Of his office by pressuring ukraine to announce investigations beneficial to his reelection l campaign and obstructed congress when he ordered witnesses to defy subpoenas in the impeachment inquiry. Lets bring in columnist and Deputy EditorDan Henninger and kim extrakim strassel and big b. The report said the president abused his power in a way that jeopardized National Security and the intel gritty of our elections inte integrity of r elections. Did it jeopardize security . Even in the worst case scenario, if you believe he threatened to do this paul the way it was provided. The way it was provided. Its interesting that the witnesses against him support the policy i think you and i would support of lethal weaponry for ukraine which was stronger than the policy he inherited. Paul from barack obama. Im in the camp where it was unseemly but not criminal or impeachable. Paul kim, what about the integrity of elections point . Thats a key argument that the democrats are making. Well, look, i think the problem with that argument is if you go back and you i mean, when bill clinton, the whole scandal over foreign contributions to his campaign, was this undermining the election scenario, this is a different standard that theyre Holding Donald trump to here and, again, every time you talk to a foreign leader, if you are in theory getting some policy benefit, if it also helps you personally, if youre going to claim that that is interfering in our elections, then every single president is constantly interfering in the election by everything they do in Foreign Policy. Paul of course, we didnt the president didnt know how any announcement of an investigation would play out or how strong it would be, for example. What do you make of the overall case here, that the democrats are constructing . Do you find it i mean, you were around as i was when nixon and clinton were impeached. How does it compare to those two . Well, you know, bill clinton just quickly, bill clinton did lie to a grand jury, all right, broke a law. Richard nixon, the tapes made it clear he was wrong when he said he had nothing to do with the breakin at watergate. Paul and he plotted the cover up. There were identifiable things. Here they havent come up with a smoking gun. The bigger problem is that by nancy pelosi, by raising this to the level of impeachment, has raised the bar impossibly high. Everyone can agree or disagree about the rightness or wrongness of what donald trump did with the president of ukraine, intervening, trying to get him to investigate joe biden. Indeed, thats a voteable issue. Voters can make up their minds about that. Indeed, the house could have voted to censure President Trump, the will of the house being that this was wrong. Now they elevated this to impeachment which has its own rules, its own definite definit, articles of impeachment. I think nancy pelosi giving that speech, how this is a constitutional issue, this comes after three years of nonstop investigations of trump, the russian collusion narrative, the Mueller Report and now the American People are supposed to believe this simply isnt part of everything theyve been trying to do the last three years. I think its a hard sell for her. Paul to underscore dans point, bill, theyre talking about adding an article of impeachment related to the Mueller Report on obstruction of justice. So there is a kind of sense that this is a lot of democrats would like this to be a kitchen sink impeachment. You throw in everything that we can against donald trump. Yeah. Further to dans point, i mean, this has been scripted from the beginning. The big difference is, the other impeachments took a lot longer and there was a lot more process to actually get to the truth. This is sort of weve got to finish this up by christmas, before the election. And i think their logic was if you impeach him, theyll come around, the public, right. Thats not happening. The American Action network or gop related group thats running ads in some of the 31 trump districts where democrats hold the seat, they just did a poll that was the results reported in politico. It found in the three key seats of democrats that 60 of the people said that this should be decided by elections, not by impeachment. And the support for impeachment was lower than the support for nonimpeachment. So i think that thats backfired. And dan raised censure many had they gone the censure route, they might have split republicans by getting a few to vote for censure. What theyve instead done is theyre creating riffs if their own party and theyve split and theyve united republicans. Paul on the politics here, going ahead with this, theyre committed. I guess they must figure that somehow that this will stigmatize donald trump enough so when he runs for reelection theyll be able to say hes only the fourth president who was impeached. I guess maybe the third because even nixon wasnt impeached. The reason were here is because Nancy Pelosis liberal base demanded this and liberal members questio demanded it. I think there was a fear within the Democratic Caucus that if if they did not impeach they would demoralize their base. In a time when the election would be about turnout, they felt it was almost a Campaign Pledge they needed to fulfill. The problem, again, is this does put the more moderate members, the people who were so important to getting nancy pelosi the gavel, in a very awkward position and this also raises some real problems. They cant go too far with articles of impeachment or they risk losing some of those members too. Paul thanks, kim. When we get back, impeachment and the constitution. What we learned from this weeks testimony from four legal scholars and the risks posed to the separation