yes 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 impeachment 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 where i have the right to do whatever i want to just

president that he has the right to do whatever he wants as president that is as wrong as when president nixon said a similar thing it is not what the constitution provides that is now with the country demands it does not have the right to do whatever he wants turning to the 2nd abuse of power most of the concern betrayal of the nation of outing foreign powers the american people have suffered at foreign influence when president trump treated military aid that had been approved taxpayers' dollars and decided to treat it as his own checkbook to try to further his own reelection chances that reflects what the founders were concerned about and finally corruption of our elections the framers knew that corrupt leaders are leaders acting corruptly concentrate their powers to manipulate elections. and undercut

adversaries they talked about it frequently that is why the framers thought electoral treasury particular evolving foreign powers was a critical abuse and and that could support and lead to impeachment now the american people learned last election how dangerous foreign intervention or lections can be. and we showed other clip from president from candidate trump on the on the campaign trail russia if you're listening i hope you are able to find the 30000 e-mails that are missing i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press and russia was listening within approximately 5 hours either hours of president trump's invitation to russia to interfere in our election by trying to hack and obtain the e-mails of his

political opponent russia in fact tried to do that for the 1st time the very officers who were then indicted by the department of justice for that conduct they took candidate trump's invitation now the american people learned a lesson president trouble unfortunately apparently learned a different lesson let's look but i would think that if they were honest about it this sort of major investigation this is a by the very simple last. days that they gave the. president trump answering a question about what did he want president alinsky to do so even after he got caught. he is saying again this vulnerable nation dependent on u.s. support militarily and otherwise again he's telling them what to do and unlike in

2016 when he only had a campaign platform which to extend the invitation to a foreign power now he has the levers of government in his control to not only request it and invite it but to pressure that country to do it and that's exactly what he did and you'll hear more about that in the presentation of the house intelligence committee and what's most striking as we come back to this issue that the framers were concerned about is there a continuing risk of wrongdoing the fact that president term did this after he was caught shows the risk shows the risk of what will happen if this body doesn't act he really does believe he can act as though he were above the law he really does believe as evidenced by this conduct that he can put his personal and political interests over the nation's interest over the nation's national security interests over the nation's integrity of its elections

so of course we do have an election coming up that's not a reason to postpone this discussion that's a reason we must have this discussion to make sure it is not interfered with to make sure this president doesn't do it to make sure future presidents do not do it it is the hope that in these discussions can put aside political rancor this agreement and have a fair discussion about the facts and this conduct not just as it relates to president trump but as to the presidency itself and future presidents my son our children our grandchildren they will study this moment in history they will read all of your remarks they will learn about all of your actions. and

that is not a reason to vote for or against impeachment for that of course you must vote your conscience but that is a reason for us to have a fair debate about what the undisputed facts show to recognize that it is wrong it is very wrong and cannot happen again with this president or any president it is a reason to talk about whether we want our children and grandchildren to live in a country where the president elected by the people and put his own personal and political interests over the interests of the people who elected them it is a reason for these debates so again fairly focus on the facts and to make sure the presentations we're going to hear will not distort the record focus on process points raise extraneous matters that really are intended to distract rather than

focus on what the conduct was at issue here it is a reason to focus on the facts and what is in the country's best interest. history future generations will be the judge and you mr burke you mr burke is to cast the user airman mr recognize that 30 minutes mr chairman point of order had missed the cast he was ready to cast is recognized the 30 minute mr chairman point of order to cast it was recognized that 30 minutes august chairman the witness would i later rule 17 and my point of order should be heard we have ordered the witnesses use language which impugns the motives of the president and suggest he is disloyal to his country and those words should be stricken from the record taken down. the point of order is not sustained witnesses are not subject to the rules of decorum the ruling of the chair in the

same way members are the topic of the hearing is the president's misconduct so none of us should find it surprising that we are hearing testimony that is critical of the president i do not find that the witnesses comments are disorderly i find they are pertinent to the subject matter of this hearing witness would be able to continue except that his time is expired mr cassilis mr chairman it's not gentlemen what's your chairman my point of order is not that his words are disorderly they are on parliamentary violate the rules of the house and pointed to be taken down this is not about his conduct he's talking about the motives i mean when the character of the president gentlemen i will suspend the rules of decorum apply to members of the house not to witnesses gentlemen we proceed here so i feel the ruling of the chair that is not a ruling that. there was no there was no as a ruling on a point of order itself in a level that is i wrote to you and that's all. the point of order is

