Regular camera crew, but to have cspan with us this evening. And we are also Live Streaming facebook page,c and any of you who want to find them later, you can go to our page, and will upload it on youtube. Is that correct . So, again, im sharon pratt. On the founding director of the is it due to politics, policy, and history which is housed here at the university of the District Of Columbia. We were launched up january of last year. And we have sort of the same kind of focus as do other institutes of politics, except a very strong focus as well on the and by so this city, doing, the history of this country, because we are entirely a creature of the politics of creating a new nation. For those of you who saw the musical hamilton, there is a song that says, in the room where it happened, and we are what happened. [laughter] washington, d. C. So, while we have topics that are contemporary, we always try to sort of drill down on that topic to talk about its historical origins, and that is true for the compelling topic of tonight. And we are going to talk this evening about the anatomy of an impeachment, and we could not have a better panel than what we have this evening. We have with us this evening, and i am going to call upon them individually, but just as an introduction, and they really dont need an end attracted but they believe dont need an introduction, but michael steele. [applause] ms. Pratt even though he is here in washington, d. C. And got that thunderous applause he was the former chairman of the national committee. Analyst. Olitical we are honored he is also cochair of our Senior Advisory Committee here at the institute of politics, policy, and history. Then we have another individual, who is well known to anyone as cover this topic in it and that cover this topic, and that is congressman jamie raskin. [applause] ms. Pratt there are few individuals who have knowledge of this issue other than congressman jamie raskin. Well, karen as tramontano who [applause] ms. Pratt karen is also a cochair of the institute of politics, policy, and history, on the Senior Advisory Committee, and karen is one of the few people who have actually dealt with impeachment up close and personal because she was deputy chief of staff, who president William Jefferson clinton, during his impeachment, and i know she played a pivotal role. Has been very involved with ukraine. So, we will ask her about that tonight. And then we culminate this great panel with unexceptional professor of law from georgetown law center, also wellknown to us, professor paul butler. [applause] butler is professor you have seen him readily as a legal analyst and a contributor on msnbc, as well as mpr npr. His interest is criminal law, and has relevance to the topic tonight. In i guess i should sit down keeping with the cameras. I think we will begin with michael steele. Kim, and ask him, with the impeachment process as we know was over as such, what you think the implications are for the 2020 election . Do you think it will have any recurrent impact on the democratic primary process and the general collection in the general election . Mr. Steele i think the outcome is a little bit of wait and see what actually happens. We are still sort of assessing how the American People largely speaking people, largely speaking, how have they internalized it. The polling certainly in the last stages of the trial, particularly on the question of witnesses, showed that 75 of the American People wanted the process to continue with witnesses. ,hey wanted to hear from people who may have have you may have had something germane to offer with what the president said, did, the relationship between the white house some of the other players at the state department, for example, secretary pompeo, how that played out. So, we dont know whether the ,rguments that were made effectively made, by democratic managers, was one that the and begune taken in, to process in the election sphere. On the democratic site in the primary, i think we have seen it hit its stride, and now they have moved to other things. Whether or not the voters will ultimately do remains to be saved. Ms. Pratt congressmen raskin, as i pointed out earlier, i think you really helped to define the significance of this provision within the constitution. The urgency of the house looking at this provision. What i do want to ask how we Speaker Pelosi what i do want to ask, however, Speaker Pelosi and almost never does anything unless she has the votes. She consistently stated she would not do with alyssa was , but shen support joined the parties leadership saying we need to move forward. Was it because of the evidence was so alarming, or the Democratic Caucus is becoming so ou . Ker the case would have to be compelling and the support would have to be bipartisan. Evidence, ahelming very compelling case. I guess it was bipartisan strictly speaking until justin amash got excluded from the republican caucus, but he did say, when he read the Mueller Report, he found that the evidence inescapably led to impeachment. That was even before ukraine. At the point at which the whistleblower came forward to describe the basic contours of the ukraine shakedown, there were a lot of republicans in the land that were saying, this was intolerable, and they could not and that the, president was lawabiding. This was the moment where we had a president essentially ungovernable and lawless in his conduct and encourage a ball. There was really no going back. What else could we do . Provided a episode pretty good distinct echo of what we saw described in the Mueller Report about open invitation to russia. Russia, are you listening . Come on in. In the documents and the documents. What was different is it was taking place in real time. It was not just