Transcripts For CSPAN Brookings Institution On Impeachment I

Up next, panelists talk about the whistleblower complaint against President Trump and the impeachment inquiry. Columnistgton post moderate the 90 minute discussion hosted by the brookings institution. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Inther you are coming in person or over the webcast, good morning and welcome to the brookings institution. We are very glad to have you with us today. I am the president of the brookings. Today glad to welcome you to this event entitled impeachment what happens now . Extraordinary moment for america. As for the fourth time in our history, u. S. House leadership has launched a formal impeachment inquiry into the president of the United States. Fors also a great moment the stakes are undoubtedly hide. Not just for this country but for the world as well. Constitution of the United States vests in the house of representatives the sole power to impeach a public official. While a further vest the constid States Senate the sole power to try all impeachments. Of roles wasn vital in the minds of the framers of our current tuition to ensure that the enormity of the power to remove from Public Office, to impeach, was not concentrated in the hands of a small politically partisan this is only the fourth time a sitting president has experienced the impeachment process. The process is been employed by the Congress Several score times throughout our history and of that number, the senate has actually convicted a relatively small number of officials. In the end, this awesome power to remove a sitting official in this case, the president of the United States, President Trump, must proceed deliberately and carefully to ensure that happens the constitution provides that the trial itself in the senate be presided over by the chief justice of the supreme court. It is the ultimate intersection of the responsibility as envisaged by the framers as they carefully crafted our constitution. Indeed, writing on impeachment in federalist 65, Alexander Hamilton, who would sign the document would explain to us that Public Office is a sacred trust and holders of that trust must act on behalf of the government. Therefore, when there is suspicion of misbehavior, high crimes, as it is defined in article two, the constitution provides it shall be in the hands of the people through their elected representatives that the official should be held to account. All the elected officials of the United States legislature, the congress of the United States, shall be involved in this process and all will have a role in the context of the constitutions intent that their members be fully engaged in the impeachment process, so is this matter. Here at brookings, our scholars want to play a constructive role in helping the american citizens understand how the impeachment process works and what it is and what it isnt and whats involved in the current inquiry. This event today is our initial Institutional Response and over the coming weeks, we will be posting a number of rigorous, fact taste up beds, blogs, and Research Products analyzing the history, the context and the dynamics by which the impeachment process unfolds. We will also be offering commentary on how things are proceeding in the here and now. And what people should be looking for along the way and i expect you will see some of our upcoming panelists if you havent already on a variety of the News Networks doing that very thing. All of our commentary will be readily available on her website, brookings. Edu under the keyword impeachment. I encourage you to take a look as we have written a great deal already. Finally, ladies and gentlemen, if you have not read it, you will be well served now to read the constitution. Some still havent. Article one captures much of the process that we are seeing unfold and despite all of the flurry in the media and i truly value the role of the media in this process right now, its important to recall that, from time to time, those protections have been used in the past and will be used in the future but most importantly, the constitution intends through our elected representatives that no one is above the law. For my part, i believe this historic moment is an important reminder of the extraordinary processes and enshrined in our constitution of the United States of america. Those that protect our integrity of government, preserve the strength of our democracy. For todays event, we have assembled a panel of some of our best brookings experts to offer their thoughts on the topic of impeachment and this moment in history, muttering today will be ej dion the senior fellow in our governance program. She will introduce the panel and guide the discussion and then go out to you, the audience, for questions. A final reminder, we are very much on the record today and in future sessions, we will be at your convenience, distributing copies of the constitution for those who need a reference. With that, ej, the panel on the floor is yours. E. J. good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. Thank you to those who are joining us online. The hashtag for this event for those who want to quot the very distinguished panel or make any hment101. S impeac i want to thank john allen for those remarks. I think it would show the seriousness of the think tank if john allens remarks alone could make federalist 65 go viral. Perhaps we can publish federalist cyst i5 as a brookings policy brief and turn Alexander Hamilton into a temper temporary senior fellow but think you so much. We have become almost accustomed to impeachment but this doesnt make it any less serious or complicated. It involves constitutional issues related to accusations of abuse of power and that loaded but illdefined phrase high crimes and misdemeanors our panel will try to define those for us or talk about how they have been defined at different moments in our history. It is also inevitably political in the high sense of that word and there is a high sense of the word politics and the less high sense of that term because Public Opinion matters and the judgments of both house members and senators are inevitably affected by the views of their constituents as they should be. In the end, this is about how we govern ourselves and to paraphrase Ben Franklins much quoted line, how we can keep our republic. We are very blessed today to have a panel that is sophisticated on the law, on the constitution, on National Security and yes, on politics itself. I will introduce them and i will ask a couple of larger framing questions. We will go on and chat for a bit and then we will bring you into the conversation. We will have microphones going around the room. I think everybody in the world hennessey, the star of stage, screen, and twitter. She is a senior fellow in National Security and government studies at brookings, the executive editor of the welfare blog and focuses on National Security issues surrounding cyber security, surveillance, federal terrorism, prosecutions and congressional oversight of the intelligence community. Her forthcoming book which he just got in her hands this weekend, a beautiful picture on twitter, is coauthored with brookings senior fellow then wit is. It is called on making the presidency, Donald Trumps war on the most Popular Office and appropriately enough it comes out on january 21. John udak is with Public Management and a senior fellow in government studies. His Research Examines questions of president ial power in the context of Administration Personnel and public policy. He also focuses on campaigns and elections and legislative executive interaction and state and federal marijuana policy. I want to say that john also is a senior fellow who behaves in the best sense like a journalist. I cannot tell you how many events i have run into john at where i did not expect to see him but now i come to express him. So i miss you when you are not at every Major Political event in our country. Elaine is an old dear friend, shes not old, im old. [laughter] i tell my kids one of the only good things about getting old is you have old friends. She is a friend of longstanding, a senior fellow of government studies as well as director for effective Public Management. She is an expert on american electoral politics, government innovation and reform. U. S. , oecd nations in developing countries and focuses her research on the president ial nominating system and has worked on many president ial campaigns. You just might tell us a bit about how in the world is this going to affect the nominating process in the other party from the president. Taylor is aaret fellow in government studies at the brookings institution. She is also Senior Editor and counsel in law and was previously chief Democratic Council and deputy staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2015 july, 2018, and its great to have you with us. She will tell us everything senators are privately saying about the choice they have to face today. I want to ask what i think is the obvious question. This seems to have moved very, of two and a halfs weeks ago. Many of the leading folks on the democratic side who were not for impeachment, including the speaker of the house, were not for impeachment and then the story about ukraine and what President Trump said in that phone