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they needed to remove bone and go into the area around the brain. i'll just show you. it takes you into this area in the front of the brain here on the left side, again, as you know. so, whether it was on top of the brain or in the brain, whatever this abnormality was, they're calling it a blood clot, we don't know. it did involve going into the brain. five centimeters is about two inches. from here to here. pretty sizeable, what we're talking about. we don't know what this is. the pathologists have to look at this under a microscope and determine for sure what it is. it could be a blood clot, which would probably be the best news of all but pathologists want to be sure it's not something else as well. >> what are the important things that would lead neurosurgeons like yourself to look for something like this? you won't typically scan for something like this. i've read a lot about the fact that he has had this history of melanoma that can cause bleeding in the area. is that why they would have been
there's anything that indicates this could be melanoma. you try to remove this early and aggressively. >> very quickly before you go -- you have to go to your other job at the hospital, real importance is where it is. is it between the skull and membrane that covers the brain or further in? we just don't know. >> we don't know that. but i think even upstream from that, if this is melanoma, i think that's going to raise a series of questions is is this adequately treated now? is he going to need further treatment? will that delay his recovery? even if it's outside the membrane, as you point out, of the brain, that will raise all those questions for him, poppy. >> dr. sanjay gupta, thank you very much for the expertise. appreciate it. here to discuss the politics health care and also wishing senator john mccain a quick recovery. washington post political blog the fix and patrick healy political analyst.
nice to have you here. amber, let's listen to republican senator susan collins speaking to jake yesterday about where things stand in her mind. >> there are about eight to ten republican senators who have serious concerns about this bill. and so at the end of the day, i don't know whether it will pass. >> amber, it's interesting. you say -- she says seemingly the more time that passes the harder this is getting for mcconnell. you say this delay could be a blessing in disguise. why? >> i think it could allow mcconnell to rally more votes. as mj said it is really, really tight right now. they can afford basically no one else to come out against this bill. that being said, that is one option and one perspective to look at this delay in the vote. senator susan collins is speaking a degree of truth when
axios had an interesting note this morning. they quote a senior administration official as saying if at the end of the weekend nobody else has jumped out of the box, that's a win. that's a pretty low bar for a win. >> that's a pretty low bar, poppy, but it's true. the governors meeting in providence this weekend came out -- many of them came out very strongly against this bill, including republican governors from vermont, nevada, like you said, brian sand dbls oval, governor of kentucky had concerns. kind of all over the map. what's interesting, poppy, a month or so ago, you had two governors in particular, republican governor of ohio, john kasich and the democratic governor of colorado, john hickenlooper who made strong statements against this bill. now you're getting many more governors sort of coming to the fore. the problem here for mitch mcconnell and the senate leadership in terms of the delay
of the vote is that if this vote is delayed one or two weeks that only gives more time for people who rely on obamacare in states like nevada to keep up the pressure on governor sandoval, on senator dean heller and to oppose this bill. and you don't really have forces on the other side who are coming out in those one or two weeks and saying, oh, okay. these are all the great reasons why this isn't going to affect medicaid recipients in a state like nevada. >> right. >> you're seeing such an escalation here. >> so, shannon, this white house needs a win. they're having a hard time getting a legislative win on health care. we'll see what happens. this delay yet again. and we'll see what the reaction is to the cbo score when that comes later this week. at the same time, despite the president tweeting otherwise, this is a very bad approval rating number that has just come
down in the latest polling for the president. 36%, according to the abc news/washington post poll, lowest since modern polling began 70 years ago. now he goes into his second six months. what do you do with this if you're sitting, strategizing at the white house? >> as you mentioned, getting legislative wins points on the board will be difficult at this point because that low approval rating gives him very little leverage in congress. the president with 36% approval rating, you can't twist many arms with that. it's going to be difficult in congress. he picked a lot of the low-hanging fruit he can pick legislatively with these executive orders, with these regulatory rollbacks he has done. so now i think they turn overseas. they've been trying to focus on isis, trying to take the message there, on improving relations with certain countries but they're also going to try to get the messaging back on their own turf. it's made in america week at the white house. they've been doing these theme
weeks like infrastructure week and energy week that haven't really gone over. they have another opportunity here. and remember back to november, december timeframe. president donald trump -- president-elect donald trump was going after companies on twitter. he was going after ford for sending jobs overseas. he was going after boeing for charging a lot for these fighter jets. that was an effective message. and even democrats then were afraid of that guy. and they like that guy who goes after companies and create jobs. he can get back on comfortable turf there. >> the problem become then his companies, the trump organization companies and ivanka truch companies with all the things made overseas come into the spotlight and a lot of questions they need to answer there. patrick, let me get your take if you dig into other new poll
williing numbers. abc/washington post poll really telling. yes, but the president is doing very well among his base and counties that flipped for him. here are the counties that flipped from obama to president trump and now holds only 44% approval rating, a 51% disapproval rating. is that more telling than the overall approval rating number? >> yeah. that's clearly bad news. these are the counties that the white house is very much looking at, both for the 2018 midterms, congressional midterms, the degree to which president trump is an albatross around the neck of candidates and then certainly 2020. president trump is already very seriously taking his re-election prospects. and he looked with a real point of pride at counties in states like michigan and pennsylvania that he was able to flip to himself from obama. those are states that he very much wants to carry again.
it's kind of an open question. another danger related to that is that president obama -- excuse me, president trump is also playing -- he's making some veiled political threats to republican senators who aren't necessarily getting on board with him. jeff flake in arizona is one who president trump has been meeting with possible candidates to jef. you're seeing trouble he may get into in states with the senate republican caucus, if seen as going after his members. it's a thinning base of support. >> a hard way to start your second week of the year. they're trying to start with these theme weeks which we'll talk about in a moment.
thank you. the white house is unveiling more of these theme weeks. will russia and the controversy surrounding it trump all? and a violent weekend in chicago. anti-violent activist, one of the several people shot and killed in weekend alone. dozens more wounded. we'll have a live report coming up. sexual harassment claim continue to rock silicon valley. now survivors and their candid stories. >> it was the moment that i felt my leg being grabbed under the table that i thought holy moly this is real.
thank you for being here. >> thank you, poppy. >> thank you for your service. good morning. let me get your reaction to the republican chair of the house oversight committee, trey gowdy. let me quote him. this drip, drip, drip about russia is undermining the credibility of this administration. is he right? is it hurting the credibility of the administration? >> i think in many circles, yes. listen, it's important that the white house certainly pivot. you just said that they're going to be doing that to talk about what the priorities are for the administration. there's also been great work that's been done both on capitol hill and with the presidency. but it is important that they sort of pivot and get off of this. let's face it. there are self inflicted wounds here, too. at the same time there's a lot of hysteria and overplaying from the other side, too. i talked to a lot of folks on the street, regular american folks who may not watch cable news, for example. and they're not so swept up and they're not so hell bent on every single thing being a
russian conspiracy. they want to see results. >> but, congressman, you would agree, surely, your constituents care that american elections are secure. i know that to be the case. >> yes. because i hear that very often. >> let me get your reaction. >> let me touch on that quickly. people are concerned about the integrity of elections tochlt see a russian conspiracy on every single corner, they are not. they think it's overplayed. >> you said, look, there are self-inflicted wounds here and also that there's some hysteria. i know you mean, for example, some democrats calling this treasonous. >> of course. >> you said that before on our air. >> yes. >> here is what conservative columnist and fox news contributor charles krauthammer writes. it's entered a new phase this is not hearsay, not fake news, not unsourced leaks. what donald junior and kushner and manafort did may not be criminal but it's not only
stupid, but deeply wrong, a fundamental violation of any kind of civic honor. >> it's troubling, it's inappropriate. i said that also, too. so is the dnc, trying to get information from ukraine. those are all inappropriate. >> that's not apples to apples. frankly, you know that. that is not the highest levels of the ukrainian government meeting with members of the clinton campaign. that never happened. so i'm asking you, do you believe that it is a violation of civic honor to have had this meeting, knowing that it was from a concerted russian government effort? >> what i said was -- and certainly something that someone else did doesn't excuse behavior of someone else. let's get that clear. but sometimes we tend to focus on what's just going on now and not other facts as well. i said it was inappropriate. i think it's inappropriate. i think it was a grave mistake.
i think the administration, if anyone had contact with russians or anywhere, get it out there. get it all out there, just like chairman gowdy said before. no more drip, drip. get it out there. >> do you think it's believable, then? the ranking democrat on the senate intelligence committee, mark warner, i'm sure you heard this also, he thinks it's, quote, unbelievable that neither the son nor the son-in-law ever shared that information with the candidate, with their dad. do you buy it? do you think it's believable that kushner and donald junior never went to the president with this? >> i really don't know. think about when this was. think about what the context was. this was before all the russia hysteria. this was in june. i know they had many meetings. i do think my senator, who i have respect for -- we talked about this -- i think he's making a huge mistake in terms of what people really care about. that's the integrity of these elections. there has to be a policy that gets put forth by democrats, by
republicans that deters and makes it very clear to other nations that they will not, in fact, mess or meddle within our elections. hysteria as well, too. i think he's overplaying it. >> i really want to get to health care but would like an answer to that question if irs. >> which one? i'm sorry. >> do you believe that the son or son-in-law jared kushner went to the pre president? >> i believe that the meeting was inappropriate. i said that before. >> that's not whatty i asked. do you believe that they didn't tell their father about this? do you believe that or not? >> i have no idea. >> let move on then. vice president mike pence and representative susan kolins on very different pages when it comes to the medicaid portion of the senate's new health care bill. listen to both of them. >> president trump and i believe that the senate health care bill strengthens and secures medicaid for the neediest in our society. >> this bill would impose
fundamental, sweeping changes in the medicaid program and those include very deep cuts. that would affect some of the most vulnerable people in our society. you can't take more than $700 billion out of the medicaid program and not think that it's going to have some kind of effec effect. >> so does it help the most needy, as the vice president said or does it hurt the most vulnerable as the republican senator says? >> two things. they'll have to work through their differences, of course, to get something in the senate. virginia didn't expand medicaid because we knew it started out at 5% of our budget, at 22% now and unsustainable trajectory. there's not a sane person on capitol hill who would tell you that medicaid is on a sustainable path. furthermore, you have a weird distortion, a bad one, that has medicaid expansionist states and
medicaid expansion reimburses able-bodied childless adults at a rate of 90% as opposed to 50% or 60% for those who the program was actually designed to deal with, the needy, poor kids, pregnant women and such. the most vulnerable of our population, i believe, to get in on a sustainable track, you do have to slow the growth of medicaid so we, in fact, can deal with the most needy of our population. >> so you don't think -- >> sorry, i can't hear you. >> can you hear me now? >> okay. >> it's like a verizon commercial. so you don't think that the reduction in growth is $772 billion reduction in medicaid expansion growth for these states over a decade is going to hurt people in senator collins is saying it hurts the most vulnerable. you argue that will not happen. despite your state not expanding, i'm just asking, is that what you're comfortable with for folks across america to rely on it? >> there will be states who did expand who will fight against that, who did -- they're sort of
incentivized to put people on the rolls. you have to get a handle on this or will end up hurting more people if you don't deal with the growth of medicaid, an unsustainable rate. >> here is what -- >> i'm not done yet. >> okay. >> look, you also have to deal with the fact that we are hurting families across this country. there's a huge swath of families who have way high deductible. their premiums are insane. they're paying more than they pay on their mortgages. we're hurting more people right now by not getting this done. >> i sat with those families. i sat with a couple in kentucky who said it's over $800 a month for us. we can't afford it. i hear you. look at these new numbers from this abc poll that are revealing. half of americans still want obamacare, just in a little bit different form. 50% want obamacare. 24% want the gop proposals that are out there right now.
outside of what it takes to get the wins on this for senate republicans, what about what the american people want? that's double the amount of people that like the gop plan that say stick with what we've got and, of course, there are revisions that need to happen. >> uh-huh. here are a couple of things. obamacare has been with us eight years now. good things have come out of it, like pre-existing conditions, letting folks stay on their parents' plan until they're 26 years old. we're not changing that. number one, we could do a better job explaining to the american people our philosophical differences. aca is one-size-fit-all washington. health care is consumed at the local level. we believe it should be the states and local localities that should be dealing with that much closer to the patient themselves. i think that we have to do something about it. aca is fundamentally flawed. i think that health care before could have been changed or tweaked, if you will, to deal with the issues, good things
that came out of the aca. i think it's fundamentally flawed and to not act is wrong. i think leaders must act. dems should come to the table, too, and work with us to fundamentally fix aca and health care. >> i think americans would really welcome bipartisanship in washington. congressman scott taylor, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, poppy. appreciate it. >> thank you for your service to this country. >> thank you. >> all right. so, if the russians that donald trump jr. met with had this motive and were so bad why did the secret service allow the meeting to happen, right? that's the latest defense out of the white house. issue is, secret service wasn't even protecting donald trump jr. at the time they came back and pushed hard on that one. 7 and. (ray) the difference has been incredible. she is much more aware. she wants to learn things. (vo) purina pro plan bright mind. nutrition that performs.
