Pratt. We are blessed to have our usual camera crew but also to have cspan with us this evening. We are also Live Streaming this on the udc facebook page. For those of you who want to find it later, you can go to our page, i think. We are going to upload it on youtube, as that correct . So, again, i am sharon pratt, the founding director of the institute of politics, policy, housed aty, which is the university of the district of columbia. We were launched in january of last year by mayor bowser and president mason. We have the same focus as other institutes of politics, except a very strong focus on the history of this city, and by so doing the history of this country. Because unlike most other cities 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. We are what happened. Washington, d. C. While we have topics of contemporary interest, we always try to drill down on that topic to talk about the historical origin. That certainly is true for the compelling topic of tonight. We are going to talk this evening about the anatomy of an impeachment. We couldnt have a better panel than what we have this evening. We have with us this evening, and im going to call upon them individually, but just as an introduction, and they really dont need an introduction, but , Michael Steele. [applause] and even though he is here in washington, d. C. , got that thunderous applause even though he was the former chairman of the Republican National mr. Steele there are some things you get forgiven for. An msnbcpratt political analyst, and we are honored he is cochair of our Senior Advisory Committee at the institute of politics, policy, and history. Then we have another individual who is wellknown to anyone who has covered this topic. That is congressman jamie raskin. [applause] there are few personalities who have had such a defining role on this issue and of this moment than congressman jamie raskin. Then we are going to come back to congressman raskin. We have also the cochair of the institute of politics, policy, karen. Karen is one of the few people who have dealt with impeachment up close and personal because she was the deputy chief of staff to president clinton during his impeachment. I know that she played a pivotal role, because i saw him on television once say thank you, karen. Karen since that time has been very involved with ukraine. We will ask her about that tonight. We culminate this panel with an exceptional professor of law from georgetown law center, also well known to us, professor paul butler. [applause] butler, you see him regularly as a legal analyst and contributor on msnbc and npr. His area is criminal law and has some relevance to the topic tonight. I guess i should sit down. In keeping with the cameras. I think we will begin with Michael Steele and ask him , what in the impeachment process as we know it now is over and such, what do you think the implications are for the 2020 election . Do you think it will have any recurring impact on the democratic primary process and conceivably 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, have processed this, have 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 that process to continue with witnesses. They wanted to hear from people who may have something germane to offer with what the president with respect to what the president said, did, the relationship between the white house some of the other players, for example, secretary pompeo, how that played out. So, we dont know whether the arguments that were made, and i think very effectively e, by the democrat democratic managers was one that the people have taken in and will begin to process in the election sphere. On the democratic side in the primary, i think we have seen it hit its stride, crested, and they have moved on to other things. The candidates have moved on beyond impeachment. Whether the voters will ultimately remains to be seen. Director 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, however, is, Speaker Pelosi has always been perceived as the ultimate strategist and tactician. I mean that in the most complementary way. She almost never does anything unless she has the votes. She consistently stated she would not do this unless there was bipartisan support for it, yet she joined the Party Leadership in saying we need to move forward. Was it because of the evidence was so alarming, or was it the Democratic Caucus was becoming rancorous . Why did she move forward . Rep. Raskin thank you so much for having me. Said the case she would have to be compelling and the support would have to be bipartisan. I think we did have overwhelming evidence. We had a very compelling case. I guess it was bipartisan, strictly speaking, until justin amash got excluded from the republican caucus. But he did say that 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 who were saying this was intolerable, and they could not abide anymore, and that the the fiction that the president was lawabiding. This was the moment where we had a president who was essentially ungovernable and lawless in his conduct and essentially incorrigible. There was really no going back. What else could we do . The ukraine episode provided a pretty distinct echo of what we saw described in the Mueller Report about the open invitation to russia. Russia, are you listening . Come on in. More than 100 meetings that were documented between the Trump Campaign and russian emissaries. What was different about the ukraine episode was it was taking place in real time. It was not just a high crime and misdemeanor, obviously, but it was a crime in progress. Rudy giuliani was over there in ukraine, still trying to shake them down for the information they wanted to prove it was not russia, but rather ukraine, that had engaged in a sweeping and Systematic Campaign to subvert the american president ial election in 2016. So, i think the pressure built up in the 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 broad with everything we know about, including the nine or 10 episodes of obstruction of justice detailed in the Mueller Report, as well as the Campaign Violations with 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 . 