most of the year trying to get information out of the Justice Department.
At the time, we were also working with whistleblowers who -- who were providing us documents. And Chairman Issa, at the time then, in October, issued another subpoena that was to the Justice Department. And so the -- the investigation had been ongoing most of the year. We were talking to the whistleblowers. We're doing interviews, and we're doing our best to get documents out of the Justice Department through that channel, but it -- it -- these things take time.
CALLEN: Right, and if you...
CASTOR: Certainly not 76 days.
CALLEN: Yes. And if you truly want to uncover every fact, as you should in an impeachment, do you agree, you have to go to court sometimes and enforce your subpoenas. And here, my understanding is we have a lot of requests for information, voluntary information. You know, will you please provide us with documents on X, Y, Z, and I think -- and I think that's great. But you have to back it up with something. Isn't that correct?
CASTOR: Well, there's a number of ways to enforce your requests. I mean, the -- the fundamental rule of any congressional investigation is you -- you rarely get what you're asking for unless and until the alternative is less palatable for the respondent. So you know, you issue a subpoena and you're trying to get documents. You know, one technique you can use is you try to talk to the, you know, the document custodian or somebody in leg -- you know, the leg affairs function about what documents exist.
Chairman Chaffetz, during his era, had -- he used to have these document production status hearings, where you'd bring -- bring in leg affairs officials and try to get the lay of the land. Because you know, leg affairs officials, at least nominally, are supposed to be directly responsible serving interests.
You can saber-rattle. It's legal to saber-rattle about holding somebody in contempt. Oftentimes, witnesses who are reluctant to cooperate and come forward, when you -- when you -- when you attach a contempt proceeding or a prospective contempt proceeding to their name, a -- a lot of times that changes the outcome. And with -- with a contempt proceeding, you've got a couple different steps along the way. You could raise the prospect of a contempt proceeding. You could schedule a contempt proceeding. After you schedule a contempt proceeding, you could, you know, hold the door open for documents or interviews, and then you could push it off. You could go through at the committee level.
And these are all sort of milestone events which historically are unpalatable, or less palatable for the administration, that sometimes starts to move the needle. And -- and with these types of disputes, once you get the ball rolling -- you know, with the Goodlatte-Goudy probe, we didn't get a witness, and it was Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in for, you know, it was a couple months. But once we got Deputy Director McCabe in, a couple weeks later we got Director Comey's chief of staff. A couple weeks later -- I mean, the witnesses start -- once you get the ball rolling...
You -- and again, you don't always like 100 percent of the terms. Sometimes you've got to deal with agency counsel. Sometimes you've got to go look in -- in camera. But once you get the ball rolling, usually it leads to positive results, and -- and historically has allowed the Congress to do its work.
[14:15:00]
CALLEN: And were any of those things done here?
CASTOR: No.
CALLEN: In fact, they've decided we're not going to -- we're -- we're not going to subpoena certain people that are important. Is that fair to say? And we're not going to go to court and enforce them so these people have -- you know, these folks that are caught in an interbranch struggle, and that's -- that's an unfortunate position for any employee of the (inaudible).
CASTOR: Well, one of the concerning things is -- is Dr. Kupperman, who has been described by Dr. Fiona Hill and a number witnesses as a -- as a -- a solid citizen, a good witness, he -- he filed a lawsuit in the -- in the -- in the face of a subpoena, and a judge was assigned to it, Judge Leon, and the -- the issues that Kupperman raised were slightly different than the Don McGahn issues because, you know, Don McGahn is the personal -- or the White House Counsel. Kupperman, of course, is a national security official. Kupperman, you know, filed the lawsuit seeking guidance. Kupperman wasn't asking the court to tell him not to come testify. To the contrary, Kupperman was seeking the court's guidance to facilitate his cooperation and ultimately the Committee withdrew the subpoena which raises questions about whether the Committee's really interested in getting to the bottom of some of these issues.
CALLEN: Right. Instead, the Committee's chosen -- the Intelligence Committee has chosen to rely on Ambassador Sondland and his testimony. I think they rely 600 times in their report....
CASTOR: I'll tell you what I did. I -- on this point. I -- yesterday, I opened the Democrat report and I did a control F.
CALLEN: Yes.
CASTOR: You know, control F.
CALLEN: Yes.
CASTOR: And Sondland's name shows up I think 611 times. In fairness, it's going to be double-counted because, you know, if it's in a sentence and then it's in a footnote, that's two, but in relative comparison to the other witnesses, Sondland's relied on big time.
