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New Revelations Show Trump Lying About Ukraine Timeline; Next Impeachment Hearing Scheduled for December 4th; Explosion Rocks Chemical Plant in Texas. Aired 9:-9:30a ET

Aired November 27, 2019 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:24]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Very good morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York. Poppy Harlow has the day off.

The president knew. According to "The New York Times," President Trump released the hold on the crucial military aid to Ukraine only after he learned of the whistleblower's report. That means he's knew that a CIA officer was about to sound the alarm about an improper pressure campaign just days before he finally allowed that aid to go through.

The president also knew that the whistleblower's report was coming when he suddenly said he wanted no quid pro quo on that phone call with his E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland. The one he quoted on the White House lawn to defend himself in the midst of those impeachment hearings.

You can see it there in his handwritten notes. Quote, "No quid pro quo." A strange term to use if you did not know that the whistleblower's allegation was of exactly that. A quid pro quo. But we now know that he knew in advance.

Also this morning, we're learning more about the next stage in the impeachment inquiry. The Judiciary Committee has scheduled its first hearing one week from today. This time under the rules, the president's lawyer will be allowed to question witnesses directly.

Let's begin on Capitol Hill with CNN national correspondent Suzanne Malveaux.

Suzanne, let's start first with these new revelations because it undercuts the idea that the president did not have a direct line to these issues and these questions.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, Jim. And it really is about following the money. The unfreezing and the freezing of the funds here and all about the timing of it. So "The New York Times" report significant because it says that Trump was notified by White House lawyers.

This happened sometime in late August that, yes, the whistleblower was out there. That he complained about the July 25th phone call with the Ukrainian president and what was around it. The conditions around in that conversation. And so it goes to his intentions and what was behind this. What was he trying to accomplish?

Well, Democrats believe that it supports their argument, their case that he realized, well, the gig it up here. I've gotten caught. This is some sort of admission of guilt that he made this change and made it quickly to turn it around and unfreeze the aid. They believe it undercuts what Republicans have been saying, which is all of a sudden, it was the Ukrainian -- the new Ukrainian President Zelensky who had proven himself worthy of this aid that he was worthy at fighting corruption here that he should all of a sudden get this aid.

Democrats very much making the case, Jim, that this backs what they've been saying all along and that the president knew that he was guilty -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: So new transcripts as well from key witnesses here, including witnesses in the White House, the Office of Management and Budget who took this delay so seriously that they resigned their positions.

MALVEAUX: Mark Sandy, in his testimony that was released yesterday, was quite dramatic in the case that he was making because this was about why they were freezing the aid in the first place. He said that it was in July, he was approached, he was ordered to put a hold on this aid. There was a lot of confusion. They didn't know why. A lot of questions that he even asked about the legality of this.

And there were several OMB officials that he claims had actually resigned over this issue. And that it was July 25th, the day of the phone call between Trump and Zelensky, that he did, in fact, lay out that official order, $250 million out of the $400 million, to put that on freeze. It was not until much later in September that the White House came back to him after the fact saying, look, this is all about European countries not giving their contributions and that they should go ahead and contribute more. That that was the cover reason that they were using. And Democrats believe that this shows their motives as well -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: The facts don't line up with the White House story. It's as simple as that.

Suzanne Malveaux, on the Hill, thanks very much.

The president and his attorneys can attend next week's impeachment hearing. Will they? Kristen Holmes, she's in West Palm Beach where the president is spending his Thanksgiving holiday.

Kristen, how does the White House react to this? Of course they've been demanding, and the president has been demanding for some time that his lawyers be present. They now have the opportunity to do so. Do they take advantage of that opportunity?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Jim. Well, that of course is the big question. As you said, one of the big arguments from President Trump and his allies has been that this is a rigged process because during these private behind door testimonies and the public hearings that he didn't have any representation. No one to actually stand there in his defense, to question these witnesses.

Well, Democrats are essentially undercutting that argument. They are inviting his counsel to do about five things and be part of this public hearing in the Judiciary.

[09:05:04]

And that is that lawyers -- the White House counsel is invited to attend all hearings including any held in executive session. They are allowed to be there and questioned during anything about the presentation of evidence. They are allowed to submit written summaries of additional testimony or evidence and they can question witnesses and raise objections. And they could be invited to offer some sort of conclusion here.

