Three of them called by the majority because they are the majority, so they called three. The minority only got one. They each made Opening Statements then they each got the majority. Nadler and his lawyer got 45 minutes to question and they questioned their three witnesses almost exclusively. Then the republicans got their chance and they question their witness almost exquisitely. You heard from the three law professors the democrats have called, that the president had committed impeachable crimes. Hasnt even amounted to bribery. Yes, he committed one of the law professors, Michael Gerhardt of the university of North Carolina law school said and probably the most dramatic moment of the morning session, if what we are talking about here is not impeachable then nothing is impeachable. He was a pretty Strong Performance by the three lawyers, if you will, for the prosecution. Then you got the republicans. They brought in Jonathan Turley, a professor from George Washington University Law school. He was the only one the republicans questions so we had 45 minutes to himself. I have been trying to figure out whether he should be played by Jimmy Stewart to the movies or tom hanks. It was a very kind of quiet, allamerican sense of fair mindedness. He said i didnt vote for donald trump. I dont think his phone call to the ukrainians was perfect, but he basically said there are two problems. One, you are in search of a crime and you found some things you dont like there isnt anything that could be defined as a crime by the Legal Standard. The second is speed. Youre moving too fast. The countries and catching up with you. If you get more evidence of your wait, but if you are doing it this way and then he said it will be a slipshod impeachment. At the end, both panels, pretty strong case for impeaching the president and a pretty strong case why that would be the worst idea in the world. Dana i wanted to see if we could play the sound bite from Jonathan Turley, the professor Chris Wallace was talking about. In regards to being a dangerous precedent for the future. I am concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and abundance of anger. I believe this impeachment not only fails to satisfy the standard of past impeachment but would create a dangerous precedent for future impeachments. Dana andy mccarthy, i always read your work. If you could talk about that because you been warning about this possibility of a dangerous precedent being set. The Legal Standard for impeachment, i frequently have said we are bipolar on impeachment in the sense that we have an abstract Legal Standard that applies to one high crimes and misdemeanors are, and we have very highminded ways of defining it. You can look at hamilton in federalist 65 or we have fairly cynical, straightforward ways of defining it like gerald ford when he was the minority leader in the early 1970s saying in impeachable offenses whenever the house of representatives decides impeachable offenses in a given moment in history. I have always thought that what really drives impeachment is not whether you can fit activity or misconduct into some definition of abuse of power but whether you have an offense or an episode of misconduct that is so heinous, so gauges that it forms a public consensus that the president has to be removed such that you can push twothirds of the senate to vote for the president s removal. To my mind, that is the downtoearth standard of impeachment. If you dont have that, you dont have an impeachable offense. I think where Jonathan Turley is hammering at is that given the capacious mass of the Legal Definition of impeachment, if we dont have a metric in there tht makes it more serious, that raises it to a level more egregious conduct, what we are going to have in the future is every president vulnerable to being impeached in the American People constantly divided. The congress constantly unable to govern. Basically what weve had for the last two to three years. Dana bret baier, one of the things Jonathan Turley said as everybody is mad. His wife is mad. Even his dog seems mad. What do you think about how this hearing has gone so far compared to the ones we saw in adam schiffs Intelligence Committee a couple weeks ago . Dana, these are not fact witnesses. They are constitutional scholars laying out theories about how the impeachment articles could possibly come together or not come together. I said in the last hour this is essentially constitutional scholar pingpong going back and forth. The argument made by professors pamela karlan, noah feldman, Michael Gerhardt, they were impressive. Pamela karlan on liberal twitter is already a star in her impassioned defense of the constitution they say. She is the fiona hill of the hearing they are saying, on the left. Jonathan turley in his presentation went point by point on a lot of these different facts. Every time we talk about this, dana, it comes down to one thing and that is math. Since the beginning of the process, the inquiry, has any lawmaker either side change their mind on where they stand on impeachment . The inquiry started with two democrats voting against the inquiry. You have 31 House Democrats from districts, congressional districts that donald trump won in 2016. The swing state polls on impeachment have shifted dramatically in recent days and its against impeachment and impeachment and removal. How many of those democrats will, after Jonathan Turleys presentation perhaps today, change how they feel about how this is going. We are always focusing on the republicans that might shift. It seems like they are holding the line. Dana judge napolitano, you taught law and i wonder what you would think of this exchange here where you had professor turley, Jonathan Turley talking about the comparisons to hamilton. We are living in the very period