Power to determine its own rules. When president nixon during the time he was going to be impeached ruling how that proceeding would go forward. When the Clinton Impeachment was brought forward, there was a unanimous consent request to govern how we conducted ourselves and im not sure how likely it would be that we would get a unanimous consent request. Id like to ask unanimous consent without objection to enter into the record a letter that was sent to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee signed by 70 republican members including the republican leader every parliamentary tool available to us and committee on the house floor, to highlight your inaction translated means to try to delay them to make this process as impossible as it can be made. Im not sure in light of this letter that we could get a unanimous consent request and these seedings and break for a cup of coffee, never mind, i just want to stay for the record because i think its important that i think the house has engaged in a fair Impeachment Inquiry process. Democrats and republicans have had equal opportunity to participate. Members both parties have been involved in every step of this process and closeddoor depositions to Questioning Witnesses and open hearings, the committees have more than 100 hours of Deposition Testimony from seven key witnesses, held seven public hearings which included republican requested witnesses, produced a 300 page public report that laid out their findings and evidence, the Judiciary Committee then took that report and conducted two public hearings evaluating the evidence before reporting that
you will articles i should also point out that President Trump was provided an opportunity to participate in a Judiciary Committees review of the evidence presented against him as president clinton was during the Impeachment Inquiry he chose not to participate. In President Trump debate has not provided any exculpatory evidence but instead has blocked numerous witnesses from testifying about his actions. Mr. Raskin, i saw you scribbling furiously while mr. Collins was testifying, i dont know whether there something you wanted to respond to. My friend speaks very fast so its hard to keep up with everything he is saying. Is a couple of things. Its all right. Im from massachusetts and people say the same thing about my accent. I give you credit, you are making an effort at the beginning and so was i. They accused me of the same. He raises some really important points and i love the chance to briefly address them. One thing that weve been hearing is that we didnt charge crimes and in some sense, that duplicates a basic confusion that people have about what the process is. We are not criminal prosecutors prosecuting a criminal to send to jail. Thats not what we are doing. We are members of Congress Working to protect the country against a president who is committing High Crimes And Misdemeanors that his constitutional offenses against the people of the country. Lots of the conduct that we plead in our specific articles alleging abuse of power and obstruction of justice themselves could become part of criminal indictments later on. Spread this confusion that they didnt go in there when they were the very first ones to be saying and continue to say the Department Of Justice cannot prosecute the president. The president may not be indicted, the president may not be prosecuted while he is in office, thats the position they take. They cannot turn around and say you cant impeach him because you havent charged him with any crimes and prosecuted him and indicted him. Has a win, tails you lose is the essence of that argument. And if you go back to the Richard Nixon case, we didnt have to see that he had been convicted of burglary and the District Of Columbia by ordering the break into the Watergate Hotel before he was charged with abuse of power as a high crime and misdemeanor. Thats exactly what we are charging President Trump with here. We dont have to first go out and prove that he committed bribery or committed services
fraud or committed extortion, all things that he could be prosecuted for. Later, we simply have to allege the course of constitutional criminal conduct he was engaged in. So we can set that one aside. A second thing that my friend said was that there were no Fact Witnesses, that this was based on the report that was delivered to us by the House Committee and thats a play on words too. There were 17 Fact Witnesses who appeared before the House Committee on intelligence, the House Oversight committee and the House Foreign Affairs committee. The way that we structure this Impeachment Process which is completely our prerogative under article one, section two is to have the fact investigation into involving Foreign Governments so far in the Intelligence Committee then to have them bring the facts in a
comprehensive report to the house Judiciary Committee which would then make the decision about the law. Do all of these events rise to what we think is impeachable conduct and of course, we did so there are lots of Fact Witnesses. We also had the counsel for the house Intelligence Committee come into deliver the report and defend the report and all of My Friends On The Other Side of the aisle have the chance to question as we have the chance to question. When you say there were no Fact Witnesses, that is a perfect description of what took place during the bill Clinton Impeachment because all of that took place as part of the independent counsel investigation by ken starr, closeddoor secret depositions taking place there. They came to deliver the report and remember all the boxes and material they brought over and gave it to the house Judiciary Committee. So we are throwing the exact same pattern that took place there, it its own fact investigation through this assortment of committees. Finally, let me just say a word about the fairness of the process and we all know what they teach you in law school which is the facts are against you, you pound the law. The laws are against you, you pound the facts. The law and the facts of against you, you talk about process and you pound the table. Im afraid ive seen a little bit of that in the performance of our colleagues here and i dont blame them because they are dealing with the hand that they were dealt. We have 17 Fact Witnesses and all of their depositions and all of it was published in all of their reports, everybody can find it and all of their
testimony is essentially unrefuted and uncontradicted. Its tells one story which is the president of the United States have a shakedown of a foreign power. We in congress had voted for a besieged struggling democracy, ukraine to defend itself against russian invasion and attack. To coerce the president of that Foreign Government, president zelensky to get involved in our election campaign. He wanted president zelensky to make an announcement on television that joe biden was being investigated. What does that have to do with the Foreign Policy of the United States . What does it have to do with what congress voted for . What are that have to do with any legitimate interest of the u. S. Government . The other thing he wanted president zelensky to do was to rehabilitate the completely discredited conspiracy theory
that it was ukraine and not russia that interfered in our election. Our entire Intelligence Committee. The nsa, the cia, the fbi. The Senate Committee on intelligence, all of them say the same thing which is that it was russia that conducted with the Department Of Justice called a sweeping and Systematic Campaign against our election in 2016. Remember, they injected propaganda into our policy through social media, facebook and twitter and so on. They directly conducted Cyber Innovation and attack and espionage against the Democratic National committee. Hillary clintons headquarters, and they directly try to get into our state boards of election, not two or three, all 50 of them they try to get into, thats what russia did and that we have the president of the United States telling president zelensky that if he wants a 391 million that we voted for and that hes been
