Later you can go to our page, i think, and we will upload it on youtube, is that correct . Again, i am sharon, founding director of the institute of Public Policies and history which is housed here at the university of the district of columbia. We will launch in january of last year by mayor bowser and president ronald mason. We have sort of the same focus as do other institute in politics except for a very strong focus as well on the history of this city and by so doing the history of this country because unlike most other cities we are entirely a creature of the politics of creating a new nation and for those of you who saw the musical, hamilton, there is a song in it that says in the room where it happened and we are what happened. Washington dc. While we have topics that are contemporary interests we always try to grill down on that topic to talk about if its the historical origins and that certainly is true for the compelling topic of tonight. We will talk this evening about the anatomy of an impeachment and we couldnt have a better panel than what we have this evening. We have with us this evening and i will call upon them individually but just as an introduction and very they really dont need an introduction but Michael Steele. [applause] even though he is here in washington dc got that thunderous applause. [laughter] msnbc political analyst and we are honored that he is cochair of our Senior Advisor committee here at the institute of politics and history and then we have another individual who is wellknown to anyone who has covered this topic and that is congressman jamie raskin. [applause] there are a few personalities who have had such a defining role on this issue and of this moment then congressman jamie raskin. We will come back to congressman raskin. We also have, as well, karen who is [applause] karen is also a cochair of the institute of politics, policy and History Advisory Committee and karen is one of the few people who have actually dealt with impeachment up close and personal because she was deputy chief of staff to president William Jefferson clinton during his impeachment. I know she played a pivotal role because i saw it on television. [laughter] but karen also said that time she has been involved with [inaudible] and we will ask her about that tonight. We culminate this great panel with an exceptional, professor of law from Georgetown Law Center also well known to us, professor paul butler. [applause] professor butler, you see him regularly as a legal analyst as well and contributor on msnbc as well as npr. His area is particularly criminal law and has relevant to the topics tonight. I guess i should sit down in keeping with the cameras. I think we will begin with Michael Steele and ask him in that the impeachment process as we know it right now is over as such what do you think the applications are for the 2020 election . Do think it will have any reoccurring impact on the democratic primary process and conceivably in the general election . I think the outcome there is little bit of lets wait and see what actually happens. We are still assessing how the American People largely speaking have processed this and how they have internalized it and what they think of it. The polling certainly in the last stages of the trial particularly on the question of witnesses showed that 75 of American People wanted that process to continue and they wanted to hear from people who may have something germane to offer with respect to what the president said, the president did, the relationship between the white house and some of the other players in the state department, for example. Secretary pompeo, how that played out. We dont know whether the arguments that were made and i think very effectively made by the democrats managers, democratic managers was one that the people had taken in and now will begin to process in the elections fear or the democratic side in the primary i think we have seen it hit its stride and crested and now they have moved onto other things so the candidates have moved beyond impeachment and whether or not the voters will ultimately remains to be seen. Harassment raskin, as i pointed out earlier i thank you really helped define the significance of this Division Within the constitution, the urgency of the house looking at this provision and what i do want to ask however, Speaker Pelosi is always been perceived as the ultimate strategists and i mean that in the most complementary way and she almost never does anything unless she knows that she has the votes and she consistently stated she would not do this unless there was a bipartisan support for it and yet she moved she joined the Party Leadership insane we need to move forward. Was it because of the evidence was so alarming or was it because the Democratic Caucus was becoming rancorous or why did she move forward . Thank you for having me. If i remember her quote precisely it was Something Like the evidence would have to be overwhelming in the case would have to be compelling and the sport would have to be bipartisan. I think we got overwhelming evidence and we had a very compelling case and i guess it was bipartisan strictly speaking until justin got excluded from the Republican Caucus but he did say that when he read the Mueller Report he found that the evidence inescapably led to impeachment and i was even before ukraine. At the point at which the whistleblower came forward to describe the basic contours of that ukraine is shakedown and there were lots of republicans in the land who were saying this was intolerable and they couldnt abide anymore of the fiction that the president was lawabiding. I