Transcripts For CSPAN Impeachment Inquiry House Hearings Part 1 Judiciary Hearing On... 20240713

Professor. Here is the hearing in its entirety. Order. House will come to object. E the right to i am furnishing you with the subject signed by all republicans. Pursuant to clause, i am furnishing you with a letter signed by all the members of the committee can i request that you set this date before the Committee Votes on any articles of impeachment. I withdraw my reservation. Later. Ill confer on this hearing wethe first to housecting pursuant resolution 660. Here is have the committee will proceed for this hearing will openingill make it an statement and then i will rubberneck just recognized a member for making an Opening Statement. I now recognize myself for no Opening Statement. For anve the time Opening Statement. The facts before us are undisputed. President trump called roses was zelensky andent asked him for a favor. That was a concerted effort to solicit an advantage in the next. Lection to obtain that private political advantage, President Trump elected from the newly president and withheld vital military aid from an ally. Congress found out about this game and present them took extraordinary steps to cover up his efforts and withhold evidence from the investigators and when witnesses disobeyed him , when professionals can forward, he attacked them promising they would quote go through some things. Not the first time that present trump has engaged in this pattern of conduct. Governmente russian engaged in a campaign of interference in our elections. In the words of special counsel robert mueller, the russian government believed it would sit benefit and worked to secure that outcome. Present trump welcomed that interference. With all that in realtime when present trump asked to pack political moments. The very next day, they tempted to hack that political opponent. Present trump took extraordinary steps to obstruct the investigation, including ignoring subpoenas, ordering the creation of false records and publicly attacking and intimidating witnesses. The level of instruction is. Ithout prejudice no other president has vowed to fight all the subpoenas as present from promise. Impeachment proceedings, resonates and produced dozens of recordings. Clinton present physically gave his life. Present trump has refused to produce a single document and ordered every witness not to testify. The impeachment inquiry has moved back to the Inquiry Committee and as we review the facts, the presence patterns of behavior becomes clear. President trump welcomed foreign interference in the 2016 election. He demanded it for the 2020 election. In both cases, he got caught and in both cases he did everything in his power to prevent the American People from learning the truth about his conduct. July 24th, the special counsel testified before this committee. He implored us to see the nature of the threat to our country. Quote, over the course of my career, i have seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The russian governments efforts to interfere in our elections is among the most serious. This deserves the attention of every american. Closed quote. Ignoring that warning, President Trump called the ukrainian president the very next day to ask him to investigate the president s political opponent. As we exercise our responsibility to determine whether this pattern of behavior constitutes an Impeachable Offense, its important to place President Trumps conduct into historical context. Since the founding of our country, the house of representatives has impeached only two president s. A third was on his way to impeachment when he was when he resigned. This committee hasnt voted to impeach two president s. We have voted to impeach one resident for of something they congressional investigation. To the extent that President Trumps conduct fits these categories, theres precedent for recommending impeachment here. Never before in the history of the republic have we been forced to consider the conduct of a president who has solicited favors from a Foreign Government. Never before has a president engaged in the course of conduct, that included all of the acts that most concerned the framers. Forced to consider the conduct of a president who has solicited favors from a Foreign Government. Never before has a president engaged in the course of conduct, that included all of the acts that most concerned the framers. The patriots who founded our country were not fearful men. They fought a war. They witnessed terrible violence. They overthrew a king. It is a meant to frame our constitution, those patriots still feared one threat above all, foreign interference in our elections. Al they were deeply worried we would lose our new found liberty, not through a war. If a foreign army were to invade wed see that coming, but from corruption from within. In the early years of the republic they asked each of us to be vigilant to that threat. Washington warned us quote, to be constantly awake since history had experienced proved foreign influence is one of the foes of republican government. As often as elections happen, the danger of foreign influence recurs. Hamiltons warning was more specific and more dire. In the federalist papers he wrote the most deadly adversaries of republican government, end quote, would certainly attempt to quote, raise a creature of their own for the chief magestricy of the government. What kind of president would do that . How will we know if the president has betrayed his country in this manner . How will we know if hes betrayed his country in this manner for petty personal gain . Hamilton had a response for that as well. He wrote when a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in fo fortune, bold in his temper, known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty, when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity and join the cry of danger to liberty to take every opportunity of embarrassing the general government and bringing it under suspicion, it may justly be suspected his object is to throw things into confusion, that he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind. Ladies and gentlemen, the storm in which we find ourselves today was set in motion by President Trump. I do not wish this moment on the country. It is not a pleasant task we undertake. We have taken an oath to protect the constitution and the facts are clear. President trump did not seek to benefit from foreign interference in our elections, he directly and explicitedly invited foreign interference in our elections. He used the powers of his office to try to make it happen. He sent his agents to make clear that this is what he wanted and demanded. He was willing to compromise our security and his office for personal political gain. It does not matter that President Trump got caught and ultimately released the funds that ukraine so desperately needed. It matters that he enlisted a Foreign Government to intervene in our elections to the first class. It does not matter that President Trump felt that these investigations were unfair to him. It matters that he used this office not merely to defend himself but to obstruct investigators at every turn. Were all aware that the next election is looming, but we cannot wait for the election to address the present crisis. The integrity of that election is one of the very things at stake. The president has shown us his pattern of conduct. If we do not act to hold him in check now, President Trump will almost certainly try again to solicit interference in the election for his personal political gain. Today we will begin our conversation where we should, with the text of the constitution. We are empowered to recommend the impeachment of President Trump to the house if we find that he has committed treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemean misdemeanors. Our Witness Panel will help us to guide that conversation. In a few days, well reconvene and hear from the committees that work to uncover the facts before us. And when we apply constitution to those facts, if it is true that President Trump has committed an Impeachable Offense or multiple Impeachable Offenses, then we must move swiftly to do our duty and charge him accordingly. I thank the witnesses for being here today. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the judicial mr. Chairman. Mr. Collins for his Opening Statement. Mr. Chairman. May i make a parliamentary inquiry before you the gentleman is not in order for a parliamentary inquiry. I recognize the Ranking Member for an Opening Statement. I thank the chairman, and it is interesting that, again, parliamentary inquiry is some of the things i want to discuss today because were sort of coming here today in a different arena. For everybody who has not been here before, its a new room, new rules. Its a new month. We even have got cute little stickers for our staff so we can come in because we want to make this important and this is impeachment. Because weve done such a terrible job of it in this committee before. But whats not new is basically whats just been reiterated by the chairman. Whats not new is the facts. Whats not new is its the same sad story. Whats interesting before i get into my part of my Opening Statement. What was just said by the chairman. We went back to a redo of mr. Mueller. Were also saying, quoting him saying the attention of the American People should be on foreign interference. I agree with him completely, except i guess the American People did not include the Judiciary Committee. Because we didnt take it up. We didnt have hearings. We didnt do anything to delve deeply into this issue. We passed election bills, but did not get into the in depth part of what mr. Mueller talked about. Taking his own report and having hearings about that. We didnt do it. I guess the American People doesnt include the House Judiciary Committee. You know, we also just heard an interesting decision. Were going to have a lot of interesting discussions today about the constitution and other things. But we also talk about the founders. Whats interesting is the chairman talked a lot about the founders from the quotes. This is why we have the hearing. He didnt quote was the founders being really concerned about political impeachment. Because you just dont like the guy. You didnt like him since november of 2016. The chairman has talked about impeachment since last year when he was elected chairman. On november 17th before he was sworn in as chairman. Dont tell me this is about new evidence and new things and new stuff. We may have a new hearing room. We may have chairs that arent comfortable, but this is nothing new, folks. This is sad. So what do we have here today . You know what im thinking . I looked at this and what is interesting is theres two things that have become very clear. This impeachment is not really about facts. If it was i believe the other committees would have sent over recommendations for impeachment. Theyre putting it on this committee because if it goes badly i guess they want to blame adam schiffs committee and others want to blame this committee. Theyre drafting articles. Dont be fooled. Theyre getting ready for this. We went after this with ukraine, mueller, emaememoluments. The clock and the calendar, if you want to know what they value, you look at their checkbook and their calendar, you know what they value. Thats what this committee values. Time. They want to do it before the end of the year. Why . Because the chairman said it just a second ago. Were scared of the elections next year. Were scared of the elections that well lose again. So we got to do this now. The clock and the calendar are whats driving impeachment, not the facts. When we understand this, thats what the witnesses will say today. What do we have here today . What is really interesting over the today and for the next few weeks. America will see why most people dont go to law school. No offense to our professors. But, please, really . Were bringing you in here to testify on stuff most of you have already written about, all fours. For opinions we already know out of the classrooms that maybe youre getting ready for finals in to discuss things you probably havent even had unless youre really good on tv or watching the hearings for the last couple weeks, you couldnt possibly actually digested the adam schiff report from yesterday or the republican response in any real way. We can be theoretical all we want, but the American People is really going to look at this and say huh . What are we doing . Theres no fact witnesses planned for this committee. Thats an interesting thing. Theres no plan at all except next week an ambiguous hearing a presentation from the the other committee that sent us the report and Judiciary Committee, which im not still sure what they want us to present on. And nothing else. No plan. I asked the chairman before we left for thanksgiving to stay in touch, lets talk about what we have. History will shine a bright light on us starting this morning. Crickets. Until i asked for a witness the other day and lets just say that didnt go well. Theres no whistleblower. By the way, it was proved today that hes not or shes not afforded the protection of identity. Its not in the statute. Its something that was discussed by adam schiff. We also dont have adam schiff who wrote the report. He said yesterday im not going to ill send staff to do that. Hes not going to, but to me if he was going to hed come begging to us. You know, heres the problem. It sums it up simply like this. Just 19 minutes after noon on Inauguration Day 2017 the Washington Post ran the headline the campaign to impeach the president has begun. A tweet from january 2017, the coup has started. The impeachment will follow. In may of this year, al green said if we dont impeach the president hell get reelected. Do you know whats happening . Here we go. Whi why did everything i say about no fact witnesses for the Judiciary Committee, we didnt even find your names out until less than 48 hours ago. I dont know what were playing hide the ball on, its pretty easy what youre going to say. We cant get that straight. What are we doing for the next two weeks . I have no idea. An ambiguous hearing on the report. If were not going to have fact witnesses then were the rubber stamp hiding out back. What a disgrace to this committee. To have a committee of impeachment simply take from other entities and rubber stamp it. You say why did the things i say matter about fact witnesses and actually having a due process . By the way, just a couple months ago, the democrats got all sort of dressed up if you would and said were going to have due process protection for the president in good fairness throughout this. This is the only committee in which the president would even have a possibility, but no offense to you, the law professors. The president has nothing to ask you. Youre not going to provide anything he cant read. And his attorneys have nothing else. Put witnesses in here that can be fact witnesses who can be crossexamined. Thats fairness and every attorney on this panel knows that. This is a sham. You know, what i also see here is quotes like this. There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or impeachment supported by a Major Political parties or imposed by another. It will produce bitterness in politics for years to come and will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions. American people are watching, theyll not forget. You have the votes. You may have the muscle but you do not have legitimacy of a National Consensus or constitutional impairment. The coup detat will go down in infamy in the history of the nation. How about this one. I think the key point is the republicans are running a railroad job with no attempt at fair procedure. Today when the democrats offered amendments, motions in committee to say we should first adopt standards so we know what were dealing with, standards for impeachment that was voted down or ruled out of order. When we say the important thing is to start looking at the question before we have a vote with no inquiry, that was voted down. Thats all we discussed. The essential question, here it is, to set up a fair process as to whether the country put this country through an impeachment proceeding, that was ruled out of order. The republicans refused to let us discuss it. Those are all, chairman nadler, before he was chairman. I guess 20 years makes a difference. Its an interesting time. Were having a factless impeachment. You heard a one sided presentation of facts about this president. Today well present the other side if we should get so conveniently left out. Remember, fairness does dictate that. Maybe not here because were not scheduling anything else. I have a democratic majority who has poll tested what they think the president did. Thats not following the facts. We just a deep seated hatred of a man who came to the white house and did what he said he was going to do. The most amazing question i got in the first three months of this gentlemans presidency was put forward was this, can you believe he is putting forward those ideas . Yes, he told you. He did what he said. This will also be one of the first impeachments, the chairman mentioned there was two of them. The one before he resigned, him and clinton. Which the facts even by democrats and republicans were not really disputed. In this one their counterindicative of each other. There are no set facts here. There is not anything that presents an impeachment here except a president carrying out his job in the way the constitution saw that he sees fit to do it. This is where were at today. The interesting thing i come to with most everybody here, is this may be a new time and place and we may be looking pretty for impeachment. This is not an impeachment. This is just a Simple Railroad job. And todays is a waste of time. Because this is where were at. So i close today with this, it didnt start with mueller, a phone call. Do you know where this started . It started with tears in brooklyn in november 2016. When an election was lost. So were here, no plan, no fact witnesses, simply being a rubber stamp for what we have. Hey, we got law professors here. What a start of a party. Mr. Chairman, before i yield back, i have a motion. Under clause 2, rule 11. The gentleman was recognized for the purpose of an Opening Statement not for the purpose of making a motion. I yield back and make a motion for clause 2, rule 11. The gentleman is recognized. I move to require the attendants in testimony of chairman schiff before this committee and transmit this letter accordingly. For purposes the gentle lady seek recognition . Motion to table is made and not debatable. All in favor say aye, opposed . Record the vote. Recorded vote is requested. The clerk parliamentary inquiry, mr. Chairman. The clerk will call the roll. Youre not recognized at this time, theres a vote just to remind you dont want chairman schiff coming, correct . The clerk will call the role. Mr. Nadler ms. Jackson lee . Mr. Cohen . Mr. Johnson of georgia . Mr. Johnson of georgia votes aye. Mr. Deutsche. Mr. Richmond. Mr. Jeffries. Mr. Sisolini . Mr. Salvo. Mr. Lu . Mr. Raskin. Ms. Demings, mr. Carrera. M ms. Scanlon. Ms. Garcia. M ms. Mcbeth. Mr. Stanton. Ms. Dean . Ms. Powell . Ms. Escobar. Mr. Collins. Mr. Senseson brenner. Mr. Gomer, mr. Jordan. Mr. Buck, mr. Radcliff. Mr. Gates . Mr. Johnson of louisiana . Mr. Biggs . Mr. Mcclintock. Mr. Cline . Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Stubie . Has everyone voted who wishes to vote . Ms. Bass votes aye. Clerk will report. 24 ayes and 17 noes. The motion to table is agreed to. I have a parliamentary inquiry. Gentleman will state his parliamentary inquiry. The impeachment inquiry procedures states that members of the committee can raise objections relating to the admissibility of testimony in evidence. But it doesnt say what rules apply to admissibility. So im hoping you can explain to us what objections may be made under this clause and if you intend to use the federal rules of evidence the gentleman will suspend. Thats not a proper parliamentary inquiry. It is. It is not. I stated a rule stated a rule, you can ignore it and not answer it, you cant say im asking for the application of the rule for an explanation. You will apply the rules, period. You wont help us understand that . Theres no clarity there. How are you deciding that . The impeachment inquiry i would how is that unclear . Its the rules of the house and theyll be applied. Period. Im asking how will they be applied here, sir. Theyll be applied according to the rules. But not answering your question. Circular response. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, can you please iterate the schedule Going Forward . In other words the additional hearings the gentleman will suspend de releasing. Thats not a proper parliamentary inquiry. Without objection all other Opening Statements will be included in the record. Ill now mr. Chairman. Noah feldman mr. Chairman. I seek recognition. Gentleman is i am not going to recognize you now. I am introducing the witnesses. Mr. Chairman noah feldman is the professor of law at harvard law school. Hes authored seven books, including a biography of James Madison as well as many essays and articles on constitutional subjects. Professor feldman received his undergraduate degree from harvard college, doctor of philosophy from Oxford University and a j. D. From yale law school. He also served as a law clerk to Justice David suitor of the United States Supreme Court. Pamela carline serves as the montgomery professor of Public Interest law and tat stanford lw school. Shes an author of keeping faith of the constitution and dozens of scholarly articles. She served as a law clerk to Justice Harry blackburn of the United States Supreme Court and as a Deputy Assistant attorney gener general. She earned three degrees from yale university. A b. A. In history, an m. A. In history and a j. D. From yale law school. Michael garehart is a professor of jurisprudence at the university of North Carolina school of law and director of uncs center for law and government. Hes the author of many books, including federal impeachment process, the constitutional and historical analysis. As well as more than 50 law review publications on a diverse range of topics in constitutional law, federal jurisdiction and the legislative process. He received his j. D. From the university of chicago law school. His m. S. From the London School of economics, and his b. A. From yale university. Jonathan turley is the maurice c. Shapiro chair of Public Interest law at George Washington University Law school where he teaches torts, criminal procedure and constitutional law. After a stint at tulane law school, he joined the jw law faculty in 1990. In 1998 he became the youngest chaired professor in the schools history. Hes written over three dozen academic articles for a variety of leading law journals and his articles on legal issues appear frequently in publications. He earned degrees from the university of chicago, Northwestern University school of law. We welcome our distinguished witnesses. We thank them for participating in todays hearing. If you would please rise ill begin by swearing you in. Raise your do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony youre about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information and belief so help you god . Let the records show the witn s witnesses answered in the affirmative. Each of your written statements will be entered into the record in its entirety. I ask that you summarize your testimony in ten minutes. To help you stay within that time theres a timing light on your table. When the light switches from green to yellow, you have one minute to conclude your testimony. When the light turns red, it signals your ten minutes have expired. Professor feldman, you may begin. Mr. Chairman mr. Chairman, i have a motion. The gentleman is not in order to offer a motion mr. Chairman i see recognition for a privilege motion. