house after hearing one day of testimony and the year's recommitting said go write articles facts be damned alibris another member of the house majority said we can keep impeaching him over and over and over and over again adam schiff when he told us he wasn't going to come instead hard behind his staff he also told us they were going to keep investigating because they know this is going nowhere in the senate and they're desperate to have an impeachment vote on this president because of his good job creation is military strong our country is safe and the judiciary committee has been relegated to this on because they have the manes they have the motive and they have the opportunity and at the end of the day all this is about is about a clock and a calendar because they can't get over the fact donald trump is president of the united states and they don't have a candidate that they think can beat him it's all political and as we have thought

about before this is a show unfortunately today the witness who is supposed to be the star witness chose to take a pass and let a staff answer for that he's chairman of a point of order and usually mr chairman the point of order you know moves to this point of order is chairman because to do one of ruhleben requires you. to schedule a minority hearing day not to consider it not to meet to discuss it but to schedule one and to schedule it in a reasonable time not after articles have been drawn not after there's been a vote on articles of impeachment i enquire and insist mr chairman that you immediately schedule a minority hearing day or tell us why you are of the gentleman ignoring the rules gentlemen we were we've already gone through that but i peek it is not a point proper point of order in today's hearing as i have told the ranking

minority members several times in considering the even ari's request if you think we would be violating the rules of the house if we consider the articles of impeachment before holding a minority that hearing that point of order would be timely and a meeting where we considered such articles it's not the purpose of today's hearing and the point of order is not in order mr chairman since i did it without an indicator and as i like as that of jackson are comments that out objection their opening statements will be included in the record preserve my point of projection on that ok the point of that i want to show you brought you brought my name is gentlemen you have brought my name out of the gentleman suspend gentleman is recognized ok thank you mr stelling made that you're considering something you have nothing to consider and you have told me that all middle record is nowhere close to actually following your duty as a chairman to follow the rules and so i think the problem of war is very well taken i think the issue that we have is not i think your timing is i mean show me please

in the rule have your partner me show me in the rules or you come to a time of actually being able to deny this up at certain points. further reserving the right to object as i have said earlier observing what right do i have said the point of order would be in order at the meeting where we are considering are the reserving the right to object we will now hear presentation and i feel the decision of the chair is no decision to appeal there was not a ruling in a motion we will now hear me ruling out a ruling of or what your have you made a ruling on the point of order that you had or were going on the point of order mr chairman you can have then not allow us to appeal the ruling that the gentleman will suspend it was not nice of a point of order it was not was not a cook nice simple point of order it was not in order at this time to make that point of order there is no ruling to appeal to him but mr chairman it now was you obligation not only the ration you are obligated to a schedule not to consider he made a ruling it is in the order to appeal gentleman will suspend we are doing what we

have to do under the rules we will now hear presentation this is evidence chairman gentlemen is not recognized well now presentations of evidence of a parliamentary inquiry i haven't really much action i will not recognise a parliamentary inquiry at this time we want to recognise in stations of evidence from council so that it is this is what we just hear staff ask questions of other staff and the members get dealt out of this whole hearing general next the 4 hours they're going to try to overturn the results of an election where they want to like to people to the gentlemen let's spend. this order this meeting will be can this hearing be considered in will be considered in orderly fashion the gentleman will not yell out and he will not attempt to disrupt the proceedings we will now hear presentations of evidence from counsel to the judiciary committee for up to 60 minutes equally divided of not rare remarks and yet every burke will present for the majority and stephen caster will present for the minority each of you will have 30 minutes to present to help you stay within that time there is a timing light on your table when the light switches from green to yellow you have

one minute to conclude your testimony when the light turns red signals your time has expired mr burke you may begin to share when you do realize i've never written you know me don't suspect i'm not withdraw my objection you've not actually talked a lot of cash and i know everybody have an opening statement gentlemen with you i'm going to use your old man i'm a comma nothing else mr burke is recognized as being welcome to america as the floor thank you mr chairman ranking member collins and all the members before i had the great honor of being a counsel for this committee my young son asked me a question he said dad does the president have to be a good person like many questions a young children had a certain clarity but it was hard to answer i said son it is not a requirement that the president be a good person but that is the hope and it is not

