there in public, it's much harder for folks to differentiate. they headache the arguments from both sides, they have trouble figuring out where the truth lies. when you see everyone around the president understanding what he's done is a violation. >> nicolle, nice to see you around these parts. >> it's late. thanks for joining us, rachel has the night off but she'll be back tomorrow, don't despair. in a day when donald trump dispensed any notion that he would seek the help of foreign governments to aid in his political dirty work, we began the day with even more breaking news on this fast moving and growing scandal. here is the top of the new report from "the new york times." the reporters report this, quote, two of president trump's top invoice to ukraine drafted a statement for the country's new

president in august that would have committed ukraine to pursuing investigations sought by mr. trump into his political rifl rivals, according to three people briefed on the effort. the drafting of the statement marks new evidence of how mr. trump's fixation with ukraine began driving senior diplomats to bend american foreign policy to the president's political agenda in the weeks after the july 25th call between the two leaders. so just backing up for a minute here, july 25th is when president trump has his phone call with ukraine's new president. and according to the white house's own notes on the call, the ukrainian leader brought up military aid that his country was expecting from the u.s., military aid that donald trump had put on hold. donald trump said to him on that call, quote, i would like you to do us a favor, though. he asked the ukrainian president help cast doubt on russia's responsibility for attacking the

2016 u.s. election. then he asked him for help ginning up dirt on trump's potential bill rival joe biden. the white house put the notes from that call on a super secret server meant for highly classified code word protected material. now we know, according to "the new york times" tonight, that trump's top ukraine diplomats then set about trying to get ukraine's president to publicly commit to doing trump's bidding. the statement was drafted by gordon sondland and kurt volker. the statement committing ukraine to investigate conspiracy theories about joe biden and about russia not having hacked the democrats in 2016. "the sometimetimes" says, quote unclear whether it was delivered to the ukrainian president but no statement was released publicly under his name. they continue, the drafting of

the statement was an effort to pacify mr. trump and mr. giuliani and normalize relations between the two countries as ukraine faced continuing conflict with russia. mr. sondland and mr. volker believed that mr. giuliani was, quote, poisoning mr. trump's mind about ukraine and that eliciting a public commitment from mr. zelensky to pursue the investigations would induce mr. trump to more fully support the ukrainian government. as we said, all of this comes on a day when president trump asked yet another country, this time china, to investigate joe biden, erasing all doubt about whether he could or would or will happily collude with foreign powers in plain sight to boost his reelection prospects. with the idea that the president's mind is being poisoned against an allied country and that u.s. diplomats were scrambling to try to contain the damage is a frightening prospect on its own. joining us, mike schmidt is a

washington correspondent with "the new york times." he helped break the story tonight. help us through the rest of the fact pattern we have now, if you take the rudy dossier that the state department inspector general turned over to congress yesterday, you take this effort, that that conspiracy theory had filtered down. >> you have to put all that aside. you have to look at this in the context of the july call. in july, the topic of these investigations is brought up by trump on the call with zelle encan en can zelensky, the ukrainian president. a month later you have two diplomats coming up with a statement that commits the ukrainian government to investigating the things that donald trump wants them toen, the things that will be politically advantageous to him. these diplomats are trying to get the ukrainians to say it, to put this statement out, because if they say it publicly, it's

different than saying it privately on a call with the president. if they say it publicly, it locks them in to doing that, to doing what they say they will do to investigating the people that trump wanted them to. >> what did these diplomats want, why did they want to lock zelensky in? >> well, that's the question. what it appears from our reporting is they are trying to pacify giuliani and trump. they think that giuliani has poisoned trump on ukraine and they believe this is getting in the way of the entire relationship between these two countries. and in order to fix that they need to sort of get giuliani and trump to back off. so if the ukrainians commit to this, commit to investigating it, then maybe they'll go away and these diplomats will be able to do their job. we have to evidence this was tied to the aid. this was simply trying to get trump to back off and allow the state department to do its day to day work that he was trying to get in the way of.

