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U.S. House Managers Deliver Impeachment Articles to Senate; New Documents Shed Light on Giuliani's Shadow Efforts in Ukraine; U.S. and China Sign Phase One Trade Deal; Forecast Brings Hope to Part of Fire- Ravaged Australia; Parnas: Trump 'Aware of All My Movements' in Ukraine; Royals Appear in Public After Family Dispute. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired January 16, 2020 - 00:00   ET

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

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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to all our viewers from all around the world. I'm John Vause.

Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, on the eve of Donald Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate, explosive new evidence shows the U.S. president allegedly played a much bigger role in the attempt to force Ukraine to announce an investigation into his political rival.

After two years of contentious negotiations sparking wild gyrations on global markets, a hit to world economic growth, Beijing and Washington signed phase one of a trade agreement but there is little substance in the detail.

And from president to prime minister to president again, could Vladimir Putin be looking at a new role, like ongoing supreme leader forever?

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VAUSE: It has been four weeks since the U.S. House impeached the president and now those articles of impeachment have made their way to the Senate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signed documents on Wednesday. She named the Senate impeachment managers who will prosecute the case.

And then in a ceremonial display rarely seen, the House managers walked the articles across the Capitol to the Senate. Republican leader Mitch McConnell says the Senate trial will now begin on Tuesday. Although the president's full defense team has not been announced.

Pelosi had withheld the articles in an attempt to pressure the Republican led Senate to lay out guidelines to the trial. President Trump is charged with abuse of power for allegedly pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and obstruction of Congress for blocking testimony and refusing to release documents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: Make it be very clear that this president will be held accountable and that no one is above the law and that no future president should ever entertain the idea that Article I -- excuse me -- Article II says that he can do whatever he wants.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The White House says that Pelosi held on to these articles for so long is proof that she lied when she said the impeachment was urgent. Still Democrats say the delay was worth it because more evidence has come to light.

The House Intelligence Committee released documents from Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of President Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Alex Marquardt begins our coverage.

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ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The trove of explosive new evidence reveals a deeper, darker role that Rudy Giuliani and his team played in Ukraine for President Trump.

Handwritten notes, text messages and letters handed over by Giuliani's associate Lev Parnas who's now under federal indictment allegedly show a more sinister effort to get dirt on Joe Biden and exert power in Ukraine.

House Democrats are hoping the documents will be used in the impeachment trial and they say it may just be a glimpse of what is out there.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIR, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We have only obtained a very small sample of the universe of documents that the president is withholding.

MARQUARDT (voice-over): On a hotel notepad, Parnas scribbled, "Get President Zelensky to announce that the Biden case will be investigated."

Giuliani, who's accused of leading an irregular channel with Ukraine, was also reaching out to the new Ukrainian president himself. Newly released letter from Giuliani requested a meeting, quote, "in my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent."

SCHIFF: There is no fobbing this off on others. The president was the architect of this scheme.

MARQUARDT (voice-over): Part of that scheme Democrats say was Giuliani's drive to get U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch removed. Disturbing, angry and vitriolic text messages now show Parnas in touch with Robert Hyde, a Republican congressional candidate in Connecticut, who suggests there is surveillance of the ambassador. "They're moving her tomorrow," Hyde says on March 25th. "She is next

to the embassy." he says later. Hyde also appears to offer Parnas something nefarious, referencing unknown people willing to help, adding "Guess you can do anything in Ukraine with money."

MARQUARDT: Both Parnas and Hyde are denying the allegations that they were following Yovanovitch, with lawyers for Lev Parnas saying that this is evidence of Mr. Hyde's dubious mental state. For his part, Rob Hyde is calling these allegations laughable and said these text messages were sent to Parnas by he (sic) and his friends when they were drinking.

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MARQUARDT: He called him a dweeb and says that he was never in Kiev -- Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.

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VAUSE: To New Orleans now and CNN legal analyst Ross Garber who teaches political investigations and impeachment law at Tulane Law School.

