Somebody caught in the middle of it, and that does not excuse the person from the consequences. Professors, we have talked about abuse of power and bribery when we started, we said we would also discuss obstruction of congress. So i would like to ask you some questions about obstruction of congress. Professor gerhardt, in your view, is there enough evidence here to charge President Trump with a high crime and misdemeanor of obstruction of congress . I think that there is more than enough. As i mentioned in my statement, i just really underscore this. The third article of impeachment, approved by the House Judiciary Committee against president nixon charged him with misconduct that he failed to comply with four legislative subpoenas. This is far more than four that this president has failed to comply with. And he has ordered the executive
branch, as well, not to cooperate with congress. Those together with a lot of other evidence suggests obstruction of congress. Professor karlan, do you agree . I am the discuss her of democracy, as a citizen i agree with what professor gerhardt. I am a scholar of the law of democracy, not a scholar of Obstruction Of Justice or obstruction of congress. We will accept your opinion as a citizen. Professor feldman. The obstruction of congress is a problem because it undermines the basic principle of the constitution. If youre going to have three branches of government, each of the branches have to do its job. The job of the houses to investigate impeachment, and to impeach. The president has had as the president did say, i will not cooperate in any shape, or form of your process. Robbed a form of government. Robbing the House Of Representatives of their constitutional power of impeachment. When you add to the fact that the same president says my Department Of Justice cannot charge me with the crime, the president puts himself Above The Law when he says he will not cooperate in impeachment inqui inquiry. It is not positive enough. A president who will not cooperate in an Impeachment Inquiry is putting himself Above The Law. Putting yourself Above The Law as president is the core of an Impeachable Offense. Because if the president could not be impeached for that, he would in fact not be responsible to anybody. Answer, informing your opinion, did you review these statements from President Trump . We are fighting all of the subpoenas. Then i have an article 2 where i have the right to do whatever i want as president. I did, and as someone who cares about the constitution,
the second of those in particular struck a kind of horror in me. And professor gerhardt, informing 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 RepresentativesImpeachment Inquiry. Last night after i submitted my statement, i watched and read all of the transcripts that were available. The report to that was issued reinforces everything that came before it. So yes. We have talked first to the power of bribery. And to congress. Professor gerhardt, i would like to ask you some 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 . 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. That is an Impeachable Offense. In your testimony, sir, you pointed out that to 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. The first of those instances
was the president ordering his then white House Counsel dom began 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 a president ordering mr. Mcgann to create a false written record denying that the president had ordered him to have mr. Mueller remove. That is correct. You also point to the meeting of the president with his former Campaign Manager corey lewandowski, in order to get him to take steps to have the investigation curtailed, right . Yes, sir, i did. And you also point to part in dangling and witness and tingling as the Michael Cohen former official and former lawyer of the president. Individually and collectively these are forms of Obstruction Of Justice. Is that Obstruction Of Justice . It is quite serious, and that is not all, of course. We know as you have mentioned before, Obstruction Of Justice as we recognize an Impeachable Offense in president clinton and president nixon. The evidence put forward by mr. Mueller that is in the Public Record is very strong evidence of Obstruction Of Justice. Professor karlan, when you look at the Department Of JusticeRussian 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 are the antithesis of what our framers were committed to. Our framers were committed to the idea that we as americans,
we as americans decide our elections. We dont want foreign interference in those elections. In the reason we dont want foreign interference in those elections is because we are a self determining democracy. If i could just read one quotation to you that i think is helpful in understanding this. It is somebody who is 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. And 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 election hearing, or by giving money to tax. They have long been forbidden to give contributions to candidates. And the reason is because that
denies us our right to self govern. And then judge Justice Brett kavanaugh was so correct in seeing this at the Supreme Court, which as you know has taking Campaign Finance after case to talk about the first amendment. It is constitutional, and part of the election process. Professor feldman, you were an Impeachment Skeptic at the time of the release of the Mueller Report, were you . I was. What has changed for you, sir . What changed 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 a whole public, openly abused his office by seeking a personal advantage in order to get himself reelected at the National Security of the