described by Alexander Hamilton, a period of agitated passions. I get it. You are mad. The president is mad. My republican friends are mad. My democratic friends are mad. My wife is mad. My kids are mad. Even my dog seems mad. And the goldendoodle, they dont get mad. I am fond of jonathan particularly when i disagree. In front of the House Judiciary Committee talking about anger. He is correct. Anger is pervasive. What bret said is telling. It is a pingpong match. When you have expert witnesses testifying in a jury trial, often the most or the more eloquent of the two experts will carry the day. These experts are not going to change anybodys mind on the Judiciary Committee. The three experts for the democrats are going to provide them a legal basis for all the articles of impeachment they want to right. Professor turley is going to provide the republicans a legal basis for their dissent and their arguments on the floor of the house. Mrs. Pelosi, as chad pergram likes to remind us, is that greatest counter of noses in the history of the house of representatives and theres not going to be a vote before christmas unless she has a majority with her. So what we are doing today is just really establishing a record for a future and future references but not changing anybodys mind. Dana if thats the case, martha, have nobodys minds are being changed but as bret baier pointed out, the swing state polls look bad for democrats because it shows people are more against impeachment and now this hearing is going to continue today and there might be more next week. One of the fascinating things as we are getting a little more read out from the caucus meeting that nancy pelosi held, and i know Chris Wallace reported earlier that she said to the caucus, are you ready . Questioning whether or not everybody was ready to take this momentous vote. Now we are getting a little more information about what went on in there and a discussion ensued and the members basically said they indicated they want to continue and advance their inquiry on its current deliberative path one step at a time. She also encourage them to give their callings room and to reach their own conclusions as the inquiry proceeds. It suggests, dana, little bit of what we heard last night, the potential it could go on longer. Perhaps they do open it up to other witnesses and perhaps at some point the democrats decided doesnt behoove them to push the vote. That they should go down the cart path to get some of these witnesses that Jonathan Turley says are the only fact witnesses that matter. John bolton, mick mulvaney, secretary pompeo. These are weighty issues and we will see how quickly they want to push it through but i think todays going to a long way in terms of determining the timetable. I would mention adam schiff when he walked into the room got a standing ovation from everybody there. Thats going to make him feel good. Its a little bit of a battle between nadler and schiff in terms of who can run these things better. Because natalie wasnt 1. 5 overlooked and passed aside in favor of schiff moving forward. Dana could you talk more about speaker Nancy Pelosis positioning . She has a caucus saying they want to be deliberative. She has some members thinking i could lose my seat if we dont focus on trying to get something done. Maybe the usmca. How did she approach the rest of the month . I think the decision she and her caucus have to make is what obviously there are major issues in terms of the constitution and not saying that they are not mindful of those. Im sure they are but in terms of politics and everything is political in washington. They have to decide which is a bigger risk at this point . To go ahead and impeach and run the risk that you put some house members in swing districts on the line and their elections could be in jeopardy and it will be seen as a rush to judgment and trying to overturn the will of 63 million americans who voted for donald trump in 2016. Thats a substantial risk. The other risk is not going ahead with impeachment. Youve marshaled the evidence. 30 hours of gavel to gavel hearings. Articles of impeachment with the Judiciary Committee. If you were to stop short, you turn off a lot of other people who think this president has done something grievously wrong. Want the party to stand up to him. He will have taken us down this line and occupy the country for coming on three months now since midseptember when she notes the impeachment inquiry would begin. So thats a considerable risk as well. Thats the calculation shes going to have to make. Is it riskier to go ahead with impeachment or riskier not to go ahead with impeachment . Dana that is definitely the question. Thank you, Chris Wallace. We will sneak in a quick commercial break as we wait for testimony to continue. Wow thats ensure max protein, with high protein and 1 gram sugar. Its a situp, banana bend at the waist im tryin keep it up. Youll get there. Whoahoahoa 30 grams of protein, and one gram of sugar. Ensure max protein. I want to tell as many veterans near ras possible about newdays va streamline refi. Its the closest thing to automatic savings that weve ever offered. At newday, veterans can refinance their mortgage with no income verification, no appraisal and no out of pocket expenses. And weve extended our Call Center Hours so that every veteran can take advantage of these near record low rates. On the basis of the testimony in the evidence before the house, President Trump has committed impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors by corruptly abusing the office of the presidency. Dana that was professor noah feldman today. We are waiting for the committee to come back to order. They took a break. They had some business to take care of. Well take it around the table again. Andy mccarthy, can i talk to you about