not sustained. here's the ruling the 2 tables of the the motion is made to table the appeal to the chair the motion moves the notion that it was made in writing of the motion of mostly not in debate if not all in favor the monkey do pretty well in theory but the motion tables say i will go for a no no no no motion to table just put it right in 1st then you can all motion you table lose your pollner rules a motion to table is sustained the roll call call the clerk will call the roll mr neither. mr now there votes i'm a soft i miss often votes i miss jackson lee i miss jackson lee but i'm mr cohen mr cohen but i'm mr johnson of georgia mr johnson georgia votes i mr george mr joyce votes i miss best miss bass votes i'm mr richmond mr richmond votes i'm mr jeffreys mr jeffreys was i mr slaney hi mr sisson events i am mr sowell mr suave of

a time mr low height mr livers i am mr ruskin mr rask events i mistype all i mistype all votes i missed standing miss deming's votes i mr korea mr cravats i missed scanlon i knew scanlon but i missed garcia is garcia of a time mr negus but mr negus votes i miss make fact i expect baffert i mr stanton i mr stanton votes i miss teen i miss stevens i miss my car so how will i miss my car so powell that i miss escobar by this escobar but i mr collins mr collins but it's no mr sensenbrenner mr sensenbrenner it's no mr shabbat mr savage votes no mr gohmert mr gohmert votes no mr jordan mr jordan votes no mr buck mr radcliffe mr radcliffe it's no miss robey miss ruby votes no mr gates no mr gates bosso mr johnson of louisiana mr johnson of louisiana votes no mr banks. mr mcclintock oh mr mcclintock that's no miss lesko it's less give it's now mr weston dollar. mr

klein mr klein votes no mr armstrong no mr armstrong that's no mr stevie mr steve events now mr chairman how my record mr biggs you are not recorded so no mr biggs that's now is every member of those who wish to vote could put. mr chairman there are $24.00 eyes and 50 no's motion table is carried missions term parliament transfer mimic a parliamentary class that is recognized it would not recognize a parliamentary inquiry at this time as the cost is regulus the 30 minutes morning chairman adler ranking member collins members of the committee and members of the staff by name steve castor on the congressional staff member serve with the oversight committee on the republican staff with mr jordan marceau for purposes of this investigation on the shared staffer with the judiciary committee mr collins

and the house permanent select committee on intelligence mr nunez it sure is a typical for a staffer to be presenting but again thanks for having me the purpose of this hearing as we understand it is to discuss whether president donald trump's conduct fits the definition of a high crime a misdemeanor it does not such that the committee should consider articles of impeachment to remove the president from office and it should not this case in many respects comes down to 8 lines in a call transcript let me say clearly and unequivocally that the answer to that question is no the record in the democrats' impeachment inquiry does not show the president drug abuse the power of his office or obstructed congress to impeach a president who's 63000000 people voted for over 8 lines in a call transcript is boni.

of serious misconduct democrats have been searching for a set of facts on which to impeach president trump since his inauguration when january 20th 2017 just 27 minutes after the president's inauguration that day the washington post ran a story that the campaign to impeach the president has already begun the article reported democrats and liberal activists amounting brought up a zisha to stymie trump's agenda and noted that impeachment strategists believe the constitution's a mole humans clause would be the vehicle in the 1st 2 years the administration democrats in the house introduced articles of impeachment to remove president trump from office on several very different factual bases on january 3rd the very 1st day of the new congress congressman sherman introduced articles of impeachment against the president the same day representative to lead said we're going to go in there

we're going to teach the. president in may $21000.00 representative green said on m.s.n. b.c. if we don't impeach this president he will be reelected even speaker pelosi has said that impeachment is a somber and prayerful exercise as called president trump and imposture and said it is dangerous to allow voters to judge his performance in 2020 the obsession with impeaching the president is reflected in house democrats have used the power of their majority in the past 11 months and the oversight committee the democrats 1st announced witness was michael cohen a disgraced felon who is who pleaded guilty to lying to congress when he came before us the oversight committee he then lied again as many as 8 times. oversight

committee democrats demanded information about the president's personal finances and even subpoenaed the president's counting for mazhar for large swaths of sensitive and personal financial information about the entire trump family the subpoena was issued over the objection of committee republicans and without a vote in the ways and means committee democrats demanded the president's personal tax return information the reason they cited for wanting the president's tax returns they said was to oversee the irises audit process for presidential tax returns you can judge that for yourself in the financial services committee democrats demanded and subpoena the president's bank records going back 10 years the financial services committee staff the republicans tell me the information demanded would cover every withdraw credit card swipe debit card purchase of every member of the trump family including his minor child the reason that the democrats

