Transcripts For CSPAN U.S. Senate Senate Impeachment Trial Day 5 20200126

and the light. unite our senators. in their striving to do your will. lord, you have been our help in ages past. hope for the years to come. power of your prevailing providence to bring to thepeachment trial conclusion you desire. that yourcknowledge thoughts are not our thoughts. and your ways are not our ways. for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are your thoughts higher than our thoughts. higher than our ways. lord, we love you. senators, renew their strength. your dependable name. amen. >> please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our flag. allegiance, to the flag, of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> senators, please be seated. if there's no objection, the proceedings of the trial >> if there is no objection, the journal of proceedings for the trial are approved today. the sergeant at arm's will make a proclamation. >> hair you, harry, all persons are commanded to keep silent on and of imprisonment for the -- for the senate of the united states setting for the articles impeachment exhibited by the house of representation -- house of representatives against donald john trump president of the united states. the majority leader is recognized. >> we should expect two to three hours of session today and will take it quick break if needed. >> pursuant to provisions of senate resolution 483, the counsel for the president have to four hours to make the recitation of their case. the prince the senate will now hear you. -- the senate will now hear you. is recognized to be in the case for the president. >> thank you mr. chief justice. mcconnell,, leader democratic leader schumer, thank you for your time and thank you for your attention. i want to start out briefly giving you a short plan for today. be respectful of your time and anticipate going to the three hours at most. o three hours at most and to be out of here by 1:00 at the latest. we are going to focus today on two points. you heard the house manager speak for nearly 24 hours over three days. we don't anticipate using that much time. we don't believe they have come anywhere close to meeting their burden. for what they are asking you to do. in fact, we believe when you hear the facts, and that's what we intend to cover today, the facts, you will find that the president did absolutely nothing wrong. what we intend to do today, and will have more presentations in greater detail monday but we intend to go through their record that they established in the house. we intend to show you some of the evidence that they did in the house that they decided over there three days in 24 hours that they didn't have enough time or made a decision not to show you. every time you see one of these pieces of evidence, ask yourse yourself, why didn't i see that in the first three days? they had it, they came out of their process. why didn't they show that? i think that is an important question. as house managers, really their goal should be to give you all of the facts. they are asking you to do something very, very consequential and i would submit to you to use a word that mr. schiff used a lot, very dangerous. that's the second. >> i would ask you to keep in mind today. they are asking you not only to overturn the results of the last election but as i said before, they are asking you to remove president trump from the ballot in an election that is occurring in approximately nine months. they are asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country on your own initiative, take that decision away from the american people and i don't think they spent one minute of the 24 hours talking to you about the consequences of that for our country. not one minute. they didn't tell you what that would mean for our country. today, this year and forever into our future they are asking you to do something that no senate has ever done and they are asking you to do it with no evidence. that's wrong if i ask you to keep that in mind. i would point out one piece of evidence for you and then i'm going to turn it over to my colleagues and they will walk you through their record and they will show you things they didn't show you. they didn't talk a lot about the transcript of the call. which i would submit is the best evidence of what happened on the call. they said things over and over again that are simply not true. one of them was there's no evidence of president trump's interest in burden sharing. that wasn't the real reason. but they didn't tell you that burden sharing was discussed in the call. in the transcript of the call. they didn't tell you that. why? let me read it to you. here's the president, and we all go through the entire transcript, i won't read it all, will make available copies so you can have it. the president said, and they read this line, i will say that we do a lot for ukraine. we spent a lot of effort and a lot of time but he stopped there. they didn't read the following. much more than european countries are doing. they should be helping you more than they are. germany does almost nothing for you. all they do is talk. i think it's something you should really ask them about. when i was speaking to marco, she talks ukraine. but she doesn't do anything. a lot of european countries are the same way. i think it's something you want to look at but the united states has been very good to ukraine. that's where they picked up again with the quote. they left out the entire discussion of burden sharing. what is president zelensky saying? does he disagree? no. he agrees. i didn't tell you this. didn't have time in 24 hours to tell you this. yes, you are absolutely right. not only one 100% but actually one 100%. i can tell you the following. i did talk to merkel and i did meet with her and i also met talked with mccone and i told her that they are not doing as much as they need to be doing only issues with the sanctions. they are not enforcing the sanctions. they're not working as much as i should. it turns out even though logically, the european union should be our biggest partner but technically they are a bigger partner. i'm very grateful to you for that because the united states is doing a lot for ukraine. much more than the european union, especially when we are talking about sanctions against the russian federation. you heard a lot about the importance of confronting russia and we will talk about that. you will hear that president trump has a strong record on confronting russia. you will hear that president trump has a strong record of support for ukraine. you will hear that from the witnesses in their record. that they didn't tell you about. that's one very important example. they come here to the senate and they ask you, remove a preside president, tear up the ballots and all of your states. and they don't bother to read the key evidence of the discussion of burden sharing that's in the call itself. that's emblematic of their entire presentation. i'm going to turn the presentation over to my colleague. he's going to walk you through many more examples of this. with each example, ask yourself, why am i just hearing about this now after 24 hours? why? the reason is, we can talk about the process, we will talk about the law but today, we are going to confront them on the merits of their arguments. they have the burden of proof. they have not come close to meeting it. in fact, i want to ask you to think about one issue regarding process beyond process. if you were really interested in finding out the truth, why would you run the process the way they ran? if you were really confident in your position on the facts, why would you walk everybody out of it? from the president's side. why would you do that? we will talk about the process augments but the process arguments also are compelling evidence on the merits because it's evidence that they themselves don't believe in the facts of the case. the fact that they came here for 24 hours and hid evidence from you is further evidence that they don't really believe in the fact of their case. that this is, for all the talk about election interference, but they are here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in american history and we can't allow that to happen. it would violate our constitution, it would violate our history. it would violate our obligations to the future and most importantly, it would violate the sacred trust that the american people have placed in you. and have placed in them. the american people decide elections. they have one coming up in nine months. so we will be very efficient, we will begin our presentation today, we will show you a lot of evidence that they should have showed you. we will finish efficiently and quickly so we can all go have an election. thank you and i yield to my colleague. >> mr. chief justice. members of the senate, good morning. again, i served as deputy counsel of the president. it is my honor and privilege to appear before you today on behalf of president donald j trump. >> a classic organized crime shakedown. rambling character and not so many words, this is the essence of what the president communicates. we've been very busy, no other country has done as much as we have but i don't see much reciprocity here. i hear what you want, i have a favor, i want from you, and i will say this only seven times so you better listen good. i want you to make us understand lots of it. on this and on that, i will put you in touch with people, not just any people. i will put you in touch with bill barr. he's got the whole weight of the american law enforcement behind him. i will put you in touch with rudy, you will love him. you know what i'm asking, i'm the only going to say this a few more times. in a few more ways. by the way, don't call me again. i'll call you when i have done what i asked. this is in character what the president was trying to communicate. it's fake. that's not the real call. that's not the evidence here. that's not the transcript esther cipollone just referenced. we can shrug it off and say we were making