Treason, rivalry or other high crimes and misdemeanors. It is basically where the president commits, orus any officer commits a serious crime, that would be and Impeachable Offense. A serious abuse of his discretion could also constitute and Impeachable Offense, even if it is not a crime. What do we call the process going on right now in the house . Is this an impeachment . Impeachment inquiry . This is called an impeachment inquiry. This is where the house has decided that there is enough evidence out there, potential evidence out there that may warrant articles of impeachment. This is the point at which they are investigating. Sort of like a grand jury. Deciding whether or not to indict, or, in this case, impeach the president. If they draw articles of impeachment, then it still goes in the full house to decide whether or not to adopt one or more of the articles of impeachment. After that, if they are adopted by the house, then it goes to the senate for a trial. We have heard a lot of conversations over the week of comparing this impeachment inquiry to a criminal or civil trial. The president s lawyers are not available. Can you compare and contrast for us the differences between the impeachment inquiry andnd what most people know as a criminal or civil trial. Are they the same thing, or are are there differences . They are very different, although they have a lot of similarities. At the end of the whole process, even if the official is impeached and then removed by the senate, there is no punishment. It is an impeachment method. A way of removing from office andm individual who should no longer be in office because they have committed high crimes or misdemeanors. It is similar to a trial in that they have initially an impeachment or indictment and then later move to a jury for a trial. Case, the jury is the senators. At the end of it, there is no punishment. Simply removing the person from office. Ar its similar in some respects. The most important part about impeachment is the president in this case or some other official alleged to have committed ttserious abuses of the office. Serious abuses of his discretion. Again, it does not have to be a crime. T it is so serious that the house the indictment or impeachment and then the trial. At the trial you need two thirds to convict. It is different from a criminal process. Does the president have all of the same privileges and rights as a criminal defendant would in a federal court . Do you have the same rights to question witnesses . Do you have the same right staff lawyers present the whole time or is it completely different because its being held in congress . It is similar, but different. Grand jury. Grand jury, the alleged defendant, would be defended is not represented. He is not even there. Or he might not either. In the grand jury impeachment, there are not that many rights for the defendant. Once itth gets to the senate foa trial, if it goes that far, then the rights are somewhat analogous to a trial in the federal court. The constitution does not define what high crimes and misdemeanors actually are. Can you tell us exactly what that means . It does say treason, bribery dash. [inaudible] what those are, the person has so seriously abused his e office that he has put the country in jeopardy. By listing those two specific crimes, the constitution gives the sense that you only get impeached for something that is a serious threat to the country. A serious abuse of the office. How Speaker Nancy Pelosi said earlier when she reacted to the first public hearing. Thi want you to react to it. Heres what Speaker Pelosi has to say. On the investigation front, i thought it was a successful day for truth. People he appointed. A person he appointed mosttl recently to the state department again, none of us have come to congress to impeach a president. We come here to do the work of the american people. The most bipartisan way possible find our Common Ground where we can. Stand our ground, where we cannot. You heard the appointment of the president. Speaking very unambiguous concerns. A courageous public servant. The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered. Violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid. In exchange for an investigation into his political rivals. A clear attempt to get the advantage in the 2020 election. Doing so, as ive said to to the president , jeopardized our national security, undermine our national security, jeopardize our system. Violate euros of office. I want you to react to the speaker there. She seems to be making a face of bribery against the president. Using the idea of bribery to illustrate what the charges against trump are. That is that he used his office for personal gain. In this case, the personal personal gain was to help him with his reelection. He was withholding money that hengress had allocated. For the aid of ukraine and ukraine really needs the money. He wasit doing it not because he thought it was in the best interest of the United States, but because he thought it was the best interest of his own reelection. That is akin to extortion or bribery where you are using the threat of money or withholding money to gain personal advantage republican leader, House Republican leader, Kevin Mccarthy, brought up a separate issue. I want you to hear what he says. The question i want to ask you is, the Impeachable Offense be a constitutional offense. Heres what Kevin Mccarthy had to say about that. We are talking about removing aid duly elected president. You take that so rightly. We haveve the transcript. Alexander hamilton warned us that this day may come. That a person