Ambassador sondland says under oath there was no shadow. Were all bad apples, were a whole pile of bad apples, that is a watergate tape with better sound quality. R knowing trumps behavior patterns, it has been especially in new york the loudest voice gets the biggest headline and gets to drown out the truth, a story, or cover something back. He has been the president of distraction and that has really been one of the biggest marks of this presidency in addition to being the president who is the president for themselves and not thees people. What is fascinating here is it is almost like he is going back
to a play book that worked for him towo get elected. It has worked, so i think this is one of the differences with water gate. There was a time when we, the American Public, were getting all of the same information. And inio a vastly different wor now were not getting all of the same information about the facts that we should be. One thing the president is good at doing is creating his
Gives the house the sole power of impeachment and the power to determine its own rules. When president nixon, during the time he was going to be impeached, the chairman of the Rules Committee, chairman madden, actually spoke on house floor and announced there would be a rule governing how that proceeding would move forward. When the clinton articles of impeachment were brought forward, there was a unanimous consent request to kind of govern how we conducted ourselves. And im not sure how likely it would be that we would get a unanimous consent request. I would like to ask unanimous consent without objection to enter into the record a letter sent to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee signed by 70 republican members including kevin mccarthy, the republican leader, and basically, and let me read the key lines here, we will avail ourselves of every parliamentary tool available to us on the committee and house floor, in other words to try to delay and make this process as
impossible as
From the Mueller Report would be unsupportable in the house and unsustainable in the senate. Do you remember writing that . Yes, i do. Why did you write that . Because i think its true. The fact is this was reviewed by main justice. The special counsel did not reach a conclusion and he should have. I think his justification quite frankly was a bit absurd not reaching a conclusion. The Deputy Attorney general did, and they came to the right conclusion. I dont think this is a real case for obstruction. But then this body would be impeaching the president on the basis of the in verse conclusion. I dont believe it would be appropriate. The gentlemans time is expired. Miss dean. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Words matter. In my earlier life i was a professor of writing. I taught my students to be careful and clear about what they put to paper. That is a lesson the framers of our constitution understood far better than anyone. They were laying the foundation for a new form of government, one that
Somebody caught in the middle of it, and that does not excuse the person from the consequences. Professors, we have talked about abuse of power and bribery when we started, we said we would also discuss obstruction of congress. So i would like to ask you some questions about obstruction of congress. Professor gerhardt, in your view, is there enough evidence here to charge President Trump with a high crime and misdemeanor of obstruction of congress . I think that there is more than enough. As i mentioned in my statement, i just really underscore this. The third article of impeachment, approved by the House Judiciary Committee against president nixon charged him with misconduct that he failed to comply with four legislative subpoenas. This is far more than four that this president has failed to comply with. And he has ordered the executive
branch, as well, not to cooperate with congress. Those together with a lot of other evidence suggests obstruction of congress. Professor karlan, do yo
American peoples money on this impeachment, theres so many other important things that are going undone. Within this committees own jurisdiction, we should be addressing the opioid epidemic. We could be working together to find a solution to our immigration and asylum challenges on our southern border. We could be protecting americans from having their intellectual property and jobs stolen by chinese companies. And we could be enhancing Election Security just to name a few things. And congress as a whole could be working on rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. Providing additional tax relief to the nations middleclass families and providing additional security to our people here at home and abroad. Instead, here we are spinning our wheels once again on impeachment. What a waste. The American People deserve so much better. I yield back. Gentleman yields back. Mr. Cohen. Thank you, mr. Chair. I take no pleasure in the fact that were here today. As a patriot who loves america, it pain