flight or a joke but that was a hearing in the united states house of representatives discussing the removal of the president of the united states. there very things few things that can be grave and as serious. let's stick with the evidence in this case. the most important piece of evidence we have in the case, and before you, is the one we began with nearly four months ago. the actual transcript of the july 25, 2019 telephone call be between president trump and president zelensky. the real transcript. if that were the only evidence we had, it would be enough to show the democrats the entire theory is completely unfounded. the transcript is far from the only evidence demonstrating that the president did nothing wrong. once you sweep away all of the innuendo, the selective weeks, the closed-door examinations of the democrats handpicked witnesses, the stage public hearings. what we are left with our six key facts that have not and will not change. first, the transcripts show the president did not condition either security assistance or a meeting on anything. the pause security assistance funds aren't even mentioned on the call. second, president zelensky and other ukrainian officials have repeatedly said there was no quid pro quo and no pressure on them to review anything. third, president zelensky and high ranking ukrainian officials did not even know the security assistance was pause until the end of august. over a month after the july 25 call. fourth, not a single witness testified. but the president himself said there was any connection between any investigations and security assistance and president trump tweeting or anything else. fifth, the security assistance flows on september 11th and a presidential meeting took place september 25. without the ukrainian government announcing any investigations. finally, the democrats blind drive to impeach the president does not and cannot change the fact is attested to by the democrats own witnesses that president trump has been a better friend and a stronger supporter of ukraine than his predecessor. those are the facts. we plan to address some of them today and some of them next week. each one of these six facts standing alone is enough to seek the democrats case. combined, they establish what we've known since the beginning. the president did absolutely nothing wrong. the democrat allegation of the quid pro quo is unfounded and contrary to the facts. the truth is simple and it's right before our eyes. the president was at all times acting in our national interest in pursuant to his own. before i dive in and speak further about the facts, let me mention something my colleagues will discuss in greater detail. the fact that i'm about to discuss today are the democrats facts. this is important because the house managers spoke to you for a very long time. over 21 hours. it repeatedly claimed to you that their case in evidence is overwhelming and uncontested. it's not. i'm going to share a number of facts with you this morning with the house managers didn't. during more than 21 hours. i will ask you as mr. cipollone already mentioned. when you hear me say something the house managers didn't present to you, ask yourself why didn't they tell me that? is not something i would have liked to have known? why am i hearing it for the first time? it's not because they didn't have enough time, that's for sure. they only showed you a very selective part of the record. there record. they have the very heavy burden of proof before you. the president is forced to mount a defense in this chamber against the records that the democrats developed. the record we have to go on today is based entirely on house democratic facts precleared in a basement bumper. not mostly, entirely. yet even those facts absolutely exonerate the president. let's start with the transcript. the president did not link security assistance to any investigations on the july 25 call. on july 25, president trump called president zelensky, this was their second phone call. both were congratulatory. april 21, president trump congratulate president zelensky on winning the election. july 25, the president called president zelensky's party, just one a large number of seats in parliament. september 24, before speaker pelosi had any idea what president trump and president zelensky actually said on the july 25 call, she called for impeachment inquiry into president trump. in the interest of full transparency and to show he had done nothing wrong, president trump took the unprecedented step of the classifying the call transcript so the american people could speak for themselves exactly what the two presidents discussed. so what did they say on the july 25 call? president trump raised two issues. i'm going to be speaking about those two issues a fair amount this morning. the two issues that go to the core of how president trump approaches this. when it comes to sending u.s. taxpayer money overseas, the president is focused on burden sharing and corruption. first, the president had real concerns about whether european and other countries will contribute their fair share to ensuring your green ukraine. the soviet union, ukraine suffered one of the worst environments of corruption in the world. a parade of witnesses testified in the house about the pervasive corruption in ukraine and how america's foreign policy and national security interest to help ukraine come back corruption. during the call right off the bat. president trump mentioned burden sharing to president zelensky. president trump told president zelensky that there's nothing for you. a lot of european countries are the same way. president trump specifically mentioned speaking to angela merkel, she talks ukraine but doesn't do anything. president zelensky agreed. you are absolutely right. he said he spoke to the leaders of germany and told them they are not doing quite as much as they need to be doing. so right at the beginning of the call, president trump was talking about burden sharing. president trump turned to corruption in the form of foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election. there's absolutely nothing wrong with asking a foreign leader to help get to the bottom of all forms of foreign interference in american elections. you will hear more about that later from my colleagues. what else did the president say? he also warned president zelensky he appeared to be surrounding himself with some of the same people suggesting a very fair prosecutor was shut down by very bad people. again, one of my colleagues will speak more about that. the content of the july 25 call with the trump administration legitimate concern about corruption and reflected president zelensky who campaigned on a platform of reform, would finally clean up ukraine. so what did president trump and president zelensky discuss on the july 25 call? two issues, burden sharing, corruption. just as importantly, what wasn't discussed on the july 25 call? there was no discussion of the positive security assistance on the july 25 call. house democrats keep pointing to president zelensky's statement that i would also like to thank you for your great support in the area but he wasn't talking there about the positive security assistance. he tells us in the very next sentence exactly what he was talking about. javelin missiles. we are ready, president zelensky continues. continue to cooperate with the next steps. by four javelins from the united states for defense purposes. javelins are missiles only made available by president trump. president obama refused to give javelins to the ukrainians for years. javelin were not part of the security assistance that's been paused at the time of the call. javelin had nothing to do with papa security assistance. they are different programs entirely. don't take my word for it, marie yovanovitch and senior that the javelin security assistance were unrelated. the house managers didn't tell you about impacts that are yovanovitch's testimony. why not? they could have taken two to five minutes out of 21 hours to make sure you understood that the javelin fields being discussed were not part of the security assistance. this is the following statement vita. i'd like you to do a favor because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it. everyone knows by now, president trump asked president zelensky to do us a favor. he made clear he referred to our country and not himself. more important, the president was not connecting. do us of favor, it makes no sense in the language that but even if he had been, the javelins were not part of the security assistance that had been temporarily paused. i would to be very clear. when house democrats claim the javelin discussed in the july 25 call part of the security assistance, it is misleading. they are trying to confuse you and wrap everything in instead of unpacking it the right way. there was no mention of the security assistance on the call and certainly not from president trump. as you know, head of state calls are staffed by a number on both sides. alexander vindman, the national security council raised the concern about the call. that was just a policy concern. lieutenant colonel vindman admitted he did not know whether there was a crime or anything of that nature but he had deep policy concerns. policy concerns. there you have it. the president sets the foreign policy. in a democracy such as ours, the elected leaders make foreign policy probably unelected staff implement the policy. other witnesses were on the july 25 call had very different reactions. lieutenant general, national security advisor of the vice president, forming actor, a highly decorated veteran attended the call. according to general, i was on the much reported july 25 call between president donald trump and president zelensky. as an exceedingly proud member of a trump administration, and as a 34 year highly experienced combat veteran who retired with the rank of lieutenant general in the army, i heard nothing wrong or improper on the call. i had and have no concerns. the house managers said that other