Stalemate Deepens Between Democrats and G.O.P. Leaders Over Trump's Trial; D.O.J. Invokes Impeachment In Fight Over McGahn Testimony
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: 737 MAX starting next month. And that is it for me. Jessica Dean continues our coverage right now.</s>JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean, in for Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN. We're so glad to have you with us this afternoon. Ninety minutes: That's how quickly the Trump administration moved to freeze military aid to Ukraine following President Trump's July 25th call with his Ukrainian counterpart, President Zelensky. New e-mail show the White House Budget Office directed the Pentagon to hold off on releasing that money pending a review. But there was also this instruction, quote, "Given the sensitive nature of that request, I appreciate your keeping that information closely held to those who need to know to execute direction." The man behind that request -- Mike Duffy, a Trump political appointee and Budget official and Duffy just happens to be one of several witnesses Democrats would like to see in person at an impeachment trial. This latest revelation sparked this reaction from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.</s>SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): If there was ever an argument that we need Mr. Duffy to come testify, this is that information. This e-mail is explosive.</s>DEAN: CNN covering all angles from the White House to Capitol Hill, Sarah Westwood, traveling with the President. She is in West Palm Beach and Lauren Fox is in Washington. Let's start first with Sarah. The President may be on vacation, but impeachment clearly still at the top of his mind. He lashed out at Speaker Pelosi this morning for delaying sending those Impeachment Articles to the Senate. But is the White House at all concerned that these new e-mails could bolster the Democrats' case to call witnesses?</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, right now, Jessica, the White House is downplaying the revelatory nature of these e-mails with us spokesperson for the Budget Office telling CNN that it is reckless and misleading to connect the e-mails to the phone call that President Trump had with Ukrainian President Zelensky. Keep in mind that the e-mail was sent just 90 minutes after Trump hung up the phone with Zelensky. But nonetheless, the O.M.B. spokesperson noted that the hold on aid to Ukraine was announced a week before that phone call, July 18th, during an interagency meeting. And while it is true that some agencies were notified of the intent to suspend some of that security assistance to Ukraine, this was the first official action that was taken to notify the Pentagon that they needed to sit on those millions of dollars of funds to Ukraine. The person who wrote that e-mail, as you mentioned, Mike Duffy is someone that Senate Democrats are interested in talking to if and when the Senate trial starts. They also want to see documents. So the fact that these e-mails are coming out now after the House has already completed its inquiry sort of bolsters Democrats' argument that there is more investigating still to be done. Now, White House officials say that President Trump is eager to get to his trial. He doesn't just want to be acquitted, he wants to be vindicated. And so President Trump, eager to get that trial started. He is going after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for continuing to withhold those Articles of Impeachment from the Senate. This morning, tweeting that Pelosi was, quote, "breaking all the rules by withholding the Articles." Sources tell CNN that there are a number of decisions about the President's trial and the White House's strategy for dealing with it that are to be made while the President is down here in Mar-a-Lago. He'll return after two weeks to what will hopefully according to the White House, be the start of the Senate trial. Who will present opening and closing arguments? Who will be on that team? Those are things that the White House is sorting out. But Jessica, the situation remains very fluid with a lot of uncertainty surrounding the details of that trial at this moment.</s>DEAN: Yes, just a lot of questions there. For more on that, let's go to Lauren Fox who is on Capitol Hill. Lauren, this morning, Senator Mitch McConnell, who's blasted House Dems for his words, a thin and deficient case for impeachment spoke out on a key sticking point for the trial. That's witnesses. What did he say?</s>LAUREN FOX, CNN POLITICS U.S. CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, McConnell has been arguing for some time, Jessica that he does not think a decision about witnesses should be at the beginning of the trial. Instead, what he has been arguing is Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House needs to send over those Articles of Impeachment. Once she does that, then there can be a discussion about getting this trial started. So that was the key sticking point between the top Democrat in the Senate, Senator Schumer and McConnell just before this two-week recess. Now, lawmakers are gone, and McConnell earlier today had this to say about where a Senate trial stands.