to be crimes. abuse of power in many respects is more serious than many criminal offenses. let s play the sound that maggie is talking about from last night. it s important to hear what the president is trying to minimize. listen. you saw their so-called articles of impeachment today. people are saying, they re not even a crime. what happened? all of these horrible things. remember, bribery and this and that. where are they? they said these two things. they re not even a crime. this is the lightest, weakest impeachment. in fact, professor toobin, the testimony of the other law professors we heard from last week was that in many ways, these impeachment charges are among the most serious we have ever seen. they get to the very fundamental nature of what the framers of the constitution were trying to guard against. and that s right, berman.
i want to turn now to chairman schiff who will explain the evidence that supports these articles and the need to us to act with such urgency today. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, madam speaker and to my colleagues, good morning. the framers of the constitution recognized that someday a president might come to office who would abuse that office, betray the public trust, and undermine national security to secure foreign help in his reelection. and who would seek to abry gait the power of congress to hold him accountable. they recognized this danger and prescribed a remedy and that remedy is impeachment. it is an extraordinary remedy and one that i ve been reluctant to recommend until the actions of president trump gave congress no alternative.
convict and remove the president, which will require some republican senators to peel off and depart from the path. but i think the really important thing that bob has mentioned here is this idea ta the republicans are tauting that impeachment is a back end effort to basically subvert the will of the people. i think the testimony that was presented yesterday makes clear that that claim is specious. the founding fathers, the framers of the constitution, thought that the perversion of the election process with foreign intervention was so grave an offense that it had to be subject to some kind of check. and the only rational check would be impeachment. they made that case. this was a quid pro quo intended to solicit aid in the re-election of the president. before i lose you, bob, that s my final question to you. do you think the evidence suggests donald trump did anything wrong? certainly yes. but i go back to my original point that this is a political exercise and that he is not with
allegations of obstruction of justice detailed in the mueller report? liberal democrats want to include them into the articles against the president. moderates are weary about going beyond the narrow scope of the ukraine investigation. it s one of the key things democrats have to resolve as they push forward into this investigation. jeremy herb, cnn, capitol hill. scott lucas, a politics professor at the university of birmingham. good morning to you, scott. good morning, natalie. house democrats refuting president trump s impeachment proceedings and referred to writings of thomas jefferson, george washington and other framers of the constitution. how important could it be that they re infusing these important tools with this process while the president has debunked it outright. here s my reading, natalie. that is the democrats, or those who favor the impeachment of
also author of how to read the constitution and why the constitution somewhat important in this process as we go forward. being the constitutional expert you are, the focus of nancy pelosi and making her announcement yesterday and other democrats on the relevant committee since then has been really to turn attention to the constitution. say that based on how the constitution defined impeachable offenses that in effect, democrats have no choice. based on your reading of the law and the history here, is that correct? i would say, yes. the experts this week that testified in favor of impeachment made clear that the problem here is about interference in the election. if the next election is the only way to hold a president accountable, then we could potentially have a presidency where the president manipulates election after election after election and never actually is the wrongdoing isn t addressed. the framers of the constitution