Washington post on this sunday, a picture of Alexander Hamilton and the piece says Alexander Hamilton is who trump had in mind when he pushed for impeachment powers for congress. Guest i think that is a fair statement. Host why . Guest the most important is aion for impeachment check by legislature against aecutive overreach and concern by the framers that we would have a president who would authority andhis be so essentially inappropriate at the job that even the remedy of election would not be sufficient. We need to remove him sometime between the four years between elections. Host the debate in the 1860s with Andrew Johnson and 1974 with Richard Nixon and in the 1990s with bill clinton kids to conviction of treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors. It is still vague today, isnt it . Guest i wouldnt call it vague. Treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. Only crimethe defined in the constitution, essentially defined as giving aid and comfort to an enemy in the time of war. That is not what we are talking about. Is easily defined. It was well known then and now. The phrase you are most concerned about is high crimes and misdemeanors but that was a phrase taken from 400 years of practice in the english parliament. When it was adopted by the framers they understood it as a term of art and how the british used it for the previous 400 years. We can get a pretty good idea, at least of what the framers were thinking about, or they adopted the phrase. Iredell was one of the founders. Host i mentioned that because you say in the book that he and hamilton were careful about the definitions. They were aligning themselves with george mason and sing the focus of the impeachment mechanism for president s is on offenses against the community or policies of the society that violate public trust, those reach beyond near violations of the criminal code to a dangerous assault on political order. Guest one of the things people often think of when they hear the phrase high crimes and misdemeanors, it sounds like it is referring to crimes in the ordinary sense. Because of that, it tends to confuse people. It tends to mislead us and draw us into discussions about whether a president s behavior falls into the narrow parameters of some particular statutory crime during the time we are having an impeachment controversy. That is not what it is about. Casesfundamentally about for the executive represents a danger to the Constitutional Republic has held onto for many years. That that kind of thing the framers were most concerned about. Host at cnn. Com, you wrote if the president s ukraine call is not impeachable, nothing is. Define your argument. Going one of the things, back to the time the british invented it peach going back to the time they invented it, through the founders, one of the things that ive always been impeachable, is the abuse of power, when we talk about it, what we are necessarily referring to is the use of authority that he has been given, under the constitution or by statute, in the particular case in ukraine what we have is a president who is employing his commander and chief power, his power over the military, on and assets, and his power given to him by the constitution and the state diplomat, of the United States and in the case of ukraine on you play both of those powers and saying to the president of the country who is not by any means of an equal in power or statute but a country on is on, currently at risk of losing both the territorial integrity and its independence to russia because russia has taken the territory his supporting an ongoing war, against the ukrainian state he key in the eastern part of the country. Ukraines independence depends on support from the west, broadly speaking, and particularly from the United States. What we see in the call that we have a rough transcript of, supported by circumstantial evidence about other things the administration was doing, what we have is a president saying to a vulnerable country we do a lot of things for you, meaning we give you military support, economic support, a big package of military aid pending. But, says the president in that call, it is not reciprocal, meaning, we need Something Back i need something in return before this continued aid will be provided to you. Very shortly later, he provides what that reciprocity is supposed to be. The president is saying what he was trying to do was root out corruption, specifically with the former Vice President and his son. Is that not legitimate . No. The idea mr. Trump was probably concerned about corruption in ukraine was not really a sustainable notion. What we see with respect to mr. Trump and the actions of his subordinates is the only kind of corruption he seems to be conveniently interested in are unsupported allegations about a fellow who might be his principal appointed in an upcoming election. The noticed this is a broadbased interest in corruption is ludicrous, actually. Frank bowman is a graduate of harvard and teaches at Georgetown University here in washington, d. C. He has a book on impeachment. You can send us a text message to 202 7488003. We want to share with you what congressman Steve Scalise said on the house floor in regard to impeachment of the president. There are hearings going on behind closed doors, many of my colleagues try to attend some of those hearings and have been turned away if they are not on the committees of jurisdiction. Colleagues that have tried to read things like testimony