Statements. The whistleblower got caught with chairman schiff. Remember chairman schiff, the person that the democrats instead of the House Judiciary Committee which spent a full week on this, thats not whos been in charge. The person they put in charge was the person that got caught with the whistleblower. Have you spoken directly with the whistleblower . No, we have not. Wed like to. That wasnt true. The person that said he had evidence of the first fake impeachment scam, collusion with russia, had evidence of that collusion and didnt have it. The person who in the course of that read into the record the steele dossier because the people needed to know the truth about what happened. Well, we heard about the truth about the steele dossier this week when the Inspector General told us it was all garbage, rubbish, all made up, yeah, that chairman schiff, and now he got caught not being truthful about
a whistleblower who as i said you the other day didnt Tell The Truth verbally and in writing and thats in a trns scri transcript. You know what we didnt get in this oneweek impeachment summary in this Judiciary Committee, we didnt get that transcript. Chairman schiff didnt send that one over. Only if you were on the Intelligence Committee have you seen that transcript. Ive seen it. Id like everyone to see it. With that i yield to my good friend, congressman jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding and i want to go back to where mr. Buck was referencing the gentleman from rhode island when he mentioned mr. Sondland as the guy they mentioned 611 times in their report, mr. Sondland, the guy who presumed there was a quid pro quo, the guy who had to file an addendum to his Deposition Testimony and he has this great sentence where he says ambassador taylor rules that mr. Morrison told ambassador taylor that i told mr. Morrison that i conveyed this message to
mr. Yermack. Six people again having four conversations in one sentence. Heres the interesting thing. Yermack talks with sondland. Sondland talks with morrison. Morrison talks with tay alrealo somehow we get the democrats thinking there was a quid pro quo and we need to impeach the president. Yermack talks with sondland, sondland talks with morrison, morrison talks with taylor. Guess what, two days ago the guy who started it, yermack, said it didnt happen. But thats their guy. Mr. Sondland had to file the addendum to his testimony, had to write this sentence to clarify. I think this is amazing. This is the clarification. Ambassador taylor recalls from mr. Morrison tells mr. Taylor that i told mr. Sondland yermack is the key here and it didnt happen. He just told us that. Time magazine just reported it
the same day that mr. Gates pointed out that you filed articles of impeachment. Holy cow, this is what it comes down to. I yield back. Mr. Chairman. The gentleman yields back. Mr. Chairman, i have unanimous consent. Move to strike the last word. For what purpose . Mr. Chairman, i move to strike the last word. The gentle lady is recognized. Let me just say ive been pretty shocked and disappointed with my colleagues on the other side. There have been so many things that have been said like the president never used the word demand. I can tell you this, when a robber points a gun at you to take your money, they usually dont walk up and say im robbing you right now. The other argument that weve heard this morning is that,
well, the aid was released. It was eventually released. There was no investigation. There was no announcement of an investigation. You know, the aid was released because the president got caught. It was released after the whistleblowers complaint. It was released after public reports that the aid was being held because ukraine was being coerced into doing an investigati investigation, and congress had initiated congressional investigations into why the aid was being released. We can talk about alternative facts all day long but the facts are really pretty clear that the president abused his power, the precious power of his office to coerce a country that was dependent on us. A country whos fighting russian aggression because when ukraine fights russian aggression,
theyre helping us fight russian aggression. And he did it for personal gain. He should be held accountable. Mr. Chair, i yield back. Mr. Chairman, unanimous consent . The gentleman is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. My first unanimous consent request is the record of correspondence served on officials by chairman schiff. Three were served prior to the passage of 33660. Reserve the right and well take a look at it. Two letters sent by the office of the Vice President dated october 15 and december 11, the Document Request from chairman schiff, legitimate oversight authorities. The second later points out inaccuracies in chairman schiffs report. Are these public
