Constitution from its origins until the present. Im here to describe three things. Why the framers of our constitution included a provision for the impeachment of the president. What that provision providing for impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors means. And last, how it applies to the question before you and before the American People whether President Trump has committed Impeachable Offenses under the constitution. Let me begin by stating my conclusions. The framers provided for the impeachment of the president because they feared that the president might abuse the power of his office for person benefit, to corrupt the electoral process and insure his reelection, or to subvert the National Security of the United States. High crimes and misdemeanors are abuses of power and public trust connected to the office of the presidency. On the basis of the testimony and the evidence before the house. President trump has committed impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors by corruptly abusing the office of the presidency. Specifical specifically, President Trump has abused his office by corruptly soliciting president zelensky of ukraine to announce investigations of his political rivals in order to gain personal advantage, including in the 2020 president ial election. Le let me begin for why the framers provided for impeachment in the first place. They borrowed the concept of impeachment from england but with one enormous difference. The house of commons and the house of lords could use impeachment in order to limit the ministers of the king. They could not impeach the king and in that sense the king was above the law. In stark contrast, the framers from the very outset of the Constitutional Convention in 178 7 made it clear the president would be subject to impeachment in order to demonstrate that the president was subordinate to the law. If you will, i would like you to think now about a specific date in the Constitutional Convention, july 20th, 1787. It was the middle of a long hot summer. On that day, two members of the Constitutional Convention actually moved to take out the impeachment provision from the draft constitution. They had a reason for that and the reason was they said the president will have to stand for reelection. If the president has to stand for reelection that is enough. We dont need a separate provision for impeachment. When that proposal was made, significant disagreement ensued. The governor of north carolina, a man called William Davie immediately said if the president cannot be impeached he will spare more methods or means whatever to get himself reelected. Following davie, george mason of virginia, a fierce republican critic of executive power said no point is more important. Shall any man be above justice he asked. Thus expressing the core concern the president must be subordinate to the law. James madison said it was quote, undispensable that some provision be made for impeachment. Why . He said standing for reelection was not a sufficient security against president ial misconduct or corruption. A president he said might betray his trust to foreign powers. A president in a corrupt fashion abused the office of the presidency said james madison, quote, might be fatal to the republic, closed quote. And then a remarkable thing happened in the convention. Morris of pennsylvania, one of the two people who had introduced the motion to eliminate impeachment got up and said i was wrong. He told the other framers present he had changed his mind on the basis of the debate on july 20th and that it was now his opinion that in order to avoid corruption of the electoral process a president would have to be subject to impeachment regardless of the availability of a further election. The upshot of this debate is that the framers kept impeachment in the constitution specifically in order to protect against the abuse of office with the capacity to corrupt the electoral process or lead to personal gain. Turning to the language of the constitution, the framers used the words high crimes and misdemeanors to describe those forms of action that they considered impeachable. These were not vague or abstract terms to the framers. High crimes and misdemeanors was very the words high crimes and misdemeanors represented very specific language that was wellunderstood by the entire generation of the framers. Indeed, they were borrowed from an impeachment trial in england that was taking place as the framers were speaking, which was referred to, in fact, by george mason. The words high crimes and misdemeanors refer to abuse of the office of the presidency for personal advantage or to corrupt the electoral process or to subvert the National Security of the United States. Theres no mystery about the words high crimes and misdemeanors. The word high modifies both crimes and misdemeanors. Theyre both high. And high means connected to the office of the presidency. Connected to office. A a classic form was abuse of office for personal advantage. When they said bribery, they were naming one version, the abuse of office, the abuse of office for personal or individual gain. The other forms of abuse of office, abuse of office to affect elections, to compromise National Security were also familiar to the framers. Now how does this language of high crimes and misdemeanors apply to President Trumps alleged conduct . Let me be clear, the constitution gives the house of representatives, that is the medication of this committee and the other members of the house, quote, sole power of impeachment. Its not my responsibility or my job to determine the credibility of the witnesses who appear before the house thus far. That is your constitutional responsibility. My comments will therefore, follow my role, which is to describe and apply the meaning of Impeachable Offenses to the facts described by the testimony and evidence before the house. President trumps conduct as described in the testimony in evidence clearly constitutes impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors under the constitution. In particular, the memorandum and other testimony relating to the july 25th, 2019, phone call between the two president s, President Trump and president zelensky more than sufficiently indicates that President Trump abused his office by soliciting the president of ukraine to investigate his political rivals in order to gain personal political advantage, including in relation