How you prove that . Guest sure. As a former prosecutor we dont look at individual items of evidence in isolation. Look at everything in context. So in this case donald trump had halted military aid to ukraine that congress specifically approved because it is going to help our National Security interest, ukraine was pushing back against one ofy our adversaries and then a week later donald trump calls the ukrainian leader and lead us to ukraine leader raises issue of military aid, trump request a paper. A actually two favors, one of which is to investigate biden. What a a quid pro quo would mean is i hold your military aid company requesting you to do me a favor and whats implied is if you dont do this favor, you are not getting this money. Host what, this was welcomed by those released yesterday that you read and seen, where is a leading you next in terms of who you want to talk to about it . Guest the whistleblower complaint was very detailed and what was stunning about is was the whistleblower complaint identified that call between donald trump and ukraine leader, all the elements and that was verified by the actual raw transcript the white house put up. That means a lot of credibility to the whistleblower complaint. In addition the Inspector General trumpmp appoint himself being the complete urgent and credible. The whistleblower complaint lays out not just this call for trump essentially tries to get ukrainian leader to investigate his political opponent, he alleges a massive coverup where the white house new was said in the call was wrong. They put into a whole different lockdown system from very Sensitive Information related to National Security. This had to do with Political Considerations a lot of people involved in that coverup and we want to know who they were as well. Host putting a prosecutor hack back on, does it week in your case that the whistleblower acknowledges there were not a direct witness to most of the eventsne described . Guest it would have weakened the case at the widest at that released its own rough transcript that verified exactly what thehe whistleblower basicay said. The whistleblower provides a big road that for congress to investigate. The House Intel Committee is a lead on this. They will track down all the different witnesses and the administration can either provide the information if theres nothing to hide, or if they dont in the American People can draw the inference they are hiding a lot from both congress and the American People. Host what is the Judiciary Committees role . Judiciary had taken the lead when it came to the Mueller Investigation and various other aspects, so what do you do now in the Judiciary Committee . Guest the house intel is going to take a lead undoing the investigation of this ukrainian scandal. At some point they will conclude it and send information to judiciary and then we look at it and if necessary we will hold a hearing and draft articles of impeachment and have a markup on, because articles of impeachment had to go through the Judiciary Committee . Guest if there were going to be articles of impeachment would first come out of our Judiciary Committee tremor do think those those articles will be narrowly focused on ukraine or could you include some of what you were all relook into when it came to the Mueller Investigation and other topics . Guest i dont know the answer to that. We will see all of the evidence and then make a decision. I do want to say that impeachment, like the power to declare war, our two of the greatest powers of congress. It should never be our first option. We have to take this with a solemn responsibility of what members of cards need to do which is to assess the facts and make the decision based on our constitutional duties and responsibilities. Host do you have any sense of how long the process could take . Something that might happen before the end of the year, by the 2020 elections . Guest i believe if there were going to be any articles of impeachment that were to be passed it would happen before the end of the year. Host congressman ted lieu take your phone calls for about the next 22 minutes on the washington journal. Donna is in ohio, a a republic. You are up first. Are you with us . Then well go to anita in maryland, a democrat. Good morning. Caller i would just like to say that everyone keeps talking about biden, you know, calling for the firing of the prosecutor and how his son was under investigation. As i understand it, it was an entire year since his son had been under any kind of investigation when biden started calling for the resignation of his prosecutor. He wasnt alone and calling for the resignation of the prosecutor. There were several in the European Union also calling for it. Also, last may ukraine said tht both bidens were cleared of wrongdoing. So i understand why they keep picking oni him except with wht they did with hillary. The republicans just wont admit that the president was asking for interference in our election. Guest thank you for raising those points. People are certainly entitled to their opinions but they are not entitled to their own facts and youre absolutely correct. In this case the ukrainians came outab and said look, hunter bidn had be held responsible for acts of this company that occurred two years before he even went on the board of this company. The ukrainians also said they did an investigation and found there was nothing improper or either D Hunter Biden or joe biden. Youre also right that at the time it wasnt just joe biden calling for the prosecutor to resign. It was the European Union, a lot of people looking at this saying this prosecutor needs to go because he was not doing the job you supposed to be doing. But just basedne on a timeline, there is evidence whatsoever there was any wrongdoing by the bidens, that this simply ang political hit job and you see the president was trying to get the ukrainians to launch another