United States, that is precisely the situation that the framers anticipated. It is very unusual for the framers predictions to come true that precisely. And when they do, we have to ask ourselves, someday we will no longer be alive. And we will go wherever it is we go. The good place or the other place. And 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 follow the guidance of the framers. And it must be that if the evidence supports the conclusion that the House Of Representatives moves to impeach him. Thank you, i yield my time back to the chairman. My time has expired, i yield back. Before i recognized low Ranking Member for his ground, first round of questions, the committee will stand in a ten minute humanitarian recess. I ask everyone in the room to please 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 to 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. For the past 45 minutes you have been hearing the case made on behalf of democrats in the house about the trifecta of offenses committed by the president. Abuse of power, bribery, Obstruction Of Justice. Three of the four witnesses agreeing with all of those charges and laying out in detail sometimes in passionate detail as to why they believe in this case the president is guilty. With one exception, Jonathan Turley sitting on the end to field the fewest questions of the session. Michael gerhardt, this stuck out that this is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable,
sitting next to turley, professor of George Washington university who has the opposite view of the facts before them. Lets bring in our roundtable. We are stacked up today. I want to get to Andy Mccarthy first and find out. These are not Fact Witnesses, andy, they are offering what you could argue, their legal opinion as to what they believe the case is. How effective was this morning session . I think it has been very effective so far for the democrats. And in an interesting way. I sense that there is a real shift in strategy, what we saw in the Intelligence Committee hearings was that the democratic majority seemed to settle on bribery as its main theory for impeachment. But it is very interesting the way that this tees up today, because historically before you call in the legal experts, usually have drafted up the
articles of impeachment and asked the legal experts than to explain how they square with what the framers had in mind in the Impeachment Clauses. Interestingly, here we dont have articles of impeachment yet. And what you are seeing is a shift in the approach from bribery to something that is more is more a more for us. But fits under the constitutions definition. And that is abuse of power. The whole idea of exercising Public Authority for a private gain, and in particular in a manner that could have a detrimental effect on our elections. Which the framers were concerned about. What i think is happening as these witnesses are being used not only as if they were a Fact Witnesses, but if they were a crucial Fact Witnesses paid what is happening here is they are laying out the definition, as it
were of what an abuse of power is, and what is suddenly happening as it goes on. As they are taking statements of the adam Schiff Report that came out of that Intelligence Committee and asking, how does that fit into what you just told us about abuse of power . And what i think is this is ultimately setting up to our articles of impeachment that are not necessarily or predominantly criminal offenses. But abuses of power along the lines of what the Law Professors have laid out. Bill andy, thank you. I want to go around the horn with more now. Bret baier, theyre a lot to take away of what we have seen in the hearing room, one was jonathan were turley, the republican witness getting some statements out of the way. In page 4, he got to it in his abbreviated statement. Im not a supporter of the president , i voted against him in 2016. He previously voted for president clinton and obama. He pointed that he has been very
critical of President Trump, but he went on to say why he believes impeachment is wrong. Here is Jonathan Turley. That is why this is wrong. It is not wrong because President Trump is right. His call as anything but perfect. It is not wrong because the house hasnt no legitimate reason to investigate the ukrainian controversy. It is not wrong because we are in an election year. There is no good time for an impeachment. No, it is wrong because this is not how you impeach an american president. Your take away so far . I think that Jonathan Turley laid out why he does not think that this fits. You also heard some of the attempts by all of the witnesses and some Law Professors, golden doodles being upset and the like. I think it all came down to laying out to this case. Democrats obviously talking to the first three witnesses. And an impassioned moment between professor pamela karlan
and doug collins, the Ranking Member of the committee, collins and his Opening Statement essentially said that they are not going to provide anything that they did not already know. And they dont know all of the witnesses what they have said. Karlan pushing back saying she was offended that she went over every witness statement. But says that it all comes down to the clock on the calendar for the democrats and it all started with tears in brooklyn. Meaning the end of the 2016 election where Hillary Clinton lost. I think you are going to see republicans as the white house put out statements all throughout the three democratic witness testimony. You are going see efforts to kind of undermine their testimony because of what they alleged the white house and others is biased and specific evidence for each one of them where they have talked out about President Trump months and months ago and expect that to be the blueprint as a republican start their questions. Sandra it appears the
press secretary Stephanie Grisham has just put out a tweet during all of this thing three of the four experts in the sham hearing have known biases against the president. A multipart tweet, but the white house is reacting. Spilling more now from turley talking about Alexander Hamilton, saying we are living in a period of agitated passions. Talking about how everybody is mad paired his wife, his kids, his dog. Mad in washington, and what you think we have learned, chris . Lets just talk about Jonathan Turley for a moment. Because there were four very distinguished Law Professors who express their views. And then the democrats and the majority counsel norm eiseman had 45 minutes. If you notice, he talked at three of them for about 34 minutes and 30 seconds. And only once did he ask Jonathan Turley any questions. Then he asked him about a specific quote that he had given in an article, and he said, he