But one thing that is not noticed in this list of things that they can do is what they cannot do. And there is a lot of discretion here at chairman -- for Chairman Nadler. It says essentially that should the president unlawfully refuse to make witnesses available for testimony, that he is allowed to take away some of these rights that the counsel has. So that could in part impact whether or not they decide to take advantage of this.

And I do want to note that last night sources told CNN's Jim Acosta that this will likely be something they review over the holiday weekend and we'll keep our ear to the ground for you on that.

SCIUTTO: Kristen Holmes, there in Florida, thanks very much.

Joining me now to discuss this and more, CNN political analyst Margaret Talev, she's politics and White House editor for Axios, and CNN legal analyst, Paul Callan, he's a former federal prosecutor.

Thanks to both of you.

Margaret, this is key information, right? Because the White House, the president had presented this story that, listen, the aid was released in the end. There is no case here. We're learning from this here that that only happened after the president learned of the CIA whistleblower's complaint. In effect, backing up Adam Schiff's central charge which was the president got caught here. How does the White House react to this?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I mean, Jim, it has been an important revelation in that it does go to questions about the president's motivations for the actions that he took next. But from a political perspective, from the perspective of impeachment proceedings, it's unclear how pivotal this will be. The entire question has not been whether or not there are enough Democrats in the House to vote for impeachment. It's whether or not there are enough Senate Republicans to support conviction if the question came to them. And at this point, it's unclear if any --

SCIUTTO: Right.

TALEV: You know, we don't have any kind of account of the threshold from like zero to double digits is so high that it is not clear at all. Even with this revelation that it's going to change how Republican senators feel about the process.

SCIUTTO: OK.

TALEV: So that's why you don't see Adam Schiff changing the schedule saying, wait, put the brakes on everything. We need to delve into this further. It's why you see Democrats in the House proceeding the pace.

SCIUTTO: Paul Callan, let's just imagine for a moment that the facts in this matter. Let's just imagine that world. You are a lawyer trying this case and you discover that your client here, you know, only acted after he learned this new information and that -- you know, when you put two and two together here, how would you present that case to a jury?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, you're in a tough spot as a defense attorney. And I -- you know, I think that's a good analogy. Let's turn it and pretend we're in a courtroom.

SCIUTTO: Right.

CALLAN: Let's say you were representing somebody who planned a bank robbery and there was lots of evidence. There were meetings about the bank robbery, discussions about how the bank would be robbed. And then --

SCIUTTO: Over the course of weeks and months.

CALLAN: Then when the guy organizing the bank robbery becomes aware that there's a wiretap in place and they are on to him, i.e., in this case, the whistleblower report.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CALLAN: Because the president in mid-August became aware that the whistleblower was making a claim that military aid to Ukraine was being held up to force them to give information and investigate Joe and Hunter Biden. OK? You find out about that. The next thing out of the president's mouth in early September to his Ambassador Sondland is, there's no quid pro quo. That's like the bank robber saying, we're not going to rob a bank.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CALLAN: OK, guys? We're going to go on a picnic on the day of the bank robbery.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CALLAN: It's a consciousness of guilt. And why would the president start using a Latin phrase, no quid pro quo? You ever see any of his rallies? I've never seen him throwing a lot of Latin phraseology out there. All of a sudden, he's now telling people there's no quid pro quo. That phrase came into his mind because of what was found out. From the whistleblower.

SCIUTTO: If only we lived in a world where facts mattered.

Margaret Talev, the other revelation from the released testimony, from these officials with OMB, is that people inside the White House, in the Office of Management and Budget, that they draw a direct line to Mick Mulvaney there, the acting chief of staff but also -- you know, still running OMB, and were so upset with the arrangement that they resigned their positions.

Does this help establish that connection to the president? Again, imagining we lived in a world where the facts of this moved people.

TALEV: Yes, it very well may. And I think part of what you're seeing is that you've seen the House Democrats in the Intelligence Committee say, even as this moves to Judiciary, even as it moves along through the calendar to a vote, that they are considering continuing the investigations of President Trump.

[09:10:07]

And this is one area where you may see this play out. It could be tremendously important if these two folks come forward, if more information is learned about what they knew and if it inspires other people in other departments who were also uncomfortable about this or other things like this to come forward.

