Investigate political rival joe biden in a july 25th phone call. The complaint also says that there was a concerted white house effort to lock down records of that call afterwards. James trustee is a former Justice Department prosecutor. Welcome, good to see you again. You too. Hey, paul. Paul so weve got the main documents now in public, the transcript, the whistleblower complaint, the office a of Legal Counsel opinion on how that should have been han handled. Do you see as a first look at this any violations of law . I really dont. I mean, i think youve got a phone call that to the extent that were happy with the transcript thats created, its a phone call thats probably not a perfect call as the president would statement i kind of wish he would stay away from some of the things he said. But i dont see a quid pro quo. I dont see an obvious link to whats called a thing of value. I dont think its a likely criminal violation and certainly not a willful criminal violation of Campaign Finance laws in that call itself. But again, that said, i kind of wish he had let other people do the talking when it comes to what he was hoping for ukraine to look into. Paul is your judgment maybe it was a mistake in judgment, maybe it was undisciplined but it is not a crime to be able to ask a foreign leader to investigate corruption and including the mention of my pligh political r . Ukraine has a history, going back to world war ii where theres an awful lot of intrigue, espionage, corruption, affecting very high ranks there. Its like quicksand to get into a conversation with anything about ukraine or to na anyone fm ukraine addressing public corruption. Its not out of line to say were happy for your country, we want you to address corruption but delving into the biden family situation is something he could have a avoided and still t answers. Paul adam schiff says this is mafialike behavior, basically an offer you cant refuse mr. Zelensky and therefore its an abuse of you power. What do you think of that term, abuse of power in this context . Theres a couple things that make you cringe when you hear adadam schiff raise these typesf comments. First of all, this is no mafia call. Ive heard some of those from my old job and this aint the mafia. Thats an overstatement. Schiff is a former federal prosecutor as well and most federal prosecutors realize if you overstate your case, if you say im going to prove, a, b and c and you can only prove a, a jury loses all trust in you. Thats kind of where weve gotten with mr. Schiff, hes been so relentlessly extreme, he has very little credibility when he recharacterizes a phone call. Doesnt mean theres not room for criticism, doesnt mean for instance theres not room to explore rudys role as a Foreign Policy person or the classification issue, did they do it to avoid leaks, do they do it regularly or is it something where someone in the white house thought this call doesnt have the optics we dont like. Im not seeing anything that rings as criminal. The problem with impeachment is impeachment is whatever the hell Congress Says it is. They can pretty much call things abuse of power, betrayal of this that, or the other or mafia impersonation and they can probably go forward with it. Paul i want to ask about this issue of the whistleblower. Because hes a person in the federal bureaucracy, the intelligence bureaucracy and files a complaint and then because of the complaint says we must turn over the look into Congress Must investigate the contents of that telephone call between the president and a foreign leader. You now, if you take this to its logical conclusion, it means any time anybody in the bureaucracy has a complaint that they say this is a problem, sends a memo, says you must turn it over to congress and pretty soon does can any president ial conversation be turned over to basically be listened to by congress and for that matter the whole world . Its a very fair question, right, which is we want to encourage actual whistle blowing but we dont want a situation where theres no privacy, no diplomatic channels that exist anymore because of whatever, partisanship. But let me just say a couple things on that. The first thing is, i have a hard time actually calling this whistle blowing. I know its probably typical in the Intelligence Community to write something the way this is written. But its kind offed to me. Historically, a whistle blower was someone who said im around something that i think is criminal and i need to talk about it and turn it over to investigators. This one comes off more like a term paper where the person is citing all sorts of mead consider sources, giving a theory. Third or secondhand, but giving a theory of what happened here and why. I wonder, is therebyas creeping into things is there bias creeping into things. It will be curious to see how this whistleblower does on the witness stand, whether theres a robust cross examination or whether they point out this is all secondhand or third hand. Paul the whistleblower is supposed to be about intelligence abuses. The president is not formally part of the Intelligence Community. And the whistleblower works for the executive branch. Is this i mean, are we eroding the power of the presidency in a fundamental way i guess is the way i would put the question. Well, history will tell us, right. This is New Territory and may see a flood of this type of behavior in the Intelligence Community. The options for the director of national intelligence, who was guided by office of Legal Counsel, doj, is this report credible enough to turn over to either congress because its urgent or the attorney general because its not urgent. So again, normally these things would be handled internally, investigated intern l nailly by either internally by either the attorney general or a committee thats looking you out for justice rather than trying to grandstand or use it for impeachment but here we are in this new transparent world, i. Paul thank you for being with us. As we come back, as he faces a formal impeachment probe, how great is the political and legal peril for President Trump . Our panel weighs in, next. With accident forgiveness they guarantee your rates wont go up just because of an accident. Smart kid. Indeed. Are you in good hands . Too many people a restless nights sleep. Theres a better choice. Aleve pm. 