For treason bribery high crimes and misdemeanors we've heard a lot of words today foreign interference bribery obstruction of justice professors I'd like to go through the president's conduct and the public harms we have discussed today and ask if they would fit into what the forefathers contemplated one crafting those words of the impeachment clause. Professor Karlan I'd like to ask you about the foreign interference in elections as Americans we can agree foreign interference foreign influence erodes the integrity of our elections and as you said so plainly it makes us less free yet on July 25th 2019 the president Co worst your Ukrainian president's Olinsky to announce an investigation into his political rival Trump's political rival which was corroborated by multiple witnesses throughout the intelligence committee hearings Professor Karlan Can you explain for the American people in your opinion whether the framers considered solicitation of foreign interference and did would they have considered it a high crime or misdemeanor and does the president's conduct rise to that level the framers of our Constitution would have considered that horror and would have considered at the essence of a high crime or misdemeanor for a president to invite in foreign influence either in deciding whether he will be reelected or deciding who his successor would be thank you Professor Feldman I'd like to talk to you about bribery during the course of the Intelligence Committee hearings multiple witness gave sworn unrebutted testimony that the president withheld nearly 400000000 dollars in Congressionally approved aid on the condition that Russia excuse me that Ukraine and now its investigations into his chief political adversary professor in your opinion given those facts and the framers specific concerns would you describe the President's behavior here and the use of his public office for a private benefit as rising to those levels the framers considered as you said bribery to consist of bribery under the Constitution to consist of the president abusing his office corruptly for personal gain if this House determines And if this committee determines that the president was in fact seeking personal gain in seeking the invest. Gay sions that you asked for then that would constitute bribery under the Constitution Thank you Professor Gary Hart I'd like to ask you about obstruction of justice the president has categorically refused to produce any documents responsive to congressional subpoenas attacked and intimidated perspective and actual witnesses including career and civil military excuse me military and civil servants as discussed here like Ambassador you gonna bitch Lieutenant Colonel Deadman Ambassador Taylor Jennifer Williams and others and he directed all current and firmer administration witnesses to defy congressional subpoenas Professor based on that set of facts does this conduct meet the threshold for obstruction of justice as envisioned in the Constitution yes ma'am I believe it does I remember when I was here 21 years ago along with Professor Turley testifying before differently constituted committee on a very serious question regarding impeachment and I remember a number of law professors very eloquently talking about Presidents Clinton President Clinton misconduct as an attack on the judicial system and that's what you just described to me thank you and thank you professors all of you all 4 of you what you did today as you brought part of our Constitution to life and I thank you for that you've shown what the framers were mindful of when they wrote the impeachment clause of our Constitution they chose their words and their words matter you know it was my father Bob Dean a terrific dad and a talented writer who instilled in me and my brothers and sister a love of language he taught us our words matter the truth matters it's through that lens which I see all of the serious and somber things we're speaking about today foreign interference bribery obstruction the framers likely could not have imagined all 3 concerns embodied in a single leader but they were concerned enough to craft the remedy impeachment the times have found the times have found us I am prayerful for our president for our country for a. Selves May We the People always hold high the decency and promise and ambition of our founding and of the words that matter and of the truth with that I yield back Mr Chairman. Beck newsman chorus of Powell thank you and thank you professors for your time today it's been a long day I want to tell you I did not have the privilege of being bourses Democrat Debbie Howell of Florida I became a citizen to this great nation I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution from all foreign and domestic enemies and I had the fortune of taking that oath once again when I became a member of Congress and that includes the responsibility to protect our nation from continuing threats from a president any president you testified that the president's actions are a continuing risk to our nation and democracy meaning that this is not a one time problem there is a pattern of behavior by the president that is putting at risk fair and free elections and I think that we are here today because the American people deserve to know whether we need to remove the president because of it during the next an impeachment the Judiciary Committee said quote The purpose of impeachment is not personal punishment its function is primarily to maintain constitutional government professor Karlan to me that means that impeachment should be used when we must protect our American democracy it is reserved for offenses that present a continuing risk to our democracy is that correct yes it is thank you and I want to show you an example of what the president said just one week after the transcript of the July 25th call was released when a reporter as the president what he wanted from President Selenski and he responded with this. Well I would think that if they were honest about it this sort of major investigation this is a by the very simple and. They should investigate the bike because that is a company but only form will these companies if you look by the way like white china just started investigating it didn't buy it because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with. Your great. So we've heard today conflicting dialog from both sides and I just want to ask Mr Feldman is this clear evidence from a president asking from for a foreign government to interfere in our elections Congresswoman I'm here for the constitution we're here for the Constitution and when the president the United States asks for assistance from a foreign power to distort our elections for his personal advantage that constitutes an abuse of office and it counts as a high crime in this demeanor and that's what the Constitution is here to protect us against Thank you and Professor Karlan are the president's actions a continuing risk that the framers intended impeachment to be used for yes that this takes us back to the quotation from William Davy that we've all used several times in our in