To declare recess at any time perce went to the Committee Rule number two the chair will respond to the proceeding on the question of approving any measure or matter and adopting an amendment for which the recorded vote. Today we need to begin consideration of articles of impeachment the statement to the chair and Ranking Member of the committee and i believe for such an important and solemn occasion as this it would be appropriate to have an opportunity to make Opening Statements. Before we begin, i want to note theop absence i understand they will join me in wishing him a speedy recovery and i now recognize myself for an Opening Statement. Today we begin the consideration against donald trump. The first article charges the president used the powers of the Public Office to demand a Foreign Government attacked his political rivals and the second charges that the president obstructed the congressional investigations into misconduct and others have resisted congressional oversight on the stone wall is complete, absolute and without precedent in american history. Taken together, the two articles are placing the private political interest above the National Security, above the free and Fair Elections and the ability to hold Public Officials accountable. Toeo describe the factual basis meaning and importance, i believe three questions should frame the debate. First, does the evidence showed clearly thashowsclearly that tht committed these acts . Do they rise to the high crimes and misdemeanors in the third are the consequences for the National Security with the integrity of election if we fail to act there can be no serious debate about what President Trump did. July 25 of this year when he spoke to president zelensky of ukraine by telephone, President Trump had the upper hand. Ukraine had been invaded by russia and he had only been recently elected and badly needed our help. He needed it in the form of military aid already appropriated by congress because of our National Security interests in ukraine. He needed help in the form of an Oval Office Meeting to showau te world the United States stands with him against russian aggression. President trump should have focused on americas National Security and the interest of the American People on that call instead he completely ignored them to push his own personal political interest. He wanted ukraine to announce the two focused investigations, one to former viced president e biden the leading opponent to the 2020 election and the other to advance Conspiracy Theory that ukraine, not russia, attacked the elections in 2016. These were not legitimate requests and either was supported by the evidence. One was to help President Trump conceal the truth about the 2016 election. The other was designed to help them gain an advantage in the 2020 campaign. Both were divorced from reality in official u. S. Policy. The evidence proves these requests were not related to any real interest in ruling out. Orruption President Trump does business with corrupt governments every day. The evidence shows President Trump did not care if the investigations took place. The public announcement that the government of ukraine was investigating his rivals would have been enough for him to release the aid. Whether or not an actual investigation ever took place. After the call they withheld the dollars to military aid and his lawyer traveled to pressure the ukrainians directly to. By september. To open the inquiry into the actions they did everything in their power to obstruct the investigation they declare acrosstheboard resistance. He ordered every official in the federal government to define all subpoenas and the administration also refused to produce a single document related to the inquiry, not one. The answer is simple. The president ca president can d for high crime misdemeanors the highest of high crimes is the abuse of power. Reey support the own personal sophism trysts at the expense of the public good. It was specific, welldefined and the first article charges President Trump with abuse of power. They layout to aggregating factors that weus must consider pressuring for a personal favor and attempting to corrupt the elections. The domestic political rivals andd corrupt or elections. Free and Fair Elections are the of our democracy and if the elections are corrupt, everything is corrupt. For the ongoinwith the ongoing o obstruct the investigation we have never seen a president categorically defined congress. Congress cannot fulfill its duty to act as the check and balance. Later tonight youll hear more about both articles and how they describe a pattern of behavior tot they seem determined repeat. But it again the colleagues also address what has been raised in the president s defense. If theres one of those objections i wish to address right away some asked, why not take more time. Why is this necessary now . Why not let the next election handle it. What is the risk if we do not actt one indisputable truth has emerged and if we do not respond to President Trumps abuses of power, the abuse will continue. We cannot rely on the election to solve our problems or they threaten the very integrity of the election nor can we sit on our hands whilele the president undermines the National Security and while he allows the personal interest and interest of our adversaries to advance. The personal lawyer was in ukraine again just last week. That wasnt three years ago or three months ago. S it was saturday. This jeopardizes our security and elections. The threat is urgent. If we do not act now, what will be our responsibility as well