>> is there any evidence that mike pence or anybody else who was up the chain of command from these diplomats had any conversations about the aid? >> in our story tonight, we don't tie any of this to mike pence. it's just these two senior officials that were dedicated to dealing with ukraine that were the folks who, you know, had worked on this statement and had passed it over to an intermediate of zelenskile eens zelensky to look at. they decided not to do it because they didn't want to get more deeply involved in united states politics. >> you used the word "poisoning," and it literally jumps off the page. whose assessment was it that donald trump's mind had been poisoned against the ukrainians and who did the poisoning? >> volker and sondland, these two senior state department officials, knew what giuliani was telling trump and they knew how angry trump was getting with

them. trump was convinced that ukraine was a corrupt country. he didn't want to do any dealings with them. and they believed this was being fed by giuliani who had all this different information and dossiers he was developing on what happened in ukraine. so they were trying to get giuliani to stop doing that to trump, to stop infecting this mind with these different things. and they thought by getting the ukrainians to commit to it, maybe trump would be at bay. >> mike schmidt, washington correspondent for "the new york times," thanks for your reporting and thanks for joining us tonight. even as we're getting this new reporting on president trump's elaborate pressure campaign on ukraine, the impeachment inquiry into that pressure campaign is unfolding quickly in the house. one of the diplomats who reportedly drafted that statement for the ukrainian president that we were just talking to mike schmidt about, kurt volker, resigned last

friday. he was deposed on capitol hill today for 9 1/2 hours. he's not the only trump official resigning. energy sect riretary rick perryo investigators want to talk to, said yesterday he would willingly cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. but tonight politico is resigning next month. we cannot say for certain why perry is reportedly resigning. joining us now is someone who may want to talk to rick perry, california congressman rick swalwell. he was at today's deposition of kurt volker. congressman swalwell, that's for being with us. we now know that ambassador

volker was one of two diplomats who took this list of trump's poison mind request to the ukrainians. where do you see that fitting into the fact pattern emerging? >> what we saw today was further evidence that there was a shadow shakedown under way. and it fits right in with what the whistle-blower complaint alleged, that there was this ongoing scheme to get the ukrainians to play ball with two asks that the president of the united states had, one which was to exonerate russia for their role in the 2016 election and interfering, and two, investigate my upcoming 2020 potential opponent joe biden. the ongoing scheme went up to that phone call and beyond. i'm not going to comment on the reporting as it relates to mr. volker today, but again, that conduct by the president is leveraging u.s. tax dollars to benefit himself in a u.s.

election. that's what's so improper about it. >> is there anything you could say, you were in the 9 1/2 hour deposition today. >> iv was. >> fox news and abc is reporting on a series of encrypted messages. can you tell us about those messages? >> we have evidence that corroborates what the whistle-blower said. we also see that state department officials from the beginning were concerned about rudy giuliani's role with ukraine and that just as recently as a couple of weeks ago, before the whistle-blower complaint was made public, that one official had identified a concern about tying security assistance to the ukrainians in exchange for helping donald trump's political campaign. >> congressman, there are so many parallels between donald trump's alleged conduct in the russia investigation and donald trump's really sort of out in the open conduct as it pertains to asking the president of

ukraine to dirty up the bidens. what is there left in the whistle-blower complaint that donald trump hasn't already publicly confessed to? >> we actually have a presidential confession to extortion. we have a job to give him a fair process, we're going to do that. but wheniv ive was a prosecutor nicolle, when the suspect confessed to the crime, that reduced the number of witnesses you have to talk to. we'll talk to witnesses, look at the evidence, hope the president and his team cooperate. but i don't think this has to drawn on beyond this calendar year, because we have sufficient evidence of what the president has done. but that's not to put a deadline on it, just to say that, you know, we have witnesses who are cooperating. we're seeking testimony from others. and the president himself has actually admitted to the conduct. >> ambassador volker, not a household name, and this has come about so quickly, unlike