and have been turned away, denied the ability to do that. There is a real concern that there is an attempt to impeach a president of United States, remove a president that was duly elected, using a process of secrecy behind closed doors, where one person is setting the rules, breaking the tradition we have always had with the only three other times in our countrys history where an impeachment inquiry began in the house. In all of those cases, they laid out rules of fairness, where people were able to ask questions on both sides. People were able to call witnesses on both sides. Even the president would be able to have an opportunity to have someone there to also question people. That is always been the case. It is not the case here. That from congressman Steve Scalise, republican from louisiana. Talking about the process being placed by house democrats. As a friend of mine at georgetown said the other day, many when youre talking about process you are probably losing. What you see from the president s defenders is consistently discussions about process. Lets talk about the process. The idea that the house procedure that is being under gone now is in any way in violation of due process, which is a phrase thrown around, or remarkably different from what has gone on in the past, is not supportable. For example, he said in three impeachment there has been complex long processes with witnesses being called and so forth. Lets start with Andrew Johnson. Congress tried to impeach Andrew Johnson several times, but the second time, the time that produced his impeachment went Something Like this, the principal ground was a violation. He fired his secretary. He was one of the people covered by the tenure of office act, which says a president cant fire certain people without the permission of congress. Johnson fired him on february 21 of 1868. The house of representatives came back with a decision to impeach president johnson on february 24, three days later. They came back with a resolution to impeach him not even having, in fact, produced articles of impeachment, something good did not do for another two weeks. That was an election year. The notion that there is a tradition of long processes is of course not true. There was not a long process and the house of representatives involving mr. When the republicans had control. Ken starrs people drive up printed reports, he produced 400 pages of mr. Clintons misdeeds, essentially dumped this van load of reports on the house of representatives. That was essentially the basis on which mr. Clinton was impeached. It was not based on any protected period of hearings. The only thing that has to be said here is mr. Trump is probably looking at he has misrepresented, that people who support him have no opportunity to participate. That is not true. First of all, in all impeachment proceedings, the recent ones, public hearings, when they have occurred, have been preceded by private witness interviews, which is entirely appropriate. Essentially what is going on in the house right now, we have private interviews of witnesses before some later public proceeding. That is not only lots of precedent for, but it is incredibly important. If your viewers think back to some of the hearings that have occurred under both republican and democrat control of the house, where the proceedings devolved into circuses of congressman grandstanding rather than questioning the witnesses, you can see why it is important that the fact gathering portion of this process occurs without tv cameras. Moreover, in those hearings, it is not true mr. Trump is not represented. The republican members of the committee can and are questioning witnesses. Republican members of the staffs of these committees can and are questioning these witnesses. There is a process going on that is not dissimilar to many things that have been done in our history that are providing mr. Trump due process. The book is called high crimes and misdemeanors a history of impeachment for the age of trump, our guest is frank bowman. In addition to his work at Georgetown University, he is a professor of law at the university of Missouri School of law. Lets get your phone calls. Texas, republican line, thank you for waiting. Good morning. I am calling because i dont think the democrats are being fair to the president of the United States. Why so . They are thinking about impeachment and everything. Why dont they impeach the congress . They have done more bad things. The democrats trying to overthrow our government. The president tweeting that senator mitt romney should be impeached. Is that even possible . Interesting question. In the beginning, when the constitution was written, i think it is pretty clear that the great many of the founders thought a senator could be impeached. There are a lot of indications of that. The first time that was tried, senator william blunt was impeached. The general consensus is he was acquitted, at least in part, maybe exclusively, because the senate concluded a senator is not a civil officer. A class of people subject to impeachment under the constitution. North carolina, republican line, good morning. Good morning. I am actually a duke law student, would you come to our school and have a talk . This topic is electric and you can feel it in the school, in terms of the excitement and the discourse of not understanding what the process really entails. What is the question you are getting from your peers . It is really about the process. Also, what i think has