[Ana Cabrera, Cnn Anchor, Newsroom:] It's 5:00 in the nation's capital, 2:00 out west. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York, and you are live in the CNN Newsroom. We have breaking news right now. Multiple sources tell CNN that acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, is now on shaky ground, following the release of the phone call transcript between President Trump and the president of Ukraine. You'll recall that transcript revealed President Trump telling the Ukrainians how much the U.S. does for them, before saying he would like a favor. The president then goes on to ask Ukraine to investigate 2016 election meddling before turning his sights on his possible 2020 opponent, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden, who was on the board of the Ukrainian energy company. Now, according to the transcript, President Trump says, quote, "There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it. It sounds horrible to me." That was from the president, according to the transcript released by the White House. We have CNN's White House Reporter Jeremy Diamond live outside the White House this evening. Jeremy, we have learned that multiple people, including Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, urged President Trump to release this transcript. So, why is Mulvaney taking the heat?
[Jeremy Diamond, Cnn White House Reporter:] That's right, Ana, there were multiple people who did encourage the president to release this transcript. The president, ultimately, decided to do so. But that is not the reason, according to these sources, why the president is now upset, apparently, with the White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney. Rather, it's not the release of the transcript, but the lack of an apparent strategy from the White House to handle the fallout of that whistleblower leak. We already know, from our past reporting, that this White House was indeed caught a little bit flat footed with the pace at which the speed at which House Democrats moved forward with this impeachment inquiry. And now, they are still struggling to, kind of, put the pieces together and figure out how they are going to respond. Apparently, the president's frustrations and other White House officials' frustrations with Mick Mulvaney became clear during a meeting at the White House just yesterday, that's according to multiple officials. Now, as far as Mick Mulvaney is concerned, a senior adviser to him, John Czwartacki, is denying it saying that has no basis in reality. This White House, though, is still trying to figure out its strategy for handling impeachment. The president's personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, who we know handled many of the matters involving the president, with regards to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. He insists that there is no war room being set up, at the moment. But we do expect him and another one of the president's attorneys, William Consovoy, to play a larger role going forward, in terms of responding and reacting to Democrats' moves towards impeachment Ana.
[Cabrera:] Jeremy Diamond at the White House. Thank you for that reporting. Also this weekend, at least one administration official has quit his job in the wake of that whistleblower report. Sources confirm to CNN that U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, resigned yesterday evening. And he is mentioned by name in the complaint. Let's bring in our National Security Reporter Kylie Atwood. And, Kylie, I understand you have some new information for us.
[Kylie Atwood, Cnn National Security Reporter:] Yes, that's right. So, just last week, hours before we learned that Kurt Volker was resigning, the House Foreign Affairs Committee said that they would be issuing depositions, a number of them, to five State Department officials. One of them is Kurt Volker. They wanted to hear from these officials, in terms of what they knew about the State Department's handling of the Ukraine controversy. Now, Kurt Volker is going to be appearing, next Thursday, at this deposition, a source familiar with this discussion tells me. And what's important here, though, is because they're going so speedily with this process, he's going to be appearing next week, just days after he quit. But it's remarkable, because it's before there are sorry. It's before there are documents that have to be provided to the committee from the State Department. And so, we could have a situation in which there are members of the Hill, who are going into this briefing with Kurt Volker, asking him stuff questions, but not coming prepped with everything that they need, that they could have from the State Department. So, we're trying to figure out if they're going to be able to get everything that they need to prepare for that conversation. But I'm told, by folks on the Hill, that they don't anticipate to push it back any further. They want to hear from him as soon as possible.
[Cabrera:] And we know Volker has some ties to John McCain, right? Can you explain a little bit about those ties? Because we know McCain and Trump certainly didn't see eye to eye. And I just wonder, you know, if that has any kind of influence, if Volker is coming from that same perspective.
