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White House Letter To Pelosi Says Trump Will Not Comply With Impeachment Probe Until House Votes On Inquiry; White House Orders The President's E.U. Ambassador Not To Testify Before Lawmakers; Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) Is Interviewed About Impeachment Inquiry And About The President's Decision To Pull U.S. Troops Out Of Northern Syria; President Trump Insisted In A Tweet Today That The U.S. Has Not Abandoned The Kurds; NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver Says The League Just Going To Have To Live With The Consequences. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired October 08, 2019 - 17:00   ET

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

[17:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Thank you so much. Our coverage on CNN continuous right now. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you tomorrow.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Happening now, breaking news. Refusing to comply. President Trump's lawyers are about to fire off a letter to House Speaker Pelosi refusing to comply with Democrats' subpoenas until the full House votes on the impeachment inquiry. And now CNN has learned the White House is lawyering up, seeking outside impeachment counsel.

Blocking testimony. The White House orders the President's E.U. ambassador not to testify before lawmakers and says it's done playing nice. Now House Democrats say they'll subpoena the ambassador.

Calling Trump first. CNN has learned that the E.U. ambassador called President Trump during the four-hour gap before he responded to a text message from another U.S. diplomat who warned that holding up aid for Ukraine for help with a politic campaign was, "crazy."

And favoring the inquiry. A new poll shows a majority of Americans support the impeachment inquiry and that more Republicans may be breaking with the President. Will public backing for the impeachment inquiry change how Republicans respond on Capitol Hill?

Wolf Blitzer is off today. I'm Brianna Keilar. You're in "The Situation Room."

The breaking news this hour, a significant escalation of the impeachment battle between the Trump administration and House Democrats. White House lawyers have written a letter that they are about to deliver telling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that they won't comply with Democrat subpoenas arguing the current impeachment proceedings amount to an illegitimate effort to over turn the 2016 results.

Also breaking, committee chairman investigating the President now say they'll subpoena the U.S. ambassador to the European Union after the White House suddenly blocked his congressional testimony today. Sources are also telling CNN that at least one national security counsel official alerted the White House's national security lawyers about concerns over the President's call to the Ukrainian President and Mr. Trump's effort to get dirt on Joe Biden and his son. Those lawyers later ordered the transcript of the call moved to a highly classified server.

We're going to talk about the breaking news with Congressman Ruben Gallego of the Armed Services Committee and our correspondents and analysts are also standing by.

First, let's go to CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta. And Jim, there are some major developments in this impeachment battle.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. That's right Brianna. The White House is on a collision course with House Democrats over the impeachment inquiry. The President's legal team is expected to fire off a letter at any moment to Speaker Nancy Pelosi refusing to cooperate with the investigation. The President meanwhile is stoking these tensions declaring he won't cooperate with what Republicans are calling a "kangaroo court."

CNN has also confirmed the whistleblower at the center of the inquiry wrote a memo describing a White House official who listened in on Mr. Trump's conversation with the Ukrainian President and characterizes that conversation as, "crazy and frightening." The official was left, "shaken by what Mr. Trump said during the call."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): A key signal the White House is ready for combat. The administration blocked the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, from telling what he knows about the President's phone call with the leader of Ukraine about Joe Biden. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was mum on the subject.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Secretary why did you instruct Ambassador Sondland not to testify?

ACOSTA: House Democrats warn White House stonewalling won't make their inquiry go away.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, (D) INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: The failure to produce this witness, the failure to produce these documents, we consider yet additional strong evidence of obstruction of the constitutional functions of Congress. A co-equal branch of government.

ACOSTA: President tweeted Sondland wouldn't be testifying, "I would love to send Ambassador Sondland, a really good man and great man, to testify, but unfortunately he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court," an echo of GOP talking points.

REP. MATT GAETZ, (R) FLORIDA: What we see in this impeachment is a kangaroo court and Chairman Schiff is acting like a malicious captain kangaroo.

