Trumps not being impeached over. And i sit down with legendary Journalist Bill moyers on the dangers of so much dishonesty. All in starts right now. Hello. Hey, everybody. How are you . Good evening. Thank you for being here. Thank you, thank you. Its great to have you all here back at our special studio in 30 rock. Its been another crazy, overwhelming and ultimately historic week. Were going to get into all the details. We saw three marathon days of testimony in the impeachment of donald j. Trump this week. Weve now seen public testimony from 12 different witnesses including three that were requested by the republicans on the committee. Though youd never notice by the way they treated them. You know, if you were pressed for time this, and i get it if you were, it was a crazy week, and you want a sort of top line take away from all this testimony and hearings this week, its he did it. Thats basically the top line takeaway. One thing that we have seen over the last two weeks is that theres been a lot of testimony about just how messed up it was for the president to do what he did to ukraine, right, to with hold assistance and support. From a young democracy. I mean, ukraine continues to this very moment, as im speaking to you, theyre literally in a hot shooting war with russia right now, thousands and thousands of ukrainian soldiers have died. Russia currently occupying huge parts of that country, and we are as the u. S. , we are ukraines ally. And just to be clear here, we are not ukraines ally or assisting them because of some deep state globalist agenda, no, we agreed to give them military aid, because of wait for it a bipartisan vote in congress. 351 to 66, which, by the way, many of the republican congressmen you saw ranting all this week, they all voted for. Jim jordan, devin nunes, among others, they voted for the bill. Oh, and then it was signed into law by President Donald Trump, okay . This was the policy the policy of both houses of congress and the president. The president signed it. For President Trump to then throw these roadblocks in front of the new ukrainian president whos attempting to extricate himself from this horrible war of occupation, at a time when they need our support, its an incredibly screwed up thing to do. And we have a lot of evidence of that. We got a lot of evidence this week, but i want to be clear about something as we think about all the evidence we have seen, which is that as messed up as it is, this is not why President Trump is being impeached. It is not what the president did to ukraine that is impeachable. It is what he did to all of us as american citizens and american voters. [ applause ] remember, this is the guy who goes around touting himself as america first. Hes looking out for america, right . But his conduct here is literally the opposite of that. Weve all seen in this testimony that President Trump, what hes consistently doing is throwing americans under the bus to a foreign interest, selling america out to foreign interests. First, theres the fact the president is trying to, and this is so central to this hes trying to get an American Election determined by forces outside america. By foreigners. It is a grave violation of our sovereignty and democratic determination as a collective people. We determine our elections. We should let other countries determine theirs, right . We should we should not meddle in other elections, and other people should not meddle in ours. Its a universal principal. But we have violated that over and over. But we determine our fate and our future and we determine our elected representatives. The last time 2016 donald trump solicited foreign interference openly and he used to win an election, and it fundamentally did something deeply destructive to our sense of democratic legitimacy. And as soon as he thought he got away with it, literally the day after special Counsel Robert Mueller testified, and a lot of people thought the whole thing was over, the day after he gets on the phone with the ukrainian president and he tries to extort him into meddling in the upcoming election. So that is the first and the biggest infraction here to us as americans. The second is that the president of the United States right now is providing active cover for the foreign entity that actually did sabotage our last election. And not only that, hes actually attempting to blame americans rather than russians for that sabotage. And that shows up in on the part of the trumps phone call with the ukrainian president that honestly people talk the least about because i honestly think this, it is so cringeinducingly nuts. And its the Conspiracy Theory that made its way into the president s brain and into that phone call with the ukrainian president. And its almost too embarrassing to get into the details so republicans just have this euphemism for it. They say 2016. Have you heard that, right, in the hearings. You wanted to investigate 2016, thats the shorthand. Trump didnt say 2016 in the phone call. Check the transcript. He said crowdstrike. Look at the call notes. Quote, i would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine. They say crowdstrike, i guess you have one of your wealthy people, the server. They say ukraine has it. What is zelensky thinking at that moment . So four months after the call, the president is still parroting that insane Conspiracy Theory. Literally this morning on fox friends, President Trump repeated the exact same thing almost verbatim and Conspiracy Theory which im going to explain in a moment, which is so nuts and out there that even one Steven James Doocy sitting on the curvy couching and staring deadeye into the camera as the president ranted was forced to raise his voice with a gentle reminder that we live on