SCIUTTO: OK. So to this point we've heard a lot of witnesses testify under oath that they were directed, whether from the State Department, Defense Department, elsewhere, to Rudy Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani, the president said is handling my issues in the Ukraine. So it was notable when the president was interviewed last night that he attempted to put himself -- put some distance between himself and Rudy Giuliani. Have a listen, and, Paul, I want to get your reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, you have to ask that to Rudy, but Rudy -- I don't even know. I know he was going to go to Ukraine and I think he canceled a trip. But, you know, Rudy has other clients other than me. No, I didn't direct it. But he is a -- he is a warrior. Rudy's a warrior. Rudy went -- he possibly saw something, but you have to understand, Rudy has other people that he represents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Hmm. Hmm. I didn't direct him, he says about his personal attorney traveling to Ukraine, a country where the president wanted an investigation of his political rival.

First of all, do you find that credible? Second of all, why is he doing that? CALLAN: Well, I don't find it to be credible. But I also think that

what you're seeing here is now he's putting distance between himself and Rudy Giuliani. Now he hasn't quite thrown him under the bus as they like to say. Yet. But what he's saying is, you know, Giuliani is a free agent. He's got other clients that he's representing so that if Giuliani has said inappropriate things in Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CALLAN: That's not my fault. Now I think Rudy Giuliani is going to be a little upset about that because Giuliani's position all along was that he was representing the president directly to Ukrainian authorities.

SCIUTTO: Right.

CALLAN: So I think this is the beginning of seeing distance between the president and Giuliani and, boy, you blow up Giuliani, I think you're going to have a real problem as the president.

SCIUTTO: The president did very similar with Michael Cohen, the lawyer that worked for him for 10 years.

CALLAN: Yes, he did.

SCIUTTO: Margaret Talev, Paul Callan, thanks to both of you. Happy Thanksgiving to both of you.

CALLAN: Thanks, Jim.

TALEV: You, too.

SCIUTTO: Still to come this hour, today is one of the busiest travel days of the entire year. I know it. I'm about to hop on a plane. But Mother Nature doesn't care. Two major storms could snarl your and my plans. What you need to do next.

Plus a new CNN 2020 poll out just this morning shows Pete Buttigieg on the rise but the numbers are not all good for the South Bend mayor. That's coming up.

And overnight, a massive explosion at a Texas chemical plant. Take a look at the video there. Goodness, looks like a war zone. People who live nearby evacuated as fires still burn there this morning. We're going to be live on the scene.

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[09:15:00]

SCIUTTO: This morning, two big new holes in the president and Republicans' impeachment defense. First, "The New York Times" reports that Trump already knew about the whistleblower complaint before he finally released military aid to Ukraine. Second, the first official move to withhold that aid came July 25th. Why is that important? That's the same day that Trump held that call with Ukraine's President

in which he mentioned a favor that he would like from Ukraine. With me now, Democratic Congressman Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts. Congressman, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

REP. STEPHEN LYNCH (D-MA): Good morning, Jim, good to be with you.

SCIUTTO: So, this is key new information because it undermines, and frankly, blows up to some degree the Republican defense of the president here that, well, he released the aid in the end, but this gets to a question of why he released that aid, effectively being exposed here.

I just wonder, you're getting new information even after the public hearings on the current schedule have ended. Is this reason to open up public hearings again to continue the evidence-gathering portion of this inquiry?

LYNCH: I don't believe so, Jim, and the reason is that this reinforces -- it's more corroborative, corroborating evidence as opposed to bringing up a totally new point. So we did have indications beginning with the president's own phone call, and also the testimony of Vindman and Taylor and others, that, you know, the White House changed direction at a certain point because of the concerns that were being raised by others regarding, you know, the Impoundment Act, and whether or not --

SCIUTTO: Right --

LYNCH: The president could legally retain those funds once appropriated by Congress. So, this was along those same lines, it does fill it out, it does, you know, close some gaps, I think, it's valuable, but I don't think it warrants, you know, new public hearings.

SCIUTTO: But here's the thing -- and that is certainly true for Democrats like yourself and others that we -- others that we have interviewed. But for Republicans, what was missing for them was a direct line to the president. At least, direct testimony to that direct line. And I wonder with this new information, and now a court has ruled in effect in Congress' favor with the McGahn ruling questioning this White House claim of absolute immunity from all witnesses from testifying.

