Number of significant procedural protections where the president even on the house side, as you know the role of the house is to act as the grand jury and the prosecutor and the actual trial takes place over in the senate, but still, we had significant procedural protections we invited the president and his counsel to attend, we provided the president s counsel the opportunity to cross examine witnesses and object to the admissibility of testimony, and we provided the president s counsel it make presentation of evidence before the full Judiciary Committee including the chance to call witnesses. The president chose not to avail himself of any of those opportunities. It reminds me the president Blockading Witnesses saying you dont have enough people with direct firsthand evidence. First of all, were those rights provided only in Judiciary Committee. Youre not the Principle Committee of impeachment. Youre sort of the final stop. Did the president get those
rights in the Intelligence Committee . I believe not. I would have to go back and check. I can assure you not. Let me explain. You may not accept this analogy but heres the analogy we proceeded on. Heres where the fact finder was the House Of Representatives instead of a Special Counsel. When the Special Counsel and independent counsel did their work in the knicks and Clinton Impeachments all was closeddoor depositions because you dont want the witnesses to be coordinating their testimony and so on. Thats how prosecutorial investigations take place. The House Committee on intelligence was our fact finding committee. Thats why they performed closeddoor depositions because they wanted to avoid witnesses coaching each other and coordinating their testimony. I will give mr. Collins. Were driving down an interesting hole here. I also am Ranking Member of the same committee that said early on that if the president saw
something he didnt want he could write us a letter. He could write us a letter. A couple of these things. The white house has not received all the documents its supposed to have. Were doing impeachment right now and they still havent received the documentps. I still have not received all the documents. I dont know how we get around that. We can pretend and paint pretty faces. Also heres another thing. The staff member they send, mr. Goldman, would not testify or answer questions on the methodology of how they did their investigation. Even in an egregious violation in their report where they named Members Of Congress and their Phone Records, he would not actually say who ordered that, was it chairman schiff or him. Ive always defaulted as i think you would to the member with the pen, mr. Schiff. Mr. Goldman said we would not discuss the methodology of their investigation. This has got to be the most amazing thought when you come to an impeachment when trying to
give due process to the president of the United States and these are ignored. Its just not right. And look you will impeach him. You have the votes. At the end of the day is it worth the integrity of the house. Yonks i dont think so. During the staff presentation of the evidence Ranking Member collins asked how it was conducted resulted in the schiff report never got an answer. Mr. Raskin the house Intelligence Committee, democrat Phone Records, including four phone calls by intelligence Ranking Member new ness, how did they get those Phone Records. I will have to ask Staff Counsel to pass me a note. House counsel didnt answer that . He wouldnt answer the question. Telling us to go ask somebody who didnt answer the question well, i understand that we forcefully represented that no member of the House Of Representatives and no members of the press was targeted with
any investigative resources. Oh, thats really . I mean i respect mr. Raskin, but im not sure he got that statement out without stumbling over everything. You cannot say talk about numbers, at some point, somebody with the Ranking Members phone number had to look for the Ranking Members phone number and look for mr. Solo mons phone number. This is what they dont want to deal with how bad it is screwed up. They want to gloss over process and how they did their investigation because the time and the calendar are terrible masters. This is what were talking about. They wouldnt talk about it. To say that nobody was doing this intentionally, is just not being factually accurate. It doesnt happen on his own. I would ask both of you this question, who specifically matched the Phone Numbers of Ranking Member nunes and what method did they use . I have no idea. If i could say. Certainly. In response to the line of questions, the president of the United States was given the opportunity to call any witnesses he wanted. Any of the 17 witnesses who appeared before the house Intelligence Committee and oversight and Foreign Affairs could have been called by the president and he would have had the opportunity to cross examine any of them. He didnt want to because all of them essentially told different pieces of the same story which is the president execute this shakedown of president zelensky to come and get involved in our campaign at the expense of former Vice President biden. Again, i cant say this enough, goes back to our calendar and clock. How is it possible when i talked to the chairman, sent him letters asking when we were going to get witnesses when he didnt builds the witness day in for ourselves a time to accept one of our witnesses. Dont tell me he would have sent witnesses and he would accept it. It was never on the calendar. These numbers didnt particularly need who
