online. this is the news line from for land police in hong kong threaten to use live ammunition the warning comes as protesters use deadly weapons of the rhone including bosun arrows and the university descends into violence we ll go to our correspondent on the ground also coming up take brawn takes a tough stance on that unpopular fuel price hike iran s supreme leader says he backs the sudden decision to raise fuel prices even it as a wave of violent protests grips the nation. plus britain s prince andrew speaks publicly for the 1st time about his links to convicted sex offender jeffrey epstein in an interview that s being called disastrous if you take a look at the interview and the fallout. i m called assman welcome to the program police in hong kong have threatened to fire live bullets of protesters don t stop using but officials called lethal weapons and the latest flare up during anti-government protests the warning followed fresh clashes outside a university in the center of hong kong where protesters hunkered down behind a makeshift barricades and hurled petrol bombs at police authorities said on sunday one officer was treated in hospital after being hit in the leg by an arrow and another had his visor struck by a metal ball although he was not hurt. we re joined now by our correspondent he s been covering these protests in hong kong for us since the very beginning of the t.s.a. university now the epicenter of these protests what s happening where you are right now. i am now at the polytechnic university. where police today lays siege so the protesters had occupy d.c. university since a tuesday and have been fortified it with barricades they have producing hundreds if not thousands of bottles of molotov cocktails and this morning they started the police started to move in they have been fighting during the whole day and in the afternoon police late siege they surrounded the university nobody can get out of here now at some point they said that they would leave their people leave by a certain area but then they arrested those who left including their 1st aiders so what we are seeing here now resembles really a besieged fortress we have people being treated in here for injuries then ammunition being brought to the front and the protesters who do not think mostly that they will get out of here anyway without being arrested throwing everything they have to words to the front which is very dramatic. 70 years it seems like different weapons being used by the protesters occupying this area near this university is this a change now in the in the tactics that you re seeing by protesters. here we ve seen this whole week several universities in hong kong have been occupied and the standoff between police and the protesters were very different from what we ve seen before they resembled media of. battlefields with smoke and fire and these lethal weapons you met mentioned they were there their bows and arrows and you see cutter poles that are used to throw stones and molotov cocktails at the police and then we also see these. these enduring battles where they stand in front of each other and fire at each other for hours and hours today around this university the lines have all most not moved or 20 years we heard something there about those different weapons being used by the protesters now we hear police threatening to use live bullets how serious of a threat is that especially given the situation how tense things all right dan thanks we are seeing that the police is really. has really shifted all show in this field we are seeing these emotional announcements by the police t.j. i would take this threat very serious they have said if they saw somebody firing one of these bows and arrows for example at the police they would use live rounds we also get reports from other parts of the city that the police have been extremely menacing today that you would see protesters are people who come from police so if i were a protester i would take this very soon as the tears falling over pouring for us in hong kong thank you very much. so we ran our protesters are also of on the streets venting their anger over a sharp rise in gas prices iran s supreme leader is refusing to reverse the controversial 50 percent price hike the announcement took many by surprise and sparked widespread anger the regime responded with a veiled threat of a crackdown saying it would not allow what it called insecurity some of the demonstrations have turned violent at least 2 people have died as a result of the protests but many more injured. iranians have taken to the streets in the capital tehran and a number of cities across the country in protest against a government move to hike the price of petrol by 50 percent. the demonstrations started with protesters blocking roads but it s collated quickly petrol stations and cars were torched and all manner of public property was badly damaged banks and government buildings were also a focus for people s rights which failed to sway iran s leader ayatollah khamenei he stand steadfastly in support of the price hike. so i don t know long top officials have sat down and made a decision for the country based on expert assessments this decision must be executed. the move is in part of response to the failing economy as a result of u.s. sanctions money says nothing justifies the response from protesters. then using a bank on fire is done not done by the people this is what. these words were indicative of a strong line being taken by the government in the face of the wrist police have threatened more tough measures and the communications minister announced that the internet has been shut down for 24 hours to re-impose control. here s a look now at some of the other stories making news around the world trade lanka s former defense minister go to. as one of the country s presidential election well wishers gathered at his home to congratulate him as the south asian nations 1st major polls and it was rocked by the easter sunday bombings that killed more than 250 people the vote was largely split along ethnic lines. russia will return 3 captured naval vessels to ukraine the cord to russian media the boats were seized by russia last year as they tried to break through to russian blockade that closed access to several ukrainian ports the ships return comes ahead of talks between the 2 nations to discuss the conflict in eastern ukraine. the people of bella bruce have voted in a parliamentary election the opposition groups say was neither free nor fair president alexander lukashenko dismiss those allegations after voting in the capital minsk many prominent opposition figures were ruled ineligible as candidates . floodwaters have exceeded the $1.00 metre mark in venice for the 3rd time in one week submerging famous sites like st mark s square in need deep water more than 70 percent of the city is currently flooded damaging monuments shops and homes the crisis is expected to cost italy hundreds of millions of euros. britain s prince andrew has spoken publicly for the 1st time about allegations of sexual misconduct and his links to a convicted sex offender jeffrey epstein in a b.b.c. interview on saturday he defended himself against claims that he had sex with an under aged girl trafficked to him by epstein was also grilled on his apparent friendship with the american financier the hour long interview was being slammed by many in the u.k. media some commentators are calling it quote disastrous and that the. reporter. has been following the story and he joins me now with more mean 1st of all remind us about these allegations what are people saying about prince andrew and what did he say in his defense. is accused of having sex with a woman who says she was a sex slave of jeffrey epstein now virginia roberts is a name as she told a u.s. court that she was forced to have sex with the prince on at least 3 occasions and on one of those occasions she was a minor prince andrew says he has no recollection of ever meeting ms roberts even though there is a picture of the 2 of them taken as a townhouse in london the princess you cannot explain the existence of this picture you can see the picture here ms roberts in the middle. now it was robert says one occasion in london they dined together they went to a nightclub called trumps where they danced together he bought her drinks she also says she won t remember the prince sweating profusely she says that in which they then went back to that townhouse where the photo was taken where they had sex now the princess all of this he denies all of this let s have a listen to what he said. there are a number of things that are wrong with that story one of which is that is that i don t know where the bar is and in trance. i don t drink. have a peculiar move the addition which is that i don t sweat or i didn t sweat at the time and that was. yes i didn t so at the time because i had suffered what i would describe as an overdose of adrenalin the fulcrum is war when i was shot at. so some rather bizarre rebuttal of the princes also faces cribbing facing criticism for staying in contact with jeffrey epstein after he was convicted of sex offenses back in 2006 now in 2010 prince andrew attended a dinner in new york to celebrate the release of epstein from prison he also went on a walk in central park with epstein we can see the photo of the 2 of them there the princess that he attended the dinner and went on that walk to tell epstein that he wanted nothing more to do with him this interview i mean we saw a clip of it as being blasted in the u.k. tell us more about the reaction to what the princess. because of course made all the front pages of the sunday papers in the u.k. today and what many commentators are reflecting on is prince andrew s failure to show any compassion for the victims of geoffrey epstein it s also being called a bit of a p.r. disaster the conservative will cause the piers morgan for one he calls the interview desperate and he says it s insane that the prince would have agreed to do this interview other people are asking what reasons there might be for him not to remember ms roberts one of them is ex mick mcgowan macallan she is one of the original cues of the me to me in the right. questions if the reason could be that there were so many young women around f.c. at the time that he wouldn t remember now we re from him but this is really presented interviews like the only works under the motto don t complain don t explain but here we have a british royal sitting in front of t.v. cameras at buckingham palace talking about his sexual life and about alleged sexual misconduct it took the b.b.c. in the palace about 6 months to actually negotiate to even do this interview and if the if the palace thought that this might make the story go away it s they have made a mistake now we have to wait and see what this will mean for prince andrew. it will mean for the charities that he supports for example and what it will mean for the royal family as a whole he has said that he would testify in court if push comes to shove but we ll just have to see how this story develops still plenty of fodder condit of iraq reporter thank you very much. in formula one red bull s max 1st stop and has won the brazil grand prix starting in pole position the dutchman crossed the finish line ahead of the pack world champion lewis hamilton finished in 3rd place this is 1st up and 3rd win of the seas. or cuba has been celebrating the 500th anniversary of the founding of a band of by spanish conquerors but the city s residents have little else to celebrate these days the trump administration has mostly reversed a modest thaw in relations that a briefly opened up the island to u.s. tourists tentative economic reforms introduced by cuba s government have done little to improve people s lives. have vanished celebrated the anniversary with a gala performance in front of the capitol building music opera ballet traditional dance and a fireworks spectacle that belied the communist countries economic misery and repressive regimes. united and hope that everything will get better. we cubans build on our dreams and future despite being surrounded by obstacles. president miguel diaz canal open the official festivities without making any remarks as a rule he stays away from microphones have on his best day comes at a difficult time the u.s. has imposed sanctions fuel this gas american tourists have stopped coming to the island gradually the communist regime is loosening its grip on the economy in the hopes that it will boost incomes. cuber needs a certain amount of privatization in the economy and opening possibilities for small business people is one step cubans with capital can invest in the country that makes sense. for vanna tense 500 following local custom
other important things that are going undone. within this committee s own jurisdiction we should be addressed in the opioid epidemic. we could be working together to find a solution to our immigration and asylum challenges on our southern border. we could be protecting americans for having their intellectual property and jobs stolen by chinese companies and we could be enhancing election security just to name a few things. congress as a whole could be working on rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. providing additional tax relief to the nation s middle class families and providing additional security to our people here at home and abroad. instead, here we are spinning our wheels once again on impeachment. what a waste. the american people deserve so much better. i yield back. the gentleman yield back. thank you, mr. chair. i take no pleasure in the fact that we are here today. as a patriot who loves america, it pains me that the circumstances forced us to undertake this grave and solemn obligation. nonetheless, they simply based simply on the available evidence it appears president trump pressured a foreign government to interfere in our elections by investigating his perceived chief political opponent. we are here to uphold our oath to defend the constitution of the united states by furthering our understanding whether the president s conduct is impeachable. the framers of the constitution legitimately feared foreign interference in our nation s sovereignty and they wanted to ensure that there would be a check and balance on the executive. we sit here with a duty to the founders to fulfill their wisdom and being a check on the executive. we the people s house are that check. under our constitution, the house can impeach a president for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanor. professor feldman, you have discussed high crimes and misdemeanors and the fact that the high refers to crimes and misdemeanors. can you give us a little bit of a summary of what high crimes and misdemeanors are and how they are distinct from what professor turley said they were? you sir. high crimes and misdemeanors are actions of the president in office where he uses his office to advance his personal interests potentially for personal gain, potentially to corrupt the electoral process and potentially as well against the national security interests of the united states. i would say the word high modifies crimes and misdemeanors. the framers knew what high crimes and high misdemeanors. i believe the definition posted earlier of misdemeanor was not the definition of high misdemeanor which is a specific term understood by the framers and discussed in the constitutional convention but only of the word misdemeanor and it s an easy mistake to make but the truth is high misdemeanors were their own category of abuses of office and those are the things that are impeachable. thank you, professor. professors, you have testified that the presidents conduct implicates three categories. abuse of power, betrayal of national interest and corruption of elections. is that right, professor karlan? yes, it is. professor feldman and professor get hurt, do you agree? yes. you stated the president s decision to sacrifice the national interest for his own ends. do you agree with that? yes, sir. based on the evidence you have seen, professors, has president trump sacrificed the country s interests in favor of his own? yes, he has. is there a particular piece of evidence that most illuminates that? what illuminates it most for me is the statement by ambassador sondland that he wanted simply the announcement of an investigation. several other people s had the same thing. there is testimony by ambassador volker to this extent that what he wants was simply public information to damage joe biden. he didn t care whether joe biden was found guilty or exonerated. professor feldman, do you agree? my emphasis would be on the fact that the president held up aid to an ally that is fighting a war in direct contravention of the unanimous recommendation of the national security community. that seems to have placed his own interests in personal advantage ahead of the interests. and a bill passed by congress. professor gerhart. i agree with what my colleagues instead and i would add that i m concerned about the president s obstruction of congress. the structure of this inquiry, refusal to comply with the number of subpoenas ordering many high-level officials and the government not to comply with subpoenas and ordering the entire executive branch not to cooperate with congress. it s useful to remember the constitution has the house has the sole power to impeach. the constitution uses the word sole twice. it means only. it s your decision. let me get professor turley in. professor turley, you re a self-described, self-anointed defender of article one congress guy but you justify a position this has legally issued subpoenas by a congress enforcing its powers don t have to be complied with. it seems in this circumstance you are an article to executive guy. and you re talking about the johnson impeachment is not very useful. that was maladministration. we the people s representatives are custodians of the framers view. the gentleman s time has expired. thank you. i m afraid this hearing is indicative of the indecency to which we have come when instead of the committee of jurisdiction bringing in facts witnesses to get the bottom of what happened and not even having time to review the report which as professor turley indicated his wafer thin when compared to the 36 boxes of documents that were delivered to the last impeachment group. but then to start the hearing with the chairman of the committee saying that the facts are undisputed, the only thing that s disputed more than the facts in the case is the statement that the facts are undisputed. they are absolutely disputed and the evidence is a bunch of hearsay on hearsay that anybody here had tried cases before of enough magnitude, you would know you can t rely on hearsay on hearsay. but we have experts who know better then the accumulated experience of the ages. so here we are and i would submit we need some factual witnesses. we do not need to receive a report that we don t have a chance to read before the hearing. we need a chance to bring in actual fact witnesses and there are a couple i can name that are critical to us getting to the bottom. they work for the national security council. abigail gray, sean misko. involved in u.s.-ukraine affairs. they worked with vice president biden on different matters involving ukraine. they worked with brennan and masters. they have critical information about certain ukrainians involvement in our u.s. election. their relationships with the witnesses who went before the intel committee and others involved in the allegations make them the most critical witnesses in this entire investigation. the records, emails and text messages, flash drives, computers have information that will bring this effort to remove the president to a screeching halt. so we have article here from october 11. pointing out that house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff recruited two former national security council aide who worked alongside the cia whistle-blower at the nsc during the obama and trump administrations. abigail grace who worked at the nsc until 2018 was hired in february well sean misko until 2017, joined schiff s committee in august, the same month the whistle-blower submitted his complaint. goes on to point out grace was employ to help schiff s committee. trump accused schiff of stealing people working at the white house. chairman schiff said if the president is worried about us hiring former administration people, he should work on being a better employee. no, he should ve fired everybody, just like bill clinton did. all of the u.s. attorneys on the same day. it would have saved us a lot of what is going on here. anyway, we need those two witnesses. they are critical. we also need someone who is a cia detail to ukraine. the state department freedom of information shows there was an italy state luncheon. italy ramifications. he speaks arabic and russian, reported directly to charles corruptio.continuous contact wi, state, ukrainian officials. had a collateral duty to support vice president biden. biden was obama s point man on ukraine. associated with dnc operative alexandra chalupa. met with her in november of 2015 with the ukrainian delegation and there s all kinds of reasons we need these three witnesses. i would ask, pursuant to section four house resolution 660, ask our chairman, i mean our ranking member to submit the request for the three witnesses because we are not having a factual hearing until we have these people that are at the bottom of every fact of the investigation. thanks for bringing down the gavel hard. that was nice. the president has regularly and recently solicited foreign interference in our upcoming elections. professor turley warrants it s an impulse by moment and suggest the house pause. professor karlan, do you agree with professor turley? no, if you conclude that the president is soliciting foreign involvement in our election, you need to act now to prevent foreign interference in the next election like the one we had in the past. thank you, professor karlan. in 30 seconds or less, tell us why you believe the president s misconduct was an abuse of power so egregious that it merits the drastic remedy of impeachment. because he invited the russians who are our long-time adversaries in the process. the last time around. because he has invited the ukrainians into the process and because he suggested he would like the chinese to come into the process as well. thank you very much. one of the framers of our constitution, admin randall, who at one time was mirror williamsburg virginia warned us that the executive will have great opportunities of abusing his power. professor feldman, people like mayor randall rebelled because of the tyranny of a king. why were the frame