Transcripts For CSPAN3 Impeachment Inquiry House Hearings Judiciary Hearing On Constitutional... 20240713

Where i have the right to do whatever i want as president. I did. And as someone who cares about the constitution, the second in particular struck a kind of horror in me. And, professor gerhardt, in forming your opinion that President Trump has committed the Impeachable Offense of obstruction of congress, did you consider the Intelligence Committee report and its findings including finding nine that President Trump ordered and implemented a campaign to conceal his conduct from the public and to frustrate and obstruct the house of representatives impeachment inquiry . I read that report last night after i submitted my statement, but i watched and read all of the transcripts that were available. The report that was issued reinforces Everything Else that came before it. So, yes. So, we talked first about abuse of power and bribery, and then about obstruction of congress. Professor gerhardt, i would like to ask you questions about a third Impeachable Offense and that is obstruction of justice. Sir, have you formed an opinion as to whether President Trump committed the Impeachable Offense of obstruction of justice . Yes, i have. And what is your opinion, sir . Based on so, ive come here like every other witness, assuming the facts that have been put together in official reports. The Mueller Report cites a number of facts that indicate the president of the United States obstructed justice, and thats an Impeachable Offense. In your testimony, sir, you pointed out that the Mueller Report found at least five instances of the president s obstruction of the justice departments criminal investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election, correct . Yes, sir. And the first of those instances was the president ordering his then white house counsel, don mcgahn, to fire the special counsel rather than to have the special counsel fired in order to thwart the investigation of the president , correct . That is correct. The second was the president ordering mr. Mcgahn to create a false written record denying that the president had ordered him to have mr. Mueller removed. Thats correct. And you also point to the meeting of the president with his former campaign manager, corey lewandowski, to get him to take steps in order to have the investigation curtailed. Yes, i did. And you talk about witness dangling as Paul Manafort and michael cohen, former campaign official, former personal lawyer of the president . Both individually and collectively, these are evidence of obstruction of justice. How serious is that evidence of obstruction of justice, sir . Its quite serious. Thats not all of it, of course. We know, as youve mentioned before, obstruction of justice has been recognized as an Impeachable Offense against president nixon and president clinton. This evidence put forward by mr. Mueller thats in the Public Record is very strong evidence of obstruction of justice. Professor karlan, when you look at the department of justice russia investigation and how the president responded to that, and when you look at Congress Ukraine investigation and how the president responded to that, do you see a pattern . Yes, i see a pattern in which the president s views about the propriety of Foreign Governments intervening in our election process is the antithesis that our framers we americans decide the elections. We dont want foreign interference in the elections. The reason we dont want foreign interference in the elections is because were a selfdetermining democracy. If i could read one quotation to you that i think is helpful in understanding this, somebody whose pointing to what he calls a straightforward principle. It is fundamental to the definition of our National Political community that foreign citizens do not have a constitutional right to participate in and thus may be excluded from activities of democratic selfgovernment. The person who wrote those words is now Justice Brett kavanaugh in upholding the constitutionality of a federal statute that denies foreign citizens the right to participate in our elections by spending money on electionerring or giving money to pacs. Theyve been long forbidden to give contributions to candidates. The reason is because that denies us our right to selfgovernment. And then judge, now Justice Brett kavanaugh was so protect in seeing this that the Supreme Court, which as you know has taken Campaign Finance case after Campaign Finance case to talk about the first amendment. Summarily affirmed. They didnt even need to aargue to know to keep foreigners out of our election process. Professor feldman, you were sort of an impeachment skeptic at the time of the release of the Mueller Report, were you not . I was. Whats changed for you, sir . What changed for me was the revelation of the july 25th call and the evidence that emerged subsequently of the president of the United States in a format where he was heard by others and now known to the whole public, openly abused his office by seeking a personal advantage in order to get himself reelected and act against the National Security of the United States. That is precisely the situation that the framers anticipated. Its very unusual for the framers predictions to come true that precisely. And when they do, we have to ask ourselves, some day we will no longer be alive and well go wherever it is we go. The good place or the other place. And, you know, we may meet there, madison and hamilton, and they will ask us when the president of the United States acted to corrupt the structure of the republic, what did you do . And our answer to that question must be that we followed the guidance of the framers and it must be that if the evidence supports that conclusion that the house of representatives moves to impeach him. Thank you. I yield my time back to the chairman. And my time has expired. I yield back. Before i recognize the Ranking Member for his round first round of questions, the committee will stand in a tenminute humanitarian recess. I ask everyone in the room to remain seated and quiet while the witnesses exit the room. I also want to announce to those in the audience that you may not be guaranteed your seat if you leave the hearing room at this time. And once the witnesses have left the hearing room, at this time the committee will stand in a short recess. House Judiciary Committee is taking a short tenminute break. They should be back by 12 20 eastern or so. We might see comments from members of the committee. We have cameras waiting there to get that if it happens during this break. Theyve been hearing from four legal scholars on the constitution and impeachment. Noah feldman from harvard law school, pamela karlan from stanford, Michael Gerhardt from the university of North Carolina and Jonathan Turley from George Washington University Law school. All four had Opening Statements. And then for the past 40 minutes or so, the questioning of the majority counsel, norm eisen, principally with three of the legal scholars and his questioning focusing on a couple of areas. Abuse of power alleged abuse of power by President Trump, bribery, obstruction of congress and obstruction of justice. What happens next is 45 minutes of questioning from minority and then member questions. There are 41 members of the house Judiciary Committee, 24 democrats and 17 republicans. First two hours of onesided information. Were ready to go back at it in a moment. Well be presenting both sides. One thing thats important is so much has been said over the last little bit about the issues and all involved. Now to come to this theoretical law school of what these things mean, i think the American People are getting lost. Thats one thing well look at. But it brings me back to the question for my clarm, why are we doing this with no plan to go forward with actual fact witnesses, that could be good for them or bad for them, but were not doing any of that. Were starting off with an esoteric discussion. I respect the law professors. But this does not move the needle understanding why were in the process to start with. Its been amazing to me that the Majority Party now has also voted not to call adam schiff, also not to call the whistleblower and theyve put on record theyre not interested in fact witnesses. This is an interesting time. Were getting ready to start 45 minutes from our perspective. Ill take a few questions. Congressman, did you find anything the law professors said compelling when they argued the sanctity of u. S. Elections is at stake here . Seeing everything they have come up with as far as crimes were never brought out in the opening hearings and brought forward in the discussions we saw in the Intelligence Committee hearings. Its interesting theyre spinning this to the election. I know what theyre trying to get at. Its falling flat, especially some of the witnesses were asked was there quid pro quo . Because if you bring it from there, thats what theyre trying to say, that was the influence on elections. Even when you have sondland, who after his opening statement, he made one statement under direct crossexamination, no, that was just my presumption. He contradicted himself. If you take that as faulty, then you take the rest as faulty as well. Do you think do you have any concern whatsoever of the president asking a foreign country to invest gaish so s soliciting from your hypothetical position im not going to take because the facts of the case are the president didnt do that. He asked for corruption. This is a country to investigate joe biden this is a country that has 68 of its people in in a poll in the last year say they bribed a public official. This is a country he had deep concerns about from the beginning. Remember, he had concern about foreign aid. This is one country in particular he had a lot of concern about. As we move forward, well see how this works out. The witnesses talked about, at least most of them, there were certain things they saw that they thought were itch peopleable offenses. Their interpretation, reading the constitution. If this wasnt, nothing would be. How do you respond to that . Jonathan turley. Youve had three witnesses spending the vast majority of without interpretation. Thats the way these hearings go. Mr. Turley, did he write something . Do you want a followup . Counsel said, no, yes or no. The next 45 minutes will be a balance. Thank you so much. Reporters hearing from congressman doug collins, ranking republican on the house Judiciary Committee. Doug collins had been mentioned as a possible replacement as georgia senator. Well tell you that in a moment. Sheila jackson lee. The other members. Good afternoon. These are some of the members of the house Judiciary Committee. All of them will comment. I will begin by indicating my name, Sheila Jackson lee, i serve on the house Judiciary Committee. And i believe we have begun to do what we set out to do. Which is to take this proceeding in the somber and sober manner that it is to be taken and to speak to the American People through constitutional scholars about the sanctity of democracy that can be only upheld if the rule of law is upheld. The constitutional scholars have repeatedly indicated that there is a clear equation of abuse of power by the sitting president of the United States of america. And the framers of the constitution, fearing