specifically ordered the inclusion of Phone Records in the schiff report . Ranking member, im afraid i cant answer these questions. I dont know. Lets see. Undoubtlely the Intelligence Committee carrying out a vendetta against a member of congress. Any of you think its proper to have individuals call logs who are not the target of criminal investigations . Nothing but a political driveby i brought that out. They could have done it different ways. Number one, person one, they could have done it any other way, but they chose to use the names. It was a political hit job. Opportunity to respond. Do you think it was appropriate for numbers and names to have been released . Again not the targets of the investigations. Just swept up. Yeah. I was not involved in that part of it and so forgive me again. Again, i understand. Will the Gentleman Yield for a minute . We did have testimony on this. Im not going to yield my time. There was testimony. You will have your time shortly. Yeah. The testimony was, im not going to tell you. How many times, mr. Collins, the schiff report or hearsay statements used as evidence . Hundreds. Actually only 54. It may seem when you take off one person talking off another person it goes up. How many times in the schiff report or news reports the only evidence supporting factual assertions . Im sorry. Repeat the question. How many times in the schiff report or news reports the only evidence supporting factual assertions . It would have been the main factual assertion was mr. Sondland, one. 16 different times. Mr. Raskin, its My Understanding Chairman Schiff did not transmit the evidence collected during his committees investigation to the Judiciary Committee until fly, december 6th, does that comport with your
memory . That is correct. So Judiciary Committee majority, did it have access to any evidence beyond the actual report from the Intelligence Committee until the weekend before the Judiciary Committee actually considered Articles Of Impeachment . Well, i dont remember exactly when all of the Deposition Statements were released publicly. I think some of them had been released publicly before that time. We go back and check the exact chronology. There are certain members of the Judiciary Committee also members of other investigative committees. I understand. Its My Understanding Chairman Schiff did not translate all to the Judiciary Committee, is that the case . It is still true to this day. Would you not agree, i ask this of both of you, the house Judiciary Committee should have had the time and opportunity to
review the material collected. Did you vote to have that time and opportunity . We did not. A direct violation House Resolution 660. All i can tell you is that the vast amount of what we ended up getting was elised publicly along the way. The Intelligence Committee made the commitment to release the Deposition Statements publicly. Ive considered it a fair and transparent process. I dont think i got to see a single thing through the Judiciary Committee i was not just seeing come out and being released by the Intelligence Committee. All of it is in the final report. Its there for all of america to see. I dont want us to lose sight of the big picture. We really dont know if its all in the final report. If you havent seen them yourself. No. Thats a statement that is assuming something, facts not in evidence. We dont know what this is the classic case of evidence from a prosecutor to in a
trial. We dont know what weve not seen. Few things have not been transferred but we have heard of other things thats not been transferred and cant be in the report if its not been transferred because we can at least say it was in the report. Let me move on to the articles. In my view weve established the Intelligence Committee process was substantially flawed and procedurally defective. Thats my view. Judiciary committee failed to create a record sufficient to move forward on Articles Of Impeachment. You relied on the Intelligence Committee. Again, where the president was unrepresented. That Vi Lated Rules of the house in my view. The circus has been politically motivated from the very beginning. On the obstruction of congress charge its uncommon for the excuse me, is it uncommon, ask of both of you, uncommon for the Executive Branch to push back against requests for information from congress . Well, no it is not uncommon for the Executive Branch to push back on the production of this or that document. What was breathtaking in its unprecedented and radical nature was this president s determination to shut down all discovery. They did not produce a single document to us that was subpoenaed in this process an the president essentially ordered everyone in the Executive Branch not to cooperate with us. Let me ask i dont want to cut you off. Thats a dramatic escalation in kind and degree over anything thats been seen that includes Richard Nixon who tried to block seven or eight particular requests like the watergate tapes and that in itself became part of the case against him for abuse of power, but, you know, President Trump makes Richard Nixon look like a little leaguer when it comes to obstruction. Mr. Collins, same thing. Do you think its unusual for an administration to push back
