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House Intel Committee Approves Ukraine Report, Sends It to Judiciary Committee for Possible Articles of Impeachment; Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) is Interviewed About the Impeachment Inquiry Report; Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is Interviewed About the Impeachment Inquiry; Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). Aired on 8-9p ET

Aired December 03, 2019 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[20:00:17]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening.

The House Intelligence Committee's impeachment report is out, and if you thought you already knew everything that would be in it -- well, there's more. The committee voted to adopt it tonight as expected along party lines.

The bottom line of the report is this, quote: The impeachment inquiry has found that President Trump personally and acting through agents within and outside the U.S. government solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his election or his re- election, I should say.

That's the part that we expected. What we didn't know was that the report would cite newly revealed hard evidence, phone records, making it clear that this is not merely about that phone call the president made on July 25th during which he asked Ukraine's president to investigate the Bidens and that conspiracy theory absolving Russia in the 2016 election, nor is it only about withholding military aid and a White House meeting as pressure. Instead, these new phone records put all of that into a time frame, and potentially expose a plan or a scheme, call it what you will, stretching back months involving many of the president's closest allies, including none other than Congressman Devin Nunes who is the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee who for months has attacked the investigation, and as you know, spent much of the hearings trash talking them.

So as you listen to this, him trash-talking the very hearings he's overseeing or partly overseeing, remember that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): This is a carefully orchestrated media smear campaign. What you're seeing in this room over the past two weeks is a show trial. The witnesses deemed suitable for television by the Democrats were put through a closed door audition process in a cult- like atmosphere in the basement of the Capitol.

Well, it is a partisan adventure and it's not a real impeachment the way that impeachment processes worked the other times it's been used. What have they delivered? The impeachment version of three-card

monte, notorious short con card trick where the mark, in this case President Trump and the American public, stands no chance of winning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Congressman Nunes is all over this report, and not in a good way. Instead, according to Democrats, call records obtained by the committee from our parent company AT&T link Congressman Nunes to a, quote, coordinated effort by associates of are President Trump to push false narratives publicly about the ambassador to Ukraine at the time and the Bidens. That alleged effort, according to the report's timeline included Nunes, a former reporter for "The Hill" named John Solomon, the president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his contact Lev Parnas.

The call records, which, again, we didn't know about until this afternoon, are important because they anchor the time line at certain key points, including the smear campaign against then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. Now, records cited in the report show that in the 48 hours before a March 20th opinion piece by Solomon attacking the ambassador, Solomon and Parnas spoke at least half a dozen times as well again for 11 minutes on the 20th. Shortly thereafter, President Trump plugged that story in a tweet.

Rudy Giuliani also turns up in early May as plans to a dirt gathering trip to Ukraine became known. Phone records show him speaking on May 8th to someone in the White House, also to Solomon, Parnas and a staffer per Congressman Nunes. Now, the next day, Giuliani also spoke with Solomon, Parnas, in the White House.

That evening, he went on Fox to peddle the Biden smear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PERSONAL LAWYER: The big story, it's a dramatic story, and I guarantee you, Joe Biden will not get to election day without this being investigated. Not because I want to see him investigated. This is collateral to what I was doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Phone records also show Giuliani speaking to someone at the Office of Management and Budget, which testimony has tied to the hold on military assistance to Ukraine.

Now, as for Congressman Nunes himself, phone records cited in the report show contacts between him, Giuliani, Parnas, and Solomon after a Solomon article on April 7th. Again, this is the ranking member on a committee overseeing the executive branch, the president's personal attorney, his now indicted alleged bag man and a journalist pushing smears. And this is months before the president's call with the Ukraine president, months before.

As today's impeachment report states, it's all part of the same alleged plan or scheme to squeeze political favors out of Ukraine, and now we know there are these phone records.

We, of course, asked Congressman Nunes to come on the broadcast. He declined.

CNN's Manu Raju also gave him a chance to comment.

[20:05:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Congressman Nunes, your reaction to being named in the report, sir?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So that happened.

Rudy Giuliani who's seldom at a loss for words also declined to comment.