conversation broke. We were at a very different place. Perhaps i can go straight down the line and ask has it moved as fast as it seems or were there things working underneath and why now . Why has this happened . Susan, please. Susan i think it has moved as fast as it i think it has moved as fast as it seems and is moving very quickly in a very real and practical way. I think we have to acknowledge that support for impeachment in the house is probably been has probably been artificially deflated by the lack of public support by leadership. There is something sort of pent up that is coming out now. The reason why this has been a Tipping Point is it is an on iguous example of abuse. This is the president of the United States of the United States using the powers of his office, the constitutional power to conduct Foreign Policy on behalf of the United States, in order to essentially, as alleged, extort a foreign leader into pressuring, investigating a political opponent in violation of that political opponents opponents Civil Liberties and Constitutional Rights not for policy purposes on behalf of the United States but for the president on personal political gain. So this really is the sort of staggering nature of the alleged abuse. I think its one of those cases in which you know it when you see it. We have come to this point and we are seeing this degree of rapid movement. I think its just a response to the seriousness of the allegations. The seriousness of not just the allegations but actually what has been confirmed by the white house itself and released in a summary transcript of the call. E. J. thank you. John . John i agree with everything susan said. This is such an unambiguous example of what a president can be impeached for. But what is also important is that it fits into a narrative that we have about the president or at least the democrats have about the president with regard to the manner in which he conducts Foreign Policy, particularly in Eastern Europe and with some of the players involved there. But this also moved rapidly in part because there were questions about the president already in existence. Its not as if democrats in Congress Went from a position of believing that the president is good and righteous and is doing his job and upholding his oath perfectly, to use the president s words, but there were all of these questions. When Something Like this happened, it was very easy for them to go to, from a position of deep skepticism of the president to ready to impeach the president. That is thats important. I think it means that messaging is going to be easier. I think it means for the president , that his approach is something that he and his staff should have been prepared for because this is not necessarily a shocking moment that we are ready for impeachment. But the shocking thing about this impeachment as susan said is it is such a glaring example of the type of behavior we do not expect from our public servants. E. J. elaine . Elaine let me put a little meat on the outline that john just gave. One of the reasons that this is so fast and so sudden or seems so, is the straw that broke the camels back. Lets start and 2016 in april. We see the first ads which we now know were backed by the russians coming out of st. Petersburg. We see the first ads interfering in the 2016 election. We get to the summer of 2016 and there are two events that have gotten attention but not for the right thing. The first event is the famous press conference at the Doral Golf Club or candidate trump where candidate trump says to the reporters, if the russians are listening, i want to know whats in hillarys emails. What has been forgotten about that press conference is he is also asked about russia and the ukraine. He says, yeah, we will be looking into that, indicating that his Foreign Policy with russia and the ukraine is not the same as has been Foreign Policy of the United States. The second event that goes on in the summer is everybody heard about the trump tower meeting with the russian intermediary. We have forgotten that at the republican convention, two its two weeks before the convection convention, they wrote a platform. Usually these platform meetings, you can see very clearly where the president ial candidate is having their impact. The campaign has no interest, no interest in any of the pieces of the republican platform, they get to write a traditional republican platform with u. S. Policy toward russia, that was the only one. This is hidden in plain sight. We go to the transition and sure enough, the National Security advisor has an illegal meeting with the Russian Ambassador which eventually cost him his job. He is only in the job for a month. He fires comey and the next day, he meets with the Russian Foreign minister and the Russian Ambassador the next day. And he throws everybody out of the meeting except for the russians. We are looking at something that is telling us something and i think for a long time, we didnt want to see what was going on. Then we get to the helsinki summit. And the helsinki summit, the president s behavior after the helsinki summit, is outrageous. If you want a summary of that, look at john allens piece on the brookings website that he wrote immediately after that. People with Foreign Policy background say what on earth is he doing there . In fact, the helsinki summit causes the largest number of republican senators to attack their president as has ever happened. Weve got a lot in plain sight. Then comes this news of this phone call. And on the democratic side, you have Seven Members of congress, all brandnew, they are women, five of them are veterans, to two are former cia analysts and this just tips it. All of a sudden, this is not the far left saying impeach the guy because we disagree with him on health care. All of a sudden, the this has gotten a different level of seriousness and one that frankly has been bothering people for three years. And here we are. E. J. arbor . Barbara . Barbara i absolutely agree. I was the one to talk about the freshman democrats. I totally agree, just to say it out loud, we have had the Mueller Investigation and the Mueller Report. That is part of this whole backdrop. I totally understand that different americans use the Mueller Report in different ways. For anyone who has asked the gone in and read it or listened to susans great podcast about the content of the Mueller Report, that is a really crucial backdrop for understanding this news story. I understand its been quick. It was only two weeks ago, i was rambling to write an article for lawfair with the question of what is adam schiff talking about with this whistleblower complaint. That was a mere two weeks ago and now we know a whole lot more. I would also say this set of facts and case to really two really important things that i think we had not really seen before necessarily. One is getting a Foreign Government to interfere in our election. Obviously, that was part of the President Trump<\/a> and the impeachment inquiry. Columnistgton post moderate the 90 minute discussion hosted by the brookings institution. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Inther you are coming in person or over the webcast, good morning and welcome to the brookings institution. We are very glad to have you with us today. I am the president of the brookings. Today glad to welcome you to this event entitled impeachment what happens now . Extraordinary moment for america. As for the fourth time in our history, u. S. House leadership has launched a formal impeachment inquiry into the president of the United States<\/a>. Fors also a great moment the stakes are undoubtedly hide. Not just for this country but for the world as well. Constitution of the United States<\/a> vests in the house of representatives the sole power to impeach a public official. While a further vest the constid States Senate<\/a> the sole power to try all impeachments. Of roles wasn vital in the minds of the framers of our current tuition to ensure that the enormity of the power to remove from Public Office<\/a>, to impeach, was not concentrated in the hands of a small politically partisan this is only the fourth time a sitting president has experienced the impeachment process. The process is been employed by the Congress Several<\/a> score times throughout our history and of that number, the senate has actually convicted a relatively small number of officials. In the end, this awesome power to remove a sitting official in this case, the president of the United States<\/a>, President Trump<\/a>, must proceed deliberately and carefully to ensure that happens the constitution provides that the trial itself in the senate be presided over by the chief justice of the supreme court. It is the ultimate intersection of the responsibility as envisaged by the framers as they carefully crafted our constitution. Indeed, writing on impeachment in federalist 65, Alexander Hamilton<\/a>, who would sign the document would explain to us that Public Office<\/a> is a sacred trust and holders of that trust must act on behalf of the government. Therefore, when there is suspicion of misbehavior, high crimes, as it is defined in article two, the constitution provides it shall be in the hands of the people through their elected representatives that the official should be held to account. All