witnesses to the minority however that is not case today. witnesses were allotted time in this case, but we didn t get anything in exchange for our right not being exercised. while this may have been one reason for the adoption of the minority hearing, it doesn t render meaningless the plain reading of the text. so i spent a long time on this but we think it s very important, we simply weren t given something that we think by right we should have had and would actually subject this to a point of order. my colleagues also claim that chairman nadler is not required to schedule the minority hearing day before the matter is reported out of committee. you ve got to be kidding. in other words, we cannot agree that the house intended that the right for the minority hearing day could be fulfilled by scheduling a hearing on a measure after the measure is voted out of the full committee. that just doesn t make any sense. mr. collins, presumed passage of
of congress themselves could become part of criminal indictments later on. but it s been a curious thing for me to hear our colleagues across the aisle repeatedly make this point and spread this confusion that there are no crimes in there when they re the first ones to say the department of justice cannot prosecute the president, the president may not be indicted, the president may not be prosecuted while he s in office, that s the position they take. they then cannot turn around and say, oh, and you can t impeach him because you haven t charged him with any crimes and prosecuted him and indicted him. see, tails i win, heads you lose, is the essence of that argument. if you go back to the richard nixon case, we didn t have to see that richard nixon had been convicted of burglary in the district of columbia by ordering the break-in at the watergate hotel before he was charged with abuse of power, a high crime and misdemeanor. that s exactly what we re charging president trump with here.
essence it was dilatory. i ve never heard the minority called dilatordilatory. on the first day the request had been made. the minority is entitled to one additional day of related hearings at which to call their own witnesses if a majority of the minority members make their demand before the committee hearing has been gavelled closed. i believe mr. collins invoked that at the hearing. statements posted on the rules majority website in a document entitled, quote, house rules which govern the committee hearing process, unquote, based on review of the hearing video the minority properly presented their request to chairman nadler before the original hearing concluded. are you familiar with a memo written by mr. iran rraskin,
the majority pretties this up no way you can call in four law school professors, two staff members and that s the only hearings to provide any opportunity for the president to question and get anything out of them. i have heard from my majority colleagues, as a former defense attorney is funny, if he s innocent come prove it. when is that ever a part of what we should be doing here? really? i don t think my civil libertarians in the democratic aisle laying awake how can i be associated with this. no matter what you think there is a way to do this fairly. they still out number us and they ve been trying to do this for three years. mr. raskin, did you have conversation with chairman schiff about the contents of the report? i am certain i have along the way, yes. really? because nobody on our side evidently had any conversations. to your knowledge, did chairman nadler have any conversation with chairman schiff about the contents of the report? i m certain.
thank you, mr. chairman. in this document, chairman nadler wrote, quote, we cannot wait four years to vote mr. trump out of office so we must do everything we can to stop trump and his extreme agenda now, unquote. mr. raskin, on august 8th, chairman nadler stated with respect to the judiciary committee s hearing regarding the mueller report that, quote, this is a formal impeachment proceedings, but the unquote, but the house did not actually authorize impeachment he proceedings until the adoption of h.res 660. mr. chairman, was nadler correct on august 8th or when the house authorized them on october 31st?