CALLEN: And I think Dr. Hill testified that she at some point confronted him about his actions and...
CASTOR: The record is mixed on this front. Dr. hill talks about raising concerns with Sondland, and Sondland in his deposition at least doesn't -- you know, he didn't share the same view.
CALLEN: And there's a lot of instances of that where Ambassador Sondland recalls one thing and other witnesses recall another. Is that correct?
CASTOR: Sondland as witness is a -- and he's a bit of an enigma. Let's just say it that way. He was -- you know, he was pretty certain in his deposition that the security assistance wasn't linked to anything, and then he submitted a -- he submitted an addendum for...
CALLEN: Yes, I call that the pretzel sentence.
CASTOR: And even in that addendum or supplement or whatever it's called, you know, it's talked to him and her. And anyway, Sondland ends with, you know, I presumed.
CALLEN: Right.
CASTOR: So it wasn't really any firsthand information.
CALLEN: Right. We don't have a lot of firsthand information here. Is that correct?
CASTOR: On certain facts we don't. I mean, we have firsthand information on the May 23 meeting in the Oval Office. We've got a lot of firsthand information, although all conflicting on the July 10 meeting, there are, you know, episodes I think during the course of this investigation that we haven't been able to at least get everyone's account, but the investigation hasn't been able to reveal, you know, firsthand evidence relating to the president other than the call transcript.
CALLEN: And I think we've already talked about this, Ambassador Sondland would presume things, assume things, and form opinions based on what other people told him and then he would use those as firsthand. Is that correct?
[14:20:00]
CASTOR: You know, it started with his role with the Ukraine portfolio. A lot of people at the State Department were wondering why the Ambassador to the E.U. was so engaged in issues relating to the Ukraine and, you know, there are answers for that. I mean, Ukraine is aspirant to join the E.U. There's a lot of other reasons, and Mr. Turner I think explored this really well at the open hearing, but we asked Ambassador Sondland. He said he did a T.V. interview in Kiev on the 26th of July where he said the president's given me, you know, a lot of assignments and he's -- the president's assigned me Ukraine and so forth.
But then when we asked him in his deposition, he conceded that he was, in fact, spinning, that the president never assigned him Ukraine, that he was just -- you know, we was exaggerating.
CALLEN: And I think at the public hearings you pointed out that in contrast to other witnesses, Ambassador Sondland isn't a note taker. He, in fact, he said I do not recall dozens of times in his deposition.
CASTOR: Let's say it this way. You know, Ambassador Taylor walked us through his standard operating procedure for taking notes. He told us about having a notebook on his desk and a notebook in his coat pocket of his suit, and he brought it with us and he showed us.
So consequently when Ambassador Taylor recounts to us, you know, what happened, it's backed up by these contemporaneous notes. Ambassador Sondland, on the other hand, was very clear that, you know -- firsthand he said that he did not have access to his State Department records. While he said that at the public hearing, simultaneously the State Department issued a tweet I think or a statement at least saying that wasn't true, that nobody is keeping Ambassador Sondland from his emails.
You know, he's still a State Department employee. He can go -- you know, he does have access to his records, but he stated he didn't, and he stated that he doesn't have any notes because he doesn't take notes, and he conceded that he doesn't have recollections of a lot of these issues. And we sort of made a list of them, and I think at the hearing I called it the trifecta of unreliability.
CALLEN: And you're not the only person that has concerns about Ambassador Sondland's testimony, conduct. I think other witnesses took issue with his conduct. Is that correct?
CASTOR: Yes. Tim Morrison talked about instances where in Ambassador Sondland was sort showing up uninvited. Morrison didn't understand why Sondland was trying to get into the Warsaw meeting September 1, and Dr. Hill -- Fiona Hill told us about issues of that sort and a number of issues. You're correct.
CALLEN: Ambassador Reeker and Ambassador Sondland, too, correct?
CASTOR: Yes, I believe Ambassador Reeker...
CALLEN: Said he was a problem.
CASTOR: ... said he was a problem, yes.
CALLEN: Yes. And Dr. Hill raised concerns about his behavior and said that he might be an intelligence risk. Is that correct?
CASTOR: She did. She had issues with his tendency to pull out his mobile device and make telephone calls...
CALLEN: And...
CASTOR: ... which obviously can be monitored...
CALLEN: Yes.
CASTOR: ... by the bad guys.
CALLEN: And we talked about how he was spinning that, you know, certain things, and he admitted that how he was spinning. And...
CASTOR: He admitted he exaggerated.
CALLEN: Yes, and...