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear. My name is noah feldman i serve the witness will proceed. I serve as the felix frankfer i seek recognition for my motion. The gentleman will suspend the time is the witness. Privileged motion needs to be recognized. You can call it not in between the witnesses it may be recognized, not once i recognize the witness. The witness will proceed, well entertain the motion after the first witness. My job is to teach the 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 framers worry that the president of the United States would take any means whatever to insure his reelection. Thats the reason the framers provided for impeachment in a case like this one. Mr. Chairman the gentlemans time is expired. Mr. Chairman, i seek recognition. Gentlemans recognized. I offer a motion to postpone to a date certain. I move to table the motion. Motion to table is heard. And is not debatable mr. Chairman. May we have the motion read, please . The motion was stated as to adjourn may we have the motion read . The motion will be read. The motion will be read to a date certain, wednesday december 11th, 2019, so we can get a response to the six letters gentleman has stated his motion, motion to table is made. Correct. Motion to table is made and not debatable. All in favor say aye. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. Nadler. Eye. Lis love gran . Mr. Cohen. Mr. Cohen. Mr. Johnson votesaye, mr. Richmond, mr. Jeffries votes aye, yes, mr. Leeu, mr. Raskin, miss ji paul, miss demings, miss coria, mr. Scanlon, mr. Negative oous, miss mcbath, mr. Stanton, mr. Steen, miss steen, miss mccar sill powell, miss escobar, no. Mr. Collins, mr. Sense inburner, mr. Shabbat, mr. Gome ert, mr. Gome ert, mr. Jordon, mr. Buck, mr. Buck, mr. Rat clifr, miss roby, mr. Gates, mr. Gates, mr. Johnson of louisiana, mr. Bigs, mr. Bigs, mr. Mcclintock, miss lesko, mr. Rushenthauler, mr. Kline, mr. Armstrong, mr. Arm strong, mr. Stuby. Has everyone voted who wishes to vote . The clerk will report. 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 procedure even for criminal wrongdoing including shooting someone on fifth avenue. Hes claimed hes entitled to privilege, not to share any 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, when all the laws being flat . Thank you again for the honor of testifying today. And id be happy to answer any questions. I thank the witnesses. Mr. Chairman, i seek recognition . Who . Me. For what purpose . Mr. Chairman, i have a motion pursuant to rule 11 specifically 2 k 6. I move to subpoena the individual referred to as the whistleblower. I asked to do this in executive session . Gentleman has stated. Do i have a motion to table. Table. All in favor say aye. No . The motion is approved. Role call is requested. Nadler, lofgren, jackson lee, mr. Cohen, mr. Johnson, mr. Deutsch aye, miss bass aye, jeffries aye, cicilline aye, swalwell aye, raskin aye, ji paul aye, demings aye, craya aye, scanlin aye, garcia aye, geg oous aye, mcbath aye, stanton aye, scene aye, mccar sel powell aye, escobar aye, collins, sense burner, shabbat no, gomer no, jordan no, mr. Buck no, mr. Ratcliffe no, miss roby no, mr. Gates no, mr. Johnson of louisiana no, mr. Bigs no, mr. Mcclintock no, miss lesko no, mr. Rushenthauler no, mr. Kline no, mr. Armstrong no, mr. Stuby no. Has everyone voted who wishes to vote . How am i recorded. Collins you are not recorded. No. Mr. Collins votes no. Is there anyone else. How am i recorded. Sensen benner not recorded. No. Sensesen burner no. Anyone else . The equivocal report . Mr. Chairman, there are 24 ayes and 17 nos. The motion to table is adopted approximately we will now proceed to the first round of questions. Pursuant to House Resolution and its accompanying procedures, there will be 45 minutes of questions conducted by the chairman or majority counsel followed by 45 minutes by the rangu Ranking Member or moe nort. Only them question wit nes during this peefrd. Unless i specify additional equal time, we will proceed under the fiveminute rule and every member will have the chance to ask questions. I now recognize myself for the first round. Professors, thank you for being here today. The committee has been charged with the grave responsibility of considering whether to roamecomd articles of impeachment. I speak for my colleagues when i say that we do not take this lightly. We are committed to ensuring that todays hearing as well as the larger responsibility before us are grounded in the constitution. Intelligence committees report con cluted that the president pressured a foreign leader to interfere in our elections by initiating and denouncing investigations into trumps adver sayer ease. He sought to prevent congress from investigating his conduct by ordering his administration and everyone into it to defy house subpoenas. Professor karlan, as you said the right to vote is the most precious. Does the president s conduct endanger that right . Yes, mr. Chairman, it does. Thank you. And how does this do so . The way that it does it is exactly what president washington warned about, by inviting a Foreign Government to influence our elections. It takes the right away from the American People, and it turns that into a right that Foreign Governments decide to interfere for their own benefit. Foreign governments dont interfere in our elections to benefit us, they interfere to benefit themselves. Thank you. Pro gefr gerhardt, you have written about our checks and balances. What happens to that when a president under taikds a blockade of impeachment inquiry when he orders all witnesses not to testify and what is our recourse . When a president does that, separation of powers means nothing. The subpoenas that have been issued of course are lawful orders. In our law schools we would teach this is an easy straightforward situation. You comply with the law. Lawyers all the time have to. But in this situation its a fullscale obstruction, full skrail obstruction of those subpoenas, tore peddos separation of powers and therefore your only recourse is to protect your institutional prerogatives and that would include impeachment. And the same is true of defying congressional subpoenas on a wholesale basis with respect to oversight, not just to impeachment . Absolutely, yes, sir. Thank you. Professor feldman, as i understand it, the framers intended impeachment to be used infrooekly, not as punishment but save our democracy from threats so significant that we cannot wait for the next election. In your testimony you suggest that we face that kind of threat. Can you explain why you think impeachment is the appropriate recourse here, why we cannot wait for the next election . Those are two questions if you want them to be. The framers reserved impeachment for situations where the president abused his office, that is used it for his personal advantage and in particular they were specifically worried about a situation where the president used his office to facilitate corruptly his own reelection. Thats in fact why they thought they needed impeachment and waiting wasnt good enough. On the fact that we have before the house right now, the president slitsed assistance from a Foreign Government in order to assist his own reelection. That is, he used the power of his office that no one else could possibly have used in order to gain personal advantage for himself distorting the election. Thats precisely what the framers anticipated. Thank you very much. I now yield the remainder of my time to mr. Eisen. Good morning. Thank you for being here. I want to ask you some questions about the following high crimes and misdemeanors that were mentioned in the Opening Statements. Abuse of power and bribery, obstruction of congress, and obstruction of justice. Professor feldman, what is abuse of power . Abuse of power is when the president uses his office, takes an action, that is part of the presidency, not to serve the Public Interest but to serve his private benefit, and in particular its an abuse of power if he does it to facilitate his reelection or gain an advantage that is not available to anyone not the president. Sir, why is that impeachable conduct . If the president uses his office for personal gain, the only recourse available under the constitution is for him to be impeached because the president cannot be as a practical matter charged criminally while in office because the department of Justice Works for the president. The only mechanism available for a president who tries to distort the process for personal gain is to impeach him. That is why we have impeachment. Professor karlan, do scalers of impeachment generally agree that abuse of power is an Impeachable Offense . Yes, they do. Professor gerhart, do you agree that its impeachable . Why err. Id like to focus the panel on the evidence they considered and the findings in the Intelligence Committee report that the president solicited the interference of a Foreign Government, ukraine, in the 2020 u. S. President ial election. Professor feldman, did President Trump commit the impeachable high crime and misdemeanor of abuse of power based on that evidence and those findings . Based on that evidence and those findings, the president did commit an Impeachable Offense of office. Professor karlan, same question. Same answer. And professor gerhardt, did President Trump commit the impeachable high crime and dismeanor of abuse of power . We three are unanimous, yes. Professor feldman, id like to quickly look at the evidence in the report. On july 25th, President Trump told the president of ukraine, and i quote, i would like you to do us a favor, though. And he asked about looking into the bidens. Was the memorandum of that call relevant to your opinion that the president committed abuse of power . The memorandum of that call between the two president s is absolutely crucial to my dernlnation that the president abused his office. And did you consider the findings of fact that the Intelligence Committee made including that and again i quote, the president withheld official acts of value to ukraine and conditioned their fulfillment on actions by ukraine that would benefit his personal, political interests . Yes. In making the determination that the president committed an Impeachable Offense i relied on the evidence before the house and the testimony, and when this report was issued i continued to rely on that. Sir, did you review the following testimony from our ambassador to ukraine, Ambassador William Taylor . To withhold that assistance for no good reason other than help with the Political Campaign made no sense. It was counterproductive to all of what we had been trying to do. It was illogical, it could not be explained, it was crazy. Yes, that evidence underscored the way that the president s actions undercut National Security. Professor feldman, will you please explain why you concluded that the president committed the high crime of abuse of power and why it matters . The abuse of power occurs when the president uses his office for personal advantage or gain. That matters fundamentally to the American People because if we cannot impeach a president who abuses his office for personal advantage, we no longer live in a democracy. We live in a monarchy or under a dictatorship. Thats why the framers created the possibly of impeachment. Now professor karlan, this high crime and misdemeanor of abuse of power, was it some kind of loose or undefined concept to the founders of our country and framers of our constitution . No, i dont think it was a loose concept at all. It had a long lineage in the common law in england of parliamentary impeachments of lower level officers. Obviously they had not talked about impeaching the king or the like. And can you share a little bit about that lin yaeage, plea . Yeah. The parliament in england impeached officers the crown when those people abused their power. If i could give you one example that might be helpful, right after the restoration of the kingship in england, there was an impeachment and when they impeachment they had to say what for . Sometimes for treason or the like. Sometimes they would use the phrase high crime or misdemeanor. There was an impeachment of vie count mordant, which is a great name. He was impeached because he was the sheriff of windsor. And as the parliamentary election was coming up, he arrested William Taylor, and i just want to read to you from the article of impeachment in front of the house of commons. Because its so telling. Heres is what article one said. Understanding that one William Taylor did intend to stand for the election of one of the burgesss of the burr of wind sor to serve in this present parliament, he was running as a member of parliament, this is what vie count mordant did, to disparage the free election and strike a terror into those of the said borough which should give their voices for him and deprive them of the freedom of their voices at the election, vice ount mower dont did command and cause him to be forcibly, illegally and seized upon by soldiers and then detained him. He went after a political opponent and that was a high crime or misdemeanor to use your office to go after a political opponent. Now, professor gerhardt, does a high crime and misdemeanor require an actual statutory crime . No. It plainly does not. Everything we know about the history of impeachment reinforces the conclusion that Impeachable Offenses do not have to be crimes. And again not all crimes are Impeachable Offenses. We look at the context and graphicty of the misconduct. And professor turley, you recently wrote in the wall street journal, and i quote, there is much that is worthy of investigation in the ukraine scandal and it is true that impeachment does not require a crime. Thats true. But i also added an important caveat. It was a yes or no. Did you write in the wall street journal, there is much that is worthy of investigation in the ukraine scandal and it is true that impeachment does not require a crime . Is that an accurate quote, sir . You read it well. So professors feldman, karlan, and gerhardt, you have identified that on the evidence there is an impeachable act, a high crime and misdemeanor of abuse of power, correct . Yes. Yes. Correct. And professor feldman, what does the constitution say is the responsibility of the house of represen representstives in dealing with president ial high crimes and misdemeanors like abuse of power . The constitution gives the house of representatives the sole power of impeachment. The house has the right and responsibility to investigate president ial misconduct and where appropriate to create and pass articles of impeachment. And professor karlan, what does that responsibility mean for this committee with respect to President Trumps abuse of power . Well, because this is an abuse that cuts to the heart of democracy, you need to ask yourselves if you dont impeach a president who has done what this president has done, or at least you dont investigate and then impeach if you conclude that the House Select Committee on intelligence findings are correct, then what youre saying is, its fine to go ahead and do this again. And i think that as the you know, in the report that came out last night, the report talks about the clear and present danger to the election system. And its your responsibility to make sure that all americans get to vote in a free and Fair Election next november. Professor karlan, id like to direct you to the words in the constitution, other high crimes and misdemeanors. Were still going to talk about abuse of power. Can i ask, did the constitution spell out every other high crime and misdemeanor . No, it did not. Why . Please. In part because they recognized that the inventiveness of man and the likelihood that this constitution would endure for generations meant they couldnt list all of the crimes that might be committed. They couldnt imagine an abuse of power for example that involved burglarizing and stealing computer files from an adversary because they couldnt have imagined computers. They couldnt necessarily have imagined wiretapping because we had no wires in 1789. They put in a phrase the english had used and had adapted over a period of centuries to take into account that the idea of high crimes and misdemeanors is to get at things that people in office use to strike at the very heart of our democracy. And professor, in your written testimony, you mentioned two additional aspects of high crimes and misdemeanors besides abuse of power. You talked about betrayal of the National Interest, betrayal of the National Interest and corruption of the electoral process. And can you say a little bit more about what the framers concerns were about corruption of elections and betrayal of the National Interest involving foreign powers and how theyd come into play here . Sure. Let me start with the framers and what they were concerned with and bring it up to date, because i think theres some modern stuff thats important. The framers were very poried that elections could be corrupted. They could be corrupted in a variety of different ways. And then spent a lot of time trying to design an election system that wouldnt be subject to that kind of corruption. And there are a number of different provisions in the constitution that deal with the kinds of corruption they were worried about, two that id like to highlight because i think they go to this idea about the National Interest and Foreign Governments. One that seems today to most much us to be a remnant of a past time. If you become an american citizen, almost everything in this country is open to you. You can become chief justice of the United States. You can become secretary of state. But the one office thats not open to you, even though youre a citizen just like all of the rest of us, is the presidency, because of the natural born citizen clause of the constitution. The reason they put that in was because they were so worried about foreign influence over a president. The other clause probably no one heard of five years ago is the emoluments clause. They were worried that the president would tuze to get everything he could and he would take gifts from foreign affair countries, not even necessarily bribes but gifts. They were very concerned about those elections. Its not just them. I want to Say Something about what our National Interest is today. Our National Interest too today is different than 1969. They were worried we would be a weak country. Were a strong power now, the strongest in the world. We can still be exploited by Foreign Countries. But the other thing weve done, and this is one of the things that i think we as americans should be proudest of, is we have become what John Winthrop said in his sermon in 1640 and Ronald Reagan said, we have become the shining city on a hill. We have become the nation that leads the world in understanding what democracy is. One of the things we understand most pro foupdly is its not a real democracy, mature, if the party in power uses the criminal process to go after its enemies. I think you heard testimony that the Intelligence Committee heard testimony about how it isnt just our National Interest in protecting our own elections, not just our National Interest in the ukraine fights the russians and we dont have to fight them here. But its our National Interest in pro moding democracy worldwide. If we look hypocrite cal about this, were asking other countries to interfere in our election, look like were asking other countries to engage in criminal investigations of our president s political opponents, then were not doing our job of promoting our National Interest in being that shining city on a hill. Professor feldman, anything to add . Ultimately, the reason that the constitution provided for impeachment was to anticipate a situation like the one that is before you today. The framers were not prophets but they were very mart people with a sophisticated understanding of human incentives. And they understood that a president would be motivated naturally to try to use the tremendous power of office to gain personal advantage to keep himself in office, to corrupt the electoral process and potentially subvert the National Interest. The facts strongly suggest that this is what President Trump has done, and under those circumstances the framers would expect the house of representatives to take action in the form of impeachment. And professor feldman, did you review the Intelligence Committee report finding that President Trump compromised National Security to advance his personal, political interests . I did. And will you explain in your view how that happened . The president sought personal gain and advantage by soliciting the announcement of investigations and presumably investigations, from ukraine, and to do so, he withheld critical assistance that the government of ukraine needed, and by doing so, he undermined the National Security interests of the United States in helping ukraine, our ally, in a war that it is fighting against russia. So in the simplest possible terms, the president put his personal gain ahead of the National Security interest as expressed, according to the evidence before you, by the entirety of a unanimous National Security community. Sir, is it your view that the framers would conclude that there was a betrayal of the National Interest or National Security by President Trump on these facts . In my view, if the framers were aware that a president of the United States had put his personal gain and interest ahead of the National Security of the United States by conditioning aid to a crucial ally thats in the midst of a war on investigations aimed at his own personal gain, they would certainly conclude that this