Densically record shows wrong acts on that scale here. It shows a president who delayed meeting a foreign leader and provided assistance that congressed a his own advisers agrees serves our National Interests in promoting democracy and in limiting russian aggression. Saying, russia, if youre listening, you know, a president who cant have the Constitution Say russia if you are listening, but out of our elections. It shows a president who did this to strong arm a foreign leader into smearing one of the president s opponents in our ongoing election season. Thats not politics as usual. At least not in the United States or not in any mature democracy. It is, instead, a cardinal reason why the constitution contains an Impeachment Power, put simply, a president should resist foreign interference in our elections, not demand it, and not welcome it. If we are to keep faith with our constitution and with our republic, President Trump must be held to account. Thank you. Thank you, professor ger hard. Thank you, mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. Other dwirnd members of the committee. Its an honor and a privilege to join the other distinguished witnesses to discuss a matter of grave concern to our country and to our constitution. Because this house, the peoples house, has the sole power of impeachment. There is no better form to discuss the constitutional standard for impeachment and whether that standard has been met in the case of the current president of the United States. As i explained in the remainder and balance of my opening statement, the record compiled thus for shows the xrt has committed several Impeachable Offenses, including bribery, abuse of power and soliciting of personal favor from a foreign leader to benefit himself personally, obstructing justice, and obstructing congress. Our hearing today should serve as a reminder of one of the fundamental am principles that
drove the founders of our constitution to break from england and to draft their own constitution. The principle that in this country no one is king. We have followed that principle since before the founding of the constitution and it is recognized around the world as a fixed inspiring american ideal. In his third message to congress in 1903, president thee tore roosevelt delivered one of the finest articulations of this principles. He said, no one is Above The Law and no man is below. Nor do we ask any mans permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right, not asked for as a favor. Three features of our constitution protect the fundamental principle that no one, not even the president is Above The Law. First in the british system, the public had no choice over the monarch who ruled them and in our constitution, the framers
allowed elections to serve as a crucial means for ensuring president ial accountability. Second in the british system, the king could do no wrong. And no other parts of the government could check his misconduct. And in our constitution, the framers developed the concept of Separation Of Powers, which consists of checks and balances, designed to prevent any branch, including the presidency, from becoming too radical. Third in the british system, everyone but the king was impeachable. Our framers generation pledged their lives and fortunes to rebel against the monarch whom they saw as corrupt, tyrannical and entitled to do no wrong. In our declaration of independence, the framers set for atmosphere series of Impeachable Offenses that the king had committed against the american colonists. When the framers later convened in philadelphia to draft our constitution, they were united around a simple, indisputable principle that was a major safe guard for the public. With at the people, against
tyranny of any kind. A people who had overthrown a king were not going to turn around just after securing their independence from Corrupt Monarchial Tyranny and create an office that like the king was Above The Law and could do no wrong. The framers created a Chief Executive to bring energy to the administration of federal laws but to be accountable, to congress, for treeson, bribery or other High Crimes And Misdemeanors. The framers concern about the need to protect against a corrupt president was ev department throughout the convention and here i must thank my prior two friends, who have spoken and referred to a North Carolinaian william davie, i will refer to another North Carolinaian in the constitutional convention, James Iredale who James Washington assured his fellow dell gaetz the president quote is of a very different nature from a monarch. He is to be personally responsible for any abuse of the
great trust placed in him. Unquote. This brings us, okay, to the crucial question we are here to talk about today. The standard for impeachment. The constitution defines treason and the term bribery basically means using a office for personal gain. Or i should say Misusing Office for personal gain. As Professor Feldman pointed out, these determines derived from the british who understood classes impeachable to refer to political crimes, which included great offenses against the United States, attempts to subvert the constitution, when the president devyates from his duty or dares to use the power invested to him by the people breaches public trust is serious injuries to the republic n. His influential letters in the federalist papers, Alexander Hamilton said those offenses
proceed from public men in other words the abuse of some public trust relate to chief injuries done immediately to society itself. Several themes emerge from this famous discussion of the scope of Impeachable Offenses and impeachment practice. We know that not all Impeachable Offenses are criminal and we know not all felonies are Impeachable Offenses. We know further that what matters in determine whether the particular misconduct constitutes high crime and misdemeanor is ultimately the context and the gravity of the misconduct in question. After reviewing the evidence thats been made public, i cannot help but bonn clued this president has attacked each of the constitutions, safe guards, against establishing a monarchy in this country. Both the context and gravity of the president s misconduct are clear. The favor he requested from ukraines president was to receive an exchange for his use of president ial power, ukraines
announcement of a criminal investigation of a political rival. The investigation was not the important action for the president. The announcement was. Because it could then be used in this country to manipulate the public into casting aside the president s political rival because of concerns about his corruption. The gravity of the president s misconduct is apparent when you compare it to the misconduct of the one president who resigned from office to avoid impeachment, conviction and removal. The House Judiciary Committee in 1974 approved three articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon who resigned a few days later. The first article charged him with obstruction of justice. If you read the mueller report, it identifies a number of facts, i wont lay them out here right now. That suggest the president , himself, has obstructed justice. If you look at the second arm of impeachment approved against Richard Nixon, it charged him with abuse of power for ordering the heads of the fbi, irs, cia, to harass his political enemies. In the present circumstance, the president has engaged in a pattern of abusing the trust placed in him by the American People by soliciting foreign countries, including china, russia and ukraine to investigate his political opponents and interfere on his behalf in elections in which he is a candidate. The third article approved against president Nixon Chargeed that he had failed to comply with four legislative suspense. And the present circumstance, the president has refused to comply with and directed at least ten others in his administration, not to comply with lawful congressional suspense, including Secretary Of State mike pompeo, Energy Secretary rick perry and acting Chief Of Staff and head of the Office Of Management And Budget is nick mulvaney. As senator Lindsay Graham now chair of the senate Judiciary Committee said when he was a member of the house On The Verge Of Impeaching president clinton. The day Richard Nixon failed to answer that subpoena is the day he was subject to impeachment, as we took the progress away
