concerned that anything illegal was discussed. he kind of defines the whole argument here. i think that s too narrow of an understanding of impeachment. you don t have to commit a crime to be impeached. treason, bribery, i crimes and misdemeanors, and think they thought that was abuse of power. on the other hand i don t think morrison adds that much new. i think we pretty much have the facts of what happened because of a white house release of the phone transcript. it sounded like there was some kind of a implicit quid pro quo. military aid in exchange for the ukraine starting some kind of expectation. the real question that we ought to be debating is not whether someone was on the call were not on the call but it is this. high crime and misdemeanors worthy enough to remove a president within the gear of the the election. shannon: the washington
just in to cnn a key witness taking the stand in the impeachment inquiry into president trump. his name is tim morrison. he is a close ally of former national security adviser john bolton and soon will be leaving his job at the top russia adviser to the president s national security council. moments ago he told lawmakers he was worried if the transcript of trump s call with ukraine leaked it could hurt morrison s efforts to bolster relations with ukraine according to multiple sources who added morrison was involve ared in discussions how to handle that phone transcript which ultimately ended up you know in that secret serve r. morrison is also now the second person who actually listened in on that phone call to take part in these hearings. the first was earlier this week. lieutenant colonel alexander
it had nothing to do with a quid pro all of those things, which i mean come on. well, look, they re assuming that we don t have eyes and ears, that we shouldn t believe our lying eyes. i mean, it s just stunning. anybody can read that phone transcript, and they can read the whistle-blower complaint. those two documents are pretty much aligned. i mean there is no question the president of the united states used his office. he was trying to use his office to get a foreign head of state to investigate his principal political opponent. can t use official resources to do that. then there s the issue of the quid pro quo. it was clear, and mulvaney confessed to it. they were trying to basically withhold military aid in exchange for, you know, information, dirt, and also perhaps a white house visit. i mean that s clear. yeah. we can you know, we can spin this any way we want, but the problem for the trump administration is most of us can read. yeah. and we can make these decision
that we don t have eyes and ears, that we shouldn t believe our lies eyes. it s just stunning. anybody can read that phone transcript, and they can read the whistle-blower complaint. those two documents are pretty much aligned. i mean there is no question the president of the united states used his office. he was trying to use his office to get a foreign head of state to investigate his principal political opponent. can t use official resources to do that. then there s the issue of the quid pro quo. it was clear, and mulvaney confessed to it. they were trying to basically withhold military aid in exchange for, you know, information, dirt, and also perhaps a white house visit. i mean that s clear. yeah. we can you know, we can spin this any way we want, but the problem for the trump administration is most of us can read. yeah. and we can make these decisions on our own. we don t need their help. we don t need them to distract us and push us off onto some tangent. toluse, you
posturing. we are good people, they will tell you. unlike you. you never really believed it. now you know it s totally fake. the china nba story proves it and by the way the ukraine impeachment saga also does. everyone in washington is tellings you it s unbelievable that donald trump would have used a conversation with a d foreign leader to help her politically. never happens. we are not endorsing it, but we would like to give you some context. so last night we showed you a phone transcript or bill clinton, who was the president, asked tony blair, who was the prime minister of great britain, for a political boost before the 2000 election. they weren t singling out bill clinton, this is very, very common. john kerry has been talking to anyone who will listen about the president s shocking behavior with ukraine. watch. my reaction is one of absolute shock and amazement. that is a fundamental profound abuse of power.