one of the most disturbing things to me is the conduct of republicans in the senate and in the house. these are actually smart people. they know that there is a damning case in the phillip mena of obstruction of justice by the president and they are acting like it s not. and that s just flatly dishonest and they seem to be doing it because they think president trump is the only game in town. that was donald ayer the former deputy attorney general under president george h.w. bush, one of a group of republicans including former federal prosecutors who call themselves republicans for the rule of law and who are out now calling out congressional republicans for looking the other way while donald trump trampless over congress and the count
office for these counts of clear counts of interfering with an ongoing criminal investigation and with the prosecutors. impeachment is about cleansing the office, it s about removing a president from office when he is engaged in a pattern of behavior that undermines the constitutional norms of society. the problem is that trump is continuing to do that every single day when he obstructs the ability of congress to get to evidence that we re asking for and to pursue our fact-finding function. when he ear gates to himself the right to engage in a war in yemen with saudi arabia when a majority of both houses of congress has said, no, we declare war and we don t want to be involved in that bloody humanitarian catastrophe in the yemenis civil war. so this is taking place in realtime every single day. i think we have avenue got to enlarge the picture so we understand how the lawlessness and corruption of this presidency is contaminating everything that s going on in our country. that s what
do you think part of the challenge here sorry, among democrats. look at among democrats it s overwhelming, should be impeached 76%, that s up from 69% just in april and against impeachment over 18% of democrats. it s clear, i think, with all the polls where the democratic party base stands on this. yes. is the challenge with everyone else that people automatically marry impeachment to removal and not impeachment inquiry, impeachment to a trial and a sanction? yes, well, look, the democrats, you re right, pretty much know where we are on this. you know, with he see donald trump as a one man white collar crime wave and, you know, it goes way beyond what s in the phillip mena, of course, we have seen defiant categorical obstruction of congress and contempt of congress in ordering all of his subordinates not to comply with our subpoenas, not to testify, not to turn over documents. that s outrageous. the democrats are very upset about the people lieu ments
impeachment inquiry were opened, or is it more about a sense that congress is being flagrantly defied by the president? well, i think you re right to point out that difference between senator harris and speaker pelosi. senator harris, i think, very much was speaking for california there and speaker pelosi is trying to speak for the whole country and where the country is in this process of understanding what an impeachment inquiry is and how it fits into what we ve got to do. look, the politics of it are ultimately inn skrutable and indeterminate. we don t know. some people say if you move to impeachment inquiry that s going to help the president, some people say on the contrary, if you don t you re going to d demoralize our base and we are going to look like we don t know what we stand for. i think the politics there are confused which ultimately is the reason why i think most members i m talking to are saying we ve got to base it on the law. we ve got to base it on the constitution.
something that seems unthinkable today. although democrats had majorities in both chambers of congress, house ma jord ljority understood they had to get support. and had to have credibility and an aura of impartialialty. joining me now is former watergate prosecutor, elizabeth holtzman who voted to impeach nixon and the author of the case for impeaching trump. and a former assistant watergate prosecutor. thank you all for being here. during the break you were talking about that vote to impeach nixon. the smoking gun tape hadn t come out. that s amazing. that rich order nixon ordered the cover-up.