witnesses were also troubled by the july 25 call. identify the witnesses as jennifer williams and tim morrison. jennifer williams, who works for the general now claims she had concerns about the call. you heard that from the house managers. they were very careful in the way they worded that. what they didn't tell you is ms. williams was so troubled at the time of the call that she told exactly zero people. of her concern. she told no one for two months following the call. not one person. she didn't raise any concerns about the call, not with counsel, not with anyone. ms. williams announced her concerns when speaker pelosi publicly announced her public inquiry. the house managers didn't tell you that. why not? to morrison lieutenant colonel vindman's boss was on also on the call. he reported the call to the national security council lawyers not because he was troubled by anything on the call because he was worried about leaks. in his words, how it will play out washington's polarized environment. i want to be clear, mr. morrison testified, i was not concerned anything illegal was discussed. he further testified there was nothing improper and nothing illegal about anything that was done on the call. in fact, mr. morrison repeatedly testified he disagreed with lieutenant colonel vindman's assessment that president trump made demands of president zelensky or that he said anything improper at all. as mr. morrison. >> in the transcript, does the president not ask zelensky to ask look into the bidens? >> i can only tell you what i was thinking at the time. that's not what i understood the president to be doing. >> do you believe in your opinion that the president of the united states demanded the president zelensky undertake the investigations? and you didn't hear the president make a demand, did you? again, there were no demands. >> that is correct. >> is it fair to say that as you are listening to the call, you weren't thinking while the president bribing the president of ukraine had never crossed your mind? >> it did not. >> or that he was distorting the president of ukraine. or doing anything improper. >> correct, sir. >> significantly, the ukrainian government never raised any concerns about the july 25 call. just hours after the call, ambassador william taylor, head of the u.s. mission in ukraine had dinner with the then secretary of the ukrainian national security and defense counsel who seemed to think the call went fine. the call went well. he wasn't disturbed by anything. the house managers didn't tell you that. why not? ambassador kurt volker, u.s. special representative for ukraine was not on the call. but ambassador volker spoke regularly president zelensky and other top officials in the ukraine government. even met with president zelensky the day after the call. he testified that in no way, shape or form readouts from the united states or ukraine that he received any indication whatsoever for anything that resembles a quid pro quo on the die july 25 call. >> in fact, the day after the call, you met with president zelensky. this was july 25th. in that meeting, he made no mention of quid pro quo. he made no mention of withholding that aid or bribery. the fact is, ukrainians were not even aware of this full on aid. >> correct. >> didn't tell you about this testimony. why not? president zelensky himself has confirmed on at least three separate occasions that is july 25 call with president trump was a good phone call and nobody pushed me. president zelensky's advisor asked if he had ever felt there was a connection between the u.s. military aid and investigation, he was adamant we never have that feeling and we did not have the feeling that he was connected to any one specific issue. the best evidence that there was no pressure or quit pro quote in the statements themselves. the fact that president zelensky himself held no pressure on the call and did not perceive there to be any connection between security assistance and investigations would in any ordinary case, in any court, be totally fatal to the prosecution. the judgment judge would throw it out, the case would be thrown out. load more what you need to know? they know the record inside out, upside down, left and right. what do they do? how do they try to overcome the direct words from president zelensky and his administration that they felt no pressure? they tell you ukrainians must have felt pressure. regardless of what they said. they try to overcome the devastating evidence against them by apparently claiming to be mind readers. they know what president zelensky is thinking better than what president zelensky does. house managers tell you they know better. this is really the theme of the house case. i want you to remember this. every time the democrats say president trump made demands or issued a quid pro quo to president zelensky on the july 25 call, they are saying president zelensky and his top advisers are being untruthful. they acknowledge what that's what they are saying. they said over the past few days. tell me how that helps. u.s. foreign policy and national security to say that about our friends. we note there was no quid pro quo on the call. we know that from the transcripts. the call is not the only evidence shown that there was no quid pro quo. there couldn't possibly have been a quid pro quo because ukrainians did not even know the security assistance was on hold until it was reported in the media. more than a month after the july 25 call. think about this. the democrats accused the president of leveraging security assistance to supposedly force president zelensky to announce investigations but how can that possibly be when ukrainians were not even aware the security assistance was pause? there can't be a threat without the person knowing he's being threatened. there can't be a quid pro quo without the quote. he testified the ukrainians did not know about it until reading about it in politico. deputy assistant secretary of state george kemp testified no ukrainian official contacted him about the pause security assistance until that first intense week in september. let's hear from the four of them. >> i believe that ukrainians became aware of the holt on august 29. that date is the first time any of them asked about the hold by fording an article published in politico. >> it was only after august 29 when the argument that i got the calls from several of ukrainian officials. >> you mentioned the august when 28th put ago, was at the first time ukrainians had a real sense that was on hold? >> yes. >> had you had any ukrainian official contacting you concern about -- when was the first time ukrainian official contacting you concern about the withholding of u.s. aid? >> after the article the political came out in september. >> it wasn't until the political argument? >> i received a text message on august 29 fording that article and that's the first time. >> the house managers didn't show you this testimony. from any of these four witnesses. why not? why didn't they give you the context of this testimony? think about this as well, if the ukrainians had been aware, they would have said something. there were numerous high-level demonic meetings between senior ukrainian and u.s. officials during the summer. after the review on the security assistance, began but before president zelensky learned of the hold through the politico argument. if ukrainians had known about the hold, they would have raised it in one of those meetings. yet the ukrainians didn't say anything about the hold a single one of those meetings. not july 9, not july 10, not on july 25, not on july 26. none of those meetings, none of those meetings did that ukrainians mention the pause on security. ambassador volker testified he was regularly in touch with the senior highest level officials in the ukrainian government. ukrainian officials would confide things and would have asked if they had any questions about the eight. nobody said a word ambassador volker until the end of august. within hours of the article being published, he text a link of the article and ask about the report. in other words, as soon as the ukrainians learned about the hold, they asked about it. now mr. schiff said something during the 21 hours that he and his team spoke, that i actually agree with. which is when he talked about common staff. many of us at the tables in the room are former prosecutors. at the state, federal or military level. prosecutors talk a lot about common sense. common sense comes into play right here. the top ukrainian official said nothing, nothing at all to the u.s. counterparts during all these meetings about the pause on security assistance. but then, as soon as the article comes out, suddenly in the first intense week of september, security assistance was all they wanted to talk about. what was he to conclude if we are using common sense? they didn't know about the pause until the political argument on august 20. no activity before, article comes out, flurry of activity. that's common sense. absolutely fatal to the house managers case. past managers are aware that the ukrainians lack of knowledge on the hold is fatal to their case. so they desperately tried to money the water. laura cooper presented to e-mails that people on her staff received from people at the state department regarding conversation with people at the ukraine embassy that could have been about u.s. security assistance to ukraine. what they did not tell you is that ms. cooper testified that she could not say for certain whether the e-mails were about the pause on security assistance. she couldn't say one way or the other. she also testified she didn't want the speculate about the meaning of the word in the e-mails. the house managers didn't tell you ms. cooper testified that i've reviewed my calendar and the only meeting where i can recall ukraine officials raising the issue of security assistance with me is on september 5. at the ukrainian independence day celebration. the house managers didn't tell you that. the house managers mentioned one of the ambassador volker's, one of