may have the majority within side congress to use impeachment for their own political personal gain. We watch how many times they have tried this and failed. Now we watch adam schiff one more time leading the charge. Is it appropriate to you . Are we having a hearing or an impeachment inquiry . It goes to the core of the fabric of democracy. You have the u. S. Congress vote about an impeachment inquiry and then change the rules of the house where you dont have due process reared you move it out of the Judiciary Committee and ommake an impeachment committee. You have secret meetings inside the basement of the capital. You have not released all of the transcripts. You audition who you want to bring forward we just watched the two witnesses that they wanted to pick, you deny the minority to bring witnesses forward. You deny the president who you are tryingex to impeach to bring an attorney into the room. Yes. The question is nothing there is impeachable and we should not be putting our country through this with less than a year away from elections. In Impeachable Offense and a constitutional offense. There is no such term as constitutional offense. So, i think we just have to use say what is in Impeachable Offense. As i said, that is a serious abuse of office for personal gain. Treason and bribery, give those as illustrations of what it vewould be. The allegation that is being made about trump that he withheld aid from ukraine, aid that that congress had appropriated, and he was withholding it not because he thought it was in the best interest of the United States, but because he thought it was in the best interest of his reelection. And that, most people think it is a serious offense. The one thing that Kevin Mccarthy said when he was talking about this somewhat in secret, the analogy is with the grand jury. What the house is doing is deciding whether or not there is an Impeachable Offense, much like a grand jury deciding whether orr not there is an indictable offense. This particular hearing is more public than any grand jury hearing whatever be. He also brought up several complaints about the process going on in the house. President trump has talked about this as well. Here is President Trump from yesterday talking about the impeachment inquiry process. I want to talk to you about that as well. I want freedom of speech. That is a political process. The republicans have been treated very badly. I watched a little bit of it today. I was not able to yesterday. I watched some of it this morning. I thought it was a disgrace. Great republican representatives. People elected by the people. They are not allowed to make a statement. We are not allowed to have witnesses. We are not allowed to have white house counsel. It is a disgrace, and it is in an harassment to our nation. Who is setting the rules that the houses operating the impeachment inquiry under . The house sets its own rules. There is a history. We did not make it up yesterday. 200 years of impeachment inquiries. Not necessarily with the president. Fortunately, we have had very few of those. Weve had to impeach or convict a federal judge and their own officials. Theres a long history of procedures and rules. Modify them slightly to meet whatever the current needs are. Basically, same rules that have existed for years. These rules under majority vote . Only the ruling party in the house said and the other party has to just go along with it . Or how does that process work . The rules are adopted i the majorityve. They do have more control. It iss not on a blank slate. They are rules that have existed. The idea of President Trump, suggesting that the republicans cannot get witnesses, that is is not true. They can. They suggest them and the majority decide whether or not seto bring those witnesses in tiered clearly, the republicans can ask questions. The time allotment is the same. The way the committee is creating is proportional to the station in the house. T it is true that the democrats have more members on the committee than the republicans. Both republicans and democrats had their own lawyer there yesterday to ask specific questions. They did decide that it would be good to have the lawyer do some of the questioning rather than just the members of the house. Both republicans and democrats each have their own lawyer asking questions. Is it unusual that the Intelligence Committee is taking the lead here . I believe this is where its been in the past. Typically it has been in the Judiciary Committee. I think, in part, because this matter involves foreign intelligence with ukraine and i think also in part because some of the inquiries or some of the Committee Hearings that were ran by the Judiciary Committee earlier, particularly corey lewandowski, sort of a food fight. I think nancy pelosi thought thatin adam schiff could do a gd job on this. Lets remind our viewers that you can call and if you have questions about the inquiries process going on in congress right now. Twenty 2748000. Republicans 48,000. Republicans 2,027,488,001. 