ACOSTA: A source familiar with internal White House discussion said the decision to silence Sondland is part of a new aggressive counter impeachment strategy. That source told CNN, "The days of playing nice are done." A defiant posture comes even as the President continues to insist his call was perfect.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The people understand it's a scam. They're trying to win an election in 2020 by using impeachment. If you look at that call, it's a perfect call.

ACOSTA: Democrats are zeroing in on an exchange of texts between Sondland and a top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, who appeared worried that the administration was holding up aid to Ukraine around the time of Mr. Trump's July 25th call.

[17:05:01]

"As I said on the phone, I think it is crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a politic campaign." Sondland replied, "Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear, no quid pro quo's of any kind. I suggest we stop the back and forth by text." Before Sondland sent that response, he called the President.

CNN has learned White House and national security officials scrambled to contain the fallout of Mr. Trump's comments on call including moving the rough transcript of the conversation to a more secure system. Fellow Republicans see no wrongdoing.

REP. JIM JORDAN, (R) OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE RANKING MEMBERS: The President is doing his job. The President, when you're talk about the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people going to a foreign government, the President is going to make sure that there is no corruption there.

ACOSTA: Still a new "Washington Post" poll found 58 percent agree that the impeachment inquiry should have begun. A huge jump from over the summer.

Trump ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, is calling on the President's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to talk to lawmakers. Giuliani's response, "Love Lindsey, but I'm still a lawyer and I will have to deal with privilege."

For now Democrats sound like they want to hear from Sondland first.

REP. ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, (D) FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: This is sort of like a classical Nixon-type Watergate action which is that the cover-up often becomes even worse than the crime itself. So the White House and the State Department continue to orchestrate this massive cover-up by stopping witnesses that had actually prepared to testify.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: And the White House has just released the letter that it is sending off to the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the chairman of the relevant committees leading the impeachment inquiry. We don't have enough time to put this up on screen for you Brianna, but I can read to you a key sentence from this letter.

It says, as you know you have designed and implemented your inquiry in a manner that violates fundamental fairness and constitutionally mandated due process. It says, for example, you've denied the President the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witnesses, to receive transcripts of testimony, to have access to evidence, to have counsel present and many other basic rights guaranteed to all Americans.

So Brianna, we're going to be reading through the letter as we speak. As our other reporters over here at the White House as are Democrats up on Capitol Hill and I suspect you're going to have some responses coming from the Hill shortly. Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Jim Acosta, thank you so much.

Let's get more now on the breaking news with CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju on Capitol Hill.

So, Manu, what are the chances that House Democrats have the whole House vote on initiating an impeachment inquiry in response to this letter?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well very slim. And Nancy Pelosi has made clear that she would not be pushed by the President to hold a vote to formalize an impeachment inquiry in large part because the Democrats argue it is simply not necessary. They say that under the rules, they could certainly launch an impeachment inquiry and vote to impeach this President without having to formalize a formal probe. Now at the same time or having a vote to authorize an inquiry could lead to some other complications.

Republicans could argue that they have subpoena power as well as pass impeachment inquiries have allowed. Similarly, it could often -- it could lead to political and practical problems. It could take lots of time on the House floor, make difficulty in actually drafting a resolution to authorize a formal impeachment inquiry.

And it could also put some Democrats in difficult positions particularly ones who represent districts and Trump -- that the President carried in 2016. So the Democrats are really in no rush. And they believe they say they are not going to get pressured by this White House. So expect the stalemate to persist and eventually the Democrats will make a decision on impeachment, Brianna.

KEILAR: So what do they do after this witness is blocked? What happens now?

RAJU: Well, we do expect at least at the moment on Friday the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to come before Capitol Hill, but it's possible her testimony could also be delayed because she is still a State Department employee. And like as we saw today, the State Department said that its employees should not participate and that's the White House position as well.

So if Democrats lead to a number of these witnesses not coming forward, they're saying that essentially this could be rolled into an article of impeachment saying the President has obstructed Congress and they're citing the Nixon impeachment proceeding, the articles of impeachment that have been drafted for President Richard Nixon to say essentially it's similar here where the President is interfering in obstructing Congress.

And when Nancy Pelosi today was asked today about that specifically she would not rule that possibility out. So she's not pre-judging the situation but said the President's move today was, "an abuse of power." Brianna?