his advisors, catherine claimed ukrainian officials learned about the pause earlier than the politico argument. when asked when she heard from ukraine embassy officials, she can't remember the specifics and did not think she took notes. she did not remember when the hold became public. remember ambassador volker, her boss, who was in regular contact with president zelensky was very clear that i believe that ukrainians became aware of the hold august 29 and not before. this is all the house managers had. in contrast of testimony of volker, taylor, morrison and kemp. from your. >> , the high-ranking ukrainians them selves and the flurry of activity that began august 28. that's the evidence that they want you to consider the basis to remove the duly elected president of the united states. the bottom line is it's not possible for the security assistance to be used as leverage when president zelensky and other top ukrainian officials did not know about it. that's what you need to know. that's what the house managers didn't tell you. past managers know how important this issue is. when we briefly mentioned a few days ago, they told us we needed to check our facts. we did. we are right. president zelensky and top aides did not know about the pause on security assistance at the time of the july 25 call and did not know about it until august 28 when the article was published. we know there was no quid pro quo, july 25 call. the ukrainians did not know it had been paused. there was simply no evidence anywhere that president trump ever linked security assistance to any investigations. most of the democrats witnesses have never spoken to the president at all. let alone about ukraine security assistance. the two people in the house record who asked president trump about any linkage between security assistance and investigations were told there was no connection between the two. when ambassador of the european union, solomon asked the president in the timeframe, the president told him i want nothing, i want nothing, i want no quid pro quo. even earlier on august 31, senator warren asked the president if there was any connection between security assistance and investigation. the president answered no way. i would never do that. who told you that? to witnesses, ambassador taylor and tim morrison said they came to believe security assistance was linked to investigations. but those witnesses based this belief entirely on what they heard from ambassador sondland before ambassador sondland spoke to the president. either taylor nor morrison ever spoke to the president about it. how did ambassador sondlond come to believe there was any connection between security assistance and investigations? again, the house managers didn't tell you. why not? in his public testimony ambassador sondland use variations of the word assume, presume, guess, speculate and believe over 30 times. here's some examples. >> that was my presumption, my personals presumption, without my belief. but i might presume to get that. it was a presumption. i've been very clear as to when i was presuming and i was presuming on the aid, it would be pure, speculation, i don't know. >> that was a problem. nobody told me directly the aid was tied to anything. i was presuming it was. >> didn't show you any of this testimony. once during the 21 hour presentation. twenty-one hours, more than 21 hours. they couldn't give you the context to evaluate ambassador settlement. all the democrats had the support between security assistance and investigations, ambassador sondland assumptions and presumption's. remember this exchange. >> don't on this president told you donald trump was tying this aid to the investigation. if your answer is yes and the chairman is wrong in the headline on cnn is wrong, no one told you president trump was tying aid to investigations. yes or no? >> yes. >> so you really have no testimony today that ties president trump to scheme to withhold aid from ukraine in exchange for these investigations. >> other than my own presumption. >> when he was done presuming, assuming and guessing, ambassador sondland decided this. what did the president want from ukraine? >> president trump, when i asked him the open ended question as i testified previously, what did you want from ukraine? his answer was, i want nothing. no quid pro quo, tell zelensky to "do the right thing". it's all i got from president trump. >> the president was unequivocal. bassler sondlond said this was the final work he heard from the president of the united states. once he learned this, he text messaged ambassador taylor and volker. the president has been crystal there. no quid pro quo of any kind. if you are skeptical of ambassador sondland testimony, it would cooperate by the statement of one of your alex. senator johnson. he also heard from ambassador sondland but the security assistance might be linked to the investigations. august 31, senator johnson asked the president directly. whether there was some kind of arrangement or ukraine would take some action and hold it. again, president trump answer was crystal clear. no way, i would never do that. who told you that? senator johnson wrote, i have accurately characterized his reaction is adamant and angry. they didn't tell you about senator johnson's letter. why not? the democrats entire pro quote series is based on nothing more than initial speculation of one person. ambassador sondland. that's speculation is wrong. despite the democrats hopes, the ambassador's mistaken belief does not become true merely because he repeated it. many times and apparently too many people. undersecretary of state david, toward kemp and ambassador boca testified there is no action whatsoever between security assistance and investigation. here is ambassador volker. >> you had a meeting with the president of the united states and you believe the policy issues he raised were valid. did the president ever state to you that he was not going to allow aid to the united states to go to ukraine must there were investigations into burisma, bidens or the 2016 election. did the ukrainians ever tell you they understood they would not in a meeting with the president, a phone call with the president of the united states, military aid or foreign aid from the united states unless they undertook investigations of burisma, the bidens or the 2016 elections. >> no, they did not. >> house managers never told any of this. why not? why didn't they show you this testimony? why didn't they tell you about this testimony? why didn't they put ambassadors sondlond's testimony and for your consideration? because none of this fits their narrative. it wouldn't lead to the predetermined outcome. thank you for your attention, i yield my time. >> mr. chief justice, democratic leader schumer, house managers, members of the senate. let me begin by saying you cannot simply decide this case in a vacuum. mr. schiff said yesterday that it was his father said you should put yourself in someone else's shoes. let's, for a moment, put ourselves in the shoes of the president of the united states right now. before he was sworn into office, he was subjected to an investigation by the federal bureau of investigation. the president, within six months of inauguration, found a special counsel being appointed to investigate a russia collusion theory. in their opening statement, several members of the house managers tried once again to relitigate the mueller case. here's the bottom line. this is part one. of the mueller report. this part alone is 99 pages. the presentation, a couple of times said this for that. let me tell you something. this cost $32 million. this investigation took 2800 subpoenas. this investigation had 500 search warrants. this, 230 orders for communication records. this had 500 witness interviews. all to reach the following conclusion. and i'm going to quote from the mueller report itself, it can be found on page 173. as relates to this whole matter of collusion and conspiracy. ultimately, in this report. this investigation did not establish the campaign coordinated or conspired with the russian government this election interference activity. let me say that again. this mueller report resulted in this. that for this. ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the campaign coordinated or conspired with the russian government and its election related interference activities. this for that. in his summation thursday night, senator schiff complaint the president chose not to go with the determination of intelligence agencies regarding foreign interference and decided he would listen to people he trusted. ... disagreeing with the president's decision on foreign policy matters or whose advice he is going to take is in no way and impeachable offense. second, mister schiff, and mister nadler of all people because they chair significant committees, really should know this and they should know what is happening. let me remind you of something. just 6 tenths of a mile from this chamber sits the foreign intelligence surveillance court also known as the fisa court, federal court established under the foreign intelligence surveillance act to oversee requests by federal agencies, surveillance orders against foreign spies inside the united states including american citizens. because of the sensitive nature of its business, the court is a more secret court, it hearings closed to the public. in this court there is no defense counsel, no opportunity to cross-examine witnesses, the only material the court sees are those materials that are submitted on trust, on trust by members of the intelligence community. with the presumption that they would be acting in good faith. on december 17th, 2019, the fisa court issued a scathing order in response to the justice department inspector general's report on the crossfire hurricane investigation into whether or not the trump campaign was coordinating with russia. that report detailed the fbi's systematic abuses of obtaining surveillance order requests from the process they utilize. in its order, this is the order from the court, i