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Paul that was ukraines president , vladimir zelensky, saying that nobody pushed him during the july 25th phone call at the center of the whistleblower complaint. Lets bring in our panel, dan henninger, kim strassel and senior fellow jason riley. So were going to get to the politics of all a this. But first, i want to address the merits o of issue and the case against donald trump here and start with the phone call to zelensky, the mention of biden, the request for corruption probe. Was this an abuse of power . Well, lets try to choose our words carefully here. I think bringing you a political opponent in a conversation like that is a misuse of president ial power. All right. Now, that it came out. The American People can sit out there and decide whether on that basis thats another reason why i dont want to vote again for donald trump. Or you could say that doesnt bother me so much. I dont care what he did. Paul you think as a fact it was a bad idea, a mistake. I think it was a bad idea. I dont think president s should bring up political opponents in that type of context. Paul with a Foreign Government and say investigate my opponent. But the issue before us, paul, is whether this is cause to impeach the president of the United States. Paul okay. And i dont believe it rises to that level. Paul i want to get to that specific issue. What about the idea that the president had thethe allegation that the president suspended military aid, u. S. Aid, to ukraine in earlier july before the phone call, implicitly putting a strong arm down on zelensky. Thats what the media, the press reports leading up to the release of this information told us would be in there. But its not explicitly in there. Paul the transcript. In the transcript. No, its not there. This quid pro quo that we were told would be there. If you dig up dirt on my political opponent, i will release foreign aid to you. I dont read that into what was said. Paul would it be in the back of his mind if he had thought zelenskys mind im not a mind reader. None of us are mind readers. Thats the problem here. This is pretty weak tea compared to what we were told would be in here. And i think it shows the sort of overeagerness of the democrats here and, remember, this started out as them wanting to impeach trump for not releasing this information. They didnt he know what was in the whistleblower report or what was in the transcript. They thought that alone was an impeachable offense. They now released it and weve been over108d o oversold on the ingredients. Paul kim, let me get you in here, talk about the whistlebloweral plea cases allegations, which includes anil he lee gas station that the transcript of the phone call was put into a special server that wasnt able to be viewed as normal president ial phone calls are. And this is being called a coverup by nancy pelosi and others. How do you see that . Well, first of all, its awfully hard to have a coverup of a phone transcript that now the entire world has read because the white house itself released it. So we had to go through hours of this, based on this allegation. Reporting since then has suggested there might be some confusion about the actual Storage Systems and the way in which president ial calls and transcripts are actually handled. That is something that there still needs to be a lot of digging on. But in terms of this pure allegation, process aside, again its a hard to make a coverup claim when everybody is actually reading the things which were talking about. Paul of course, the whistleblower complaint has now been released as well. And as well as a legal judgment by the office of Legal Counsel, explaining why this didnt necessarily have to be reported to the congressional committee. I want to ask about rieu city giuliani. You mentioned Rudy Giuliani. We talked about this this week. The president clearly kind of he was operating as a sort of independent envoy, on tv all the time, trying to get a meeting with ukrainians, trying to press this biden story, reckless behavior . Well, look, i think one thing thats important here is that Rudy Giuliani is a private lawyer. Okay. And while he was open about what he was doing and i think this is notable, paul. Because hes been doing it for months. Hes been out there, publicly doing this. It was never particularly wise to have a private lawyer acting freelance as it were on an issue like this. Hell say oh, its because im representing my clients interest. But when your client is the president of the United States, there needs to be some different boundaries. I think it was totally appropriate for official channels to be asking ukraine about their involvement in the 2016 election. That is information that is valuable. And i also dont think it was a problem that the president asked for it either in