the united states air force. the oath i took was not to a political party or to a president or to a king. it was an oath to a document that has made america the greatest nation on earth. i never imagined we would be in a situation where the president or the commander-in-chief is accused of using his office for personal political gain that betrayed the u.s. security, hurt our ally, ukraine and helped our adversary, russia. now, the contusion provides a safeguard. when the president s abuse of power and betrayal of national interest are so extreme that it warrants impeachment and removal. seems notable of all the offenses in the constitution, bribery is one of two they re eliciting. professor feldman, why would they choose bribery? bribery was the classic example for them of the high crime and misdemeanor of abuse
power of the president s office? if this committee and this house fail to act, you re sending a message to this president and to future presidents that it s no longer a problem if they abuse their power. it s no longer a problem if they invite other countries to interfere in elections and put their interests ahead of ours. professor karlan? i agree with professor feldman. i apologize for getting overheated a moment ago. i have a constitutional right under the first amendment to give money to candidates. at the same time, we have a constitutional duty to keep foreigners from spending money in our elections. those two things are two sides of the same coin. thank you. with that i yield back. the gentleman yields back. mr. johnson? thank you. i was struck this morning by the same thing as all of my friends and colleagues. chairman nadler began with the outrageous statement that the facts before us are indisputed. of course, everyone knows that that is not true.
president can get away with it. do you agree with that, profe professor feldman? i do. president trump made a direct phone call to the president of a foreign country and sought his interventi intervention. this is a big moment. if elijah cummings were here, he would say listen up, people. listen up. how we respond will determine the character of our democracy for generations. now, professors feldman, karlan and gerhardt said there were three reasons for why we needed an impeachment power. broadly speaking, it was an instrument of popular self-defense against a president behaving like a king and trampling the rule of law. but not just in the normal royal sense of showing cruelty and vanity and treachery and greed and so on. but when presidents threaten the
it was finally cleared in that i m going to read it to you. i d like you to do us a favor because our country has been through a lot. one of you said because the president was using royal we. here he s talking about the country. that s what he s talking about. it s audacious to say it s using the royal we. i ll till you, when you come in with a preconceived notion, it s obvious. one of you just said, mr. feldman, you, that said and i m going to quote here, i think this is what you said. until the call of july 25, i was an impeachment skeptic, today. i see here if the president pardoned joe arapoyo it would be
basic character of our government in the constitution, that is what impeachment was about. and the framers invoked three specific kinds of misconduct so serious and egregious that they thought they warranted impeachment. first, the president might abuse his power by corruptly using his office for personal political or financial game. professor feldman, what is so wrong with that? if the president belongs to my party and i like him, what is so wrong with him using his office to advance his own political ambitions? because the president of the united states works for the people. so if he seeks personal gain, he s not serving the interests of the people. he s rather serving the interests that are specific to him. that means he s abusing the office and he s doing things that he can only get away with because he s the president and that is necessarily subject to impeachment. well, second and third, the founders, express fear that the