it for me tonight. thank you very much for being here. now it is time for the last word with lawrence o donnell. good evening, rachel. we re gonna have two miracle workers joining us tonight, senators jon tester and sherrod brown, who somehow managed to get reelected to the senate in states where no other democrat can win. but we begin tonight with our history lessons from professor laurence tribe, also andrew weissmann is with us on this really historic night in the case of united states of america versus donald j trump. i m looking forward to hear that. the supreme court getting involved at this stage, even just to say that jack smith, we would consider what you are asking us to do. that alone is such a big deal. we will consider it, and we are ready to start hearing. we want your response by next week. i mean, it s happening. it s on. here we go. and, rachel, guess who was proven wrong today? that would be me. as of last, i think, it was thursday night, i had got
Dispute. Now turning attention to the ron johnson letter if i may. Yes. On august 31st, Senator Johnson is getting ready to travel to ukraine on September 5th with senator with murphy. And he wanted johnson wanted the aid released so he calls the president and sought permission to be the bearer of good news. Right. The president said im not ready to lift the aid. They had this Senator Johnson, he writes a tenpage letter, very detailed, and he gives some remarkable detail and i would like to read it. Its on page 6. I this is Senator Johnson speaking, he said i asked him whether there was some kind of
arran arrangement where ukraine would take some action and the hold would be lifted. Without hesitation, Senator Johnson says, President Trump immediately denied such an arrangement existed and he started cursing. He said, no way. President trump said no way. I would never do that. Who told you that . And Senator Johnson goes on to say that President Trumps reactionnt here was adamant, vehe
Constitution gives the house the sole power of impeachment and the power to determine its own rules. When president nixon, during the time he was going to be impeached, the chairman of the rules committee, chairman mad n madden, actually spoke on the house floor and snouannounced t would be a rule on how that procedure would move forward. When clinton rules of impeachment were brought forward, there was unanimous request to kind of govern how we conducted ourselves. Im not sure how likely it would be that we would get a unanimous consent request. Id like to ask for unanimous consent without objection to enter into a record a letter written by the Judiciary Committee signed by seven people, including kevin mccarthy, the republican leader. The key line here is we will avail ourselves of every parliamentary tool available to us to highlight your inaction. Translated it means to try and delay to make this process as
impossible as it can be made. Im not sure, in light of this letter, that w
Whether or not Speaker Pelosi votes. Its tradition the speaker doesnt often votes but on a day like today i would think she would want to lead from the front. Well see. It seems like unprecedented times. Hagar, felipe, congressman, thank you so much. Well hand off to ari melber. Good morning. Im ari melber reporting live from nbc headquarters with coverage of todays events on msnbc. The breaking news coming out of capitol hill, lawmakers in the house about to take their first ever formal votes on how to proceed with the Impeachment Inquiry of president donald trump. This new resolution maps out the blueprint and rules of the road
for what democrats say is the next public phase in this impeachment probe. Now many are expecting a Party Line Vote today. Lawmakers will vote on these ground rules which includes moving the closed door depositions of all of these key witnesses into public hearings. Weve seen squabbling over this process. Were expecting in our special coverage to hear from Spe
Whether you think thats good or bad and matches the abuse of powers is an open question. And then he goes through and argues he doesnt see what he calls a statutory crime. And well see that debate as well. There are people youre going to hear from who are going to say its got to be an actual felony and then there are going to be other people pointing out the constitution doesnt require that. It has words like treason, bribery and high crimes. So were going to get into the weeds here, but the big picture is keep your eye on which witnesses and exchanges are talking about the serious question of whats impeachable. The other noise you can try and tune out as with any hearing. Mr. Wiesman, your last words of advice as we settle in to watch the legal experts. I think its very important to keep your eye on the facts and the law. And i think one of the things that the public is rightly upset about is the rule of law not being applied. And so i think the quote you read is fun, its sort of catc