testifying, if ambassador bolton, dr. hill or others harbored any misgivings about the prop righty about what they were doing, they never shared those misgivings with me then or later. he also said he was not aware that burisma, the ukrainian energy company hunter biden served on the board of was connected to theed bience until much later. bolton encouraged hill what he had seen to the national security council lawyer. hill explained he wasn't going to get involved if whatever drug deal sondland and acting chief of staff mick mulvaney were cooking up. sources told cnn. >> he has relevant information and we do want him to come in to testify. >> wolf, obviously, there is conflicting testimony on some of these key events and one person who was there that can clear it up, john bolton and we'll see if he speaks to investigators. >> excellent reporting from sara murray. we are also following breaking news on the california wildfire disaster. a new blaze stoked by hurricane-force wind gusts has forced new evacuations. cnn's bill

kupperman, bolton's deputy. i think they're happy to leave that in the hands of the judge in that decision. but i want to just -- i mean, so much of bolton's conduct has been brought to light. and some of it by your colleague greg miller who has an incredible piece of reporting in today's "washington post" about two meetings. your colleague greg miller writes in a pair of volatile meetings senior white house officials including then national security adviser john bolton. president trump was seeking to use the power of his office to pressure ukraine to deliver damaging information on former vice president joe biden and his son. john bolton's been in washington a long time. if people were testifying under oath on capitol hill about events that were untrue, if things were showing up that were untrue, i think the long arms of sort of bolton would be aware of it and would be correcting passages like this one in your paper. can you bring to life any more of this reporting? >> well, it's certainly, nicole, would be bol

bolton, the national security adviser. gordon sondland, who is a trump donor and ambassador to the european union who was going to testify on thursday to congress. then you've got fiona hill today, right? and then you've got mick mulvaney who is acting white house chief of staff. you've got rudy giuliani, the president's personal attorney. now, just -- i just want to read this. and just tell me what you think of this one graph here. it says mr. bolton, because he was so concerned about what they were doing over there, instructed fiona hill, who is gonna -- who testified today. the senior director of russian and eurasia affairs to notify the chief lawyer for the national security council that mr. giuliani was working with mick mulvaney, the acting white house chief of staff, on a rogue operation with legal implications. ms. hill told the investigators according to two people familiar with her closed-door testimony. that's a pretty big statement right there. >> it's huge. it means that inside the white house at the very inne

bolton pulled ms. hill aside to instruct her. he subsequently in the drama that bolton could describe inside the west wing. >> let's let this soak in for a moment that we may have reached the point where the president of the united states is so off the reservation that even someone like john bolton, even someone who adheres to extreme ideology and postures can't take it anymore and feels like it was inappropriate. and if you hear from someone like that in a deposition or even in public testimony, cannot ignore it. and where i think this is going, nicole, is that the gop defense of trump will have a shelf life. they will be unable to sustain this process-oriented defense, this defense that they're attacking the credibility of good career public servants. that has a shelf life. that can't keep going once the facts take over. and when someone like bolton testifies to his dismay over potential unethical or illegal activity, trump loses, and he loses big. >> i want to switch topics with you, frank figliuzzi. a judge ruled today that c

bolton was being shut out. and it might have been, obvio obviously, risen to the top with trump that he was not facilitating the capers that sondland and rudy giuliani were on at the behest of the president. >> so, claire, the white house counsel, person designated for national security, was really busy with this ukraine call because the cia general counsel came over and talked to that person, too. >> yeah, by the way, a couple of these lawyers made referrals to doj. >> right. >> criminal -- >> what happened to nose? >> they went away. but, you know, i got to cure everyone. i think we have to stop calling this a shadow foreign policy op. >> right. >> this was no foreign policy. this was a political op. >> a shakedown. >> the idea that rudy giuliani is working pro bono to try to re-elect the president by tak g taking, frankly, illegal steps to engage a foreign government in an american election, which is illegal on its face, and then further is trying to help him win election and is doing it pro bono which is ag