our testimony which is a president without impeachment a president will do anything to get reelected thank you and I want to show you one more example from the president's chief of staff when asked about the presidency Man's of the Ukrainian president. But to be clear you describe is a quid pro quo it is funding will not flow unless the investigation into the Democrats are. Acting as well which we do we do that all the time with foreign policy McKinney said yesterday that he was really upset with the political influence in foreign policy. That was one of the reasons he was so upset about this and I have news for everybody get over it there's going to be political influence in foreign policy. Professor Karlan. I think that Mr Levine is conflating or confusing 2 different notions of politics yes there is political influence our foreign affairs because President Trump won the election in 2016 we've exited climate accords we've taken a different position on NATO than we would have taken had his opponent won but that's different than saying that partisan politics in the sense of electoral manipulation is something that we need to get over or get used to if we get over that or we get used to that we will cease to become the democracy that we are right now thank you and I think that that is our greatest fear and threat and I don't think that anyone is above the law the Constitution establishes that this type of behavior cannot be tolerated from any president not now not in the future and I yield back. The boy who didn't suppose I'm sorry but I did try to have a say he says you know just thank you Chairman Professors thank you so much for your tennis is Democrats ironic a Escobar faxes the last Democrat are in the Judiciary Committee had in the lead our very eyes and ears for months despite the president's repeated efforts at a cover up but it appears that some have chosen to ignore those facts what we've seen today from those who choose to turn a blind eye is not a defense of the president's actions because frankly those offenses are indefensible Instead we've seen them attack the process and attempt to impugn your integrity for that I'm sorry now to my questions some have a pined that instead of considering impeachment we should just let this pass and allow the people to decide what to do next or what to do about the president's behavior in the next election the framers of our constant. Specifically considered whether to just use elections and not have impeachment and rejected that notion one statement from the framers really stuck with me and it's up on the screen George Mason asked Shall the man who has practiced corruption and by that means procured his appointment in the 1st instance be suffered to escape punishment by repeating his guilt Professor Feldman I have 2 questions for you briefly can you please explain why the framers decided that a corrupt executive could not be solved through elections and can you tell us why impeachment is the appropriate option at this point considering all the evidence Americans have seen and heard rather than just letting this be decided in the next election the framers understood human motivation extremely well and they knew that a president would have a great motive to corrupt the electoral process to get reelected and that's exactly why they thought that it wasn't good enough to wait for the next election because the president could cheat and could make the next election illegitimate that's why they required impeachment and if they couldn't impeach a corrupt President James Madison said that could be fatal to the republic the reason that it's necessary to take action now is that we have a president who has in fact sought to corrupt the electoral process for personal advantage under those circumstances the framers remedy of impeachment is the only option available Thank you I want to play 2 clips the 1st to President Nixon and the 2nd of President Trump. For when the president does it that means that it is not illegal that I have an article where I have the right to do whatever I want as president. 2 presidents openly stating that they are above the law professor Karlan what happens to our republic to our country if we do nothing in the face of a president who sees himself above the law who will abuse his power who will ask foreign governments to meddle in our elections and who will attack any witness who stands up to tell the truth what happens if we don't follow our constitutional obligation of impeachment to remove that president from office we will cease to be a Republic thank you I represent a community that a little over a decade ago was marred by corruption at the local government level there was no retreat into a partisan corner or an effort by anyone to explain it away we also didn't wait for an election to cure the cancer of corruption that occurred on our watch we were united as a community in our outrage over it it was intolerable to us because we knew that it was a threat to our institutions institutions that belong to us what we face today is the same kind of test only one far more grave and historic from the founding of our country to today one truth remains clear the impeachment power is reserved for conduct that in dangers democracy and imperils our Constitution today's hearing has helped us to better understand how we preserve our republic and the test that lies ahead for us thank you Mr Chairman I yield back my time. Generally to you of Barack that concludes the testimony under the 5 minute rule. I now recognize the ranking member for any concluding remarks he may have. Thank you Mr Chairman Well today has been this is the ranking member on has traditionally committee Collins it is going to top Republican we have a battle and many things in fact 3 of our 4 witnesses here today alleged numerous crimes committed by the president times it seemed like we were even trying to make up crimes as we go out well if it was in the Us will it was the intent to do it. It went along with it is interesting today as I started this day and I will come back to it now is much as I respect these who came before us today this is way too early because we've not as a committee done our job we've not is a committee come together look at evidence taken fact witnesses pake put full here in front of us under oath to say what happened how did it happen and why did happen we're taking the. Work of the Intel Committee and the other committees we're taking it is seemingly at face value and I will remind all that the chairman even is the biggest proponent of this not happening in his earlier statements almost 20 years ago when he said we should not take a report from another entity and just accept it otherwise we are a rubber stamp now to my Democratic majority they may not care because as I said before this is about a clock on a calendar a clock and a calendar there's so obsessed with the election next year that they did they just gloss over things in fact what is interesting is as said earlier 3 of the 4 witnesses alleged numerous crimes committed by the prison however during the intel committee hearings none