Bringing them. Again we can fact check this all night. Were here to do this. Its just amazing though that after three and a half hours earlier laying out everything that happened. Look being at what went forward. These these actually Going Forward are not what is happening here. So again lets get it one thing clearly for those who may have tuned in after lunch after now the the transcripts are accurate. You know how i know because everybody testified they were. Even fiona hill says the lechlt lpses was not at issue. That talking point lets mark off. Discuss the fact of us as accuracy. Its called he had reading. You read the transcript as its put in. It said you us, not me. These the things simple that go forward. I yield to mr. Jordan process. I thank the Ranking Member for yielding. I want to go back to something the gentle lady from texas mentioned a few minutes ago questioning whether the transcript was complete. Remember what colonel vindman testified to. He said it was complete and accurate. Lunt colonel vindman said that in his deposition in the testimony in the hearing, complete and accurate transcript. So to say to suggest its not is not consistent with the testimony we received from your witnesses. Remember Lieutenant Colonel vindman is the same folks who wouldnt tell us who he talked to about the call. He only told us four of the individuals he spoke with. But thats the guy who told us the transcript was complete and accurate. I yoeld back to the Ranking Member. I yield to the gentleman from play. I want to respond to my colleague, mr. Rascon. We could debate this all day long. But you misstated u. S. V nicken. I dont want to get too deep in the weeds for the folks at home. In that case the Supreme Court recognized the existence of executive privilege, a protection requiring a balancing of interest between the legislative and executive branchs by the judicial brarmg. But here is the important thing. They said that that case there is not absolute unqualified president ial prism of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances. Thats from the court. But the other side of that is true as well. Congress doesnt have absolute Unqualified Authority to demand evidence from the president either. Thats the whole reason that you have to go to the third branch of the judiciary. This is a legitimate claim of privilege. Its a legitimate issue that the courts could decide. Its a case of First Impression as my colleague knows because this specific set of facts has not been addressed yet. And it should be resolved by the courts. Professor turley addressed in his testimony to this committee and said quote, he wrote in the submission the answer is obvious. A president cannot substitute his judgment for congress on what they are entitled to see and likewise congress cannot substitute its judgment what the president can wmd High Pressure the balance of the interest is performed by the third brafrm constitutionally invested with the authority to review and resolves such zbuts. Can i yao. Mgts lets put it in the context and lets acknowledge. My friend. This is an issue. I yield 20 seconds. Thank you. Wree citing different cases. Im talking about the 19939 judge walter nixon case. As ill remind the gentlemen from the constitutional scholars on both sides of in issue its my time not yall zblees i yield back. Fair enough. The. We had two different nixon cases. No mr. Rascon were done with in. The gentleman yields back for what purpose is she seeking recognition. I move to strike the last word. Gentle lady is recognized. Lets go back, as has been stated today, the constitution devotes only a few sentences to impeachment. Im reading one. Its article one section 2 the last sentence. The house of representatives shall choose speaker and other officers and thus have sole power of impeachment. As professor rascon told us properly the constitution uses the word sole only twice. Sole, not shared, not shared with the judiciary, not shared with the executive. This means that we have the the sole opportunity and obligation frankly to determine what evidence is necessary for impeachment. Sole not shared with the executive. Think back. Judiciary chairman peter rodino warned president nixon about his failure to comply with the subpoenas issued in the watergate inquiry. Under the constitution its not within the power of the president to conduct inquiry into his own impeachment to determine which evidence and what version or portion of the evidence is relevant and necessary to such an inquiry. These are matters which under the constitution rodino wrote, the house has the sole power to determine. Sole, not shared with the executive. Sole, not shared with the courts. Its a civics lesson. Dont let the other side who have such talented constitutional attorneys over there distract you. This is not an ordinary dispute, folks. This is a very rare thankfully very rare dispute. Its not an ordinary dispute where you go to the court. We dont need permission to go to use our constitutional rules. If President Trump is allowed to refuse to comply with requests for information, it would gut the house impeachment power and undermine our bedrock principle of separation of powers. Last night as we left here i wanted to just tell you this, i went outside and there was a team of about 12 High School Students from ohio with their teacher. And they said would you mind stopping for a minute could weious talk to you a minute. It was so interesting to watch and listen and to hear what was going on at this important historic time. We loved learning about our constitution and how much you prize in constitution. Thank you for protecting it for us. And you know what they said to me. We didnt understand this before but i do now. Its your job. Its the houses job to determine what evidence comes in. We do not need permission from the president. We do not need permission from the courts. In fact we have an obligation