sometimes and sometimes they ve been the minority but they are part of the process. right. well, one of the tragedies here and there are many tragedies in this whole, long, sordid story is that the bipartisanship, that the intel committees were known for, the senate is still somewhat evaporated in the house. i served in the position adam schiff held before he became chairman which was fairly recently and the stuff we did by and large was bipartisan. we never went through a presidential impeachment and to be fair this is a different process from the process during the clinton or nixon impeachments, both of which i saw. i was a member of congress during clinton and a young lawyer in the senate during nixon, but in this case there was no independent counsel like ken starr. there were only committees investigating, intel being one, oversight being two and judiciary being three.
for months they have argued that it was illegitimate because the full house hadn t voted formally on it, and now that it s passed without a single republican vote, gop leaders argue that democrats are trying to rig the process by only allowing republicans to call witnesses that the democratic chairman approves. today house minority whip steve scalise said this is nothing like the clinton and nixon impeachments. under clinton and nixon, there was a bipartisan negotiation to at least have fair rules. they don t want fair rules, they just want to hurt president trump s chances to win re-election. it s all about reversing the results of the 2016 election. there are no high crimes or misdemeanors. reporter: top democrats argue that there is a little they can do to prevent the partisan divide over the inquiry because republican lawmakers have gone full in on defending president trump regardless of what the evidence says and are determined to impede that investigation. the republicans k
chief lawyer on the national security council who in turn put it on a secure server. this was not a perfect phone call obviously. was it criminal? according to timothy morrison another individual who listened in on the phone call, he did not believe so. he did not believe it rose to the level of criminality on the part of president trump. eric: but for an impeachment, we re told you don t need a crime. you don t need a criminality. you just need high crimes and misdemeanors or something that is unbecoming and against the constitution and the oath that the president took for the united states. let me play you a sound bite of adam schiff because democrats would certainly disagree with your assessment. here s mr. schiff. in both clinton and the nixon impeachments, the minority did not have the right to call witnesses on their own unilaterally. they could call for a vote but it was a majority vote that they were not assured of winning. we would love to hear if they are interested in havi
and what they re entitled to in this process? well, i mean, i think everyone is committed to ensuring this process is fair, that the minority and the president have an opportunity to make their case, to present evidence, to present arguments, to cross examine witnesses. so if you look through the resolution, we ve actually afforded the minority much greater rights than existed in the clinton and nixon impeachments. and we re doing that because we want to be sure the process is fair, that the president will have opportunity to present evidence, cross examine witnesses through his counsel, to attend the hearings in his judiciary committee to make a closing argument. so there are substantial rights which don t really have to be afforded at this stage. they re traditionally afforded at the trial stage in the senate. what we re trying to do is actually afford greater right tuesday the president because we want to be sure the american people see this process as transparent and fair and the
are one thing but you ll do an impeachment inquiry. i think the american people want to know what s going on, what s being said. 75% of the house members today have no access to the transcripts. the only thing that i read is what s leaked. and so people ask me, what s your view on ambassador taylor s comments or this or that comment. all i m getting is leaked material from the chairman of the committee. investigations are one thing. this is an impeachment inquiry according to the speaker that we never voted on. and to have secret hearings where the president cannot bring in his attorney like president clinton was able to and we can t bring in our minority witnesses, i think it s a unfair process. there are republicans in the room, one, and, two, the rules of these inquiries have changed since the clinton and nixon impeachments, giving the opposing party rights that they didn t have prior. i am just wondering if republicans are, you know, in