Other important things that are going undone. Within this committees own jurisdiction we should be addressed in the opioid epidemic. We could be working together to find a solution to our immigration and asylum challenges on our southern border. We could be protecting americans for having their intellectual property and jobs stolen by Chinese Companies and we could be enhancing Election Security just to name a few things. Congress as a whole could be working on rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. Providing additional tax relief to the nations middle class families and providing additional security to our people here at home and abroad. Instead, here we are spinning our wheels once again on impeachment. What a waste. The American People deserve so much better. I yield back. The Gentleman Yield back. Thank you, mr. Chair. I take no pleasure in the fact that we are here today. As a patriot who loves america,
it pains me that the circumstances forced us to undertake this grave and solemn obligation. Nonetheless, they simply based simply on the Available Evidence it appears President Trump pressured a Foreign Government to interfere in our elections by investigating his perceived chief political opponent. We are here to uphold our oath to defend the constitution of the United States by furthering our understanding whether the president s conduct is impeachable. The Framers Of The Constitution legitimately feared foreign interference in our nations sovereignty and they wanted to ensure that there would be a check and balance on the executive. We sit here with a duty to the founders to fulfill their wisdom and being a check on the executive. We the peoples house are that check. Under our constitution, the house can impeach a president for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanor. Professor feldman, you have discussed High Crimes And Misdemeanors and the fact that the high refers to Crimes And Misdemeanors. Can you give us a little bit of
a summary of what High Crimes And Misdemeanors are and how they are distinct from what Professor Turley said they were . You sir. High Crimes And Misdemeanors are actions of the president in office where he uses his office to advance his personal interests potentially for personal gain, potentially to corrupt the Electoral Process and potentially as well against the National Security interests of the United States. I would say the word high modifies Crimes And Misdemeanors. The framers knew what high crimes and high misdemeanors. I believe the definition posted earlier of misdemeanor was not the definition of high misdemeanor which is a specific term understood by the framers and discussed in the Constitutional Convention but only of the word misdemeanor and its an easy mistake to make but the truth is high misdemeanors were their own category of abuses of office and those are the things that are impeachable. Thank you, professor. Professors, you have testified that the president s conduct implicates three categories. Abuse of power, betrayal of National Interest and corruption of elections. Is that right, Professor Karlan . Yes, it is. Professor feldman and professor get hurt, do you agree . Yes. You stated the president s decision to sacrifice the National Interest for his own ends. Do you agree with that . Yes, sir. Based on the evidence you have seen, professors, has President Trump sacrificed the countrys interests in favor of his own . Yes, he has. Is there a particular piece of evidence that most illuminates that . What illuminates it most for me is the statement by ambassador sondland that he wanted simply the announcement of an investigation. Several other peoples had the same thing. There is testimony by ambassador volker to this extent that what he wants was simply Public Information to damage joe biden. He didnt care whether joe biden was found guilty or exonerated. Professor feldman, do you agree . My emphasis would be on the fact that the president held up aid to an ally that is fighting a war in direct contravention of the unanimous recommendation of the National Security community. That seems to have placed his own interests in personal advantage ahead of the interests. And a bill passed by congress. Professor gerhart. I agree with what my colleagues instead and i would add that im concerned about the president s obstruction of congress. The structure of this inquiry, refusal to comply with the number of subpoenas ordering many highlevel officials and the government not to comply with subpoenas and ordering the entire Executive Branch not to cooperate with congress. Its useful to remember the constitution has the house has
the sole power to impeach. The constitution uses the word sole twice. It means only. Its your decision. Let me get Professor Turley in. Professor turley, youre a selfdescribed, selfanointed defender of Article One Congress guy but you justify a position this has legally issued subpoenas by a congress enforcing its powers dont have to be complied with. It seems in this circumstance you are an article to executive guy. And youre talking about the johnson impeachment is not very useful. That was maladministration. We the peoples representatives are custodians of the framers view. The gentlemans time has
