Decided to pressure a Foreign Government to target an american citizen for political gain. The people who could have come forward and perhaps given a more benign explanation were prevented from doing so by the president. Theres nothing here that the president did wrong. What you hear from donald j. Trump is the blunt talk of a manhattan businessman. He says what he means. He means what he says. I have been extremely troubled and disappointed by the behavior of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Lets take you to friday now. On friday, two significant deadlines to watch there. First off, who republicans want to testify when they submit their witness list on that day. Second thing to watch, the president by 5 00 p. M. Friday answers whether he will prepare a defense for next weeks proceedings. Our panel will join us on this discussion shortly but first we have a member on the House Judiciary Committee who will help decide whether and how to issue articles of impeachment. Democratic congressman steve cohen of tennessee. Representative, thanks for being with us on this day. Nice to be with you, richard. Representative, lets start off with this. For americans, what is the job that the Judiciary Committee is about to undertake . We will ascertain whether the report from the Intelligence Committee and possibly other materials fit in to the definitions of high crimes and misdemeanors, bribery and treason, which are the bases upon which the congress can, should issue an itimpeachment resolution based on the article i article. What will your role specifically be here, representative . Well, we will ask questions of the legal scholars that will tell us what they believe high crimes and misdemeanors are. We will ask questions of the president s counsel if they choose to have a counsel come present and respond possibly to questions, but probably we will ask questions, and we will have the opportunity to vote on yes or no, should there be an impeachment article come out of the Judiciary Committee for abuse of power for contempt of congress, for obstruction of justice. We dont know exactly what all theyll be but thats what we expect, the three articles will probably come within. What is the one question youd like to ask . Well, id like to ask where is donald j. Trump and why is he hiding . President trump should, based on his remarks that hes made, want to come before the Judiciary Committee and tell us why what he did was not a high crime and misdemeanor, why it was not using his powers of his office for his personal political gain, and that why he should not be accused of saying to president zelensky basically a quid pro quo when he said, but we have a favor to ask of you, and he said that we wants to get dirt on the the bidens. He claims theres no due process. This is a kangaroo court. We cant get justice. He has been given the right, by our rules, laid out and voted on by democrats, republicans had the chance to vote for him, too, to have counsel, to ask questions, to appear, and theyre not doing it. Representative and this is a man who we want to come and testify. Representative, you said you would vote for impeachment. Do you still take that stand . Im not supposed to, but i do. And youre not supposed to. Arent you supposed to deliberate first . You answered the question. I deliberated for the last god knows how many months. Ive deliberated. Ive watched the Intelligence Committee. Ive studied impeachment for the last two years. Ive listened to all the hearings. Ive read all the reports. Unless theres something that comes to me through the experts, and ive read all their books, that says Something Different than what high crimes and misdemeanors are and unless theres something out of the left field, coming in about what trump did or didnt do, theres not much question. Its an open and shut case, and for anybody that doesnt vote vote for impeachment, they are abusing their oath of office. Representative you heard your fellow colleagues on the right say hang on one second, representative cohen. Arent you supposed to not have made a decision as of yet, that that youve already made up a decision before youre open and listening to both sides of the argument . Yes and no. Theyve made up their minds, theyve said this is a witch hunt. Theyve said its a hoax. Theyve said theres no quid pro quo. Theyve said that theres nothing there, theres no there there. Theyve made up their minds, so they cant really whats called estopple in the law. Theyre estopped to guy somebody made up their mind. In my opinion, the facts are clear, and they will be made more clear when the Intelligence Committee report comes out and the experts tell us what high crimes and misdemeanors are in their mind and ive read the books. Theres been plenty written so far but there are those who would say sir, we have not heard enough from primary witness. Weve only heard the majority fact witnesses that were second or third degrees of separation from actual incidents and or processes that happened, that the president was accused of participating in. Yes, the president is not allowed mulvaney or pompeo or giuliani, or bolton to come forth and testify but the president said we have a favor to ask of you. The president said on the lawn of the white house, wed like for the ukrainians to investigate biden. Weve had mulvaney go theres politics involved. Get used to it. Yeah, we did it. So weve had mulvaney. Weve had trump and weve had sondland say the president told him he wants zelensky to go on cnn, not msnbc, cnn and say were starting an investigation into the bidens and burisma. If you had counsel to chairman schiff would you suggest as youre intimating theres important firsthand testimony to be given by individuals like bolten, like cooperman, like