i mean, bolton has a lot of control here. if he doesn't want to testify, even if he invokes executive privilege in a way that's ultimately seen as improper, that could delay things so long that his testimony would wind up just being not used in any case. >> yeah. we've certainly seen a lot of people from this administration invoking executive privilege in ways that make no sense and, you know, that seems to have worked for them thus far. sorry, jen. very quickly. >> i was just going to add, there's another factor with bolton. he has long been an advocate for military assistance to ukraine. he has a huge policy bone to pick here. a lot of fellow republicans who have long been advocates of that as well. i'm not saying that's the only factor but that's probably in his mind, too. >> we'll see. we have to take a quick break. new details on exactly what happened july 10th in the white house that led to john bolton reportedly likening it to a drug deal. >>> later the president's attack on lieutenant colonel vindman. with advil, you

saying that hill testified that bolton was angry. upset about what was going on and said to her rudy giuliani is a hand grenade that is going to blow us all up. sources go onto say she told members on the hill testifying that you go apparently bolton told her go and tell i am not part of whatever drug deal rudy and mulvaney are cooking up. what was going on there? what exactly bolton is referring to. >> a drug deal -- that was a metaphor. >> the point is. what else was going on. what was he seeing? we have in the "new york times" story it says it's not the first time the bolton expressed concerns over rudy giuliani. and giuliani being part of this. >> obviously he thought something nefarious was going on. something unusual. >> he means what's going on is so ridiculous. so beyond. he's comparing it to a drug deal. i wonder what administration did bolton think he was joining? his shock here is well earned shock and we should be shocked. we should be appalled. td idea he didn't want expect to see this he must have been sleeping prior to

bolton: yeah. i think since those two initial resolutions each time north korea has detonated a nuclear device, or done some other form of testing, or taken some other unacceptable action, more sanctions have been imposed. i don't think, frankly, even the way we did it in 1695 and 1718 was right. i think when you impose sanctions incrementally over a long period of time, the country being sanctioned find ways - finds ways to mitigate against the sanctions. i think iran was expert at that, as was north korea. i think sanctions to be effective have to be imposed massively and then enforced. and that's something we should learn going forward. we now have a body of security council resolutions and u.s. statutes that make up this web of sanctions. the issue today is, are they being enforced effectively. same question you can ask with respect to iran. and the answer is, they're not being enforced effectively. we've seen the development of something that i'm sure occurred in the past, but which was never

meanwhile, a bolton top nsc deputyre

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bolton to testify. cnn learns that john bolton has been asked to appear before lawmakers conducting the impeachment inquiry next week. >>> omission questions. the first white house official to testify in the meach said he was alarmed by omissions in the administration's rough transcript of the president's call with the ukraine leader. >>> new raid video. the pentagon said to release images that led to the death of al baghdadi as they predict isis will announce a new leader within days. >>> and raging wind and flames. new wind whipped wires erupt in california forces tens of thousands more to flee homes as thousands more acres burn. >>> i'm wolf blitzer and you're in "the situation room." >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >> key new developments in the impeachment inquiry including a source telling cnn that former national security adviser john bolton has just been invited to testify next week. that comes as the state department official told lawmakers that bolton warned of president's personal la

bullet as most republicans in bolton's position have remained somewhat beholden to trump, bolton has not. in a new piece in "the washington post" greg miller points to a meeting as a moment of detonation of the ukraine crisis inside the white house. quote, two ukrainian officials were ushered into a meeting in bolton's office in the west wing along with sondland, hill, and others. sondland turned the conversation away from ongoing corruption probes to specific investigations important to trump according to testimony from vindman. bolton was so alarmed by the exchange he ended the meeting abruptly and ordered those gathered out of his office. now bolton could be a dangerous witness against the president. for more on those fateful white house meetings i'm joined by greg miller, national security correspondent for "the washington post." the picture you described based on the testimony is really remarkable. what is your understanding of how important this meeting was in the progression of what is now an impeachment level scandal? >> i think it's a really important moment, and that's why

bolton to testify. cnn learns that john bolton has been asked to appear before lawmakers conducting the impeachment inquiry next week. >>> omission questions. the first white house official to testify in the meach said he was alarmed by omissions in the administration's rough transcript of the president's call with the ukraine leader. >>> new raid video. the pentagon said to release images that led to the death of al baghdadi as they predict isis will announce a new leader within days. >>> and raging wind and flames. new wind whipped wires erupt in california forces tens of thousands more to flee homes as

