MSNBC’s Ari Melber Grills Mark Meadows: Do You Still Think It’s ‘Proper’ to Have Ukraine Investigate the Bidens?

MSNBC’s Ari Melber pressed Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) Thursday on whether he thought it appropriate for President Donald Trump to ask a foreign power to announce an investigation of his domestic political opponents.

Meadows, who was appointed to Trump’s impeachment defense team, joined Melber for an extensive interview on the third day for Trump’s Senate impeachment trial over the Ukraine scandal. Melber began by asking Meadows if abuse of power is an impeachable offense. When Meadows replied, “there was no investigation, the aid was released,” the pair locked horns as Melber asked for an answer to his legal question.

“Let me finish!” Meadows exclaimed. He laid out his view that Trump’s actions don’t rise to bribery or treason and, therefore, don’t meet the Constitutional bar for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

As Melber continued to press Meadows into distinguishing his factual defense of Trump from his legal argument, he eventually delved into the president’s motives on Ukraine, asking “What do you think is the defense for what Donald Trump’s motivation was in what he was asking Ukraine to do?”

After Meadows insisted Trump was driven by a desire to fight corruption, Melber asked, “Does that mean then that you still see a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens… as a proper thing for the president to pursue?”

Meadows answered that it was “certainly appropriate” for Trump to ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to work with Attorney General Bill Barr. Melber responded by noting Barr “denied that [the Justice Department was] involved in any such investigation, and the DOJ never commenced any of their formal processes to launch an investigation requiring the cooperation of a foreign government.”

“That didn’t happen here and moreover Attorney General Barr has washed his hands of this and said he doesn’t know anything about this,” Melber said. “How is that appropriate if he’s the one denying it?”

“Well, you’re making my point because it didn’t happen. That’s the whole point,” Meadows answered. He accused Melber of asking him about Trump pursuing a “hypothetical” foreign investigation of the Bidens, and the MSNBC host pushed back thoroughly:

“The president made the request, he released the transcript, other members of his staff confirmed it, he spoke again about it to Rudy Giuliani, he spoke to Gordon Sondland about it. That is to say it’s not a hypothetical he made the request. When it was exposed he seemed to dial it back but he still admitted on the White House lawn, what I want is a major investigation into the Bidens. So it’s far from hypothetical as we head into the 2020 election where his side says he is being pursued as political agenda and abuse of the impeachment power and the House Managers who are still making their case later today are saying, no, in fact, this non hypothetical hangs in the balance. If he gets away with this, can he go back and do it again. And so I just want to get clarity from you, in your view can he appropriately still pursue this and other foreign investigations of American citizens?”

Watch Meadows’ answer above, via MSNBC.