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 the administration was clearly involved in an embargo of information, and refusing to turn over everything we were asking for. Director pratt karen tramontano, i know you were there with president clinton. But i would like to sort of move on to another topic, area, that you have developed expertise and have expertise since leaving president clinton, and that is ukraine. How is it that this great drama played, so much of it played in played out in ukraine, a 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 . I know you were there battling on the others of 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 is we have to go back to President Trump being quite upset before he was president , that his Campaign Chair had been 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 ukraine for tarnishing what would have otherwise been, in his words, a great, great campaign. I think what ultimately you had, as you said, you have giuliani, who has a lot of history in ukraine, and i would say with individuals who were more than happy to go down any Conspiracy Theory for compensation. A number of individuals who thought they would do far better if ambassador yovanovitch was out of office. And you had the Russian Secret Service wanting to create and push out the narrative of it was ukraine, not us. So, then you have a brandnew president who really needs the United States. And for somebody like President Trump, at least what i observe, that is too much to walk away from. He has all the leverage because ukraine needs the United States, and he was going to exercise that leverage to get this narrative, you know, restarted, regenerated, that it wasnt the russians. And what also fell in his lap was hunter biden being on burismas board. And Vice President biden calling for the removal of shoken. Of the those facts, none president s accusations are factual. When shulkin left, the subsequent prosecutor general actually brought cases against the burisma company, and shulkin never did. They lay dormant for years. But those facts did not matter. In fact, the president didnt even want an investigation. He just wanted a call. But i think you have a lot of activity in a country that is known for conspiracy theories, known for a lot of payments being made for, lets just say, not all that legal activity, and you have a new president that really, really needs the United States backing. And you have a president who is willing to exercise that leverage. Director 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 might have had more power had they framed it as a criminal offense, even though i know 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 . Prof. Butler thank you for this invitation, and thank you for your warm introduction. Oh. [laughter] thank you for that gracious introduction, but now, in the words of jayz, let me reintroduce myself. My name is paul butler and i represent the people. That is how i used to start my opening statement. I was a prosecutor right here in the district of columbia. I represented the government in criminal court. During the time i did that work i learned some things. Among the things i learned were how to prove a case. When we look at the allegations against President Trump, he was charged, the articles were about abuse of Congress Abuse of office and obstruction of congress. The standard for impeachment in the constitution is high crimes and misdemeanors. That is a term of art. Now as a prosecutor i was very familiar, you are familiar with the idea of misdemeanors being a crime for which the punishment is less than a year. We also understand 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. In fact, the term high crimes and misdemeanors was a term of art that specifically referred to abuse of the public trust. While it was not required that there be a neat linkage between specific statutory crimes and what President Trump was accused of doing in fact, those linkages do exist. If we look at the criminal statutes for bribery, for extortion, they map on quite well to i need you to do me a favor, though. As karen suggested, ukraine is in a 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 a, military assistance was contingent on political favors. So, if the United States was to provide military assistance to ukraine, they needed to start the investigation. By start the investigation i mean announce it. President trump actually didnt want an investigation in good faith. Because, of course, that would have proven how ludicrous his conspiracy theories were about the bidens, the email server, and all of that. All he wanted was the announcement to do the same kind of damage to the Biden Campaign that fbi director comeys announcement into hillary of an investigation into Hillary Clinton had done to her campaign. Goodtor pratt that is a point. I had some written questions but i talked with representative raskin and he brought up what we should really be talking about. Let me put it in context. This, by chance, everybody was available february 18, the day after president s day. And here we are. There are a few holidays we have in this country other than the fourth of july that more underscores the significance of our country more than president s day. Really it is designed to president in first particular, george washington, who was clearly without his leadership there would not be a United States of america. And to some extent president whom welincoln, without would not have kept it as the United States of america. They have got a Great Program on the History Channel about president george washington. When you observe his career, and for that matter almost any of the founding fathers, they were obsessed with creating 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 they have they checkmate a branch of government. So, he may have article one, you can legislate, but article two says, i can veto it. Or you in article two may be the commanderinchief, but article one says i am the one who must declare war. Every effort is made to checkmate an abuse of power. We have used the one significant instrument one has in an environment when you have what some perceived to be a very authoritarian persona. Where do we go from here . We have given it our best shot. Where are we as a country in terms of check mating the prerogatives of one branch over the other . We can also talk eventually about the third branch of government, but where are we . Congressman raskin, i will begin with you. Rep. 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, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, 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. It is popular government against monarchal government. Where did r power . From god. How do we know that . They told us so. Our framers turned that upside down and said we will not accept kings and queens declaring their power from god. Said all power as madison will arise from the fountain of the people themselves. You are saying we have three equal branches, we dont have three will branches. The sovereign power of the government and to launch the country flowed immediately through the preamble of the constitution into article one to congress. You get 37 paragraph the layout the powers of the peoples representatives. The power to declare war, regulate commerce internationally and mystically. The power to raise taxes and levies. The power to govern the seat of governance here in the district of columbia. The power over piracy, on and on and then article one section eight clause 18, the necessary proper clause. That do youll of get article two, the executive branch. You get four short sections. The fourth is all about impeachment. How do you impeach a president who commits treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors against the people. What is the main job of the president . To be commanderinchief not of the country, not even the armed forces, the arm army and navy and state militias in times of insurrection and conflict. And then to take care the laws are faithfully executed. Thats the job of the president. To execute the laws that have been adopted by the peoples representatives but the job of the Supreme Court is to pronounce what the law actual