-The president is facing three more days
of impeachment hearings this week after a second day
of damning testimony and yet another conviction
of one of his associates.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
Now, if you've been following the impeachment hearings,
I know what you've been thinking.
Where...is...the...evidence?
I mean, only six of the president's
closest aides and associates have been convicted
or pled guilty to crimes.
I mean, who among us doesn't have at least six work friends
who are also criminals?
I mean, we all know every friend group has a Carrie,
a Miranda, a Charlotte,
and a Roger who looks like Mary Poppins' coked-up ex-boyfriend.
That, of course, is Roger Stone, a long-time associate
of President Trump in his actual outfit from the inauguration.
And on Friday, Stone opened his magic umbrella
and teleported himself to jail.
-Roger Stone, the self-proclaimed dirty trickster
and long-time associate of President Donald Trump, an ally,
was found guilty in federal court
of witness tampering and lying to Congress
about his pursuit of Russian hacked e-mails
damaging to Hillary Clinton's 2016 election bid.
-Man, who could have guessed this guy was a criminal?
[ Laughter ]
I mean, he looks like a character
from the 1960s Adam West "Batman."
[ Laughter ]
When they closed the door of his jail cell,
it'll go, "Wham! Clink! Pow!"
Stone is now at least the sixth Trump associate
who's been convicted of or pled guilty to a crime,
and I am not including Trump's current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani,
who we found out Friday is under federal investigation
for his links to Ukrainian energy projects
or two of Rudy's associates, Lev and Igor, who were arrested
in part for their role in this whole Ukraine scheme.
Remember these two?
This looks like a before and after picture
except it is before and even more before.
They look like they got their start
in a live-action game of Whack-a-Mole.
They look like they got fired from their jobs as mall Santas
for stealing from the food court.
[ Russian accent ] "We thought Auntie Anne's was free for Santa.
Why would Auntie charge?"
[ Normal voice ] In fact, on Friday, we also found out
that these two dummies met privately with Trump
at the White House, and that they later told people
they'd been given a secret mission by Trump himself.
-We've learned that both of the men had a meeting
with the president and Rudy Giuliani last year
at the White House's annual Hanukkah party
where they discussed what Parnas described
as a secret mission to pressure the Ukrainian government
to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden
and his son Hunter.
-Days later we are told that Parnas insinuated to people
that he clearly believed he had been given a special assignment
by the president, some sort of, and I'm quoting here,
"James Bond mission." -That's right.
These guys thought they were on a James Bond mission for Trump.
I'm sorry, but these guys aren't 007.
They're just double Os.
This is one where I might believe Trump over them.
I mean, I can imagine them cornering Trump
in a long, boring conversation
about Van Damme movies and canned fish,
and Trump trying to get out of it by just going,
[ As Trump ] "Hey, will you guys go on, like, a secret mission for me?"
[ Normal voice ] By the way, while all this was happening,
the House was also conducting
its second day of public impeachment hearings
with the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.
Basically, Yovanovitch was the subject of a smear campaign
by Giuliani and was abruptly pushed out by Trump
because they knew she would be an obstacle
to their corrupt scheme.
She is a career foreign-service officer whose credibility is
unquestioned by anyone in either party,
so, naturally, as she was testifying,
Trump decided to attack her.
-The president attacking former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine
Marie Yovanovitch during her public testimony
tweeting, in part, "Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch
went turned bad.
She started off in Somalia. How did that go?
Then fast-forward to Ukraine
where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably
about her in my second phone call with him."
-Everywhere
You've gone bankrupt six times and botched everything
from casinos to your charity to your dumb-ass businesses.
You made a vodka so bad, no one would drink it.
Vodka! How do you screw up vodka?!
Only Trump.
[ Laughter, applause ]
Only Trump could take something
that's supposed to be flavorless and make it taste like [bleep].
But the worst part is Trump tweeted this
while she was testifying.
He tried to intimidate an impeachment witness
in real time.
So, she responded in real time.
And not only was it a bad look for Trump,
but legal analysts also suggested
his tweet might have been a crime.
-As we sit here testifying,
the president is attacking you on Twitter.
What effect do you think that has on other witnesses'
willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing?
-Well, it's very intimidating.
-It's designed to intimidate, is it not?
-I mean, I can't speak to what the president is trying to do,
but I think the effect is to be intimidating.
