This team going on that there was a shadow Foreign Policy to get trump this political dirt that he was searching for but republicans have said there that theres still no smoking gun theres no one thats testified distinctly to the president s intent which is still the key to all of this and thats why looking forward after whats today whats expected to be todays historic vote on the house floor where democrats certainly have the numbers to impeach President Trump more of this evidence will be hashed out on the senate side in the coming new year or so thats when well see trumps trial likely to have been and in that chamber controlled by republicans its a big question what type of evidence republicans will allow to come forward to perhaps still clarify that big question mark as to the president s motives. Where hearing from both sides now and i believe thats 6 hours of debates or 3 a. As for the democrats 3 hours for the republicans and then theyll have a vote then as you say it goes to the senate trial and there is an ongoing debate there about the rules of that trial right here in terms of specially of whether or not witnesses might be called could we hear some pretty damning evidence against President Trump new damning evidence. Thats right because those very individuals who are his top senior most aides who had direct day to day contact with trump in this key time period when he was considering the Ukraine Security freeze they have been barred from sharing their testimonies thus far the white house itself has stopped those people like the acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and the former National Security adviser to trump john bolton they have been barred from testifying and they have defied the invitation to participate in the impeachment inquiry democrats say they want to 2nd stab at this in the senate where they hope that the because of the chief of the supreme courts chief justice will be the one overseeing the impeachment trial that a subpoena from him has to be followed and that they might be able to compel those witnesses to testify before the senate but not so fast because democrats need republicans help to make that request happen and thus far republicans who have the majority in the Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell has already dismissed the idea of calling additional witnesses thats despite polling showing showing that a majority of the American Public do want a fair trial in the senate and that even among those American Voters who identify as republicans that 2 thirds of them want these witnesses to be called. Live for us on capitol hill beginning of a very long long day well lets now go to our White House Correspondent committee how it can be any reaction yet from the white house i imagine President Trump was watching that pretty closely. You know we do know that the president is expected to leave the white house in the Late Afternoon here washington time typically he does in those departures speak to the press and we expect that he will have a lot to say given the fact that we know 2 that he is according to some here at the white house. Watching these proceedings that hes certainly been tweeting and reacting to them in fact one of the tweets by the president he said and then he retreated his own tweet saying i did nothing wrong a terrible thing read the transcripts this should never happen to another president again say a prayer and seizing on some of those comments that we saw in the house of representatives one of the president s biggest offenders in the house of representatives representative doug collins our Ranking Member our rather the minority member on the Judiciary Committee he essentially is making an argument that the president has made many times not only that this impeachment effort appears in the eyes of republicans in the president s supporters to be trying to undo the results of the 2016 u. S. Election but are also trampling on due process in the peoples house this is certainly an argument that the president has made on twitter as well when he said we tweeting of very notable quote from somebody who was very involved in the last impeachment proceeding back when bill clinton faced a very similar vote that was the independent counsel then ken starr he says the evidence has to be overwhelming and its not even close and this is certainly something whether you are on the left or the right of the political spectrum in the United States and democrats say the evidence is overwhelming republicans say that it is based on hearsay certainly that is what we expect the u. S. President at least will make the argument as he continues to build a case of porters that this is nothing more than a partisan coup is he said in his 6 page letter to nancy pelosi on the eve of this what we expect to be the very historic vote to impeach President Trump how is can they how how White House Correspondent thank you candy well we also have 3 expats with us we have tried both cox hes a professor of government at Georgetown University here in dar han we also have Michael Isikoff who is the chief investigative correspondent at yahoo news and hes in washington d. C. And we also have Philip Bobbitt who is associate counsel to the office of the president on the press. And cost and is also a professor at Columbia Law School hes also written a book called impeachment a handbook were going to start here in doha quote i want to recap something that nancy pelosi said she said our peoples republic is under threat it was derelict in their duty if they were not to act the President Trump didnt give them a choice what do you make of that clearly the democrats didnt actually want to get to this point though they most certainly dont and i think the politics of the dog is not great for the democrats but the obstruction of the investigation was really a meat major thing many key witnesses will forbidden to testify i dont think Congress Really have a choice but to move forward i want to bring in Michael Isikoff here at this point michael how does