Witnesses, yes. Thank you. And also another thing that i want to clear up for the record, mr. Ras kin said previously that the same process that were doing now, its the same process that was used in the clinton impeachment, mr. Collins, do you agree with that, because i sure dont. No, i do not. Would you care to expand . I think there are a lot of Different Things and it goes back to the inherent nature of what were doing here today and that is, frankly, the only bipartisan nature of this impeachment is no. Its not bipartisan in the sense of seeing it should go forward. Its bipartisan and no and that is the only bipartisan that you will see. My friends across the aisle say theyre standing for true and thats fine. Thats their argument and my argument is everything that weve talked about so far and thats also why at a certain point in time we continue to go on here, but i think when you look at the actual things that are going on the issues of how witnesses are called and how you deal with an outside counsel and it was said earlier that the starr the Judiciary Committee handled the star faster than this, its not true. It was longer than this, and there were several there were two and a half weeks set up before the first impaneling of scholarly witnesses and we never had that. We barely had two and a half weeks of the entire thing and so when you look at it, theres again, i have argued here today and i feel comfortable in my argument, and ive not been afraid to back away from either and we can generally disagree with this, we wouldnt be here. So i think moving this forward at a late hour and discussing the facts that this is, you know, an issue we have, i will Say Something that needs clarification. Again, i know from my democratic friends it does matter and it needs to be added to the record and its been brought up with mr. Mulvaney several times on his comments on thats the way its done. Get over it. It was referring to general conditions placed on foreign aid to all countries and he did clarify his statement later. If weve gotten to the point, we dont do that because it doesnt fit the narrative we wont do that, and its not misspoke at some point in their life. Its possibly even today. So we just have to look at it from that perspective and move forward . Ive made all of the points and ive seen this done differently and it does concern me that the future has predicated on this as i as like i said, its just a concern that the bar is at a certain point now that it is anything you want it to make. Its always been a concern and the founders are concerned about many things and they were also very concerned about this being an overreach and the branches that impeachment could be used in a partisan way or in a or as the quote was, whoever had the most vote, basically, who was stronger in their majority. Thats very true in the house, and i think thats why it is resting in the house and why i agree with my friend on the constitution. It didnt rest in the house for the reason and for the same reason taxes and resonate here because were closest to the people. This is normal that impeachment is here and i just dont want it to be that you dont even have to jump to clear the bar anymore and thats the concern with impeachment Going Forward now. Thank you. Im going to actually turn to the actual bill, and im on page 2 now under article 1, abuse of power, and i read, the constitution provides that the house of representatives should have the sole power of impeachment and that the President Shall be removed from office on impeachment for the commission of treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors. So mr. Collins, i have a question for you, were any of the democrats fact witnesses able to establish that the President Committee treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors. No. Not in the sense that it was laid out, and again, and ive made this comment earlier and i appreciate the gentle lady for bringing this up. Theyre not depending on a crime and they freely admit, theyre not depending on a crime and theyre depending on the acts and abuse of power. Within the report itself they mention bribery and extortion and these other thingses and they couldnt bring it up to to get the elements to be crass and criminal about it, they couldnt get the elements that they could explain it to the American People. At least in my opinion. There you, mr. Collins. Ill be asking you several questions and further down on page 2. The democrats are claiming which i think is inaccurate and using the powers of his high office the ukraine and the 2020 United States president ial election. Mr. Collins, was there any mention of the 2020 election and the phone call . No. And mr. Collins, has there been any proof or evidence or witness that can prove that mr. Trump was referring to the 2020 election. No, and the only testimony and it was never to that and it was discussing aid and conditions that they tried to put forward. And then in on the bottom of page 2 and to page 3, it says that it alleges, i think a lot of this is Wishful Thinking fairytale going on here by my democratic colleagues. It said it would benefit his reelection and harm reelection prospects of a political opponent and influence the 2020 United States president ial election to his advantage. Again, has there been any proof of that, mr. Collins. It did raise the question from earlier today and its now by running for president youre free to do whatever you want to and not be investigated overseas. Thank you. And then the other thing is repeatedly said in these articles of impeachment is that trump had corrupt purposes or corrupt intent. Has there been any proof from their witnesses, from anyone that trumps intent or purposes were corrupt . Depending on how youre wording that question is no and how they would presume what their intention were in the phone calls and those are presumptions or beliefs by someone else and it goes back to the fact that mr. Sondland himself was presumed and then