kings and fearing having a person that would not be on behalf or speak to the needs of the American People who could not be removed. And that the authority to do so was given to the house of representatives. I think as we closed, one of the most indicting or powerful statements was professor feldman who said, what will the question be years later when the action of impeachment was not acted upon . And the president , a president , the American People will ask, why was that action not taken for a clear indication of a violation of the rule of law and the abuse of power exercised by this president . Finally, there are a number of evidences we have before us. The Mueller Report detailed extensive elements of obstruction of justice, but the Intelligence Report that just came out also evidenced obstruction of congress, obstruction of justice but it also focused on something dear to the American People and singularly a responsibility of this president. And that is National Security. And unfettered elections and so in this instance the president has jeopardized the National Security of the American People and as well has jeopardized the question of whether well have fair and honest elections. Walk us through what this next, you know, meeting will be like. The chairman talked about having the Intelligence Committee and other committees, present what their ideas were. What else do you need them to do and what is that format is that a meeting . Is that a hearing . What is that . Let me not predict the format and the focus that the chairman is now establishing, but we know that a picture is worth a thousand words. Words are valuable. We want to speak to the American People. These hearings are to allow the reporters, the individuals who made this report, and particularly in the intelligence area, to be able to speak to the American People, the committees that were part of the investiga investiga investigateaspect. Professor turley argues everybody is just mad, doesnt rise to the level of Impeachable Offense. He made a statement that its just an angry time for an angry country. Are you speaking of professor turley . Yes. Let me say that i saw no anger on the side of democrats. I see no anger moamongst republicans and democrats. 70 of them believe what the president did is wrong. When im in my district which is uniquely diverse with republicans and democrats and independents, i hear from a crosssection who are stunned by the actions and many of them say, we have to do our job. So i think if we do our job in the calmness of which we are now seeking to do, if we use that little book called the constitution and methodically go through the questions of abuse of power, americans understand that. And i think professor karlan was stupendous. She was speaking from the understanding of the framers. The framers did not have a statute. They had common law. They understood bribery is a violation of the public trust. I think if we keep our message that it is not about us, it is about the American People, we will ease and soothe the feelings of anger because it will be not about any one of us personally, it will be clearly about the American People. That is the trust we attempt to engage today. I think we made a stupendous step forward with the testimony thats already been given by these scholars. Can we just one thing i want to say is the Judiciary Committee is now in receipt of a detailed report from the Intelligence Committee which sets forth relevant facts as it relates to the ukraine scandal. The purpose is to educate the committee and allow the American People hear from the constitutional scholars of the standard, the standard for high crimes and misdemeanors for bribery, for abuse of office. Weve heard from Witnesses Today who say very clearly, this president has committed Impeachable Offenses. Many ways, our founders, the reason they werent prophets really imagined this could happen. Foreign governments would attempt to interfere in our democracy and attack the most central part, they warned about this when they adopted the article of impeachment, of the greatest threat to the republic was interference by foreign powers. Were seeing that play out in the conduct of President Trump. And this i think this hearing confirms that, confirms the Legal Standard and the Judiciary Committee will take this and move forward. Articles of impeachment, should we take from that thats what the committee is focusing on right now . I dont think the committee is focusing on specific articles. I think he was talking about standards of proof and the evidence that supports consideration of particular areas. But i dont think there has been any determination made whether well move forward with articles of impeachment, let alone what theyll be. I think what we saw this morning was really important because it brought home the conduct were talking about with respect to this president is exactly what the framers of our constitution were worried about. They were worried about an executive who would abuse his office to try to get elected or to get reelected. Thats exactly whats happened here. So, i think it was really instructive. It pulls together a lot of pieces, i would urge anyone who is interested in why were at this point to look at the testimony we saw from these experts this morning. Let us go back to one point about turley because i want to be Crystal Clear about what he did say. He did speak to the anger in the country but he also said the president s call was less than perfect. He said that asking for an investigation into biden was highly inappropriate. And he said if the facts of a quid pro quo are proven to be true, it is an Impeachable Offense. So, i want to be sure that we understand what even the republican witness is saying about the conduct of the president of the United States. I just want to add to that. That was the crux of his message. What i would say is americans have been angry in times past. Wars make us angry. Very sensitive political issues make us ang respect. I do want to say we are a unique country. We have faith. I do think as the American People listen to the quiet presentation of the scholars, that their faith will increase that we will get through this and that this is not going after anyone. It is really a task that is assigned to the United States house of representatives and our faith. Our faith will get us through. I think thats going to respond to professor turley. Some of the House Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee. We heard from the minority the ranking republican on the county, doug collins, who was not named as georgias senator. George kemp announcing this afternoon that kelly lofler will be the next senator from georgia. The committee wrapping up a break here, a short break. We expect to resume testimony shortly. They will hear from the House Republican counsel. Following his 45 minutes of questioning, theyll begin the round of questioning from all 41 members of the committee. The he can will come back to order after the recess. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member for his first round of questions pursuant to House Resolution 660 the Ranking Member or his counsel have 45 minutes to question the witnesses. The Ranking Member. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Before i begin on the questioning, i do want to revisit a comment that was made earlier by you, mr. Chairman, for a demand for minority hearing day. You said you would rule on it later. I just wanted to remind you, the rules of the house do not permit a ruling on this, they dont permit a vote and you cannot shut it down. The minority is a right rarely exercised but regards majority excluding. The fair and balance rule. Its not the chairmans right to determine whether we deserve a hearing or. Its want the chairmans right to decide what we say or think is acceptable. It is certainly not the chairmans right to violate the rules in order to interfere with our rights to conduct a hearing. I just commend mr. Sensenbrenner for bringing that forward and look forward to that schedule you getting that scheduled expeditiously. Moving on, interesting part. Now we hit phase two. Youve had one site, ade, eloqu argue i by not only counsel and the witnesses involved but theres always a face two. The phase two is what is problematic here. What i said in my opening statement, this is for many the most disputed impeachments on just the facts themselves. What was interesting is we actually showed videos of witnesses. In fact, one of them was an opening statement, i believe, which, again, the closest thing to perfect outside your resume this side of heaven is an opening statement, because its unchallenged. I agree with that. It should be. Weve had great witnesses here today to talk about this. But we didnt talk about kurt volcker, who said nothing about it. We said nothing about the aid being held up. Morrison, who contradicted vindman and others. Weve not done that. I dont expect the majority to because thats not what theyre here for. Theyre not here to give exculpatory evidence like the schiff gives no exculpatory evidence. We still dont have the underlying stuff that came from that investigation according to house rule 866 we are supposed to get. One important part is the inspector general, his testimony is still being held. Theres a quote secret on it or holding it in classification. The last time i checked, we have plenty of places in this building and other buildings to handle classified information if they still want to do that. Its withheld from us. I have to believe now theres a reason its withheld. Undoubtedly theres a problem with it. Well have to see as that goes forward. Anybody in the media watching today has painted an interesting picture. Picking and choosing the last few weeks to talk about. Thats okay. Professor turley, youre now well rested. You got one question. You were given a yes or no. Elaborate on that and if theres anything you heard this morning you would disagree with, i would allow you time to talk. For information, mr. Chairman, this is the coldest hearing room in the world. For those who are worried im uncomfortable, upset, im as happy as a lark but this chair is terrible i mean, it is amazing. But mr. Turley, go ahead. Theres a couple of things i want to highlight. I respect my colleagues. I know all of them. I consider them friends. I certainly respect what they have said today. We have fundamental disagreements. And id like to start with the issue of bribery. The statement has been made, not just by these witnesses but chairman schiff and others that this is a clear case of bribery. Its not. Chairman schiff said that it might not fit todays definition of bribery, but it would fit the definition back in the 18th century. Now, putting aside mr. Schiffs turn towards originalism, i think that it might come as a relief to him and his supporters that his career will be a short one, that there is not an originalist future in that argument. The bribery theory being put forward is in the 18th century as this statement. The statement made by one of my esteemed colleagues is bribery really wasnt defined until much later. There was no bribery statute. That is certainly true. But it obviously had a meaning, thats why they put it in this important standard. Bribery was not this overarching concept. The original standard was treason and bribery. That led