202 7488002 for independence. You can always text those questions. Keep in mind, we are always reading social media. Explain to us what exactly are articles of impeachment. Who drafts those . Where will they come from . Articles of impeachment are an indictment. They are statements of alleged wrongdoing by whoever is being impeached. In this case, it would be statements of alleged wrongdoing by the president of the United States. Drafted by the committee after they had heard all of the testimony. They can drop one article impeachment, two, three. Usually it is on the order of two, maybe four or so. Those are drafted and they each say, in this case, what the the president alleged to have done. And then it goes to the full committee. If they get voted out there. Then it goes to the full house. The full house votes and the majority, any article that gets majority of the vote, becomes an article of impeachment. Does that mean the Intelligence Committee would be drafting the articles of impeachment to be voted on . Do we know which way that will go . We do. If there are articles of impeachment, it will be written up by the Judiciary Committee. Why the Judiciary Committee since the hearing seems to be going on in the Intelligence Committee . The use of expertise of a different committee. The alleged wrongdoing in foreign affairs. It makes sense that the Intelligence Committee would do the investigating. The Judiciary Committee is good at judicial things and articles of impeachment would be an indictment from a grand jury. It makes sense to let the lawyers do it. Let our viewers join this conversation. S wi lets start with john who is calling from Silver Springs maryland on the democratic line. John, good morning. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Professor, if you send someone a subpoena and those are the people that commit the crime and they dont want to show up, will that also be a part of this case that make sense that the president holding those people that commit the crime not to show up in front of congress . My next question is, and i very worried about the witness yesterday in the capital testifying. If ie am in a court and i am complaining of someone who is harassing me and did a lot of things against me and the person sends me a text message saying that you are no good, you are worthless, isnt that a part of the impeachment when the president is sending tweets harassing this woman once she has testified . Isnt that witness intimidation according to the law . Thank you. T great questions. I think your first question is what happens if there is ahe subpoena and the person does not show up. Normally, you better go or you go to court and argue why the subpoena is somehow invalid. In an impeachment inquiry, it is somewhat similar. The house can issue subpoenas and as a potential witness who gets subpoenaed, you really ought to go. If you dont, you can be found in contempt of congress. Some of the witnesses that have been subpoenaed that are not coming, do run the risk of being found in contempt of congress. The problem is, the house does not want this to drag on for too long. They are aware of the fact that there is an election next year and they are not sure they want to go to court to enforce these subpoenas. Even though witnesses fought to appear and are facing jeopardy if they dont, we may find thatc the house just does not bother to enforce the them subpoena. The president tweeted while the ambassador was talking about being fearful. Many people have said that that was a very similar thing to intimidating a witness. Some people were upset by it. I dontt think anything will happen. The president might find himself having generated another article of impeachment for instructing this inquiry. Lets go to robert who was calling from michigan on the republican line did how do you pronounce your town there . Robert, can you you hear me . A bully, michigan. What is your question . She is b supposed to be a constitutional scholar. I want to ask a simple question. Supreme court justices. Fivefour, sixfive. They are supposed to know the constitution real good. I am a contractor. If you give a bold print to a house, that house will be the same build. Everything. Why doesnt the Supreme Court, when they read the constitution, why is in it ninenine or whatever. Half of them are wrong, half of them are right. An they dont understand what they are reading. What our forefathers met for constitution. That is really puzzling to me. Bey will be built the same if you give them the nine contractors. All you have to do is followed the blueprints. Dont they understand the constitution the way it was written . I dont believe any of them know the constitution. Go ahead andd respond. Wow. What a question. A couple of points. You are right. There are certainly five more decisions. It is interesting, though. Eighty90 cases a year. And they are unanimous in a substantial majority of those cases. Of course, those are not the ones that make the front pages. Those are the ones that we read about. Those are not the controversial ones. The one that we find controversial are the fivefour and 63. , the constitution is not like it is an outline of the e structure of government and te general principle. It was written 200 years ago and they could not have anticipated every single question. What the court is doing is interpreting the general outline and applying it to the individual question before. Sometimes there are differences as to how to interpret the constitution. Again, more than half of the decisions are ninezero. This process is not the first time a president has had to go to an impeachment inquiry. The house approved three articles of impeachment against president nixon and 74. We will show those. And then, the house approved twc articles of impeachment against president clinton in 1998. We have gone through the house process before. Leading to a question from one of our social media followers. They want to know, is this more eablic than previous impeachments have been . Well, a couple couple of things. With nixon, theyd drafted the articles of impeachment. And never went to the full house for a vote because nixon resigned before that could happen. The writing was on the wall. He