Last word. The gentleman is recognized. I yield to the Ranking Member. The gentle lady from california misstieated somethin that i addressed head on last night. Undersecretary stated this was perspective money, it was not interfering and dealing with this issue. For those of us who have been in a war, people die in a war zone. This money did not cause that. Thank you, reclaiming my time. Mr. Chairman, the biggest difference in the clinton impeachment and this one is that president clinton committed a crime, perjury. This president isnt even accused of committing a crime. The constitution is pretty clear on what constitutes an impeachable defense, treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. Its not, or whatever else nancy pelosi and adam schiff deem impeachable. I think we can all agree that no president should abuse the powers of his or her office, just like the chairman of the House Committee shouldnt abuse
the powers of his office to obtain and publish the Phone Records of the president s personal attorney, a member of the media and the Ranking Member of that same committee. But that doesnt make alleged Abuse Of Power a high crime or misdemeanor. In their newly authored Memo On Constitutional Grounds for impeachment, the majority of this Committee Goes to Great Lengths to explain why Abuse Of Power is an impeachable offense, mentioning it was one of the charges against Richard Nixon and bill clinton. What they dont mention is that the House Of Representatives has never adopted alleged Abuse Of Power as a president ial im impeachment. Abuse of power is a vague, ambiguous term open to the interpretation of every individual. Because Abuse Of Power lacks a concise legal definition, theres a higher burden of proof on those pursuing such a charge to show the actions that the
president rise to the level of impeachment. I believed that bill clinton had abused of power of his office but we failed to convince our colleagues in the house and that particular charge was rejected by the full house. In this case, the evidence provided is less convincing. In fact, id argue its nonexistent. First, there was no quid pro quo. Second, its a widely known in fact that ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries on the planet. Its why congress required the administration to certify that the Ukrainian Government had taken steps to clean up corruption before military aid could be provided to the country. President trump was well aware of that fact and quite skeptical of giving Ukraine Foreign aid long before the now famous july 25th phone call. Third, ukraine actually received the aid after the president was satisfied that ukraine had taken meaningful steps to address corruption which again is an obligation required by law. Based on the actual facts of this case as opposed to the hearsay and innuendo compiled by
the intelligence committee, its clear that no Abuse Of Power ever took place and there certainly isnt enough evidence to support an article of impeachment. Mr. Chairman, as you know, theres another significant difference between the Abuse Of Power charges against nixon and clinton and those presented here. In the nixon and clinton impeachments, Abuse Of Power was a tacked on charge, far less important in those cases than the actual high crimes charged against both of them. Here its the main thrust of the House Democrats entire case. Let me put it another way. The entire argument for impeachment in this case is based on a charge that is not a crime, much less a high crime, and that has never been approved by the House Of Representatives in a president ial impeachment before ever in history. If thats the best you got, you wasted a whole lot of time and taxpayer dollars all because so many of you, mr. Chairman, hate
this president. One last thing, i guess we now know why nancy pelosi was focus grouping bribery as a potential charge, because she was desperately searching for a crime, any crime, to justify this sham impeachment. That effort was abandoned because she knows most members of Congress Know and now the American People know there simply wasnt a crime committed here and there shouldnt be an impeachment here either. I yield back. Will the Gentleman Yield mr. Chairman. What purpose does mr mr. Swalwell seek recognition . To strike the last word. The gentleman is recognized. There are no crimes here . Thats the defense my colleagues across the aisle are putting forward . How about the highest crime that one who holds Public Office could commit, a crime against our constitution. After all, the constitution is the highest, most supreme law of the land. Every other law, statutory laws included, derive from the constitution, not the other way around. The president committed the highest crime against the constitution by abusing his office. Cheating in an election. Inviting foreign interference for a purely personal gain while jeopardizing our National Security and the tintegrity of our elections. After all, we in congress are not criminal prosecutors, we do not prosecute crimes. We protect the constitution. But since my colleagues keep bringing up what potential