</s>SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): All I'm asking of Schumer is that we treat Trump the same way we treated Clinton. We had a procedure that was approved 100 to nothing, Schumer voted for it, to go through the opening arguments, to have a written question period and then based upon that, deciding what witnesses to call. We haven't ruled out witnesses. We've said let's handle this case just like we did with President Clinton. Fair is fair.</s>FOX: And McConnell has been making the case, Jessica, that what he wants to happen is he'll have the House managers, the Democrats present their case, then the White House would have an opportunity to respond on the Senate floor. Then there would be a decision about witnesses. Of course, this the key sticking point between Democrats and Republicans right now, as the standoff on Capitol Hill continues -- Jessica.</s>DEAN: All right, Lauren Fox for us in Washington, Sarah Westwood in West Palm Beach. Thanks to both of you. And after criticizing Democrats for not going to the courts to force top Trump aides to testify in their Impeachment Inquiry, the Trump administration is now saying the courts should not weigh in at all, at least when it comes to Don McGahn. The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the former White House counsel earlier this year as part of a potential Impeachment Inquiry related to Trump's attempts to obstruct the Russian investigation. But the White House says now that impeachment has gone forward, there's no rush to settle the dispute over McGahn. The D.C. Court of Appeals is set to hear oral arguments in that case next month. Tim Neftali is a CNN presidential historian and the former director of the Nixon Presidential Library and Harry Litman is a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, as well as a former U.S. Attorney. You guys are going to help us break down all this information here. Thanks so much for being with us. We're going to dig into impeachment in just a moment. But first, Harry, DOJ making the argument that there's no sense of urgency to resolve this case for two reasons. One, the House voted to impeach without hearing from McGahn on obstruction and two, the obstruction Article of Impeachment is focused on Ukraine, not that Russia investigation. Do you think this is a valid argument for them?</s>HARRY LITMAN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don't. It's focused on, but they were very careful to add this as a continuing course of conduct and remember what Mueller found about McGahn, really classic obstructive conduct worse than I think anything we've seen with Nixon or past Presidents in which the President told McGahn to fire Mueller, and then told him to lie about it. Now, the House article specifically mentions this as a continuing course of conduct. So you have the Republicans talking about both sides of their mouths simultaneously saying, oh, you don't need it now. But also saying you should let the judicial process run its course. Then, of course, they run to the courts and say, bury this. So I think it's something any normal trial would certainly have.</s>DEAN: And, Tim, I want to ask you, the President, we've heard is fond of saying over and over again that his top officials get absolute immunity. Don McGahn being one of them, they argue, that's why they don't have to testify and Mitch McConnell said today that Trump did what every President since George Washington has done when it comes to executive privilege. But what's the precedent for this in your opinion?</s>TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, there are two things or two issues here. One is whether you accept the proposition that the founders accepted, which is that an Impeachment Inquiry is different, that it's not the same as the natural push and pull between the two branches. If you accept their proposition, which George Washington explained in a letter to the House in the 1790s --</s>DEAN: Going back a little bit there.</s>NAFTALI: Going back a bit. Then you have to say that this is different. This stonewall by the President isn't something we've never seen before in an Impeachment Inquiry. So it is different. It is not the same.</s>DEAN: It is not the same.</s>NAFTALI: It is not the same.</s>DEAN: All right. Well, let's go back to Harry for a moment. Let's talk about impeachment. This morning, Speaker Pelosi tweeted, "The House can't choose our impeachment managers until we know what kind of trial the Senate will have. President Trump blocked his own witnesses and documents from the House and the American people on phony complaints about the House process. What is his excuse now?" That coming from Nancy Pelosi. So Harry outside of frustrating the President, what do you think is the strategic advantage of withholding these Articles of Impeachment right now?