out corruption. yes, and engle is saying no it is not. and did the president violate any laws, because according to just security, and here is the quote, the very act of holding the money in the first place could have also violated the impoundment control act. and where does that come into play here? the republicans are putting up a process defense here. they have created this notion of a quid pro quo, and there is no legal requirement for quid pro quo, and i would argue that the commentators are trying to misdirect this all. and the best example here is article ii of the nixon articles of impeachment, and article ii says that the president abused his power by using fbi and the irs to investigate his political opponents. period. that is exactly what president trump was trying to do here. he was trying to get, use the power of his office, phone calls from, phone calls from the west
some new breaking details of the timing of the impeachment inquiry. congressman engle saying that the closed door depositions will wrap up this week and then transcripts will be release and congressman heinz saying that he expects the public hearings to begin in the next two the three weeks. joining me now to discuss it all is congressman steve cohen from tennessee, and serving on the house judiciary committee, and here we go. about the public hearings, my friend, how do we expect this new phase of open hearings to change the perceptions around impeachment? i think that it ll get people to understand all of the abuses of power that trump has engaged in and how he has subverted the constitution by conditioning foreign aid to help an ally, you crane defend itself from the attacks and the aggression in its own country from russia that congress has appropriated that he used as way to get political
wanted it to, it does not mean whatever so that you are on legal solid ground and that is not an argument to hold up in court. okay. take a look at the time line and getting a better sense of the impeachable process here, charlie, and is that moving more quickly than anticipated? well, it seems to be picking up now as if it is engle is right that they will be releasing all of the transcripts this week, i imagine that a number of the people slated to give depositions this week are not going to show up, and that is suggesting that pretty much all of the information that the democrats are ever going to extract on this topic, they are close to having extracted so they are probably having to weigh here now as a move to phase two which is public hearings in the intelligence committee and then toward phase three, public hearings in the judiciary committee how fast they want to move. they have momentum on the side and on the other hand, everybody is expecting the end result is that the rep
there several hours now. have we seen any lawmakers come out of there or anybody saying anything about what s happening behind closed doors? reporter: philip reeker has started his fifth hour of testimony behind closed doors. there is about eight lawmakers we ve seen go in there. most of them democrats. we ve seen one republican representative, mark meadows but caught up with one lawmaker, chair of the foreign affairs committee, congressman engle. here s what he had to say. i think it s interesting that i ve known him a number of years. i think he s being honest telling us what he s observed. i think it s going to go on for a much longer time. we re just scratching the surface. there s a lot more to ask of him. very generally is he
orders and expect that to be his legacy. he can t do that, he s got conflict to deal with. house speaker nancy pelosi says democrats behave with dignity tonight. it s not a rally. half the people despise him, okay, and he knows that. it will be interesting to see how he plays that. but you have congresswoman maxine waters saying she s not going to show up, congressman engle is not going to bother to shake his hand. let me give you his reasoning for that. unfortunately, since january 20th, the new administration has shown no interest in working with the congress on both sides to tackle problems. that s why i ve decided not to stand on the aisle of the house chamber to shake the president s hand during the joint session of congress has i ve done in the past through democratic and republican administrations alike. is that dignity, is maxine waters not showing up dignity? at this point it behooves the