Whatwe that means, its to use e power of the office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring orfi injuring the national interest, or acts in ways that are grossly inconsistent with and undermine the separation of powers that is the foundation of our democratic system. Now, this question of whether the president engaged in abuse of power came up before when this congress considered the impeachment of president nixon. And president nixon famously said, if the president does it, it is notde illegal. And this body rejected that because thats not so. That goes directly contrary to what the founders said. But President Trump has said the same thing in responding to the prior investigation by the Department Of Justice and defending his conduct. Heres what he said. I have an article 2 where i have the right to do whatever i want as president. That he has the right to do whatever he wants as president. That is as wrong as when president nixon said a similar thing. That is not what
a campaign platform to extend the invitation to the foreign power, now he has the levers of government in his control to not only request it and invite it, but toly pressure that country do it. and that s exactly what he did. and w you ll hear more about th in the presentation from the house intelligence committee: and what s most c striking as w come back to this issue that the framers were concerned about, is there a continuing risk of wrongdoing, the fact that president trump did this after he was caught shows the risk. shows the risk of what will happen if this body doesn t act. he really does believe he can act as though he were above the law. he really does believe as evidenced by this conduct, that he can puts his personal and political interests over the nation s interest, over the nation s national security interest, overe the nation s integrity of its elections.
are now testifying in the capacity of witnesses. typically we administer oaths before opening statements. for witnesses. for witnesses. parliamentary inquiry. mr. castor was here with mr. burke presenting the opening statement for the committee. they were not witnesses before this committee. mr. castor now and mr. goldman arend witnesses for this commite and i willth administer the oat mr. chairman, if they were making a presentation, the rules wouldnt apply. the gentleman is not recognized. mr. chairman, may i have a point of order? i have a point of order. who is seeking recognition? right here. theit gentleman will state h point of order. mr. chairman, despite our repeated request for o access t the fevidence, we received les than r 48 hours ago over 8,000 pages of documentation. mr. chairman, if this were a
gathered in the impeachment inquiry paints a different picture? i won t provide a detailed presentation now, but allow me to highlight a few points. first, the summery of the july 25th phone call reflects no conditionality or pressure. president zelensky never vocalized any discomfort or pressure on the call. contrary to democrat allegations, president trump was not asking for a favor that would help his re-election. he was asking for assistance in helping our country move forward from thetr divisiveness of the russia collusionen investigatio. second, since president trump has declassified and publicly released the callub summery 75 days ago, president zelensky has said publicly and repeatedly that he felt no pressure. he said it on september 25th at thept united nations general assembly. he said it in an interview published on october 6th.
the gentleman yields back. thank anyou, both for your presentations. mr. burke, you are now excused. mr. chairman, i have a parliamentary inquiry. the gentleman will state his parliamentary inquiry. pursuant to house b of the house torules, the chairman is allowed to administer an oath, notr mandated to. but it has been the practice of this committee to administer oaths to witnesses. i m wondering why we have not administered the oathwe in this situation. i m going to administer the oath to the two witnesses who are now coming up before us to makere presentation. the two gentlemen who just testified were not witnesses. they were making opening statements for the committees. we will now administer an oath to mr. castor and goldman who