cohen, that cohen says that jay sekulow told him to lie before congress. how big a deal is that? if that s true, that s a big deal. obviously, you know, mr. sekulow is a lawyer himself, and he has certain ethical constraints that he would obviously have violated if he counseled someone else to lie. but on top of that, he would potentially be suborning perjury and that s very serious. do you feel like you understand the entirety of the facts before us? and i ask this because you just mentioned a whole bunch of things the caucus is unified about not letting them obscure, obstruct, deny things. just the public facts as they already exist in daylight, do you, congressman, feel like you have a synthesized version and you could sit down with a skpit constituent and give them a 60-second version? i might give them the cliff notes but there are a lot of unanswered questions. one very broad area of inquiry that none of us have answers on,
of pardons as a way to sort of keep witnesses in line. it s almost like suborning perjury if you kind of dangle pardon power out to people so that they hopefully don t make you mad. and if you start to see this president use pardon power for people who are connected with this investigation, i think you ll see congress erupt. and i m not the lawyer that you, are just when i hear michael cohen say i never asked for a pardon, isn t the word never pretty expansive? doesn t it mean never at all as in not once? john, it sure does. but that s what michael cohen says. and then a current lawyer says a former lawyer said something about what cohen did another time, that s not the same thing as, like, direct evidence that would suggest that he s not being truthful. it would be something that i think you d want continue to in into. but the telephone game, somebody
sustained pattern of multivariate abuse of power would qualify as a high crime or misdemeanor? i do. really? because that s going to be the president s potential problem is that you guys see a pattern of behavior that you believe does not equate with presidential behavior. well, abuse of power, obstruction of justice, suborning perjury, those are all well, suborning perjury is a crime. that s right. witness tampering, obstruction of justice, i think you ve got a problem there with the presidency in terms of a legal analysis. but abuse of power is we don t like how you did this. it s not that you can t do this. i don t like how you did this. and that s a different bar. well, i guess my definition of abuse of power is slightly different than yours. how so because yours is the one that matters. abuse of power is where you use your power for personal gain and not for the public s gain. and i think that if you are
really? because that s going to be the president s potential problem, is that you guys see a pattern of behavior that you believe does not equate with presidential behavior. well, abuse of power, obstruction of justice, suborning perjury, those are all well, suborning perjury is a crime. that s right. witness tampering, obstruction of justice, i think you ve got a problem there with the presidency in terms of a legal analysis. but abuse of power is, we don t like how you did this. it s not that you can t do this. i don t like how you did this. and that s a different bar. well, i guess my definition of abuse of power is slightly different than yours. how so, because yours is the one that matters. abuse of power is where you use your power for personal gain and not for the public s gain. and i think that if you are attempting to evade the truth, if you are attempting to somehow
relating to tax fraud, wire fraud, suborning perjury, maybe defrauding the united states because of the conversation he overheard between the president and roger stone. i think there s a lot more we need to know. we have the responsibility at the judiciary committee to engage in robust oversight, and we have a responsibility to collect all the evidence that we can from all of the sources we can to conduct our oversight. but, you know, what you were saying before the break, chris, is a really important point. we have the responsibility to do oversight, to hold this administration accountable. at the same time, democrats ran on an agenda for the people of this country, a commitment to drive down health care costs, drive down the cost of prescription drugs, raise family incomes, and with a bold infrastructure plan, and take on the corrupting influence of money in our political system and get the government working for the people of this country again. we have to deliver on those promises,