as his. I will close with the words of my republicanha colleagues. I know you and ive worked with many of you for years and i consider you to be good and decent Public Servants. This moment may be difficult, but you still haver a choice. I hope every member of the committee who will stand in the political pressures of the moment. Hope that none of us will justify behavior that we know in t. R heart is wrong. I hope we are able to Work Together to hold this president or any president accountable for breaking the most basic obligations to the country and to the citizens. Please keep in mind that one way or another, President Trump will not be president forever. When his time is past, when his grip on politics has gone into the country returns and surely it will with stronger leadership, history will look back on the actions here today how would you be remembered. Weve each taken an oath to support and defend the constitution against all enemies, bothho foreign and domestic. I hope to be remembered for honoring that oath and i hope you feel the same. I support these articles of impeachment and i urge my colleagues to support them as well. I will yield back the balance of my time and i will now recognize the distinguished Ranking Member ofyi the Judiciary Committee gentleman from georgia for his Opening Statements. We have been trying this. The only thing that has changed is the opportunity from last november when you became the majority. The only thingt thats changed t your desire to impeach this president is that you became the majority and we have spent all year in this committee trying to impeach the president. We occasionally have markups on bills most of which are so partisan they cant even go forward in the senate and most of which do not address any issue weve talked about but its amazing we are taking it with such a solemn oath weve made up something to come to this point to say this is very solemn like it snuck up on you. It doesnt sneak up on you when you have been expecting at the whole time and that is what we haven been doing. What has been amazing to me is some things we have seen, so lets take a perspective here for a while. What has our committee come to, that is the question lets take it for a moment inside his impeachment. This is our third. That is all we are having. When do we get out of those hearings . We had a bunch of professors three of which cannot stand the president or his voters or the fact that hes still in office and the differences were okay. We had a hearing just two days ago lecturing us on whats called iboth talibanand whats y found, he hit i hid it in his ct somewhere or office not wanting to face the questions of the committee. That should be a poor to everyone here. Again, chairman schiff is nowhere to be found. We understand this and we look forward. Tonight its started again. We talk about tearing down the National Institution and putting our security at risk when tonight even the Opening Statement we start with one of the most amazing takedowns i have ever seen when they cant make their argument that the president pressured mr. Zelensky, they then attacked and say that he was pressured. Herehere is what the majority s saying. When we cant make our case we not only try to tear down the leader of the free world, President Trump, but we are tearing down the newly elected leader of ukraine. This is amazing to me. You cant make your case against the president because Nothing Happened and what he confirmed that Nothing Happened, we started tearing him down. We never thought we would cross to try to basically impugn the integrity of the world leader like we have been for the last two. We also found other things that we found in our very minimal hearings here in this body. And the Ranking Members and others including members of the press that are here tonight putting phone records and company name. You talk about getting even. We put names on those numbers that we lucked out and nobody would own up to it. Who would have u said to do that when they could have put inn the record congressman one, congressman two, reporter juan, no, they got what they wanted. Thats the record being built in the Judiciary Committee cannot effect against the president committed the record of a Democratic Party that lost all fairness and good democratic faith. Thats what we are seeing here. We can have all the statements we want, but they cannot get away from the fact. What is the way tha light that g perpetrated . One of the democrats told the American People theyve said this for three years, the lie that we are hearing perpetrated is the end justifies the means, it is okay because it is so real and urgent and imminent. Their political expediency is justifiable in history has shown to be untrue and dangerous. The lie is that adam schiff gained evidence in plain sight and scent coding with russia and the special counsels report when the lie continues to spread like a cancer every time we hear it. The evidence is overwhelming and the facts arehe undisputed the very fact that people in the committee disputed fact make the undisputed facts, not undisputed. Th the fact when it gets to the articles themselves, abuse of power, when you look at the articles and compare them to history, im glad the chairman of the history because it will be written for us at a later time because they will not always be the majority as he talks about. There will be a turnover and this is the article that we wrote and we get abuse of power its just generic statements. Its because the democrats cant come up with an argument for it. They do not have to to