correspondence . They are course spebetween t president and without objection. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I move to strike the last word. The gentle lady is recognized. I yield to my friend, mr. Reschenthaler. Thank you. I think that weve got to remember that the abuse of power is coming from the quid pro quo charge which then morph ed into bribery. The problem is that my colleagues across the aisle cant make out what we call a Prime Fascia Case meaning the elements are not supported by the facts. Le the elements are as follows, whoever being a public official corruptly demands or seeks personally anything of value in return for being influenced in the performance of an official act, and we could tear apart each of these elements but let me just focus on corruptly. The president Didnt Have Corrupt Intent and thats why the democrats cannot make out a Prime Fascia Case. Contrary to shifts Parody Version of the july 25 call, the president wasnt asking the ukraine to, quote unquote, make up dirt about my opponent. That quote came from a parody from chairman schiff. The president didnt say it in the phone call. For whatever reason that is being missed. There was also significant reason to believe that the bidens were involved in corruption and theres also evidence ukrainian officials colluded with democrats in the 2016 campaign. Theres been a lot of talk about this being a Conspiracy Theory. Its not a speConspiracy Theory. Also, the president was not seeking to help with his 2020 campaign. Rather, he was seeking accountability regarding Ukraine Democrat Collusion in 2016 and
potential corruption in the obama administrations dealing with the ukraine as well. We have to remember too what Professor Turley said. Remember he voted for hillary clinton. Hes not a trump supporter. He was very impartial. He said and i quote, trump does not state a quid pro quo in the call. Hes using his influence to prompt the ukrainians to investigate and to cooperate with the justice department. If President Trump honestly believed there was a corrupt agreement with hunter biden that was not fully investigated by the obama administration, the request for investigation is not corrupt. Again, i was quoting Professor Turley. Id also like to quote the mueller report. Just as an aside we have to remember months ago Robert Mueller came in here and he said there was no evidence of collusion, no evidence of obstructi obstruction, but again were back here. Let me go back to the mueller report. There was discussion of corruptly in that report as it
pertains to obstruction of justice. It was stated, quote, corruptly means acting with an improper motive or with intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else inconsistent with the official duty and the rights of others. By that standard, by muellers own standard, the president s behavior is entirely inconsistent with the definition of the underlying statute. With that i yield back to my friend and colleague from alabama. I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from texas. I want to thank my friend so much. First of all, i was astounded, having been a pruosecutor and ive defended some cases, ive been a judge, i have sent a lot of people to prison but ive never sent someone to prison where the victim didnt know our figure out that they were a
victim. Thats extraordinary to hear that you can commit a crime like bribery or theft and the fact never knows, never figures out theres a victim. Ive never sent anybody to prison when the victim didnt know they were a victim. I yield. Ms. Robbie. I yield to mr. Collins. No. Also, theres probably nobody on this committee that has followed what has happened over time in ukraine more than i have. Theres no Question Putin wants the old soviet empire back. What happened when President Bush was in office, putin had russia invade georgia and President Bush reacted strongly and put sanctions in place. So what happened when president Obama Took Office and secretary clinton was in office, they went over there with a red plastic reset button and the message was
clear to putin. Look, Bush Overreabltcted when invaded georgia so you can invade ukraine and were okay. That may not have been what they intended but thats exactly what putin heard and thats why they invaded ukraine, crimea, and youre upset at trump . For heavens sake. The gentle ladys time expired. What purpose does mr. Rasken seek . Move to strike the last word. The gentlemen is recognized. Thank you very much. Our colleagues approve mr. Sis aileeny for raising ambassador sondland to President Trumps ambassador to the eu which is fascinating because thats President Trumps pick. He contributed 1 million to the trump campaign, became the ambassador to the eu. They dont like him now because he clarified his testimony to say, yes, there was definitely a
quid pro quo at the heart of this whole thing. So now of course they turn on the president s own ambassador but we dont have to rely on his word. I started to mention this before because he had lunch with david holmes who is the Senior State Department official at the u. S. Embassy in kyiv. They went out to a restaurant, and ambassador sondland got President Trump on the phone. Holmes could hear the conversation, and this is all uncontradicted by other witnesses who were there. Essentially ambassador sondland said to him that zelensky loves your ass and youre going to get exactly what you want from him. Afterwards holmes says, well, what is it we can get from him. Well, its the big stuff. Holmes says the big stuff, you mean like the war, dealing with