-I think there's a good argument
that given all the circumstances here,
given the timing right in the middle
of this person's testimony, given the nature of the tweet,
that it could be witness tampering
or witness retaliation.
-This could fit into federal laws
that are broadly defined in terms of witness tampering.
-That's right -- Trump committed witness tampering
during an impeachment hearing.
That's like punching the bailiff during your assault trial.
[ Laughter ]
But I think I know what he's doing here.
You see, Trump figures if he just keeps committing
impeachable offenses, Democrats will have to keep investigating
those offenses which means they'll never
actually have time to impeach him.
He thinks he can just keep committing crimes
to run out the clock.
At the next hearing, he's going to drop in from the ceiling
and steal everyone's wallets like Tom Cruise
in "Mission Impossible."
In fact, this was so bad that even Fox News had to admit
when it happened that Trump had only strengthened
the impeachment case against him.
-The president was not advised by counsel
in deciding to do this tweet.
Extraordinarily poor judgment.
-And that does raise the possibility
of witness intimidation and witness tampering
as a new charge here.
-This whole hearing turned on a dime
when the president tweeted about her real time.
Now, that enabled Schiff to then characterize that tweet
as intimidating the witness or tampering with the witness,
which is a crime,
adding essentially an article of impeachment real time.
-That's right. Trump added
another article of impeachment in real time.
At this point he should just start doing
DVD director's commentary during the hearings.
-[ As Trump ] "As you can see here, that's Marie Yovanovitch.
I pushed her out so I could bribe the president of Ukraine.
That was a fun scene.
And, oh, here's Jim Jordan.
We pulled a prank on set where we stole Jim's jacket."
[ Normal voice ] Still, if you're Republican, I get it.
It's just so hard to say.
Is Trump innocent, or is he guilty?
I mean, all we have so far is
the six Trump associates convicted of a crime,
two more indicted associates
saying they were on a secret mission for him,
his lawyer under criminal investigation,
Trump himself committing witness tampering,
the whistle-blower's account
claiming the president clearly committed a criminal act,
the notes from the call, in which Trump mentions
the Bidens multiple times, the part of the call
where Trump tells the Ukrainian President
"I would like you to do us a favor,"
the president's chief of staff
literally confessing on national television,
Rudy Giuliani going on TV
and bragging about what he was doing,
and, like, a bunch of witnesses saying,
"Yes, there was a quid pro quo." I'm sorry!
That's not enough to convict!
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Republicans won't budge
unless we have a photo of Trump on the phone
with a word bubble coming out of his mouth saying,
"I am doing a crime now."
I mean, just take that quote where Trump told
the president of Ukraine,
"I would like you to do us a favor."
We just have no way of knowing what he really meant.
It's not like Trump has said himself on camera
for the entire world to see
that he wanted the president of Ukraine
to start a major investigation into the Bidens.
-What exactly did you hope Zelensky would do
about the Bidens after your phone call?
-Well, I would think that if they were honest about it,
they'd start a major investigation into the Bidens.
It's a very simple answer.
They should investigate the Bidens.
-Damn it, Donald! Why are you so coy?!
But in case you still needed more evidence
tying Trump directly to the scheme
to extort a foreign country
to investigate his political rivals
by dangling hundreds of millions of dollars
in taxpayer money, you got that evidence
from last week's impeachment hearings.
Multiple witnesses tied Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani,
directly to the quid pro quo, and one witness,
Ambassador Bill Taylor, even revealed
some bombshell new information about a phone call Trump had had
with one of his key henchmen, the Ambassador to the E.U.,
Gordon Sondland.
-Taylor said a staffer of his recently told him
about this conversation involving the president
and the Trump donor turned ambassador to the E.U.,
Gordon Sondland.
-In the presence of my staff at a restaurant,
Ambassador Sondland called President Trump
and told him of his meetings in Kiev.
The member of my staff could hear President Trump
on the phone asking Ambassador Sondland
about the investigations.
-This was a cellphone I take it? -It was a cellphone.
-The president must have been speaking loud enough
for your staff member to be able to overhear this?
-He was.
-These guys are such morons.
Trump was in the process of committing a crime,
and he was screaming into the phone so loudly,
everyone on the other end could hear him.
That's what happens when you're used to doing
all your press conferences outside
next to a giant helicopter.