KEILAR: All right, Manu, thank you.

I want to get more now on all of this with Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego of Arizona, he is a member of the Armed Services Committee. Sir, thank you for joining us.

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: So the White House is threatening they're not going to cooperate with this impeachment investigation unless the full House of Representatives votes to open a formal inquiry. Obviously we have heard what the speaker thinks about this. But do you think that the House should hold that vote and if not why not?

[17:10:10]

GALLEGO: Well first of all, those being prosecuted rarely get to set the rules of the prosecution so the President and the Republicans really cannot dictate this. And partly and most importantly we know that they are not going to be acting in good faith.

They have not acting in good faith at all throughout this process. They have stonewalled, whether it was during the Mueller investigation or now what he's doing right now by denying access to information and to witnesses that we have a right as Congress to have oversight.

So, this is, you know, another move just through a dust-up in the air. But more importantly it really just leads to a bigger issue that this is just another process of obstruction that warrants I think us going after the President for articles of impeachment regarding obstruction.

KEILAR: As the White House stonewalls on testimony and Democrats are poised to issue subpoenas, how do Democrats proceed with impeachment as some of these other issues play out in court?

GALLEGO: Well, I think in terms of impeachment, if they continue stonewalling, you just roll that right into the impeachment in regards also with all of the other crimes and misdemeanors that we have seen. So for example, you know, the extortion of a foreign country for personal gain, that's an article of impeachment.

And now if they keep on obstructing both abuse of power and obstruction of justice are also going to be on the table. So, the President could stonewall but it won't change the out come. It's actually most likely only going to increase the outcome of him being formally impeached by the House.

KEILAR: So, could you hold an impeachment vote without testimony from Sondland, without testimony potentially, we're waiting to see from the former ambassador to Ukraine, from maybe a number of other State Department officials who are involved in this?

GALLEGO: Certainly we can. If the reason they are not testifying because this President is actively obstructing us doing our oversight duties as well as getting that information, then that itself is an article of impeachment. If you look back at Watergate, it wasn't just the fact that they broke into the Watergate, it was all of the actions afterwards that were part of the articles of impeachment.

So the President is either going to have the easy way or the hard way. And the easy way is to actually comply with us, allow these State Department employees and all the other information we need to actually make a determination, whereas he'll still going to get impeachment in the end and that's just because of obstruction of justice and obstructing Congress.

KEILAR: When one American diplomat texted Sondland, "I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign," CNN actually learned that what Sondland did was he called the President and four and a half hours later is when he texted a reply. It was a very legalistic message saying the President was, "crystal clear," that there was no quid pro quo's, as he put it. What do you make of that?

GALLEGO: Well I think this is just CYA politics, cover your ass politics that the ambassador was doing. And I think he was coordinating with the President of the United States like common criminals who are, you know, coordinating their alibis.

Also let's not forget, they were having this conversation over WhatsApp, right? This is official communication that's happening between ambassadors, the administration and the President and they were -- they were doing it on WhatsApp, at least in between these two ambassadors, not between the President.

You know, they ran a whole campaign last year about the State Department doing -- or two years ago, you know, doing communications over unsecured network. WhatsApp is unsecured. And the fact that we don't actually have any of the information that they were type -- or texting to each other is also a problem. The State Department needs to turn over all texts that were in between these two ambassadors.

KEILAR: Since I have you, and you're on the House Armed Services Committee, I want to ask you about the President's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Northern Syria. Many members of Congress, Republican and Democrat, have criticized this. You've signed on to a letter calling on Defense Secretary Mark Esper to answer questions about this decision. What specific concerns do you want him to address? GALLEGO: Well, we want to know exactly who did the President talk to before he made this decision. What was the cost benefit analysis? Were there other considerations taking place? You know, how long did the President actually take to actually have this information. Who gave him advice and want to know what the motivation is behind that. This is a very dangerous situation.

We are about to lose one of our closest allies in the Middle East, an ally that stuck with us through thick and thin. And also it's going to destabilize our alliances all over the world because people and countries are not going to be able to trust us in the end if they see how we treat the Peshmerga and the Kurdish people in terms of what's going to happen in Northern Syria.

