White House Budget Official Will Testify If Subpoenaed; Next Witnesses In Impeachment Probe: Former Ambassador To Ukraine & Aide Who Overheard Trump-Sondland Call
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Chris Cuomo is off tonight. Welcome to a special hour of AC 360. Tonight, there's breaking news in the impeachment inquiry, a new witness agrees to testify if subpoenaed, and he's from inside the White House, Budget Office attorney. Mark Sandy is his name, according to Congresswoman Jackie Speier, who I just spoke to in the last hour. He's one of the officials who signed the hold on military assistance to Ukraine. And, of course, it is the withholding of that aid that lies at the center of the case against the President. Sandy may be equipped to speak to that. He'll testify behind closed doors on Saturday. Tomorrow in public session will be the ousted Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who President Trump told Ukraine's President was "Bad news." The most important witness may turn out to be Embassy staffer, David Holmes, on the phone call he allegedly overheard. Now, that came to light in surprise testimony yesterday from his boss, Bill Taylor, the top diplomat in Ukraine. Here's what he said.</s>BILL TAYLOR, TOP U.S. DIPLOMAT IN UKRAINE: The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone, asking Ambassador Sondland about "the investigations." Ambassador Sondland told President Trump the Ukrainians were ready to move forward. Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for.</s>COOPER: Again, testimony in this will happen in Executive Session, meaning off-camera, which means we may have to wait for the transcript to learn what he said. It is clear he could say a lot, we simply don't know. So, there's that. There's House Speaker Pelosi today, explicitly using the word "Bribery" to describe what the President allegedly engaged in, obviously a word that is in the Constitution, specified as an impeachable offense. In all, plenty to talk about, joining us now, one of the questioners tomorrow, Democratic Congressman, Denny Heck. Thanks for being with us, Congressman. The use of the term, bribery, is that because from just a messaging standpoint quid pro quo was sort of not easily understood, and bribery is, in the Constitution?</s>REP. DENNY HECK (D-WA): I think it's because it's what he did, actually. You could call it bribery, you could call it extortion, you could call it a shakedown of a foreign country, soliciting their assistance in a campaign, a clear violation of federal law.</s>COOPER: How important is the testimony of Ambassador Yovanovitch tomorrow because the Republicans are already saying, well if she has no knowledge of any possible involvement by the President, is it about kind of laying out the whole story in writ large?</s>HECK: Yes, foundation, we're pulling on the string. So, look, here's what people are going to see tomorrow, Anderson. They're going to see the best of the best. They're going to see one of America's top diplomats - diplomat, somebody who over a 33-year period of time increasingly rose in responsibility, not because she was just, just broadly respected within the Foreign Service Corps, but because she was beloved. That's the best America has to offer. And the way that she was treated because - again, remember, the President didn't just say that she was a bad woman. He said ominously, threateningly, "She's going to go through some things." So, we're going to learn about why that what - is. Interestingly, I think what we got going on here is a - is a potential confluence of both the political self-interest of the President, getting her out of the way, so he could do his deed in Ukraine, but also potentially, we don't know this yet, some financial or economic interests on the behalf - on - on the part of Mr. Giuliani and his two associates.</s>COOPER: Giuliani has, for years, had business interests in - in Ukraine. He's been trolling for business. He's had contracts there as well. He may still have eyes on Ukraine as potential business place. Also now, this person from the OMB that's going to be on Saturday, if I'm not mistaken, do you know where that's going to lead? I mean, do - do you know much about that?</s>HECK: No. But we know what we want to find out, which is where did the direction come from to withhold the aid, and what were you told at the time that you were told to put a stop on it? That's what we hope to find out.