Reviewing its screening procedures for foreign nationals who come to the u.s. For military training N.P.R.'s Bobbie Allen has more federal investigators are trying to determine what motivated the military student to carry out the rampage inside of a Pensacola Naval Base classroom on Friday defense secretary Mark esper said on Fox News Sunday that the incident is also prompting a review of how foreign nationals are vetted before coming to the u.s. For military training my understanding is currently of course they reviewed by Department of State they reviewed by Department Homeland Security and their review by us and I want to make sure that those those procedures are full and sufficient The Pentagon has long allowed military officers from other countries to train in the u.s. The fence officials have defended the exchanges as investigators examine how the program screens for officers the Navy has identified the 3 victims who were killed trying to stop the gunman Bobby on n.p.r. News Washington the House Judiciary Committee holds an impeachment Pietschmann hearing tomorrow into President Trump's dealings with Ukraine to review evidence compiled by the House Intelligence Committee lawyers for both Republicans and Democrats will present their cases afterward the committee will decide whether it should move forward with articles of impeachment in Hong Kong tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets today in the 1st authorized pro-democracy rally in more than 2 months and years only thing has more marchers dressed in black the chosen color of protest in others and more colorful winter clothing streamed into Hong Kong's commercial district by the thousands they shouted slogans like Hong Kong revenge and called on the city's Leader Kerry lamb to step down anti-government protesters are now in their 6 month despite the withdrawal of an extradition bill that initially sparked protests demonstrations expanded into greater calls for direct democracy rule of law and greater autonomy from the aging the March coincides with the United Nations Human Rights Day and as the largest The city has seen in months Emily Fang n.p.r. News Beijing business economists are forecasting economic growth. To slow slightly this year or next but say they think the economy will not fall into recession the latest survey of $53.00 forecasters with the National Association for Business Economics shows expected growth of 2.9 percent to slow to 2.8 percent this year and then down to 1.8 percent in 2020 this is n.p.r. In India at least $43.00 people are dead after a fire swept through a handbag factory in a can just in New Delhi neighborhood authorities saying electrical short appears to be the cause and are investigating whether the factory was operating legally the owner has been detained the Kennedy Center hands out its annual awards honoring excellence in the arts tonight Linda Ronstadt Sally Field and the producers of Sesame Street are among the honorees as are Earth Wind and Fire and Michael Tilson Thomas N.P.R.'s Elizabeth Blair reports on every Michael Tilson Thomas leads orchestras around the world and champions American composers like conducting works by Aaron Copeland was Sesame Street is the 1st t.v. Program to receive the award the Kennedy Center says the show continues to revolutionize how viewers learn about the world and Earth Wind and Fire is being honored for songs that have bridged generations. The weekend for honorees includes a dinner at the State Department and a star studded show of tributes at the Kennedy Center Elizabeth Blair n.p.r. News Washington Space X.'s Dragon capsule made a delivery to the International Space Station today the liver in mice killing worms and a smart and empathetic robot among other things but there was also a holiday cheer NASA says nestled into the 3 tons of supplies were Christmas presents this is space x. Is 1000th to the orbiting outpost Asian markets are trading higher at this hour the Asia dollar is up about one 3rd of a percent I'm Janine Herbst And you're listening to n.p.r. News from Washington. Support for n.p.r. Comes from the George Lucas Educational Foundation creator of Edutopia air and online resource dedicated to improving the learning experience for America's students with information and strategies about what works in k. Through 12 education learn more at Edutopia dot org. Ron let me when my see in New York is on the media I'm pretty glad. I stead of being cross these Christmas album we're going to have impeachment at the end and yes as former acting attorney general Matt Whitaker observed Thursday on Fox It's beginning to look a lot like impeachment perhaps just in time for the holidays tree tops glisten and children listen to hear accusations of bribery obstruction and abuse of presidential power with confidence and you never change with allegiance to our founders and in fact full of love for America today I'm asking me to proceed with I have calls of impeachment and finally giving her green light House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected Republican accusations of political vendetta and couched the decision as constitutional duty this setting the stage for what for exactly the absurd spectacle we've experienced literally from day one of Trump's presidency documented facts against a vaudeville of denial so here we are again after 3 years facing one of the more memorable Yuletide ever and we have in all that time advanced the story Pietschmann or no impeachment not one Christmas fake. Professor Karlan of Stanford a witness handpicked by Democrats to debunk Republican accusations of unfairness lack of due process sham and coup d'etat was no nonsense about this what has happened in the case today is something that I do not think we have ever seen before a president who has double down on violating his oath to faithfully execute the laws and to protect and defend the Constitution but not so fast it may seem like Trump's flouting of Congress is singular that his governing by executive fiat is unprecedented but nope been there impeached that in 