he talked to the president himself said i dont want anything. I just want him to do the job that he ran for. Exactly, and i have said before in Judiciary Committee and elsewhere that theres no way that you can prove what was on trumps mind or that he had corrupt intent because there were other logical explanations. Yes, indeed, there is because there was proof or there is evidence that President Trump was concerned about corruption in ukraine. He also said in his phone call that he was very concerned that other European Countries werent pitching in to ukraine. He also talked about the video of joe biden saying he got the prosecutor fired saying he would withhold 1 billion from ukraine. So to me those are all logical explanations of why President Trump would want to talk about that and not some nefarious reason. And i think and so mr. Kohl snins. Did you want to add something . No. I apologize. Lets see, this is a good one. This gets under my skin so i guess thats why you guys keep using it. On page 3 at the bottom, my democratic colleagues and Judiciary Committee and here in the impeachment, they keep on saying that it says a discredited theory were talking about ukraine now, a discredited theory promoted by russia alleging that ukraine, rather than russia, interfered in the 2016 election. Mr. Collins, did republicans ore i dont think President Trump ever said that, ever say that russia was never involved or did we just say that its possible that both could have influenced the 2016 i believe russia has been involved in elections for years. It is one of the disturbing parts. It was one one things that we would deal with it legislatively and i would keep it into it indepth. Talk about the ukrainians and ill say that individuals who did side with it and fiona hill was betting on the wrong horse. This goes to the discussion that we had and at this point its become very clear. Weve talked about this over and over and over. These are the facts and we look at it. I think it was interesting that you would say that i hear this a good bit that these are undisputed facts. They are disputed because if we didnt have undisputed facts we would all be agreeing here and thats not true. We dont agree on the basis, and the motivation of the call. We dont believe that thats thats an inherent difference in the two sides and why were here. Would the gentle lady yield for a unanimous consent request . Yes. I have a november 8th political article that ukraine didnt interfere in the 2016 campaign and Trump Officials testified. I appreciate the gentleman putting it in the record and theyve not said ukraine and i said ukrainians and theres a difference and the United States and they are americans and someone is not the American Government and this is the point that ive tried to make during the rest of this during the hearing today. And in fact, i think it was op eds guest columns written by ukrainian officials that were against President Trump if my memory serves me correctly. Not to belabor this, and on page 4 of the artic else les of impeachment, it claims that he conditioned two official acts on public announcements that he had requested. Again, mr. Collins, is there any proof of that . No. Theres not. I went through this over and over. He had a public stance on corruption. Like all of us, we had members and you want to make sure hes making the stance and also, hes going to do it. Say that you can do it and this is again, this is concerned about the corruption issue that we brought up before. And im just saying so im not repeating myself. Over and over again in here, and openly and soliciting ukraine for the political benefit. As you know, chairman mcgovern, i serve on the Judiciary Committee and i went over transcripts. I listen to much live testimony as i could, and i was rejected for actually going into the mr. Skiffs room so that i could cross examine witnesses which was disheartening and unfair and theres no proof theres no proof of this and its Wishful Thinking and its what you want and as mr. Collins said in the nadler report, i mean, it throws out all kinds of stuff and it talks about bribery which isnt even in the articles of impeachment here, so obviously, it didnt have much proof on that, and you just keep throwing out these things. All right. Lets move to article 2, obstruction of congress. Mr. Collins, can you kind of explain what the normal procedure what has been done in the past when the legislative branch wants something of the executive branch, and when my understanding when they first pursue accommodations when they talk with each other to see what they can come up with and then when they run into a roadblock then one of them goes to court and they get a ruling. Is that your understanding . And did the House Democrats pursue any accommodation, and if there was a roadblock did they take the time to go to court or did they just move forward with articles of impeachment . Again, its a whole year process, and whenever they would call the last couple of months and the witness wouldnt come. In a couple of cases the witness actually went to court to determine, you know, should they testify or not given the position and the House Majority withdrew from the suit. So they didnt want to continue that process in court. Historically, and look, if you take the majoritys argument on face value that there is a time issue here and there is an election issue that there is a clear and present danger that theyve said many times then you would want to avoid something that could drag this out further. I get that, and this is not historically the way this is done and its not historically the way investigations and impeachment have been done and those took several years. Nixon, clinton, and there were investigations for a long time into these things as we go along. Remember that we were tied up for the first half of the year in mueller and we got out of muler in july and we went separate into this right after and this is the situation were in. Thank you, mr. Collins, im now going to turn into what i call the nadler report which was kind of dumped on us i dont think it was midnight last night. It was after midnight the night before. 