bogus investigation into his lyrical opponent. Host remind folks who host a corrupt person that both biden and a lot of European Union wanted to get removed. Host the Washington Post reporting reporting on some of his first common sense these revelations about the phone call and the conversation. This is from the story of the Washington Post yesterday. Hes also the former ukrainian prosecutor. He said from the perspective of ukrainian legislation, hunter biden did notuk violate anythin. The Washington Post noted it is his first interview as we said. Guest you can follow up on that. Because biden was calling for him to the remote interaction was going to put more light on this company that he was allegedly not investigate. Their action was going to be against bidens on self interest for him to do that. Theres really no better there and what repugnance or making up right now. Host right in michigan independent, good morning. Caller i want christian cowas a corrupt person. You have no proof of that and you know that. Poroshenko. Theres some principle still involved in all this, meaning robert mueller, rosenstein, shawn henry, the legal groups perkins court. This is all heading back to here name one. All heading back that way. You cannot sell enriched uranium, and it really dont to about the board or Timothy Geithner and any of that garbage. You cannot sell enriched uranium can turn around a few years later and act like rush is the worst people in the world. You cantac do it. Host you want to talk about uranium one . Guest so your pennies, no idea what youree talking about. Host came in for his republican. Good morning. Caller well, i have a couple of questions. Im going to try to stay on topic. You claim your are prosecutor, okay . As a a prosecutor you should knw that information that the whistleblower put in his complaint is all hearsay which is inadmissible. So how can you base that trump did something wrong in the conversation when you got somebody thats making a claim that he neverth even heard the conversation . Host thank you for yourho question. Again you are entitled to an opinion but not your own facts. As a former prosecutor i know when a suspect makes admissions against his own self interest, that is totally admissible. That is a classic hearsay exception, absolute admissible in court, all the stunning admissions donald trump made either on national tv or in this phone call. Second, yes, the whistleblower said he didnt have firsthand knowledge of the phone call, but guess what. The white house released the rough transcript of this phone call that verified exactly what the whistleblower said. So at this point its really sort of irrelevant what the whistleblower said because we got to summarize note of that phone call. Get it . Host the Washington Post, the newark times had a column today, and the headline of that column, hes guilty of impeachment, hes guilty but impeachment is a mistake. So focusing on the politics of this for a second, one thing david brooks right is the democrats uplink trumps game. Trump has no policy. Hes incompetent at improving the lives of the american citizens or even his own voters but hes good one thing, waging reality tv personality wars against coastal elites. Now over the next few months he gets to have a personality war against nancycy pelosi and jerrd nadler. Democrats are having an exciting a substantive president ial primary season. This is what democracy is supposed to l look like. Why do did want to distract frm that is beyond reason. Guest so i have no idea whether, if we do formal articles of impeachment, if it would help trump, hurt trump, be neutral. My belief is we shouldnt do impeachment for political reasons. F we also should not not do impeachment for political reasons. Its just got to be based on the facts and the law. We will assess what the evidence is. It needs to be our last option. But if we conclude a president of the trent halted military aid to a critical ally at a critical time and then in the content of that stopping military aid had a conversation with ukrainian leader to investigate an american citizen for political purposes, that is a high crime. Host anthony, baton rouge, louisiana, independent, good morning. Caller good morning. Its not working. Its not working. All trying to tell us, i used to vote democrat, its not working. You are trying to tell us that what mr. Trump said, that all the stuff he sang, what hes trying to tell, get ukrainian people, no, sir, were not believing in that. Host what do you believe . Dont believe mr. Trump was trying to get, tried to do the things that they are trying to say he was doing. Guest again youre entitled to your opinion. Im just going to tell what the actual rough transcript of the phone call said. It shows that after ukrainian leader raise the issue of military aid from the united states, specifically javelin missiles that would help the country pushback against its adversary, which is also our adversary, trump immediately asks him for a favor. One of the favors trump asked for was to investigate trumps political opponent, biden. And this is done in the context of donald trump having halted military aid that congress to ukraine a week before the phone call. None of those facts are disputed. You can draw whatever conclusionsts you want but the facts are staring you in the face. Host houston, texas, democrat, good morning, oh, my goodness, i cannot begin to tell you, mr. Lieu, how it is absolute i mean, my absolute pleasure to speak with you this morning. John, ill let you know when im done. Mr. Lieu, i want you to know him and you tell all of your other congressmen and women that the American People support you. We stand with you. Hes going to fight dirty. You stand tall because god is with you, because you have the truth on your side. Let us know what we need to do. Get to the different organizations to get out to the differentti communities. What you