And already, by the way, Turkey has already started attacking that area after there was promises that we gave that there would not be any attacks on the Kurdish areas.

KEILAR: The Kurds are currently in charge of detention centers for many, many Isis fighters and associates of Isis. And they have said essentially that they may just need to walk away from those facilities as Turkey invades. How likely do you think that is?

[17:15:12]

GALLEGO: Look, I can't predict it. But I think this also produces a better question. What has this presidency and what has this administration been doing for the last couple of months that they did not actually foresee this problem or they're not trying to negotiate a separate truce or separate peace between Turkey and the Kurds or at least some level of security agreements so we wouldn't find our self in this situation.

What they were doing is Pompeo was traveling the world trying to fabricate lies against a political opponent of the President instead of actually doing serious work in Northern Iraq. That is the problem that you have here. That is a damn shame and it's going to cost us geopolitically in terms of our alliances probably for decades to come.

Pompeo is the failure in this situation. Pompeo should have been working this out. Should have been pressuring the President to work this out, instead he's just the President's lap dog and he's going to continue to engage in these failures on the international scheme.

KEILAR: Congressman Ruben Gallego, thank you so much.

GALLEGO: Thank you so much for having me.

KEILAR: And coming up, we have more on all of our breaking news. The White House sends House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a defiant letter refusing to cooperate with the impeachment probe until the full House votes to open an investigation.

And we're also finding out what happened during the multi--hour gap before U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland replied to a U.S. diplomat's complaint about the President tieing aid to Ukraine to a commitment for an investigation of Joe Biden.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:21:21]

KEILAR: We have breaking news in a defiant late afternoon letter, President Trump's legal team tells House Speaker Nancy Pelosi there will be no cooperation in the impeachment probe because the full House has not formally voted to open an investigation. And largely because they do not see what's going on as an actual impeachment inquiry. In fact, quotations are used.

So let's bring in our political legal and national security experts to discuss all of this. OK, so, I mean, first off, Susan Hennessey, to you, he's saying essentially or his lawyers are saying, I should say, that there are numerous legally unsupported demands made as part of what you have labeled contrary to the constitution. And then let's look at this part.

This is near the end of the letter. It says, "Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it. Because participating in this inquiry under the current unconstitutional posture would inflict lasting institutional harm on the Executive Branch and lasting damage to the separation of powers, you have left the President no choice.

Consistent with the duties of the President of the United States, and in particular his obligation to preserve the rights of future occupants of his office, President Trump cannot permit his administration to participate in this partisan inquiry under these circumstances."

SUSAN HENNESSEY, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, so as a constitutional level, that is what we call complete and total nonsense. The constitution --

KEILAR: That is the technical term.

HENNESSEY: -- the legal term for it. The constitution does not lay out how exactly impeachment should proceed. It says that it's up to the House to decide.

Now, in the first impeachment of Andrew Johnson, the House actually just impeached him and then said oh, maybe we should draw up some articles of impeachment. So really isn't a huge precedent here.

Now, before Nixon impeachment inquiry and before Bill Clinton's impeachment inquiry, the House did have formal votes. That's because of the committee rules that existed at the time. The Judiciary Committee did not have the ability to issue those subpoenas, so they needed a full House vote in order to empower the committees to do things like take depositions.

Fast forward to today, the committees already have those authorities under the new rules. So what they're asking Nancy Pelosi to do is take a purely symbolic vote. And mind you, amidst all of this blistering language, they actually aren't even making a commitment. This is letter is not saying, hey, if you have this vote --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

HENNESSEY: -- if the House does take this purely symbolic step, then we'll produce the documents. That might actually be something that a deal Nancy Pelosi might be willing to make but that's not the offer --

KEILAR: She's, well, she sounds like she's not willing to make that. That she's not going be pushed by the President thinking before that that might actually be the offer.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, this is a political response to what was a politic move by Nancy Pelosi who wasn't going to take a vote because she doesn't want to give Republicans subpoena power and that this would give them subpoena power. And she doesn't want to give her members a tough vote to take if it is going to be tough for some of them.

