Which i believe according to the laws of physics is impossible, and of course driven by ill motives. The story broke land wednesday. We are six days into this and the speed i guess we knew there was a whistleblower complaint coming out of the dni. One of the defining features of the trump era is the incredible speed, ferocity with which information happens. It was apt that we would end up here after all these months of waiting around, that the thing that turned out to be the trigger could turn it this quickly. Its a great point, it was last wednesday the Washington Post broke the story about the whistleblower complaint being tied to the president s conduct with ukraine. It snapped everyone square in the face. Theres nancy pelosi. Tuesday we observed the anniversary of the adoption of the constitution on september
17th. Sadly, on that day, the Intelligence CommunityInspector General formally notified the congress that the administration was forbidding him from turning over a whistleblower complaint. On constitution day. This is a violation of law. Shortly thereafter, press reports began to break of a phone call by the president of the United States calling upon a foreign power to intervene in his election. This is a breach of his constitutional responsibilities. The facts are these. The Intelligence CommunityInspector General, who was appointed by President Trump, determined that the complaint is both of urgent concern and credible. Its disclosure, he want on to say, relates to the director of National Intelligences responsibility to the American People. On thursday, the inspector
general testified before the house Intelligence Committee, stating that the acting director of National Intelligence barred him from disclosing the whistleblower complaint. This is a violation of law. The law is unequivocal. It says the dni, director of National Intelligence, shall provide congress the full whistleblower complaint. For more than 25 years ive served on the Intelligence Committee as a member, a ranking member, as part of the gaining four, when i was in the leadership. I was there when we created the office of the director of National Intelligence. That did not exist before 2004. I was there earlier in the 90s when we wrote the Whistleblower Laws and continued to write them and improve them to secure the security of our intelligence and the safety of our
whistleblowers. I know what their purpose was. And we proceeded with balance and caution as we wrote the laws. I can say with authority that the trump administrations actions undermine both our National Security and our intelligence and our protections of whistleblowers, more than both. This thursday, the acting dni will appear before the house Intelligence Committee. At that time he must turn over the whistleblowers full complaint to the committee. He will have to choose whether to break the law or honor his responsibility to the constitution. On the final day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when our constitution was adopted, americans gathered on the steps of the Independence Hall to await the news of the government our founders had crafted. They asked benjamin franklin, what do we have, a republic or a monarchy . Franklin replied, a republic, if
we can keep it. Our responsibility is to keep it. O because of the wisdom of the constitution enshrined in three coequal branches of government serving as checks and balances on each other. The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the constitution especially when the president says article ii says i can do whatever i want. For the past several months we have been investigating in the committees and litigating in the courts whether congress can exercise its full article i powers including the constitutional power of approval of articles of impeachment. And this week the president has admitted to asking the president of ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically, the actions of the trump
presidency revealed the dishonorable fact of the president s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our National Security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections. Therefore, today im announcing the House Of Representatives is moving forward with an official Impeachment Inquiry. Im directing our six committees to proceed with their investigations under that umbrella of Impeachment Inquiry. The president must be held accountable. No one is above the law. Getting back to our founders, in the darkest days of the american revolution, thomas payne wrote the times have found us. The times found them to fight for the establishment of our democracy. The times have found us today, not to place ourselves in the same category of greatness as our founders but to place us in the urgency of protecting our constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. In the words of ben franklin, to keep our republic. I thank our chairmen, Chairman Nadler, Chairman Schiff, Chairman Nadler of judiciary, Chairman Schiff of intelligence, chairman engel of foreign affairs, chairman cummings of oversight. Chairman cummings is a master of so much but including Inspectors General and whistleblowers. Congresswoman richie neal of the ways and means committee. Congresswoman Maxine Waters of the Financial Services committee. And i commend all of our members, our colleagues, for their thoughtful, thoughtful approach to all of this, for their careful statements. God bless them and god bless america. Thank you all. Reporter in what was a formal address to the nation, the speaker of the house