expired. Thank you. Im afraid this hearing is indicative of the indecency to which we have come when instead of the committee of jurisdiction bringing in facts witnesses to get the bottom of what happened and not even having time to review the report which as Professor Turley indicated his wafer thin when compared to the 36 boxes of documents that were delivered to the last impeachment group. But then to start the hearing with the chairman of the committee saying that the facts are undisputed, the only thing thats disputed more than the facts in the case is the statement that the facts are undisputed. They are absolutely disputed and
the evidence is a bunch of hearsay on hearsay that anybody here had tried cases before of enough magnitude, you would know you cant rely on hearsay on hearsay. But we have experts who know better then the accumulated experience of the ages. So here we are and i would submit we need some factual witnesses. We do not need to receive a report that we dont have a chance to read before the hearing. We need a chance to bring in actual Fact Witnesses and there are a couple i can name that are critical to us getting to the bottom. They work for the National Security council. Abigail gray, sean misko. Involved in u. S. Ukraine affairs. They worked with Vice President biden on different matters involving ukraine. They worked with brennan and
masters. They have critical information about certain ukrainians involvement in our u. S. Election. Their relationships with the witnesses who went before the Intel Committee and others involved in the allegations make them the most critical witnesses in this entire investigation. The records, emails and text messages, flash drives, computers have information that will bring this effort to remove the president to a screeching halt. So we have article here from october 11. Pointing out that House Intelligence Committee chairman adam schiff recruited two former National Security council aide who worked alongside the cia whistleblower at the nsc during the obama and trump administrations. Abigail grace who worked at the nsc until 2018 was hired in february well sean misko until
2017, joined schiffs committee in august, the same month the whistleblower submitted his complaint. Goes on to point out grace was employ to help schiffs committee. Trump Accused Schiff of stealing people working at the white house. Chairman schiff said if the president is worried about us hiring former administration people, he should work on being a better employee. No, he shouldve fired everybody, just like bill clinton did. All of the u. S. Attorneys on the same day. It would have saved us a lot of what is going on here. Anyway, we need those two witnesses. They are critical. We also need someone who is a cia detail to ukraine. The state Department Freedom of information shows there was an italy state luncheon. Italy ramifications. He speaks arabic and russian, reported directly to charles corruptio. Continuous contact wi, state, ukrainian officials. Had a Collateral Duty to support Vice President biden. Biden was obamas point man on ukraine. Associated with dnc operative alexandra chalupa. Met with her in November Of 2015 with the ukrainian delegation and theres all kinds of reasons we need these three witnesses. I would ask, pursuant to section four House Resolution 660, ask our chairman, i mean our Ranking Member to submit the request for the three witnesses because we are not having a factual hearing
until we have these people that are at the bottom of every fact of the investigation. Thanks for bringing down the gavel hard. That was nice. The president has regularly and recently solicited foreign interference in our upcoming elections. Professor turley warrants its an impulse by moment and suggest the house pause. Professor karlan, do you agree with Professor Turley . No, if you conclude that the president is soliciting foreign involvement in our election, you need to act now to prevent foreign interference in the next election like the one we had in the past. Thank you, Professor Karlan. In 30 seconds or less, tell us why you believe the president s misconduct was an abuse of power so egregious that it merits the drastic remedy of impeachment. Because he invited the russians who are our longtime adversaries in the process. The last time around. Because he has invited the ukrainians into the process and because he suggested he would like the chinese to come into the process as well. Thank you very much. One of the framers of our constitution, admin randall, who at one time was mirror Williamsburg Virginia warned us that the executive will have great opportunities of abusing his power. Professor feldman, people like mayor Randall Rebelled because of the tyranny of a king. Why were the frame are so careful to avoid the potential for a president to become so tyrannical and abusive and what they do to protect against it . The framers believe very strongly that the people over the king. The people were sovereign. That meant the president worked for somebody. He worked with people. They knew that a president who
