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U.S. Aide Confirms Phone Call between Trump and Sondland; Prince Andrew Opens Up about Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein; Venice Flooding; Yellow Vest Movement One Year On. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired November 16, 2019 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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NICK WATT, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Donald Trump tweets insults about an impeachment hearing witness actually while she is testifying before Congress.
Britain's Prince Andrew finally speaks out about his ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and allegations that he, the prince, had sex with an underage girl.
Plus, how is Venice coping with historic flooding and what does the future now look like for the city?
Hello and welcome live from Studio 7 at CNN Center here in Atlanta. I'm Nick Watt in this is CNN NEWSROOM.
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WATT: There was dramatic public testimony on Friday during impeachment hearings into Donald Trump's alleged dirt for a Ukrainian quid pro quo.
Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch accusing the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani of orchestrating a smear campaign against her, resulting in her abrupt dismissal. More about her ordeal in a moment.
Friday's other witness was David Holmes, testifying behind closed doors. He is an official at the American embassy in Kiev. And he claimed that, while lunching in the city with U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland on July 26th, he overheard a phone conversation between Sondland and President Trump.
This is crucial testimony because the lunch came just the day after Mr. Trump leaned on Ukraine's new president to investigate his political rival Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. It's also crucial because it could tie Trump directly to what was happening on the ground.
Holmes testified, "I heard Ambassador Sondland greet the president and explain that he was calling from Kiev. I heard President Trump then clarify that the ambassador was in Ukraine.
"Ambassador Sondland replied, yes, he was in Ukraine and went on to state that President Zelensky 'loves your ass.'
"I then heard President Trump ask, 'So he's going to do the investigation?'
"Ambassador Sondland replied that, 'He is going to do it,' adding that, 'President Zelensky will do anything you ask him to.'"
Holmes' closed door investigation came after Ambassador Yovanovitch testified publicly. And while she was speaking, President Trump attacked her on Twitter.
"Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad," he wrote.
He added that Ukrainian President Zelensky had spoken unfavorably about her. Yovanovitch was told about the tweet moments later.
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REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): What effect do you think that has on other witnesses' willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing?
MARIE YOVANOVITCH, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Well, it's very intimidating.
SCHIFF: It's designed to intimidate, is it not?
YOVANOVITCH: I mean, I can't speak to what the president is trying to do. But I think the effect is to be intimidating.
SCHIFF: Well, I want to let you know, Ambassador, that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously.
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WATT: Ambassador Yovanovitch's testimony was rounded out with a standing ovation from the public gallery. Here is CNN's Alex Marquardt with more of what she had to say.
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YOVANOVITCH: Our Ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray and shady interests the world over has learned how little it takes to remove an American ambassador who does not give them what they want.
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): A blistering opening statement by Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, highlighting her often dangerous decades of service, as she took aim at the smear campaign to oust her from her post.
YOVANOVITCH: I mean there's a question as to why the kind of campaign to get me out of Ukraine happened because all the president has to do is say he wants a different ambassador. And in my line of work, perhaps in your line of work as well, all we
have is our reputation. And so this has been a very painful period.
MARQUARDT (voice-over): The president has criticized Yovanovitch repeatedly, including on the July 25th call with President Zelensky, calling her "bad news" and saying she would "go through some things."
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YOVANOVITCH: I was shocked and devastated that I would feature in a phone call between two heads of states in such a manner where President Trump said that I was "bad news to another world leader that I would be going through some things.
So I was -- it was -- it was a terrible moment.
MARQUARDT (voice-over): Terrible and threatening.
YOVANOVITCH: It sounded like a threat.
DAVID HOLMES, COUNSELOR FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS, U.S. EMBASSY IN UKRAINE: Did you feel threatened?
YOVANOVITCH: I did.
MARQUARDT (voice-over): Yovanovitch quickly called out Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, for leading the smear campaign against her.
YOVANOVITCH: I do not understand Mr. Giuliani's motives for attacking me nor can offer an opinion on whether he believed the allegations he spread about me.
MARQUARDT (voice-over): Republicans did not defend Giuliani's role or his parallel policy in Ukraine.
REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): I am not exactly sure what the ambassador is doing here today. This is the House Intelligence Committee that has now turned into the House impeachment committee.
MARQUARDT (voice-over): They argued that the president has the right to recall any ambassador he likes. But Yovanovitch said the way she was attacked with no defense from her bosses and then suddenly pulled out has created a chilling effect.