Thanks for being with us. This apparent surveillance of the U.S. ambassador by a private group of wannabe spies linked to the president support a lot of criticism and condemnation.

Here's an example. Democrat Eliot Engel of the House Intelligence Committee among those calling for a full investigation.

Ambassador Yovanovitch's lawyer telling NBC News, "Needless to say the notion that American citizens and others were monitoring Ambassador Yovanovitch's movements for unknown purposes is disturbing. We trust that the appropriate authorities will conduct an investigation to determine what happened."

That trust seems misplaced because the appropriate authorities in this case is the Justice Department, William Barr, and the State Department, Mike Pompeo. They're up to their necks in this, which makes one think a lack of action by the FBI and any other agency, right?

ROSS GARBER, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes and it's unclear whether these folks have vetted any of this. And as you noted in the package coming into this, both Mr. Parnas and the guy who wrote the messages disclaim that they are real.

It is a very, very bizarre exchange. It seems like they're making something there and one would hope at least congressional investigators would follow up on it.

VAUSE: At the center of all of this, he clarified during an interview on MSNBC. Here he is.

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RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: What do you think is the main inaccuracy or the main lie being told you feel like you can correct?

LEV PARNAS, INDICTED ASSOCIATE OF RUDY GIULIANI: That the president didn't know what was going on. President Trump knew exactly what was going on. He was aware of all of my movements. He -- I wouldn't do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The allegations or the statements coming from Parnas, that they are stunning, they are shocking but not essentially new. These new points of light which have been discovered in an existing constellation adding to the story but not writing new chapters.

GARBER: So far, a lot of the allegations are quite broad which isn't surprising. There is a trove of documents that has just been released over the past couple of days. We expect we will see more document dumps related to Mr. Parnas.

And I think we're going to see this part of the story develop. We haven't heard this much from Mr. Parnas before. He had a lot that he is saying in that interview. A lot of it was quite general, how he felt, what he thought.

And now the question is are there going to be specifics to back that up?

Can he identify other potential witnesses?

Can he identify other documents?

But he did make some quite bold allegations.

VAUSE: Interesting. If you look into the interview and read the testimony it does cut through the smoke and haze which was created by the Republican lawmakers in December. Listen, listen to Parnas in that interview with Rachel Maddow.

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PARNAS: Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and also Rudy had brought something with the Manafort stuff, the black ledger. And there was another thing that they were looking into. But it was never about corruption. It was never strictly about Burisma, which included Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.

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VAUSE: I guess there may be questions about credibility and that kind of stuff but when you look into that statement where it's just laid out there with direct knowledge, directly involved, how much harder will it be for Republicans now not to allow witnesses like Parnas to appear before the impeachment trial?

GARBER: I think we have to see how this plays out over the next few days. Just the interview I don't think moves the ball very much. I don't think that will change any Republican lawmakers' minds about witnesses. And I think it's going to sort of be the overall picture about whether after everything we already know, whether witnesses who are Republicans, a small group of moderate Republicans in states that have Republican and Democratic voters, whether that small group thinks that there is enough additional information that it might actually sway some people or that their constituents and the people who live in their states will say that a fair trial hasn't happened unless you start hearing from some of those witnesses we're talking about, for example, the national security adviser John Bolton and somebody like Lev Parnas.

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GARBER: And as the impeachment managers, the prosecutors in the House noted today, there are a lot of documents that still haven't been turned over to Congress.

VAUSE: Congress already has a lot of documents.

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REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIR, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: There is a tremendous volume of documents and materials that Mr. Parnas has turned over to us. We are still going through them because there is such a great volume.

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VAUSE: There has been this amount of evidence that has been uncovered in recent days. He made that point, 28 days since Trump was impeached. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delayed sending articles of impeachment to the Senate.

At the time no one knew it could play out like this but, boy, this was a high stakes gamble which paid off for Democrats, right?