</s>COOPER: Because Taylor, I believe, I think it was Taylor who was on a call with somebody from the OMB, and somebody on the call said, "Oh, this order came from the President that the aid has been stopped." That was when Taylor learned that the aid had been stopped. That's important because you're not getting a Bolton, and you're not getting a - a Mulvaney as of now.</s>HECK: Right. He's prohibiting them from talking, as a matter of fact. I think what's happening here is we're beginning to let - line up the people that the President's going to throw under the bus. I'm - I'm predicting that it - there's a good chance he's going to throw under the bus, Ambassador Sondland. He's going to throw under the bus, Acting Chief of Staff, Mulvaney. He's going to throw under the bus, potentially Rudy Giuliani. And the closer they get to him through those people, the more disposable, the more dispensable they will become to him.</s>COOPER: It is a common refrain from the President, you know, "Oh, I - I didn't really know that guy." I mean it was Michael Cohen.</s>HECK: Right. Evidently, he knows no one.</s>COOPER: The - the - the impeachment investigators are going to hear from the aide to Ambassador Taylor behind closed doors tomorrow. Will that transcript then very quickly be released? Will it has to go through--</s>HECK: Ander--</s>COOPER: --a review process?</s>HECK: Anderson, I don't know the timeline. But, at some point, it will be. And interestingly, I think I read a news story today to the effect that there was actually a second aide sitting at that table. So, we really don't know the significance of it until we hear from him. We do know that he overheard the President make reference to investigations. I actually think the news story for the time being is that an Ambassador of the United States actually sat in a public setting, in a restaurant, on an unsecured cell phone call with the President of the United States, violating every national security protocol.</s>COOPER: In Ukraine, not - yes.</s>HECK: Imaginable.</s>COOPER: Right.</s>HECK: I would bet a large sum of money were it legal that the Russians actually listed - listened in word-for-word on that call, it is a gross violation of national - national security protocol for him to have done that.</s>COOPER: An Ambassador would normally go to the Embassy to a secure location in order to talk to the President.</s>HECK: You know that.</s>COOPER: Yes. Congressman Heck, I appreciate your time. It's good--</s>HECK: You're welcome, Sir.</s>COOPER: Busy days. Thank you for coming in. Appreciate it. We - our panel's back this hour, joined by CNN Legal Analyst, Ros Garber, who teaches impeachment law at Tulane University Law School, and all the regular folks are here as well, which we're very appreciative of. Ros, do you think Democrats, I mean, are they boxing themselves in with labeling this as bribery that that's the charge?</s>ROS GARBER, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, TEACHES IMPEACHMENT LAW AT TULANE LAW SCHOOL: So, on the one hand, it is true, bribery is right there in the Constitution. Often in impeachments, one of the big debates is, you know, what is a high crime and misdemeanor? Does it reach that level? Bribery is in the Constitution. I was surprised to hear Speaker Pelosi go there--</s>COOPER: Why?</s>GARBER: --because bribery is also the subject of lots and lots of technical case law. There are statutes, there's cases, it's a very legalistic term, number one. And number two is I don't think bribery has yet been established. I'm - I'm keeping an open mind. But bribery requires, among other things, corrupt intent. We - we have to know, for bribery, what is in the President's head. And so far, for some of the reasons that we talked about, we don't know that.</s>COOPER: Yes.</s>GARBER: And - and, remember, we're talking about impeachment. It's the political nuclear weapon. And so, the proof of all of those things has to be very high. So, I was surprised to hear Speaker Pelosi now say the word "Bribery."</s>COOPER: Without hearing from somebody, who talked directly to the President, can you ascertain intent?</s>GARBER: Well yes, you can - you can look at circumstantial evidence, and - and potentially see intent. But I think it's one of the reasons why the Republicans are pointing out, you know, they're - they're calling it hearsay. I think what they're really getting to is that we're not yet seeing a lot of information about what the President was thinking, and what the President was saying.</s>COOPER: Right. And there's a reason, I mean, John Dean, there's - there's a reason for that that we are not seeing that because it's - we're talking about Bolton, we're talking about Mulvaney.</s>JOHN DEAN, FORMER NIXON WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good reason.