think this was the moment which everybody saw that we had a president who is essentially ungovernable and lawless in his conduct and essentially an cordial bull. There was really no going back. What else could we do . The ukraine episode provided a pretty echo of what we saw described in the Mueller Report about the open invitation to russia and russia are you listening, come on and in more than 100 readings that were documented between the Trauma Campaign and russian emissaries but what was different about the ukraine episode was that it was taking place in real time and not just a high crime and misdemeanor obviously but a crime in progress. Rudy giuliani was over there in ukraine still trying to shake them down for the information that they wanted to prove that it was not russia but rather ukraine that had engaged in the sweeping Systematic Campaign to mass with the president ial campaign in 2016 but i think the pressure built up in the Democratic Caucus or it was overwhelming and there was really no decent way of turning back and saying the president was engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors for the real challenge was to figure out what to charge them with. Do we go big or broad with everything we knew about him including the nine, ten episodes of obstruction of justice that were detailed in the Mueller Report as well as the Campaign Finance violations involved with the payoffs. As well as the repeated continuing violations of the foreign domestic calls or do we stick with what we had whistleblower information on which was the ukraine shakedown and then the subsequent effort to shut down any cooperation with congress and i think ultimately what prevailed was a sense that this was discrete and definable in the evidence was overwhelming and it didnt require us going out to try to get more and more evidence about these things when the administration was purely involved in an embargo of information and refusing to turn over everything that we were asking for. Karen, i know that you were there with president clinton but i would like to move on to another topic or area where you have developed expertise and have expertise since leaving president clinton and that is the ukraine. How is it that this great drama played so much of it played out in the ukraine, a country with most americans are not that familiar and yet we find the president indirectly improved involved with this. Giuliani is certainly involved and biden is indirectly involved with it so what is it about ukraine and i know you were there battling on the other side of amanda fort in a few occasions so could you elaborate on its significance . Sure, thank you for the invitation to be here. I think where the stars all lined up probably against ukraine is we have to go back to President Trump been quite upset before he was president that his Campaign Chair had been called out, if you will, because of his activities with the former president of ukraine and from that very moment President Trump blamed ukraine. Individuals who thought they would do better if the ambassador was out of office and this Russian Secret Service wanting to create and push out the narrative of ukraine, not us, so then you have a brandnew president who really, really needs the United States and for somebody like President Trump, at least what ive observed, that is too much to walk away from and he has also leveraged the United States and was going to exercise left to get the narrative restored and regenerated and would also fill in his black was hunter biden being on the board and Vice President biden calling for the removal of a shokin. None of these accusations are factual in fact when shokin left the subsequent prosecutor general brought cases against burisma and shokin never did. They laid dormant for years but those facts did not matter and didnt even want an investigation. But you have a lot of activity in a country that is known for conspiracy theories, known for payments being made lets just say not all that legal activity and a new president of the United States backing. We have with the two articles of impeachment did you see any of what was presented by the house what could have been perceived as a criminal offense, and do you think it might have had more power, and a followup to that do you think that President Trump has exposure upon [inaudible] thank you for that gracious introduction but now in the words of jayz, allow me to reintroduce myself. [laughter] my name is paul butler and i was a prosecutor right here in the district and Representative Government and criminal court and during the time i learned something. The allegations he was charged the articles were about abuse of congress, abuse of office and the obstruction of congress. The standard for impeachment under the constitution is high crimes and misdemeanors. Now as a prosecutor, you are familiar with the ideas of misdemeanors as less than a year and we understand it is written down. When the constitution was written, statutory crimes did not exist. Misdemeanors were different from what they are now and in fact the term high crimes and misdemeanors was a term of art that referred to th abuse of puc trust and so while it was not required that there be any a lie between specific statutory crimes and what presiden both pp was accused of doing, in fact those linkages do exist. If you look at the statutes of extortion, they map quite well too i need you to do me a favor. As karen suggested, ukraine was in an extremely vulnerable position. They are asked for with russia. Without the United States assistance, their survival as a nation state is in jeopardy. When you