to do our job. Under this simple smart document. Today, december the 12th marks the anniversary of pennsylvania coming into the union. I think about those framers in my city of philadelphia. So wisely thinking through the words. Today marks 232 years since those wise men thought through how would we conceive of our government and maintain selfgovernment . Do not be confused by the lawyers on the other side who would teach the wrong civics lesson. And distract you with the notion we need to go to court. We need permission of a president and permission of a court. We do not. With that i yield. Will the gentle lady yield. Id like to yield to the gentle lady from texas. I thank the gentle lady and for her very forceful response. And might i just say to the obstruction of congress, neither mr. Nixon or mr. Clinton obstructed congress in the manner that this president is doing. The underlying amendment had to do with corruption and i raise the point of the document that speaks about the july 25th call. Let me just quickly say that the language is i would like you to do us a favor, though. And as the white house has distorted the interpretation, the us does not have any reference to the department of justice, department of defense, department of state, and clearly in the same document he mentions the Vice President. He mentions crowdstrike, all of those have been debunked. Its clear the Vice President was operating as the Vice President of the United States at the time and as he was operating he was operating on an official policy to deal with ukraine. This is about the president seeking to have ukraine investigate this political opponent for personal and private reasons. No one misinterpreted what was said. And Lieutenant Colonel vindman immediately went to the Legal Counsel in the white house that immediately went dark and never responded because he was so offended by in campaign effort. With that i yield back. And thank the gentle lady for yielding. The gentlelady yields bap for what purpose does mr. Refreshen thaler wish to be recognized. Strike the last word. I yield to my good friend from texas. Thank my good friend from pennsylvania. You dont have to be a constitutional scholar as i was. This is unique process. We dont need to hear from the courts . This we are told is uncharted territory because no president has just completely refused. Let me just touch on a little bit here on both of those issues. This is uncharted territory. Never in the history of this country have we had an impeachment proceeding begun by lies that got a warrant from a secret court that turned out and had been be documented to be lies and then kepting warrants three after that based on lies. And not one person on the other side of the aisle is the least bit embarrassed that they went to a secret court and got warrants based on lies, first to investigate spy on a campaign or surveil, electronically surveil, as horowitz says but this is uncharted territory. Nobody wants to apologize on the other side. I get that. It might be politically embarrassing. But to say we dont need to go to court. I mean the Obama Administration was just incredible as at getting subpoenas doing document dumps of stuff we werent looking for asking for especially from judiciary. But the other stuff that we demanded we couldnt get it. And we tried to get boehner to go to court lets get a court order requiring it to hold him in contempt. Thats the only way well get it done. And he wouldnt do it. And so knows of us that understand the constitution and understand theyre not just two articles we ununderstood we needed a court order backing us up so it wasnt us abusing the offices of congress. We had as turley and dershowitz and others pointed out you had the court. Go. Another thing thats uncharted territory, we started this impeachment proceeding about the russia hoax and collusion and demanding all the documents about the russia collusion. And it kept changing and then it went to bribery and extortion and ee monthly mts and all these other things. Never in history has a president been accused of crimes with with the target constantly changing. Now, when you subpoena documents there has to be a reasonable basis for requesting information or subpoenaing witnesses. You got to have a reasonable basis. And when you keep changing the allegations against the party from whom you are demanding information then they have the reasonable expectation to advise them of what the new charge is today what the new evidence is today. But they couldnt get any of those. And i would have been very surprised if you would have now you find some obama appointees that might have upheld the subpoenas but not the sprours because its so unreasonable. And to the earlier allegation that gee, even though nobody in Ukrainian Government has said they were a victim, well its because the president has a gun to their head. Well thats not the case. The reason that they are not saying that is because they knew this is the most helpful president they have had since the steel curtain fell, becauses in a president , unlike the Obama Administration when they were under attack and ukrainians really were dying, we offered up blankets, meals ready to eat for the military stuff. But this is a president thats really helping them defend themselves. This is a president thats really made a difference from ukraine. So it wasnt a gun to their head. They see this as a helpful president. And another thing, if a victim does for the admit to be a victim anybody thats been a prosecutor surely knows this. You can go to court, force it to court. And the victim says, i wasnt a victim, you dont get a conviction, and if you do, that is not sustained because thats what courts and Congress Call a no evidence point. You have a noevidence point. Thats why you had to drop bribery, although it does apply to Vice President biden. You smartly dropped the bribery. And now you have this elusive