New Revelations Undermine Trump's Ukraine Timeline; Trump Defiant As Damaging New Revelations Emerge; Trump Wants To Designate Mexican Cartels As Terror Groups
HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. Live from CNN Center, I'm Hala Gorani. Tonight, what did the US president know and when new revelations are emerging which undermine Mr. Trump's own timeline of events around the Ukraine scandal. Also, Albania is scrambling to rescue people trapped in the rubble following that deadly earthquake. I speak to the prime minister of Albania about what the country needs most right now. And if you're headed to the United States for Thanksgiving, prepare for travel chaos to winter storms are bearing down on the west and Midwest, we'll tell you all about that. We begin with new revelations that raise some serious new doubts about US President Donald Trump's mainline of defense in the Ukraine scandal that could lead to his impeachment in the House of Representatives. The New York Times is reporting Mr. Trump knew about a bombshell whistleblower complaint before you unfroze military aid to Ukraine in September. Sources say, also knew about it, before he told a top aide, there was no "quid pro quo." Republicans have seized on those remarks as proof that Mr. Trump did not leverage aid to Ukraine in exchange for political favors. But now the timeline appears to be different from the one that the administration has been saying unfolded. Now for his part, President Trump says maniac Democrats are trying to overturn the 2016 election. Listen to how he whipped up a crowd of supporters in Florida last night.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: They're pushing that impeachment, witch-hunt, and a lot of bad things are happening to them. Because you see what's happening in the polls? Everybody said that's really bullshit.</s>GORANI: That bleep of the president of the United States, that is really BS is what he said. One of Mr. Trump's main complaints about the impeachment process is that he has no representation at the hearings. Well, he and his attorney had been invited to this second round of public hearings next week, but we're now learning their chairs may remain empty. Let's bring in Congressional Correspondent Phil Mattingly for more on all these details. He's in Washington. What do, what does this timeline of events change in terms of the impeachment proceedings at the President unfroze aid, according to these reports, only after learning of a whistleblower complaint?</s>PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Hala, I think the interesting thing is it completely shifts the lens through which you view almost everything we've heard in public testimony or enclosed, or depositions that we've gotten transcripts of over the course of the last three or four weeks at this point. Look, the reality of the Republican defense, which has been staunch and it has been unified, particularly in the House over the last couple of weeks is that the President made clear when asked about it directly by his US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, who was deeply involved in these issues, and who had told the Ukrainians he believed that in fact, a quid pro quo was necessary that the President was very clear, no quid pro quo. And I think when you look at it through the lens of the President, knowing that a whistleblower complaint had been filed, that the complaint explicitly laid out a potential quid pro quo. And not only did he tell the ambassador to the EU this specifically, he also told a US Senator Ron Johnson, in explicit terms. Justin later recounted that that didn't happen, and that "who told you that?" So I think everything starts to shift a little bit based on this New York Times reporting in terms of who had the understanding and when. I would also point out one other detail, Hala, that I found very interesting. It's a little bit in the weeds, but we got the deposition transcript of a budget, a White House Budget official last night, where he lays out that over the course of July and August through the entirety of those two months, he had been asking for a White House rationale as to why the aid had been held up, never got one. In early September, he finally got one saying that the White House and the President wanted to know what other countries were contributing. Again, that was after according to the times, the President was aware of the whistleblower complaint.</s>GORANI: Yes.</s>MATTINGLY: It feels a lot like trying to cover tracks, not like their defense, the least if they were holding up for the period of the last couple of weeks actually stands when you look at it through that lens. So where does that leave us in terms of the actual impeachment inquiry here. What -- next week there are hearings with a panel of experts testifying on Capitol Hill. How far does this mean we are from an actual vote in the House of Representatives on impeachment?</s>MATTINGLY: Yes, we're weeks away. And I think I'm not sure the new revelations actually changed the dynamics politically right now, both sides are pretty entrenched in their Red Team-Blue Team corners. We've seen that play out over the course of the public hearings. But what this means is, this is now shifting and Democrats are full speed ahead. The House Judiciary Committee where this hearing will be held next week is where they will draft articles of impeachment. After they move through a couple of public hearings, many of which will be nuts and bolts kind of precedent history how impeachment actually works. Those articles of impeachment will be introduced. They'll be considered in the committee level and before Christmas. That's the plan right now, before Christmas. The Full House will have a vote to impeach the president of United States. They have the votes right now. Democrats are aligned on this for the most part and plan on moving it forward. So the President is moments like, almost certainly at this point to be impeached by Christmas. The big question then will be what happens to the United States Senate.