President Trump who's in London for NATO meetings spoke shortly before the report came out, saying this about Chairman Schiff when asked about Republican plans to call him as an impeachment witness.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think he's a maniac.

REPORTER: What would you want to learn in the --

TRUMP: I think Adam Schiff is a deranged human being. I think he grew up with a complex for lots of reasons that are obvious. I think he's a very sick man, and he lies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Those are the actual words of a president of the United States. That is now how presidents talk, not like Nixon drunk late at night ranting on a tape recorder, in broad daylight, on camera. No one seems to bat an eye.

Chairman Schiff joins us shortly on the broadcast. In addition to alleging abuse of power in connection with Ukraine affair, the report also makes a case that the president obstructed the inquiry itself, both potentially impeachable offenses, something the Judiciary committee takes up in public hearings tomorrow.

Right now, we're joined by Intelligence Committee member, Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrat of New York.

Congressman, these phone records that show Ranking Member Devin Nunes speaking with indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas several times, and I'm going to be speaking with Chairman Schiff in just a few minutes, what was your reaction to those calls? I mean, do you see Congressman Nunes as a participant in all of this? Should he have somehow recused himself? REP. SEAN PATRICK MALONEY (D-NY): Well, look, I think the important

thing is that we stay focused on the president's conduct and the president's misconduct. I think we have known for some time that there was an organized effort to smear our Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and that part of that involved planting stories in right wing outlets and seeding this false narrative around Ukraine and this is really fleshing out some of the details of that.

Obviously, Devin Nunes has some difficult questions to answer. You know, it's never a good thing when you're palling around with people who have been indicted. He should answer those questions, but my focus and the focus of the committee's report is on the president, and the president's misconduct.

COOPER: And it is. I mean, it's a damning report for your committee, much of it was obviously discussed during the public hearings. Now for the first time, though, Democrats are saying that the president did three to obstruct a congressional investigation, which is obviously a grave accusation.

I'm wondering -- I mean, were the facts simply glaring was? Was that a difficult decision to come to? Is there a political calculation in that about whether it should have just been limited to the actions themselves?

MALONEY: Well, I just think it's the only plain way to say it. You're talking about a situation where as we sit here, the White House, including the National Security Council, the Office of Management and Budget, agencies like the Department of Defense, the State Department have not produced a single document under subpoena to the committee. All of the work that we have done, all of the facts we have put out into the public domain have been done despite this obstructive conduct by the White House, instructing people not to testify, withholding people like the chief of staff, obviously people who have important stories to tell.

So I just think it's the plain truth that the president has sought to obstruct this investigation at every turn, and I think that's something he needs to be held accountable for along with everything else.

COOPER: So, this report now goes to the Judiciary Committee. It holds its first hearing tomorrow. There are, as you know, Democrats who want to bring issues related to the Mueller investigation into any articles of impeachment.

Would you be in favor of that?

MALONEY: Well, look, I'm going to defer to the Judiciary Committee and let them do their work. What we've done on the Intel Committee is pursuant to the House resolution rapidly, and I think very productively uncovered the evidence, the clear and convincing evidence of the president's misconduct with respect to Ukraine.

Now, look, there's a long list of other areas where the president has behaved improperly, and I understand the desire to hold him accountable in those areas, and it's important that there be congressional oversight of things like -- well, it's a long list -- of the emoluments clause and always other areas where the president has perhaps violated the Constitution, and remember, those investigations have been obstructed, too. And we're only now getting to the point where the courts are going to hopefully provide greater access to the documents and the witnesses.

My two cents at this stage, there is clear and convincing evidence of the president's misconduct on Ukraine, and we should focus first and foremost on that.

COOPER: Congressman Maloney, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

MALONEY: Thank you.

COOPER: Joining us now, chief -- CNN chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, CNN political analyst and "USA Today" columnist, Kirsten Powers, and former Nixon White House counsel John Dean.