was an abuse of the office of the presidency and conclude that that conduct was impeachable under the constitution. Professor gerhardt, what are your thoughts on the abuse of power, betrayal of National Security or National Interest, and the corruption of elections, sir . Well, i have a lot of thoughts. One of them is that what we havent mentioned yet or brought into this conversation is the fact that the impeachment power requires this committee, this house, to be able to investigate president ial misconduct. If a president can block an investigation, undermine it, stop it, then the impeachment power itself as a check against misconduct is undermined completely. And professor karlan, can you have an Impeachable Offense of abuse of mower that is supported by considerations of apresident s betrayal of the National Interest or security by elections . Yes, you can. Do we have that here, maam . Based on the evidence which ive seen, which is reviewing the transcripts of the 12 witnesses who testified looking at the call readout, looking at some of the president s other statements, looking at the statement by mr. Mulvaney and the like, yes, we do. And professor feldman, do you agree . Yes. Professor gerhardt . Yes, i do. Professor karlan, weve been talking about the category of other high crimes and misdemeanors like abuse of power. But there are some additional there are some additional high crimes and misdemeanors that are specifically identified in the text of the constitution, correct . Yes, thats true. What are they . Treason and bribery. Do President Trumps demands on ukraine also establish the high crime of bribery . Yes, they do. Can you explain why, please . Sure. So the high crime or misdemeanor of bribery i think its important to distinguish that from whatever the u. S. Code calls bribery today. And the reason for this in part is because in 1789 when the framers were writing the constitution, there was no federal criminal code. The first bribery statutes that the United States Congress Passed would not have reached a president at all, because the first one was just about customs officials. And the second one was only about judges. So it wasnt until, i dont know, 60 years or so after the constitution was ratified that we had any federal crime of bribery. When they say the president can be impeached and removed from office for bribery, they werent referring to a statute. And federal and i will say, im not an expert on federal substantive federal criminal law. All i will say here is the bribery statute is a very complicated statute. So what they were thinking about was bribery as it was understood in the 18th century based on the common law up until that point. And that understanding was an understanding that someone and generally even then it was mostly talking about a judge, it wasnt talking about a president , because there was no president before that. It wasnt talking about the king because i king could do no wrong. But what they were understanding then was the idea that when you took private benefits or when you asked for private benefits, in return for an official act, or somebody gave them to you to influence an official act, that was bribery. And so we have constitutional bribery here, the high crime and misdemeanor of constitutional o telephone call with the ukrainian president , the one where President Trump asked, i would like you to do us a favor, though, and also asked about looking into his u. S. Political opponents. Yes, i did rely on that. Did you consider the following testimony from our ambassador to the european union, ambassador sondland . Was there a quid pro quo . As i testified previously, with regard to the requested white house call and the white house meeting, the answer is yes. Everyone was in the loop. Did you consider that, professor . I did consider that, yes. And did you also consider the findings of fact that the Intelligence Committee made, including that, and i quote from finding of fact number five, the president withheld official acts of value to ukraine and conditioned their fulfillment on actions by ukraine that would benefit his personal, political interest . I did rely on that, in addition, because as ive already testified, i read the witnesses the transcript of all the witnesses. I relied on testimony from ambassador sondland and testimony from mr. Morrison, testimony from Lieutenant Colonel vindman, testimony for ambassador taylor. I relied on the fact that when i think it was ambassador taylor, but i may be getting one of these people wrong, sent the cable that said, you know, its crazy to hold this up based on domestic political concern. No one wrote back and said, thats not why were doing it. I relied on mr. Mulvaney said in his press conference. So, there you know, theres a lot to suggest here that this is about political benefit. And i dont know if i can talk about another piece of ambassador sondlands testimony now or i should wait. Tell me. Please, talk about it. So, i just want to point to what i consider to be the most striking example of this and the most you know, i spent all of thanksgiving vacation sitting there, reading these transcripts. I didnt you know, i ate like a turkey that came to us in the mail that was already cooked. Because i was spending my time doing this. And the most chilling line for me of the entire process is the following. Ambassador sondland said he had to announce the investigations, talking about president zelensky. He had to announce the investigations, he didnt actually have to do it, as i understood it. And he said, i didnt hear, mr. Goldman, the investigations had to be started or completed. The only thing i heard from mr. Giuliani is they had to be announced in some form. What i took that to mean is this is not about whether Vice President biden actually committed corruption or not. This was about injuring somebody who the president thinks of as a particularly a particularly hard opponent. Thats for his private his private beliefs. If i can say one last thing about the interest of the United States. The constitution of the United States does not care whether the next president of the United States is donald j. Trump or any one of the democrats or Anyone Running on a thirdparty. The constitution is indifferent to that. What the constitution cares about is that we have free elections. And so, it is only in the president s interest. Its not the National Interest that a particular president be elected or be defeated at the next election. President constitution is indifferent to that. Professor feldman, any thoughts on the subject of high crime and misdemeanor of the bribery that professor karlan laid out . The clear sense of bribery at the time when the framers adopted this this language in the constitution was that bribery existed under the constitution when the president corruptly asked for or received something of value to him from someone who could be affected by his official office. So, if the house of representatives and the members of this committee were to determine that getting the investigations either announced or undertaken was a thing of value to President Trump and that that was what he sought, then this committee and this house could safely conclude that the president had committed bribery under the constitution. Professor gear hearhardt, wh your view . I, of course, agree with professor karlan and professor feldman. And i just want to stress, if this if what were talking about is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable. This is precisely the misconduct that the framers created a constitution, including impeachment, to protect against. And if theres no action, if congress concludes theyre going to give a pass to the president here, as professor karlan suggested earlier, every other president will say, okay, then i can do the same thing and the boundaries will just evaporate. Those boundaries are set up by the constitution and we may be witnessing, unfortunately, their erosion. And that is a danger to all of us. And what can this committee and the house of representatives do, sir, to defend those boundaries and to protect against that erosion . Precisely what youre doing. And does it matter ill ask all the panelists. Does it matter to impeachment that the 391 million, u. S. Taxpayer dollars, in military assistance that the president withheld, was ultimately delivered . Professor feldman, does that matter to the question of impeachment . No, it does not. If if the president of the United States attempts to abuse his office, that is a complete Impeachable Offense. The possibility that the president might get caught in the process of attempting to abuse his office and then not be able to pull it off does not undercut in any way the impeach act of the act. If youll pardon a comparison, president nixon was subject to articles of impeachment preferred by this committee for attempting to coverup the watergate breakin. The fact that president nixon was not successful for breaking up the breakin it not impeachable. The attempt itself is the itch peopleable act. Professor karlan, does it matter to impeachment that the unfounded investigations the president sought were ultimately never announced . No, it doesnt. And if i could give an example that i think it shows why soliciting is enough. Imagine you were pulled over for speeding by the Police Officer and the officer comes up to the window and says, you were speeding, but if you give me 20 bucks ill drop the ticket. And you look in your wallet and you say to the officer, i dont have the 20 bucks. And the officer says, okay, well, just go ahead, have a nice day. The officer would still be guilty of soliciting a bribe even though he ultimately let you off without your paying. Soliciting itself is the Impeachable Offense regardless whether the other person comes up with it. So, imagine the imagine that the president had said, will you do us a favor, will you investigate joe biden and the president of ukraine said, you know what, no, i wont because weve already looked into this and its totally baseless. The president would still have committed an impeachable act even if he had been refused right there on the phone. So, i dont see why the ultimate the ultimate decision has anything to do with the president s impeachable conduct. Whats the danger if congress does not respond to that attempted . Well, weve already seen a little bit of it which is he gets out on the white house sxlalawn and says, china, i think you should investigate joe biden. Professor gerhardt, your view . I agree everything thats been said. One of the things to understand from the history of impeachment is everybody who has impeached has failed. They failed to get what they wanted. What they wanted was not just to do what they did but to get away with it. And the point of impeachment is, its and its made possible through investigation, is to not is to catch that person, charge that person and ultimately remove that person from office. But impeachments are always focusing on somebody who didnt quite get as far as they wanted to. Nobody is better than professor karlan at hypotheticals but ill dare to raise another one. Imagine a bank robbery and the police come and the persons in the middle of the bank robbery and the person then drops the money and says, i im going to leave without the money. Everybody understands thats burglary thats robbery i mean, thats burglary. Ill get it right. And in this situation, we have somebody really caught in the middle of it and that doesnt excuse the person from the consequences. Professors, weve talked about abuse of power and brib y bribery. When we started we said we would also talk about obstruction of congress. Ill ask you some questions about obstruction of congress. Professor gerhardt, in your view, is there enough evidence here to charge President Trump with the high crime and misdemeanor of obstruction of congress . I think theres more than enough. As i mentioned in my statement, just to really underscore this, the third article of impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee against president nixon charged him with misconduct because he failed to comply with four legislative subpoenas. There are far more than four this president has failed to comply with and he ordered the executive branch as well not to cooperate with congress. Those together with a lot of other evidence suggests obstruction of congress. Professor karlan, do you agree . Im a scholar of the law of democracy. As a citizen, i agree with what professor gerhardt. As an expert, my limitation is that im a scholar of the law of democracy. Im not a scholar of obstruction of justice or obstruction of congress. We will accept your opinion as a citizen. Professor feldman . The obstruction of congress is a problem because it undermines the basic principle of the constitution. If youre going to have three branches of government, each of the branches has to be able to do its job. The job of the house is to investigate impeachment and to impeach. A president who says, as this president did say, i will not cooperate in any way, shape or form with your process, robs a coordinate branch of government. He robs the house of representatives it of its basic constitutional power of impeachment. When you add to that the fact that the same president says, my department of justice cannot charge me with a crime, the president puts himself above the law when he says he will not cooperate in an impeachment inquiry. I dont think its possible to emphasize this strongly enough. A president who will not cooperate in an impeachment inquiry is putting himself above the law. Now, putting yourself above the law as president is the core of an Impeachable Offense because if the president could not be impeached for that, he would, in fact, not be responsible to anybody. Sir, in forming your opinion, did you review these statements from President Trump. Were fighting all the subpoenas. Then i have an article 2 where i have the right to do whatever i want as president. I did. And as someone who cares about the constitution, the second in particular struck a kind of horror in me. And, professor gerhardt, in forming your opinion that President Trump has committed the Impeachable Offense of obstruction of congress, did you consider the Intelligence Committee report and its findings including finding nine that President Trump ordered and implemented a campaign to conceal his conduct from the public and to frustrate and obstruct the house of representatives impeachment inquiry . I read that report last night after i submitted my statement, but i watched and read all of the transcripts that were available. The report that was issued reinforces Everything Else that came before it. So, yes. So, we talked first about abuse of power and bribery, and then about obstruction of congress. Professor gerhardt, i would like to ask you questions about a third Impeachable Offense and that is obstruction of justice. Sir, have you formed an opinion as to whether President Trump committed the Impeachable Offense of obstruction of justice . Yes, i have. And what is your opinion, sir . Based on so, ive come here like every other witness, assuming the facts that have been put together in official reports. The Mueller Report cites a number of facts that indicate the president of the United States obstructed justice, and thats an Impeachable Offense. In your testimony, sir, you pointed out that the Mueller Report found at least five instances of the president s obstruction of the justice departments criminal investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election, correct . Yes, sir. And the first of those instances was the president ordering his then white House Counsel, don mcgahn, to fire the special counsel rather than to have the special counsel fired in order to thwart the investigation of the president , correct . That is correct. The second was the president ordering mr. Mcgahn to create a false written record denying that the president had ordered him to have mr. Mueller removed. Thats correct. And you also point to the meeting of the president with his former campaign manager, corey lewandowski, to get him to take steps in order to have the investigation curtailed. Yes, i did. And you talk about witness dangling as Paul Manafort and michael cohen, former campaign official, former personal lawyer of the president . Both individually and collectively, these are evidence of obstruction of justice. How serious is that evidence of obstruction of justice, sir . Its quite serious. Thats not all of it, of course. We know, as youve mentioned before, obstruction of justice has been recognized as an Impeachable Offense against president nixon and president clinton. This evidence put forward by mr. Mueller thats in the Public Record is very strong evidence of obstruction of justice. Professor karlan, when you look at the department of justice russia investigation and how the president responded to that, and when you look at Congress Ukraine investigation and how the president responded to that, do you see a pattern . Yes, i see a pattern in which the president s views about the propriety of Foreign Governments intervening in our election process is the antithesis that our framers we americans decide the elections. We dont want foreign interference in the elections. The reason we dont want foreign interference in the elections is because were a selfdetermining democracy. If i could read one quotation to you that i think is helpful in understanding this, somebody whose pointing to what he calls a straightforward principle. It is fundamental to the definition of our National Political community that foreign citizens do not have a constitutional right to participate in and thus may be excluded from activities of democratic selfgovernment. The person who wrote those words is now Justice Brett kavanaugh in upholding the constitutionality of a federal statute that denies foreign citizens the right to participate in our elections by spending money on electionerring or giving money to pacs. Theyve been long forbidden to give contributions to candidates. The reason is because that denies us our right to selfgovernment. And then judge, now Justice Brett kavanaugh was so protect in seeing this that the Supreme Court, which as you know has taken Campaign Finance case after Campaign Finance case to talk about the First Amendment. Summarily affirmed. They didnt even need to aargue to know to keep foreigners out of our election process. Professor feldman, you were sort of an impeachment skeptic at the time of the release of the Mueller Report, were you not . I was. Whats changed for you, sir . What changed for me was the revelation of the july 25th call and the evidence that emerged subsequently of the president of the United States in a format where he was heard by others and now known to the whole public, openly abused his office by seeking a personal advantage in order to get himself reelected and act against the National Security of the United States. That is precisely the situation that the framers anticipated. Its very unusual for the framers predictions to come true that precisely. And when they do, we have to ask ourselves, some day we will no longer be alive and well go wherever it is we go. The good place or the other place. And, you know, we may meet there, madison and hamilton, and they will ask us when the president of the United States acted to corrupt the structure of the republic, what did you do . And our answer to that question must be that we followed the guidance of the framers and it must be that if the evidence supports that conclusion that the house of representatives moves to impeach him. Thank you. I yield my time back to the chairman. And my time has expired. I yield back. Before i recognize the Ranking Member for his round first round of questions, the committee will stand in a tenminute humanitarian recess. I ask everyone in the room to remain seated and quiet while the witnesses exit the room. I also want to announce to those in the audience that you may not be guaranteed your seat if you leave the hearing room at this time. And once the witnesses have left the hearing room, at this time the committee will stand in a short recess. The he can will come back to order after the recess. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member for his first round of questions pursuant to House Resolution 660 the Ranking Member or his counsel have 45 minutes to question the witnesses. The Ranking Member. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Before i begin on the questioning, i do want to revisit a comment that was made earlier by you, mr. Chairman, for a demand for minority hearing day. You said you would rule on it later. I just wanted to remind you, the rules of the house do not permit a ruling on this, they dont permit a vote and you cannot shut it down. The minority is a right rarely exercised but regards majority excluding. The fair and balance rule. Its not the chairmans right to determine whether we deserve a hearing or. Its want the chairmans right to decide what we say or think is acceptable. It is certainly not the chairmans right to violate the rules in order to interfere with our rights to conduct a hearing. I just commend mr. Sensenbrenner for bringing that forward and look forward to that schedule you getting that scheduled expeditiously. Moving on, interesting part. Now we hit phase two. Youve had one site, ade, eloqu argue i by not only counsel and the witnesses involved but theres always a face two. The phase two is what is problematic here. What i said in my Opening Statement, this is for many the most disputed impeachments on just the facts themselves. What was interesting is we actually showed videos of witnesses. In fact, one of them was an Opening Statement, i believe, which, again, the closest thing to perfect outside your resume this side of heaven is an Opening Statement, because its unchallenged. I agree with that. It should be. Weve had great witnesses here today to talk about this. But we didnt talk about kurt volcker, who said nothing about it. We said nothing about the aid being held up. Morrison, who contradicted vindman and others. Weve not done that. I dont expect the majority to because thats not what theyre here for. Theyre not here to give exculpatory evidence like the schiff gives no exculpatory evidence. We still dont have the underlying stuff that came from that investigation according to house rule 866 we are supposed to get. One important part is the inspector general, his testimony is still being held. Theres a quote secret on it or holding it in classification. The last time i checked, we have plenty of places in this building and other buildings to handle classified information if they still want to do that. Its withheld from us. I have to believe now theres a reason its withheld. Undoubtedly theres a problem with it. Well have to see as that goes forward. Anybody in the media watching today has painted an interesting picture. Picking and choosing the last few weeks to talk about. Thats okay. Professor turley, youre now well rested. You got one question. You were given a yes or no. Elaborate on that and if theres anything you heard this morning you would disagree with, i would allow you time to talk. For information, mr. Chairman, this is the coldest hearing room in the world. For those who are worried im uncomfortable, upset, im as happy as a lark but this chair is terrible i mean, it is amazing. But mr. Turley, go ahead. Theres a couple of things i want to highlight. I respect my colleagues. I know all of them. I consider them friends. I certainly respect what they have said today. We have fundamental disagreements. And id like to start with the issue of bribery. The statement has been made, not just by these witnesses but chairman schiff and others that this is a clear case of bribery. Its not. Chairman schiff said that it might not fit todays definition of bribery, but it would fit the definition back in the 18th century. Now, putting aside mr. Schiffs turn towards originalism, i think that it might come as a relief to him and his supporters that his career will be a short one, that there is not an originalist future in that argument. The bribery theory being put forward is in the 18th century as this statement. The statement made by one of my esteemed colleagues is bribery really wasnt defined until much later. There was no bribery statute. That is certainly true. But it obviously had a meaning, thats why they put it in this important standard. Bribery was not this overarching concept. The original standard was treason and bribery. That led mason to object that it was too narrow. If bribery could include any time you did anything for personal interest instead of Public Interest, if you have this overarching definition, that exchange would have been completely useless. The framers didnt disagree with masons view that bribery was too narrow. What they disagreed with is what he suggested maladministration to add to the standard because he wanted it to be broader. What James Madison said is that thats too broad, that would essentially create what you might call a vote of no confidence in england. It would basically allow congress to toss out a president they did not like. Once again, were channelling the intent of the framers. Thats always a dangerous thing to do. The only more dangerous spot to stand in is between congress and impeachment as an academic. I would offer instead the words of the framers themselves. In that exchange, they didnt just say bribery was too narrow, they actually gave an example of bribery. And it was nothing like what was described. When the objection was made by mason im sorry, by madison, ultimately the framers agreed. And then morris, who was referred to earlier, did say, we need to adopt the standard. What was left out is what came afterwards. What morris said is that we need to protect against bribery because we dont want anything like what happened with louis xviv and charles ii. The bribery was offering money as head of state. What had happened in that example morris gave as his example of bribery is that louis xiv, who was a bit of a recidivist when it came to bribes, gave charles ii a huge amount of money as well as other benefits including, apparently, a french mistress in exchange for the secret treaty of dover of 1670. It also was an exchange for him converting to catholicism. But that wasnt some broad notion of bribery. It was actually quite narrow. I dont think that dog will hunt in the 18th century and i dont think it will hunt today, because if you take a look at the 21st century, bribery is well defined. You shouldnt just take our word for it. You should look to how its defined by the United States Supreme Court. In a case called mcdonald versus the United States, the Supreme Court looked at a public corruption bribery case. This was a case where gifts were actually received, benefits were actually extended. There was completion. This was not some hypothetical of a crime that was not fulfilled or an action that was not actually taken. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned that conviction. Unanimously. And what they said was that you cannot take the bribery crime and use what they called a boundless interpretation. All the justices said that its a dangerous thing to take a crime like bribery and apply a boundless interpretation. They rejected the notion, for example, that bribery could be used in terms of setting up meetings and other types of things that occur in the course of a Public Service career. What i would caution the committee, these crimes have meaning. It gives me no joy to disagree with my colleagues here. And i really dont have a dog in this fight. But you cant accuse a president of bribery and then when some of us note that the Supreme Court has rejected your type of boundless interpretation, say, well, its just impeachment. We really dont have to prove the elements. Thats a favorite mantra. Its close enough for jazz. Well, this isnt improvisational jazz. Close enough isnt good enough. If youre going to accuse a president of bribery, you need to make it stick because youre trying to remove a duly elected president of the United States. Now, its unfair to accuse someone of a crime, and when others say, well, those interpretations youre using to define the crime are not valid and to say they dont have to be valid. Because this is impeachment. That has not been the standard historically. My testimony lays out the criminal allegations in the previous impeachments. Those were not just proven crimes, they were accepted crimes. That is even the democrats on that on the Judiciary Committee agreed that bill clinton had committed perjury. Thats on the record. And a federal judge later said it was perjury. In the case of nixon, the crimes were established. No one seriously disagreed with those crimes. Now, johnson is the outlier because johnson was a trap door crime. They basically created a crime knowing that johnson wanted to replace secretary of war stanton. And johnson did, because they had serious trouble in the cabinet. So, they created a trap door crime, waited for him to fire the secretary of war and then they impeached him. Theres no question he committed the crime. Its just the underlying statute was unconstitutional. So, i would caution you not only about bribery but also obstruction. Im sorry, Ranking Member, you no, youre doing a good job. Go ahead. Id also caution you about obstruction. Obstruction is a crime also with meaning. It has elements, it has controlling case authority. The record does not establish obstruction in this case. What my esteemed colleague said is certainly true. If you accept all of their presumptions, it would be obstruction. But impeachments have to be based on proof, not presumptions. Thats the problem when you move towards impeachment on this abbreviated schedule that has not been explained to me why you want to set the record for the fastest impeachment. Fast is not good for impeachment. Narrow, fast impeachments have failed. Just ask johnson so, the obstruction issue is an example of this problem. Heres my concern. The theory being put forward is that President Trump obstructed congress by not turning over material requested by the committee. Citations have been made to the third article of the nixon impeachment. First of all, i want to confess. Ive been a critic of the third article of the nixon impeachment my whole life. My hair catches on fire every time someone mentions the third article. Why . Because you would be replicating one of the worst articles written on impeachment. Heres the reason why. Peter radinos position as chairman of judiciaryle is congress alone decides what information may be given to it. Alone. And his position is the courts have no role in this. And so if any by that theory, any refusal by a president based on executive privilege or immunities would be the basis of impeachment. That is essentially the theory being replicated today. Hes allowed to do that. We have three branches, not two. I happen to agree with some of your criticism about President Trump, including that earlier quote where my colleagues talked about his saying that theres this article 2 and he gives this overriding interpretation. I share that criticism. Youre doing the same thing with article 1. Youre saying, article 1 gives us complete authority when we demand information from another branch, it must be turned over or well impeach you in record time. Now, making that worse is that you have such a short investigation, its a perfect storm. You set an incredibly short period, demand a huge amount of information and when the president goes to court, you then impeach him. Now, does that track with what youve heard about impeachment . Does that track with the rule of law that we talked about . So, on obstruction i would encourage you to think about this. In nixon it did go to the courts and nixon lost. And that was the reason nixon resigned. He resigned a few days after the Supreme Court ruled against him in that critical case, but in that case, the court recognized there are executive privilege arguments that can be made. It didnt say, you had no idea coming to us. Dont darken our doorstep again. It said, weve heard your arguments. Weve heard congresss arguments. You know what, you lose. Turn over the material to congress. What that did for the judiciary is that gave this body legitimacy. It wasnt the rodino extreme position that only you decide what information can be produced. Recently there are rulings against President Trump, including a ruling involving don mcgahn. Mr. Chairman, i testified in front of you a few months ago and if you recall, we had an exchange and i encouraged you to bring those actions and i said i thought you would win and you did. And i think it was an important win for this committee because i dont agree with President Trumps argument in that case. Thats an example of what can happen if you actually subpoena witnesses and go to court. Then you have an obstruction case because a court issues an order. Unless they stay that order by a higher court, you have obstruction. I cant emphasize this enough and ill say it one more time if you impeach a president if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. Its your abuse of power. Youre doing exactly what youre criticizing the president of doing. We have a third branch that deals with conflicts of the other two branches. What comes out of there and what you do with it is the very definition of legitimacy. Lets continue on. Lets unpack what youve been talking about. First of all, the mcdonald case, how was that decided . Was that a really split court . Were they torn about that . That case came out high . Yeah, it came out unanimous. So did a couple of the other cases i cite in my testimony, which also refute these criminal theories. One thing that you said also, and i think it could be summed up, and i use it sometimes, whats the laymens language here is facts dont matter. Thats what i heard a lot in 45 minutes. If this, if that, it rises to an impeachment level. That is sort of what youre saying, crimes, i think your word was, crimes have meaning and i think this is the concern that i have. Is there a concern that we say facts dont matter were also, as you say, abusing our power as we go forward and actually looking at what people would deem as an Impeachable Offense . I think so. Part of the problem is to bring a couple of these articles, you have to contradict the position of president obama. President obama withheld evidence from congress in fast and furious, an investigation, a rather than moronic program, that led to the death of a federal agent. President obama gave a sweeping argument that he was not only not going to give evidence to this body, but that a court had absolutely no role in determining whether he could withhold the evidence. You have a question on that. You brought up mr. Obama and brought up other president s in this process. Is there not an obligation by the office of the president , well just use that term, not to be obama, trump, clinton, anybody. Isnt there an obligation by the president to actually assert the constitutional privileges or authorities that have been given or when accused of something, a crime or anything else . Yeah. I think president obama has invoked too broadly. On the other hand, he has actually released a lot of information. Ive been friends with bill barr for a long time. We disagree on executive privilege. Im a madisonian scholar. I tend to favor congress in disputes. And he is the inverse. His natural default is article 2. My natural default is article 1. But he actually has released more privileged information than any attorney general in my lifetime, including the Mueller Report, these transcripts of these calls would be core executive privilege material. Theres no question about that. Thats something thats not pointed out when youre doing a back and forth like were doing. The transcript of the call released, the things released with mueller. There have been work in progress by this administration. I think the interesting point i want to talk about is two what s congress own abuse of the power here internally where we have had committees not letting to have the members see transcripts and not willing to give those up under the guise of impeachment or you should not be able to see them, but the rules of the house were never invoked to see that. And what i also want to talk about is the timing issue, and we have talked about this with the Mueller Report, and Everything Else. And i said, this is the clock and the calendar are seemingly dominated this irregardless of what anybody on this committee and especially the members not on this committee are what we are seeing of the fact witnesses and people moving forward and we dont have that yet, and the question becomes, is an election pending when facts are in dispute and you made a mention of this, and this is in one in which the facts are not unanimous, and there is not universal or bipartisan agreement of the facts of what they lead to when there is exculpatory reports, and not in the schiff report, but in the other reports, and does that bother you from a historical point of view . Yes, fast and narrow is not a good idea with impeachment. They tend not to survive and they collapse. This is the highest structure under the constitution, and under the impeachment, you have to have a foundation broad enough to support it. It is the narrowest impeachment in history, and johnson may not have the fastest impeachment, and johnson is what happened to johnson the actually the fourth impeachment attempted against johnson and obviously, the record goes back a year before and they laid the trap door a year before so it is not as fast as it might appear. And again, lets go back to Something Else that you talked about bribery, and i wanted to have mr. Taylor address a good bit of that, but i wanted to go back to something that is bother the perception out of what is going on here and the disputed transcript and being that the call has been laid out there and the president said i want nothing of this, and all of the exculpatory information, and it goes back to what crimes matter and the definition of this, but the house began accusing the president quid pro quo, and then they used a focus poll group and then it didnt poll well so they changed it to bribery and so is that more of the crimes do matter and the facts of the case do matter . Yes. There is a reason that every past impeachment has established crimes, and it is obvious and not that you cant impeach on a noncrime, and you k and in fact, noncrimes have been part of past impeachments, but it is just that they have never gone up alone or primarily as the basis of impeachment, and that is the problem here. If you prove a quid pro quo, that you might have an Impeachable Offense, but to go up only on the noncriminal case would be the first time in history, and so why is that the case . The reason is that crimes have an established definition in case law, and so there is a concrete independent body of law that assuring the political that this is something they cannot do, and you cannot say that the president is above the law if you they the crimes they accuse you of dont have to be established. That is the problem right now that many members of the house and the body and the American Public are looking at that if you say he is above the law, but you dont defiant or define if facts to whatever you want to have is the ultimate railroad that everybody in the country shot no be afforded. Everybody is aftforded due process and the right to have their case heard, and we have seen it voted down not to look at certain fact witnesses and not promised other hearings in which this committee and the words echoed almost 20 years ago that the chairman did not want to take the advice of any other body to give us a report and act as a rubber stamp if we did and the issue Going Forward is why the rush . Why do we still not have the information from the Intelligence Committee . Why is the inspector generals report still being withheld in a classified setting. These are the problems that you have highlight and need to be and that is why the next 45 minutes and the rest of the day is applicable, because both sides matters, and at the end of the day, this is the fastest impeachment, and the fastest we have seen based on disputed fact, and with that i want to turn it over the my counsel mr. May or the. Mr. Taylor. Professor turley, id like to turn to the subject of partisanship as the founders feared it and as it is today. It is a situation that Alexander Hamilton was concerned about, and he wrote prescient words in page 65 in the ratification of the federalist papers in the constitution being ratified that principally hamilton and also said that it will preexist in the factions and enlist all of their animosities, partialities and interests on one side where on t on the other in suchcations the danger is relating to the compare zif strengcom comparative strength of the parties. And so professor turley, do you think that hamilton represented a high partisan nature of impeachments . That is the case in the two impeachments that we have seen. It is important to note that we think that our times are unique. This provision was not just written for times like ours, but it was written in times like ours, and in that these are the people who are even more severe than the rhetoric today. I mean, you have to keep in mind that jefferson referred to the administration of the federalist as the rein of the witches, and this is a period when they didnt have strong feelings. Aed when y and talking about people who wanted to kill each other, and back then, they were trying to kill each other. That is what the sedition laws were about, people were trying to kill you if they disagreed with you, but there was not a slew of impeachments, and that is a lesson that can be taken from that period. The framers created a standard that would not be endlessly fluid and flexible, and that standard has kept us from impeachments despite the periods in which we have despised each other, and that is the most distressing thing for most of us today is that there is so much more rage than reason. You cant even talk about these issues without people saying, you must be in favor of the ukrainians taking over the country. Or the russians moving into the white house. At some point as a people, we have to have a serious discussion about the grounds to remove a duly elected president. Professor turley, you said in the testimony that when it comes to impeachment we dont need happy ideological warriors, but circumspect legal analysis. Lets look at the partisan landscape on which this is waged. The Democratic Leaders pushing the impeachment are pushing the far left coastal areas of the country, and the bar graphs are showing the total votes cast, and the margin of the winner the 2016 election. And you can see the parts of the country for these impeachment leaders voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and also in the 2016 elections lawyer contributions were 10 for clinton and 3 for trump and the situation is essentially the same at law schools around the country, including those represented on the panel here today. And professor turley, id like to turn to the partisan process that identifies these impeachment proceedings. This is how the nixon procedure was identified in the staff report. You were talking about the initiation of the impeachment inquiry. It is not partisan and supported by the overwhelming majority of the political parties, and it was. Regarding the authorization of the clinton impeachment, it was supported by all republicans and 31 democrats, and fast forward to the current impeachment. The House Democrat trump impeachment was approved only by democrats and indeed over the opposition of two democrats all republicans. Professor turley, how does this trend comfort with how the founders understood how impeachment should operate . I think that the founders had aspirations to come together as a people, but they did not have delusion, and it s or anything achieved in their lifetime. And youb surprise eyou would be at end of their lives jefferson and adams did reconcile that some of the most weighty and significant moments in constitutional history is the one that is rarely discussed that adams and jefferson reached out to each other, and they wanted to reconcile before they died. They met and they did. And maybe that is something that we can learn from, but i think that the greater thing that i would point to is the seven republicans in the johnson impeachment. If i could read one thing to you. And everyone often talks about one of the senators, but not this one. And that is Lyman Trumball who was a fantastic senator and he became a great advocate for Civil Liberties and most of the senators when it was said that they jumped into their political graves, it was true. Most of their political careers ended and they knew that it would end because of the animosity of the period. Trumball said the following. He said, once this set the example of impeaching a president for what, and when the excitement of the hour shall have subsided, it is going to be regarded as insufficient causes and no future president is safe with the majority of the house and the 2 3 of the senate. I tremble for the future of the country and i cannot be an instrument to produce such a result, and the hazards of affection for calmer times shall do justice to my motives, no alternatives are left to me. He proceeded to give the vote that ended his career. You cant wait for calmer times. The time for you is now. And i would say that what trumball said is even more bearing today, because i believe that this is much like the