of the fact when this is a dignified a crime if you're writing about this that should alarm you. So this impeachment narrative being spun by the majority is a fake one is majority spinning 3 percent of the facts like nor 90 percent of 7 percent of the other in fact Professor Turley earlier said today impeachment needs proof not presumptions we have one of the fact witnesses in the Intel Committee I presume that was what was going on Mr Sonner one you know what is happening here today is also we found out today I thought was really interesting this is the judiciary committee but we also found out on the day that facts don't matter in fact facts don't matter unless we can fit those facts to fit the narrative we want to spin before this committee and the American people if they don't matter we also heard one of the witnesses state today that it doesn't matter if a was released or not of course it matters but unfortunately the only one of the many facts ignored by the majority there nor in a ton of sand of facts that matter it apparently doesn't matter to the Democrats that Ambassador vote for the former special envoy to the Ukraine may clear in his testimony there was no conditionality on the White House meeting or the 8 Democrats or witnesses haven't mentioned that because this unhelpful to the narrative they're spinning it's apparently doesn't matter that Democrats to the Democrats in a majority here that the president did not condition is I don't know an investigation in facts on Mr sunless statement is cut to the contrary was presumption it was right here in this room he called it a guess right where you're sitting calmly to guess a presumption is what he thought con for be it if we walk into our courtrooms around our our proceedings down and find somebody guilty of something we're calling a crime and we walk into court now and all of a sudden well I thought it was the witness that I presumed it was God forbid this is where we're at. But you know we've also heard today that you can make inference though it's Ok if you're just inferring I don't know about the professors here for those of us in court on both sides I've never heard in going to hear judge say just infer what you think they mean it and that'll be enough it's not inference you know probably doesn't matter the president in condition of meeting on an investigation e-mail is ill and he would no preconditions delays get in even find out about the hold on wait until after month after the call when he read it Politico they was released shortly thereafter and Ukraine didn't have anything to do to get the aid release not only was the aid release but lethal aid was given as well and if you think that doesn't matter there were 5 meetings between the 8 time they were stopped and the time the aide was released and in none of those meetings between ambassadors and others including the vice president and senators none of that was ever connected to a promise of anything only a nothing was ever connected 5 times and 2 of those were after President Lance learned it aid was being hailed tell me there's not a problem here with the story that's what fact witnesses are in Iraq now the evidence against the president is really about policy differences in fact 3 of the Democratic star witnesses Hill Taylor and can't even on the call they read transcripts like everyone else on July 26th Iliescu met with Volcker and so on and made no reference to quid pro quo or hold on 8 I met several more times no references but none of those are in those or can none of these inconvenient facts or so many other inconvenient facts matter to the majority or we don't even know what if additional hearings we will have to address other fact this is the part that bothers me greatly is something we have seen from January of this year no concern about a process that works but simply a getting to an end that we want you know I agree with Professor Feldman he may find that strange but I do agree with you on something it's not his job to assess the credibility of witnesses is this committee's job. And I agree but this committee can't do our jobs if none of the witnesses testified before our committee even ones that were have talked about calling today in the majority and said we don't want to do that we still don't have an answer on what this committee will do once this hearing and the committee received Mr Chairman report yesterday but we still don't have the underlying evidence the rules even set up by this body are not being followed to this day but yet nobody talks about on the majority side and when this is produced by Chairman shift in American People talk about their feelings their guesses their presumptions but even though the facts may not matter to the majority 97 percent of the facts do matter to the American people so my problem is this as the ranking member of this committee one of the oldest most should be fact based legal base committees we have here where impeachment should have been all along I have a group of members who have no idea where we're headed next I bet you though if I ask the majority members outside the chairman they don't have a clue either very much one because if they haven't they should share because this is not a time to play hardball this is not a time to say we're going to figure it out on the fly you're talking about overturning 63000000 votes of a president duly elected who is doing his job every day and by the way was overseas today while we're doing this working with our NATO allies so the question I have is where do we head next we've heard this ambiguous presentation but here's my challenge is out or even voted down in table today Mr Schiff should. Testify chairmanship Noddy's staff must appear before this committee to answer questions about the content of his report that's what can started 20 years ago and history demanded I told the chairman just a while ago in a couple weeks we're doing a mark about that Mr Chairman the history lights are all of us it is time that we talk and share how we're going forward I'm still waiting for answers so Mr Chairman as we look ahead as the Democratic majority promised that this was going to be a fair process when it got to judiciary for the president and others the president and you may say he could've come today what would have this done nothing there's no fact witnesses here nothing to rebut In fact it's been a good time just to see that really nothing came of it at the end of the day so why should he be here let's bring fact witnesses in list bring people in because as you said Mr Chairman you say it your words we should never on this committee except or entity giving us a report and not investigate our sales undoubtedly we're well on our way to doing that because of a calendar and a clock so much the chairman I know you're about to give a statement and I've worked on and you've worked on it very hard I'm sure but I would before you gavel this hearing before you start your statement before you go any further I would like to know 2 things number one when do you plan on scheduling our minority hearing day and number 2 why are we if when