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The Lead with Jake Tapper

New Ukraine Scandal Revelations; Senators Sworn in For Impeachment Trial. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired January 16, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:19]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: The evidence still pouring in, even as senators are taking their oaths.

THE LEAD starts right now.

President Trump's fate now in the hands of the U.S. Senate, as the third impeachment trial in the history of the United States commences, and as a government watchdog says the deed that partly got President Trump impeached broke the law.

A witness coming forward as well and saying the president knew, and it was all about 2021, one of Rudy Giuliani's foot soldiers, indicted, and of dubious credibility, but is what he's saying true?

Plus, meddle with an election? How about rigging the entire country's constitution? Today, another piece of Vladimir Putin's plan to hold onto power comes together.

Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We begin with the politics lead today.

The fate of the Trump presidency now lies in the hands of the U.S. Senate. The historic moment marked with a reading of the articles of impeachment on the floor of the Senate and the swearing-in of Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, along with the swearing-in of nearly every U.S. senator, as they prepare for the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump.

Democrats in the last hour making note of the gravity of this moment and the case for the president's impeachment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): Nothing we do while we serve in the United States Senate will be more important and consequential than putting country above party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is using new evidence, some of it official, some of it of dubious origin, to reiterate the Democrats' push for witnesses in the Senate trial, something the president and his Republican allies have long opposed.

But there are some signs that some Republicans may break with the president.

And, as CNN's Sara Murray now reports for us, there will be a Senate vote on this critical sticking point.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA MURRAY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's not the kind of history President Trump was hoping to make.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Donald J. Trump, president of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.

MURRAY: Today, for just the third time in American history, the Senate convened an impeachment trial of the president and prepared to decide whether Trump should be removed from office for his conduct in the Ukraine scandal.

The seven House impeachment managers who will serve as prosecutors in the trial marched to the Senate, where House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff read the two articles of impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of justice.

SCHIFF: With the permission of the Senate, I will now read the articles of impeachment.

MURRAY: At the heart of the trial, Trump's alleged attempts to withhold a White House meeting and security aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden.

SCHIFF: President Trump used the powers of the presidency in a manner that compromised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States' democratic process.

MURRAY: The day's heavy pageantry included swearing in the chief justice of the United States, John Roberts, who will preside over the president's trial.

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT: I'm now prepared to take the oath.

MURRAY: He then swore in senators.

ROBERTS: Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John Trump, you will do impartial justice?

MURRAY: Each senator signed an oath book vowing to act impartially.

But the GOP-controlled Senate is almost certain to acquit the president, though a trial could reveal surprises. Democrats continue to push for witnesses and new evidence to be included.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): They're afraid of the truth. They don't want to see documents. They don't want to hear from eyewitnesses. They don't want -- they want to ignore anything new that comes up.

MURRAY: While most Republicans are shrugging off the new revelations emerging almost daily, insisting the president's trial is no place for entering new evidence.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you think the Senate should consider new evidence as part of the Senate trial that has come out?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely not.

RAJU: Why not?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because that's not our job.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, Jake, as you pointed out, senators will have an opportunity to vote on whether they want to hear from witnesses, so we could get a better sense of how this will all shake out when the trial begins next week.

TAPPER: All right, Sara Murray, thanks so much.

Joining me now is John Dean, whose Watergate testimony helped bring down the Nixon presidency. He's also a CNN contributor, of course.

Mr. Dean, good to see you, as always.

I want to start with the gravity of today. You have seen this firsthand with your own impeachment experience. What is the significance of today?

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's a real punctuation mark in history.

It's happened so few times in our 200-plus years that, when it does happen, it's extraordinary. And it's extraordinary, because it's misconduct of a president.

[16:05:02]

And it's extraordinary because it's misconduct of a president. Happened with Andrew Johnson. Happened with Richard Nixon. Happened with Bill Clinton. And now it's happening with Donald Trump.

And we -- it's just so out of the ordinary, that we all have to pause and hope that the process is done honestly, fairly, and well.

TAPPER: We know that senators are precluded from having their smartphones on them on the Senate floor during the trial.

President Trump assuredly will have his phone. And Chief Justice John Roberts will be presiding over all this. What will be different, do you think, about this than what happened in the Clinton impeachment? DEAN: Well, they're working on the basic rules that were set up in

1986, which preceded -- it was before the Clinton trial. And so those rules are based on history.

They are based on the Johnson trial. And they were updated to try to deal with more modern situations. So, I think we're going to see very similar patterns.