mason to object that it was too narrow. If bribery could include any time you did anything for personal interest instead of public interest, if you have this overarching definition, that exchange would have been completely useless. The framers didnt disagree with masons view that bribery was too narrow. What they disagreed with is what he suggested maladministration to add to the standard because he wanted it to be broader. What James Madison said is that thats too broad, that would essentially create what you might call a vote of no confidence in england. It would basically allow congress to toss out a president they did not like. Once again, were channelling the intent of the framers. Thats always a dangerous thing to do. The only more dangerous spot to stand in is between congress and impeachment as an academic. I would offer instead the words of the framers themselves. In that exchange, they didnt just say bribery was too narrow, they actually gave an example of bribery. And it was nothing like what was described. When the objection was made by mason im sorry, by madison, ultimately the framers agreed. And then morris, who was referred to earlier, did say, we need to adopt the standard. What was left out is what came afterwards. What morris said is that we need to protect against bribery because we dont want anything like what happened with louis xviv and charles ii. The bribery was offering money as head of state. What had happened in that example morris gave as his example of bribery is that louis xiv, who was a bit of a recidivist when it came to bribes, gave charles ii a huge amount of money as well as other benefits including, apparently, a french mistress in exchange for the secret treaty of dover of 1670. It also was an exchange for him converting to catholicism. But that wasnt some broad notion of bribery. It was actually quite narrow. I dont think that dog will hunt in the 18th century and i dont think it will hunt today, because if you take a look at the 21st century, bribery is well defined. You shouldnt just take our word for it. You should look to how its defined by the United States Supreme Court. In a case called mcdonald versus the United States, the Supreme Court looked at a public corruption bribery case. This was a case where gifts were actually received, benefits were actually extended. There was completion. This was not some hypothetical of a crime that was not fulfilled or an action that was not actually taken. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned that conviction. Unanimously. And what they said was that you cannot take the bribery crime and use what they called a boundless interpretation. All the justices said that its a dangerous thing to take a crime like bribery and apply a boundless interpretation. They rejected the notion, for example, that bribery could be used in terms of setting up meetings and other types of things that occur in the course of a Public Service career. What i would caution the committee, these crimes have meaning. It gives me no joy to disagree with my colleagues here. And i really dont have a dog in this fight. But you cant accuse a president of bribery and then when some of us note that the Supreme Court has rejected your type of boundless interpretation, say, well, its just impeachment. We really dont have to prove the elements. Thats a favorite mantra. Its close enough for jazz. Well, this isnt improvisational jazz. Close enough isnt good enough. If youre going to accuse a president of bribery, you need to make it stick because youre trying to remove a duly elected president of the United States. Now, its unfair to accuse someone of a crime, and when others say, well, those interpretations youre using to define the crime are not valid and to say they dont have to be valid. Because this is impeachment. That has not been the standard historically. My testimony lays out the criminal allegations in the previous impeachments. Those were not just proven crimes, they were accepted crimes. That is even the democrats on that on the Judiciary Committee agreed that bill clinton had committed perjury. Thats on the record. And a federal judge later said it was perjury. In the case of nixon, the crimes were established. No one seriously disagreed with those crimes. Now, johnson is the outlier because johnson was a trap door crime. They basically created a crime knowing that johnson wanted to replace secretary of war stanton. And johnson did, because they had serious trouble in the cabinet. So, they created a trap door crime, waited for him to fire the secretary of war and then they impeached him. Theres no question he committed the crime. Its just the underlying statute was unconstitutional. So, i would caution you not only about bribery but also obstruction. Im sorry, Ranking Member, you no, youre doing a good job. Go ahead. Id also caution you about obstruction. Obstruction is a crime also with meaning. It has elements, it has controlling case authority. The record does not establish obstruction in this case. What my esteemed colleague said is certainly true. If you accept all of their presumptions, it would be obstruction. But impeachments have to be based on proof, not presumptions. Thats the problem when you move towards impeachment on this abbreviated schedule that has not been explained to me why you want to set the record for the fastest impeachment. Fast is not good for impeachment. Narrow, fast impeachments have failed. Just ask johnson so, the obstruction issue is an example of this problem. Heres my concern. The theory being put forward is that President Trump obstructed congress by not turning over material requested by the committee. Citations have been made to the third article of the nixon impeachment. First of all, i want to confess. Ive been a critic of the third article of the nixon impeachment my whole life. My hair catches on fire every time someone mentions the third article. Why . Because you would be replicating one of the worst articles written on impeachment. Heres the reason why. Peter radinos position as chairman of judiciaryle is congress alone decides what information may be given to it. Alone. And his position is the courts have no role in this. And so if any by that theory, any refusal by a president based on executive privilege or immunities would be the basis of impeachment. That is essentially the theory being replicated today. Hes allowed to do that. We have three branches, not two. I happen to agree with some of your criticism about President Trump, including that earlier quote where my colleagues talked about his saying that theres this article 2 and he gives this overriding interpretation. I share that criticism. Youre doing the same thing with article 1. Youre saying, article 1 gives us complete authority when we demand information from another branch, it must be turned over or well impeach you in record time. Now, making that worse is that you have such a short investigation, its a perfect storm. You set an incredibly short period, demand a huge amount of information and when the president goes to court, you then impeach him. Now, does that track with what youve heard about impeachment . Does that track with the rule of law that we talked about . So, on obstruction i would encourage you to think about this. In nixon it did go to the courts and nixon lost. And that was the reason nixon resigned. He resigned a few days after the Supreme Court ruled against him in that critical case, but in that case, the court recognized there are executive privilege arguments that can be made. It didnt say, you had no idea coming to us. Dont darken our doorstep again. It said, weve heard your arguments. Weve heard congresss arguments. You know what, you lose. Turn over the material to congress. What that did for the judiciary is that gave this body legitimacy. It wasnt the rodino extreme position that only you decide what information can be produced. Recently there are rulings against President Trump, including a ruling involving don mcgahn. Mr. Chairman, i testified in front of you a few months ago and if you recall, we had an exchange and i encouraged you to bring those actions and i said i thought you would win and you did. And i think it was an important win for this committee because i dont agree with President Trumps argument in that case. Thats an example of what can happen if you actually subpoena witnesses and go to court. Then you have an obstruction case because a court issues an order. Unless they stay that order by a higher court, you have obstruction. I cant emphasize this enough and ill say it one more time if you impeach a president if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. Its your abuse of power. Youre doing exactly what youre criticizing the president of doing. We have a third branch that deals with conflicts of the other two branches. What comes out of there and what you do with it is the very definition of legitimacy. Lets continue on. Lets unpack what youve been talking about. First of all, the mcdonald case, how was that decided . Was that a really split court . Were they torn about that . That case came out high . Yeah, it came out unanimous. So did a couple of the other cases i cite in my testimony, which also refute these criminal theories. One thing that you said also, and i think it could be summed up, and i use it sometimes, whats the laymens language here is facts dont matter. Thats what i heard a lot in 45 minutes. If this, if that, it rises to an impeachment level. That is sort of what youre saying, crimes, i think your word was, crimes have meaning and i think this is the concern that i have. Is there a concern that we say facts dont matter were also, as you say, abusing our power as we go forward and actually looking at what people would deem as an Impeachable Offense . I think so. Part of the problem is to bring a couple of these articles, you have to contradict the position of president obama. President obama withheld evidence from congress in fast and furious, an investigation, a rather than moronic program, that led to the death of a federal agent. President obama gave a sweeping argument that he was not only not going to give evidence to this body, but that a court had absolutely no role in determining whether he could withhold the evidence. You have a question on that. You brought up mr. Obama and brought up other president s in this process. Is there not an obligation by the office of the president , well just use that term, not to be obama, trump, clinton, anybody. Isnt there an obligation by the president to actually assert the constitutional privileges or authorities that have been given or when accused of something, a crime or anything else . Yeah. I think president obama has invoked too broadly. On the other hand, he has actually released a lot of information. Ive been friends with bill barr for a long time. We disagree on executive privilege. Im a madisonian scholar. I tend to favor congress in disputes. And he is the inverse. His natural default is article 2. My natural default is article 1. But he actually has released more privileged information than any attorney general in my lifetime, including the Mueller Report, these transcripts of these calls would be core executive privilege material. Theres no question about that. Thats something thats not pointed out when youre doing a back and forth like were doing. The transcript