are so careful to avoid the potential for a president to become so tyrannical and abusive and what they do to protect against it? the framers believe very strongly that the people over the king. the people were sovereign. that meant the president worked for somebody. he worked with people. they knew that a president who couldn t be checked, who could not be supervised by his own justice department and who could not be supervised by congress and could not be impeached would effectively be above the law and would use his power to get himself reelected that s why the created the impeachment remedy. thank you, professor feldman. i want to discuss how the framers concerns about abuse of power relayed to president trump s misconduct. on july 25, president trump said to president zelensky i would like you to do us a favor, though. professor feldman, one president trump made use of the words favor, though, do you believe the president was benignly asking for a favor? how is the answer to that question relevant to whether the president abused his power? stick to it is relevant, sir, because there s nothing wrong with someone asking for a favorn the interest of the united stat. the problem is for the president to use his office to solicit or demand a favor for his personal benefit. the evidence strongly suggests that given the power of the president and given the incentives the president created for ukraine to complied with his request the present was seeking to serve his own personal benefit and own personal interests. that is definition of corruption under the constitution. other witnesses have testified it was their impression when president trump said i would like you to do us a favor, though, that he was actually making a demand not request. professor feldman, how does lieutenant colonel vindman s testimony saying that the president statement was a demand because of the power disparity between the two countries relate back to our framers concerns about the president s abuse of power. lieutenant colonel vindman s observation states very clearly that you have to understand the president of the united states has so much more power than the president of ukraine that when the president uses the word favor, the reality is he s applying tremendous pressure, the pressure of the power of the united states. that relates to the constitutional abuse of office. if someone other than the president of the united states asked the president you can to do a favor, the president of the ukraine to say no. the president of the united states uses the office of the presidency to ask for a favor, there simply no way for the president ukraine to refuse. thank you. we ve also heard testimony that the president withheld a white house meeting and military aid in order to further pressure further pressure or ukraine to announce investigations and vice president biden and the 2016 election. professor karlan, is that why you re testimony concluded that the president abused his power? i thought the president abused his power by asking for a criminal investigation of the united states citizen for political ends regardless of everything else. that s just it s not icing on the cake. it s what you would call an aggravating circumstance. thank you. the president holding an american ally over a barrel to extract personal favors is deeply troubling. this is not an impulse buy moment. it is a break the glass moment and impeachment is the only appropriate remedy. with that i yield back. mr. jordan. thank you. before speaker pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry, before the call between president trump and president zelensky, before the mueller hearing in front of this committee on july 24, before all of it, 16 of them had already voted to move forward on impeachment. 16 democrats on the judiciary committee had already voted to move forward on impeachment. yet today we are talking out whether the positions they have already taken our constitutional? it seems a little backward to me. we can t get agreement. we have four people who voted for clinton and they can t agree. yet today we are talking about the constitution. professor turley, you have been great today but i think you are wrong on one thing. you said it s a fast impeachment. i would argue it s not a fast impeachment. it s a predetermined impeachment. done in the most unfair partisan fashion we ve ever seen. no subpoena power for republicans. depositions done in secret in the bunker in the basement of the capital. 17 people, and for those and no one can be in there except a handful of folks adam schiff allowed. chairman schiff prevented witnesses from antirepublican questions. every democrat question got answered. not every republican question. democrats denied republicans witnesses that we wanted in the open hearings that took place three weeks ago. democrats promised us the whistle-blower would testify and then changed their mind, and they change their mind why? because the whole world discovered adam schiff s staff had talked to the whistle-blower, coordinated with the whistle-blower. the whistle-blower with no first-hand knowledge, bias against the president to work with joe biden his lawyer in january of 17 said the impeachment process starts then. that s the unfair process we have been through. the reason it s been unfair, let me cut to the chase. the reason it s been unfair is because the facts aren t on their side. the facts are on the president side. four key facts will not change, have not changed, will never change. we have the transcript. no quid pro quo. the two guys on the call both said no pressure, no pushing, no quid pro quo. the ukrainians didn t know that the aid is held up. fourth and most important, the ukrainians never started, never promised to start, never announced an investigation in the time that the aid is paused. never wants. but you know what did happen? there are five key meetings between president zelensky and senior officials in our government. five key meetings. the call on july 25. the next day we had ambassador volker, taylor, sondland made with president zelensky. ambassador bolton made with president zelensky in august. the vice president met with president zelensky on september 1 and we had two senators republican and democrat meet with president zelensky on september 5. none of those meetings, none of those five meetings was aid ever discussed in exchange for an announcement of an investigation of anybody. you would think that the last two after the ukrainians knew that the aid is being withheld, you would think it would come up then. particulate with senator murphy they re talking about it. it never came up. the facts are on the president side but we have an unfair process and they don t have the facts and we have an unfair process. this gets to something else, mr. turley. this is scary, how mad. it was so well said. it is scary. the democrats have never accepted the will of the american people. to mr. turley s point, 17 days ago, 17 days ago the speaker of the united states house of representatives called the president of the united states an imposter. the guy that 63 million americans voted for. the speaker of the house of representatives called that individual and imposter. it s not healthy for our country. this is not healthy. the facts are the facts. they are on the president side and that s whole we need to focus on, not some constitutional hearing at the end of the process when you guys have already determined where you re going to go. with that, i yield back. thank you, mr. chairman. we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the battle of the bulge. my late father, a staff sergeant, received a purple heart fighting. he gave blood among tens of thousands of americans who suffered casualties. they served under officers and a commander in chief who were not fighting a war for their own personal benefit. they put country first. they made the same solemn promise that members of congress and the president of the united states make. to always put national interests above their own personal interests. the evidence shows that the president broke that promise. the constitution gives the president enormous power but it also imposes a remedy, impeachment, when those powers are abused. in july, president trump said i have an article to or have the right to do whatever i want as president. professor feldman, the president has broad powers under the constitutional, including foreign policy. do those powers mean that the president can do, as he said, whatever he wants as president? and he views the powers the constitution gives him? he may not. if the president uses the powers he s given for personal gain or to corrupt election or against the national security interest of the united states, he may be impeached for a high crime and misdemeanor. is using his power to pressure ukraine to interfere in u.s. elections and abuse of that power? yes her. professor gerhart, how would the framers have you to president asking for election interference from a foreign leader? it s practically impossible to know exactly what the framers would think but it s not hard to imagine how the constitution deals with it. that s their legacy to us. under the constitution it s plainly an abuse of power, or other horrifying abuse of power. professor karlan, we ve heard witnesses testify about their concerns when the president used his foreign policy powers for political gain. lieutenant colonel vindman was shocked. he couldn t believe what he heard on the phone call. diverging from efforts to protect the national security policy. ambassador taylor thought it was crazy to withhold security assistance for help on a political campaign. professor karlan, these concerns are mere differences over policy, are they? no. they go to the very foundation of our democracy. and offering to exchange a white house meeting and hundreds of millions of dollars in security systems for help with his reelection, that can t be part of our nation s foreign policy, kennett? no. it is the essence of doing something for personal reasons rather than political reasons. if i could say one thing about it, maybe when he was first running for president he had never been anything other than a reality tv show, that was his public life, may be that he could think russia, if you re listening, it s an okay thing to do but by the time he asked the ukraine, ukraine, if you re listening, could you help me out with my reelection, he would have to have known it was not consistent with his oath of office. mr. chairman, our founders granted the president of the united states an enormous powers but at the same time but we have been reminded of, they worry that the powers could be abused by a corrupt president. the evidence of abuse of power in the sink reproved our founders were right be worried. yes, yes, the president has the power to direct america s foreign policy but no, he cannot use that power to cheat in our elections. remember, and i ask all of my colleagues to remember the constitution grants the president has power through the american people. the president s source of power is a democratic election. it is the american people, the voters, who trusted him to look out for them. we trusted him to look out for the country. instead president trump looked out for himself and helping himself get reelected. he abused the power that we trusted him with for personal and political gain. the founders worried about just this type of abuse of power. they provided one way, one way for congress to respond. that s the power of impeachment. i yield back. the gentleman yields back. professor turley, i want to direct few questions to you. the other three witnesses have identified this amorphous standard for impeaching a president. they have said that if a president abusing his power for personal or political gain, its impeachable conduct. do you agree? not the way it has been stated. there are so many different standards. i have got a long ways to go. there so many different standards, one was attempting to abuse office. i m not even sure how to recognize it let alone define it. let me go with a few examples and see if you agree. lyndon johnson directed the central intelligence agency to place a spy in barry goldwater s campaign. that spy got advance copies of speeches and other strategies and delivered it to the johnson campaign. is that impeachable conduct according to the other panelis panelists? it speaks very broadly so i assume so. how about when president johnson put a wiretap on goldwater s campaign plane? would that be for a political benefit? i can t exclude anything under that definition. okay, i will go with a few other presidents. cumbersome and deutsche informed us fdr put country first. frank lynn he wanted. and abuse of power, impeachable conduct? i think it would be subsumed into it. how about when president kennedy directed robert kennedy to deport one of his mistresses as an east german spy? with that qualify as impeachable conduct? i can t excluded. how about when he directed the fbi to use wiretaps on congressional staffers who opposed him politically? would that be impeachable conduct? it would seem to be falling within it. go to barack obama. when barack obama directed or made a finding that the senate was in recess and appointed people to the national labor relations board and lost 9-0, ruth bader ginsburg voted against the president on this issue, would that be an abuse of power? i m afraid you have to directed to others but i don t see any exclusions under your definition. how about when the president directed his national security advisor and secretary of state aligned to the american people about whether the ambassador to libya was murdered as a result of a video or was murdered as a result of a terrorist act? would that be an abuse of power for political benefits 17 days before the next election? not according to my definition. the others would have to respond to their own. you have heard their definition. i have a hard time excluding anything. how about when abraham lincoln arrested legislators in maryland so they wouldn t convene to secede from the union? virginia had already seceded so it will washington, d.c., in the middle of the rebellion. with that have been an abuse of power for political benefit? it could be under that definition. bigley mentioned george washington. as you perhaps having met the standard of impeachment for your other panelists. let me ask you, can you name a single president in the history of the united states save president harrison who died 32 days after his inauguration that would not have met the standard of impeachment for our friends? i would hope to god james madison would escape. otherwise a lifetime of academic work would be shredded. but once again i can t exclude many of these acts. isn t what you and i and many others are afraid of. the standard that your friends to the right of you and not politically but to the right of you sitting, that your friends decided that the bar is so low that when we have a democrat president in office and republican house and a republican senate, we are going to be going through this whole scenario again in a way that really puts the country at risk. when your graphic says on abc that b is betrayal of national interests, i would simply ask do you really want that to be your standard? isn t the difference, professor turley, some people live in an ivory tower and some people live in a swamp. those of us in this mob are doing our very best for the american people. it s not pretty. i live in an ivory tower in a swamp because i m at gw and it s not so bad. i want to thank the witnesses and i don t believe the people s house is a swamp. president nixon was impeached for abuse of power because his conduct was undertaken for his personal political advantage and not in furtherance of any valid national policy objectives. professor gerhardt, why was it significant president nixon acts that acted for his personal political advantage and not in furtherance of any national policy objective? primarily because in acting for his own personal benefit and not for the benefit of the country, he has crossed a line. the line here is very clear. it becomes abuse of power when somebody s using the special authorities of their office for their own personal benefit and not the benefit of the country. can the same be said of president trump? it could be. thank you. i am struck by the parallels because one of the things nixon did was he launched tax investigations of his political opponents. here the evidence shows trump tried to launch a criminal investigation of his political opponent by a foreign government. we have heard evidence suggesting that president trump did this for his own personal gain and not for any national policy interests. president trump claims he withheld the aid because of concerns about corruption. i believe we have examples of the evidence of the truth. ambassador sondland stated the president only cares about big stuff. i noted there was big stuff going on in ukraine, like a war with russia. ambassador sondland he meant big stuff that benefited the president, like the biden investigation, that mr. giuliani was pushing. professor feldman, what with the framers have thought of president who only cares how about the big stuff that benefits him? the framers were extremely worried about a president who served only his own interests or the interests of foreign powers. that was their most serious concern when they designed the remedy of impeachment. the evidence also suggests president trump didn t care if the investigation actually happened. what he really cared about was the public announcement of the investigation. professor karlan, how do we analyze these facts in the context of abuse of power? i think with to have a president and ask for the investigation of his political opponents is an archetype of the abuse of power and mr. buck mentioned past examples of this. to say that those weren t impeachable, i think it s a big mistake. if a president wiretaps his opponents, that s a federal crime now. i don t know whether before the wiretap act of 1968 it was. if it president wiretapped his opponents today, it would be impeachable conduct. i also serve on the foreign affairs committee and i understand how significant it is to foreign leaders to meet with our president. to attend a meeting in the oval office is very significant. president zelensky is a newly elected head of state and a fledgling democracy. his country is at war with his neighbor. russia invaded and is occupying his country s territory. he needed the military resources to defend his country. he needed the diplomatic recognition of the american president and he was prepared to do whenever the president demanded. many years ago i worked in the nation s largest trauma unit as a physician s assistant. i saw people at their worst. severe pain, after accidents or acts of violence. patients that i took her for desperate and afraid and had to wait to be seen. can you imagine for one minute if i had told my patients i can move you up in line and take care of your pain but i do need a favor from you. my patients were in pain and they were desperate and they would have agreed to do anything i asked. this would have been such an abuse of my position because of the power dynamic. i had the power to relieve my patients from experiencing pain. it is fundamentally wrong and in many cases illegal for us to use power to take advantage of those in crisis. especially a president, especially when lives are at stake. i yield back. the gentle lady yields back. mr. ratcliffe. thank you, chairman. professor turley, i would like to start where you started because you said something that i think bears repeating. you said i m not a supporter of president trump. i voted against him in 2016 and i have previously voted for presidents clinton and obama. despite your political preferences and persuasion, you reached this conclusion. the current legal case for impeachment is not just woefully inadequate but in some respects dangerous. basis for impeachment of an american president. so let me start by commending you mean the kind of example of what hopefully everyone this committee will do as we approach the task we have of determining whether or not there were any impeachable offenses here. one of the problem you have articulated is leaving you to the conclusion of calling this the shortest impeachment proceeding for the narrowest grounds is the fact that there s been an an ever changing constantly evolving moving target of the accusations, if you will. the july 25 phone call started out as an alleged quid pro quo and briefly became an extortion scheme, bribery scheme. i think it is back to quid pro quo. besides pointing out that both speaker pelosi and chairman schiff waited until almost every witness had been deposed before they even started to use the term bribery, you have clearly articulated why you think the definitions that they have used publicly are flawed if not unconstitutional. both in the 18th century or 21st century. would you agree with me then bribery under any valid definition requires that a specific quid pro quo be proven? more importantly the supreme court is focused on that issue as well as what is the definition of a quid pro quo. of military aid or security assistance as part of it, where in the july 25 transcript is president trump ever suggest that he intends to withhold military aid for any reason? he doesn t. that s the reason we keep on hearing the word circumstantial and inferential. that s what is so concerning. those would be appropriate terms. it s not that you can t have a circumstantial case. they would be appropriate terms that they were unknowable facts that the problem is you have so many witnesses that have not been subpoenaed, so many we have not heard from. so if it s not in the transcript it has to come from witness testimony and i assume you reviewed it so you know no witness has testified that that you heard president trump or were by president trump to withhold military aid for any reason, correct? correct. so let me turn to the issue of obstruction of justice weekly. i think you assumed as i did that when democrats had been talking about obstruction, it was specifically related to the ukraine issue. i know you ve talked about it a lot. you ve clearly stated you think president trump had no corrupt intent. page 39 of your report. he said something else i think that bears repeating. you were highlighting the fact that the democrats appear to be taking the position that if it president seeks judicial review over executive branch testimony or documents subpoenaed by congress that rather than letting the courts be the arbiter, congress can simply impeach the president for obstruction based on that. did i hear you saying that