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donald trump jr., jared kushner and the russian attorney? u.s. secret service says not us. that is in response to a claim by the president's own lawyer, jay sekulow. listen. >> i've wondered why the secret service, if this was nefarious, why the secret service allowed these people in. the president had secret service at that point. that raise aid question with me. >> except don junior didn't. here is what the secret service said in a statement to cnn. don junior was not a protectee of the secret service. therefore we would not have screened anyone he was meeting with. jeffrey toobin, it's a bizarre defense to begin with, not to mention that the secret service had no purview over don junior. >> let's talk about one thing. jay sekulow said two very interesting things over the weekend. one was, remember, we spent months hearing that this -- there was no contact between the trump campaign and the russians. it was all fake news.
the whole thing was ridiculous. that is now out the window. that's a considerable change of the goal posts now. >> it is. >> maybe there was a crime. maybe there wasn't. it's worth noting that change. the secret service point -- i've known jay sekulow for a long time. he is an extremely fine lawyer. very good lawyer. experienced extreme court advocate. what that tells me is that he does not have a lot of access to his client, that the client is not being forthcoming about the whole story. if you listen to jay's story, his advocacy, it's based in the law, not in the facts. he obviously had not talked to donald junior about whether he was a secret service protectee at that time. so he made this wrong claim that the secret service somehow would
have been involved. i think it illustrates how the defenders of trump and the trump campaign don't know all the facts. none of us do. that's why the story keeps evolving the way it does. >> you have said on our air, this is the administration and their attorneys, jay sekulow in this case, moving the defense lines back. haven't they moved them back as far as you can go? as far as you can go is, well, it wasn't illegal. they're sort of like, okay we can do it again. >> it wasn't a high cream and misdemeanor justifying impeachment. that's the next line of defense. that's true but -- i mean, they do have some good arguments. it is still not clear whether any crime was committed, even if you believe more sinister interpretations of what the trump campaign was doing. >> right. >> we hear this word over and over again, collusion, collusion, which is sort of
agreements between the campaign and the russian government, is not a crime. >> right. >> under most circumstances. and there's no crime except under anti-trust law involving coll collusion. what is a value to the campaign. i hear you. the white house now add ace new guy. from all i've read, very high-powered, experience white collar defense attorney, ty cobb. how does this change their approach? is this pushing kosowitz out? >> i don't know whether he's in or out. that's beyond my knowledge at this point. the purpose of hiring ty cobb is to keep an organized face on all these inquiries. that doesn't answer whether, a, he will have access to donald trump to get answers when questions come up and, b, whether trump will continue
tweeting on his own, stuff that is relevant to the investigation and whether cobb will have any influence on the president's statements or his tweeting. >> no one has before. >> no one has before. the record is not good. >> maybe you would, jeffrey toobin. >> i am out of that business. i am a journalist now. >> because you're here. >> exactly. >> jeffrey toobin, thank you very much. ahead for us, deadly weather. one second a family is spending their saturday swim nth arizona river. next, a flash flood carries trees and rocks right at them, killing at least nine. that's next. for your heart... your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something
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chad myers. how could this happen with no warning? >> it happens every single day in the desert in the summer. it's called monsoon season flash flooding. it is the most dangerous, most tragic thing that happens in the desert. you think it isn't going to rain. it rains on top of a hill. that water washing downhill. it's not even raining where you are. it rained up there. you don't expect it to come downhill. and it does. the rain came through payson, all the way down through tucson who had their first wet day in almost half a year. in fact, 138 days ago was the last time it truly rained in phoenix. the rain was on top of the mountain. it rained hard. probably an inch of rain. something else on top of this mountain, about a month ago, a wildfire. a wildfire scorched the ground that this water, this rain was raining on. that wildfire makes the ground what we call hydrophobic. it makes it like asphalt. the rain will not soak in. even the rain that we're going
to see today. here is the forecast for today. it will not soak in. so, here is the southwest. it happens every summer. it is called monsoon season. people drive from phoenix. they go up here to the water wheel. and then you take that waterwheel, climb up the canyon, a beautiful cool little splash here. back into the canyon through here, where the cold spring is. but it rained on top of the mongola rim. and that water was tragically running downhill at a pace they could not get out of the way. poppy. >> six children killed. unbelievable. tragedy also in chicago over the weekend. a deadly weekend. multiple shootings killed at least 11 people, 9-year-old boy among them. also a man who dedicated his life to preventing violence. ryan young is live with more. you know, we talk about the same thing, ryan, right after the fourth of july. once again. >> reporter: yeah. really staggering numbers t
hasn't really stopped since the fourth of july. think about that weekend. 100 people shot during that weekend. and then 40 killed -- shot the following weekend and now this weekend you have 58 people shot during the weekend. you look at the numbers. just staggering. talk bay 9-year-old sitting in the car with a stepfather when someone roll bid and started opening fire. that young man was shot in the back and he died. later on this weekend, someone pull pulled up with an ar-15 saturday and hitting the crowd, hitting that activist several times before he died. a lot of people in the community are asking that question, why and when will it stop? >> people are just so cold hearted. how could you just take somebody's life? he helped everybody. i just don't understand. >> i met him when i was a little boy and all through time, there's so many stories of him doing good in the community, him paying for funerals for other people, people to go to school, whatever anybody needed, whatever anybody needed.
>> you think about this. the activist dedicating his life to trying to stop violence ended up getting killed, standing there on the street with a crowd of people. people are definitely asking for help. they want more help from the federal government. the police department obviously has changed some of their procedures. when you look at this summer, how hot it's been, how violent it's been, people are just hoping it gets better before it gets worse. no answers right now, poppy. >> heartbreaking and it's happening consistently. ryan young, thank you for the reporting for us this morning from chicago. up next, something you will not want to miss. silicon valley exposed. a culture of sexual harassment and assault. now six women come forward and tell our laurie segall their stories. >> you preyed on a group of women that you thought were too afraid or not in a position to speak up and, clearly, you were very, very wrong. adult 7+ promotes alertness and mental sharpness in dogs 7 and older.
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>> you don't want to tell people you were in a business meeting and somebody shamed you. who wants to say that? it was the moment i felt my leg being grabbed under the table that i thought, holy moly, this is real. >> we with were sitting at a starbucks and he grabs my face and tries to make out with me. i hope that we can change that. so, this is my story from 2001. the environment was a lot different because of the dot com crash. i was faced with raising more money or letting go of employees. so, one time i had a meeting with a potential person and he order add $5,000 bottle of wine. i couldn't remember how many times the glass got filled. he was conveying to me how attractive he was to me, tried to lean over to kiss me and i
pulled away. i'll never forget when he touched me under the table, grabbed my leg and squeezed it and said, you know, i'm going to help you. i'm going to do this for you. like he was my savior or something. at the same time, he's violating me. >> i was lucky enough to have an adviser or mentor who never expressed romantic or sexual interest on me. we were working on spread sheets. we were sitting side by side. at the end of that, he stood up and pulled out his erect penis, genitalia. it was uncomfortable. it was unfair, but it happened. it wasn't the last time something like that would happen. >> it made me fee disgusted, demoralized and disrespected. >> i didn't have any worth as a
woman in business. >> all of my accomplishments, i already raised the money in venture funding. that didn't matter. >> if i was sitting across from him, i would say, i'm here to talk business and nothing else. >> it's strange to me when you look at your pipeline as pop tuneties for your romantic life. don't date your deal blow. it's not that hard. >> you have the money. you have the power. you have the decision making ability. you have it all. like, why do you do this? >> you preyed on a group of women that you thought were too afraid or not in a position to speak up and clearly, you were very, very wrong. >> poppy, the next phase of this, how do we push the dialogue for it? how do we get more women in leadership positions.
how do we get them where they can report sexual harassment. >> those are the women speaking out about it. how many more women has it happened to. i'm so glad you did this. where can you see it? >> cnn smoney.com. >> thank you. we have a lot ahead. the senate health care vote delayed. how long? senator mccain could be the crucial vote but he's out. an update on his condition, next.
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BrainBoneAreaFrontSideBlood-clotAbnormalityPathologistsTwoFiveThingsSomethingthis from like the ivory towers of your law school but it makes actual people in this country -- >> when the president calls -- >> you don't get to interrupt me on this time. and when you suggest that you invoke the president's son name here and try to make a joke at referencing baron trump that does not lend credibility to your argument, it makes you look mean and attacking someone's family. the minor child of the president of the united states. so let's see if we could get into the facts. to all of the witnesses. if you have personal knowledge of a single material fact in the schiff report, please raise your hand. and let the record reflect no personal knowledge of a single fact. and you know what, that continues on the tradition we saw from adam schiff where ambassador taylor could not identify an impeachment offense and mr. kent never met with the president and fiona hill never mentioned military aid and mr. hill was not aware of any
nefarious aid and colonel vindman said that bribery was invoked here. and ambassador volker denied there was a quid pro quo and mr. morrison said there was nothing wrong on the call. the only direct evidence came from gordon sondland who spoke to the president of the united states and the president said i want nothing. no quid pro quo. and you know what, if wiretapping the political points -- >> the gentleman's time is expired -- >> maybe it is a different president we should be impeaching. >> gentleman's time is expired. mr. cicilini. >> let me state the obvious. it is not hearsay when the president tells the president of ukraine to investigate his political adversary, is it. >> it is not. >> it is not here say when the president confesses on national television to do thatting. >> it is not. >> it is not hearsay when administration testify they hear the president say he only cares about the investigations of his political opponent, is it. >> no, that is not here say. >> and there are other direct
evidence in the 300-page report from the intelligence community so let's dispense by that clim by my republican colleagues. professor turley wrote on august 1st, 2014 in a piece called five myths about impeachment, one of the myths he was rejected was that impeachment required a criminal offense and he wrote, and i quote, an offense does not have to be indictable. serious misconduct or violation of public trust is enough. end quote. was professor turley right when he wrote that back in december of 2014. >> yes, i agree with that. >> to professor karlan. at the constitutional convention eldridge jerry said foreign powers will meddle in our affairs and spare to expense to spare them and a president might be tray his trust to a foreign power. professor carlin can you explain
why the framers accounted for those concerns and how that related to the facts before this committee. >> so the reason that the framers were concerned about foreign interference i think is slightly different than the reason we are. they were concerned about it because we were such a weak country in 1789. we were small. we were poor. we didn't have an established navy. we didn't have an established army. today the concern is a little different which is that it will interfere with us making the decisions that are best for us as americans. >> thank you, professor. there are three known instances of the president publicly asking a foreign country to interfere in our elections. first in 2016, the president publicly hoped that russia would hack into the email of a political opponent which they subsequently did. second based on the president's summary of the call with president zelensky we know he asked ukraine to announce an investigation into his chief political rival and used aid apropt appropriated by congress and urged china to begin its own
investigation. professor feldman, how would it impact our democracy if it became standard practice for the president of the united states to ask a foreign government to interfere in our elections. >> it would be a disaster for the functioning of our democracy if our presidents regularly as this president has done ask foreign governments to interfere in our electoral process. >> and i what like to end with george washington who told americans in his farewell address that to be constantly awake because foreign influence is one of the baneful foes of the foreign government. the conduct at issue here is egregious and warrants a commensurate response and the of that there is no doubt because inviting foreign meddling robs american people of the sacred right to elect their own political leaders. americans across this country
wait in long lines to exercise the right to vote and choose their own leaders. this right does not belong to foreign governments. we not and won a revolution over this. free and fair elections are what separate us from authoritarians all over the world. as public servants and member of the house we would be negligent in our duties under the constitution if we let this blatant abuse of power go unchecked. we've heard about hating this president. it is not about hating this president. it is about a love of country. it is about arming the oath that we took to protect and defend the constitution of this great country. and so my final question is to professor feldman and to professor karlan, in the face of this evidence, what are the consequences if this committee and this congress refuses to muster the courage to respond to this gross abuse of power that undermined the integrity of our elections and undermined the confidence we have to have in the president to not abuse the power of his office.