the elected officials of the United States<\/a> legislature, the congress of the United States<\/a>, shall be involved in this process and all will have a role in the context of the constitutions intent that their members be fully engaged in the impeachment process, so is this matter. Here at brookings, our scholars want to play a constructive role in helping the american citizens understand how the impeachment process works and what it is and what it isnt and whats involved in the current inquiry. This event today is our initial Institutional Response<\/a> and over the coming weeks, we will be posting a number of rigorous, fact taste up beds, blogs, and Research Products<\/a> analyzing the history, the context and the dynamics by which the impeachment process unfolds. We will also be offering commentary on how things are proceeding in the here and now. And what people should be looking for along the way and i expect you will see some of our upcoming panelists if you havent already on a variety of the News Networks<\/a> doing that very thing. All of our commentary will be readily available on her website, brookings. Edu under the keyword impeachment. I encourage you to take a look as we have written a great deal already. Finally, ladies and gentlemen, if you have not read it, you will be well served now to read the constitution. Some still havent. Article one captures much of the process that we are seeing unfold and despite all of the flurry in the media and i truly value the role of the media in this process right now, its important to recall that, from time to time, those protections have been used in the past and will be used in the future but most importantly, the constitution intends through our elected representatives that no one is above the law. For my part, i believe this historic moment is an important reminder of the extraordinary processes and enshrined in our constitution of the United States<\/a> of america. Those that protect our integrity of government, preserve the strength of our democracy. For todays event, we have assembled a panel of some of our best brookings experts to offer their thoughts on the topic of impeachment and this moment in history, muttering today will be ej dion the senior fellow in our governance program. She will introduce the panel and guide the discussion and then go out to you, the audience, for questions. A final reminder, we are very much on the record today and in future sessions, we will be at your convenience, distributing copies of the constitution for those who need a reference. With that, ej, the panel on the floor is yours. E. J. good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. Thank you to those who are joining us online. The hashtag for this event for those who want to quot the very distinguished panel or make any hment101. S impeac i want to thank john allen for those remarks. I think it would show the seriousness of the think tank if john allens remarks alone could make federalist 65 go viral. Perhaps we can publish federalist cyst i5 as a brookings policy brief and turn Alexander Hamilton<\/a> into a temper temporary senior fellow but think you so much. We have become almost accustomed to impeachment but this doesnt make it any less serious or complicated. It involves constitutional issues related to accusations of abuse of power and that loaded but illdefined phrase high crimes and misdemeanors our panel will try to define those for us or talk about how they have been defined at different moments in our history. It is also inevitably political in the high sense of that word and there is a high sense of the word politics and the less high sense of that term because Public Opinion<\/a> matters and the judgments of both house members and senators are inevitably affected by the views of their constituents as they should be. In the end, this is about how we govern ourselves and to paraphrase Ben Franklins<\/a> much quoted line, how we can keep our republic. We are very blessed today to have a panel that is sophisticated on the law, on the constitution, on National Security<\/a> and yes, on politics itself. I will introduce them and i will ask a couple of larger framing questions. We will go on and chat for a bit and then we will bring you into the conversation. We will have microphones going around the room. I think everybody in the world hennessey, the star of stage, screen, and twitter. She is a senior fellow in National Security<\/a> and government studies at brookings, the executive editor of the welfare blog and focuses on National Security<\/a> issues surrounding cyber security, surveillance, federal terrorism, prosecutions and congressional oversight of the intelligence community. Her forthcoming book which he just got in her hands this weekend, a beautiful picture on twitter, is coauthored with brookings senior fellow then wit is. It is called on making the presidency, Donald Trumps<\/a> war on the most Popular Office<\/a> and appropriately enough it comes out on january 21. John udak is with Public Management<\/a> and a senior fellow in government studies. His Research Examines<\/a> questions of president ial power in the context of Administration Personnel<\/a> and public policy. He also focuses on campaigns and elections and legislative executive interaction and state and federal marijuana policy. I want to say that john also is a senior fellow who behaves in the best sense like a journalist. I cannot tell you how many events i have run into john at where i did not expect to see him but now i come to express him. So i miss you when you are not at every Major Political<\/a> event in our country. Elaine is an old dear friend, shes not old, im old. [laughter] i tell my kids one of the only good things about getting old is you have old friends. She is a friend of longstanding, a senior fellow of government studies as well as director for effective Public Management<\/a>. She is an expert on american electoral politics, government innovation and reform. U. S. , oecd nations in developing countries and focuses her research on the president ial nominating system and has worked on many president ial campaigns. You just might tell us a bit about how in the world is this going to affect the nominating process in the other party from the president. Taylor is aaret fellow in government studies at the brookings institution. She is also Senior Editor<\/a> and counsel in law and was previously chief Democratic Council<\/a> and deputy staff director for the Senate Foreign<\/a> Relations Committee<\/a> from 2015 july, 2018, and its great to have you with us. She will tell us everything senators are privately saying about the choice they have to face today. I want to ask what i think is the obvious question. This seems to have moved very, of two and a halfs weeks ago. Many of the leading folks on the democratic side who were not for impeachment, including the speaker of the house, were not for impeachment and then the story about ukraine and what President Trump<\/a> said in that phone conversation broke. We were at a very different place. Perhaps i can go straight down the line and ask has it moved as fast as it seems or were there things working underneath and why now . Why has this happened . Susan, please. Susan i think it has moved as fast as it i think it has moved as fast as it seems and is moving very quickly in a very real and practical way. I think we have to acknowledge that support for impeachment in the house is probably been has probably been artificially deflated by the lack of public support by leadership. There is something sort of pent up that is coming out now. The reason why this has been a Tipping Point<\/a> is it is an on iguous example of abuse. This is the president of the United States<\/a> of the United States<\/a> using the powers of his office, the constitutional power to conduct Foreign Policy<\/a> on behalf of the United States<\/a>, in order to essentially, as alleged, extort a foreign leader into pressuring, investigating a political opponent in violation of that political opponents opponents Civil Liberties<\/a> and Constitutional Rights<\/a> not for policy purposes on behalf of the United States<\/a> but for the president on personal political gain. So this really is the sort of staggering nature of the alleged abuse. I think its one of those cases in which you know it when you see it. We have come to this point and we are seeing this degree of rapid movement. I think its just a response to the seriousness of the allegations. The seriousness of not just the allegations but actually what has been confirmed by the white house itself and released in a summary transcript of the call. E. J. thank you. John . John i agree with everything susan said. This is such an unambiguous example of what a president can be impeached for. But what is also important is that it fits into a narrative that we have about the president or at least the democrats have about the president with regard to the manner in which he conducts Foreign Policy<\/a>, particularly in Eastern Europe<\/a> and with some of the players involved there. But this also moved rapidly in part because there were questions about the president already in existence. Its not as if democrats in Congress Went<\/a> from a position of believing that the president is good and righteous and is doing his job and