That we find ourselves in. And i thought the threat to our nation was wellarticulated earlier today by professor feldman. When you said if we cannot impeach a president who abuses his office for personal advantage, we no longer live in a democracy. We live in a monarchy or we live under a dictatorship. My view is that if people cannot depend on the fairness of our elections, then what people are calling divisive today will be absolutely nothing compared to the shredding of our democracy. After the events of ukraine unfolded, the president claimed that the reason he requested an investigation into his political opponents and withheld desperately needed military aid for ukraine was supposedly because he was worried about corruption. However, contrary to the president s statements, various witnesses, including Vice President pences special advisor Jennifer Williams,
testified that the president s request was political. Take a listen. I found the july 25th phone call unusual because in con
politics is a persuasive claim because that goes to the fact that it s being announced publicly. which is on oan odd thing. maybe mr. swalwell could probably answer this better than i because he was a prosecutor. but generally, you don t announce the investigation in a criminal case before you conduct it because it puts the person on notice. that they re under investigation. and given all of these facts, and there are more that we don t have time to get to, how would you assess the credibility of the president s claim that he was worried about corruption? well, i think you ought to make that credibility determination because you have the sole power of impeachment. if i were a member of the house of representatives, i would infer from this that he was doing it for political reasons. if we don t stand up now to a president who abuses his power, we risk sending a message to all future presidents that they can put their own personal, political interests ahead of the american people.