CASTOR: He also -- you know when it comes to his communications with the presidents (ph), we tried to get him to list all of the communications with the president. I think he gave us six.
And then when he was back at it, you know, he walked us through each communication with the president. And by the way, it was about a Christmas party, it was about when the president of Finland was here.
And then Congresswoman Speier asked him the same question in the open hearing. And he said that he talked to the president like 20 times. So the record is mixed.
CALLEN: I think my time's up. Thank you both.
NADLER: The gentleman yield's ...
BIGGS: Mr. Chairman -- Mr. Chairman.
(CROSSTALK)
NADLER: Five minute rule.
BIGGS: Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I move to recess for 30 minutes pursuant the Clause of 1A (ph) of Rule 11.
NADLER: The gentleman has moved a -- sorry, the gentleman has moved to recess for how long?
BIGGS: For 30 minutes, sir.
[14:25:00]
NADLER: For 30 minutes. And as a privileged motion it was not debatable. All in favor say Aye.
(CROSSTALK)
No, No.
(CROSSTALK)
The Nos have it. The motion is not agreed to.
BIGGS: Ask for a roll call vote please.
NADLER: Roll call is requested. The clerk will call the roll.
CLERK: Mr. Nadler.
NADLER: No.
CLERK: Mr. Nadler votes no. Ms. Lofgren.
LOFGREN: No.
CLERK: Ms. Lofgren votes no. Ms. Jackson Lee.
JACKSON LEE: No.
CLERK: Ms. Jackson Lee votes no. Mr. Cohen. Mr. Johnson of Georgia.
H. JOHNSON: No.
CLERK: Mr. Johnson of Georgia votes no. Mr. Deutch.
DEUTCH: No.
CLERK: Mr. Deuth votes no. Ms. Bass. Ms. Bass votes no. Mr. Richmond.
RICHMOND: No.
CLERK: Mr. Richmond votes no. Mr. Jeffries.
JEFFRIES: No.
CLERK: Mr. Jeffries votes no. Mr. Cicilline.
CICILLINE: No.
CLERK: Mr. Cicilline votes no. Mr. Swalwell.
SWALWELL: No.
CLERK: Mr. Swalwell votes not. Mr. Lieu. Mr. Lieu votes no. Mr. Raskin.
RASKIN: No.
CLERK: Mr. Raskin votes no. Ms. Jayapal.
JAYAPAL: No.
CLERK: Ms. Jayapal votes no. Ms. Demings. Ms. Demings votes no. Mr. Correa. Mr. Correa votes no. Ms. Scanlon.
SCANLON: No.
CLERK: Ms. Scanlon votes no. Ms. Garcia.
GARCIA: No.
CLERK: Ms. Garcia votes no. Mr. Neguse.
NEGUSE: No.
CLERK: Mr. Neguse votes no. Ms. McBath.
MCBATH: No.
CLERK: Ms. McBath votes no. Mr. Stanton.
STANTON: No.
CLERK: Mr. Stanton votes no. Ms. Dean.
DEAN: No.
CLERK: Ms. Dean votes no. Ms. Mucarsel-Powell.
MUCARSEL-POWELL: No.
CLERK: Ms. Mucarsel-Powell votes no. Ms. Escobar.
ESCOBAR: No.
CLERK: Ms. Escobar votes no. Mr. Collins.
COLLINS: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Collins votes aye. Mr. Sensenbrenner. SENSENBRENNER: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Sensenbrenner votes aye. Mr. Chabot. Mr. Chabot votes aye. Mr. Gohmert. Mr. Gohmert votes aye. Mr. Jordan. Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Buck. Mr. Ratcliffe.
RATCLIFFE: Yes.
CLERK: Mr. Ratcliffe votes yes. Ms. Roby.
ROBY: Aye.
CLERK: Ms. Roby votes aye. Mr. Gaetz.
GAETZ: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Gaetz votes aye. Mr. Johnson of Louisiana.
M. JOHNSON: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Johnson of Louisiana votes aye. Mr. Biggs.
BIGGS: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Biggs votes aye. Mr. McClintock.
MCCLINTOCK: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. McClintock votes aye. Ms. Lesko.
LESKO: Aye.
CLERK: Ms. Lesko votes aye. Mr. Reschenthaler.
RESCHENTHALER: Aye.
CLERK: Mr. Reschenthaler votes aye. Mr. Cline. Mr. Armstrong.
ARMSTRONG: Yes.
CLERK: Mr. Armstrong votes yes. Mr. Steube.
STEUBE: Yes.
CLERK: Mr. Steube votes yes.
COHEN: Mr. Chairman.