been the thread and the common theme is when you have an administration that is doing continuous blocking of potential witnesses, where they are essentially stopping every step of the way those people coming forward in offering their testimony, is that we are seeing barriers set up. A lot of the focus has been on what compels individuals to come forward from the law and what statute in the law will provide a mechanism, compelling them to come forward, other than the subpoena process . Secondly, one question about witnesses, when does the Supreme Court become involved . When does the Supreme Court become involved . If that is an invitation, have somebody call me and i will come down. He raises a couple of important questions. What im hearing is concern about the efforts by the administration and mr. Trump in particular to block the inquiries by the house into potentially impeachable matters. There is a broader concern here, which might not be evident to some people who are only casual observers of what has been going on here in washington. Not just with respect to specific inquiries regarding impeachment but acrosstheboard, but you have seen from this administration the last couple of years is an increasing unwillingness to respond to any congressional inquiries on pretty much any topic. That of itself is in my view one of the most serious threats that mr. Trump is proposing to our constitutional government. You cant legislate if you are congress if you can find facts about what the executive branch is doing. Mr. Trump seems to be determined acrosstheboard to prevent congress from learning the things it needs to know in order to legislate. Lets turn specifically to impeachment. We know an illegitimate refusal to respond to inquiries from Congress Investigating impeachment can be in and of itself an impeachable defense. That was the third article of impeachment returned against the House Judiciary Committee against Richard Nixon. In the meantime, if we dont impeach him for refusing to respond, what else can be done . Is there any means of compelling witnesses to appear . There are about three. One possibility is if they are subpoenaed and dont show up, congress can seek to have them found in criminal contempt. To do that, they have to refer the case to the department of justice and doj has exclusive control over that. This Justice Department has shown no particular disposition to do that on behalf of congress. The other possibility is to sue the administration or particular witnesses in court in civil court to enforce the subpoenas. The difficulty with that is it takes time. You have to go to a trial court, you will probably have to go to an Appellate Court and certainly mr. Trump has indicated he will resist these lawsuits all the way up to the Supreme Court. Part of the answer to your question, when does the Supreme Court get involved . With respect to the enforcement of congressional subpoenas, that is when the Supreme Court would get involved, at the appellate and of any effort to enforce subpoenas. The chief justice, if there is a trial, serves as the judge. The constitution says and impeachment of the president , the chief justice is to be the presiding officer. To a large extent, the chief justice does not do very much in the proceedings. He convenes and makes provisional rulings, but in the end, the senate itself decides what the ruling will be and what evidence will be permitted. If there is an objection to the evidence, a chief justice might make a preliminary ruling but if the other side doesnt like it they put it to the vote of the full senate. Steve bannon is telling the New York Post he expects the house to convene and Impeachment Vote in the next six weeks. If that were to happen, when could we see a trial in the senate . There are some questions about whether or not the senate is obliged to have a trial at all, that has been discussed a lot in the media. I think the answer is the constitution certainly implies an obligation on the part of the senate to hold a trial. It is remarkably terse on this. It says the senate shall have the sole power to try cases of impeachment but it does not say they have to take up impeachment if it comes over from the house. I think the implication is strong that they should and it turns out the senate rules are clear on that point. Moreover, majority leader mcconnell has said he is obliged to do it. But when it would occur and what form it would take is very much open to question. The book is called high crimes and misdemeanors and our guest is frank bowman who also teaches at the university of missouri. We welcome our viewers and those listening on cspan radio. U. S. Troops leaving syria for western iraq, that from mark esper, who is in the region. I mention that because of a tweet moments ago from the president , secretary of defense, the ceasefire is holding up nicely. There are minor skirmishes that have ended quickly. Usa soldiers are not in combat in ceasefire zones. We have secured the oil. Bring the soldiers home that is the president. His defense secretary is mark esper. Charles, democrat line, good morning. Good morning. I was wondering, how can we ask a foreign country to investigate is ukraine good at it . I dont understand how the president can even ask him to do this . Thank you, charles. I suppose ukraine, like any country, can investigate whatever they want to investigate. Whether or not they are particularly competent i could not say. The issue with respect to mr. Trump is what he has done