</s>COOPER: And the White House isn't allowing.</s>DEAN: Apparently, they don't want to appear. I think somebody like Bolton, if he wanted to come up, and show, and testify, he could do it. There's nothing the President can do to stop him. He'd--</s>COOPER: I mean he's apparently going around making paid speeches so.</s>DEAN: He's making - if you have the - the right number of dollars, you can get him to appear, yes.</s>DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER TO NIXON, FORD, REAGAN & CLINTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.</s>DEAN: But there is - he'd have to go to court, literally, and get an injunction to stop him. On the bribery point, you know, bribery wasn't even the code when the Founders wrote the Constitution. There was no real case law at that point. I'm not sure all that case law follows an impeachment proceeding. And - and--</s>GARBER: Oh, yes, and - you're right about that. To be clear, impeachment is largely political. But - but we both know that once the word bribery is mentioned, we're going to hear a lot about all of those elements.</s>DEAN: But if - if - as a defense. It makes it technical.</s>GARBER: Yes.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: And this is the problem of the Democrats really wanting to push this through, pretty quickly, before the election.</s>GARBER: Yes.</s>BORGER: Versus allowing the legal route to - to continue with Bolton, and if it's Mulvaney, and the - and the rest of them in court because they want to get this done before January. If they want Bolton, and they want Mulvaney, chances are they're not going to be able to get it. So, it's kind of a bad choice for them.</s>GERGEN: Yes. But if you have evidence that the President directed most of this, he directed Giuliani, he directed Mulvaney on - on, you know, on - on a variety of issues, if you have that kind of information, even though you may not have obvious intent or obvious evidence, isn't that persuasive--</s>GARBER: Yes.</s>GERGEN: --of his intent?</s>GARBER: The question is going to be why. And what - I think what we're going to start hearing more of is that the President was actually motivated by corruption issues in Ukraine, and that he believed, rightly or wrongly, that the Biden situation was emblematic of - of past corruption, and that he believed there was potentially issues of interference in the 2016 election. True or not true, I think the question is did he believe it or not because the Framers thought about including maladministration in the impeachment provision. They decided not to do that.</s>BORGER: So, what does that have to do with holding up the money though? In - in - in other words, so say you can't prove what his intent was, in that sense, can't you just say "Well but he still held up the money?"</s>GERGEN: Yes.</s>GARBER: Well if you hold up the money--</s>BORGER: Then--</s>GARBER: --for - for the good of the American people, for the good of the - of - of the U.S. government, that's - that - that's a trade that happens all the time.</s>COOPER: I mean, Kirsten, that - the argument from Democrats certainly is that this had nothing to do with the national interests of the United States.</s>KIRSTEN POWERS, USA TODAY COLUMNIST, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well I mean the - the - the only way that that could be true would be if there actually had been some sort of actions on the part of Joe Biden that were corrupt. And it's just been debunked over and over and over again that the position that - that he took was in fact the position of the world community. So, it's - it is kind of crazy-making, honestly to--</s>COOPER: It's--</s>POWERS: --to have continually - continually hear about this because it's - it's something that has been so clearly debunked, and yet, they keep coming back to it. And what is - what is Trump's interest in Biden? Let's see! How hard do we have to really think about this?</s>COOPER: Right.</s>POWERS: Trump's interested in Biden is that he is a potential rival.</s>COOPER: Also Scott, I mean the - the people that Trump is using for this policy, this great concern about corruption is Rudy Giuliani. And all the people that Rudy Giuliani is promoting have been let go because of corruption that Maria Yovanovitch was working against, and the diplomats at the Embassy wouldn't even allow them visa.