Rudy Giuliani's Legal Jeopardy?; Trump Ukraine Defense Blown Up?
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: The player who made it happen, Nathan Bain, is from Freeport, Bahamas. And back in September, his family lost almost everything in Hurricane Dorian. At the time, his athletic department launched a GoFundMe page. And before yesterday, it had raised little more than $2,000. It has now topped $68,000. How about that? I will see you back here tomorrow for Thanksgiving. I'm Brooke Baldwin. "THE LEAD" starts right now.</s>ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: We now know what the president knew and when he knew it. THE LEAD starts right now. He knew he got caught before he released the aid -- the new development that could blow up the president's whole defense. The fall guy? President Trump adding distance between himself and Rudy Giuliani, as a new report says the president's lawyer was trying to make a buck in Ukraine while also working for Mr. Trump's political gain. Plus, strength in the numbers. A poll shows Joe Biden is still the candidate to beat, as a big four emerges in the Democratic race. Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Erica Hill, in for Jake. We begin this Thanksgiving eve with new details about Rudy Giuliani's efforts to help his number one client, Donald Trump. "The Washington Post" reporting President Trump's personal lawyer was in talks to represent a former top Ukrainian prosecutor who Giuliani was also working with to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. And it comes on the heels of another revelation about the timeline. We now know President Trump was aware of a whistle-blower complaint against him when he released the aid to Ukraine. That is, of course, after he withheld that nearly $400 million aid package for nearly two months. That revelation coming from "The New York Times." As CNN's Alex Marquardt reports, the new developments are poking holes in President Trump's adamant defense of no quid pro quo.</s>ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): New revelations deflating the White House's and Republican allies' defense over the president's actions with Ukraine.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There was no quid pro quo.</s>MARQUARDT: According to "New York Times," by the time the president released the aid money for Ukraine on September 12, he had been briefed by White House lawyers about the whistle-blower complaint against him. So, Trump knew about the complaint, which accused him of using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election. Republicans have argued there was no quid pro quo because Ukraine got the U.S. military aid money in the end, without launching the investigations that the president wanted into the Bidens and the 2016 election.</s>REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): They Got the call, they got the meeting and they got the money, and there was never an announcement of any type of investigation.</s>MARQUARDT: But the president knew the whistle-blower was trying to out him.</s>REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): It shows a consciousness of guilt. Then the president tries to backpedal and say no quid pro quo, and then, ultimately, because he's been caught, has to release that aid.</s>MARQUARDT: As the aid was held up over the summer, two officials in the Office of Management and Budget resigned. Testimony just released showed they expressed concerns about the hold, though an administration official disputes that was the reason they left. Right before the president released the money, he insisted to a point man on Ukraine, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, on a call that there was no quid pro quo. But Trump did tell Sondland that he wanted the Ukrainian President Zelensky to do the right thing.</s>TRUMP: I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.</s>MARQUARDT: Sondland testified that the president had told him to work with Rudy Giuliani, who, "The Washington Post" now reports, at the same time he worked for President Trump was negotiating a potential contract worth $200,000 with Ukraine's top prosecutor to represent him. The deal, however, never materialized.</s>MARQUARDT: Giuliani has said repeatedly that he hasn't had any business dealings in Ukraine. But "The Washington Post" reported that contracts had even been drafted up. Giuliani was reportedly going to be hired to help recover assets that were stolen from Ukraine. So, Erica, this drags Giuliani even deeper into this whole affair after two of his associates were already indicted and he, himself, is being investigated by federal prosecutors -- Erica.</s>HILL: Pull one little thread, and what it unravels. Alex, thank you. When we look at this new development with Rudy Giuliani, so potentially representing the former Ukrainian prosecutor who he was hoping would also deliver some dirt on Joe Biden, it is not a good look for Rudy Giuliani, but also, Bill, for the president, when we think back to the president reportedly telling his aides and even Zelensky, work with Rudy Giuliani. Talk to my guy Rudy Giuliani.</s>BILL KRISTOL, DIRECTOR, DEFENDING DEMOCRACY TOGETHER: Yes. You mentioned that point about pulling one thread. One thing -- and were talking about this before -- is if we didn't have the whistle- blower report, we would know none of this. It is not clear that all these people would have testified. Most of them are still in the government, Bill Taylor and Lieutenant Colonel Vindman. Fiona Hill would have gone back to Brookings and stuff. And they tried to suppress the whistle-blower report. People really haven't come to grips, when you think about it, not just the extortion, but the cover-up, because they knew about the whistle-blower report -- we learned that recently -- ahead of time. And it wasn't just that Trump knew about it and pretended, ooh, no quid pro quo, no quid pro quo, but he also seems to have talked to the DNI, Maguire, about -- and they clearly tried to prevent it from getting to the Hill. So, Rudy is one little piece of this. But the degree to which there was a genuine conspiracy going on that we came close to not knowing about is I guess what strikes me.</s>HILL: Well, there's so much that keep deliberating. And to your point about what we learned in this reporting just last night from "The New York Times," which may seem like a long time ago, but it is really a blink of an eye in the news cycle the way we do it these days, in this -- this line in the "Times" piece stands out. "The revelation could shed light at Mr. Trump's thinking at two critical points under scrutiny by impeachment investigators, his decision in early September to release $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine, and his denial to a key ambassador around the same time," as you're pointing out here, "that there was a quid pro quo with Kiev. Mr. Trump used the phrase, of course, before it had entered the public lexicon in the Ukraine affair." And when we look at the timeline and when the president, Toluse, decided to use these words, what does that do to the president's defense?