to request and really to extort at least a supposedly investigate, limited to a fellow who is apt to be or is likely to be one of his opponents in the upcoming election. That is the illegitimate part. It is not whether ukraine is good or bad at investigating anything, it is whether any president should be seeking a foreign country focused on investigating his potential political opponents. Alabama on our line for independents, good morning. Good morning. I want to thank you for the two guests you had this morning. Very informative. Are they democrats or republicans or independents . It is interesting to hear what they had to say. I have been an independent since John Andersons days and it disappointed me that many of the people who are asking the question why are they doing the investigation and why all of this needs to happen, we need the impeachment process to follow through. We needed to go on. This is about a line of integrity and what i listen to the people talk on this television station, on cspan, i often hear the people who are democrats and republicans are the most articulate and the people who understand the issues far better than any republican. I am just disappointed in the Republican Party, how superficial it has been. If the shoe were on the other foot, they would not hesitate to do everything they could to disrupt this process in order to make a fall for the democrats and independents. Bernie sanders, i wanted to get the best people. I thought even Michelle Obama as the Vice President and nancy pelosi at the president would be a good ticket for us to run on. Bernie sanders, you could put a coalition together that is unquestionable for nation. Thank you. Thank you for watching washington journal on a sunday morning. We will get a response. One thing that comes up listening to the callers remark, impeachments are necessarily going to be driven to some extent by partisan concerns. How the Alexander Hamilton recognized this when he was writing federalist papers. One thing he said was inevitably, impeachment, particularly with the president , is going to excite partisan passions to such an extent that there is always some risk that partisanship will over bear, will exceed peoples capacity to decide facts. To that point, we have been getting a lot of tweets on the topic. One comment said what will tricky mitch do . Block all of the evidence or will Mitch Mcconnell refuse impeachment hearings because as he said he only does what trump approves of. That to some extent takes us back to the question of what the senate trial would look like. Understand that in the senate, and i think there will be a trial or sometime, what the rules will be, who knows. The majority of the senate will have a good deal to say about that. Remember that in the senate, the presentation of the evidence, or at least the case for impeachment, assuming there is an Impeachment Vote, we dont know yet. The case is presented by people called managers, that is to say they are members of the house of representatives who are appointed to go to the senate and present the case based on the articles of Impeachment Voted on by the house. The case for the prosecution will be presented by democrats, almost certainly. They will have some opportunity to articulate whatever case they have to make. The larger point is if impeachment is to work as it was intended, then people on both sides of the aisle have to try as best they can to overcome their partisan inclinations. A really good example of that occurring is the nixon impeachment. Certainly, the republicans in those days were not all happy the president of their party, Richard Nixon, was being investigated toward being impeached. On the senate side and the Senate Watergate committee and on the House Judiciary Committee, by and large, republicans at that time behaved honorably and in the best traditions of elected democracy. They believed, although they were unhappy about the process, they believed that facts matter. They participated actively in the gathering of facts and when the facts became clear, although they try to articulate their best position they could for the president of their party, when the facts came out, they made the best judgment they could make as americans, rather than as republicans. In the House Judiciary Committee, six of the republican members of voted for articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon and once the socalled smoking gun tape came out, all of them said afterwards if we had known about that, we would have voted to impeach. Moreover, nixon left without a full vote of impeachment in the house because the delegation of republican legislators went to the white house and said mr. President , the case against you is irrefutable, you dont have the votes, it is time for you to go. Famously, Barry Goldwater is asked by president nixon whether or not there were the votes on a potential article and he said yes, mr. President , there are and frankly i would probably vote for it myself. I do want to suggest the republicans and the nixon period were eager to impeach nixon are they were always rigorously neutral, they were not. But they behaved as we would expect americanstatesman to behave. They were interested in facts, they were prepared to make hard judgments even when against their own political party. One would at least hope that congress in present day might take a lesson for those guys. A history of impeachment in the age of trump, mark bowman frank bowman is joining us. West virginia, good