But this document is not a let's get to yes document. Let's find a way where we can work this out document. This is a politic document which says that not only is this unconstitutional, but you've been trying to get rid of the President since the day he was elected document. And so this is very strong politicly but legally I'm not a lawyer but --

KEILAR: Well, Lee (ph), can I ask you how much of being impeached depends on the willingness to going along with being impeached?

HENNESSY: Well, so this really is the following the example of Richard Nixon, the House is trying to put the House between a rock and hard place. Either Trump has to produce these witnesses, and keep in mind, just one witness coming forward, Kurt Volker, produced those really, really astonishingly damning text messages or he has to say, we're not going to cooperate at all. That conserve is the basis for obstruction of Congress articles of impeachment. So really it is a no-win situation for the President at this point.

[17:25:13]

KEILAR: And Kylie, they are not getting cooperation from at least one State Department employee and possibly more.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, that is right. So just this morning in a shocking announcement we heard from the personal lawyer of Ambassador Sondland that he was being prevented from going and speaking to Congress. So, what's interesting there is that we heard from the committees on the Hill that they were in touch with the State Department's legal counsel last night.

And they got a message from the State Department last night at 12:30 a.m. that said that they would no longer allow Ambassador Sondland to go and speak. So, the other thing here is that we saw last week, Secretary Pompeo send a similar letter, similar to this language, to the committees on the Hill, essentially saying that there were legal questions about what they were asking from the State Department and not making any commitment.

So, similar to the letter from the White House, there is no hard and fast commitments, but they're muddying the waters here and they're introducing a number of questions that then folks who are watching from home are saying, what going on here? What's legally possible? What's not? But at the same time they are preventing folks from the State Department from talking.

KEILAR: Shawn, what's your reaction to this?

SHAWN TURNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, well, I think that, you know, Kylie's point about muddying the waters is absolutely right. This is a -- this letter as I read it is another attempt to delay. And I think the administration and the White House lawyers are understanding that the longer you could drag this out, the longer you can kind of tie this up. If you could slow Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats down, then you can -- then you can definitely kind of stretch this out a little bit.

So, and look, you know, and Ambassador Sondland, I mean, this, you know, the key -- he's going to have to take a hard look at the ramifications of being subpoenaed and whether or not he really wants to do that because obviously there's personal liabilities associated with being subpoenaed and not showing up. So, you know, my take here is that this is a game of chess and as the White House decides to move the pieces around as long as they could stretch this out, you know, they're going to win. But I'm not sure they're going to be able to pull that off.

KEILAR: OK.

HENNESSEY: And look, at the end of the day this is about giving members, Republicans in Congress something to focus on other than having to defend the President's substantive conduct. None of them want to go out on record and say, we have no problem with the President of the United States pressuring and extorting a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden, this gives them something else, some sort of process crime or either process foul that they can focus on so that they actually don't have to answer those very, very difficult questions.

KEILAR: All right, all of you stand by for just a moment. We're going to get in a quick break. We have so much more to discuss. We'll be right back.

[17:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:32:42] KEILAR: We are back now with our politic and legal experts.

And Gloria, part of this letter it says the invalid impeachment inquiry seeks to reverse the election of 2016 and to influence the election of 2020.

BORGER: That is a politic document.

KEILAR: That's right.

BORGER: I mean, this is -- this is a politic document. You have always -- you have never wanted him to be president even before he became president. It is state somewhere in this document.

KEILAR: No, that maybe true. But isn't it also possible that there is a real case against the president. And these two things are not mutually exclusive.

BORGER: Right. And this is a politic document saying this is unconstitutional and et cetera, et cetera. The point that I think is very interesting as if -- and they say the president is being denied basic constitutional protections, but they also say that the committee has resorted to threats and intimidation against potential executive branch witnesses.

I ask you, what has the president done to the whistleblower? Threaten the whistle-blower, tried to intimidate the whistleblower. Said that the whistleblower is treasonous, a spy, the people who talked to the whistleblower were spies if not worse.

