Gives the house the sole power of impeachment and the power to determine its own rules. When president nixon, during the time he was going to be impeached, the chairman of the Rules Committee, chairman madden, actually spoke on house floor and announced there would be a rule governing how that proceeding would move forward. When the clinton articles of impeachment were brought forward, there was a unanimous consent request to kind of govern how we conducted ourselves. And im not sure how likely it would be that we would get a unanimous consent request. I would like to ask unanimous consent without objection to enter into the record a letter sent to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee signed by 70 republican members including kevin mccarthy, the republican leader, and basically, and let me read the key lines here, we will avail ourselves of every parliamentary tool available to us on the committee and house floor, in other words to try to delay and 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 with regard to these proceedings, then break for a cup of coffee, never mind, you know, determine the rules of engagement. So i point that out. In terms of process, i just want to again states 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 in the monthslong Impeachment Inquiry. Members of both parties have been engaged in every stage of this process from sitting in and asking questions in closeddoor sessions to Questioning Witnesses in open hearings. The committees took more than 100 hours of Deposition Testimony from 17 witnesses, held seven public hearings which included republicanrequested witnesses. They produced a 300page public report that laid out their findings and evidence. The Judiciary Committee then took that report and conducted
two public hearings evaluating the evidence and Legal Standard for impeachment before reporting the two articles that we are dealing with here today. I should also point out that President Trump was provided an opportunity to participate in the Judiciary Committees review of the evidence presented against him as president clinton was during his Impeachment Inquiry. President trump chose not to participate. President trump to date has not provided any exculpatory evidence but instead has blocked numerous witnesses from testifying about his actions. And so i just thought it was important to point that out. Mr. Raskin, i saw you scribbling furiously while mr. Collins was testifying. I dont know whether theres something that you wanted to respond to. Thank you, mr. Chairman. My friend mr. Collins speaks very fast so its hard to keep up with everything hes saying. [ inaudible ]. Its all right, im from massachusetts and people say the
same thing about my accent. You have to give me credit, that was as slow as youve ever heard me. They accuse me of the same. He raises some really important points and i would love the chance to briefly address them. One thing that weve been hearing is that we didnt charge crimes. And in some sense that just duplicates a basic confusion that people have about what the process is. We are not criminal prosecutors prosecuting a criminal definite in cou defendant to send him to jail. Were talking about High Crimes And Misdemeanors, that is, constitutional offences against the people of the country. Lots of the conduct we plead in our specific articles alleging abuse of power and obstruction
of congress themselves could become part of criminal indictments later on. But its been a curious thing for me to hear our colleagues across the aisle repeatedly make this point and spread this confusion that there are no crimes in there when theyre the first ones to say the Department Of Justice cannot prosecute the president , the president may not be indicted, the president may not be prosecuted while hes in office, thats the position they take. They then cannot turn around and say, oh, and you cant impeach him because you havent charged him with any crimes and prosecuted him and indicted him. See, tails i win, heads you lose, is the essence of that argument. If you go back to the Richard Nixon case, we didnt have to see that Richard Nixon had been convicted of burglary in the District Of Columbia by ordering the breakin at the Watergate Hotel before he was charged with abuse of power, a high crime and misdemeanor. Thats exactly what were charging President Trump with here. We dont have to go out and
prove that he committed bribery, Honest Services fraud, or extortion, all things he could be prosecuted for later. We simply have to allege the course of constitutional criminal conduct that he was engaged in. So i think 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 on intelligence. And of course 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 structured this impeachment process, which is completely our prerogative under article 1, section 2 of clause 5, as you said, mr. Chairman, is to have the fact investigation into this affair, which involved Foreign Governments and ambassadors and so on 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 in to deliver the report and defend the report. And all of My Friends On The Other Side of the aisle had the chance to question as we had the chance to question. When you say there were no Fact Witnesses, thats also 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 Kenneth Starr. There were closeddoor secret depositions taking place there. Then Kenneth Starr came to deliver the report, and remember all the boxes of material they brought over in a uhaul truck, and gave it to the house Judiciary Committee. That was the end of it. Monica lewinsky didnt testify before the house Judiciary Committee. There were not witnesses brought before the house Judiciary Committee. So were following the exact same pattern, i think, that took place there except it was the House Of Representatives here which did its own fact investigation through this assortment of committees. Finally, the well, 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 if the facts are against you, you pound the law. If the laws are against you, you pound the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, you talk about process and you pound the table. And im afraid ive seen a little bit of that in the performance of our colleagues here. And i dont blame them because theyre dealing with the hand that they were dealt. We have 17 Fact Witnesses and all of their depositions and all of their testimony was published and all part of the report,