gave for why they needed such voluminous and intrusive personal information about the trump family was get this financial industry compliance with banking statutes and regulations here in the judiciary committee democrats sent out letters demanding information from over 80 recipients the president's children is this partners employees is campaign business is the foundation or is the main event for the judiciary committee was the report of special counsel moller which democrats would believe would serve as the evidentiary basis for impeaching the president. spite interviewing $500.00 witnesses issuing $2800.00 subpoenas executing almost $500.00 search warrants and spending $25000000.00 the special counsels $1000.00 attorneys and

40 f.b.i. agents analysts and staff found no conspiracy or coordination between the truck campaign and the russian government after the trump russia collusion allegations did not pan out democrats focus their efforts on obstruction of justice they criticize attorney general barr for concluding that no crime of obstruction had occurred in the special counsel investigation but in fact it was entirely appropriate for the attorney general to make that call because the special counsel declined to do so not surprisingly democrats moeller hearing was underwhelming to say the least and the sequel with corey lewandowsky definitely did not move the impeachment needle either intelligence committee 2 is heavily invested in the russia collusion investigation committee democrats hired former federal prosecutors to prepare for their anticipated efforts to impeach the president now that the

russian collusion allegations did not work out democrats have settled on the ukraine phone call 8 lines the president uttered on july 25th with ukrainian president so lansky the foreign affairs committee the committee of jurisdiction wasn't the committee levy the impeachment inquiry or holding hearings either was the oversight committee house's chief investigative entity judiciary committee was only recently brought back into the mix after a fact finding concluded instead the impeachment inquiry was run by the house intelligence committee and these former federal prosecutors democrats on the intelligence committee ran the impeachment inquiry in a manifestly unfair way all the fact finding was unclassified. and that was made clear at the top of every single deposition but the democrats took advantage of the closed door process in the capitol basement bunker the skiff

to control access to information secrecy if actively weaponized the investigation allowing misleading public baret of the foreman catch hold with careful leaks of witness testimony democrats refused to invite republican witnesses and directed witnesses called by the democrats not to answer our questions in the public hearings many of these unfair processes continued democrats refused to invite numerous witnesses requested by republicans interrupted republican questioning and prevented witnesses from answering republican questions democrats voted down by virtue of a motion to table with no notice subpoenas for documents and testimony requested by republicans. that democrats never once brought any of their subpoenas to a vote before the intelligence committee this unfair process reflects the degree to which democrats are obsessed with impeaching the president the democrats went

searching for a set of facts on which to impeach the president him all humans clause the president's business and financial records the mower report allegations of obstruction before landing on the ukraine phone call impeachment inquiry is clearly an orchestrated effort to up and our political system working to politico the speaker has tightly scripted every step of the impeachment inquiry democrats have reportedly convened focus groups to test which allegations whether big quid pro quo or bribery or extortion were most compelling to the american public. speaker pelosi said democrats must strike while the iron is hot on peaching the president the entire duration of the impeachment inquiry from the dime speaker pelosi announced it and september 24th until today has been 76 days

as professor turley testified last wednesday this impeachment would stand out among modern impeachment is the shortest proceeding with the thinnest evidentiary record and the narrowest grounds ever used to impeach a president artificial an arbitrary political deadline by which democrats are determined to finish impeachment by christmas leads to a rush process and missed opportunities to obtain relevant information democrats avoided the accommodations process required by federal courts and disputes between congress and the executive immigrates declined to attempt to negotiate with the administration for the production of documents and witnesses and regrets did not exhaust all other options to entice witnesses or agencies to cooperate such as allowing witnesses to appear with agency lawyers or initiating contemporary

seedings sometimes the threat of a contemporary seating gets you a different result sometimes the witnesses choose to appear when contempt is on the table democrats even withdrew a subpoena to one witness who asked a federal court to resolve conflicting orders from congress an executive either because the democrats did not want to wait for the court to rule where they didn't like the presiding judge judge leon instead democrats made their demands and refused to budge democrats told witnesses at the outset that their refusal to cooperate in full would be used against them and the president democrats threaten federal employees that their salaries could be withheld for not meeting committee demands. these tactics are fundamentally unfair and counterproductive for gathering information in any serious inquiry this rushed and take it or leave it approach to investigating is contrary to how