YOVANOVITCH: Not only in the embassy in Kiev but throughout the State Department because people don't know kind of whether their efforts to pursue our stated policy are going to be supported. And that is a -- that is a dangerous place to be.
MARQUARDT: What was clear in this hearing was how profoundly disturbing this experience was for Yovanovitch, a 33-year career coming to a crashing halt after she had been asked to extend her tenure in Kiev then yanked out of her post by a 1:00 am phone call and told to get on the next plane home. She use those words, "shocked, appalled, devastated," then when she
read the transcript of the July 25th call, when the president talked about her "going to go through some things," she said the color drained from her face and she had a physical reaction.
So it's no surprise that Yovanovitch thinks there's been a chilling effect -- Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.
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WATT: While the president watch and rage tweeted at those impeachment hearings, one of his longtime advisers and friends was found guilty of lying to and obstructing Congress. A federal jury convicted Roger Stone on seven counts on Friday in a case stemming from the Trump Russia probe.
Charges include lying during testimony and failing to turn over documents about his attempted contact with WikiLeaks. For the most serious of his crimes, witness tampering, Stone faces a maximum sentence of 20 years. Sentencing is set for February 6th.
Earlier I spoke with David Katz, former assistant U.S. attorney and I asked him about the president using Twitter to target a witness as she testified on Capitol Hill.
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DAVID KATZ, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It's so extraordinary and, of course, it was very self-destructive, which witness tampering and obstruction of justice always are if you get caught. Of course the way that Trump did it so publicly, he not only got caught but he got caught in real time and I think that will play very poorly.
It also highlighted the importance of the testimony, all the people who might not be watching or might not be watching at that moment, they sure knew to tune in once there was this flap with the president weighing in.
The reason it's so intimidating is because to have -- to be put down like that in front of the whole world, intimidates a witness. It's also completely untrue and completely unfair.
I mean, people in the military, other people who might be part of Trump's base, people who might be feeling sympathetic, that could've been a military officer. She could have very well been a military officer and to say, well, let's look at how the places you turned out were, look at how Somalia turned out, look at how Iraq turned out, what an outrage.
We send people to those countries to serve, to do the best that they can. The fact that those countries are not in great shape when they are done is not a knock on their career. But it was used to defame her, it was used to intimidate her and she said at the hearing that it was intimidating.
And let me just say this because I used to work with Adam Schiff at the U.S. attorney's department here in Los Angeles. And if he ever had a week like this in court, the person would've pled guilty. I mean, this was a clobbering, overwhelming week.
The Republicans have wanted to change the subject, shift the topic. But there is no shifting the topic. These hearings run by Schiff have been devastating. And so they had to just talk about conspiracy theories, tinfoil hat stuff, all these irrelevancies.
Remember they were talking about hearsay?
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KATZ: Then it turned out there are direct witnesses to the phone call plus we have notes of the phone call. Plus we are going to have Colonel Vindman come in. Wait until next week it's, going to be even worse believe it or not for Trump's cause.
WATT: That's the thing, I just want to make sure our viewers know what Trump said in that tweet.
He said, "Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go?
Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukraine president spoke unfavorably."
You touched on this, where do the Republicans go from here?
Because the David Holmes testimony would seem to cut off their avenue that they were trying to go down, maybe this was just a rogue Rudy Giuliani situation. Trump didn't know. That phone call would seem to directly tie President Trump to this.
If you were a Republican defender of President Trump, what would your defense now be?
KATZ: I am a criminal defense attorney in white collar cases so I have some cases not that far away from obstruction of justice, actually probably more tax cases. But they have a lot of white collar issues and there are allegations of witness tampering and obstruction sometimes, hopefully not, if you well counsel a client.
But Trump is a client who can't be counseled. He can't take advice. So he keeps sticking his foot in his mouth. Most clients would just shut up or at least shut up on this topic. But to put up this defense that it's all hearsay, which obviously comes from Trump and the right- wing media that he controls, to say this is all hearsay and then the exploding fact today, with the other State Department employee, I mean, he overheard a conversation.
Talk about a lack of any kind of prudence at all. He couldn't even make sure that Sondland, who paid $1 million for that ambassadorship, Trump couldn't even make sure that Sondland was in some at least some private place within the restaurant.