</s>GORANI: All right. Of course, where the Republicans hold a majority, thanks very much, Phil Mattingly in Washington. Let's bring in one of our legal analyst now. We're joined by former US federal prosecutor Michael Zeldin. Michael, do these revelations the reported by the New York Times changed anything in terms of the inquiry itself, do you think?</s>MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it does and it doesn't. It does make it clear that the President, if this report of the New York Times is to believe, had a notion that they were going to be out in allegations about a quid pro quo and that he was getting ready to defend himself. And so when Sondland, the US ambassador to the EU, says to him, Mr. President, what do you want from Ukraine, rather than say, I want anti- corruption efforts? I want guarantees I want -- He says, no quid pro quo, which is really unusual sort of conversation to be asked, what do you want and your sort of reply is no quid pro quo. So it implies knowledge on the President's part, which going to make it much more difficult in the Senate for them to claim that he didn't have any predisposition or preinclination or preinvolvement in this stuff. So I think it's a bad fact for him.</s>GORANI: It's not the most conversational term, by the way, no quid pro quo. Though, it has entered the vernacular in this country. This is what the President told his supporters in Florida yesterday about the Ukraine scandal.</s>TRUMP: I want nothing -- this is a quote. I want no quid pro quo. I want nothing.</s>GORANI: So he's denying this, of course, this is after all the expert witness testimony and all these veteran diplomats, many of whom, by the way, are politically conservative. They're not necessarily Never Trumpers. His own EU Ambassador was a big donor to his campaign in 2016. So where does that leave the process because it is still entirely political. It's very different from a case, for instance, in a civil or criminal court. What happens next week?</s>ZELDIN: So what happens next week is that they will be open hearings in the judiciary committee to hear from constitutional experts who will tell us whether they analysis of the President's conduct believe that an impeachable offense has occurred. The following that they will receive a report from the House Intelligence Committee, the ones that held the hearings, on all these fact witnesses. They'll combine those two things together, and then they make a decision in the committee whether to vote articles of impeachment. If they write and then vote articles of impeachment, and they pass by a simple majority, they then go to the Full House representatives who then get to consider them one by one, and each one that is passed again by civil majority is then sent over to the Senate, where a trial is held and you need 67 of the 100 senators to vote in favor of conviction for the president to be removed from office. It has never happened in our history. Nixon probably would have been removed. But he resigned before they got to the Senate.</s>GORANI: What an expectation as far as Donald Trump is concerned, and certainly with Republicans in control of the Senate. That's not what we expect to happen. A conviction though an impeachment is certainly a very probable before Christmas. Rudy Giuliani, CNN is reporting now, acknowledging meeting with the lawyer of a Ukrainian oligarch, very connected to the Kremlin. He previously said he had nothing to do with this person. How does Rudy Giuliani's pronouncements, all these reports surrounding his activities in Ukraine change things for this inquiry?</s>ZELDIN: So it is clear that Rudy Giuliani is doing two things. One is he's representing the president in the President's effort to acquire dirt on the Biden's and get to the bottom of what he thinks was the Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election. And at the same time, he is representing himself to try to obtain business. So he's using his connections with the White House to parlay that into personal business. He has said over and over, I'm not being paid by the President. Well, if you're not being paid, and you spending this much time, you know, out in the public domain, working on the President's behalf, you need to earn an income somehow. And it seems that what he's doing is trading on his relationship with the president to acquire other clients. That's nothing that is necessarily illegal, is unseemly in my estimation, but we'll see whether he has done anything that crosses the legal-illegal line.</s>GORANI: But he's not being forthcoming here and has been not being fully, you know, transparent about who he's meeting with, their accusations that he was conducting a shadow parallel foreign policy in the name of the president and countries like Ukraine meetings all over Europe with characters that are considered to be quite shady. Does this reflect on the president at all? Will it spill over onto the president?