Correspondent kimberly how it is standing by for us in washington d. C. In our bureau there while castro is on capitol hill will be talking with them throughout the proceedings over the next few hours lets go 1st to heidi so heidi what can we expect over the coming hours as both sides give their arguments and are we likely to hear anything new at this point. Well this opens yet another chapter in the impeachment proceedings against trump you know we 1st heard from those facts witnesses then it was the constitutional scholars and starting today will be hearing from the attorneys for both parties who will help in this nitty gritty case of the House Judiciary Committee drafting the articles of impeachment that trump will face in essence these are like the indictments that you that a defendant would face in a trial and what we expect to hear 1st are Opening Statements from both sides those could be quite drawn out afterwards there will be opportunities for questions from the various members of the House Judiciary Committee of course will be hearing democrats make the case that trump is guilty of abusing the power of his office in trying to pressure the president of ukraine to open investigations into trumps domestic political rivals and then well hear republicans then make the case that there is no merit to those accusations and in fact that this entire impeachment in their understanding is what the president calls a witch hunt so expect a lot of partisan statements being made today quite a long process of q. And a in a hearing that could extend to be several hours so essentially heidi theres a lot of political theater in all of this as as it plays out so im on Live Television in front of the public and given the fact that the main testimony as has been heard now so is you know how much how much of the public mind matters in all of this Public Opinion is it is it likely to change in any way. That is the biggest question thats out there right now we know that the polling has suggested that public mind will not change because since the launching of this impeachment inquiry up until today over the transports of weeks of witnesses coming forward few people have shifted in their opinions if you believe the polls the American Public still appears to be evenly decided evenly divided rather 50 percent for impeaching and removing the president from office and 50 percent against and if you look at those numbers further its very obvious that people are shifting toward their partisan leanings thats hearty oil tea thats really dictating peoples opinions on this impeachment with democrats strongly for impeachment and republicans sharply against so will anyone have their minds changed will that be enough to then convince their congressional representatives in the Eventual Senate trial to perhaps defect from the president if the evidence is overwhelming enough at this point it appears that what we know thats far from the evidence given simply hasnt been enough to shift minds and still something dramatic would have to merge something unforeseen in order for chum to be actually convicted and removed from office. Life 1st there on capitol hill stand by heidi we will be coming back to you at some point as and when those hearings begin these are live pictures youre looking at right now inside the hearing room of the Judiciary Committee in the u. S. Congress as they all gather to take their seats lets cross over now to our White House Correspondent kimberly how kids in washington d. C. For us so kimberly the white house remaining defiant in its position here in not wanting to cooperate with this impeachment inquiry in any way. Yeah and this is really this is a message that is coming from one person that is u. S. President donald trump the question becomes how will he inserted himself into todays hearings because thats what weve been seeing throughout all of this is the president has said he doesnt want to participate yet he has been in his own unique way and that is through social media we saw whether it was in the hearing of marie yvonne a bitch the former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine while she was testifying the president actually tweeted some would suggest a Smear Campaign against her during her live testimony many people consider that to be witness intimidation in other cases the president has been tweeting when he feels that a republican has defended him very well he will retreat some of that testimony or some of that line of questioning or even see it in the case of u. S. President trump on sunday he tweeted or read tweeted about a 100 different messages in defense of his actions with respect to ukraine so the president has been very vocal while all the time saying this is an unfair process in fact theres been no due process and weighing in on social media now why does the president want this to wrap up quickly something he suggested on thursday he has suggested that this needs to because he says the end alleges that democrats of cherry picked witnesses have not allowed him to have a fair process or due process he wants this vote on impeachment very quickly because he believes that when it gets to the republican dominated senate thats where he believes that he will be in fact hes predicted he will be acquitted that is not a guarantee certainly theres still a lot that could happen a lot that could change but the president sounding as recently as the last few days very optimistic this will eventually go his way even if there is an Impeachment Vote in the house of representatives he believes he will be rebuilt to retain office he will not be removed in a senate trial but again this is the president speculating often painting a rosy picture of what he hopes will be the outcome. All right for the moment kelly how good life for us there in washington so frank bowman joins us again a professor at the university of Missouri School of law and the also of high crimes and misdemeanors a history of impeachment for the age of trump he also served as a federal and state