are we actually going to have real witnesses here that are fact witnesses in this case when or what you said many years ago has faded just like the leaves in fall I don't really care anymore that somebody else gives us a report and dallied chairmanship as chairman over everything with impeachment and he doesn't get to testify. He will send a staff member but I don't even know if we're going to have a hearing pass that to figure out anything that's been going on. So my question I started out today. Is Where is fairness it was promised it's not being delivered the facts talked about were not facts delivered this president as facts were given did nothing wrong nothing to be impeached and nothing for why we're here and in the words of one of our witnesses Mr Turley if you were rushed through this you do it on flimsy grounds the American people will not forget the light of history so today before you give your opening statement your for closing statement before you get to this time my question is will you talk to this committee your chairman you hold a very prestigious role will you let us know where we're going away going to journey from here after you sum up everything saying that they all did good and go out from here we're still wondering the lights are on it's time to answer the question I yield back and then the gentleman years back and I want to form a group before my closing statement knowledge today received a letter today requesting a minority day of testimony Andrew 11 I have not had a chance to read the letter but look forward to conferring with the ranking member about this request and to I have had a chance to review it Mr Chairman I have a question you can't review a letter that is a demand I mean the gentleman is not recognized there's nothing for you to you. And there recognize myself for any closing statement George Washington's farewell address warns of a moment when cunning and vicious and this is now House Judiciary shares very narrow there giving his closing statement themselves hearing range of human inquiry President Trump places own personal and political interests above our national interests above the security of our country and most importantly above a most precious right the ability of each and every one of us to participate in fair elections free of corruption. Because the 2 Sheen has a solution for a president who places his personal and political interests above those of the nation the power of impeachment as one of my colleagues pointed out I have in the past articulated the 3 point test for impeachment let me be clear Well 3 parts of that test have been met 1st yes the president has committed an impeachable offense the president asked the foreign government to intervene in our elections then got caught up then obstructed the investigators twice I witnesses told us in no uncertain terms that this could conduct constitute constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors including abuse of power 2nd yes the president's alleging offenses represent a direct threat to the constitutional order Professor Carli warned drug drawing a foreign government into our election process is an especially serious abuse of power because it undermines democracy itself Professor Feldman echoed if we cannot impeach a president who abuses his office for personal advantage we no longer live in a democracy we live in a monarchy or under dictatorship and Professor Gary Hart reminded us if what we're talking about if what we're talking about is not impeachable then nothing is impeachable president trumps actions represent a threat to our national security and an urgent threat to the integrity of the next election 3rd yes we should not proceed only and less at least some of the citizens who supported the president in the last election are willing to come with us I mean Geraghty of this country is clearly prepared to impeach and remove President Trump . Rather than respond to the unsettling and dangerous evidence my Republican colleagues have called this process unfair it is not nor is this argument knew my colleagues on the other side of the aisle unable to defend the behavior of the president have used this argument before 1st they said that these proceedings were not constitutional because we did not have a floor vote we then had a floor vote then they said that our proceedings were not constitutional because they could not call witnesses Republicans called 3 of the witnesses in the live hearings of the Intelligence Committee and will have an opportunity to request witnesses in this committee as well next they said there are proceedings were not constitutional because the president could not participate but when the committee invited the president to participate in this hearing he declined the simple fact is that all these proceedings have all the protections afforded prior presidents this process follows the constitutional and legal precedence so I am left to conclude that the only reason make my colleagues rush from one crisis complaint to the next is because there is no factual defense for President Trump unlike any other president before him President Trump is openly rejecting Congress's right as a co-equal branch of government he has defied our subpoenas he has refused to produce any documents and he directed his aides not to testify. President has also asked the foreign government to intervene in our elections and he has made clear that if left unchecked he will do it again why because he believes that it is own words quote I can do whatever I want unquote That is why we must act now in this country the president cannot do whatever he wants in this country no one not even the president is above the law today we began our conversation where we should with the text of the Constitution we have heard clearly from our witnesses that the Constitution compels action indeed every witness including the witness selected by the Republican side agreed that if President Trump did what the Intelligence Committee found him to have done after extensive and compelling witnesses from the trip administration officials he committed impeachable offenses while the Republican witness may not be convinced that there is sufficient evidence that the president engaged in these acts the American people and the majority of this committee disagree I also think that the Republican witness Professor Turley issued a sage warning in 1908 when he was a leading advocate for the impeachment of Bill Clinton he said quote If you decide that certain acts do not rise to impeachable offenses you will expand the space for executive kind of close quote that was the question of Professor Turley in 1988 in the impeachment of President Clinton that question should guide us all today. And by any account that warning is infinitely more applicable to the abuses of power we are contemplating today because as we all know if these abuses go unchecked they will only continue and only grow worse each of us took an oath to defend the Constitution the president is a continuing threat to that Constitution and to our democracy I will I did my oath as I sit here today