to the 2020 election. Again, words abuse of office are not mystical or magical. Theyre very clear. The abuse of office occurs when the president uses a feature of his power, the awesome power of his office not to serve the interests of the american public, but to serve his personal individual partisan eelectoral interests. Thats what the evidence before the house indicates. Finally, let me be clear. That on its own soliciting the leader of a Foreign Government in order to announce investigations of political rivals and perform those investigations would constitute a high crime and misdemeanor. But the house also has evidence before it that the president committed two further acts that also qualify as high crimes and misdemeanors. In particular, the house heard evidence that the president placed a hold on critical u. S. Aid to ukraine and conditioned its release on announcement investigations of the bidens and crowdstrike conspiracy theory. Furthermore, the house also heard evidence that the president conditioned a white house visit desperately sought by the ukrainian president on announcement of the investigations. Both of these acts constitute impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors under the constitution. They each incapsulate the framersreport. There are 24 ayes and 17 nos. The moigs to table is adopted. I recognize professor karlan for her testimony. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you so much for the opportunity to testify. Twice i have had the privilege of representing this committee and its leadership in Voting Rights cases before the Supreme Court. Once when it was under the leadership of chairman senson brenner and its good to see you again and with mr. Shabbat as one of my other clients and once under the leadership of chairman conyers. It was a great honor for me to represent this committee because of this committees key role over the past 50 years in ensuring that american sit zblends have the right to vote in free and fair elections. Today youre being asked to consider whether protecting those requires impeaching a president. That is an always responsibility. Everything i know about our constitution and its values and my review of the evidentiary record, and here mr. Collins i would like to say to you sir, that i read trans scripts of every one in the witnesses that appeared in the live hearing because i would not speak about these things without reviewing the facts. So im insulted by the suggestion that as a law pro fefrt i dont care about those facts. But everything i read on those occasions tells me that when President Trump invited indeed demanded foreign involvement in our up coming election, he struck at the very heart of what that makes this a epublic to which we pledge allegiance. That constituted an abuse of power. I want to explain in my testimony, drawing a Foreign Government into our elections is an especially serious abuse of power because it undermines democracy itself. Our constitution begins with the words we the people for a reason. Our government in James Madisons words derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people. And the way it derives these powers is through elections. Elections matter, both to the legitimacy of our government and our freemds. Because as the Supreme Court declared more than a century ago, voting is preservative of all rights. So it is hardly surprising that the constitution is marbled with provisions. Indeed a majority of the amendments to our constitutions since the civil war have dealt with voting or with terms of office. And among the most important provisions of our original constitution is the guarantee of periodic elections for the presidency, one every four years. America has kept that promise for more than two centuries and it has done so even during wartime. For example we invented the idea of absentee voting so that union troops who supported president lynchon could stay in the field. And since then countless other americans have fought and died to protect our right to vote. But the framers realized election alone could not guarantee that the United States would remain republic. One of the key reasons for including the impeachment power was a risk that unscruplous officials might try to rig the election proes. Youve already heard two people give william davy his props. Hamilton got a whole musical and hes going to get just this committee hearing. He warned that unless the constitution contained an impeachment provision a president might spare no means to get himself reelected. George mason insisted that a president who procured through improper and corrupt acts should not yes scape punishment by repeating his guilt. Mazon was the person responsible for adding these to the listwe know from that that the list was designed to reach a president who acts to subvert an election, whether that election is the one that brought him into office or its an up coming election where he seeks an additional term. Moreover, the founding generation like every generation of americans since was especially concerned to protect our government and our democratic process from outside interference. For example, john add omz, during the ratification, expressed concern with the very idea of having an elected president , writing to Thomas Jefferson that you are app rehensisk of foreign interference, intrigue, influence. So am i. But as often as elergss happen, the danger occurs. And in his farewell address, president washington warned that history and experience proved that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. And he explained that this was in part because Foreign Governments would try and foment disagreement among the American People and influence what we thought. The very idea that a president might seek the aid of a Foreign Government in his Reelection Campaign would have horrified them. But based on the evidentiary record, that is what President Trump has done. The list of Impeachable Offenses that the framers included in the constitution shows that the essence of an Impeachable Offense is a president s decision to sacrifice the National Interest for his own private ends. Treason, the first thing listed, lay in an individuals giving aid to a foreign enemy. That is putting a foreign enemys adversarys interests above those of the United States. Bribery occurred when an official slitsed, received or offered a personal favor or benefit to influence official action risking that he would