To have very different worlds. We certainly will. This is a moment that a lot of people have been waiting for. Well see what happens. We will have special live coverage throughout the night, of course. Thanks very much for watching. Im wolf blitzer in the situation room. Our special impeachment coverage continues right now with erin burnett out front. This is cnn breaking news. Good evening. Im erin burnett. Out front tonight, the breaking news, just moments from now, you see the room. The House Judiciary Committee will begin debate on two articles of impeachment against donald j. Trump. This is only the fourth time in American History that a president has faced articles of impeachment and this is live what is happening in that room. Members are getting seated. This is prime time, the first time that any of these hearings have happened during this time. This is the debate and this is how they are choosing to start it. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee jerry nadler is about
government and was foremost to the founders minds. they placed congress first in article 1 of the constitution. president trump s obstruction of congress is an affront to peter rodino who chaired this committee in the summer of 74 when congress investigated nixon s betrayal of his oath of office and he s representative barbara jordan who as a member of this committee, would not be sub version to the constitution and it is an affront to the memory of congressman elijah cummings who knew we were better than this and it s an affront to the main patriots to the president s tyrannical attempt, ambassador yovanovitch, ambassador taylor, and doctor fiona hill and further, a principal republican of the judiciary committee in 1964. he did not support inpeachment
power, but the future of our democracy and constitutional order require it, and i yield back. the gentle lady yields back. mr. sensenbrenner? mr. chairman, i agree with everybody that tonight is a vor sell very solemn night. tonight is the first night in the last 45 years that this committee has sat through the articles of impeachment against the president of the united states. when we re debating here, in my opinion, is the weakest case in history, and yet the democrats have decided to go full speed ahead again, because of the clock and the calendar with an incomplete record simply by using hearsay evidence and trashing the rules of the house every time they can in order to speed things up, with a
questioning staff and even had a staff witness get up from the witness stand down there, walk over to this deus and begin questioning another staff witness. at the same time, republicans on this committee were denied the absolute right to have a minority hearing day which is guaranteed by this committee s own rules. the chairman of this committee and the majority have seen fit to abuse this committee s rules and ignore the rights of the minority with impunity. the majority should keep in mind that they may one day will be in the minority and they re setting s precedent where they one day will be the victims themselves. now we re debating artic else of imfee impeachment drafted by nancy pelosi and her cohorts without any consultation with the minority party and based on what constitutional scholar jonathan turley called wafer-thin evidence. tomorrow, this committee will hold a vote to impeach a president without having heard
process guaranteed by every american under the constitution. after the farce in the intelligence committee we had dumped in our laps a report, recommending impeachment with no time to adequately consider and review the materials. so much for the rules allowing members of the judiciary committee or any committee, for that matter, to responsibly consider such materials especially if they re involving something as important as the impeachment and potential removal of the president of the united states. the report from the intelligence committee was based largely on testimony taken in secret depositions in the basement of the capital building which was closed to most members of congress, closed to the media and closed to the american people. if that s not baddiv enough, th report scandalously published the phone records of the president s personal attorney, a member of the media and a member of this body. under what legal authority these phone records were obtained we