It's clear that the minority -- the majority leader wants to follow the Clinton model, which means that they will have opening statements. They will ask questions of the managers, and then they will decide if they bring witnesses in.

I would be astounded, Jake, if they don't bring witnesses in. That would -- that would be out of the ordinary.

TAPPER: Well, the president does not want witnesses. He wants a speedy trial. We have heard a few Republicans suggest that they're at least open to witnesses.

Do you ultimately think there will be at least four Republican senators, whether Susan Collins or Mitt Romney or whomever, who will break from the flock on that issue?

DEAN: I think there could be more than four by the time they get there, when they think this, when it all hits them, what's going on, and how ludicrous it would be to join a cover-up, rather than trying to put the facts out and let the truth speak for itself.

TAPPER: "The New York Times" reports that former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who has notified the Senate that he is willing to testify if subpoenaed, Bolton is planning to detail some of what he saw regarding the Ukraine scandal in his new book, which is due out this summer.

As somebody who has been through the Nixon impeachment, also wrote a book, "Blind Ambition," that was turned into a TV movie even, what do you make of all that?

DEAN: Well, actually, the prosecutors asked me not to write a book when I had offers very early to do so, until after Watergate had come to rest. I agreed with that. I thought that was the wise policy, to not do so.

And so I think what Bolton is doing is, while he has apparently sold the book for a handsome price, he's also bought himself some insurance by offering to testify, so that his book isn't revelatory, in a sense that he didn't offer any of that information to the government and now is cashing in on it.

He's sort of protected himself against that, if the Senate wants to call him, and they can certainly ask him what he's putting in his book.

Jake, I think there's some confusion about what will happen if there are witnesses. They're not going to appear on the floor of the Senate. They're likely to go into private depositions. And then they put screens out on the Senate floor, and the parts of the depositions that are deemed important for the trial, then they get played for the jury of the 100 senators.

TAPPER: That's what happened during the Clinton impeachment, the video, as you note.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: The president's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, spoke about his role in the Trump administration with "TIME" magazine. He's on the cover.

He said -- quote -- "One thing you have to remember when you work for President Trump is that you don't make the waves. He makes the waves. Your job is to surf the wave as best you can every day, and you have to always smile and have a sense of humor with it, because he's the one who's got the instinct."

He was talking about his father-in-law President Trump's governing style. But do you think there's a message there that's relevant at all to this impeachment matter?

DEAN: Well, there's no question this is a man who likes to make the waves and does make the waves, either intentionally or unintentionally. And then he likes to ride his own waves.

His pattern really hasn't changed, Jake, in his adult life. Donald Trump today is no different than Donald Trump who was doing deals in somewhat awkward and not always ethical ways in New York.

And he just -- he's playing on a bigger stage. He wasn't prepared for it. He thinks he can do things that you can't do in government. And now he's actually being called to task for it.

And he did it knowing he shouldn't do it. And we will see if the Republicans will say, this isn't what we want our president to do.

[16:10:05]

TAPPER: Former White House counsel John Dean, thank you so much. Appreciate your time, as always, sir.

DEAN: Thank you.

TAPPER: The alleged middleman telling all -- what indicted Rudy Giuliani associated Lev Parnas is saying about President Trump and Ukraine, and why it may be one of the most damaging statements yet, if you think he's credible.

Then, Russian President Vladimir Putin taking a Trump joke and possibly turning it into a scary reality. We will explain.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: And welcome back.

We're back with the politics lead.

As Senate Republicans take the lead on impeachment, House Democrats are pushing them to try to make them listen to new evidence, particularly from someone who claims to have firsthand knowledge.

I'm referring, of course, to Lev Parnas, one of Rudy Giuliani's associates, who claims he personally threatened Ukrainian leaders and asked them to launch investigations into the Bidens.

Parnas, who we should note, has serious credibility issues and has been indicted, he says he took his orders from Giuliani on behalf of President Trump.

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As CNN's Alex Marquardt reports, Parnas describes a shakedown at the highest levels.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani turning on his old boss and the man they were working so hard for in Ukraine, President Trump.

LEV PARNAS, INDICTED GIULIANI ASSOCIATE: I idolized him. I mean, I thought he was the savior.

MARQUARDT: Lev Parnas says everyone knew what was going on in Ukraine, including Trump.

During a media blitz that helps show prosecutors he's willing to cooperate, Parnas revealing how significant the pressure was in the quid pro quo with Ukraine: investigate the Bidens or else.

PARNAS: If they didn't make the announcement basically, there would be no relationship.