put his private interest. High crimes and misdemenors captured the other ways might disregard public interests in the discharge of political office. Based on the evidentiary record before you, what has happened in the case today is something that i do not think we have ever seen before. A president who has doubled down on violating his oath to faithfully execute the laws and to protect and defend the constitution. The evidence reveals a president who used the powers of his office to demand that a Foreign Government participate in undermining a competing candidate for the presidency. As president john kennedy declared, the right to vote in a free American Election is the most powerful and precious right in the world. But our elections become less free when they are distorted by foreign interference. What happened in 2016 was bad enough. There is widespread agreement that russian operatives interfooenden vooend to manipulate the process. But that is magnified. If a sitting president abuses the powers of his Office Actually to invite foreign intervention. To see why, imagine living in a part of louisiana or texas thats prone to devastating hurricanes and flooding. What would you think if you lived there and your governor asked for a meeting with the president to discuss getting disaster aid that congress has provided for. What would you think if that president said, i would like to do you i would like you to do us a favor. Ill meet with you and ill send the Disaster Relief once you brand my opponent a criminal. Wouldnt you know in your gut that such a president had abused his office . That he betrayed the National Interest and that he was trying to corrupt the electoral process . I believe that the evidentiary record shows wrongful acts on that scale here. It shows a president who delayed meeting a foreign leader and providing assistance that congress and his own advisers agreed service his own and in limiting russian aggression. Saying russia, if youre listening, you know, a president who cared about the constitution say russia if youre listening butt out of our elections. It shows a president who did this to strong arm a foreign leader into smearing one of the president s opponents in our election season. Thats not politics as usual at least not in the United States or any mature democracy. Is it is instead a cardinal reason why the constitution contains an impeachment power. Put simply, a president should resist foreign interference in our elections, not demand if and not welcome it. If we are to keep faith with our constitution and with our republic, President Trump must be held to account. Thank you. Thank you. Professor gerhardt. Thank you, mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, other distinguished members of the committee. Its an honor and a privilege to join the other distinguished witnesses to discuss a matter of grave concern to our country and to our constitution. Because this house, the peoples house, has the sole power of impeachment, there is no better forum to discuss the constitutional standard for impeachment and whether that standard has been met in the case of the current president of the United States. As i explained in the remainder and balance of my opening statement, the record compiled thus far shows the president has committed several Impeachable Offenses, including bribery, abuse of power and soliciting of personal favor from a foreign leader to benefit himself personally, obstructing justice, and obstructing congress. Our hearing today should serve as a reminder of one of the fundamental principles that drove the founders of our constitution to break from england and to draft their own constitution, the principle that in this country, no one is king. We have followed that principle since before the founding of the constitution and it is recognized around the world as a fixed, inspiring, american ideal. In his third message to congress in 1903, roosevelt delivered one of the finest articulations of this. He said no one is above the law and no man is below. Nor do we ask any mans permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right, not asked for as a favor. Three features of our constitution protect the principle that no one, not even the president , is above the law. First in the british system, the public had no choice over the monarch who ruled them. In ours the flame framers allowed them to serve as a means to ensure accountability. Second in the british system the king could do no wrong and no other parts of the government could check his misconduct. In our constitution the framers developed separation of powers which consists of checks and balances designed to privaevent from everyone but the king was impeachable. Our framers pledged their lives and fortunes to rebel against a monarch they saw as corrupt, tyrannical and entitled. Our decoration of independence the framers set forth a series of offenses that the king had committed dense the colonists. The framers were united around a simple indispooutable principle that was a major safeguard, we the people against tirrany of any kind, a people who had overthousand a ki overthousa overthrown a king were not going to create an office that was above the law and could do no wrong. The framers created a chief executive to bring energy to the administration of federal laws but to be accountable to congress for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. The framers concern about the need to protect against a corrupt president was evident throughout the convention. And here i must thank my prior two friends who have spoken and referred to a north carolinan, william davy. I will refer to another north carolinan in the constitutional con voengs, james ire del whom president washington later pro mosted, the president is of a very different nature from a monarch. He is to be personally responsible for any abuse of the great trust placed in him. Unquote. This brings us to the crucial question were here to talk about today, the standard for impeachment. The constitution defines treason and the term bribery basically means using office for personal gain. Or i should say misusing office for personal gain. Professor feldman pointed out, these terms derived from the british who understood the class of cases to rover to political crimes which included great offenses against the United States, attempts to subvert the constitution, when the president deviates from his duti seriou injuries to