successful congressional investigations typically work congressional investigations take time there is no easy but in this job you must take the information that's offered even if you don't like the terms should not say no to taking a witness's testimony because you would prefer the agency counsel's not present if that's the only means of obtaining the testimony you should take it your priority must not be on blocking information out it must be on seeking information in all recent major congressional investigations for example chairman goodlatte and gallies investigation into the justice department's decision during 2016 the i.r.s. targeting investigation the benghazi investigation in fast and furious there have been given take between congress and the executive in the good luck out investigation for example it took 2 months 2 months of negotiations before the

committees conducted the 1st witness interview with deputy director mccabe the justice department only began producing documents to the committee after many more months of this question and none of these investigations did congress get everything it wanted right at the beginning certainly not within 60 days or 76 days but with persistence and patience we eventually did receive enough information to do our work and contrary to talking points the trumpet ministration has in fact cooperated with and facilitated congressional oversight and investigations for example earlier this year the oversight committee conducted investigation into security clearances at the white house the central allegation put forward was that the white house deviated from established procedures to grant clearances to certain white house staff. democrats sought to interview career staff who perform these

a security clearance reviews but declined the witness initially to appear with the agency counsel house and the white house were at an impasse however after after a little bit of time we the republican staffer with the help of mr jordan convinced the witness to appear with agency counsel for our own transcribed interview and the democrats came along the subsequent interviews in the security clearance investigation were conducted with agency counsel testimony allowed the committee retained the evidence to get to the bottom of what was going on and it wasn't what was alleged nobody outside the security clearance office was handing out clearances certainly not to senior white house staffers in this impeachment inquiry however democrats have turned away information that could be valuable to the inquiry by disallowing agency counsel to accompany witnesses democrats have turned away

information by declining to negotiate in good faith with the administration about the scope of document requests as a result of these failures the evidentiary record in the impeachment inquiry is incomplete and in many places incoherent the failure to exhaust all avenues to obtain information is severely wrists undermining the legitimacy of any articles of impeachment as professor turley said to the committee last week i'm concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and an abundance of anger i believe this impeachment not only fails the standard of past impeachments but would create a dangerous precedent for future impeachments professor turley elaborated that the current lack of proof is another reason why the abbreviated investigation into this matter is so damaging for the case of impeachment substantive

case for impeaching president trump as a result of an artificial arbitrary and political schedule. relies heavily on ambiguous facts presumptions and speculation president turley warned here too that impeachment have been based on proof not presumptions democrats do not have the proof you know my democratic counterparts on the intelligence committee are talented attorneys i'm sure they were tell you a riveting story about a shadow or irregular foreign policy apparatus and a smear campaign designed to extort ukraine for the president's political benefit i'll tell you about president trump and how he put his own political interests ahead of national security by mentioning former president former vice president joe biden by name and raising the allegations of ukrainian influence in the 2016

election on the july 25th call i'll try to convince you that the trumpet ministration the same administration democrats regularly accuse of being competent orchestrated in international conspiracy at the highest levels none of this adds up it may be a great screenplay but it is not what the evidence shows them across impeachment inquiry ignores all of the evidence that does not advance their story democrats impeachment narrative resolves all ambiguous facts and conflicting evidence in a way that is most unflattering to the president the democrats impeachment narrative ignores public statements from senior ukrainian officials that contradict the narrative as you listen to the democrat presentation later today i urge you to keep these points in mind what evidence that has been gathered in the impeachment inquiry paints a different picture i will provide

a detailed presentation now but allow me to highlight a few points 1st a summary of the july 25th phone call reflects no conditionality or pressure president selenski never vocalised any discomfort or pressure on the call. contrary to democrat allegations president trump was not asking for a favor that would help his reelection he was asking for assistance and helping our country move forward from the divisiveness of the russia collusion investigation 2nd since president trump is declassified and publicly released the call summary 75 days ago president selenski has said publicly and repeatedly that he felt no pressure he said it on september 25th that the united nations general assembly he said it in an interview published on october 6th he said it again october 10th and

most recently he said it just last week in time magazine other senior ukrainian officials have also said there was no linkage between a meeting security systems and an investigation if president trump was truly orchestrating a pressure campaign to force ukraine to investigate former vice president biden one would think that ukraine would have felt some pressure 3rd at the time of the july 25th call senior officials in kiev did not know that the security assistance was paused they did not learn it was paused until the pause was reported publicly in the us media on august 28th as ambassador volcker testified because the highest levels of the ukrainian government did not know about the pause there was no leverage implied i only president selenski met with president trump in new york on september 25th at the united nations shortly thereafter or shortly before that the visit to security assistance flow do you