NADLER: The ...
COHEN: Mr. Chairman, have I reported.
CLERK: Mr. Cohen, you are not recorded.
COHEN: I'd like to be recorded as no.
CLERK: Mr. Cohen votes no.
NADLER: Are there any other members who have wish to vote who have not voted. The clerk will report.
CLERK: Mr. Chairman, there are 15 ayes and 24 nos.
NADLER: The motion is not agreed to. Now we will engage in questions under the five minute rule. I yield myself five minutes for the purpose of questioning the witnesses. Mr. Goldman, can you please explain the difference between Vice President Biden's request to Ukraine a few years ago and President Trump's request to Ukraine earlier this year?
GOLDMAN: Yes. When Vice President Biden pressured the Ukrainian president to remove the corrupt prosecutor general, he was doing so with an international consensus as part of U.S. policy, the entire European Union supported that.
The IMF supported that. The IMF, which also gave the loans that -- that he was referring to. And so he did that as part of the entire international community's consensus. And when President Trump is asking for this investigation of Joe Biden, all of the witnesses, every single one testified that that had nothing to do with official U.S. policy.
NADLER: And president -- and Vice President Biden's request had no personal political benefit where as President Trump's request did?
GOLDMAN: Yes. In fact, if -- the witnesses testified that if that corrupt prosecutor general were actually removed, it would be because he was not prosecuting corruption. So the witnesses said that by removing that prosecutor general and adding a new one that there was an increase chance that corruption in Ukraine would be prosecuted, including as it related to the Burisma company, which his son was on the board of.
NADLER: Thank you. Now, Mr. Goldman, can you please explain exactly what happened with the phone records obtained by the intelligence committee?
GOLDMAN: Yes, thank you. I -- I would like to set the record straight on that. This is a -- a very basis and usual investigative practice where people involved in a scheme or suspected to be involved in a scheme, investigators routinely seek their records.
And just to be very clear, this is meta data. It is only call too, call from and length. It is not the content of the calls or the text messages. So there's no content, there's no risk of invading any communications with lawyers or journalist or attorney client that none of that exist and there are no risk to that.
And so what we did is for the people that -- several of the people that we had investigated and subpoenaed and were alleged to be part of the scheme, we got call records so that we could corroborate some of their testimony or figure out maybe there's additional communications that we were unaware of. What we then did is we took the call records and we match it up with important events that occurred during the scheme. And we start to see if there are patterns because call records can be quite powerful circumstantial evidence.
In this case it just so happened that people who were involved in the President Trump scheme were communicating with the president's lawyer who was also involved in the scheme, a journalist, a staff member of Congress, and another member of Congress.
[14:30:00]
We, of course, did not at all seek in anyway shape or form to do any investigation on anyone -- a member of Congress or a staff member of Congress. It just happened to be that they were in communication with people involved in the president's scheme.
NADLER: And everything you did was basically standard operating procedure for a well run investigation.
GOLDMAN: Every investigation in 10 years that I did, probably we got call records for it.
NADLER: Thank you. Mr. Goldman, did White House Counsel make his view clear about witness and evidence requested by the investigating committees and what was that view?
GOLDMAN: We never heard from the White House Counsel they -- we -- other than the letter, which basically just said we will not at all cooperate with this investigation in any way, shape, or form.
They never reached out to engage in this accommodation process. It was a complete stonewall. Not only will the White House not participate and not cooperate and not respond to the dually authorized subpoenas of Congress but we are -- the White House says we are also going to direct every other Executive Branch agency to defy this ...
NADLER: Thank you. Now I have a series of questions and please keep your answers brief if you can. During last week's hearing my Republican colleagues said that Congress has not built a sufficient record to impeachment the president at this stage.
As foreign prosecutor you have spent years building substantial case records. What is the strength of the record here?
GOLDMAN: I think we have moved fast and I think that the evidence is really overwhelming. We have 17 witnesses with overlapping and consistent statements.
NADLER: Overwhelming. And the committee managed to collect such a compelling (inaudible) about president -- obstruction by the president. Correct.
GOLDMAN: Yes. NADLER: And was the obstruction so pervasive that the evidence pointed to a course of conduct or plan to cover up any presidential misconduct?
GOLDMAN: We -- we did find that there was an effort to conceal the president's conduct. Yes.
NADLER: And I understand that on October 8th the White House wrote a letter explaining that President Trump had directed his administration not to cooperate with the White Houses' impeachment inquiry. In the letter, the White House counsel wrote, quote, President Trump cannot permit his administration to participant in this partisan inquiry under the circumstances.