crimes you could charge a president with, lets go through some of them because President Trumps conduct overlaps with criminal acts. Lets start with criminal bribery. 18 u. S. Code 201b2a. Criminal bribery occurs when a public official demands or seeks anything of value personally in return for being influenced in the performance of an official act. Additionally, the public official must carry out these acts corruptly. Demands or seeks, President Trump demanded and sought the announcement and conduct of politically motivated investigations by president zelensky. Anything of value personally, for the purposes of antibribely law, the phrase anything of value have been interpreted by the courts broadly to carry out the purpose of abuse of Public Office. In return for being influenced, the third requirement, as the intel report demonstrated,President Trump sought an announcement of these investigations in return for performing two official acts. First, he conditioned release of vital Military Assistance on president zelenskys investigations, and second, he conditioned a Head Of State meeting on these investigations. Fourth, performance of an official act. The courts defined an official act as any decision, action, matter, cause, pursuit, proceeding or controversy that may be pending or brought before a public official. Both the military aid an the white house meeting meet this requirement. Finally, corruptly. President trump behaved corruptly throughout this course of conduct because he used his official office in exchange to seek a private benefit. A second crime, Honest Services fraud. 18 u. S. Code section 1346, President Trump knowingly and willfully orchestrated a scheme to defraud the American People of his Honest Services as
president of the United States. This has been aligned often in the courts with bribery, except it also includes using a wider communication. Clearly the july will the Gentleman Yield for a question . I will not yield. Clearly the july 25 phone call constitutes a wire communication. There you have it. At least two criminal statutory crimes. However, all of these conversations about statutory crimes are moot because the president of the United States refuses to allow his own Department Of Justice to indict him. So the president may be charged with crimes stat toerl one day but thats not what were doing here on this day and we are not restricted like the Department Of Justice is so we will uphold our duty to charge the president with the crimes against the constitution that he has committed using your taxpayer dallas, jeopardizing the integrity of your vote for a
purely political purpose and a purely personal gain. With that i would yield to the gentle lady from california. I appreciate the gentlemans recitation of those facts as a former prosecutor. You speak with tremendous thofrt. Authority. I would like to note that the argument about lying about an a sexual affair is misuse of president ial power but the misuse of president ial power to get a benefit somehow doesnt matter. If its lying about sex, we could put Stormy Daniels case ahead of us. We dont believe thats a high crime the gentle woman yield. No, and it is not before us and it should not be before us because its not an abuse of president ial power. I yield back. The gentlemans time is expired. Will the Gentleman Yield briefly . The gentleman has the time. Does the Gentleman Wish to yield . Will the Gentleman Yield briefly . Yes. The important thing is that bill clinton lied to a grand jury. That is a crime. The article of impeachment that passed the house accused bill clinton of lying to a grand jury, a crime, and something that obstructs the ability of the courts to get to the truth. This is not what is happening here. Big difference. Thank you. Reclaiming my time. The gentleman reclaims his time. It is interesting though, were here because of fraud, not by the president but from within the Department Of Justice. I realize people on the other side of the aisle have been so busy trying to find some kind of Criminal Charge to bring geagait
the president , none of which worked. They may not have been aware of the most recent horowitz report, but it is clear now that the whole investigation that has brought us here with crime after crime being alleged and then having to be dropped was a fraudulent effort before the fisa court to have a Surveillance Warrant done against carter page. They lied initially, said that he was a russian agent when actually he had been used by the cia as a spy against russia. So they lied. It was fraudulent and there hopefully will be people that will answer for their crimes and their fraud in the Department Of Justice in the days to come and it sounds like that should be the case. There was fraud all the way through, but for three years we had been hearing about the crimes of the candidate trump
and then the crimes of President Trump, and we come now today based on the initial fraud that got this whole impeachment stuff started. And no one on the other side is willing to acknowledge the fraud that brought us here, nor the fact that so many people here have been screaming about the president s crimes, and were even hearing today like we just did, oh, yes, there were crimes. Then why arent they in this impeachment document . Its because they dont exist. Theyve been disproven over and over and over again, and thats why the gentlemans amendment is so well taken. You dont want to go down this ground. I think its a bad idea when it was proposed before. High crimes and misdemeanors, if its not treason even m