announcing with some gravity there the formal i guess you could call it opening of Impeachment Inquiry, saying that the six committees of intel, oversight, judiciary, Financial Services, foreign affairs, and ways and means, are all now conducting investigations under the umbrella of an official Impeachment Inquiry which does have some legal standing. Still a few things were not sure of on the technicalities of all this. She was trying to underscore the seriousness of all this. One of our capitol hill correspondents, leanne hill, joins us. Leanne, the decision to make this an address to the nation, i dont think we fully comprehended what they were thinking about until we saw what
she just did. This is not a press release. Reporter no. This is her taking this trying to send a message that this is an extraordinary step, one that you almost never see in a lifetime. Reporter chuck, that was my takeaway sas well. The fact that the speaker of the house talked about a formal Impeachment Inquiry, that was gravity. That was something that was the most apparent to me. And what has really changed in this whole scenario. Chairman nadler has been talking about conducting an Impeachment Inquiry for months now. As far as the semantics is concerned, it leaves us wondering what has actually really changed here. But what has changed is the speaker came, standing with a backdrop of american flags behind her, prepared remarks, talking about a formalImpeachment Inquiry. Shes saying the president has to be held accountable, chuck. Leanne, there were two things said that we werent anticipating. One, are they going to formalize this with a vote in the house, essentially putting it out there to put republicans on the record and maybe giving any democrats that would like the ability to say they didnt vote to open an inquiry the ability to do that . Are we going to see some sort of roll call that sort of affirms what she announced tonight . Reporter two things. Theres going to be a Roll Call Vote as early as tomorrow condemning the president. Its going to be nonbinding. So they are saying its an opportunity for republicans to join them on this condemnation. As far as a formal vote on an Impeachment Inquiry, we havent heard those details yet. It sounds like theyre trying to
get as much information as possible from the director of National Intelligence. They of course want those transcripts that the president says hes going to release. They want the whistleblowers report, the entire unredacted report. As far as a vote on impeachment, we dont know those details yet but it does seem that nancy pelosi is fully behind what shes endorsed. All day, leanne, there have been whispers of a special select committee, instead of picking one person or chairperson to lead this, that, all right, she would start up a separate thing, that way she could just have a little bit more control of what members are on there, what members are asking questions. That didnt happen. Any explanation . Reporter no, it didnt happen. But i was talking to members throughout the day and almost unanimously they were saying this is a bad idea, it will slow down the approve, its too cumbersome. They already have a process in place, lets use the judiciary
committee and the committees we already have. So i think that argument went out, chuck. Very interesting. Leigh ann caldwell, i will let you go for minute so you can stop talking to me and continue reporting. Our guest is one of the latest democrats who now say they will support the Impeachment Inquiry nancy pelosi just announced. Congressman, let me ask the question this way for the public. Theyve been hearing about the committees doing oversight over this presidency for quite some time. Theyve been hearing about the idea that theyve been thinking about opening an Impeachment Inquiry for some time. What should the public hear from Speaker Pelosi now thats different . These are new allegations and they could not be more serious. We have only learned about them in the last few days. And we still dont know the full facts. But we know that the president has admitted to egregious conduct and it relates to the
very basic concepts of National Security, of putting the Public Interest bottom of above your own personal interest. The idea of going to a public leader and dredge up a false Smear Campaign against a political rival and withhold aid from the ukraine which is being threatened by the russians, this has nothing to do with the Mueller Report or the 2016 election, although there are familiar echoes. This is new information and it could not be more serious. Tell me about the caucus meeting you just came out of. It felt like all day long was a slow rollout to where we got to today. Here is what it looked like to me. She let people know shes moved on this and she essentially gave everybody the day to announce that they were in. Tell me about the caucus meeting
