Paul welcome. Great to see you. Thank you for having me. Paul lets take this legal question starts with the assertion of alleged crimes starts with bribery. What you think of chairmanships definition of bribery . I suppose he is right if you accept the gerald ford famous definition of an Impeachable Offense that is whatever the majority of the members of the house of representatives decide what it is. You know, thats a political judgment and ignores history in the constitution. Lets start with the constitutional language which is where we should start. A president or any public official cannot be impeached unless a determination is made by the impeaching authority which would be the house that treason, bribery of other high crimes or misdemeanor has been committed but the only one. Paul the only one defined as treason so bribery they are now using bribery all the time. But that can be untethered from what the founders understood bribery to beat which was at least common law bribery and
Paul welcome. Great to see you. Thank you for having me. Paul lets take this legal question starts with the assertion of alleged crimes starts with bribery. What you think of chairmanships definition of bribery . I suppose he is right if you accept the gerald ford famous definition of an Impeachable Offense that is whatever the majority of the members of the house of representatives decide what it is. You know, thats a political judgment and ignores history in the constitution. Lets start with the constitutional language which is where we should start. A president or any public official cannot be impeached unless a determination is made by the impeaching authority which would be the house that treason, bribery of other high crimes or misdemeanor has been committed but the only one. Paul the only one defined as treason so bribery they are now using bribery all the time. But that can be untethered from what the founders understood bribery to beat which was at least common law bribery and
Leadership as at all other interAgency Meetings on this topic of which i was aware the National Security Community Expressed unanimous support for resuming the funding as in the u. S. National security interest at the july 26th meeting there was also a discussion of how ukrainian anticorruption efforts were making progress do you do you reiterated what we had said and our earlier certification to congress stating that sufficient progress in defense reform including anticorruption had occurred to justify the usa i spending. I and others at the interAgency Meetings felt that the matter was particularly urgent because it takes time to obligate that amount of money and my understanding was that the money was legally required to be obligated by september 30th the end of the fiscal year in the ensuing weeks until the hold was released on september 11th i pursued 3 tracks 1st starting on july 31st and an interAgency Meeting i made clear to the interagency leadership my understanding that once
You cover that with the chairman and then of course we have the press conference of october 17 ed Mick Mulvaney let the cat fully out of the bag and revealed President Trump talk to him the corruption related to the dnc server a and admitted tt is why be held at the money, any other explanation for the hold . In my remaining 30 seconds just so people understand what i refer to, in 1970 Richard Nixon decided, i dont know a general skepticism of foreign aid but he decided to hold a congressionally mandated aid. As a result, Congress Went to work and passed the control act of 1974. Which prohibits the president from withholding congressionally appropriated funds without the approval of congress for any reason. Is that correct . I am not a lawyer, but that is my understanding of the provision. I will go with the approximate. Thank you very much i yield back my balance back mr. Conway. Thank you, mr. Chairman. My colleague failed to put certain issues on certification. The certification was
Order. Good afternoon, everyone. This is the sixth in a series of public hearings the committee will be holing as part of the house of representatives impeachment inquiry. Without objection the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. There is a quorum present. We will proceed today in the same fashion as our other hearings. I will make an Opening Statement and the Ranking Member nunes will have the opportunity to make a statement and we will turn to our witnesses for their Opening Statements if they should choose to make one. For audience member, we welcome you and respect your interest in being here. In turn, we ask for your respect as we proceed with this hearing. As chairman, ill make any necessary or take any necessary appropriate steps to maintain order and ensure that the committee is run in accordance with house rules and House Resolution 660. With that, i now recognize myself to give an Opening Statement in the impeachment inquiry into donald j. Tr