Trump is apparently in that stentorian voice, blooming into someone's ear so loud he has to hold the phone away. When he holds the phone away, there are some other witnesses who heard Trump say some damning things out of his own mouth.
This was on top of the July 25th phone call of which we have the summary. This is July 26th when the president is still insisting that I get the deal and I think you've already shown the colloquy that took place.
Basically the president says, are they going to do this?
Are they going to do this investigation?
It's absolutely clear that the investigation meant get Biden. To make it clear, this young State Department employee, he asked, so what does the president think about Ukraine?
Sondland, his ambassador, said, he doesn't give a crap about Ukraine, get that information on Biden and Burisma. That was out of Trump's own mouth.
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WATT: Davis, Sondland is going to testify in open hearings Wednesday, he's already said before that he didn't remember any conversations with the White House or the State Department about this. What we heard today would seem to contradict that. Sondland doesn't want to go the way of Roger Stone, doesn't want to go to jail.
What do you think he will say on Wednesday and just how damning could that be?
KATZ: I think Sondland is between a rock and hard place. He is someone who really needs good criminal defense counsel. I'm sure he has them. He wanted to go to bat for his boss and he made his million-dollar contribution and now he probably has over $1 million in legal bills because he was trying to help Trump.
As it was, he had to retract his testimony that he had given in the deposition down in the famous SCIF in the basement. He had to retract that testimony two weeks later and one of the defenses to a perjury charge is that you timely retracted false statements.
But in addition to those statements, he's never explained these calls. He's never said he's supposed to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. His truth never included this phone call. It never included an awful lot of other details.
So I think that he can either take the Fifth or see how that works out and let them do their motion to compel and he will take that route. Or he will testify. And if he testifies, it will be devastating to Trump because he knows an awful lot.
I mean, Trump hasn't even tried to have a serious defense. These are all just things they throw up on the wall. Trump is, unfortunately for the country, very clearly on his way to the Senate for trial.
WATT: David, thank you so much. Fascinating times, we really appreciate your insights.
KATZ: Great to be with you.
WATT: Coming up, Prince Andrew is finally giving his side of the story about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Also ahead, Venice is bracing for another day of flooding.
When can the city expect any sort of relief?
We are live from the lagoon city. That is next.
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WATT: Britain's Prince Andrew is speaking out about his links to the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew told the BBC he let the royal family down for meeting Epstein, even after he'd been convicted as a sex offender. The royal also says he has no recollection of meeting one of Epstein's accusers, who said she was a minor when she was also forced to have sex with the prince. Hadas Gold has more.
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HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This sit-down is the first time Prince Andrew has been interviewed about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the allegations the senior royal had inappropriate sexual relations with young women.
In 2015, one of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, said in a federal court filing that Epstein forced her to have sex with the prince while under age. This past August, Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in New York while he awaited trial on charges he was running a sex trafficking ring of underage girls, some as young as 14.
Prince Andrew has strenuously denied the allegations. He told the BBC he just does not recall ever meeting Giuffre, even though a photograph of the duke with his arm around Giuffre's waist allegedly taken in 2001 first surfaced in Britain's "Mail" on Sunday in 2011.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts, has made allegations against you. She says she met you in 2001. She says she dined with you, danced with you at Tramp nightclub in London. She went on to have sex with you in a house in Belgravia belonging to Ghislaine Maxwell, your friend.
Your response? PRINCE ANDREW, DUKE OF YORK: I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady. None whatsoever.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don't remember meeting her?
ANDREW: Never.
GOLD (voice-over): Prince Andrew has previously said he met Epstein in 1999 and saw him infrequently and probably no more than only once or twice a year. The prince also said that he stayed at a number of Epstein's residences.
But the third child of Queen Elizabeth continued seeing him, staying at Epstein's home in New York even after the financier first pleaded guilty to sex crimes.
ANDREW: The problem was the fact that, once he had been convicted...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You stayed with him.
ANDREW: -- I stayed with him. And that's the bit that, as if where I kick myself for on a daily basis because it was not something that was becoming of a member of the royal family. And we try and uphold the highest standards and practices. And I let the side down, simple as that.
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GOLD: The BBC says the no-holds-barred interview, recorded Thursday at Buckingham Palace, will air on Saturday evening -- Hadas Gold, CNN London.
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WATT: In Venice, hopes of respite, relief from the rising floodwaters that continue to cripple the Italian lagoon city.