knew that they would be adopted i the house. Today, everything is a little more public because of television. Because of social media. I think that we are focused on it more. The process is not that different from what it was in the clinton and nixon impeachment. Let me read some of the articles of impeachment against president nixon as they were approved by the house Judiciary Committee. President nixon was accused of instructor will justice for impeding an investigation into breaking into the dmc headquarters in the watergate building in washington, d. C. Abuse of power for trying to use cia and fbi and other agencies to try to cover up the watergate conspiracy. And accused of contempt of congress for refusing to turn over material in response to congressional subpoenas. The articles of impeachment against president clinton, the house approved these two. Lie under oath to a grand jury about his relationship with monica lewinsky. He was accused of obstruction of justice for encouraging false statements. Concealing gifts he had given her. Now, what type of language does it seem that the house is moving towards if they plan to pass articles of impeachment. We saw nancy pelosi bring up rivalry. A lot of talk about quick pro quote. What type of language is this saying the houses are considering moving forward in their impeachment inquiry. I think that as we have just heard, nancy pelosi is moving towards the idea of bribery as an illustration of what is wrong with what trump has alleged to have done. I do not think they will accuse him of bribery because i do not think that technically fits. Abuse in his office for personal gain. Again, personal gain was to get help from ukraine to help him in his reelection. To hurt what biden, like the front runner. I think it will be an abuse of his office. And obstruct justice by his tweet yesterday, perhaps. By telling people people not to cooperate with the house. I think that there will at least be those two articles. Lets get back to our phone lines. Mill bridge, maine maine on the independent line. Hood morning. Yes. Hi. Go ahead. You know, knowingde how how young our democracy is and how fragile it has been throughout history, our adversaries are constantly trying to find cracks and weaknesses to attack our democracy. We can it till they can further their dictatorships around the world. My question is, what are the republicans so afraid of to not act in a more bipartisan way to resolve the oversight going on in washington today russia mark the rules that have been set y have been set by republicans during the benghazi hearings. Why are they afraid of their own rules . Schiff has just been following everything that is been set forth i the republicans. Hard on crime. National security. Fighting against what we are fighting for. Speaking to what is in jeopardy seif we do not become more bipartisan in the senate. Go ahead and respond. I agree with much of what you said. Democracy is incredibly fragile. I think it is incredibly frightening to realize how fragile it is. I do think that more bipartisanship would be a good thing. I do think that the house is following the rules that have been established over the years. I guess i cannot answer why republicans are upset with these rules. Mey have been h the same rules over, not many impeachments, we, we have not had that many, but they are basically the same rules. Im not sure what the reason for this criticism is. Democratic line. Crystal. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning cspan and good morning professor weird i want to thank you for explaining the process to me. I do appreciate it. I wanted to make a statement about the ambassador yesterday. Everyone was calling and saying why was she there. What was her purpose. The way i understand it is she was creating or the democrats were creating a timeline from when this all started. They had to get the ambassador out of the way to do the criminal acts that trump and his cronies were doing. I do understand why she had to testify and i do appreciate her very much for her service. I also appreciate the other guys that testified the other day. They reminded me of professionalism again. People that were professionals. Trump and his cronies sort of reminded me of a dollar store group of people that just hedecided to do it their own wa. I just wanted to get your take on how you felt about her testimony yesterday. Thank you and have a good day. Thank you. Hope you have a good day, too. I agree with you that the state Department People including the sbassador yesterday were very impressive. That is what great ambassadors in the Department Officials should be doing and how much they care about the country and how much they are willing to risk their own lives for us. I think the state department got an a yesterday or this last week or so. I do not know, i had a comment on the dollar store, now i think i will let that one go. I think so far, the state department looks like it is a really admirable institution and one we should be very proud of. During the hearings this week, we got to see not only the lawmakers on the Intelligence Committee, but we got to seed the Intelligence Committee lawyers on thehe democratic side there was daniel. Republican side what is the role that the Intelligence Committee lawyers on both sides play . Is it unusual to have them doing questioning rather the lawmakers . I think the fact that television is here has had a ayhuge impact in several ways. Initially i think what happens with the introduction of television is that a lot of the members of the house use the opportunities when they get there five or 10 