offensive operations, you and i both know, maria, president putin has always launched cyber offensive attacks against america like he did in 2016 in the presidential campaign and onward. we know president putin did not just launch cyber attacks overnight. he planned that months ago when he was planning his invasion of the ukraine. and the fact that our united states intelligence community did not pick up on those cyber tanks and thwart them goes to show you, me and your audience what we were talking about at the top of the show here, that our intelligence community has not been prioritized to focus on the likes of russia, china and iran and protect american national security interests. and it wouldn t surprise me if president putin is going after not just government agencies and departments, but our electrical grid network which is open when prussia prior prioritizes their interests against us. maria: yeah. we all have to be prepared for this, change passwords, whatever it takes. any r
that that will happen in geneva and just as we had a return to normalcy with our allies leading up to this meeting, i think we ll have a return to normalcy in how we talk to our adversaries. remember, during the cold war, leaders met, they met here in geneva to talk, right? putin and biden should meet, but it cannot be adverse to american national security interests, as i think helsinki was. let me add to our conversation nbc news senior international correspondent you listened to president biden s press conference. your reaction? i thought president biden was pretty straight about exactly how he was going to approach president putin. nicolle, here s one of my takeaways. we ve spoken in the past and kind of said to each other, what is putin doing now, trying to
we are holding this hearing at this time with these witnesses. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle admit don t know what arms of impeachment they will consider. how does anyone expect a panel of law professors to weigh in on the legal grounds for impeachment charges prior to even knowing what the charges brought by this committee are going to be? some of my democrat colleagues have stated over and over that impeach mrcment should are non-partisan. i agree. one 67 my colleagues in the democratic party i stated, impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan i don t think we should go down that path. because it divides the country. my democratic colleagues have stated numerous times that they are on a truth-seeking and fact-finding mission. another one of my democratic colleagues said and i quote, we have a responsibility to consider the facts that emerge squarely and with the best interests of our country,
piece in the hill. as i said said before there is no question the use of public office for personal gain is an impeachable offense. including the withholding of military aid in exchange for the investigation of a political oh s poent opponent. you just have to prove it happened. if you can establish intent to use public office for personal gain, you have a viable impeachable offense. we heard today that a president abuses his power when he uses his official power for his own personal interests rather than the interests of our country. i d like to spend more time on that because i m struck by one of the things at stake here. $400 million of taxpayers dollars. president nixon leveraged powers of his ochs to investigate political rivals but here, evidence shows that president trump also leveraged taxpayer
also assurance of u.s. support. professor feldman, you ve stated that the president s demand to the president of ukraine constituted an abuse of power s how does the president s decision to withhold military aid affect your analysis? it means it wasn t just an abuse of power, because the president was serving his own personal interests but also an abuse of power insofar as the president was putting american national security interests behind his own personal interests. it brought together two important aspects of the abuse of power. self-gain and undercutting our national security interests. theest points to president trump using military aid for his personal benefit, not for the benefit of any official u.s. policy. prompt karlan, how would the framers have interpreted that? well, i can t speak for the framers themselves, obviously. my view is that they would say that the president s authority