that call, to know what happened in 2016. But Rudy Giuliani i think it would be better for the president and land him in fewer troubles if he werent out there doing these things. Paul do you agree with dan on the point about whether this is an impeachable offense. Absolutely. Im not sure what we see in the transcripts is a crime, let alone a high crime that would lead to impeachment. Paul i dont think theres any crime in here but impeachment is in fact a political exercise. There is nothing in here that would cause me to say we need to overturn the results of the 2016 election. Paul do you agree with that . I absolutely agree. There is nothing in here that remotely rises to an impeachable offense, especially when you look at the context of the conversation and the main issue that was originally raised by president zelensky, not by donald trump. Paul all right. A lot more to come on this. When we come back, the politics of impeachment, ho House Speaker nancy pelosi says she supports an official inquiry but why is she ducking a vote . Theyre getting hit hard on this witch hunt because when they look at the information, its a joke impeachment for that . Hmm. Exactly. Liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. Nice. But, uh. Whats up with your. Partner . Not again. Limu thats your reflection. Only pay for what you need. Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty hi. Maria ramirez mom maria Maria Ramirez. Mcdonalds is committing 150 Million Dollars in tuition assistance, education, and career advising programs. Prof Maria Ramirez mom and dad Maria Ramirez to help more employees achieve their dreams. The fact is that the president of the United States in breach of his Constitutional Responsibilities has asked a Foreign Government to help him in his Political Campaign at the expense of our National Security as well as undermining the integrity of our elections. That cannot stand. He will be held accountable. No one is above the law. Paul House Speaker nancy pelosi launching a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump this week, acwhicplunging washington into n Election Year clash between congress and the president that is likely to have unforeseen political consequences. So kim, weve been hearing for weeks that months that nancy pelosi was opposed to an inquiry. Why did she change her mind . Well, the short answer, paul, is she got rolled. Im pretty sure that nancy pelosi still doesnt think this is a good idea but what you had is these activist groups out there who for months have been demanding it and when this ukraine issue came up, they steadily increased that drum beat, they laid out the law, they said get on board or youre going to lose us and our support. I think there were moderate freshmen who were worried they were going to get challenged in primary. They moved over and said were in favor and she was suddenly surrounded by what was pretty much the majority of her caucus saying we need to do this. Paul what ever happened to those swing state democrats, dan, we heard so much about that they were going to be in jeopardy if they went ahead with an impeachment . Has that calculation changed for them . It did to some extent because apparently a lot of them were being threatened with primary challenges from progressive candidates. I do not quite understand the logic of how a left wing candidate then wins in a district that was formerly held by republicans, that sounds like a long shot. Progressives arent thinking in those terms, though. They want this impeachment vote. They want it not merely to overturn the 2016 election, but they want to use it as a political cats paw against the republicans, impeach trump in the house, then push it to a trial in the senate and then you start forcing republican senators who have tight races, cory gardner in colorado, Susan Collins in maine, thom tillis down there in north carolina, mark mcsally in arizona, to perhaps vote against President Trump. So youve got the republicans then on the defense. I think thats the game plan. Whether thats the right strategy or not, pushing it that far, is another question. Paul so get the left off the backs of her members from primary challenges, throw this into the senate, hope that some of the Senate Republicans break, a mitt romney, say, of utah, doesnt like the president , turns, votes for conviction, and then maybe you divide the republicans in the senate . That could be part of it. Im sure that is part of it. But i would also argue that nancy pelosi and maybe is just listening to her caucus here. Several months ago there werent as many Many Democrats calling for impeachment. Now they are. Those numbers have ticked up. Public poll has also shown an increase in support in the general public. Paul its still not over 50 . Its not over 50 but its measurably gotten higher, that support. And weve seen that even in the past week. Paul its riskier now to not go ahead with impeachment for her. She could say im listening, im listening to my caucus. Kims right. Theyve been looking for reasons to do this. They are flailing out there. They wanted to impeach trump over his tax rushes, over stormy daniels, over russia. This is the latest excuse to move forward on it and she couldnt hold out any longer. Paul let me ask a process question. In the nixon and clinton impeachments the house of representatives voted with imagers to go ahead with a impeachment inquiry. 31 democrats voted to proceed with an impeachment inquiry, not an actual impeachment but to go ahead with inquiry. Nancy pelosi stood up and said this is official. Well, i mean, is that