of powers from the process playing out on capitol hill. Its a perfect storm. You set a r short 3erd period, a huge amount of information and when the president goes to when the president goes to court, you in america, the zip code youre born in can determine your future. The y helps fill the opportunity gap with Education Programs for all. For a better us, donate to your local y today. If you impeach a president , if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. Its your abuse of power. Youre doing precisely what youre criticizing the president of doing. We have a third branch that deals with conflicts of the other two branches and what comes out of there and what you do with it is the very definition of legitimacy. Paul that was law professor Jonathan Turley lawmakers that it would be the abuse of their authority to impeach President Trump and urging them to respect the separation of powers. This came as the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony from four legal scholars on the constitutional grounds for president ial i impeachment. Lets bring in attorney david ribkin. Lets go through the arguments one by one. The main argument theyre making is that the president abused his power. What do you make of that . Constitutionally incoherent, paul. The president exercised his core Foreign Policy authority to talk to ukraine about investigating past corruption. Whether you like it or dislike it as a matter also policy, thats within his constitutional wheelhouse. They are saying he could benefit politically from the investigation of mr. Biden or bidens son. Paul and therefore he solicited a bribe is the claim. The reason its incoherent is because in a democracy every elected politician, both political branches, then he or she tried to policy legislatively or Foreign Policy wise is always thinking about political consequences. Under this logic, every president is committing an Impeachable Offense virtually every day including by the way as you point out in an excellent editor l yall, that editors the case with mr. Biden. Mr. Bidens view was im going to ask ukraine to fire the prosecutor and freeze the aid until it gets done. Its also arguable that because this prosecutor appeared to be investigated or wanted to investigate his son r, he would also benefit politically. Basically, what theyre suggesting would be sufficient to impeach biden. By the way, theres precedent in our practice of impeaching past government officials. So biden is imminently impeachable. Paul thats interesting. Jonathan turley made the point, which i thought hadnt focused on and i wonder what you think of it, this would be the first impeachment in American History if it proceeds as it will without a specific criminal statute or crime that the president who impeached who have allegedly committed. Is that your view too . It is my view, although in the case of Andrew Johnson he was accused of violating the office act, clearly would not looking at his articles of impeachment, he did not violate any criminal law. I would put it slightly differently. Paul that lawyer was later declared unconstitutional but it was at least a law. Right. It was not a criminal law but it was a law. Look, what we have is slog and nearing here. I think this is the worst example of abuse of impeachment power in American History, completely lacking in merit. The president has not committed any high crime or misdemeanor. He has not committed bribery. What the democrats are doing, theyre saying he asked ukraine to interfere in the u. S. Elections. If youre asking chinese premier xi to give you a good trade deal, from which you benefit politically, are you asking him to interfere in u. S. Elections. What about chairman ci kim and e denuclearization agreement. Paul but they would say he didnt ask xi to investigate joe biden. Thats a difference. The argument is first of all, look, the United States asks foreign governments to investigate u. S. Nationals every single day of the week and im not being rhetorical. Number one. Number two, you dont obtain benefit if youre running for offers. Youre supposedly not subject to being investigated. Why was mr. Trump investigated when he was running for office. Not only by the fbi, but also investigated apparently by a number of foreign intelligence seservices at the request i hapn to believe by certain folks here. Theres nothing theres no content here as far as a high crime and misdemeanor here. The other part, they want to stick him with obstruction of congress. Thats even more ludicrous. Paul i want to elaborate on that. Because theyre saying he blocked all of this blocked document production and blocked witnesses from testifying. And therefore, hes obstructing their probe. Whats wrong with that argument . This is even more ridiculous if were going to make a comparison. Look, the president does not forfeit constitutional prerogatives merely because an impeachment has commenced. He isen tie l tellshe is he o withhold the information. The president s advisers including mr. Bolton and mr. Cupperman have taken it to court. The democrats are eluding litigation. How can you possibly stick the president with obstruction charge because hes asking, and his people are asking article three of the judiciary for definitive adjudication, stick him with obstruction and he disagrees and doesnt follow Supreme Court adjudication of this issue. Going to court is as american as apple pie, couldnt possibly be obstructive. Paul all right. Thank you for being here. When we come back, adam schiff facing abuse of power accusations of his own as the democrat demands and then discloses the telephone call logs of his political at bayer, were helping put more gold into the golden years. With better