[Atwood:] Right. So, Volker worked for McCain. He maintained a role at the McCain Institute, while he was serving as Special Representative to Ukraine. That's not a traditional thing for folks to do. And because he did it, he was not paid by the State Department. He, basically, said that he was volunteering in the role. But, clearly, it was a very consequential role. But the fact that he is so close with folks who were close with McCain and was close with McCain himself, that wasn't, necessarily, a positive thing, in the eyes of President Trump. It's not a winning characteristic, that's how someone described it to me, in the eyes of Trump. So, there was never a point at which Volker was, really, inside Trump's inner circle while he was serving at the State Department. He was, kind of, on the periphery, trying to keep the president happy by doing everything that he could to try and appease him in the Giuliani situation. But there are, clearly, more questions about that. And because the White House already didn't love him because of those McCain connections, it'll be interesting to see what they continue to
[Cabrera:] Yes.
[Atwood:] say about him now that he has left. The State Department hasn't even put out a statement on his departure yet.
[Cabrera:] Well, and I'm so very interested now, given what you've just reported, too, learn what he has to say about all of this.
[Atwood:] Yes.
[Cabrera:] Thank you so much, Kylie Atwood, for that reporting. And the fallout does not end there. There's also new stunning reporting from "The Washington Post." The paper reporting that President Trump dismissed election interference during this 2017 Oval Office meeting with the Russians. Now, according to "The Post," the president told the Russians, during that meeting, that he did not care that they interfered in our elections in 2016, because the U.S., quote, "did the same in other countries." You'll recall, this is the same meeting we learned about from Russia. That's the only reason we have these pictures. This comes as CNN learns that the White House has taken remarkable steps to prevent a call with Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and a call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman from ever becoming public. Let's dig into this with Constitutional Law Attorney and Trump 2020 advisory board member, Jenna Ellis Rives, and former FBI special agent, Asha Rangappa. Jenna, I'll start with you. If there was nothing improper said on these calls, why go to such lengths to hide them?
[Jenna Ellis Rives, Constitutional Law Attorney:] Well, you know, Ana, hiding is, really, the characterization of the left. And I would not characterize this that way. I mean, certainly, you have executive privilege. You have the President Trump being fully transparent. And, you know, this is something where the Democratic left continues to try to simply undermine legitimacy of this president by
[Cabrera:] But hold on.
[Revis:] by going to words like hiding.
[Cabrera:] Hold on. Hold on, though.
[Rives:] We don't know that.
[Cabrera:] Well, they didn't take the normal procedures with these calls. In fact, our reporting is they didn't even have a transcript made of one of the phone calls, his conversations with MBS and the Saudi king.
[Rives:] Well, we don't actually know that process. I mean, when we look at the you know, there have been claims in Congress that the Ukraine phone call with the president was put into this, you know, secret computer server and that that was out of process. All of that is speculation. And when you're going to "The Post" for where you're taking your you know, your talking points, you're your information from, I think that that's jumping to conclusions. And so, hiding, again, is trying to that term is trying to mischaracterize this as something nefarious, when we have to let the process play out. And we have to actually look at what the evidence shows. And what the evidence is here is that there was nothing going on that was improper whatsoever. And so, again, if I am advising the president on how to handle this impeachment inquiry, it would be the same exact way that he has handled the attempt to undermine his election, from Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and the sealed dossier. How he has handled
[Cabrera:] OK.
[Rives:] the Mueller investigation. And how he's handling this second witch hunt which is to provide full transparency, to not allow the Democrats to undermine it, and to simply continue on, keeping his promise to the American people.
[Cabrera:] Before I turn to Asha, I just want to make sure the facts get out. That we don't know that there was nothing wrong with how the president handled these calls. Our reporting, and what we've learned from the transcript and then the whistleblower complaint, suggests perhaps otherwise. Asha, if there is no transcript of a call, for example, with foreign leaders, is that against the law?
[Asha Rangappa, Cnn Political Commentator:] Well, the Presidential Records Act requires that there be documentation of, you know, the things that the president does. And that they you know, if there's notes made, they shouldn't be destroyed, for example. And, in fact, there is an executive order that governs how information is classified. A code word classified system is meant for highly sensitive, top secret, you know, information. Things like covert actions which you can't even talk about. You cannot put things in there, because you are trying to conceal something that is personally or politically embarrassing. That is actually laid out in the executive order. So, it would be a misuse of the classification system, if that was being done. And I believe that it
[Cabrera:] Right.