Now the investigative committees tried to interview dozens of witnesses including current and former Trump administration officials and were stymied with respect to most of them, is that correct?
GOLDMAN: There were 12 witnesses who were directed not to appear and ultimately they did not appear.
NADLER: Thank you very much, my time is expired; I yield to the ranking -- ranking member Mr. Collins.
COLLINS: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Goldman some interesting thing now, so now we can commit basically extortion, or put pressure on others too (ph) as long as we have the international community behind us. As long as we get enough people to think were OK, I can then go extort anybody I want to as long as enough people think it's OK, that was in essence what you just said, whether you believe it or not, that's what -- as I copy the notes (ph). But I want to go to the phone records.
It's a novel approach, the phone records -- I'm not -- I'm not -- and hear me clearly. I have no problem with the subpoena as far a subpoena power from congress, not a problem. My problem as you did no answer in the previous though is taking the meta data, numbers -- I did not say anything -- it's interesting you had to go and say well there's no con (ph) to anything -- we've had that debate in congress now for the last few years on the FISA program and other things -- which by the way -- this committee should be hearing FISA this week, the IG report just came out and we're doing this.
It's interesting to see to me that the calls in the meta data and not the content -- what the problem I have here is this, is if Rudy -- Nunes -- Giuliani, Nunes (ph) (inaudible) were the only phone records return from the span (ph) -- why are these released? Here's the problem. You took the committee -- and this is why I want to know who ordered it. The committee made a choice, Chairman Schiff while I'm assuming because he's not here, or you, who did get to come, can at least thank you for showing up, make a conscious choice to put these records into the repot.
It was a drive by. It was a gratuitous drive by that you wanted to smear the ranking member or smear these others because they were in those numbers that were connected to that. I'm not saying you knew the content, I'm not saying anything else, in fact you just admitted just a second ago it was simply -- they were contacting these people. The problem I have with that, is you could've just as easily put, if you were really wanting to do a professional non smear report, instead Congress person one or Congress person two. Reporter one, reporter two -- because if they did not actually contribute to your report it is nothing by a drive by. That's the problem I have here.
I have no problem with you working here, I have no problem with the report, I have no problem with the subpoena, and you can pretty it up all you want, that was nothing but show the American people that at least for a moment the Schiff report became a partisan smear against other members we don't like, because there's other alternatives for you to do.
[14:35:00]
I have no problem, as I said, with you doing proper oversight. I've had a lot of issues with how this oversight's done. But don't make it up and don't not tell me or the rest of this committee who ordered that. That was nothing more than smear campaign, and to say it's not is being disingenuous with this committee. The chairman gave you a change to actually rehabilitate, and you made it worse. Because at the end of the day those got put -- and by the way -- and also a floor record got leaked to the -- from executive session got leaked to the Washington Post.
I don't understand except how we can say this is OK, how do we say this is fine, this is how we devolved, and the members on the majority now may be members of the minority at some point, and if we're setting the standard for this is where we're going with these kind of investigations, then we're in trouble. We're in deep trouble because this another thing that the founders -- you and others today, Mr. Berke has said earlier, the founders were deeply concerned about a lot of things, one of the biggest things they were concerned about is opposed to them now (ph) I'm glad that most on everybody on the dais (ph) is now an originalist.
Except this, they also were concerned about a partisan impeachment. A partisan impeachment because you don't like his policies, you don't like what he said, and you don't like how he said it. I don't like the way Joe Biden said it, but you blew that off as everybody has the -- the backing of the international community. What we have become is a perpetual state of impeachment. And that is the problem that everyone on this dais should have.
But don't come here and be a person who is a witness -- sworn witness and not answer the questions. Adam Schiff's doing that fine without you. Don't come here and say I'm not going to say because you know good and well some time in some conference at some committee room in some little room somebody said hey this is issue because I have Devin Nunes' phone number, that number matches.
And we're going to put in the report, not because we're think Devin Nunes is a part of this, but because he had a phone call with somebody that we were investigating. That's a drive by. And it's beneath you and it's beneath this Congress, and that is why I have such a problem with this. And then you leaked further information. This is problem here. We can be righteous about trying to get this President or not -- but when it comes to this, this is why people are getting so just -- just turned off by this whole thing.
When we understand that, that is the problem I have, because you could've handled this differently, you and Mr. Schiff -- I don't blame the chairman, because I cause hold the member, the one with the pen responsible. So I'm going to assume he ordered this, he was the one that said put their names in here, and he was the one who can't come and defend that.