am going to read it. this order responds to reports that personnel at the federal bureau of information providing information to the department of justice. and withheld material information from the nsd which was deferential to the fbi's case in reaction to for applications for the foreign intelligence surveillance court. when the fbi personnel misled nsd, the ways that are described in these reports they equally misled the foreign intelligence surveillance court. this order has been followed up. there is another one. it was declassified a couple days ago. thanks in large part to the office of inspector general, us department of justice, the court received notice of material misstatements and omissions and applications filed by the government, doj assessed with respect to the applications enlisted two specific docket numbers, 17375, and 17679, if not earlier. there was insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe carter page was acting as an agent of a foreign power. the president had reason to be concerned about the information he was being provided. we could ignore this. we could make believe this did not happen but it did. so as we begin introducing our arguments i want to correct a couple things on the record, that is what we are doing today. we intend to show for the next several days that the evidence is overwhelming that the president did nothing wrong. mister schiff and his colleagues told you the intelligence community assessment, russia was acting alone, responsible for election interference implying this debunked the idea there might be interference from other countries including ukraine. mister nadler deployed an argument saying donald trump sought, quote, ukraine, not russia, interfered in the last presidential election. this is what we call a straw man argument. let me be clear. the house managers in a 23 hour period kept pushing this false dichotomy that it was either russia or ukraine but not both. they kept telling you the conclusion of the intelligence community and mister mueller was russia alone with regard to the 2016 elections. the report bob mueller wrote focused on russian interference. although there is some information in letters regarding ukraine. in fact, let me talk about those letters right now. this is a letter dated may fourth 2018 to yuri ruschenko mister, requesting that his office cooperate with the mueller investigation involving ukraine issues and issues involving ukraine's government or law enforcement official signed by senator menendez, senator leahy and senator durbin. i am doing this to put it in perspective. house managers tried to tell you the importance, my colleague talked about this between president zelinsky and president trump and the bilateral meeting in the oval office of the white house. as if an article of impeachment could be based upon a meeting not taking place in the white house but taking place someplace else like the united nations general assembly where it in fact did take place. doctor fiona hill was clear the white house meeting was supplied, it would be, quote, legitimacy it needed especially vis-à-vis the russians and they viewed it as recognition of their legitimacy as a sovereign state. here is what they did not play. here's what they did not tell you. and i am going to quote from doctor hill's testimony on page 145 of her transcript. these are her words. this is what she said under oath. it wasn't always a white house meeting per se but definitely a presidential level meeting. a meeting with zelinsky and the president. it could have taken place in poland, in warsaw, could have been a proper bilateral contest but in other words a white house level presidential meeting that actually found on page 145. contrary to what schiff and the other managers told you, this meeting did in fact occur. it occurred at the un general assembly on september 20 fifth 2019. those were the words of doctor hill that you did not hear. this case is really not about presidential wrongdoing. this entire impeachment process about the house manager's insistence that they are able to read everybody's thoughts, they can read everybody's intention even when the principal speakers, the witnesses themselves, insist that those interpretations are wrong. manager shift, managers garcia and dennings relied on selected clips from ambassador sondland's testimony. i'm not going to replay those. my colleague played those for you. it is clear. we are not going to play the same clips twee 7 times. he said it, you saw it. that is the evidence. miss laughlin said numerous witnesses testified they were not provided with any reason why the hold was listed on september 11th, suggesting that the president's reason for the hold, ukrainian corruption and burden sharing were created after the fact but again, as my colleague just showed you, burden sharing was raised in the transcript itself. mister schiff stated here that just like implementation of the hold, donald trump provided no reason for the release. this also is wrong. in their testimony, ambassadors volcker and sondland said the president raised concerns about ukrainian corruption in the may 20 third, 2019, meeting with the ukraine delegation. deputy defense secretary laura craft testified that she received an email in the tune -- in june of 2019 listing follow-ups from the meeting between the secretary of defense chief of staff and the president relating specifically to ukrainian security assistance including asking what other countries are contributing, burden sharing. that could be found in laura cooper's deposition, pages 33, and 34. the president mentions corruption and burden sharing to senator johnson as you already heard. it is also important to note that ambassador david hale testified there was a review going on in 2019. on page 84 of his november 6th, 2019, testimony he said the administration did not want to take a business as usual approach to foreign assistance, feeling that want the country has received a certain package it continues forever. didn't talk about that in the 23 hour presentation. doctor fiona hill confirmed this review and testified on the 21st 2019 and i will quote from page 75 of her testimony that there had been a directive for wholesale, wholesale review of our foreign policy, foreign-policy assistance and the ties between foreign-policy objectives and that assistance. this had been going on for many months. multiple witnesses testified that the president had long-standing specific concerns about ukraine. the house managers, understandably, ignore the testimony that took place before their own committees. in her testimony of october 14th, 2019, doctor hill testified on page 118-119 of her transcript that she thinks the president has quite publicly said that he was very skeptical about corruption in ukraine and then she said again in her testimony and in fact he is not alone because everyone, because everyone has expressed great concerns about corruption in ukraine. similarly, ambassador yovanovitch testified they have concerns about corruption in ukraine and it is noted on pages 142 of her deposition transcript, when asked what she knew about the president's deep-rooted skepticism about ukraine's business environment she answered president trump delivered an anticorruption message to former ukrainian president poroshenko in their first meeting in the white house on june 20th, 2017. senior director morrison confirmed on november 20 fifth in his testimony transcript that during the public hearing, he was aware the president thought ukraine had a corruption problem. his words again and he continued as did many others familiar with ukraine. according to her, october 30th, 2019, testimony, special advisor, ukraine negotiations at the state department katherine croft also heard the president raise the issue of corruption with then-president poroshenko of ukraine during a bilateral meeting at the united nations general assembly, this time in september of 2017. special advisor croft testified she understood the president's concern that ukraine is corrupt because, this is her words, tasked to write a paper to help then nsa head general mcmasters make the case in connection with prior, prior security assistance. these concerns were entirely justified. when asked, a quote from doctor hill's hearing transcript, certainly, these are her words, eliminating corruption ukraine was one of the central goals of a foreign policy. does anybody think that one election of one president that ran on a reform platform who finally gets a majority in their legislative body, that corruption ukraine just evaporates? that is like looking -- goes back to the mueller report. you can't look at these issues in a vacuum. virtually every witness agrees that corruption is at the forefront of us policy. i think there are some other things we have to understand about timing. this again is according to the testimony of tim morrison, his testimony. this is when president zelinsky was first elected. there were real concerns about whether he would be a genuine reformer and whether he would genuinely try to root out corruption. also at this time, before the election, unclear whether president zelinsky's party could get a workable majority. i think we are glad they did. to say that has been tested and determined that corruption ukraine has been removed. the anticorruption court of ukraine did not commence its work until september 5th, 2019, 121 days ago, four months ago. we are acting as if there was a magic wand, that there were new elections and everything was now fine. i will not, because we are going to hear more about it, get into the meetings the vice president had. we will get to that in the days ahead. manager crowe said this. what is most interesting to me about this is president trump was only interested in ukraine aid. his words. nobody else. the us provide aid to dozens of countries around the world, lots of allies, he didn't ask about any of them, just ukraine. i appreciate your service to our country. i really do. i appreciate that but let's get our facts straight. that is what manager