prosecutor and he joins us from washington thanks for being with us. But i want to ask you this time around how how in your experience and what youve seen of this. In the way these impeachment inquiries of gone through American History how how does this particular inquiry compare with the impeachment inquiries of president clinton 20 years ago and with of course Richard Nixon back in the 1970 s. There are 2 points on which this is obviously distinct one of them of course is that the principle subject matter of impeachment here which is to say the ukraine affair is something that the house has really had to investigate on its own whereas in previous cases both clinton and nixon most of the investigation was done by other bodies either prosecutors or a nixons case both prosecutors and a Senate Special senate panel here the house is having to do the investigation itself which has produced some interesting anomalies in this case and given rise to the president s claim that this is somehow or other unfair the 2nd thing thats very different is the heightened degree partisan disagreement not just the obvious instinct of any president or any Congressional Party the republicans here to tend to side with the president of its own party but a real inability of the parties to agree even on fundamental facts and that was not true and next and it was not true and clinton. All right were going to go live now to the proceedings thing that im just beginning at lets listen in Committee Procedures that are described in section 48 of that resolution here is how the committee will proceed for this hearing i will make an Opening Statement and then i will recognize the Ranking Member for an Opening Statement after that we will hear 2 sets of presentations we will hear 30 minute opening arguments from counsel for the majority and the minority this k. K o. O o. O c. What do we. Want to order. 0. 00. 0. 0000. 0 committee will come to order. Shouldnt have to remind everyone present of the audience is here to observe but not to demonstrate to indicate agreement or disagreement with any witness or with any member of the committee the audience is here to observe only and we will maintain decorum in the hearing room and again i will say here is how the committee will proceed for this hearing i will make an Opening Statement and then i will recognize the Ranking Member for an Opening Statement after that we will hear 2 sets of presentations we will hear 30 minute opening arguments from counsel for the majority and minority of this committee then we will hear 45 minute presentations of evidence for majority and minority counsel for the Permanent Select Committee on intelligence followed by 45 minutes of questioning by the chair and Ranking Member who may yield to counsel for questioning during this period. Finally all of our members will have the opportunity to question the presenters from the Intelligence Committee under the 5 minute rule i would note that the president s counsel was given the opportunity to participate today at the white house as declined the invitation i will now recognize myself for an Opening Statement no matter his party or his politics if the president places his own interests above those of the country he betrays his oath of office the president of the United States the speaker of the House Majority leader of the senate the chief justice of the Supreme Court and the chairman and Ranking Members of the House Committee on the judiciary all have one important thing in common we have each taken an oath to preserve protect and defend the constitution of the United States if the president puts himself before the country evaluates a president s most basic responsibility he breaks his oath to the American People if he puts himself before the country in a manner that threatens our democracy and our oath our promise to the American People requires us to come to the defense of the nation that rose stands even when it is politically inconvenient even when it might bring us under criticism even when it might cost us our jobs as members of congress and even if the president is unwilling to honor his oath i am compelled to undermine as we heard in our last hearing the framers of the constitution were careful students of history and clear in their vision for the new nation. They knew the threats from true democracy can take many forms that we must protect against that they want to see against the dangers that would be monarchs fake populace and charismatic demagogues they knew that the most dangerous threat to our country might come from within in the form of a corrupt executive who put his private interests above the interests of the nation he also knew that they could not anticipate every threat a president might someday pose so they adopted the phrase treason bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. To capture the full spectrum of possible president ial misconduct george mason who proposed the standard said that it was meant to capture all manner of great and dangerous offenses against the constitution the debates around the framing make clear that the most serious such offenses include abuse of power the trail of the nation through fire and entanglements and corruption of Public Office any one of these violations of the public trust would compel the members of this committee to take action when combined this single course of action a state the strongest possible case for impeachment and removal from Office President trump put himself before i tree despite the political partisanship that seems to punctuate our hearings these days. I believe that there is Common Ground around some of these ideas Common Ground in this hearing room and Common Ground across the country at large we agree for example that impeachment is a solemn serious undertaking we agree that it is meant to address serious threats to Democratic Institutions like our free and Fair Elections we agree that when the elections themselves are threatened by enemies foreign or domestic we cannot wait until the next election