So, Jeff, now that this shifts to Judiciary, what is your reaction to the case that the Democrats on Intel have laid out?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think it's a very strong case because the issue in impeachment is not, was a crime committed? The issue is, was there an abuse of power? And if you look at the history, the Federalist Papers, the Constitution itself, what the Framers were concerned about is misuse of the power of the presidency.

[20:10:06]

And if you read these 300 pages, what you see is there is absolutely no doubt that the president used his power of the president, his power to hold an Oval Office meeting, his power to withhold $390 million in aid in return for something that did no good for the country, but was only for his political benefit. That is abuse of power, and I think the case is completely made by what the Intelligence Committee has put forward.

COOPER: And, John, I mean, as we just showed, Congressman Nunes was talking on the phone to one of Giuliani's since indicted associates, Lev Parnas, who seems to want to speak as well. What does it say about Nunes' potential involvement?

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it was a surprise to find him in there. The first thing I did after discovering his name outside of the committee was to look to see if they listed him amongst the key persons where they have an appendix afterwards. They didn't do that, obviously in deference to his position on the committee because he comes out to be a key person in telling this story.

As Jeff knows, this has the scent also of an operation that could be a criminal conspiracy going on here to somehow defraud the federal government, and that could involve the congressman and the congressional privilege is very narrow. It's a debate and functioning provision, and it doesn't work very well when you get outside the hall of Congress and start doing activities.

COOPER: And, Kirsten, I want to point, we reached out to Lev Parnas' attorney, Joseph Bondy, who told us that the phone records were not obtained via his client but that they corroborate Mr. Parnas in key respects and if called as a witness, he's prepared to explain himself.

I mean, Kirsten, the irony here is that the Republicans continue to call this a very unfair process, criticize the Democrats in their handling of the inquiry, while at the same time Congressman Nunes, the ranking member in the process for the Republicans is potentially involved here and has said nothing about that while being -- you know, listening to testimony.

KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, I mean, I think at a minimum he should have disclosed this. He should have recused himself, right? He is not a disinterested party in this, and for him to not have disclosed this publicly so people understand where he's coming from I think is a major problem.

And Lev Parnas' attorney had stated -- has stated publicly that he's, you know, according to Lev Parnas, that he was looking into Biden. He was looking into getting dirt on Biden, and so, you know, this is the same person who constantly complaining about the Steele dossier, right, because this was done by a foreign person and meanwhile looks like was involved in something -- and certainly has been defending something where you had the administration going to a foreign government seeking campaign -- dirt against a campaign opponent.

TOOBIN: Can I just --

COOPER: Yes?

TOOBIN: -- can I just say who cares about Devin Nunes? I mean, what I care about is Donald Trump. I mean, this whole story was orchestrated by the president, and the remarkable thing about this document is that it doesn't have the voices of some of the key players, John Bolton, Mulvaney, the chief of staff. I mean, it would almost certainly be a worse story if they were involved.

And the key focus it seems to me here is did the president misuse his power, and that's what's so important, and that's what's proved to my satisfaction in this document.

COOPER: Joe, how important are the phone records? I mean, you look -- I just want to put some of them for Giuliani on the screen here from the report. April 24th, the very day the ambassador to Ukraine, the American Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was pulled from her post, you've got Giuliani on the phone with the White House eight times. You know, again, we don't know what was discussed because there's no records coming from the White House.

TOOBIN: Right, but I mean -- yes, that's important, but it's not as a fraction as important as the president of the United States saying to the president of Ukraine saying, talk to Rudy Giuliani. I mean, Rudy Giuliani obviously was the key person here. I mean, the fact that Devin Nunes, who has been a total, toady, and

someone who has done nothing but carry the White House's water since the president was elected, you know, that's not a surprise. But what's so important here is that the president outsourced this whole operation to Rudy Giuliani whose interests are not those of the American people. They're only those of Donald Trump.

COOPER: Yes. And potentially Rudy Giuliani who clearly has business interests in Ukraine, who might have been -- sorry, Kirsten, go ahead.

