Robbery thats burglary, ill get it right. And in this situation youve got somebody really caught in the middle of it, and that doesnt excuse the person from the consequences. Professors, weve talked about abuse of power and bribery. When we started we said we would also discuss obstruction of congress. So i would like to ask you some questions about obstruction of congress. Professor gerhardt, in your view, is there enough evidence here to charge President Trump with the high crime and misdemeanor of obstruction of congress . I think theres more than enough. As i mentioned in my statement, just to really underscore this, the third article of impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee against president nixon charged him with misconduct because he had failed to comply with four legislative subpoenas. Here it is far more than four
that this president has failed to comply with. And he has ordered the Executive Branch as well not to cooperate with congress. Those together with a
three previous cases we ve witnessed as a country. andrew johnson, richard nixon, bi bill clinton, all of which came to different stages of completion. it s really striking, i m curious to see what my colleagues say, when you talk about this report, you see the thickness, the fact that this was assembled this quickly with this much evidence is striking, especially given the defiance. part of the answer is just simply how much this administration and its agents like rudy giuliani spoke in public and were sloppy and released things that helped build the case. as to the comparison you drew, i will say this, the johnson impeachment was famously thin because while there were many things to dislike about him including his embrace of the losing south, the tenure of office act case was thin. the nixon case was different because it operated in parallel with an independent criminal investigation like the kind that andrew knows so much about. and the clinton case also
they were accepted crimes. that is, even the democrats on that judiciary committee agreed that bill clinton had committed perjury. that s on the record. and a federal judge later said it was perjury. in the case of nixon, the crimes were established. no one seriously disagreed with those crimes. now, johnson s the outlier because johnson w s was a trap door crime. they basically created a crime knowing that johnson wanted to replace secretary of war stanton and johnson did, because they had serious trouble in the cabinet. so they created a trap door crime, waited for him to fire the secretary of war, and then they impeached him. but there s no question he committed the crime. it s just the underlying statute was unconstitutional. so i would caution you not only about bribery but also obstruction. i m sorry, ranking member. you re doing a good job.