MARQUARDT: The Ukrainian-born Parnas says he told officials in Kiev there would be no military aid or a White House meeting for the new president unless they announced the Biden investigation.

PARNAS: The only thing we cared about and we were the team to get Zelensky or Poroshenko or somebody to make a press release and announcement into the Biden investigation.

MARQUARDT: Also in the balance, Parnas said was the attendance of Mike Pence at Zelensky's inauguration. No announcement, no Pence.

PARNAS: Pence wouldn't be at the inauguration and there would be no visit to the White House. There would be basically -- they will have no communication.

MARQUARDT: There was no Biden announcement and Pence cancelled his trip.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC360": In terms of who knew about what you were doing in Ukraine, did Vice President Pence know?

PARNAS: Of course.

MARQUARDT: Pence's office responded that Parnas will stay anything to stay out of prison. Trump has denied knowing Parnas, despite numerous photos the two together.

PARNAS: Every time he says that, I will show him another picture.

COOPER: He's lying.

PARNAS: He's lying.

MARQUARDT: The administration is also accusing Parnas of lying in these new interviews.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: Nobody on TV like that is under oath. And he obviously is desperate to get attention.

MARQUARDT: Claiming his credibility is in question since he's been charged with four counts of campaign finance violations.

PARNAS: I thought they were going to make me look like the scapegoat and try to blame me for stuff that I wasn't done.

MARQUARDT: The massive trove of documents that Parnas handed over to House Democrats reveals a second quid pro quo that Parnas says he was working on. Get Trump to remove the corruption-fighting U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and exchange, the top Ukrainian prosecutor would help with the Bidens.

Text messages between Parnes and Robert Hyde, a Republican congressional candidate in Connecticut suggest that Hyde was offering surveillance or worse of Yovanovitch. They're willing to help if we/you would like a price, Hyde texted. Guess you can do anything in the Ukraine with money.

Parnas and Hyde have denied anything nefarious was carried out, but today, Ukraine announced an investigation into the possible surveillance of Yovanovitch and FBI agents visited Hyde's home and business as part of their investigation.

In the end, Parnas insists that everything he did was under Giuliani's instruction and for the president's political gain.

PARNAS: That was the most important thing for him to stay another four years and keep the fight going. I mean, there was no other reason for doing it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUARDT: Parnas says he has been urging Congress to let him testify in the impeachment inquiry. He says he can help connect the dots since he was the guy on the ground in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, as Ukraine announces that investigation into whether Yovanovitch was being watched, there has been total silence about her security from the State Department where Yovanovitch has worked for decades as one of their most respected diplomats -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Alex Marquardt, thanks so much.

Let's chew over all this.

Nia, let me start with you, because we can't ignore -- Parnas has a serious credibility problem.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, yes.

TAPPER: He's under indictment for campaign finance charges. The foreign minister of Ukraine told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that he doesn't trust a word Parnas is saying. And yet I see people out there on social media, Democrats acting as if this guy is the second coming of Theodore Roosevelt or something.

HENDERSON: No, it's true. And all those reasons are why people should want him to testify under oath. Kellyanne Conway, for instance, says, well, when he's talking on television, he isn't under oath.

TAPPER: Right.

HENDERSON: Well, there actually is a way to get him under oath if anyone is interested in vetting his claim. It's not clear at this point that Republicans are interested in hearing his claim.

It's also not clear what sort of evidentiary record he has, right? There's been this huge document dump and some of them have come out. You heard from Schiff saying they are still going over some of these documents.

It's not clear if he has documents or if he's essentially parroting a lot of the information that came out from the impeachment hearing, right, from all of those hours of testimony. That essentially sent the same thing. This was a political errand to use Fiona Hill's argument. And some people did suggest that Trump knew.

How Parnas would know what's in Trump's hand, unclear. But he would know what's in Vice President Pence's head also unclear.

TAPPER: Right.

HENDERSON: Might be worth having him before Congress to talk about it.

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TAPPER: And, Laura, we should -- I mean, as Nia points out, I mean, it does square with a lot of things that we know that have been ascertained. You know, President Trump in the rough transcript says to the president of Ukraine, talk to Rudy Giuliani, talk to William Barr, the attorney general. Gordon Sondland testified that the president directed him to work with Giuliani.