against congressional subpoenas . No. Its common. If its pretty common, do you believe its a high crime or misdemeanor to assert privileges in response to congressional requests for subpoenas . I want to go back an give a little history since weve had history lessons. Even in our own committee whats been interesting, theres been a total just walk toward impeachment. What was interesting in our committee we would send subpoenas or sent out letters and stuff and we never followed up on, but also one of the interesting things, we never engaged for the most part with the agencies for documents. What i thought was interesting, mr. Schiff and the Intelligence Committee, while still struggling, mr. Schiff negotiated with the Department Of Justice and got documents released our committee couldnt. Eliot engel one of the quieter chairmans but more effective across the aisle had engaged all
year with administration on ways to get documents. Its a matter of how you go about it. To say this is unheard of is not right. I would ask this to both of you and gets to the point youre making, a normal accommodations process for resolving inner branch disputes between the house and Executive Branch, is that correct . Yes. Okay. And that process really hasnt occurred here, i think mr. Collins, is what you telling me. It doesnt fit neatly into, you know, the speakers impeachment and christmastimeline to borrow your way of looking at it. Weve not gone to court. No, they havent. Were not really engaged. This is a normal give and take where both sides tend to avoid, quote, you know, an exchange where they might go to court an lose something. All that has been set aside and havent had any process like that. No. I will point out something i disagree with. Mr. Mcgahn. A court case weve lost and still being appealed but does show you the process is work, dont work as fast as they want it to work. In fact, even the one that they had that was actually one of the members of the administration contested they withdrew their subpoena and withdrew it from the lawsuit because they didnt want to deal with it. I know mr. Raskin would have a different view and if he wants to respond i would, i will ask you, mr. Collins, this any evidence that the pause on the ukrainian assistance was for the president s improper personal political benefit or could he had other objectives . Thats to you, mr. Collins . Im sorry. I apologize. Its all right. Im throwing a lot of questions at you. Any actual evidence that the pause on the ukrainian assistance was for the president s improper personal political benefit or might he have had other reasons for Withholding Aid . He had plenty of other reasons. Part of it is the law which says
even though the certified the president s call to make sure there was no corruption and where aid is given. Other countries during that time which aid was held. From an appropriator standpoint this aid was not scheduled to go out, had to be done by september 30th. Went out early if you look at it from that time frame. There were other reasons. There was a recent poll just show you, we talk about this from our side, the corruption in the ukraine was so prevalent, 68 of normal every day ukrainians said they bribd a Public Official in the past year. There was reasons for this to be discussed and go at it. I want to point out one last thing on the other issue. Fast and furious, infamous issue with the obama administration. It was seven months from first subpoena to first documents. Seven months. That doesnt fit the timeline here. Right. See, this is an Essential Point that you raise right now. And i think that there is not any credible evidence from any
of the witnesses or anything in the record to suggest that the president was trying to ferret out corruption as opposed to impose a corrupt scheme on the president of ukraine. Start with this. In 2017 and 2018, the president could have raised corruption in withholding military and security assist tons ukraine and never is it. Then in 2019 he did. What changed . Joe biden was running for president and the president ial campaign was much on his mind. The president removed ambassador Yvonne Vi Yovanovitch and we learned from mr. Giuliani he was involved by parnas and fruman to smear ambassador yovanovitch to say there was something wrong with her. In fact, when she was according to all the testimony we had and all the Public Information we had, she was one of the leading anticorruption ambassadors that the United States has on earth. They sabotaged her and undercut her, subjected her to a Smear Campaign that led several of the other witnesses to protest that the State Department was not standing by its own ambassador. They got rid of her as mr. Giuliani said in todays paper because she was getting in the wa