morning, ed. Good morning. It sounds to me as though the democrats are investigating the president for impeachment. Republicans can even get their appeal. Let me stop you. What republicans, despite what you are hearing from some of the president s defenders, what is going on in the closed hearings are that all of the members of the committee doing the investigation are present, if they want to be, in the hearing room with the witnesses. Democratic representatives, republican representatives, and in addition to the representatives, congressman, congresswomen, also staff members, lawyers, republicans and democrats. They are in the hearing room together, they get to all the evidence and ask questions. The story that republicans are being excluded is just untrue. You have had some republican congressman doing some grandstanding. Guys who are not members of the committees holding the hearings and trying to get into the hearings. Not any congressman or congresswoman can participate in the hearings of a committee on which they are not a member. That is not the way it works. Lets follow up with you in west virginia. The head of the Supreme Court is a judge in the senate. I am 84 years old, but he is a judge in the senate. The chief justice, john roberts as the presiding officer. He would be the presiding officer if there is a senate trial but his powers are limited. Democrats line from new jersey. Good morning with frank bowman. Good morning. Thank you for cspan. I love washington journal. I think it is the most fair program on the air. Thank you. My question is, i dont know if i can articulate well, but what, if any, leverage to the Senate Democrats have in making rules for what the senate trial would look like . I know the makeup of senate right now is roughly 53 republicans, they dont have enough votes to withstand a filibuster, for example. Does that come into play . To the Senate Democrats have any leverage or is it all up to Mitch Mcconnell . Do democrats in the senate have a responsibility or jurisdiction . The senators in a trial are principally there to be the jury, although, again, there is a weird business where the jury gets to vote on questions of the rules and on evidence and so forth. The senate actually has an existing set of rules for impeachment proceedings. They are limited but they exist. Amending them is fairly difficult. On the other hand, there is a good deal of flexibility in terms of what the rules would be and a majority of the senate, in certain circumstances, could change or alter the rules. One possibility that has been suggested is one could move to dismiss the impeachment very soon after the proceedings began. That was attempted in the clinton impeachment but the vote was not to allow the dismissal. For that to happen, what needs to happen . If the senate votes to dismiss. It could, if they voted to dismiss it would be over and everyone would go home. At a minimum, there would have to be a majority of the senators to vote to dismiss it. I rather doubt that the matter would be dealt with like that. It would look so obviously partisan and would present, frankly, difficulty republicans who are up for reelection in the next cycle and who need, at the least, to be seen in their states to be treating this matter seriously. That requires a simple majority, correct . Yes. Texas, good morning. Good morning. This is such an interesting subject. I have a few questions that have seen answered on various channels and i want to get a straight answer on this. My understanding is the rules, there are no rules in the constitution for what the congress right now is undertaking. That the majority leader of the congress basically sets the rules. Number two, i also understand that in the nixon impeachment, there was a special counsel that gathered evidence and that rule is no longer applicable. I wonder if you can explain the british precedent in the impeachment process. With respect to the rules . She is right that the constitution contains no rules about how the house and the senate should conduct their impeachment business. All the constitution says is house shall have the sole power of impeachment and the senate shall have the sole power of trying impeachments. The senate requires a two thirds majority to convict. What i think the caller might be referring to is there has been a debate recently about whether or not what is going on in the house of representatives is a real impeachment if they dont have a vote of the entire house to authorize an impeachment inquiry. The answer to that is, it is a real impeachment inquiry, whether or not you have the vote of the entire house or not. In past president ial impeachments, the house, as a body, has authorized an official inquiry. There is no need for that and there could not be. Moreover, one of the reasons why in past impeachments the house chose to vote out an authorization was on those past occasions, there was not any necessary authorization given to particular committees to issue subpoenas. Therefore, there was a need for the whole house to vote, not only that there be inquiry, but the inquiring committee would have subpoena power. That is not true right now because there is a set of rules in the house of representatives that has been in existence for a while. It gives subpoena power to Committee Chairs to inquire about whatever they want to inquire about. There is no constitutional requirement hat there be a whole house vote to commence and impeachment inquiry. It was an impeachment inquiry