read the article and the quote and said, did you say that . Which was critical of President Trump and one of the things that turley said was that it does not have to be completed for something to be an impeachable crime. And turley started to give an answer, no, no, i just want to know yes or no, did you say that . He said he read it accurately. Why are you talking to the three and not the other, the democrats who have the majority called three democratic protrump impeachment Law Professors. And they wanted to focus on them. They did not want to hear anything from Jonathan Turley who is the one lawyer who has been called by the republicans. So this was not a search for justice or wisdom, this was a search for trying to make a case. And jerry nadler, the chairman and his Chief Counsel wanted to hear from the people who were going to make the case, more than they did not want to hear from Jonathan Turley. As far as turley is concerned,
he used the phrase at one point slip shot impeachment. He said there are two big problems. One is that you are in search of a crime. It is murky. You have not been able to find a crime. And the other is speed. That you are just in such a Rush To Judgment here, and you really have not taken the time. You have not heard from an awful lot of witnesses. Yes, the white house has blocked some of them, but you did not subpoena a lot of these witnesses. John bolton most notably, mulvaney, a number of the othe others. And he is saying take your time, get the best evidence as alway always bill he referred to previous impeachment processes, clinton and nixon, saying that all had established crimes, but in this case he could not find it. Chris, hang on just one moment. Sandra, go ahead as we look at what John Ratcliffe is in the room, steve drabyn. Sandra just that we should see this resume, martha, your take away so far . I would go back to the initial statement from noah feldman, and doug collins said today will be a demonstration for all of us why we would not want to go to law school. Although, i have seen in a number of the statements that by the founding fathers, and he highlighted the debate over impeachment and why it matters. And talked about the fact that the framers initially discussed the possibility that you would not need it. It would be the democracy that is a democratic system in the United States. But then he says that there was an argument put forth by two of the framers that said you have to have the ability to impeach because reelection is not enough of a safeguard with an entity. Obviously this goes right to Noah Feldmans argument that he believes that the president did try to do that. That was backed up when we heard
from Professor Karlan as well who talked about the concern that there was an effort to interfere. And all of this dovetails back nicely into the latest iteration of what democrats say is the reason for being here. Which we have watched evolves over time. You have bribery, and we have arrived at the abuse of power. But now we have to stop President Trump because he is going to do it again prayed he did with russia, ukraine. He suggested it should be done with china, that is what has brought us to a good day as far as the democrats are concerned and we continue to move forward into more of the specific question from the panels. Sandra he cut to the chase almost immediately, saying President Trump has committed crimes and misdemeanors, he detailed that in his fiveminute statement by dangling the promise of a white house visit. Bill lets bring in the judge right now, we have established that they are Fact Witnesses giving their legal opinion based on what they have heard so far. And your legal opinion so far as what . That the three witnesses, the three professors, not to john turley, but the other three have established a legal basis to enable the democrats to argue that articles of impeachment are well grounded in the law for areas that we were not even clear they were going to go into, such as bribery. You have Obstruction Of Justice, having to do with the mueller investigation. Not Obstruction Of Justice by any interference with congress. So we have campaign solicitation, bribery, obstruction of congress, Obstruction Of Justice. The only thing they did not address the which i guess the democrats will give up on is the allegation that the president harassed or tampered with witnesses with the tweets that he gave while witnesses were testifying against him. Jonathan turley is going to present the other argument. And we all have gotten a peek at that argument. That the impeachment of a president for something this in
his view insignificant does harm to democracy and harm to the constitution. The democrats agreement argue that this is significant. And the reason why is listen to what Professor Feldman said. Listen to the history. Listen to the logic. Listen to the hypotheticals that the others have given. Each side will get what they want. Bill turley said i did not vote for donald trump, i was against impeachment 21 years ago, i am against it now. How will you react when the wind blows again . That is the whole political argument we are going through together. That is a brilliant quotation from robert bolts play a man for all season putting spectacular moral language in the mouth of sir and st. Thomas more that we have laws in this country, and we obey the laws no matter the outcome. We dont cut down the laws because we want to get to someone who we think is the