kupperman and john bolton. that's bolton the national security adviser and his deputy. do you think that leaving it up to the courts, do we have anything in the tea leaves that suggest how those two men would like for this to end? do you have any reporting that suggests they're willing to appear on capitol hill? or are we really willing to sort of throw this to the judicial branch and say we'll serve whichever body the judge says. >> you don't see ambassador bolton out in the public decrying the process on capitol hill. instead he is talking to his lawyer, checking the boxes, seeing how it plays out in court. but, remember, he texted me just a few weeks ago, says he will have his say and that national security was always top of mind when he was in the white house. when i asked him to go further, he said he'll leave it at that. and based on our reporting he was also in discussions about a book deal. so this is someone who wants to have his say at some point. what you see from the white house is pat cipollone, the white house counsel trying to stop this wave of testimony

bolton could be a very dangerous witness against the president. for more on those fateful white house meetings i'm joined by the author of that report, craig miller, national correspondent for "the washington post." the picture you describe in the testimony is really remarkable. what is your understanding of how important this meeting was in the progression of what is now an impeachment-level scandal? >> you know, i think it's a really important moment and that's why we thought it was important to separate this out and write a whole story, sort of reconstructing this day at the white house. it's important to me for a couple reasons, chris, including that i think this is the moment that you can really -- we can establish so far that the quid pro quo of this scheme is articulated inside the white house. and not only that, but you have a very violent reaction to that articulation inside the white house. it's not just bolton who recoils at the mention of this by sondland, but fiona hill and others who then proceed to go to white house lawyers to regis

bolton called rudy giuliani a hand grenade. he said he didn't want to be anywhere near the drug deal that giuliani was running out of ukraine, trying to put distance between the national security council and giuliani. giuliani, of course, is responding to this, gave a statement to our kristen welker which reads in part, i've always liked and respected john. i'm surprised his bitterness drives him to attack a friend falsely in a personal way. it's ironic that john bolton is calling anyone else a hand grenade when john is described by many as an atomic bomb. this war of words shedding more heat than light. if bolton was deeply read into what was going on in ukraine d and, craig, you have to wonder if his name doesn't go on the democrats' wish list for someone they'd want to talk to as the inquiry heats up with congress back in town. >> hans, how concerned are they that john bolton is now being dragged into this impeachment probe? >> reporter: if they are, they aren't portraying it. they're trying to avoid getting in on the tit fo

john bolton's lawyer, charles cooper, told nbc news, quote, bolton is not willing to appear voluntarily. and then the lawyer added, i stand ready at all times to accept service of a subpoena on his behalf. but that same attorney, charles cooper, represents charles cupperman who was subpoenaed by the impeachment inquiry, and that lawyer then brought an unprecedented lawsuit to ask a court to clarify whether his client should obey a lawful subpoena or obey the president's demand not to testify even though his client no longer works in government. donald trump's no longer his boss. he is a private citizen just like john bolton. and the president of the united states has no legal authority to issue an order to a private citizen. but all private citizens are subject subpoena. and so the lawsuit that john bolton's lawyer has already brought on behalf of one of his clients to avoid testifying to the impeachment inquiry is another unprecedented, frivolous legal maneuver thrown in the path of the impeachment inquiry. the first hearing on that lawsuit is tomorrow. attorney charles cooper's client

bolton deputy fiona hill notably saying that her boss, mr. bolton, called mr. rudy giuliani, quote, a hand grenade and compared his foreign policy to, quote, a drug deal. bolton would be a powerful add to a list that already includes current officials. those inside accounts so far have been damning and they are urging efforts at the white house now to put together a better defense strategy. their strategy is telling. senator lindsey graham, for example, sponsoring a resolution that calls the house inquiry unfair, a process argument, not a defense of the president's conduct. >> i'm not here to tell you that donald trump has done nothing wrong. i'm not here to tell you anything other than that the way they're going about it is really dangerous for the country and we need to change course while we can in the house, because what's happening in the house, in my view and the view of at least 41 republicans, is not acceptable. >> graham now says 46 republican senators have signed on to his resolution. that's just short of a majority. democrats are moving quickly and a