>> if this committee and this house fail to act, then you're sending a message to this president and to future presidents that it is no longer a problem if they abuse their power. it is no longer a problem if they invite other countries to interfere in our elections and no longer a probe if they put the interest of other countries ahead of ours. >> professor karlan. >> i agree with professor feldman and i apologize for getting over heated over a moment ago but i have a constitutional right under the first amendment to give money to candidates and we have a constitutional duty from foreigners spending money in our elections and these are two sides of the same coin. >> thank you. and with that i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. mr. johnson. >> thank you. i was struck this morning by the same thing as all of my friends and colleagues on this side of the room. chairman nadler actually began this morning with the outrageous statement that the facts before us are undisputed. of course, everyone here knows that that's simply not true.
every person here and every person watching at home knows full well that virtually everything here is disputed. from the fraudulent process and the broken procedure to the democrats' unfounded claims. and the full facts are obviously not before us today. we've been allow nod fact witnesses here at all. for the first time ever this committee, which is the one in congress that has the actual jurisdiction over impeachment is being given no access to the underlying evidence that adam schiff and his political accomplices say support this charade. this is a shocking denial of constitutional process and i'm also a constitutional attorney and under normal circumstances i would enjoy a debate about the contours of article two section four but that is an utter waste of the time because as highlighted this morning this whole production is a sham and a reckless path to a pre-determined political out come and it is an outcome that
was predetermined by our democrat colleagues a long time ago. the truth is house democrats have been working to impeach president trump since the day he took his oath of office. over the past three years they've introduced four resolutions seeking to impeach the president. two years ago as one of the graphics show december 26th, 2018, 50 house democrats voted to begin impeachment proceedings and that is 20 months before the famous july 25th phone call with ukraine president zelensky. and this other graphic up here is smaller but it is interesting too. i think it is important to reiterate for everybody watching at home that of our 24 democratic colleagues and friends on the other side of the room today, 17 out of 24 have already voted for impeachment. so i mean -- let's be honest. let's not pretend that anybody cares about what is being said here today or the actual evidence or the facts. as congresswoman lofgren said we come with open minds. that is not happening here.
so much for an impartial jury. several times leading democrats have admitted in various interviews and correspondence they believe this strategy is necessary, because why? because they want to stop the president's reelection. even speaker pelosi said last month that, quote, it is dangerous to allow the american people to evaluate his performance at the ballot box. speaker pelosi has it exactly backwards. what is dangerous is the precedent all of this is setting for the future of our republic. i love what professor turley testified to, this is not how impeachment of a president is done and his rhetorical question is he asked you to ask yourselves, where will you stand next time when this same kind of sham impeachment process is innish ated against a president from your party. the real shame here today is everything in washington has become bitterly partisan and this ugly chapter is not going
to help that. it is going to make things really that much worse. president turley said we are living in the era fears from our founders and what hamilton referred to as a period of agitated passions. i think that said if t so well. this is an age of rage. president washington warned in his farewell address in 1796 that extreme partisanship would lead us to the ruins of public liberty. those were his words. this hyper partisan impeachment is probably one of the most divisive and destructive things that we could possibly do to our american family. let me tell you what i heard from my constituents in multiple town halls and meetings back in my district just two days ago. the people of the country are sick of this. they're sick of the politics of personal destruction, they're sick of the toxic atmosphere that is being created here and they're deeply concerned about where all this will lead us in the years ahead. rightfully so. you know what the greatest threat is, the thing that ought to keep every single one of us up at night is the rapidly
eroding trust of the american people in their institutions. one of the critical presuppositions and foundations of a self-governing people in a constitutional republic is they retain a basis level of trust in institutions and rule of law and system of justice and the body of elected representatives and citizen legislators in congress. the greatest danger of this fraudulent impeachment production is not what happens this afternoon or by christmas or in the election next fall. the greatest danger is what this will do in the days ahead to our 243 year experiment in self-governance and what effect this new president or pandora's box will have upon our nation six or seven years from now, a decade now from the ruins of public liberty created by this short-sighted exercise today. god help us. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. swalwell. >> professor turley, as a former prosecutor, i recognize a defense attorney trying to represent their clients. especially one who has very
little to work with in the way of facts and today you represent the republicans in their defense of the president. professor -- >> that is not my intention, sir. >> you've said that this case represents a dramatic turning point in federal impeachment precedent. the impact of which will shape and determine future cases. the house for the first time in the modern era asked the senate to remove someone for conduct for which he was never charged criminally and the impropriety of which has never been tested in a court of law but that is not a direct quote from what you said today. it sounds a lot like what you've argued today but that is a quote from what you argued as a defense lawyer in a 2010 senate impeachment trial. professor, did you represent federal judge thomas portus. >> i did, indeed. >> and judge was tried on four articles of impeachment ranging from engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with the trust and confidence placed in him as a federal judge engaging in a long standing pattern of corrupt conduct that
demonstrates his unfitness to serve as a united states district court judge. on each count judge portus was convicted by at least 68 and up to 96 bipartisan senators. thankfully that senate did not buy your argument that a federal official should not be removed if he is not charged criminally and respecialfully, professor, we don't buy it either. but we're here because of this photo. it is a picture of of president zelensky in may of this year standing on the eastern front of ukraine as a hot war was taking place and up to 15,000 ukrainians have died at hands of russians. i would like to focus on the impact of president trump's conduct particularly with our allies and our standing in the world. this isn't just a president, as professor karlan has pointed out, asking for another foreign leader to investigate a political opponent, it is a president leveraging a white house visit as well as foreign
aid. as the witnesses have testified, ukraine needs our support to defend itself against russia. i heard directly from witnesses who important the visit and aid were, particularly from ambassador taylor. >> these weapons and this assistance allows the ukrainian military to deter further incursions by the russians against ukrainian territory. if that further incursion, further aggression, were to take blase, more ukrainians would die. >> professor karlan, does the president's decision to withhold from ukraine such important official acts, a white house visit and military aid in order to pressure president zelensky relate to the framers concerns about abuse of power and entanglements with foreign nations. >> it relates to the abuse of power. the entanglements with foreign
nations is a more complicated concept for the framers than for us. >> professor karlan, i think you would agree we are a nation of immigrants. >> yes. >> today 50 million immigrants live in the united states. i moved by one who recently told me i was checking into a hotel about his romanian family. he came here from romania and said that every time he had gone home for the last 20 years he would always tell his family members how corrupt his country was, that he had left and why he had come to the united states. and he told me in such humiliated fashion that when he is gone home recently, they now wag their finger at him and say you're going to lecture us about corruption. what do you think professor karlan, does the president's conduct say to the millions of americans who left their family and livelihood to come to a country that represents the rule of law. >> i think it suggests that we don't believe in the rule of law.
and i think it tells emerging democracies around the world not to take it seriously when we tell them that their elections are not legitimate because of foreign interference or their elections are not legitimate because of persecution of the opposing party. president bush announced that he did not consider the elections in belarus in 2006 to be legitimate because they went after political opponents. >> professor turley pointed out that we should wait and go to the courts but you would acknowledge that we've gone to the courts. we've been in the courts for over six months. many times on matters that are already settled in the united states supreme court particularly u.s. v nixon where the president seems to be running out the clock. is that right. >> yes. >> thank you and i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. we will in a moment we will recess for a brief five minutes. first i ask everybody in the
room to remain seated and quiet while the witnesses exit the room. i also want to remind those in the audience that you may not be guaranteed your seat if you leave the hearing room at this time. >> at this time the committee will start in a short recess. >> you have been watching the first public hearing of the house judiciary committee. welcome to "the lead." i'm jake tapper. this hearing which first started at 10:00 a.m. eastern, getting a little contentious at times, three constitutional law experts called by democrats made their case to impeach president trump. the lone republican called expert, jonathan turley, argued that the evidence to impeach is, quote, wafer thin. and let's talk about this.
laura, i want to play some sound from congressman radcliff and jonathan turley that has been re-tweeted by president trump as a game set match. let's listen to that sound. >> so if i were to summarize your testimony, no bribery, no extortion, no obstruction of justice, no abuse of power, is that fair? >> not on this record. that is a pretty assertive statement by jonathan turley to say no extortion, no bribery, no obstruction of justice, no abuse of power. >> it is odd because his 53-page opening statement and much of the testimony has not been that particularly assertive on that point. it is essentially hedging up until that moment in time saying it is not that it's not there, it is that it is insufficient evidence to prove it at this point and there is ample time for you to develop a sufficient record and go to court to get the order from the court to say that somebody, in fact, is obstructing justice or stonewalling officially and now he has the perfect sound bite
which is why it is re-tweeted that said his whole argument is that you got nothing here. it is a big nothing burger. but he goes to great lengths over 50 pages to explain that he feels because bribery and the words quid pro quo were often used, that it is about whether or not there was a sufficient official act. if the president of the united states had an official act and that is what he's being pinged on. now he's saying no, no, no there is nothing to see here folks and that is a bit disingenuous and it belied the record to say there is nothing there. he could argue sufficiently. but then you have to be real about this point. the reason there is a record that may be as he called it wafer thin is because people have been stonewalling and not providing evidence not only from testimony, bolton, pompeo and the like, trump and also emails and also paperwork and documents. so to say it is insufficient, but i won't actually give credit to why it is insufficient is preposterous. >> do you think, tim, that democrats should almost call
republicans on the bluff and in the sense they should say, okay, you think the case hasn't been proven but your witness jonathan turley said we should call more witnesses we'll do this and extend two more weeks but we have to agree to subpoena mulvaney, pompeo, et cetera? >> absolutely. this is a great missed opportunity for democrats. and for all americans. what the argument should be that impeachment is such a serious matter, that you want as much evidence as possible. and then it is not up to law professors, by the way, all four of them, they did really well. but it is not up to them. it is up to the members of congress. this should be a deliberative process. what is striking about what we've seen today is that this seems to be a repeat in spirit of the clinton impeachment more than the nixon impeachment. and that is because there is -- i don't think there is anybody
there who has any experience with the nixon impeachment whereas in the clinton era some of them remembered the nixon impeachment which is far more serious. and it should be more deliberate. so what ambassador icen, the democratic majority counsel should have done is ask professor turley, what do you want to know and whom should we ask and let me give you a reason why. the schiff report is magnificent. but there are gaps. they're not gaps that are helpful to the president. they're just gaps. it would be nice to have someone on the record say they know for sure the president's mind when the suspension of aid happened. what they can prove is that there is a quid pro quo regarding a meeting in the white house. not quite as easy to prove that there was a quid pro quo about the security. now, i can tell you that having studied presidents, i'm pretty convinced that it was. but you know what? the american people don't spend time studying presidents.
they're not professors of public policy. give them more data and when bolton says no and when omb doesn't hand over the documents then at least the democrats could say we tried to connect the dots but those are troubling dots as is. >> and moving on with that, building on that, what tim just said, jen psaki, in the house impeachment report that the intelligence committee put out, democrats on the committee, there is page after page, it starts on page 216 if you want to read it, page after page of documents that they tried to get that president trump, vice president pence, secretary of state pompeo, secretary of defense, the omb director, et cetera, et cetera, refused to turn over. just dozens of the documents. and they could say would you want to see this, jonathan turley. the republican witness says yes. and then the republicans are in a tough spot.
>> they certainly could. and there is -- there was a huge opportunity that this report was put out yesterday. and that was a gift to jerry nadler, congressman or chairman nadler. obviously it is a different focus of the hearing but there is a lot to work from there and i think he missed some opportunities to really hold jonathan turley's feet to the fire to push on some of the questions, to hold some of his fellow republicans to account on what you exactly just said. there are -- the reason we haven't had these high level officials appear is because the white house has been obstructing them from appearing. they haven't been providing documents and they haven't -- >> let me just interrupt you for one second because i want to bring our viewers attention to the substantial list. democrats have asked for documents related to that infamous july 25th call, the briefing materials prepared for president trump by vindman and notes related to the call from key players the white house is refusing to turn over the presidential decision memo prepared by vindman conveying
that the aid be released and the nfc staff conclusions related to ukraine and white house records review of the hold on the ukraine aid which according to "the washington post" reveal extensive efforts to deal an after the fact justification and gordon sondland the administration won't turn over call records or emails and messages between sondland and mick mulvaney or john bolton. and they want to see related to the july 25th call with mr. pence and the details prepared with the meeting and the memo of the conversation from the pence call with zelensky on september 18th. this is a small list. a small excerpt. they didn't talk about that at all at this hearing and this is just i got from the report that they issued yesterday. >> there was a ton of new information this that report. and they could have discussed that. there was no limitations on what they brought up during questioning or public statements and they didn't take the opportunity to do that. now adam schiff and most democrats feel there is a
preponderance of the evidence as written in the report to impeach the president but it doesn't mean they can't question why republicans are obstructing documents and witnesses and other people. >> but this isn't just about convincing house democrats to vote this is about convincing the country. do you think this would have been more effective if one of the three experts were a conservative constitutional law expert who supported impeachment because they're out there. we've had them on my show. >> obviously, look, that was the line of tactic of the questions, that these experts are all incredibly liberal. if you see what has been -- what they've written and what they made public statements about in the past, they're all not -- they're not centrist by any stretch of the imagination. >> feldman and karlan but they didn't say anything from gerhardt. >> from where i sit, they are extremely liberal. so they didn't help their case by picking people who are -- on the other team. it doesn't make the case any
stronger and as tim pointed out before, we're talking about comedy and separation of powers, some of the documents that you referenced, there are legitimate concerns, legitimate claims of executive privilege. >> sure, but the white house said we're not giving you anything. >> right. and so you have to go document by document and there is a process by which that takes place and it can't be done in a week and a half in time to get the hearing done. the white house has said let us look at these things and we can't provide anything. this is like any big major litigation case you have boxes and tons of files and paralegals going through things. >> but they won't cooperate. >> but this is -- sorry. >> go ahead. >> the big thing that -- that is the ranking minority member's real point. there was the calendar and the clock. and that was the real reason why this is so urgent but let's go back to the whistle-blower complaint and no one wants to bring it up but what did the inspector general for the intelligence community find? it was a credible and urgent
threat. what have these constitutionally people talking about you need not wait until either an election and it is the prerogative to impeach or remove a president and do you have an urgency when the subject matter is about an upcoming election. and so you have that all right here. but i do totally agree there are missed opportunities and when you -- when each member of the house judiciary committee could have pointed out the notion of there is an urgency and also a reason we can't wait for the courts. because it will be the result of long, protected and there is an urgent matter going on here. they didn't address it or hammer it home but they could do so more and the american people are well aware, if it is credible and urgent you don't wait. >> i don't think the american people -- there have been 71 requests. jake just gave us a short list. 71. this is unprecedented in u.s. constitutional history. >> let me interrupt.