devil. There was a brilliant analogy on Jonathan Turleys part. I suspect now between Congressman Collins and the republican counsel, Jonathan Turley will get a chance to elaborate on all of that. Why can we not impeach with just a two month investigation . Why should we not impeach because of what happened with bob mueller . Im sure that all of those will be asked in the next halfhour. Bill i believe that you are correct about that. Before the hearing goes again, lets go to martha. What do you expect to happen in a short time from now . I think what John Turley Will Hone in on is if you are going to have a standard like abuse of power, it will be completely impossible to contain that in any future presidency. Because at some point or another, all president s abuse their power. And if the definition for an Impeachable Offense is going to be as elastic as it sounded in the first round of questioning,
then every president is capable of being harassed by his political opposition on grounds that he abuse power. This is why ive always thought and continue to think that we are really bipolar on impeachment. And we are focusing on one part of it now, which is the abstract legal part of it. Into the framers, again, the most important part of it was the abuse of power or the crimes had to be so serious that you could move twothirds of the senate to remove the president. And i expect that when Jonathan Turley is going to do and his when the questions finally come his way is point out that if you dont have some kind of serious metric that raises the level of an Impeachable Offense to something that is truly egregious and heinous, that our politics in the future are just going to be a mess. Bill onto andy and the judge, i mention the Michael Gerhardt comment towards the end, if this is not impeachable,
nothing is impeachable. And to both of you, Jonathan Turley sitting right next to them with a very different view on how all of this went down and how all of it should be settled. It reminds you, gentlemen, of this thing that was floating around the internet two years ago, is the dress blue or is a gold . And they both have a very different view of the facts. You in the mall, how do you settle that . Two people looking at the same events, just like andy and i seated next to each other looking at the same set of facts can view it, recall it, recounted, and analyze it differently. That is especially true with lawyers. Who are taught to analyze problems from a variety of standpoints. I dont think anyone is challenging the intellectual honesty of these people. They just come to the table with different attitudes about what the constitution means. To Professor Feldman, the failure to impeach impairs democracy. To professor turley, impeachment where it is not warranted
bill view argue that the dresses gold and Andy Mccarthy argues that the dress is blue. We are looking at the same dress. What we have lost the ability to do is distinguish wrong from egregious wrong. And it sounds like if you are in that room, you either have to take the position that the president s conversation was perfect or he needs to be impeached and removed from office. And i think what we will hear his Jonathan Turley will say you can find the conversation was very much less than perfect, you can find that there is a lot that went on here that is wrong, and even condemnable, but we have not reached the level of impeaching and removing a president which is a level that is so high that we have been at this kind of governance for a quarter of a millennium now, and we have not remove the preside president. Bill the attorney we were listening to, was he honest or both of you when he described the transcript from july 25th . The president said i would like you to do us a favor, and then
he went into the joe biden aspect of it. That is not what the transcript says. He says i would like you to do us a favor, then went into the question about the election and who was involved. Was it ukraine or crowd strike, on an oncoming he was asking about the election of 2016 in that paragraph, judge. Lawyers have a lot of leeway when they ask questions. There are no federal rules being implied. No federal judge making sure that everybody is being perfectly ethical. As long as they have a good faith basis for asking a question, norm eiseman is an advocate. As sandra said earlier, this is not a search for the truth. This is a search for a legal justification for what each side wants to do. In that process you hire an advocate to ask questions. I dont know the name of a lawyer that will soon be interrogating Jonathan Turley, but we will also see an advocate framing questions intended to
induce answers that the republicans want to hear. Speak to me inject one thing, when you look at Jonathan Turleys testimony, the longer version, one thing he is very pressing on is that it is all going too fast. When you go into this, you need to subpoena the witnesses who have direct knowledge. How can you continue this without john bolton, rudy giuliani, and Mick Mulvaney in the mix . Because based on the evidence you have only three direct conversations with President Trump that do not contain a statement of quid pro quo, and expressly denies such preconditions. So i watch for the timing to be an issue that they focus on as well. Sandra as the hearing was beginning, at the nato summit, making his way back along with the first lady, but a reminder that the white house and President Trump were invited to participate today, but refused. Your thoughts as we see jerry nadler . They did not want to give it
any credence and said it was a hoax from the beginning. But during this time, realtime, the white house Quick Reaction force sending out statements about each one of these professors, the democrats witnesses saying that Professor Karlan once quipped that she had to cross the street to avoid walking by the trump hotel in washington, d. C. Noah feldman did a podcast making the case for impeachment in april 2017. All cases that go tobias. But to Jonathan Turleys point, it does not matter how they voted, what they think personally. They are talking about their thoughts on the law, at least two turleys point in his Opening Statement. But the white house suggesting that the three democrat professors have an extreme bias against President Trump, that is factoring into how they are looking at the same exact blue dress, gold dress debate. Sandra exactly, going back to Jonathan Turleys point in his Opening Statement when he said i am not a supporter of