johnson impeachment, and it is manufactured until you build a record. I am not saying that you cant build a record, but you cant do it like this, and you cant impeach a president like this. Professor turley, there is a recent book on impeachment by harvard professors who considered a legitimate impeachment process and it is ant antitrump and called the end the presidency and the authors say that when impeachment is partisan, it stays that way. And when only the republicans or the democrats justify the removal, there is a strong risk that partisan animus have overtaken the proper measure of congressional impartiality, and we can expect that opposition lead force the president will be pushed to impeach and suffer internal blowback if they dont, and the key question is if they will cave to the pressure, and one risk of the broken poll sticks is that the house will undertake many impeachments which is dangerous to the house as a whole. Is that what is happening here . Not on this schedule. And one thing that comes out of the impeachments in terms of what bipartisan support occurred and this is that impeachment required periods of saturation and maturation. I am not prejudging what your record would show, but if you rush this impeachment, you are going to leave half of the country behind, and certainly that is not what the president , what the framers wanted. You to give the time to build a record. This is not an impulse buy item. You are trying to remove a dulyelected president of the United States, and that taking time and work. And if you are looking at Richard Nixon and that is a Gold Standard and they did catch up, and they originally did not support impeachment, and they changed their minds and you changed their mind and so did the courts because you allowed the issues to be heard in the courts. Professor turley, the nixon and clinton impeachments were debated solidly on the high crimes category . Yes. Crimes were at issue, but on the evidence presented so far, is there any credible evidence that any crime was committed by President Trump . Yes, i have gone through all of the crimes mentioned, and they do not meet any reasonable interpretation of the crimes and i am lying on the express sentiments of the court. The statutes are broad, but it is not the controlling language, it is the language of the interpretation of the federal courts, and i think that all of the decisions stand mightily in the way of these theories. If you cant make out those crimes, then dont call it that crime. If it doesnt matter, then what is the point. Call it treason. Call it endangered species violations if none of this matters. So that would put the democrats move to impeach President Trump in high misdemeanors. And in the debates in this book, they said it expressly a technical term, and not any majority of partisan members could think it was at any given time. Often when there is a debate about technical term, people turn to dictionariedictionaries First Comprehensive dictionary was Samuel Johnsons First Published in 1755 and the founders and many of the libraries have the book on their de desks and the Supreme Court still cites johnsons dictionary to look up the original meanings of the words in the constitution. This is how the 1795 definition of high crimes and misdemeanors and misdemeanors is great, little treason, and misdemeanor is something less than an atrocious crime. And atrocious is defined wicked and a high degree, and enormous and horribly criminal. So if you are looking at the words in the times that the constitution was ratified, atrocious in a wicked and high degree and result a high misdemeanor must be something that is less than something that is wicked and high degree. Professor turley, is that comforting with your phrase of misdemeanors with the phrase and the purpose of narrowing the phrase to prevent the sort of abuses that you find . Yes, it did. If you compare it to the extradition clause, the framing was the same, and they did not want to establish that broad meeting and according to the viewf of some people in high crimes and misdemeanors, those definitions would be identical and this is clearly not what they wanted. This is based on high crime and no request for false information and unlike the nixon and clinton impeachments, and i would like to start with background that the American Media has been asking about joe bidens son and his paid participation in the company bur re burisma and there is a still clip of it here from the burisma promotional video, and many were asking about burisma trying to get a ukrainian director fired and a New York Times article from 2018 referring to joseph biden says that one of his most brilliant performances when he threatened to withhold money if ukraine did not dismiss the top prosecutor. Among those who had a stake was hunter biden who is Vice President bidens son who was a board member in ukraine. And so if an investigation led to the bankruptcy of the corrupt company, Hunter Bidens position would have been eliminated along with the 50,000 a month payments and this is the stake of the proposition involving the company, and in fact, even neil catyiel, the former acti ing solicitor general said in his book, is what hunter biden did was wrong . Yes. Was he qualified to sit on the board . The only logical reason the company could have had for appointing him was his ties to Vice President biden. The kind of nepotism isnt only wrong, it is the potential danger to our country since it makes it easier for foreign powers to buy influence. No politician, from either party should allow a foreign power to conduct this kind of influence peddling their influence. And so even colonel vindman was about his involvement with the ukrainian company, and he said it would be prudent. And so now it is a crime for the not look into this. And so with the look of evidentiary evidence of criminal acts and sought to conceal them of nixon covering up a watergate breakup shortly after it occurred . Yes. And the house impeached clinton for the crime of denying under oath to deny a woman who was suing him for harassment and a defense that she was legally entitled to do . That is correct. So with the nixon and clinton impeachments, there were associates who did not call with false information . No. So if you want to establish the opposing view, you have to investigate this further. Let me walk through the standard of evidence that the House Democrats insisted upon in the clinton impeachment, the minority views were signed among others current House Judiciary Committee chairman nadler, and it says that they have meticulously agreed that the minority and the majority counsel that the standard of proof in the house was clear and convincing evidence. Professor turley, would you say that the evidence compiled to date in these current impeachment proceedings fails to meet the standard of clear and convincing standards. I do by a clear measure. And in the book about the presidency, it says that except in the extraordinary circumstances impeaching with a partial or plausible understanding of the key facts is a bad idea. Professor turley, do you think that impeaching in this case would constitute with a partial or plausibly key understanding of the key facts . I think that is clear, because this is one of the thinnest records to ever go forward on the impeachment, and the johnson ones we can debate, because it is the fourth attempt at the impeachment, and this is the thinnest of the modern rekd. Record, and if you are looking at the size of the records of clinton and nixon, they were massive and it was wafer thin in comparison and it has left doubts and not just doubts in the minds of the people supporting President Trump, but in the minds of people like myself about what actually occurred, and there is a difference between requesting investigations, and a quid pro quo. You need to stick the landing on the quid pro quo. You need to get the evidence to support it. It might be out there, i dont know. But it is not in this record. I agree with my colleagues that we have all read the record and i just come to a different conclusion. I dont see proof of a quid pro quo. No matter what my presumptions assumptions or bias might be. On that point, id like to turn to the current impeachment procedures. Professor turley, would you agree that a full and fair adversary system of which each side can produce their own witnesses and evidence is a initial search for the truth . Yes, and the original impeachment model from the framers that rejected the original model of impeachment even from hastings, and in england, it was a robust adversarial process and if you want to see adversarial work, take a look at what edmund burke did to warren hastings. I mean, he was on him like ugly on moose for the entire trial. As you know in the minority views the House Democrats wrote the following, we believe it is incumbent upon the committee to provide these basic objections as Barbara Jordan said in the hearing, but it is mandating due process, but due process quadrupled, and the same minority views support the right to crossexamination in a variety of contexts in the clinton example. Now, professor turley, you described how Monica Lewinski was not allowed to call for the clinton impeachment trial and she was not allowed to reveal the relationship with the Close Associates and it is the caution tale of the key witnesses. Can you elaborate on that . Yes, it is a portion of my testimony of how you structure the impeachments and what happened in the clinton impeachment, and it came up in the hearing that we had previously, it was a question of how much the house had to do in terms of clinton impeachment, because you had a robust record created by the independent counsel and they had a lot of testimony, videotapes, et cetera, so the house basically incorporated that, and the assumption was that those witnesses would be called at the senate, but there was a failure at the senate, and the rules that were, and they were applied in my view were not fair, and they restricted witnesses to only three, and that is why i brought up the lewinski matter. About a year ago, Monica Lewinski revealed that she had been told that if she signed that affidavit that we now know is untrue that she would not be called as a witness. If you had actually called live witnesses that type of information would have been part of the record. I yield back. The gentleman yields back and i note that this is the moment in which the white house would have had an opportunity to question the witnesses, but they declined the invitation, and so we will now proceed to questions under the five minute rule. I yield myself five minutes for purpose of questioning the witnesses. Professor feldman, would you respond to the elements of criminal bribery . Yes. Bribery had a clear meaning to the framers and it is when the president using the power of his office solicits and receives something of personal value of someone affected by the official powers and i wanted to be clear that the constitution is law. The constitution is the supreme law of the land, and so of course, professor turley is correct that you do not want to impeach someone who did not violate the law, but the supreme law of the land specifies bribery as a ground for impeachment, and bribery had a clear meaning. If the house believes that the president solicited something of value corruptly for personal gain, then that would constitute bribery under the meaning of the constitution and it is not lawless, it would be bribery under the law. So, so the Supreme Court case of mcdonald interpreting the federal bribery statute and other issues interpreting the statutes would not be relevant . The constitution is the supreme law, and the constitution specifies what bribery means. And federal statutes cant trump the constitution. Professor garhardt, would you respond to obstruction of justice . Yes, obstruction of justice is not just about the obstruction of the court, but it is the obstruction of any lawful proceeding, and that obstruction is not limited to whatever is happening on the courts, and obviously, here, there are not judicial proceedings going on and a critical congressional proceeding which brings us to obstruction of congress with regard to obstruction of congress, and in fact, i can say that i know that there has never been anything like the president s refusal to comply with subpoenas from this body. These are lawful subpoenas and they have the force of law to them, and this is something that every president has complied with, and acted in alignment with except for president nixon in a small and specific set of materials. Professor turley implied that as long as the president asserts a fanciful ultimately nonexistent privilege like absolute immunity, he cannot be charged with obstruction of congress, because after all, it has not gone through the courts yet. Would you comment on that . I missed part of the question. Am sorry. And professor turley implied that we cant charge the president with obstruction of congress for refusing all subpoenas as long as he has any fanciful claim until the courts reject those fanciful claims . I have to respectfully disagree. No, the refusal to comply with the subpoenas is an independent event and apart from the courts. It is a direct assault on the legitimacy of this inquiry which is crucial to the exercise of this power. Thank you. Professor karlin, i would like to give you chance to respond. I would like to respond to bribery, and even though the counsel read the samuels definitions of high and crime and misdemeanor, he did not read bribery. I have the 1792 version of johnsons dictionary and i dont have the initial one, and there he defines bribery as the crime giving or taking rewards for bad practices. So if you think it is a bad practice to deny military appropriations to an ally that have been given to them, and a bad practice not to be holding a meeting to buck up the legitimacy of the government that is on the front line, and you do that in return for the reward of getting help with your reelectio reelection, that is samuels definition of bribery. And so, professor feldman, if he were joined by madison and hamilton and other framers, what would they say about the conduct of President Trump . I believe they would call this conduct as the abuse of power to impeach. And would it be abuse of power and other things . If that is what the congress means, then they would believe strongly that is what congress ought to do. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time and recognize the Ranking Committee mr. Georgia mr. Collins for the five minutes. We put in the jury pool the Founding Fathers. And what would they think . I dont think they would know what to think because of the different times and things that we have talked about and also to some way insinuate on a live mic that people listening that the Founding Fathers would have found President Trump guilty is malpractice with these facts before us and that is simply pandering to the camera, and that is simply not right. I mean, this is amazing, and we can disagree and what is amazing on the committee is that we dont agree on the facts, and we cant find a fact that is not going through the public testimony and even the transcripts and all so it is not, and mr. Turley, are we deputizing somebody between now and the founders of the jury pool here . Well, first of all, only i will speak for James Madison and, so no, we will all speak with the same amount of accuracy and so it is a form of details that we do all of the time. But it is surprising that you would have George Washington in this jury pool, and i would strike him for cause. George washington was the first guy to raise extreme executive privilege claims, and he had a rather robust view of what a president could say. If you were going to be making a case to George Washington that he could be impeached over a conversation that he had with another head of state, his hair, his powdered hair would catch on fire. And i am impressed that you carry it with you it is online version. Okay. It is the online version. As an academic, i was pretty darn impressed. I just wanted to note one thing which may explain part of our difference. The statutes today on bravery are written broadly and just like they were back then and that is my point. The meaning of those words are subject to interpretation, and they are written broadly, because they dont want them to be too narrow and that is the case of the 18th century as they are today, but the idea that bad practices could be the definition of bribery. Really . Is that what you get from the Constitutional Convention that bad practices, and is that why mason wanted to put in mall administration, because bad practices is not broad enough . This is where i disagree, and to ther thing they wanted to note is that, and i have so much respect for noah and i wanted to just disagree on this point, because i feel it is a circular argument to say, well, the constitution is law. Upon that, we are in agreement, but the constitution refers to a crime. To say, well, you cant trump the constitution, because it defines the crime, it doesnt define the crime. It references the crime. Now, the crime, the examples were given in the Constitutional Convention and those do not comfort with bad practices, but they comfort with real bribery, but to say that the Supreme Courts decision on what constitutes bribery is somehow irrelevant is rather odd. What the constitution contains is a reference to a crime, and then we have to decide if that crime has been committed. And one of the things that came out just a second ago was also this discussion of that we had this discussion if it is the president ial progty aerogative e president s cabinet to assert rights and the fast and furious of president obama that he was saying that this is contempt for not supplying the subpoenas and you cant pick and choose in history what you want. And you brought up bad practice, but it is the law of the land that we are to ensure that countries who are given aid is not corrupt. That is also missing from the discussion. If the president has had a long seeded of Foreign Countries ukraine and others with the history of corruption and i made the statement earlier and it is from the hipsi side that those polled over the Previous Year had bribed a public official. They had corruption issues coming from the obama and the trump administration, and so he has to look at the corruption without giving taxpayer dollars and the president was doing that, and it is blown up, and the facts dont matter if we are trying to fit it into breaking of the rule that we want to impeach on, and the reason we are doing this is that it is the train on the track and a clock calendar impeachment and not a fact impeachment. I yield back. The gentleman yields back and i recognize ms. Lofgrren. This is the third time that a president has been recommended for impeachment and i have been there at all three. I was on the staff of president nixon and President Committee on the clinton impeachment, and here we are today. At the core, i feel that the impeachment power is really about the preservation of our democratic systems and the question we must answer is whether the activity of the president threatens our constitution and our democracy, and it is about whether he is above the law and whether he is honoring his oath of office. Now, the House Judiciary Committee staff and it was not me, but other staff wrote an excellent report in 1974, and this is what they said. Impeachment of a president is a grave step for the nation. It is to be predicated only upon conduct seriously incompatible with the constitutional form in principle of the government or the proper performance of constitutional duties of the president ial office, and id ask for unanimous consent to enter the House Judiciary Committee report on constitutional grounds into the record. Without objection. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Like president nixon, the allegations against President Trump are related to serious election misconduct. The nixons associates burglarized the dnc headquartered to get a leg up, and then the president nixon tried to cover itu up, and then he abused the powers to target the political rivals and here, we are confronted with evidence suggesting that President Trump tried to leverage appropriate military assistance to resist russia by ukraine to convince a foreign ally to announce an investigation of his political rival. Professor karlan, i would like you to tell us about how the meeting of a foreign ally in this investigation compares to what president nixon did . Not favorably. Because, as i suggested in my opening testimony, it was a kind of the doubling down. Because president nixon abused domestic Law Enforcement to go after his political appointments and what President Trump has done and based on the ed that we have seen so far is that he has asked a foreign country to do that and that means it is sort of like a daily double if you will of problems. Professor gebhardt, do you have a comment . I would agree with professor karlan, and the difficulty here is that we need to remember that Impeachable Offenses dont have to be criminal offenses as you well know, so what we are talking about is an abuse of power that only the president can commit. There was a systemic concerted effort by the president to remove people that would somehow obstruct or block his ability to put that pressure on ukraine to get an announcement of an investigation. That seems to be what he cared about. Just the mere announcement, and that pressure produced, was going to produce the outcome that he wanted until the whistleblower put a light on it. I wanted to go back to quickly something that professor turley said as we saw in the myers case and i was a member of the committee when we tried to get her testimony as well as the fast and furious case which also was wrongfully withheld from the congress. Litigation to enforce congressional subpoenas can extend well beyond the terms of the presidency, itself. That happened in both of those cases. Professor feldman, is it as professor turley seemed to suggest, an abuse of our power not to go to the courts before using our sole power of impeachment in your judgment . Certainly not. Under the constitution, the house is entitled to impeach. That is the power. It does not have to ask permission from anybody or go through any judicial process of the branch ogovernment. It is your decision based on your judgment. Thank you. Id like to note that this is not a proceeding that i looked forward to. It is not an occasion for joy. It is one of solemn obligation. I hope and believe that every member of this committee is listening. Keeping an open mind, and hoping that we honor our obligations carefully and honestly and with that i yield back, mr. Chairman. The gentle lady yields back. The gentle lady yields back. We are expecting votes on the house floor shortly and so we will recess until immediately after the clungs onclusion of t votes. I will ask everyone in the room to stay seated quietly and until we come back. If you exit the hearing room, you will not be guaranteed those seats if you leave the hearing room at this time. Okay. At this time the committee is going to stand in recess until immediately after the votes. Recognize gentleman let me repeat. The committee will come to order. When we broke for recess, we were under the five minute rule and i recognize mr. Sensenbrenner for five minutes. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Im a veteran of impeachments. I have been named by the house as an impeachment manager in four impeachments. Clinton and three judges. Thats more than anybody else in history. And one of the things in every impeachment whether its the ones that i was involved in or others that have come before the committee where i was not a manager is that the debate on what is a high crime and misdemeanor and how serious does that have to be in order it for it to rise to a level of an Impeachable Offense. 50 years ago then republican leader gerald ford made a comment that saying a high crime and misdemeanor is anything a majority of the house of representatives deems it to be on any given day. I dont agree with that. You know, that sets either a very low bar or a nonexistent bar. And it certainly would make the president serve at the pleasure of the house which was not what the framers intended when they rejected the British Forum of parliamentary democracy where the Prime Minister and the government could be overthrone by a mere vote of no confidence in the house of commons. So im looking at what were facing here. This whole inquiry was started out by a comment that President Trump made to president zelensky in the july 25th call, quote, do me a favor, unquote. There are some who said its a quid pro quo, there are some who have implied that its a quid pro quo. But both trump and zelensky have said it wasnt and zelensky has said there was no pressure on me and the aid came through within six weeks after the phone call in question was made. Now, you can contrast that to where there was no impeachment inquiry to Vice President biden when he was given a speech and said, you know, i held up a billion dollars worth of aid unless the prosecutor was fired within six hours. And son of a bleep thats what happened. Now, you know, it seems to me that if youre looking for a quid pro quo and looking for something that was really over the top, it was not saying do me a favor. It was saying son of a bleep thats what happened in six hours. Now, you know, the republicans who are in charge of congress at the time biden made that comment, we did not tie the country up for three months and going on four now, wrapping everybody in this town around the axelrod. We continued attempting to do the publics business. Thats not whats happening here. And i think the American Public are getting a little bit sick and tired of impeachment, impeachment, impeachment when they know that less than a year from now they will be able to determine whether donald trump stays in office or somebody else will be elected. And i take this responsibility extremely seriously. You know, it is an awesome and very grave responsibility. And it is not one that should be done lightly. It is not one that should be done quickly and it is not without examining all of the evidence which is what was done in the nixon impeachment and what was done largely by Kenneth Starr in the clinton impeachment. Now, id like to ask you, professor turley, because your is one of the only one of the four up there that doesnt seem to have it made before you walked into the door. Isnt there a difference between saying quote do me a favor and quote, son of a bleep, thats what happened, in six hours time . Grammatically, yes. Constitutionally it really depends on the context. I think your point is a good one in the sense that we have to determine from the transcript and hopefully from other witnesses whether this statement was part of an actual quid pro quo. I guess the threshold question is if the president said if the president said, id like you to do these investigations. By the way, i dont group them together in my testimony. I distinguish between the request firefighter investigations into 2016 from the investigation of the bidens. But it is an issue of order, the magnitude of order constitutionally if you ask id like you to see you do this opposed to i have a a quid pro quo. You either do this or dont get military aid. Thank you. The time of the gentleman is expired. The gentle lady from texas. Thank you, mr. Chairman, r for yielding. If what were talking about today is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable. Im reminded of my time on the House Judiciary Committee during the 1990s impeachment and a a number of federal judges. S. I was guided then not only by the facts, but by the constitution and the duty to serve this nation. I believe, as we greet you today, that we are charged with a sober and somber responsibility. So professor, id like you to look at the intelligence volume where hundreds of documents are behind that. And the mooueller report. You studied the record. To you think it is, quote, wafer thin and can you remark on the strength of the record before us. So obviously, its not wafer thin. And the strength of the record is not just in the september i mean, the july 25th call. I i think the wit you need to ask this is how does that fit into the pattern of behavior by the president. What youre really doing is youre drawing inferences here. This is about circumstanctial evidence and did the president ask for a political favor . And i think this record supports the inference that he did. What comparisons, professor, can we make between the framers were afraid of. And the president s conduct today. So kings could do no wrong because the kings word was law. And contrary to what President Trump has said, article 2 does not give him the power to do anything he wants. Ill just give you one example that shows you difference between him and a king. Which is the constitution says there can be no titles of nobilitity. So while the president can name his son barren, he cant make him a baron. Thank you. The founding father george mason any man be above justice and Alexander Hamilton wrote that high crimes and misdemeanors mean the abuse or violation of public trust. As we move forward, you have previously testified that the president has abused his power. Is that correct . Yes, maam. What do you think is the most compelling evidence in this impeachment inquiry that would lead you to that . The phone call itself of july 25th is extraordinarily clear to my mind in that we hear the president asking for a favor thats clearly of personal benefit rather than acting on behalf of the interest of the nation. And then further from that, further down the road, we have more evidence, which tends to give the context and to support the explanation of what happened. Professor, how does such abuse affect our democratic systems . Having foreign interference in our election means we are less free. That people are determining on a Foreign Government. Its fair to say the president s actions are unpress dependented. But what a also strikes me is is is how many republicans and democrats believe that his conduct was wrong. Is it improper for the president of the United States . Listen to the colonel. It is improper for the president of United States to demand a Foreign Government to investigate the u. S. Citizen and a political opponent. In light of the fact that the president asked for an investigation and then only when he was caught released the military aid, is is there still a need for impeachment . Yes, maam. Impeachment is complete when the president abuses his office and he abuses his office by attempting to abuse his office. Theres no distinction there between trying to do it and succeeding in doing it and thats especially true if you only stop because you got caught. Over 70 of the American People believe, as us said, that the president what the did was wrong. We have a solemn responsibility to address that. And as well our fidelity to our oath and our duty. Reminded of the men and women who serve in the United States military. And im reminded of my three uncles who served in world war ii. I cant imagine them being on the battlefield, needing arms and food, and the general says, do me a a favor. We know that general would not say do me a favor. So in this instance, the American People deserve unfeddered leadership and it is our duty to fairly assess the facts and the constitution. I yield back my time. The gentle lady yields back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Its pretty clear to me that no matter what questions we see for the witnesses here today and no matter what their answers are, that most, if not all of democrats on this committee are going to vote to um peach President Trump. Thats what their hard core trumphating base wants and they have wanted that since the president was elected three years ago. In fact, when democrats took over the house, oneover the first things they did was introduce articles of impeachment against President Trump. That was way before President Trump and the ukrainian president zelensky ever had their famous phone call. Whether it was perfect or not. Now today were undertaking a largely academic exercise instead of hearing from fact witnesses like adam schiff or hunter biden, were not being permitted to call those witnesses. It would seem since schiff misled the American People on multiple occasions, common sense and basic fairness would call r for schiff to be questioned about those things, but we cant. Mr. Chairman, become in 1998, when another president , bill clinton, was being considered for impeachment, you said, and i quote, we must not overturn an election and impeach a the president without an overwhelming consensus of the mirn people and the representatives in congress. You also said, quote, there must never be a narrowly vote impeachment or impeachment substantially supported by one of the Major Political parties and largely opposed by the other. You said such an impeachment would lack legitimacy, would produce divisiveness in our politics for years to come. And theres no doubt that it will be perceived by half of the American People as unfair and partisan effort. You seem bound and determined to move forward with t democrats on this committee do like this president. Fact theot like the molar investigation was a flop. S a a person. They hate his tweets. They dont like the fact that the Mueller Investigation was a flop. So now youre going to impeach him. I got news for you. You may be able to twist enough arms in the house to impeach the president , but that effort is going to die in the senate. The president is going to serve out his term in office and be reelected to a second term probably with the help of this very impeachment shh raid were going through now. While youre wasting so much of congresss time and the American Peoples money on this impeachment, theres so many other important things that are going undone. Within this committees own jurisdiction, we should be addressing the opioid epidemic. We could be working together to find a solution to the immigration challenges on the southern border. We could be protecting americans from intellectual property stolen by Chinese Companies and enhancing Election Security just to name a few things. And congress as a whole could be working on rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure, providing tax relief to the nations middleclass families and providing additional security to people here at home and abroad. Instead, here we are spinning our wheels, once again, on impeachment. What a waste. The American People deserve so much better. I yield back. The gentleman yields back. I take no pleasure in the fact that were here today. As a patriot that loves america, it pains me that the circumstances force us to undertake this grave and solemn obligation. Nonetheless, simply on the publicly available evidence, it appears the President Trump pressured a a foreign fwoft to interfere in our elections by investigating his perceived chief political point. Today were here to uphold our oath to defend the constitution of the United States furthering our understanding whether the president s conduct is impeachable. As it relates to president ial impeachment. The framers of the constitution feared for an interference in the sovereignty. They wanted to ensure there could would be a check and balance on the executive. We sit here with a duty to the founders to fulfill their wisdom and be a check on the executive. We the peoples house are that check. Under our constitution, the house can impeach a a president for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. You have discussed high crimes a misdemeanors. It refers to crimes. Can you just give us a little pith of a summary of what high crimes and misdemeanors are and how they are distinct from what professor said they were. Yes, sir, high crimes and misdemeanors are actions of the president in office where he uses his office to advance his personal interests, potentially for personal gain, potentially to corrupt the electoral process and potentially as well as against the National Security interests of the United States. I would add that the word high modify crimes and misdemeanor. The framers knew of both high crimes and high misdemeanors. And i believe that the definition that was posted earlier of misdemeanor was not the definition of high misdemeanor, which was a a specific term understood by the framers and discuss ed in the constitutional cob vengs. But only of the word misdemeanor. Thats an easy mistake to make, but the truth is the high misdemeanors were their own category of abuses of office. Those are the things that are impeachable. Thank you, professor. You have found it implicates three categories of high crimes and misdemeanors. Abuse of power, betrayal of the National Interest, and corruption of elections. Is that right . Yes, it is. And professor feldman . Yes, sir. You state d that the essence of an Impeachable Offense is the decision to sacrifice the National Interest for his own private ends. Do yall agree with that . Yes, sir. Has President Trump sacrificed the interests of his own . Yes, he has. Is there a particular piece oefd that illuminates that . I think what illuminates that most for me is the statement by ambassador sondland that he wanted simply the announcement of an investigation. And several other people said exactly the same thing. Theres testimony by ambassador volker as well. What he wanted was simply Public Information to damage joe biden. He didnt care whether he was found guilty or exonerated. Professor feldman, do you agree or do you have a different . My emphasis would be on the fact that the president held up aid to an ally thats fighting a war in direct contra vengs of the unanimous recommendation of the National Security community. That has placed his own interests in personal advantage ahead of the interests of the nation. And a a bill pass bid congress. Yes, sir. I agree with what my colleagues i have said. I would add im very concerned about the president s obstruction of congress. Obstruction of this inquiry, refusal to comply with a number of subpoenas, ordering many high level of officials not to comply with subpoena s level of officials not to comply with subpoena ubpoenas. And order iing the entire executive branch not to cooperate with congress. Its useful to remember the constitution constitution says the house has the sole power to impeach. The constitution only uses the word sole twice. Once with reference to the house in this area, once with reference to the senate with respect to impeachment trial. Sole means only. This is your decision. Let me get the professor into this. Youre a selfanointed defender of article 1 of congress. But you justify a position that says legally issued subpoenas by congress enforcing its powers dont have to be complied by. Youre an article 2 executive guy. And youre talking about the johnson impeachment is not very useful. That was mall administration. This is a criminal act. Thank you, professors, for eping us understand. We the people are custodians of this country. We have a high responsibility to darker the only thing that is disputed more than the facts in this case is the statement the facts are disputed. They are absolutely disputed. The evidence is a bunch of hearsay on hearsay. If anybody had tried cases before of enough 92, you would know you cannot rely on hearsay. Knowwe have experts who better than the accumulated experience of the ages. Submit,are, and i would we need some factual witnesses. We do not need to receive a report that we do not have a chance to read before this hearing. We need a chance to bring in actual fact witnesses. There are a couple i could name that are critical to us getting to the bottom. They work for the nationals 30 National Security council. They were involved in the u. S. Ukraine affairs. And, the worked with Vice President biden on different matters involving ukraine should they worked with brandon and brennan and mcmasters. The relationships with the witnesses who went before the Intel Committee and others involved make them the most critical witnesses in the entire investigation. Hearsay on hearsay, but we have experts who know better than the accumulated experience of the ages. So here we are. I would submit we need some factual witnesses. We do not need to receive a report that we dont have a chance to read before this hearing. We need a chance to bring in actual fact witnesses. Theres a couple i could name that are critical to us getting to the bottom. They work for the National Security council. They were involved in the Ukraine Affairs and they worked with Vice President biden on different matters involving ukraine. It was critical information about ukraines involvement in our u. S. Election. The relationships with the witness who is went before the Intel Committee and others involved in these allegations. Makes him the most critical witnesses in this entire investigation. And the records including their emails and text messages, flash drives or computers have information that will bring this effort to remove the president to a screeching halt. It points out that house Intelligence Committee chairman adam schiff recruited two former National Security council aids who worked alongside the whistleblower at the nsc during the obama and trump administrations. Abigail grace, who worked until 2018 was hired in february while until 2017 joined schiffs committee in august. The same month the whistleblower submitted his complaint. And it goes on b to point out that grace was hired to help schiffs committee investigate the trump white house. That month trump accused schiff of stealing people working at the white house. And chairman schiff said if the they are worried, he should work on being a better employer. No, he should have fired everybody just like bill clinton did, all the u. S. Attorneys on the same day. That would have saved us a lot of whats going on here. So we need those two witnesses. They are critical. And then we also need someone who was a cia detail to ukraine. State department shows that it was a state luncheon. It was ramifications in the last elections. He speaks arabic and russian. Reported to a friend of the clintons aids chose to continuous contact with the fbis state ukrainian b officials. Ahead of Vice President biden. He was obamas point man on ukraine. He was associated with dnc on rative. Met with her november 9th, 2015. And theres all kinds of reasons we need these three witnesses. And i would ask pursuant to zx four House Resolution 669 ask our chairman our Ranking Member to submit the request for these three witnesses because were not having a factual hearing until we have these people that are at the bottom of every fact of this investigation. I yield back. Gentleman yields back. Mr. Johnson . Thank you, mr. Chairman. The president has regularly and recently solicited foreign interference in our upcoming that is why they created the impeachment remedy. And i want to discuss the framers concerns about abuse of power relate to president terms misconduct. On july 25, President Trump said to president zelensky, i would like you to do us a favor. Professor feldman, when President Trump made use of the words favor, you believe the president was benignly asking for a favor, and how is the answer to that question relevant to whether the president abused his power . It is relevant because there is nothing wrong with someone asking for a favor in the interest of the United States of america. The problem is for the president to use his office to solicit or demand a favor for his personal benefit. The evidence strongly suggests that given the power of the president and the incentives the president created for ukraine to comply with his request that the president was speaking to serve his own personal interest. That is the definition of corruption. Other witnesses have testified it was the it was the impression that when President Trump said, i would like you to do us a favor, that he was making a demand and not a request. Does lt. Feldman, how col. Been mens testimony that the president statement was a demand because of the power disparity between the two countries relate back to our framers concerns about the president abuse of power . s observation state clearly that you have understand that the president has so much more power than the power and the president of ukraine. The reality is he is applying tremendous pressure, the pressure of the power of the United States. That relates to the abuse of office. If someone other than the president asked him to do a favor, the president of ukraine could say no. When the president of the United States eases the office, there is no way for the president of ukraine to refuse. Have also heard testimony the president withheld a white house meeting and military aid to pressure ukraine investigations on president biden. Is that why youre testimony concluded the president abused his power . I thought the president abused his power by asking for a criminal investigation of United States citizens for political ends regardless of Everything Else. It is what you would call an aggravating circumstance, that was made dear. A president holding an american ally over a barrel to extract personal favors. Is deeply troubling. This is not an impulse by moment. It is a break the glass moment. Impeachment is the only appropriate remedy. Mr. Jordan. Before Speaker Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry 10 weeks ago, before the call between President Trump and president zelensky on july 25, ueller hearing, 16 of them had already voted to move forward on impeachment. 