This coming from the president of the United States is, I would say, threatening in the extreme. And they are trying to say that the committee is threatening these witnesses when, in fact, what they want them to do is testify privately.

KEILAR: Are the President's constitutional rights being violated here?

HENNESSEY: This is essentially the President saying he wants to set the rules for how an impeachment inquiry goes in the House of Representatives. The constitution said that the House of Representatives gets to set those rules. Now certainly past houses have decided to extend certain procedural protections to the president. Things like allow the president's counsel to be present.

Now one thing that Nancy Pelosi might do at this point is say, look, give us the list of the procedural protections, new specific procedural protection that you would like that the President doesn't already have in exchange for a very firm and clear commitment to produce, to waive executive privilege, produce all documents, all testimony that the committee requested in a timely manner, that might be the kind of thing the House actually would be willing to agree to but this is not a --

BORGER: This is let's make a deal.

KEILAR: Let's talk about seriously about where this goes. I mean, this is at a complete impasse.

So what happens, Shawn? I mean, where does this go? The courts obviously can play a role in this. But that could be quite slow. So what happens?

[17:35:11]

TURNER: Well, look, when you read this letter, I think that what everyone said about this letter is true. This is a politic document. But I also think for all of the people out there who might want to come forward and speak out, this letter is also a message to those people.

But I think that what the president and his team does not understand is that while there are a lot of people who fall under the president's political umbrella there are a lot of civil servants and career professionals who have knowledge about what happened here and who will have the courage to come forward. So where does this go? Well, I think we are going to continue to see more people speak out.

We are going to continue to see whistleblowers come forward. I think ultimately the White House will continue to fight this. But this will -- this probably will end up in the courts. And as I said before the longer the White House could stretch this out and engage in the fight as we get closer to the election the better it is for the White House.

So the Democrats have to sit down and really figure out what their strategy is. And really got to send a clear message that for people that will come forward they are going to be protected and they want to hear from them.

KEILAR: This ending up in the courts? I mean, that just seems like this amorphous thing that happens so far down the road.

ATWOOD: Yes. And I also thing it is important to note they are putting a lot of the U.S. ambassadors in really awful, awkward positions right now. So we have ambassador Sondland who wasn't allowed to go up to the committee today because White House counsel told the state department he shouldn't go.

Now, we have the committee saying they are going to be subpoenaing him for the documents and for his testimony. So he is going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place because the White House is telling him not to go. He is going to face a subpoena. Then we have ambassador Jovanovich (ph) who is supposed to be going on Friday. According to what we see here, it is pretty clear that the White House is not going to let her --

KEILAR: Not to mention that Congress is supposed to be informed, Kaylie, of these things. And right now of the things that might, let's say, be deemed legitimate from a Republican perspective of keeping Congress in the loop on foreign relations, this creates a break down there, too.

ATWOOD: Completely. And we have another ambassador to Ukraine who has been revealed in some of the text messages. He can't come out and defend himself. The state department has not defended him or defended the former ambassador there, Jovanovich who Trump has publicly said negative things about. So the state department is in a really hard place right now. HENNESSEY: But look, at the end of the day these kind of hard ball

tactics are the White House essentially saying we are going to force the crisis. We are not going to back down here. And the idea that if the House of Representatives and the Democrats just sort of back off a little bit that somehow the White House is going to become more cooperative is ridiculous.

So I really do think this is a message to House Democrats that, look, the White House is going to fight this tooth and nail and the only response is for you to fight just as hard your constitutional (INAUDIBLE).

BORGER: Look. If Nancy Pelosi were to come out tomorrow and say, OK, we are going to have a vote. Then the goalpost would be moved. And she wouldn't get anything in exchange for that from the White House. So it's not like this is a document as was, you know, earlier we thought well maybe they'll send a letter to say if you do x, we'll do y and we will come up with some kind of a -- of an arrangement. That is not what this letter is.

KEILAR: Does this go to the Supreme Court?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Potentially. Although --

KEILAR: I mean, they are saying it is a constitutional issue.