GARBER: Yes, what the Speaker said she was trying to get was an agreement from the Senate leader, the Republican leader, on what the rules for the trial will be and specifically allowing witnesses.

She said she was holding the articles to get that agreement. But you're exactly right. There has been this benefit and it's possible that the Speaker knew this might happen all along because what was happening was Parnas and a couple other guys had been indicted.

The government had seized his cell phone and what the House was waiting on was permission by the prosecutors to give this information to the House, which just came in the past few days.

So intentional or not, it did turn out that that delay, in some ways, did help the Speaker and the House Democrats.

Ross Garber, thank you for being with us.

GARBER: Good to be with you.

VAUSE: Well, hours before the House Speaker signed the articles of impeachment the U.S. president held a different signing ceremony at the White House. He was there with a team of Chinese officials and this was the first phase of a trade agreement with Beijing.

China has agreed to buy more products from American farmers; in exchange the U.S. reduced tariff rates on Chinese goods but other tariffs will remain in place. From Beijing, David Culver.

David, what is the reaction there from Beijing to signing this agreement?

It is what they wanted?

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Interestingly enough, it's been portrayed as a positive thing. They're saying this is a win for the global community. In fact, President Xi Jinping in a letter read at the White House at that signing ceremony by the vice premier said this was a win for the U.S., the world and for China.

They are promoting this as something that will be seen as a creation of global stability. This is 80 pages of a document. They call it officially The Economic and Trade Agreement between the United States and the People's Republic of China. We know it as phase one of this trade agreement.

And the details are pretty wide-ranging. I've gone through it and it's interesting we heard from the U.S. side, the Trump officials in particular, releasing details before it was signed, saying it would cover the $200 billion of Chinese purchases of U.S. goods.

And then it goes in to intellectual property, breaks it down into copyright protection and even food safety is mentioned. They go into specifics on the standards of infant formula. So it's interesting to see the many different things encompassed within this document.

As far as the official take here, it's not that this is necessarily something that was a desperate need to have come to fruition. It's interesting because the Trump administration has said in the past they could put it off, even as phase one, until after the 2020 election.

But the president and the U.S. is saying that China needed more than the U.S. needed this. China was pushing back against that, even in recent days. They were seeming to promote the idea that China could've withstood holding off on this deal for many more months, that the economy was strong.

The reality is there are some economic woes here that are being felt. So this deal seems to bring some stability overall. Going forward, the question is where does phase two stand. You mentioned those tariffs are still going to be in place. There was some of a rollback, 25 percent on some $250 billion worth of Chinese goods remain in place.

Phase two would deal with deeper structural issues such as subsidies going to estate owned businesses here in China. That is something even folks here in China acknowledge will take a lot more time and negotiations so it is perhaps this will be after the 2020 election that we see phase two -- John. VAUSE: The Chinese president, Xi, was not at that ceremony.

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VAUSE: And the U.S. president says he will be going to Beijing as part of phase two so I guess we'll see how that plays. Out. David, thanks.

So with Washington and Beijing, signing off on phase one of a trade deal, they have effectively declared a cease-fire in the trade war. There has been rising tension and strained relations between both countries. As it ebbed and flowed, global markets followed in kind, soaring or plummeting on every presidential tweet.

Despite what Donald Trump may say, the cost of the tariffs that he put on Chinese imports, was paid for almost entirely by U.S. consumers. At least that's according to studies by Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the list goes on.

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office says tariffs reduced economic growth in the U.S. by about 0.3 percent. The farming sector has seen a surge of bankruptcies and received a $28 billion federal bailout.

And what was the gain for all that pain?

After all the president has made it clear what he wants from all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're looking for a complete deal, not looking for a partial deal. China has been starting to buy our agriculture product, if you've noticed of the last, week and some very big purchases but that's not what I'm looking, for we're looking for the big deal.

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Catherine Rampell is a columnist for "The Washington Post" as well as a CNN economic and political commentator, she is with us this hour from New York.