before nancy pelosi stood up and said now we are conducting one, it is an impeachment inquiry now because the constitution gives the house the power to impeach and that necessarily means it gives the house the power to inquire into the facts that would be necessary to impeach. The book high crimes and misdemeanors by our guest frank bowman. There is a piece this morning in the outlook section of the washington post, trump is what hamilton had in mind when he pushed for impeachment powers. He wanted a strong president and a way to get rid of a demagogue, as well. Texas, independent line, you are on the air with frank bowman. Good morning. Good morning and thank you for taking my call. I wanted to speak to the issue of fairness that has been raised by some republicans. You had on your program ken starr sitting in the same share this gentleman is sitting in and ken starr was proud to say he investigated bill clinton for five years. Their investigation was the equivalent of the Mueller Investigation and it lasted for five years and came back with 12 indictments after five years. Also, the investigation was led by republicans, which of course was the opposite party of bill clinton. Now we have the mueller report, which lasted less than two years and was republicans investigating a republican president , handed it over to a Republican Attorney general, who without letting anyone see the whole thing, made the conclusion, which turns out to be false, that there was no obstruction of justice. I wanted to speak to the fairness thing. In the mueller report, it came back with over 20 indictments in less than two years investigation, yet the whole time republicans were screaming this thing lasted too long, this is been going on too long. When you had ken starr come back in 1994 after five years with only 12 indictments and it was about a land deal in arkansas. I just wanted to bring that up and see what your guest would say about the fairness thing that these republicans are screaming about now. And thank you for taking my call. Thank you from texas. This allows us to address this question but the previous one, who asked about the role of special prosecutors, special counsel in investigating president ial impeachments. There was no such thing back in the time of Andrew Johnson in 1868 but in the clinton and nixon impeachments, the bulk of the evidence that was produced in an effort to impeach those president s was produced by prosecutors at the department of justice. They were special prosecutors, that was the title for archibald cox, and independent counsel in the case of ken starr. He was called independent counsel because of the saturday night massacre led to the postwatergate enactment of special counsel statute that created this independent office that was really quite independent from the Justice Department. It allowed ken starr to investigate president clinton for a very long time. His perceived accesses lead to a lapse in the independent counsel statute. In mr. Trumps case, we were back to the special prosecutor from the Justice Department model, and that was bob mueller. What is interesting about the Current Situation and is distinct from nixon and clinton is the thing that seems to be likely to get mr. Trump impeached is something that has not been investigated by the Justice Department, which is the ukraine matter. This situation arose after mr. Mueller packed up and went home. Whatever facts will be gathered and put before the congress on the country are facts that congress itself is going to have to extract. Which leads to a text message question from tennessee. You can send Text Messages to 202 7488003. He said do you want to know what happened in ukraine and who do you trust to investigate . Do i want to know what happened in ukraine . Im not exactly sure what that means. I think he means in regard to the president and what President Trump did or did not say to the ukrainian leader. I think we have some advantages in the present case in what mr. Trumps white house has released at least a partial transcript of what was said. There doesnt seem to be any effort from the white house to deny the conversation with ukrainian president , moreover, we seem to be getting Additional Information corroborating both the essence of the call and the fact that there were efforts being made to essentially extort investigative activity out of the ukrainians. It is coming forward from government officials who are essentially defying directions from the white house not to testify. Considerable displays of civic virtue, public courage by the folks coming forward. So long as the Trump Administration maintains its posture of stonewalling requests for documents and so long as some of trumps officials refused to testify, we will probably not be able to get the full picture of what exactly went on with respect to that interaction. I think we will be able to get enough to put the democrats in an advantageous position if they want to impeach mr. Trump. They are getting sufficient information to conclude there was an abuse of power. On the other hand, mr. Trump persists in trying to block in illegitimate ways mr. Trump persists in trying to block in illegitimate ways. Not that it is happening but it is not, but hypothetically, can you impeach both a sitting president and a Vice President . Sure. They are mentioned as impeachable officers. The provision that talks about this says the president , Vice President and civil officers can be impeached. This is more of an academic