of the call released, the things released with mueller. There have been work in progress by this administration. I think the interesting point i want to talk about is two what s congress own abuse of the power here internally where we have had committees not letting to have the members see transcripts and not willing to give those up under the guise of impeachment or you should not be able to see them, but the rules of the house were never invoked to see that. And what i also want to talk about is the timing issue, and we have talked about this with the Mueller Report, and Everything Else. And i said, this is the clock and the calendar are seemingly dominated this irregardless of what anybody on this committee and especially the members not on this committee are what we are seeing of the fact witnesses and people moving forward and we dont have that yet, and the question becomes, is an election pending when facts are in dispute and you made a mention of this, and this is in one in which the facts are not unanimous, and there is not universal or bipartisan agreement of the facts of what they lead to when there is exculpatory reports, and not in the schiff report, but in the other reports, and does that bother you from a historical point of view . Yes, fast and narrow is not a good idea with impeachment. They tend not to survive and they collapse. This is the highest structure under the constitution, and under the impeachment, you have to have a foundation broad enough to support it. It is the narrowest impeachment in history, and johnson may not have the fastest impeachment, and johnson is what happened to johnson the actually the fourth impeachment attempted against johnson and obviously, the record goes back a year before and they laid the trap door a year before so it is not as fast as it might appear. And again, lets go back to Something Else that you talked about bribery, and i wanted to have mr. Taylor address a good bit of that, but i wanted to go back to something that is bother the perception out of what is going on here and the disputed transcript and being that the call has been laid out there and the president said i want nothing of this, and all of the exculpatory information, and it goes back to what crimes matter and the definition of this, but the house began accusing the president quid pro quo, and then they used a focus poll group and then it didnt poll well so they changed it to bribery and so is that more of the crimes do matter and the facts of the case do matter . Yes. There is a reason that every past impeachment has established crimes, and it is obvious and not that you cant impeach on a noncrime, and you k and in fact, noncrimes have been part of past impeachments, but it is just that they have never gone up alone or primarily as the basis of impeachment, and that is the problem here. If you prove a quid pro quo, that you might have an Impeachable Offense, but to go up only on the noncriminal case would be the first time in history, and so why is that the case . The reason is that crimes have an established definition in case law, and so there is a concrete independent body of law that assuring the political that this is something they cannot do, and you cannot say that the president is above the law if you they the crimes they accuse you of dont have to be established. That is the problem right now that many members of the house and the body and the American Public are looking at that if you say he is above the law, but you dont defiant or define if facts to whatever you want to have is the ultimate railroad that everybody in the country shot no be afforded. Everybody is aftforded due process and the right to have their case heard, and we have seen it voted down not to look at certain fact witnesses and not promised other hearings in which this committee and the words echoed almost 20 years ago that the chairman did not want to take the advice of any other body to give us a report and act as a rubber stamp if we did and the issue Going Forward is why the rush . Why do we still not have the information from the Intelligence Committee . Why is the inspector generals report still being withheld in a classified setting. These are the problems that you have highlight and need to be and that is why the next 45 minutes and the rest of the day is applicable, because both sides matters, and at the end of the day, this is the fastest impeachment, and the fastest we have seen based on disputed fact, and with that i want to turn it over the my counsel mr. May or the. Mr. Taylor. Professor turley, id like to turn to the subject of partisanship as the founders feared it and as it is today. It is a situation that Alexander Hamilton was concerned about, and he wrote prescient words in page 65 in the ratification of the federalist papers in the constitution being ratified that principally hamilton and also said that it will preexist in the factions and enlist all of their animosities, partialities and interests on one side where on t on the other in suchcations the danger is relating to the compare zif strengcom comparative strength of the parties. And so professor turley, do you think that hamilton represented a high partisan nature of impeachments . That is the case in the two impeachments that we have seen. It is important to note that we think that our times are unique. This provision was not just written for times like ours, but it was written in times like ours, and in that these are the people who are even more severe than the rhetoric today. I mean, you have to keep in mind that jefferson referred to the administration of the federalist as the rein of the witches, and this is a period when they didnt have strong feelings. Aed when y and talking about people who wanted to kill each other, and back then, they were trying to kill each other. That is what the sedition laws were about, people were trying to kill you if they disagreed with you, but there was not a slew of impeachments, and that is a lesson that can be taken from that period. The framers created a standard that would not be endlessly fluid and flexible, and that standard has kept us from impeachments despite the periods in which we have despised each other, and that is the most distressing thing for most of us today is that there is so much more rage than reason. You cant even talk about these issues without people saying, you must be in favor of the ukrainians taking over the country. Or the russians moving into the white house. At some point as a people, we have to have a serious discussion about the grounds to remove a duly elected president. Professor turley, you said in the testimony that when it comes to impeachment we dont need happy ideological warriors, but circumspect legal analysis. Lets look at the partisan landscape on which this is waged. The Democratic Leaders pushing the impeachment are pushing the far left coastal areas of the country, and the bar graphs are showing the total votes cast, and the margin of the winner the 2016 election. And you can see the parts of the country for these impeachment leaders voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and also in the 2016 elections lawyer contributions were 10 for clinton and 3 for trump and the situation is essentially the same at law schools around the country, including those represented on the panel here today. And professor turley, id like to turn to the partisan process that identifies these impeachment proceedings. This is how the nixon procedure was identified in the staff report. You were talking about the initiation of the impeachment inquiry. It is not partisan and supported by the overwhelming majority of the political parties, and it was. Regarding the authorization of the clinton impeachment, it was supported by all republicans and 31 democrats, and fast forward to the current impeachment. The House Democrat trump impeachment was approved only by democrats and indeed over the opposition of two democrats all republicans. Professor turley, how does this trend comfort with how the founders understood how impeachment should operate . I think that the founders had aspirations to come together as a people, but they did not have delusion, and it s or anything achieved in their lifetime. And youb surprise eyou would be at end of their lives jefferson and adams did reconcile that some of the most weighty and significant moments in constitutional history is the one that is rarely discussed that adams and jefferson reached out to each other, and they wanted to reconcile before they died. They met and they did. And maybe that is something that we can learn from, but i think that the greater thing that i would point to is the seven republicans in the johnson impeachment. If i could read one thing to you. And everyone often talks about one of the senators, but not this one. And that is Lyman Trumball who was a fantastic senator and he became a great advocate for Civil Liberties and most of the senators when it was said that they jumped into their political graves, it was true. Most of their political careers ended and they knew that it would end because of the animosity of the period. Trumball said the following. He said, once this set the example of impeaching a president for what, and when the excitement of the hour shall have subsided, it is going to be regarded as insufficient causes and no future president is safe with the majority of the house and the 2 3 of the senate. I tremble for the future of the country and i cannot be an instrument to produce such a result, and the hazards of affection for calmer times shall do justice to my motives, no alternatives are left to me. He proceeded to give the vote that ended his career. You cant wait for calmer times. The time for you is now. And i would say that what trumball said is even more bearing today, because i believe that this is much like the johnson impeachment, and it is manufactured until you build a record. I am not saying that you cant build a record, but you cant do it like this, and you cant impeach a president like this. Professor turley, there is a recent book on impeachment by harvard professors who considered a legitimate impeachment process and it is ant antitrump and called the end the presidency and the authors say that when impeachment is partisan, it stays that way. And when only the republicans or the democrats justify the removal, there is a strong risk that partisan animus have overtaken the proper measure of congressional impartiality, and we can expect that opposition lead force the president will be pushed to impeach and suffer internal blowback if they dont, and the key question is if they will cave to the pressure, and one risk of the broken poll sticks is that the house will undertake many impeachments which is dangerous to the house as a whole. Is that what is happening here . Not on this schedule. And one thing that comes out of the impeachments in terms of what bipartisan support occurred and this is that impeachment required periods of saturation and maturation. I am not prejudging what your record would show, but if you rush this impeachment, you are going to leave half of the country behind, and certainly that is not what the president , what the framers wanted. You to give the time to build a record. This is not an impulse buy item. You are trying to remove a dulyelected president of the United States, and that taking time and