if we were to proceed on that basis that that would be an abuse of power? i did and let me be very clear about it. i don t disagree with my colleagues that nothing in the constitution says you have to go to a court or wait for a court. that s not what i m saying. what i am saying is that if you want a legitimate impeachment case to set this abbreviated schedule, demand documents and then impeach because they haven t been turned over when they go to a court, i think that it was an abuse of power. it s not what happened and nixon have the ultimate decision in nixon was that rr was omitted executive privilege cases that can be raised. national security advisor, white house counsel. so the concern here is not that there is, that you can t ever impeach a president unless you go to court. that you shouldn t when you have time to do it. if i were to summarize your testimony, no bribery, no extortion, no obstruction of justice, no abuse of power. not on this record. the gentleman s time has expired. thank you. let me pick up where we left off and i m going to start with your words and it s from october 23rd, your opinion piece in the hill. you said, as i ve said before there is no question that the use of public office for personal gain is an impeachable offense. including the withholding of military aid in exchange for the investigation of a local opponent. you just have to prove it happened. if you can establish intent to use public office for personal gain, you have a viable impeachable offense. we have heard today that a president abusing his power when he uses his official power for his own personal interests rather than the interests of our country. i would like to spend more time on that because i m really struck by one of the things that was at stake here. $400 million of taxpayer dollars. president nixon leveraged the powers of his office to investigate political rivals but hear evidence shows president trump also leveraged taxpayer dollars to get ukraine to announce sham investigations of president trump s political rivals. that taxpayer money was meant to help ukraine defend itself and in turn defend united states interests from russian aggression. the money had been appropriated by congress and certified by the department of defense. multiple witnesses confirmed there was unanimous support for the military aid to ukraine. can we listen to that, please? from what you witnessed, did anybody in the national security community support withholding the assistance? no. i never heard anyone advocate for holding the aid. the interagency support of the continuation of the assistance? that is correct. i and others sat in astonishment. ukrainians were fighting russians and counted on not only the training weapons but also the assurance of u.s. support. professor feldman, you have stated that the president s demand to the president of ukraine constituted an abuse of power. how does the president s decision to withhold military aid affect your analysis? it means it wasn t just an abuse of power because the president was surfing his own personal interests but also insofar as he was putting american national security interests behind his own personal interests. it brought together two important aspects. self gain and undercutting the national security interests. evidence points to president trump using military aid for his personal benefit, not for the benefit of any official u.s. policy. professor karlan, how would the framers have interpreted it? i can t speak for the framers themselves obviously. my view is that they would say that the president s authority to use foreign aid and they probably couldn t have imagined we ve and were giving foreign aid because we we were a tiny, r country then. what they would ve said is a president who doesn t think first about the security of the united states is not doing what his oath requires him to do which was faithfully execute the laws here appropriating money and defend the constitution of the united states. thank you. let s go back to a segment of mr. turley s quote that if you couldn t establish intent to use public office for personal gain, you have a viable impeachable offense. mr. feldman, do we meet that criteria? in my view, the evidence does meet that criteria. that s the judgment you should be making. ms. karlan. yes, and one question i would have for the minority members of the committee, if you were convinced that the president held up the aid because he thought it would help his reelection, would you vote to impeach him? that s the question everybody should be asking that if they conclude yes, they should vote to impeach. i agree. one thing i would add is that much talk has been made about the term bribery. it s your job, it s the house s job to define bribery. not the courts. you follow your judgment. i want to thank the witnesses for coming and testifying today. this is not an easy decision. it s not a comfortable decision but it s necessary. we take an oath to protect the constitution. the military men and women put their lives on the line for the constitution. we have an obligation to follow the constitution whether it s convenient or easy. thank you. the gentleman yields. very quickly, professor turley, would you like to respond? yes, i would. first of all, what was said in that column is exactly what i ve said in my testimony. the problem is not that abuse of power can ever be an impeachable offense. you just have to prove it, and you haven t. it s not enough to say i infer this was the purpose. i infer that this is what was intended. when you are not actually subpoenaing people with direct knowledge and instead you are saying we was vote in this rocket docket of an impeachment. the last statement i would like to make, the united states house of representatives has initiated impeachment inquiries against the president of the united states only three times in our nations history. prior to this one. there was impeachment inquiries were done in this committee, the judiciary committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment matters. here in 2019 and under this inquiry, fact witnesses have been called in front of the intelligence committee. we have been given no indication this committee will conduct substantive hearings with fact witnesses. as a member serving on the judiciary committee i can say the process in which we are participating is insufficient, unprecedented and grossly inadequate. setting before us is a panel of witnesses containing four distinguished law professors from some of our country s finest educational institutions. i do not doubt that each of you are extremely well-versed in the subject of constitutional law. and yet there is precedent for similar panels in the aforementioned history but only after specific charges have been made known have the underlying facts presented in full due to an exhaustive investigation. i don t understand why we are holding this hearing at this time with these witnesses. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have admitted they don t know what articles of impeachment they will consider. how does anyone expect a panel of law professors to weigh in on the legal grounds for impeachment charges prior to even knowing what the charges brought by this committee are going to be. some of my democratic colleagues have stated over and over that impeachment should be a nonpartisan process and i agree. one of my colleagues in the democratic party stated and i quote impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, i don t look we should go down that path. it divides the country. my democratic colleagues have stated numerous times they are on a truth seeking and fact-finding michigan. another one of my democratic colleagues said we have a responsibility to consider the facts that emerge squarely and with the best interests of our country, not our party. these historic proceedings regardless of political beliefs ought to be about fact-finding and truth seeking but that is not what this has turned out to be. again, no disrespect to these witnesses but for all i know this is the only hearing we will have and none of them are fact witnesses. my colleagues are saying one thing and doing something completely different. no member of congress can look their constituents in the eye and say this is a comprehensive fact-finding, truth seeking mission. ranking member collins and members of the minority have written six letters over the past month to chairman nadler asking for procedural fairness for all the underlying evidence to be transmitted to the judiciary committee to expand the number of witnesses and have an even more bipartisan panel here today and for clarity on today s impeachment proceedings since we haven t received evidence to review. the minority has yet to receive a response to these letters. right here today is another very clear example for all americans to truly understand the ongoing lack of transparency with these proceedings. the witness list for this hearing was not released until late monday afternoon, opening statements from the witnesses were not distributed until late last night and the intelligence committees finalize report has yet to be presented to this committee. you hear from those in the majority that processes republican talking point when in reality it s an american talking point. process is essential to the institution. a thoughtful, meaningful process of this magnitude with such great implications should be demanded by the american people. with that, i yield back. mr. jeffries. i do not serve in the military but my 81-year-old father did. he was an air force veteran stationed in germany during the height of the cold war in the late 1950s. he was a teenager from inner-city newark, a stranger in a foreign land serving on the western side of the berlin wall. my dad proudly wore the uniform because he swore an oath to the constitution and believed in american democracy. i believe in american democracy. we remain the last best hope on earth. it is in that spirit that we proceed today. professor karlan, in america, we believe in free and fair elections. is that correct? it is. authoritarian regimes do not. is that right? correct. thomas jefferson john adams once wrote to thomas jefferson on december 6, 1787, and stated you are apprehensive of foreign interference entry, influence. so am i. but as often as elections happen, the danger of foreign influence recurs. professor karlan, how important was the concept of free and fair elections to the framers of the constitution? honestly it was less important to them than it s become than our constitution since then if you remember the thing, one of the things that turned me into a lawyer was saint barbara jordan, first female lawyer i d ever seen in practice saying that we the peoe didn t include people like her h process of amendment, we have done that and so elections are more important to us today is a constitutional matter than they were even to the framers. is it fair to say and election cannot be reasonably characterized as free and fair if it s manipulative i foreign interference? that s correct. the framers were generally and deeply concerned with the threat of foreign interference, true? yes. why were they so deeply concerned? because foreign nations don t have our interests at heart. they have their interests at heart. with the framers find it acceptable for an american president to pressure a foreign government to help him win an election? i think they would find it unacceptable for a president to ask a foreign government to help them, whether they put pressure on her not to break direct evidence shows, direct evidence shows that on july 25 the president uttered five words: do us a favor, though. pressure the ukrainian government to target an american citizen for political gain and at the same time simultaneously with health ringer $91 million in military aid and faster bill taylor, west point graduate, vietnam war hero, republican appointed diplomat discussed the issue of military aid. here s a clip clip of his testimony. again, our holding up security assistance that will go to a country that is fighting aggression from russia for no good policy reason, no good substantive reason, no good national security reason, is wrong. to the extent that the military aid was being withheld as part of an effort to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, is that behavior impeachable? yes, it is and if i could go back to one of the words you read. when the president said do us a favor, he was using the royal we. it wasn t a favor for the united states. he should ve said do me a favor because only kings say us when they mean me. is it correct to say and abuse of power that strikes at the heart of our democracy falls squarely within the definition of a high crime and misdemeanor? yes it does. some of my colleagues have suggested impeachment would overturn the will of the people. the american people express their will in november of 2018. the will of the people elected a new majority. the will of the people elected a house that would not function as a wholly-owned subsidiary of this administration. the will of the people elected a house that understands we are separate and coequal branch of government. the will of the people elected a house that understands we have a constitutional responsibility to serve as a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch. the president abused his power and must be held accountable. no one is above the law. america must remain the last best hope on earth. i yield back. the gentleman yields back. the will of the american people also elected donald trump to be the president. there is one part of it can t seem to get over it. we understand the fact that in 2018 you take the house of representatives and we haven t spent our time during your tenure and power trying to remove the speaker of the house. trying to delegitimize your ability to govern. would love to govern with you. we would love to pass usmca. we would love to put out a helping hand to our seniors and lower perception drug prices. it is the will of the people you ignore when you continue down this terrible road of impeachment. professor gerhardt, you give money to barack obama. my family did. four times. that sounds about right. mr. chairman i have a series of unanimous request consents. his work. the gentleman will suspend. we will take the time off. has the gentleman submitted, have we seen those, that material. weight can provided to you. will consider the unanimous consent request later. very well. thank you, mr. chairman. mr. feldman wrote articles entitled trump wiretap tweets raise risk of impeachment. he wrote mar-a-lago add belongs in impeachment file. jake flanagan wrote in courts, a harvard law professor thinks trump could be impeached over fake news accusations. since you seem to believe the basis for impeachment is even broader than the basis of my democratic colleagues have laid forward, do you believe you are outside of the political mainstream of the question of impeachment? i believe impeachment is warranted whenever the president abuses his power for personal benefit or to corrupt the democratic process. ed yes, i did write that article did you hold on. did you write since 2018 mid-term election, house democrats have made it clear that discussing impeachment is primarily or even exclusively a tool to weaken president trump s chances in 2020? did you write those words? until this call in july 25th, i was an impeachment skeptic. i appreciate your testimony. professor karlan, you gave $1,000 to elizabeth warren. i believe so. you gave $1,200 to barack obama. i have no reason to question that. you gave $2,000 to clinton? yes. why so much more for hillary than the other two? i ve been giving a lot of money to charity because of the poor people in the united states. those are not the only folks. have you ever been on a podcast called versus trump? i think i was on a live panel that the people who ran the podcast called versus trump on that do you remember saying the following? liberals tend to cluster more. conservatives especially very conservative people tend to spread out more. perhaps because they don t even want to be around themselves. did you say that? yes, i did. do you understand how that reflects contempt on people that are conservative? no. what i was talking about there was the natural tendency, if you put the quote in con tense, the natural tendency of a compactness requirement to favor a party whose voters are more spread out. i do not have contempt for i m very limited on time, professor. so i just have to say, when you talk about how liberals want to be around each other and cluster and conservatives don t want to be around each other so they
you look at it. this is deja news live from berlin donald trump arrives in london for a landmark nato summit the u.s. president has been repeating calls to alliance members to hike their defense spending acts as the alliance mach 670th anniversary almost this debate and less than happy one also coming up. do we really want to be remembered as the generation gap but if you care in the sand. while the planet burned. as the united nations climate summit opens in madrid the u.n. secretary general says nations must save the earth by adding for carbon neutrality . that while tough income or eastlands in the philippines hundreds of thousands of forced to flee as the storm makes landfall packing winds exceeding 200 kilometers an hour. i m anthony how it will come to the program u.s. president donald trump has arrived in london where he ll be attending a meeting of nato they decide for the next 2 days the meeting marks the 70th anniversary of the alliance and will likely be dominated by talks about the finances and the pledges nato partners have made to boost their defense budgets before departing washington the president told the press that it was because of him that nato allies. a spin. well earlier i spoke to the deputies of a of a sell it in washington and i asked him with trump repeatedly kostin down on the obama s purpose is it now in danger well whenever it s trump and nato and in the member states have states and government have to be very alert sensually everyone is asking himself right now what s going to happen next what s he going to say next time around and of course one thing isn t forgotten his 2017 visit to headquarters in brussels where he essentially talked to the other heads of states and governments of the nato members like a teacher will talk to ill behaved school kids. 3 later called nato obsolete he walked those comments back but a certain dollar always remains just a couple days ago joe biden the presidential front runner of the democratic party said if trump gets reelected the united states might even leave nato but if you take a closer look this all seems rather like this typical trump rhetoric trying to put pressure on nato partners also his administration made clear that nato is important for the united states but in the end trump remains an unpredictable president so the heads of states and governments in london have to be prepared for any kind of surprise definitely now it does seem trump will keep up the pressure on the other member states to increase their military spending. well these he s done that very often to put that pressure on other countries in particular targeting germany for coming short of this so-called 2 percent goal to spend 2 percent of the g.d.p. 2 for the military budget but this time around he seemed to have a more conciliatory tone he took to twitter today before leaving london and said that since he took office military spending of all nato members grew by $130000000000.00 us dollars which of course he appreciates and also of course he takes the credit for that nato secretary general stoltenberg even talks about an unparalleled progress when it comes to military spending. in nato and to a certain extent it is fair to say that it s at least partially president trumps achievement. that was of a sell at speaking to me earlier from washington well 2 weeks to save the future that is how many of the scribing the u.n. climate change conference that s begun in madrid delegates from nearly 200 countries have begun 2 weeks of meetings amid a growing sense of crisis the u.n. 6 region secretary general is calling for bold action warning the risks pos in the point of no return the focus right now is on who will launch real action against climate change last year a new record was set with humans pumping more getting tons of greenhouse gases into the environment than ever before now at the u.n. climate conference in madrid spain delegates from around the world are expected to get clear on exactly how to take action moving forward. u.n. secretary general and tony you could terrorise the war against nature must stop do we really want could be remembered as the generation that bertie be having to send . to wire the planet burns. and the pressure is on the last 5 years where the warmest since humans began recording temperatures extreme weather events are more common sea levels continue to rise to dangerous new levels. of pollution in the atmosphere and in our oceans is devastating ecosystems. but so far most countries are still heading in the wrong direction scientists say the vital markers of climate change are predicted to rise not fall in the coming decade emerging economies are burning more coal and the us one of the largest producers of greenhouse gas emissions pulled out of the paris agreement the u.s. delegation says that will change on fortunately we are having to fight our way through a bit of a blockade by the fossil fuel industry but that will not prevail meanwhile europe is setting its sights on leadership the new head of the european commission ursula vander lyon said europe is prepping to blaze the trail to an economy that prioritizes eco friendly innovation climate. 