the president, would they be subject to being excelled for abusing their position, just curious. well, i think i ll let my colleague answer that question, but what i do know is i think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle as i said nervous about their prospects next november against president trump based on his amazing record of leadership in the last three years. with that i would yield back. thank you. gentleman yields back. i would recognize myself to speak in opposition to the amendment. i think that the facts amply demonstrate the charges in these two articles of impeachment. namely that the president put his own interests in front of the interests of the country. that he sought to use the power of the presidency to with hold aid, military aid from an ally and to extort that ally into
more clarity. very interesting. joining us now democratic congresswoman jackie speir. congresswoman, thanks so much for joining us. are you satisfied with the democrats leadership to move forward with these two articles of impeachment, abuse of power and obstruction of congress while not including allegations from mueller report? i am satisfied. i thought reaching into the mueller report would be more complicated and make for a less effective effort to make our case. this is wholly focused on the phone call by president trump to the president of ukraine on july 25th and all the efforts that happened afterwards to with hold aid, to with hold a meet ing in
trying to figure out whether they were obligated to turn the complaint over to congress. cnn has learned the first official move to with hold aid came the evening of july 25th call t same day president trump and the president of ukraine had the phone call that spawned the initial complaint. a transcript of mark sandy s closed door testimony was just released and he says he told his boss withholding aid might violate federal law that. was before his boss took over responsibility for the ukraine money. according to the testimony, two people left their job at the budget office at least partly because of the ukraine mess. the house judiciary committee has now announced a new impeachment hearing. there s one difference this time. president trump has been invited to attend. more from manu raju on capitol hill. good morning. they re opening up a new phase
were holding it up. right. it underscores that the administration didn t appreciate, i think, the gravity in what was at stake here. i certainly don t think they appreciated the national security risks associated with it. so president trump has for a while now used foreign policy aid as a lever, but as a policy, right, he s with held aid from central american countries, from pakistan, from lebanon now, from the palestinians and he ease used it in order to gain traction on other policy efforts. and presidents can do that. but the ukraine aid was congressionally mandated number one. number two, it was for a specific effort to counter the russians. it was also part of our commitment as a fellow nato member. and most importantly, you have a situation where it s tied to personal and political gain. the others are tied to policy issues, right? there s ostensibly an agreement to with hold aid to achieve a goal. there s a big difference and big risk with putting it with personal and politica
felt like he s being extorted by the president based on these comments? i really think that s for the committee and the congress to you know what, it s really for the american people. i agree. and the american people aren t stupid. the american people can hear that and they can say i don t think he was under duress. i don t think he was being extorted. i don t think there was an exchange of a describe. and i would conclude with this last observation. it is common for national policy to with hold aid for various reasons. is that not true? it s true. it s frequent that we will with hold aid for various reasons. that s correct. president bush did it, he suspended military aid to 35 countries over their lack of support for the international criminal court. i ll bet that helps his political standing back home. but i don t remember anyone suggesting we should impeach him