At the end of the day what can the Trump administration actually point to and say, China will buy more U.S. agriculture and where is that big deal?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, primarily, this is a deal about China committing to a certain amount of purchases of Americans goods and services, which Trump had claimed was not the primary objective, one could argue that even that as the central achievement of the so-called phase one deal is somewhat disappointing, given that, up until this point, the primary objective, from the American perspective, was to get China to move into more of a market oriented direction for its economy and away from centralized decisions.

And, of course, this is a more centralized decision, China has committed to make these purchases regardless of what the market requires.

But beyond that there, is not a lot -- there is some language about protecting intellectual property, which is something that the American side has been wanting other countries -- and other countries have been wanting as, well.

The enforcement of that is somewhat muddied so it is not really clear, the other major objective, the reason allegedly, why this nasty trade war was launched to begin with, was not addressed at all and that is China's intervention in its industrial policy essentially. Big subsidies, state-owned businesses and the like, that was not touched at all.

VAUSE: The Treasury Secretary said they rolled out an incredible job of managing those tariffs.

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STEVEN MNUCHIN, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: I don't think that, the tariffs will have any significant impact on any one individual. We have managed these tariffs, so that mostly all of the consumer goods are not impacted and I think quite frankly the average consumer will see a stronger economy in 2020, as a result of this deal and USMCA.

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VAUSE: What I don't understand, I'm not an economist, but if there is attacks on something coming into the country, someone has to pay it. And it doesn't matter whether it's on a consumer good or steel or whatever, it can have a subtle impact as to where the end point gets paid.

But that has to be paid and is usually paid for by the U.S. consumer, so how does that argument even make sense?

RAMPELL: Well, look in a theoretical sense, it is questionable, where does that tax incidence fall. That's the term that economists use.

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RAMPELL: Who is it passed through to. The empirical research, the database research that we've seen so far, you referenced some of the studies, the biggest brains on this question, at Ivy League schools, the New York Fed and Chicago and Berkeley and all sorts of other fancy places, they have said, that the tariffs are entirely being borne or almost entirely being borne by Americans.

That might be partly by consumers but might also be by American businesses. Because the inputs, that American companies buy from abroad, to make the products that they turn around and sell to American consumers or try to export, those are being tariffed as well.

So it is not only a matter of well they kind of avoided taxes on the consumer goods, therefore no Americans are being hurt, in fact consumers and businesses and workers have felt the brunt of these tariffs, almost 100 percent at this point. VAUSE: In all of this over the last two, years it seems like a

microcosm of the Trump presidency, these high stake negotiations, chaos, turmoil, endless false storms (ph).

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VAUSE: And then sort of a resolution of sorts which is an affirmation of the status quo, before the outbreak of all the crazy.

RAMPELL: The good news here is that there's a sort of detente, businesses can breathe a sigh of relief, it doesn't look like there will be an escalation of the trade war, that doesn't mean that the costs will go down, if in fact most of these tariffs as they are, will stay in place.

And there is lingering uncertainty about the enforceability of some of these details and whether Trump will unilaterally pull us out of this phase one deal, which is essentially how this deal was structured.

And, of course, there is allegedly a phase two deal coming as well. Which has the opposite of the low hanging fruit, I guess the higher hanging fruit, that's much tougher stuff --

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: It took them this long to get phase one and then almost two years to get the easy stuff out of the way and they almost broke down several times.

What does it say about phase two?

RAMPELL: I think that it will be significantly more difficult, because the things that are, left is the things that China really doesn't want to move on, these big structural questions, about industrial policy.

Things are not clear, that President Trump really understands well or cares so much. About what he seems to care about, is the bilateral trade deficit, how much essentially how much China is buying from, us and how much we are buying from them.

And not these thornier questions. He also doesn't seem to be in a huge rush to get that phase two sewn up, so you can imagine China just sits back and hopes for a new administration.

VAUSE: Thank you for being with us

RAMPELL: Anytime.

VAUSE: Well, a blessing and possibly a curse, as rain begins to fall across the Australia southeast where bush fires have been out of control. But they could be changing one disaster for another.