HENNESSEY: These are not -- this is the politic question. And impeachment always is a political question. The idea the Supreme Court will weigh in on this, 18 months down the road, years down the road, that is not realistic. And that is why Congress needs to decide whether or not it takes itself seriously on this matter and --

KEILAR: And yet we are seeing a complete and utter breakdown in the way the branches of government that are supposed to be attention between them, Sean. But right now it is beyond tension. This is a complete and utter breakdown that means the country can't operate, the government can't operate the way it should.

TURNER: No, it absolutely is. Look, it is being felt inside of the agencies. Look, you know, the White House can fight this all they want. But there is one thing that the White House and people on either side of this can't fight. There are a lot of documents out -- there is a lot of documentation that will tell us exactly had a happened here.

And once that documentation comes to light, you know, the White House will be in a position of saying, what you see here on paper, what you hear in these calls is not actually what you are seeing and hearing. And so that is one of the reasons why they are pushing so hard on this.

You know, we have talked a lot, Brianna, about ambassador Sondland and these text messages. You know, we have talked about the phone call between ambassador Sondland and the President after Bill Taylor sent the text message. But if you recall Bill Taylor's first text message started with, as I said on the phone. And I'm told that members of Congress are really very interested in

that conversation because it seemed as though Sondland was preventing as though this is the first time he was hearing Bill Taylor's concerns but clearly there was a conversation. So there is more that will come to light here.

[17:40:05]

KEILAR: Can I ask you quickly, Gloria, because we have to go, but this all started with this -- really the transcript and the complaint and learning what happened which was a very concerning thing that happened, digging for dirt on Joe Biden in exchange for military aid. But does this just end in posturing, posturing, posturing goes to the election.

BORGER: You know, it may. Look, this is -- you know, the summary of that conversation is out there. That's what the story is about. The President asking a foreign leader to do his opposition research and holding up money for Ukraine. Period, end of story. End of paragraph. All of the rest of this is going to be how everybody in the White House was reacting to it, how they got nervous about it, how a whistleblower was so offended by it that took the steps that he or she took to get this out there. That is the story.

The rest of this, as we are talking about in this letter, is all about process, it is all about partisanship and politics. The question the American public has to answer is, was this appropriate, was this presidential, was this an abuse of power?

KEILAR: Thank you all so much.

And coming up, more on the bombshell letter.

Also ahead, fury and uncertainty for U.S. ally that was crucial in the defeat of ISIS, have the Kurds been abandoned by President Trump?

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[17:45:02] KEILAR: President Trump insisted in a tweet today that the U.S. has not abandoned the Kurds. This is the latest attempt of his to blunt criticism over his decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria.

We have CNN Chief International Correspondent, Clarissa Ward joining us from Iraq's Kurdistan region.

And you know, he is saying this isn't abandoning the Kurds, Clarissa, but tell that to the Kurds.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, exactly, Brianna. And I think the Kurds are trying to be diplomatic on the surface of it. But make no mistake, they feel deeply troubled by President Trump's apparent complete pivot on this issue. It was just earlier in January when he said he was going to pull out all of the troops and there was a brouhaha among his allies in Congress, but also across the world. He appeared to reverse on that. And now here we are once again

apparently the President giving carte blanche to the Turkish military to launch some kind of a military invasion into northern Syria. The very real fear for these Kurdish fighters is that this will result in a blood bath.

And it is important to remember, Brianna, it is the Kurds who have been fighting and dying on the ground in the fight against ISIS. More than 10,000 of them have given their lives in this fight. They have been the U.S.' staunchest ally on the ground. Not only that they are the people in charge of the prisons in northern Syria that currently house more than 12,000 ISIS fighters.

And what they have said is that, hold on a second. If Turkey launches a military invasion, our people, our fighters who are now guarding those prisons will be forced to go to the front lines, to bring the fight to Turkey, to defend our homeland and the very real fear is that means you could have a situation where those thousands of ISIS fighters are on the loose once again.

So a lot of concern we are hearing from Kurdish officials and a lot of confusion. What is the real message coming from the White House. President Trump appearing to say that he would crack down on Turkey economically if they launched any kind of fight that he deemed to be quote "off limits," but no one knows exactly what that means. What is President Trump's red line and will the U.S. come to bat for Kurdish fighters when and if turkey does launch that military incursion, Brianna.