the mueller probe where don mcgahn and others became household names, can you put volker's role in some sort of context? is he someone who was uncomfortable with donald trump's demand that the ukrainian leader dirty up biden? is he someone who believed there was a quid pro quo, either implicitly or explicitly? >> he's a professional diplomat. he knows that when the u.s. asks ukraine of something, because of how much they depend on us economically, militarily, that they will take that ask seriously. what is offensive to me is that you have this special envoy in place and then you have a rogue emissary like rudy giuliani who the president prioritizes his take on ukraine and his

relationships with ukrainians more than the seasoned professional who actually was there to advance trump's personal interests. >> in 9 1/2 hours, did it become clear to you whether ambassador volker believes the military aid to ukraine was tied to president trump's request to dirty up the bidens? >> we have evidence now that there were state department officials who believed it was tied to whether or not ukraine would participate and help donald trump in his upcoming election. so we have a responsibility now to further investigation that. but again, you don't have to go much farther than donald trump's own confession and the transcript or the call readout that he provided, where he said, "i have a favor to ask, though." most of the people don't say, "hey, this is a quid pro quo." he came pretty damn close.

>> he sure did. congressman, we appreciate you spending some time with us. ambassador michael mcfaul is a former ambassador to russia under president obama. thank you for coming back, you and i talked at 4:00. you know ambassador volker. at 4:00 we were just learning a little bit about this 9 1/2 hour deposition, it hadn't wrapped up yet. if you could respond to what the congressman just said that he didn't answer directly but after 9 1/2 hours of testimony, he believes there are state department officials who understand that the military aid was connected in some way to that request to dirty up the bidens. >> well, that's because there's another ambassador, an acting ambassador, not a household name, nicolle, his name is bill taylor. he's a former ambassador to ukraine and now is serving as acting ambassador. he says this is crazy to link those two things in a conversation with mr. volker and our eu ambassador.

and i just want to underscore another piece that connects some of these dots. if you go back and look who was on the delegation, the presidential delegation to the inauguration to president zelensky, it was led by seating perry, but kurt volker was also on that trip. and the eu ambassador, ambassador sondland, was also on that trip. those are the two ambassadors, volker and sondland, that are now writing this statement to try to pressure zelensky to investigate hunter biden. and i want to just underscore, it is highly unusual for the eu ambassador, he is a political appointee, he's there because he gave money to president trump, to deal with matters involving ukraine. mr. volker is a seasoned diplomat, you're right about that. but he was an unpaid official working on this and was not the special envoy to all of the

ukraine. he's supposed to be working to end the war in the danbas. i'm sure he got tangled in this, i know kurt well, i'm sure he doesn't like to be tangled in this. but they'ir writing that statemt to put pressure on president zelensky i think is inappropriate for state officials. >> do you believe that he became the first witness in the impeachment inquiry because he sees this as you do or do you think he's in there sort of fighting for his own legal and political equities? >> i obviously don't know. i want to say i'm speculating. but i think ambassador volker signed up to this job to try to end the war in danbas. i've seen him many times while doing that job, he was valiantly trying to do that. in the middle of all that, president trump, with his other special envoy, rudy giuliani,

decides that the only thing they care about with ukraine is, one, investigating hunter biden and the corruption, quote unquote, of the vice president, and to underscore, there has been zero evidence to substantiate that allegation, and two, he wants to get putin off the hook and blame the ukrainians for the interference in 2016. and my guess is, and i'm just guessing here, ambassador volker is trying to create a relationship between president zelensky and president trump, and he thinks, if i can just get president zelensky to say this statement on the record, they can repair the relationship. i think it was the wrong thing to do but i can understand getting dragged into the muck if you're trying to end the war in ukraine. >> just from a diplomatic lens, putting your u.s. foreign policy