Also President Putin says constitutional reforms are on their way.

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VAUSE: Much needed rain falling across Australia southeast, bringing hope that some of the fires burning out of control will at the very least be contained. With the rain comes lightning and fears that that could ignite new fires.

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VAUSE: The weather has improved air quality in Melbourne with matches from the Australia Open are underway. CNN's Will Ripley joins us now from Melbourne.

Air quality, over the last couple of days it's been the worst in the world.

Where does it stand now?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We have blue skies John, air quality is great for the moment. A lot better than the last few days.

You know what they say about Melbourne?

You can experience all four seasons in a single day and undoubtedly we were talking about two weeks of tennis, this will not last. Yes, it's cool right now, the wind is blowing the smoke away but fires burning, more than 100 of them, many out of control.

Storms that moved through did not do enough to dampen the ground and mitigate the fire danger. And as you mentioned lightning strikes have sparked new fires and firefighters had to struggle to fight those fires in wet conditions.

So their concern is that when the smoke does blow back in here and affect the air quality and temperatures rise back up inevitably, because it's the dead of summer here in Australia, it could be some difficult conditions for the players that will be here.

VAUSE: Will, also why the skies are so blue is because of the rains. Those rains are not just falling on where the fire is burning but also where they have burned and there is no vegetation. One of the fears of flash flooding, mudslides will be even further impacted by the rain.

RIPLEY: You said it and not only that but some of these storms were very intense and have caused trees to topple. Trees that could fall over a fire containment line and spread flames to a new unburned area.

There is still so much fuel and it's impossible in a short amount of time to go through and backburn and get rid of all of that potentially flammable material on the ground. So the fire danger very much not over here in Australia.

This is a temporary reprieve but we don't know how long is going to last and the air quality forecast in Melbourne for the weekend is expected to go back to those levels of unhealthy or even hazardous.

VAUSE: We appreciate the update. Will Ripley, live from Melbourne. Thanks, Will.

Russia's prime minister abruptly resigns with the entire cabinet. We explain what it could mean for Vladimir Putin's hold on power.

Also the Duchess of Sussex has a problem no, not her and her husband's decision to step back as a senior royal, a legal battle some are calling the trial of the century.

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VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody, thank you for staying with us, I'm John Vause with the headlines this hour.

The U.S. and China have signed the first phase of a new trade deal, effectively calling a ceasefire on the nearly two-year-long trade war. China says it will import more purchase more from American says it will purchase more from American farmers, while the U.S. has agreed to reduce some tariffs. But other tariffs imposed during the trade war will remain in place for now.

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Rain has brought some much-needed relief to parts of Australia, where bush fires have been ravaging the country. Officials warn, though, that lightning may start new fires.

Meantime, the air quality in Melbourne has improved because of the rain as qualifying matches for the Australia Tennis Open are underway.

Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of President Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, alleges the president knew exactly what was going on in the Ukraine scandal. Parnas tells MSNBC he was the guy on the ground, doing the bidding of both Giuliani and the president. The scope of Parnas's activities are detailed in documents and text messages, recently turned over to the U.S. House.

Steve Hall is with us now from Tucson, Arizona. He's CNN's national security analyst and former chief of Russia and Ukraine operations from the CIA.

Good to have you here on a day like this.

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Good to be here, John.

VAUSE: OK, here's part of the House intelligence evidence on the communications between Robert Hyde, who you know, 24 hours ago was a nobody, running for the Republican nomination for a congressional seat, and Lev Parnas, who was telling people, he was sort of on a secret mission for the president. Hyde described having contact with a private security team, located

near the embassy, who is apparently monitoring the ambassador's movements.

Quote, "She's talked to three people. Her phone is off. Computer is off," he wrote in one message. "They will let me know when she's on the move," he said in another.

Later, he alerted Parnas that he'd been told Yovanovitch, the ambassador, would not be moved to a special security unit.