to address the threat. We surely agree that no public official including and especially the president of the United States should use his Public Office for private gain and we agree that no president may put himself before the country the constitution and his oath of office his promise to america citizens require the cut president to put the country 1st if we could drop our blinders for just one moment i think we would agree on a common set of facts as well. July 25th President Trump hauled president zelinsky of ukraine and asked him for a favor that quote was part of a concerted effort by president drub to compel the government of ukraine to announce an investigation that an investigation of corruption writ large but investigation of President Trumps political rivals and only his political rivals president trub put himself before country the record shows that President Trump withheld military aid allocated by the United States congress from ukraine it also shows that he withheld the well a white house meeting from president selenski multiple witnesses including respected diplomats National Security professionals and decorated war veterans all testified to the same basic fact President Trump withheld the aid and to mediate in order to pressure a Foreign Government to do if that favor President Trump put himself before the country. And when the president got quite. Congress discovered that the aid has been withheld from ukraine the president took extraordinary not precedented steps to conceal evidence from congress and from the American People these facts are not to dispute in fact most of the arguments about these facts appear to be beside the point. As we review the evidence today i expect to hear much about the whistleblower who brought his concerns about the july 25th call to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community let me be clear every fact alleged by the whistleblower has been substantiated by multiple witnesses again and again each of who has been questioned extensively by democrats and republicans alike allegations also match up with the president s own words as released by the white house where he said he still says were perfect i also expect your complaints about the term quid pro quo as if a person needs to verbal e acknowledge the name of a crime while his committee you for it to be a crime in all the record at this point is also clear all to bill officials testified that the president s demand for an investigation into his rivals was a part of his personal political agenda and not related to the Foreign Policy objectives of the United States multiple officials testified that the president intended to withhold the 8 until tended to withhold the 8 until you created announced investigations of yes multiple officials testified that they understood this arrangement to be a quid pro quo for the president s personal political benefit President Trump who had himself before tree the president s supporters are going to argue that this whole process is unfair the record before us is clear at this point is well he invited the president to participate in this theory to question witnesses and to present evidence that might explain the charges against him President Trump chose not to show he may not have much to say in his own defense and he cannot claim that he did not have an opportunity to be heard. Finally as we proceed today we will hear a great deal about the speed with which the house is addressing the president s actions to the members of the committee to the members of the house and to my fellow citizens i want to be absolutely clear integrity of our next election is at stake nothing could be more urgent the president welcomed into foreign interference in our elections in 2016 he demanded 842020 then he got caught if you do not believe that he will do it again let me remind you that the president s personal lawyer spent last week back in ukraine media with government officials and in apparent attempt to gin up the same socalled favors that brought us here today and force congress to consider the impeachment of a sitting president this pattern of conduct represents a continuing risk to the country the evidence shows that donald j. Trump the president of the United States has put himself before his country he has violated his most basic responsibilities to the people he has broken his oath i will undermine if you would honor yours and i would urge you to do your duty let us live let us review the record here in full view of the American People that then let us move swiftly to defend our country we promised that we would i now recognize the Ranking Member of the mystery committee the gentleman from georgia german however you know as an insurgent chairman of you know using charges recognized the gentleman from georgia is recognized. And weve george is recognized. You know im going to recognize a possible motion before me you know miss consent mr chairman now sir requests because you know mr west the gentleman from georgia is recognized once again that later point of order mr chairman the gentleman from georgia is right i have a point of order and it was status point of order the chairman last week you were furnished with a proper demand for minority hearing pursuant to clause to j. One of rule 11 and a blatant greasiest violation the rules youre refusing to schedule if hearing therefore i insist on my point of order unless youre willing to immediately schedule a minority hearing day that is not a proper point of order in todays hearing so i told the Ranking Member several times now i am considering the minorities request is not to because i am mr hammer and will suspend if the Ranking Member thinks we would be violating the rules of the house if we considered articles of impeachment before holding the day hearing his point of order would be timely and a meeting where we considered articles of impeachment that is not the purpose of todays hearing and the point of order is not timely the gentleman from georgia well that got us started