President Trump, he said my personal and political views of President Trump are relevant to impeachment testimony, should be to your impeachment vote. Jerry nadler dropping the gavel. Speak of the chair now recognizes the Ranking Member for his first round of questions, the Ranking Member or his counsel have 45 minutes to question the witnesses. Ranking member. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Before i begin on the questioning, i want to revisit a comment that was made earlier about you mr. Chairman, the demand for minority hearing, you said that you would rule later. I remind you that the rule of house did not permit a ruling or a vote, and you cannot shut it down. And according to your own words, the minority is really exercised but regards against the majority excluding convening views. Call it the fair and balanced rule, it is not the chairmans right to deserve a hearing, or whether prior hearings were sufficient, it is not the
chairmans right for what we say or think is acceptable. It is certainly not the chairmans right to interfere with the conduction of a hearing. And i commend you getting that scheduled expeditiously. Moving on, interesting, now he had faced 2. You have had one side, and i have to say it was eloquently argued by not only the council and the witnesses involved, but there is always a faced 2. If faced 2 is what is problematic here. Because as i said in my Opening Statement, this is what would be from any one of 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, the closest thing to perfect outside your resume this side of heaven is an Opening Statement, because it is unchallenged. I agree with that. And it should be. We have had great witnesses to talk about this. But we did not talk about kurt volker who said nothing about
it. We said nothing about the aid being held up, morrison who contradicted one another, and i expect the majority too, thats not what they are here for. They are not here to give exculpatory evidence just like the Schiff Report gives nothing of exculpatory evidence. And nothing held by adam schiff that he did not come to this committee. And we have none of the underlying stuff that came from that investigation according to age 660. One of them very important part is the inspector general, his testimony still being withheld. And there is an secret holding and classification, we have plenty of places to handle classified information if it is where they want to do that. But there is a reason it is being withheld, because undoubtedly there is a problem with it. We will have to see as that goes forward. So anybody in the media and watching today, the first 45 minutes as we went through have painted a very interesting
picture, it has painted an interesting picture that goes back many, many years. An interesting picture of picking and choosing which part of the last few weeks we want to talk about, and that is fine. Because we have the rest of the day to go about this. Professor turley, you are now well rested. And you have one question. You were asked yes or no, but not given to elaborate. But i want to start here. Lets just do this. Elaborate if you would, because you tried to on the question that was asked of you and if there is anything else you have heard this morning that you would disagree with. I would allow you some time to talk. By the way, just for the information, mr. Chairman, this is the coldest hearing room in the world. And also for those that are worried about i am uncomfortable, i am happy as a large, but this chair is terrible. I mean, it is amazing. But mr. Turley, go ahead. It is not anything that i was not able to cover in my robust
exchange with counsel, but i would like to try. There are a couple of things i would like to highlight. I wont take a great deal of time, i respect my colleagues. I know all of them, and i consider them friends. And i certainly respect what they have said today. We have fundamental disagreement. But i would like to start with the issue of bribery. The statement has been made, not just by these witnesses, but chairman schiff and others so that this is a clear case of bribery. Its not. And chairman schiff said that it might not fit todays definition of bribery, but that it would fit the definition back in the 18th century. Now putting aside misters schiffs turn towards a regionalism. I think it might come to 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 a flaw in the 18th century as it is in this century. The statement that was made by one of my esteemed colleagues is that bribery was not 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 was not just overarching concept to that chairman schiff indicated. Quite to the contrary. The original standard was treason and bribery. That led mason to object that it was too narrow. If bribery could include any time that you did anything for personal interest instead of public interest, the overarching definition, that exchange wouldve been completely useless. The framers did not disagree with masons view that bribery was too narrow. What they disagreed with was
when he suggested maladministration to add to the standard. Because he wanted it to be broader. And what James Madison said is that that is too broad. That that would essentially create what you might call a vote of no confidence in england. It would basically allow congress to toss out president s that they did not like. But once again, we are all channeling the intent of the framers, and that is always a dangerous thing to do. The only more dangerous spot to stand and is between congress and in impeachments as an academic. But i would offer instead of the words of the framers themselves. In that exchange they did not 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, ultimately the framers agreed. And then morris who was who referred to earlier did say we need to adopt the standard. But what was left out was what came afterwards. We need to protect against bribery, because we dont want anything like what happened with Louis The 14th In Charles the Second Period that the example he gave up bribery was accepting actual money as the head of state. So what had happened in that example of bribery, was louis the 14th gave charles the second a huge amount of money as well as other benefits including apparently a french mistress in exchange for the secret treaty,