claim. happened without ukraine ever taking actions or investigations impeachment record also has substantial evidence going to the president's state of mind undercutting the democrats' assertion of some malicious intent. witnesses testified that president trump has a deeply rooted genuine and reasonable skepticism of ukraine stemming from its history of corruption president trump is skeptical of u.s. taxpayer funded foreign assistance and believes that our allies should share more of the burden of ukraine's defense ukrainian politicians openly spoke out against president trump during the 2016 election these events bear directly on the president's state of mind president's lensky had run on an anti-corruption platform but he was an untried politician with a relationship to

a controversial ukrainian oligarchy when vice when former vice president pence met with president selenski in warsaw i'm sorry when vice president pence met with president lansky in warsaw in september 1 he stressed to him the need for reform and reiterated the president's concern about burden sharing especially among european allies in late august in early september after his party took control of the ukrainian parliament ukraine passed historic reforms to fight corruption these reforms including removing parliamentary immunity which witnesses said had been a historic source of corruption. and if members of our congress had immunity president trump later lifted the pause on security assistance and met with president selenski 2 weeks later the aide was pause for 55 days very simply the evidence in the democrats' impeachment inquiry does not support the conclusion that president trump abused his power for his own personal political

benefit there is simply no clear evidence that president drawn back did with malicious intent in withholding a meeting or security assistance indeed there are in the republican report articulated them jamin explanations for these actions that are not if arius as the democrats allege. the evidence shows the president trump faithfully executed the duties of his office by delivering on what he promised the american voters he would do democrats may disagree with the president's policy decisions or their matter in which he governs but those disagreements are not enough to justify your revokable action of removing him from office democrats hyperbole and histrionics are no good reason 11 months out from an election to prevent the american people from decided on their own who is going to be the next president this record also does not support

a conclusion the president trump obstructed congress during the impeachment inquiry for many of the procedural defects i touched on earlier additionally as a factual matter the only direct testimony investigation has obtained about the president's reaction to the inquiry is from embassadors onil and who testified president trump told him to cooperate and tell the truth president trump has also declassified and released the summaries of his 2 phone calls with the president president selenski president trump has said that he would like witnesses to testify but he's been forced to resist the unfair and abusive process i believe strongly in the private is the congress it's awful to hear president turley's testimony from last week when he can cheat the house for proceeding on impeachment so rapidly and on such a thin record professor turley said to set this abbreviated schedule the man

documents and then impeach because they haven't been turned over when they go to court i think is an abuse of power the impeachment of a duly elected president as chairman adler said in 1908 is the undoing of a national election. now i understand democrats issued a report over the weekend arguing that contrary to the chairman's statement in 1988 impeachment is not on doing it an election i would just respond by saying that i don't think many of the 63000000 americans from all around the country who voted for president trump in 2016 would agree by impeaching president trump the house would essentially be no if the decision of those americans and the house would be doing it less than a lot less than 11 months before the next election there still is no compelling argument for why democrats in the house must take this decision out of the hands of the voters and do it before christmas during the clinton impeachment

in 1988 the chairman said that a bare minimum the president's accusers must go beyond hearsay and innuendo and beyond the demands that the president prove prove his innocence a vegan changing charges i would submit that those words ring as true today as the chairman believe them to be in 1908 impeachment record is heavily reliant on hearsay innuendo and presumptions democrats have lobbed vague an ever changing charges for impeachment going as far back as the president's inauguration for all these reasons the extraordinary exercise of the house's impeachment authority is not warranted on the evidentiary record presented. thank you for allowing me to present this information this morning and yield back the gentleman yields back thank you both for your presentations mr burke you are

now excused and we will invite mr goldman to take his place at the witness table thank you mr chairman mr chairman. mr chairman we've secured. what purposes the gentleman see recognition of a parliamentary inquiry into the status bowman thank you mr chairman pursuant to rule 7 b. of the house rules the chairman is allowed to administer an oath. not mandated to but it has been the practice of this committee to administer olds to witnesses i'm wondering why we have not ministered the oath in this situation. i'm going to administer the oath to the 2 witnesses who are now coming in before us to make presentation the 2 gentlemen who just testified were not witnesses they were stamped they were making opening statements to the committees will now administer you know through the cast to mr goldman without this value the capacity of witnesses typically we administer goes before opening statements which we will know