again. The chairman completely not answering the question it is timely and its frankly not up to his discretion but again again weve not really cared about that from the start to begin with so. My question is just schedule the hearing but im valley thats not what they want out there so lets start oh now the chairman has recognized and we got that point you know theyve been famous moments in impeachment i mean famous moments in impeachment as weve gone forward their famous lines from nixon like what did the president know and when did you know the clinton this moment and impeachment as weve gone forward their famous lines from nixon like what did the president know and when did you know in the clinton impeachment there was i did not have sex with that woman what would be known about this one is probably where is the Impeachable Offense why are we here. A take this might be though become known as the focus group impeachment because we dont have a crime we dont have anything we can actually pan and nobody understands really what the majority is trying to do except that in a fair and basically make sure that they believe the president cant win next year if hes impeached the focus group impeachment takes words and then takes them to people and say how can we explain this better because we dont have the facts to match it a focus group impeachment says you know we really are working with good facts but we need a good p. R. Move thats why were here today this is this is all about as i said last week a clock in the calendar and it really became evident to me that this was true because last wednesday after we had a long day of hearing here the next morning before anything else could get started the speaker of the house walked up to the podium and said go write articles of impeachment just quit just stop go right over those impeachment. I appreciate that the majority practiced for 2 days this week and on this hearing i appreciated the fact that youve got to try and get it right to try and convince the American People of your problem but your speakers already undercut you she to the thrill out of the room youre writing articles of impeachment why couldnt we just say that time today and if youre going to write the all examination go ahead and write them well theres probably a reason for that because the chairman and laid out some amazing claims none of which i think after this hearing today the American People can honestly look at and see that there was overwhelming evidence there is a proper reason the abuse these power because as the speaker another statement she said that to do impeachment you have to be so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan all of which we are not so why not why are we here well i think we can do this lets look at lets look at the 3 things that typically are associated with making your case for a crime against what the majority has said i think they have a motive they have mains and they have opportunity was their motive is november 2020 its been said over and over and over again the chairman said it again this morning its been said all along that we have to do this because if we dont impeach him hell win again next year the reason is shown as clearly as last week on the jobs report in the economy and as i had a man come up to me in the Grocery Store this weekend he said keep doing what youre doing he said ive never seen an economy this good he said hour he said people are working people are being taken care of and this is just a fatal distraction on the president that they dont like motive is easy nov 26th saying they last january 27th saying just a few minutes and the last impose confirm whatever democratic been talking about now is the time for impeachment we see tweet after tweet saying now lets get it its amazing that they start with impeachment and then they spent 2 years trying to figure out what do we impeach him oh well the mains became. What we see now the means is its always talk about impeachment to always say this president is on there ill just say he is illegitimate as the chairman has said before that hes not even eligible a legitimate president if youre going to constantly tear down at a president who is working on behalf of the American People shannon patient when we go through this i think the chairman said something was interesting he said a president should not be above the law should be held accountable for the oath of their office i think congress ought to be held accountable for their oath of office as well and not to do what were doing right now and that is run a process that doesnt fit fairness sort of core him to run a process and a fact pattern that youre having to force against a president you dont want what was the opportunity the opportunity came last november when they got the majority and they began their impeachment ron they began the process even as deflecting the chairman the chairman said i would be the best person for impeachment this is november of last year before we had any hearings before we had even were sworn into this congress for anyone the media or watching on t. V. Or watching in this room for anyone to think that this was not a bait deal is not being honest with themselves you see presumption is now become the standard instead of proof if you cause anyone to begin to question because the entire case is built on a presumption or as we found out last week from 3 scholars that inference is ok if you just infer that thats what they mean they will take that as an interesting line you know is interesting they made their whole case built on board and saw and you dont see that a lot today. He testified that he presumed that the aide was connected to an investigation but he said nobody ever told him that when someone even asked the president directly he said what do you want the president i will nothing i was lazy to do what he ran on ukraine did nothing and got the aid anyway. Know that this is also a problematic experience just look over the past 3 weeks when the chairman of the Intelligence Committee who