the dover of 1670. It was also an exchange of converting to catholicism. But that was not a broad notion of bribery, it was quite narrow. So i dont think that Dog Wont 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 welldefined. And you should not just take our word for it, you should look to how it is defined by the United StatesSupreme Court. In a case called Mcdonald Versus the United States, the Supreme Court looked at a public corruption bribery case. This is a case where gifts were received. Things were extended. There was completion. This was not a 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 of the justices said that it was a dangerous thing to take a crime like bribery and apply a boundless interpretation. They rejected the notion that bribery could be used in terms of setting up meetings and other things that occur in the course of a Public Service career. So what i would caution the committee is that 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 know that the Supreme Court has rejected the
type a boundless interpretation say, well, it is just impeachment. We really dont have to prove the elements. That is a favored mantra that is served close enough for jazz. Well, this is not improvisational jazz. Close enough is not good enough. If you are going to accuse the president of bribery, you need to make it stick. Because you are trying to remove a duly elected president of the United States. Now it is unfair to accuse someone of a crime and when others say, well, those interpretations you are using to define the crime are not valid and to say that 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 impeachment, those were not just proven crimes, they were accepted crimes. As even the democrats on that
judiciary, that the Judiciary Committee agreed that bill clinton had committed perjury. That is on the record. And the federal judge later said it was perjury. In the case of mixed income of the crimes were established. No one seriously disagreed with those crimes. Now johnson is the outlier, because he was a trapdoor crime. They basically created a crime knowing that johnson wanted to replace secretary of war. And johnson data, because they had serious trouble in the cabinet. So they created a trapdoor crime, waited for him to fire the secretary of war, and then they impeached him. But there is no question that he committed the crime, its the underlying statute was unconstitutional. So i would caution you not only about bribery, but also obstruction. Im sorry, Ranking Member no, you are doing a good job. I would also caution you
about obstruction. Obstruction is a crime with meaning. It has elements. It has controlling case authority. The record does not establish obstruction in this case that is what my esteemed colleague said was 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 impeachme impeachment. Narrow Fast Impeachments have failed. Just ask johnson. So the Obstruction Issue is an example of this problem. And heres my concern, the theory being put forward is that President Trump obstructed
congress by not turning over material requested by the committee. And citations have been made to the third article of the nixon impeachment. First of all i want to confess. I have 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 he would be replicating one of the worst articles written on impeachment. Here is the reason why. Peter rodinos position as chairman judiciary was that congress alone decides what information would be given to it. Alone. This position was that the courts have no role in this. And by that theory, and he refers sold by a president based on Executive Privilege or immunity would be the basis of impeachment. That is essentially the theory being replicated today. President trump has gone to congress, to the court. He has been allowed to do that. Three branches, not two. I happen to agree with some of your create his criticism of President Trump, including that former quote where he said this is article 2, and he gives this overriding interpretation. I share that criticism. You are doing the same thing. With article 1. You are saying, article one gives us complete authority that when we demand information from another branch, it must be turned over, or we will impeach you in record time. Making that worse is that you have such a short investigation. You set an incredibly short period, demand a huge amount of information and when the president goes to court, you then impeach him. Does that track with what you have heard about impeachment . Does that track the rule of law that we have talked about . And i would encourage you to think about this, in the next day to go to the courts. In nixon he lost. And that was the reason that he resigned. He resigned a few days after the Supreme Court ruled against him. In that critical case. But in that case the court recognized that there was Executive Privilege arguments that can be made. It did not say, you had no right coming to us, dont darken our doorstep again. It said we have heard your arguments. We have heard congress arguments. And you know it, you lose. Turn over the material to congress. What that date for the judiciary is it gave this body legitimacy. It was not the Rodino Extreme Position that only you decide what information can be produc