hat on, how weird is it that they had to cajole this whole situation when the actual policy question at hand is protecting an american ally from russia? >> you know, i'm so glad you asked that, because again, based on the reporting, and i'm just reading the reporting like you, but they're going out of their way to get the president of ukraine to make a statement to appease the president of the united states who wants to investigate his political opponent, right? why isn't there somebody that walks into the oval office and says, mr. president, this is wrong, mr. president, we have national security interests in defending the sovereignty of ukraine. we are seeking to deter russia from what they're doing in ukraine. why didn't the national security adviser do that? why didn't secretary pompeo do it? he's claimed on the record now he was on the call because he really knew the policy well. why isn't he the one telling the

president, you can't do this, this is a cockamamie scheme, there are no facts here, mr. giuliani is not an expert on ukraine, he doesn't know who mr. shokin is, he doesn't know who mr. lutsenko is, you have to clean this up and advance the interests of the united states. that after all is the oath of office the president took. why somebody wouldn't just tell him that, seriously, we have to know why everybody is so afraid of this guy that they won't tell him you can't do that. >> it reminds me of the explanation that former acting director of the fbi andy mccabe gives for opening the full investigation into whether donald trump was wittingly or unwittingly advancing russia's national security interests, because once again, the kind of almost reflexive u.s. foreign policy to aid an american ally, to help them protect themselves against russia, is not on the other side of a red line, it's up for grabs, in what you describe as a scheme. and i wonder if you think that

is worthy of more probing, of understanding just how many people were in on a scheme. >> i think that's an excellent question. i would love to know what secretary perry and ambassadors volker and the others on that delegation were discussing with mr. zelensky months before this phone call, right? that was what vice president pence was supposed to go on, they downgraded it. it seems to me the policy towards ukraine got hijacked by a focus on two objectives, you know, undermining the story that russia -- not the story, the facts that russia intervened in our election in 2016, and searching for dirt on the bidens and everything else got put to the side. i think we need to know when this started and how many people were involved in it. it sounds like it was more than just one phone call. >> it sure does. amaz ambassador, we always end up with more questions than

answers, but for that i'm grateful. thank you so much for being here. we have a lot more to get to on yet another nonstop news day, including the not so veiled request from the president to another foreign power. that's just ahead. ahead. performance comes in lots of flavors. there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪ our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition... for strength and energy! whoo-hoo! great-tasting ensure. with nine grams of protein and twenty-seven vitamins and minerals. ensure, for strength and energy. and now for their service to the community,

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president trump, already under threat of impeachment for asking the president of ukraine to investigating his political rival, former vice president joe biden, he did it last july in a phone call that the white house at first tried to keep secret. so it makes it even more puzzling that today the president's impulse was to do the same thing, again, only louder, in front of the cameras and in public. >> reporter: what exactly did you hope zelensky would do about the phone call? >> well, i would think if they were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the bidens. it's a very simple answer. they should investigate the bidens because how does a company that's newly formed and all these companies, if you -- and by the way, likewise, china should start an investigation

into the bidens, because what happened to china is just about as bad as what happened with, uh, with ukraine. [ inaudible question ] i haven't, but it's certainly something we can start thinking about. >> that really happened. if the first potential article of impeachment is ukraine, might china be article number 2? joining success matt mius is ma former chief justice spokesman. what did you think when you saw donald trump seek out and ask in the case of china, really threaten them with all the leverage, in his words, that evaluated over china, if they don't cooperate with his political efforts? >> in one sense it's stunning to see an american president stand there in front of the white house and launch a brazen attack on the rule of law and democracy in this country. it's hard to say anybody could

be surprised at donald trump doing this, this is the same candidate who famously said, "russia, if you're listening." we recently found out he told the russian foreign minister and russian ambassador in the oval office that he wasn't worried about russian intervenes. he told george stephanopoulos that he would welcome interference from a foreign adversary. it's not surprising but i think it adds real urgency for democrats in the house. these not going to stop inviting foreign countries to help him in the election. what it does is raise the stakes for impeachment because it means as long as he's in office, we may not have a free and fair election in this country. that is an large thing to say in the united states of america. >> i remember all the post-9/11