in fact, hill, and former national security adviser john bolton they were so alarmed that bolton -- bolton compared the push to get ukraine to investigate democrats to a quote, drug deal. hill told lawmakers bolton was furious about rudy giuliani's politically motivated activities in ukraine referring to giuliani as a quote, hand grenade that's going to blow everybody up. "the washington post" reports that investigators are now weighing whether to question bolton personally. >> that sounds like important language. we will talk a lot about that. >> it's like the worst kind of vocabulary quiz for the white house this morning. >>> tonight will be a critical night for the leading democratic candidates. 12 of them going head to head in a debate this ohio. that's the most kacandidates on one stage in u.s. history. you knew that. lots of things to look for. how will joe biden address the unfounded attacks. will biden take on elizabeth warren more aggressively as she tries to cement her front runner status. this will also be bernie sanders, first debate since his heart attack two weeks ago. we'll

sources tell cnn that a former top deputy of bolton's testified that bolton called the president's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, a hand grenade, who's going to blow everybody up. >> it corroborates a lot of the other information that we had previously about mayor freelancing. >> reporter: the inquiry is expected to be ratcheted up next week with the testimony of tim morrison, the white house's senior official for ukraine, who is on the infamous july 25th call between president trump and ukrainian president zelensky, in which trump asked for a favor. morrison, who is the first person on that call to testify, is expected to confirm key elements of the testimony of the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine, bill taylor, who said on tuesday, that morrison told him that president trump did insist that president zelensky go to a microknown and say he is opening investigations of biden and 2016 election interference. >> if you have somebody directly saying, i was on the call, this is what happened, that's direct evidence that really causes problems politically. and obviously, legally. >> tim morrison's n

>> well, john bolton, let's be clear, john bolton is not a hero of the democrats or liberals. john bolton is about as conservative as they come. but a conservative rliberal is not really the issue. the issue is what's going to happen to a president that is free-lancing with a rogue secretary of state and everybody is beginning to ask follow the money. this is what we heard in the nixon watergate hearing. >> i'm curious about your view of the bolton thing, though. >> well, bolton is somebody who is close to the president. the president hired. and for bolton to say this is going to be a hand grenade that could blowup, be careful, that is very, very significant because bolton has seen exactly what's going on, bolton also has named other people inside the white house, the chief of staff is part of what might be a conspiracy. bolton names him as part of something that's going on that could blowup in everybody's f e face. i think just stepping back from all of this t my only concern, honestly, is that there is also evidence. we already know that the president of the united states, a

this is what she says, the former national security advisers john bolton said. "giuliani is a hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up." "i am not part of any drug deal they are cooking up." a. what do you think of this shadow foreign policy huddle between giuliani, sondland and mulvaney and the fact the ambassador is even talking to the president like this and, b., that it's john bolton who had a real problem with it? >> very interesting, actually. it doesn't surprise me that somebody like john bolton would see the problem in this type of behavior. right? end of the day, no matter what people think of his political beliefs or his foreign policy standing, he was a career service diplomat. this is somebody who had a long experience in national security and so he was very easily able to identify when something was awry. something led to ieither krupss fishy. and the fact you have political elites, political appointees ov security process, up until, certainly in my experience, up until this point there was a sanctity about not abusing foreign policy processes

and john bolton's people left, john bolton left, and he was on the july 25th phone call, he heard it with his own ears and he was mentioned 15 times in the opening statement. but what our reporting is, he is a bit of a wildcard, and some of the reporting is he may testify that he did hear that favor, that the president wanted, the deal that he wanted struck with ukraine, in terms of getting some dirt on the bidens, but that he wasn't necessarily, he didn't necessarily immediately hear it as wrong. so we just don't know what he will say behind closed doors. >> we don't know until actually we see the deposition what his point of view is. but i think he remains a very valuable witness here. taking a step back, the nsc, the national security council, is in effect, a coordinating council. they work, it was created to coordinate between state, between defense, between the intelligence agencies, so he was in a unique position to know what everyone was doing. not only what bill taylor was doing and what mike pompeo was doing but what rudy giuliani was doing. so i think the democrats will be