a requirement that the president be a good person that is not why we are here today that is not the issue. but the very document that created the awesome presidency and its powers that we have made clear it is a requirement that the president be a person who does not abuses power it is a requirement that the president be a person who not who does not risk a national security of this nation and the integrity of our elections in order to further his own reelection prospects it is a requirement that the president not be a person who acts as though he is above the law and putting his personal and political interests above the nation's interests that is the lesson of the constitution that is the lesson of the founders they were concerned that someone would be elected president who would use all the power of that office to serve his

own personal interests at the expense of the people who elected him they decided there needed to be a remedy because they had suffered the abuses of king george where they had no remedy the remedy they they imposed was that if a president commits a grave offense a high crime or misdemeanor this body has the power to impeach that president they wanted to ensure that a president could not serve his own interests over that of the nation it flows from the very oath that all members of this body must take to support and defend the constitution and bear true faith and allegiance to the same that is why we are here today and it is an unfortunate occasion these proceedings are necessary.

but the president's actions have left no choice the founders were very clear in spelling out what they saw to be the greatest abuses that would raise the most concerns for our nation they spilled them out as warning signals that if a president violated or committed one of these that would be a reason to potentially impeach that president they were abuse of power be trail of the national interest corruption of elections and what is so extraordinary is the conduct we're going to be talking about today of president trump didn't violate one of these but all 3 1st the evidence is overwhelming that the president abused his power by pressured it by pressuring ukraine and its new president to investigate a political opponent the evidence is overwhelming that the president abused his power by ramping up that pressure by conditioning

a wanted white house meeting and a needed military aid that had been approved in order to get that president to investigate a political rival it is clear and overwhelming that in abusing that power the president betrayed the national interest by putting his own political prospects over the national security of our country it is clear that the president risk corrupting our elections by inviting foreign interference to knock out an adversary to help his prospects in reelection. it is why in debating the constitution james madison warned that because the presidency was to be administered by a single man his corruption might be fatal to the republic and this scheme by president trump was so brazen so clear supported by documents and actions sworn testimony. on contradicted contemporaneous records it

is hard to imagine that anybody could dispute those acts let alone argue that that conduct does not constitute an impeachable offense or offenses this is a big deal president trump did what a present of our nation is not allowed to do it is why last week the constitutional scholar professor michael gary hart said if what we're talking about is not impeachable then nothing is impeachable president trump's actions are impeachable offenses they threaten our rule of law they threaten our institutions and as james madison warned us they threaten our republic let me begin where we must with the facts and evidence 1st it's important to understand why ukraine was so important to our national security ukraine was under

attack by its aggressive and hostile neighbor russia they had already encroached on its territories the ukraine was at great risk that russia would again take further territory try europe had a stake in this and so did we i'm going to turn to an expert on this ambassador taylor who is one of the most highly decorated diplomats and recognized diplomats for over 40 years he served our country honorably and he was appointed by president trump himself to be in charge of the u.s. embassy in ukraine the russians are violating all of the rules treaties understanding that they committed to that actually kept the peace in europe for nearly 70 years that. rule of law that order that kept the peace in europe and allowed for prosperity

as well as peace in europe was violated by the russians so it affects the world that we live in that our children will grow up in our grandchildren this affects the kind of world that we want to to see world that is a bastard taylor explaining why ukraine was so important and explaining why the president's actions so significantly risk hurting our national security our national defense policy and our national interest now you've already heard there is significant proof that president trump himself told the new president of ukraine presence alinsky that he wanted him to investigate a political rival former vice president joe biden and you'll hear a lot about that today but that proof is only the tip of the iceberg there are so many more events and meetings and contemporaneous text messages e-mails other documents that show this happened and happened exactly as it is alleged and is clear that in this scheme to pressure ukraine to investigate

a political rival the person at the center of that scheme was president donald trump the facts cannot be disputed president trump use the powers of government for a domestic political erin to put his political interests above that of the nation i want to turn to another expert that's turned to this to feel dr fiona hill the national security council senior director in the trump administration and she's going to explain what happened but it struck me one yesterday when you cut up on the screen just someone's e-mails on who was on these e-mails and he said these that people need to know that he was absolutely right because he was being involved in a domestic political errand and we were being involved in national security foreign policy and those 2 things had just. and that tells you what the evidence shows the president put his own domestic political interests over the nation's

national security and foreign policy a president cannot abuse his power to secure an election he cannot do that at the expense of the american people that is impeachable offense the president has tried to make excuses for his conduct why it's not wrongful or corrupt or an abuse of power but the truth holds together it makes sense is consistent with the evidence when so much is offering excuse that is not true it is not consistent with the evidence it does not make sense it cannot be squared with what the facts show and you will see these excuses do not make sense the facts are clear that president trump put his own political and personal interests over the nation's interest like to go through what you were going to see about the president's scheme and you're to hear about today from the facts that we have