what noah feldman was saying. He says there is evidence that the president has committed impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors. If there was really an urgency, would it be taking this long . No. The more you have to try to explain why this is misconduct, and why it rises to the level of the of an impeachable offense, the more remote you are from an actual impeachable offense. The way i would look at it is this. If bob mueller, special counsel, lets imagine he actually found the gold line of evidence that said trump was an agent of russia. If he came up with that and we found about two weeks before election day, we would impeach the president. It wouldnt be some people would say theres no point now. We go to the polls. That would be egregious enough activity that i think there would be a broad consensus in the country that the president needed to be removed and we could not bear to have somebody like that empower for another 5 minutes. Dana martha, you brought up the point that one of the things democrats are saying is they are trying to focus on what could happen in the next election. Yeah, andy brings up the point of urgency that urgency in some situations means that you do have to rush towards impeachment. Democrats have made the argument that they do have to rush to impeachment the reason is they dont want the president to do this again. They think there is an impact on the 2020 election and that he cant be trusted to not sort of make another phone call and allow another country to get involved in our election, and thats where the urgency argument comes in. Whether or not the American People will buy that argument is a big question at this point. One of the other issues that we are talking about in the break is when you go out to voters in america and you look at the behavior and look at the phone call, how many of them say that is President Trump being President Trump. Hes always going to go for that extra thing, the extra element before he closes any deal. Noah feldman none others say the president has been abusing his power not just in this instance but since day one. I guarantee you and we have seen it in the writings that everyone of those three attorneys could make arguments for abuse of power that have been going on for two years. People either want trump to be trump or they think he has been abusing his power since day one. Thats why i made the argument earlier that for all their scholarly arguments which for those of us in the business are fascinating, its probably not going to change anybodys mind. There is no smoking gun. It takes a while to explained to the American Public exactly what donald trump did that in the minds of the democrats is a threat to democracy. The noah feldman argument is that letting trump be trump is not good enough under the constitution. We dont lower the bar because the president has unorthodox ways. The bar is intentionally broad and even ambiguous as to what high crimes and misdemeanors a are. We learned today that the democrats apparently intend to include in their things we didnt know they were going to include like bribery unlike the obstruction of justice allegations which were made by bob mueller long before the ukraine case came to the publics attention. Dana judge napolitano, thank you. Were going to take a quick break but when we come back, i will talk to Chris Wallace and bret baier about what the members might be thinking before they come back to resume the hearing. Well be back with that testimony in just a minute. Do you have concerns about mild memory loss related to aging . Prevagen is the number one pharmacistrecommended memory support brand. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Bleeding disorderste medlike hemophilia. S so victor can keep doing whats in his blood. At bayer, this is why we science. Dana welcome back. We are waiting for the hearing to restart and we want to check in with our senior producer for capitol hill, chad pergram. We think they are going to start in ten or 15 minutes. There was a vote series on the house floor which has just concluded. The last vote was to block robocalls and texts and that passed overwhelmingly as you might imagine in standing here in the foyer, we are seeing members walk back across from the capital and go to their offices. We think maybe 2 35 or 2 40 at the latest is when they will start again and at that point we estimate there are 3plus hours of questioning remaining. 41 members on the committee. Each get 5 minutes. Any do the math, we are still well over three hours and then closing statements. It will probably wrap up about 6 00. That is the timetable we are looking at to finish this. Dana chad, chairman nadler on the democratic side said they expect to hear from the other committees which may also be doing an investigation. The Intelligence Committee will transmit by the end of the day tomorrow its report and a few minutes ago, ted deutch, democrat from florida, member of the Judiciary Committee, and other members talked briefly about what might happen. They indicated they expect an open session where members of the majority on the Intelligence Committee would come and present their findings in the minority would be invited as well. They put out kind of a minority report the other day and we dont know quite what that would look like. That is neither fish nor fowl. We are told it would be open. We dont know if that would happen this week or next week and we dont off the Judiciary Committee would have a additional regular hearings with a call witnesses. The other things they have to do regardless if they are going to try to impeach the president , they then go to what are called markup sessions. These look like hearings that they are not. No witnesses. They actually write the articles of impeachment and amendments are proposed