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WATT: This week Venice has experienced the worst flooding in more than 50 years, the rising water forcing businesses and iconic landmarks to close and leaving millions of dollars of damage in its wake. CNN's Scott McLean joins me now from Venice.
Scott, how is it looking for the weekend?
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Nick. Look, this is the image of Venice that people come here for but it is not going to last long. This is one of the lowest parts of the city but you can see the tide is already starting to rise in this area.
It will get to about 115 centimeters, enough to flood big parts of the square, not enough to cause a whole lot of damage. The real problem was on Tuesday, that's when it peaked at 187 centimeters. It's almost 2 meters high. A lot of the stores and shops like this one do have flood defenses.
They have gates they can close to keep the water out. The problem is the water was so high, the wind was so strong that it was pushing over the metal barriers that they set up to keep the water out.
This shop told me they had about a foot or so of water on the floor, they lost a refrigerator but that same shop owner told me that, look, they are Venetian, they are going to roll up their sleeves.
You see things are getting back to normal but it will be a whole new disaster tomorrow that is when the high tide is going to peak at 145 centimeters. That is beyond the exceptional stage. The officials have already set up these tables or these platforms to help people get around.
Venetians are used to flooding, just not to the stage that we have seen. On Tuesday, it was the worst flooding in 50 years. This is St. Mark's Square. That's the Basilica there that had water inside of it. The mayor is going to be here later today to tour some of the damage for himself.
He is putting the blame squarely on climate change. It's impossible to peg one single event to climate change. But we have been seeing sea levels rise, which obviously exacerbates high tide flooding events here in Venice.
WATT: Scott McLean in Venice. Thanks very much and we will be checking back in with you over the weekend.
Now one year ago, parts of France descended into chaos. A fuel hike sparked violent protests across the country. Now there is fear of a Yellow Vests resurgence.
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WATT: One year on and Yellow Vest protests are no longer grinding Paris to a halt, protesting that hike in the fuel tax and more. Since the movement began the government has made many concessions but the anger remains. There is fear that protests might erupt again, sending the city once more into violent unrest. Melissa Bell reports.
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MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They seemed to come from nowhere. On November 17th, 2018, more than 250,000 protesters took to the streets of France. In Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux and Toulouse, they wore the yellow vests that French motorists are obliged by law to carry in their cars.
Their target: a hike in the fuel tax, announced by the government in the name of the environment.
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BELL: After that first protest, Yellow Vests occupied roundabouts, rallying their sympathizers to social media, setting up permanent roadblocks and waiting to see how many would join them the following week. The leaderless revolt setting a trend that would come to be followed elsewhere, not least in its violence.
FRANCK BARRENHO, YELLOW VEST PROTESTER: After one year, every weekend having the furbisher. Now even the police, they can feel it. We are not afraid anymore.
BELL (voice-over): By early December, Paris was burning. With the violence worsening week after week in the face of a government response, judged too little, too late. On December 12th, the French president canceled the fuel tax hike and later announced an $11 billion package of wage hikes and tax relief for the least well-off, conceding to many of the demands of the Yellow Vests.
EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translator): I accept my share of responsibility. I may have given you the feeling that I was not concerned, that I had other priorities. I also know that I have hurt some of you with my statements.
BELL (voice-over): But the concessions seemed only to broaden the grievances of the Yellow Vests, from high taxes to the cost of living to inequality in general. The anger unleashed proved impossible to contain.
With the police facing off each week with ordinary groups of protesters but also with more radical and violent activists from both the far right and the far left. By the end of January, Emmanuel Macron held meetings across the country, holding marathon sessions with local officials and ordinary citizens in order to hear their grievances himself.
New anti-riot legislation was introduced and, little by little, the movement lost its momentum. By then, according to interior ministry figures, 2,400 protesters and 1,800 policemen had been injured and 11 people had been killed, mainly in traffic accidents.
Yellow Vest organizers say that 24 people lost an eye. As the violence became more sporadic and the numbers of Yellow Vests dwindled, the question of what had been achieved was debated, not least amongst the Yellow Vests themselves, with some more pessimistic than others.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We achieved nothing. Government give us nothing. Only terrorism and violence in the streets. Nothing else.
BELL (voice-over): One year on, have the Yellow Vests advantaged for good?
Or can they once again appear to come from nowhere? -- Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE) WATT: Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Nick Watt, "INSIDE AFRICA" is just ahead but first I'll be back in a minute with the headlines.