crow said. here's what happened. president trump place holds on aid a number of times. take basic due diligence to figure this out. in september of 2019 the administration announced it was withholding $100 million in aid to afghanistan over concerns about government corruption. in august of 2019, donald trump announced the administration was in talks to increase south korea's share of burden sharing of the expenses of us military aid, support for south korea. in june, he cut or pause over $550 million in foreign aid to el salvador, honduras and guatemala because those countries were not sharing the burdens of providing mass migration to the united states. in june the administration temporarily possible $105 million in aid to lebanon. the administration lifted that old in december with one officially plaintiff the administration continually reviews and early evaluates the effectiveness of all united states foreign assistance to ensure funds go towards activities that further us foreign policy. and also further our national security interests, like any administration would. in september of 2018, the administration canceled the $300 million, $300 million of military aid to pakistan because it was not meeting its counterterrorism obligation. you didn't hear about any of that. from my democratic colleagues, the house managers. none of that was discussed. under secretary hail, his transcript, said, quote, aid has been withheld from several countries across the globe for various reasons. doctor hill explained there was a freeze put on all kinds of aid and assistance because it was a process at the time of an awful lot of reviews going on on foreign assistance, that is the hill deposition transcript. she added, this was one of the star witnesses in her experience stops and starts are sometimes common with foreign assistance. and that the office of management and budget hold of dollars all the time including dollars going to ukraine, in the past. similarly, ambassador voelker affirmed that aid gets held up from time to time for a lot of reasons. manager crow told you ukraine's policy was not strong noting we help our partner fight russia over there so we don't have to fight russia here. our friends on the front line in the trenches, this was following the russian invasion of ukraine in 2014, the united states has stood by ukraine, these were your words. more proof the united states has stood by ukraine since the invasion of 2014. only one president since then took a concrete step. some of you supported him. that step included actually providing ukraine with lethal weapons including javelin missiles. president trump did. some of you in this very room, some of you managers actually support that. here is what ambassador taylor said, you didn't hear this. javelin missiles are serious weapons. they will kill russian tanks. ambassador yovanovitch agreed stating ukraine policy under president trump actually got stronger, stronger than it was under president obama. there were thoughts about sanctions. president trump has impose heavy sanctions on russia for president zelinsky, thanked him. the united states has impose heavy sanctions on russia. president zelinsky thank him. manager jeffries said the idea that trump cares about corruption is laughable. this is what doctor hill said. eliminating corruption ukraine was one of, if not the central goal of us foreign policy in ukraine. let me say that again. doctor hill testified that eliminating corruption in ukraine was one of, if not the central goal of us foreign policy in ukraine. if you are taking notes you can find that in the hill deposition transcript 34:7-13. doctor hill also said she thinks the president is quite publicly said he was very skeptical about corruption in ukraine. he's not alone, she said this as well, everyone has expressed great concerns about corruption. ambassador yovanovitch, they didn't play this, said we all have concerns. national security director morrison confirmed the, quote, he was aware he thought the president had a corruption problem as did many other people familiar with it. i am not going to continue to go over and over and over again the evidence that they did not put before you because we would be here for a lot longer than 24 hours. but to say that the president of the united states was not concerned about burden sharing, that he was not concerned about corruption in ukraine, the facts from their hearing, the facts from their hearing establish exactly the opposite. the president wasn't concerned about burden sharing? read all of the records. and then there was mister schiff saying yesterday maybe we can learn a lot more from our ukrainian ally. let me read you what our ukrainian ally said. president zelinsky. when asked about these allegations of quid pro quo he said i think you read everything. i think you read the text. we had a good phone call. those were his words, it was normal. we spoke about many things. i think, and you read it, nobody pushed me, they think you can read minds. i think you look at the words. i yield the balance of my time to my colleague, deputy white house counsel who will address two issues. we will do this in a systematic way over the days ahead. one involving issues related because it came up near the end so i want to do it in sequence, obstruction as relates to the subpoenas that were issued and the due process issues since it was fresh on everybody's mind. >> mister chief justice, senators, majority leader mcconnell, democratic leadership, good morning. as mister sekulow said, i will touch on a couple issues related to obstruction and due process, just to hit on some points before we go into more detail in the rest of our presentation, i would like to start with one of the points manager jeffries focused a lot on during the presentation yesterday related to the obstruction charge in the second article of impeachment because he tried to portray a picture of what he called blanket defiance, there was a response from the trump administration that we won't cooperate with anything, won't give you any documents, won't do anything, blanket defiance without explanation, just an assertion that we would not cooperate and he said and i pulled from the transcript that donald trump's objections are not generally rooted in the law and are not legal arguments. that is simply not true. that is simply not true. in every instance when there was resistance to a subpoena, for a witness or documents, there was a legal explanation of the justification. for example they focused on an october 8th letter from the council to the president, pat cipollone but they would not show the october 18th letter that went through in detail why subpoenas that had been issued by manager schiff's committees were invalid because the house had not authorized committees to conduct any such inquiry or to subpoena information in furtherance of it because the house had not taken a vote to authorize the committee to exercise the power of impeachment to issue a compulsory process and i will get into that issue in a moment. not only was there a legal explanation, specific reason, not just blanket defiance, every step the administration took was supported by an opinion from the department of justice in the office of legal counsel and those are explained in our brief, and the major opinion from the office of legal counsel is attached in our trial memorandum. mister jeffries and other managers suggested that the trump administration took the approach of no negotiation, blanket refusal and no attempt to accommodate, that is also not true. in the october 8th letter that mister cipollone sent to speaker pelosi, said explicit the, quote, if the committees wish to return to the regular order of oversight requests we stand ready to engage in that process as we have in the past in a manner consistent with well established constitutional protections and respect for separation of powers enshrined in the constitution. end quote. it was manager schiff who did not want to engage in any accommodation process. we said we were willing to explore that. house managers have asserted a number of times on the first long night we were here until 2:00 that the trump administration never exerted executive privilege, never exerted executive privilege. i explained at the time that is technically true but misleading. misleading because the rationale on which the subpoenas were resisted never depended on exertion of executive privilege. each of the rationales that we have offered him i will go into one of them today, subpoenas were not authorized, did not depend on making the formal assertion of executive privilege. it is a different legal rationale. the subpoenas were not authorized because there were no votes or senior advisers to the president were immune from congressional compulsion or subpoenas were forcing executive branch officials to testify without the presence of agency counsel which is a separate legal infirmity supported by an opinion from the office of legal counsel at the department of justice. let me turn to the specific issue of the invalidity of the subpoenas because they were not supported by a vote of the house authorizing manager schiff's committee to exercise the power of impeachment, to issue compulsory process. manager jeffries said there were no supreme court precedents suggesting such a requirement and every investigation into a presidential impeachment in history has begun without a vote from the house. those statements simply aren't accurate. there is supreme court precedent explaining very clearly the principles that a committee of either house of congress gets its authority only by resolution from the parent body, united states versus rommel he, watkins versus united states, makes this very clear and it is common sense. the constitution assigns the sole power of impeachment to the house of representatives, to the house, not any member, not a subcommittee and that authority can be delegated to a committee to use only by a vote of the house. it would be the same in the senate, the senate has the sole power to try impeachment. if