First up, during your time as chief of, you know, Russian and Ukraine operations, if a U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was under this type of surveillance by, you know, a group of people who you had no idea who they were, Boris Sintach (ph) or whatever, what would be the response from the CIA, the diplomatic security service and other agencies.

HALL: Yes, you're right, John. There is a lot of attention that has paid largely by the diplomatic security people, the regional security office in this -- in this particular situation in Ukraine, to try to determine if there are any serious threats against any particular ambassador.

I use the word "serious" here, because in my reading of these types of, well of what's come out, it's really not very serious. It's -- it's sort of fake types of stuff. It's not very sophisticated. That said, of course, diplomatic security has to be very, very careful with regard to any ambassador, but you know, just the idea that you've got, you know, Americans that are involved, in talking about, OK, maybe we do need to surveil this ambassador. Maybe we need to find out what her movements are and what she's about, all for political reasons, that's very disconcerting, not just from a security perspective, but I would also argue from a political perspective.

VAUSE: I mean, you say this wasn't serious effort, I guess. One thing which struck me, though, was how would they know the ambassador had spoken to three people on her cell phone, and it was now turned off. The computer was also turned off. I mean, is the technology for that type of surveillance readily available? And why would anyone want that information? What do you do with that kind of stuff?

HALL: Yes, I think there are a lot -- there's a lot more technology that is available to, you know, you and I and really anybody to determine how people are using their cellphones, especially if they're not using their phones in a secure fashion. Which in fairness, Ambassador Yovanovitch wouldn't have of -- of any expectation of, really, any secure or private conversations on that cell phone. Any experienced ambassador like Yovanovitch was, you know, deep experience in the region, understands how things work; would not have expected to have been -- had a secure conversation.

It is possible to pick those up. It's also possible just to have somebody standing across the street or watching and seeing when somebody is on the phone or is not on the phone.

As to why they would be interested in those calls, again, for me, that's the most troubling part. Because you do have a large political tail that is behind all of this, which of course, gets back to a very complicated situation whereby, you know, the ambassador talking about her removal, in exchange for information that would be passed to President Donald Trump about his, you know, about the Bidens' activities in Ukraine. So that's actually a bigger, much more complicated picture.

VAUSE: Well, meantime at the Kremlin, President Putin has been meeting with Russia's next prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin. I think I probably got that wrong. Currently the head of the federal tax service. He'll replace the longtime Putin ally, Dmitry Medvedev. This shakeup was put in motion hours earlier when Putin announced plans for far-reaching constitutional reforms during his annual State of the Nation address, that being not just the resignation of the current prime minister but also the entire cabinet. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DMITRY MEDVEDEV, RUSSIAN PRIME MINISTER: We'll bring significant changes, not only to the entire range of articles of the Constitution, but also to the balance of power as a whole. The executive branch, the legislative branch, the judicial branch.

[0:35:08]

In this context, it's obvious that we, as the government, should provide the present of our country with the opportunity to make all the decisions necessary for this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: So a green light for prudent. But you know, if you look at the constitutional reforms Putin is proposing, it would weaken the presidency, just as he leaves, strengthen Parliament and the prime minister. Is that an indication that he's planning once again the old switcheroo from president to prime minister?

HALL: It could be, although I think he learned a difficult lesson last time when they tried to do that, when they just did the sort of almost flippant change between the two of them. That resulted in -- in some very serious and very large demonstrations in Moscow.

But you know, I hesitate to -- to use these phrases, which we hear a lot of, when you talk about, OK, you know, we're strengthening the constitution. We're changing the constitution. There is the parliamentary things are going on.

You have to remember that, really, what you have in Russia is a Potemkin village. You have a thin veneer of things that, to you and I, sound like democracy, you have a parliament. You have Duma. You have a prime minister. You have the president.