upholding his oath perfectly, to use the president s words, but there were all of these questions. When Something Like<\/a> this happened, it was very easy for them to go to, from a position of deep skepticism of the president to ready to impeach the president. That is thats important. I think it means that messaging is going to be easier. I think it means for the president , that his approach is something that he and his staff should have been prepared for because this is not necessarily a shocking moment that we are ready for impeachment. But the shocking thing about this impeachment as susan said is it is such a glaring example of the type of behavior we do not expect from our public servants. E. J. elaine . Elaine let me put a little meat on the outline that john just gave. One of the reasons that this is so fast and so sudden or seems so, is the straw that broke the camels back. Lets start and 2016 in april. We see the first ads which we now know were backed by the russians coming out of st. Petersburg. We see the first ads interfering in the 2016 election. We get to the summer of 2016 and there are two events that have gotten attention but not for the right thing. The first event is the famous press conference at the Doral Golf Club<\/a> or candidate trump where candidate trump says to the reporters, if the russians are listening, i want to know whats in hillarys emails. What has been forgotten about that press conference is he is also asked about russia and the ukraine. He says, yeah, we will be looking into that, indicating that his Foreign Policy<\/a> with russia and the ukraine is not the same as has been Foreign Policy<\/a> of the United States<\/a>. The second event that goes on in the summer is everybody heard about the trump tower meeting with the russian intermediary. We have forgotten that at the republican convention, two its two weeks before the convection convention, they wrote a platform. Usually these platform meetings, you can see very clearly where the president ial candidate is having their impact. The campaign has no interest, no interest in any of the pieces of the republican platform, they get to write a traditional republican platform with u. S. Policy toward russia, that was the only one. This is hidden in plain sight. We go to the transition and sure enough, the National Security<\/a> advisor has an illegal meeting with the Russian Ambassador<\/a> which eventually cost him his job. He is only in the job for a month. He fires comey and the next day, he meets with the Russian Foreign<\/a> minister and the Russian Ambassador<\/a> the next day. And he throws everybody out of the meeting except for the russians. We are looking at something that is telling us something and i think for a long time, we didnt want to see what was going on. Then we get to the helsinki summit. And the helsinki summit, the president s behavior after the helsinki summit, is outrageous. If you want a summary of that, look at john allens piece on the brookings website that he wrote immediately after that. People with Foreign Policy<\/a> background say what on earth is he doing there . In fact, the helsinki summit causes the largest number of republican senators to attack their president as has ever happened. Weve got a lot in plain sight. Then comes this news of this phone call. And on the democratic side, you have Seven Members<\/a> of congress, all brandnew, they are women, five of them are veterans, to two are former cia analysts and this just tips it. All of a sudden, this is not the far left saying impeach the guy because we disagree with him on health care. All of a sudden, the this has gotten a different level of seriousness and one that frankly has been bothering people for three years. And here we are. E. J. arbor . Barbara . Barbara i absolutely agree. I was the one to talk about the freshman democrats. I totally agree, just to say it out loud, we have had the Mueller Investigation<\/a> and the Mueller Report<\/a>. That is part of this whole backdrop. I totally understand that different americans use the Mueller Report<\/a> in different ways. For anyone who has asked the gone in and read it or listened to susans great podcast about the content of the Mueller Report<\/a>, that is a really crucial backdrop for understanding this news story. I understand its been quick. It was only two weeks ago, i was rambling to write an article for lawfair with the question of what is adam schiff talking about with this whistleblower complaint. That was a mere two weeks ago and now we know a whole lot more. I would also say this set of facts and case to really two really important things that i think we had not really seen before necessarily. One is getting a Foreign Government<\/a> to interfere in our election. Obviously, that was part of the Mueller Report<\/a> but here its in our faces. And that goes to the heart of the sovereignty of our democracy, who will decide in our elections who will represent us as president , who will decide these questions . And we as americans have always thought we will decide. This particular set of facts seems to have the president putting that into some question. The second thing goes to elaines point about the seven freshmen democrats who have National Security<\/a> backgrounds. This set of facts implicates National Security<\/a>. I just want to say that i have worked in Foreign Policy<\/a> for a long time. Our assistance to ukraine in our and our support for ukraine is crucial to be continued existence of ukraine. We dont quite remember that when we think about a domestic scandal here. The United States<\/a> and europe are so important to ukraine because putin literally invaded ukraine in 2014 and annexed crimea. Literal invasion of the country, that is why they are so dependent on the west, europe and the United States<\/a>. The idea that the president would use that crucial assistance, ukraine needs to protect itself from russia as part of a scheme to help the president s reelection really is a crucial National Security<\/a> issue. I think that is something that is different and has made it move fast because it is a National Security<\/a> issue. E. J. thank you. I will go one more round and i apologize to margaret. You happened to have your name begin with a t. We have two hs. Im just going to go all the way down a second time on what i think are two crucial and interrelated questions which are in a sense how fast and how far . I will go with the how far first. We were talking about the event about how articles of impeachment look. How congress decides what to impeach on, how many articles to have, how broad, how narrow. This in turn implicates how long this process might be. I wonder if you could all talk about how the house is likely to go about making these decisions, what are the splits we are seeing between broader or narrower or something in between and talk a bit about the time. I will start with susan and go down the line. Susan i think this is really a critical question. Its important the house anchors its impeachment inquiry in understanding that this is a grave and serious constitutional responsibility. It needs to be really go about making these decisions, disciplined. Impeachment is an airing of grievances against the president , not a mechanism to achieve things were you cannot where you cannot build a legislative coalition. It is a very, very serious and unique remedy in cases of serious abuse. When you think about what actually might fall with in those articles of impeachment, we are seeing a huge trend right a span right now of people moving forward on this narrow ukraine call all the way to people saying you should include family separation everything we have seen this president do. Whatever we think about what should be in the codes of and articles of impeachment, think about two things. You want unambiguously impeachable conduct and you want unambiguously strong evidence. We have some areas in which there is very strong evidence but its not clear its impeachable conduct. Evidence of wrongdoing. The Stormy Daniels<\/a> payments, prepresident ial conduct that implicates campaignfinance law. We have a clear evidentiary record but the question of whether prepresident ial conduct would fall within that starts to become a little bit more difficult. The emoluments clauses violation, very serious questions, some open questions about the constitution, congress has not yet taken steps to pass laws. That will be more difficult to make the argument. Genuine policy differences, even things we might find personally abhorrent like family separation which is a policy disagreement, you dont get to impeach for that. There is a different category which is unsatisfying to leave that on the table. Theres another category of plainly impeachable conduct in which the evidence is not quite strong enough. The president reportedly has offered people pardons in exchange for violating the law in the context of border security. Unambiguously impeachable conduct, the record is murky, maybe he was kidding or maybe he didnt say it. We have to ask ourselves, putting that stuff aside, what are we left with . We think about on them vigorously impeachable and strong evidence. The answer to that question is a lot. [laughter] the first one is obstruction of justice. This is the big question that remains after the Mueller Report<\/a>. Not