who are witnesses for witnesses is the cast and we will now administer the mr chairman darrell mentoring going through suspend. to catch who was here with mr burke presenting the report of the committee that is the opening statement for the for this committee they were not witnesses before this committee is to cast a now and mr goldman our witnesses before this committee and i will administer the oath mr chairman if they were making presentation you know he's not really going to fly gentlemen is not recognized. mr chairman i'll go to order we welcome both of our mr chairman a point of order. here mr chairman gentleman stays point of order there chairman mr chairman despite our repeated requests for access to the evidence we received less than 40 hours ago over $8000.00 pages of documentation is a chairman if this were a court of law you'd be facing sanctions right now by the bar association and i'm

in a status point of order not these which i mean how are we supposed to process over $8000.00 pages of documents again from various committees generally that is not disappointed were ordered out is not the point of order. this is your united as well i will now proceed by you know this document gentlemen will suspend and not make a speech to the goldman is this catch the please rise and raise your right hand you swear or affirm to penalty of perjury that the testimony you about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge information belief so help you god at the record show the present is in the affirmative thank you and please be seated each of you know what i would already 5 minutes to present some of you say 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 you testimony when the light turns red signals your time has expired mr goldman you made sherman have a point of order as chairman you have to reckon he was saying his point of order mr

chairman my point of order is this in the previous point of order issued by mr johnson of louisiana you ruled against his point of order because you said that mr burke was a witness you have just told us he was not a witness but he was a staffer as such a staffer must read the avoid impugning the genota vacations and if you're into you know it was so gentle it will swell you let him finish his point of order made his point of order no mr mr m. i haven't completed yet the lady the rule requires that members and staff not impugn the motivations of the president what you ruled was that he was a witness you just told us he wasn't a witness by point of order is that you were out of order in your ruling. the point of order is not sustained i've already ruled on it he was not a witness these 2 job you know decision to chair that is not

a rule. it was certainly is a pretty little use of the law for knows that the ruling is not. complete orders not sustained our building decision that year i moved to table the emotion. tabled . on favor of the motion table saying i posed no motion table is approved i should roll call vote roll call vote to call the room mr neither i mr now there are votes i missed i missed often votes i miss jackson lee i miss jackson leave it to mr cohen mr cohen bow tie mr johnson georgia mr johnson georgia votes i mr deutsch mr deutsch fitz i miss bass miss bass for time mr richmond mr richmond mr jeffries mr jeffries votes i mr sisson i mr sisson events i mr saul well i mr saul of mr low i mr liver time mr ruskin mr bascomb. mistype of it's i miss deming's miss deming's that's i mr korea. this scam and

miss garcia i miss carsey of a time mr negus mr niggas for it's i miss macbeth i just make baskets i'm mr stanton i mr stanton but i'm a scene i miss stevens i missed my car so how will i miss because of how the time is escobar i was asking harvard i'm mr collins mr collins votes no mr sensenbrenner mr sensenbrenner votes no mr shabbat mr shabbat that's no mr gohmert mr jordan mr gohmert but it's no mr jordan mr jordan but it's no mr buck mr buffett's no mr radcliffe mr clifford snow miss robey miss roby votes no mr gates mr gates but it's no mr johnson of louisiana mr johnson of louisiana but it's no mr bigs. mr mcclintock mr mcclintock that's now miss last. miss us give us now mr rushton dollar now mr vice entire votes now mr klein. mr klein that's now mr armstrong

mr i found this now mr stevie mr steve events now mr mr biggs you were not recorded mr biggs that's now everyone voted no as everyone who voted who wishes to vote on my record and miss cameron you're not recorded i miss scanlan that's i hear mr crane you are not recorded. mr cravats i was anyone else was devoted as a group mr chairman there are 24 eyes and 17 knows the eyes have it the motion tables agreed to mr goldman you maybe give thank you mr chairman. chairman. ranking member collins members of the committee we are here today because donald j. trump the 45th president of the united states abused the power of his office the american presidency for his a political and personal benefit president directed

a months long campaign to solicit foreign help in his 2020 reelection efforts withholding official acts from the government of ukraine in order to coerce and secure political assistance and interference in our domestic affairs as part of the scheme president trump applied increasing pressure on the president of ukraine to publicly announce 2 investigations helpful to his personal reelection efforts he applied this pressure himself and through his agents working within and outside of the us government by conditioning a desperately sought oval office meeting. and $391000000.00 in taxpayer funded congressionally appropriated security assistance vital to ukraine's ability to fend off russian aggression and the condition that on the