[20:10:04]

POWERS: Yes, no, I was going to say -- I mean, I agree that the main story is what Donald Trump did, there's no question. But I think that we can also care about what Devin Nunes did, and I agree he's been a stooge for Trump, and that's not particularly surprising, but to sit there and to be, you know, leading the Republican side of this investigation basically of the hearings, and to not disclose this relationship to what he's actually investigating, I still think that matters. It may not be as important as Trump, but it still matters.

COOPER: And, John, I do think it's important to point out, again, and just reiterate that these are details Democrats were able to get despite the White House refusing to cooperate with any part of in investigation, the State Department, the Office of Management and Budget. They also lay out their attempts to get more information in the report saying, quote, it's hard to imagine a more complete case of obstruction.

Do you agree with that? I mean, there's still a lot we don't know.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Congress hasn't heard from Bolton as Jeff pointed out.

DEAN: Very strong point.

Here's what the second thing they have done is to point out that the abuse of Congress here and the obstruction of Congress is much more compelling than it was in the Nixon case. They have built that in this report as they take it to --

COOPER: It's more compelling.

DEAN: -- judiciary where they already have that report.

It's more compelling than the case they made against Nixon.

COOPER: You're saying this White House went farther in terms of obstruction of justice than Nixon.

DEAN: Yes, did and that's noted in the report.

TOOBIN: You know, I think that's a really important point. The other two impeachments of the 20th century, Bill Clinton, and Richard Nixon, they were both much more forthcoming and cooperative, with documents on witnesses --

COOPER: Yes.

TOOBIN: -- than the president was, and it would be very surprising to me in light of all of this that obstruction of Congress isn't a separate article of impeachment in addition to the abuse of power on the whole Ukraine relationship.

COOPER: Yes.

Jeff Toobin, Kirsten Powers, John Dean --

DEAN: And much more difficult for the Senate to vote against.

COOPER: Yes, coming up next -- well, we'll see about that. A lawmaker who was in camp days before aid to Ukraine finally began flowing, who may be called on to be a juror if the president's impeached and this all moves to the Senate.

Later, the man behind tonight's report, Adam Schiff, joins us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:21:28]

COOPER: We're talking tonight about the House Intelligence Committee report adopted tonight along party lines and the revelation that there are phone records to key players at pivotal moments in the affair, including the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes.

Joining us is Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. He and his Republican counterpart Ron Johnson traveled to Kiev in earlier September with U.S. aid to Ukraine still frozen.

Senator Murphy, first of all, just your reaction to the House Intelligence Committee report accusing the president of misconduct and obstruction. Is there -- I mean, what's your biggest takeaway?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I think it just confirms what we've known for a long time, the president was using the massive power of the Oval Office and taxpayer dollars to try to get a foreign government to interfere in American politics. What we have learned over the course of the last several months is that the scope of this corruption was massive involving high ranking officials in the White House and the Department of State and was directly connected back to the president himself.

I don't know why you have the power of impeachment in the Constitution if not to be used for a scheme of this magnitude. If the president gets away with this, then I'm not sure what will ever stop a president from using all of the powers of the executive branch to try to destroy their political opponents or win an election. I think it's a very impressive report, and it speaks to the gravity of the crimes.

COOPER: And should Devin Nunes have said something? I mean, you know, you have the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee who, I don't know if he was a key player, but he was certainly I guess, you know, they were having phone calls with Lev Parnas and Giuliani and Solomon and Parnas is indicted.

I mean, should he have said something, even if he didn't recuse himself?

MURPHY: I mean, certainly Representative Nunes should have let folks know that he had been coordinating and communicating with Rudy Giuliani, going all the way back to the spring, but, you know, ultimately this isn't really a trial of the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. It's about what Trump did.

And, you know, it's a reminder, though, that this didn't just get discovered in the late summer and early fall. Rudy Giuliani was openly crowing about his attempts to try to get the Ukrainians to do Trump's dirty work back in that April time frame when he was having calls with ranking member Nunes, and many of us were raising those concerns to our Senate colleagues at the time.

So, this has been an open secret for a long, long time where. We're finally getting to the point that there are some consequences for what Trump and his allies have been doing.