bolton may not do that. so this is a really important question because he's at the heart of it, and personal conversations with the president repeatedly, and we know from all of the other testimony he didn't like this at all and it smelled terrible at all. he didn't like it. >> will you fight bolton in court no matter how long it takes? >> i don't want to get ahead of adam schiff on this particular issue, but what you're bringing up is extremely important because on this one issue, i never thought i would agree with john bolton, but on this particular issue he raised strenuous and strong objects to rudy giuliani conducting this irregular foreign approximately see, and i think that witness after witness especially in their opening statements has said that john bolton instructed them to basically put up a resistance or go to the lawyers or do something to basically get our foreign policy back on track with the ukraine. so i think he's a very important witness potentially. >> are you concerned that bolton's iss

you can tie to rudy giuliani, john bolton. when john bolton left, all the republicans said how wonderful he was. rudy giuliani is going to blow everything up. go make sure this is documented. john bolton says, i'm not part of any drug deal sondland and mulvaney are cooking up. where are the leading republicans saying impeachment might be too far, democrats might be out over their skis, but we need to get ahead of this. where are they? >> lawmakers are back this week from a two-week recess, so we will get a chance to talk to republicans face to face and really press them on responding to some of these allegations. but i think the big thing from fiona hill's testimony, what she did was she was able to connect this sort of concern we've seen at the state department level from these officials that a lot of people have never heard of and connect it to trump's inner circle by saying john bolton himself was concerned about this and told me -- told her -- to go to a lawyer and say, look, we think there are legal problems with what's g

bolton could emerge as a crucial witness after fiona hills revealed that bolton was so disturbed to get the ukraine to investigate the bidens that he calls it a "drug deal." the president is taking questions outside the white house last hour where he continues to rail against the inquiry. >> a lot of unfairness for a perfect conversation with the president of ukraine. frankly had they known what the conversation was, they would not wasted everybody's time. this was a perfect conversation with the president of ukraine. president of ukraine and his foreign minister separately came out and said there was absolutely nothing wrong with the conversation. president ukraine and the foreign minister came out said there was no anything, there is no blackmail. they said there was no pressure, there was nothing done wrong. this is a hoax just like there was no collusion after two years they found out and wasted $45 million. this is a disgrace that this could happen to our country. >> remember the president of ukraine said no pressure. the president of ukraine had his foreign minister says no pressu

and the -- what makes bolton so significant, unlike bill taylor, bolton saw the president all the time and would be able to talk about the president's comments, statements, about the whole ukraine situation. >> also seems like bolton has a lot to say. >> yeah. >> i think -- i'm not sure that he would say he doesn't want to come. >> i mean, i think it would be distasteful if, here this is major national inquiry, he won't cooperate, but he saves -- >> you can predict the president's tweet, he had a vendetta for the president, the most overrated national security adviser ever. >> ever. >> so that will be a complicated situation, but i think you can definitely see where the republicans, their -- >> while we were sleeping this weekend or resting or watching football, gordon sondland's lawyer told "the wall street journal," that sondland believed that there was a quid pro quo. that seems like a big deal. >> that is objectively a big deal. and it shows how much the administration's denials on quid pro quo and sondland carry water for the president in the text messaging to taylor really is jus

how important is bolton? will he be the john dean or not? >> he's very important, and when those of us who covered john bolton over the years and watched him on fox news and other outlets, tell be very interesting to see kind of which john bolton shows up here. the reality is that from what we've heard from the other witnesses that it sounds like john bolton had grave concerns about what rudy giuliani was doing and was willing to be explicit about that and whether he was willing to connect dots and how explicit he is with the committees will be very significant. he'd be one of the major witnesses to be deposed. >> thank you all very much. as the depositions continue tomorrow. next, the senior trump official behind the anonymous op ed has vowed to expose him in his own words. who could anonymous be? >>> plus, a rising star admits to an affair and explicit photos and this could boil down to a swing district turning republican? we'll be back. forget about vacuuming for months. the roomba i7+ with clean base automatic dirt disposal and allergenl

he was recruited to join the nsc by john bolton. he was mentioned in taylor's testimony. >> if he corroborates with bill taylor, the current top diplomat to ukraine said in his extremely detailed testimony, that's potentially huge. taylor said morrison was the first person that let him know in early september, that the military aid to ukraine, the nearly $400 million in congressionally approved military aid, was being withheld until the ukrainian president made this public promise to conduct investigations into the energy company that employed hunter biden, the former vice president's son. and also, this debunked conspiracy theory involving the server, the dnc server, that was hacked in 2016. so, that's fairly revealing. we've been waiting on firsthand accounts. taylor's account has been criticized by the gop as second-hand. others came in and said what they knew. people like morrison were in the room for many of the discussions and closer to the action than that. we saw this week, colonel vindman, come in and testify, that he saw w