want us to do to support you, because im behind you. Im retired. Ill do whatever youam need. And also to the republicans, the ones that, trump supporters, there is a Silver Lining and the Silver Lining is, donald trump has finally beat president obama. Hes going to be impeached, and president obama was never impeached. Thank you so much for taking my call. Day. A greatim guest so thank you for your call. I do want to note that this is not a partisan issue. What we have here is the american president soliciting foreign interference of our elections of a foreign power. He did that in the context of halting hundreds the minds of dollars of Critical Military a that congress specifically approved. This is really an American Issue and thats why you nowov see two republican governors come out and publicly said they support this impeachment inquiry. Youen had congressman turner, republican of ohio, yesterday saying at an open public hearing that what thec president did was not okay. Host hannah, clarksburg maryland democrat, good morning. Caller that morning. Ive been a democrat for 30 skiers and ive never been more disgusted with my own party. It is been hijacked by economist, marxist socialist. It is no longer the Democratic Party of jfk or my parents or grandparents. And you should be completely ashamed of yourself. When this hearsay become the new standard in which we destroy people . You attempted to do this with capital with christina for an i dont member went over or how. This is ridiculous. Heres the credibility heres the credibility you have no integrity did you have no integrity because you turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to what biden did with ukraine he was, with the 1. 0 to the prosecutor was invested his son was five. Thats quid pro quo. Guest thank you for your call. So let me address some of those things that youve raised. Hearsay is absolutely i admissie if its an admission against selfinterest. So when donald a trump says hes asking for a favor of the ukrainian confessed to his political opponent, that is absolutely admissible. It is exception to the hearsay rule because its basically an admission against trumps own selfinterest. But lets just take the whole hearsay think way because guess what, weve got the actual summarized transcript of their phone call. That says trump did exactly what the whistleblower said trump did. Thank you. Host angela, oklahoma city, oklahoma, independent. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am still for trumpet the event after trump ever since he got in office. [inaudible] host yet to listen through your phone and talk to phone. Turn down yourav television. We will let you figure that out while we go to teresa in wyoming, a republican. Good morning. Caller all had tobl say is that you, mr. Lieu. You hold your head up and you be proud. D guest thank you for your call. I appreciate that. Host less than ten minutes before the house comes in for the day. After today the house is headed to two weeks of congressional recess. I wonder what your plans are over recess when it comes to this issue. Do you expect this to be the focus . Guest thats a great question. The House Intel Committee as a lead on this issue. They will continue investigating but theres lot of other work house is doing. Weve introduced a major deal to lower Prescription Drug prices. This will be something that we talked about in the next two weeks. We have introduce legislation on background checks for guns that weve already passed, bipartisan. Bipartisan. Its before the u. S. Senate. We will be putting pressure on the use senate to take that up for a vote, and we also have bills on Election Security and root out corruption. Host on the gun legislation, weve been waiting for a while from the promised legislation from the white house. I wonder what your thoughts are about cooperation on some sort of strengthening aor background checks in the wake of this story and that the president has responded to congressional inquiries about it . Guest so for a long time the nra would say, background checks would never have stopped any of these countries. It turns out the last yesterday, background checks would have stopped it. We have host which one are you referring to . Guest the very last one with the person actually had tried to getet a cut and was denied by a background check and then got it through a sale that was not covered by the current background check so theres a loophole. At what we have now is not only bipartisan support, we have an actual case where back rent check if it was universal would have worked. Its before the u. S. Senate. We are calling Mitch Mcconnell to take that it up for a vote. Host the other question is that government funding, the Senate Passing yesterday i containing legislation to keep the government funded for another six weeks. I wonder your thoughts on being able to come up with a bill that can pass the senate and get signed by the president to continue to fund the government for fiscal 2020 . Guest i do support their shortterm cr, continuing resolution, to have the government funded. I do believe when we come back we do have to focus on making sure we have a longerterm funding strategy because it makes it hard for agencies, fr our military and for other stakeholders to play when we only have these shortterm crs. Host can congress focus on that that the will be a lot of focus on an impeachment inquiry . Guest yes. With multiple committees going on or appropriations committee, a Budget Committee and with committees focusing on their missions. Right now house intel will take the lead on the green issue but all this other work in terms of making sure that we reduce healthcare costs or the American People, that we increase wages, put them into good jobs, that will all continue. Host five minutes before the house comes in. Until then your phone call for congressman ted lieu of california. Robert is in new mexi