[09:20:00]

If you want to get Republican votes, don't you need to establish that connection to the president or are you comfortable leaving this most likely as a party line vote?

LYNCH: Look, you know, if the -- what we need is Republicans to defend and protect the constitution as they have taken an oath to do. They'll be -- look, there's overwhelming evidence here. This is not a close case to be honest with you. If they -- if they're willing to, you know, glance -- you know, look past the evidence here, if they are willing to defend the president instead of defend the constitution, we can't help that.

But there's a job to be done here, and we should look at the law, look at the evidence, and there's multiple sources of evidence here, and people who are actually in on the call who Mr. Vindman set up the call. You know, all of the actions taken by Mr. Giuliani and Ambassador Sondland's statements.

So, look, the evidence is here to go to articles of impeachment. What we need in the Senate is for people to -- you know, they're going to take a special oath, right? They're going to take a special oath on impeachment. And we need them to abide by that oath and fulfill their duty. That's what we really need here.

SCIUTTO: Let's look where the public stands on this because, as you know, impeachment is as much a political process as anything because public opinion on President Trump's impeachment and removal from office did not budge before and after the public hearings.

LYNCH: Right --

SCIUTTO: Before -- well, this is split up among Democrats and Republicans, slight uptick among Democrats, crucially down among independents there. And the overall numbers --

LYNCH: Yes --

SCIUTTO: It was 50 percent in favor before the public hearings, 50 percent after. Does that indicate to you that Democrats failed to make their case to the public. I know you're convinced, but it doesn't appear that large portions of the public are.

LYNCH: Yes, I know, it's a great point, Jim. Ironically and paradoxically, this is the only type of trial situation where we actually ask the public to weigh in to persuade the jurors, the senators, right? But in this case, these senators are jurists representing the public. So, there is that, you know, natural connection and a rightful connection, I think.

Look, for us in the house, and I think for most Democrats, we really don't have a choice. If this isn't impeachable conduct, if this is not impeachable conduct, then nothing is, nothing is. So, this is an attempt to undermine our democracy. This is an attempt to undermine the rule of law. So, what are we about in this country?

Are we just going to say, OK, we're going to be like Russia and North Korea where, OK, we let the -- we let the strong men do what they want and we have no rule of law? I mean, I think that look, I personally think there's a greater danger leaving this president in office than taking him out through the legal impeachment process. I actually believe that.

Remember, he was under investigation by Bob Mueller when he was undertaking this effort in Ukraine. He is not going to change his behavior. He is not. This is who he is. And I just think there's --

SCIUTTO: We know that call -- LYNCH: Going to be further -- I'm sorry?

SCIUTTO: To your point, I was just going to say, we know the call with the Ukrainian president happened, you know, the same day or the day after Mueller testified on the Hill to sort of -- you know, disappointment that he didn't deliver a more definitive verdict. Was that timing connected?

LYNCH: Right --

SCIUTTO: Congressman Lynch --

LYNCH: That's right, Jim --

SCIUTTO: We appreciate you being on the show and a happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

LYNCH: Happy Thanksgiving to you, Jim, and everybody at CNN. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Appreciate it. Coming up, a huge explosion lighting up the night sky in Texas. It caused extensive damage across a city there. We're going to have a live report from the ground.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

SCIUTTO: AAA says 55 million travelers are flying or driving for Thanksgiving. I'm one of them, maybe you as well. But two powerful storms could snarl those plans. Twenty one million people under some sort of Winter weather advisory or warning stretching across 2,000 miles of the country from California to Michigan to New York.

Blizzard and high wind warnings making for dangerous road conditions. Tons of delays at the airports. We're covering all the angles, we've got meteorologist Chad Myers in the CNN Weather Center. Let's start with Ryan Young, he's in Minneapolis. It looks a little chilly there, Ryan, tell us what you're seeing.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Jim. Look, when you went to sleep, there was no snow, but now we have tons of it. More than nine inches have hit so far, and they're trying to remove some of it from the streets and the sidewalks here. Also, you got to think about those road conditions that you talked about.

Some 55 million people trying to travel. So far what we've seen here, very few accidents, but at the same time, visibility has been a concern because of all the blowing snow. The good news, though, is most of the snow fell overnight. That meant the airport has normal operations so far.

[09:30:00]