he humiliated bolton and bolton is an institution in washington and even though there are people who don't like the things he's done and he's got a lot of relationships. >> yep. >> his fingerprints in my view, are all over a lot of these stories because he was a witness to a lot of these things and this is the most obvious example. i think this will be a problem for the president and all of these people he scorned have no reason to do him any favors here. >> go ahead, gloria. >> i want to add to what david is saying and you talk about changing republicans' minds and they're not going to shift until public opinion shifts ahead of them and then they would follow and the question i have hearing mcmaster today and how they're refusing who was asked according to a story he said he would not do. >> where is mat? secretary of defense and these people who are no longer in the administration would have a great deal of impact if they came out together and said this is a problem. i don't know, david, maybe they would have some impact. >> no, i think there is a drip, drip, drip nature to this th

ncs and were stuffing bolton somewhere in the basement. mike pence, the vice president, was supposed to be at president zelensky's inaugural celebration and in a snub the president did not let him go. instead, rick perry was sent. rudy giuliani has been running around, doing this since at least january. mick mulvaney is on in. rick perry decided to leave the administration after being involved in some of these meetings where gordon sondland was told by the president any meeting with me and the prefz ukraine has to be approved by rudy giuliani. if you're a republican on capitol hill, how can you take any more? >> michael steele? >> well put, a.b. >> you're laughing. let's take a minute and talk about america's mayor. >> yeah. it's disappointing on a lot of levels, especially those of us who have known and worked with giuliani and his brand of politics. to watch him, like lindsey graham, throwing it all away at the service and pleasure of donald trump is something astonishing. i'm going to weigh these two men at any given point in time befor

trish: giuliani is saying john bolton and fiona hill apparently told all of you goes that john bolton wanted her to go to the lawyers. he says that doesn't make sense to me. he said i wasn't working with megan we were friend enough that he could have come to me and said this. >> i think john bolton loves this country and he will be interested in doing the right thing every time he has the opportunity. and i would say the same thing about rudy giuliani. he's not shy. he will pursue what he believes in for his client. and he's a free american citizen who can go to other countries if he wants to and meet whoever he wants to. so i would just say if we are curious about what john bolton had to say or what rudy giuliani had to say. we ought to have them come in and testify in front of the whole world. trish: i am all for that. i'm a journalist. i want that transparency. i don't want to have to rely on this source or that. i hear you, congressman. amen. >> we don't think it should be in the scif. we think we should be doing this out for the whole world to see. we are unafraid of the facts. t

why are you summoning john bolton out? does that mean the intelligence hearing is nearing the end of the key deposition phase? >> let me just say this, in a short period of time, i think it's been slightly over a month now, a lot has happened. >> yeah. >> what we do know if we start with the whistleblower's report, quickly turned to the readout released by the white house and we look at the overwhelming clear and convincing corroborative testimony from our witnesses that have come before us. the evidence is pretty clear that the president abused his power, that the president attempted to coerce a foreign power to interfere in our election, that the president really betrayed his oath of office and the american people, that the president also has instructed -- obstructed justice and continues to obstruct justice by trying to get people not to appear. then is also involved in a coverup. the question that still remains as we continue to do our work is really what do we want to do about it? as you well know, tomorrow we will be

pivot to john bolton for you. lawyering for bolton are in talks about a possible closed-door deposition keeping in mind also swirling around this period of time john bolton let go from duties as national security adviser. some republican sources admitted bill taylor's testimony was a game-changer but bolton would be next level. why? so i think that bolton kind of encapsulates why this is not what happened with the mueller report. the mueller report was about kind of these indirect and not establishable contacts between the trump campaign, at least trump himself and russia. the witnesses coming in wb often hostile and not wanting to come in or if they did they could be characterized as biased like michael cohen under criminal investigation themselves. ultimately about conduct during the campaign. this is all very different. these are trump's own people. his own appointees, republicans voluntarily coming in. they are not under clouds of investigation themselves. show it's harder to say, oh, they're trying to get a d