a high crime and misdemeanor. Ut it was a crime in progress Rudy Giuliani was over there can ukraine still trying to shake them down for the information that they wanted to prove it was not a russia, but rather ukraine that engaged in a sweeping, Systematic Campaign to subvert the american president ial election in 2016. So, i think the pressure built up in a Democratic Caucus to the point where it was overwhelming, and there was really no decent way of turning back from saying the president was engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors. The real challenge was to figure out what to charge him with. Do we go big and go abroad with everything we knew, including nine or 10 episodes of obstruction of justice detailed in the Mueller Report, including the payoffs to stormy daniels, as well as the repeated and continuing violations of the foreign domestic alignment clause . Or do we stick with what we had whistleblower information on, which was the ukraine shakedown, and the subsequent effort to shut down any cooperation with congress . And i think ultimately what prevailed was the sense this was discrete, definable, the evidence was overwhelming, and it did not require us going out to try to get more and more evidence about all of these other things when they minister inion was clearly involved an embargo of information, and refusing to turn over anything everything we were asking for. I know yountano, were there with president clinton. I would like to move onto another topic area that you have developed expertise and have expertise. And that is ukraine. How is it that this great drama played so much of it played in the ukraine, country where most people are not familiar, but we find the president involved with it. Certainly, Rudy Giuliani is involved with it. Biden is indirectly involved with it. What is it about ukraine . You were battling on the others of paul manafort. Can you elaborate on its significance . Ms. Tramontano sure, and thank you for the invitation to be here. So, i think where the stars all lined up, probably against ukraine we have to go back to President Trump being quite upset before he was president , had beencampaign chair called out, if you will, because of his activities with the former president of ukraine. And i think from that very moment, President Trump blamed tarnishing what would have otherwise been, in his words, a great, great campaign. Ultimately, as you said, you have giuliani, the has a lot of history in ukraine, and i would individuals who were more than happy to go down any Conspiracy Theory for , number ofn individuals who thought they would do far better if ambassador jovanovich was out of had the Russian Secret Service morning to create and push out the narrative of, it was ukraine, not us. So then you have a brandnew , who really, really needs the United States, and for somebody like President Trump, at least from what i have observed, that is too much to walk away from. He has all the leverage because ,kraine needs the United States and he was going to exercise that leverage to get this know, restarted, regenerated, that it wasnt the russians, and what also bell in his lap was hunter biden and what also fell into his lap was hunter biden being on the board, and Vice President biden calling shul. E removal of kin none of the president s accusations are factual. , theshulkin left subsequent prosecutor general actually brought cases against the company, and show can never did. They lied dormant for years, but those facts did not matter. In fact, the president didnt even want an investigation. He just wanted to call, but i activity have a lot of in a country that is known for conspiracy theories, known for a lot of payments being made for all that legal activity, and a new president that really, really needs the United States backing. Ms. Pratt paul butler, we have with the two articles of impeachment, abuse of power, contempt of congress. Did you see in any of what was presented by the house, what could have been perceived as a criminal offense . And do you think it they framed as a criminal sense, even though impeachment doesnt require it being a criminal offense. And as a followup to that, do you think President Trump has any exposure to being criminally prosecuted upon leaving office . Thank you for this invitation, and thank you for your warm introduction. [laughter] thank you for the very gracious introduction, but now in the words of jayz, allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is paul butler and i represent the people. That is how i use to start my opening statement. I was a prosecutor in the District Of Columbia and represented the government in criminal court. During the time i did that work, i learned some things. Among the things i learned was how to prove the case. When we look at the allegations against President Trump, he was charged the articles he was charged. Thearticles were about abuse of office and obstruction of congress. The charges are high crimes and misdemeanors. Now, as a prosecutor, i was familiar and you are familiar with the ideas of misdemeanors being a crime for which the punishment is less than a year. We also understand now crimes to be statutory. That is written down. Back in the day, when the constitution was written, statutory crimes did not exist. Misdemeanors were quite different from what they are now, and in fact, the term high crimes and misdemeanors was a term of art that specifically referred to abuse of the public trust. And so, while it was not required that there would be a need linkage between specific statutory crimes, and what President Trump was accused of doing. In fact, those linkages do exist. So, if you look at the criminal ,tatutes for bribery, extortion they map quite well with i need you to do