all of this play out with the public i mean we we did hear this argument from for a representative collins saying that it was trampling on due process and and i mean what were hearing here is that potentially the the ignorance of these subpoenas that was trampling on due process how is the public reacting to all of this. Well you know i can cite the latest poll which i mentioned to you before gallup poll today d that shows its essentially. A wash 46 percent support impeach pietschmann the removal of the president 51 percent are against it those are not great numbers for the democrats you know one of the problems here i think is everybody makes sort of comparisons to previous impeachments clinton nixon. You know this is almost like watergate in reverse in the in the case of nixon whos the one president who was actually forced from office when he was on the verge of impeachment. You had a year and a half of investigations that led to the smoking gun tape that put matters over the edge and forced nixon to resign in this case the smoking gun it started with the smoking gun and that was the transcript of the call with zelinsky you know so the shock value seeing the president s own words making that request of zelinsky thats what triggered the process and that was arguably the strongest piece of evidence that began its it was at the beginning of the process it didnt build to a smoking gun at the end of the process the way watergate did and i think in some senses that has hurt the democrats here you have the shock of that transcript and then 2 months of hearings and debate that had other witnesses but nothing as strong with what as with what we started with and i think thats one of the reasons that the democrats have not been able to build momentum in terms of public support for what they are about to do today lets go to philip office in new york mr ball that i want to ask you about the smoking gun because there has been some speculation and. That a secret verse in the senate might actually allow some republican senators to does that the president because despite the smoking gun theyve largely stuck with him both in the house and when theyre expected to in the senate is there an argument then to have a secret voters in the senate off to the try it might be a good argument for for just the reasons you said it i suspect if you ask the members of the Senate Whether or not they thought the evidence was. Overwhelming. Is the president s intentions they might well say yes by a large majority however a secret ballot faces a tremendous hurdle to be a change in the senate rules so youd have to have a 67 float number in the senate to make a secret about. 2nd there is something offensive about a great deliberative body acting on something as public as the removal of the present president not being willing to do that in public. Well let me bring i think its unlikely let me bring in clyde hair because im looking at these numbers and i think it says Something Like potentially fact he 5 republican senators might then defect and that would potentially put them out of a than the magic number of 67 to actually remove him from office whats your take on this or think its theres any possibility of any kind of a move towards a secret well there is some talk that some republican senators are bargaining for this in terms of changing the rules and so forth i doubt if that happens and i agree with philip that there is something offensive about them being unwilling to vote publicly on the other hand we know they are unwilling to vote publicly and so i think thats thats the reality i wanted to add something about what michael said about persuading the public in this case because its not as about when the smoking gun came its also how complicated the story is and ill give you a result from the survey its 15 years ago but its Young Americans just out of high school and they rescued geography quiz right and its a multiple choice quiz and one of the questions was can you identify russia now russia was one of the choices georgia was one of the choices venezuela was one of the choice to leave the country or georgia the way you want or the country that is leyla and indonesia so you had a few 25 percent chance of getting it right just by guessing and if you do that it wasnt in the new world it wasnt a string of islands then you had a 50 percent chance of getting it right now if you just know it was big you should have a 100 percent chance to 40 percent of Young Americans miss that question so is that 40 percent yes did not correctly answer the question so how Many Americans know where ukraine is how many of them with ever heard. Crimea how many of them know about russias you know actions in the parts of ukraine that are being partially occupied practically no one so this is a really hard story to get across to the American People well on that point id like to bring in michael because microsoft hard story to get across that ad absolutely sorry philipp guy has you know its going to say it is a hard story to get across but i think Michael Isikoff point. Is well taken that its more than the arc of the narrative the cumulative effect of new more powerful revelations denials by the president then this shocking factual reversal that accounts for watergate it is in a way watergate in reverse you havent had those revelations and id like to ask the people on the paddle what could come out next suppose the pump aoe did testify suppose any end of bolton testified what is that they could say that would really shake the country and and shake shake up the Senate Majority and i think youd be hard pressed to get. Michael thank you and i would say. Sure and i would say that if you had direct testimony from a john bolton. Or mike pump a 0 clue about what trumps President Trumps intent was in withholding the military aid that could severely undermine the president s defense that there was not a linkage between his request to. Ski for the investigations and the withholding of the aid i think if a john bolton were to come forward