Unfortunately he sent you. And you've had take it. That's wrong and this committee deserves, with that I yield back.
NADLER: The gentleman yields back, the gentle lady from California.
LOFGREN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The gist of the question here is the potential of abuse of the Presidents power to benefit himself in the next election. Now America is based on free and fair elections and after Russia interfered in the 2016 election, the American people are rightfully concerned about ensuring that the next election is free of foreign interference and keeping that in mind, I'd like to ask you Mr. Goldman, the following question. Ambassador Sondland testified that according to Rudy Giuliani "President Trump wanted a public statement from President Zelensky committing to investigations on Burisma in the 2016 election" isn't that correct?
GOLDMAN: Yes.
LOFGREN: And Ambassador Sondland testified as this screen in front of you shows that President Zelensky "had to announce the investigations" he didn't actually have to do that?
GOLDMAN: Correct.
LOFGREN: Mr. Goldman you're an experienced former prosecutor, is it common to announce an investigation but not actually to conduct the investigation?
GOLDMAN: No, usually it works the reverse. Normally you don't announce the investigation because you want to develop as much evidence while it's not open -- while it's not public, because if it's public, then you run into problems of people matching up testimony, and witnesses tailoring their testimony, which is part of the reason why the closed depositions in our investigation were so important.
LOFGREN: So what did that evidence -- this evidence about the announcement tell you about why President Trump would only care about President Zelensky announcing the investigations but not actually conducting them?
GOLDMAN: There were two things that it said, one is whatever he claims -- the President claims about his desire to root out corruption -- even if you assume that these investigations are for that purpose as he has stated, it undermines that because he doesn't actually care if the investigations are done. So even if you assume -- which I don't think the evidence supports that it's corruption -- then he's still not doing the corruption investigations, and the second is, he just wanted the public announcement, the private confirmation was not enough, and that's an indication that he wanted the political benefit from them.
[14:40:00]
LOFGREN: Yes. Looks to me that the announcement of the investigation could benefit the president politically because the announcement alone could be Twitter fodder (ph) between now and the next election to smear a political rival. That's consistent with the findings.
You know, President Nixon attempted to corrupt elections, and his agents broke into Democratic Party headquarters to get a leg up on the election, and then he tried to cover it up just as we've seen some obstruction here. But even more concerning in this case, President Trump not only appears to have abused the power of his office to help his own reelection campaign, he used a foreign government to do his bidding and he used military aid as leverage to get the job done.
Now, this aid was approved by Congress. It was appropriated on a bipartisan basis for Ukraine to fight Russia who'd invaded them. And while aid -- this aid was withheld, people died while this aid was being withheld. And some, you know, have argued since ultimately the aid was released that there was not a problem, but Mr. Goldman, isn't it true that the aid was released only after the president got caught and only after Congress learned of the scheme to make this life or death aid conditional on this announcement of investigation of his political rival?
GOLDMAN: There were several things that made the president realize that this was coming to a head and could not be concealed. The whistleblower complaint was circulating around the White House. The congressional committees announced their own investigation, and then the -- perhaps The Washington Post op-ed on September 5 linking the two. And then the inspector general notified the Committee that there was this whistleblower complaint that was being withheld by the Trump administration.
LOFGREN: Right. Correct. Well, I've made it clear throughout this investigation that I don't want to be part of a third impeachment inquiry, but the direct evidence is very damning, and the president hasn't offered any evidence to the contrary. We've asked, we've subpoenaed, we've invited the president, and nothing has come forward. If he had evidence of his innocence, why wouldn't he bring it forward?
Now, this is a very serious matter that strikes at the heart of our Constitution, and it's a concern that we are here, but I've heard over and over again that this is too fast. Well, Ms. Jackson Lee and I were talking. We were both members of this Committee during the Clinton impeachment. That took 73 days. We're here on the 76th day. We need to proceed, and I thank you, Mr. Goldman, for your hard work and for your presentation. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
GOLDMAN: Thank you. SCANLON: Without objection, the hearing will stand in recess for 15 minutes.
[14:42:49]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: You've been watching the House Judiciary Committee. This impeachment hearing getting more contentious this afternoon as lawyers for the Democratic majority and Republican minority answer questions about their findings, presenting their cases for and against the impeachment of President Trump.
Laura Coates, let's start with you.
The second half felt different than the first part, almost like a trial with the various staff members being cross examined by individuals on the committee.
LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It may seem counterintuitive as to why this would be an appropriate tactic.