in this debate. It could happen maybe next week or perhaps before christmas. Dana today is december 4. Are you telling me that its possible or even likely that impeachment will bleed into 2020 . Ive been told repeatedly by a couple senior House Democratic leadership sources that they dont see what the traffic the house of representatives has to tackle how they can do by christmas. Articles of impeachment against president clinton were adopted on the house floor on the saturday before christmas, december 19, 1988. Members this morning in the caucus meeting were told to stay available maybe until the 22nd or 23rd. The problem here they are running into is not the usmca which im told they will probably wont try to advance that until next year. Its not the Defense Authorization bill which takes a lot of time. It is trying to find the government. They have defunded the government by the 20th of december and they have to they have to fund the government. If youre going to give impeachment as do regardless of your disposition, whether you think the president should be impeach or not, they have to do it. Whether it stretches out over christmas or bleeds into next year. It would give republicans a talking point to say you impeach the president of the United States an election year. Most members of the public wont remember precisely when they impeach the president but its a long way to november. It could dictate when a senate trial would start. It started pretty early in january 1999. If they adhere to that schedule, this would probably push it back further and what happens deeper into 2020 . The iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primary and you have a lot of democrat senators running for president. Dana chad pergram, thank you. Bret baier, if i could ask you about the timing. It goes into 2020 which looks like it likely will. What does it do . We have never had an impeachment that takes place in the middle of a president ial election year. You have President Trump. He has already been in the campaign trail. We are less than 55 days from the first vote and ill caucuses. I think it hurts the democrats argument because republicans go back to its an election year, only 11 months away from voting. Let the American Voters decide and it weakens the argument as time goes on. Can i one minute brag about chad pergram . The hearing room, the house ways and Means Committee hearing room. We talked about earlier, the same one they did hearings for the house Intelligence Committee. Doug collins said that it was cold and uncomfortable. Chad tweeted theres a reason why the impeachment hearing room was so cold. The room is a backup for the House Chamber as a security measure keep the temperature cold. If there was a chemical attack the molecules move more slowly in the cold and the temperature deployment of any agent. Those are the facts that our walking capitol hill encyclopedia chad pergram can provide every day. We are blessed to have him. Dana if you are going to get a tour of the capital, you wanted from chad pergram. Chris wallace, what do you think the members may be thinking or talking about. What do they want to accomplish in the next three hours . Obviously they are going to want their moment. They have five moments to try to get their moment and they want to try to make their best case. It feels like a lot of the ground has been plowed already but to make the best case they can as to why the president committed teachable defenses. I agree totally with bret that chad pergram has forgotten more about the house and i know. I cant believe nancy pelosi is going to let it go until after the christmas recess. I understand all the problems and the schedule and all that but it seems to me him, its a different thing if they decide not to impeach but if she decides she is dead set on impeaching come heck or high water, the idea that youre going to send your members home and theyre going to have to face constituents over the christmas break. If its beginning to lose steam it will have lost that much more than the first thing we are going to do in a new year, election year, vote to impeach the president. It seems that as of clinton, you want to get it done before christmas and get out of town. Dana can i hold you there, bret. We are going to take a quick commercial break as we wait for testimony to continue. Back with bret baiers comments in a moment. Im finding it hard to stay on top of things a faster laptop could help. Plus, tech support to stay worry free. Worry free. 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She started her comment saying she was sad and somber and Everyone Needs to keep an open mind. Weve heard similar things from House Speaker pelosi that we need to be prayerfull. Does anyone really believe these lawmakers have not already made up their mind on how they are going to vote on impeachment . Do you think they are really up in the air on it . I think republicans are going to take some time and bring up what they have brought up and that is the democrats have gone over their skis when it came to russia. Adam schiff saying he had clear evidence of collusion when it came to the Robert Mueller report. I think theyre going to point to items of different democrats saying that they wanted to impeach the president from the beginning. One of these law professors, a democratic witness, noah feldm feldman, he essentially had a podcast three months, months, two and half month after the nitration making the case for impeachment back then. I wouldnt be surprised if republicans focused on that even as democrats take a moment to be somber. Dana andy mccarthy, given what bret just said, if you have put your thumb on the scale on this issue, are there other constitutional lawyers they could have found . There are a few out there who havent actually so many