1st you're going to hear that president trump's personal lawyer rudy giuliani pushed ukraine to open an investigation of his political rival mr giuliani prior to the july 25th call he made public statement said ukraine should investigate vice former vice president joe biden he tweeted about it putting pressure on the new president a big he went to ukraine and later went again with the assist and direction of u.s. officials who were told to aid the president's personal lawyer on the president's behalf you'll hear that president trump told his aides that he was relying on for ukraine that he wanted them to quote talk to rudi what you're going to hear is that. his close advisers had just gotten back on may 23rd from the inauguration of the new president president's olinsky they told

president trump we were impressed he was elected on an anti corruption platform a reform platform you should schedule a white house meeting it's very important this is very good for the united states and the president's response was to talk to rudy who had been out there claiming that the ukraine ukrainian president had to do was investigate his political rival you'll hear that president trump's advisers told president zelinsky that president trump would not schedule the wanted white house meeting unless he announced a ukrainian investigation of former vice president biden there are documents there sworn testimony this happened and there is no question from the evidence that the president did this and presidents alinsky desperately needed a white house meeting both to show russia that the u.s. was still supporting ukraine and for his own credibility as a new president you'll hear then to ramp up the press pressure what president

trumped it is he told his agencies to withhold military and security aid that had been approved and was supposed to be released to ukraine hundreds of millions of dollars in order to put more pressure on ukraine all the agencies involved state department offense department national security council said it should be released it had been approved it was going to be released until president trump personally stopped it and again contemporaneous evidence of documents showing and proven people said that they were shocked and basser taylor said he was in astonishment it witness said that it was illogical to do this and the president never offered an explanation but ultimately it was discovered why he did it. then on the july 25th call president trouble's explicitly told them he wanted to conduct he wanted him to do to ukrainian investigations one of a u.s. citizen and his political rival and the other about the origins of the interference

in the 2016 election some conspiracy theory that russia through all the intelligence agencies agreed interfered with the 26000 election that maybe was ukraine again another investigation intended to help the president politically that is it and you know the president cared about the investigations that would help him politically and not ukraine and not the national security interest and you don't have to take my word i'm going to play something from david holmes who had worked in the u.s. embassy in ukraine and was speaking to an vassar son lynn who don't know who president trouble pointed that's or someone had just come to the ukraine on the 26 he met with president alinsky he went to a restaurant with mr holmes the u.s. political affairs council in ukraine and he called president up on his cell phone and mr holmes could hear that call and then he spoke to mr simon let's see what happened on july 26th the day after that call i heard a baster song and greet the president and explained he was calling from cave i heard president trump and clarify that

a better song was in ukraine master stalin replied yes he was in ukraine and went on to state president selenski quote loves your ass i've entered president from ask so he's going to do the investigation master song replied that he's going to do it adding that president selenski will do anything ask him to do that is sworn testimony by david holmes who heard it from the president himself and it was clear to everyone the most experienced people in government who donald trump himself appointed in their positions they knew what was going on let's look at a text message from ambassador taylor ran this time on september 9th he said as i said on the phone i think it's great. with a political campaign again that is president trump putting his own political and personal interests over the nation's interests to hold aid

desperately needed by ukraine in order to combat russia and show the support he did it to help his own campaign now there's been excuses offered by the president like to briefly talk about those excuses the 1st excuse offered by president trump is that the aide was ultimately ultimately released and president trump met with mr the lewinsky we heard it today the challenge with that though as an excuse is the aide was only released after president trouble got caught doing this scheme on september 9th the committees of this house started their investigation and announced they were investigating his conduct with regard to ukraine 2 days later was when he released the aide and he also there also was a news article which will talk about the moment by the washington post on september 5th exposing his scheme and it was only after that that he met with mr with president alinsky not in the white house but in new york another excuse offered the

president was motivated by general corruption concerns and again the evidence shows that is not true that that's what caused him to withhold the 8 presidents alinsky in fact was elected on an anti-corruption platform he was a reform candidate his own people told him again and again president alinsky is a hope he's doing it the right way they urged him just be supportive on his call with president alinsky on july 25th president tried to ignore the talking points that were prepared to talk about corruption you only want to talk about 2 things it 2 investigations that helped him politically every intelligence agency unanimously supported releasing the aid to ukraine that was appropriate they did a study a corruption study they said release it the white house never provided an explanation. evaded already been approved and it was not for any corruption issues that president trump withheld the next is ukraine was not pressured and the

