bipartisan. it turns out in term of the time line, there is no month of christmas exclusion rule. nbc news has just reported that lawmakers this year have been advised by house leadership that they should be available to be in washington whether for votes on articles or for other work related to the impeachment proceedings as late as the 21st and 22nd of december, this month. in the letter that was sent to the judiciary committee today by the white house counsel, the one with the gigantic signature with mr. cipolloni is unlike president nixon and president clinton, president trump is apparently not going to send defense counsel to represent him and make arguments on his behalf and do things like cross examine witnesses at the impeachment hearings. both president nixon and president clinton did that. we don t think that president trump is going to do that. now, i say we don t think that s what they re going to do because
the senate trial, look, we found something so we can go back to the phone call and say when president trump was asking for a favor, he had something to explain that intent behind the favor. now as crazy as it sounds, that s going to be the defense that the gop is going to mount at the senate trial. that makes really no sense from a democratic perspective, but that s going to be the defense. i don t expect at any point that the white house is going to say they re going to be, they re going to be there at the judiciary committee today. they re not going to be there. they re not going to be at that. but they ll mount a defense at the senate trial and giuliani s preparing that right now while he s at the ukraine. let s come back in. go ahead. i think what he is doing, working with the person he s
turns out. clearly it is not tamping down on the calls for impeachment from democrats as they feel emboldened in the release of the transcript. yes, and the focus returning to capitol hill once again. thanks, manu. he will have much more reporting as he chases more members of congress around. we appreciate it, manu. let me bring in democratic congresswoman debbie powell, a member of the house judiciary committee. of course, one of the committees that will be part of this investigation, this impeachment investigation. i want to ask you, congressman, have you had a chance to read the details of the call released this morning? good morning, kate. i have only reviewed it briefly. we are actually conducting an important hearing in the judiciary committee today, which is the assault weapons ban law. so, you know, this is all breaking so quickly and i haven t had a chance to review it fully. i will just read you one of the key portions because i do want to get your reaction. in this pho
republicans, trump people talk about owning the libs, corey lewandowksi owned the judiciary committee today. jerry nadler played a stupid game and they won a stupid prize because lewandowski made a sham of that. the republicans on the committee with the mockery of the process, this system is broken. if the democrats want to go impeach the president, they should have started that process a long time ago. i don t know what they were looking to get from corey lewandowksi that they can t get from the mueller report. you can t do impeachment in an election year. it will look terrible. so they need to figure out a game plan because it is clear they have no idea how to handle thisvation. i want to bring in laura coates, legal expert. and laura, what do you make of congress woman jackie speier saying that lewandowski is not answering the questions and therefore chairman nadler should hold him in context of congress? well, she s accurate. he has been stonewalling and as amanda alluded to he
politically, the reality is that they know it could very much hurt anybody who is on the ticket, up against donald trump, if it goes from an investigation and inquiry, further down the road. important point, indeed. laura coates, from a legal perspective, how does a vote in the judiciary committee today, what does it accomplish? does it give, for example, the congress more authority to get specific detailed information? well, it actually lays out a scenario of how they re able to actually conduct the investigation that they want to use that word. it s one of those just so we re clear, how this is going to work as it follows. first of all, jerry nadler now has the authority to convert committee hearings into impeachment hearings. that s a heck of a magic wand to be able to wave, if and when they do, certainly wrestle with and do away with the semantics argument. also they ve outlined how specifically they re going to be answering questions.