people have waited on so many of the things that have come up with President Trump over the years. Sure, could they have found some people in the weeds . I guess so. They probably wouldnt be nearly as effective as these witnesses are. Dana judge napolitano, what might you do if you are going to try to move the needle . I dont know if they can move the needle, i think they are probably going to reinforce what we already know each expert has been saying. They may, like congressman collins, the ranking member, give more speeches than actually ask questions. If i could dovetail on one and he said, these four are very, very highly regarded. The two in the middle road the casebook that is used in constitutional law almost everywhere in the country. A fixture testifying before congress and professor feldman is the upandcoming bright new superstar of constitutional law in the United States. Obviously three of them are on the side of the democrats. Democrats get to have as many as they want. In terms of their academic reputations of the four of them, they are impeccable. Dana martha, doesnt matter at all, if the goal of the hearing for chairman nadler was to lay a predicate, Leah Foundation for what impeachment is or is not, doesnt matter if people are saying this is so boring. You and i were saying we are frustrated Law School Students ourselves and we find it fascinating to look back at the Founding Fathers in the definition of of impeachment and what it means. It does matter and is a huge undertaking. Talking about the sad, somber nest of it. A lot of people dont buy into it. They see politicians working their levers of what they can do to get rid of the president or keep the president in office. However, it is significant and important and i do think a lot of people will find it boring. We are dealing with the potential of essentially unseating a president of the United States of america. This is a big deal. I do think people should be paying attention. I think is interesting to go back, we havent heard a lot about is the evidence of whether the president try to subvert an election. Im going to be interesting to see if any of the questions get a get to the heart of the matter. Dana they are about to gavel back in. This is a larger committee. 41 members. Each member gets fiveminute rounds. It could go time. We dont know if they will have breaks. President trump is on his way back from the nato meeting. No doubt probably watching a little bit of it. The juxtaposition is quite stark. It is. Dealing with world leaders, dealing with big issues, that image of him having those meetings and answering questions about impeachment is significant from the White House Point of view. I will add to what martha said. Its a civics lesson of sorts for the country. Its not exactly schoolhouse rock. There are a lot of people who look at this and say its important for people to understand how our government works. This is one of the ways. Works or doesnt work, depending on your point of view. Dana andy, do you have more information about the battle between adam schiff, chairman of the intel committee, and jerry nadler, chairman of the Judiciary Committee . My understanding was the Intelligence Committee is one that Speaker Pelosi is particularly close to. Dana chairman nadler is gaveling. While they work out their issues there, the technical issues as they get ready, what were you going to say about the difference between the Judiciary Committee and Intelligence Committee in these chairman. Speaker pelosi particularly since she was a member of the Intelligence Committee has had much more influence on the composition of that committee. Its a smaller committee, as you pointed out, and it was more fitted to what they were planning to do here which was conduct a lot of these proceedings behind closed doors, which is pretty typical for the Intelligence Committee and not as much for judiciary. Dana judiciary would rewrite up the articles of impeachment and vote them out of that committee. They could have started a special committee. They couldve appointed a special committee and put them in charge of it but traditionally and typically would be the Judiciary Committee that would be in charge of writing articles of impeachment which interestingly again we dont have yet. Usually you have the law experts come in to comment on the articles of impeachment. Here i think we will use the law experts testimony to write the articles of impeachment. Dana one of the reasons we had a slight delay, jerry nadler gaveled in but Jonathan Turley was not seated yet. Now we will go back. Let me repeat that the committee will come to order. When we broke for recess, we are under the fiveminute rule. Thank you mr. Chairman. I am the veteran of impeachments. Ive been named by the house as an impeachment manager in four impeachments. Clinton then three judges. Thats more than anybody else in history. One of the things in every impeachment, whether its the ones i was involved in or others that have come before the committee where i was not a manager is that the debate on what is a high crime and misdemeanor and how serious does it have to be in order for it to rise to a level of impeachable offense. 