certified for by the Department Of Defense and the Department Of State clearing every anticorruption screen that wouldve been put in place and called for by congress, does he want the money and does he want the white house meeting he desperately wanted to show america was on ukraine side and not russian side. He wanted to get that stuff, he had to come and get involved in our president ial campaign had to rehabilitate this discredited story about 2016. I yelled back. Thank you. Some of the commentary on the news from some of the pundits, i think people need a lesson in constitutional law and why its great that you are here. Let me ask you a basic question that sometimes people dont understand, why is impeachment in the constitution . Thats a great question and mr. Collins invoked indirectly my favorite American Revolutionary, tom payne who wrote common sense and the age of reason and said you cannot have one without the other, in
other words you need the common sense of the people and you need people to be conducting things according to reason. Rationality, facts, empiricism, science. But why did payne come all the way over here to participate in the American Revolution which was not for him to win . America was the first nation in history born of a revolutionary struggle against the idea that you could have Hereditary Rule, payne said a Hereditary Rule is as ridiculous as a hereditary mathematician. Or a hereditary artisan. He said the people have got to decide on their own leaders. Now, impeachment is an instrument that our founders put into the constitution informed by the british experience. There was impeachment that parliament had but it wasnt against the king, it was only against royal ministers. Why . Because of the british doctor and the do no wrong. The king can do what he wants. The king can do no wrong and therefore cant be impeached but are founders insisted not just for others civil officers that might create High Crimes And Misdemeanors but i guess the president himself and the president and the domestic emoluments clause is limited to a fixed salary and office which could be neither increased or decreased by congress and he cant receive any other emoluments from the governments help. The president is effectively an employee of the American People, he is not above the people, he is a servant of the people like all of us are in the president s core job is what . To take care that the laws are faithfully executed. He doesnt faithfully execute the laws, if he thwarts the laws and triples the loss and commits crimes against American People, then we are not going to send him to prison, but he needs to be removed. Why is it abuse of power andImpeachable Offense . Abuse of power is the essential impeachment offense. Thats why its in there. What its about is elevating the personal interests and ambitions of the president above the common good, above the rule of law and above the constitution. The founders didnt want a president who was going to behave like a king. We wanted a president who was going to implement the law might go out and implement the Affordable Care act and implement environmental law so thats their job, thats what youre supposed to be doing. We met we have seen evidence the president decided to withhold important official acts. The white house visit, military aid in order to pressure ukraine to announce investigations of Vice President biden in the 2016 elections. Why does that constitute impeachable defense . It basically implicates every single one of the concerns that were raised by the founders at the constitutional convention. One, it places the personal political agenda of the president over enforcing the laws. And it drags foreign powers into our election. That is something the framers were terrified about, there was a Great Exchange between adams and jefferson about just this issue that they would be constant foreign intrigue and influence because we would be an open democracy so people would try to exploit our openness by getting involved in our elections with their Foreign Government concerns which is why the president had to have complete undivided loyalty the American People into The American Constitution and not get involved with Foreign Governments, not drag Foreign Governments into our affairs. So basically, you have everything the framers were concerned about tied up in one bundle. Involving Foreign Governments in our elections, the president s
interest over everything else, and then essentially threatening the rule of the people and democracy. Where do you draw the line between the legitimate use of president ial power and an abuse of power and why is it significant if President Trump acted for his personal political advantage and not the furtherance of any Valid National policy objective . Thats a good question because our colleagues have shrewdly zeroed in on the fact that some of the witnesses including ambassador sondland said of course there was a quid pro quo, the president was not going to release the aid, not going to have the meeting until he got what he wanted in terms of interference and then even the president Chief Of Staff said of course there was quid pro quo. He is saying yes, this is the way we proceed, get used to it. And our colleagues have said there is always quid pro quos tied up in Foreign Policy. In other word, it is legit to say to a Foreign Government we
will give you this aid if you can imply that the aide is all being used in the proper way. We will give you this assistance if you attend these conferences and meetings with us to make sure the assistance is being used properly. A look at what happened here. This was an arrangement where the president conditioned all of this foreign assistance that we had set the Department Of Defense, 191 million to the Department Of State to help ukraine defend itself against russia and the president said when he was holding out for was the interference of the ukrainian president in our election to harm his political opponent. I think everyone can recognize that is not the normal kind of push and pull and arrangements that nations make for each other because the president privileged its own political interest and
thats why it was all done secretly and luckily there were witnesses who were going to come forward and to explain what happened. I will ask yo you and mr. Ran the same question, was the call perfect and was it appropriate for him to ask another country to investigate an American Citizen . There was nothing wrong with the call and if you look at it again, the problem im having right now is the last 15 minutes of this. A great moratorium on a lot of things that mean nothing to the actual impeachment. We get to the bottom line here and honestly, ill get back to it later because everything has been thrown out here exactly what the problem weve had in the discussion on this idea, we have disproven the fact, so i can talk about both of them, the problem we have here is this is
the very problem we have and ill just address one thing. Ill give it to him. Im looking at the president , the transcript that i would like you to do us a favor. Do you think it was a perfect call . Lieutenant Colonel Vindman said it was a perfect political call. Whatever it was asked, whatever u. S. Policy to ask a foreign leader to open a political investigation. Certainly the president was well in his right to do that. Do you think