Professor. Here is the hearing in its entirety. Order. House will come to object. E the right to i am furnishing you with the subject signed by all republicans. Pursuant to clause, i am furnishing you with a letter signed by all the members of the committee can i request that you set this date before the Committee Votes on any articles of impeachment. I withdraw my reservation. Later. Ill confer on this hearing wethe first to housecting pursuant resolution 660. Here is have the committee will proceed for this hearing will openingill make it an statement and then i will rubberneck just recognized a member for making an Opening Statement. I now recognize myself for no Opening Statement. For anve the time Opening Statement. The facts before us are undisputed. President trump called roses was zelensky andent asked him for a favor. That was a concerted effort to solicit an advantage in the next. Lection to obtain that private political advantage, President Trump elected from the newly president and withheld vital military aid from an ally. Congress found out about this game and present them took extraordinary steps to cover up his efforts and withhold evidence from the investigators and when witnesses disobeyed him , when professionals can forward, he attacked them promising they would quote go through some things. Not the first time that present trump has engaged in this pattern of conduct. Governmente russian engaged in a campaign of interference in our elections. In the words of special counsel robert mueller, the russian government believed it would sit benefit and worked to secure that outcome. Present trump welcomed that interference. With all that in realtime when present trump asked to pack political moments. The very next day, they tempted to hack that political opponent. Present trump took extraordinary steps to obstruct the investigation, including ignoring subpoenas, ordering the creation of false records and publicly attacking and intimidating witnesses. The level of instruction is. Ithout prejudice no other president has vowed to fight all the subpoenas as present from promise. Impeachment proceedings, resonates and produced dozens of recordings. Clinton present physically gave his life. Present trump has refused to produce a single document and ordered every witness not to testify. The impeachment inquiry has moved back to the Inquiry Committee and as we review the facts, the presence patterns of behavior becomes clear. President trump welcomed foreign interference in the 2016 election. He demanded it for the 2020 election. In both cases, he got caught and in both cases he did everything in his power to prevent the American People from learning the truth about his conduct. July 24th, the special counsel testified before this committee. He implored us to see the nature of the threat to our country. Quote, over the course of my career, i have seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The russian governments efforts to interfere in our elections is among the most serious. This deserves the attention of every american. Closed quote. Ignoring that warning, President Trump called the ukrainian president the very next day to ask him to investigate the president s political opponent. As we exercise our responsibility to determine whether this pattern of behavior constitutes an Impeachable Offense, its important to place President Trumps conduct into historical context. Since the founding of our country, the house of representatives has impeached only two president s. A third was on his way to impeachment when he was when he resigned. This committee hasnt voted to impeach two president s. We have voted to impeach one resident for of something they congressional investigation. To the extent that President Trumps conduct fits these categories, theres precedent for recommending impeachment here. Never before in the history of the republic have we been forced to consider the conduct of a president who has solicited favors from a Foreign Government. Never before has a president engaged in the course of conduct, that included all of the acts that most concerned the framers. Forced to consider the conduct of a president who has solicited favors from a Foreign Government. Never before has a president engaged in the course of conduct, that included all of the acts that most concerned the framers. The patriots who founded our country were not fearful men. They fought a war. They witnessed terrible violence. They overthrew a king. It is a meant to frame our constitution, those patriots still feared one threat above all, foreign interference in our elections. Al they were deeply worried we would lose our new found liberty, not through a war. If a foreign army were to invade wed see that coming, but from corruption from within. In the early years of the republic they asked each of us to be vigilant to that threat. Washington warned us quote, to be constantly awake since history had experienced proved foreign influence is one of the foes of republican government. As often as elections happen, the danger of foreign influence recurs. Hamiltons warning was more specific and more dire. In the federalist papers he wrote the most deadly adversaries of republican government, end quote, would certainly attempt to quote, raise a creature of their own for the chief magestricy of the government. What kind of president would do that . How will we know if the president has betrayed his country in this manner . How will we know if hes betrayed his country in this manner for petty personal gain . Hamilton had a response for that as well. He wrote when a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in fo fortune, bold in his temper, known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty, when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity and join the cry of danger to liberty to take