me a favor though. As karen suggested, ukraine was in an extremely vulnerable position. They are at war with russia. Without the United States assistance, their survival as a nationstate is in jeopardy. When you look at the record, President Trump made clear that military assistance was contingent on political favors. The United States was to provide military assistance to ukraine, they needed to start the investigation. By starting the investigation, i mean, announce it. President trump actually did not want an investigation in good faith because that would have proven how ludicrous his conspiracy theories were about the bidens and the email server and all of that. All he wanted was the announcement to do the same kind of damage to the Biden Campaign sat fbi director comey announcement of an investigation of clint to her campaign. Withratt i talked congressman raskin before the panel, and he brought up what we should really be talking about, and that is, and let me put it in context. You know, this by chance, everybody was available february 18, which is the day after president s day. And here we are there are few holidays we have in this country other than the fourth of july that more underscores the significance of our country then president s day. And really, it is designed to celebrate our first president in particular, george washington, who was clearly, without his leadership, there would not be a United States of america, and to some extent, as well, president abraham lincoln, without whom we united, andt it as they have got a Great Program now on the History Channel about president george washington. Career, you observe his and for that matter, any of the founding fathers, they were obsessed with hating a country where there would not be any authoritarian power. They were obsessed with this. There would not be another king george iii. When you look at the constitution, every opportunity checkmate ahey branch of government. So, you may have article one. You can legislate, but article two says, but i can veto it. Two could beicle the commanderinchief, but article one says, im the one who must declare war. Every effort is made to checkmate an abuse of power. Used the one, significant instrument one has an unenvironment, where you have were some believed to have a very authoritarian persona. Where do we go from here . We have given that our best shot. Where are we as a country in thes of check mating prerogatives of one brand over the other . We can also talk eventually about the third branch of but where are we, congressman raskin . Let me begin with you. Mr. Raskin i wanted to pick up on that point, which is crucial to the Current Crisis we are in. Lets start with this. We had a revolution against a king, against monarchy. The three most critical words of the constitution are the three first words of the constitution. It is we the people. In order to form a more perfect union, provide for the common defense, and preserve the blessings of liberty, do hereby ordain and establish the constitution of the United States. That one actionpacked sentence is a whole preamble of the constitution, but it defines the american experiment. Againstlar government the monarchy. The kings got their power from god. How do we know that . They told us so. Our framers turned it upside down and said, no, we are not going to accept kings and queens declaring their power from god. Will, from the fountain of the people. The next sentence in the constitution is article one. All legislative powers vested in , andongress, the senate the house of representatives. I think i have an argument. Gradeot accept the fifth coequal have three branches. I dont accept that. First of all, coequal is not a word, all right . That word is like extremely unique. You are saying, we have three equal branches. We dont have three equal branches apart of the sovereign power of the people to create the government flowed immediately through the preamble of the constitution into article one to the congress. Have it laid, you to regulatepower congress, declare war, the power and levies. Es the power to govern the seat of government in the District Of Columbia. And on and on. In article one, section eight, clause 18, we have the other powers. That, do youl of get to article two, the executive branch. You get four short sections. The Fourth Section is all about impeachment. How do you impeach a president who commits treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors against the people . Other than that, what is the main job of the president . To be commander of chief, not of militaryry, but of the in times of conflict. And then, to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That its a jump of the president. To execute the laws that is the job of the president. To execute the laws. The job of the Supreme Court is to state exactly what the laws are apart you see, we are Representative Democracy under a constitutional form of government. That is why i think this impeachment is a necessary episode in the reassertion of the sovereign power of the people to congress against a runaway, imperial executive, and donald trump is just the car to manifestation of a process that has been taking place through power, theencies a declaration of unilateral wars, president ial wars, and someone. Can do this on a bipartisan basis in the congress, and through an uprising of the people through elections to say this is not what people have fought for and died for. It is not what people are struggled for in the country. To me, the ukraine episode was all about the stealing of democracy. Bringing foreign powers in through the use of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money as leverage. Bringing foreign powers in to distort and board democratic selfgovernmen