every episode obstruction of justice is restrung but there are two or three that are unambiguously the statutory requirements we would expect to see congress intentionally potentially impeach for that. Abuse of Foreign Policy<\/a> powers are using Foreign Policy<\/a> powers for personal gain, thats an abuse. Inviting foreign interference in American Election<\/a> is an abuse. The violation of the oath of office or targeting political opponents for investigations, not just in a foreign context but also things like directing the attorney general to investigate Hillary Clintons<\/a> emails. That is not an appropriate use of u. S. Law enforcement. Obstruction of congress, the refusal to reply to subpoenas, the frivolous assertions of privilege over people like corey lewandowski, that is obstructing congress and its function. Last category is lies to the American Public<\/a>. This is something we saw in the draft articles of impeachment for Richard Nixon<\/a> and against bill clinton as well, lying to the American Public<\/a> is not a crime. It is impeachable conduct and it does erode basic democratic accountability. There is a very long, very strong record that supports impeachment. [laughter] wow, they are going to be busy. Just to sharpen the question, susan has laid out probably 10 articles of impeachment in that list, yet within the congress, there is real pressure particularly from vulnerable members or vulnerable democrats who came to this decision only after the ukraine event that it should actually be focused only on the ukraine connected articles. What say you, john, about what makes sense to you, and what you think they are likely to do . John impeachment is both a legal constitutional issue but its also a political issue and a political action. Susan laid out beautifully the legal and constitutional side of this. For democrats in congress, particularly the speaker and chairman shiff, they have to think about the politics and the politics are multifold. They involve the president ial election, they involve the standing democrats before the American Public<\/a>. It involves as well the vulnerable democrats who we have talked about already and what they are likely to do. It also involves the optics of an eventual Impeachment Vote<\/a>. If the democrats put 70 articles of impeachment up and they impeach on five of those, the president is going to chalk that up as a win. E. J. 655. John exactly, right . If they put up six or seven impeachment articles and he is impeached on five, thats a much harder point for the president to make that he has actually won. The politics are going to be important. The narrowing to the issue with ukraine, the situation of the president s conversation with ukraine as we have said, are clear examples of that abuse. They are abuses that have put almost every member of the Democratic Caucus<\/a> in the house in a position to be ready to proceed with impeachment hearings. If we start to go back to the Mueller Report<\/a>, there are examples coming out of that report where the president has engaged in conduct that is impeachable and there is evidence there to impeach him on it. But a lot of americans will see this and certainly the president will see this, as old news, something that is not worth that kind of attention. If that is the case, then going back and digging up the Mueller Report<\/a> which the president will say is a real litigation of the 2016 election, he will say it is something, he will wrongly say he is being exonerated on. If that connects with the American Public<\/a>, that becomes a serious political problem for democrats and becomes a series messaging problem, and it also means they will probably start to lose votes among those moderate and vulnerable democrats in the house. The focus on ukraine on the other hand really strengthens democrats political hand in this space. Its hard to look at the evidence unless your Kevin Mccarthy<\/a> [laughter] john and say that there is no there there. As elaine pointed out, seven vulnerable democrats putting their careers on the line, seven vulnerable democrats who have spent a lifetime of service to this country have said i dont care if i lose my seat, this is more important than my seat in congress. It is more important than whether a democrat or republican holds the seat. This involves an oath and it involves our constitution and i think of everyone in the congress, they are probably some of the best examples of people who think this way. There is a political angle to that and there is a political angle to all of this but the speaker and the chairman and democratic leadership need to move forward thinking both about how to hold the president to account and how not to throw selves under the bus. E. J. elaine, you can wear two hats and youre the only person who looks good into hats. Good in two hats. Because you are a political person i have been involved in many campaigns and youre a public allison person who teaches public policy. Do you see a conflict between these two sides of yourself in the, the conversation about impeachment . Susan made a powerful case for quite a few articles related not just to ukraine but to other matters. Yet john, channeling the moderate democrats in the house, too broad will be problematic and to add an element, ive heard the argument made that you need at least multiple articles so some republicans might be able to vote no on some in order to vote yes on one and it only takes one. I would like you to talk about how the politics and the constitutional responsibility and policy interact in this argument about articles of impeachment. Elaine thats a good question. Maybe ill put on my professor hat first. And look at three president ial impeachments and how this has worked. The first one was the Andrew Johnson<\/a> impeachment. The first five articles of impeachment are all about the obscure thing called the tenure of office act and whether or not the president violated the tenure of office act. Its a little bit trivial, it was not clear even at the time that it was constitutional. Thaddeus stevens was a radical republican senator from massachusetts insisted that there be an article of impeachment that talked about the president violating the oath of office in a bigtime in peach impeachable offense, meaning what he was doing as president was undermining the result of civil war of the civil war. The verdict, so to speak, of the civil war. And that tension was there in the very first impeachment. In the second impeachment, it was which was Richard Nixon<\/a> it was very clear that they didnt want to go to all the various things involving watergate. E. J. the committee to reelect the president. Elaine the committee to reelect the president was called creep. E. J. watch your acronym. Elaine right. They didnt want to go to those things. The president himself did not break into the democratic headquarters. But the massiveness of the coverup clearly became the center of the impeachment. That was clearly an abuse of power. Even then, it wasnt until the tapes were discovered and it wasnt until you actually heard Richard Nixon<\/a> telling hr haldeman, tell the cia to tell the fbi to back off the watergate investigation. Even then, it took a long time to reach the president. It was clearly impeachable. You get to bill clinton. Did he lie under federal oath . Yep. Is that a crime . Yep. Did he have a sexual relationship with a young woman . Yes, he did. That was clearly not a good thing to do and pretty immoral. But it was also very clear that one that got to the senate, nobody thought that was an impeachable offense. It didnt rise to the level of seriousness. Monica lewinsky was not a russian spy. He was not giving her classified information in the course of their assignations. She was just a poor kid. And that was it. And the senate said no, were not going to vote impeachment on that. In fact, if you think about it, if you impeached or took everybodys job away from them who lied about sex like the whole country would be in jail. [laughter] elaine you see in these three impeachments e. J. fewer people in the world elaine. N sue [laughter] elaine you see in these three impeachments the tension that susan is talking about. You can read her excellent article on this. You want something that is clearly a step above ordinary misbehavior. That high crimes and misdemeanors abuse of power seemed to make the cut. E. J. thank you. Margaret. Having absorbed this and susan i want you to come back before we move on to talk about the multiple articles issue. But i want to talk to margaret with a couple of questions. You spent a lot of time in Foreign Affairs<\/a> which even in this terrible time has had some moments of bipartisanship. There is conversation across party lines, at least until this moment. I think it was mike murphy, a republican consultant was the first person who said it that if you had a secret ballot in the senate, 30 republican senators would vote to impeach donald trump. I would be curious if you could talk about what your sense is of where some or many republicans are on this and weigh in on the question of how Democratic Senators<\/a> looking across to their House Democratic<\/a> colleagues, if they could give advice to the house on what to do and not to do, not just about articles of impeachment but also about how to conduct this