you see noah feldman and jonathan turley all taking there, even though they have different views on impeachment. they are -- they have at the table treated each other with respect and even deference at times, more so than the members of congress treat each other. i'm sorry, tim. >> and the reason the 71 matters is that -- >> 71 requests. >> requests by the house for documents. the president has turned over not a single document. richard nixon, what he did is he played fast and loose and he wanted the apparent compliance. but at least he understood that he to comply constitutionally. >> you had to give something. >> he had to give something. this president doesn't believe he has to give anything and that is a major challenge for our system but i don't think the american people understand it because frankly they're busy and have other things on thur mind and this is where the democrats and centrist republicans if they exist should say these are the holes. it is not a phishing expedition
and these are the holes. and exactly what you were saying earlier, jake, and say to the american people this is what we're looking for and to president trump, we want you to have your chance to defend yourself. these are really key holes. he will say no, i suspect, but you at least make this clear. what is problematic now is there is the impression that it is the election that is rushing the democrats and not the issue of how long we have to wait for the courts. that i understand. who knows how long they could take. but the point is if the american people think that the rush is all about the new hampshire primary and not about the problems of getting documents from the white house, they're not going to understand the seriousness of this. they'll see it like a game. this isn't a game. it is supposed to be a serious deliberate process that isn't supposed to happen very often in our history and the democrats have to show the seriousness and sadness that the democrats showed in 1973 and '74. look, they didn't like nixon
either but this is tough and sometimes you need to. i'm not hearing that from the democrats. i'm hearing a little bit of glee from some and that the not helpful. >> to tim's point, it is reflected in polling now that shows that slipping sh the numbers have slipped and moving in one direction. and schiff and the democrats, threw the best they had at the president and this administration, it didn't make a dent. jen, it didn't. >> that is not accurate. >> it still said more than 50% for impeachment and removal. >> independence -- independents. >> it still slipped where it mattered. >> it is jumped by 20 points since the summer. >> since the summer. >> >> since the summer. and democrats are look at a couple things on the political front, the democrats have coalesced around the 90% supporting that and independents have moved to support impeachment and it is still
hovering around 50%. >> we'll watch and see how many democrats vote when it comes to voting time. it is 90%. >> and i think somebody on the table who feels odd about the idea, i know we have to show the deference, this being a difficult time in the country, but it is a constitutional obligation that members of congress have. so i understand wanting to convey the gravitious but they should not have to be apologetic about fulfilling a constitutional opportunity any more than the president slud feel -- and the impeachment process is about presidential impotence and it is you have titans and i talk about during the break, [ inaudible ] have an issue with the leadoff question from the scholars was about what their campaign donations were about and who they gave to. as if these were fact witnesses whose narrative and lent to be
judged by who they voted for. >> and tim, let me ask you a question, this is what the fourth impeachment proceeding for a u.s. president in the history of the united states. >> yes. >> do you think that -- as a historian, comparing it to the other three, do you think that the case has been made? or is that outside your wheelhouse? you can say it is outside -- >> what i've learned from studying these cases is that you have to think in terms of an elected official to answer that question. law professors will have one standard and elected officials will have another. i can tell you that the kind of impeachment i ever want to see is one that brings the country together. and that heals wounds. that may sound ridiculous but it happened. it happened in the nixon case. and it happened in the nixon case despite a lot of passion. people forget how hard it was for republicans to vote against nixon. it was very tough. and the republican leadership only went against nixon when the
smoking gun trans crypt -- transcript came out. but they realized the american people expected them to be constitutional jurors and so they didn't say what they thought or say i'm pro-impeachment before the material was in front of them and they made it clear there was a deliberate process. i didn't mean they were apologetic. but in any case i'm not sure i'm hearing that. >> all right. let's listen in. >> thank you. one of my colleagues wondered how this panel could opine as to the -- whether the president committed an impeachable offense and the answer, quite frankly, is because you came in with a preconceived notion and already made that determination and decision and i'll give you aer for instance. until the recent colloquy, several of you consistently said that the president said during that july 25th conversation with president zelensky, you said the president said i would like to you do me a favor. but that is inaccurate. it was finally clear in the
colloquy and i'll read it to you. i would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot. one of you said because the president was using royal "we" and here is the president is talking about the country. that is what he's talking about. it is audacious to say it is using the royal we. that is royal all right. but it ain't the royal "we." and i'll tell you. when you come in with a preconceived notion it is obviously. one said, mr. feldman, who said and i'll quote here, roughly, i think it is exactly what you said though, until the call of july 25th i was an impeachment skeptic too. i looked at an august 3rd 2017 publication where you said if president trump pardoned joe arpaio it would be an impeachable offense. he did ultimately pardon him. in 2017 the new york book review
of -- review of books feldman said defamation by tweet is an impeachable offense and i think the history of this country and i think if defamation or libel or slander is impeachable but i can't help but reflect about tom adams and thomas jefferson who pillered their political opponents. in fact, at the time the factions or parties actually bought newspapers to attack their political opponents. so this rather expansive and generous view you have on what constitutes impeachment is a real problem. this morning one of you mentioned the constitutional convention and several of you mentioned, mr. davies and talked about the constitutional convention and it is a while since i read the minutes because i briefly reviewed because i remembered the discussion on the impeachment as being more
pervasive. a little bit more expanded. and on july 20th, 1787, it wasn't 1789, it was in 1787, july toth, benjamin franklin is discussing impeachment of a dutch leader and he talked specifically about what he would anticipate an impeachment to look like. he said it would be a regular and peaceable inquiry and we've taken place and if guilty then there is say punishment if acquitted then the innocent would be restored to the confidence of the public. that needs to be taken into account as well. so i look also and on may 17th, 2017, bbc article a discussion about impeachment, because president trump had fired james comey. alex whiting of harvard said it was hard to make the obstruction
of justice case with the sacking alone. the president has clear legal authority and it was proper or at least other reasons put forward for firing him and yet what we have here is this insistence by mr. gerhardt that this -- that was impeachable. that is -- that article i'll refer to you, may 17, 2017, bbc. what i'm suggesting to you today is a reckless bias coming in here. you're not fact witnesses. you're supposed to be talking about what the law is. but you came in with a preconceived notion and bias and i want to read one last thing here if i can find it. from one of our witnesses here. and it's dealing with something that was said in a maryland law review article in 1999.
and basically, if i could get to it, he's talking about this -- being critical of lack of self doubt and overwhelming arrogance on the part of law professors who come in and opine on impeachment. that would be you, mr. gerhardt, something like that. i can't find my quote or else i would give it to you. so what i'm telling you is that is what is on display in this committee today and with that i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. a little while ago mr. gaetz skaed that certain material be inserted into the record by unanimous consent and i ask the opportunity to review it and we have reviewed it and the material will be inserted without objection. mr. lieu. >> thank you, chairman nadler. i first swore an oath to the constitution when i was commissioned as an officer in the united states air force. and the oath i took was not to a
political party, or to a president or to a king. it was an oath to a document that has made america the greatest nation on earth. i never imagined we would now be in a situation where the president or commander-in-chief is accused of using his office for personal political gain that detrayed national security and hurt ukraine and helped our adversary russia. now the constitution provides a safeguard for when the president's abuse of power and betrayal of national interest are so extreme that it warrants impeachment and removal. it seems notable that of all of the offenses they could have included in the constitution, bribery is one of only two that are listed. so professor feldman, why were the framers choose bribery of all of the offenses they could have included in the list. >> bribery was the classic example for them of the high crime and misdemeanor of abuse of office for personal gain.
because if you take something of value while -- when you're able to effect an outcome for somebody else, you're serving your own interests and not the interests of the people. and that was commonly used in impeachment offenses in england and that is one of the reasons that they specified it. >> thank you. now earlier in this hearing, professor karlan made the point that bribery as envisioned by the framers was much broader than the narrow federal criminal statute of bribery and the reason is obvious. we're not in a criminal proceeding. we're not deciding whether to send president trump to prison. this is a civil action. it is an impeachment proceeding to decide whether or not we remove donald trump from his job. and so professor karlan, it is true, isn't it, that we don't have to meet the standards of a federal bribery statute in order to meet the standards for impeachment offense. >> that is correct. i'm sorry, that is correct.
>> thank you. yesterday law professor j.w. barrett who is a life long republican, former republican hill staffer and who advised a trump pretransition team made the following public statement about donald trump's conduct. the call wasn't perfect. he committed impeachable offenses including bribery. so professor karlan i'll show you two video clips of the witness testimony related to the president's with holding of the white house meeting and exchange for the public announcement of an investigation into his political rival. >> as i testified previously, mr. giuliani's requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a white house visit for president zelensky. >> by mid-july it is clear to me that the meeting president zelensky wanted was conditioned on the investigations of burisma and alleged ukrainian
interference in the 2016 u.s. elections. >> one more video clip related to the president's decision to withhold security assistance that congress had appropriated to ukraine and exchange for announcement of public investigation of his political rival. >> in the absence of any credible explanation for this suspension of aid, i later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 elections and burisma as mr. giuliani had demanded. >> professor karlan, does that evidence and the evidence of record tend to show that the president met the standards for bribery as envisioned in the constitution? >> yes, it does. >> i'm also a former prosecutor. i believe that the the record and that event would meet the standards for criminal bribery. the supreme court's decision in
mcdonnell was primarily about what constitutes an official act. the key finding was an official act must involve a formal exercise of governmental power on something specific pending before a public official. pretty clear we got that here. we have hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid that congress appropriated, the freezing and unfreezing of that aid is a formal exercise of governmental power. but we don't even have to talk about the crime of bribery. there is another crime here. which is the solicitation of federal -- of assistance of a foreign government in a federal election campaign that straight up violates the federal campaign act at 52 usc 530 is sand the reason michael cohen is sitting in prison right now. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. mr. mcclinton. >> thank you, mr. chairman. with a show of hands, how many on the panel voted for donald
trump in 2016? >> i don't think we're obligated to say anything about how we cast our ballot. >> just show of hands. >> i will not -- >> i think you made your positions, professor karlan -- >> the gentleman will suspend and suspend the clock too. >> i have a right to cast -- >> you may ask the question -- >> let me reask the question. >> the clock is stopped for the moment. the gentleman may ask the question. the witnesses don't have to respond. >> how many of you -- >> the gentleman's time is restored. >> how many of you voted for donald trump in to 16. show of hands? >> not raising our hands is not an indication of a cancanswer s >> this is predicated on rather disturbing legal doctrines. one democrat asserted that hearsay could be much better evidence than direct evidence. speaker pelosi said that the president's responsibility is to present evidence to prove his innocence. chairman schiff asserted and we heard a discussion from some of
your colleagues today that if you invoke legal rights in defense of criminal accusations ip so facto that is evidence of guilt and what does that mean to our american justice system if these doctrines take root in our country. >> what concerns me the most is that there are no limiting principles that i could see in some of the definitions my colleagues have put forward and more importantly some of the impeachable offenses i only heard about today. i'm not sure what attempted to abuse office means. or how you recognize it. but i'm pretty confident that nobody on this committee truly wants the new standard of impeachment to be betrayal of the national interest. if that is going to be the basis for impeachment -- how many republicans do you think would say that barack obama violated that standard.