heart treatments, advanced brain disease research, and better ways to age gracefully. At bayer, this is why we science. employee half a millionar sales preowned vehicles,er most with tech features like blind spot detection, back up camera. [kristen gasps] employee because you never know what might be behind you. kristen bell does the sloth come standard . kristen bell vo looking to buy . Enterprise makes it easy. It is i think deeply concerning that at a time when the president of the United States was using the power of his office to dig up dirt on a political rival, that there may be evidence that there were members of congress complacent in that activity. Paul that was House Intelligence Committee chair adam schiff this week insinuating that his committee colleague, Ranking Member devin nunes, is complacent in a conspiracy to commit Impeachable Offenses. Schiff released a 300 page report tuesday on the democratic impeachment investigation that included telephone records obtained from at t, disclosing details of calls between nunes, trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and jay sekela, a journalist and former giuliani associate among others. Is schiffs surveillance of political opponents its own abuse of power. Were back with Dan Henninger, kim strassel and bill mcgern. How did schiff get these records and have we ever had a skis case where a congressman did this to someone else in congress . No, this is an unprecedented abuse of power. The way he did it, he sent a subpoena to telephone carriers. He did not alert the people who were the subject of these subpoenas to the fact that he was seeking their telephone records this way. Republicans knew what that the subpoena had gone out but they were barred because this happened in the Intelligence Committee from saying anything about it publicly. And the phone carriers decided rather than litigate this, which would have been the proper thing to do, given the stakes an begin how seriously intrusive this was, they didnt. They just rolled over and handed him the records. Paul this was socalled mettaday taxer its not the content of the call, its the timing of the calls, the numbers that were exchanged, the duration of the calls. You and i recall when this was a source of huge controversy when president george w. Bush collected the socalled bulk meta data against terrorists. Now the executive branch cannot collect this data, can it . Doesnt it need some kind of court order to be able to when it wants to inquire to get a number. Yes. Basically any time federal Law Enforcement wants to obtain meta data it entails some sort of Court Supervision. Because thats meant to ensure that the reason that they are doing this is valid, legitimate, that they arent just snooping into the privacy of americans. Adam schiff was sitting in his skiff somewhere in the basement of the congress and decided all on his lonesome that his reasons were l valid and moved on his own. Paul just so people understand, Congress Passed a law that required the administration, the executive branch, to be able to have to get a court order to get the meta data. Adam schiff decides as a Committee Chairman hell just ask at t for it and theres no Court Supervision at all . Yes. And theres no way anyone can go back and get relief from this either. I mean, also, this is just unprecedented too. Paul, this is the first time that we know of that a Committee Member has used his official powers in congress to spy on a fellow member of congress and also by the way, to divulge details about the workings and telephone calls of a member of the press too. Paul schiff is saying we didnt spy on nunes, i didnt subpoena he devin newness and i didnt subpoena the journalist, john sullivan. We were subpoenaing people central to the impeachment probe and these were incidental collections. Whats your response to that . Well, there is never any reason if these were incident l talincidental collections, why publish the name. I think its true what he was saying, that he got giuliani numbers and many people as a result of the people giuliani has spoke to over the course of several months. Thats why the accusation is so you outra outrageous, he doesnw the contents of the calls. He lists the names of people that giuliani spoke to and suggests that were allin on a conspiracy. He doesnt know what nunes was talking to giuliani about. They could have been talking about the easter bunny. To suggest this is proof of some sort of active involvement in conspiracy is a really malicious claim. Paul why do you think schiff would do this . The nunes phone call records and John Solomons know phone cl records are gratuitous . Honestly, youd have to ask adam schiff. Bear in mind, we dont know this because this information was leaked to the press. It is in his 300 page report, okay. Paul right. And so he dumped it. It is really well, kim has been saying its unprecedented. It is now a precedent. If adam schiff can do this, this means the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee or perhaps other committees can subpoena from Telephone Companies anyones records for any i reason if they can suggest theres a legislative purpose. Shes right, the Telephone Company should have taken this to court and eventually i think it will be taken to course. Paul theres also the issue of Attorney Client privilege. Giuliani is the president s personal attorney. Theres press freedom, harassing the member of the press, theres Attorney Client privilege and how you treat another member. Imagine if Hillary Clinton did this. There would be screams. The second story, there have been very little protests except for the wall street journal and a handful of other people. Paul the press corps is cheering i