announcement of these 2 political investigations that were helpful to his personal interests when the president's efforts were discovered he released the military aid though it would ultimately take congressional action for the money to be made fully available to ukraine the oval office meeting still has not happened and when faced with the opening of an official impeachment inquiry into his conduct president trump launched an unprecedented campaign of obstruction of congress ordering executive branch agencies and government officials to defy subpoenas for documents and testimony to date the investigating committees have received no documents from the trumpet ministration pursuant to our subpoenas were it not for

courageous public servants doing their duty and honoring their oath to this country and coming forward and testify the president scheme might still be concealed today the central moment in this scheme was a telephone call between president trump and ukrainian president a lot of mayors a lenski on july 25th of this year during that call president trump asked president selenski for a personal favor to initiate the 2 investigations that president trump hopes could ultimately help his reelection in 2020 the 1st investigation involved former vice president joe biden and was an effort to smear his reputation as he seeks the democratic nomination in next year's presidential election. the 2nd investigation sought to elevate an entirely debunked conspiracy theory promoted by russian president vladimir putin that ukraine interfered in the last presidential

election to support the democratic nominee in truth as has been made clear by irrefutable evidence from throughout the government russia interfered in the last election in order to help then candidate trump the allegations about vice president biden and the 2016 election are patently false but that did not deter president trump during his phone call with the ukrainian president and it does not appear to deter him today just 2 days ago president trump stated publicly that he hopes that his personal attorney rudy giuliani will report to the department of justice and to congress the results of mr giuliani's efforts in ukraine last week to pursue these false allegations meant to tarnish vice president biden president trump's persistent and continuing effort to coerce

a foreign country to help him cheat to win an election is a clear and present danger to our free and fair elections and to our national security the overwhelming evidence of this scheme is described in detail in a nearly $300.00 page document entitled the trump ukraine impeachment inquiry report formally transmitted from the house permanent select committee on intelligence to this committee a few days ago the report relies on testimony from numerous current and former government officials the vast majority of whom are nonpartizan career professionals responsible for keeping our nation safe and promoting american values around the globe the evidence from these witnesses cannot seriously be disputed. the president placed his personal interests above the nation's interests in order to

help his own reelection efforts before i highlight the evidence and the findings of this report i want to take just a moment to introduce myself and discuss today's testimony i joined the house intelligence committee a senior advisor and director of investigations at the beginning of this year previously i served for 10 years as a prosecutor in the southern district of new york when i joined the department of justice under the george w. bush administration the team that i led on the intelligence community includes other former federal prosecutors a retired f.b.i. agent and investigators with significant national security and expertise the report that i am presenting today is based entirely on the evidence that we collected in coordination with the oversight and foreign affairs committee that were gathered as part of the impeachment inquiry into president transactions nothing more and

nothing less the 3 investigating committees are in a fair professional and thorough investigation we follow the house rules for depositions and public hearings including the rule against agency counsel being present for depositions and members and staff from both parties had equal time to ask questions and there were no substantive questions that were prevented from being asked and answered this investigation move swiftly and intensively as all good investigation should to the extent that other witnesses would be able to provide more context and detail about this scheme their failure to testify is due is soley to the fact that president trump obstructed the inquiry and refused to make them available. nevertheless the extensive evidence that the committees

uncovered during this investigation led to the following critical findings 1st president trump used the power of his office to pressure and induce the newly elected president of ukraine to interfere in the 2020 presidential election for president trumps personal and political benefit 2nd in order to increase the pressure on ukraine to announce the politically motivated investigations that president trump wanted president trump with held a coveted oval office meeting and $391.00 of essential military assistance from ukraine 3rd president trump's conduct sought to undermine our free and fair elections and poses an imminent threat to our national security and forth faced with the revelation of his pressure campaign against ukraine president trump

directed an unprecedented effort to obstruct congress's impeachment inquiry into his conduct and with that context in mind i would like to turn to the evidence of president trump's conduct concerning ukraine my colleague mr castor just said that it revolves around 8 lines in one call record but that sorely ignores the vast amount of evidence that we collected of a months long scheme directed by the president but i do want to start with that july 25th phone call because that is critical evidence of the president's involvement and intent it was on that day that he held his 2nd phone call with the new ukrainian president the 1st in april was short and cordial following the ukrainian president's election success but the 2nd call would diverged dramatically from what those listening had expected. just prior to this telephone call president