mulvaney and we might get a decision from the court as to whether they should and will give testimony to the Intel Committee or to congress in general. Should we then wait a week or two . It wont be a week or two. They have a right to appeal, which they will be appealing to the courts on the decision on mcgahn. They will appeal and appeal and appeal and delay and delay and delay. If we dont act now, and we kind of wait for them and wait and wait, wed be shlameals. The justice Judiciary Committee has to act on the American People and not be ropeadoped by an administration obstructing congress and refusing people to have the people the opportunity to testify. Who will be witnesses be called . Youll find that out next week. You can give me a hint . I wont tell anybody. I wont tell anybody either. I wont help you. You know the criticism of that, if you were watching, you probably were watching your republican counterparts on sunday shows saying if we have a commitment to provide our desired witness list, how can we respond adequately, given we dont know who the witnesses that will be called by the democrat. Its not a fair request and deadline chairman nadler is giving us. The majority always names three witnesses, the minority names one. If theres a larger panel, the republicans get more witnesses. They have witnesses to testify what they believe high crimes and misdemeanors may be. Theyve submitted them. I dont know who they are either. The fact is, this is the way the committee is run. There are rules about notice. The rules of notice will be complied with. Doug collins knows the rules, and anything, all those are crocodile tears. They are defending the undefensible. Would you be its in their faces. Would you be open to more witnesses if we look at the clinton impeachment process, they had four, five times the amount of witnesses at least we know of as of today for your particular witness list. We have given trump and his administration more rights to bring witnesses to ask for counsel to be there, to have the president there than clinton or nixon had. Speaker pelosi and chairman nadler have gone to the nth degree to provide due process and fair play and they got it. Is that a no, representative, you would not be open to more witnesses . Im not saying youd have 19 or 20 but would you be open to maybe eight or nine in total . Its not my position to respond to that. Thats up to the chairman. Thats up to the chairman. So if you were to ask for counsel on that, would you say, its up to you, chairman . Is that correct . Excuse me, its up to the chairman to decide who the witnesses will be and they can submit witnesses but they have to be relevant. Adam schiff is not a relevant witness. Thats showbusiness. Asking for the whistleblower is illegal. All we heard is they want adam schiff and the whistleblower and they might as well have sorry, go ahead, representative. Its not going to, people sometimes say some of my humor is too 1960ish but the onearmed man is what theyre looking for. That will get people into n to google. Representative steve cohen from tennessee, thank you, sir, and have a great sunday. Youre welcome, richard. You have a great sunday, monday and tuesday. Well be watching you, sir. Thank you so much. Our panel joins us, thank you, sir. A, White House ReporterSheryl Stolberg and danya perry, former District Attorney for the Southern District of new york. Danya, you could hear the discussion that me and the representative had. It sounds like he has already made his decision. Hes been pretty clear when hes had public interviews that i shouldnt be, and he said it again today, i shouldnt have already made up my mind but i have. And is that the right way it should be . Look, my best analogy would be to a federal criminal trial, thats my background, i was the deputy chief of the Criminal Division in the Southern District, i reviewed thousands of indictments, prosecuted hundreds of cases. Certainly a juror would be disqualified were they to come in with that. And say that . Correct. This is obviously very different. The closest analogy we have probably to these unique and unusual proceedings is to federal criminal procedure and process, but that wouldnt happen in a trial, at least it wouldnt be verbalized. I bet youre biting at the bit there, aswan. You have the luxury of walking over the hill to ask questions since youre in the beltway. What stood out to you in that conversation with the representative who has an Important Role coming this week . Well he pointed out how the congress and House Democrat lawmaker s arent going to be stonewalled by this impeachment inquiry and approach a vote likely to go down even before the end of the year. And it kind of goes to how throughout this impeachment process and proceedings that it has revealed the shortcomings of President Trump and his Administration Strategy to dealing with a House Democratic majority. Even before the new democratic majority was worn in, starting in late 2018, President Trump convened not just his white House Counsel but his personal attorney, including jay sekulow and Rudy Giuliani for multiple meetings to game out strategy to deal with the incoming flood of investigations and subpoenas they were expecting at the time. I dont think they were expecting the impeachment inquiry as its currently constituted but gamed out a longterm strategy of stone walling, stone walling and fighting the House Democrats on every witness, and every shred of paper and every document. And that worked or seemed to work for a period of time, until the ukraine scandal exploded. So there is another element here where the white houses strategy has just seemed to fail them. Sheryl, has their strategy failed them . They have pushback in the courts and you can hear the