</s>KRISTOL: Can I say one word? That word, those words, are the whistle-blower's report. So Trump was briefed on the whistle-blower report. I'm sorry. Go ahead.</s>TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, "THE WASHINGTON POST": No. Yes, that is a very important point. You have to remember that when Sondland testified, he said, basically, I asked the president an open-ended question, what do you want from the Ukraine? And the president goes directly to this sort of criminal defense, I want no quid pro quo.</s>HILL: Right.</s>OLORUNNIPA: And it just sort of makes you wonder whether or not that implicates him and whether he had a guilty conscience where he was saying, no, I didn't do this, when no one asked him about whether or not there was a quid pro quo. He just was answering the question about what he wanted from Ukraine, and he went with a very legalistic answer. And that's something that is starting to come together as we get all of these witnesses, and no one has been able to say why the aid was held up. And it's looking more and more like the Democrats are putting together their case that it was about trying to get these political investigations from the Ukrainians.</s>KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We did hear Adam Schiff last week talk about the timing and talk about the fact that, so, this call happens, the aid is being held. We had others -- I believe it was Fiona Hill -- who said the Ukrainians actually did figure out a lot earlier than what the Republicans were admitting to that it was being held up. I mean, they certainly can look at a calendar and know when Congress approved the money, and that, by August, they still hadn't gotten it. The quid pro quo, though, feels like someone said to Trump, you got to be careful, because that call sounded like you were asking for a quid pro quo, and because just the way when you listen -- when you listen to him, it's like, he will latch on to one phrase. And so then when he talks to Sondland, he says, no quid pro quo, no quid pro quo, but I do want a favor, and I do want -- I want this dirt, and he's not going to get a meeting and he's not going to get this aid until I get what I want.</s>JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, and it further erodes the Republican defense of Trump that we heard over and over again over the course of those hearings. There was the no harm, no foul. The got the aid anyway. There was that, oh, they were kicking the tires, they were just seeing if Zelensky was the real deal and he actually was going to go after corruption. The president knew about all of this before he spoke to Sondland, and this timeline moves back. It really just shatters that part of this scenario.</s>KRISTOL: And when he speaks to Sondland on September 9, it sounds like he's reading something that a lawyer wrote for him, because, remember, Sondland describes the four or five sentences which ends with no quid pro quo or begins with no quid pro quo. So that means Trump is working with people in the White House, in full knowledge that there's a whistle-blower report that says quid pro quo that they failed to stop from going to the Hill, and now he's got to get on record.</s>HILL: Right.</s>KRISTOL: And it's not good. So this also makes it unbelievable, for me, that Mulvaney and Cipollone, the White House counsel, are not testifying. They have direct knowledge of this. And why aren't they testifying?</s>HILL: Well, I think we know why.</s>KRISTOL: Donald Trump doesn't want them to.</s>HILL: They may have direct knowledge, exactly.</s>HILL: The question is, too, is, when we -- adding to this timeline, we keep learning these little threads. Does it change anything in terms of the calculus for Democrats?</s>FINNEY: It probably doesn't in the context of how Schiff is proceeding with the impeachment. He's already said, we're not going to play rope-a-dope with people going to court and what have you. And I think -- I suspect he knew that other pieces of information -- he certainly knew that the Southern District of New York was continuing its investigation of Rudy Giuliani, and as we have seen there, more and more that comes out, the connections. Giuliani even actually met with Manafort at some point to talk about Ukraine. So it's all -- at the same time he's trying to change the board of an energy company, a gas company, while he's trashing this other energy company and Joe Biden. So, point being, I think Schiff and his team understand, we have got to just keep moving with the facts that we have to make our case. At the same time, I don't think it hurts their case to have these other pieces of information out there, because, remember, when we get to the Senate, if we should get the Senate, that's where the Democratic senators can help really lay out and connect all these pieces, if we have them by then.</s>HILL: There is the question, though. I was talking about this earlier today. Republicans are in lockstep, as we know, right? Democrats are not necessarily. And this is becoming more and more concerning for a lot of Democrats. And so the longer this drags on, there's sort of a two-part issue here, right, Jackie? Because there's new information. So are you better off waiting to see what is all of the information that could be coming your way? We had no idea about this timeline during the public hearings, right? It came out afterwards. Or do you move through, at the risk of maybe missing one of the most important links that you're looking for?</s>KUCINICH: It really is a tight-wire act that we're seeing, because they don't want to drag this out and wait, perhaps, for a subpoena to go through or maybe new testimony, maybe new information, because the closer you get to Election Day for Democrats, it's just a fact, the harder any of this becomes, particularly for those members that are in these marginal districts. On the other side, they do have -- the simpler they keep this, the simpler the messages, the easier it is for their members to stay on board and to be able to explain it in a way to their constituents that they will be able to understand. When you get into the Mueller report territory, where it got very, very complicated, Republicans were very much able to muddy the water. That's when it -- that's when it gets harder for those Democrats.</s>HILL: Well, when it comes to his personal attorney in Ukraine, we know the president now says, you should ask Rudy about what was happening there. But that actually sounds a lot like what he said about one of his other attorneys who's now sitting behind bars. That reminder ahead. Plus, a few months ago, she was full steam ahead on the impeachment inquiry, but now this member of Congress is silent. We asked her why.