The reason they were doing this as opposed to a general presentation of the evidence showing the pros and cons of essentially elements of what abuse of power would look like, a presentation to convince and persuade the American people and, of course, the Senate, for a trial that may take place, is they were trying to talk about the way in which the questions were presented or asked over a dozen witnesses in the public hearings, to say, what did you fail to present, what was the angle, the lens you want to people to view this is about the abuse of powers.
They were able to go at one another, the different lawyers, to ask the questions to say, hold on a second, when the American people heard something in the public hearings, it was because you were trying to pursue a narrative, not the whole comprehensive truth here.
That wasn't immediately obvious, as you wondered -- I think his name was Gohmert. He said, why are we having people who are witnesses suddenly being the judges in this as well and getting information. That's because that was the lens we saw in the past two weeks, how it comes through.
I don't think it was effective to do it that way. I would prefer someone who has done trials to present the evidence as opposed to expect someone who is an interested party to undermine their own case in front of the American people.
It would have been more prudent to say, here are the facts we have in support of this theory of the case, here are the facts that people are saying, here are counter arguments, here's why those should not be looked at. That's what lends itself to this idea of you are the one who is the problem.
[14:45:06]
You saw Castor being attacked. You saw Goldman being attacked. Ultimately, how could they answer? It's not them. It's the evidence. TAPPER: Do you think, Jeffrey Toobin, this would have been more
effective for both sides if it had been Chairman Adam Schiff, of the Intelligence Committee, talking instead of his lead investigator and lawyer, Mr. Goldman, and the same thing with Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on Intelligence, instead of that committee's Republican lawyer, Mr. Castor?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: I don't. I thought that the morning, in particular, where you had the detailed cases laid out by both sides, was very valuable. And was something that was substantive and serious. And frankly, the lawyers know the facts better than the politicians.
We spent the last hour with the Republicans going after Daniel Goldman, the lawyer for the Democrats on the Intelligence Committee, about the issue of the phone calls that were disclosed involving Devin Nunes, and whether that was like an attack leak on another member of Congress.
It is about as far from whether Donald Trump should be impeached or not than I can imagine.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: It was a tale of two stories, right? The Republicans were going after the Democrats on process. And that was clearly part of the process.
And they were saying, as Mr. Castor said, the Democrats have been obsessed with impeaching Donald Trump since day one. And they were setting out to prove that.
And the Democrats were there, with their attorney, was saying, actually, the president remains a clear and present danger to the United States of America, because he has tried to influence the 2020 election.
And they went back and forth on that.
I mean, you know, Goldman says the evidence was overwhelming and uncontested. And the Republicans say, no, it's not that at all.
I mean, my favorite part of this was when Mr. Castor was trying to do his own riff on the president's phone call. And he said, "He was not asking for a favor that would help his re-election. He was asking for assistance in helping our country move forward from the decisiveness of the Russia collusion investigation."
Huh? I don't really understand that.
TAPPER: What did you make of it?
KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think he said a lot of problematic things.
TAPPER: Castor?
POWERS: Castor. Yes. TAPPER: Republican lawyer.
POWERS: And also, saying, when he was asked -- I think it was posited to him that Joe Biden was a leading contender for the nomination against, and that would be concerning to Trump, and he wouldn't even acknowledge that basic fact.
He also went to great lengths to make claims that the Ukrainians didn't have any idea that the aid had been held up, when we had, by my count, at least five people testify that they did.
TAPPER: They knew in July --
(CROSSTALK)
POWERS: Yes, in various different ways. There were a lot of people who knew -- that they knew it had been held up and they were concerned about it.
He was making these arguments that had been making Republican talking points, but they're not backed up by the facts. I would expect more from him, frankly.
TAPPER: Scott?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I'm not sure anybody was moved by what they saw today. The only thing probably more confusing for the American people than watching congressmen fight over this is watching staffers fight over it. The same information re-discussed. The Democrats making the same arguments. The Republicans making the same arguments.
One of the exchanges that stood out to me -- and you heard a lot of Republicans talk about this today -- from the Democratic lawyer was badgering Castor over Biden, being a leading contender in the tweets about Biden.
And a lot of Republicans look at this issue from a different angle, which is, boy, all you have to do to be absolved of having bad judgment in your past job and being looked at is run for president.
As they go through that, they think they're scoring points on Republicans by pointing out these Biden issues but a lot of Republicans see it differently, that it's not fair for him to get away with a potential appearance of a conflict of interest just because he happened to file for office.
TAPPER: Asha, what did you make of the hearing so far?