having very consistent clear and compelling evidence that the president has abused his power tempted to undermine the constitutional role of Congress and corrupted our elections I urge my colleagues stand behind the oath you have taken and democracy depends on it this concludes today's hearing Ehrman one thing Mr impressed this is a gentleman seek recognition Thank you Mr And pursuant to rule pursuant to committee rule 8 I'm giving notice to intent to file dissenting views to the committee's report on cost regional grounds for presidential impeachment he noted it's going to change things here this concludes today's hearing and we thank all of our witnesses for bridges Chairman that is without objection you know members will have 5 legislative days to submit additional bit of questions for the witnesses a revision of history where we have announced several points to link the witnesses and Vishal is to lay on the record set record without objection in the hearing is that yeah yeah that's just typical it just typical. Bit of back and forth there at the end and just before that Jerrold Nadler of New York gave a closing statement in this impeachment hearing in which he said I will honor my oath his oath to the Constitution this is special coverage of the impeachment hearings from n.p.r. News I'm Steve Inskeep and I'm healthy Chang we just heard a full a very full day of discussions of impeachment and the Constitution for legal scholars offered their views of the accusations against President Trump Democrats selected 3 of those legal scholars Republicans asked for one of them the result was a day long discussion that ranged from the. As it into Ukraine to the founding fathers of America to English law from centuries ago and it included an unusual number of references to the power of kings which Americans drafted the constitution to curb to Democrats quote the facts before us are undisputed as Judiciary Committee chairman Terry Napoli are said earlier today Republicans insisted that they disputed everything and Martha Roby of Alabama dismissed the importance of the witnesses today no disrespect to these witnesses but for all I know this is the only hearing that we will have and none of them are fact witnesses 3 of the scholars the witnesses chosen by Democrats said they found the president committed impeachable offenses Republican Congressman Tom McClintock accused the scholars of bias here he questions scholars including Professor Pam Karlan of Stanford could be and just with a show of hands how many on the panel actually voted for Donald Trump and 2016 I don't think you are obligated to say anything about how we cast our battle it was just show of hands I will not I think you made your positions professor Karl very very neatly generally it will suspend it will suspend the clock to. I have already suggested to me you may know how that question let me rephrase how many of you know a clock or not for the moment you generally may ask the question and witnesses don't have to respond how many of you didn't start it you were Donald Trump in 2016 show of hands not i.q. Not raising your hands is not an assertion of an answer sir throughout the hours of this hearing Democrats accuse the president of obstruction of justice the president has refused to comply with congressional subpoenas for witnesses and documents California Democrat Luis Cora put this question to scholar Michael Gary Hart where can we look in the Constitution to understand whether the president must comply with the impeachment investigations I think you can look throughout the entire Constitution a good place of course includes the supremacy clause the president also takes an oath and takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution of states that comes that means that he's assuming office with certain constraints I want he may do and there are measures for accountability for any failure to follow his duty or follow the Constitution but other Democrat Mary Kay Scanlon a Pennsylvania focused on the president's underlying acts he withheld military aid from Ukraine while asking for investigations of political rivals you know I've spent over 30 years working to help clients and schoolchildren understand the importance of our constitutional system and the importance of the rule of law so the president's behavior is deeply deeply troubling the president welcomed and used election interference by Russia publicly admitted he would do it again and did in fact do it again by soliciting election interference from Ukraine and throughout the president has tried to cover up his misconduct This isn't complicated the founders were clear and we must be to such behavior and a president of the United States is not acceptable all. Right we are now joined here in the studio by my very hearty colleagues who've been hanging out this for hours we've got n.p.r. National political correspondent Mara Liasson we have former House impeachment counsel Alan Baron and on Capitol Hill we have n.p.r. Political reporter Tim Matt we're almost done guys we're going to wrap all of this up now in the last stretch of our special coverage let's start with the law because after all today was a day a stunned sibly about the law we keep hearing that impeachment is a political question but today was at least advertised as being about laying down the constitutional and historical underpinnings for impeachment so Alan Baron the lawyer of the studio today how did one of the lawyers are not a lawyer. Or care for one of the other I'm going to answer the last question though so how do Democrats match up President Trump's acts with the words about impeachment in the Constitution what was the constitutional case that they pushed today well the words in the Constitution are not self-explanatory high crimes and misdemeanor although bribery of course does have a history but on the right is in high crimes right yes bribery injuries and you know separated out in the constitution exactly and I think that that what they've relied upon is pretty much what we've learned about this whole Ukraine. Interaction between President Trump and Zelinsky they have made the case that this is a constitutes an abuse of power. And that he solicited interference by a foreign government in our elections it's also been characterized as a form of bribery. That the famous quid pro quo that I keep hearing about again and again right you know the president gets an investigation of the Bidens and Ukraine gets the $400000000.00 that Congress previously allocated and visit with the president gets a visit with President Trump and other areas obstruction of justice I think that's also going to be. A fruitful aspect of this from the Democrats' point of view the Republicans are treating this and by basically I'm talking about this ignoring of subpoenas basically saying you know take your best shot we're just not going to play. The Republicans are taking the entire process as unlawful this is just wrong you shouldn't be doing this you don't have any facts the law is not on your side and they've really pretty much said you know you've got nothing and the