analysis was about our failure of imagination, to fail to imagine what threats we face. i wonder if we are engaged in the same sort of failure of imagination. we are only having this conversation, democrats are only proceeding with impeachment, they didn't move to impeachment after the other two incidents you named, "russia, are you listening," or telling george stephanopoulos, yeah, i would listen to a foreign power. it was after a whistle-blower complaint revealed the substance of this one phone call. i know there's a political need for impeachment to be focused but are we failing to imagine what else goes on? >> look, i think impeachment ought to be focused on the thing that's most likely to lead to conviction in the senate. but the reason to impeach the president and remove him from office is because of all of the things he does to threaten democracy in the country. look what he's done with trying to build a wall, which he briefs building the wall before the

election is key to his survival. so you see him pushing the bureaucracy, inviting people to break the law to seize lands, telling them, if you break the law, i will pardon you, like his invitation to china to interfere, it's the kind of thing that would have been inconceivable in the beginning of his administration. now you see the guardrails come off and there aren't people around him to tell him know who push back. we have to ask the question, is there anything that you can imagine that he wouldn't do, any norm he wouldn't violate, any law he wouldn't break to win reelection? ive i have a hard time answering that question. >> what do the democrats do with all of this evidence that donald trump is providing about his own guilt? >> well, they'll obviously have to use it. you make the point, whatever percentage you attach to him being impeached, convicted, removed from office right now, i think it's hard for that to be

accurate because you can't factor in how he's going to behave. in just the week and a half now since nancy pelosi said the house is going to proceed with impeachment, you've seen the president really kind of spiral out of control. i think the display we saw yesterday, it was just full of self pity and anger and you see him follow it up today with these invitations to foreign countries to interfere. you know, self impeaching is one way to put it. the other way is, he is possibly changing public opinion in a way that's even more effective than what democrats in the house can do, and that can have a real, you know, real say on his ultimate political prospects. >> it's a good point. and lots of potty words yesterday when break right threw and doesn't help him where he's already hurting with suburban moms. my last question is public opinion. cbs had the polls swinging to 55% of the public supporting the commencement of an impeachment inquiry. does that embolden democrats or reassure democrats? we've had lots of conversations

about how wary they are of impeachment. >> they're emboldened by that, but they're also emboldened by the president's behavior and the defense he's making for himself. his defense has largely been to gaslight the public, saying what you saw in this transcript didn't happen, it was a perfect call, it wasn't pressuring a foreign leader. instead of gaslighting, now he's trying to move the goal posts and say, now it's acceptable to pressure a foreign leader. the problem is that is it's an overwhelming overwhelmingly unattractive move for the american public. he could have said, maybe i went too far but it's not impeachable. that's not what he's done, he's saying that inviting intervenes from a foreign country is okay. that's very tricky to do.

>> i appreciate you staying up with me. ahead, more on vice president pence's see no evil, hear no evil strategy, straight ahead. ar no evil strategy, stra ahead. if your gums bleed when you brush, you may have gingivitis. and the clock could be ticking towards bad breath, receding gums, and possibly... tooth loss. help turn back the clock on gingivitis with parodontax. leave bleeding gums behind. parodontax.

