there is a -- it's interesting, they're talking almost exclusively about the abuse of power, they're not talking much about the obstruction of congress. but i think this has been a civil he had kageducation here,e can decide whether this has been an impeachable offense here, because the issues have been aired out well on both sides. >> they're about to finish the roll call. the republicans will lose the democrats who will win, and then a second one will be introduced. >> mr. richmond, you are not reported. >> no. >> mr. richmond votes no. >> are there any other members that haven't voted who wish to vote? >> mr. chairman, there are 17

ayes and 23 no's. >> the amendment is not agreed to. is there any further amendment. mr. gates? >> i amend to the desk. the gentlelady reserves a point of order. >> amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to hr 755 offered by mr. gates of florida, page 3, strike out lines 10 and 11 and enter the following. a known company named burisma and. >> this amendment strikes the reference of joe biden as the center of the investigation and replaces it with the true topic of the investigation, burisma and hunter biden. an essential element of the abuse of power is that the bidens did nothing wrong. it can only be an abuse of power and not a correct use of power if the president was pursuing

something under which there was no reasonable basis to ask a question about hunter biden and burisma. hunter biden and burisma, that's an interesting story. and i think just about every american knows there's something up with that. $86,000 a month, no experience, working for some foreign government while your dad is the vice president of the united states? is there anyone who believes this is okay? i know we got a few of my democratic colleagues running for president or might run for president one day. would you let your vice president have their son or daughter or family member out moonlighting for some foreign company? maybe i'll use language familiar to the former vice president. come on, man. this looks dirty as it is. hunter biden was making more than five times more than a board member for exxonmobil. i've heard of that company. so i wanted to read up on hunter biden, learn a little more about him. i found this extensive profile

in "the new yorker." hunter said at that point he had not slept for several days, driving east on interstate 10 just beyond palm springs. he lost control of his car which jumped the median and skidded to a stop on the shoulder of the westbound side. he called hertz which came to take his car and give him another rental. hertz said they found a powder residue. hertz called the prescott elite department and officers filed a narcotics offense report, listing a white, powdery substance, credit cards and hunter biden's driver's license. that is what we would call evidence. i don't want to make light of anybody's substance abuse issues. i know the president is working real hard to solve those throughout the country, but it's a little hard to believe that burisma hired hunter biden to

resolve their international disputes when he could not resolve his own dispute with hertz rental car leaving cocaine and a crack pipe in the car. it continues. hunter stayed in los angeles for about a week. he said he needed to get away and forget soon after his arrival in l.a. he said he asked a homeless man where he could buy crack. hunter said that the man took him to a nearby homeless encampment where a narrow pa passageway took him to crack. it was hard to believe this was the guy who was wandering through homeless areas buying crack releasing money of burisma holdings. that's why he was asked, hey, do you think you would have gotten this job absent your dad being

vice president? well, he said, probably not. then i look to the record evidence. and i looked at the testimony of mr. kent. mr. kent was one of the witnesses they called on the first day. they said burisma was so dirty that our own embassy had to pull out of a joint sponsorship with them. when ambassador yavonovitch was being prepped for her conversation, they were so worried about burisma and hunter biden that they held special prep moments to try to get ready for the inevitable questions about this obvious corruption that the president asked about. mr. kent, again, one of the witnesses from the first day, also gave testimony that burisma -- the head of burisma had stolen $23 million in the u.s. and the u.k., and that he paid a bribe to get off the hook. so, again, it's not as if burisma is pulling out new plays. their playbook is to do dirty stuff and then go and pay bribes and hire the people necessary to make those problems go away.

this is why the minority hearing issue is so important, by the way. you wonder why republicans are so angry that we didn't have a hearing, put on our own witnesses and own evidence. you may wonder why, if they feel so good about their case, why did they block our ability to put in evidence? it's because we have the ability to show that burisma is corrupt. we have the ability to show that hunter biden is corrupt. and that totally exculpates the president. there is no way in the united states of america that honestly pursuing actual corruption is an impeachable offense. that's why i offer the amendment and i encourage my colleagues to vote for it. >> mr. chairman, i withdraw my point of order. >> mr. chairman? >> the gentleman yields back. >> i move to strike the last word. mr. chairman, i rise in opposition to this amendment, and i would say that the pot

calling the kettle black is not something that we should do. i don't know what members, if any, have had any problems with substance abuse, been busted in dui, i don't know. but if i did, i wouldn't raise it against anyone on this committee. i don't think it's proper. i think we have to get back down to what is most important here. this is a question that stands out like a big, throbbing, sore toe inside of a shoe that's too small. and that is this question. is it ever okay for a president of the united states of america to invite foreign interference in an upcoming presidential