this is really been a sham and an abuse of power the Republicans have been criticizing the process but did you did you find that the Republicans were making any cogent arguments about the constitutional underpinnings that what the Constitution says about high crimes and misdemeanors bribery etc That just doesn't apply to the underlying facts of President what present Trump is being accused of I don't think that their arguments with regard to the substance has been very none of that I think in my view is very compelling they've really focused and so therefore they focus a lot on process if you can't win on substance you go for process we should note that the Republicans main witness today Jonathan Turley the George Washington University law professor made his arguments on process he never said we never heard him say it is fine for the president the United States to ask the president of Ukraine for a personal favor a personal political favor instead he said this process is too fast you haven't gathered enough information you need more testimony you need more documents you need more time you need more of the public behind you that was the argument that Turley made a more I guess nuanced version of the blunder arguments made by Republican lawmaker which highlights the fact that what we didn't see today was any disagreements about the underlying facts there was a phone call between President Trump and the president of Ukraine followed Demers Alinsky President Trump asked for a favor military aide with withheld at least temporarily those underlying facts have not been in dispute at all during this entire impeachment inquiry correct that's right and Turley even went so far as to say. He didn't think the call was perfect which is the word President Trump is used to describe it but he said because there wasn't an explicit quid pro quo in the call in other words the president didn't say flat out I am withholding military aid until you open an investigation because those words were and said this doesn't rise to the level of impeachment and Turley I think tried to make himself a more credible witness by saying he didn't vote for Trump as I said he didn't think the call was perfect but he said that this just didn't meet the standards for impeachment as far as the process going too fast. There was a it was it was a kind of double edged argument one is he was saying it's going too fast you should wait to get the testimony of more White House officials what he didn't point out is the reason the House is proceeding without them is because the White House has flatly refused to provide a lot of the White House officials and documents that have been requested and in some cases where they have gotten subpoenas they have flatly defied them I mean that is something that we heard a lot Republicans bring up today there are no fact witnesses there are no fact witnesses Well there were a ton of fact witnesses and even though I don't know how intelligent but then it was the purpose of the Intelligence Committees hearings that was the fact finding part of this process this is the legal part the constitutional part to see if what the president did which was established by the Intelligence Committee what it was an abuse of power and a bad enough one to merit removal I think one other thing is that I think you're entitled in the committee's intitled to draw an adverse inference from the fact that witnesses who might otherwise have testified and presumably have some information that's relevant have been prevented from testifying talking about perhaps Secretary of State Mike pump a 0 Acting White House chief of sat Mick Mulvaney former national security adviser John Bolton people who have played central roles in the narrative that's been coalescing during this impeachment and at least Pompei on Mulvaney are truly defying the subpoenas. Which we think both of them a gun pump a 02 I know Mulvaney has one but Bolton who has not gotten a subpoena somewhat mysteriously although the theory is that the House is afraid of losing in court because Bolton has said that he would testify if a subpoena was upheld by a court the people who've been listening to this testimony for us include N.P.R.'s Tim Mack who is at the Capitol today and joins us once again Tim you have covered this closely for months as so many of us have you listen to these hours of testimony today did you feel like anything particularly changed for either side I don't think anything particularly change for either side as we've talked about there weren't any fact witnesses that would bring forward new information but I did kind of glean some information about where this is headed right that the the various articles of impeachment that may be brought forward you kind of started to see Democrats on the committee shaping where they could go to tell us about that what are these articles been shaped out you could you could tell when the majority counsel normalising was was asking questions early on during this 45 minute extended questioning that there were kind of 3 broad categories one would be bribery or abuse of power Another would be obstruction of Congress and the 3rd being obstruction of justice and what had been very clear until a very unclear until today was whether or not there would be a rule for the mole report in these articles of impeachment it seems pretty obvious through the questioning of the majority counsel that the Democrats are at least leaving open the idea of including some of these obstruction of justice leads that were part of volume 2 of the mall report right and just to put a finer point on that special counsel Robert Muller did not find conclusively that there was obstruction of justice he sort of left that question open said it would be more appropriate for Congress to take up that question but he also went out of his way to say that he did not find lack of evidence of obstruction of justice that's right and you know the. Chairman of the committee Jerry Nadler cited the special counsel in his opening statement when he was talking kind of setting the stage for the day and he said quote In the words a special counsel Robert Muller The Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome that was a very early citation by Chairman Adler to kind of hint at where what was the base What were the factual What was the factual basis for which the committee would be holding this hearing on what the what the bar is for impeachment we should mention that when the motor report comes up that can also play into a charge of obstruction of justice and we should remember that when lawmakers talk about obstruction of justice they are referring to history and what history will make of this time in times to come President Richard Nixon was nearly impeached and ultimately resigned to avoid impeachment largely on charges relating to obstruction of justice to abuse of his power in that way and some of the lawmakers in testimony today and we're going to hear a couple of them some of the lawmakers referred to the historic consequences of the acts that lawmakers are going through right now one of them else