hearsay evidence, such as congressional hearing the statements provided by taylor are expected to be addressed before the house committee this coming week. the definition itself with hearsay, this is something we ve heard as we played there over and over again as we see the republican response to this coalesce. i can t do any better than you just did. i felt like i was in crim law 101. i wish we could set this will once and for all. when the representative jordans of the world complain that we re not hearing from the firsthand witnesses, if i were adam schiff, i would say, hang on. let me get this down because what you re saying is that the president is obstructing justice by prohibiting the firsthand witnesses from testifying. of time we hear hearsay complaints, we should receive that has the president is hiding the ball, plain and simple. so as far as i m concerned, keep complaining about no firsthand
convoluted. and that is why the process arguments have sort of been working so far. which is like when you say the democrats don t understand the rules or they re making it up, that s not true. the democrats have followed all the rules. but your average american doesn t know how it s supposed to work. rachel, we ve already seen from the white house and the department of justice basically block some folks who were supposed to be on the hill next week. what do democrats do the about the fact that some of these key witnesses in some instances, when you think about john bolton and the aid to mick mulvaney say they re not going to come? democrats have had a lot of success in convincing trump officials lower down to come in and tell their stories. as we get higher up the food chain, they re expecting a lot of people are going to stonewall and not show up. democrats have this planned and they re going to incorporate that into an article of impeachment and obstruction of justice and they r
the president is obstructing obstructing congress from getting the facts that we need. house speaker nancy pelosi is front and center of the impeachment fight. douglas letter from the united states department of justice. but it s this man, pelosi s hand-picked general counsel who is the key to strategizing the house s fight against the president. douglas letter spent four decades at the justice department defending the policies of republican and democratic administrations. he doesn t speak to the press, but his words in court say plenty. he told a federal judge in washington, d.c., last week that the impeachment inquiry could be extensive saying i can t emphasize enough. it s not just ukraine, and if it s criminal, but even if it s not, president trump can clearly be impeached if he was obstructing justice. letter also told the judge that lying to the american public could warrant impeachment. he leads the non-partisan counsel s office, and currently
the president is obstructing, obstructing congress from getting the facts that we need. he has said it s an abuse of power to act in this way. the that ill year to produce this witness. the failure to produce these documents, we consider yet additional strong evidence of obstruction of the constitutional functions of congress, a co-equal branch of government. as you just heard there, democrats calling president trump s refusal to cooperate in the impeachment inquiry obstruction. this on the heels of the 68thing letters of the white house branding the inquiry unconstitutional and illegal bid to overthrow the 2016 election. so what is the next move for democrats? joining me to discuss, a democratic congressman from pennsylvania. good to have you with us this morning. the white house made it very clear they do not intend to play ball. no witnesses, no documents. we should point out, of course, this is a move we seen before.
do they try to fight this out in the courts, or instead go straight to impeachment? we know democrats want to move quickly here. some say they feel they already have sufficient evidence. and david, democrats have made it very clear, they feel the president is obstructing, and that could be another article of impeachment. david? mary bruce leading us off again tonight. mary, thank you. and there is one more note on all of this tonight. new reporting here on what triggered the impeachment investigation. the insider at the white house, the official who listened in on the president s call with ukraine. the whistle-blower saying that that person then described the call as, quote, crazy and frightening. here s abc s chief white house correspondent jonathan karl. reporter: tonight, abc news has learned a white house official who listened in on the president s phone call with the president of ukraine described it as crazy and frightening. this, according to the whistle-blower at the hear