COOPER: And your Republican colleagues, Senator John Thune, and other Senate Democrats, they basically said that the only question is whether President Trump's conduct is impeachable, not whether it's appropriate, and therein lies potentially a lot of cover for the president's allies.

MURPHY: Yes, again, I think that my Republican colleagues in the Senate, you know, have to really think about the precedent that gets set if they endorse the president's actions.

I mean, to me, the one sacred covenant that a president makes with the people who elect him is that he's going to use the power of the Oval Office to protect the nation and to advance the common interests, not to advance his personal political or financial interests.

And when you break that covenant, I just don't think you can stay in office because it signals that, you know, we're on our way to becoming much more like a tin pot dictatorship than a democracy.

[20:25:02]

And so, if Republicans don't vote to render some consequences to President Trump for the way that he's abused the office, I think they are just inviting future presidents to do the same.

So I'm not letting them off the hook yet. I hope they take the time to read this report, read the articles that get sent over. I'm not giving up on my Republican colleagues.

COOPER: Although, I mean, you know, some of your Republican colleagues -- I mean, Senator John Kennedy for one continue to peddle a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. I mean, several current and former Trump administration officials themselves have said on the record that just doesn't hold water.

You tweeted --

MURPHY: Yes.

COOPER: -- that the Republican Party is becoming the most important global asset of Russian intelligence. That is scary.

MURPHY: Yes, it's really scary. What the Russians want is for more chum to be thrown in the water regarding what happened in 2016. They love the idea that now we're engaging in this fantasy where Ukraine, not Russia, influenced the 2016 election.

I will say, though, in the last 24 hours since I sent out had that tweet you referenced, the majority of the Republicans in the Senate who have commented on Senator Kennedy's claims have made it pretty clear that the intelligence says Russia, not Ukraine interfered in the elections. So, Senator Kennedy is, I think, increasingly out on a limb here, and I'm glad that -- although I may not agree with the judgment that my Senate Republican colleagues render on the president's conduct, at least most of them are not engaged in this just wild Trump-driven conspiracy theory about what happened in 2016.

COOPER: And last, I want to ask you about the aid to Lebanon that was mysteriously withheld by the administration and then lifted. You recently got back from a trip there. Have you gotten any answers to why it was held up in the first place? Obviously, there's more attention being paid to this sort of thing.

MURPHY: Yes, so I think it's really important that, you know, we get to the bottom of why the Trump administration was quietly and mysteriously holding up security aid to Lebanon.

It's very similar to Ukraine. Lebanon is at a very perilous moment right now. The military badly needed the aid, and the president held it up without any explanation to Congress, exactly what happened in Ukraine.

Now I'm not suggesting there's as nefarious a motive here, but I would hope my Republican colleagues would start asking some questions. We have a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee coming up with State Department officials who oversee Ukraine. We're going to be asking those questions.

The bottom line is the president doesn't have this power. He can't decide to hold aid or put conditions on aid that Congress didn't. And all of us, Republicans and Democrats, have got to stop this behavior from the executive branch in its tracks before it gets out of control.

COOPER: Senator Chris Murphy, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

MURPHY: Thanks. COOPER: Up next, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Adam

Schiff, joins us live from Capitol Hill. We'll talk about the impeachment report that came out today and the comments he made about members of Congress who may have been complicit in the activities outlined in the report.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:32:40]

COOPER: Tonight, we've been discussing the revelations we weren't expecting in the intelligence committee impeachment report, the allegation that the man who sat right beside committee Chairman Adam Schiff, the entire process leading to this report, Ranking Member Devin Nunes may have been in some way involved.

According to Democrats, phone records from April tie Nunes to the efforts of Rudy Giuliani and others to dig up dirt on the Bidens as well as the ouster of the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Schiff today would only say, "There may be evidence that there were members of Congress complicit." Here's House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Devin Nunes has a right to talk to anybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But should he discuss what happened on those phone calls?

MCCARTHY: That's a question for Devin, but Devin has the right to talk to people. There's nothing wrong that Devin has done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Congressman McCarthy also said history will be very kind to those who oppose impeachment -- oppose impeachment, "I think Adam Schiff will have to answer for a great deal," he said.