</s>ZELDIN: It's not clear because you can separate Giuliani working on Giuliani's behalf, from Giuliani working on the President's behalf. But what he has done or alleged to have done on behalf of the President is bad enough, as it sits, you know, it make it as it is. That is that he was endeavoring to get the Ukrainians to get political dirt on the Biden's the, you know, front runner against President Trump still to this day. And in exchange for that, they would get a meeting with the White House and they get their military aid and, you know, the President would be happy and Giuliani will have done his job. And at the same time, Giuliani is meeting with all sorts of shady characters who he's quite willing. It seems to represent so much for America's mayor holding a high ethical standard. He seems to be willing to be representing anybody, as long as they're as long as they're paying him, which is I think, as I say, not illegal, but unseemly in my, you know, sort of core values.</s>GORANI: Thanks very much, Michael Zeldin, as always, for joining us. Appreciate it.</s>ZELDIN: Thanks, Hala.</s>GORANI: Have a great Thanksgiving.</s>ZELDIN: You too.</s>GORANI: Meantime, Mr. Trump wants to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations. Listen to what he said in an interview on Tuesday.</s>TRUMP: I don't want to say what I'm going to do, but they will be designated. I will be designating the cartels, absolutely. I have been working on that for the last 90 days. You know, designation is not that easy, you have to go through a process and we're well into that process.</s>GORANI: What is Mexico say about all of this, designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations? What does it change? Matt Rivers is in Mexico City with the reaction there and we're hearing from the President, Matt.</s>MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And I think it's safe to say how the Mexico's government, a, is not thrilled with this. This statement from the president and also, b, frankly, they were they were taken off guard by this. Mexico's foreign secretary, saying that he would be immediately requesting a meeting with the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and that, you know, foreign ministry here is not thrilled about it. And also, as you mentioned, in his daily press conference this morning, President Lopez Obrador of Mexico, he didn't get into it all that much, but he was pretty clear and his point of view, take a listen.</s>LOPEZ OBRADOR, PRESIDENT OF MEXICO (through translation): I only need to say, cooperation, yes, interventionism, no.</s>RIVERS: So basically, let's unpack this a little bit. Basically, when the United States designates groups as foreign terrorist organizations, it gives the United States government a legal groundwork to take stronger action, mainly in the financial and diplomatic realms against these groups. So for example, US finance-led institutions would be barred from doing any sort of business with anyone related to a member of a group of foreign terrorist organization. Members of the FTOs would not be allowed to enter the United States. And that would certainly have an impact on the Mexican United States bilateral relationship. But, Hala, I think what people here in Mexico and the government here would be worried about is, does this provide any sort of justification for the United States that have unilateral military intervention here in a sovereign country? That's what President Lopez Obrador is talking about. No interventionism from the military. It was just earlier this month, nine Americans were killed as a part of what many suspect is cartel violence. The President offered to send military support here to Mexico and the Mexican government denied that. So what the fear is, now, is that for the United States use this foreign terrorist organization label as a way to justify unilateral military intervention. The President has not said he will do that, not at all. We don't know the timeframe of when this designation will come down, Hala. But it does appear given what the President said that they will be labeling cartels here foreign terrorist organizations.</s>GORANI: Is that the biggest concern for Mexicans, that the President of the United States is using this designation as a pretext to be able to use military force or conduct some sort of military intervention in Mexico. That's their biggest concern right now?</s>RIVERS: That's definitely one of the biggest concerns. I mean, there's also, you know, economic concerns. You know, there's a concern that it could hurt the trading relationship between the United States and Mexico. But I think just from an existential level, I think if you're members of the Mexican government, you do not want members of the American military operating in your sovereign territory. What Mexican government officials would say is that that's a violation of Mexican sovereignty. What President Trump might say and what Americans might say is that was going on here in Mexico with the drug trade, with human trafficking has a negative effect on the United States. The United States has to do something about it. President Trump thinks that maybe this is the way to go, but he's going to face stiff opposition from the Mexican government.</s>GORANI: Matt Rivers live in Mexico City. Thanks very much. Still to come tonight, after the worst earthquake to hit Albania in decades, rescue workers there are afraid that there are still people trapped under the rubble. It's been 48 hours so it's always possible still to find survivors. We'll be speaking to the country's prime minister after a quick break. Stay with us.