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so today the vice president was in scottsdale, as rarizoari doing what we usually think of as normal stuff for a vice president. when it was time to take questions from reporters, the vice president got asked about, what else, the impeachment

scandal currently engulfing his boss, the president. vice president pence got asked about the allegation that the president leaned on ukraine to investigate the last vice president and current trump political rival joe biden. pence's opinion? go for it. >> when you hold the second highest office in the land, it comes with unique responsibilities, not just to be above impropriety but to be above the appearance of impropriety. clearly in this case there are legitimate questions that ought to be asked. >> hmm. when vice president pence said legitimate questions that ought to be asked, he was essentially parroting and defending the president's unfounded and debunked conspiracy theories about joe biden, even as the vice president has become the latest high profile administration figure to become embroiled in the scandal. "the washington post" reported last night that pence was involved in trump's alleged efforts to pressure ukraine.

aides to pence said he had either not known or not understood what the president was allegedly doing when he asked the president of ukraine for a favor. but there he was today, in arizona, telling reporters that the president did nothing wrong in that call. as this scandal continues to hang over the white house, more people in trump's orbit are coming under more and more scrutiny, even before the reporting this week about pence, this there was attorney general bill barr whose name came up several times during president trump's now infamous july 25th conversation with the ukrainian president. then it was secretary of state mike pompeo who finally admitted that he was on the line listening during trump's july call with the ukrainian leader. also that he was passed oppo documents by rudy giuliani that targeted joe biden and the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine before she was removed from her post. the vice president's staff is now scrambling to tried to distance him from the scandal,

maintaining that while he personally delivered the message that military aid was being withheld, he was totally unaware of trump's prior request for dirt on biden. today pence found himself in the dubious position of having to explain that to reporters. >> reporter: can you say what you spoke about with president zelensky when you met with him in poland, and whether you mentioned the bidens at all to him? >> well, as i said the day after that meeting, we focused entirely in my meeting with president zelensky of ukraine on the issues that president trump had raised as a concern, name lly the lack of support from european partners to ukraine and issues of corruption in ukraine. that was all we discussed. the simple truth is that those are the same issues that the president raised with president

zelensky in their call. anyone who looks at the president's transcript will see that the president was raising issues that were appropriate, that were of genuine interest to the american people. >> greg miller is national security correspondent to "the washington post" i'm such a fan of all your reporting but this story jumps off the page, how is it going to land with the guy in the office with no corners? it seemed to me that pence did a little bit of dancing today. >> yeah, i mean, i think he's in a tough spot. he has so far in this presidency walked this tightrope where he sort of is supporting the president at every step but simultaneously keeping some distance away from him, enough distance that he hasn't been terribly tainted by all these scandals. i think in our story today we

were trying to write about just how difficult it is to kind of accept that assertion of obje obliviousness in this case given how many red flags there were swirling all around the vice president while he's delivering these messages, these powerful and important messages to this new leader in ukraine. >> and obliviousness is the perfect word, because if you take what pence said in the tape we played, you have to believe that he didn't know that when he said investigate corruption, what zelensky heard was investigate biden. is that your understanding of pence's position today? >> i think that is pence's position. and i've had many senior officials, including senior officials in this administration, say they find it highly implausible that pence didn't read the transcript of that july 25th call between trump and zelensky before pence then goes off to meet with

zelensky. it would border on malpractice for him not to do that when he's meeting a new leader, with a such a thin resume at that point, frankly, that zelensky had. you would want to know if you were vice president of the united states, what's he been like in conversations with the president. that would be the first place you turn. but even if you accept that claim from pence in this case, you would have to ignore everything that giuliani was doing and saying in a very public fashion, and all of these other alarms that were happening in and around him at the white house. >> the other pieces in the public record include your reporting that pence's national security adviser was listening in on the call. >> yes. >> so you have to believe that pence took too much ambien and wasn't awake long enough on that flight to read the briefing paper and that pence's national

security adviser, it would seem like an actionable offense if the national security adviser doesn't brief the vice president. >> thank you for reminding me of that, that was one of the most important parts of our story, that pence's national security adviser was on that call, in the situation room listening to trump speak with zelensky on july 25th, and astonishingly, the officials we talked to said that national security adviser, keith kellogg, basically asserts he saw nothing unusual or heard nothing unusual, nothing jumped out at him that required any kind of response or reaction in that call. so, i mean, you're really caught here when these guys stake out a position like that. either you're not paying attention and kind of sleeping through this stuff, or you're so inured at this point to the kind of outrageous things that happen