the republic. In the federalist papers, Impeachable Offenses are those which proceed from the misconduct of public men, the abuse or violation of some public trust and relate to injuries done immediately to the society itself. Several themes emerge from the framers discussion of the scope of Impeachable Offenses and practice. We know that not all Impeachable Offenses are criminal and not all felonies are Impeachable Offenses. We know what matters in determining whether particular misconduct constitutes a high donald trump and misdemeanor is the context and the gravity of the misconduct in question. After reviewing the evidence thats been made public, i cannot help but conclude that this president has attacked each of the constitution safeguards against establishing a monarchy in this country. Both the context and gravity of the president s misconduct are clear. The favor he rekweftd was to receive in exchange for his use of power ukraines announcement of a criminal investigation of a political rifle. The investigation was not the important action for the president. The announcement was. Because it could then be used in this country to manipulate the public into casting aside the president s political rival because of concerns about his corruption. The gravity of the president s misconduct is apparent when we compare it to the misconduct of the one president who resigned to avoid impeachment. The House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon who resigned. The first charged him with obstruction of justice. If you read the mueller report, it identifies a number of facts, i wont late them out now, that suggests the president himself has obstructed justice. If we look at the second article of impeachment approved against Richard Nixon, it charged him with abuse of power for ordering the heads of the fbi, irs and cia to harass his political enemies. In the present circumstance, the president is engaged in a pattern of abusing the power placed in his by the American People by soliciting Foreign Countries including china, russia and ukraine to investigate his political opponents and interfere on his behalf. The third article against nixon charged he had failed to comply with four subpoenas. In the present circumstance the president has refooised to comply with and directed at least ten others in his administration not to comply with lawful congressional subpoenas including secretary of state mike pompeo, pi rick perrd mick mulvaney. As senator Lindsey Graham said when he was a member of the house on the verge of impeaching president clinton the day Richard Nixon failed to answer is the day he was subject to impeachment because he took the power away from congress and became the judge and jury. That is a perfectly good articulation much why obstruction of congress is impeachable. The president s defiance of congress is all the more troubling due to the rationale he claims for his obstruction. His arguments and those of his subored nauts including his white House Counsel in his october 8th letter to the speaker and chairs boils down to the assertion that he is above the law. I wont reread that letter here, but i do want to disagree with the characterization in the letter of these proceedings. Since the constitution expressly says and the Supreme Court has unanimously affirmed that the house has the sole power of impeachment and like the senate the house has the power to determine the rules for its proceedings. The president and his subordinates have argued further the president is entitled to immunity from criminal procedur other information he doesnt want to share with another branch. Hes also claimed entitlement to order the executive branch not to cooperate with this body when it conducts an investigation of the president. If left unchecked, the president will likely continue his pattern of soliciting foreign interference on behalf of the next election and of course his obstruction of congress. The fact that we can easily transpose the articles of impeachment against nixon on to the action of this president speaks volumes. That doesnt include the most serious National Security concerns and election interference concerns at the heart. No misconduct is more antithetical to our democracy and nothing injuries the American People more than a president uses who power to weaken their authority under the constitution as well as the authority of the constitution itself. May i read one more sentence or im sorry. The witness may have another sentence or two. Thank you. If Congress Fails to impeach here the impeachment process has lost all meaning and along with that carefully crafted safeguards, and therefore i stand with the constitution and i stand with the framers who were committed to ensure that no one is above the law. Thank you professor. Professor turley. Thank you, chairman nadler, Ranking Member collins, members of the committee. Its an hon ore to appear before you today to discuss one of the most consequential functions you were given by the framers and that is the impeachment of a president of the United States. 21 years ago i sat before you, chairman nadler, and this committee, to testify at the impeachment of president William Jefferson clinton. I never thought that i would have to appear a second time to address the same question with regard to another sitting president , yet here we are. The elements are strikingly similar. The intense ranker and rage of the public debate is the same. The atmosphere that the framers anticipated, the stiefrlg intolerance of opposing views is the same. Id like to start, therefore, perhaps incon grously, by stating an irrelevant fact. Im not a supporter of President Trump. I voted against him. My personal views of President Trump are as irrelevant to my impeachment testimony as they should be to your impeachment vote. President trump will not be our last president , and what we leave in the wake of this scandal will shape our democracy for generations to come. Im concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and an abundance of anger. I believe this impeachment not only fails to satisfy the standard of past impeachments but would create a dangerous precedent for future impeachments. My testimony lays out the impeachment from earlier to colonial to the present day. The early were raw political exercises using fluid definitions of criminal and noncriminal acts. When the framers met in philadelphia, they were quite familiar with impeachment