produced. Now recently there are some rulings against President Trump, including a ruling involving don mcgann. Mr. Chairman, i testified in front of you a few months ago. If you recall, we had an exchange, and i encouraged you to bring those actions. I said that i thought you would win. And you did. And i think it was an important win for this committee. Because i do not agree with President Trumps argument in that case. But that is an example of what can happen if you actually subpoena witnesses and go to court. Then you have an obstruction case. Because the court issues an order. And unless they stay that order by a higher court, you have obstruction. But i cant emphasize this enough. I will say it just 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. It is your abuse of power. You are doing precisely what youre criticizing the president for doing. We have a third branch that deals with conflicts of the other two branches. And what comes out of there and what you do with it is the very definition of legitimacy. Lets unpack what you have been talking about. First of all, the mcdonald case, how was i decided . Was that split court, where we really torn about that . Yes, it came out unanimous, so did other the next cases that i cited my testimony that refute these criminal theories. One of the things that you said also, and i think it can be summed up, i use it as a layma laymans language is facts dont matter, thats what ive heard a lot of, the fact said this, the facts disputed this, but if this, if that, it rises to an impeachment level. And that was what you were saying that crimes have meanings. And i think that this is the concern that i have. Is there a concern that if we just say facts dont matter that we are also as you have said abusing our power as we go forward here and looking at what people would actually deem as an Impeachable Offense . I think so. And part of the problem is to bring a couple of these articles, you have to contradict a position of President Obama. President obama withheld evidence from congress in fast and furious, and investigation, or were rather 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. I have a question on that. You brought up mr. Obama and other president s in this process. Is there not an obligation by the office of the president. We will use that term, not to the obama, trump, clinton, isnt
there an obligation by the president to actually assert the constitutional privileges or authorities that have been given when accused of something . A crime or anything else . Yes, i think that President Obama has invoked too broadly, but on the other hand, he has released a lot of information. I have been friends with bill barr for a long time. We disagree on Executive Privilege. I am a madisonian scholar. I favor congress in disputes. And he is the inverse spread his natural default is article 2. My natural default is article 1. But he has released more privileged information than any Attorney General in my lifetime including the Mueller Report, the transcripts of the calls, with the Executive Privilege material. There is no question about that. Not pointing out when you are doing back and forth like we are doing. The transcripts, the call release, the things that have been released. As we go back through this,
there has been work in progress by this administration. The interesting point that i want to talk about his two things. Number one, Congress Abuse of its own power, which has not been a discussed even internally, which we have committees not letting members see transcripts or not being willing to give those up under the guise of impeachment or you should not be able to see them, although the rules of the house were never invoked to stop that. What we are seeing here, i want to get at Something Else is the timing issue that you talk about here. Again, i believe you talked about this with the Mueller Report and everything else. This is one of the fastest we are on a clock. The clock on the calendar are seemingly dominated is irregardless of anything on this committee, and members of this committee to think about what we are seeing of Fact Witnesses and people moving forward. We dont have that yet. So the question becomes is an election pending when facts are in dispute . And this is one where the facts
are not unanimous. There is not universal or bipartisan agreement on the facts and what they lead to. Especially when there is exculpatory evidence that has been presented not in the Schiff Report, but in other reports, does that timing bother you from a historicals perspective, not only in the past, but moving forward as well . Fast and narrow is not a good recipe for impeachment. That was the case with johnson, nero was the case with clinton. They do not survive and they collapse in front of the senate. There is a ratio between your foundation and your height. This is the highest structure you can build under the constitution. Want to build an impeachment, you have to have a foundation broad enough to support it. This is the narrowest impeachment in history. You can argue with johnson, johnson it might be the fastest impeachment. Johnson actually what happened to him was the fourth impeachment attempt against johnson. And actually the record goes back a year before. They laid that trapdoor a year
before. So it was not as fast as he made it out, or might appear. You talk about bribery, and i want to, lets try to go through, but i want to go back to something that you talk about. It bothers the perception out there of what is going on here, the disputed transcript, the calls are laid out there, the president said i wanted nothing for this. All of the exculpatory evidence that was not presented in the last 45 minutes. But it has been reported in the mainstream media, goes back to your issue of do crimes matter, or what the definition is, the House Majority initially accused the president and they said quid pro quo, and we hear it as we go through. But then reported the focus group to determine whether the phrase pulled well. And they changed it to bribery, does that not feed into more of what youre saying about how we were in Crime Matters and that facts do matter in a case like this . Or at least should matter . It does. There is a reason why every past