50 years ago then republican leader gerald ford made a comment saying a high crime and misdemeanor is anything a majority of the house of representatives deems it to be. On any given day. I dont agree with that. It sets either a very low bar or nonexistent bar. It certainly would make the president serve at the pleasure of the house which was not what the framers intended. When they rejected the british form of parliamentary democracy where the Prime Minister and government could be overthrown by a mere vote of no confidence in the house of commons. I am looking at what we are facing here. This whole inquiry was started out by a comment President Trump made to president zelensky in the july 25 call do me a favor. There are some who have said its a quid pro quo. There are some who have implied that its a quid pro quo. Both trump and zelensky said it wasnt an zelensky has the there was no pressure on me. And the aide came through within six weeks of the phone call in question was made. You can contrast that to where there was no impeachment inquiry to Vice President biden when he was giving his speech and said you know, i held up a billion dollars worth of aid unless the prosecutor was fired within six hours. And son of a [bleep], thats what happened. It seems if youre looking for a quid pro quo. Looking for something that was really overthetop, it was not saying do me a favor. It was saying son of a bleep, thats what happened in six hours. The republicans who are in charge of congress at the time biden made the comment, we did not tie the country up for three months and going on four now wrapping everyone in town around the axelrod. Appeared we continue to do the publics business. Thats not whats happening here and i think the American People are getting a little bit sick and tired of impeachment, impeachment, impeachment when they know that less than a year from now they will be able to determine whether donald trump stays in office or somebody else will be elected. I take this responsibility extremely seriously. It is an awesome and very grave responsibility and it is not one that should be done lightly. It is not one that should be done quickly. It is not one without examining all of the evidence which is what was done in the nixon impeachment and what was done largely by Kenneth Starr in the clinton impeachment. I would like to ask you, professor turley, because your mind is the only one of the four of you up there that doesnt seem to have it made up before you walked in the door. Isnt there a difference between saying do me a favor and son of a bleep, thats what happened in six hours time . Grammatically, yes. Constitutionally it really depends on the context. I think your point is a good one in the sense that we have to determine from the transcript and hopefully from other witnesses whether this statement was part of an actual quid pro quo. I guess the threshold question is, if the president said id like you to do these investigations and by the way, i dont group them together, my testimony, i distinguish between the investigation in 2016 from the investigation of the bidens. Its an issue of order, magnitude of order constitutionally. If you asked i would like this you do this as opposed to i have a good protocol you either do this or you dont get military aid. The gentle lady from texas. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for yielding. Mr. Gerhardt said if what we are talking about today is not a teachable, then nothing is impeachable. Im reminded of my time on the House Judiciary Committee during the 1990s impeachment and as well as number of federal judges. I was guided then not only by the facts but by the constitution and the duty to serve this nation. I believe as we greet you today, that we are charged with a sober and somber responsibility. Professor karlan, i would like you to look at the intelligence volume where does have documents are behind that and the mueller report. Professor, you studied it. Do you think its wafer thin and can you remark on the strength of the records before us . Obviously its not wafer th thin. The strength of the record is not just in the september the july 25 call. I think the way you need to ask about it is how does it fit into the pattern of behavior by the president . What you are really doing is drawing inferences. This is about circumstantial evidence as well as direct evidence. Did the president ask for a political favor . I think this record supports the inference he did. What comparisons, professor karlan, can we make between kings that the framers were afraid of and the president s conduct today . Kings could do no wrong because the kings word was law. Contrary to what President Trump has said, article two does not give him the power to do anything he wants. I will give you one example that shows the difference between him and a king which is the constitution says there can be no titles of nobility. While the president can name his son barron, he cant make him a baron. George mason asked can any man be above justice and Alexander Hamilton wrote high crimes and misdemeanors the abuse in violation of some public trust. Professor feldman, you had previously testified the president has abused his power. Is that correct . Yes, maam. What is the most compelling evidence in this impeachment inquiry that would lead you to that . The phone call itself of julr to my mind that we hear the president asking for a favor that is clearly of personal benefit rather than acting on behalf of the interests of the nation. Further from that, further down the road we have more evidence which tends to give the context and to support the explanation for what happened. Professor karlan, how do such abuse affect democratic systems . Having foreign interference in our election means that we are less free. It is less we the people who are determining who is the next winter than it is a Foreign Government. I think its fair to say the president s actions are unprecedented. But what also strikes me is how many republicans and democrats believe his conduct was wrong. Improper for the president of the United States to demand a Foreign Government investigate a u. S. Citizen and a political opponent. Professor feldman, in light of the fact that the president asked for an investigation and then only when he was caught released the military aid, is there still a need for impeachment . Yes, maam. Impeachment is complete when the president abuses his office