and what might they say . Margaret in terms of where republicans are on the senate side, what ive noticed is there is a lot of them saying one thing anonymously to reporters. Sort of privately. But they are doing a different thing publicly right now with a few very minimal exceptions along the lines of mitt romney, maybe ween sasse said shouldnt circle the wagons so fast. There is a dichotomy between a fair number of republicans republican senators are saying privately and what they are saying publicly. I think what the process, the public process in the house of impeachment proceedings could do is help the American Public<\/a>, including americans in red states, understand and hook up this conduct that the president has engaged in and hook all that up with our basic foundational Constitutional Values<\/a> as americans, as people, we revere our founding father so i think the challenge and maybe this would be for Senate Democrats<\/a> saying make that case. Take enough time to make that case to the American People<\/a>, connecting these events to our most foundational all american values. Because that is what will bridge this gap between what republicans are saying privately a lot of them and what they are saying publicly. It is really only through the public process, in my view, that really gets you to that place. E. J. how long should that be . Margaret i think it takes at least five or six weeks. But i dont know. We dont know how this is going to unfold. We dont know how the momentum of the narrative is going to unfold. We dont know if there are more shoes to drop. We dont know if more will be uncovered. Its going to have to become i would imagine for house democrats, a process of really calibrating an understanding where they are, what is yet to explore and when they need to cut the rope, take the vote, and send it to the senate in the most powerful way. That is something that will evolve over time and is not something that we can make an accurate prediction about. E. J. margarets comment on politicians saying one thing about the record brings to mind somebody who i want to honor because i wish he was here to cover this, is cokie roberts. Cokie roberts was covering events at the vatican and someone asked her if this is like covering congress . And she said sure, theres a big home and a lot of marble and there are bunch of guys saying one thing who mean another. [laughter] on npr. So i want to bring that back to susan. There is a complicated dance that there are quite a few republicans playing dancing where they really dont want to go out there publicly against trump. How would the conduct of this i wanted to go back to defend your somewhat longer list of impeachment articles and we will move on how might this move republicans . You have written powerful stuff that is not partisan about National Security<\/a>. It hasnt moved that many people publicly. Im curious how you read that. Susan to start, i dont think anyone should begin by letting republicans off the hook by saying this is only going to be a symbolic impeachment and the senate will never vote to remove. I think that is a live question. If you look at members of congress, republican members, they swear their own also of their own oaths of office, and they have to live with themselves at the end of the day. We have to expect them to uphold their oaths. If they want to record their history, the road for history, thats between them and their constituents and their conscience. There are risks in being overbroad. In terms of things that are not impeachable and overbroad even if you have a strong case, putting too many pieces in there. You can undercut your messaging, you can alienate moderates, you can make it more difficult for republicans to support you. There is a congress risk and there is a risk in being too narrow. Impeachment is the mechanism by which Congress Says<\/a> what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. If we go back to the convention debates, the framers talk about this a lot. We create an astonishingly empowered executive. They talk about the risks of that, the risk of the president who might abuse his office or there might be foreign influence. What are you going to do . How are the other branches going to stand up . Again and again, the framers returned to the idea that if the president abuses his office and his oath, the congress will impeach him. This very, very big stick is the thing that is foundational. I think there is a little bit of a risk here. If you say we are just going to move forward on ukraine even though we have an unambiguous record that the president of United States<\/a> pressured his white House Counsel<\/a> to create a false record in the Mueller Investigation<\/a>, something that in my opinion i think is clearly criminal conduct, very, very serious conduct. If you dont put that in an article, you are forfeiting the opportunity and the responsibility of saying this is unacceptable. The office of the american presidency has changed a lot over time. President s have change the way they have used in some cases abuse the power and there are two mechanisms by which we can say we dont want the office to change. One is the ratification of elections when the American People<\/a> respond by saying we dont like this use of the office and we will not reelect you. Every now and then, congress is called by their oaths to insert themselves into that process and say we have to draw the line here. I think there is a risk of sort of being overly strategic about it and saying we are only going to proceed on is one thing on this one thing because you risk sending the message to future president s that this other stuff is not impeachable conduct. That really could have very serious longterm consequences on the office. E. J. thats really powerful. John, come back in on that but i wanted broaden the question to you and elaine on both the impact of this on the president ial campaign, on joe biden but also the impact back of the campaign on this impeachment discussion and it would be a mistake if we continue this conversation without talking about nancy pelosi and her handling of this. Go where you wanted to go but i would like you and elaine in particular to talk about this interaction between the campaign and the impeachment process. John i wanted to pick up on susans point, it cascades into that question anyway. At the beginning of your last answer, susan, you said its a live question right now whether republican senators are going to stay as no votes on impeachment also on conviction or whether thats movable. Right now, if an impeachment trial vote were held today, yes, the president would be acquitted. Whats important to remember is that in 1972, Richard Nixon<\/a> won reelection by an overwhelming landslide. He got about 200 more electoral votes than donald trump got in 2016. During his first and second term, Richard Nixon<\/a> had job Approval Ratings<\/a> that were astronomically high relative to what even this president s best Approval Ratings<\/a> have been. To think on election day, 1972, i was not around for it, but to think on election day 1972 that Richard Nixon<\/a> would be impeached and removed from office to think that wouldve happened in less than two years, people would have laughed in your face. Alas, the evidence was built, the tapes came out, and movement happened within the republican conference in the senate. Granted, our politics is different now than it was in 1974. But this idea that there is nothing that can come out that will move a republican senator toward voting to convict the president , i think, is foolish. I think susans point is strong, its an open question and were not there now but the first day of the watergate hearings, we were not there then either. To answer the next question, there is a big question mark about what this will mean for the president ial election in 2020, what it will mean for Nancy Pelosis<\/a> political standing nationally, in her party, and for her legacy because we just dont know how this plays out yet, how much more we are going to learn as these inquiries continue and was what is going to happen with the American Public<\/a>s support for impeachment which we learn from cbs news this morning is now at 55 . E. J. for an impeachment inquiry. John yeah. Its at 55 . And what the president s standing and what the Party Standing<\/a> will be . It could be politically very challenging for democrats in 2020 but if we end up in a similar situation to the one we were in in august of 1974, its going to be a very difficult position for President Trump<\/a> and for Congressional Republicans<\/a> who continue to offer him unwavering support. All that is to say we dont know but obviously, stay tuned. The next five to eight weeks is probably going to tell us a lot more about the 2020 president ial election than the last three years has. E. J. elaine, just to cite the cbs numbers as you go into it, among democrats its not surprising. The question is, does President Trump<\/a> deserve to be impeached over ukraine . Democrats, 75 yes. Eight, no. 17, too soon to say. A huge margin. 