[Brianna Keilar, Cnn:] This Sunday night, the return of two CNN original series. You can find out the true stories of the agencies protecting the U.S. on declassified at nine, followed by another powerful and provocative season of "This Is Life with Lisa Ling" at 10:00 p.m. That is right here only on CNN. I'm Brianna Keilar live from Washington with a Special Edition of CNN RIGHT NOW. President Trump is on a scorched earth mission to discredit the person behind that whistleblower complaint. But perhaps in an attempt to mitigate legal fallout, his own administration is quickly corroborating much of the explosive report. And at the heart of today's developments, a senior White House official just confirmed a CNN for the first time that officials did indeed direct the Ukraine call transcript to be filed in a separate highly classified system amid these elegant that that amounts to a cover up. That admission matches almost verbatim of what is in this whistleblower complaint, which goes to say, quote, "One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective." And all of this as House speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is now narrowing the Impeachment Inquiry to focus on Ukraine with some Democrats pushing for a vote as soon as next month. President Trump signaling how he plans to fight this telling attendees of a private event in New York that this is war.
[Donald Trump , President Of The United States:] So the whistleblower came out and said nothing, said a couple of people told me he had a conversation with Ukraine. We're in a war. These people are sick.
[Keilar:] With me now, CNN's Senior White House correspondent, Pamela Brown. Pamela, explain further how these officials are explaining where this transcript was stored.
[Pamela Brown, Cnn Senior White House Correspondent:] Well, Brianna, the White House today did acknowledge that a key graph in the whistleblower complaint was accurate. It said in the statement from a senior White House official that N.S.C. lawyers directed that the classified document talking about the transcript between Zelensky and Trump be handled appropriately. So what the White House is saying here, according to this senior official is, yes, N.S.C. lawyers did direct for it to be moved to that code word system listed in the complaint, but that it was appropriate, that there was nothing wrong with that, essentially. And they're making the argument that the transcript was already classified as every head of state transcript is, but Brianna, that the code word system that the transcript was moved into is reserved for highly classified transcripts that include information like covert operations. It's not typically used to house classified information like a call with a head of state that doesn't have the more sensitive layer to it, as I just mentioned. We are told, Brianna, that the White House began to clamp down on who could see head of state calls after the leaks of the President's calls with the head of Mexico, with Australia and with Putin. So it does raise questions whether this was the only transcript moved there or whether there were other transcripts moved there that also didn't meet that threshold of highly classified information. It is interesting, too that this does corroborate part of the complaint, and as you know, Brianna, the President has continued to go after this whistleblower, attacking the credibility of the whistleblower, calling the whistleblower bias. At last check, according to a senior administration official though, the President nor the White House knows what the identity of this whistleblower is Brianna.
[Keilar:] All right. Pamela Brown, thank you so much. And now one of my next guests joined 300 former national security professionals in signing a letter to sound the alarm about the President's actions with Ukraine. This reads in part, quote, "If we fail to speak up and act now, our foreign policy and national security will officially be an offer to those who can most effectively fulfill the President's personal prerogatives." And it goes on, quote, "... there is no escaping than what we already know is serious enough to merit impeachment proceedings." Jeffrey Prescott is a former Special Assistant to President Obama and also with me, Mark Mazzetti, a Washington investigative correspondent for "The New York Times." He is also a CNN National Security Analyst. Jeffrey, to you first, the White House coming out and saying, yes, information was moved. But the line from the White House is that this was appropriate. So as someone who understands how these things work, explain it to us.
[Jeffrey Prescott, Former Special Assistant To President Obama:] Sure. So there are systems that the White House has to appropriately handle information of a very sensitive nature for national security purposes. I think what's most troubling about what we've seen in the whistleblower's complaint and what we've learned so far through your reporting and others, is that this transcript seems to have been moved from one system, from one server to another server as a way of protecting the President's personal misconduct, or protecting the President from embarrassment, not for national security reasons.
[Prescott:] And I think one key point, these systems are designed to protect our nation's most closely held secrets. That's the reason, our national security that those information systems are in place. And it's very unusual, in fact, unprecedented in my experience to have information moved from one system to another for other than national security or classification reasons.
[Keilar:] Mark, I wonder, though, if the White House is more comfortable trying to say, no, but we do this sometimes. Because look, we had leaks. If they are more comfortable to be in a place where they are explaining the movement of this transcript, which they say is essentially not a big deal than they are to be discussing the content of what is in the phone call. Is there anything to that?
[Mark Mazzetti, Cnn National Security Analyst:] I mean, of course, it raises questions about what other calls, what other transcripts were indeed processed and handled in this way. But as we and others have reported, there were several officials listening to the call, who immediately were concerned, not necessarily for classification reasons or national security issues, they were concerned about what the President said on the call. And so inside the White House, there was a worry that this was a problem. And so the fact that this transcript was handled this way, it does raise concerns, as you said that this was done for political reasons, besides any kind of actual national security reasons. And of course, then, well, if other calls were processed this way, then why?
[Keilar:] Jeffrey, this statement to CNN from the White House, the White House says National Security Council attorneys directed this Ukraine call transcript to be moved. You were on Obama's National Security Council. Jack Quinn, former Clinton White House counsel just said that sounds so odd to him that White House lawyers would say that that should be moved. What do you think?
[Prescott:] I completely agree. I mean, the White House lawyers, lawyers for the National Security Council are in place to protect the rule of law. Their job is to be essentially the traffic cop to make sure that N.S.C. officials are following the rules and following the law. It's deeply troubling that these reports suggest N.S.C. lawyers or White House lawyers were directing information to be mishandled or handled inappropriately. That raises serious red flags and really does need to be investigated.
[Keilar:] About how the lawyers are conducting themselves or about whether that's actually what happened?
[Prescott:] Both.
[Keilar:] Both. Okay, so Mark, let's talk about Nancy Pelosi, because the speaker has said that the Attorney General Barr who is mentioned in this phone call, but insists the D.O.J. does that the President didn't actually reach out to him in the way that he said he was going in the phone call. Pelosi says he has gone rogue. Adam Schiff says he has little confidence that the D.O.J. will be willing to investigate Barr or Giuliani. Schiff just told Manu Raju he expects subpoenas and depositions, and he is working through the recess. What are you expecting from the administration?
[Mazzetti:] Well, I mean, one natural process of things might be that the attorney general might recuse himself from something like this. But we know how the President feels about recusals of the Attorney General into these matters. So I think it's probably unlikely that that would happen. The fact that Barr is mentioned directly by the whistleblower, does then raise concerns questions about just the extent that the Justice Department would look into it. Now remember, the Justice Department also, Barr ordered an inquiry into this whole matter involving the election in 2016 that is currently being handled by an attorney, a U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, John Durham. So there's already this ongoing D.O.J. investigation. And so it appears, you know, certainly Congress will try to get information from the D.O.J. and you can see why Democrats in Congress would not think that Barr is an honest broker in this, but you would not expect that he was going to recuse himself from this.
[Keilar:] All right, Mark, and Jeffrey, thank you so much to both of you. I really appreciate it. So what's going on with Rudy Giuliani as he faces intense heat? The President's personal lawyer now implicating the President's administration in all of this. Plus, I'll speak live with one of the President's Republican challengers for his first response and also what he thinks about how Republican lawmakers are largely dismissing this. This is CNN's Special Live Coverage.