and he abuses his office by attempting to abuse his office. There is no distinction between trying to do it and succeeding in doing it and thats especially true if you only stop because you got caught. Over 70 of the American People believe, as i said, with the president did was wrong. We have a solemn responsibility to address that and as well our fidelity to our oath and our duty, reminded of the men and women who serve in the United States military and reminded of my three uncles who served in world war ii. I cant imagine them being on the battlefield needing arms and food and the general says do me a favor. We know that general would not say do me a favor. In this instance, the American People deserve unfettered leadership and it is our duty to fairly assess the facts and the constitution. I yield back my time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Its clear that no matter what questions we ask these witnesses and no matter what their answers are, that most if not all the democrats on this committee are going to vote to impeach President Trump. Thats what their hardcore trumphating face wants and they have wanted it since the president was elected three years ago. In fact when democrats took over the house, one of the first things they did was introduce articles of impeachment against President Trump and that was way before President Trump and the ukrainian president zelensky ever had their famous phone call. Whether it was perfect or not. Today we are undertaking a largely academic exercise and instead of hearing from fact witnesses like adam schiff or hunter biden, we are not being permitted to call as witnesses. It would seem since schiff for example misled the American People on multiple occasions, common sense and basic fairness will call for schiff to be questioned about those things. But we cant. Mr. Chairman, 1998 when another president , bill clinton, was being considered for impeachment, you said and i quote we must not overturn an election and impeach a president without an overwhelming consensus in the American People and their representatives in congress. You also said there must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or in impeachment substantially supported by one of the Major Political parties and largely opposed by the other. You said such an impeachment would lack legitimacy, would produce divisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come and will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions. Thats what you said back then, mr. Chairman. Well, what you said should never happen, what we should never do is exactly what you are doing now, moving forward without a consensus in impeachment by one major party that is opposed by the other. Its almost certain that its going to result in the very divisiveness and bitterness that you so accurately warned us about back then. Mr. Chairman, couple more quotes from a very wise jerry nadler from two decades ago. The last thing you want is to have a party line impeachment. You shouldnt impeach the president unless its a broad consensus of the American People. Those were wise words, mr. Chairman, but you are not following them today. Finally, your words back then the issue in a potential impeachment is whether to overturn the results of a National Election. The Free Expression of the popular will of the American People. That is an enormous responsibility and an extraordinary power. It is not one that we should exercise lightly. It is certainly not one which should be exercised in a manner which either is or would be perceived by the American People to be unfair or partisan. Again, mr. Chairman, those things that you warned against men are exactly what you and your democratic colleagues are doing now. You are about to move forward with a totally party line impeachment. That is clearly not a broad consensus of the American People. You are overturning the result of a National Election and theres no doubt that it will be perceived by at least half the American People as an unfair and partisan effort. You seem bound and determined to move forward with this impeachment and the American People deserve better. I get it. Democrats on this committee dont like this president. They dont like his policies. They dont like him as a person. They hate his tweets. They dont like the fact that they Mueller Investigation was a flop. So now youre going to impeach him. Ive got news for you. You may be able to twist enough arms in the house to impeach the president but that effort is going to die in the senate. The president is going to serve out his term in office and in all likelihood be reelected to a second term probably with the help of this very impeachment charade that we are going through. While you are wasting so much of congress this time in the American Peoples money on this impeachment, there are so many other important things that are going undone. Within this committees own jurisdiction we should be addressed in the opioid epidemic. We could be working together to find a solution to our immigration and asylum challenges on our southern border. We could be protecting americans for having their intellectual property and jobs stolen by Chinese Companies and we could be enhancing Election Security just to name a few things. Congress as a whole could be working on rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. Providing additional tax relief to the nations middle class families and providing additional security to our people here at home and abroad. Instead, here we are spinning our wheels once again on impeachment. What a waste. The American People deserve so much better. I yield back. The gentleman yield back. Thank you, mr. Chair. I take no pleasure in the fact that we are here today. As a patriot who loves
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