2015 the european green deal is europe s new growth strategy. it will cut emissions while also creating. funding lines said the e.u. wants to create a transition to climate neutrality that is irreversible with plans to invest one trillion euro in the next decade to make europe the 1st climate neutral continent in the world. the race is on to see who can create leadership that finally brings results. in the philippines powerful typhoon has made landfall the storm swept ashore with torrential rains and winds of 200 kilometers an hour the typhoon has knocked out power in several provinces and the international airport is due to suspend operations and 200000 people have already fled to safety. with the wind and rain getting stronger coastal residents ran for shelter and batten down the hatches. as typhoon come already approached anything that could be blown away needed to be stowed away. with the help of the military these families packed up and fled not knowing what if anything they may return to the. tens of thousands of people on the island of luzon have been evacuated to makeshift shelters like this. volunteers and police prepared aid packages for those displaced by the storm morry is on course to cause problems for the $29000.00 southeast asian games which the philippines is now hosting but organizers say they re ready for whatever comes. some people are asking if. there s no expense. but for many coastal residents the only solution is to get to shelter wait out the storm. and hope for the best. now to some of the other stories making news around the world. authorities in mexico are hunting drug cartel gunmen behind an attack which left $22.00 people did it happened in village when young close to the u.s. border dozens of gunman sprayed houses and city hall with bullets and started firefights when the army into the kidnap state employees and police officers were among the date. britain s prince andrew could be ordered to testify of allegations relating to the light finance and convicted sex offender geoffrey epstein a lawyer representing epstein victims say he will subpoena the royal meanwhile the woman who says she was forced to have sex with the prince has appealed to the british public to support it. in the us a powerful storm that caused havoc in the midwest of the weekend has moved on to the northeast with more than half a meter of snow forecast in some areas more than 4000 flights have been cancelled because of the bad weather. german defense minister on a clear calm has started his 1st visit to afghanistan he called for an extension of germany s mandate in the country saying a lot of work is still needed to secure the country germany has around $1300.00 troops in afghanistan and then that is currently juge waned and much. well the future of germany s government is in doubt off the chance of a miracles coalition partners the social democrats elected 2 new leaders critical of the partnership with the chancellor s conservative they ve indicated they want to see major changes raising the prospect of the coalition s collapse potentially causing an early election or a minority government. it sounds good i ask in and norbert fanta boy the newly chosen leaders of the social democrats will their election mean the end of germany s coalition government. the results of the s.p.d. poll came as a surprise as did the clear margin of victory the new leaders to be want to make their own mark and chart a new course for the party they also want to reopen negotiations with chancellor angela merkel on future government policies that does it has the responsibility of the social democrats to make policies for the low and medium earners at this time and again we see clauses in our contract with the c.d.u. that are not in their best interests and that has to change with. the conservatives are willing to talk with the s.p.d. but say renegotiating parts of the coalition agreement is not an option he wants counseling is the chancellor is fundamentally prepared to cooperate and that s the way it should be in a coalition she is willing to talk as is usual in a coalition is leash brahe ya talk yes but we can renegotiate the coalition agreement incidentally that would also involve the s.p.d. discussing it all 1st with the rank and file again the opposition green say berlin is headed toward a government crisis. b s b did the s.p.d. has to clear this up this week do they want to govern this country yes or no you can t govern if you say it is maybe. the s.p.d. has veered left what this means for the german government should become clear over the coming days the sport now and there was monday night football in the bundesliga as minds hosted frankfurt in a regional dobby and it was the house side who took an important 3 points to move up and out of the relegation place it s. local clashes are usually fiery occasions and this one was no difference flares thrown on to the pitch what s a blame for a slightly later kick off than planned but the action came ficken fost not see him so regular visits is one up to 53 minutes i. defended finding room to shoot amid the chaos. but fresh food soon run into trouble so many who are receiving his marching orders for this last night slip up and minds pounced carry my own e.c. well with a searing shock to do all things levelling the 2nd time off but at 2nd glance pincer i got the final touch another goal for the on track man this time. i m not home so i grabbed the winner through adam sol eyes close range finish she won still. some good shots is mines get the points. sticking with football and leo messi has received a record 6th ball on door tonight in paris it being the most prestigious award in the gun as he had already racked up a number of other awards this year but the blonde door is the most significant and they got a box of 5 time when it christiana ronaldo as well as virgil van dyke of champions league winners liverpool and robert live in del skip german champions by and munich . the top women s football player is american and meghan rippin she of the world cup winning u.s. national team the outspoken rippin you know led the u.s. in scoring during the tournament and took the golden bowl as the best player of role she also furthered his state has as a feminist icon of u.s. president donald trump. civility. business news is next day on day w. before we go though it s that time of year again and christmas decorations are popping up everywhere already $100.00 always manages a lavish display is the white house and this year is no exception so we leave you with the 1st lady milan millennia tromp showing off a christmas dicho enjoy. because
this from like the ivory towers of your law school but it makes actual people in this country when the president calls you don t get to interrupt me on this time. and when you suggest that you invoke the president s son name here and try to make a joke at referencing baron trump that does not lend credibility to your argument, it makes you look mean and attacking someone s family. the minor child of the president of the united states. so let s see if we could get into the facts. to all of the witnesses. if you have personal knowledge of a single material fact in the schiff report, please raise your hand. and let the record reflect no personal knowledge of a single fact. and you know what, that continues on the tradition we saw from adam schiff where ambassador taylor could not identify an impeachment offense and mr. kent never met with the president and fiona hill never mentioned military aid and mr. hill was not aware of any nefarious aid and colonel vindman said that bribery was invoked here. and ambassador volker denied there was a quid pro quo and mr. morrison said there was nothing wrong on the call. the only direct evidence came from gordon sondland who spoke to the president of the united states and the president said i want nothing. no quid pro quo. and you know what, if wiretapping the political points the gentleman s time is expired maybe it is a different president we should be impeaching. gentleman s time is expired. mr. cicilini. let me state the obvious. it is not hearsay when the president tells the president of ukraine to investigate his political adversary, is it. it is not. it is not here say when the president confesses on national television to do thatting. it is not. it is not hearsay when administration testify they hear the president say he only cares about the investigations of his political opponent, is it. no, that is not here say. and there are other direct evidence in the 300-page report from the intelligence community so let s dispense by that clim by my republican colleagues. professor turley wrote on august 1st, 2014 in a piece called five myths about impeachment, one of the myths he was rejected was that impeachment required a criminal offense and he wrote, and i quote, an offense does not have to be indictable. serious misconduct or violation of public trust is enough. end quote. was professor turley right when he wrote that back in december of 2014. yes, i agree with that. to professor karlan. at the constitutional convention eldridge jerry said foreign powers will meddle in our affairs and spare to expense to spare them and a president might be tray his trust to a foreign power. professor carlin can you explain why the framers accounted for those concerns and how that related to the facts before this committee. so the reason that the framers were concerned about foreign interference i think is slightly different than the reason we are. they were concerned about it because we were such a weak country in 1789. we were small. we were poor. we didn t have an established navy. we didn t have an established army. today the concern is a little different which is that it will interfere with us making the decisions that are best for us as americans. thank you, professor. there are three known instances of the president publicly asking a foreign country to interfere in our elections. first in 2016, the president publicly hoped that russia would hack into the email of a political opponent which they subsequently did. second based on the president s summary of the call with president zelensky we know he asked ukraine to announce an investigation into his chief political rival and used aid apropt appropriated by congress and urged china to begin its own investigation. professor feldman, how would it impact our democracy if it became standard practice for the president of the united states to ask a foreign government to interfere in our elections. it would be a disaster for the functioning of our democracy if our presidents regularly as this president has done ask foreign governments to interfere in our electoral process. and i what like to end with george washington who told americans in his farewell address that to be constantly awake because foreign influence is one of the baneful foes of the foreign government. the conduct at issue here is egregious and warrants a commensurate response and the of that there is no doubt because inviting foreign meddling robs american people of the sacred right to elect their own political leaders. americans across this country wait in long lines to exercise the right to vote and choose their own leaders. this right does not belong to foreign governments. we not and won a revolution over this. free and fair elections are what separate us from authoritarians all over the world. as public servants and member of the house we would be negligent in our duties under the constitution if we let this blatant abuse of power go unchecked. we ve heard about hating this president. it is not about hating this president. it is about a love of country. it is about arming the oath that we took to protect and defend the constitution of this great country. and so my final question is to professor feldman and to professor karlan, in the face of this evidence, what are the consequences if this committee and this congress refuses to muster the courage to respond to this gross abuse of power that undermined the integrity of our elections and undermined the confidence we have to have in the president to not abuse the power of his office. if this committee and this house fail to act, then you re sending a message to this president and to future presidents that it is no longer a problem if they abuse their power. it is no longer a problem if they invite other countries to interfere in our elections and no longer a probe if they put the interest of other countries ahead of ours. professor karlan. i agree with professor feldman and i apologize for getting over heated over a moment ago but i have a constitutional right under the first amendment to give money to candidates and we have a constitutional duty from foreigners spending money in our elections and these are two sides of the same coin. thank you. and with that i yield back. the gentleman yields back. mr. johnson. thank you. i was struck this morning by the same thing as all of my friends and colleagues on this side of the room. chairman nadler actually began this morning with the outrageous statement that the facts before us are undisputed. of course, everyone here knows that that s simply not true. every person here and every person watching at home knows full well that virtually everything here is disputed. from the fraudulent process and the broken procedure to the democrats unfounded claims. and the full facts are obviously not before us today. we ve been allow nod fact witnesses here at all. for the first time ever this committee, which is the one in congress that has the actual jurisdiction over impeachment is being given no access to the underlying evidence that adam schiff and his political accomplices say support this charade. this is a shocking denial of constitutional process and i m also a constitutional attorney and under normal circumstances i would enjoy a debate about the contours of article two section four but that is an utter waste of the time because as highlighted this morning this whole production is a sham and a reckless path to a pre-determined political out come and it is an outcome that was predetermined by our democrat colleagues a long time ago. the truth is house democrats have been working to impeach president trump since the day he took his oath of office. over the past three years they ve introduced four resolutions seeking to impeach the president. two years ago as one of the graphics show december 26th, 2018, 50 house democrats voted to begin impeachment proceedings and that is 20 months before the famous july 25th phone call with ukraine president zelensky. and this other graphic up here is smaller but it is interesting too. i think it is important to reiterate for everybody watching at home that of our 24 democratic colleagues and friends on the other side of the room today, 17 out of 24 have already voted for impeachment. so i mean let s be honest. let s not pretend that anybody cares about what is being said here today or the actual evidence or the facts. as congresswoman lofgren said we come with open minds. that is not happening here. so much for an impartial jury. several times leading democrats have admitted in various interviews and correspondence they believe this strategy is necessary, because why? because they want to stop the president s reelection. even speaker pelosi said last month that, quote, it is dangerous to allow the american people to evaluate his performance at the ballot box. speaker pelosi has it exactly backwards. what is dangerous is the precedent all of this is setting for the future of our republic. i love what professor turley testified to, this is not how impeachment of a president is done and his rhetorical question is he asked you to ask yourselves, where will you stand next time when this same kind of sham impeachment process is innish ated against a president from your party. the real shame here today is everything in washington has become bitterly partisan and this ugly chapter is not going to help that. it is going to make things really that much worse. president turley said we are living in the era fears from our founders and what hamilton referred to as a period of agitated passions. i think that said if t so well. this is an age of rage. president washington warned in his farewell address in 1796 that extreme partisanship would lead us to the ruins of public liberty. those were his words. this hyper partisan impeachment is probably one of the most divisive and destructive things that we could possibly do to our american family. let me tell you what i heard from my constituents in multiple town halls and meetings back in my district just two days ago. the people of the country are sick of this. they re sick of the politics of personal destruction, they re sick of the toxic atmosphere that is being created here and they re deeply concerned about where all this will lead us in the years ahead. rightfully so. you know what the greatest threat is, the thing that ought to keep every single one of us up at night is the rapidly eroding trust of the american people in their institutions. one of the critical presuppositions and foundations of a self-governing people in a constitutional republic is they retain a basis level of trust in institutions and rule of law and system of justice and the body of elected representatives and citizen legislators in congress. the greatest danger of this fraudulent impeachment production is not what happens this afternoon or by christmas or in the election next fall. the greatest danger is what this will do in the days ahead to our 243 year experiment in self-governance and what effect this new president or pandora s box will have upon our nation six or seven years from now, a decade now from the ruins of public liberty created by this short-sighted exercise today. god help us. i yield back. gentleman yields back. mr. swalwell. professor turley, as a former prosecutor, i recognize a defense attorney trying to represent their clients. especially one who has very little to work with in the way of facts and today you represent the republicans in their defense of the president. professor that is not my intention, sir. you ve said that this case represents a dramatic turning point in federal impeachment precedent. the impact of which will shape and determine future cases. the house for the first time in the modern era asked the senate to remove someone for conduct for which he was never charged criminally and the impropriety of which has never been tested in a court of law but that is not a direct quote from what you said today. it sounds a lot like what you ve argued today but that is a quote from what you argued as a defense lawyer in a 2010 senate impeachment trial. professor, did you represent federal judge thomas portus. i did, indeed. and judge was tried on four articles of impeachment ranging from engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with the trust and confidence placed in him as a federal judge engaging in a long standing pattern of corrupt conduct that demonstrates his unfitness to serve as a united states district court judge. on each count judge portus was convicted by at least 68 and up to 96 bipartisan senators. thankfully that senate did not buy your argument that a federal official should not be removed if he is not charged criminally and respecialfully, professor, we don t buy it either. but we re here because of this photo. it is a picture of of president zelensky in may of this year standing on the eastern front of ukraine as a hot war was taking place and up to 15,000 ukrainians have died at hands of russians. i would like to focus on the impact of president trump s conduct particularly with our allies and our standing in the world. this isn t just a president, as professor karlan has pointed out, asking for another foreign leader to investigate a political opponent, it is a president leveraging a white house visit as well as foreign aid. as the witnesses have testified, ukraine needs our support to defend itself against russia. i heard directly from witnesses who important the visit and aid were, particularly from ambassador taylor. these weapons and this assistance allows the ukrainian military to deter further incursions by the russians against ukrainian territory. if that further incursion, further aggression, were to take blase, more ukrainians would die. professor karlan, does the president s decision to withhold from ukraine such important official acts, a white house visit and military aid in order to pressure president zelensky relate to the framers concerns about abuse of power and entanglements with foreign nations. it relates to the abuse of power. the entanglements with foreign nations is a more complicated concept for the framers than for us. professor karlan, i think you would agree we are a nation of immigrants. yes. today 50 million immigrants live in the united states. i moved by one who recently told me i was checking into a hotel about his romanian family. he came here from romania and said that every time he had gone home for the last 20 years he would always tell his family members how corrupt his country was, that he had left and why he had come to the united states. and he told me in such humiliated fashion that when he is gone home recently, they now wag their finger at him and say you re going to lecture us about corruption. what do you think professor karlan, does the president s conduct say to the millions of americans who left their family and livelihood to come to a country that represents the rule of law. i think it suggests that we don t believe in the rule of law. and i think it tells emerging democracies around the world not to take it seriously when we tell them that their elections are not legitimate because of foreign interference or their elections are not legitimate because of persecution of the opposing party. president bush announced that he did not consider the elections in belarus in 2006 to be legitimate because they went after political opponents. professor turley pointed out that we should wait and go to the courts but you would acknowledge that we ve gone to the courts. we ve been in the courts for over six months. many times on matters that are already settled in the united states supreme court particularly u.s. v nixon where the president seems to be running out the clock. is that right. yes. thank you and i yield back. gentleman yields back. we will in a moment we will recess for a brief five minutes. first i ask everybody in the room to remain seated and quiet while the witnesses exit the room. i also want to remind those in the audience that you may not be guaranteed your seat if you leave the hearing room at this time. at this time the committee will start in a short recess. you have been watching the first public hearing of the house judiciary committee. welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. this hearing which first started at 10:00 a.m. eastern, getting a little contentious at times, three constitutional law experts called by democrats made their case to impeach president trump. the lone republican called expert, jonathan turley, argued that the evidence to impeach is, quote, wafer thin. and let s talk about this. laura, i want to play some sound from congressman radcliff and jonathan turley that has been re-tweeted by president trump as a game set match. let s listen to that sound. so if i were to summarize your testimony, no bribery, no extortion, no obstruction of justice, no abuse of power, is that fair? not on this record. that is a pretty assertive statement by jonathan turley to say no extortion, no bribery, no obstruction of justice, no abuse of power. it is odd because his 53-page opening statement and much of the testimony has not been that particularly