ASHA RANGAPPA, CNN LEGAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think what you saw today was two different strategies. One is presenting a legal theory of the case. Barry Berke laid out the ABC, abuse of power, betrayable of the public trust, corruption of the elections.
And then you just kind of had this very meandering presentation by Steve Castro, which focused on the process, eventually got to the substance, but even then involved these cherrypicked kind of mischaracterizations of the evidence.
And I think -- it's strange to me because I think that they could, if they wanted to, get a very good attorney to push a legal theory, even if something as basic as, this is not an impeachable offense, and we will go to bat on that matter of law.
[14:50:06]
I think that could be more effective than kind of what they're doing with the subpoenas and bringing up all of these issues.
TAPPER: The other thing that's interesting is that Steve Castor, the Republican lawyer, who's serving double duty, being the lawyer for the House Intelligence Committee and House Judiciary Committee, in this presentation, he's not going with what we heard from Jonathan Turley, the Republican witness, last week, which was, even if you don't like this, it's not impeachable.
BORGER: Right.
TAPPER: Steve Castor is going with the Trumpian defense, which is this was a perfect phone call, nothing is wrong here, what are you talking about?
BORGER: Right. Turley also said, we're not sure where this is going, so we need more evidence. He didn't commit one way or another.
Whereas, Castor, you're absolutely right, was taking the position, Zelensky was never pressured, there wasn't any quid pro quo, there's nothing here, that phone call was perfect. He didn't use the word perfect, but that is effectively what he said.
He also said that the Ukrainians didn't want the president elected. And even though they wrote it in an op-ed, that's not election meddling. That's writing an op-ed. You're allowed to do that. So --
TAPPER: It wasn't about Trump's election. It was about his position on Crimea.
BORGER: Exactly. So they didn't like Trump, right. So he was very -- using the Trump arguments to a tee.
TAPPER: Everyone, stick around. We have a lot more to talk about.
It's a very busy day today. We have more on the impeachment hearing.
But first, we have big breaking news. The inspector general report on the FBI investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign, that report has dropped. What does it say? We'll tell you when we come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:56:24]
TAPPER: We have breaking news from the Justice Department. The highly anticipated inspector general report is out. The independent watchdog examined early days of the Russia investigation.
The I.G. found no evidence of political bias or improper motivation influencing the FBI's decision to investigate the Trump campaign and the Russian government, but the report did find major errors in the handling of surveillance warrants of Trump campaign associate, Carter Page, where key facts were inaccurately stated or omitted.
Attorney General William Barr, unusually, is disputing the findings of the inspector general report, calling the investigation into the Trump campaign "intrusive."
CNN's Evan Perez has been going through the findings of the report since it was released earlier this afternoon.
Evan, tell me the top lines that you're pulling out right now.
EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Jake, the top line does not fall in line with what the president and some of his allies have been saying, that the FBI had no reason to be doing this investigation, and frankly, even what Bill Barr, the attorney general, seems to be suggesting.
I'll quote you part of what the report says from Michael Horowitz, the inspector general. He says, quote, "We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations."
Now, these were four investigations into four people connected with the Trump campaign. We're talking about George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Michael Flynn, who was the national security adviser, and Paul Manafort, who served as the chairman of the campaign at one point.
And what Horowitz found was that the FBI had enough evidence to open this investigation, which was called Crossfire Hurricane. And so what was done at the beginning was proper, according to Horowitz.
TAPPER: The report, of course, also outlines some very significant errors made by FBI officials.
PEREZ: That's right. There were 17 total instances in which there were substantial inaccuracies or omissions that were left out of these FISA applications. These are surveillance warrants that were targeting Carter Page, who was an adviser for the campaign.
According to Horowitz, there were 17 such instances in which things were left out or just was plainly inaccurate. And these were four different warrants, Jake, that got approval from a court. In each case, the FBI failed to update the information for the judges that were reviewing these warrants.
TAPPER: Attorney General Bill Barr taking the unusual step of slamming the FBI, disagreeing with the inspector general's report at the same time. What is he saying exactly?
PEREZ: That's right. He's challenging what the key finding here from Horowitz is, again, that there was no bias and that the FBI had enough reason to open this investigation.
I'll read you his statement, which is very unusual, that he issued this afternoon.
He says, quote, "The inspector general's report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken. It's clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory. Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump's administration."
Jake, as you know, the attorney general has hired, or has appointed prosecutor, John Durham, who has also issued a statement saying he disagrees with some of the findings in the Horowitz report.
[15:00:03]
I guess you can sum it up this way, that Horowitz seems to be giving the FBI, at least on that part of the investigations --
