Whatsoever. They made the argument that it makes sense to try the case and then consider documents. They made no argument that the white make sense to have trial without witnesses are and why, because its indefensible. Its indefensible. No trial in america has ever been conducted like that, and so you would nothing about it. And that should be the most telling thing about councils argument. They had no defense of the mcconnell resolution because there is done. They couldnt defend on the basis of president , they couldnt defend on the base of history, based on the constitution, they couldnt defend at all. So what did they say . First they made the representation that the house is claiming there is a such thing as executive privilege. Thats nonsense. No one here has ever suggested theres no such thing as executive privilege but the interesting thing here is they have never claimed executive privilege. Not once during the house investigation did ever say that a single document was privileged or single witness had something privileged to say. And why didnt they invoke privilege . What wyoming out and even of the havent quite invoke it. Why not in the house . Because in order to claim privilege as been no because they are good lawyers, you have to specify which document, which line, which conversation, and he didnt want to do that because to do that the president would have to reveal the evidence of his guilt. Thats why they made no invocation of privilege. Now they make the for the argument that the house should only be able to impeached after the exhaust all legal remedies. As if the constitution says the house shall have sole power of impeachment, asterisk, but only after he goes to court, in the District Court and the court of appeals and en bloc and the Supreme Court and its remade and they go back up the chain in six years. Why did the founders require exhaustion of legal remedies . Because they didnt want to put the impeachment process in the courts. And you know whats interesting is that while these lawyers for the president are here before you today saying that house shouldve gone to court, they are in court saying the house may not go to court to enforce subpoenas. I kid you not. Other lawyers, maybe not the ones at this table but other lawyers for the present are in court saying the exact opposite of what theyre telling you today. Theres saying you cannot enforce congressional subpoenas. Thats nontraditional. You cant do it. Counsel brings up the case involving Charles Cooperman who was a deputy to john bolton and says he did what he should do. He went to court to fight us. Welcome the justice what took the position he cant do that. So these lawyers are saying he should and those lawyers are saying he shouldnt. They cant have it both ways. Interestingly, while mr. Kupperman went to court and theyre putting for doing that, his boss john bolton now says theres no necessity for him to go to court. He doesnt have to do it. Hes wanted to come and talk to you. Hes wanted to come and testify and tell you what he knows. The question is, do you want to hear it lacks do you want to hear it . Do you want to hear from someone who was in the meetings, someone who described what the president did, this deal between mulvaney as a drug deal . To want to know why it wasnt a drug to the joint ask why it was a drug deal . To want to ask why he would told people go talk to the lawyers . You should want to know. They dont want you to know. They dont want you to know. The president doesnt want you to know. Can you really live up to the lcf taken to be impartial and not know . I dont think you can. Now, they also made argument that youll hear more later on from apparently professor schwartz that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. Its interesting that they had to go outside the realm of constitutional lawyers and scholars to a criminal defense to make that argument because no reputable constitutional law expert would do that. Indeed the one they called in house reopens golden house said exactly the opposite. Theres a reason he is not sitting at the table much to his dismay and that is because he doesnt support their argument. So they say one thing but they will ignore him for the other. They say the president is very transparent. He may have refused every subpoena every document requested by the released two documents. The document on the july 25 call and the document on the april 21 call. Lets face it. He was forced to release the record of the july 25 call when he got caught. When a whistleblower filed a complaint, will open an investigation he was forced because he got caught. You dont get credit for transparency when you get caught. And whats more, which revealing of course is damning. Now they point to the owner of the record he has been released april 21 call and thats interesting. Thats a congratulatory call but whats interesting about it is the president was urged on that call to make up the issue of corruption and, indeed, in the readout of that call the white house misleadingly said he did. But now that weve seen the record we see that he didnt. And notwithstanding councils claim in their trial brief that the president raise the issue of corruption in his phone call, the july 25 call of course that were doesnt appear in either conversation and why because the only corruption he could about was the corruption that he could help bring about. Now, mr. Cipollone made the representation that republicans were not even allowed in the depositions conducted in the house. Now, im not going to suggest to you that mr. Cipollone would deliberately make a false statement or i will leave it to mr. Cipollone to make those allegations against others. But i will tell you this. Hes mistaken. Hes mistaken. Every republican on the three investigative committees was allowed to participate in the depositions. More than that, they got the same time we did. You show me another