hearsay and innuendo compiled by the intelligence committee it is clear that no abuse of power ever took place and there certainly isn t enough evidence to support an article of impeachment. mr. chairman, as you well know, there is another significant difference between the abuse of power charges against nixon and clinton and those presented here. in the nixon and clinton impeachments abuse of power was attacked on charge. far less important in those cases than the actual high crimes charged against both of them. here it is the main thrust of the house democrats entire case. let me put it another way, the entire argument for impeachment in this case is based on a charge that is not a crime, much less a high crime, and that has never been approved by the house of representatives in a presidential impeachment before ever in history. if that s the best you got, you wasted a whole lot of time and taxpayer dollars all because so many of you, mr. chairman, hate
subpoenas, guess what would happen to that governor? he has committed a crime. he would go to jail. if the governor then tried to cover up his wrongdoing, cover it up so that his people, his constituents couldn t see his wrongdoing, what would happen to that governor? did he commit a crime? yes, he would go to jail. so as wildly as they are trying to convince you that there was no wrongdoing, i want the american public to understand what is going on here. it is clear as day. we ve seen it with our own eyes. we ve heard it with our own ears. facts matter. i yield back. thank you, i would just again close with this single question. is it ever okay for a president to condition official action on personal gain? i yield back. mr. chairman.
sought an announcement of these investigations in return for performing two official acts. first he conditioned release of vital military assistance on president zelensky s investigations and second he conditioned a head of state meeting on these investigations. fourth, performance of an official act. the courts have defined an official act as any decision or action, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy that may be pending or brought before a public official. both of the acts in question, the military aid and white house meeting meet this requirement. finally, corruptly. president trump behaved corruptly throughout this course of conduct because he used his official office in exchange to seek a private benefit. a second crime honest services fraud. 18 u.s. code section 1346. president trump knowingly and willfully orchestrated a scheme to defraud the american people
his office to obtain and publish the phone records of the president s personal attorney, a member of the media, and the ranking member of that same committee. it doesn t make alleged abuse of power high crime and misdemeanor. in their memo, the majority on this committee goes to great lengths to explain why abuse of power is an impeachable offense specifically mention it was one of the charges against both richard nixon and bill clinton. what they don t mention is that the house of representatives has never adopted alleged abuse of power as a charge in a presidential impeachment. why? because there is no criminal statute describing what alleged abuse of power actually is. abuse of power is therefore a vague, ambiguous term open to the interpretation of every individual. because abuse of power lacks a concise legal definition, there is a higher burden of proof on those pursuing such a charge to show the actions of the president rise to the level of
to try to convince us that we didn t see what we saw with our own eyes and didn t hear what we heard with our own ears. let s bring it down to an example used during the hearing. if a governor if a community suffers a natural disaster and the governor of the state has aid that will help that community but calls the mayor of your community and says i want you to do me a favor, though. and conditions giving the aid to the community on the police chief smearing his political opponent, has there been a crime? the answer is yes. and that governor would go to jail. if that governor later releases the aid after he got caught, it doesn t matter. he still committed the crime. furthermore, if that governor says during the investigation i m going to defy the subpoenas. we are going to fight the