by the way is absent today yes he cant back up his own report but he started his own hearing by making the factual call when he made it he started the fairy tale that were having today if you can even put the transcript in the right condits just read it chairmanship couldnt even read the transcript he had to make it up because if he didnt make it up it didnt sound as bad it didnt say that is what he said listen he said lets make up some dirt thats not what we say at the transcript the chairman misled the American People as an attorney as a chairman as a member of congress who swore an oath to tell that basically to be promise with the American People and up hold the constitution that was such a massive malpractise ive never seen because you know again they dont care about what actually was in the transcript they dont actually care what happened and we heard last week from witnesses they dont even care that the aide was released theyre simply looking at the facts to make it fit their narrative what else happened you know this is also the chairmanship who also said that they is saying collusion in plain sight it was already there before the report ever came out that all of this was going to happen but you know i guess maybe i need to just not stop commenting on chairmanship in his guidance because i may end up on the next phone records subpoena as we go forward you see weve taken a name turn in this Congress Subpoenas are fine properly done and should be done properly but they should never be at the expense of a political and been data. Professor turley testified last week presumption is no substitute for proof the current legal case for impeachment is not just woefully inadequate in some respects dangerous and the basis for impeachment of an american president today when we were supposed to get was like what i love my friends on the on the majority of this Committee Said molder when we got the report it didnt go well so we had a lot of hearings didnt go real well then we finally got moeller and they said this is going to be the movie version in fact what happened they did my colleagues on the majority had a lot of reading from capitol hill they made dramatic prague cast even wrote a comic book rendition that breathed life into the report and it didnt work so they brought bob miller is the movie version they told us Robert Mullers testimony would be the thing that people watched and would be convinced yes was it one can mans back to fill flash which you know today i guess is the movie version of the show for pork except one thing the star witness failed to show mr newman is here is staff is here the leading headline is their shift report but where is mr shift in lower Robert Muller testified against or for ken starr testified the author of the chauffeur board is not here instead he sending his staff to do its job for him i guess thats what you get when youre making up impeachment as you go so as we look forward here theres me plenty of time to discuss the factual case of this in the statements that are not been made what is very detrimental to me though is this this committee is not hearing from a factual witness this committee is not doing anything past hearing from all School Professors and staff weve not been given the chairman says something about the president not to have a gun show me where he would actually have a proper process in this not talking to staff and not talking to law School Professors and we could actually have witnesses that would be called. But i want to say this in me and. I love this institution i was here is a 19 year old kid is an intern. Almost 32 years ago this institution as we see it today is in danger we see chairman were issuing subpoenas for personal vendettas we see committees such as do you do sure a committee that is held many many substantive hearings has been the very center point of impeachment being used as a rubber stamp because we get not our marching orders from this committee and what it should be doing but from the speaker and the Intelligence Committee chairman were not able to do what we need to do it because were a rubber stamp i love this institution but in the last 3 days i have over the last year for 3 or 4 days ive seen stuff that just bother me to know when it should bother everyone the speaker of the house after hearing one day of testimony and they usually Committee Say go write articles facts be damned albury another member of the House Majority said we can keep impeaching him over and over and over and over again adam schiff when he told us he wasnt going to come instead hard behind his staff he also told us they were going to keep investigating because they know this is going nowhere in the senate and theyre desperate to have an Impeachment Vote on this president because of his good job creation is military strong our country is safe and the Judiciary Committee has been relegated to this on because they have the mains they have the motive and they have the opportunity and at the end of the day all this is about is about a clock and a calendar because they cant get over the fact donald trump is president of the United States and they dont have a candidate that they think can beat him its all political and as we have thought about before this is a show of unfortunately today the witness who is supposed to be the star witness chose to take a pass and let a staff answer for that hes chairman of point of order and usually mr chairman have a point of order. You know move state is point of order is chairman clause to j. One of ruhleben requires you to schedule a minority hearing day not to consider it not to meet to discuss it but to schedule one and to schedule it at a reasonable time not after articles have been drawn not after theres been a vote on articles of impeachment i enquire and insist mr chairman that you immediately schedule a minority hearing day or tell us why you are of generally ignoring the rules gentlemen we vote we already gone through that but i will pete it is not a put proper point of order into