[Rangappa:] In terms motive.
[Cabrera:] So, why didn't we learn about this
[Rangappa:] You know,
[Cabrera:] when we were reading the Mueller report?
[Rangappa:] Because they were hiding it.
[Cabrera:] Jenna?
[Rives:] No. I mean, this is you know, you have the full Mueller report. The White House has been fully transparent. Everything that Mueller wanted, Mueller got. And so, again, characterizing this I mean, you are flip-flopping here, Ana, by saying that
[Rangappa:] Mueller wanted to interview the president and he wouldn't sit down with him.
[Rives:] Well, and there's no law that requires that he has to. But what you're saying at first is he's hiding something. And now, suddenly, we have all of this other stuff that now, you know, they're not hiding. And so, just in your questions to me, you're asking, why is the president hiding things? And then, you're asking, you know, the Democratic opponent to say, why is he why do we have all of this evidence? You can't have it both ways here. And so, what the what the Democratic left is trying to do is to say we have enough to impeach, but, yet, you're still trying to hide things. You've got we're going through the process but the president hasn't. And this is trying, again, to completely twist the process and make some kind of claim that has no legal or constitutional basis here. And so, we have to
[Rangappa:] Your
[Cabrera:] Jenna, we don't know what the impeachment investigation will turn up. But you say Trump's
[Rives:] Exactly.
[Cabrera:] Ukrainian call and the transcript, there is a nothing burger.
[Rives:] We have that.
[Cabrera:] We're learning Mick Mulvaney is now on shaky ground
[Rangappa:] Ana?
[Cabrera:] because of it. Make your case as to why you think Democrats are getting it wrong here.
[Rives:] Well, so, we have the best evidence. We have the transcript, which, you know, by the way, if we're talking about hiding things or going against the Presidential Records Act, clearly, that was a contemporaneous record of the phone call so there's no violation there. But we don't have anything here. And the Democrats are jumping to impeachment before they even saw the transcript or the complaint. But, according to the U.S. Constitution, which is objective, it's not a matter of opinion, there is no treason. This is with an ally. This is with Ukraine. This is asking that's fully within the scope of
[Rangappa:] Who's talking about treason?
[Rives:] the president's authority. Bribery is not a claim here, because this does not go the Federal Bribery Statute does not allow for, you know,
[Rangappa:] Ana.
[Rives:] foreign. And then, also, other crimes or misdemeanors.
[Cabrera:] OK.
[Rives:] There is, literally,
[Cabrera:] Finish your thought.
[Rives:] no statute that can point to.
[Cabrera:] Ok, Asha, go for it.
[Rangappa:] Ana, yes, when the framers wrote the Constitution, there, actually, wasn't a substantive federal criminal code. So, trying to look for statutes, most of which did not emerge until the early 20th century, is not really helpful in understanding what treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors mean. In fact, what the framers meant, by high crimes and misdemeanors, is that the president owes a fiduciary duty. That means he must act in the public interest. He cannot use his presidential authority for private gain which is exactly what the Ukraine call about. And, for all we know, there could be other calls that substantiate this. On the other point, you know, your guest is suggesting that the Democrats are jumping to impeachment. There is a difference between an impeachment inquiry and actual impeachment. The inquiry is the investigation that is used to uncover evidence to see if articles of impeachment are warranted. We are not at that stage yet. But what we have is what in the criminal justice analogue, a reasonable suspicion that such an inquiry is warranted. So, I think what you have is, you know, a lot of word salad happening that's conflating a lot of different terms. But I think it's really important for your viewers to really understand the process. And, also, what the terms in the Constitution mean by the people who actually wrote them.
[Cabrera:] Asha Rangappa and Jenna Ellis Rives, great to have both of you with us. I appreciate the spirited discussion and your expertise. Thank you.
[Rives:] Thank you.
[Rangappa:] Thank you.
[Cabrera:] The president admits it. His attorney admits it. The whistleblower shows it. The transcript shows it. But the word, for most Republicans, nothing to see here. So, will we see cracks in the GOP? You're live in the CNN Newsroom.