Joining me now is the Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. Chairman Schiff, do you worry that you will have a lot to answer for? Because, I mean, this report for the first time lays out a case against the President accusing him of obstructing the impeachment investigation.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, I think the President is really the one who has a lot to answer for, and as we laid out in this report, the evidence is quite overwhelming that the President of the United States used the power of his office, $400 million of taxpayer military assistance to help an ally fighting the Russians as well as a desperately sought meeting in the White House to coerce an ally into doing his political dirty work, to doing these investigations that he thought would help his reelection.

The President will have to answer for that, and we will have to decide here in Congress whether this is what the founders had in mind when they provided a remedy to a President that is violating the public trust and endangering the national security.

COOPER: Today in your press statement, you had a very stark message to your Republican colleagues, essentially that if they're willing to let President Trump stonewall Congress like this, not giving documents from the White House, the Office of Management and Budget, State Department, that would fundamentally alter the balance of power between the branches of government for the worse. Basically in the future if there's a Democratic president, I mean, this could backfire on the Republicans.

[20:35:00]

SCHIFF: Well, without a doubt. And I think they need to think long and hard about this precedent that they would set if they're willing to say or do as Mick Mulvaney suggested, and just get used to it. Just get used to a president saying I will not honor a single congressional subpoena, and I particularly won't honor them if they're investigating wrongdoing or misconduct, malfeasance, even impeachment worthy misconduct.

If the Republicans are prepared to take that position, then they are inviting abuse from a president of either party. And this is a danger that the founding fathers warned us about, which is an excess of factionalism, factions of what they called the political parties and here if because of an allegiance to the party or the person of the president, they're going to betray their oath, they may very well rue the day that they did.

COOPER: The phone records, which were revealed in this, new details revealed showing Devin Nunes, the Ranking Member on the House Committee allegedly having phone conversations with Lev Parnas, when did you become aware of these phone calls? I mean, did you know during the hearings that these had occurred?

SCHIFF: You know, I can't go into specifics about when we acquired certain records, but we have known for some time of these contacts, and obviously they are concerning. We know that in the words of Dr. Hill, the President was having people do a domestic political errand for him, that errand being chasing dirt on Joe Biden, using the power of his office and taxpayer resources to try to coerce Ukraine into doing that.

If there were members of Congress that were also part of that domestic political errand for the President and using taxpayer resources to accomplish it, that's a problem. Now, our focus is on the President's conduct and those who were helping, assisting, and enabling the President in his abuse of his office in violation of the public trust. But if there are members of Congress that are engaged in light conduct, that's a serious problem as well.

COOPER: The phone records, again, that were revealed in today also show apparently obscured dash one phone number that Giuliani called. "The New York Times" is now reporting that you're investigating if that number is the President himself. Can you confirm that? SCHIFF: Well, we can't confirm yet who that dash one number belongs to, but certainly there was indications in the trial of Roger Stone that when he was communicating with the President, it would show up in phone records as a dash one number.

But here you have Rudy Giuliani in communication with the Office of Management and Budget, in communication with the White House, and you also have presidential conduct in the form of tweets and other actions around the timing of different communications. And so, we still have a lot of work to do in terms of identifying precisely who Giuliani was talking with and about what at what times of this chronology.

But even in the absence of that, the evidence is overwhelming that the President was using Giuliani to coerce Ukraine into these investigations. That's documented in text messages, witness testimony, but nonetheless, we continue to chase down other leads and these phone records provide other leads.

COOPER: So you are still investigating that particular phone call. You said you couldn't confirm that it was the President's number, I understand that. But you are -- that is -- can you confirm that you are investigating that?

SCHIFF: We certainly are investigating that. And look, Rudy Giuliani had only one client in the administration, and that was Donald Trump. So, who is he talking to in the course of this smear campaign against Yovanovitch? Who is he talking to in the pursuit of these political investigations in Ukraine?

There are certainly circumstantial evidence as to who those numbers might belong to in OMB, obviously Mick Mulvaney deeply involved in this scheme, but also the President of the United States.