abuse of power. S in outrageous and needs to come to an end. The gentlemans time is expired. For what purpose does mr. Jeffreys seek recognition. Move to strike the last word. Gentleman is recognized. The gentleman from texas talked aboutable basis. The reasonable bass is that there are uncontroverted evidence that the president he pressured ukraine to target an american citizen joe biden for political gain and at the same time withheld without explanation 391 million in military aid that had been allocated on a bipartisan basis. Ambassador taylor, west point graduate, vietnam war veteran, appointed by reagan, bush, trump, to the diplomatic corps said the following about the withholding of the military aid. No legitimate Public Policy basis, no legitimate National Security basis, no legitimate substantive basis. Thats why congress proceeded. We had more than 200 National Security professionals. Democrats and republicans, who expressed concern with the president s wrongdoing and said this undermines american National Security. And thats a basis for the impeachment inquiry. But what the president has done is said, unlike the madison yan vision of democracy with the checks and balances, separate and coequal branchs of government, i alone can determine what the representatives of the people see in connection with a legitimate investigation. And at the same time this is a president that attacks everybody. To distract. Attacks everybody who wont bend the knee to donald j. Trump. He has attacked john mccain, a war hero. Attacked mitt romney, 2012 republican nominee. He has attacked bob mueller, a marine, a distinguished professional in law enforcement. He has attacked your former speaker paul ryan. He attacks gold star families. He even attacked today a 16yearold teenage activist, greta thunberg. Are you here to defend that as well . And so whats happened is that instead of addressing the substance of the allegation you want to attack joe biden and his family. Elijah cummings is no longer with us. He is in heaven just like the prophet elijah. But his spirit is with us. And we are better than this. We are proceeding in a serious, solemn and sober fashion because the allegations are deadly serious. Is it okay for the president to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election or not . Who should decide the outcome of our elections . Is it the russians . The chinese . The ukrainians . Or the American People . It should be the American People. And thats why we are here at this moment. And so lets have a serious discussion about it and stop aching americans who refuse to bend the knee to this president. Would the gentleman yield. Would you yield. I yield. To the gentleman from tennessee. Thank you, sir. One of the issues, big issues here is trump conditioning military aid on an investigation of the bidens. Joe biden, period, his primary political opponent in his mind. The republicans have said, no it was about corruption. It wasnt about them. But listen to what they talked about today. All theyve talked about is the bidens. Hunter bidens automobile accident. Hunter biden this, hunter biden that. Hunter biden salary. Any havent brought up the past ukrainian leaders or business. Its all the bide. S. Their defense speaks to the truth of the allegations in this article that it was all about the bidens. Theyre all about the bidens. And thats what its about. Would the gentleman yield. I yield. I did bring up. Yield back to mr. Jeffreyy. Okay i shouldnt have tried to correct you then i guess. Foreign interference in an American Election solicited by the president is not okay. That is an abuse of power. It undermines our National Security. The president should be held accountable because no one is above the law. The gentleman yields back. For what purpose does mthe gentleman seek recognition. Strike the last word. I think the gentleman from new york laid out in an articulate way the basis and justification for both article 1 and article 2 before us. But i just want to touch on the debate around obstruction of congress and explain to my colleagues and to the American People why in instance is so unprecedented. I will first just say with much respect to my colleague from colorado, i want to assure the American People that obstruction of congress to coloradans means the same thing that it does to everyone else in this country. It means the defines of lawfully issued subpoenas by the United States house of representatives. It means impeding the ability of the United States mouse of representatives to perform its constitutional duty. And unlike the obstruction of congress that has taken place in the past this president s obstruction of congress has been total, has been absolute and has been categorical. In 1999 and 98 when president clinton was the subject of an impeachment inquire in. This committee propounded 81 interrogatories and he responded. During the watergate investigation nixons chief of staff testifieds. Nixons counsel testified. In this instance the president has taken steps to ensure that this committee does not receive and the Intelligence Committee as well key testimony from any host of officials in our government. And just to give you a Historical Context i will read to you a quote. All members of the white house staff will appear voluntarily when requested by the committee. Any will testify under oath, and they will answer fully all proper questions. Thats from Richard Nixons administration. So i hope, again, as we consider the gravity of the articles before us, that we can stay true to the facts, and recognize that when we is he say that no president in the history of in republic has ever completely defied an depechement inquiry as this one has, we mean it. And with that. Would the gentleman yield. I would yield to the distinguished gentle woman from california. I enjoyed listening to you. Youre absolutely correct in your reporting of what occurred during bot