and say yes i talked to the president there he made it clear there was a linkage he made it clear why he was doing this withholding the military aid that would be the kind of thing that would cut with a number of republican senators but i gotta say this idea of voting in secret is a nonstarter from the get go this is the United States senate these are these are senators theyre politicians the idea that they could cast a vote on as momentous an issue as removing a elected president from office and not stand up and say how they voted and is is just something that would never fly politically so i think thats completely off the table michel i want to ask you a follow up on what clyde was saying here in the studio because clyde was saying that this was an issue around americans not being fully engaged with Foreign Policy and so perhaps if it was a different issue that that led to the this impeachment proceeding that things might be different and michael you covered the clinton impeachment very very closely do you think that thats the big difference here that that the pub and thats a big difference in tons of how the public is engaging with us. Well im not quite sure what to the distinction youre making there with one policeman travis about this impeachment trial is about Foreign Policy essentially does that change the way that people the president of the defense has 40 percent of. Presumably the differences 40 percent of americans under the age of 18. Sex. Yeah. I think thats a an excellent point but look. The the democrats are have framed this in one way as about you know an affront to the constitution by soliciting foreign interference in. In an American Election thats clearly a matter of greater constitutional gravity then the issues that were at stake in bill clintons impeachment although i should say that it was a low you said it was about sex yes it was but the formal charges were about perjury and obstruction of justice the republicans who pushed the impeachment of clinton framed it in terms of criminal conduct by the president perjury and obstruction are clearly crimes one thing thats striking about these 2 articles is they actually dont allege a violation of the law by the president there in the actual wording the abuse of office is sort of you know its clearly a serious matter but its in a more focused matter that can be interpreted by different people differently its not an open and shut case of of a violation of law and i should add in the 3 impeachments weve had historically in the United States and. Andrew Johnson Richard nixon bill clinton the pretty previous impeachments they all alleged violations of law d and i to me its striking that the democrats in these 2 articles did not well whether or not its a crybaby that theres just going to be regarded as a misdemeanor right so in terms of looking at the constitution itself there is the room for. Something that isnt that is not quite a crime philip you want to jump on that no its not quite. Desperately its not at all like that its not that you have crimes that you can be impeached for and there are also d high crimes the concept of high crimes like treason and like bribery may be coincidental coincidental with common crimes the heart of an Impeachable Offense is an act by the president that destabilizes the Constitutional Order that strikes at the political order itself Michael Isikoff is certainly right that it happens that these very few instances we have also have common crimes alleged and it may also be the truth that the public at large doesnt understand this distinction but it is just simply were all dead wrong customisations to say that common crimes of the basis for impeachment or that treason bribery which i have been the oregon heritage perhaps are the same as a base for impeachment. I dont disagree with that its clear that the basis for impeachment can be an abuse of office it can be something that is viewed as striking at the Constitutional Order theres no question about that im just saying as a matter of practice in in previous impeachments those pushing it those proposing it have quote that in criminal in allegations of criminal misconduct and theyve done that for a reason because politically its easier to argue that somebody should be kicked out of office if theyve committed a crime then if theyve committed this somewhat vaguer misconduct of abuse of office at that and im not minimizing the importance of it and the fact that it can justify impeachment im just saying that we do have a break from prast pat from past practice here in the way the democrats are pushing this impeachment mr ball but i do want to ask you about that and if theres actually all of the evidence here right so if we are looking at something that is less clear cut and its open to interpretation what is the threshold of evidence that would need to be put in front of the senate jaring this trial potentially to convince the juris the senate has to actually remove him from office where do you think that threshold lies well i dont want to 2nd guess what the senate would say and i havent seen all the evidence myself and if this further evidence i wouldnt speculate on its significance i think Michael Isikoff point of Public Opinion is important if it were some piece of evidence and im not sure just one above john bolton would do this but if you were evidence that that really shocked the country to have the dramatic effect that the Michael Isikoff mentioned about the cumulative revelations denials and further revelations that by do it. But my points are not simply academic following the law about something is grave as impeachment is as fundamental idea in this country as anything else about the rule of law treason for example is defied as a constitutional offense is very different than the statutory definition of treason to be an Impeachable Offense can only occur during wartime bribery is not the same for a federal statute as it is for constitutional pietschmann we didnt even have a bribery statute the constitution was adopted now we