In reality, these are all something that provides protection for the one guy in Russia who really matters right now, which is Vladimir Putin, to run an autocratic country like he is doing. So you have to ask why is he doing this? And I think that there are

two possible reasons. First, he actually is thinking about perhaps, you know, the end of his time and moving on, and moving out of the office of, regardless of what the offices is, president or prime mister, moving out from being the most powerful person in Russia.

And you have to remember, back in the days of Yeltsin, one of the basic deals that is cut between any ingoing and outgoing president of Russia, whether it's Yeltsin to Putin or Putin to whoever his successor is, is a deal by which Putin is protected. So when he goes into his retirement, he's got to make sure, first and foremost, that he's not going to be prosecuted or anything bad is going to happen.

It's too soon. It's too soon to tell what's going on, but there's a lot of that going into it, I think.

VAUSE: Yes, that's my question.

So you know, the career of autocrat or dictator, or strongmen, doesn't often come with a very good retirement plan. You don't often get to go in retirement unless you're Fidel Castro. I think he's only the one who really pulled it off.

I wonder if this question is, it's a question of life or death for Putin. Because he's made so many enemies in his time, as you know, the most powerful man in Russia. If he does have that apparatus around him, if he doesn't have that protection, he's a goner.

HALL: Absolutely. And I think that's what he's very concerned about. Yeltsin was very concerned about that, too. He just didn't live very long after he left.

But Putin seems to be in much better shape, and so if he were to go into retirement, and somehow there were a new reformer that came to power, a lot of questions would happen, a lot of questions about, for example, assassinations overseas or annexation's, illegal or otherwise, of countries, you know, things that could actually land Putin in a jail someplace.

And he wants to make sure, if he decides to relinquish power, which we don't know yet, but if he were to decide to go that route, one of the most important things is, whoever he selects has to guarantee him that none of that -- that nothing bad is going to happen to him.

VAUSE: Yes, in some ways that Kremlin is a gilded cage for -- for Mr. Putin, I guess.

Steve, great to have you with us. Thank you.

HALL: Sure, my pleasure.

VAUSE: Well, members of the British royal family, back at work, all smiles and flowers following days of disagreements, but more on that when we come back.

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VAUSE: Back to work smiling and waving in public for Britain's royal family, just a week after Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, announced that they would be stepping down as senior royals.

But as CNN's Max Foster tells us, the focus is now shifting to the duchess of Sussex and her lawsuit against a British newspaper, as well as a potential confrontation in court with her father.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The royal family keeping calm and carrying on, as is their style. All smiles from the duke and duchess of Cambridge here in Bradford for the first public engagement since the family crisis meeting at Sandringham earlier in the week.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: William, we all came out to see you.

FOSTER: The duchess of Sussex out, too, in Canada, carrying out her own visit to a woman's shelter in Vancouver, the British press still hot on her heels. Paparazzi shots of her boarding a sea plane with a big smile on her face.

(on camera): Meanwhile, here in London, more papers were released relating to a case the duchess of Sussex brought against "The Mail" on Sunday over a letter they published from her to her father in 2018. Raising the question, will he appear as a defense witness in court?

(voice-over): Meghan filed a suit against the paper last year, for allegedly publishing the letter unlawfully. She claims misuse of private information and breach of data protection rights.

New court documents outline the defense case, that there was huge and legitimate public interest in members of the royal family and their personal and family relationships.

The publisher adds the duchess knew that it was possible, and even likely, that Thomas Markle would share the letter with the media.

No date has been set for this trial, and the duchess hasn't revealed whether she plans to appear in court.

Royal watchers are already touting this as the trial of the century, which could reveal what really went on in the run-up to Meghan and Harry's high-profile wedding. Something that courtiers would prefer to keep firmly behind palace walls.

Max foster, CNN, London.

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VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Stay with us. WORLD SPORT is next.

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VAUSE: Hello, everyone. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Studio 7. CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta.

Ahead this hour, did the president know and when did we know it? In the case of the Ukraine scandal, the answer, it seems, could be a lot more than he's admitted, according to new evidence revealed on the eve of his impeachment trial.

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END