lesson. Hypothetically, if Vice President pence were linked to this, could that be in Impeachable Offense . I think so. In the same sense that the effort to extort some sort of investigation out of the ukrainians is impeachable to the extent that mr. Pence were aware of the fact it was being done to benefit the private political interests of the president , potentially yes. One other point that theres emphasis, what is clear from what we know so far about the interaction between mr. Trump and ukraine is he doesnt seem to have wanted an investigation per se, but what he wanted was, at least there is an indication, what he wanted was there to be an announcement there would be an investigation. A statement from ukraine that there would be an investigation into mr. Biden and his son. And the Conspiracy Theory that Hillary Clintons email server was being hidden in ukraine. To me that is revealing. He did not want information. What he wanted was the ability to go out in public and say, you see, the ukrainians are looking into joe biden and Hillary Clintons email server. That must mean there is something bad. That, i think, is terribly telling. We know there were negotiations back and forth between lower ranking u. S. Officials and the ukrainians about a deliverable there was going to be a precondition for the release of eight, deliverable was the announcement, not the investigation. That to me is terribly revealing. A former Trump Campaign manager tweeted the media is ignoring the bidens ukraine dealings to protect the x Vice President. Democrat line from springfield, massachusetts. Good thank you for accepting my call. I am enjoying the comments and the observation made by your guest this morning. I will read that book. The gentleman who called from texas shortly before, and talked about the investigation being organized by the Republican Party and under the control the Republican Party, i concur with. That was my reason for calling. All of the investigation of trump and the association and connection with russia that happened before the first of 2019 happened under the Republican Party. Republicans had control of the house and the senate and the executive branch of government. Any appointments made by special investigator or special prosecutor was made by republicans. It happened under the previous administration, under obamas administration, he cap some republicans in his cabinet positions. He capped some he kept some republicans in his cabinet positions. The other thing is, i am concerned that the republicans accused the democrats of the expenses with decisions made by republicans. The second part of the democrats of the expenses of the investigation. It all happened with decisions made by republicans. The second part of the investigation that we want to discuss now is having to deal with ukraine, the whistleblower. That came out of the white house under the control of the president of the United States, which is donald trump. The democrats probably dont have anything to do with what happens in the white house. Those people who are blaming democrats for the investigation, need to go back to the source of for the investigation is coming from and who has the power. Thank you so much for accepting my call. Thank you for the call. He put a lot on the table. You say in your book impeachment is fundamentally a political process, a contest played out in the u. S. Congress in a contest in which the boundaries of the Playing Field are influenced by the belief about the constitution. Please explain. There is a tendency to think impeachment is only about partisan politics. Partisan politics certainly influences the result of any impeachment. It cant be any other way and hamilton understood that. It is also important for us to realize what it is really about. What it is really about is how we define our constitutional order. How we understand the place of the president in relationship with congress and the Supreme Court and the entire set of norms and values that have sustained this country over the last 230 years. Only in the context can we understand whether or not we should impeach a particular president. After a long period of difficult thought, i came to the conclusion several weeks ago, particularly with this ukraine business, as reluctant as i was to say so, i think we have come to the point where mr. Trump represents a genuine threat to the constitutional order, a genuine threat to american values. To me, that is not a partisan conclusion. It is based on examining his behavior and looking at it in the long flow of american and quick and frankly british history. Wooden executive so far overreaches himself that he represents a threat to the constitutional order, that is when impeachment is appropriate. pa happens in the house, the response from the senate will be what . Are you asking me to predict votes . I dont know anymore more than anyone else. I suspect the allegations against mr. Trump if they continue to be developed, at least some republicans will strongly consider voting to impeaching him. Professor and author frank bowman, the book is called high crimes and misdemeanors a history of impeachment for the age of trump. We thank you for being with us. So glad to be here. We are back tomorrow morning with cspans good morning, everyone. We are on cspan and also Live Streaming on the making every vote count facebook page. I want you all to behave. The Electoral College is a disaster for democracy. Thats not
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