KEILAR: Clarissa Ward in Iraq. Thank you.

And coming up, the NBA does a 180 on a controversial tweet drawing anger from China.

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[17:50:34] KEILAR: New developments tonight on the controversy over a tweet by the Houston Rockets the general manager supporting Hong Kong protesters.

CNN's Brian Todd is her with that latest.

And Brian, the league reverse course. They are now facing backlash from China.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Brianna. Just a few hours really after seemingly siding with the communist government in Beijing on all of this.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver came out strongly today and said this league is not about trying to stifle anyone's right to free speech. Tonight, China is hitting back at the NBA. And commissioner Silver says the league just going to have to live with the consequences.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) TODD (voice-over): The normally savvy and socially conscious NBA clearly knew it had a PR nightmare on its hands because hours after the league appeared to side with communist China saying a tweet from Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey supporting Hong Kong protesters was regrettable. The NBA commissioner Adam Silver came before cameras in Japan to do an unequivocal about face.

ADAM SILVER, NBA COMMISSIONER: We are not apologizing for Daryl exercising his freedom of expression.

TODD: Silver also issued a lengthy statement saying in part, the NBA will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say on these issues. The NBA PR machine went into overtime after a full court press from angry members of Congress on both sides of the aisle as well as from commentators and fans who labeled the league as phony, hypocritical and kowtowing to the Chinese government which complaint about the tweet and pressure the NBA.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: I think the NBA came to the right decision. It took a little longer than it should have. I think the NBA realized that they had a huge problem on their hands.

TODD: But trying to solve that huge problem has created another one for the league, fresh backlash from the communist regime in Beijing. Shortly after Adam Silver voiced the league's support for free speech, China state TV said it won't broadcast or stream NBA pre-season games in China. And at least two major Chinese retailers have pulled Houston Rockets merchandise from their websites.

JUDE BLANCHETTE, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: What's new here and important to us is the extent to which Beijing has forced to private companies to be enlisted in this effort to shut out the NBA. And that's really a new dimension.

TODD: Tonight, some analysts are giving credit to the NBA for quickly changing its play book and taking a stand against the Chinese government. They say that's more than President Trump did recently when according to sources he promised Chinese president Xi Jinping, the U.S. government would not speak out on the Hong Kong protests while trade talks were going on.

And analysts say the NBA come stronger down the lane against China than some American companies. Last year Marriott apologized to the Chinese government for listing Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao a separate countries in emails and on its app.

And three American air carriers, United, Delta and America bowed to pressure from China and removed references to Taiwan as a separate country on their Web site.

Apple and the Gap made similar concessions to Beijing.

BLANCHETTE: The problem is that is coming under greater scrutiny in the United States and by U.S. politicians. And so, some are arguing that companies need to make a choice between operating in China and playing by their rules or being American companies and operating based on U.S. values.

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TODD: Analysts say that Chinese government might try to keep punishing the NBA for this episode but they are wondering how far China is going to go in all of this. Experts say China still needs the NBA more than the NBA needs China. And that if the Chinese government takes the steps of pulling all the NBA games including the regular season games from state TV, they could have an upheaval on their hands from the hundreds of millions of basketball fans in China.

Brianna, it's a basketball crazed country.

KEILAR: Do not take sports away.

All right. Brian Todd, thank you.

The breaking news continues next. Why the White House is telling House speaker Nancy Pelosi it will not participate in the impeachment inquiry.

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[17:59:30]

KEILAR: Happening now, breaking news. Impeding the inquiry. The White House just sent a blistering letter to House speaker Nancy Pelosi trying to justify the President's refusal to comply with the impeachment probe. The confrontation escalating as new polls show support for the investigation is growing.

Now show. The Trump administration abruptly blocks a top diplomat from answering lawmakers questions about the Ukraine scandal. And tonight Democrats are calling it obstruction and hitting back with a subpoena.

Four hour gap. What did ambassador Gordon Sondland do during a mysterious break in his texts about Mr. Trump's phone call to Ukraine.

[18:00:00]