you're going to help me with the pronunciation of this lawmaker's name from Washington state from Milledge Jaya Paul or Washington's There you go go ahead introduce or if you work privilege I a poll of Washington state she's a Democrat she argues that you know if Congress does not insist on its power of oversight it will end up losing that power Let's listen to what she said today if we don't stand up now to a president who abuses his power we risk sending a message to all future presidents that they can put their own personal political interests ahead of the American people our national security and our elections and that is the greatest of threats to our democracy a number of lawmakers as well as some of the constitutional scholars the legal scholars argue that if Congress fails to push back when the president defies subpoenas they simply lose the power of oversight. For the president you have a fundamental change in the American system in which the president in some ways is all powerful in the Congress has no meaningful power at all there is a counterpoint here from Jonathan Turley of George Washington University he is effectively worrying about Congress seizing too much power Let's listen to that I'm not a supporter of President Trump. I voted against him my personal views of President Trump are as a relevant to my impeachment testimony as they should be to your impeachment vote President Trump will not be our last president and what we leave in the wake of this scandal will shape our democracy for generations to come I'm concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and an abundance of anger I believe this impeachment not only fails to satisfy the standard of past impeachments overtreated dangerous precedent for future impeachments Turley's recommendation was that lawmakers slow down Alan Baron and wait for the courts to rule here and now there are some complexities here for one thing the White House hasn't necessarily gone to court they've simply ignored some subpoenas but some White House officials are former White House officials have referred to the courts that is certainly an option there are cases going ahead what is the proper role of the courts here when you have this dispute between the 2 branches of God The 2 other branches of government I think it's very limited if you look at the Constitution which body decides whether to impeach. It's the house of the future which body branch tries the case and decides guilt or innocence in an impeachment the Senate in the role of the courts is minimal and one of the problems of course is if you go into the courts and as someone who's practiced law for a long time nothing tends to move quickly indeed it's the opposite sometimes a union injunction you can get one quickly but that's about it and so if these quote these issues get get into the court house they're going to stay there for quite a while don't move quickly which is not what Democrats want I mean they have this whole end goal of trying to wrap up the impeachment phase by the end of December there is an election year coming up to get to January 20th I mean we're already in the election year having this snag in the court system is sort of the last thing Democrats want to try why not go to court while you're also moving ahead with all the you know alacrity parallel just saying go to hearts for the yes because I'm surprised that the that the House hasn't taken White House officials to court especially the ones who are defying the subpoenas I'm surprised they haven't issued more subpoenas and then you know go to court have the courage of your convictions but also move don't let that slow down the process there now that there is a good point there is a case which relates more to the mall or report issues than to this case involving gun McGann former White House counsel Congress wants to hear from him he doesn't want to testify a judge has ruled he must testify because the president is not a king the president doesn't get to decide those things as the judges will that's going to have somebody make or knows going to hear you know if you don't yet have it I don't know they're going to want to still going to continue through the process but there is a nuance in that ruling it is not that the White House must obey every single request all the time forever that is made by Congress according to this court ruling and the judge was referring to Supreme Court rulings in the past there may well be executive privilege here or there there may well be privilege testimony that the White House could hold back with respect to sir. In content about it is not up to the wise you know up it's not up to the White House to just say no we don't have to do anything which is essentially the position and that's the kind of thing that usually gets decided on a question by question basis it's not a blanket type of thing that I take Mars point that why couldn't there be parallel tracks let the litigation wind its way grind its way through the court system and let impeachment carry on on a parallel trend Republicans would argue right that this this this process needing to be done by Christmas and the trial needing to be done in January is a totally arbitrary time friend it's not it's not mentioned or outlined in the Constitution in any way and Republicans will constantly say the reason why we have this schedule these hearings are rushed forward and they're done on such an expedited basis is because purely political reasons you heard the ranking member on the on the Judiciary Committee Congressman Doug Collins say that it's that the reason we are here having these meetings today and on such a short notice is because of a calendar and a clock can we talk about what we expect next out of the Judiciary Committee do we expect more hearings do we expect some formal laying out of what we saw in the House intelligence report which was delivered at some point this week. To Mack do you have a sense of what are the next steps at least on the House side it's not certain you heard Republicans putting forward this petition saying they want their own day for minority views so that they can have witnesses that they call forward that may occur what will also probably occur is a day of hearings in which they discuss the 300 page House Intelligence Committee report then they'll have to have some sort of meeting to discuss the language of possible articles of impeachment if they go down that path and that goes through that goes to committee and finally to the House floor I have a really dumb question about that I hear that the articles of impeachment are drafted publicly how do you. I don't even work I've never seen that happen you have like this communal drafting of articles all through like ours and how does the day do you can do you know the process or Alan Baron who's seen past impeachment proceedings how does that work in public and how do you have all these lawmakers with incredibly strong opinions actually agreeing to how things are I'm frankly surprised that the idea even of sitting around a table with 30 some lawmakers debating what the phrasing will be