persuasion on impeachment in this ecosystem that has been totally detached from the intrusions of reality? and if the answer to that is no, what does that mean? joining me now a house member a member of the house judiciary committee which will be responsible for drafting and voting on articles of impeachment against the president, democratic congressman ted lou of california. so my first question to you, congressman, is that. is persuasion on this question possible? and if so who you are as a member of this committee that s going to be drafting these articles, who are you trying to persuade? thank you, chris, for that question. let me reiterate again impeachment is one of the gravest powers of congress second only to declare war and
question. impeachment is one of the gravest powers of congress second only to our power to declare war. it must always be our last option reserved for those rare times when we can t wait for the next election. today s hearing show we may be at one of those rare times because these professors made a very strong argument that abuse of power and bribery engaged by the president threatens the integrity of our national election. do you think they made the point it says duty as well as an appropriate sanction, that the president ought to be impeached? they made a very strong point that the trump administration has taken a position that the president cannot be indicted, and therefore the only mechanism to hold the president accountable is impeachment. in this case, the facts show that donald trump withheld critical aid to ukraine, withheld a critical aid to a ukrainian leader in exchange for
the most explosive and alarming to you? thank you, alex, for your question. let me first say that impeachment is one of the gravest powers of congress, second only to our power to declare war. it must always be our last option. now, at the same time, the last two weeks, a lot of very damning evidence came out regarding the president of the united states. ambassador sondland s testimony was particularly compelling. he identified the quid pro quo, basically, the bribery scheme between the trump white house and trump administration and pressuring ukraine to launch two bogus investigations, and he was trump s person. he was a trump supporter. he donated $1 million to trump s inauguration. for him to come in and basically tell the truth like he did i thought was very damning for the president of the united states. okay. damning and compelling, two words you have just used, but i m curious what has been proven in these hearings, what more needs to be proven to bring the republican collea
link to the president in all of this. how can mick mulvaney straight up ignore a subpoena? it s an unfortunate circumstance powers of congress have atrophied over the last 40 or 50 years, frankly, and so this is the president in effect asserting an a be salute immunity from scrutiny very remnant why we had a resolution. getting away from kings asserting an absolute prerogative. it s wrong for the president to do so but limited ways to compel people to abide by the subpoena authority especially when the house democratic caucus cannot enlist the senate republicans in enforcing congressional more breaking news on the prerogatives through other items impeachment inquiry. like budgets or appointment john bolton, forrer national authorize. the obvious question. why not let your people testify security adviser says he has if you re in the white house? many additional meetings house if there s nothing to hide? lawmakers still don t know about.
thank you, don. this is very significant because not only is morrison expected to corroborate taylor s testimony, he also listened to that july 25th phone call. what do you want to know from him? thank you, don, for your question. let me first say that impeachment is one of the gravest powers of congress, second only to the power to declare war. it must always be our last option, reserved for these rare instances where we can t wait until the next election. we might be at one of those instances now. bill taylor s testimony was devastating to the president. we expect morrison to corroborate parts of it. and bill taylor essentially laid out a quid pro quo between the trump administration and the president with the ukrainian leader. caveat you said was pretty ominous, pretty serious. so do you think you have enough evidence to impeach the president now? a lot of damning evidence already came out. that call record, we don t need morrison to tell us what was on it because we have