by 4 00. I iv have to tell you, the mo is really somber. None of us are happy about where we find themselves. When you come into this building every day, you feel the full weight of the responsibilities and the oath you take. Theres a plaque that says, abraham lincoln, he served one term in the house and lost his seat. What happened today is less of the particulticky tack, whos u down. Its that the president has engaged in conduct that cannot be okay, this cannot be allowed. If its true, we need the whistleblower complaint, we need the transcripts and recordings of thats phone calls. Theres no basis under the law for withholding them. They should have had them up here two weeks ago. He has left us no choice but to begin an Impeachment Inquiryunless he dispels these allegations. I think the members feel that responsibility. Is there a timetable in your mind about how long this should take . On the one hand, the right answer obviously is you take as long as you need, and i get that. But lets be realistic here, you know theres a political calendar, theres a finite amount of time. Is there a window that you think this investigation needs to fit itself into . Bear in mind the president could have released all this information yesterday. I see hes agreed to release the transcript, thats great, but if there are audio recordings, the whistleblower complaint, that would speed it up. But to your point, we have an obligation to move expeditiously. Part of that is if were stonewalled by the administration. But its important to give the American People the facts of whats going on before the next election, not to politicize it
but to make it fair and follow the facts. The administration hes has a role to play. This may be unlike the only other two Impeachment Inquiries in the modern era that weve seen. We had opposiiton parties that basically believed in the premise of the institutions. It might not be the case that this opposition party, that everybody will believe in the premise of, hey, this is part of the constitution, its part of the process. How do you get even the basic level of cooperation in order to get this investigation completed . Listen, these things dont always move in a straight line. Sometimes a dam breaks. Sometimes the American People make pretty clear that they want the truth to get out. And somehow the politicians somehow catch up to that. In the senate just today you had
a unanimous resolution that the whistleblower complaint should be up here, no ifs, ands, or buts. You had a bunch of republicans covering their rear end, and thats a good thing. No president , democratic or republican, can be allowed to do what is alleged the president did. Do you want a formal Role Call Vote to essentially that formalizes the Impeachment Inquiry, put everybody on the record . Look, theres going to be a time to stand up and be counted. Its above my pay grade. Well see this move forward in the way that makes the most sense. There will be a moment when we look in our souls and say whats right for the country. I hope thats informed by the facts and has something bigger in mind than just our political
selfinterest or our next big election, and think about the country. Thats what i plan to do. I want to close with something you did at the top of our conversation. You almost completely separated this from the Mueller Report. And i dont know if you were doing that because you dont want it to so easily get conflated. But explain why you think its important for people to view this separate and distinct from the Mueller Report. I guess what im saying is that while they were echoes here and similarities, soliciting foreign assistance to help win an american election, obviously thats a theme, but the critical events happened in the last couple of months. The president has admitted to all of them. They dont have anything to do with bob mueller, this was after he testified to congress. The question is whether you will allow a president to run roughshod over the laws and the constitution when you know what the facts are and theyre
happening in front of your eyes. This is a new game today and everybody in congress, republican and democratic, needs to look in the mirror and do the right thing. Congressman, this will be one of those days you never forget. Thanks for coming out and sharing your views so soon after the meeting. My pleasure. Kristen welker, steve kornacki, and john podhoretz, and Cornell Belcher, who is the guy stuck in washington while all of us are up here in new york. Thank you all. Kristen welker, the president has already tweeted. The most of the interesting decision today, besides what the House Democrats did, was the fact that the president , after being after treasury secretary mnuchin on Meet The Press and mike pompeo and other
shows, said the last thing they were going to do was release the transcripts of this phone call, boom, theyre releasing them. The white house is nervous. It is. And talking to officials as they had that internal debate, will this transcript be a bit gray, will the lines be how confident are they that this transcript is going to give them some better Talking Points than they have now . Im not sure that they are very confident. I think some of them are, some of them are hopeful. Theyre just like, well, weve got the Trump Twitter feed, lets count on that. And the president said, they never saw the transcript, witch hunt. Part of the argument that nancy pelosi is making is that we need to see the entire complaint, the transcript is not enough. And youre not turning over the complaint. Thats one of the reasons why you see these more establishment
democrats piling on. I would like to go back to the hill, Geoff Bennett hes pullaside with jackie speier, democrat from california. Reporter congressman speier, is this impeachment times six, with the six different committees continuing their wor