Southern District prosecutors watched impeachment hearing to decide whether to charge Giuliani: CNN reporter

The first publicly televised impeachment hearing was aired to millions of people on Tuesday. But it wasn't just citizens who were watching, suggested justice correspondent Evan Perez on CNN's "The Situation Room" — it was federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, who are currently investigating President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

"Both of [the witnesses], Kent and Taylor, they weighed in on the role of Rudy Giuliani in all this diplomacy," said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "What do you think?"

"Look, I think that's the key part of his testimony," said Perez. "I think we want to hear more from some of the other witnesses, including Ambassador Yovanovitch, and certainly Gordon Sondland, this is part of the story, the story Democrats are laying out for the impeachment inquiry. There is also another part of this, Wolf. I think the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York ... are watching this testimony today, no doubt, and trying to see whether it fits into the criminal investigation still ongoing in which Giuliani is the center of."

"I think today, hearing from these two very credible witnesses talk about what they heard and what they knew, it's incorrect — frankly, even the Democrats have fallen into this thinking — that these two witnesses were hearsay witnesses," added Perez. "That's not true. These people were saying directly what they heard first hand from other people. There's nothing wrong with that. People get convicted on hearsay evidence all the time, everyday in U.S. Courts. It's very important for people to remember this is only part of that story, and the rest of it is going to come from some of the other witnesses."

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