assertive on that point. it is essentially hedging up until that moment in time saying it is not that it s not there, it is that it is insufficient evidence to prove it at this point and there is ample time for you to develop a sufficient record and go to court to get the order from the court to say that somebody, in fact, is obstructing justice or stonewalling officially and now he has the perfect sound bite which is why it is re-tweeted that said his whole argument is that you got nothing here. it is a big nothing burger. but he goes to great lengths over 50 pages to explain that he feels because bribery and the words quid pro quo were often used, that it is about whether or not there was a sufficient official act. if the president of the united states had an official act and that is what he s being pinged on. now he s saying no, no, no there is nothing to see here folks and that is a bit disingenuous and it belied the record to say there is nothing there. he could argue sufficiently. but then you have to be real about this point. the reason there is a record that may be as he called it wafer thin is because people have been stonewalling and not providing evidence not only from testimony, bolton, pompeo and the like, trump and also emails and also paperwork and documents. so to say it is insufficient, but i won t actually give credit to why it is insufficient is preposterous. do you think, tim, that democrats should almost call republicans on the bluff and in the sense they should say, okay, you think the case hasn t been proven but your witness jonathan turley said we should call more witnesses we ll do this and extend two more weeks but we have to agree to subpoena mulvaney, pompeo, et cetera? absolutely. this is a great missed opportunity for democrats. and for all americans. what the argument should be that impeachment is such a serious matter, that you want as much evidence as possible. and then it is not up to law professors, by the way, all four of them, they did really well. but it is not up to them. it is up to the members of congress. this should be a deliberative process. what is striking about what we ve seen today is that this seems to be a repeat in spirit of the clinton impeachment more than the nixon impeachment. and that is because there is i don t think there is anybody there who has any experience with the nixon impeachment whereas in the clinton era some of them remembered the nixon impeachment which is far more serious. and it should be more deliberate. so what ambassador icen, the democratic majority counsel should have done is ask professor turley, what do you want to know and whom should we ask and let me give you a reason why. the schiff report is magnificent. but there are gaps. they re not gaps that are helpful to the president. they re just gaps. it would be nice to have someone on the record say they know for sure the president s mind when the suspension of aid happened. what they can prove is that there is a quid pro quo regarding a meeting in the white house. not quite as easy to prove that there was a quid pro quo about the security. now, i can tell you that having studied presidents, i m pretty convinced that it was. but you know what? the american people don t spend time studying presidents. they re not professors of public policy. give them more data and when bolton says no and when omb doesn t hand over the documents then at least the democrats could say we tried to connect the dots but those are troubling dots as is. and moving on with that, building on that, what tim just said, jen psaki, in the house impeachment report that the intelligence committee put out, democrats on the committee, there is page after page, it starts on page 216 if you want to read it, page after page of documents that they tried to get that president trump, vice president pence, secretary of state pompeo, secretary of defense, the omb director, et cetera, et cetera, refused to turn over. just dozens of the documents. and they could say would you want to see this, jonathan turley. the republican witness says yes. and then the republicans are in a tough spot. they certainly could. and there is there was a huge opportunity that this report was put out yesterday. and that was a gift to jerry nadler, congressman or chairman nadler. obviously it is a different focus of the hearing but there is a lot to work from there and i think he missed some opportunities to really hold jonathan turley s feet to the fire to push on some of the questions, to hold some of his fellow republicans to account on what you exactly just said. there are the reason we haven t had these high level officials appear is because the white house has been obstructing them from appearing. they haven t been providing documents and they haven t let me just interrupt you for one second because i want to bring our viewers attention to the substantial list. democrats have asked for documents related to that infamous july 25th call, the briefing materials prepared for president trump by vindman and notes related to the call from key players the white house is refusing to turn over the presidential decision memo prepared by vindman conveying that the aid be released and the nfc staff conclusions related to ukraine and white house records review of the hold on the ukraine aid which according to the washington post reveal extensive efforts to deal an after the fact justification and gordon sondland the administration won t turn over call records or emails and messages between sondland and mick mulvaney or john bolton. and they want to see related to the july 25th call with mr. pence and the details prepared with the meeting and the memo of the conversation from the pence call with zelensky on september 18th. this is a small list. a small excerpt. they didn t talk about that at all at this hearing and this is just i got from the report that they issued yesterday. there was a ton of new information this that report. and they could have discussed that. there was no limitations on what they brought up during questioning or public statements and they didn t take the opportunity to do that. now adam schiff and most democrats feel there is a preponderance of the evidence as written in the report to impeach the president but it doesn t mean they can t question why republicans are obstructing documents and witnesses and other people. but this isn t just about convincing house democrats to vote this is about convincing the country. do you think this would have been more effective if one of the three experts were a conservative constitutional law expert who supported impeachment because they re out there. we ve had them on my show. obviously, look, that was the line of tactic of the questions, that these experts are all incredibly liberal. if you see what has been what they ve written and what they made public statements about in the past, they re all not they re not centrist by any stretch of the imagination. feldman and karlan but they didn t say anything from gerhardt. from where i sit, they are extremely liberal. so they didn t help their case by picking people who are on the other team. it doesn t make the case any stronger and as tim pointed out before, we re talking about comedy and separation of powers, some of the documents that you referenced, there are legitimate concerns, legitimate claims of executive privilege. sure, but the white house said we re not giving you anything. right. and so you have to go document by document and there is a process by which that takes place and it can t be done in a week and a half in time to get the hearing done. the white house has said let us look at these things and we can t provide anything. this is like any big major litigation case you have boxes and tons of files and paralegals going through things. but they won t cooperate. but this is sorry. go ahead. the big thing that that is the ranking minority member s real point. there was the calendar and the clock. and that was the real reason why this is so urgent but let s go back to the whistle-blower complaint and no one wants to bring it up but what did the inspector general for the intelligence community find? it was a credible and urgent threat. what have these constitutionally people talking about you need not wait until either an election and it is the prerogative to impeach or remove a president and do you have an urgency when the subject matter is about an upcoming election. and so you have that all right here. but i do totally agree there are missed opportunities and when you when each member of the house judiciary committee could have pointed out the notion of there is an urgency and also a reason we can t wait for the courts. because it will be the result of long, protected and there is an urgent matter going on here. they didn t address it or hammer it home but they could do so more and the american people are well aware, if it is credible and urgent you don t wait. i don t think the american people there have been 71 requests. jake just gave us a short list. 71. this is unprecedented in u.s. constitutional history. let me interrupt. you see noah feldman and jonathan turley all taking there, even though they have different views on impeachment. they are they have at the table treated each other with respect and even deference at times, more so than the members of congress treat each other. i m sorry, tim. and the reason the 71 matters is that 71 requests. requests by the house for documents. the president has turned over not a single document. richard nixon, what he did is he played fast and loose and he wanted the apparent compliance. but at least he understood that he to comply constitutionally. you had to give something. he had to give something. this president doesn t believe he has to give anything and that is a major challenge for our system but i don t think the american people understand it because frankly they re busy and have other things on thur mind and this is where the democrats and centrist republicans if they exist should say these are the holes. it is not a phishing expedition and these are the holes. and exactly what you were saying earlier, jake, and say to the american people this is what we re looking for and to president trump, we want you to have your chance to defend yourself. these are really key holes. he will say no, i suspect, but you at least make this clear. what is problematic now is there is the impression that it is the election that is rushing the democrats and not the issue of how long we have to wait for the courts. that i understand. who knows how long they could take. but the point is if the american people think that the rush is all about the new hampshire primary and not about the problems of getting documents from the white house, they re not going to understand the seriousness of this. they ll see it like a game. this isn t a game. it is supposed to be a serious deliberate process that isn t supposed to happen very often in our history and the democrats have to show the seriousness and sadness that the democrats showed in 1973 and 74. look, they didn t like nixon either but this is tough and sometimes you need to. i m not hearing that from the democrats. i m hearing a little bit of glee from some and that the not helpful. to tim s point, it is reflected in polling now that shows that slipping sh the numbers have slipped and moving in one direction. and schiff and the democrats, threw the best they had at the president and this administration, it didn t make a dent. jen, it didn t. that is not accurate. it still said more than 50% for impeachment and removal. independence independents. it still slipped where it mattered. it is jumped by 20 points since the summer. since the summer. since the summer. and democrats are look at a couple things on the political front, the democrats have coalesced around the 90% supporting that and independents have moved to support impeachment and it is still hovering around 50%. we ll watch and see how many democrats vote when it comes to voting time. it is 90%. and i think somebody on the table who feels odd about the idea, i know we have to show the deference, this being a difficult time in the country, but it is a constitutional obligation that members of congress have. so i understand wanting to convey the gravitious but they should not have to be apologetic about fulfilling a constitutional opportunity any more than the president slud feel and the impeachment process is about presidential impotence and it is you have titans and i talk about during the break, [ inaudible ] have an issue with the leadoff question from the scholars was about what their campaign donations were about and who they gave to. as if these were fact witnesses whose narrative and lent to be judged by who they voted for. and tim, let me ask you a question, this is what the fourth impeachment proceeding for a u.s. president in the history of the united states. yes. do you think that as a historian, comparing it to the other three, do you think that the case has been made? or is that outside your wheelhouse? you can say it is outside what i ve learned from studying these cases is that you have to think in terms of an elected official to answer that question. law professors will have one standard and elected officials will have another. i can tell you that the kind of impeachment i ever want to see is one that brings the country together. and that heals wounds. that may sound ridiculous but it happened. it happened in the nixon case. and it happened in the nixon case despite a lot of passion. people forget how hard it was for republicans to vote against nixon. it was very tough. and the republican leadership only went against nixon when the smoking gun trans crypt transcript came out. but they realized the american people expected them to be constitutional jurors and so they didn t say what they thought or say i m pro-impeachment before the material was in front of them and they made it clear there was a deliberate process. i didn t mean they were apologetic. but in any case i m not sure i m hearing that. all right. let s listen in. thank you. one of my colleagues wondered how this panel could opine as to the whether the president committed an impeachable offense and the answer, quite frankly, is because you came in with a preconceived notion and already made that determination and decision and i ll give you aer for instance. until the recent colloquy, several of you consistently said that the president said during that july 25th conversation with president zelensky, you said the president said i would like to you do me a favor. but that is inaccurate. it was finally clear in the colloquy and i ll read it to you. i would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot. one of you said because the president was using royal we and here is the president is talking about the country. that is what he s talking about. it is audacious to say it is using the royal we. that is royal all right. but it ain t the royal we. and i ll tell you. when you come in with a preconceived notion it is obviously. one said, mr. feldman, who said and i ll quote here, roughly, i think it is exactly what you said though, until the call of july 25th i was an impeachment skeptic too. i looked at an august 3rd 2017 publication where you said if president trump pardoned joe arpaio it would be an impeachable offense. he did ultimately pardon him. in 2017 the new york book review of review of books feldman said defamation by tweet is an impeachable offense and i think the history of this country and i think if defamation or libel or slander is impeachable but i can t help but reflect about tom adams and thomas jefferson who pillered their political opponents. in fact, at the time the factions or parties actually bought newspapers to attack their political opponents. so this rather expansive and generous view you have on what constitutes impeachment is a real problem. this morning one of you mentioned the constitutional convention and several of you mentioned, mr. davies and talked about the constitutional convention and it is a while since i read the minutes because i briefly reviewed because i remembered the discussion on the impeachment as being more pervasive. a little bit more expanded. and on july 20th, 1787, it wasn t 1789, it was in 1787, july toth, benjamin franklin is discussing impeachment of a dutch leader and he talked specifically about what he would anticipate an impeachment to look like. he said it would be a regular and peaceable inquiry and we ve taken place and if guilty then there is say punishment if acquitted then the innocent would be restored to the confidence of the public. that needs to be taken into account as well. so i look also and on may 17th, 2017, bbc article a discussion about impeachment, because president trump had fired james comey. alex whiting of harvard said it was hard to make the obstruction of justice case with the sacking alone. the president has clear legal authority and it was proper or at least other reasons put forward for firing him and yet what we have here is this insistence by mr. gerhardt that this that was impeachable. that is that article i ll refer to you, may 17, 2017, bbc. what i m suggesting to you today is a reckless bias coming in here. you re not fact witnesses. you re supposed to be talking about what the law is. but you came in with a preconceived notion and bias and i want to read one last thing here if i can find it. from one of our witnesses here. and it s dealing with something that was said in a maryland law review article in 1999. and basically, if i could get to it, he s talking about this being critical of lack of self doubt and overwhelming arrogance on the part of law professors who come in and opine on impeachment. that would be you, mr. gerhardt, something like that. i can t find my quote or else i would give it to you. so what i m telling you is that is what is on display in this committee today and with that i yield back. the gentleman yields back. a little while ago mr. gaetz skaed that certain material be inserted into the record by unanimous consent and i ask the opportunity to review it and we have reviewed it and the material will be inserted without objection. mr. lieu. thank you, chairman nadler. i first swore an oath to the constitution when i was commissioned as an officer in the united states air force. and the oath i took was not to a political party, or to a president or to a king. it was an oath to a document that has made america the greatest nation on earth. i never imagined we would now be in a situation where the president or commander-in-chief is accused of using his office for personal political gain that detrayed national security and hurt ukraine and helped our adversary russia. now the constitution provides a safeguard for when the president s abuse of power and betrayal of national interest are so extreme that it warrants impeachment and removal. it seems notable that of all of the offenses they could have included in the constitution, bribery is one of only two that are listed. so professor feldman, why were the framers choose bribery of all of the offenses they could have included in the list. bribery was the classic example for them of the high crime and misdemeanor of abuse of office for personal gain. because if you take something of value while when you re able to effect an outcome for somebody else, you re serving your own interests and not the interests of the people. and that was commonly used in impeachment offenses in england and that is one of the reasons that they specified it. thank you. now earlier in this hearing, professor karlan made the point that bribery as envisioned by the framers was much broader than the narrow federal criminal statute of bribery and the reason is obvious. we re not in a criminal proceeding. we re not deciding whether to send president trump to prison. this is a civil action. it is an impeachment proceeding to decide whether or not we remove donald trump from his job. and so professor karlan, it is true, isn t it, that we don t have to meet the standards of a federal bribery statute in order to meet the standards for impeachment offense. that is correct. i m sorry, that is correct. thank you. yesterday law professor j.w. barrett who is a life long republican, former republican hill staffer and who advised a trump pretransition team made the following public statement about donald trump s conduct. the call wasn t perfect. he committed impeachable offenses including bribery. so professor karlan i ll show you two video clips of the witness testimony related to the president s with holding of the white house meeting and exchange for the public announcement of an investigation into his political rival. as i testified previously, mr. giuliani s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a white house visit for president zelensky. by mid-july it is clear to me that the meeting president zelensky wanted was conditioned on the investigations of burisma and alleged ukrainian interference in the 2016 u.s. elections. one more video clip related to the president s decision to withhold security assistance that congress had appropriated to ukraine and exchange for announcement of public investigation of his political rival. in the absence of any credible explanation for this suspension of aid, i later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 elections and burisma as mr. giuliani had demanded. professor karlan, does that evidence and the evidence of record tend to show that the president met the standards for bribery as envisioned in the constitution? yes, it does. i m also a former prosecutor. i believe that the the record and that event would meet the standards for criminal bribery. the supreme court s decision in mcdonnell was primarily about what constitutes an official act. the key finding was an official act must involve a formal exercise of governmental power on something specific pending before a public official. pretty clear we got that here. we have hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid that congress appropriated, the freezing and unfreezing of that aid is a formal exercise of governmental power. but we don t even have to talk about the crime of bribery. there is another crime here. which is the solicitation of federal of assistance of a foreign government in a federal election campaign that straight up violates the federal campaign act at 52 usc 530 is sand the reason michael cohen is sitting in prison right now. i yield back. the gentleman yields back. mr. mcclinton. thank you, mr. chairman. with a show of hands, how many on the panel voted for donald trump in 2016? i don t think we re obligated to say anything about how we cast our ballot. just show of hands. i will not i think you made your positions, professor karlan