the week. why? how about the fact that he subpoenaed phone records from a member of congress. how about the fact that he signaled out devin nunes s cell phone number and leaked that? how about the fact that he dumped over 8,000 pages on the judiciary committee 48 hours before we had a hearing in this committee? that is the abuse of power. that is what i would prosecute every day of the week. obstruction, i d prosecute the democrats for obstruction of congress, too. how about the fact that i had a motion to subpoena the whistle-blower. the whistle-blower, who by the way you cannot point to any statute. there s no statute that gives that whistle-blower the right to be anonymous? does not exist no matter what you say. i had a motion to subpoena the whistle-blower two weeks ago. that motion was denied. i never got my subpoena, and it was todone in a partisan fashio straight down partisan lines. so that is the obstruction and i
past. he s abusing his power now. he will abuse it tomorrow. we have a department of justice who will county to protect him. fortunately the american people have a congress who can say he s not above the law and we re not helpless in holding him accountable. we have heard a lot of explanation about why we re here tonight we don t like the policy of the president. we don t like the president. the one thing we haven t heard the real reason we re here. the can you be the of the president. the grave misconduct. i want to recount quickly again the evidence that was presented in text messages and call records and e-mails. in hundreds of press statements and tweets. president trump acknowledging he has been engaged on a personal basis through rudy giuliani his lawyer in investigating ukraine. president zelensky is sensitive about ukraine being taken serious le.
giuliani. president trump ordered the critical military aid for ukraine be withheld. ukrainian officials were informed the aid would not be released unless president zelensky publicly announced an investigation, and president trump refused to release the aid until his pressure campaign on the ukraine was exposed. president trump refused to arrange a meeting with president zelensky, and president trump s agents advised ukrainian officials that the white house meeting would be scheduled only after president zelensky committed to the investigations. president trump ignored the anticorruption talking points prepared for his calls. president trump asked president zelensky directly to investigate president trump s chief political rival, and president trump stone waulled congress s investigation. you know, i don t know what more you can ask for here, we ve got in additions from the president.
judge us. i yield back. the gentleman yields back, for what purposes is ms. seeking recognition? move to strike the last word. gentle lady is recognized. thank you, mr. chairman, we just continue to hear the same excuses for the president s behavior, and this is such a grave moment that we re in. we re talking about the highest constitutional crimes, abuse of power and obstruction of congress, and so let me oneself again just review the facts. first, my republican colleagues have said that this is about corruption, but all of president trump s agencies, all of his advisers, everyone unanimously told him that ukraine had passed all the anticorruption benchmarks. the department of defense said that ukraine had passed their review on anticorruption
now eisenberg can t speak. what is it the president is afraid he ll say? that s obstruction of congress. abuse of power and obstruction of the congress, together that s what these articles are about. we re protecting the constitution. we re protecting the american people and our elections. that s why we need to proceed with these articles of impeachment. i yield back. gentleman yields back. for what purposes seeking recognition? i move to strike the last word, the movement is recognized. thank you, mr. chairman. i ve been a prosecutor, i was a prosecutor in baghdad when i was in the navy, prosecuted terrorists. i was a defense attorney in the navy. actually got to defend a navy s.e.a.l. against trumped up charges by the obama administration and i had the honor of serving as a district judge in my hometown in the south hills of pittsburgh. so i ve been on all sides of a courtroom, and i can tell you that i would defend this case every single day, and it s because the facts just ar