each and every day that you're no longer capable of distinguishing something when it comes along as egregious as this, asking the leader of another country to dig up dirt on a democratic presidential candidate no longer registers with you as a problem. >> it's an unbelievable state of affairs. greg, thank you so much for this reporting and spending time with us, we're grateful. up next, there's one story that's been flying under the radar for the last few weeks but i suspect that won't be the case much longer. that story straight ahead. stay with us. that story straight ahead. stay with us

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you ever wish you weren't a motaur? sure. sometimes i wish i had legs like you. yeah, like a regular person. no. still half bike/half man, just the opposite. oh, so the legs on the bottom and motorcycle on the top? yeah. yeah, i could see that. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. okay, i'm going to go out on a limb here and say maybe it's time for rachel to start playing the lottery. >> we're talking about this impeachment story right now. what should we be talking about that we're not talking about because of this?

>> for example, there's another whistle-blower. >> that was rachel and stephen colbert. less than 48 hours ago, and lo and behold, that story she was talking about is blowing up. the reporter who broke it join us next. us next. ♪ (vo) the subaru ascent. dog tested. dog approved. subaru establishes national make a dog's day. helping hard-to-adopt dogs find homes.

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aaddiction. how juuline hooked kids and ignited an public health crisis." other news outlets report- juul took $12.8 billion from big tobacco. markets e-cigarettes with kid friendly flavors and uses nicotine to addict them. 5 million kids use e-cigarettes. juul is "following big tobacco's playbook." and now, juul is pushing prop c to overturn e-cigarette protections. vote no on juul. no on big tobacco. no on prop c. so you're forgiven if you didn't realize from are two whistle-blowers. but there are. one has to do with president trump pressuring ukraine to dig up dirt on joe biden. the other has to do with the

president's taxes. now that whistle-blower has been flying under the radar. we get our first heads up in august when the famously understated chairman of the house ways and means committee, ritchie neil, let it slip. chairman neil has the right to request the president's tax returns which he did in april. ever since chairman neil has been quietly arm wrestling the treasury department for them. that case was a real sleeper until late august when chairman neil suddenly released a mountain of legal filings and buried in there was this bombshell. quote on july 29th, 2019, the committee received an unsolicited, the word unsolicited is underlined in here, an unsolicited communication from a federal employee setting forth credible allegations of quote evidence of possible misconduct, specifically, potential quote inappropriate efforts to influence the mandatory audit program of a president's income tax returns. that was in august.

ways and means chairman ritchie neil revealing a whistle-blower had alleged possible misconduct related to the audit of the president's taxes. for weeks there's been radio silence until now. last week chairman neil revealed he's trying to make the whistle-blower complaint public. this week he said the house is sending their top lawyer to go talk to the whistle-blower. >> there's been a report that there's another whistle-blower complaint about efforts to influence the audit of the president's taxes. have you seen that complaint? >> it is accurate to say that there has been an individual who has stepped forward and made some allegations, and the legal counsel for the ways and means committee, doug letter, who has argued in front of the supreme court, they are proceeding on the basis of trying to interview the individual. >> so all of a sudden there are all these smoke signals that

something is happening with this second whistle-blower. and tonight finally "the washington post" fills in some of the blanks. they report that the whistle-blower is a quote career official at the irs who alleges that at least one political appointee in the treasury department attempted to improperly interfere with the annual audit of the president or vice president's tax returns, a process that is quote supposed to be walled off from political appointees and interference. joining us is tom ham berger of "the washington post", one of the reporters who broke that story. congratulations, viewers of this show have been following this story for a long time. how did you reach this breakthrough, and what's your understanding of the latest? >> we did understand, as you pointed out there were hints. chairman neil alluded to it in a court filing for that ongoing case he has seeking the president's tax returns. and once the very explosive charges from the intelligence