the gentleman will suspend and suspend the clock too. i have a right to cast you may ask the question let me reask the question. the clock is stopped for the moment. the gentleman may ask the question. the witnesses don t have to respond. how many of you the gentleman s time is restored. how many of you voted for donald trump in to 16. show of hands? not raising our hands is not an indication of a cancanswer s this is predicated on rather disturbing legal doctrines. one democrat asserted that hearsay could be much better evidence than direct evidence. speaker pelosi said that the president s responsibility is to present evidence to prove his innocence. chairman schiff asserted and we heard a discussion from some of your colleagues today that if you invoke legal rights in defense of criminal accusations ip so facto that is evidence of guilt and what does that mean to our american justice system if these doctrines take root in our country. what concerns me the most is that there are no limiting principles that i could see in some of the definitions my colleagues have put forward and more importantly some of the impeachable offenses i only heard about today. i m not sure what attempted to abuse office means. or how you recognize it. but i m pretty confident that nobody on this committee truly wants the new standard of impeachment to be betrayal of the national interest. if that is going to be the basis for impeachment how many republicans do you think would say that barack obama violated that standard. that is exactly what james madison warned against. that you could create a vote of no confidence standard in our constitution. well then are we in danger of abusing our own power of doing enormous violence to our constitution by proceeding in this matter. my democratic colleagues are searching for pretempt for impeachment since before the president was sworn in on this panel professor karlan called the election illegitimate and implied impeachment was a remedy. professorfeldman said over a tweet he made in march of 2017 and with succumbing to the red queen, sentence first, verdict afterwards. this is part of the probe of how your view of the president can affect your assumptions, your assumptions and view of the circumstantial evidence. i m not saying that the evidence if it was fully investigated would come out one way or the other. what i m saying is we re not dealing with the realm of the unknowable. you have to ask. we ve burned two months in this house, two months, that you could have been in court seeking a subpoena for these witnesses. it doesn t mean you have to wait forever. but you could have gotten an order by now. you could have allowed the president to raise an executive privilege let me i need to go on here. the constitution says that the executive authority should be vested in a president of the united states. does that mean some of the executive authority or all of it? well, obviously there are kweks and balances on all of these but the executive authority obviously rests with the president. but these are all shares powers. and i don t begrudge the investigation of the ukraine controversy. i think it was a legitimate investigation. what i begrudge is how it has been conducted. i tend to agree with that. the constitution commands the president take care that the laws be faithfully enforced and that does in effect make him the chief law enforcement officer in the federal government, does it not. it is commonly expressed that way. so if probable cause exists to believe a crime has been committed does the president have the authority to incline into that matter. i ve been critical with the president in terms of crossing lines with the justice department and i think it has caused problem and it is not appropriate but we confuse what is inappropriate with what is impeachable. many people feel what the president has done is obnoxious, contemptible but it is not synonymous with impeachment. let me ask a final question. the national defense authorization act that authorized aid to ukraine requires secretary of state of defense and certify the government is taking actions to make defense institution reforms for purposes of decreasing corruption. is the president exercising that responsibility when he inquires into a matter that could involve illegalities between american and ukraine officials. that is what i m referring to as unexplored defenses. part of the bias when you look at the facts is you ignore defenses. you say those are just invalid but they are the defenses, the other side s account for actions and that hasn t been explored. the gentleman s time is expired. mr. raskin. thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the witnesses for their hard work on a long day. i want to thank them especially for invoking the american revolution which not only overthrew a king, but created the world s first anti-monarchal constitution and it makes me proud to spend a quarter century of my career before running for congress. and tom payne said in the monarchy the king is law. but in the democracies, the law will be king. but today the president advances an argument saying that article two allows him to do whatever he wants. he not only said that but he believes that because he did something no other american president has ever done before. he used foreign military aid as a lever to coerce a foreign government to interfere in an american election to discredit an opponent into advanced his reelection campaign. professor karlan, what does the existence of the impeachment power tell us about the president s claim that the constitution allows him to do whatever he wants. it blows it out of the water. if he s right, and we accept this radical claim that he could do whatever he wants, all future presidents seeking reelection will be able to bring foreign governments into our campaigns to target their rivals and to spread propaganda. that is astounding. if we let the president get away with this conduct, every president can get away with it. do you agree with that professor feldman. i do. richard nixon sent burglars to break into the democratic national committee headquarters but president trump just made a direct phone call to the president of a foreign country and sought his intervention in american election. so this is a big moment for america, isn t it? if elijah cummings were here, he would say listen up people. listen up. how we respond will determine the character of our democracy for generations. now professors feldman and karlan and gerhardt said there were three reasons in the founding for why we needed an impeachment power and broadly speaking it was an instrument of popular self-defense against a president behaving like a king and trampling the rule of law. but not just in the normal royal sense of showing cruelty and vanity and treachery and greed and afterer is and so on. but when presidents threaten the basic character of our government in the constitution, that is what impeachment was about. and the framers invoked three specific kinds of misconduct so serious and egregious that they thought they warranted impeachment. first the president might abuse his power by corruptly using the office for personal, political or financial gain. professor feldman what is so wrong with that. if the president belongs to my party and i generally like him, what is so wrong with him using his office to advance his own political ambitions? because the president of the united states works for the people. and so if he seeks personal gain, he s not serving the interests of the people. he s rather serving the interests that are specific to him and that means he s abusing the office and doing things that he can only get away with because he s the president and that is necessarily subject to impeachment. well, second and third, the founders expressed fear that a president could sub vert our democracy by betraying his trust to foreign influence and interference and also by corrupting the election process. professor karlan, you re one of the leading election law scholars, what role does impeachment play in protecting the integrity of our elections especially in an international context in which vladimir putin and other tyrants and despots are inter fearing to destabilize elections around the world. well, congress has enacted a series of laws to make sure that there isn t foreign influence in our elections. and allowing the president to circumvent that principle is a problem. and as i ve already testified several times, america is not just the last best hope as mr. jefferys said but also the shining city on a hill and we can t be the shining city on a hill and promote democracy around the world if we re not promoting it here at home. now any one of these actions alone would be sufficient to impeach the president according to the founders. but is it fair to say that all three causes for impeachment explicitly contemplated by the founders abuse of power, betrayal of our national security and corruption of aur our elections are present in this president s conduct. yes or no professor feldman. yes. and professor gerhardt. yes. and professor karlan. yes. and you all agree. and are you aware of any other president who has essentially triggered all three concerns that animated the founders? no. no. no as well. mr. chairman, it is hard to think of a more mon arcy sentiment that i can do whatever i want as president and i yield back. gentleman yields back. mrs. lesko. i ask consent to insert into the letter i wrote and sent to you asking, calling on you to cancel any and all future impeachment hearings and outlining how the process with that objection, the letter will be entered into the record. thank you. during an interview on msnbc morning joe on november 26th, 2018, chairman nadler outlined a three-prong test that he said would allow for a legitimate impeachment proceeding. now i quote chairman nadler s remarks, and this is what he said, there really are there really are three questions i think. first, has the president committed impeachable offenses? second, do those feenss rise to the gravity worth putting the country through the drama of impeachment and number three, because you don t want to tear the country apart, you don t want half of the country to say to the other half for the next 30 years we won the election, you stole it from us. you have to be able to think at the beginning of the impeachment process. that the evidence is so clear of offenses so grave that once you ve laid out all of the evidence a good fraction of the opposition, the voters, will will reluctantly add commit to themselves they had to do it. otherwise have a partisan impeachment which will tear the country apart. if you meet these three tasks then i think you do the impeachment and those were the words of chairman nadler. now let s see if chairman nadler s three-pronged test has been met. first, has the president committed an impeachable offense? no. the evidence and testimony has not revealed any impeachable offense. second, do those offenses rise to the gravity that is worth putting the country through the drama of impeachment? again, the answer is no. there is nothing here that rises to the gravity that is worth putting the country through the drama of impeachment. and third, have the democrats laid out a case so clear that even the opposition has to agree absolutely not. you and house democrat leadership are tearing apart the country. you said the evidence needs to be clear. it is not. you said offenses need to be grave, they are not. you said that once the evidence is laid out that the opposition will admit they had to do it, that has not happened. in fact, polling and the fact that not one single republican voted on the impeachment inquiry resolution or on the schiff report reveals the opposite is true. in fact, what you and your democratic colleagues have done is opposite of what you said had to be done. this is a partisan impeachment. and it is tearing the country apart. i take this all to mean that chairman nadler, along with the rest of the democratic caucus, is prepared to continue these entirely partisan, unfair proceedings and traumatize the american people all for political purpose. i think that s a shame. that is not leadership. that is a sham. and so i ask mr. turley, has chairman nadler satisfied his three-prong test for impeachment? well all due respect to the chairman, i do not believe those factors were satisfied. thank you. and i want to correct something for the record as well. repeatedly today and other days democrats have repeated what was said in the text of the call. do me a favor, though, in the implying it was against president biden to investigate president biden, it was not. it was not. in fact, let me read what the transcript says. it says president trump, i would like to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it. 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 own wealthy people. it says nothing about the bidens. so please stop referencing those two together and i yield back. gentle lady yields back. thank you, mr. chairman. this is a deeply grave moment that we find ourselves in. and i thought the threat to our
american people s money on this impeachment, there s so many other important things that are going undone. within this committee s own jurisdiction, we should be addressing the opioid epidemic. we could be working together to find a solution to our immigration and asylum challenges on our southern border. we could be protecting americans from having their intellectual property and jobs stolen by chinese companies. and we could be enhancing election security just to name a few things. and congress as a whole could be working on rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. providing additional tax relief to the nation s middle-class families and providing additional security to our people here at home and abroad. instead, here we are spinning our wheels once again on impeachment. what a waste. the american people deserve so much better. i yield back. gentleman yields back. mr. cohen. thank you, mr. chair. i take no pleasure in the fact that we re here today. as a patriot who loves america, it pains me that the circumstances force us to undertake this grave and solemn obligation. nonetheless, based simply on the publicly-available evidence, it appears that president trump pressured a foreign government to interfere in our elections by investigating his perceived chief political opponent. today, we are here to uphold our oaths to defend the constitution of the united states by furthering our understanding whether the president s conduct is impeachable. it is entirely appropriate that we re examining our nation s history as it relates to presidential impeachment. the frameworks of the constitution legitimately feared for our nation s sovereignty and they wanted to ensure there would be a check and balance on the executive. we sit here with a duty to the founders to fulfill their wisdom and being a check on the executive. we the people s house are that check. under our constitution, the house can impeach a president for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. professor feldmann, you ve discussed high crimes and misdemeanors and the fact that the high refers to both crimes and misdemeanors. can you just give us a little bit of a summary of what high crimes and misdemeanors are? and how they re distinct from what professor turley said they were? yes, sir. high crimes and misdemeanors are actions of the president in office where he uses his office. to advance his personal interests, potentially for personal gain. potentially, to corrupt the electoral process. and potentially, as well, against the national security interest of the united states. i would add, sir, that the word high modifies both crimes and misdemeanors. the framers world knew of both high crimes and misdemeanors. and i believe that the definition that was posted earlier of misdemeanor was not the definition of high misdemeanor, which was a specific term understood by the framers. but only of the word misdemeanor and that s an easy mistake to make. but the truth is high misdemeanors were their own category of abuses of office and those are the things that are impeachable. thank you, professor. professors feldman and you ve all testified. abuse of power, betrayal of the national interest, and corruption of elections. is that right, professor karlan? yes, it is. and and to professor feldman and professor garhart, do you agree? yes. yes, sir. you stated the essence of a impeachable offense is the president s decision to sacrifice the national interest for his own private ends. professors, do you also agree with that? yes, sir. yes. based on the evidence you ve seen, professors feldman, karlan, and garhart, has president trump sacrificed the country s interest in favor of his own? professor karlan? yes, he has. and is there a particular piece of evidence that most illuminates that? i think what illuminates that most for me is the statement by ambassador sondland that he wanted simply the announcement of an investigation. and several other people said exactly the same thing. there s testimony by ambassador volker to this extent, as well. that what he wanted was simply public information to damage joe biden. he didn t care whether at the end of the day joe biden was found guilty or exonerated. and professor feldman, do you agree? and do you have a different or the same ill luminating fact? my emphasis would be on the fact that the president held up aid to an ally that s fighting a war. in direct contravention. that to me seems to have placed his own interests in personal advantage ahead of the interests of the nation. and a bill passed by congress bipartisan. yes, sir. professor garhart? i agree with what my colleagues have said. i would add that i m very concerned about the president s obstruction of congress. obstruction of this inquiry. refusal to comply with a number of subpoenas ordering many high-level officials in the government not to comply with subpoenas. and asking and ordering the entire executive branch not to cooperate with congress. it s useful to remember the constitution says the house has the sole power to impeach. constitution only uses the word sole twice. once with reference to the house in this area. once with reference to the senate with respect to impeachment trials. sole means sole. means only. and let me get professor turley into this. professor turley, you are a self-described, self-anointed defender of article one congress guy. but you justify a position that says legally issued subpoenas by congress enforcing its powers don t have to be complied with. it seems in this circumstance, you re an article two executive guy. you and you re talking about the johnson impeachment is not very useful. that was maladministration. this is a criminal act. thank you, professors, for helping us understand high crimes and misdemeanors. we, the people s representatives in the people s house, are custodians. we have a high responsibility and charge with the sole power to uphold our constitution and defend our de mock ra sqmocracy shall do that. gentleman s time is expired. mr. gomer. thank you. i m afraid this hearing is indicative of the indecency to which we ve come. when instead of the committee of jurisdiction bringing in fact witnesses to get to the bottom of what happened. and not even having time to review the report, which as professor turley indicated, is wafer thin when compared to the 36 boxes of documents that were delivered to the last impeachment group. but then to start this hearing with the chairman of the committee saying the facts are undisputed. the only thing that is disputed more than the facts in this case is the statement that the facts are undisputed. they are absolutely disputed. and the evidence is a bunch of hearsay on hearsay that if anybody here had tried cases before of enough magnitude, you would know you can t rely on hearsay on hearsay. but we have experts who know better than the accumulated experience of the ages. so here we are. and i would submit we need some factual witnesses. we do not need to receive a report that we don t have a chance to read before this hearing. we need a chance to bring in actual fact witnesses. and there are a couple i can name that are critical to us getting to the bottom. they work for the national security council. abigail gray. they were involved in the u.s./ukraine affairs. and they worked with vice president biden on different matters involving the ukraine. they worked with brennen and masters. they have absolutely critical information about certain ukrainians involvement in our u.s. election. their relationships with the witnesses who went before the intel committee and others involved in these allegations make them the most critical witnesses in this entire investigation. and the records, including their e-mails, their text messages, their flash drives, their computers, have information that will bring this effort to remove the president to a screeching halt. so we have article here from october 11th. carrie picket points out house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff recruited two national security council aides who worked at the nsc during the obama and trump administrations. abigail grace who worked at the nsc until 2018. was hired in february. while sean misgow, nsc aide until 2017 joined schiff s committee in august. the same month the whistle-blower submitted his complaint. and goes on to point out that grace was hired to help schiff s committee investigate the trump white house. that month, trump accused schiff of stealing people who were working at the white house. and chairman schiff said if the president s worried about our hiring any former administration, maybe he should work on being a better employer. no, he should have fired everybody just like bill clinton did. all the u.s. attorneys on the same day. that would have saved us a lot of what s gone on here. so anyway, we need those two witnesses. they re critical. and then we also need someone who was a cia detailee to the ukraine nsc desk, state department. shows that he was italy state luncheon. there s italy ramifications in the last elections. he speaks arabic and russian. reported directly to charles who is a friend of the clinton s aide. he did policy work for ukraine corruption. close, continuous contact with the fbi state ukrainian officials. had a collateral duty to support vice president biden. and biden was obama s point man on ukraine. associated with dnc operative ali chalupa, who we also need. met with her november 9th, 2015, with ukrainian delegation. and there s all kinds of reasons we need these three witnesses. and i would ask pursuant to section 4 house resolution 660, ask our chairman to i mean, our ranking