work. And if you are looking at Richard Nixon and that is a Gold Standard and they did catch up, and they originally did not support impeachment, and they changed their minds and you changed their mind and so did the courts because you allowed the issues to be heard in the courts. Professor turley, the nixon and clinton impeachments were debated solidly on the high crimes category . Yes. Crimes were at issue, but on the evidence presented so far, is there any credible evidence that any crime was committed by President Trump . Yes, i have gone through all of the crimes mentioned, and they do not meet any reasonable interpretation of the crimes and i am lying on the express sentiments of the court. The statutes are broad, but it is not the controlling language, it is the language of the interpretation of the federal courts, and i think that all of the decisions stand mightily in the way of these theories. If you cant make out those crimes, then dont call it that crime. If it doesnt matter, then what is the point. Call it treason. Call it endangered species violations if none of this matters. So that would put the democrats move to impeach President Trump in high misdemeanors. And in the debates in this book, they said it expressly a technical term, and not any majority of partisan members could think it was at any given time. Often when there is a debate about technical term, people turn to dictionariedictionaries First Comprehensive dictionary was Samuel Johnsons First Published in 1755 and the founders and many of the libraries have the book on their de desks and the Supreme Court still cites johnsons dictionary to look up the original meanings of the words in the constitution. This is how the 1795 definition of high crimes and misdemeanors and misdemeanors is great, little treason, and misdemeanor is something less than an atrocious crime. And atrocious is defined wicked and a high degree, and enormous and horribly criminal. So if you are looking at the words in the times that the constitution was ratified, atrocious in a wicked and high degree and result a high misdemeanor must be something that is less than something that is wicked and high degree. Professor turley, is that comforting with your phrase of misdemeanors with the phrase and the purpose of narrowing the phrase to prevent the sort of abuses that you find . Yes, it did. If you compare it to the extradition clause, the framing was the same, and they did not want to establish that broad meeting and according to the viewf of some people in high crimes and misdemeanors, those definitions would be identical and this is clearly not what they wanted. This is based on high crime and no request for false information and unlike the nixon and clinton impeachments, and i would like to start with background that the American Media has been asking about joe bidens son and his paid participation in the company bur re burisma and there is a still clip of it here from the burisma promotional video, and many were asking about burisma trying to get a ukrainian director fired and a New York Times article from 2018 referring to joseph biden says that one of his most brilliant performances when he threatened to withhold money if ukraine did not dismiss the top prosecutor. Among those who had a stake was hunter biden who is Vice President bidens son who was a board member in ukraine. And so if an investigation led to the bankruptcy of the corrupt company, Hunter Bidens position would have been eliminated along with the 50,000 a month payments and this is the stake of the proposition involving the company, and in fact, even neil catyiel, the former acti ing solicitor general said in his book, is what hunter biden did was wrong . Yes. Was he qualified to sit on the board . The only logical reason the company could have had for appointing him was his ties to Vice President biden. The kind of nepotism isnt only wrong, it is the potential danger to our country since it makes it easier for foreign powers to buy influence. No politician, from either party should allow a foreign power to conduct this kind of influence peddling their influence. And so even colonel vindman was about his involvement with the ukrainian company, and he said it would be prudent. And so now it is a crime for the not look into this. And so with the look of evidentiary evidence of criminal acts and sought to conceal them of nixon covering up a watergate breakup shortly after it occurred . Yes. And the house impeached clinton for the crime of denying under oath to deny a woman who was suing him for harassment and a defense that she was legally entitled to do . That is correct. So with the nixon and clinton impeachments, there were associates who did not call with false information . No. So if you want to establish the opposing view, you have to investigate this further. Let me walk through the standard of evidence that the House Democrats insisted upon in the clinton impeachment, the minority views were signed among others current house Judiciary Committee chairman nadler, and it says that they have meticulously agreed that the minority and the majority counsel that the standard of proof in the house was clear and convincing evidence. Professor turley, would you say that the evidence compiled to date in these current impeachment proceedings fails to meet the standard of clear and convincing standards. I do by a clear measure. And in the book about the presidency, it says that except in the extraordinary circumstances impeaching with a partial or plausible understanding of the key facts is a bad idea. Professor turley, do you think that impeaching in this case would constitute with a partial or plausibly key understanding of the key facts . I think that is clear, because this is one of the thinnest records to ever go forward on the impeachment, and the johnson ones we can debate, because it is the fourth attempt at the impeachment, and this is the thinnest of the modern rekd. Record, and if you are looking at the size of the records of clinton and nixon, they were massive and it was wafer thin in comparison and it has left doubts and not just doubts in the minds of the people supporting President Trump, but in the minds of people like myself about what actually occurred, and there is a difference between requesting investigations, and a quid pro quo. You need to stick the landing on the quid pro quo. You need to get the evidence to support it. It might be out there, i dont know. But it is not in this record. I agree with my colleagues that we have all read the record and i just come to a different conclusion. I dont see proof of a quid pro quo. No matter what my presumptions assumptions or bias might be. On that point, id like to turn to the current impeachment procedures. Professor turley, would you agree that a full and fair adversary system of which each side can produce their own witnesses and evidence is a initial search for the truth . Yes, and the original impeachment model from the framers that rejected the original model of impeachment even from hastings, and in england, it was a robust adversarial process and if you want to see adversarial work, take a look at what edmund burke did to warren hastings. I mean, he was on him like ugly on moose for the entire trial. As you know in the minority views the House Democrats wrote the following, we believe it is incumbent upon the committee to provide these basic objections as Barbara Jordan said in the hearing, but it is mandating due process, but due process quadrupled, and the same minority views support the right to crossexamination in a variety of contexts in the clinton example. Now, professor turley, you described how Monica Lewinski was not allowed to call for the clinton impeachment trial and she was not allowed to reveal the relationship with the Close Associates and it is the caution tale of the key witnesses. Can you elaborate on that . Yes, it is a portion of my testimony of how you structure the impeachments and what happened in the clinton impeachment, and it came up in the hearing that we had previously, it was a question of how much the house had to do in terms of clinton impeachment, because you had a robust record created by the independent counsel and they had a lot of testimony, videotapes, et cetera, so the house basically incorporated that, and the assumption was that those witnesses would be called at the senate, but there was a failure at the senate, and the rules that were, and they were applied in my view were not fair, and they restricted witnesses to only three, and that is why i brought up the lewinski matter. About a year ago, Monica Lewinski revealed that she had been told that if she signed that affidavit that we now know is untrue that she would not be called as a witness. If you had actually called live witnesses that type of information would have been part of the record. I yield back. The gentleman yields back and i note that this is the moment in which the white house would have had an opportunity to question the witnesses, but they declined the invitation, and so we will now proceed to questions under the five minute rule. I yield myself five minutes for purpose of questioning the witnesses. Professor feldman, would you respond to the elements of criminal bribery . Yes. Bribery had a clear meaning to the framers and it is when the president using the power of his office solicits and receives something of personal value of someone affected by the official powers and i wanted to be clear that the constitution is law. The constitution is the supreme law of the land, and so of course, professor turley is correct that you do not want to impeach someone who did not violate the law, but the supreme law of the land specifies bribery as a ground for impeachment, and bribery had a clear meaning. If the house believes that the president solicited something of value corruptly for personal gain, then that would constitute bribery under the meaning of the constitution and it is not lawless, it would be bribery under the law. So, so the Supreme Court case of mcdonald interpreting the federal bribery statute and other issues interpreting the statutes would not be relevant . The constitution is the supreme law, and the constitution specifies what bribery means. And federal statutes cant trump the constitution. Professor garhardt, would you respond to obstruction of justice . Yes, obstruction of justice is not just about the obstruction of the court, but it is the obstruction of any lawful proceeding, and that obstruction is not limited to whatever is happening on the courts, and obviously, here, there are not judicial proceedings going on and a critical congressional proceeding which brings us to obstruction of congress with regard to obstruction of congress, and in fact, i can say that i know that there has never been anything like the president s refusal to comply with subpoenas from this body. These are lawful subpoenas and they have the force of law to them, and this is something that every president has complied with, and acted in alignment with except for president nixon in a small and specific set of materials. Professor turley implied that as long as the president asserts a fanciful ultimately nonexistent privilege like absolute immunity, he cannot be charged with obstruction of congress, because after all, it has not gone through the courts yet. Would you comment on that . I missed part of the question. Am sorry. And professor turley implied that we cant charge the president with obstruction of congress for refusing all subpoenas as long as he has any fanciful claim until the courts reject those fanciful claims . I have to respectfully disagree. No, the refusal to comply with the subpoenas is an independent event and apart from the courts. It is a direct assault on the legitimacy of this inquiry which is crucial to the exercise of this power. Thank you. Professor karlin, i would like to give you chance to respond. I would like to respond to bribery, and even though the counsel read the samuels definitions of high and crime and misdemeanor, he did not read bribery. I have the 1792 version of johnsons dictionary and i dont have the initial one, and there he defines bribery as the crime giving or taking rewards for bad practices. So if you think it is a bad practice to deny military appropriations to an ally that have been given to them, and a bad practice not to be holding a meeting to buck up the legitimacy of the government that is on the front line, and you do that in return for the reward of getting help with your reelectio reelection, that is samuels definition of bribery. And so, professor feldman, if he were joined by madison and hamilton and other framers, what would they say about the conduct of President Trump . I believe they would call this conduct as the abuse of power to impeach. And would it be abuse of power and other things . If that is what the congress means, then they would believe strongly that is what congress ought to do. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time and recognize the Ranking Committee mr. Georgia mr. Collins for the five minutes. We put in the jury pool the Founding Fathers. And what would they think . I dont think they would know what to think because of the different times and things that we have talked about and also to some way insinuate on a live mic that people listening that the Founding Fathers would have found President Trump guilty is malpractice with these facts before us and that is simply pandering to the camera, and that is simply not right. I mean, this is amazing, and we can disagree and what is amazing on the committee is that we dont agree on the facts, and we cant find a fact that is not going through the public testimony and even the transcripts and all so it is not, and mr. Turley, are we deputizing somebody between now and the founders of the jury pool here . Well, first of all, only i will speak for James Madison and, so no, we will all speak with the same amount of accuracy and so it is a form of details that we do all of the time. But it is surprising that you would have George Washington in this jury pool, and i would strike him for cause. George washington was the first guy to raise extreme executive privilege claims, and he had a rather robust view of what a president could say. If you were going to be making a case to George Washington that he could be impeached over a conversation that he had with another head of state, his hair, his powdered hair would catch on fire. And i am impressed that you carry it with you it is online version. Okay. It is the online version. As an academic, i was pretty darn impressed. I just wanted to note one thing which may explain part of our difference. The statutes today on bravery are written broadly and just like they were back then and that is my point. The meaning of those words are subject to interpretation, and they are written broadly, because they dont want them to be too narrow and that is the case of the 18th century as they are today, but the idea that bad practices could be the definition of bribery. Really . Is that what you get from the Constitutional Convention that bad practices, and is that why mason wanted to put in mall administration, because bad practices is not broad enough . This is where i disagree, and to ther thing they wanted to note is that, and i have so much respect for noah and i wanted to just disagree on this point, because i feel it is a circular argument to say, well, the constitution is law. Upon that, we are in agreement, but the constitution refers to a crime. To say, well, you cant trump the constitution, because it defines the crime, it doesnt define the crime. It references the crime. Now, the crime, the examples were given in the Constitutional Convention and those do not comfort with bad practices, but they comfort with real bribery, but to say that the Supreme Courts decision on what constitutes bribery is somehow irrelevant is rather odd. What the constitution contains is a reference to a crime, and then we have to decide if that crime has been committed. And one of the things that came out just a second ago was also this discussion of that we had this discussion if it is the president ial progty aerogative e president s cabinet to assert rights and the fast and furious of president obama that he was saying that this is contempt for not supplying the subpoenas and you cant pick and choose in history what you want. And you brought up bad practice, but it is the law of the land that we are to ensure that countries who are given aid is not corrupt. That is also missing from the discussion. If the president has had a long seeded of Foreign Countries ukraine and others with the history of corruption and i made the statement earlier and it is from the hipsi side that those polled over the Previous Year had bribed a public official. They had corruption issues coming from the obama and the trump administration, and so he has to look at the corruption without giving taxpayer dollars and the president was doing that, and it is blown up, and the facts dont matter if we are trying to fit it into breaking of the rule that we want to impeach on, and the reason we are doing this is that it is the train on the track and a clock calendar impeachment and not a fact impeachment. I yield back. The gentleman yields back and i recognize ms. Lofgrren. This is the third time that a president has been recommended for impeachment and i have been there at all three. I was on the staff of president nixon and President Committee on the clinton impeachment, and here we are today. At the core, i feel that the impeachment power is really about the preservation of our democratic systems and the question we must answer is whether the activity of the president threatens our constitution and our democracy, and it is about whether he is above the law and whether he is honoring his oath of office. Now, the house Judiciary Committee staff and it was not me, but other staff wrote an excellent report in 1974, and this is what they said. Impeachment of a president is a grave step for the nation. It is to be predicated only upon conduct seriously incompatible with the constitutional form in principle of the government or the proper performance of constitutional duties of the president ial office, and id ask for unanimous consent to enter the house judiciary Committee Report on constitutional grounds into the record. Without objection. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Like president nixon, the allegations against President Trump are related to serious election misconduct. The nixons associates burglarized the dnc headquartered to get a leg up, and then the president nixon tried to cover itu up, and then he abused the powers to target the political rivals and here, we are confronted with evidence suggesting that President Trump tried to leverage appropriate military assistance to resist russia by ukraine to convince a foreign ally to announce an investigation of his political rival. Professor karlan, i would like you to tell us about how the meeting of a foreign ally in this investigation compares to what president nixon did . Not favorably. Because, as i suggested in my opening testimony, it was a kind of the doubling down. Because president nixon abused domestic Law Enforcement to go after his political appointments and what President Trump has done and based on the ed that we have seen so far is that he has asked a foreign country to do that and that means it is sort of like a daily double if you will of problems. Professor gebhardt, do you have a comment . I would agree with professor karlan, and the difficulty here is that we need to remember that Impeachable Offenses dont have to be criminal offenses as you well know, so what we are talking about is an abuse of power that only the president can commit. There was a systemic concerted effort by the president to remove people that would somehow obstruct or block his ability to put that pressure on ukraine to get an announcement of an investigation. That seems to be what he cared about. Just the mere announcement, and that pressure produced, was going to produce the outcome that he wanted until the whistleblower put a light on it. I wanted to go back to quickly something that professor turley said as we saw in the myers case and i was a member of the committee when we tried to get her testimony as well as the fast and furious case which also was wrongfully withheld from the congress. Litigation to enforce congressional subpoenas can extend well beyond the terms of the presidency, itself. That happened in both of those cases. Professor feldman, is it as professor turley seemed to suggest, an abuse of our power not to go to the courts before using our sole power of impeachment in your judgment . Certainly not. Under the constitution, the house is entitled to impeach. That is the power. It does not have to ask permission from anybody or go through any judicial process of the branch ogovernment. It is your decision based on your judgment. Thank you. Id like to note that this is not a proceeding that i looked forward to. It is not an occasion for joy. It is one of solemn obligation. I hope and believe that every member of this committee is listening. Keeping an open mind, and hoping that we honor our obligations carefully and honestly and with that i yield back, mr. Chairman. The gentle lady yields back. The gentle lady yields back. We are expecting votes on the house floor shortly and so we will recess until immediately after the clungs onclusion of t votes. I will ask everyone in the room to stay seated quietly and until we come back. If you exit the hearing room, you will not be guaranteed those seats if you leave the hearing room at this time. Okay. At this time the committee is going to stand in recess until immediately after the votes. And the judiciary impeachment hearing today, and the only hearing that the Judiciary Committee is holding in the impeachment inquiry of President Trump. Heard from democrats and republican counsel and the ranking chair earlier and waiting to hear from the 41 members of this committee, the Judiciary Committee asking questions. Taking a break now for members to go to the floor for votes, and they will be back in about 15 minutes. And earlier the democrrepublica tried to call for the testimony of adam schiff and also to postpone until next week, and all of those motions were defeated along the partylines. In the break, we are looking to take your phone calls and hear what you have thought so far. And first, we take you to the stakeout of representative swalwell is about to speak. We are taking a break from the panel, but we have heard from some of the nations highest experts and scholars of impeachment, and that this president used your