Sondland said there was a pro quid pro quo. So, it's not as though his chart -- the broad contours of what he's saying are out of nowhere. It's just a specific references to Pence knew, Trump knew, Trump knew, how would he know?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, I mean, there are text messages. Those are in the documents. Parnas handed those over, handed his phone over. As well as the fact that Parnas said stuff that corroborates from the testimony of people who testified before the House, which is that when Giuliani was on the phone with Trump, he could overhear Trump speaking on the phone.

TAPPER: Right.

BARRON-LOPEZ: We heard that before from other witnesses.

So again, to Nia's point, one of the biggest arguments from Republicans has always been, there's no direct witness that has spoken to Trump. If they were to bring forward Bolton, bring forward Parnas, these are fact witnesses that could help them square some of the details of this case.

TAPPER: And we should note that there is finally an investigation going on in Ukraine. Ukrainians are looking into what we learned from this revelation from Lev Parnas and also this Hyde guy in Connecticut as to whether or not there actually was surveillance being done on then Ambassador Yovanovitch, who you know from your time at the U.S. State Department. So, finally, there's an investigation. Not the one President Trump wanted though.

JEN PSAKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, and the stunning piece of this is there's been no word from the State Department. So, yes, in Ukraine, there's an investigation, but where's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo?

We learned from these documents he knew for months that an American ambassador was under surveillance. He did nothing about it. He sat silently by and said nothing about it. And that's pretty stunning. It's pretty chilling of the many diplomats I talked to the last few days.

TAPPER: Amanda, I want to get you to react to this breaking news right now. The lawyer for Lev Parnas tweeted a video of President Trump with Lev Parnas. He claims it was at Mar-a-Lago in 2017. President Trump today said he has no idea who Parnas is. Just, you know, he's somebody has had his pictures taken with, but there's certainly a lot of pictures of Parnas with a lot of top Republicans.

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, and there was a little letter from John Dowd last year saying that Lev Parnas is part of -- was working with Rudy Giuliani to represent the president. So, obviously, they have knowledge of each other.

But listen, he's not that credible. He's a two-bit player. My question is who is going to stand up for Marie Yovanovitch? She is one of our people going abroad rooting out corruption. And she suffered. She was removed.

Someone should be interested in investigating that, especially when she's under possible harassment and surveillance. I feel a lot of Trump people say, oh, those were guys just talking in text message.

No, she got a phone call from someone at the State Department saying, get on a plane. This has to do with security. Get on a plane, the next plane out of there.

So, obviously, there are other people with knowledge of what she was under. And an investigation, a worthy one would look at that. They would talk to those people, and it is pathetic that Ukraine is looking into this before anyone in the Senate does.

TAPPER: And, Jen Psaki, you work at the State Department. You just talked about this. But it's not just obviously Masha Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador. It's former charges d'affaires and ambassador, Bill Taylor.

PSAKI: Uh-huh.

TAPPER: It's a number of State Department officials and people in the foreign service who have dedicated their lives to this country, not in your uniform but in suits. And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hasn't said a word.

PSAKI: That's right. And, look, there are still diplomats serving around the world today. And so, if you're serving in a difficult place where you're used to being monitored whether it's Russia or China or other by the foreign country you're serving in, you're expecting that your government, the United States of America, is going to have your back and certainly not be surveilling you as well.

And I -- when I was at State Department, there's this well-known "A.P." reporter Matt Lee, who is the curmudgeon chief reporter. You have a lot of respect for him, of the State Department.

And he tweeted yesterday: It's without precedent in my 20 years of doing this and profoundly disappointing and disturbing that the State Department has been able to come up with a public response to alleged threats against U.S. ambassador.

That tells you a lot. He's been there for 20 years. He's difficult to deal with at times, but he's making a point about our own values.

TAPPER: You call him difficult. I say he's doing his job.

PSAKI: And respect it, too.

TAPPER: But I take your point. And, Matt Lee, like basically, of the --

PSAKI: The dean of the press corps, that's what I mean.

TAPPER: Yes.

PSAKI: Very well-respected.

TAPPER: And saying, where is the statement in support of our own people? Americans.

Everyone, stick around.

And don't forget you can see the full interview with indicted Rudy Giuliani's associate Lev Parnas. It's tonight on "ANDERSON COOPER 360".

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That's at 8:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.

Breaking today, an independent government agency saying the Trump administration broke the law when it withheld the aid to Ukraine. What that might mean for the impeachment trial. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back.

In our politics lead, President Trump is on the attack and predicting a quick Senate impeachment trial as the nonpartisan independent arm of the government called the Government Accountability Office or GAO concluded that the Trump administration broke the law when it withheld security aid to Ukraine last year.

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