16 democrats had already voted to forward on impeachment. Today, we are talking about the positions they have already taken our constitutional . Seems a little backward to me. Fourfour democrats people who voted for clinton, and they cannot agree. Today, we are talking about the constitution. Professor, you have been great today. I think you were wrong on one thing. You said this is a fast impeachment. I would argue it is a predetermined impeachment trade predetermined impeachment done in the most unfair partisan fashion we have seen. No subpoena power for republicans. Secret. Ons done in 17 people come in for depositions. Nobody can be there except for a handful of folks adam schiff allows. Chairmanship prevented witnesses from answering republican questions. Mcgrath denied republicans the questions we wanted. Democrats promised us the whistleblower would testify and then changed their mind. They change their mind why . The whole world discovered adam schiffs staff had talked to the whistleblower, coordinated with the whistleblower. No firsthand knowledge. Bias against the president who worked with joe budden. Whos lawyer in january of 201770 impeachment process starts then. That is the unfair process we have been through. The reason it has been unfair, let me cut to the chase. The reason it has been unfair is because the facts are not on their side. Four key facts. Will never change. We have the transcript. There was no quid pro quo the transcript. The two guys on the call both said no pressure. Ukrainians did not know the aid was held up at the time of the phone call. Fourth, ukrainians never started, never promised to start, i announced an investigation in the time the aid was paused. You know what did happen in those 55 days . There were five key meetings between president zelensky and senior officials in our government. The call on july 25. July 26, we had ambassador voelker, taylor, and sondland trump. Th president we had two senators, republican and more importantly, democrat senator murphy with republican senator johnson meet with residents lenski on september 5. None of those five meetings was aid ever discussed for the announcement into an investigation of anybody. You would think the last two, after the a gradient did know that a was being held, you would think it would come up then. Never came up. The facts are on the president side. We have been unfair process. They do not have the facts. We have an unfair process. This gets to Something Else you said. This is scary. This is scary. Have neverts accepted the will of the the speaker of the United States house of representatives called the president of United States an imposter. The speaker of the United States house representatives called the individual imposter. The facts are the facts. There on the president side. That is what we need to focus on. Not some constitutional hearing at the end of the process have already determined where you are going to go. With that, i yield back. The gentleman yelled back. Yields back received a purple heart fighting in the frigid our she gave blood, tens of thousands of americans. Who were casualties. They served under of a series and a commander in chief who were not fighting a war for their own personal benefit. They put country first. They made the same solemn promise that members of congress and the president of the United States make. To always put National Interest above personal interest. The evidence shows the president broke that promise. The constitution gives the president enormous power. When those powers are abused. In july, President Trump says, i the rightticle two, to do whatever i want as president. Professor feldman, the president has broad powers under the constitution, isnt that right . Yes, sir. Do those powers mean the ver heent can do whate wants . Can he abuse the powers the constitution gives him . If the president uses the powers for personal gain or to corrupt and election, he may be impeached for a high crime and misdemeanor. Using thating is power to interfere with elections and abuse of that power . Yes, sir. How would the framers have viewed a president asking for election interference from a foreign leader . It is always practically impossible to know what the framers would think, but it is not hard to imagine how the constitution deals with it. Under the constitution, it is plainly an abuse of power. It is a rather horrifying abuse of power. We have heard witnesses over the past several weeks testify about their concerns when the president used Foreign Policy powers for gain. Lieutenant vitamin was shocked. A political error was diverging from efforts to protect our security policy. Ambassador taylor thought it was crazy to withhold Security Assistance for help on a Political Campaign. Not merecerns are differences over policy, are they . No, they go to the very foundation of our democracy. Offering to exchange a white house meeting and hundreds of millions of dollars in Security Assistance for help with his reelection, that cannot be part of our nations Foreign Policy can . Can it . It is the essence of doing something for personal reasons rather than political reasons. Maybe, when he was first running for president , he had never been anything other than a Reality Tv Show that was his public life. Maybe then, he could think, russia is an ok thing to do. By the time he asked ukraine, could you help me out . He had to have known that was not something consistent with his oath of office. Our founders granted the president enormous powers. What we have been reminded of today they worry the powers could be abused by a corrupt president. The evidence of abuse of power proved our founders were right to be worried. Yes, the president has the power to direct americas Foreign Policy, but he cannot use the power to cheat in our elections. Remember, and i ask all of my colleagues to remember, the constitution grants the president his power through the American People. Poweresidents source of is a democratic election. It is the American People. The voters, who trusted him to look out for them. We trusted him to look up for the country. Instead, President Trump looked out for himself. Helping himself get reelected. He abused the power that we trusted him with for personal and political gain. The founders worried about just this type of abuse of power. They provided one way for congress to respond. That is the power of impeachment. Gentlemen yields back. I went to direct you direct a few i want to direct a few questions to you. The other three witnesses have identified the standard for impeaching a president. They said if a president abuses his power for personal or political gain, it is impeachable conduct. Do you agree with me . Not the way it has been stated. There are some in different standards. I have a long ways to go. One of them was attempting to abuse of his. Im not even sure how to recognize that let alone define it. Let me go with a few examples. Johnson, directed the Central Intelligence agency to place a spy in Barry Goldwaters campaign. That spy got advanced copies of speeches and delivered that to the johnson campaign. Without be impeachable conduct according to the other panelists . I assume so. How about when president johnson put a wiretap on goldwaters Campaign Plan . Would that be for political benefit . I cannot exclude anything under the definition. Im going to go with a few other president s. Congressman deutsch informed does fdr put country first. Franklin delano roosevelt, when he was president , directed the of to to conduct audits his political enemies, namely he elong, William Randolph hearst, hamilton fish, father coughlin. Would that be an abuse of power according to the other analyst . I think it would all be subsumed into it. How about one president kennedy directed his brother, robert kennedy, to deport one of his mistresses as in east german spy . Would that qualify as impeachable conduct . I cannot exclude it. How about when he directed the fbi to use wiretaps on congressional staffers who opposed him politically echo politically . Lets go to barack obama. A findingk obama made that the senate was in recess and appointed people to the National Relations board and ginsburg ruth bader voted against the president on this issue. Would that be an abuse of power . I do not the i do not see any exclusions. How about on the president directed his National Security advisor and the secretary of state to lie to the American People about whether the ambassador to libya was murdered as a result of a video or was murdered as a result of a terrorist act . Would that be an abuse of power, 17 days before the next election . Not according to my definition. The others will have to respond. You have further definition. I have a hard time excluding anything. How about when Abraham Lincoln arrested legislators in maryland so they would not convene to secede from the union . Virginia already had seceded. That wouldve placed the Nations Capital in the middle of the rebellion. Would that have been an abuse of power . A could be under the definition. You mentioned George Washington. Having met the standard of impeachment for your other panelists. Let me ask you something. Can you name a single president in the history of the United States, save president harrison, who died 32 days after his inauguration, who would not have met the definition . I would hope James Madison would escape. Once again, i cannot exclude many of these. The standard your friends to the right of you not politically, but to the right of you sitting, that your friends have decided the bar is so low that when we have a democrat president in office and a Republican House and senate, we are going to be going through this whole scenario again in a way that puts the country at risk. When your graphic says that your b his betrayal of National Interest, i would ask, do you want that to be your standard . Is in the different lets of people live in an ivory tower and some people live in swamp . Those of us living in the swamp are doing best for the American People. Ivory tower in swamp because i am at gw. It is not so bad. Thank you very much. I want to thank the witnesses. I do not believe the peoples house is a swamp. Was undertaken for his personal disadvantage and not any personal policy objective. Why was it significant that president nixon acted for his personal political advantage and in furtherance of any valid policy objective . Because ingnificant acting for his own personal benefit and not for the benefit of the country, he has crossed a line. The line is clear. It becomes abuse of power when somebody is using the special authorities of their office for their own personal benefit. Can the same be said of President Trump . It couldbe yes be, yes. I am struck by the parallels taxuse nixon launched investigations of his political opponents. The evidence shows trump tried to lodge a criminal investigation of his political opponent by a Foreign Government. We have heard evidence suggesting President Trump did this for his own personal gain and operating National Policy interest. Although president claims he withheld the aid because of concerns about corruption, i do believe we have examples of the evidence of truth. Ambassador sondland stated the president only cares about big stuff. I noted there was big stuff going on in ukraine like a war with russia. Ambassador sondland replied that he meant a big stuff that mentions the president. Framers have the thought of a president who only cares about, big stuff, that benefits him . The framers were extremely worried about a president who served only his interest or the interest of foreign powers. That was there more serious concern. The evidence also suggests President Trump did not care if the investigation happened. What he cared about was the publics announcement of the investigation. How do we analyze these facts in the context of abuse of power . Well, to have a president ask for the investigation of his political opponent is an archetype of the abuse of power. Starbuck mentioned mr. Buck mentioned past examples. To say those were not impeachable is a big mistake. If a president wiretaps his opponents, that is a federal crime. I do not know if before the of 1968 it was. Foreigno serve on the affairs committee. I understand how significant it is for foreign leaders to meet with our president jade to attend a meeting in the oval office and significant. President zelensky is a newly elected head of state in a fledgling democracy. His country is at war with his neighbor. Country is occupying his countrys territory. He needed the military resources to defend his country. He needed the diplomatic recognition of the american president. He was prepared to do whatever the president demanded jade many years ago, i worked in the asions largest trauma unit a physicians assistant. I saw people at their worst. Patients i took care of were desperate and afraid and had to wait five to eight hours to be seen. Can you imagine for one minute if i had told my patients, i can move you up in line and take care of your pain, but i need a favor from you . My patients were desperate. They would have agreed to do anything i asked. This would have been such an abuse of my position because of the power dynamic. Relievee power to patients from experiencing pain. It is fundamentally wrong and in many cases, a legal, for us to illegal, for us to take advantage of power when lives are at stake. Mr. Radcliffe. I think the chairman. Professor turley, i would like to start where you started. You said, i am not a supporter of President Trump. I voted against him in 2016. I have previously voted for president s clinton and obama. Despite your political preferences and persuasions, you reached this conclusion. The current legal case for impeachment is not just woefully inadequate but dangerous. The basis for impeachment of an american president. Let me start by commending you for being the kind of example of what hopefully everyone on this committee will do as we approach the task we have of determining whether or not there were Impeachable Offenses here. One of the problems you have articulated as leading you to ,he conclusion of calling this should it proceed, the shortest impeachment proceeding with the narrowest grounds to impeach a president is the fact there has been this everchanging, constantly evolving moving target of accusations. The july 25 phone call started out as an alleged quid pro quo and briefly became an extortion scheme, a bribery scheme. I think it is back to quid pro quo. Beside pointing out both Speaker Pelosi and chairman shift waited until almost every witness had been deposed before they even used the term bribery, you clearly articulated why you think the definition they have used publicly are flawed if not unconstitutional both in the 18th century or the 21st century. Me thatd you agree with bribery under any valid definition requires a specific quid pro quo be proven . Yes, more importantly, the Supreme Court is focused on that issue, as well as the definition of a quid pro quo. Aid orf military assistance is part of the quid pro quo, where in the july 25 transcript does President Trump ever suggest he intends to withhold military aid for any reason . He doesnt, and thats the reason we keep hearing the words circumstantial and inferential. That is what is concerning. Those are appropriate terms not just a circumstantial case, those would be appropriate if things were unknowable facts. The problem is you have so many witnesses who have not been since the note have not been subpoenaed or heard from. So if it is not in the transcript, it has to be in the witness testimony, so you know that no witness has testified that they either heard a President Trump or were told by President Trump to withhold military aid for any reason, correct . Correct. Benefits him. The framers were extremely worried about a president who served only his own interests or the interests of foreign powers. That was their most serious concern when they designed the remedy of impeachment. So the evidence also suggests that President Trump didnt even care if the investigation actually happened. What he really cared about was the public announcement of the investigation. So professor, how do we analyze these facts in the context of abuse of power. I think to have a president ask for the investigation of his political opponents is an arc type of the abuse of power and mr. Buck mentioned past examples of this. And to say that those werent impeachable, i think is is a big mistake. If a president wiretaps his opponents, thats a federal crime now. I dont know whether before the wiretap act of 1968. But if a president wiretapped his opponents today, that would be impeachable conduct. I serve on the Foreign Affairs committee. That is not what happened in nixon, and the ultimate decision were there were executive cases that could be raised. Some deal with the type of aid involved in this case, like a National Security advisor, like a white House Counsel. Thate concern here is not that you cannot ever impeach a president unless you go to court. When you have time to do it. So if i summarize, no bribery, no extortion, no obstruction of justice, is that fair . Not that i have seen. The gentlemans time has expired. Let me pick up where we have left off. I will start with october 23, your opinion piece on the hill. You said as i have said before, there is no question the use of Public Office for personal gain is an Impeachable Offense, including to the withholding of military aid in exchange for the investigation of a political opponent. You just have to prove it happened. If you can establish intent to use Public Office for personal gain, you have a viable, Impeachable Offense. This would have been such an abuse of my position because of the power dynamic. We heard today that a president abuses his power when he uses it for his own interest instead of the interests of the country. Im struck by one of the things at stake here. Million dollars of taxpayer dollars. President nixon leverage the powers of his office to investigate political rivals. The evidence shows President Trump also leveraged taxpayer dollars to get ukraine to announce sham investigations of President Trump political rivals. That taxpayer money was meant to help ukraine defend itself and in turn defend United States interests from russian aggression. The money had been appropriated by congress and certified by the department of defense. Multiple witnesses confirm there was unanimous support for the military aid to ukraine. Can we listen to that, please . From what you witnessed, did anybody in the National Security Community Support withholding the assistance . No. I never heard anyone advocate for withholding the aid. Thisd the agency supported Security Assistance, correct . I and others sat in astonishment. The ukrainians were fighting russians and counted on not only the training and weapons but also the assurance of u. S. Support. You have stated the president s demand to the president of ukraine constituted an abuse of power. How did the president s decision to withhold military aid affect your analysis . It was not just an abuse of power because the president was serving his own personal interest but also an abuse of power insofar as the president was putting american National Security interests behind his own personal interests. It brought together the two import aspects of the abuse of power self gain and undercutting our National Security interests. The evidence points to President Trump using military aid for his personal benefit, not the benefit of any official u. S. Policy. Would thekarlin, how framers have interpreted that . I cannot speak for the framers themselves, obviously. My view is they would say the president s authority to use foreign aid they probably cannot even imagine we were giving foreign aid because we were a tiny, poor country back then. It is hard to translate that, what they would have said is a president who does not think first about the National Security of the United States is not doing what his oath requires him to do, which is faithfully execute the laws. Here are laws appropriating money and defend the constitution of the United States. Thank you. And lets go back to a segment of mr. Turleys quote, that if you can establish the intent to use Public Office for personal gain you have a viable, Impeachable Offense. Do we meet that criteria here . In my view, the evidence meets that criteria and thats the judgment you should be making. Ms. Karlin . Yes, and one question i would have for the minority members of ittee, if you are convinced he withheld aid to help his reelection, would you impeach him . That is the question everyone should be asking. If you conclude yes, they should impeach. I agree. Facts. The problem is you have so many witnesses that have not been subpoenaed. So many witnesses that we have not heard from. So if its not in the transcript then its got to come from witness testimony. I assume you have reviewed all the witness testimony. So you know that no witness has testified that they either heard President Trump or were told by President Trump to withhold military aid for any reason, correct . Correct. So let me turn to the issue of obst we have an obligation to follow the constitution whether it is convenient or easy. I yelled back yiele back. Would you like to respond . I would. First of all, what was said in the column is exactly what ive said in my testimony. The problem is not that abuse of power can never be an Impeachable Offense. You just have to prove it, and you have not. Say, iot enough to inferred this was the purpose. I inferred this is what was intended when you are not actually subpoenaing people with direct knowledge. You are saying we must vote in this rocket docket of an impeachment. This leads to my statement i would like to make. U. S. House of representatives has initiated impeachment quarries into the president of the United States only three times in our nations history prior to this one. Those inquiries were done in this committee. The Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment matters. Here, in 2019, under this inquiry, witnesses have been that have beenes called were in front of the Intelligence Committee. We have been given no indication this committee will conduct substantive hearings with fact witnesses. As a member serving on the judiciary, i can say the process in which we are participating is insufficient, unprecedented, and grossly inadequate. Sitting before a panel of witnesses, we have law professors from some of the finest educational institution. I do not doubt each of you are extremely wellversed. There is precedent on similar panels, but only after specific charges have been made known and the underlying facts presented an exhaustiveo investigation. I dont understand why we are holding the hearing at this time with these witnesses. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle said they dont know what articles of impeachment they will consider a how does anyone expect a panel of law professors to weigh in on the legal grounds for impeachment charges without even knowing what the charges brought by this committee are going to be . Some of my democrat colleagues have stated that impeachment should be a nonpartisan process. And i agree. One of my colleagues in the Democratic Party stated, impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, i dont think we should go down that path because it divides the country. My democratic colleagues have stated numerous times they are on a truth seeking and factfinding mission. Another one of my democratic colleagues said we have a responsibility to consider the facts and emerge squarely and with the best interests of our country, not our party in our heart. These types of historic proceedings, regardless of political beliefs, ought to be about factfinding and truth seeking. But that is not what this has turned out to be. No disrespect to these witnesses , but for all i know this is the only hearing that we will have, and none of them are fact witnesses. My colleagues are saying one thing and doing something completely different. Congress can look their constituents in the eye and say this is a comprehensive, factfinding, truth seeking mission. Ranking member collins and members of the minority on this committee have written six letters over the past month to the chairman asking for for all theairness underlying evidence to be transmitted to the Judiciary Committee, to expand the number of witnesses, and to have an even more Bipartisan Panel here today. And for clarity on todays impeachment proceedings since we have not received evidence to review. To receivey has yet a response to these letters. Today is another clear example for all americans to truly understand the ongoing lack of transparency and openness with these proceedings. The witness list for this hearing was not released until late monday afternoon. Opening statements from the Witnesses Today were not distributed until late last night. The Intelligence Committees finalize report has yet to be presented to this committee. Hear from those in the majority that process is every republican talking point, when it is an american talking point. Process is essential to the institution. A thoughtful, meaningful process of this magnitude should be demanded by the American People. With that i yield back. The gentlelady yields back. Mr. Jeffries. I did not serve in the military, but my 81yearold father did. He was an air force veteran stationed in germany during the height of the cold war in the late 1950s. He was a teenager from innercity newark. A stranger in a foreign land, serving on the western side of the berlin wall. The uniformbly wore because he swore an oath to the constitution and believed in american democracy. I believe in american democracy. We remain the last best hope on earth. It is in that spirit that we proceed today. Professor colin, in america we believe in free and Fair Elections, correct . Es, it is. Thomas jefferson once wrote john adams once wrote to Thomas Jefferson on december 6, and stated, you are apprehensive of foreign interference, intrigue, influence. So ami. But as often as elections happen, the danger of foreign. Fluence recurs theessor, how important was concept of free and Fair Elections to the framers of the constitution . One of the things that turned me into a lawyer was seeing Barbara Jordan, the first female lawyer i had seen in practice, say that we the people like her in 1789, but through a process of amendments we have done that. Elections are more important to us today as a constitutional matter than even to the framers. Is it fair to say an election cannot be characterized as free and fair if it is manipulated by foreign interference . That is correct. In the framers were deeply concerned with foreign interference in affairs of the United States . Yes. Why . Because foreign nations have their interests at heart. With the framers find it acceptable for an american president to pressure a Foreign Government to help him win the election. I think they would find it unacceptable for a Foreign Government to help him, whether he put pressure on them or not. Theirect evidence shows on july 25 phone call the president ordered five words, do us a favor, though he pressured a Foreign Government to help him for political gain, and withheld military aid. Ambassador bill taylor, west point graduate, vietnam war hero , republican appointed diplomat talked about this issue of military aid. Here is a clip of his testimony. Holding up of Security Assistance that would go to a country that is fighting , for noon from russia good policy reason, no good substantive reason, no good National Security reason is wrong. Was being withheld as part of an effort to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, is that behavior impeachable . Yes, it is. When the president said do us a favor, he was using the royal we. It was not a favor for the United States, it was do me a favor. Us when they mean me. So this fall squarely within the definition of a high crime and misdemeanor . Yes, it does. Some of my colleagues have suggested impeachment would overturn the will of the people. The will of the people was expressed in 2018. The will of the people elected a new majority. The will of the people elected a house that would not function as a whollyowned subsidiary of this administration. The will of the people elected a house that understands we are separate and coequal branch of government. The will of the people elected a house that understands we have a constitutional response ability to serve as a check and balance when an outofcontrol executive branch. The president abused his power and must be held accountable. No one is above the law. America must remain the last earth. Pe on i yield back. Mr. Yates. The will of the American People also elected donald trump in the 2016 election and there is one party that cannot seem to get over it. We understand the fact and 2018 you took the house of representatives and we have not spent our time during your tenure and power trying to remove the speaker of the house. Trying to delegitimize your ability to govern care frankly, we would love to govern with you. Would love to pass usmca, put out a helping hand to seniors and lower Prescription Drug prices. It is the will of the people you ignore when you continue down this terrible road of impeachment. Professor gerhardt, you gave money to barack obama, right . My family did, yeah. Four times . That sounds right, yes. Mr. Chairman the gentleman will suspend. We will take that time off. The gentleman submitted can we see that material . We can provide it to you. We will consider the request later after we review the material. Very well. Continue. He wrote articles entitled trumps wired tap tweets raise risk of impeachment. He then said maralago belongs in the impeachment file. Then he wrote in court, a harvard law professor things that trump could be impeached over fake news accusations. Feldmansn professor since you seem to believe the basis of impeachment is broader than the basis my democratic colleagues have laid forth, do you believe you are outside of the political mainstream on the question of impeachment . I believe impeachment is warranted whenever the president abuses his power for personal benefit or to corrupt the democratic process. Did you write an article saying it was hard to take impeachment seriously now . Ofyes, i did come in may 2018i wrote that article. And House Democrats have made it painfully clear discussing impeachment is primarily or even exclusively a tool to weaken President Trumps chances in 2020. Did you write those words . 25, iil this call of july was in impeachment skeptic. That changed my mind, sir. I appreciate your testimony. Professor carlin, you gave 1000 to elizabeth warren, right . I believe so. You gave 1200 to barack obama . I have no reason to question that. Why so much more for hillary . Because i have been gifting a lot of money to charity recently because of all the poor people in the United States. Have you ever been on a podcast called versus trimp. Panelhink i was on a live that people who ran the broadcast called versus trump. Do remember saying liberals tend to cluster more. Conservatives, especially very conservative people, tend to spread out more. Perhaps because they dont even want to be around themselves. Did you say that . Yes, i did. Do you understand how that reflects contempt on people who are conservative . No, what i was talking about was the natural tendency, if you put it in context, the natural tendency of a compactness requirement to favor a party whose voters are more spread out. Im short on time, professor. I just have to say when you talk about how liberals want to be around each other and cluster and conservatives dont want to be around each other and spread fromyou may not see this the ivory towers of your law school, but it makes actual people in this country with the president calls you dont get to interrupt me on this time. When you invoke the president s sons name, when you try to make a little joke out of referencing barron trump, that does not lend credibility to your argument. It makes you look mean. It makes you look like you are attacking the minor child of the president of the United States. Lets see if we can get into all the facts of all the witnesses. If you have personal knowledge of a single material fact in the shift report, please raise your hand. Reflect no record personal knowledge of icicle fact. And that continues on the tradition we saw from adam schiff. Ambassador taylor could not identify and Impeachable Offense. Mr. Kent never met with the president. Fiona hill never heard the reference of military aid. Mr. Hale was unaware of any material aid. Volker denied there was a quid pro quo. Mr. Morrison said there was nothing wrong on the call. Camenly direct evidence from sondland, who spoke to the president of the United States and the president said i want nothing, no quid pro quo. If wiretapping a political opponent the gentlemans time has expired. Maybe it is a different impeachment. The gentlemans time has expired. Meprofessor feldman, let begin by stating the obvious. It is not hearsay when the president tells the president of the ukraine to investigate his political adversary. It is not hearsay when he confesses to doing that on television. It is not hearsay when they hear the president say he only cares about the investigations of political opponents. That is not hearsay. There is lots of other direct evidence in this three hunter page report. Lets dispense of that claim by my republican colleague. Wrote 2014 inity a piece called five myths of impeachment. One of the myths he was rejecting was that it recorded criminal offense. He said, an offense does not have to be indictable. Serious misconduct of public trust is enough. Was professor turley right when he wrote that in 2014 . Yes, i agree with that. Professor karlin, at the hestitutional convention, said foreign powers will interfere in our affairs and would spare no expense. He said impeachment was needed because otherwise a president might betray his trust to a foreign power. Professor, can you elaborate on why the framers were so concerned about foreign interference, how they accounted for these concerns come and how that relates to the facts before this committee . The reason the framers were concerned about foreign interference i think is slightly different than the reason we are. They were concerned because we ine such a weak country 1789. We were small, poor, did not have an established navy or army. Today the concern is a little different, which is it will interfere with us making the decisions that are best for us as americans. Thank you, professor. Our three known instances by president publicly asked looking for a foreign power to interfere in the election. First in 2016 the president hopes that hackers will affect his opponent, which they vigil he did. Then the call with president zelensky. He used aid appropriate by congress as leverage in his efforts to achieve this. Third, the president publicly urged china to begin its own investigation. Professor feldman, how would this impact our democracy if it became Standard Practice for the president to ask a Foreign Government to interfere in our elections . It would be a disaster for the functioning of our democracy if our president s regularly, as this person has done, asked Foreign Governments to interfere in our electoral process. I would like to end with a powerful one from George Washington, who told americans in his farewell address to be constantly awake. History and expense prove that foreign influence is one of the most painful flows of republican government. The misconduct at issue here is egregious and warrants the response. The president has openly and repeatedly solicited foreign interference in our elections. Of that there is no doubt. This matter of inviting foreign meddling into our elections robs the merc and people of their sacred right to let their own to elect their own political leaders. Americans across the country wait in long lines to exercise their right to vote and choose their own leaders. This does not belong to Foreign Governments. We fought and won a a revolution. Free and Fair Election separate us from authoritarians all over the world. Public servants and members of the house, we would be negligent in our duties under the constitution if we let this blatant abuse of power go unchecked. We have heard a lot about hating this president. It is not about hating this president. It is about love of country. It is about honoring the oath we took to protect and defend the constitution of this great country. My final question is to professor feldman and professor karlin, in the face of this evidence, what are the consequences if this committee and this congress refuses to muster the courage to respond to this gross abuse of power that undermines the National Security and undermines the integrity of our elections and undermines the confidence we have in the president to not abuse the power of his office . If this committee and house filter act, youre sending a message to this president and future president s that is no longer a problem, they can invite countries to invest in our elections, and they can put the interest of other countries ahead of ours. I agree with professor feldman. I should say one thing. I apologize for getting overheated a moment ago. Inave a constitutional right the First Amendment to give money to candidates. We have a constitutional duty to keep foreigners from spending money in our elections. Those are two sides of the same coin. Gentlemen yields back. Mr. Johnson. I was struck this morning by the same thing as my friends and colleagues on this side of the room. Chairman nadler began with the outrageous statement that the facts before us are undisputed. Of course, everyone here knows that is not true. Every person here, every person watching a home knows full well virtually everything here is disputed, from the fraudulent process and broken procedures, to the democrats unfounded claims. And the full facts are not before us today. We have been allowed no fact witnesses at all. For the first time ever, this committee, the one in congress that has the actual jurisdiction over impeachment, is given no access to the underlying evidence that adam schiff and his political compasss supports this whole charade. This is a shocking denial of due process. I want to say to our witness, im a constitutional law attorney. I would greatly enjoy an academic discussion with you about the contours of article two, section four. That would be an utter waste of our time today, because as been highlighted so many times, the whole production is a sham and reckless path to a predetermined political outcome. I want you to know its an outcome predetermined by the collie a long time ago. House democrats have been working to impeach President Trump since the day he took his oath of office. Over the past three years, they introduced four different resolutions seeking to impeach the president. On most two years ago, december 6, 50 eight House Democrats voted to begin impeachment proceedings. Befores almost 20 months the famous july 25 phone call with ukraines president. This other graphic up here is smaller, but interesting. Thatimportant to reiterate of our 24 democratic colleagues and friends on the other of the room today, 17 have already voted for impeachment. Caresnot pretend anybody anything about whats being said here today. The actual evidence. Thats not happening here. So much for an impartial jury. Several times this year, leading democrats admitted in various interviews and correspondence that they believe the entire strategy is necessary because they want to stop the president s reelection. Even Speaker Pelosi said it is dangerous to allow the American People to evaluate his performance at the ballot box. Speaker pelosi has it exactly backwards. What is dangerous is the president all of this is setting for the public. Professor turley said it is not how the impeachment of a president is done. A rhetorical question to the colleagues on the other side is echoing through the chamber. He asked you to ask yourself where will this and where will you stand next time when this same sham impeachment process initiated it from your party. The real shame is everything in washington has become bitterly partisan. This ugly chapter will not help that. It will make things that much worse. Early, we are living in the era feared by our founders. What hamilton referred to as agitated passion. This has indeed become an age of rage. President washington warned in his farewell address that extreme partisanship would lead us to the ruins of public liberty. This hyperpartisan impeachment is probably one of the most divisive and destructive things we can do to the american family. Let me tell you what let me tell you what i heard from my constituents. The people of this country are sick of this. Theyre sick of the politics of personal destruction, this toxic atmosphere being created here, and are deeply concerned about where all of this will lead us in the years ahead. Rightfully so. Threat, the thing that should keep us up at night, the rapidly eroding trust the American People have in their institutions. Greatest threat is . The rapidly eroding trust. One of the foundations of selfgoverning people in a Constitutional Republic is they will maintain a basic level of trust in their institutions. In the rule of law and system of justice and the body of elected representatives. Theyre citizen legislators in the congress. The greatest danger of this is not what happens this afternoon or by christmas or in the election next fall. The greatest danger is what this will do in the days ahead. Our 243 year experience. What effect this will have upon our nation six or seven years from now. A decade from now in the ruins of public liberty that are being created by this terribly shortsighted exercise today. God help us. I yield back. The gentleman yields back. He is a former prosecutor and i recognize the defense attorney trying to represent their client. Especially one who has very little to work with in the way of facts and today youre representing the republicans and their defense of the president. Professor thats not my intention, sir. You said that this case represents a dramatic turning point in impeachment precedent. The impact of which will shape and determine future cases. The house for the first time in the modern era asked the senate to remove someone for conduct for which he was never charged criminally and has never been tested in the court of law but thats not a direct quote from what you said today. It sounds a lot like what you argued today but thats a quote from what you argued as a defense lawyer in a 2010 Senate Impeachment trial. Professor, did you represent the federal judge. I did. And he was tried on four articles of impeachment ranging from engaging in a pattern of conduct incompatible with trust placed on him as a federal judge to engaging in corrupt conduct that demonstrates his unfitness to serve as a United States District Court judge. On each count, he was convicted by at least 68 and up to 96 bipartisan senators. But were here because of this photo. Its a picture in may of this year standing on the Eastern Front of ukraine as a war was taking place and up to 15,000 ukrainians died at the hands of russians. Id like to focus on the impact of President Trumps conduct particularly with our allies that are standing in the world. This isnt just a president as professor carlin pointed out asking for another foreign leader to investigate a political opponent. Its also a president leveraging a white house visit as well as foreign aid. They need our support and i have heard just how important they were particularly from ambassador taylor. This assistance allows the Ukrainian Military to deter further incursions by the russians against ukrainian territory. And that further further aggression were to take place does the president s decision to with hold from ukraine such important official acts he ordered to pressure and relate to the framers concerns about the abuse of power and entanglements with foreign nations. Yes, today 50 Million Immigrants live in the United States. I move by one who recently told me and said that for the last 20 years he had left and why he had come to the United States and he told me that when he has gone home recently they now wag their finger at him and say youre going to lecture us about corruption . What do you think the president s conduct says to the millions of americans that left their families and livelihoods that come to a country that believes in the rule of law. It suggests that we dont believe in the rule of law and it tells emerging democracies not to take it seriously when we tell them that their elections are not legitimate because of foreign interference or their elections are not legitimate because of persecution of the opposing party. And president bush announced that he did not consider the elections in 2006 to be legitimate for exactly that reason because they went after political poents. And finally we should wait and go to the courts but you would acknowledge that we have gone to the courts and we have been in the court for over six months on matters already settled in the United States Supreme Court. Particularly nixon where the president seems to be running out the clock, is that right. I ask everyone in the room to please remain seated and quite while the witnesses exit the room and also wanted to remind those in the audience that you may not be guaranteed your seat if you leave the hearing room at this time