mr. chairman of the history likes are on us. it is time to share how we are going forward. i am still waiting for answers. so mr. chairman, as we look ahead, has the democratic majority promised that this was going to be a fair process when it got to judiciary for the president and others. the president, and you may say he could have come today. what would this have done? nothing. there is no fact witnesses and nothing to rebut. in fact, a good time to see nothing came of it at the end of the day. so why should he be here? let s bring back to my fact witnesses in because as you said, mr. chairman, you said, your words, we should never this committee except entity giving us a report and not investigate it ourselves. undoubtedly, we are well on our way to do that because of a calendar and a clock appearance mr. chairman, i know you are about to give a statement and you have worked on it very hard i m sure. but before you gavel this hearing and before you start your statement, before you
on the evidence they considered and the findings in the intelligence committee report that the president solicited the interference of a foreign government, ukraine, in the 2020 u.s. presidential election. professor feldman, did president trump commit the impeachable high crime and misdemeanor of abuse of power based on that evidence and those findings? based on that evidence and those findings the president did commit an impeachable abuse of officer. professor karlan, same question. same answer. and professor gerhardt, did president trump commit the impeachable high crime and misdemeanor of abuse of power? we three are unanimous, yes. professor feldman, i d like to quickly look at the evidence and the report. on july 25th, president trump told the president of ukraine,
and how much evidence from the intelligence committee report suggests that the president was trying to abuse his office to cheat the election. i don t know the answer of each of these. this did seem like the republicans trying to showcase on television their best arguments but as ari and their best argument is really narrow and the guy giving it is really couching it and hedging, oh, i like trump even as my dog. if we change the constitution a little tiny bit, maybe he s on the clear. maybe a constitution amendment to permit dogs to vote. golden doodles. there are time you have to move very fast. people are dying because of the president s misconduct. we don t have that, i believe.
concerns me is not on the substance. it s the audience. the audience here really is the american public who hasn t been following us the way we are, and who aren t lawyers. and as a trial lawyer, what i wanted to hear, given the richness and the depth and the overwhelming evidence that was in the intelligence committee report, is, i wanted the public to hear, it s impeachable because on august 9th, donald trump had a conversation with mr. sondland who then says the president wants the announcement. in other words, the direct evidence that puts donald trump right in the middle of doing the very acts that the scholars have said is impeachable. because that s what the public has to understand. ari melber? i think that they were very effective in taking portions of all of those hearings that america has lived look through,
know, the president s pretty much done that by denying certain witnesses showing up by denying and not allowing us to see lots of documentation, et cetera, so i think there s a pretty strong case for obstruction of justice and i think the intelligence committee will debate that report, probably approve that report and send it over to judiciary for the next phase of this. and you talk about the charges and there s an interesting debate that seems to be going on behind the scenes we re told about how narrow or how broad charges against the president should be. do you want to see the charges drawn up by the house to focus only on the ukraine episode if you will or do you want it see it expanded to include let s say charges of obstruction coming from the russia investigation? you know, i think based on the public hearings that we ve had over the last couple of weeks, based off of what we ll see in the intelligence report that goes over to judiciary, i m going to guess that judiciary dr