868 the House of Representatives voted for articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson as a us senator and vice president under Abraham Lincoln Johnson had fought hard against the session and revered the Constitution but installed in the presidency after Lincoln's assassination he flirted congressional plans for reconstruction is reason Congress had declined to immediately offer the 11 former Confederate States their former seats without concessions such as the right of suffrage for free blacks thus Johnson concluded the legislative branch was illegitimate the incomplete Congress could pass no laws and he proceeded to do whatever he could to return freed slaves in the South to an existence of other degradation Brenda why Napal is the author of The impeach or the trial of Andrew Johnson and the dream of a just nation she says that after Lincoln died Congress was out of session Johnson refused to call a special session and instead began acting on his own he started putting into place executive actions in the south that would reconstruct the government along southern white supremacist lines. Prevented the formerly enslaved people from making contracts from moving from airing from any kind of due process when Congress got back into session 1st they passed a civil rights law Johnson vetoed it Congress passed the legislation over the vetoes and then they started the reconstruction laws to put the formerly seceded States back into Congress by getting them to redo their constitutions to make sure that black men had the vote in also to ratify the 14th Amendment because by this time Congress had decided due process should be enshrined in the Constitution they also passed the tenure of office Act the tenure of office Act said that cabinet members who have been approved by the Senate cannot be fired unless the Senate approves that too the reason they pass that particular law was to protect a specific cabinet member Edwin Stanton who was the secretary of war the military had been kept in the South to make sure that black men and white loyalists were able to get to the polls there were generals who were appointed essentially as viceroys who had fought to protect the union and now they see people slaughtered on the streets so they were there to prevent this kind of violence Johnson fired Edwin Stanton and because Johnson had violated a specific law the House of Representatives felt it had no choice but to vote overwhelmingly to impeach Andrew Johnson that happened in February of a 268. I want to ask about Johnson's motives and his authoritarianism One is that he wanted to rebuild the union as quickly as possible the other is that he was just a naked white supremacist which of those do you think best describes his motives he didn't want the union reconstructed this quickly as possible but he said this is a white man's country and by God it will be a white man's government Johnson who was born in North Carolina as poor white as you could possibly be his mother sent him and his brother out isn't entered servants and when he ran away from the tailor shop where he was indentured the owner of the shop put out want to sign is if Johnson were a fugitive slave he's not a planter he's not part of the Southern our stock Recy but it does not mean that you doesn't really at some level want to be part of them so when he gets into the White House he begins pardoning those aristocrats who served in the Confederate army or in the Confederate government almost a 100 a day he becomes quite authoritarian he loves the union but he also loves the power of white people over everyone else. It's not just some political squabble that we're discussing here but there were black Americans shot in the street for the crime of being black right in both Memphis in the spring of 866 and then in New Orleans that summer black men and women were slaughtered on the streets women were raped beatings and whippings in both cases concerted mob violence that began to be understood as the formation of the Ku Klux Klan which people in the Democratic press or the white supremacists press dismissed as propaganda there were a constant reports of this by journalists who traveled south by the military and actually Congress convened a committee that took testimony under oath and 44 people testified about what was going on in the south and it was dismissed by Johnson thanks to The Telegraph there was a lively daily press already developed in 868 but almost every paper was affiliated with a party or a faction of apartheid South Philly right was it like every outlet was Fox News spending the narrative to suit its own concerned about it with m s n b c 2. But yes all the press was partisan but you had some really wonderful journalists in the most surprising one was Mark Twain in early on in the impeachment trial was actually covering it caustic and is insightful is anyone that you wanted to meet or read. Little joke about Fox News but were any of the major papers of the time so partisan as to utterly distort the actual straight dope in order to support its audience's worldview you had a lot of speculation you had a lot of propaganda the New York World gave me the chills because it was so incredibly racist but that doesn't mean they were making up things the scary thing to me is that this kind of propaganda sometimes hardens and it calcifies into history yes in fact the calcification of history and give you a good example John Kennedy's Profiles in Courage which got a Pulitzer Prize one of the chapters claims that a man named Edmund Ross junior senator from Kansas was unself courageous heroic for casting the vote that kept Andrew Johnson in office Andrew Johnson it said should never have been impeached it was the radical fanatic maniacal Republicans who wanted him out of office and you can still sort of hear some of that point of view today Kennedy writes There was no real reason for Johnson to be impeached the issues were not national issues you look back you say Hakon you say that well if you read Ross is memoir that's what he's gonna say because he's