couldnt be checked, who could not be supervised by his own Justice Department and who could not be supervised by congress and could not be impeached would effectively be Above The Law and would use his power to get himself reelected thats why the created the impeachment remedy. Thank you, professor feldman. I want to discuss how the framers concerns about abuse of power relayed to President Trumps misconduct. On july 25, President Trump said to president zelensky i would like you to do us a favor, though. Professor feldman, one President Trump made use of the words favor, though, do you believe the president was benignly asking for a favor . How is the answer to that question relevant to whether the president abused his power . Stick to it is relevant, sir, because theres nothing wrong with someone asking for a favorn the interest of the united stat. The problem is for the president to use his office to solicit or
demand a favor for his personal benefit. The evidence strongly suggests that given the power of the president and given the incentives the president created for ukraine to complied with his request the present was seeking to serve his own personal benefit and own personal interests. That is definition of corruption under the constitution. Other witnesses have testified it was their impression when President Trump said i would like you to do us a favor, though, that he was actually making a demand not request. Professor feldman, how does Lieutenant Colonel vindmans testimony saying that the president statement was a demand because of the power disparity between the two countries relate back to our framers concerns about the president s abuse of power. Lieutenant colonel vindmans observation states very clearly that you have to understand the president of the United States has so much more power than the president of ukraine that when the president uses the word favor, the reality is hes
applying tremendous pressure, the pressure of the power of the United States. That relates to the constitutional abuse of office. If someone other than the president of the United States asked the president you can to do a favor, the president of the ukraine to say no. The president of the United States uses the office of the presidency to ask for a favor, there simply no way for the president ukraine to refuse. Thank you. Weve also heard testimony that the president withheld a white house meeting and military aid in order to further pressure further pressure or ukraine to announce investigations and Vice President biden and the 2016 election. Professor karlan, is that why youre testimony concluded that the president abused his power . I thought the president abused his power by asking for a criminal investigation of the United States citizen for political ends regardless of everything else. Thats just its not icing on the cake. Its what you would call an aggravating circumstance. Thank you. The president holding an american ally over a barrel to extract personal favors is deeply troubling. This is not an impulse buy moment. It is a break the glass moment and impeachment is the only appropriate remedy. With that i yield back. Mr. Jordan. Thank you. Before Speaker Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry, before the call between President Trump and president zelensky, before the mueller hearing in front of this committee on july 24, before all of it, 16 of them had already voted to move forward on impeachment. 16 democrats on the Judiciary Committee had already voted to move forward on impeachment. Yet today we are talking out whether the positions they have already taken our constitutional . It seems a little backward to me. We cant get agreement. We have four people who voted for clinton and they cant
agree. Yet today we are talking about the constitution. Professor turley, you have been great today but i think you are wrong on one thing. You said its a fast impeachment. I would argue its not a fast impeachment. Its a predetermined impeachment. Done in the most unfair partisan fashion weve ever seen. No Subpoena Power for republicans. Depositions done in secret in the bunker in the basement of the capital. 17 people, and for those and no one can be in there except a handful of folks adam schiff allowed. Chairman schiff prevented witnesses from antirepublican questions. Every democrat question got answered. Not every republican question. Democrats denied republicans witnesses that we wanted in the open hearings that took place three weeks ago. Democrats promised us the whistleblower would testify and then changed their mind, and they change their mind why . Because the whole world discovered adam schiffs staff had talked to the
whistleblower, coordinated with the whistleblower. The whistleblower with no firsthand knowledge, bias against the president to work with joe biden his lawyer in January Of 17 said the Impeachment Process starts then. Thats the unfair process we have been through. The reason its been unfair, let me cut to the chase. The reason its been unfair is because the facts arent on their side. The facts are on the president side. Four key facts will not change, have not changed, will never change. We have the transcript. No quid pro quo. The two guys on the call both said no pressure, no pushing, no quid pro quo. The ukrainians didnt know that the aid is held up. Fourth and most important, the ukrainians never started, never promised to start, never announced an investigation in the time that the aid is paused. Never wants. But you know what did happen . There are five key meetings between president zelensky and senior officials in our government. Five key meetings. The call on july 25. The next day we had ambassador volker, taylor, sondlan