impeachment has established crimes. And it is obvious. It is not that you cant impeach on a noncrime, you can. In fact noncrimes have been part of past impeachments. Its just they have never gone up alone. Or primarily as a basis of impeachment. That is the problem here. If you prove a quid pro quo, you might have an Impeachable Offense. But to go up only on a noncriminal case and be the first time in history. So why is that the case . The reason is that crimes have an established definition and case law. So there is a concrete independent body of law that assures the public that this is not just political. That this is a president who did something they could not do. You cant say the president is Above The Law if you then say the crimes you accuse him of really dont have to be established. I think that is the problem right now that many members of the house, the body, and the American Public are looking at,
if you say that he is above law, but you do not do find it or whatever you want to have, that is the railroad that everybody in this country should not be afforded. Everybody is afforded due process. Everybody is afforded the process to make their case heard. That is the concern i have in this committee. And we have seen it voted down that we are not going to look at certain Fact Witnesses or not even promised other hearings where this committee. And in the words and concerns that were echoed 20 years ago from the chairman where he did not want to take the advice of another entity giving us the Judiciary Committee report and then acting as we did not do this. It was almost two and a half weeks before the discussion of this kind of hearing back then. Before the hearing actually took place. These are the kind of things that this timing goes, i think the obvious point is that timing is becoming more the issue, because the concern has been stated before about elections. They are more concerned about trying to fit the facts into what the president supposedly did, presumably dated and make
those hypothetical stick to the American Public. The problem is they are timing the definition of crimes in the definition of the fact of bribery not defined by the supreme course, not making their case. 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 being withheld . Even in a classified setting . These are the problems that you have highlighted, and i think the need to be. This is why the next 45 minutes on the rest of the day is going to be applicable. Because both sides matter. And at the end of the day, this is a fast impeachment, the fastest we are seeing based on disputed facts on crimes or Just Services that are made up with the facts. With that i will turn it over to my counsel mr. Taylor. Professor turley, i would like to turn to partisanship as the founders feared it and how
it exists today. A subject Alexander Hamilton was very concerned about when it came to impeachment. He wilt some impression words in Federalist Papers 65. And advocating for the federal constitution, they laid out the reasons madison and principally hamilton thought that the Impeachment Clause was necessary, but also flag concerns. He said in many cases of impeachment it will connect itself with the preexisting factions and will enlist all of their animosities, personalities, influence influence and interest on one side where on the other and in such cases there will always be the greater danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. Professor turley, do you think hamilton predicted a real danger of Hyperpartisan Impeachments . That is proven to be the case, the two impeachments that we have seen, it is also to note
that we often think that our times are unique. This provision was not just written for times like ours. It was written in times like ours. These are people that were even more severe than the rhetoric today. You have to keep in mind, jefferson referred to the administration of the federalists as the reign of the witches. So this was not a period where people did not have the strong feelings. Indeed, when people talk about members of this Committee Acting like they want to kill each other, back then they were actually trying to kill each other. Thats what this edition law was. You are trying to kill people that disagreed with you. But what is notable is they did not have a whole slew of impeachments. They knew not to do it, and i think that that is a lesson that actually can be taken from that period. That the framers created a standard that would not be
endlessly fluid and flexible. And that standard has kept us from impeachments despite periods where we have really despised each other. And that is the most distressing thing for all of us today is there is so much more rage than reason, you can 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 people, we have to have a serious discussion about the grounds to remove a duly elected president. Professor turley, in her testimony you said when it comes to impeachment, we do not have the biological warriors, we need an analysis. But lets look at the landscape at which this partisan impeachment is being waived. I mean, the Democratic Leaders pushing Terms Impeachment represent some of the far left urban Coaster Ointment coastal
areas of the country. Showing counties in the highlight of the bars come up the colors show the margin of victory for the winter in the 2016 president ial election. As you can see the parts of the country represented by these democratic Impeachment Leaders voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton during the last election. Also during the 2016 president ial election, Lawyer Campaign contributions tilted 9, 3 percent for trump. The situation is essentially the same at law schools around the country including those represented on the panel here today. Now professor turley, i would like to turn to the partisan process with the impeachment proceedings. This is how the effort was described in the 1974 staff report. We were talking about the initiation of the impeachment increase. As this action was nonpartisan. It was supported by the overwhelming majority of both political parties. And it was. Regarding the authorization of the Clinton Impeachment inquiry