member, to submit the request for these three witnesses because we re not having a factual hearing until we have these people that are at the bottom of every fact of this investigation. gentleman. i yield back. thanks for bringing down the gavel hard. that was nice. gentleman yields back. mr. johnson. thank you, mr. chairman. the president has regularly and recently solicited foreign interference in our upcoming elections. professor turley warns that this is an impulse buy moment. and suggests that the house should pause. professor karlan, do you agree with professor turley? no, if you conclude as i think the evidence to this point shows that the president is soliciting foreign involvement in our election, you need to act now to prevent foreign interference in the next election. like the one we had in the past. thank you, professor karlan. in 30 seconds or less, tell us why you believe the president s misconduct was an abuse of power so egregious that it merits the drastic remedy of impeachment. because he invited the russians, who are a long-time adversaries, into the process. the last time around. because he has invited the ukrainians into the process and because he suggested he would like the chinese to come into the process, as well. thank you very much. one of the framers of our constitution, edmont randolph, who one time was mayor of williamsburg, virginia warned us quote the executive will have great opportunities of abusing his power. end quote. professor feldman, people like mayor randolph rebelled because of the tyranny of a king. why would t why were the framers so careful for the potential for a president to become so tyrannical and abusive? and what did they do to protect against it? the framers believed very strongly that the people were the king. the people were sovereign. and that meant that the president worked for somebody. he worked for the people. they knew that a president who couldn t be checked, who could not be supervised by his own justice department and who could not be supervised by congress and could not be impeached would effectively be above the law. and would use his power to get himself re-elected. and that s why they created the impeachment remedy. thank you, professor feldman. i now want to discuss how the framers concerns about abuse of power relate to president trump s misconduct. on july 25th, president trump said to president zelensky quote, i would like you to do us a favor, though. professor feldman, when president trump made use of the words favor though, do you believe that the president was benignly asking for a favor? and how is the answer to that question relevant to whether the president abused his power? it s relevant, sir, because there s nothing wrong with asking for a favor in the interest of the united states of america. the problem is for the president to use his office to solicit or demand a favor for his personal benefit. and the evidence strongly suggests that given the power of the president and given the incentives that the president created for ukraine to comply with his request. that the president was seeking to serve his own personal benefit and his own personal interest. that s the definition of corruption under the constitution. other witnesses have also testified is that it was their impression that when presidents trump said i would like you to do us a favor, though, that he was actually making a demand and not a request. professor feldman, how does lieutenant colonel vindman s testimony that the president s statement was a demand because of the power disparity between the two countries relate back to our framers concerns about the president s abuse of power? lieutenant colonel vindman s observation states very clearly that you have to understand that the president of the united states has so much more power than the president of ukraine. that when the president uses the word favor, the reality is that he s applying tremendous pressure. the pressure of the power of the united states. and that relates to the constitutional abuse of office. if someone other than the president of the united states asked the president of ukraine to did a favor, the president of ukraine could say no. when the president of the united states uses the office of the presidency to ask for a favor, it s there s simply no way for the president of ukraine to refuse. thank you. we ve also heard testimony that the president withheld a white house meeting and military aid in order to further pressure ukraine to announce investigations of vice president biden and the 2016 election. professor karlan, is that why your testimony concluded that the president abused his power? i thought the president abused his power by asking for an criminal investigation of united states citizen for political ends. regardless of everything else. that s just it s not icing on the cake. it s what you would call an aggravating circumstance that there was need here. all right. thank you. president holding an american ally over a barrel to extract personal favors is deeply troubling. this is not a impulse buy moment. it s a break-the-glass moment and impeachment is the only appropriate remedy. and with that, i will yield back. the i can t yields back. mr. jordan. thank you, mr. chairman. before speaker pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry ten weeks ago on september 24th. before the call between president trump and president zelensky on july 25th. before the mueller hearing on july 24th. before all that, 16 of them had already voted to move forward on impeachment. 16 democrats on the judiciary committee had already voted to move forward on impeachment. and yet today, we re talking about whether the positions they ve already taken are constitutional. seems a little backward to me. i mean, we can t we got four four democrats what, four people who voted for clinton and they can t agree. yet today, we re talking about the constitution. professor turley, you ve been you ve been great today. but i think you were wrong on one thing. you said this is this is a fast impeachment. i would argue it s not a fast impeachment. it s a predetermined impeachment. predetermined impeachment done in the most unfair partisan fashion we have ever seen. no subpoena power for republicans. depositions done in secret. in the bunker, in the basement of the capitol. 17 people come in for those depositions. no one can be in there except a handful of folks adam schiff allowed. in those depositions, chairman schiff prevented witnesses from answering republican questions. every democrat question got answered. not every republican question. democrats denied republicans the witnesses we wanted in the open hearings that took place three weeks ago. and of course, democrats promised us the whistle-blower would testify and then changed their mind. and they changed their mind why? because the whole world discovered that adam schiff s staff had talked to the whistle-blower, coordinated with the whistle-blower. the whistle-blower, with no firstha firsthand n firsthand knowledge, biased against the president, who worked with joe biden. whose lawyer in january of 17 says the impeachment process starts then. that s the unfair process we ve been through. and the reason it s been unfair. let me just cut to the chase. the reason it s been unfair is because the facts aren t on their side. the facts are on the president s side. four key facts will not change, have not changed, will never change. we have the transcript. there was no quid pro quo in the transcript. the two guys on the call. president trump and president zelensky both said no pressure, no pushing, no quid pro quo. the ukrainians, third, didn t know the aid was held up at the time of the phone call. and fourth, and most important, ukrainians never started, never promised to start, and never announced an investigation in the time that the aid was paused. never once. but you know what did happen in those 55 days that the aid was paused? there were five key meetings between president zelensky and senior officials in our government. five key meetings. we had the call on july 25th. very next day, july 26th, we had ambassador volker, taylor, and sondland meet with president zelensky in kyiv. we then had ambassador bolton end of august meet with president zelensky. we then had the vice president meet with president zelensky on september 1st. and we had two senators, republican and more importantly democrat senator murphy with republican senator johnson meet with president zelensky on september 5th. none of those five meetings. none of those five meetings was aid ever discussed in exchange for announcement of an investigation into anybody. not one of em. and you would think the last two, after the ukrainians did know the aid was being held. you would think it would come up then. particularly, the one where you got senator murphy, the democrat there, talking about it. never came up. the facts are on the president s side. but we got an unfair process because they don t have the facts. we got an unfair process, most importantly. and this gets to something else you said, mr. turley. and this is scary. how mad the and that was so well said. this this is scary. the democrats have never accepted the will of the american people. to mr. turley s point, 17 days ago. 17 days ago, the speaker of the united states house of representatives called the president of the united states an imposter. the guy 63 million americans voted for who won electoral college landslide. the speaker of the united states house of representatives called that individual an imposter. that is not healthy for our country. this is not healthy. the facts are the facts. they are on the president s side. that s what we need to focus on. not some constitutional hearing at the end of the process when you guys have already determined where you re gonna go. with that, i yield back. the gentleman yields gentleman yields back. mr. chairman, this month, we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the battle of the bulge. my late father, then staff sergeant bernard doich, received a purple heart fighting in the frigid ardends. he gave blood among tens of thousands of americans who were casualties. they served under officers and a commander in chief who were not fighting a war for their own personal benefit. they put country first. they made the same solemn promise that members of congress and the president of the united states make. to always put national interest above their own personal interest. the evidence shows that the president broke that promise. constitution gives the president enormous power. but it also imposes a remedy. impeachment. when those powers are abused. in july, president trump said and i quote, i have an article, too, where i have the right to do whatever i want as president. close quote. professor feldman, the president has broad powers under the constitution, including in foreign policy, isn t that right? yes, sir. and do those powers mean that the president can do, as he said, whatever he wants as president? can he abuse the powers that the constitution gives him? he may not. if the president uses the powers that he s given for personal gain or to corrupt an election or against the national security interest of the united states, he may be impeached for a high crime and misdemeanor. is he using his power to pressure ukraine to interfere in u.s. elections in abuse of that power? yes, sir. professor garhart, how would the framers of the constitution have viewed a president asking for election interference from a foreign leader? it s always it s, you know, practically impossible to know exactly what the framers would think. but it s not hard to imagine how the constitution deals with it. that s their legacy to us. and under the constitution, it s plainly an abuse of power. it s a rather horrifying abuse of power. professor karlan, we ve heard witnesses over the past several weeks testify about their concerns when the president used his foreign policy powers for political gain. lieutenant colonel vindman was shocked. he couldn t believe what he heard on the phone call. nsc advisor hill realized that a political errand was diverging from efforts to protect our national security policy. and ambassador taylor thought it was crazy to withhold security assistance for help on a political campaign. professor karlan, these concerns aren t mere differences over policy, are they? no, they go to the foundation, the very foundation, of our democracy. and offering to exchange a white house meeting and huns drs of millions of dollars in security assistance for help with his re-election. that can t be part of our nation s foreign policy, can it? no. it s the essence of doing something for personal reasons rather than for political reasons. and if i could just say one thing about this very briefly. which is maybe when he was first running for president, he had never been anything other than a reality tv show. you know, that was his public that was his public life. maybe then he could think russia, if you re listening, is an okay thing to do. but by the time he asked the ukraine, ukraine, if you re listening, could you help me out with my re-election? he has to have known that that was not something consistent with his oath of office. mr. chairman, aour founders granted the president of the united states enormous powers. but at the same time, what we ve been reminded of today. they worry that these powers could be abused by a corrupt president. the evidence of abuse of power in this inquiry proved that our founders were right to be worried. yes. yes, the president has the power to direct america s foreign policy. but no, he cannot use that power to cheat in our elections. remember and i ask all of my colleagues to remember the constitution grants the president his power through the american people. the president s source of power is a democratic election. it is the american people. the voters. who trusted him to look out for them. we trusted him to look out for the country. but instead, president trump looked out for himself and helping himself get re-elected. he abused the power that we trusted him with for personal and political gain. the founders worried about just this type of abuse of power. and they provided one way, one way, for congress to respond. and that s the power of impeachment. i yield back. gentleman yields back. mr. buck. thank you, mr. chairman. professor turley, i want to direct the first few questions to you. the other three witnesses have identified this standard for impeaching a president. they said if a president abuses his power for personal or political gain, it s impeachable conduct. you agree with me? not the way it s been stated. in fact, there s so many different standards of i got a long ways to go here. well, there s been so many different standards. one of them was attempting to abuse office. i m not even sure how to recognize that, let alone define it. so let me go with a few examples and see if you agree with me. lyndon johnson directed the central intelligence agency to place a spy in barry goldwater s campaign. that spy got advanced copies of speeches and other strategy. delivered that to the johnson campaign. would that be impeachable conduct according to the other panelists? very broadly so i assume so. how about when president johnson put a wiretap on goldwater s campaign plane? would that be for political benefit? well, i can t exclude anything under that definition. okay. well, i m gonna go with a few other presidents. we ll see where we go. congressman just informed us that fdr put country first. now, franklin delanore roosevelt. namely, huey long, william randolph hurst, hamilton fish, father cough lien. would that be an abuse of power according to the other panelists? i think it all would be subsumed into it. how about when president kennedy directed his brother to deport one of his mistresses as an east german spy? would that qualify as impeachable conduct? once again, i can t exclude it. and how about when he directed the fbi to use wiretaps on congressional staffers who opposed him politically? would that be impeachable conduct? it would seem to be falling within it. and let s go to barack obama. when barack obama directed or or made a finding that the senate was in recess and appointed people to the national labor relations board and loss 9-0. ruth bader ginsburg voted against the president on this issue. would that be an abuse of power? i m afraid you have to direct it to others. but i don t i don t see any exclusions under their definition. okay. and how about when the president directed his national security advisor and the secretary of state to lie to the american people about whether the ambassador to libya was murdered as a result of a video? or was murdered as a result of a terrorist act. would that be an abuse of power for political benefit? 17 days before the next election. well, not according to my definition. the others will have to respond to their own. well, you ve heard their definition. you can apply those facts to their definition. i have a hard time excluding anything out of how about when abraham lincoln arrested legislators in maryland so that they wouldn t convene to succeed from t conve conve convene to secede from the union? it would have placed washington s capitol in the middle of the rebellion. would that have been abuse of power for political benefit? it could be under that definition. and you mentioned george washington a little while ago as, perhaps, having met the standard of impeachment for your other panelists. in fact, let me ask you something, professor turley. can you name a single president in the history of the united states, save president harrison who died 32 days after his inauguration, that would not have met the standard of impeachment for our friends here? i would hope to god james madison would escape. otherwise, a lifetime of academic work would be shredded. i but i once again, i can t exclude many of these acts. isn t what you and i and many others are afraid of is that the standard that that your friends to the right of you and and not politically but to the right of you sitting on there. that your friends have have decided that the the bar is so low that when we have a democrat president in office and a republican house and a republican senate, we re going to be going through this whole scenario again. in a way that really puts the country at risk. well, when you when your graphic says and your abcs that your b is betrayal of national interest. i would simply ask do you really want that to be your standard? now, isn t the difference, professor turley, that some people live in an ivory tower and some people live in a swamp. and those of us that are in the swamp are doing our very best for the american people but it s not pretty. actually, i live in an ivory tower in a swamp because i m a gw. and it s not so bad. i yield back. gentleman neeyields back. ms. bass. thank you very much. i want to thank the witnesses and i don t believe the people s house is a swamp. president nixon was impeached for abuse of power because his conduct was quote, undertaken for his personal, political advantage and not in furtherance of any valid national policy objective. president garhart, why was it significant that president nixon acted for his personal, political advantage and not in furtherance of any valid national policy objective? it s primarily significant because acting on for his own personal benefit and not for the benefit of the country, he has crossed a line. the line is very clear. it becomes abuse of power when someone s using their office for their own personal benefit and not the benefit of the country. could that be said for president trump? it could be. i m struck by the parallels because one of the things nixon did was he launched tax investigations of his political opponents. here, the evidence shows trump tried to launch a criminal investigation of his political opponent by a foreign government. we have heard evidence suggesting that president trump did this for his own personal gain and not for any national policy interest. although, president trump claims that he withheld the aid because of concerns about corruption. i do believe that we have example of the evidence of the truth. ambassador sondland stated that the president only cares about big stuff. i noted there was big stuff going on in ukraine. like a war with russia. and ambassador sondland replied that he meant big stuff that benefits the president. like the biden investigation. that mr. giuliani was pushing. professor feldman, what would the framers have thought of a president who only cares about the quote, big stuff that benefits him? the framers were extremely worried about a president who served only his own interests or the interests of foreign powers. that was their most serious concern when they designed the remedy of impeachment. so the evidence also suggests that president trump didn t even care if the investigation actually happened. what he really cared about was the public announcement of the investigation. so, professor karlan, how do we analyze these facts in the context of abuse of power? well, i think that to have a president ask for the investigation of his political opponents is an arc type of the abuse of power. and mr. buck mentioned past examples of this. and to say that those weren t impeachable i think is a big mistake. if a president wiretaps his opponents, that s a federal crime now. i don t know whether before the wiretap act of 1968 itse was bu if a president wiretapped his opponents today, that would be impeachable conduct. i also serve on the foreign affairs committee. and i understand how significant it is to foreign leaders to meet with our presidents. to attend a meeting in the oval office is very significant. president zelensky is a newly-elected head of state in a fledgling democracy. his country is at war with his neighbor. russia invaded and is occupying his country s territory. he needed the military resources to defend his country. he needed the diplomatic recognition of the american president. and he was prepared to do whatever the president demanded. many years ago, i worked in the nation s largest trauma unit as a pa, a physician assistant. i saw people at their worst in severe pain after accidents or acts of violence. patients i took care of were desperate and afraid. and had to wait five to eight hours to be seen. can you imagine for one minute, if i had told my patients, look, i can move you up in line and take care of your pain. but i do need a favor from you, though. my patients were in pain and they were desperate. and they would have agreed to do anything i asked. this would have been such an abuse of my position because of the power dynamic. i had the power to relieve my patients