misdemeanors are crimes. We had to drop it all. People saying here and in the public, gee, were going to get the president because he colluded with russia, how terrible was that. Well, thats all been disproved and dropped. Now were left with bribery and extortion and now were even those had to be dropped because there were no crimes and i appreciate the gentleman bringing up crimes but those are not alleged here. Let me just say, this is a day that will live in infamy for the judiciary committee. The days of exemplary chairs like Daniel Webster when he stood for principle, those are going to be gone because this became a tool of the majority to try to defeat use Taxpayer Funds to defeat a president. By the way, the ken starr report, 36 boxes, he came in and testified. We were kept out of hearing the
witnesses. In watergate, these witnesses testified on television. It was public. It was not a Starr Chamber like the Schiff Chamber became. I would like to yield the reminder of my time to mr. Jordan. When did it all happen . Why isnt it in the resolution . Democrats say theres some scheme to have an announcement made by president zelensky to get a phone call with the president to get a meeting with the president and to get the aid released. When did the announcement happen . They got the call on july 25. They got the meeting on september 25. They got the money on september 11. There was never an announcement from the ukrainians to do an investigation. So you can keep saying all this stuff and all the points that this happened, this happened. It didnt happen, not the facts. We know why the aid got released, because we learned
that the new guy was the real deal and was going to are deal with corruption in his country. You can make up all the things you want but those are not the facts. The gentlemans time expired. Lets actually go through the facts. Were here today because the president abused his power. Were here today because he solicited foreign interference in the 2020 election. He had welcomed foreign interference as it relates to russia. He solicited foreign interference on the white house lawn with china, and he did it with ukraine. Hes a serial solicitor. Lets go through the facts. Congress allocated 391 million in military aid on a bipartisan basis to ukraine, currently at war with russianbacked separatists in the east. Ukraine is a friend. Russia is a foe. Ukraine is a democracy. Russia is a dictatorship. The United States is probably the only thing standing between Vladimir Putin and ukraine being completely overrun as part of putins fantasy to reconstruct the soviet union which would be averse to the National Security interests of the United States and every fact witness before this Congress Said so. You cant even dispute that. So we allocated aid on a bipartisan basis. Then the aid was withheld. So the American People deserve to figure out why. In february there was a letter sent by the Trump Administration saying, okay, the aid is on the way. But it never arrived. In april he had a phone call, the president , with zelensky. The word corruption was not mentioned once. And then in may the department
of defense wrote to this congress and said all necessary preconditions for the receipt of the aid have been met by the new Ukrainian Government including the implementation of anticorruption protocols. We have that letter. It was sent to you and it was sent to us. Then in july, on the 18th, at an Office Of Management And Budget meeting, the aid was officially frozen at the direction of the president. Twice during the summer mitch mcconnell, the Senate Republican majority leader, publicly stated he called the Trump Administration, what happened to the aid . Mitch mcconnell couldnt get a good answer. Because there was no good answer. Then on july 25 theres another call between President Trump and
president zelensky. The word corruption is not mentioned once. Heres what was said. Zelensky talks about defense. The Immediate Response is, do us a favor though. President trump says, i need you to look into some things, not related to procurement of defense arms but related to a wild Conspiracy Theory connected to the 2016 campaign and also says i want you to look into joe bid biden. Then whats interesting, since you think it was such a perfect call, he mentions rudolph giuliani, im looking at the transcript right now, not once, not twice, but three times. Why on an official call would the president mention rudolph giuliani. Hes not an ambassador. Hes not the secretary of state. Hes not a a member of the diplomatic core. Hes President Trumps political enforcer. Then what happens . You said you want to talk about the facts. In august, giuliani travels to madrid and meets with the Ukrainian Government as a followup to trump saying to ukraine go meet with giuliani. Then a statement is drafted by this Phony Investigation and sent to the ukrainians, but what happens . In august the whistleblower complaint is filed. Then on september 9 the whistleblower complaint is made public to congress. Two days later, on september 11, all of a sudden the aid is released. Why was the aid rele