</s>LITMAN: I mean, it's totally clear, McConnell, here is you know, Lucy with the football and wanting to play Charlie Brown. This is not the same as Clinton and what the obvious point is, once it gets into his clutches, he'll be able to ram through whatever he wants on the barest of majority. So the real point as with Clinton, if you want witnesses, the Dems have only this barest of leverages to play. And they're playing it. They're saying we need witnesses, and by the way, Jessica, even more, they need documents. From a prosecutorial point of view, yes, you want to hear Mike Duffy, but that piece of paper which they just got, by chance, through a FOIA request from another group speaks volumes, and what puts the lie to the notion of this was just normal business is that last piece that you focused on saying, don't tell anybody about this, keep this quiet. That's the sort of thing that any prosecutor would put front and center before a jury.</s>DEAN: Well, yes, that's -- I'm interested in your perspective because you spent a career doing this. It sounds like that would have stuck out brightly to you if you were looking at this case.</s>LITMAN: That's right.</s>LITMAN: That would go immediately into -- in to a binder of sort of 20 hot documents. Documents are the real stock and trade here the gold standard. They don't lie. They don't go south on you on the stand. They really prove where things were at the time. Any juror reading this would know the story.</s>DEAN: And Tim, to that end, Chuck Schumer has called these new e- mails, explosive. And he says that they show why witnesses -- why witness testimony is so very important in all of this. What do you think the chances are of them actually getting these e- mails into this trial, getting this witness testimony things that the Democrats are asking?</s>NAFTALI: Well, I would say -- it's very hard to put odds on this. It really in part depends on the American people. If the American people start asking their representatives, their senators to dig a little deeper, then we might see action. If the American people think that this is finished, that it's Kabuki Theater, I suspect most senators will just allow Mitch McConnell to decide that this is a show trial. Let me tell you one thing that's really important. In the Nixon impeachment, the evidentiary base kept growing. The famous smoking gun transcript, it comes out after the House Judiciary Committee voted. So it's not unusual that the documents get better and better and better. And as, you know, as we've seen -- as we've been saying, they matter. So it's up to A, the Senate -- the Democratic senators and make the case. B, Mitch McConnell has to listen to his base and C, those in the middle who haven't chosen, who haven't decided, they need to put pressure on their representatives to get the facts out. After all, if the facts are good to the President, let him be acquitted for the right reasons. If the facts are not good to the President, let the Senate do its constitutional duty.</s>DEAN: Yes, and it's interesting because if you look at the polling on all of this, it seems that Americans really have chosen one side or the other. There aren't many that are kind of -- you know, undecided.</s>NAFTALI: Or they're not watching.</s>DEAN: Or they're not watching.</s>NAFTALI: So after the Holidays, everyone have a great Holiday. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy New Year. And then after the Holidays, look at this because it's the most important thing our country faces. And then tell your representative what to do.</s>DEAN: Very interesting. And Harry, for you, you say for a prosecutor, you mentioned this, you just said it. It's always about those documents. Does this undercut the argument from Trump allies that the House failed to make a strong case since they were blocked from using these and other documents?</s>LITMAN: Yes, except the argument doesn't hold up. Anyway, remember just two weeks ago, it seemed overwhelming and clear. But this is like belts and suspenders and elastic waistband. I mean, the additional proof. And one quick point on your polls, you know, we've had again and again, an absolute stone -- you know, lock of his whole base. Seventy percent plus say let's have more witnesses. That means people even in the vaunted Trump base agree, and we're just talking, as Tim says about three senators or so, to go along with just having more evidence. They don't have to say that Trump should be convicted. That really there -- the Mitt Romney's of the world are really pivotal now.</s>DEAN: Yes, it's going to be very interesting to see what he and others like him do. Harry Litman, Tim Naftali. Thank you.</s>LITMAN: Thank you very much. Thanks.</s>DEAN: We appreciate it very much. North Korea sent the U.S. a warning for the Holidays. New CNN reporting on what Kim Jong-un may have meant when he talked about that Christmas gift. Plus, Donald Trump's takeover of the G.O.P. What keeps party members in lockstep with the President as we get closer to the Senate trial? And Eddie Murphy's return to "Saturday Night Live." A look at how the past and the present.</s>EDDIE MURPHY, AMERICAN ACTOR: Who is directing this picture? Me. Who wrote this picture? Me. This is the Gumby story, damn it. And Gumby does not say damn it. How the hell are people not going to know who I am? I am Gumby, damn it.