COOPER: Vice President Pence also comes up in the report, and I just want to read this for our viewers. It says, "Ambassador Sondland raised the issue of the hold on security assistance. He told Vice President Pence that he was concerned that the security assistance had become tied to the issue of investigations and that everything is being held up until these statements get made. Vice President Pence nodded in response, apparently expressing neither surprise nor dismay at the linkage between the two."

Now, Vice President Pence through his spokesman had said that the Vice President, "never had a conversation with Gordon Sondland about investigating the Bidens, Burisma or the conditional release of financial aid to Ukraine based upon potential investigations.

I don't know if they were parsing words by saying the Vice President never had a conversation. In your report it's saying that the Vice President just nodded. I guess you could argue that's not a conversation if he's not actually saying something, but is your committee's report alleging that the Vice President is not telling the truth there or do you think they're just being cute.

[20:40:06] SCHIFF: We are reporting what Ambassador Sondland testified to, and this is an issue that we are also working on further evidence of, but this was the direct testimony of Ambassador Sondland that he raised this issue with the Vice President that everyone was in the loop and that includes the Vice President.

He raises this issue immediately before the Vice President is going to talk to Zelensky. Sondland knows this issue is going to come up. It's already in the press about how the military aid is being held up. This is a primary concern of President Zelensky.

And of course, Vice President Pence is already aware of this because it was in his briefing book, that July 25th call. He already knows about the President wanting these investigations, presuming he reads his own briefing books, which I think we can expect it because he is apparently a diligent reader of those briefing books.

So that is the evidence that was presented, but we continue to follow additional evidence along that line, which I'm not able to itemize. But obviously if the Vice President is being told this by Ambassador Sondland and has no reaction to the information, it's clearly not coming as a surprise to him.

And I do think you have to be very careful about how these administrations officials are parsing their words. After all, the Secretary of State Pompeo parsed his words to give the misleading impression that he wasn't really aware of what was in the call between President Trump and President Zelensky, and we would soon find out he was actually listening in on the call.

COOPER: Chairman Schiff, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

SCHIFF: Thanks Anderson.

COOPER: More to come, including the earful that President Trump got from the French president in London today. We'll discuss the very public pushback the President really gets face-to-face.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:45:39]

COOPER: As impeachment proceedings played out in Washington, a pretty remarkable scene unfolded in London between French President Emmanuel Macron and President Trump. The two sat side by side during a NATO news conference in London with Macron pointing his finger at Trump at times and publicly criticizing him for his strategy against ISIS. At one point, President Trump was asked if he had worked out a deal for France to take more captured ISIS fighters. Here's what happened next.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have not spoken to the president about that. Would you like some nice ISIS fighters? I can give them to you. You can take every one you want. EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE: Let's be serious. It is true that you have foreign fighters coming from Europe, but this is a tiny minority of the overall problem we have in the region. And the whole destabilization of the region makes the situation more difficult to fix the situation against ISIS.

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COOPER: It appears to be a criticism of the green light President Trump effectively gave Turkey in October to invade Northern Syria.

Joining us now is "Washington Post" columnist and CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Max Boot. Were you surprised at this? Because, I mean, it's sort of interesting to see President Trump who's, you know, usually the sort of belligerent one being kind of politely upgraded by the President just kind of sitting there quietly.

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes. Macron certainly stood up for himself. I mean, one of the things that jumped out at me, Anderson, is just in the big picture here, compare how testy and acrimonious this meeting was between Trump and Macron and how testy and acrimonious Trump has been in meetings with Trudeau or Merkel or Theresa May or other Democratic allies compared with the way that he acts with dictators.

He gets along very well with dictators like Erdogan, Kim Jong-un, Putin, that's all sweetness and light (ph), and it's very, very testy and unpleasant when he has meeting with these fellow Democrats.

Now, what the difference here I think is that normally Trump is the aggressor and the other party, the other Democratic leader is trying to basically placate him and to smooth over their differences, and Macron was not doing that.