minutes too, somewhat say grand stand. What schiff has decided to do is let both sides have a lawyer. They are trained to try to get fathe facts out. They are not interested in making statements. They are not interested in getting reelected. Both sides using lawyers to just try and ask the witness direct questions so that we get a timeline, we get an understanding of what is happening. The individual members of the house can ask their own questions. We at least have had, as the the caller said, had someone give us a timeline. Ol speaking of lawyers, at what point will the white houses lawyers, i what point will the president s lawyers get involved in this process. Will we see any representation from the white house during the impeachment inquiry going on in the house . So far i do not think that we will. The white houses lawyers is a ghost of the senate for the trial. Then the white house has its own representation and they act like lawyers. In the house impeachment process, the white house lawyers are behindthescenes. We wont see them on television. Lets go back to our phone lines. Lets talk to josh. Calling from north connecticut on the republican line. Josh,w good morning. Good morning. How is it going . Fine. No ahead with your question. Does a grand jury allow hearsay evidence is my first question. Secondly, i would say the republicans calling their witnesses. The democrats can just say no to any of the witnesses that they want. My favorite question from yesterday was when the democrat lawyer asked what she thought zelinski thought trump was thinking when he asked a certain question. I will justn ce leave you with. Thank you. Okay. I forgot the first question. Grand jury. The question about whether, this is compared with grand jury. Does hearsay allow grand jury testimony. I believe that hearsay is allowed a grand jury testimony. To bee honest, i am am not a criminal lawyer and i have never done ai grand jury. I do not know. Hearsay is not necessarily unreliable, it depends on who is saying it and how it is used. That is a question i do not know the answer to. The question about republicans calling their witnesses, you are right, the majority of the democrats could turn it down. I dont know how many times that has happened. The republicans can ask for witnesses and i believe they ari planning to do that. Okay. Lets go to jim who was calling from bakersfield california. Jimbo, good morning. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions that are kind of disjointed, but i wanted to ask them. If i get fired because i do not want to participate in a crime, or cover up a crime, is that a just reason for firing me, that is my first question. My second is a subpoena. Not respect inc. Subpoenas. In other words, why would i ever respect a subpoena again for the rest of my life. The president does not respect subpoenas. His staff doesnt. Why should regular people. Those are my two questions. Just so grateful for cspan. I want to wish you a very good morning. Thank you. If you get fired for not covering up, is that just cause . Again, i think that it would be there you have to ask my husband i am not totally sure. It sounds like a justifiable reason to me. The second question is, why would anybody respect they said tina if we see these people defying subpoenas. Again, that is is a great question, and a serious question that we should worry about. One that we should not ignore a subpoena. There are methods. Appropriate methods on how to challenge the subpoena. We can do it in court. The problem we are having right now is when someone defies a subpoena, the house could go to court and try to enforce a subpoena. Probably would win, but it takes a long time. The house is aware of the fact that we are approaching an election year. Does not want to run into the election for next november. It looks like what the houses deciding to do is not enforce the subpoenas and just proceed without them. Several of our online viewers are asking about precedents being set during this impeachment inquiry. For example, the house subpoenaed. What lessons are we learning about how Government Works . Now during this impeachment inquiry. You said the house subpoenas. The white house is ignoring them future president s will also be able to ignore congressional subpoenas . It is a serious problem. No one should ignore a subpoena. If one does ignore a subpoena, one should be fearful of having a court find them in contempt of the house or the congress or contempt of court. All of which are criminal e offenses and are to be avoide. It is unfortunate that those precedents are being bet now. It is because the house fears that if it goes to court to enforce these, it will just take too long. We may see the house yet go to the courts. Pt, time is a problem. Lets go back to our phone lines. Calling from Cleveland Ohio on the democratic line. Good morning. Good morning. My question is can you speak up a little bit . We are having a hhard time hearing you. I am sorry. Can you hear me now . That is better. My question is, the president on national tv. Admitted to a crime. The impeachment inquiry today. What more does the house have to do to prove these crimes so that he can answer to these crimes that have been submitted . Thank you. I believe her question was, what does the house need to seen to agree to articles of impeachment given everything that has been talked about info the media and the transcripts in the witnesses that have come forward. Well, we have not heard everything. We know that yesterday is a conversation that was overheard between the ambassador to the eu, a conversation between the president