It's like taking a date to a Metallica concert.
[ Shouting ] "I'm having a really great time tonight!"
"What?!"
"I said I'm having a really great time tonight!"
"Did you say you'd like to commit a crime tonight?"
"Yeah!"
[ Normal voice ] Trump yelled so loud, everyone could hear him.
Honestly, it would have been easier
if Trump had just held a conference call
and let everyone dial in.
-President Trump has joined the conference call.
-Hello, everybody. Thank you very much for being here.
Ukraine -- To investigate the Bidens.
And I'm -- guilty.
-This conference call has ended.
-So, a witness literally overheard Trump
yelling about his crime on a phone call
with one of his key henchmen.
And just in case it wasn't already incredibly clear
what had happened on that call,
we found out on Friday from that witness what happened next.
The witness, a State Department official named David Holmes,
testified that after Sondland hung up with Trump,
he basically admitted everything on the spot.
-Following the call with President Trump,
the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland
what President Trump thought about Ukraine.
Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump
cares more about the investigations of Biden,
which Giuliani was pressing for.
-I want to a read section from Holmes' sworn testimony,
his opening statement.
"In particular, I asked Ambassador Sondland,"
this is David Holmes speaking,
"if it true that the president did not give a [bleep]" --
excuse the language -- "about Ukraine.
Ambassador Sondland agreed that the president
did not give a [bleep] about Ukraine."
-He literally hung up the phone
and said Trump doesn't give a [bleep] about Ukraine.
He only cares about investigating the Bidens.
He just admitted it.
It's like if you saw your spouse on their phone
and said, "Are you texting a friend?"
and they said, "Honey, she's more than a friend.
She's my mistress."
[ Laughter ]
So, Friday's deposition could not have made it any more clear.
Not only did Trump try to extort the president of Ukraine
during his own phone call with that country's president,
Trump was also calling other key players in the scheme
and checking in with them, too.
In fact during his deposition on Friday, Holmes also said
that he overheard Sondland and Trump discussing
the pressure campaign directed
toward Ukrainian President Zelensky and what he heard was
both very colorful and very damning.
-"I heard Ambassador Sondland greet the president
and explain that he was calling from Kiev.
I heard President Trump then clarify
that Ambassador Sondland was in Ukraine.
Ambassador Sondland replied, Yes, he was in Ukraine,
and went on to state that President Zelensky
"loves your ass."
-That's right Trump's henchman
actually told him, "Zelensky loves your ass."
I mean, it's classic bad-guy talk.
That's something the wolf of wall street would say
after snorting cocaine off a stripper's butt.
"Whoo! Daddy loves your ass!"
Now, Trump has denied ever taking the call from Sondland
despite the fact that we now have multiple witnesses
confirming it, although, it's clear from his denial
that Trump was, as always, lying.
-There was one moment where Ambassador Bill Taylor recounted
a conversation that an aide of his overheard
in which the aide says that he overheard you
say to Sondland, "How are things proceeding
with the investigations?"
Is that correct, and can you fill in some more?
-I know nothing about that. First time I've heard it.
-Do you recall a conversation --
-I don't recall. No. Not at all.
-Yeah but you do.
Any time Trump says he doesn't recall, he definitely recalls.
He always does this.
You can show flash cards of the people closest to him
in his life, and he'd pretend he doesn't recognize them.
-[ As Trump ] "What? No, never met him.
Doesn't look familiar.
Is he an extra in 'The Walking Dead?'"
[ Laughter ]
-"I don't know."
-[ Normal voice ] Trump has pulled this move
so many times, and every time, we found out that he's lying.
Remember when the news first broke
that his lawyer Michael Cohen had illegally paid off
Stormy Daniels to cover up Trump's affair with her?
Trump denied knowing anything about it,
but we later found out that Trump had reimbursed Cohen
and orchestrated the whole thing.
In fact, we literally saw a copy of the check
Trump wrote to Cohen.
And you can tell it's Trump's signature because it looks like
he was trying to draw a straight line while riding a seesaw.
We already have all the evidence we can possibly need,
and there's still more witnesses waiting to testify.
Republicans have no defense.
All they can do during these hearings
is perform for Trump to earn his approval.
I wouldn't be surprised if at some point this week,
a GOP congressman looked directly into the camera
and said, "President Trump, the Republican Party --
-Loves your ass.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]