bolton. so if the committees try to bring in bolton it's possible that we could see a similar legal strategy there. >> interesting. jeremy, does the filing of that lawsuit come after the the federal judge's ruling, federal house ruling that this process is valid? >> reporter: it will be interesting to see how that ruling that says the house should have access to mr. mueller's grand jury material, whether that plays into the court process for mr. cupperman. i think the biggest problem for the house is going to be time. they are trying to do this impeachment inquiry as quick as they can. that's why we're here on a saturday. these lawsuits take time and so it's not clear whether they would be able to get a ruling compelling cupperman to come in before they want to move forward on potential articles and public hearings and all of that. >> jeremy herb, thank you so much. check back with you. appreciate it. >>> meanwhile, a defiant president trump ignoring republican calls for the administration to

what does that tell you about bolton? you know, agree or disagree with his politics, he saw something wrong and he said this needs to be reported. and i couldn't help to think back on the interview that george steflopinous had to with the president who said when you get wind of foreign interference in the u.s. election aren't you going to report that to the fbi and what did the president say? yeah, right, that's not the way it world works, i'm not going to the fbi. what a stark contrast in how the president handles wrongdoing and how bolton decided to handle wrongdoing. >> and, you know, mimi, just to correct mr. volker is actually special envoy to ukraine. there seem tuesday be a delineation to who was in and who was out in terms of who got to help make foreign policy for ukraine. it was those who were trump partisans, willing to get involved and play ball in this scheme and the career people who said i want nothing to do with it. and while, you know, john bolton is certainly a guy with a lot of strong opinions about for

lots of speculation in the past few days about what bolton may say. and certainly kupperman, being as close as he was to bolton, will be a significant witness as well. >> what exactly is constitutional immunity? >> well, it was described to me as essentially executive privilege on steroids, sort of the executive branch, the president, through the white house counsel, invoking his most significant powers to try and stop someone from testifying to congress. the president did this with his -- to stop him from testifying after the mueller report was released, and the president using it here. the president cannot use it with cabinet members, but he can use it with his closest aides and his national security adviser -- certainly the national security adviser being one of them. >> is this intended to potentially stop bolton from testifying beyond stopping kupperman from testifying? >> i have no evidence to believe this suit was filed as any part of trying to stop this. i think this was a situation where a witness and a lawyer were presented with the white ho

for me as national security adviser john bolton has been asked to testify at the impeachment inquiry into donald trump's controversial phone call to his ukraine counterpart some of even speculated that bolton could be the democrats' impeachment hero. castro has. impeachment investigators are eager to question john bolton the former national security adviser to president trump was a central figure in the administration's policy toward ukraine and one who said to have used colorful language to describe efforts to compel ukraine to investigate trumps political opponents a drug deal is what bolton's assistant said her boss called a july 10th meeting between ukrainian and u.s. officials at the white house the assistant testified bolton walked out of the meeting after sensing other u.s. officials had an agenda apart from solidifying the relationship between the 2 nations to get ukraine to investigate trumps domestic rivals i think that we've heard over the last several weeks a lot of lower level people and now the house is going to start moving up the food chain but bolton's attorney said

ash win, what do we know about john bolton at the moment? >> well, there's still reportedly some back and forth between his legal team and what's going to happen with the committees on capitol hill who have been looking into impeachment right now. we don't know if we're going to get a deposition from john bolton or anything like that yet but what we do know is he left the administration earlier this year. he used to trump's national security adviser on extremely bad terms. the day he left, there was sort of a back and forth battle playing out hilariously in public on twitter, president trump's favorite forum apparently, about whether john bolton was fired or whether he quit. bolton insisting he quit and resigned the administration because of deep divides on national security and foreign policy issues that he had with his former boss, donald j. trump. john bolton, of course, a noted war hawk dating back to the george w. bush era if not before, was someone who wanted to do a lot more interventions overseas than president trump did. as we repor

national security advisor john bolton has been asked to testify at the impeachment inquiry into doll trump's controversial phone call to his ukrainian counterpart some of even speculated that bolton could be the democrats' impeachment hero of his there is heidi castro has been. impeached been investigators are eager to question john bolton the former national security adviser to president trump was a central figure in the administration's policy toward ukraine and one who said to have used colorful language to describe efforts to compel ukraine to investigate trumps political opponents a drug deal is what bolton's assistant said her boss called a july 10th meeting between ukrainian and u.s. officials at the white house the assistant testified bolton walked out of the meeting after sensing other u.s. officials had an agenda apart from solidifying the relationship between the 2 nations to get ukraine to investigate trumps domestic rivals i think that we've heard over the last several weeks a lot of lower level people and now the house is going to start moving up the food chain but bolt