that is exactly what james madison warned against. that you could create a vote of no confidence standard in our constitution. >> well then are we in danger of abusing our own power of doing enormous violence to our constitution by proceeding in this matter. my democratic colleagues are searching for pretempt for impeachment since before the president was sworn in on this panel professor karlan called the election illegitimate and implied impeachment was a remedy. professorfeldman said over a tweet he made in march of 2017 and with succumbing to the red queen, sentence first, verdict afterwards. >> this is part of the probe of how your view of the president can affect your assumptions, your assumptions and view of the
circumstantial evidence. i'm not saying that the evidence if it was fully investigated would come out one way or the other. what i'm saying is we're not dealing with the realm of the unknowable. you have to ask. we've burned two months in this house, two months, that you could have been in court seeking a subpoena for these witnesses. it doesn't mean you have to wait forever. but you could have gotten an order by now. you could have allowed the president to raise an executive privilege -- >> let me -- i need to go on here. the constitution says that the executive authority should be vested in a president of the united states. does that mean some of the executive authority or all of it? >> well, obviously there are kweks and balances on all of these but the executive authority obviously rests with the president. but these are all shares powers. and i don't begrudge the investigation of the ukraine controversy. i think it was a legitimate investigation. what i begrudge is how it has been conducted. >> i tend to agree with that. the constitution commands the president take care that the
laws be faithfully enforced and that does in effect make him the chief law enforcement officer in the federal government, does it not. >> it is commonly expressed that way. >> so if probable cause exists to believe a crime has been committed does the president have the authority to incline into that matter. >> i've been critical with the president in terms of crossing lines with the justice department and i think it has caused problem and it is not appropriate but we confuse what is inappropriate with what is impeachable. many people feel what the president has done is obnoxious, contemptible but it is not synonymous with impeachment. >> let me ask a final question. the national defense authorization act that authorized aid to ukraine requires secretary of state of defense and certify the government is taking actions to make defense institution reforms for purposes of decreasing corruption. is the president exercising that
responsibility when he inquires into a matter that could involve illegalities between american and ukraine officials. >> that is what i'm referring to as unexplored defenses. part of the bias when you look at the facts is you ignore defenses. you say those are just invalid but they are the defenses, the other side's account for actions and that hasn't been explored. >> the gentleman's time is expired. mr. raskin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the witnesses for their hard work on a long day. i want to thank them especially for invoking the american revolution which not only overthrew a king, but created the world's first anti-monarchal constitution and it makes me proud to spend a quarter century of my career before running for congress. and tom payne said in the monarchy the king is law. but in the democracies, the law will be king. but today the president advances
an argument saying that article two allows him to do whatever he wants. he not only said that but he believes that because he did something no other american president has ever done before. he used foreign military aid as a lever to coerce a foreign government to interfere in an american election to discredit an opponent into advanced his reelection campaign. professor karlan, what does the existence of the impeachment power tell us about the president's claim that the constitution allows him to do whatever he wants. >> it blows it out of the water. >> if he's right, and we accept this radical claim that he could do whatever he wants, all future presidents seeking reelection will be able to bring foreign governments into our campaigns to target their rivals and to spread propaganda. that is astounding. if we let the president get away with this conduct, every president can get away with it.
do you agree with that professor feldman. >> i do. richard nixon sent burglars to break into the democratic national committee headquarters but president trump just made a direct phone call to the president of a foreign country and sought his intervention in american election. >> so this is a big moment for america, isn't it? if elijah cummings were here, he would say listen up people. listen up. how we respond will determine the character of our democracy for generations. now professors feldman and karlan and gerhardt said there were three reasons in the founding for why we needed an impeachment power and broadly speaking it was an instrument of popular self-defense against a president behaving like a king and trampling the rule of law. but not just in the normal royal sense of showing cruelty and vanity and treachery and greed and afterer is and so on. but when presidents threaten the
basic character of our government in the constitution, that is what impeachment was about. and the framers invoked three specific kinds of misconduct so serious and egregious that they thought they warranted impeachment. first the president might abuse his power by corruptly using the office for personal, political or financial gain. professor feldman what is so wrong with that. if the president belongs to my party and i generally like him, what is so wrong with him using his office to advance his own political ambitions? >> because the president of the united states works for the people. and so if he seeks personal gain, he's not serving the interests of the people. he's rather serving the interests that are specific to him and that means he's abusing the office and doing things that he can only get away with because he's the president and that is necessarily subject to impeachment. >> well, second and third, the founders expressed fear that a president could sub vert our democracy by betraying his trust to foreign influence and
interference and also by corrupting the election process. professor karlan, you're one of the leading election law scholars, what role does impeachment play in protecting the integrity of our elections especially in an international context in which vladimir putin and other tyrants and despots are inter fearing to destabilize elections around the world. >> well, congress has enacted a series of laws to make sure that there isn't foreign influence in our elections. and allowing the president to circumvent that principle is a problem. and as i've already testified several times, america is not just the last best hope as mr. jefferys said but also the shining city on a hill and we can't be the shining city on a hill and promote democracy around the world if we're not promoting it here at home. >> now any one of these actions alone would be sufficient to impeach the president according to the founders. but is it fair to say that all three causes for impeachment explicitly contemplated by the
founders abuse of power, betrayal of our national security and corruption of aur our elections are present in this president's conduct. yes or no professor feldman. >> yes. >> and professor gerhardt. >> yes. >> and professor karlan. >> yes. >> and you all agree. and are you aware of any other president who has essentially triggered all three concerns that animated the founders? >> no. >> no. >> no as well. >> mr. chairman, it is hard to think of a more mon arcy sentiment that i can do whatever i want as president and i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mrs. lesko. >> i ask consent to insert into the letter i wrote and sent to you asking, calling on you to cancel any and all future impeachment hearings and outlining how the process -- >> with that objection, the
letter will be entered into the record. >> thank you. during an interview on msnbc "morning joe" on november 26th, 2018, chairman nadler outlined a three-prong test that he said would allow for a legitimate impeachment proceeding. now i quote chairman nadler's remarks, and this is what he said, there really are -- there really are three questions i think. first, has the president committed impeachable offenses? second, do those feenss rise to the gravity worth putting the country through the drama of impeachment and number three, because you don't want to tear the country apart, you don't want half of the country to say to the other half for the next 30 years we won the election, you stole it from us.
you have to be able to think at the beginning of the impeachment process. that the evidence is so clear of offenses so grave that once you've laid out all of the evidence a good fraction of the opposition, the voters, will will reluctantly add commit to themselves they had to do it. otherwise have a partisan impeachment which will tear the country apart. if you meet these three tasks then i think you do the impeachment and those were the words of chairman nadler. now let's see if chairman nadler's three-pronged test has been met. first, has the president committed an impeachable offense? no. the evidence and testimony has not revealed any impeachable offense. second, do those offenses rise to the gravity that is worth putting the country through the
drama of impeachment? again, the answer is no. there is nothing here that rises to the gravity that is worth putting the country through the drama of impeachment. and third, have the democrats laid out a case so clear that even the opposition has to agree absolutely not. you and house democrat leadership are tearing apart the country. you said the evidence needs to be clear. it is not. you said offenses need to be grave, they are not. you said that once the evidence is laid out that the opposition will admit they had to do it, that has not happened. in fact, polling and the fact that not one single republican voted on the impeachment inquiry resolution or on the schiff
report reveals the opposite is true. in fact, what you and your democratic colleagues have done is opposite of what you said had to be done. this is a partisan impeachment. and it is tearing the country apart. i take this all to mean that chairman nadler, along with the rest of the democratic caucus, is prepared to continue these entirely partisan, unfair proceedings and traumatize the american people all for political purpose. i think that's a shame. that is not leadership. that is a sham. and so i ask mr. turley, has chairman nadler satisfied his three-prong test for impeachment? >> well all due respect to the chairman, i do not believe those factors were satisfied.
>> thank you. and i want to correct something for the record as well. repeatedly today and other days democrats have repeated what was said in the text of the call. do me a favor, though, in the implying it was against president biden to investigate president biden, it was not. it was not. in fact, let me read what the transcript says. it says president trump, i would like to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it. i would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine. they say crowdstrike, i guess you have one of your own wealthy people. it says nothing about the bidens. so please stop referencing those two together and i yield back. >> gentle lady yields back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is a deeply grave moment that we find ourselves in. and i thought the threat to our
WitnessesRecordFactReportKnowledgeWe-sawMaterial-factHandSchiffPresidentMrMilitary-aidand conservatives don't want to be around each other and so they have to spread out, you may not see this from like the ivory towers of your law school, but it makes the actual people in this country -- >> when the president calls -- >> you don't get to interrupt me on this time. let me also suggest that when you invoke the president's son's name here. when you try to make a little joke out of referencing trump, that does not lend credibility to your argument. it makes you look mean. it makes you look like you're attacking someone's family. the minor child of the president of the united states. so let's see if we can get into the facts, to all of the witnesses. if you have personal knowledge of a single material fact in the schiff report, please raise your hand. and let the record reflect no personal knowledge of a single fact. and you know what? that continues on the tradition that we saw from adam schiff where ambassador taylor could not identify an impeachable offense. mr. kent never met with the
president. fiona hill never referenced anything regarding military aid. mr. hill was never aware of any nefarious activity. colonel vindman rejected that bribery was involved here. mr. morrison said there was nothing wrong on the call. the only direct evidence came from gordon sondland who spoke to the president of the united states and the president said i want nothing, no quid pro quo. and you know what? if wire tapping the political opponent's an impeachable offense -- >> gentleman's time is expired. >> professor feldman, let me begin by stating the obvious. it is not hearsay when the president tells the president of ukraine to investigate his political adversary, is it? >> it is not. >> it is not hearsay when the president then confesses on national television to doing it, is it? >> it is not. >> -- thaef they hear the president say he only cares about the investigations of his
political opponent, is it? >> no. that is not hearsay. >> and there's lots of other direct evidence in this 300-page report by the intelligence committee. professor, wrote on august 1st, 2014 in a piece called five myths about impeachment. one of the myths he was rejecting was that impeachment required a criminal offense. he wrote, and i quote, an offense does not have to be indictable. serious misconduct or a violation of public trust is enough, end quote. was professor turley right when he wrote that back in 2014? >> yes, i agree with that. >> now, next i'd move to professor karlan. at the constitutional convention, l. bridge jerry said foreign powers will meddle in our affairs and spare no expense to influence them. james madison said that impeachment was needed because a president might betray his trust
to a foreign power. can you elaborate on why the framers were so concerned about foreign interference, how they accounted for these concerns and how that relates the facts before this committee? >> so the reason that the framers were concerned about foreign interference i think is slightly different than the reason they are. they were concerned about it because we were such a weak country in 1789. we were small, we were poor, we didn't have an established navy. we didn't have an established army. today the concern is a little different, which is that it will interfere with us making the decisions that are best for us as americans. >> thank you, professor. there are three known instances of the president publicly asking a foreign country to interfere in our election. first in 2016 the president publicly hoped that russia would hack into the email of a political opponent, which they subsequently did. second, based on the call with president zelensky, we know he asked ukraine to investigate
against his chief political rival. and third the president then publicly urged china to begin its own investigation. professor feldman, how would it impact our democracy if it became standard practice for the president of the united states to ask a foreign government to interfere in our elections? >> it would be a disaster for the functioning of our democracy if our presidents regularly, as this president has done, asked foreign governments to interfere in our electoral process. >> i'd like to end from a powerful warning from george washington, to be constantly awake since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes. the conduct at issue is egregious and warrants a commensurate response. the president has only and repeatedly solicited foreign interference in our election. of that there is no doubt. this matters because inviting foreign meddling into our elections robs the american
people of their sacred right to elect their own political leaders. americans wait in long lines to exercise their right to vote and to choose their own leaders. this right does not belong to foreign governments. we fought and won a revolution over this. free and fair elections are what separate us from authoritarians all over the world as public servants and members of the house, we would be negligent in our duties if we let this blatant abuse of power go unchecked. we've heard a lot about hating this president. it's not about hating this president. it's about our love of country. it's about honoring the oath that we took to protect the constitution of this great country. so my final question is to professor feldman and to professor karlan, in the face of this evidence, what are the consequences if this committee and this congress refuses to muster the courage to respond to this gross abuse of power that undermine the national security of the united states, that undermine the integrity of our elections, and that undermine
the confidence that we have to have in the president to not abuse the power of his office? >> if this committee and this house fail to act, then you are sending a message to this president and to future presidents that it's no longer a problem if they abuse their power. it's no longer a problem if they invite other countries to interfere in our elections. it's no longer a problem if they put the interest of other countries ahead of ours. >> i agree with professorfeld man. i should say just one thing and i apologize for getting a little overheated a moment ago. but i have a constitutional right under the first amendment to give money to candidates. at the same time, we have a constitutional duty to keep foreigners from spending money in our elections. and those two things are two sides of the same coin. >> thank you. and with that i yield back. >> mr. johnson. >> thank you. i was struck this morning by the same thing as all my friends and colleagues on this side of the room. chairman nadler actually began this morning with the outrageous statement that the facts before us are undisputed.