and abuses including the hastings case which was discussed in the convention, a case that was still pending for trial in england. The american model was more limited not only in its application to judicial and executive officials but its grounds. The framers rejected a proposal to add Mail Administration because madison objected that a vague term wou. In the past standards were rejected, corruption, obtaining office by improper means, betraying trust to a foreign power, nejjence, perfidy or lying and peck ewlation self dealing are particularly irrelevant. My testimony explores impeachment of nixon, johnson and clinton. The closest is to the 1868 of andrew johnson. It is not a mod thael this committee should relish. In that case, a group of opponents of the president called the radical republicans created a trapdoor crime in order to impeach the president. They even defined it as a high misdemeanor. There was another shared aspect besides the atmosphere of that impeachment and also the unconventionable tile of the two president s. And that shared element is speed. This impeachment would rival the johnson impeachment as the shortest in history demand depending on how one counts the relevant days. There are three commonalities when you look at these past cases. All involved established crimes. This would be the first impeachment in history where there would be considerable debate and in my view not compelling evidence of the commission of a crime. Second is the abbreviated period of this investigation, which is probability and puzzling. This is a facially incomplete and inadequate roerd in order to impeach a president. Allow me to be candid because we have limited time. We are living in the very period scribed by alexander hamilton, a period of agitated passions. I get it. Youre mad. The president is mad. My republican friends are mad. My democratic friends are mad. My wife is mad. My kids are mad. Even my dog seems mad. And luna is a Golden Doodle and they dont get mad. So were all mad. Where has that taken us . Well, a slipshod impeachment make us less mad . Will it only invite the future administration that is why this is wrong. Its not wrong because President Trump is right. His call was anything but perfect. Its not wrong because the house has no legitimate reason to investigate ukrainian controversy. Points not wrong because were in an election year. There is no good time for an impeachment. No, its wrong because this is not how you impeach an american president. This case is not a case of the unknowable. Its a case of the peripheral. We have a record of conflicts, defenses that have not been fully considered, unsubpoenaed witness with material evidence. To impeach a president on this record would expose every future president to the same time of incoate impeachment. Principle often takes us to a place we would prefer not to be. Thats where seven found themselves in the johnson trial. When they saved the president from acquittal that they despised. They celebrated as profiles of courage. Edmond ross said it was like looking down into his open graver, then he jumped because he didnt have any alternative. Its easy to celebrate those people from the distance of time and circumstance in an age of rage. Its appealing to listen to those saying, for get the definitions of crimes. Just do it. Like this is some impulse buying nike sneaker. You can certainly do that. You can declare the definitions of crimes alleged are immaterial and just an exercise of politics. Not the law. However those legal definitions and standards which ive addressed in my testimony are the very thing that divide rage from reason. This all brings up to me, and i will conclude with this, of a scene from a man for all seasons, by with sir thomas moore when his soninlaw William Roper put the law, suggested that moore was putting the law ahead of morality. He said moore would give the devil the benefit of the law. When moore asks roper, would he instead cut a great road through the law to get after the devil, roper proudly declares, yes, id cut down every law of england to do that. Moore spontds, and when the last law is cut down, and the devil turned around on you, where would you hide, roper . All the laws being flat. He said, this country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, mans laws, not gods. And if you cut them down and youre just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then . And he finished by saying, yes, id give the devil of the benefit for the law for my own sake. So i will conclude with this. Both sides of this controversy have demonized the other to justify any measure in their defense, much like roper. Perhaps thats the saddest part of all of this. We have forgotten the common article of faith that binds each of us to each other and our constitution. However before we cut down the tree so carefully planted by the framers, i hope you will consider what you will do when the wind blows again, perhaps for a democratic president. Where will you stand then, [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org cspan Student Competition is in full swing. Middle and High School Students are creating short documentaries on the issues on the 2020 candidates they would like to address and would like to see your progress, take us behind your scenes. For a chance to win additional cash prizes. Still working on an idea. We have resources on our website, our Getting Started page has information to guide you the process. Cspan will award 100,000 in total cash prizes. All entries must be received on midnight on january 9, 2020. If i can give the stupid participants and not to take your issues seriously. Let your voice be heard now. Go to our website studentcam. Org for campaign 2020 this weekend, we are live in iowa. Eastern, at 5 30 p. M. Mayor beauty gidge speaks with students. Nd former Vice President and senator klobuchar, Bernie Sanders speak in cedar rapids. Enator sappeders speaks with supporters. Live 2020 Campaign Coverage from iowa on cspan. Watch any time and listen on the go with the free runningspan has been providing unfiltered coverage of the white house from washington, d. C. And around the world. It is brought to you by your local candlelight or satellite provider. The Judiciary Committee held a hearing for potentially drawing up articles of impeachment against President Trump. House democrats brought constitutional scholars to testify. Republicans invited a george washington