Whole truth, and nothing but the unqualified, unevasive truth is absolutely critical. He encouraged people to lie for him. He lied. I think he obstructed justice. I think theres a compelling case that he has, in fact, engaged in conduct that would be better for him to leave office than stay in office. Good morning. Welcome to am joy. Those are some republicans who voted to impeach and or convict then president bill clinton on obstruction of justice accusations related to his affair with then white house intern monica lewinsky, specifically on charges that clinton encouraged his white house secretary and lewinsky to lie to investigators about the affair. Yet now more than 20 years later as the Mueller Report offers a clear case that Donald Trumps president ial Campaign Welcomed efforts by russia to interfere with the election and that as President Trump encouraged multiple members of his team to lie to investigators or to not cooperate even dangling potential pardons, where are those law and order republicans . I mean, they are still in congress, many in the senate. Where a successful house impeachment would land. Wheres their outrage now . Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, senator Elizabeth Warren has set herself apart by the crowded primary feel making a forceful cry to impeach trump saying it should play a starring role in the 2020 election. I dont see how anyone can read that report front to back and not draw three conclusions, that a hostile Foreign Government attacked our 2016 elections in order to help donald trump, that donald trump welcomed that help and then as president that he obstructed efforts to try to investigate that arrangement. When i got to the end of it, i said, its my responsibility to speak out. Joining me now is dean ogodawala, Benjamin Whit tis of law fair. Com. Jennifer reuben of the Washington Post and korean jean pierre of move on doubt org. Im slow on the uptake. Were accustomed to talking to democrats on their posture. We know nancy pelosi is having a conversation to discuss the strategy, there are a lot of people pushing for impeachment. Many know i take no pleasure in discussions of impeachment. I didnt campaign on it. Im prompted. We all prefer working on priorities pushing medicare for all, tackling Student Loans and a green new deal. Julian castro, really quickly, on msnbc on friday. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for congress to open up impeachment proceedings. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. So its just at this point in terms of the president ial contenders, its just Julian Castro and Elizabeth Warren, however, republicans should not be exempted from this conversation. No . There are about 14 there are exactly 14 of them who are currently in the senate who voted to convict bill clinton on obstruction of justice and witness tampering. Are you telling me republicans are being hit poe critical here . Get out of here. I think the conversation has to start with democrats right now. I want the Democratic Leaders to watch game of thrones tonight and channel your inner sirc sirci lanas. Robert mueller has laid it out very, very clearly. I think there are three distinct reasons why democrats have an obligation at impeachment hearings. Article one mandates them as a check on the executive branch. Number two, in 2018 the democrats the American People gave the democrats a check to be a checklist. As Elizabeth Warren said if you do not impeach donald trump, youre saying you can deal with our adversaries and you can obstruct justice, tell witnesses not to testify and threaten witnesses like you did with Michael Cohen and its okay. Thats not okay if youre a democrat or a republican. Thats wrong. Democrats have to step it up. They have to start impeachment hearings. Impeachment is not removal. Its the equivalent of an indictment. Theres evidence of that. Then donald trump has his day for a trial in the senate. Thats where protections are for trump as a president. Mueller laid it out. Heres the evidence there for obstruction, witness tampering, witness intimidation and abuse of power. You know, corinne jeanpierre, the democrats are not the atlantis, theyre the starks. They can negotiate with him and they get their heads lopd off. Theres one aria and apparently that would be senator Elizabeth Warren. They dont really fight really tough. So heres the question. Do the democrats wind up having the intestinal fortitude to do what republicans would likely do when youre hearing things like this . This is emmanuel cleaver, here he is talking about the prospect of impeachment this week. We already are a badly divided nation. The impeachment effort is going to only divide us further. Lets go to the American Public and tell them you have an opportunity to reelect a cleptocrat or a democrat. I think the majority of the American Public will elect a democrat. Its not an either or. Its both here. We have to do what we need to do, which is really Congress Needs to do their job, which is do their constitutional duty. We cannot be a nation that says the president is above the law. We cannot do that. He clearly obstructed justice multiple times. It is laid out in the Mueller Report and they need to follow the facts. They need to start impeachment proceedings and see where the facts takes them. Its pretty