</s>SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The - the worst fact that Trump has had in this entire ordeal is the insertion of Giuliani into the middle of it. When you are dealing with an unappointed, unelected person, who is then affecting policy decisions that should be affected by, you know, appointed and Senate-confirmed Ambassadors and your own White House staff, it is from the beginning the absolute worst fact. That is terrible judgment. Now, is it impeach - impeachable - impeachable to have terrible judgment when you insert, you know, idiots into a process? I don't think so. But it - it doesn't look great, when you have him in it. Take him out of it for a second. And to your point about intent, you and I'll have a disagreement about this. Trump will argue that the sitting Vice President of the United States has already essentially admitted that it was bad for Hunter Biden to be over there dealing because he's already promised not to do it again if he gets elected President. And Hunter Biden--</s>POWERS: But it's not illegal--</s>JENNINGS: --and--</s>POWERS: It's not corrupt.</s>JENNINGS: He - they don't have to argue - they don't have to argue it's illegal.</s>POWERS: It's not - no but - but the point--</s>JENNINGS: They just have to argue that it was--</s>POWERS: That you can hold up the--</s>JENNINGS: --bad judgment.</s>POWERS: --you can hold up aid to a country that they're using to defend themselves against Russia--</s>JENNINGS: Hey!</s>POWERS: --because something that happened in the past you didn't like? I mean that's the argument?</s>JEN PSAKI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA, FORMER UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE SPOKESPERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think Scott--</s>JENNINGS: No. No.</s>PSAKI: --Scott, the other - the other problem, Scott, with your - with you - what you're arguing here is that the timeline here. There were two years when Donald Trump was not raising his concerns about Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. It wasn't an issue for him until Joe Biden announced he was going to run for President. So, that sort of makes you scratch your head--</s>JENNINGS: Well A, we don't know - we don't know when it became a concern for him yet.</s>GARBER: Yes.</s>JENNINGS: B, you just said you can hold up aid to a country for fill in the blank. You could ask that about any Administration. Ask the Obama Administration why they held up lethal aid to Ukraine for two years.</s>POWERS: You know, I'd like - I like--</s>PSAKI: No, no, no, no.</s>JENNINGS: There are many reasons why - why the United States--</s>POWERS: See this is - this is - this is also--</s>JENNINGS: --hold aid.</s>POWERS: --this is also getting really old, this one right here. The - you can criticize the Obama Administration for bad policy, if that's what you wanted to do.</s>JENNINGS: Yes, yes.</s>POWERS: If you want to say that's a bad policy. But it doesn't matter why you do things. And so, if - if Barack Obama had held up that aid for a corrupt reason, then he should be impeached.</s>BORGER: I also--</s>PSAKI: Because he wanted some dirt on Mitt Romney.</s>POWERS: Yes.</s>PSAKI: You would have been outraged.</s>BORGER: Right. I also have a question here. You say insert, you know, inserting Rudy Giuliani. Do we think - does anybody here think that Rudy Giuliani was acting on his own?</s>PSAKI: No.</s>GERGEN: No.</s>BORGER: Does anybody here think--</s>JENNINGS: Well--</s>BORGER: --that he didn't talk to the President of the United States--</s>GERGEN: Yes.</s>BORGER: --about what he was doing?</s>JENNINGS: Well that - and one of my big questions about him is whatever the President told him to do then did Rudy Giuliani tell the President all of the other interests he has in this region?</s>BORGER: Maybe not, yes.</s>JENNINGS: Because I have a - I have a feeling he was into stuff that maybe the White House didn't know about, and the White House is going to have separate from him, yes.</s>BORGER: And when the President finds out that--</s>COOPER: Well--</s>BORGER: Rudy was making money off of him--</s>COOPER: Yes, although, I mean, Rudy--</s>JENNINGS: Yes.</s>COOPER: --Rudy Giuliani had like Turkish clients and then the President was like pushing his Turkish policy base, so we're going to talk about this. We're going to take a quick break. We'll talk about the Republican efforts to turn the Senate impeachment trial into political punishment for Democrats. Also, speaking of telling the President, more important, Sondland's cell phone call from Ukraine, Russia's backyard, was the conversation overheard? We'll be joined by someone who truly knows White House security, from his old job, running the Situation Room. And later, sadly, a student who was - there was a shooter opened fire at her school.