from experiencing pain. it s fundamentally wrong and, in many cases illegal, for us to use power to take advantage of those in crisis. especially, a president. especially, when lives are at stake. i yield back. the gentle lady yields back. mr. ratcliff. thank the chairman. professor turley, i d like to start where you started because you said something that i think bears repeating. you said i m not a supporter of president trump. i voted against him in 2016. and i have previously voted for presidents clinton and obama. but despite your political preferences and persuasions, you reached this conclusion. the current legal case for impeachment is not just woefully inadequate but, in some respects, dangerous as the basis for impeachment of an american president. so let me start by commending you for being the kind of example of what, hopefully, everyone on this committee will do as we approach the task that we have of determining whether or not there were any impeachable offenses here. one of the problems that you ve articulated as leading you to the conclusion of calling this the should it proceed, the shortest impeachment proceeding with the thinnest evidentiary record and the narrowest grounds ever attempted to impeach a president. is the fact that there has been this ever-changing, constantly evolving, moving target of accusations, if you will. the july 25th phone call started out as an alleged quid pro quo. and briefly, became an extortion scheme. a bribery scheme. i think it s back to quid pro quo. besides pointing out that both speaker pelosi and chairman schiff waited until almost every witness had been deposed before they even started to use the term bribery. i think you ve clearly articulated why you think the definitions that they have used publicly are flawed, if not unconstitutional. both in the 18th century or in the 21st century. but would you agree with me that bribery under any valid definition requires that a specific quid pro quo be proven? yes. more importantly, the supreme court is focused on that issue. as well as what is the definition of a quid pro quo? so if military aid or security assistance is part of that quid pro quo, where in the july 25th transcript does president trump ever suggest that he intends to withhold military aid for any reason? he doesn t. and that s reason we keep on hearing the word circumstantial and inferential. and that s what is so concerning. is that those would be appropriate terms. it s not that you can t have a circumstantial case. those would be appropriate terms if these were knowable facts. but the problem is you have so many witnesses that have not been subpoenaed. so many witnesses that we have not heard from. right. so if it s not in the transcript, then it s got to come from witness testimony. and i assume you ve reviewed all the witness testimony. so you know that no witness has testified that they either heard president trump or were told by president trump to withhold military aid for any reason. correct? correct. so let me turn to the issue of obstruction of justice quickly. i think you assumed, as i did, that when democrats have been talking about obstruction, it was specifically related to the ukraine issue. and i know you ve talked about that a lot today. you ve clearly stated that you think president trump had no corrupt intent. on page 39 of your report. you said something else i think that bears repeating today. you were highlighting the fact that the democrats appear to be taking the position that if a president seeks judicial review over executive branch testimony or documents subpoenaed by congress. that rather than letting the courts be the arbiter, congress can simply impeach the president for obstruction based on that. did i hear you say that if we were to proceed on that basis, that that would be an abuse of power? i i did. and let me be very clear about this. i don t disagree with my colleagues that nothing in the constitution says you have to go to a court or wait for a court. that s not what i m saying. what i m saying is that if you want a well-based, a legitimate impeachment case. to set this abbreviated schedule, demand documents, and then impeach because they haven t been turned over when when the when they go to a court. when the president goes to a court. i think that is an abuse of power. that s not what happened in nixon. and, in fact, the ultimate decision in nixon was that there are legitimate executive privilege claims that could be raised. and some of them deal with the type of aids involved in this case. like a national security advisor. like a white house counsel. and so the concern here is not that there is that you can t ever impeach a president unless you go to court. it s just that you shouldn t when you have time to do it. so if i were to summarize your your testimony. no bribery. no extortion. no obstruction of justice. no abuse of power. is that fair? not on this record. gentleman s time has expired. mr. richmond. thank you, mr. chairman. and let me just pick up where we left off. and i m gonna start, mr. turley, with your words. and it s from october 23rd. your opinion piece in the hill. you said as i have said before, there is no question that the use of public office for personal gain is an impeachable offense. including the withholding of military aid in exchange for the investigation of a political opponent. you just have to prove it happened. if you can establish intent to use public office for personal gain, you have a viable, impeachable offense. we ve heard today that a president abuses his power when he uses his official power for his own personal interest rather than the interest of our country. i d like to spend more time on that because i m really struck by one of the things that was at stake here. $400 million of taxpayer dollars. president nixon leveraged the powers of his office to investigate political rivals. but here? the evidence shows that president trump also leveraged taxpayer dollars to get ukraine to announce sham investigations of president trump s political rivals. that taxpayer money was meant to help ukraine defend itself and, in turn, defend united states interest from russian aggression. the money had been appropriated by congress and certified by the department of defense. multiple witnesses confirm that there was unanimous support for the military aid to ukraine. can we listen to that, please? from what you witnessed, did anybody in the national security community support withholding the assistance? no. i never heard anyone advocate for holding the aid. and the entire interagency supported the continuation of the security assistance, isn t that right? that is correct. i, and others, sat in astonishment. the ukrainians were fighting russians and counted on not only the training and weapons but also the assurance of u.s. support. professor feldman, you have stated that the president s demand to the president of ukraine constituted an abuse of power. how does the president s decision to withhold military aid affect your analysis? it means that it wasn t just an abuse of power because the president was serving his own personal interests. but also, an abuse of power in so far as the president was putting american national security interests behind his own personal interests. so it brought together two important aspects of the abuse of power. self-gain and undercutting our national security interests. the evidence points to president trump using military aid for his personal benefit, not for the benefit of any official u.s. policy. professor karlan, how would the framers have interpreted that? well, i i i can t speak for the framers themselves obviously. my view is that they would say that the president s authority to use foreign aid and they they probably couldn t have imagined we were even giving foreign aid because we were a tiny, poor country then. so it s a little it s a little hard to translate that. but what they would have said is a president who doesn t think first about the security of the united states is not doing what his oath requires him to do. which was faithfully execute the laws here, here a law appropriating money, and defend the constitution of the united states. thank you. and let s go back to a segment of mr. turley s quote. that if you can establish intent to use public office for personal gain, you have a viable, impeachable offense. mr. feldman, do we meet that criteria here? in my view, the evidence does meet that criteria. and that s the judgment that you should be making. ms. karlan? yes, and one question i would have for the minority members of the committee, if you were convinced the president held up aid because you thought it would help his re-election, would you vote to impeach him? because i think that s really the question that everyone on this committee should be asking. and if they conclude yes, then they should vote to impeach. mr. gerhardt? yes, i agree. and one thing i would add is that much talk has been made here about the term bribery. in court decisions with respect to bribery. it s your job. it s the house s job to define bribery, not the court s. you follow your judgment on that. i want to thank the witnesses. all of the witnesses for coming and testifying today. this is not an easy decision. it s not a comfortable decision. but it s one that s necessary. we all take an oath to protect the constitution. our military men and women go and put their lives on the line for the constitution. and we have an obligation to follow the constitution, whether it s convenient or easy. thank you and i yield back. gentleman yields back. very quickly, professor turley, would you like to respond? yes. i i i would. first of all, what was said in that column is exactly what i ve said in my testimony. the problem is not that abuse of power can never be an impeachable offense. you just have to prove it. and you haven t. it s not enough to say i infer this was the purpose. i infer that this is what was intended. when you re not actually subpoenaing people with direct knowledge. and instead, you re saying we must vote in this rocket docket of an impeachment. so this leads to my statement that i d like to make. of course, the united states house of representatives has initiated impeachment inquiries against the president of the united states only three times in our nation s history. prior to this one. those impeachment inquiries were done in this committee. the judiciary committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment matters. here, in 2019, under this inquiry, fact witnesses have been called fact witness that have been called were in front of the intelligence committee. we have been given no indication that this committee will conduct substantive hearings with fact witnesses. as a member serving on the judiciary committee, i can say that the process in which we are participating is insufficient, unprecedented, and grossly inadequate. sitting before us is a panel of witnesses containing four distinguished law professors from some of our country s finest educational institutions. i do not doubt that each of you are extremely well-versed in the subject of constitutional law. and, yes, there is precedent for similar panels in the aforementioned history. but only after specific charges have been made known and the underlying facts presented in full due to an exhaustive investigation. however, i don t understand why we are holding this hearing at this time with these witnesses. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have admitted they don t know what articles of impeachment they will consider. how does anyone expect a panel of law professors to weigh in on the legal grounds for impeachment charges prior to even knowing what the charges brought by this committee are going to be? some of my democrat colleagues have stated over and over that impeachment should be a non-partisan process. and i agree. one of my colleagues in the democratic party stated, and i quote, impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, i don t think we should go down that path because it divides the country. my democratic colleagues have stated numerous times that they are on a truth-seeking and fact-finding mission. another one of my democratic colleagues said and i quote, we have a responsibility to consider the facts that emerge squarely. and with the best interest of our country, not our party and our hearts. these type of historic proceedings, regardless of political believes, ought to be about fact finding and truth seeking. but that is not what this has turned out to be. again, no disrespect to these witnesses. but for all i know, this is the only hearing that we will have. and none of them are fact witnesses. my colleagues are saying one thing and doing something completely different. no member of congress can look their constituents in the eye and say this is a comprehensive fact-finding, truth-seeking mission. ranking member collins and members of the minority on this committee have written six letters over the past month to chairman nadler asking for procedural fairness. for all the underlying evidence to be transmitted to the judiciary committee. to expand the number of witnesses and have an even more bipartisan panel here today. and for clarity on today s impeachment proceedings since we haven t received evidence to review. the minority has yet to receive a response to these letters. right here today is another very clear example for all americans to truly understand the ongoing lack of transparency and openness with these proceedings. the witness list for for this hearing was not released until late monday afternoon. opening statements from the witnesses today were not distributed until late last night. and the intelligence committee s finalized report has yet to be presented to this committee. you hear from those in the majority that process is a republican talking point. when in reality, it is an american talking point. process is essential to the institution. a thoughtful, meaningful process of this magnitude with such wit great implications should be demanded by the american people. with that i yield back. mr. jeffries. i did not serve in the military, but my 81-year-old father did. he was an air force veteran stationed in germany during the height of the cold war in the late 1950s. he was a teenager from inner city newark, a stranger in a foreign land serving on the western side of the berlin wall. my dad proudly wore the uniform because he swore an oath to the constitution and believed in american democracy. i believe in american democracy we remain the last best hope on earth. it is in that spirit that we proceed today. professor karlan, in america we believe in free and fair elections. is that correct? yes, it is. but authoritarian regimes do not. is that right? that s correct. thomas jefferson once wrote, john adams once wrote to thomas jefferson on december 6th, 1787 and stated you are apprehensive of foreign interference. intrigue, influence, so am i. but as often as elections happen the danger of foreign influence recurs. professor karlan, how important was the concept of free and fair elections to the framers of the constitution? honestly, it was less important to them than it s become in our constitution since then. and if you ll remember the thing that one of the things that turned me into a lawyer was seeing barbara jordan who was the first female lawyer i had ever seen in practice say on the committee that we the people didn t include people like her in 1789 but through a process of amendment we have done that. and so elections are more important to us today as a constitutional matter than they were even to the framers. and is it fair to say that an election cannot be reasonably characterized as free and fair if it s manipulated by foreign interference? that s correct. and if framers of the constitution would generally and deeply concerned with foreign interference in the affairs of the united states, true? yes. and why were they so deeply concerned? because foreign nations don t have our interests at heart. they have their interests at heart. and would the framers find it acceptable for an american president to pressure a foreign government to help him win an election? i think they d find it unacceptable for a president to ask a foreign government to help them whether they put pressure on him or not. direct evidence shows direct evidence shows that on july 25th phone call, the president uttered five words, do us a favor, though. he pressured the ukrainian government to target an american citizen for political gain. and at the same time simultaneously withheld $391 million in military aid. now ambassador bill taylor, west point graduate, vietnam war hero, republican appointed diplomat, discussed this issue of military aid. here is a clip of his testimony. again, our holding up of security assistance that would go to a country that is fighting aggression from russia for no good policy reason, no good substantive reason, no good national security reason is wrong. to the extent the military aid was being withheld as part of an effort to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, is that behavior impeachable? yes, it is. and if i could go back to one of the words you read. when the president said do us a favor, he was using the royal we there. it wasn t a favor for the united states. he should ve said do me a favor. because only kings say us when they mean me. and is it correct that an abuse of power that strikes at the heart of our democracy falls squarely within the definition of a high crime and misdemeanor? yes, it does. some of my colleagues have suggested that impeachment would overturn the will of the people. the american people expressed their will in november of 2018. the will of the people elected a new majority. the will of the people elected a house that would not function as a wholly owned subsidiary of this administration. the will of the people elected a house that understands we are a separate and co-equal branch of government. the will of the people elected a house that understands we have a constitutional responsibility to serve as a check and balance on an out of control executive branch. the president abused his power and must be held accountable. no one is above the law. america must remain the last best hope on earth. i yield back. the gentleman yields back. mr. gates. they also elected donald trump to be the president of the united states in the 2016 election. there is one party that can t seem to get over it. now we understand the fact that in 2018 you took the house of representatives and we haven t spent our time during your tenure in power trying to remove the speaker of the house, trying to delegitimize your ability to govern. frankly, we d love to govern with you. we d love to pass usmca. we d love to put out a helping hand to our senior and lower prescription drug prices. it s the will of the people you ignore when you continue down this terrible road of impeachment. you gave money to barack obama, right? my family did, yes. four times? that sounds about right, yes. mr. chafrm, i have a series of requests relating to professorfeldman s work. raise risk of impeachment the gentleman will suspend we ll take that time off. has the gentleman submitted have we seen that material some. we can provide it to you as is typical and we ll consider the consent request later. very well. gentleman, you may continue. thank you, mr. chairman. mr. feldman wrote articles entitled trump s wire tap tweets raise risk of impeachment. he then wrote mar-a-lago add belongs in impeachment file. then mr. jake flanagan wrote in courts a harvard law professor thinks trump could be impeached over fake news accusations. my question, professor feldman is since you seem to believe that the basis for impeachment is even broader than the basis that my democrat colleagues have laid forward, do you believe you re outside of the political mainstream on the question of impeachment? i believe that impeachment is warranted whenever the president abuses his power for personal benefit or to corrupt the democratic process. did you write an article entitled it s hard to take impeachment seriously now? yes. i am limited on time, sir. would you let me answer the question, sir? have made it painful clear that discussing impeachment is primarily or even exclusively a tool to weaken president trump s chances in 2020. did you write those words? until this call in july 25th, i was an impeachment skeptic the call changed my mind, sir, and for good reason. i appreciate your testimony. professor karlan, you gave a thousand bucks to elizabeth warren, right? i believe so. you gave 1,200 bucks to barack obama? i have no reason to question that. and you gave 2,000 bucks to hillary clinton? that s correct. why so much more for hillary than the other two? because i have been giving a lot of money to charity recently because of all of the poor people in the united states. [ laughter ] those aren t the only folks you ve been giving to. have you ever been on a podcast called versus trump? i think i was on a live panel that the people who ran the podcast called versus trump do you remember saying the following. liberals tend to cluster more, conservatives, especially very conservative people tend to spread out more, perhaps because they don t even want to be around themselves? did you say that? yes, i did. do you understand how that reflects contempt on people who are conservative? no. what i was talking about there was the natural tendency, if you put the quote in context, the natural tendency of a compactness requirement to favor a party whose voters are more spread out. and i do not have contempt hold on. for conservatives and i do not have contempt i just have to say when you talk about how liberals want to be around each other in cluster and conservatives don t want to be around each other and so they have to spread out, you may not see this from like the ivory towers of your law school, but it makes the actual people in this country when the president calls you don t get to interrupt me on this time. let me also suggest that when you invoke the president s son s name here. when you try to make a little joke out of referencing trump, that does not lend credibility to your argument. it makes you look mean. it makes you look like you re attacking someone s family. the minor child of the president of the united states. so let s see if we can get into the facts, to all of the witnesses. if you have personal knowledge of a single material fact in the schiff report, please raise your hand. and let the record reflect no personal knowledge of a single fact. and you know what? that continues on the tradition that we saw from adam schiff where ambassador taylor could not identify an impeachable offense. mr. kent never met with the