simple. There is historical precedence for it. This is not the first time and dean was right, democrats were given the house in part because they wanted they the people wanted them to hold this president accountable. Yes, it was about the issues. Yes, it was about health care and the economy and what they were going to bring forward, but it was also because of this run away train of donald trump and his administration. They cannot allow this to happen. What happens, what precedent would they be setting if they dont hold this president accountable . I mean, in this report, joy, we learned that donald trump welcomed and benefitted from russian interference and then he tried to cover it up, lied, lied to the press, lied to the American People, lied to congress. Like we have to move forward with this. They cannot just be sitting back. They need to be leaders. This is what the people want them to do, and they can do both. There are dozens of committees. They can talk about the issues, bring forth legislation like they have been doing since january 3rd when pelosi was given the gavel and also investigate. Its not that hard. I want to throw that question to you. Two president s have been impeached, Andrew Jackson and bill clinton. If in the instance of donald trump one can per the Mueller Report subborn this and then once in office repeatedly encourage members of your team to not cooperate with the investigation, dangle pardons in front of them, commit what Robert Mueller found were at least ten separate instances of either witness tampering or obstruction of justice, if a president can do that, then impeachment will do what donald trump cant be impeached. If it can be done for sexual affair but not what donald trump was shown to have done by Robert Mueller. I wrote a piece probably 18 months ago now calling for an impeachment inquiry, largely on that basis, that the nature of the allegations against trump even then in my view were such that Congress Ignored them at some risk to its own institutional seriousness. And i think after the Mueller Report and the factual findings in it, that is certainly accentuated. And i think, you know, i i find myself in almost complete agreement with Elizabeth Warren as to the right answer to this question. Now there are, of course, lots of political reasons why you may forecast that its a bad idea politically for democrats. Thats of course always true when you have something that is the right thing to do that may have negative political consequences. Thats kind of not my job to figure out how to balance those. I do think if you were if youre just asking the question shoulded congress should they institutionally undermine this. The answer to that is latent in the question. Of course it is. This is egregious, egregious conduct at just about every level and there are very few defenses of it. It just describes a systematic pattern of abuse of power and if congress tolerates that, then it deserves the disrepute that it will put itself in. Jennifer reuben, were lies to congress. His secretary. What can the American People give to a congress. Its important as suborning. Well, i have to think step one is to get the entire report. One of the most telling intriguing aspects. Its in contact with wikileaks. That whole section. The entire report. Its unprecedented. The roadmap didnt happen with bill clinton. Step one is they must get the entire report. If that requires them to go to the Supreme Court to get a subpoena, thats what they should do. Step two is its essential for mueller to come and testify and for two reasons. One is the report doesnt answer every question. Its also possible he may not want to answer every question, but he can, i think, inform the American People and there is a teaching exercise. There is a didactic exercise here in bringing the American People along so that they appreciate the gravity of this. And i think you get that with mueller testifying at length in front of congress. Step three after youve gotten the entire report, youve heard from mueller, you have to have hearings. Hearings can be certainly cover this ground, but they can also cover other things. They can also cover the Campaign Finance violations which mueller spun off to others. There are 12 or 14 other investigations that are going on. So i think you go through this process and as you go through the process ideally the American People come to a conclusion. They come to a consensus. Youre never going to have everybody but you may get 65, 70 of the American People who as they are educated through this process say, you know what, hes really got to go. Ben, i want to go back to you on this because i wonder what is the material difference in the real world and impeachment hearings . There are a couple of differences. First of all, the investigative hearings are generally efforts to develop facts, and i am all for that and i think congress has an independent duty to inform itself and to investigate matters, but an impeachment inquiry is a process of judgment and its a process in which you take facts that presumably have been developed elsewhere, in this case by the Mueller Report, and you assess them against the standard of the impeachment clauses of the constitution and you make a decision as a house of representatives, do we want to proceed with an impeachment hearing . Its an