representative saying well, you know, we could wait to hear the judges declaration on whether or not mulvaney and the rest, bolton, should testify or not, but there are appeals and that process can go on for some time. Has it not worked for this white hous house . Well their strategy clearly has led to democrats say theyre going to charge President Trump with obstruction of congress. You heard congressman cohen say as much. It was very, very clear in the letter that representative adam schiff, the chair of the house Intelligence Committee, wrote to his colleagues, when he outlined shortly before thanksgiving the path going forward. He said that the committee in considering its report, which its drafting now, would take into account the fact that the administration barred people like bolton and mulvaney and mcgahn from testifying, and he also took pains to note that article iii of the imof impeachment articles against Richard Nixon was a similar article outlining obstruction. You can say their strategy worked. They didnt give mulvaney and bolton over, but at the end of the day, hes still going to get charged with articles of impeachment. As it would seem here. And when we look at this, at least, danya, the idea of the witnesses, republicans saying you only are giving us one. Number two, youre having us give you our list before you tell us who is on your list. What do you make of that argument . Look, its just the latest in a long string of process and other defenses and arguments that they have. Is it a fair criticism, though . Look, i mean i think the facts are on the side of the democrats here. The law to the extent that it is apropos, which it arguably is not given this is a political process, is also on the side of the democrats. So if you want to take away some of these arguments, sure, they could give them more witnesses, but from what weve seen, they dont want to play to that hand and i think thats a fair reaction as well. So you know, it remains to be seen exactly how this plays out and it seems the possibility is open for additional witnesses. And one of the possibilities here over to asawin on this, you saw the calendar and you know it very well here. Will the president provide, will the answer given the strategies so far, sometimes theres a nonanswer is the answer. Right. The president is going to be answering to whats going on this week. Its just hes going to be doing it to tv cameras, reporters, and on twitter and other public venues, to him and his senior white house brass, currently gripped in a hard core messaging war against an impeachment inquiry that they have written in both legalese and in the public messaging that they dont see it as legitimate, so theyre just going to call the proceedings this week boring. Theyre going to use that word over and over and over again, and no, the president of course is not going to be showing up. And part of this, sheryl, as you look at the democrats, that might be in play here, coming to the vote, if we look forward and its expected this will happen, the articles of impeachment move forward, the vote will then happen, that will be a party line. Sheryl, when you look at the swing district democrats, as chuck todd was laying out on meet the press today, there are six of note. The six are in trump districts but they did win, number one. Number two, as chuck laid out, the amount of spending that has come out in support or against impeachment, prwhen you compare the democrats, and i think we have full screens for both of these, talking about number two and number three is the amount of ad spending that the democrats have been outspent two to one. You are going to see at least a couple of democrats, im thinking of Jeff Van Drew in new jersey and Colin Peterson in minnesota, who are in trump friendly districts. I cant imagine them voting in favor of impeachment. Jeff van drew has sounded a lot more like a republican than a democrat throughout this whole inquir inquiry. He kept saying he doesnt see it as an important, doesnt want an inquiry, its a distraction, et cetera. You have other swing district democrats, notably Abigail Spamberger in virginia and Alyssa Slotkin in virginia, who have National Security backgrounds and went out on a limb to write an oped in the Washington Post calling for an impeachment inquiry, and i think that they will stick with the party. Now, i could be wrong. I dont have a crystal ball but its been interesting to me to see just how unified the democrats have been throughout this process. Lets face it, we have a lot of evidence amassed by the Intelligence Committee and were all going to get a look at it in what i expect to be a coherent and dramatic narrative about the president s conduct with respect to his Pressure Campaign in ukrai ukraine. So i think that theyre going to hang tough. There will be a lot of advertising, as you say, but ive had one democrat, tom malnowsky say if i lose and vote my conscience, im okay with that. Were going to watch this tv narrative continue. The last episode, if you will, on the hill coming up this week. Asawin and danya perry, thank you so much. Sheryl, well talk to you in a little bit. Coming up for you, the latest on a major storm causing major problems. Theres a lot of majors, for people trying to get home tonight from their thanksgiving weekend. At liberty butchemel. Cut. Liberty mu. Line . Cut. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Cut. Liberty m. Am i allowed to riff . What if i come out of the water . Liberty biberty. Cut. Well dub it. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Sleep this amazing . Thats a zzzquil pure zzzs sleep. Our liquid has a unique botanical blend, while an optimal melatonin level means no nextday grogginess. Zzzquil pure zzzs. Naturally superior slee