justifying his vote the deciding vote rather than being a profile in courage may have been a profile in bribery what historical evidence was quite a bit of historical evidence and Ross the junior senator from Kansas he kept going to Johnson and there are letters where he says for my vote would you please take care of say my father in law my brother and myself. If Johnson would do whatever he asked and then Ross would come back for another favorite sorry to have to come back but for my vote. This holy. The nation will be 70000000 years into the light that's to do anything but even then they had to deal with the murky language of the framers as in What the hell are high price and misdemeanor rights so for guidance they turned to Alexander Hamilton we do the same thing today in Federalist $65.00 Hamilton said that a civil officer particularly a president could be impeached for something called maladministration an abuse of the public trust now that doesn't make things very clear but it was actually pretty smart not to be so specific because the kinds of maladministration or misbehavior abuse is going to change over time unfortunately what's elastic is also kind of murky at the same time so how do the house determine that Johnson crossed the line into political crime people were so offended by his bigotry but I think Congress was illegitimate and couldn't pass any laws because those 11 states weren't seated in it there were some who were so horrified by that that they wanted to impeach Johnson is there only is 867 the issues went to the Judiciary Committee we've heard of them but they were waiting for a specific violation of law because of these very murky issues about what's abuse of power by the time they actually voted overwhelmingly as I said to impeach Andrew Johnson they voted because of the trip wire at the violate. Of the tenure of office Act So firing Stanton was the hey would you do me a favor perfect phone call exactly it was the straw that broke the camel's back it was the perfect phone call you know it was considered so egregious that it didn't take very long for the house to drop those articles of impeachment there were 119 of which dealt with the violation of the tenure of office all right no spoiler alert introduction was acquitted in his Senate trial by one very questionable vote it was it mostly along partisan lines mostly but not entirely there were 7 Republicans who voted along with the Democrats to keep Johnson in office what happened was these were very close to an election the Republicans had Ulysses s. Grant the popular war hero waiting in the wings they wanted to nominate him and they were afraid that if Benjamin Wade considered a radical Republican were to take Johnson's office even for a short amount of time that would somehow undermine the lose he says granting Grant might even have to put Wade on the ticket with him but there were other reasons too something that we would call dark money today was floating around that was a House investigation of what was going on favors being passed back and forth and promises made by and large however the and Pietschmann was a partisan process this all played out familiarly enough as Johnson was readying himself for reelection campaign was there consideration in the House about just letting electoral politics take their natural course no that has felt it had no choice but to call for with impeachment I mean it had been dragging its feet but when Johnson violated the law they just said that's enough the Senate is a different story it's a higher bar for removal from office it's not a simple majority it's 2 thirds. Now I happen to know of a president facing impeachment who responds by refusing to cooperate with congressional subpoenas and with vicious ad hominum attacks on all of his perceived enemies including members of his own administration how did into Johnson respond to the process he wanted to take his case to the people he was a demagogue stirring up crowds in actually calling believe it or not for the execution of his perceived enemies particular men in Congress so he was is epithets drooling as anyone you might think of in the present Oh and I might add he didn't need his secretary of energy to compare him to Jesus Christ he just took care of that himself what he told black people that he was going to be their Moses. As he thought of himself as deeply persecuted too Johnson was acquitted and then came the election but it's not as though he lost in a general election to Ulysses s. Grant he never got to a general election no the Democrats Celt that he was toxic they had had enough of Antar Johnson quite enough no his political crew did not and no he was not a broken man he was an angry man and in the 870 s. Andrew Johnson is sent back by the Tennessee legislature to the United States Senate and what does he do he stands up and he goes on a rant against Ulysses s. Grant during congressional recess enter Johnson goes home and passes away before he can do any more damage in the Senate throughout this conversation I've been pointing out parallels some of them actually quite eerie 250 years ago and today what lessons should we take from the Johnson impeachment. Having 9 Articles of Impeachment focused on the violation of a law and only to on abuse of power and obstruction of justice means that people forgot that the real issues that stake were not the question of this particular law maybe even this particular phone call if you want to make that kind of analogy but actually the direction that the country should and would go in today what's at stake too is the direction of the country that really what's behind the abuse of power is the destruction of a whole democratic structure in the independence of a sovereign country and the fact in both cases that no one not even a chief executive is above the law Brenda thank you very much thank you Bob a pleasure historian Brenda wine Apple is the author of computers. Coming up a map for navigating the nation's roiling political life this is on the media. 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