Good evening. After repeatedly teasing throughout the impeachment inquiry that maybe possibly he

would consider participating directly in the process, President Trump and his attorneys

have done the only thing they and many top-current and former officials have ever done in this

White House, which is in this case refused to cooperate. The White House was on a 5-him

deadline imposed by the Judiciary Committee and they met it with another round of rhetorical

fireworks. In a statement, White House counsel Pat Sipalone said, quote, your impeachment

inquiry is completely baseless and has violated basic principles of due process and fundamental

fairness. He also called the process a charade and a reckless abuse of power. In response,

Democrats were equally incendiary in a tweet shortly after the White House made its decision

public intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff wrote, quote, the White House said they

wanted open hearings not closed and then they didn't want those either. Then they said

they wanted to participate in the proceedings and now they said they don't, all they really

want is to hide the president's serious misconduct. It's not working. During NADLAR, the Democratic

chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which is now conducting public hearings, said this,

quote, if the president has no good response to the allegations, then he would not want

to appear before the committee. Having declined this opportunity, he cannot claim that the

process is unfair. CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta joins us right now. So Jim,

the letter saying that the president won't participate in the House impeachment proceedings.

I mean, it's not surprising. He said publicly he was liked, he would like to, but that's

obviously what he said about testifying in front of Mueller. And that obviously never happened

either. Right, Anderson. I mean, this is the least surprising news from all week. We saw

this train coming a long time ago. But one thing I will tell you, Anderson, is that one thing

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