do it and when did they know it. Theres your abuse of power. Its about political expediencyy as much as anything els else and that should never be an article of impeachment. Anybody that defends that is on very thin ice and obstruction. The only thing that we have seen here is from this investigation. He didnt turn over the documents he was supposed to. We get this last saturday after we already hold hearings and afterr we already got ready for another hearing in which we are supposed to lay out the reports coming into tonight he sends a letter of classified information over to us tonight. Dont think for a second of the American Public that this fojority wants you to find the truth. The obstruction has only occurred with the majority keeping people from actually trying to find the truth. Thats the only obstruction so why dont we just have to but it would be against the majority, notee the president. Abuse of power and obstruction of congress and the only abuse of power here is the majority racing the fastest they ever have and the clock on the calendar determining what the impeachment looks like. That is the excuse of power. Before i finish, the legacy of the impeachment hearing will not be the removal of donald trump as president. In fact if anything it is for what they are on a threeyear data against anyone and they are desperate before next year. Heres the damage, the institutional damage to this body if the institutional damage to getting information after the hearing started from not having the rules followed, from having this committee as the chairman warned us about 20 years ago when he said the committee should never accept a report from someone else without verifying and having them unless we become a rubber stamp. I dont know about you but im not a rubber stamp and i dont like what ive been forced to do in a staff telling us. We are the rubber stamp of the worst kind because we didnt even try to make the point. The minority hearing date which by the way, we will talk about this more into the rules committee will take care of it. They will be crying and screaming for the minority rights and i would just point back to 2019 and say this is the year you put a dagger in the minority rights. Tonight weve experienced here in december after a year of trashing this institution, a year of trying to trash this administration we come up with abuse of power and cant define it, we come up with obstruction of congress after 72 days. I know they are desperate. Thats the wrong reason to impeach somebody into the American People are seeing through this. At the end of the day my heart breaks for the committee that has trashed this institution and this is where we are now and with that i will yield back. We will now proceed with fiveminute Opening Statements with other members of the committee. I now recognize the gentle lady from california for five minutes. A serious moment for the country i worked on president ial impeachment and the third time brings me no joy. Weve taken an oath to uphold the constitution and the president violates the Constitutional Order we have an obligation to our oath of office to deal with that. The committee cant direct evidenccut directevidence abouts actions to threaten the National Security undermining the integrity of the last end of the violation of its growth. As a staff member to my predecessor, congressman don edwards, ive watched this opening in the nixon impeachment, and it rings true today. He said the value and beauty of the constitution and Representative Government is going to work with those we all respect in the constitution. It is a contact we have with each other. Put simply no one is above the law and the president of the unitepresident of theunited stae constitution. One of my most vivid memories is about one of the most vigorous defenders when he realized nixon lied to him. Ive been waiting for the republican members here to have their moments, but it seems like we live in an alternate reality where as one columnist recently said it fixed when us and . Ikeda, its a piano. Its understandable that republicans feel a loyalty to their party. I cannot turn away from m the evidence. President trump continues this misconduct of enforcing the High Standard where are the cold whereabouts were acalledwhereabd the Republican Party. What is before us is a serious arabuse of power on the battlefield, in the courts come in the congress, the founders included the impeachment clause in the constitution purposefully and theyd, Gave Congress the authority to impeachh for a reason from the president who would abuse the power to offend the Constitutional Order and threatened the democracy faced with the need to impeach President Trump for his abuse of power into the future of our democracy and Constitutional Order require it and i yield back. I agree with everybody tonight is a solemn night. This is the third time in the last 30 to 40 years that this committee has sa sent to debate articles of impeachment. What we are debating here in my opinion is the weakest case in history and yet the democrats have decided to go full speed ahead again because of the clock and calendar with an incomplete record of simply using hearsayoc evidence and trashing the rules of the house in order to speed things up where did he go with a preordained conclusion and that is a partisan vote for impeachment on something both speaker and chairman othe speake committee rejected earlier when they thought they could make this bipartisan. Lets look at these two articl articles. There is no crime to have been committed by the president of the United