proceeding, another president ial impeachment or other that had that kind of access for the opposite party. There were depositions in the clinton impeachment. There were depositions in the nixon impeachment. So what they would say is some secret process, well, there were the same private deposition in these other impeachments as well. Finally a couple last points. They make the argument the president was not allowed in the Judiciary Committee chaired by my colleague, chairman nadler, to be present to present evidence, two of his counsel present. Is also just plain wrong, just plain wrong. There have been deliberate misleading but it is just plain wrong. Youve also heard my friends at the other table make attacks on the and chairman nadler. You will hear more of that. Im not going to do them the dignity of respond to them but i will say this. They make a very important point although its not the point i think theyre trying to make. When you hear them attack the house managers, what youre really hearing is we dont want to talk about the president s guilt. We do want to talk about mcconnell resolution and how badly a third is that we dont want to talk about how pardon the expression backwards it is traveling trial and then ask for witnesses. And so will attack the house managers because maybe we can distract you for a moment from whats before you. Maybe if we attack house managers you be thinking about them instead of thinking about the guilt of the present. Youll hear more of that and every time you do, every time giving them attack house managers i want you to ask yourselves away from what issue are they trying to distract me . What was the issue that came up just before this . What are they trying to deflect my attention from . Why dont they have a better argument to make on the merits . Finally, the ask where we hear . Awfully why were here. Because the president use the power of his office to coerce an ally at war with an adversary at war with russia, use power of his office to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid that you appropriate and we appropriated to defend an ally and defend ourselves. Because its our National Security as well. And why . To fight corruption. Thats nonsense and you know it. He withheld that money and he withheld even meeting with him in the oval office, the president of ukraine, because he wanted to coerce ukraine into these sham investigations of his opponent that he was terrified would beat him in the next election. Thats what this is about. You want to say thats okay. Their brief says okay. A present has the right to do it. He can do whatever he wants. You want to say thats okay . You have to say that every future president can come into office and they can do the same thing. Are we prepared to say that . Well, thats why we are here. I know youll do representative lofgren here yield to representative lofgren. Mr. Chief justice, senators, counsel for the president , the house managers strongly support senator schumer amendment which would ensure a fair, legitimate trial based on a full evidentiary record. The senate can remedy President Trumps unprecedented coverup by taking a straightforward step. It can ask for the key evidence that the president has improperly blocked. Standard schumer amendment does just that. The amendment authorizes a subpoena from white house documents that are directly relevant to this case. These documents focus on the president s scheme to strong arm ukraine, to announce an investigation into his political opponent, to interfere with the 2020 election. The documents will reveal the extent of the white house is coordination with the president s agents such as ambassador sondland and rudy giuliani, who pushed the president s socalled drug deal on ukrainian officials. Withholding a promise to the white house. They include records for the people who may have objected such as ambassador bolton. This is an important impeachment case because the president , the most Important Documents will be at the white house. Documents, senator schumer provide more clarity in context about President Trump scheme. The amendment defends the president from hiding evidence as hes previously tried to do. How subpoena these documents as part of the impeachment inquiry but the president rejected this and every document subpoena from the house. As powerful as our evidence is, and make no mistake, it overwhelmingly approves his guilt. Did not receive a single document from the executive Branch Agency including the white house itself. Recent revelations from press reports, additional witnesses such as us underscore how relevant these documents and therefore why the president has been so desperate to hide them and since misconduct. I trial without all the evidence is not a fair trial. It be wrong for you senators acting as judges to be deprived of relevant evidence. When you are judging these most serious charges. It would be unfair to the American People who overwhelmingly believe the president should reduce all evidence. Documentary evidence is used in all trials. As the story goes, the documents dont lie. Documents inside into the offense under investigation. The need for such evidence is especially important in Senate Impeachment trials. More than 200 years of Senate Practice make clear that documents are the first order of business. They present to the senate before witnesses take the stand and great volume to ensure the senate has the evidence it needs to evaluate the case. Documentary evidence has never been limited to the documents by the house. The senate throughout its existence has exercised its authority to its clear rules of procedure to subpoena documents in the trial. We dont know with certainty the documents will say. We simply want the truth. Whatever that truth may be. So to the American People, they want to know the truth. So should everybody in this chamber regardless of our party affiliation. There are key reasons why