of course, everyone here knows that that's simply not true. every person here, every person watching at home knows full well that virtually everything here is disputed from the fraudulent process and the broken procedure to the democrats' unfounded claims. and the full facts are obviously not before us today. we have been allowed no fact witnesses here at all. for the first time ever this committee, whistle the one in congress that has the actual jurisdiction over impeachment, is being given no access to the underlying evidence that adam schiff and his political accomplices claims supports this whole charade. this is just a shocking denial of due process. i want to say to our witnesses i am also a constitutional law attorney, and under normal circumstances i really would greatly enjoy an academic discussion with you about the contours of article 2 section 4. but that would be an utter waste of our time today. this whole production is a sham and a reckless path to a
predetermined political outcome. and i want you to know it's an outcome that was predetermined by our democrat colleagues a long time ago. the truth is house democrats have been working to impeach president donald j. trump since the day he took his oath of office. they have introduced four resolutions seeking to impeach the president. december 6th, 2017, 58 house democrats voted to begin impeachment proceedings. of course that was almost 20 months before the famous july 25th phone call with ukraine's president zelensky. and this other graphic up here is smaller, but it's interesting too. i think it's important to reiterate for everybody watching at home that of our 24 democrat colleagues and friends on the other side of the room today, 17 out of 24 have already voted for impeachment. so, i mean, let's be honest. let's not pretend that anybody cares anything about what's being said here today or the actual evidence or the facts as
congresswoman lofgren said we come with open minds. that's not happening here. so much for an impartial jury. several times this year leading democrats have frankly admitted in various interviews and correspondence that they really believe this entire strategy is necessary because, why? because they want to stop the president's re-election. even speaker pelosi said famously last month that, quote, it is dangerous to allow the american people to evaluate his performance at the ballot box. speaker pelosi has it exactly backwards. what is dangerous here is the precedent all this is setting for the future of our republic. i love what professor turley testified to this morning. he said this is simply not how the impeachment of a president is done. his rhetorical question for all of our colleagues on the other side is still echoing throughout this chamber. he asked you to ask yourselves where will this and where will you stand next time when this same kind of sham impeachment process is initiated against a president from your party? the real shame here today is
that everything in washington has become bitterly partisan, and this ugly chapter is not going to help that, it's going to make things really that much worse. president turley said earlier that we are now living in theira that was feared by our founders, what hamilton referred to as a period of agitated passions. i think that says it so well. this has indeed become an age of rage. president washington warned in his farewell address in 1796 that extreme partisanship would lead us to the ruins of public liberty. those were his words. this hyperpartisan impeachment is probably one of the most divisive and instructive things that we could possibly do to our american family. let me tell you what i heard from my constituents in multiple townhalls just two days ago. the people of this country are sick of this. they are sick of the politics of personal destruction. they are sick of this toxic atmosphere that is being created here. and they are deeply concerned about where all this will lead us in the years ahead. rightfully so. you know what the greatest
threat is? the thing that ought to keep every single one of us up at night? is the rapidly eroding trust of the american people in their institutions. one of the critical presuppositions and foundations of a self-governing people in a constitutional republic is they will maintain a basic level of trust in their institutions in the rule of law, in the system of justice, in the body of elected representatives, their citizen legislators in the congress. the greatest danger of this fraudulent impeachment production is not what happens this afternoon or by christmas or in the election next fall. the greatest danger is what this will do in the days of head to our 243-year experiment in self-govern, this pandora's box will have upon our nation six or seven years from now, a decadade from now and the ruins of public liberty that are being created by this terribly short-sighted exercise today. god help us. i field back. >> mr. swalwell. >> professor turley is a former
prosecutor. i recognize the defense attorney trying to represent their client, especially one who has very little to work with in the way of facts. and today you are representing republicans and the president. >> that's not my intention, sir. >> you have said that this case represents a dramatic turning point in federal impeachment precedent, the impact of which will shape and determine future cases. the house for the first time in the modern era asks the senate to remove someone for conduct for which he was never charged criminally and the impropriety of which has never been tested in a court of law. but that's actually not a direct quote from what you said today. it sounds a lot like what you've argued today. but that's a quote from what you argued as a defense lawyer in a 2010 senate impeachment trial. professor, did you represent federal judge thomas porteous? >> i did, indeed. and he was tried engaging in ranging in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with the trust and confidence placed in
him as a federal judge to engaging in a long-standing pattern of corrupt conduct that demonstrates his unfitness to serve as the united states district court judge. on each count the judge was convicted by at least 68 and up to 96 bipartisan senators. thankfully that senate did not buy your argument that a federal official should not be removed if he is not charged criminally. and respectfully, professor, we don't buy it either. but we are here because of this photo. it's a picture of president zelensky in may of this year standing on the eastern front of ukraine as a hot war was taking place and up to 15,000 ukrainians have died at the hands of russians. i'd like to focus on the impact of president trump's conduct, particularly with our allies and our standing in the world. this isn't just a president, as professor karlan has pointed out, asking for another foreign leader to investigate a political opponent.
it also is a president leveraging a white house visit as well as foreign aid. as the witnesses have testified, ukraine needs our support to defend itself against russia. i heard directly from witnesses how important the visit and aid were, particularly from ambassador taylor. >> these weapons and this assistance allows the ukrainian military to deter further incursions by the russians against ukrainian territory. if that further aggression were to take place, more ukrainians would die. >> professor karlan, does the president's decision to withhold from ukraine such important official acts, a white house visit and military aid, in order to pressure president zelensky relate to the framers' concerns about abuse of power and
entanglements with foreign nations? >> it relates to the abuse of power. the entanglements with foreign nations is a more complicated concept for the framers than for us. >> professor karlan, i think you'd agree we are a nation of immigrants? >> yes. >> today 50 million immigrants live in the united states. i am moved by one who recently told me as i was checking into a hotel about his romanian family. he came here from romania and said that every time he had gone home for the last 20 years he would always tell his family members how corrupt his country was that he had left and why he had come to the united states. he told me in such humiliating fashion that when he has gone home recently they now wag their finger at him and say you are going to lecture us about corruption? what do you think, professor karlan, does the president's conduct say to the millions of americans who left their families and livelihoods to come to a country that represents the
rule of law? >> i think it suggests that we don't believe in the rule of law. and i think it tells emerging democracies around the world not to take it seriously when we tell them that their elections are not legitimate because of foreign interference or their elections are not legitimate because of persecution of the opposing party. president bush announced that he did not consider the elections in belarus in 2006 to be legitimate for exactly that reason because they went after political opponents. >> thank you. and finally, professor feldman, professor turley has pointed out that we should go to the courts. but you would acknowledged that we have been in the courts for over six months, many times on matters that are already settled in the united states supreme court, particularly u.s. v nixon where the president seems to be running up the clock. that is right? >> yes, sir. >> thank you. and i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. in a moment we will recess for a
brief five minutes. first i ask everyone in the room to please remain seated and quiet while the witnesses exit the room. i also want to remind those in the audience that you may not be guaranteed your seat if you leave the hearing room at this time. at this time the committee will stand in a short recess. we have been watching as the questioning has become a little more fiery, a little more intense. each side using their side's witnesses to bolster their arguments. obviously the republicans a lot less to work with. congresswoman swalwell there just before this break undermining professor turley's
standard for that which was impeachable with a case that he was all too familiar with. people in the community were waiting for this moment. you predicted it a couple hours ago. >> yeah. you know, turley is in a very difficult position. he's been all over the map on this issue. and that's been pointed out now i think pretty effectively. there is still more that he has said that they can feedback to him, especially his position he took on impeachment with clinton. >> bill clinton. >> and some of the language he used around the impeachment trial that i was involved in where he represented a federal judge. and it's interesting that he is really saying there is not enough evidence when we all understand that the reason there is not enough evidence is another impeachable offense, which is obstruction of justice. >> yeah. >> obstruction of the ability of congress who has the sole power of the house to impeach that,
you know, that's the irony of this is his defense is the president has succeeded in avoiding impeachment by blocking your ability to get documents and witnesses. >> and we are lucky. we have been joined by andrew weissmann, former senior fbi official. we have made a list of the people who are so far refusing subpoenas or refusing to go and testify. they include mulvaney, the act s white house chief of staff, robert blair, senior adviser to the chief of staff. ambassador bolton has not been subpoenaed but he's waiting for a lawsuit of his deputy charles kupperman. john eisenberg, the person in the counsel's office who shoved this questionable sketchy dodgey transcript into a server where another witness testified. there are a dozen witnesses who, as you said, are possibly committing the additional impeachable offense of obstruction who could answer a lot of these concerns that republicans have. andrew?
>> for one, professor turley just got it wrong when he said they just didn't issue subpoenas. there were subpoenas that have been issued both for witnesses and for documents. so he's just wrong on that. it's not like the democrats didn't try. but this comes up at trials all the time as we were talking about on the break where the defense lawyer doesn't have a lot to work with and said they should've called more witnesses. well, that actually is the last thing they would want. this is the case where really do the republicans really want mike pompeo on the stand? i don't think so. and this is the kind of thing where you can be sure if he had something positive that he could say for the president, the president would be the first one to say hop on over and take the stand. >> that is -- there is no legal principle that the president understands enough to fight for that would keep him from sending someone to capitol hill who would make a good tv moment for him. i mean, to me, for a republican party that likes to talk about a lack of smoking guns, this is a list of 13 of them.
because these bodies would be sitting there if they could say anything good about donald trump. >> of course. >> why is it an argument that they are even making? >> because when you don't have a lot to argue, you say, well, let's see if there could be more evidence. but it's actually not logical. but it's because, one, that way you can kind af void talking about the evidence that is in the record because it's overwhelming to just say, gee, i wonder if there is more out there. well, you know what? the republicans could actually say, fine, come on in and testify. and it really is the case if there was anything useful, the republicans would have them there. >> i wish one of the members of the committee would take that list and say, you know, professor turley, are you aware we have subpoenaed mulvaney? professor turley, are you aware that we have subpoenaed, and are you aware the president has instructed them to ignore that lawful subpoena? in your experience in looking at impeachment, wouldn't that, in fact, be an impeachable offense?
i think that would be a really effective cross of turley reading this long list of subpoenaed witnesses that have just said forget it, we won't be involved. >> and the importance of these people. they answer all of the republican complaints. these are the first hand witnesses of what the president has admitted to doing, which is conditioning military aid in a meeting on investigations into biden. and i read some of them. it's mulvaney, john bolton, john eisenberg, michael ellis, preston wells griffith, charles kupperman, russell voigt, brian mccormack and a couple of other advisers to mike pompeo. do you think there is any chance that we will see these people? if donald trump is watching, he says, oh, yeah, get them there to defend me. >> the only way we will see any of these people is if they decide to do the right thing. and i don't see that happening. if you peel back what professor turley is actually arguing here since there is a ton of
evidence, to andrew's point, including direct evidence. he keeps talking circumstantial evidence is powerful evidence, but there's also direct evidence, as andrew said. so what he's really saying is unless you have a sitting president on tape or video saying the words i'm committing a crime now, then you don't have sufficient evidence for impeachment. and that would mean all of the things that lawyers do every day in court. they would never ever, no prosecutor would win a case. >> chuck, we have talked about this countless times that there are plenty of criminal cases and other kinds of cases brought with circumstantial evidence. it's a bogus standard and one that even the evidence doesn't support. >> in fact, the judge at the end of the trial will instruct the jury that you hear all kinds of evidence. sometimes it's circumstantial, sometimes it's direct evidence. >> sorry for that high-pitched buzz if that made your golden doodle wince. >> it wasn't me.