planet earth. A lot of it it had to do they say with ukraine but mr. President its very interesting. Its very interesting. They have this server right from the dnc, Democratic National committee. Who has the server . The fbi went in and they told him get out of here, were not giving it to you. They gave the server to crowdstrike, or whatever its called, which is a Company Owned by a very wealthy ukrainian, and i still want to see that server. The fbi has never gotten that server. Thats a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a you kranian company . Are you sure they did that . Are you sure they gave it to ukraine . Well, thats what the word is and thats what i asked actually in my phone call if you know. I asked it very pointblank because were looking for corruption. Are you sure they did that . Mr. President , are you sure about that . Again, just bear with me here while i have to explain what those words mean because almost no one takes the time to explain it. Do you feel like that . Because its so wild. Just to be clear, crowdstrike is not a ukrainian company. Its an american one and its cofounded by a guy born in russia whos an american citizen. And its a publicly listed Cybersecurity Company based in sunny california. In fact, get this, they have a contract with the Republican Party right now. They do Digital Security for fortune 500 companies all over the country, and they happen to have a client back in 2016 that the Democratic National committee, the dnc, who got hacked in 2016. And they hired crowdstrike to do the analysis. What happened here . And crowdstrike were the first people to say we looked at it, we analyzed it, we found the culprit, russia hacked the dnc. That is why crowdstrike is the target. Because they were the ones who to coin a phrase, blew the whistle on russia. They were the first ones to say this is russia. And so they have been a target of russia and President Donald Trump ever since, right . Fascinating how that works. So the Conspiracy Theory that has been spun out of it and lives in the darkest corners of the internet, the idea of this Conspiracy Theory is that, get this, contrary to u. S. Intelligence and special counsel mueller, russia didnt actually hack the dnc. No, no, no, no. Instead, the dnc hacked its own server, then leaked their own emails, which got their own head of the dnc fired . Okay. And then in partnership with crowdstrike they created a story framing the russians for the hack they did to themselves. And then they refused to let anyone investigate it, and so, they shipped the physical server that had the evidence over to ukraine. Just to be clear, we have no reason to believe that theres like some server in a vault in kiev that is being locked away from the prying eyes of the fbi. But the whole crowdstrike Conspiracy Theory it is i just want to be real clear about this. Its like 9 11 truther level. Nuts. Because what it says is that the attack that happened on america was actually done internally by americans to themselves. Thats what hes saying when he says that. And that is vile slander against americans, and its vile slander all for the purpose to uncover the actual Foreign Intelligence Service that committed the grave crime. Against us, the american electorate. Thats two things. The third thing thats a betrayal of americans. It has to do with President Trump, what hes asking be done to the bidens. And i dont think this part of it honestly has gotten enough attention. Typically, nations are jealous guards of their own sovereignty and of their own legal process. We want to deal with american citizens ideally in american jurisdiction. We tend to be a bit suspicious of other countries judicial systems. Well, whats happening here is the opposite. The president of the United States is taking a private american citizen and trying to get ukraine attempt subject him to their jurisdiction when hes not accused of any crime. If hunter biden broke the law that is a u. S. Department of justice business, and thats our business. And the american first guy, right, the guy who talks about standing up for americans, hes pushing a foreign country to pull an american into their system, to sellout an american citizen, who is not accused of any crime, and attempt to sacrifice that person at the alter of a foreign judicial process that is notably corrupt and is not our own. And thats not the way it works or it shouldnt work. We actually have a version right now the way it should work. And thats with Rudy Giulianis buddies, rudy and his buddies lev and igor. You know them, you love them. So basically theres an investigation, Southern District of new york, by u. S. Authorities, and they have a factual predicate for that investigation. And they get probable cause to get an indictment. They have to go through a u. S. Judicial process, and the authorities get an indictment and have appear it looks like to secure a cooperation from ukrainian officials without the president making a call to order it. The president doesnt do that. Thats for the line prosecutors to do using established international protocol. And lev and igor are being prosecuted here in our country under our laws with our constitutional protections because their americans. And what the president tried to do in ukraine is a fundamental betrayal of his duty. Because the president and i know he doesnt believe this but its true, the president is the president of hunter biden, too. He is. Because hunter biden is an american citizen, and it is the president s duty to protect all americans, all americans from the deprivations of foreign judicial systems. In fact, it is really the president s job to represent all of Americas National interests. Thats the job. Thats the job. He took an oath