35, yes. Nts, 41, no. 24, too soon to say. Not surprising. Independents are less certain. But the republican numbers are fascinating to read because on the one hand, 70 say he does not deserve to be but 16 of republicans say he does and another 14 say it is too soon to say. I read those numbers as not great for the president going into this right now. Am i wrong right now. Am i wrong about that . Elaine i think theres two things to say about the republicans and then i will go to the democrats. You have to remember that on the day Richard Nixon<\/a> resigned from office, he had a 24 Approval Rating<\/a>. President s dont ever go down to nothing. Right . Theres just too many people who are invested in their vote. The question i have tried this out with a couple of members of congress the question is at what point does it unravel . President goes between 38 and 48 45 Approval Rating<\/a>. In the public most people think if he gets to 30 , hes in big trouble. Keep that in your mind. Keep 30 where they Approval Rating<\/a> drops. The second thing is, you switch when his Approval Rating<\/a> drops at that point, it does affect some republicans and you dont need all republicans to impeach, you need 20 republicans to impeach. I mean, to convict. You dont need any Republican House<\/a> members to impeach because the democrats have a large majority. Switching to the democrats, prior to last week, nancy pelosi looked after what she called the majority makers. The majority makers are the democrats from marginal districts that won with the help of majority. She needs to hold them to hold her majority. When those seven defected, 86 followed. It was a huge shift. At that moment, she knew that, ok, two things were going on. A, this was a serious issue that reached the constitutional level and therefore you could not play politics with it. And b, that frankly, if there were that many people with marginal districts, they were also betting and they are doing this right now, that they could go back to their districts and explain the rationale behind their decision here and explain that they would move the public. We have not yet seen this go forward. Because in the next two weeks, while all these guys are on recess, they are going to be doing town meeting after town meeting after coffee shop stops and deli stops, etc. And they are going to be talking about this. And they are going to educate the public. When that happens, then we will have a better sense of where we are. E. J. real quick on that, i talked to a couple of members from those frontline districts, the majority makers, and they were very clear on where they stood. But they both ended their conversations by saying, by the way, we are working on health care and listed all bunch of other things. It was their spontaneous is there any worry about that in all of this . Elaine i will tell you the worry. The worry is the democratic message gets obscured. The real worry is you impeach this guy, convict him, mike pence becomes president and mike pence, you may disagree with his policies but he is kind of a normal guy. [laughter] elaine hes normal. Hes a nice guy. Hes a conservative. Members of the house who have served with him all i can. In other words, the biggest problem for the democrats may not to be there impeachment. It may be the fact that they get mike pence and have to run against mike pence. E. J. if they impeach mike pence then nancy pelosi runs. [laughter] e. J. which President Trump<\/a> has been using as a threat. Margaret, i want you to elaborate on all of those. I want to ask two particular questions. One is House Republicans<\/a>, doug collins and others, have them have been saying there is some doubt about the legitimacy of this inquiry because there is no full house vote on calling it. Is there any legitimacy to that . And second, lets say the house in peaches and i think maybe all of us agree that all things being equal, there are probably votes right now in the house to impeach the president. It may have even been before all of this but they werent announced. There certainly are now. If the house impeaches, what are Mitch Mcconnells<\/a> options . Can he just say, i am not doing anything about this . If you could take those two questions. Margaret you are right, there has been this ongoing discussion. If you recall, when nancy pelosi came out in support of an impeachment inquiry, there was no full house of votes associated with a specific inquiry by the house. It was like nancy pelosi essentially coming out and throwing her weight behind the impeachment inquiry, signaling to the caucus that she was inclined to vote yes on impeachment but there is no sort of whole house vote. I have written a couple articles about this. One of the main reasons for that is that over time, over the past several decades, how the house committees work on what powers and authorities they have have changed. It used to be that in order to give the House Judiciary Committee<\/a> or a select committee the powers it needed to really conduct an appropriate impeachment investigation, deposing people on the record, issuing subpoenas that needed to be specifically given to the committee by a vote of the full house. Whats different now is a lot of those powers, a lot of these committees already have. They have the powers they need to do this investigation anyway so there is no real technical reason for a full house vote. I think what House Republicans<\/a> are saying is this is deviating from how this has been done with and clinton and we are uncomfortable with that and its a political point they can make about making the seem like an illegitimate inquiry of some sort. I would say that the constitution does not prescribe how the house impeaches. It gives the house the soul power of impeachment but it does not give instructions about how to do that. This is an example like with president johnson when he was impeached, the Impeachment Vote<\/a> there was no opening of an inquiry, there was no investigation. The house meant and they impeached him. [laughter] margaret and it was after the Impeachment Vote<\/a> that they said that we kind of need some articles of impeachment to send over to the senate. [laughter] e. J. they knew how to do things back then. Margaret it was very speedy. The committee got together and got the articles of impeachment together and they were voted on and then it went to the senate. Its not the case that doing things in what we think of as maybe an unconventional way is actually conventional. What i would say about the senate side, its a little complicated. Its not strictly speaking asr no question. A yes or no question. The constitution gives the senate the full power to try the impeachment but it doesnt require it and it doesnt say exactly how to do it. Mitch mcconnell said back in march that he viewed himself as not having the discretion not to try the case in the senate. He is not talking there about the constitution itself. He is talking about the standing rules of the senate and the standing rules of the senate strongly imply an actual trial is required. The caveat is that those rules with a majority vote in the senate. They could also be changed by a majority vote in the senate. The question really is for Mitch Mcconnell<\/a> what is his best play , politically at that moment . Hes got some vulnerable republicans in purple states like cory gardner, susanthe most susan collins, i suspect the most important thing to Mitch Mcconnell<\/a> is to guard his majority in the senate so he can remain majority leader. He will be looking to his vulnerable republicans to see what it is they want to do. To what extent, how thorough, what will that look like exactly . He will be looking at them to understand how it is the vulnerable republicans will be able to make the case to their constituents about how they voted. E. J. thank you. I have a couple more questions and then i will open it up to the audience. I wanted to ask, susan, you have done an extraordinary amount of work with people in our Intelligence Services<\/a> and people who are career people inside the justice department. You have a good sense of what their concerns are. In a situation like this, a situation like this gets broken open sometimes when people we did not expect to hear from come forward with information, with new information, with new perspectives. What is your read about what the chances are over the next month or so that we are going to learn more from people inside the government . You are seeing some rumblings of that now, in the post today, greg meeks saying people who wrote the oped about the president a year ago, it is time to come out now and say who you are. What is your sense of the mood among professionals, and perhaps, i dont want you to give any sources away, perhaps they have benefited from reading been at work to some gray reading between the lines in some of these stories. What is your sense of their mood . Susan i can speak to the mood of people who might have relevant information. I would make a few points. One is we should not discount the extraordinary acts of this whistleblower, who is a member of the u. S. Intelligence community, not just to blow the whistle when no one else would. But to persist in it, even when it appeared his Agency Counsel<\/a> was not prepared to stand behind him and to follow the rules. It would have been so much easier for this person to have anonymously leaked this to the press. They would be sitting comfortably in their office right now, hoping this would spark an impeachment inquiry. The fact that they followed the