ask john bolton, okay? the situation with iran where we unilaterally left with allies, and could have put pressure on iran to back them off, how they involved themselves in the middle east and developing bl g ballistic missiles and as a group come together to work to make sure that china started living up to trait ruleses. doing it alone and implications and damage will have to be calculated over a few years. it's unbelievable. >> adding to that is this impeachment inquiry and you have career officials now coming out and testifying and's how much does it bother you, anger you, that it took a whistle-blower speaking up and out to blow the lid off this thing? >> well, i mean, the call was, you know -- maybe it would have been shelved but it wasn't. we have whistle-blower because they can come and do things and need to be protected. if all of a sudden knows who they are and they're lives are turned upsidedown and people say if you're challenginging the president people ought to know who you are. somebody in th

will john bolton testify? he's likely to follow the same strategy his deputy is following which says a judge should help me make this decision. i've been told by the white house not to talk, by the house to talk. i would like a court to decide for me. my guess is john bolton would follow that ruling if there was one to be had. so he's the one people look most forward to hearing from. >> yes. >> as long as we hear from him soon, we'll see some momentum going on this inquiry. >> let's talk momentum. you've written a book and the momentum for the democrats on this inquiry is moving a lot faster than impeachment inquiries in the past. look at this. when nixon, the first media report of the watergate break-in happened it was not until 597 days later there was an inquiry open. when it comes to clinton 265 days from the first media report of the affair before the house vote. 44 days between the first media report of the whistle-blower complaint to open the inquiry. why is it moving so much faster today? >> one thing

everybody says bolton said, bolton said, bolton said. is that enough? >> here's the thing bolton was in meetings that these other witnesses were not in. he was the national security advise, so he was in meetings with donald trump that perhaps few other people were in. he may significantly add to this story, and he may go in other directions. he could be a really powerful witness if they can get him. and also he's kind of a famous guy. he goes in public and testifies, he's a credible republican and a well-known guy. >> what i like about him again is the schism in the party between the real hawks and these sort of uppopportunists. when he speaks everybody's going to know he's speaking out of national interest, whatever you think of his politics. >> i think that's right. what you'd hear from him presumably is a story that goes one step beyond did something happen here. we know something happened here. we've read the transcript, seen the text message exchange. the question is how many people knew it? he's the one that said go talk to the lawyers about this.

he was seen as a john bolton guy. he's been known throughout his career as a hard core hard core hard core national security conservative and in particular a real hawk on nuclear issues. he served until today as the senior director for europe and russia at the national security counsel. npr was the first to report his resignation today. and i do want to underscore today per npr's report, quote, morrison is expected to leave his post imminently. meaning he's gone, which is important because his scheduled testimony for the impeachment proceedings is tomorrow morning. so tim morrison, a senior director at the national security council with spaubt for europe and russia tonight resigning in advance of his testimony tomorrow morning. now, john bolton himself recently fired donald trump's national security advisor. it's always seemed interesting to me that bolton was ousted as national security advisor basically the same time donald trump was forced to relent and let that military aid finally go through. that all happened se

john bolton should testify. i think he owes it to the country to testify. >> former national security adviser has yet to make an appearance on capitol hill, but bolton's name sure has been kicked around and evoked in connection to his impeachment inquiry -- this impeachment inquiry. and not in a way likely to be helpful to the president, his former boss. a reminder that trump's former top aide in ukraine has testified it was bolton who objected to the pressure campaign and to the notion of withholding military funding approved by congress. fiona hill relayed that bolton told her, quote, i am not part of whatever drug deal ambassador sondland and mick mulvaney are cooking up, adding, rudy giuliani is a hand grenade who is going to blow everybody up. still with us here tonight, maya wiley and bill kristol. maya, what does bolton get you if he goes all the way, and is sondland in a heap of trouble anyway? >> so let's start with sondland because that's easy. sondland is in a heap of trouble because if -- i mean we d