[ laughter ] i don't believe i'm responsible for that. but the judge will tell the jury you will hear two kinds of evidence, circumstantial, direct evidence. they are entitled to equal weight. the law makes no distinction. and you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, use your common sense. you don't have to suspend common sense when you walk into a courtroom. if things sound wrong, then they probably are wrong. common sense still matters. to maya's point, there's nothing wrong or bad or ill about circumstantial evidence. i think the analogy we used on your show once was that if you walk outside and see snow in your front lawn, it's pretty good evidence that it snowed. it's not direct evidence that it snowed because you didn't stay up all night to watch it. but it's circumstantial evidence, and it's compelling circumstantial evidence. >> but, andrew, i think where we are is you've got a republican party that would go on their favorite network and say nah-ah. not only does that not smell, but saying it snowed means you
hate america. the attacks on law professors were really stunning. >> look, what's disspiriting is that you look at what's going on and you sort of say to yourself i wonder if we are in a world where facts don't matter and the law doesn't matter. there is a responsible position that republicans could take that this doesn't rise to the level that he should be removed, given that there is an election coming up. i disagree with that. but that's a responsible position. but i think that professor karlan asked exactly the right question, which is if you think that he held up your congressionally approved military aid in order to have a political favor, which was having a bogus investigation on vice president biden, would you find that to be impeachable? i think if they can't answer that question, then we really are in a sort of post fact post law world. >> jason johnson, i love this point because what professor
karlan did is she is telling them to look in the mirror. you decide if you want to pull on your big boy, big girl pants and be congress. do you want your authority? do you want the money that you appropriate to go where it's legally obligated to go or don't you? and i think what she is saying is, yeah, i donated to democrats, i exercised my first amendment rights. by the way, your guy does that all day every day on twitter so i'm not sure why you are looking at me. but i think she made a strong argument that, don't look at me, look at yourselves. >> well, and, nicole, she not only made that argument. but she also said by the way your implication is you already decided too. because, remember, you shifted from first saying there was no quid pro quo quid pro quo to now saying well there was quid pro quo but we don't necessarily think that's impeachable. congressman buck was probably the only person. he's the only person who actually made a decent coherent functional point that i have seen so far from the republicans. when he went for a list of behaviors from nixon to kennedy
to obama, of all sorts of shady things that presidents do to influence elections. that actually is a compelling argument. if the republicans want to say, yeah, trump did this, but it falls in line with things that presidents have done in the past in order to sort of tip the scale in their favor, that is a much stronger or more reasonable and sort of ethical argument to make than claiming the president hasn't done anything. and that's not something that kennedy or obama or bush or anybody else could ever be accused of doing. but at least it was a substantive argument. i wish they had spent more time on that than the ridiculous antics of jim jordan and meat gaetz. >> i rarely get to disagree with you. but i was watching that and thinking so all they've got is oppo on mostly deceased american presidents, not so great. i think i would push back in a serious manner by saying that the witnesses held their ground on that question by saying absolutely that would have in
the definition we are applying today to trump's conduct, that would have justified looking at all of that conduct. >> well, yeah. and here's the thing. just because someone wasn't accused of robbing banks five times in the past doesn't mean they didn't rob a bank today. just because previous congresses did not take these crimes, did not take this behavior as seriously, doesn't mean that what donald trump is doing today is as much of a problem. and i also think this is really compelling and certain members have said this effectively. we now, unlike the past, have very clear evidence. we have the mueller report. we have investigations that foreign entities are trying to influence elections. so if you have a president who actively encourages china and russia and other countries to get involved in our elections and then uses its influence to get other countries involved in our elections, we can now say that this is an impeachable offense, where in the past it could've been something considered just oppo or dirty tricks. >> we are lucky to be joined now by garrett haake, our man in the room. garrett, can you take me inside the room? this does look like, as a former
staffer, i am noticing some of the staff work that's gone into the production. the audio/visual is all there. the testimony that underscores some of the arguments they are making is there. and to jason's point, the republicans that are sort of landing some blows seem prepared with arguments that whether they are good or bad, have at least been thought through. >> reporter: yeah. look, i mean, i think from the moment we got past the opening statements in the several parliamentary efforts that republicans made to slow down these proceedings, you saw that this is a choreographed production, the audio/visual elements, which, to the embarrassment of a lot of people, didn't work very well in the intel committee hearings when the fact witnesses were here. were all smooth today going back to some of those more powerful moments with bill taylor's testimony, the testimony of other witnesses. we were seen that all played out on video, the democrats in particular have been quite coordinated in their line of
questioning, as have republicans, at least coming with their research, given the fact especially that these witnesses, the names were not known of these witnesses until shortly before the hearing. everybody has done their homework here. and i think you can give credit a little bit to both sides that this has been a much more professionally run endeavor from doug collins compared to devin nunes staying focused on the topic at hand here and going through these questions engaging with at least their one witness here. i think the one thing that threw the hearing off the rails here a little bit was the one professor's joke about president trump's son was obviously something you saw matt gaetz seize on, come at her very hard for and almost immediately send a fundraising email to point out that he was out defending president trump and his family. republicans i think are going to try to make that a viral moment from this hearing to have something else to talk about coming out of this here. and, nicole, i will tell you that while this is going on in the house side, there's a lot of other impeachment related
activity happening across campus here, both senate republicans and senate democrats had impeachment trial-themed lunches today. the republicans had white house counsel pat cipollone in the room for their lunch. democrats got a briefing from chuck schumer and aides about how an impeachment trial would go. there is only a handful of senators left on the democratic side from the clinton trial. so, while this hearing is happening, the wheels are turning all over this complex getting ready for the next phase of this thing. i think it's very easy to see both from members that i have talked to on the house side and these factors happening on the senate side that this train is definitely moving, and i think moving again at a very quick pace. >> garrett, is there any sense that on the fact pattern, which it's just remarkable, we are in hour eight of testimony, as you said both sides came prepared, both sides called witnesses that showed up and are taking questions from democratic and republican members of the
committee. nobody has said that there is any sort of chink in the case laid out by the witnesses or even the case in the intel report last night. you were on air for hours like a news bombshell. is there any consternation that on the facts there is no defense for this president? >> reporter: well, look. republicans have continued to hit a couple of points on this. you heard it from some of their members here today that only gordon sondland of all the witnesses who were called during the fact-finding part of this had spoken directly with donald trump and sondland's point was that the president told him he didn't want anything from ukraine. republicans are going to go back to that again and again. one of the things that i'd be interesting to see, turley in his opening statement said he didn't find that call by president trump to be perfect. he said far from it. republicans have been very united since the minute really before this but especially since their minority report on the intel committee came out that they are going to stand with the
president on this. they are going to back up the idea that the president says this was a perfect call. the republican witness in front of them today does not agree that it's a perfect call. right. >> and it might be interesting to see if anyone tries to, you know, get into that space between the republican witness here and the republican talking points here. but, now, i mean, republicans have seized on i think what may be a better argument for them, which is the question of do you want to go down this road constitutionally? do you want to have impeachment based on this kind of information as opposed to what we saw with richard nixon or even andrew johnson, bill clinton? i am hearing jerry nadler in my ear. you better get back in there. garrett haake, thank you for spending time with us. we are going to listen in as this hearing gets underway. >> you already made that determination decision. and i will give you, for instance, until a recent colloquy, several of you consistently said that the president said during that july 25th conversation with president zelensky you said the president
said i would like you to do me a favor. but that is inaccurate. it was finally clear in that colloquy. and i'm going to read it to you. i would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot. one of you said, well, that's because the president was using royal we. here the president's talking about the country. that's what he's talking about. it's audacious to say it's using the royal we. that's royal all right. but it ain't the royal we. and i'll just tell you when you come in with a preconceived notion, it becomes obvious. one of you just said, mr. feldman, it was you who said, and i'm going to quote here, roughly i think this is exactly what you said though. until the call on july 25th i was an impeachment sceptic too. i don't know, i'm looking at an august 23rd, 2017 publication where you said if president donald trump pardons joe arpaio, it would be an impeachable
offense. he did ultimately pardon him. in 2017 the new york book review, review of books professor feldman said defamation by tweet is an impeachable offense. and i think of the history of this country. and i think if defamation or lible or slander were an impeachable offense, who routinely pilaried their political opponents. at the time the factions or parties actually bought newspapers to attack their political opponents. so this rather expansive and generous view you have on what constitutes impeachment is a real problem. this morning one of you mentioned the constitutional convention. and several of you mentioned mr. davies and you talked about the constitutional commission. it's been a while since i read the minutes so i just briefly
reviewed because i remembered the discussion on the impeachment as being more pervasive, a little bit more expanded. and on july 20th, 1787, it wasn't 1789 by the way. it was in 1787, july 20th, benjamin franklin is discussing impeachment of a dutch leader. and he talks specifically about what he would anticipate an impeachment to look like. he said it would be a regular impeachable inquiry. it would've taken place, and if guilty, then there'd be a punishment, if acquitted, then the innocent would be restored to the confidence of the public. that needs to be taken to account as well. so, i look also, and on may 17th, 2017, bbc article, which is a discussion about impeachment, because president trump had fired james comey.
alex whiting of harvard said it was hard to make the obstruction of justice case with this sacking alone. the president had clear legal authority and there was arguably proper or at least other reasons put forward for firing him. and yet what we have here is this insistence by ms. gerhart that that was impeachable. may 17th, 2017, bbc article. what i'm suggesting to you today is a reckless bias coming in here. you are not fact witnesses. you are supposed to be talking about what the law is, but you came in with a preconceived notion and bias. and i want to read one last thing here, if i can find it, from one of our witnesses here. and it's dealing with something
that was said in a maryland law review article in 1999. and basically if i can get to it, he is talking about this being critical of lack of self-doubt and an overwhelming arrogance on the part of law professors who come in and opine on impeachment. that would be you, mr. gerhart who said something like that. i can't find my quote or else i'd give it to you. and so what i am telling you is, is that has what's been on display and with that i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. a little while ago mr. gaetz asked that certain material be inserted into the record by unanimous consent. i ask for an opportunity to review it. we have reviewed it. the material will be inserted without objection. mr. wilieu.
>> i first swore an oath to the constitution when i was commissioned as an officer in the united states air force. and the oath i took was not to a political party or to a president or to a king. it was an oath for a document that has made america the greatest nation on earth. i never imagined we would now be in a situation where the president or commander in chief is accused of using his office for personal political gain that betrayed u.s. national security, hurt our ally ukraine and helped our adversary russia. now the constitution provides a safeguard for when the president's abuse of power and betrayal of national interests are so extreme that it warrants impeachment and removal. it seems notable that of all the offenses they could have included and enumerated in the constitution, bribery is one of only two that are listed. so, professor feldman, why would the framers choose bribery of all of the powerful offenses they could have included to list? >> bribery was the classic
example for them of the high crime and misdemeanor of abuse of office for personal gain. because if you take something of value when you're able to effect an outcome for somebody else, you are serving your own interests and not the interests of the people. and that was commonly used in impeachment offenses in england, and that's one of the reasons that they specified it. >> thank you. now earlier in this hearing, professor karlan made the point that bribery, asned by the framers, was much broader than the narrow federalot in a proceeding. we are not deciding whether to send president trump to prison. this is a civil action. it's an impeachment proceeding to decide whether or not we remove donald trump from his job. and so, professor karlan, it's true, isn't it, that we don't have to meet the standards of a federal bribery statute in order
to meet the standards for an impeachable offense? >> that's correct. i'm sorry. that's correct. >> thank you. yesterday scalia law professor j.w. verret who is a lifelong republican, who advised the trump pre-transition team made the following public statement about donald trump's conduct. the call wasn't perfect. he committed impeachable offenses including bribery. so, professor karlan, i am now going to show you two video clips of the witness testimony related to the president's withholding of the white house meeting in exchange for the public announcement of an investigation into his political rival. >> as i testified previously, mr. giuliani's requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a white house visit for president zelensky. by mid-july it was becoming clear to me that the meeting president zelensky wanted was conditioned on the
investigations of burisma, an alleged ukrainian interference in the u.s. 2016 elections. >> and i'll show you one more video clip relating to the president's decision to withhold security assistance that congress had appropriated to ukraine in exchange for announcement of public investigation of his political rival. >> in the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, i later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 elections and burisma as mr. giuliani had demanded. >> mr. karlan, does that evidence as well as the evidence in the record tend to show that the president met the standards for bribery as envisioned in the constitution? >> yes, it does. >> i'm also a former prosecutor. i believe the record and the
evidence would also meet the standards for criminal bribery. the supreme court's decision was primarily about what constitutes an official act. their key find wag it must exercise a formal governmental power before a public official. pretty clearly got that here. we have hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid that congress specifically appropriated. the freezing and unfreezing of that aid is a formal exercise of governmental power. but we don't even have to talk about the crime of bribery. there's another crime here, which is the solicitation of federal -- assistance of a government -- at 52 usc 3101. and, oh, by the way that also gives one reason why michael cohen is sitting in prison right now. i yield back. >> mr. mcclintock.