russia . No, the big stuff, what President Trump cares about. Im not quoting verbatim because i dont have it in front of me but the substance of this is very clear. What does he care about . What can benefit him, like the bidens. Its very clear from multiple witnesses exactly what President Trump wanted to get from president zelensky. He wanted a statement on television that ukraine was investigating and was going to investigate Vice President joe biden, and he wanted a statement contradicting the 2016 understanding by our Intelligence Committee and by Special Counsel Mueller that there had been a sweeping and Systematic Campaign by russia to interfere on the campaign and saying it was ukraine that interfered in our campaign. Thats what he wanted. That was the big stuff. He didnt care about the russian war on the people of ukraine. He didnt care about corruption. They invite us to believe that donald trump is an anticorruption crusader who was shaking down president zelensky about corruption when he doesnt raise any corruption on that call except for what he believed was going on with the bidens, except that he reduced anticorruption funding for ukraine, except he doesnt raise it anywhere else that we can find. What do you know, pick up the New York Times yesterday, President Trump had to pay 2 million to charities because he ripped off his own charity for millions of dollars. This is the anticorruption crusader they want us to believe in, the guy who paid 25 million to students at the phony Trump University which the Attorney General of new york called a classic bait and switch operation. This is the guy that they want us to believe was shaking down the president of ukraine because
he had some secret anticorruption agenda that actually wasnt related to the bidens, that wasnt related to rehabilitating the totally discredited russian Conspiracy Theory that it was ukraine and not russia that interfered in our campaign in 2016. Come on. Get real. Be serious. We know exactly what happened here. 17 witnesses. Its uncontradicted. Theres no rival story. No rival story at all. Our colleagues will not even tell you whether in theory it would be wrong for the president of the United States to shake down Foreign Governments to come and get involved in our president ial campaigns in order to harm the president s political opponents. They wont even tell us in principle whether they think thats wrong because its too dangerous at that point. We know that they dont accept the facts. We know they dont accept the evidence. They dont like the fact that the depositions took place in
the basement. Where should they have been, the first floor, the second floor . Would they accept the facts if they were in another room. I was in that room. There were democrats and republicans. The democratic counsel got an hour, the republican counsel got an hour. It was even on both sides. Enough of these phony process objections. Lets get back to the facts of what happened. The president of the United States shook down a foreign power to get involved in our election. Thats wrong. I yield back. Mr. Chairman. The gentleman yields back. Mr. Chairman, down here. What purpose does the gentleman seek recognition . Move to strike the last word. Their side. Sorry. Move to strike the last word. The gentleman is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. First, it bears mentioning that theres a lot about david holmes i would say but what i would say first is that for a guy who
heard part of one half of a threeminute phone call, he had a 40 minute Opening Statement. Sondland testified that biden was never linked in his mind until the transcript was released at the end of august. The democratic report does not not the republican report, the democratic report does not establish any linkage between the announcement or understanding of investigations for his personal and political benefit. The only testimony democrats rely on to prove that allegation is ambassador sondlands testimony. However, they conveniently leave out the most crucial aspect of the testimony. That is, after being questioned he only presumed the linkage. In fact, he admitted in his public testimony that No One In The World told him there was any linkage, but this is the basis for the democrats article one. I want to go into a broader reason of why we should accept mr. Jordans amendment. A democratic senator was quoted saying never in my view had america been led by such a
dangerous head of state. He bemoaned that america was misled by a reckless and arrogant president. That was senator robert byrd from West Virginia describing george w. Bush. Ronald reagan was accused of abuse of power for pushing a growthbased economic agenda, for committing troops to lebanon, or for turning back from nicaragua. Clinton was abused of aides getting sweetheart points, use of the fbi to Dig Up Dirt On Political employees, waco and a swedish slush fund. George w. Bush was accused of abuse of power for domestic spying and Energy Task Force controversy, president ial records act, steel tariffs, the iraq war and nsa overreach. Obamas irs engaged in politically motivated targeting of charitable groups. Fast and furious gun running scandal, collected Telephone Records on a. P. Journalists without a warrant, the ceaseizu of private property under the guise of environmental protection. The problem were running into which is going to last far longer is this will become the new normal. Every one of those things i mentioned had reports written about them. They probably had election consequences. Do you know what they didnt have . A nebulous, ambiguous charge of abuse of power. If you cannot prove an underlying crime, you do not get to use all of the evidence youre presenting forward. This will continue, this will move forward. In the history of our country, the party who is not in the house has accused the white house of abuse of power. It started 200 years ago. It will continue into the future. Now, congratulations, it will be impeachment every single time
one Party Controls the House Of Representatives and the other party is in the white house. With that i yield to my friend from louisiana. I thank my friend. I just want to point out we are talking about and we have been for the last two hours this amendment this mr. Jordan brought. He wants to strike article one of the resolution because the Resolution Isnt Worth the paper its wrong on. Why do we need to do that . Article two g