to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, and he has used the position to benefit himself instead. And not just to benefit himself, he benefits himself at the cost of the american interests, at the cost of american citizens, at the cost of americans reputation, at the cost of americans sovereignty and selfdetermination over our own electoral process. And that is the reason that hes being impeached. [ applause ] joining me now is one of the members of congress who will draft and vote on articles of impeachment against the president. Joe, neguse, hes a member of the house Judiciary Committee. Good to see you. Good to be with you, chris. What is your understanding of where the process is now . Weve heard from the 12 witnesses, the house Intelligence Committee, depositions, now open hearings. Is the ball now coming to your court in the Judiciary Committee . So thats an open question, chris. First, i would just say you articulated the case very well in terms of kind of recounting whats occurred over the better part of the last two weeks. Its worth really taking a breath and considering the scope and the gravity of the evidence that weve ascertained over the last several weeks. And the American People really have had an opportunity to hear from people whom i think are patriots, Public Servants who have served under republican and democratic administrations, who have fought for our country, people like Lieutenant Colonel vindman, ambassador taylor, ambassador yovanovitch, dr. Hill who as you know did a really effective job at of explaining the reasons why these conspiracy theories arent even theories. They ultimately constitute russian propaganda. The point that you mentioned regarding crowdstrike and the rest. So i think if one takes a step back and considers all the evidence that weve gathered, it is clear that this president abused his power and betrayed his oath and ultimately betrayed the constitution by soliciting a foreign power to interfere in the next president ial election and to target a domestic political rival and so forth. In terms of the next steps, look, chairman schiff has done a masterful job with respect to the fact gathering. Its going to be his call as to whether or not more witnesses are needed. And whether or not there will be other depositions or other public hearings. The Judiciary Committee will stand ready to consider the evidence that he transmits to us under House Resolution 660 and to be able to obviously take our work very seriously as we proceed potentially into the next phase of the process. So, ive seen reporting that indicates the time scale of this, the pace and scope is likely to essentially result in some kind of report in the Judiciary Committee. Theyve been talking about drafting articles of impeachment by christmas i think ive heard. And i guess my question to you is, like, why the rush . There are fact witnesses who are currently denying subpoenas. There are documents that state hasnt handed over and theres also a question lingering in the back of peoples minds like, okay, this was the one case we cracked open hearings about and sure a lot of stuff spilled out. Do we want to just ignore all these other boxes of secrets that are strewn around the white house . Well, ill say this. I dont think theres a set timetable. Ive seen the speculation regarding the potential calendar, but i think its that. I think the speaker has been very clear were going to move expeditiously but were also going to follow the facts as they lead us. As you know, chairman schiff great example of this with respect to the hearings conducted over the last two weeks that there were other witnesses that they learned of by virtue of the testimony they received in the depositions, and ultimately those witnesses came forward and testified, an example being mr. Holmes. So i think were going to as i said take a step back to be able to unpack all the evidence that we have gleaned of the president s egregious conduct. Well take our cues with respect to next steps as to whether or not chairman schiff wants to do additional factfinding hearings and depositions, and then ultimately well make a judgment call as to where we go from there. Final question for you. It appears to me that theres a unified effort particularly the last few days from the white house, Congressional Republicans and Senate Republicans to essentially project a sort of unified confidence and strength. And basically the message theyre sending is you cant break us. And if you cant break us, if you cant peel any of us off, then this is allfornaught. And too bad, we dont care what the facts are necessarily because we dont believe you, we dont believe your process, theres nothing that you can do to make us turn on our beloved president. And when you watch that, what exactly do you think the state of american politics is and what your role is persuasively in the job you occupy . The feeling i have is profound disappointment that so many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are unwilling to choose country over party. At the end of the day they take the same oath that i do to defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. And i would hope that after reviewing all the evidence that the Intelligence Committee has, as i said, gleaned, that they would ultimately view that evidence objectively and really be prepared to discharge their duties as an independent and coequal branch of government that is the congress. But, look, at the end of the day, chris, while the senate may be the jury under our constitution, theres a second jury which is the American People. And the American People understand an abuse of power when they see it. They recognize when they see it. Its why public polling has shifted in some of the empirical studies