>> thank you, mr. chairman. could i be, just with a show of hands, how many on the panel actually voted for donald trump in 2016? >> i don't think we are obligated to say anything about how we cast our ballots. >> just show of hands. >> i will not -- >> i think you have made your positions, professor karlan. >> we will suspend the clock too. >> i have a right to cast a ballot. >> let me rephrase the question. how many of you support it? >> the gentleman may ask the question. the witnesses don't have to respond. >> how many of you supported donald trump in 2016? show of hands. >> not raising our hands is not an indication of an answer, sir. >> professor turley, this impeachment inquiry has been predicated on some rather disturbing legal doctrines. one democrat asserted that hearsay can be much better evidence than direct evidence. speaker pelosi and others who have said that the president's responsibility is to present evidence to prove his innocence.
chairman schiff, we heard a discussion from some of your colleagues today, that if you invoke legal rights in defense of criminal accusations ipso facto, that's an obstruction of justice and innocence of guilt. what does it mean to our american justice system if these doctrines take root in our country? >> well, what concerns me the most is that there are no limiting principles that i can see in some of the definitions that my colleagues have put forward. and more importantly some of these impeachable offenses i only heard about today. i'm not too sure what attempting to abuse office means or how you recognize it. but i am pretty confident that nobody on this committee truly wants the new standard of impeachment to be betrayal of the national interest. that that is going to be the basis for impeachment. how many republicans do you
think would say that barack obama violated that standard? >> that's exactly what james madison warned you against is that you would create effectively a vote of no confidence standard in our constitution. >> well, then are we in danger of abusing our own power of doing enormous violence? my democratic colleagues have been searching for a pretext for impeachment since before the president was sworn in on this panel, professor karlan called president trump's election illegitimate in 2017. she implied impeachment was a remedy. professor feldman advocated impeaching the president over a tweet that he made in march of 2017. that's just seven weeks after his inauguration. are we in danger of succumbing to the maxima of lewis carol's red queen, sentence first, verdict afterwards? >> this is part of the problem of how your view of the president can affect your assumptions, your inferences,
your view of circumstantial evidence. i am not suggesting that the evidence, if it was fully investigated, would come out one way or the other. what i am saying is that we are not dealing with the realm of the unknowable. you have to ask we have burned two months in this house, two months that you could have been in court seeking a subpoena for these witnesses. it doesn't mean you have to wait forever. but you could have gotten an order by now. you could have allowed the president to raise an executive privilege. >> i need to go on here. the constitution says the executive authority shall be vested in a president of the united states. does that mean some of the executive authority or all of it? >> well, obviously there's checks and balances on all of these. but the executive authority primarily obviously rests with the president. but these are all shared powers. and i don't begrudge the investigation of the ukraine controversy. i think it was a legitimate investigation. what i begrudge is how it has
been conducted. >> well, i tend to agree with that. the constitution commands the president take care that the laws be faithfully enforced. that does in effect make him the chief law enforcement officer in the federal government, does it not? >> that's commonly expressed. >> so if probable cause exists to believe a crime's been committed, does the president have the authority to inquire into that matter? >> he has. but this is where i think we would depart. i have been critical of the president in terms of crossing lines with the justice department. i think that has caused considerable problems. i also don't believe it's appropriate. but we often confuse what is inappropriate with what's impeachable. many people feel that what the president has done is obnoxious, contemptible. >> contemptible's not synonymous with impeachment. >> the national defense authorization act that authorized aid to the ukraine requires the secretary of defense that the government of ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense
institutional reforms, among other things, for purposes of decreasing corruption. is the president exercising that responsibility when he inquires into a matter that could involve illegalities between american and ukrainian officials? >> that's what i'm referring to as unexplored defenses. part of the bias when you look at these facts is you just ignore defenses. you say well those are just invalid. but they are the defenses. they are the other sides' accounts for actions and that's what hasn't been explored. >> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. raskin? >> i want to thank the witnesses for their hard work on a long day. i want to thank them especially for invoking the american revolution, which not only overthrew a king but created the world's first anti-monarchical constitution. tom payne said that in the
monarchies the king is law. but in the democracies the law will be king. but today the president advances. he says that article 2 allows him to do whatever he wants. he not only says that but he believes it because he did something no other american president has ever done before. he used foreign military aid as a lever to coerce a foreign government to interfere in an american election to discredit an opponent into advance his relaction campaign. professor karlan, what does the existence of the impeachment power tell us about the president's claim that the constitution allows him to do whatever he wants? >> it blows it out of the water. >> if he's right and we accept this radical claim that he can do whatever he wants, all future presidents seeking re-election will be able to bring foreign governments into our campaigns to target their rivals. and to spread propaganda.
that's astounding. if we let the president get away with this conduct, every president can get away with it. do you agree with that, professor feldman? >> i do. richard nixon sent burglars to break into the democratic national committee headquarters but president trump just made a direct phone call to the president of a foreign country and sought his intervention in an american election. >> so this is a big moment for america, isn't it? if elijah cummings were here, he would say, listen up, people. listen up! how we respond will determine the character of our democracy for generations. now, professors feldman, karlan, and gerhardt tell us there were three dominant reasons invoked at the founding for why we needed an impeachment power. broadly speaking, it was an instrument of popular self-defense against a president behaving like a king and trampling the rule of law. but not just in the normal royal sense of showing cruelty and vanity and treachery and greed and avarice and so on.
but when presidents threaten the basic character of our government and the constitution, that's wh that's what impeachment was about. and the framers invoked three specific kinds of misconduct. so serious and egregious that they thought they warranted impeachment. first, the president might abuse his power by corruptly using his office for personal, political, or financial gain. well, professor feldman, what's so wrong with that? if the president belongs to my party and i generally like him, what's so wrong with him using his office to advance his own political ambitions? >> because the president of the united states works for the people. and so if he seeks personal gain, he's not serving the interests of the people. he's rather serving the interests that are specific to him. and that means he's abusing the office and he's doing things that he can only get away with because he's the president. and that is necessarily subject to impeachment. >> well, second and third. the founders express fear that a president could subvert our
democracy by betraying his trust to foreign influence and interference. and also, by corrupting the election process. professor karlan, you're one of america's leading election law scholars. what role does impeachment play in protecting the integrity of our elections, especially in an international context? in which vladimir putin and other tyrants and des pits are interfering to destabilize around the world. >> enacted a series of laws to make sure there isn't interference in our elections and allowing president to circumvent that principle is a problem. and as i've already testified several times, america is not just the last best hope as mr. jeffries said. but it's also the shining city on the hill. and we can't be a shining city on the hill and promote democracy around the world if we're not promoting it here at home. >> any one of these actions alone would be sufficient to impeach the president according
to the founders. but is it fair to say that all three causes for impeachment explicitly contemplated by the founders. abuse of power, betrayal of our national security, and corruption of our elections. are present in this president's conduct? yes or no, professor feldman? >> yes. >> and professor gerhardt? >> yes, sir. >> and professor karlan? >> yes. >> you all agree. okay. and are any of you aware of any other president who has essentially triggered all three concerns that animated the founders? >> no. >> no. >> no, as well. >> mr. chairman, it's hard to think of a more monarchical sentiment than i can do whatever i want as president. and i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. ms. lesko. >> thank you, mr. chair. mr. chair, i ask unanimous consent to insert into the record a letter i wrote and sent to you asking, calling on you, to cancel any and all future impeachment hearings.
and outlining how the process -- >> the letter will be entered into the record. >> thank you. during an interview, mr. chairman, on msnbc's "morning joe," on november 26th, 2018, chairman nadler outlined a three-prong test. that he said would allow for a legitimate impeachment proceeding. now, i quote chairman nadler's remarks. and this is what he said. there really are -- there really are three questions, i think. first, has the president committed impeachable offenses? second, do those offenses rise to the gravity that's worth putting the country through the drama of impeachment? and number three, because you don't want to tear the country apart, you don't want half of the country to say to the other half for the next 30 years, he
won -- we won the election. you stole it from us. you have to be able to think at the beginning of the impeachment process that the evidence is so clear of offenses so grave that once you've laid out all of the evidence, a good fraction of the opposition, the voters, will reluctantly admit to themselves they had to do it. otherwise, you have a partisan impeachment, which will tear the country apart. if you meet these three tests, then i think you do the impeachment. and those were the words of chairman nadler. now, let's see if chairman nadler's three-pronged test has been met. first, has the president committed an impeachable offense? no. the evidence and testimony has not revealed any impeachable offense.
second, do those offenses rise to the gravity that's worth putting the country through the drama of impeachment? again, the answer is no. there is nothing here that rises to the gravity that's worth putting the country through the drama of impeachment. and third, have the democrats laid out a case so clear that even the opposition has to agree? absolutely not. you and house democrat leadership are tearing apart the country. you said the evidence needs to be clear. it is not. you said offenses need to be grave. they are not. you said that once the evidence is laid out, that the opposition will admit they had to do it. that has not happened. in fact, polling and the fact that not one single republican
voted on the impeachment inquiry resolution or on the schiff report, reveal the opposite is true. in fact, what you and your democratic colleagues have done is opposite of what you said had to be done. this is a partisan impeachment and it is tearing the country apar apart. i take this all to mean that chairman nadler along with the rest of the democratic caucus is prepared to continue these entirely partisan, unfair proceedings. and traumatize the american people all for a political purpose. i think that's a shame. that's not leadership. that's a sham. and so i ask mr. turley, has chairman nadler satisfied his three-pronged test for impeachment?
>> with all due respect to chairman, i do not believe that those -- those factors were satisfied. >> thank you. and i want to correct something for the record, as well. repeatedly, today and other days, democrats have repeated what was said in the text of the call. do me a favor, though. and they imply it was against president biden to -- to investigate president biden. it was not. it was not. in fact, let me read what the transcript says. it says president trump, i would like you to do as a favor though because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it. i would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine. they say crowdstrike. i guess you have one of your own wealthy people. it says nothing about the bidens. so please stop referencing those two together and i yield back. >> gentle lady yields back. >> thank you, mr. chairman.
SomeoneFamilyPresidentWitnessesRecordFactsHandAl-lKnowledgeUnited-statesMaterial-factReportsoon reminded us his story wasn't over. but still, few could have imagined barely a year after the accident we'd hear this >> do you think you can win the masters this week? >> i do. >> reporter: at times today, he played like it, almost making a hole-in-one. >> we were all wondering, you know, what would this tiger look like after having to put his body back together everything seemed to be working order >> reporter: the return, like the man, wasn't perfect, but the best stories never are. >> see someone fight like tiger, for me personally just gives me hope. >> reporter: tonight an inspiration and incredible comeback in full swing morgan chesky, nbc news, augusta. and that is "nightly news" for this thursday. thank you for watching, everyone i'm lester holt. please take care of yourself and each please take care of yourself and each other.
ReporterTimesAmericaWasnt-overAccidentHole-in-oneMastersItFewOneTigerEverythingis he had 20 nfl seasons when he was the starting quarterback and he was in the super bowl x times. he won seven of those. just to juxtapose that to aaron rodgers who might win the mvp this year, he's been playing for 15 seasons, he's been the start of first 15 seasons, he's been in the super bowl once. he wasn't erfect, the super bowl once. he wasn't perfect. across _ the super bowl once. he wasn't perfect, across those _ the super bowl once. he wasn't perfect, across those three - the super bowl once. he wasn't - perfect, across those three decades of winning super bowls we had deflate gate, did it way that he was banned for four games for a legally deflating those balls in a playoff game. i know that was overturned on a legal technicality. but he is everything else just ask opposite was being a legend of the game. right. that feels like a very long time ago. that was in a different era of his career. there is literally multiple errors of the brady career. as time is going on deflate gate as been minimised in become kind of a joke as it compares
NflSeasonsAaron-rodgersSuper-bowl-xSevenQuarterbackMvp20Deflate-gateSuper-bowlStartEthe-super-bowlfinal lynn tonight, american skier jessie dig gin skier jessie digs at the top of her game, but it's much more than about medals. >> reporter: it was one of the highlights of the 2018 games. >> jessie diggins, delivering a landmark moment! >> reporter: jessie diggins winning america's first ever gold medal in cross-country skiing. just path to victory had been. >> i felt nothing i ever did was good enough. when i wasn't perfect, i would try to numb toes emotions and stress through my eating disorder, which was bulimia. >> reporter: it developed when jessie was a young skier in minnesota. >> when i heard my mom crying and realized that she was checking my pulse in the middle of the night, that was a real low for me. >> reporter: finally, the loss of her grandfather pushed jessie to embrace
TopFinal-lynn-tonightAmericanSkierGameSkier-jessie-dig-ginReporterGamesMedalMedalsCross-country-skiingHighlightsthe home fires burning. >> they were an apart for long, about a year after the divorce, they had a chance encounter on the beach. >> i had just broken up somebody, and i said, you know, if i'm going to find a nice man, he's going to be on the beach with the dog. i look over, there's his dog, and his daughter. i thought, god, that's not funny. >> j.j. must have been happy to see her, two days later she was surprised to find him in the driveway. >> i said, what do you doing here? i think we should get back together. that was it. we got back together. >> they never remarried, but once back together, they called each other husband and wife, they wore wedding rings, they shared bank accounts. wasn't perfect, of course. what life is? after 17 years on the force, a serious car accident left j.j. in too much pain to work on patrol. so he retired and became an
SomebodyChanceOn-the-beachDivorceHome-fires-burningJjManDaughterDogGodTwoDrivewayof course, absolutely, yeah. ..is going to decide if there is blame and where it should be apportioned. that absolutely wasn't myjob. it certainly wasn't perfect prior to 2017 and it's something that should now have been improved. i was looking for honesty through it all, really, and i felt he was being as honest as he possibly could. the only way to make things better is to admit that there's mistakes that need adressing. again, i keep hearing off everybody "lessons learnt" but, you know, we shouldn't lose eight—year—old children to make that point. the inquiry is also looking at how the emergency services responded on the night. greater manchester police were running the initaljoint response. however, i would also like to acknowledge and apologise for failings by greater manchester police. the inquiry has heard there was a catastrophic
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