658 pages and i was frantically trying to read through it while i was in different committees, but mr. Collins, at the beginning of this, it says to me that was laughable, and i have to admit. It says from start to finish, efficiency and fairness and the minority is present and able to participate at every stage. Boy, mr. Collins, do you think thats true . I think theyre talking about what they witnessed and not what they did. I think this is the interesting part of this is getting it from our committee and being a rubberstamp for what somebody else did. Granted, im not going to and ive want denied that witnesses didnt testify in the Intelligence Committee and we didnt have our time. Woe had our members actually discussed and those were actually testimonial times and i do think it was interesting, and this is the craziness of this. I think it was but im not sure. Mr. Caster is a staff member being our witness and the only reason mr. Caster was a witness is because mr. Schiff wouldnt testify because mr. Nunes should have been sitting in that seat and he was in the beginning of the hearing and he was behind mr. Caster. So i under i dont agree with it in any way, shape or form, but the discussion that you just read is viewing another committee, not our own because once it got to us as i found out today and im hoping it was a misspeak, and i assume from my friend that it probably was that only 17 members that were called were the ones that we could have called and i assume it was a misspeak and youre interesting when dealing with such magnitude as an impeachment that you allow the chairman of the committee to determine their relevance, when no idea and not even a question could this provide exculpatory that would go further in this process and just say those witnesses are not relevant, and really what i never had to get a letter from chairman nadler about that, because i being see the timing of it. Ive been around this game long enough. You have to notice hearings and the way we were noticing hearings, was therent enough time to notice a new hearing to have to add witness day and you didnt have the time because i you s. T. A. R. T. Noticing hearings and you can look, but theyre not going to get witnesses. It didnt matter because they had the time and this fws into the general concern i have about where did we go in this body, in this house come january 1 because it was long gone from us tomorrow and where are we going to be on january 1 . We all have to work together. We all have to look forward and who sits in these seats after this time and thats a general concern that i la lot of us hav and the majority will get what they want and thats fine, but is that in long term benefit, and also the longterm benefit of this body . I would have to say no. And thank you. Mr. Chairman, im going to close with something that i have said before in Judiciary Committee, and at the risk of repeating it, its an oldie but a goodie, in my opinion. Its actually chairman nadlers own words. And i want to repeat. So during an interview on msnbcs morning joe on november 26, 2018, so not that long ago, chairman nadler outlined a threepronged test that said would allow for a legitimate impeachment proceeding. Now, and i quote, there are really three questions, i think. First, has the president committed Impeachable Offenses . I believe the answer is no, and there has been no proof. Second, do these offenses rise to the gravity thats worth putting the country through the dram of drama of impeachment . Again, i would say no because there has been no evidence of any crime committed or no evidence put forward, they were not able to establish treason, bribery or any high crimes or misdemeanors and three, because you dont want to tear the country apart. You dont want half of the country to say to the other half for the next 30 years we won the election. You stole it from us. You have to be able to think at the beginning of the impeachment process that the evidence is so clear of offenses so grave that once youve laid out all the evidence, a good fraction of the opposition, voters will reluctantly admit to themselves they had to do it, otherwise, you have a partisan impeachment which will tear the country apart. If you meet those three tests then i think you do the impeachment. Well, on all three counts i dont think mr. Nadler has met his task and especially in the last one, even if you contest the other ones this has been a partisan impeachment, not one republican voted to move forward with House Resolution 660 to move forward with the inquiry. Not one republican in Judiciary Committee voted for the articles of impeachment. I suspect not one republican will vote to move this forward in rules tonight, and i suspect that not one republican will vote for these articles of impeachment on the floor of the United States house of representatives and mr. Chairman and members, this is tearing the country apart. And with that, i yield back. . Thank you very much. Im kind of a stickler for details and accuracy in terms of some of the things that have been said here because these hearings are going to be enshrined in, you know, in our in our files and theyll be there forever. I want to go back to something the gentlewoman said about the votes on impeachment. I repeat, nobody nobody, democrat or republican has had an opportunity to vote on articles of impeachment and contrary to what has been said, voting to not table doesnt mean you get an automatic vote on the impeachment. Ill give you an example, on novemb november 2007 the house voted to impeach Vice President cheney and then moved to adopt a motion to refer the resolution to the Judiciary Committee and thats what most of us had in mind. So i cant say everybody, but i can say that it is just inaccurate to say that people would have automatically voted for impeachment or