election campaign? >> the silence was and is deafening. and there will be plenty of time for you to respond to that question, and i would invite you to do so. i gave you an opportunity of about 10 or 15 seconds while you could get your story together, and nobody came up with a story. so i'm going to let you move to strike the last word and explain that to the american people. it's never proper for a united states president to hold a foreign country over a barrel to

make them do that president's personal bidding and holding needed security assistance, dangling it and dangling the fact that i'll give it to you if you do this. i mean, that's exactly what happened. it's like the american people understand what happened. those are the facts. the president said it when he released the transcript of the summary of that phone call on july 25th. the summary of the president's own words shows that the president tried to get president zelensky to interfere in the upcoming presidential election. that is established by the facts. so this is not about hunter biden, and they've said that on

the other side repeatedly, up until they start talking about hunter biden having some substance abuse problems. you can't have it both ways. let's be honest. this is about our conscience, the conscience of the nation, the conscience of my friends on the other side of the aisle. do you believe that we should allow this to go unaddressed, what the president did? because we are a country of precedent, we are a country of rule of law, we are a country of norms and traditions. are we going to allow the violation of our norms, our traditions, our legal precedent? because after all, bribery was not a crime. there was no criminal code when the framers passed the constitution, but they said bribery in there, and what

bribery meant was i'm offering you something if you do something for me. i'll give you this. in other words, you give me this, i'll give you that. that's what we had in this case. that's what bribery means. it doesn't depend on a statute, it depends on what we know was done. and so let's not get bogged down in technicalities and in character assassination. let's keep our eye on what really happened in this case and whether or not our consciences dictate that we do something about it. we can't let it go unaddressed. and the way that we deal with this grave abuse of the public trust is with the drastic action that it requires, because this is a drastic circumstance. the drastic action is impeachment, and that's why we're here today. i asked my colleagues to let your conscience be your guide.

i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. >> i move to strike the last word. mr. chairman, my mind is boggled by the gentleman from georgia saying that bribery was okay until 1787 when the constitution was adopted and two years later when congress passed the first criminal code. first of all, there is a common law definition of bribery. i think people long before 1787 realized that bribery was no good, but we also had criminal codes in each of the 13 independent states, colonies, before the declaration of independence. >> will the gentleman answer my question? >> no, i'm -- >> gentlemen! the gentleman has the time. >> the second thing is that if

you on the other side of the aisle believe that joe biden is a man who tells the truth, you ought to support this amendment. because joe biden's son hunter's involvement with burisma was asked many times if he helped his son get this cushy job. he said, no, my son's business involvements are my son's and i'm not involved in that. so you put joe biden's name on the articles of impeachment when the real factor is hunter biden. hunter is not running for anything. and if the real issue a hunter biden, then i guess your claim that the president was trying to influence the 2020 election would go out the window. but if you think that joe biden is a man who tells the truth, and i'll give him the benefit of

the doubt because i think he deserves it, then let's get rid of joe biden in this article of impeachment, substitute his son's name in there, and proceed. i challenge you, because every one of you that will vote no on this amendment is going to be saying, i think that joe biden is a liar. if you don't think joe biden is a liar, vote yes. i yield the balance of my time to mr. gates. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and again, it's important to analyze the burden of proof here. it's the democrats who are saying any question about the biden situation, burisma, it could only be an abuse of power. and i think this amendment really reflects how the president was using his power perfectly. entirely appropriately. and it also shows how scared they are of the facts. if we had the opportunity to

call in those who were engaged in, worked with the ukranian embassy, folks like alex chalupa. if we were to have the identity of the whistleblower, americans would see we are not in this debate or discussion because the president did anything wrong or impeachable or criminal. we're here, fundamentally, because they cannot accept the fact that he won the 2016 election. and i think all americans know the president has a different approach. but to accept their standard would mean that if someone announces that they're running for office, it's kind of like an instant immunity deal for anything they would ever do. are they really saying that if joe biden, hunter biden, burisma, were engaged in some corrupt act that just because joe biden announced for the presidency that that somehow ought to absolve him of that criminal activity? it's a ludicrous position. maybe it's informed by the fact that you all got a little lucky

on the hillary clinton stuff. she thought that because she was in a presidential election that her crimes didn't have to be held to account, and in a way, that turned out to be the case. but you know what, it shouldn't be the standard in the united states of america, and i'm glad we have a president who is at times skeptical of foreign aid, who does put america first, who understands that in corrupt places, the resources we provide don't always make it to an area of need. but we conclude with this. once the meeting has happened that demonstrated president zelensky was a true reformer, that he wasn't corrupt, that he was honest, honest from it the point of his campaign all the way up to the point where he said there was no pressure put on him from this government for his aid. if you put that in perspective, it's very clear that the president was appropriate in his questions. now we have reached point in time that president trump isn't