He was basically giving as good as he got, and that's a change of strategy on his part and kind of a reversion to their earlier relationship, which remember in the spring of 2017 when they first met at their first NATO summit, they kind of had the handshake of death, you know, to see who could be stronger, but then everything seemed to turn much nicer. And, you know, Macron invited Trump to a military parade in Paris. Trump loved that. They seemed to have a bromance going.

But I think what Macron has figured out is he doesn't get anywhere by being nice to Trump, and I think other leaders have figured that out as well. You can, you know, kiss up to Trump, but he'll still kick you in the shins, so you might as well just stand up for yourself and your country.

COOPER: It's also -- President Trump is notoriously averse to face- to-face confrontation.

BOOT: Right.

COOPER: I mean he, you know, has people fired but he doesn't want to tell them they're fired. He tweets about it or send somebody to send them a letter. I'm wondering if other leaders are starting to use that to their advantage.

BOOT: I'm sure that they will. I mean, I think this -- you know, I'm sure that people in France appreciate Macron standing up to Trump who's intensely unpopular in Europe, and I'm sure other countries will see that and see that you're better off confronting Trump face-to-face rather than trying to be nice with him in person, then waiting for him to send a nasty tweet to you as he's flying back home.

COOPER: It is weird, though, that the U.S. is now pursuing relations in a friendlier way with Russia, with North Korea. You know, Erdogan is welcomed with open arms at, you know, at the White House. You know, Duterte in the Philippines, Trump seems to admire him as well, and yet the actual -- our actual allies, you know, get brusqueness.

BOOT: Yes. This is the world turned upside down. I think this is part of what Macron was referring to with his infamous interview from a few weeks ago where he said that NATO was suffering brain death. And what he was really talking about are the actions of Turkey and the United States, which are so at odds with what the other members of NATO think.

And of course, you have this bizarre spectacle today where Trump took umbrage of that said that was a very nasty comment, whereas Trump himself had said that NATO is obsolete. But in fact, in the way that he behaves with our NATO allies, Trump is basically proving Macron's point about NATO being on life support.

COOPER: Yes. Nasty he said.

BOOT: Yes.

COOPER: He loves that word. Max, thanks very much.

BOOT: Thank you.

COOPER: We'll be right back, more news ahead.

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[20:54:02]

COOPER: Let's check in with Chris to see what he's working on for "Cuomo Prime Time". Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Got to dig into these call logs. My one question will have one of the members of the committee on tonight is why didn't they ask about these call logs? Is this about what was public at that time or not or -- because who is calling, where and when leads to the big question, which is why.

And that takes you to the center theory of this 300-page report, which is all about intent. The case is only as good as the intent. Remember, it's not a court of law, it's a court of political opinion, that's what we're getting into.

COOPER: All right, you got five minutes from now. Chris, we'll see you then. Thanks very much.

Up next, giving Tuesday, I know you can help the Top 10 CNN Heroes of 2019 as we countdown to this weekend's all star tribute.

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[20:58:59]

COOPER: Today is giving Tuesday and our annual CNN Hero's celebration only a few days away. Here's how you can help the 2019 Top 10 CNN Heroes continue their important work.

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COOPER: Each of this year's Top 10 CNN Heroes proves that one person really can make a difference. And again, this year, we're making it easy for you to support their great work.

Just go to CNNHeroes.com and click Donate beneath any 2019 Top 10 CNN Hero to make a direct contribution to that hero's fundraiser. You'll receive an e-mail confirming your donation, which is tax deductible in the United States.

No matter the amount, you can make a difference in helping our heroes continue their life changing work. CNN is proud to offer you this simple way to support each cause and celebrate all these everyday people changing the world.

You can donate from your laptop, your tablet, or your phone. Go to CNNHeroes.com. Your donation in any amount will help them help others. Thanks.

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COOPER: And all of our Top 10 CNN Heroes are going to be honored at the 13th annual CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute. I'll be hosting along with my good friend, special guest, Kelly Ripa. That's this Sunday 8:00 p.m. Eastern. I hope you join us live for that.

The news continues right now. I want to hand it over to Chris for "Cuomo Prime Time." Chris?