from congress and he became the judge and jury. That is a perfectly good articulation of why Obstruction Of Congress is impeachable. The president s defiance of congress is all the more troubling due to the rational he claims for his obstruction. His arguments and those of his subordinates, including his white House Counsel in his october 8th letter to the speaker and three Committee Chairs boil down to the assertion that he is Above The Lawsuit. I wont read that letter here. But i do want to disagree with the characterization in the letter of these proceedings, since the constitution expressly says, and the Supreme Court has unanimously affirmed that the house is the sole power of impeachment and might that like the senate the house has the power to determine the rules for its proceedings. The president and his subordinates have argued further that the president is entitled
to absolute immunts from criminal procedure, even investigation for any criminal wrong doing, including shooting someone on fifth avenue. The president has claimed further hes entitled to Executive Privilege not to share any information he doesnt want to share with another branch. Hes also claimed the entitlement to be able to order the Executive Branch as hes done not to cooperate with this body when it conducts an investigation of the president. If left unchecked, the president will likely continue his pattern of soliciting foreign interference on behalf of the next election and, of course, his Obstruction Of Congress. The fact that we can easily transpose the articles of impeachment against president nixon onto the actions of this president speaks volumes. That does not include the most Serious National Security concerns and election interference concerns at the heart of this president s misconduct. No misconduct is more emma thet
cal to our democracy and nothing Inju Ininjuries the American People more than the president weakens his power under the authority of the constitution as well as the authority of the constitution, itself. May i read one more sentence . The witness may have another sentence or two. Thank you. If Congress Fails to impeach here, then the Impeachment Process has lost all meaning, along with that our constitutions carefully crafted safe guards against the establishment of a king on american soil, therefore, i stand with the constitution and i stand with the framers who were committed to ensure that no one is Above The Law. Thank you, professor. Professor turley. Thank you. Chairman nadler, Ranking Member collins, members of the Judiciary Committee, its an honor to appear before you today to discuss one of the most sequential functions you were given by the framers and that is the impeachment of the president of the United States. 21 years ago, i sat before you,
chairman nadler, and this committee to testify at the impeachment of president William Jefferson clinton. I never thought that i would have to appear a second time to address the same question with regard to another sitting president. Yet, here we are. The elements are strikingly similar. The intent, rancor and rage of the public debate is the same. The atmosphere that the framers anticipated, the stifling and tolerance of opposing views is the same. Id like to start, therefore, perhaps incongrusly stating a relevant fact. Im not a supporter of President Trump. I voted against him. My personal views of President Trump are as irrelevant to my Impeachment Testimony as they should be to your impeachment
vote. President trump will not be our last president and what we leave in the wake of this scandal will shape our democracy for generations to come. I am concerned about lowering Impeachment Standards to fit applausity of evidence and abundance of anger. I believe this not only fails to satisfy the past impeachments but would create a dangerous precedent for future impeachments. My testimony lays out the history of impeachment from Early English cases to colonial cases, to the present day. The early impeachments were raw political exercises using fluid definitions of criminal and noncriminal acts. When the framers met in philadelphia, they were quite familiar with impeachment and its abuses, including the hastings case which was discussed in the convention, a case that was still pending for trial in england. Unlike the english impeachments,
the american model was more limited, not only in its application to judicial and executive officials, but its grounds. The framers rejected a proposal to Add Maladministration because madison objected that so vague a term would be equivalent to a tenure during the pleasure of the senate. In the end, various standards that had been used in the past were rejected, corruption, attaining office by improper means, betraying the trust of a foreign, to a foreign power, negligence, perfity, speculation and oppression. Perfity are lying and self dealing are particularly relevant to our current controversy. My testimony explores the Impeachment Cases of nixon, johnson and checkpoint. The closest of these three cases is to the 1868 impeachment of andrew johnson. It is not a model or an association that this committee should relish. In that case, a group of
opponents of the president s called the Radical Republicans created a trap door crime in order to impeach the president. They even defined it as a high misdemeanor. There was another shared aspect besides the atmosphere of that impeachment and also the unconventional style of the two president s. And that shared element is speed. This impeachment would rival the johnson impeachment as the shortest in history, depending on how one counts the relevant days. Now there are three distinctions when you look at these three commonalities when you look at these past cases. All involve established crimes. This would be the first impeachment in history where there would be considerable debate and in my view not compelling evidence of the commission of a crime. Second is the abbreviated period of this investigation, which is
problematic and puzzling. This is a facially incomplete and inadequate record in order to impeach a president. Allow me to be candid in my closing remarks, because we have limited time, we are living in the very period described by Alexander Hamilton, a period of agitated passions. I get it. Youre mad. The president s mad. My republican friends are mad. My democratic friends are mad. My wife is mad. My kids are mad. Even my dog seems mad. And luke is a Golden Doodle and they gone get mad. So were all mad. Where has that taken us . Well, in the slip shot of impeachment make us less mad . Will it only invite and invitation for the madness to
follow every future administration . That is why this is wrong. Its not wrong because President Trump is right. His call is anything but perfect. Its not wrong because the house has no legitimate reason to investigate the ukrainian controversy. Its not wrong because were in an election year. There is no good time for an impeachment. No its wrong because this is not how you impeach an american president. This case is not a case of the unnoticeable. Its a case of the peripheral. We have a record of conflicts, defenses that have not been fully considered, unsuspended witness with material evidence. To impeach a president on this record would expose every future president to the same time of incollate impeachment. Impeachment ofte