doug ledder, the lead signatory, ran the civil appeals program at the justice department for many years before he became the top lawyer for the house. so this is well thought out. it s well researched. it s well evidenced. and when this referral makes its way over to the justice department, it won t be something ephemeral or sketchy. it will be an allegation of two specific crimes, at least two that were committed, and a lot of evidence to back that up. the issue here has always been trump s state of mind. for one of the stamp utilities here he has to have acted willfully and that means with a consciousness of wrongdoing. the evidence here is pretty spectacular, dealing more than 20 instances where he should have become aware that he had lost the election and continuing to push with nothing short of criminal. so the key question the people who have been watching this closely and frankly are a little bit impatient, harry, is what does it tell us in the big picture? are we actually any
already voted on might not be the entirety of the articles of impeachment when all is said and done. and this is something that comes as no surprise to anyone who has ever practiced criminal law because criminal lawyers know an indictment, and as we ve talked about a lot, craig, articles of impeachment, are sort of the equivalent of an indictment in a criminal case, that indictment can be amended. it can be superceded with new charges or even new defendants up to a time that a defendant goes to trial. that s to say there s no artificial cutoff that says once we pass articles of impeachment, then no other bad acts committed by this president can be brought to life. as additional evidence trickles in, as witnesses become available, i think doug ledder who wrote for the house yesterday that position we re discussing now was referencing the fact that if don mcgahn s
testimony, the former white house counsel, becomes available, it might mean the ten instances of obstruction of justice laid out in the mueller report are viable. those are criminal violations of the united states criminal code. republicans claim the president isn t charged with crimes. it would be appropriate to bring those forward if the evidence becomes available. you mentioned formeder white house counsel don mcgahn. why are they so interested in mcgahn s testimony? mcgahn was a key witness to obstruction of justice. he was present when the president talked about firing bob mueller in an effort to end the investigation into the trump campaign and russia. the president actually asked mcgahn to go ahead and fabricate a document that they could put into the files that would deny the fact that the president had ever tried to fire mueller. so in the mueller report there s this well-thought-out sequence of events with documentation. but congress has a little problem that prevented th
and doug ledder who represented the house is a suburb lawyer and they could do it. i m worried that is going to drag them and delay things and have the focus lost. right now it seems like the american people, at least a significant number of them, are upset about the president s conduct with respect to ukraine and his comment about china. and so i guess i would try to focus on that. when you re investigating or prosecuting any type of case, you don t want to load up your indictment with a bunch of extraneous stuff if you think it will distract the jury or open the door to the defendant making sort of a circus in front of the jury. so a tight, focused proceeding is probably in their best interest. jim, elliott, thank you so much. appreciate it. breaking news on president s call with ukraine and the new york times is reporting on one white house official s concerning description of that call. what that official told the whistle-blower, that s next. anyone can deliver pizza.