community whistle-blower burst forth, there was more attention looking back. there is a second whistle-blower? we found that this second whistle-blower has emerged. we were able to talk briefly with this individual. and we talked also with chairman neil's staff, with the whistle-blower complaint submitted to chairman neil and to finance committee chairman chuck grassley. we got confirmation that there is such a complaint, and as you just described, we understand the complaint deals with potential interference and audit of the president's tax returns. >> and you alluded to the intelligence community whistle-blower. that complaint becoming public changed everything happening in washington. is there any timeline or prediction that this whistle-blower complaint will become public in a similar manner? >> well, the timeline isn't precisely clear, but we do know that democrats on the ways and means committee are proceeding hoping to make it public. that's what chairman neil has said. and just tonight after our story

appeared, the ranking member of the finance committee, senator wyden of oregon, came forward and said, this is something we need to investigate and we need a bipartisan review of this complaint as soon as possible. so will it emerge publicly, will more details emerge? we haven't seen the complaint, only heard about it from those on capitol hill when have seen it. richard neil has described the complaint as serious and that he has a sense of urgency in trying to find out whether there was, in fact, political interference in an audit of the president's tax returns. >> i cannot think of anything, not even this country's state secrets, that is guarded more ferociously than donald trump's taxes. do you have any indication, any reporting it could be an audit related to the president or vice president, do you have any indication about what the substance is that makes up this complaint? >> so our understanding is that -- and this complaint is not, as we understand it from

those who have seen it on capitol hill, does not deal specifically with the president or the vice president's taxes. but rather with some kind of pressure that was placed upon those career irs officials who are tasked annually with reviewing the president and vice president's tax returns. and that's done in a process that is meant to be fully insulated from political pressure. and what this whistle-blower complaint deals with is an allegation that there was, in fact, some political pressure applied on those who were reviewing the audit. >> it's an unbelievable piece of reporting. we're grateful to have it, grateful to have you spend some time with us. "the washington post," tom hamburger, thank you. more to come tonight, don't go anywhere, we'll be right back. your home at a great price, the way it works best for you, i'll take that. wait honey, no. when you want it. you get a delivery experience you can always count on.

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performance comes in lots of flavors. ♪ (dramatic orchestra) there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪ on tuesday, secretary of state mike pompeo sent a letter to house democrats essentially telling them to bug off and threatening to block the depositions of state department officials called to testify in

the impeachment inquiry. but tucked in at the end of that letter, the secretary of state also said that he plans to respond to a congressional subpoena calling for documents related to the ukraine investigation. he said that he intends to respond by the deadline, which is october 4th, which of course is tomorrow. so it will be interesting to see what, if anything, gets produced tomorrow. also tomorrow the house intel committee plans to hold a closed-door meeting with michael atkinson. he's the inspector general for the intelligence community and unlike the last time atkinson was on the hill, the whistle-blower complaint is now out in the open. so presumably he should be a lot more free to speak his mind in front of congressional investigators. if all that were not enough, rachel will join me on my show, "deadline white house" tomorrow to talk about this plus her new book "blowout." then the best news, she'll be back here in this chair tomorrow night. quite a friday, as she would say, eat your wheaties.

it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." hi are, i never get to say good evening. >> you've come to me ten seconds early. >> see, she's never early. >> no, the tradition with rachel is she knows i'm not ready, she gives me usually about 40 seconds to get ready. >> i could sing, i could do something. >> so nicole, i spent the day in washington where needless to say heads are spinning on the developments of the day. and the feeling here is that impeachment is inevitable. and if something can become more inevitable, it's donald trump, who finds out how to make it more inevitable every day. >> the city does feel different. and he does appear, at least today, to be making their jobs a little easier. >> yeah. he's doing their work for them. thank you, nicole. >> have a good show. another day, another smoking gun. today we actually got two more smoking