Government. And then simply says, but you can go to court because thats how things always work. Again, its just important to remember. The facts are clear. No president has ever, ever, ever obstructed congress in the manner that weve seen from President Trump. Will the gentleman yield . In a moment. And so as as we go forward, and i dont know how much longer well be here. Its always important to makel sure that the facts are clear. And that we dont muddy the waters by suggesting that something that is sosu unprecedented, that weve never seen before in the history of our country, is somehow just a parcel of thes way things work around here. They dont. Know it. Friends on The Other Side of the aisle know it. The American People know it. But mr. Johnsons right. Sometimes its important to remind them of it. T. I yield. Will the gentleman yield . Nt thank you. I just want to add a little
constitutional postscript to underscore the verye important point that mr. Deutch is making here. The ar
officesab of congress. we had, as turley and others pointed out, you have the court. you go. and another thing that s territory, we started this impeachment proceeding about the russia hoax and the russia collusion. and demanding all these documents about the russia collusion. and it kept changing. and then it went to bribery. and extortion. and emoluments. and all these other things. never, in history, has a president been accused of crimes witht with the target constantly changing. now, when you subpoena documents, there has to be a reasonable basis for requesting information or subpoenaing witnesses. you gotor to have a reasonable basis. and when you keep changing the allegations against the party from whom you re demanding information, then they have the reasonable expectation to advise
of defense had already said that there was no problem. and that the aid could be released. the aid was released after the administration was busted. after there was pressure from congress for the aid to be released. after word leaked out and the whistle-blower came forward, then the aid was released. i think it s very important to remember that. president zelensky, not feeling pressure and he was just fine. he was essentially being held hostage. he was a newly-elected president. his nation was at war. and part of his country was seized by the russians. so what on earth was he supposed to say? was he supposed to publicly complain and criticize president trump when the whole world knows how the president doesn t respond to anything except for praise? what hostage would come forward and complain publicly against their captors? especial especially, if they knew that the aid could be withheld or they could be compromised at any
government, and of course it s alleged that congress, the legislative branch, said we want you to bring witnesses and evidence, et cetera, from the other branch, executive branch. since they didn t do it, rather than go to court, which they could have done, the legislative branch, this branch, basically the democrats because they are in control here in the house, they could have filed a lawsuit. they could have had the courts decide. that s what happened some years ago back in the nixon impeachment. he wouldn t turn over the tapes. so they went to the court, the supreme court ultimately said it may have taken some months. but they said you got to turn those tapes over. and he did and he resigned because there was bad stuff in those tapes, the smoking gun, so to speak. that s what they could have done here. but instead of go to the court, they re kind of the referee between the legislative branch and the executive branch. they said, no, we re not going to go to court. we are just going
review. in fact, the only direct evidence for the reasons for the pause comes from omb official who testified that he learned in september that the pause was related to, quote, the president s concern about other countries contributing more to ukraine. close quote. he explained how omb received request for information on what other countries were contributing to ukraine, which omb provided the first week of september. the aid was released, of course, on september 11. so democrats want to impeach the president for trying to ensure that taxpayer funds are spent efficiently and responsibly. democrats have accused this president of a myriad of things, including violation of the impoundment control act, which prohibits the executive from essentially pocket vetoing funds appropriated by congress. this letter that i m trying to introduce shows, instead, that the administration never intended or actually violated the law. in fact, it shows it always intended to disperse the funds. that is why