and sunland. We are hearing ahead of time what people might testify to. We have not heard all of the testimony yet. I suspect that the house inquiry will go on for another, i would say say two weeks or so and then articles of impeachment will be drafted by the house Judiciary Committee. Those have to get voted by the house Judiciary Committee. Then it goesmm to the full hous. I would say we are still talking at least another month or two. Do you see the impeachment inquiry running all the way into 2020 or do you think they will wrap it up before the end of this calendar year . The inquiry might be done before the end of the year and the articles of impeachment might be drafted and voted on before the end of the year. Certainly, the trial will not happen in 2019. If there is a trial in the senate, it will be in 2020. We will getet into what will happen in the senate possibly in a few minutes. Amy calling from shelbyville indianare on the republican lin. Amy. Good morning. Hello. Excuse me. Hello. I love cspan soe much. My name is amy from shelbyville indiana. We are part of the fifth congressional district. Very proudly served. The brother of former congressman and Vice President of the united state mike pence. I watched the hearings yesterday and the observation about the witness, the ambassador. She was easily intimidated. Easily made fearful. She testified about how she got upset easily about things. I can see why she would be removed as ambassador because she did not really have the gumption or the willpower or character to put up a good fight against corruption in the ukraine which everyone has agreed he would have a lot of corruption in it. May be very good teaching a class at George Washington university or wherever she is now, thats fine fine. I am sure she is a very nicero person. You have to be very strong. I have a question of your guest. Professor, where you a supporter of Hillary Clinton in 2016 . I guess i do not see the relevance of the question. As far as the ambassador was concerned, i think she was in the state department for 33 years. She had a lot of different posts. I am not sure everyone saw her as the way you did as being fearful. She was careful. She had a good reputation. The main point is, the president can remove her. That part is not contested. It is his prerogative to remove her. The problem is, it was sort of the way he removed her and the undermining that he did that has upset some people. Senate, does the houseo vote on articles of impeachment . Or does this stop process require a vote on articles of impeachment at this point . Guest no, this is just the inquiry. This is sort of like grand jury, this is like the grand jury they are gathering evidence and at the end of the evidence they will decide whether or not whether or not there is an Impeachable Offense there. The house Judiciary Committee might well conclude that there are no articles of impeachment to write and if they decide that, that is the end. If however, they decide there are articles of impeachment that should be proposed they will go to the full house but then the full house does have to vote up or down but at this time it is just an inquiry. Assuming the house votes on an approved articles of impeachment what is the process in the senate . Who is in charge . What are the rules they are . When he goes to the senate theres a full trial. If it is the president of the United States being impeached then theres a special provision that says the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States come down from the Supreme Court and sits in the sisenate and presides. Hes the presiding judge. The reason the constitution has the chief justice presiding is because otherwise it would be the Vice President siding and that would be a conflict becaus because the Vice President is dependent president of the senate. Exactly. If the Vice President were presiding over the impeachment trial of the president that would be a conflict because if the president does get impeached and removed the Vice President becomes president. You dont want that Vice President presiding. So we have the chief justice. When clinton was tried in the chief justice was chief Justice Rehnquist when he came down to preside he had his judicial robe added a ban of gold because it was such a unusual opportunity to have an impeached and tried many president s. Now, does that mean the chief justice which would be john roberts if this gets to the senate, does the chief justice in charge of whats going on in the senate or is his role just a ceremonial role . It is more than ceremonial. He will rule on matters of evidence and run the trial. He doesnt vote and he doesnt have a large role there but he keeps order and make sure the process works as it should. Will he have the final word on anything . Or can the senators overrule him on things they dont agree with him on . He doesnt vote on the impeachment in that conviction. The senate does control the roles of the trial so if he makes a ruling in theory they could disagree with him but i dont think they are likely to but his role is largely ceremonial. I want to get a couple more calls but i have one more question but we had a caller earlier president and ceo here. Both of you are attending this very event for the second time and many apologies. It was not, as you may have assumed, our speakers agenda the call that cancellation but an exploding manhole but we started paying our bills here at the center again and we are back in business and please to be welcoming doctor chris fort back to the stage. For those of you in the no, chris is the secretary of state for internationa s