this amendment is necessary. Will begin walking through the history and president of Senate Impeachment trials. Ill let you know about the houses efforts to get the documents, which were met by the president and his administration categorical movement to hide all evidence at all costs. Well address this specific need for these subpoenaed white house documents. Ill tell you why these documents are needed now. Not at the end of the trial, in order to ensure a full, fair trial based on a complete evidentiary record. Some have suggested incorrectly that the senate is limited only to evidence gathered before the house, approved it articles of impeachment. Others adjusted also incorrectly, that it would be strange for the senate to issue subpoenas. The claims are without any historical president ial or legal support. Over the past two centuries, the senate has always understood its sole power under the constitution to try all impeachment requires the senate to fit a court of impeachment and hold a trial. In fact, the senators assign so authority only twice in the constitution. First, given the house Sole Authority to impeach and second, given the senates Sole Authority to try the impeachment. If the founders had intended for the senate to serve as some kind of a body, they would have said that. But no, they wrote this. Article one section three, the senate shall have full power to try all impeachments. The senate has always received relevant documents and impeachment trials and the senates rules of procedure and practice made clear that new evidence will be considered. All 15 Senate Impeachment trials considered new evidence. Lets look at a few examples that show the senate takes new evidence and impeachment trial. The first ever president ial impeachment trial in 1868 against president Andrew Johnson allowed the house managers to spend the first two days of a trial introducing new documentary evidence. It was the same in judge johns trial in 1804. New documents presented in the Senate Nearly a week before they made their Opening Statements and later throughout the trial. As mentioned earlier by mr. Schiff, in modern times in 2010, the impeachment trial included seven months of pretrial discovery and 6000 pages of documentary evidence admitted at trial after the evidence was admitted the senate held its trial. In president clintons case, it did not involve subpoenas. Because president clinton had already produced huge amount of documents. They turned over to congress from 90000 pages of relevant documents gathered during the course of his yearlong investigation. I remember the Judiciary Committee going over invoking at the documents. Even with all those documents, the clinton trial concluded the opportunity to present new evidence and admission of additional documents and witnesses. It also shows how President Trumps refusal to produce any relevant documents in response to subpoenas is different than past presence. Lincoln president clinton and president johnson. Even president nixon. In short, not a single president has categorically refused to cooperate with impeachment investigation. Not a single president has issued a blanket direction to his administration to produce note documents and no witnesses. These are what the senate must rely on. The senate should issue a subpoena for documents at the ferry proceedings so this body, the house manager, the president can account for the documents in the presentation and deliberations. It doesnt make sense to request and receive documents after the parties present their case. The time is now to do that. So why is the amendment needed to prevent President Trump from continuing his categorical commitment to hide the evidence . In this case, the house saw white house documents, why do we have them . Not because we didnt try. Its because the white house refused to give them to us. The president defense team seems to believe the white house is permitted to completely refuse to provide any documents without regard to whether or not it is privileged. They apparently believe that congresses authority is subject to the approval of the president. But thats not what the constitution says. Our constitution sets forth a democracy with a system of checks and balances to ensure that no one and certainly not the president , is above the law. Even president nixon produced more than 30 transcripts of white house recordings and note with meetings from the president. Even before the house launched the investigation, that led to this trial, President Trump rejected congresses constitutional responsibility to use it Lawful Authority to investigate his actions. His administration was fighting off the subpoenas, proclaiming i have an article to, or i have the right to do whatever i want as president. Here is what he said. Here i have an article two, i have the right to do whatever i want as president. Even after the house formally announced its investigation of misconduct in ukraine. It still continued his obstruction. September the ninth, 2019, the House Investigative Committee had to attempt to monetarily obtain documents from the white house. The white house refused to engage or respond to the House Committee. On october fourth, the House Committee oversight was a subpoena the White House Acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, this time compelling the production of documents in the white house by october 18. On october 8 before the white house documents were due, the white House Counsel sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi, stating the president s position on that, the President Trump and his administration cannot participate in this partisan inquiry. Under these circumstances. The president simply declared that he will not participate in investigation he didnt like. On october 18, the white House Counsel sent a letter to the house confirming that it was continuing to stonewall. The white House Counsel stated the presiden