every opportunity of embarrassing the general government and bringing it under suspicion, it may justly be suspected his object is to throw things into confusion, that he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind. Ladies and gentlemen, the storm in which we find ourselves today was set in motion by President Trump. I do not wish this moment on the country. It is not a pleasant task we undertake. We have taken an oath to protect the constitution and the facts are clear. President trump did not seek to benefit from foreign interference in our elections, he directly and explicitedly invited foreign interference in our elections. He used the powers of his office to try to make it happen. He sent his agents to make clear that this is what he wanted and demanded. He was willing to compromise our security and his office for personal political gain. It does not matter that President Trump got caught and ultimately released the funds that ukraine so desperately needed. It matters that he enlisted a Foreign Government to intervene in our elections to the first class. It does not matter that President Trump felt that these investigations were unfair to him. It matters that he used this office not merely to defend himself but to obstruct investigators at every turn. Were all aware that the next election is looming, but we cannot wait for the election to address the present crisis. The integrity of that election is one of the very things at stake. The president has shown us his pattern of conduct. If we do not act to hold him in check now, President Trump will almost certainly try again to solicit interference in the election for his personal political gain. Today we will begin our conversation where we should, with the text of the constitution. We are empowered to recommend the impeachment of President Trump to the house if we find that he has committed treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemean misdemeanors. Our Witness Panel will help us to guide that conversation. In a few days, well reconvene and hear from the committees that work to uncover the facts before us. And when we apply constitution to those facts, if it is true that President Trump has committed an Impeachable Offense or multiple Impeachable Offenses, then we must move swiftly to do our duty and charge him accordingly. I thank the witnesses for being here today. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the judicial mr. Chairman. Mr. Collins for his Opening Statement. Mr. Chairman. May i make a parliamentary inquiry before you the gentleman is not in order for a parliamentary inquiry. I recognize the Ranking Member for an Opening Statement. I thank the chairman, and it is interesting that, again, parliamentary inquiry is some of the things i want to discuss today because were sort of coming here today in a different arena. For everybody who has not been here before, its a new room, new rules. Its a new month. We even have got cute little stickers for our staff so we can come in because we want to make this important and this is impeachment. Because weve done such a terrible job of it in this committee before. But whats not new is basically whats just been reiterated by the chairman. Whats not new is the facts. Whats not new is its the same sad story. Whats interesting before i get into my part of my Opening Statement. What was just said by the chairman. We went back to a redo of mr. Mueller. Were also saying, quoting him saying the attention of the American People should be on foreign interference. I agree with him completely, except i guess the American People did not include the Judiciary Committee. Because we didnt take it up. We didnt have hearings. We didnt do anything to delve deeply into this issue. We passed election bills, but did not get into the in depth part of what mr. Mueller talked about. Taking his own report and having hearings about that. We didnt do it. I guess the American People doesnt include the House Judiciary Committee. You know, we also just heard an interesting decision. Were going to have a lot of interesting discussions today about the constitution and other things. But we also talk about the founders. Whats interesting is the chairman talked a lot about the founders from the quotes. This is why we have the hearing. He didnt quote was the founders being really concerned about political impeachment. Because you just dont like the guy. You didnt like him since november of 2016. The chairman has talked about impeachment since last year when he was elected chairman. On november 17th before he was sworn in as chairman. Dont tell me this is about new evidence and new things and new stuff. We may have a new hearing room. We may have chairs that arent comfortable, but this is nothing new, folks. This is sad. So what do we have here today . You know what im thinking . I looked at this and what is interesting is theres two things that have become very clear. This impeachment is not really about facts. If it was i believe the other committees would have sent over recommendations for impeachment. Theyre putting it on this committee because if it goes badly i guess they want to blame adam schiffs committee and others want to blame this committee. Theyre drafting articles. Dont be fooled. Theyre getting ready for this. We went after this with ukraine, mueller, emaememoluments. The clock and the calendar, if you want to know what they value, you look at their checkbook and their calendar, you know what they value. Thats what this committee values. Time. They want to do it before the end of the year. Why . Because the chairman said it just a second ago. Were scared of the elections next year. Were scared of the elections that well lose again. So we got to do this now. The clock and the calendar are whats driving impeachment, not the facts. When we understand this, thats what the witnesses