rules and upheld their own oath, that is what pressures the white pressured the white house to release the transcript. That is what empowered other branches to essentially have the courage to use their own institutional tools and responses. I think we should recognize that this is a brave act. It is an act that will have consequences for this person. By doing that, it is what sets this all in motion. The flipside of that is that it is astonishing as we hear more and more that there was only one whistleblower. And to think that all of this was going on for this period of time, including representations being made to congress about why appropriated funds were being frozen. The executive branch appears to have not been candid with congress about why these funds to ukraine were on hold. Perhaps representing there was an inner Agency Process<\/a> issue. That is very, very serious violation. It is a little bit troubling that there was only one person. This brings us to the question of who might step forward now . We have seen the white house use this notion of executive privilege as a sword and shield. Every Time Congress<\/a> comes up and tries to subpoena somebody or tries to demand answers or document production, the white house as a pillar village. Says executive privilege. They assert it in legitimate cases and frivolous cases and bizarre cases where you cant understand what the argument is. Executive privilege as a stonewalling technique is a powerful tool. Because it leaves congress in the position of what are we going to do . We can go to court and try to litigate these documents but it will take months and months. Executive privilege only works when the person who was supposed to testify agrees with you. Executive privilege cant prevent someone from testifying. Whenever we are talking about former officials, people who are fired by the white house or have left the white house. Congress has a valid legal argument that there is no privilege and they have an obligation to testify. The white house will make its legal argument that they should not testify under executive privilege. And those people are going to have to make a choice about whether or not they want to talk to congress. I think we will see up potentially different set of choices being made. Whether it is formal or having the momentum of the speakers endorsement behind it. It shifts the burden. Because now, instead of congress saying pretty please, comply with our subpoenas, they can demand that people provide this testimony. If they refuse to do so, they can use that refusal as the basis for additional articles of impeachment. I think we will start to see a dramatically different amount of people sort of being willing to testify and leaning forward into the process. E. J. ive just decided i should circulate a petition to see if we can make susan a member of one of these committees. [laughter] e. J. thank you so much. I have two questions. They are unrelated but i want to put them to the rest of the panel. One is does anyone want to take a crack at defining high crimes and misdemeanors, which is basically compromised language put in during the constitutional convention. Or do high crimes and misdemeanors mean whatever decides whatever congress decides it means . The second is media in all of this, particularly in light of the critiques of the media during that way 16 election. During the 2016 election. You have, for example, one example, joe bidens campaign, some people wrote a letter saying you have to stop having Rudy Giuliani<\/a> on because he has is telling the same things that are untrue. What are the media supposed to do in all of this . Real quick with each of you. And then we will open it up. I will only ask people, i dont blame you for wanting to give speeches on this. And we are lucky enough to be up here so, we can sort of do that. Please keep your questions sort short so other people can come in. There are a lot of people who want to do that. I honor your Citizenship Rights<\/a> but please, help us out. Susan high crimes and misdemeanors, i will say, again, because it needs to be said out loud and over and over, it is not the case that crime must committed in order for the president to be impeached. Even though it is high crimes and misdemeanors, dont be confused that there has to be an actual crime under some law of the United States<\/a>. It is also not the case in my view that the house could say we are going to impeach the president today because he is wearing a yellow tie and we do not like yellow ties. That is not a legitimate exercise, in my view, of the impeachment power. Even though, technically, they could do it. I dont think that would be consistent with the oath of office that members of congress have taken. High crimes and misdemeanors has elements of legal issues under guarding it. It has large policy overlay. I would quote Alexander Hamilton<\/a> , who says there are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which they would be denominated political as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. That was hamilton. They were going to ratify the constitution. That is how he was explaining it. And i think that is a good way to think of it. E. J. thank you. Elaine . Elaine i think margaret did it. When you get to the question of abuse, remember the entire structure of the constitution and history is about preventing the president of the United States<\/a> from being able to be a king or an autocrat or a dictator. E. J. or a foreign agent. Elaine for a foreign agent. [laughter] elaine yeah. E. J. randomly. Elaine right. The whole structure is the checks on president ial behavior. And when you have a president seeking to put himself above the law, or above congress, then i think you are violating the core of the constitution, even though it does not necessarily constitute in an individual, statutory crime. As for the media, i think thats a really, really hard one, because the media itself, thanks to trumps and fox news action here has come under suspicion and i would urge reporters and particularly Television Personalities<\/a> to really just the facts, just sticking to the facts as much as they can, the media is already in trouble on this. We are in a polarized world and if you have too much hysteria one way or the other, i think its going to be bad. The good thing about what pelosi has done and i hope the house will move very, very quickly is that the pelosi now has to control the narrative. She has to keep rolling out information, information along with the kind of revelation susan was referring to, perhaps coming from the executive branch. It has to be hard news, hard news and hard news and not the endless speculation where people say, oh, that is just your opinion and lying to us as usual. I think the high crimes and misdemeanors has been covered quite well. The media needs to step back and look at this moment that we have particularly with regard to the whistleblower and what susan said about the whistleblower. This is an individual with tremendous loyalty to the constitution and someone who is atriotic and who has taken a historic step towards keeping our government accountable. The media needs to recognize and respect that and make sure that nothing that the media does makes it harder or more intimidating for another whistleblower in the future of this administration or the future of a Democratic Administration<\/a> or another Republican Administration<\/a> to have that kind of faith, confidence and loyalty and patriotism to do this again. It may not be the medias intention of muddying the waters for future whistleblowers, but they have the capacity to do so. Media should take a lesson from the moment were in right now. Im going to come back to susan but do we have mikes going around the room. Who wants to raise their hand . Gee, why dont we could you bring up the mike and bring up a mike to the other sound of the room. I want to give susan a chance to come back. On two issues, you are in the media and you have been explaining this to people for a long time now and i think you wanted to Say Something<\/a> about whistleblowers. I would agree with all the comments of my colleagues. The media should learn from what happened on the 2016 election to the current environment and thats whether or not they are changing in this. One of the reasons why the president is doing this is and Rudy Giuliani<\/a> is whipping up this story is they want people to Start Talking<\/a> about what joe biden or hunter biden might have done in ukraine. The fact we are discussing it is accomplishing their goal. We shouldnt ask the press to ignore true and news worthy information. This is where the lesson of 2016 comes in. At we found in 2016, the dumping of emails and change inthe threshold of media reporting. Ordinarily if the press got a tip that someone in the Clinton Foundation<\/a> said something mean about chelsea run with that. It is idle gossip. But because 20 minutes left in this conversation. You can watch in its entirety. We go to the Willard Hotel<\/a> in washington, d. C. , for remarks by Samantha Power<\/a> and talking about democratic versus authoritarian. Introduction is under way. You are watching live coverage. Joined members of his family who has been supported of this. Havent seen more on mrs. 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