the only president being attacked in this hearing. i heard the governor of tennessee go after zelensky as an actor, a politician. they presume he's a liar when he said there was nothing wrong. they're attacking zelensky and it just shows the absurdity. >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> i was asked if i could respond as i was called. >> i'd like to strike the last word. >> the lady is recognized. >> i thank the chairman. sdp this is about distraction, distraction, distraction. our good friend spent three hours saying the president did not target the bidens, now they're saying that he did. which is it? i'm holding the classified/unclassified conversation, and let me just clarify a certain point, and that point is that i did read the transcript, and it did say

us. but there is nothing in the president's notes that even suggested that the question that he asked was for the american people. in testimony by mr. goldman, who obviously went through every aspect of this, i asked a question about whether or not the president said anything from the notes that are given, the briefing that is given by those representatives of the united states government. the staff of the national security council, the state department, the defense department, on corruption. he didn't speak anything about corruption that he was briefed on. and if you go through the call, he continues to mention the bidens. and so this, again, is about ukraine. the president did ask ukraine, the president of ukraine, a vulnerable leader of a country

that is fledgling and trying to survive. now, let me say that i intend to introduce into the record an article that indicated very clearly that people did die. trump froze military aid as ukranian soldiers purged in battle. l.a. times, i ask admission of that into the record. but the facts are -- the facts are president trump provided 510 million in aid in 2017 and 359 million in 2018. but he wanted to stop in 2019, the year or months before the 2020 election. in addition, president trump's advisers confirmed that president trump's investigations of the 2016 election

interference and the bindens wee not u.s. policy. and as well, they have debunked any association that there was anything to the impropriety of the former vice president and the president of ukraine. the president of ukraine met all of the benchmarks and the aid should have been released. there was no need for this president, in essence, to try to make up his own policy. in his own statement of administrative policies, and i ask unanimous consent to have those in the record, this is from the white house. nothing in this said to discuss corruption. why? because ukraine had already met the standards of independent executive agencies that they had met that standard of corruption, their money should have been released. and we well know, as the process

of the whistleblower and the timing, that president zelensky was desperate for money, people dying in the field, was asked to do a cnn announcement. and he was going to be on one of cnn's well-known shows dealing with international politics, but it was stopped in its tracks as testified by witnesses under oath because of the whistleblower statement. let me be very clear. there is some representation of crime, crime, crime. first of all, our scholars indicated that these are impeachable offenses. the conduct of the president is impeachable and there is enough evidence to show. but as i indicated yesterday, this, my friends, is a legal document, the constitution. it is a legal document. you can breach and violate the law of the constitution. there are constitutional crimes.

and the vastness of the impeachment process does include the excess of power by the president of the united states. now, i knew barbara jordan. and my friends wanted to quote her. she also said, the framers confided in the congress of power if need be to remove a president in order to strike a delicate balance between a president swollen with power and preservation of the independence of the executive. you can violate the crimes of the constitution, abuse of power includes that. this amendment should be defeated. >> the gentlelady's time is expired. >> mr. chair? >> for what purpose is mr. ratcliffe's recognition? >> i move to strike the last word. i want to recognize my colleague from georgia, mr. johnson's question, that he asked before. is it ever okay to invite a foreign government to become

involved in an election involving a political opponent? the answer is yes. it better be. we do it all the time. have you that quickly forgotten how the trump/russia investigation proceeded? the obama administration asked great britain and italy and australia and other countries to assist in its investigation of a person who was a political opponent from the opposite party. i keep hearing over and over again, you can't investigate political opponents. we have a member of this committee who was -- as a member of this committee and the intelligence committee investigating his political opponent, donald trump, at the very moment he was running to replace him as president. my colleague on the intel committee, mr. castro, was

investigating president trump at the same time his brother was running to replace mr. trump. mr. trump is the only legitimate reason to be doing it. he is the chief executive. we are? t -- we are in the judiciary committee, right? we do understand that the president as the intuitive executive is the executive branch. and all power of the executive branch derives from the president. and the president can and should ask for assistance from foreign governments in ongoing criminal investigations. there was an ongoing criminal investigation into what happened in 2016. attorney general william barr at the time of the july 25th call had long before that appointed u.s. attorney john durham to investigate exactly that issue. it wasn't just appropriate, it was absolutely the president's constitutional duty. and hunter biden, the president