everybody can find it. And all of their testimony is essentially unrefuted and uncontradicted. It tells one story, which is the president of the United States conducted a shakedown of a foreign power. He used 391 million that 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. What did he want him to do . He wanted president zelensky to make an announcement on television that joe biden was being investigated. Now, 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 does it have to do with any legitimate interest of the u. S. Government . But the other thing he wanted president zelensky to do was rehabilitate the completed discredited Conspiracy Theory that it was ukraine that interfered with our election rather than russia. Our Intelligence Agencies all say the same thing, it was russia that conducted what the Department Of Justice called a sweeping and Systematic Campaign against our election in 2016. You remember, mr. Chairman, they injected propaganda into our polity through social media, facebook and twitter and so on. They directly conducted cyber invasion and attack and espionage against the Democratic National committee, the dccc, Hillary Clintons headquarters. And they directly tried to get into our state boards of elections. Not two or three. All 50 of them they tried to get into. Thats what russia did. Now suddenly we have the president of the United States telling president zelensky that if he wants the 391 million
that we voted for him, and that hes been certified for by the Department Of Defense and the department of state, clearing every anticorruption screen that would have been put in place and called for by congress, if he wants the money, and if he wants the white house meeting that he desperately wanted to show that america was on ukraines side and not russias side, if he wanted to get that stuff, he had to come and get involved in our president ial campaign and he had to rehabilitate this discredited story about 2016. I yield back. Thank you. Ive been listening to some of the commentary on the news from some of the pundits. Sometimes i think people need a lesson in constitutional law. Thats why its great that youre here. Let me ask you a basic question, because i think sometimes people dont understand this. Why is impeachment in the constitution . Oh, thats a great question. And mr. Collins invoked indirectly my favorite American Revolutionary, tom payne, who of
course wrote common sense and the age of reason. He said you cant have one without the other, you need common sense of the people and you need to conduct things according to reason, rationality, facts, empiricism, science. But why did payne come all wait over here to participate in the American Revolution which was not foreordained to win in any way . Because america was the first nation in history born out of a revolutionary struggle against monarchy, against the idea that you could have hereditary rule. Payne said a hereditary ruler is as ridiculous as a hereditary mathematician or a hereditary artist, right . 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 was against the king. It was only against royal ministers. Why . Because of the british doctrine, the king can do no wrong, right . Thats kind of like the king can do whatever he wants, the king can do no wrong and therefore the king couldnt be impeached. But our founders insisted impeachment be in there not just for civil officers who might commitment High Crimes And Misdemeanors against the American People but against the president himself. And the president in the Domestic Emoluments Clause is limited to a fixed salary in office which can neither be increased or decreased by congress and he cant receive any other payments. The president is effectively an employee of the American People. Thats the way its designed. Hes not above the people. Hes a servant of the people like all of us are. And the president s core job is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. If he thwarts the laws, tramples the laws, and committes crimes
against the American People, he needs to be removed to protect democracy. Why is abuse of power an Impeachable Offense . Abuse of power is the essential impeachment offense. Thats why its inadverte 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. So the founders didnt want a president who was going to behave like a king. We had seen enough of that. We wanted a president who was going to implement the laws, implement the Affordable Care act, implement environmental laws, thats your job, thats what he should be doing. Weve seen white house visit, military aid in order to pressure ukraine to announce investigations into Vice President biden and the 2016 elections. Ide why does that constitute an Impeachable Offense . Well, 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 and ambitions of the president over enforcing the laws and enforcing the rule of law. Two, it drags foreign powers into our election. That was something that the framers were terrified about. There was a Great Exchange between ada addams and jefferso about just this issue. We would be an open democracy and 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 to the American People and to 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 into one bundle here, which is involving Foreign Governments in our elections,
placing the president s interests over everything else, and then essentially threatening the rule of the people in democracy. And where do you draw the line between legitimate use of president ial power and an abuse of power . And why is it significant that President Trump acted for his personal political advantage and not for the furtherance of any Valid National policy objective . Thats a great question because our questions 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, he was not going to firelease the aid until the president got what he wanted in terms of political interference. And the white house Chief Of Staff said, yes, this is the way we proceed, get used to it. Im not using his exact words. Our colleagues said theres always quid pro quo tied up in Foreign Policy. In other words, its legit to say to a Foreign Government we will give you this aid if you comply, that the aid is being used in a 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 and so on. Theres nothing wrong with that. But look at what happened here. This was an arrangement were the president conditioned all of this foreign assistance that we had sent 200 million to the Department Of Defense, 190 million to the department of state, to help ukraine defend itself against russia. And the president said, but what he was holding out for was the interference of the ukrainian president in our election to harm his political opponent.