taxpayer dollars to benefit himself by inviting a Foreign Government to investigate his political opponent for his sole benefit. We have looked at the array of high crimes and misdemeanors and we have seen abuse of power, and particularly as it relates to bribery as well as obstruction of congress and obstruction of justice, and with that, id be happy to take questions. What do you make of the criticism of professor turley that the democrats are moving too fast, and the johnson impeachment, and i have heard that you want this done by christmas and other sources that they want to take some time and do it by the next year, and what is your read . As to the criticism are you moving too quickly, and what is moving quickly is an upcoming election, and in under 60 days the first votes will be cast in a president ial election where the president has abused his office in asking a Foreign Government to participate, and who is not working quickly is 71 subpoena requests that he has turned down and 12 witnesses that we have asked to come forward and he is moving slowly. We dont have the benefit of the time when the president is asking foreign powers to involve themselves in our elections. Would it concern you if it goes to the new year . The question is if it would concern me to go into the new year, but we want to get this process right and keep it fair and make sure that the upcoming election secure. Do you think that the upcoming articles include the Mueller Report . The mueller is showing that the president has priors and that the president s conduct is certainly no different now than what he did with the russians and relevant there, but it is early now for us to determine what fully is going to be articulated in the articles, but it is informing us that a leopard does not change its spots. What is the benefit of having a staffer present the Intelligence Committee other than adam schiff . It is likely a prosecutor to present the evidence to the committee, and it is up to the committees to decide and again, it is better for the public to see a clear presentation of the evidence and for us not to engage in, i would say semantics that the republicans have and just keep it focused on the fact, and staffer can do that. Mr. Schiff has laid out as a member of congress what the evidence is, but a staff investigator is best suited to do that the focus is getting this right, why put the arbitrary deadline of the election on this, and why not take the time that you need to get this right . The question is if the focus is to get this right, why have an arbitrary deadline of the election. The deadline is anything but arbitrary, and free elections defines as a democracy and why 50 Million Immigrants have come to our country, and if we lose our integrity for those elections, we lose everything. So we dont have the benefit of waiting for the president to run out the clock on us. So thank you, guys. I will see you at the next break break. Great. Thanks. Congressman, good. Same questions to slalwell, wal do you think that Mueller Report should be included in the impeachment . We have not decided to impeach yet, so that is premature. And so should that be included in any article of impeachment . We have not decided whether or not to impeach. And the decision of the hearing one thing is for the reports presented from the intel and the Mueller Report. In the importance of what we have heard this morning is that from these professors, these scholars, is a explanation of all of the potential violations, and the obstruction of congress which we spent is a fair amount of time talking about and that includes the obstruction of justice and we have heard more of that today, and as we go through the rest of the day today, we will hear more about the potential for including obstruction of justice, but it is premature to know what is going to be in this, because we have not made a decision to go forward. And what about the democrats are going to impeach, and all signs are going to impeach, and all of the indications are, and so what would prevent you from not moving forward at this point . We think that, sure. We think that what is important is for us to have a full conversation, a full discussion today with these witnesses about the various ways that the president appears to have abused his office for his own personal gain, understanding what that means and the constitutional context, and how the remedy of abuse of power is impeachment and only after exploring that will we make a decision of how to make a decision of how to proceed. You guys think that this should wrap up by the end of the year before christmas . I dont think it is about when we actually have to wrap up. I think it is about how we proceed so that we have all of the facts in front of us and a full due process in front of us. I thought that one of the most important things that was said today and i think that it is professor karlan and i forget which one, but when one of the witnesses said that congress obstructed by the president for information that we need, and that is torpedoing the point and we should come back to that over and over again, because this is unprecedented. Is there some convincing for the democratic colleagues who have not been in the hearings and reluctant to impeach . I think that we are at the stage of getting all of the facts in front of us and getting the witnesses to talk to us about all of the pieces there. Is constant conversation going on in the caucus and both in the caucus room and on the floor. I can guarantee you that the majority of my democratic colleagues if they have not been watching the hearing will be caught up, and we will continue to discuss it in caucus, but it is an important time for us all to hear where everybody is in the caucus and make sure that we are making a decision that is meaningful for the entire caucus. Can i make one observation about something that we heard over and over today. And thats this assertion by the Ranking Member that there are no facts that we agree upon. It is clear that the president had this phone call. We know it, because he released the transcript, and it is clear that there was a quid pro quo and we know it because Mick Mulvaney told us that. And that is not in dispute. So it is important as we go through this process, and this important conversation about remedies for abuse of power that, that analysis is being done with the clear understanding of the facts, and the facts are that the president tried to use his power for political gain pursuant to the call that we know took place, and he has acknowledged took place, and the action that Mick Mulvaney says is a normal state of affairs. One thing that came out is that the framers including impeachment for specifically this situation where the president uses his power to undermine the election which is why we cannot wait for the next election and they had this election precisely in mind, and that is what we will hear throughout the hearing and the law professors are doing a great job explaining to the American People the facts that are given to us. To teds point, i was struck by how there was so much discussion of the process today and not contesting and such a discussion of process today and not contesting the facts in front of us, and that is not part of what they tried to do. They try to talk about the process and how it is too fast and this or that, but it is, i think that it is very, very compelling that there has not been any defense presented of the actual facts that are on the record. What is your understanding of the concrete next steps in the process. Congress collins talking about some presentation next week, and what is that going to look like best you know it . So whatever presentation from the House Majority intel and the House Minority intel committees, and we will take in the information that they are going to provide to us. That is my understanding of the next hearing that we will have. And they will come in to present . Yes, they will both present. Open hearing . Open session . Yes. And you anticipate going to the markup or i dont know. What would you prefer . I dont know. But i would say that before we talk about any opportunities to discuss or to have conversations with counsel, it is really important to recognize that there was an opportunity today, already today for the president or his counsel to appear before us to answer questions and offer exculpatory evidence to make or offer the facts to cooperate for the first time in this process and that is consistent with how they have stonewalled throughout. We heard there from some of the lawmakers exiting the Judiciary Committee hearing and the impeachment inquiry of President Trump on going today, and this is of course coming after the Intelligence Committee hearings that were held in weeks past. We want to hear your phone calls and what you have heard from the constitutional scholars that are being heard in the congressional hearings. And for republicans and democrats and independents and others as well. We will get to your calls in a minute. Again, the Judiciary Committee in the break. They are going to the floor of the house for votes, three votes over in the house. So that means that it interrupts what the committee is doing, and so far, we have heard the Opening Statements from the witnesses as well as the chair and the Ranking Member, and we have heard the questioning of the democratic and the republican counsel, and now we want to hear from you. Bruce is on the line from indianapolis, indiana. Caller hi. Thank you for taking my call. In regards to the overall hearings from the intel and to today, the republicans have not been able to shed any light on the president s lawful acts as a president the d what he is doing, and todays hearing demonstrated the key facts that are not in dispute but universally in my opinion accepted, but some people are in that river in egypt which is denial, and so unfortunately to hide the fact that they are denying, they tried to distract and deflect from the central issue that the president was duly elected and did something illegal and immoral and unethical in his oath of office, and the crimes that he has been brought upon the offenses in front of the United States and the world today and subsequent days will be just that. That he abused his office. He committed acts that were in a big word treason that has come up, and which i think is really relevant to the overall presidency. When you are committing acts against the constitution and the United States and your oath of office, that is treason. And i think that the biggest take away is from this entire process is that rules and laws are based on honesty and integrity and selfishness and greed are the epitome of this presidency, and the best way to sum it up is because he is a greedy selfish person he never should have been elected to office, because if you are a Public Servant, you are there to serve, and he should have been the epitome of the example of what a Public Servant is. Instead, he has brought the level of the office down to the lowest level of humanity in that he lies on a continuous basis, and he is encouraging other people to lie as well. And bruce, we are hearing from a number of constitutional scholars as you have been listening to them today, and we are going to be taking your phone calls, and we just heard from bruce on the democrats bruce on