there were no rules adopted by the senate, would you think the majority leader himself could simply decide that he would have a committee receive evidence, handle that, submit a recommendation to the senate and that is the way the trial would occur without a vote from the senate to give authority to that committee. i don't think so. it doesn't make sense. it's not the way the constitution assigns that authority and the same in the house. there was no vote to authorize a committee to exercise power of impeachment and this law has been boiled down by the circuit to explain it this way, to issue a valid subpoena which must conform strictly to the resolution establishing its investigatory powers. there must be a resolution voted on by the parent body to give the committee that power and there is no standing rule, standing authority, giving manager schiff's committee the authority to use the power of impeachment to issue compulsory process. rule 10 of the house discusses legislative authority, doesn't mention impeachment and that is why in every presidential impeachment in history the house had initiated the inquiry by voting to give a committee the authority to pursue that inquiry. contrary to what manager jeffries suggested, there has always been in every presidential impeachment inquiry a vote on the pool house to authorize the committee and that is the only way the inquiry begins. there were three different votes for the impeachment of andrew johnson, january of 1867, march of 1867 in february of 1868. for president nixon, chairman rodino of the house judiciary committee explained there was a move to have an issue subpoenas after the saturday night massacre and they determined they did not have that authority in the house judiciary committee without a vote in the house and he determined, he explained a resolution has always been passed, a necessary step if we are to meet our obligation. there has been reference to investigatory activity prior to the vote from the house but all the committee was doing was assembling publicly available information gathered by other committees. there was never an attempt to issue compulsory process until a vote by the house by the judiciary committee. similarly in the clinton impeachment there were two vote in the full house to give the judiciary committee authority to proceed. resolution 525, to allow the committee to examine the independent counsel report and make recommendations on how to proceed and a separate resolution, house resolution 581 that gave the house judiciary committee subpoena authority and at the time in a house report the house judiciary committee explained, i am quoting because the issue of impeachment is such overwhelming importance the committee decided it must receive authorization from the pool house before proceeding on another course of action because impeachment is delegated solely by the house of representatives by the constitution, the full house of representatives should be involved in cortical decision-making regarding various stages of impeachment. house democrats skipped over the step completely. and the press conference for nancy pelosi announcing she was directing committees to proceed with an impeachment inquiry against the president of the united states. nancy pelosi didn't have the authority to delegate the power of the house to those committees on her own. so why does it matter? it matters because the constitution places that authority in the house and assures there is a democratic check on the exercise of that authority. if there has to be a vote by the full house before their can be a proceeding to inquire into impeaching the president of united states. one of the things the framers were most concerned about in impeachment was the potential for a partisan impeachment. a partisan impeachment being pushed by merely a faction and a way to ensure a check on that is to require democratic accountability in the pool house to have a vote in the entire house before an inquiry can proceed. that didn't happen here. it was only after five weeks of hearings that the house decided to have a vote and what that meant at the outset was all the subpoenas issued under the supreme court cases i discussed, all those subpoenas were invalid and that is what the trump administration pointed out specifically to the house, that was the reason for not responding because under long federal precedent there had to be a vote from the house to give authority and the administration would not respond to subpoenas that were invalid. the next at i would like to touch on briefly has to do with due process because we heard from the house managers that they offered the president due process at the house judiciary committee and manager nadler described it as he sent the president a letter, the president's counsel a letter offering to allow the president to participate in the president's counsel just refused and that was the only exchange and it was a blanket refusal to participate. let me explain what actually happened. i should note before i get into those details there was a suggestion also that due process is not required in the house proceeding, it is simply a privilege. that was in the position that manager nadler has taken in the past. in 2016 he said, quote, the power of impeachment is a solemn responsibility assigned to the house by the constitution and to this committee by our peers. that responsibility demands a rigorous level of due process and in the clinton impeachment in 1998 he explained what does do process mean? it means among other things the right to confront the witnesses against you, to call your own witnesses and have the assistance of counsel. we all know all those rights were denied to the president in the first two rounds of hearings. the first round of secret hearings in the basement bunker where manager schiff had three committees and in and around public hearings to take the testimony screamed in the basement bunker and have it in a public televised setting which was totally unprecedented in any presidential impeachment inquiry in the clinton and nixon inquiries for any public hearing, the president was allowed to be present by counsel and cross-examine witnesses at the house managers say that is all right because when we got to the third round of hearings after people had testified twice then we were going to allow the president to have some due process. but the way that played out was this. first they scheduled a hearing for december 4th that was going to be solely from law professors and by the time they wanted the president to come is, whether he would participate, it was unclear, they couldn't specify how many law professors or who the law professors were going to be in the president's counsel wrote back they declined to participate and at the same time manager nadler asked what other rights under the house resolution 660, the rules governing the house inquiry, the president would like to exercise and the president's counsel wrote back asking specific questions in order to make an informed decision and asked whether you intend to allow fact witnesses to be called including witnesses who had been requested by ranking member nunez. with you intend to allow members of the judiciary committee and the president's counsel the right to cross-examine fact witnesses and whether republican colleagues on the judiciary committee will be allowed to call witnesses of their own choosing and manager nadler didn't respond to that letter. there wasn't information provided. we have discussions with staff on the judiciary committee to try to find out what were the plans, what were the hearings going to be like? the way the week played out on december 4th there was a hearing with the law professors, the first hearing before the judiciary committee and on december 5th, speaker pelosi asked about the judiciary committee process because she announced she was directing chairman nadler to draft articles of impeachment so the conclusion of the whole process was already set. then after the close of business on the fifth we learned from staff that the comedy had no plans other than a hearing on december 9th to hear from staffers who had prepared committee reports. they had no plans to have other hearings, no plans to hear from fact witnesses, to do any factual investigations so the president was given a choice of participating in a process that was going to already have the outcome determined, the speaker already set articles of impeachment are going to be drafted and there were no plans to hear from any fact witnesses. that is not due process. that is why the president declined to participate in that process. the judiciary committee had already decided to accept a record developed in manager schiff's process and there was no point in participating in that. the idea that there was do process offered to the president is simply not accurate. the entire proceedings in the house from the time of the september 4th press conference until the judiciary committee began marking up articles of impeachment on december 11th lasted 78 days, an investigatory process of presidential impeachment in history. 