can say that is a matter of politics we have to cloak these things in terms that are powerful politically across the country but we begin to stray in that area we stray right to where we have got now which is to make impeachment into a matter of Public Opinion polls and media shows well if youre just joining us id like to introduce you to our panel they are clyde wilcox is a professor of government here at Georgetown University and there are Michael Isikoff here is the chief investigative correspondent of yahoo news in washington d. C. And Philip Bobbitt who is associate counsel to the office of the president under president carter and is a professor also a Columbia Law School im going to thank you all for now to stay with me but i do also want to bring you all back to capitol hill where the u. S. House is currently debasing the 2 articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump the House Speaker nancy pelosi and her opening remarks said that trump by violating the constitution gave lawmakers no choice but to pursue impeachment trump is facing charges of abusing his power and obstructing congress in their investigation that Impeachment Vote is expected in the coming hours. It is tragic that the president s reckless actions make impeachment necessary he gave us no choice what we are discussing today is the established fact that the president violated the constitution is a matter of fact that the president is an ongoing threat to our National Security and the integrity of our elections the basis of our democracy hundreds of historians legal scholars and former prosecutors regardless of party had stated that the president committed Impeachable Offenses while President Trump has tweeted about the hearing several times just in the past few hours describing it as an attempted coup he expressed his belief that he will be impeached today despite doing what he said was nothing wrong well lets take a quick look now at other news from across the aisle before returning to this protesters have rallied again in new delhi after indias top court perspired hearings on a controversial new citizenship law until january and says it needs more details from the government the law makes it easier for non muslims from afghanistan bangladesh and pakistan to gain indian citizenship lebanons former Prime Minister has announced for the 2nd time that he does not want to lead a new government saad hariri resigned back in october after weeks of antigovernment demonstrations on monday the president planned to hold consultations with Political Parties to decide on a new Prime Minister but its now been postponed until thursday people have been voicing their anger against corruption and sectarian politics governing the country for decades and major merges been announced in the car industry that creates the well its a 4th largest manufacturer fit chrysler and p. S. A. Who are the owners of persia and france have agreed on a 34000000000. 00 tie up both companies have assured production line workers that no factory closures are planned. At least 23. 00 civilians have been killed in the latest round of russian attacks on rebel held areas of northwestern syria shelling an airstrike than it did province have escalated in recent weeks president Bashar Al Assads government appears to be preparing for a ground offensive to secure the main highway linking the capital damascus with the Northern City of aleppo and australia has experienced its hottest day on record the average temperature across the country on tuesday was nearly 41. 00 degrees celsius and that record could be broken on wednesday as its only the start of the Southern Hemisphere summer the searing temperatures have made things west for crews who are dealing with more than 100 bushfires in the east and station of New South Wales a disabled palestinian man has watched israeli demolition crews destroy his home for the 4th time in 20 is has another reality is vowing to rebuild again saying the land in occupied East Jerusalem is his Rights Groups say israeli demolitions increased this year the estimate a couple of months ago was more than 200. 00 palestinians have had their homes flattened but. This is my land i have the right to live in it and i will rebuild it whether they agree or not i will keep building my home on my land for as long as i live while the news continues here on aljazeera in just a few moments with our ongoing impeachment coverage. A bombarded city. Can be rebuilt. Its buildings restored. But can shattered lives be mended. Scars randy and traumas shaped mines children and survivors of mosul share their stories. I still tomorrow i witnessed documentary on aljazeera. When the news breaks the real one today the current government has lost the trust of people by god to anything because the protesters are against it when people to be cut 1st what were the represent the law forbids proponents of brechts its drawing from the conservatives aljazeera has teams on the ground it now hopes the meeting in paris will push politicians to create a competent and credible government to bring new moon documentaries and livelihoods on air and online the fact. The smallest corpus on the planet one that could soon be lost forever with an International Team of scientists is the time and not to let that happen without intervention give the big i would say here to a vast now its a race against time to try and face a species like a chrysler as an emergency plan to stave off extinction techno on all jazeera. This is 0. And this is the news hour live from coming up in the next 60 minutes. It is tragic that the president s reckless actions make impeachment necessary he gave us no choice preparing to make us this call history the house begins a debate that could see donald trump become only the 3rd u. S. President to be impeached. We dont talk a lot about a president who will talk about 2 articles of impeachment abuse of power because they cant actually pin anything a factual basis on you know the president did nothing wrong while republicans continue