the democrats line. Lets get someone on from the republican line. Tims calling from florida. Tim, go ahead. You have the floor. Caller yeah, i just wanted to kind of talk about this in the totality of you know, having these representatives from harvard and whatnot and they kind of seem like theyre lecturing and kind of pinpointing certain things that they can take from their conversation from the call which i dont think it was perfect. I think it was inappropriate as a republican, but i think a lot of things that obama did, bush did, i mean, even, you know some of the top president s from the beginning of our time did things that were inappropriate and they werent impeached. I think millions of americans want to know about mifsud and his relationship with the whistleblower. Why is he a part of adam schiffs team . I mean the timing is all over when you say hes part of adam schiffs team, can you tell us who this person is youre talking about. Sean the nfc staffer who left and became a part of schiffs staff. It hasnt been talked about at all. As an american im wondering why were taking the intelligence officials that told us to bomb syria and it turns out to be wrong and then no one is held accountable. I just theres so many other questions that we could be asking besides this phone call about how to make this country a better place but were going back and forth with harvard law professors . Dont they have anything peter to do . I appreciate you bringing that up, tim. That is one of the things that has been talked about today is that we are hearing from the constitutional scholars on the historical legal precedent side. The Intelligence Community which nancy pelosi the House Speaker chose to bring out more of the evidentiary witnesses was chosen because this does have to do with National Security. Just take taking your phone calls and letting you know the judiciary hearing is expected to come back in 20 minutes or so. Theyre on the floor right now voting in the house and i want to get in one more call before we hear some of the reaction from President Trump. Lauras calling from oak island, North Carolina, on our independents and others line. Caller hey, id like to agree with pretty much everything the first caller said, its almost treasonous what were hearing and President Trump seems to be the most lawless president we have ever had. Its ridiculous. The republicans dont want to hold him accountable for anything he does or says. We cant trust a word out of his mouth and theres even if you read up theres talks about him having ties to the russian mafia and im wondering who else have they bought off . Is he bought and paid for by russia . We have republicans going on tv pushing proven kremlin talking points that comes straight from russia. Its just ridiculous. Laura, what do you think about hearing today from the constitutional scholars . Theres three from the democrats who were called by democrats. One from the republican side. We heard a lot more from the republican constitutional scholar when it was the republicans turn to do some of the questions. What do you think about what you have been hearing today on the constitutionality . Caller well, i really feel like he was just again pushing the republican talking points that you hear from fox news and things that we hear are coming straight from the kremlin and i appreciate more the first two that we heard from. It seemed like everything was just more open and honest and, you know, what our forefathers when they wrote the constitution was to protect us from this exact type of behavior and it all just seems like common sense, hearing what we heard from our first two before they all was it turley the one that youre questioning about . I just feel like hes he again is just would allow President Trump to do anything and anything and everything including not allowing anyone to testify, to ignore subpoenas. I mean, theres no rule of law. Its its ridiculous. I appreciate your call. We want to take a look at some of what President Trump said. He was leaving the nato summit. He is on his way back to washington. Well take a look at the president s remarks in terms of the hearing and also the democratic report that was released yesterday. So you have got the last opportunity to ask you a question. Do you want to comment on the House Democrats impeachment report that came out last night . I saw it, its a joke. Everybody is saying i watched reviews. I watched hannity, sean hannity. I watched laura ingraham, tucker carlson. I watched a lot of other legal scholars, frankly. I watched some people with great legal talent and highly respected, alan dershowitz, and many more. Many more. I watched a very terrific former special prosecutor, you know ken. Ken is a talented man and a smart man and i will tell you it is a uniform statement i think pretty much right down the road that what theyre doing is a very bad thing for our country. Its of no merit. And the Republican Party has never been more unified ever. They have never been as unified as they are right now. I have never seen anything like it. Where you have 1970 where the senate is very angry about it. I think the senate i can say is angry and the Republican Party is angry. A recent poll came out 95 Approval Rating for me and the Republican Party which is a record. Ronald reagan was at 87 , he was the second. So i mean, its going good. I have never seen anything like it where the parties come together. And its going to stay that way for a long time. I think well have a tremendous 2020. Im sure you have all seen the polls that have come out especially in the swing states. We have gone way up in the polls and i think its you know, its a disgrace. You have a loser like stone cold loser has been all of his life, adam schiff, then you have nancy pelosi who agreed with what he said which puts her into real jeopardy. Agreed on a certain show, stephanopoulos, and frankly its a bad thing for the country. Im over here with nato, were meeting with in this case italy, but were meeting with great countries. Very important countries. Were doing a good job. And they scheduled it same thing happened a number of months ago when they put the United Nations they put the United Nations situation they had a hearing with somebody on the same day and now they do it with nato. These people you almost question whether or not they love our country. And thats a very, very serious thing. Do they in fact love our country. So they schedule that during the United Nations. Ill never forget. Im walking into the United Nations and i start hearing all of the things that they were talking about. Exactly at that time. Literally im walking through the front door. And you folks start screaming out to me about whatever. You know what you were screaming. And now i do nato, this was scheduled for a year. And the same thing happens. They schedule a hearing, its a hoax. Its a total hoax. We had a great call with the president of ukraine. It was a great call. Not just a good call, it was a perfect call. In fact, it was two perfect calls and Everybody Knows it. By the way the president of ukraine was 100 honest. All you have to do is listen to the call or read the call. We had it transcribed perfectly. But he was he said no pressure, no nothing. There was no nothing. In fact, they dont understand what you people are talking about and i think they probably consider it disgraceful. I think its a disgrace that we could be wasting time and in the meantime, the usmca is sitting on Nancy Pelosis desk, its drawing dust. It has been there for many, many months. And farmers, manufacturer, union, nonunion, everybody wants it and nothing happens. Its a very sad thing for our country. The word impeachment is a dirty word and its a word that was only supposed to be used in special occasions. High crimes and misdemeanors. In this case there was no crime whatsoever. Not even a tiny crime. There was no crime whatsoever. They know it. And they go into those rooms and they close those doors down in the basement and they say ill tell you what they say, they just laugh because its to them its a joke. They think theyre doing well but theyre not doing well. Theyre saying how do we get out of this, because their poll numbers are way down. Theyll have a tremendous loss in 2020. Thats whats going to happen. No matter how you cut it, its been very interesting but to do it on a day like this where were in london with some of the most powerful countries in the world, having very important nato meetings, and it just happened to be scheduled this was set up a year ago, just happened to be scheduled on this date. Its really honestly its a disgrace. So thats it. Thank you. Thank you. Rudy giuliani . I dont know anything about him. Hes a great lawyer, he was the best mayor in the history of new york city by far. He stopped crime in new york city. As a u. S. Attorney, he was incredible. Hes highly respected. So somebody said he made a phone call into the white house, what difference does that make . I dont know. You know, is that supposed to be a big deal . I dont think so. Rudy is a great gentleman and theyre after him only because hes done such a good job. He was very effective against mueller and the mueller hoax. That whole thing was a hoax. First we had mueller and we h had before i even got elected this was going of on. Now the ig report will be very interesting. Well see what thats all about and then of course as you know the big one thats going to come south the durham report. I dont know mr. Durham, i have never spoken to him but hes one of the most respected Law Enforcement or u. S. Attorneys anywhere in the country. Hes a tough guy. Hes had an incredible track record. Hes actually sort of nonpartisan i guess from what i hear. But the big one that everyone is waiting for is that and the ig report. So the ig report they say is coming out on monday. Tuesday. Maybe whatever. But they say monday. I think its going to be a very big thing and well see what happens. But this should never happen to a president again. For me, its okay, but this should never happen to a president whats happened here. Its a disgrace to our country. An absolute disgrace to our country. Its sad actually. Its done by, you know, frankly by losers. You look at the people. Look at the cast of characters between nadler and schiff and pelosi. Nervous nancy. Its an absolute disgrace to our country. And i think a lot of democrats, by the way, are going to vote against it. I think that, you know, because if they dont, theyll lose their race. Because people are putting they went back to their districts and they are getting hammered. By their districts. And if they dont, theyll lose their race. So in in ways i hope they dont, okay. Well get a fair shake in the senate. Assuming that whatever happens happens well get a very fair shake in the senate. But we have already been giv given you just take a look. Today i understood, obviously i have been with all of these World Leaders and done conferences with the World Leaders so i havent been able to watch but think of it. They get three constitutional lawyers and we get one, whats that all about . Just that little statement. They get three. We get one. We had no representation. We couldnt call witnesses. We couldnt do anything. It is the most unfair thing that anybody has ever seen. They would have done much better if they gave us equal representation