look at the record, President Trump made clear that military assistance was contingent on political favor. If the United States was to provide military assistance to ukraine, they need t needed to t the investigation and by start the investigation, i mean announce it. President trump actually didnt want an investigation in good faith because that would have proven how ludicrous the conspiracy theories were about the email server and all that so all he wanted was the announcement to do the same kind of damage to the campaign but the fbi directors announcement had done. I talked to the congressman before the panel and he brought up what we should really be talking about and that is to put it in context everybody was available february 18 which is the day after president s day and here we are there are a few holidays we have up until the fourth of july that underscores the significance of the country and president s day and is designed to celebrate George Washington. As well as president Abraham Lincoln with whom wouldnt have been kept as United States of america and theyve got a Great Program now on the History Channel about president George Washington and when you observe his career, for that matter almost any of the founding fathers, they were obsessed with creating a country where there wouldnt be any authoritarian power. They were obsessed with this. There wouldnt be another king george 3. And when you look at the constitution, every opportunity they had, they checkmate a branch of government. So, you may have article one you can legislate, the article to says i can be so it were in article two you may be able to read the commanderinchief that article one says i am the one who must declare war. Each is to checkmate and the abuse of power. To be an authoritarian persona, where do we go from here. Weve given it our best shot. We can talk about the third branch of government, but where are we, congressman, but we can begin with you. This is crucia this is crucial to the Current Crisis that we are in. Lets start with this. We had a revolution against the monarchy. The critical words of the constitution is we the people to form a more perfect union, establish justice and provide for the common defense for the welfare and deserve the blessings of liberty and ordain and establish what the constitution of the United States and that one actionpacked sentence is the whole preamble but it defines the american experience. Its popular government against the monarchical government. They got their power from god and they told us so. Our framers said we are not going to accept things. The dogma that we have the equal branches and we dont accept that. Kobe was not a word. The sovereign power of the people to create and watch the country loaded immediately through the preamble constitution and article 12 that point you get 37 paragraphs to play outhatlay out all of the pe peoples representatives. The power to declare war and regulate commerce internationally and domestically and raise taxes and here in the district of Columbia Power over and on and on. We have four sections and the Fourth Section is all about the impeachment. What is the main job of the president , to be commanderinchief not of the country. To execute those that have been adopted by the peoples representatives like the Supreme Court to pronounce what the law actually is as the chief justice put it in maryland but you see we are a Representative Democracy under a constitutional form of government. And this impeachment is a necessary episode of reassertion of the sovereign power of the people through congress against a runaway imperial executive and donald trump is a cartoon manifestation of the process that has been taking place through many powers and declaration of unilateral force and so on. The ukraine episode is all about the stealing of democracy, bringing foreign powers to tax payer money and leverage and bringing the foreign powers to get the Foreign Government to sabotage the campaign of president ial rival. Somebody thats running against the president. If we allow that to happen than weve given up democracy. Do you think that america is inclined to move in that direction because from where i sit, it appears americans are drawn to the authoritarian figure. Are we drawn to that personality that they have a a following. Youve said a lot thats very important. I agree with the congressman said, but i do think that the branches of government are equal in the sense that as you noted there are appropriate checks and between, so that is sort of establishing the relationship we have a lot of work to do but we can veto that work. You can do that gets to it, youve got to work to get the numbers to override the veto. It acts as a check on legislative and executive and i think twodoor question where we find ourselves now for me i was so happy to hear you start where you did. Its all in the same bucket, we the people. My approach to all of this very simply and very straight up we are where we are right now because this is where you want us to be and we will be here for however long you want us to be so all the hand wringing and noisemaking and all that, you can end it. Buwith everything youve known d everything youve seen is that 49 approval in the United States of america tonight. The number is 45 . She won with 47. How hard is it going to be so we are where we are so we can sit there and talk about a Representative Government and this gentleman here is representing the people but at the end of the day, we are the government. They dont exist unless we say they do. She doesnt have the charm of the people of maryland and his district say he d