argument about that as well today there they they haven't said they were pressured well ukraine was pressure then and still is pressure they're desperately in need of the of the united states' support as they battle of the threat of russia so of course they have to be careful what they said but contemporaneous documents emails text from the ukrainian officials themselves show the pressure they felt show they knew what the president was doing showed what they had to do this is one from bill taylor to again ambassador oren stalin and current an ambassador kurt volker borden one thing current i talked about yesterday was sashi don that a senior aide of president zelinsky point that president alinsky is sensitive about ukraine being taken seriously not myriad merely an instrument in washington to mess to reelection politics they'd not only felt the pressure they got the message they were not going to get a white house meeting they were old enough to get military aid unless they furthered president trump's reelection efforts that is

a corrupt abuse of power another argument that's made is that trump never said quid pro quo and what you're going to hear is on a call with ambassador solomon after a washington post article came out on september 5th which we will look at after that there was a washington post article that came out that again exposed the ukrainian scheme days after that president trump was on a phone call with ambassador song and without prompting said there was no quid pro quo if he got caught so he's offering his defense but even ambassador solomon in his sworn testimony didn't buy it because ultimately then president trump. not only was not dissuaded he again described what he wanted he didn't want ukraine to actually conduct these investigations he wanted to and then to announce the investigations of his political rival to help him politically he continued and

you'll hear more about that. again none of these excuses hold any water and they are refuted by testimony contemporaneous records and more now some have suggested that we should wait to proceed with these impeachment proceedings because we've not heard from all of the witnesses or obtained all the documents but the reason we have not heard from all the witnesses or documents is because president trump himself has obstructed the investigation has directed his most senior aides who were involved in some of these events not to come testify to defy subpoenas he has told every one of his agencies with records and could be relevant not to produce those records to us to try to obstruct our investigation now this is evidence that president trump is replaying the playbook used in the prior department of justice investigation in that investigation he directed his white house counsel to create

a false phony record and document and lie then dying that president trump had told him to fire the special counsel he did many other things to try to interfere with that investigation he attacked the investigators and witnesses and called them horrible names just as he has done here and president trump thought he got away with it on july 24th was the day that special counsel the special counsel testified before this committee in the house intelligence committee. the 24th it was exactly the following day the 25th that president trump spoke to president the linsky and further inside his ukrainian scheme he thought he got away with it not only that he thought he could use his powers to interfere with that investigation so he could do what he wanted he could act like he was above the law and if he got caught he would again use his powers to try to obstruct the investigation and prevent the facts from coming out and that's exactly what he did but fortunately fortunately

because of the true american patriots who came forward to testify despite the threats by present against the people who worked in his own administration they told the story they on their own produced documents provide uncontroverted clear and overwhelming evidence that president trump did this scheme he put his political reelection interests over the nation's national security in the integrity of its elections he did it intentionally he did it corruptly he abused his powers in ways that the founders feared the most no person in the in this country has the ability to prevent investigations and neither does the president our constitution does not allow it no one is above the law not even the president and one of the concerns and requirements

of finding an impeachable offense is there an urgency is there a sense that you have to move because it could be repeated well again 1st all the constitutional experts who testified recognize that obstructing investigation is an impeachable offense but here the offense we're talking about it's being interfered obstructed with is interfering with this very election that's coming up and i submit to you given what happened the department of justice investigation given what's happening here if in fact president trump can get away with what he did again. our imagination is the only limit to what president trump may do next what a future president may do next to try to abuse his or her power to serve his own personal interest over the nation's interest i'd like to turn back to what the founders most cared about and we talk about the a.b.c.'s of of potential

presidential abuses it is extraordinary that the president's conduct was a trifecta checking all 3 boxes let's begin with abuse of power what that means it's to use the power of the office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the national interest or $1500.00 g.m.t. here on al-jazeera 10 am in washington d.c. continuing live coverage of the house judiciary committee impeachment hearing at the moment you're listening to bring back the democratic lawyer. for impeachment consider the pietschmann of president nixon and after action was taken president nixon famously said if the president does it it is not illegal and this body rejected that because that's not so that goes directly contrary to what the founder said but president trump has said the same thing in responding to the prior

investigation by department of justice and defending his conduct is what he said that i have an article.