71 days of the process, to take those deposition and hearing testimony, the president was completely locked down, represented by counsel, cross-examine witnesses, couldn't present evidence, couldn't present witnesses for 71, 78 days. as a comes to the point mister cipollone raised earlier, why would you have a process like that, what does that tell you about the process. as we pointed out a couple times, cross-examination in our legal system is the greatest legal engine ever created for the discovery of truth. it is essential, for any determination that is important that requires determining facts, cross-examination has been one of the keys for due process. why did they design a mechanism here where the president was locked out and denied the ability to cross-examine witnesses? it was because they were not really interested in getting at the facts and the truth. they had a timetable to meet, they wanted to have impeachment done by christmas and that is what they were striving to do. now, as -- a slight shift in gears. i want to touch on one last point before i yield to one of my colleagues and that relates to the whistleblower. the whistleblower who we haven't heard that much about, who started all this. the whistleblower, we know from a letter the inspector general of the intelligence community sense, that he thought the whistleblower had political bias. we don't know what the political bias was because the inspector general testified in the house committees, in executive session and that transcript is still secret. it wasn't transmitted to the house judiciary committee. we haven't seen it, we don't know what is in it. we don't know what he was asked or what he revealed about the whistleblower. you would think that before going forward with an impeachment proceeding against the president of the united states that you would want to find out something about the complainant that started all this because motivation, bias, reasons for wanting to bring this complaint could be relevant. but there wasn't any inquiry into that. recent reports, public reports, suggest that potentially the whistleblower was in -- and intelligence committee staff are who works with then vice president biden on ukraine matters, which is true would suggest an even greater reason for wanting to know about potential bias or motive for the whistleblower. and at first when things started, it seemed like everyone agreed we should hear from the whistleblower including manager schiff and we have where he said it. >> we would love to talk directly to the whistleblower. >> get the unfiltered testimony of the whistleblower. we don't need the whistleblower. >> what changed? at first, manager schiff agreed we should hear the unfiltered testimony from the whistleblower. but then he changed his mind. and he suggested it was because now we had the transcript. but the second clip was from september 20 ninth which was four days after the transcript had been released. but there was something else that came into play and that was something manager schiff had said earlier when he was asked whether he had spoken to the whistleblower. >> we have not spoken directly to the whistleblower. we would like to. >> it turned out that statement was not truthful. around october 2nd or third, it was exposed that manager schiff's staff had spoken with the was a blower before the whistleblower filed a complaint and potentially had given some guidance of some sort to the whistleblower and after that point, it became critical to shutdown any inquiry into the whistleblower. and during the house hearings manager schiff was in charge, he was chairing the hearing and that creates a real problem from a due process perspective, a search for truth perspective. because he was an interested fact witness at that point. he had a reason, something that wasn't truthful about that context. he had a reason to not want that inquiry. he ensured there wasn't any inquiry into that. now, this is relevant here, i think because if you heard from my colleagues, a lot of what we heard over the past 24 hours or the past three days has been from chairman schiff and he has been telling you things like what is in president trump's head for president zelinsky's head? this is a predation of the fact that evidence. there is another statement chairman schiff made on video. >> all you have right now is a circumstantial case. >> actually, now. i can tell you the case is more an that. i can't go into the particulars but there is more than circumstantial evidence now. >> do you have direct evidence of collusion? >> i don't want to go into specifics but there is evidence that is not circumstantial and it is worthy of investigation. >> that was in march of 2017 when chairman schiff as ranking member, was telling the american public that he had more than circumstantial evidence through his position that donald trump's campaign colluded with russia. of course the mueller report as mister sekulow pointed out, $32 million and over 500 search warrants, determined there was no collusion, that that wasn't true. we wanted to point these things out because for this reason. chairman schiff has made so much of the house's case about the credibility of interpretations that the house managers want to place on not hard evidence but inferences, to tell you what donald trump thought, don't believe what zelinsky said, we can tell you what he thought, don't believe what the ukrainians that about not being pressured, we can tell you what they actually thought. it is very relevant to know whether the assessment of evidence he presented in the past are accurate. we submit they have not been and it is relevant for your consideration. i yield to my colleague, mister cipollone. >> mister chief justice, members of the senate, i have good news. just a few more minutes from us today. i want to point out a couple points. number one, just to follow up on what mister philbin just told you. do you know who else didn't show up in the judiciary committee to answer questions about his report, the way kenneth starr did in the clinton impeachment? kenneth starr was subjected across examination by the president's council. do you know who didn't show up in the judiciary committee? chairman schiff. he did not show up. he did not give chairman nadler the respect of appearing before his committee and answering questions. he did send his staff. but why didn't he show up? another good question you should think about. they have come here today and they basically said let's cancel an election over a meeting with ukraine. as my colleagues have shown, they fail to give you key facts about the meeting and lots of other evidence that they produced themselves but let's talk about the meeting. it is all about an invitation to a meeting. if you look at the first transcript, at the first transcript, the president said to president zelinsky, when you are settled in and ready, i would like to invite you to the white house. we have a lot of things to talk about. but we are with you all the way. and president zelinsky said, thank you for the invitation. we accept the invitation and look forward to the visit. thank you again. then president zelinsky got a letter on may 20 ninth inviting him again to come to the white house and going back to the transcript of the july 20 fifth call, part of the call they didn't talk to you about, donald trump said whenever you would like to come to the white house feel free to call, give us a date and we will work that out. i look forward to seeing you. president zelenskyy replied thank you very much. i would be happy to come and happy to meet with you personally and get to know you better. i'm looking forward to our meeting and i would like to visit ukraine and come to the city of kyiv which is a beautiful city. we have a beautiful country which would welcome you. then he said, on the other hand, i believe on september 1st we will be in poland and we can meet in poland hopefully. they didn't review that part of the transcript and didn't tell you what happened. a meeting in poland was scheduled. president trump was scheduled to go to poland. he was scheduled to meet with president zelenskyy. what happened? president trump couldn't go to poland. why? because there was a hurricane in the united states and he thought it would be better to stay here to help deal with the hurricane. so the vice president went. why didn't they tell you that? why didn't they tell you that president zelenskyy suggested how about we meet in poland? why didn't you tell them that meeting was scheduled and had to be canceled for a hurricane? why? so that was our first question we asked you. you heard a lot of facts they didn't tell you. facts that are critical. facts that they now completely collapse their case on the facts. you heard a lot from them. they will not talk to you about the facts. that is all we have done today. and ask your self, ask your self, given the fact you heard today that they didn't tell you, who doesn't want to talk about the fact? who doesn't want to talk about the facts? the american people paid a lot of money for those facts. they paid a lot of money for this investigation. .. it means something so think about that. impeachment shouldn't be a shell game. they should give you the facts. that's all we have for today. we ask you out of respect to think about, think about whether what you've heard would really suggest anything other that would be completely irresponsible, abuse of power to do what they are asking you to do. to stop an election, interfere in an election and remove the president of the united states from a ballot, let the people decide for themselves. that's what the founders wanted, that's what we should all want. with that, i thank you for your attention and i look forward to seeing you on monday. >> the majority leader is recognized. >> i ask unanimous consent, the trial adjourned until monday, that constitute the adjournment of the senate. >> president trump's attorneys will begin opening arguments. they will have a chance when the trial resumes monday. >> they are asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country on your own initiative. take that decision away from the american people. i don't think they spent one minute of their 24 hours talking to you about the consulates -- consequences of that. >> here the arguments from the presidents impeachment team when the impeachment trial continues in the senate. , on-demand onn2 c-span.org, and listen on the free c-span radio app. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. created in 1979 and brought to you today your television provider. session,the two hour lawmakers spoke with reporters about the presentation by the presidents legal team. first, we hear from senate judiciary committee chair lindsey graham. graham. >> i think john has made a comment but please step up. my impressions after the house gets their case on the first day that i thought they did a good job waving a tapestry that was compelling.

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