evaluation and a judgment. Very similar in although its political in character, its similar to the process that a prosecutor goes through in deciding whether to indict somebody. Thats not the investigation, right . The fbi does the investigation, brings in all the information but then you have a process of evaluating that information, holding it up against the criminal law. Here the relevant standard is not the criminal law, its the standard of the impeachment clauses, treason, bribery, other high climbs and misdemeanors, other high crimes and miss demeansors being the most person nt one. We have to decide is this described in volume one and volume two of this report something that we want to decide is acceptable or do we want to decide that it constitutes some form of high crime or miss k misdemean misdemeanor. I want to ask you one more quick question. In your view just looking at both that standard of high crimes and misdemeanors, whats in the Mueller Report and the standard of every other previous president , all 44 previous president s and their conduct, do democrats need more than whats in this report, in your view, to proceed to impeachment . I have no doubt, no doubt whatsoever that the material laid out in the Mueller Report would adequately and amply and on its own support an impeachment. Benjamin wittis, thank you very much for your time this morning. Have a wonderful weekend. Dean, jennifer, corrine, stay with us. Well continue this discussion after the break. S discussion after the break. Peninsula trail . You wont find that on a map. Ill take you there. Take this left. If you listen real hard you can hear the whales. Oop. You hear that . vo our Subaru Outback lets us see the world. Sometimes in ways we never imagined. Mike and jen doyle . Yeah. Time for medicare, huh. I have no idea how were going to get through this. Follow me. Choosing a plan can be supercomplicated. But it doesnt have to be. Unitedhealthcare can guide you through the confusion, with helpful people, tools and plans. Including the only plans with the aarp name. Well that wasnt so bad at all. Thats how we like it. 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To tv on any device. Beyond lowres surveillance video. To Crystal Clear hd video monitoring from anywhere. Gigfueled apps that exceed expectations. Comcast business. Beyond fast. Its certainly the case that you can see lots of evidence that this president deserves to be impeached, but since im not in congress, im focused on replacing him the oldfashioned way. Do you think there should be a conversation . No. Why not . I think right now we should continue this investigation. I believe that there is room for that conversation but right now what i want is i want mueller to come before congress to testify. I think we can solve this once and for all in november of 2020. The release of the redacted Mueller Report has reignited conversations about the potential impeachment of donald trump. Democratic leaders in the house have largely cited against pursuing the option for now and other than candidates Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro, the rest of the democratic field is still playing it safe. Dean, you wanted to make a point about what mueller seemed to have wanted done here. Quickly, by the way, a recent poll shows 70 of democrats want an impeachment of donald trump. If you run into the democratic nomination, dont discount the will and interest of 70 of our base. The very last line of the Mueller Report, the very last line said the protection of the criminal Justice System including the president accords with the fundamental principle of government that no person in this country is so high that he is above the law. This was Robert Muellers last line in a huge report before the paragraph summary. No person in this country is above the law. Robert mueller is begging congress, begging congress to do the right thing. And they must that is their responsibility under article 1 of the constitution. Yes, its equal branches of government, but guess what, only one branch can remove someone and that is congress. Right. The framers understood article one was the most important branch. Article one met. If the democrat does not want to do their job under article one, i beg you to resign. Let another democrat get in there who will do the job the American People want which is holding the president accountable for a litany of crimes in the robert Mueller Report. Just whats in the report, jennifer, at minimum what Robert Mueller was able to show is this is a president that encouraged people to obstruct the investigation. That he himself on multiple occasions obstructed it and per mueller the only reason that hes not being charged with witness tampering and obstruction of justice like any other american would, like you and i would, that he is president. Staying president is his only protection from prosecution. Back in 1999 the republicans montpelier believed that bill clinton had so obstructed to justice by not admitting to his affair included chuck grassley, pat roberts, mike crepo, roy blunt, richard burr, jerry more land, rob portman, lindsey graham. They were among those that said the conduct of the president of the United States in having a sexual affair and lying about it were so bad that the constitutional remedy must be appl