of an article of impeachment typically that's not the way I've I've understood that it works it gets referred to people frankly within. The who work for the climbers you know lawyers who will sit there and do all this very technical kind of drafting meaning almost like writing up an indictment Yes Very much so and it's not the kind of thing that see people sit around the table interest sort of hash it out it's not that that's not the way it would be done let's next work through a story that has developed over the course of the day and involves Pamela Karlan one of the witnesses from Stanford Law School she's a quite colorful speaker I think we should say probably entertaining to be in her class was there like former law your formula so you can testify to entertaining she is cool I entertain she like to tell dirty jokes but all good to know that's an occasion in which she has now acknowledged that she went too far she was talking about the rights of kings how the president of the United States is not supposed to be a king and this is something she said earlier today so King's could do no wrong because the king's word was law and contrary to what President Trump has said Article 2 does not have give him the power to do anything he wants and I'll just give you one example that shows you the difference between him and a king which is the Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility So while the president can name his son Baron he can't make him a baron Ok. Clever play of words but you're raising the name of the son of a politician the child bringing a child in a. Minor child minor child thank you and this is this is something that no longer trump a barren trumps mother has already responded to on Twitter quote a minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics Pamela Karlan you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering and using a child to do it and then we need to note that much later in the day Pamela Karlan took the opportunity while still under oath there to apologize for what she'd said and take took aback she did wish that President trumpet also apologized for things that he said are you Major that Baron spelled Baron's way President term son's way his not the way it spelled when you're talking about a title yet ill if that doesn't matter this was a mistake it was an unforced error I don't think it's central to the proceedings of the day but already the Trump campaign has issued a statement and this will this clip will probably feature prominently on you know right wing media can I know that my name is spelled b a r o if you. Do you think your loyalty behind it is merely a minute and I'm not sure I could ever get over it. And before somebody tweeted us I mean you know minors this is a serious matter and has no words are off limits that's one of the few remaining norms of politics even though the president has mocked minor children like read a ton Berg but he but you know generally that minor children of a president are off limits and should be Mar I want to ask you for just about our final point here to talk about the tribalism that was on display here we heard the recording earlier of a lawmaker asking the legal legal scholars show of hands please how many of you voted for President Trump That's identity politics that's essentially saying I will only believe you if you voted my way my way as unbiased in your way is biased is that an explanation for why lawmakers in the room and voters at home would see these events so very differently yes and so far this proceeding has been partisan because we haven't seen a single Republican member Brinker break ranks. The one the one exception today was Jonathan Turley who I think a did enhanced his credibility by saying he hadn't voted for Trump he thought the call was not perfect but he went on to explain his position on impeachment it happened to contradict a lot of things he said back in the Clinton impeachment but that's that's a separate issue but yeah we are very tribal and right now the outcome of this seems to be a foregone conclusion that the House will vote to impeach on a partisan lines and the Senate will vote to acquit on partisan lines but that's where we are and you know the public opinion is split down the middle pretty much $5050.00 on whether the president should be impeached and removed so in the course of this day we've heard hours of testimony and statements by lawmakers Jerry Nadler the Judiciary Committee chairman began by saying the facts before us are undisputed facts that Republicans themselves soon disputed saying that everything was in dispute they have an entirely different interpretation of the president asking for investigations of Joe Biden and of 2016 conspiracy theories and view it as cleaning up corruption in Ukraine never sees it differently and he said in his closing statement I will honor my oath constitutional scholar Noah Feldman said the abuse of office is very clear Michael Gerhardt and other scholars said not all crimes are impeachable but the gravity of soliciting foreign election help is impeachable Pamela Karlan said the president doubled down on violating his oath and Jonathan Turley the legal scholar who was called by Republicans asked for by Republican said there's an incomplete and in adequate record here you've set an incredibly short timeline and he argued of the dangers of moving too quickly all right you have all been listening to special coverage of the impeachment hearings from n.p.r. News I just want to take a moment now to thank all of you who have been with us throughout the day covering this hearing my co-host Obviously Steve Inskeep our executive producer is Gail Austin our director is Jon Stewart. Our engineer is James Willetts our writer is William Troop our producers are allies of Dennis and Gustavo contrasts Alan Baron former special impeachment counsel for the House of Representatives has joined his here at the studio for many hours and so has n.p.r. Senior Washington editor and correspondent Ron Elving and of course n.p.r. National political correspondent Mara Liasson who is a staple for every special coverage we do we are at n.p.r. From Capitol Hill we have also been joined by n.p.r. Congressional correspondent Susan Davis and politics reported to mak stick with n.p.r. For more analysis and coverage of the impeachment inquiry again this has been special coverage of the impeachment hearings from n.p.r. 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Sad Maria heard on money 2 point one in San Luis Obispo We're live on the keys c.e.o. Us time is 4 o'clock. Thank you such a good percentage. President Trump response to the pushback from some NATO country leaders today is Wednesday December 4th and this is All Things Considered from n.p.r. News. I'm Audie Cornish and I'm Mary Louise Kelly ahead why French President Emanuel McCraw and others were more aggressive in their dealings with Trump this time around later allegations Russia ordered the assassination of a former rebel leader living in Germany and after Kamel Harris exits the race Democratic Party activists focus on what it says.