i admire what nancy pelosi has done. she is a skillful leader, one of the more skillful we had. she got him to step down from the leadership position. that s not the usual thing. contrast him with donald trump who is schilling for roy moore. you don t find many examples of the leadership stepping in this kind of way. the concerns people would have about being unfair to this man wo had been a civil rights leader for so long. i thought she did it very well. her description of john coniers is accurate. that makes it all the more poignant if he is unable to remove this serious doubt that exists, but it doesn t deny the fact. all right. 1964. if i can ask you about president trump administration fighting
two-year term that is half over. it s appropriate to have a hierarchy there. if you have committed the acts and again the burden of proof is on john coniers to show he didn t commit it and he signed the agreement. i know people always say i just signed the consent because i want to avoid the litigation. bill o reilly signed it to avoid the litigation. i m always skeptical about that effort to brush it aside. it s clear that you should not be in a position of authority given to you by a colleague. whether or not stay in office is more on you and your constituents. some things are so awful that you should have to leave. it takes two thirds votes and only a majority to take them away from leadership. at the very least it s on john coniers to show his constituents
why he should be reelected. as to whether or not he should be forced to quit or expelled depends on the nature. do you believe it s contingent on revealing more detail or releasing information from that settlement or is it contingent upon the ethics committee process? the problem with the ethics committee is it does take a while. they have no jurisdiction over a nonmember of congress. we had cases of people resigning from congress in large part to frustrate the ethics committee. i think john coniers has the burden of showing and revealing that people can judge. again, resigning would depend on the nature of it. it does not appear to have been
no offense to my colleagues, but that s not real and that s not accountability. coniers and franken will cooperate with the helpive house and senate ethics committees. fred, the history of these committees so gray in your jurisdiction, it s a court of public opinion. you are asking them to judge and it will be interesting to see what light is shined on the proceedings that happened with such a bright spotlight on the discussion. both said they are open to the ethics committee investigations, but of course we will see what happens from this point on. thanks so much. appreciate it. president trump continues to push support for senate candidate roy moore out of alabama who faced a string of sexual assault allegations, tweeting this morning the president saying the last thing we need in alabama and the senate is a schumer-pelosi puppet who is weak on crime and
previous allegations of sexual misconduct. clearly that s no longer the case. the president weighed in and al franken and other lawmakers that have been accused of sexual misconduct. thank you so much from washington and we will step back with you. joining me now, a former congressman, barney frank, thanks so much for joining us. happy thanksgiving weekend. a lot to talk about here. thank you for joining us on all this. john coniers stepping down as ranking committee. let s tackle that amid the sexual a raszment allegations. your reaction to him stepping down as a ranking member? it was entirely property and credit should be given to nancy pelosi. she was a major force in persuading him to do that. i don t think he himself had an inclination to do that. i know people were concerned because leader pelosi i guess