will say today. What do we have here today . What is really interesting over the today and for the next few weeks. America will see why most people dont go to law school. No offense to our professors. But, please, really . Were bringing you in here to testify on stuff most of you have already written about, all fours. For opinions we already know out of the classrooms that maybe youre getting ready for finals in to discuss things you probably havent even had unless youre really good on tv or watching the hearings for the last couple weeks, you couldnt possibly actually digested the adam schiff report from yesterday or the republican response in any real way. We can be theoretical all we want, but the American People is really going to look at this and say huh . What are we doing . Theres no fact witnesses planned for this committee. Thats an interesting thing. Theres no plan at all except next week an ambiguous hearing a presentation from the the other committee that sent us the report and Judiciary Committee, which im not still sure what they want us to present on. And nothing else. No plan. I asked the chairman before we left for thanksgiving to stay in touch, lets talk about what we have. History will shine a bright light on us starting this morning. Crickets. Until i asked for a witness the other day and lets just say that didnt go well. Theres no whistleblower. By the way, it was proved today that hes not or shes not afforded the protection of identity. Its not in the statute. Its something that was discussed by adam schiff. We also dont have adam schiff who wrote the report. He said yesterday im not going to ill send staff to do that. Hes not going to, but to me if he was going to hed come begging to us. You know, heres the problem. It sums it up simply like this. Just 19 minutes after noon on Inauguration Day 2017 the Washington Post ran the headline the campaign to impeach the president has begun. A tweet from january 2017, the coup has started. The impeachment will follow. In may of this year, al green said if we dont impeach the president hell get reelected. Do you know whats happening . Here we go. Whi why did everything i say about no fact witnesses for the Judiciary Committee, we didnt even find your names out until less than 48 hours ago. I dont know what were playing hide the ball on, its pretty easy what youre going to say. We cant get that straight. What are we doing for the next two weeks . I have no idea. An ambiguous hearing on the report. If were not going to have fact witnesses then were the rubber stamp hiding out back. What a disgrace to this committee. To have a committee of impeachment simply take from other entities and rubber stamp it. You say why did the things i say matter about fact witnesses and actually having a due process . By the way, just a couple months ago, the democrats got all sort of dressed up if you would and said were going to have due process protection for the president in good fairness throughout this. This is the only committee in which the president would even have a possibility, but no offense to you, the law professors. The president has nothing to ask you. Youre not going to provide anything he cant read. And his attorneys have nothing else. Put witnesses in here that can be fact witnesses who can be crossexamined. Thats fairness and every attorney on this panel knows that. This is a sham. You know, what i also see here is quotes like this. There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or impeachment supported by a Major Political parties or imposed by another. It will produce bitterness in politics for years to come and will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions. American people are watching, theyll not forget. You have the votes. You may have the muscle but you do not have legitimacy of a National Consensus or constitutional impairment. The coup detat will go down in infamy in the history of the nation. How about this one. I think the key point is the republicans are running a railroad job with no attempt at fair procedure. Today when the democrats offered amendments, motions in committee to say we should first adopt standards so we know what were dealing with, standards for impeachment that was voted down or ruled out of order. When we say the important thing is to start looking at the question before we have a vote with no inquiry, that was voted down. Thats all we discussed. The essential question, here it is, to set up a fair process as to whether the country put this country through an impeachment proceeding, that was ruled out of order. The republicans refused to let us discuss it. Those are all, chairman nadler, before he was chairman. I guess 20 years makes a difference. Its an interesting time. Were having a factless impeachment. You heard a one sided presentation of facts about this president. Today well present the other side if we should get so conveniently left out. Remember, fairness does dictate that. Maybe not here because were not scheduling anything else. I have a democratic majority who has poll tested what they think the president did. Thats not following the facts. We just a deep seated hatred of a man who came to the white house and did what he said he was going to do. The most amazing question i got in the first three months of this gentlemans presidency was put forward was this, can you believe he is putting forward those ideas . Yes, he told you. He did what he said. This will also be one of the first impeachments, the chairman mentioned there was two of them. The one before he resigned, him and clinton. Which the facts even by democrats and republicans were not really disputed. In this one their counterindicative of each other. There are no set facts here. There is not anything that presents an impeachment here except a president carrying out his job in the way the constitution sa