trump spoke to gordon sunland the u.s. ambassador to the european union who had donated $1000000.00 to the president's inaugural campaign and who had been directed by the president himself to take on a leading role in ukraine issues ambassador sunline relayed the president's message to president selenski through ambassador occurred volker who had had lunch that day with president selenski top aide andre your muck who repairs throughout italy appears repeatedly through this scheme as president selenski s right hand man ambassador volcker texted mr yair mock with president trump's direction good lunch thanks heard from white house assuming presidency convinces trump he will investigate get to the bottom of what happened in 2016 we will nail down visit for

we'll nail down for a visit to washington good luck see you tomorrow kurt so even before the phone call with president selenski took place president trump had directed that ukraine initiate the investigation into 2016 the debunk conspiracy theory that ukraine had interfered in the election in order for president selenski to get the white house visit that he desperately coveted ambassador sonnen was clear in his testimony about this quid pro quo frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question was there a quid pro quo as i testified previously with regard to the requested white house call and the white house meeting the answer is yes during this call with the

ukrainian leader. president trump did not discuss matters of important to the united states such as ukraine's efforts to root out corruption instead president trump veered quickly into the personal favor that he wanted president selenski to do 2 investigations that would help president trump's reelection effort witnesses who listen to the call described it as unusual improper inappropriate and concerning 2 of them immediately reported their concerns to white house lawyers now let me just take a few minutes walking through that important call step by step because it is evidence that is central to the president's scheme near the beginning of the call president selenski said i would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense we are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more javelins from the united states for

defense purposes a great support in the area of defense included the nearly $400000000.00 of u.s. military assistance to ukraine which one witness testified was nearly 10 percent of ukraine's defense budget and this support comes as a result of russia's invasion of ukraine in 2014 when russia illegally annexed nearly 7 percent of ukraine's territory since then the united states and our allies have provided support for ukraine an emerging post soviet democracy to fend off russia in the east yet just a few weeks before this july 25th call president trump had inexplicably place to hold on military assistance to ukraine without providing any reason to his own cabinet members or national security officials the evidence the committee's collected showed that there was unanimous support for the aid from every relevant

agency in the trump administration. nevertheless during the call president trump complained that u.s. support for ukraine was not reciprocal that somehow ukraine needed to give more to the united states what did he mean well it became clear because immediately after president selenski brought up u.s. military support and purchasing javelin anti-tank weapons president trump responded i would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it now the favor that he referenced there included 2 demands that had nothing to do with official u.s. policy or foreign policy 1st president president trump said i would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine they say crowd strike as you saw yesterday excuse me i guess you have one of your wealthy people it says the server they say ukraine has it there are

a lot of things that went on the whole situation i think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people and he went on later i would like to have the attorney general call you or your people and i would like you to get to the bottom of it as you saw yesterday that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named robert muller an incompetent performance but they say a lot of it started with ukraine whatever you can do it's very important that you do it if that's possible here again president trump was referring to the baseless conspiracy theory that the ukrainian government not russia was behind the hack of the democratic national committee in 2016. not a single witness in our investigation testified that there was any factual support for this allegation to the contrary a unanimous assessment of the u.s. intelligence community found that russia alone interfered in the 2016 u.s.

election and special counsel muller who indicted 12 russians for this conspiracy testified before congress that the russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion dr fiona hill an expert on russia and president putin who served on the national security council until july testify that the president was told by his own former senior advisers including his homeland security adviser and his former national security adviser that the alternative theory that ukraine had interfered in the election was false and although no one in the u.s. government knew of any factual support for this theory it did have one significant supporter russian president vladimir putin in february of 2017 president putin said 2nd as we all know during the presidential campaign in the united states the ukrainian government adopted

a unilateral position in favor of one candidate more than that certain oligarchs certainly with the approval of the political leadership funded this candidate or female candidate to be more precise. 1600 hours g.m.t. here on al-jazeera that is 11 am in washington d.c. live continuing coverage of the impeachment hearings against u.s. president donald trump this is the house judiciary committee and we're listening to daniel goldman right now who is of the legal team for the democrats laying out the evidence that has been presented so far in the case for impeachment not only from intelligence community experts but from his own national security team that russia not ukraine interfered in the 2016 election for the benefit of donald trump president trumps.