has, as the chief executive, the ability to ask about matters where there is a prima facie case of corruption. what do we have with hunter biden? tons of money in a position where he has no ukranian experience, where he has no experience with ukraine or with energy, and at the very same time that the ukranians were deciding that hunter biden was the perfect person to get that sweet, hard deal, the chinese were deciding that hunter biden was the perfect person to get a sweetheart deal to manage $1.75 billion in financial assets. and when the ukranian government wanted to investigate corruption, like we all keep talking about they need to, well, they start investigating burisma, and what happens? joe biden says, you better fire

that prosecutor investigating corruption into burisma or you're not going to get a billion dollars. and six hours later, that's what happened. that's called influence peddling. that is a crime. and there is a prima facie case for that, and it is absolutely appropriate for a president to ask about that. i yield to my friend -- >> i thank the gentleman for the yield. i want to respond to the gentlewoman from texas. she said the president makes up his own policy. that's how it is in our country. you get your name on the ballot, you run for office, you go talk to the american people. they evaluated on election day who they want making the policy. that's how it works in our country. it's not the unelected people telling the elected individual how to do things, because the unelected people aren't directly accountable to we, the people. it's what makes our system the

best, the greatest. and when you turn that on its head, that's when you get problems. we saw it happen, because we heard chuck schumer say on january 3rd, 2017, when you mess with the intelligence community, they have six ways from sunday at getting back at you. now, that is a scary statement because that is saying the unelected people can get back at the person who put their name on a ballot and got elected to high office, the highest office in this situation. so for someone in the united states congress to say the president made up his own policy and somehow that is wrong? that should be a frightening position to take. but i guess that's where the democrats are today in their quest to go after this president, making statements like that, statements by our colleague and statements by senator schumer. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. >> i'd like to strike the last word. >> the gentlewoman is

recognized. >> there are issues to be recognized and there are issues of this committee. the behavior of joe biden's son and the behavior of the president's son and daughter may be discussed in the election. but here we're talking about the abuse of presidential authority. the president must take care that the laws be faithfully executed. we know from the emails from the state department to the department of defense that the ukranians knew the aid was being withheld. that's documented evidence. we also know that whatever was going on that people might not like with the vice president's son and the vice president, that was known in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. it wasn't until vice president biden was beating president trump in the polls that this

issue was raised to try and force a foreign government to raise something politically. that is an abuse and i would yield now to the gentleman from florida, mr. deutsch. >> i thank my friend from california. it's been about three hours since i made this point. i guess it needs to be made from time to time. we just can't simply allow the mischaracterization and the misstatement of the rules, the history of the rules and house resolutions to advance political arguments here. we can't stand for it. and so i want to address again the statements that there was some right to have witnesses come in. it is absolutely true that

that's the case over 50 years ago when the rule was written, when rule 6 was written. it said its normal procedure for witnesses representing both sides of the issue to give testimony at committee hearings. and that's what happened at the december 4th meeting. and that's what happened at the december 9th meeting. let's be honest about the rules. and house resolution 660, i would point out again, provides an opportunity for the president of the united states to come. he could have come on december 4th. he could have sent any of his witnesses. and he didn't. but no one should be surprised. because that's been the president's approach throughout, is to refuse to allow anyone -- anyone -- with the kind of information my colleagues claim they're interested in from coming to testify and answer questions directly. with that i yield to the gentleman from new york, mr. jeffries. >> it's my time. i'd be happy to yield to the

gentleman from new york. >> thank you, distinguished gentlelady from california. there were fact witnesses who testified during the intel hearing, 12. and we don't hear a thing about those witnesses from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, a thing. those witnesses were not political operatives. they were patriots. in fact, they were trump appointees. ambassador taylor, trump appointee. ambassador sondland, trump appointee. dr. fiona hill, trump appointee. jennifer williams, trump appointee. lieutenant colonel vindman, trump appointee. ambassador yavonovitch, trump appointee. at the same time they held without justification $391

million in military aid, undermining america's national security. let's look at ambassador volker's testimony. he testified about the issue of raising the 2016 elections of vice president biden, all these things that are considered to be conspiracy theories. what was his response? it was pretty simple. quote, i think the allegations against vice president biden are self-serving and not credible. that's what this is all about. i yield back. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> the gentlelady yields back. >> does the gentleman wish to strike the last word? >> thank you, mr. chairman.

>> the gentleman is recognized. >> it's amazing, we're hearing from the same people accusing us of covering up, not willing to face the truth. they're the same arguments that we've been hearing for three years now. first it was accusing us of not being willing to face the facts about russian collusion and the president scheming with russia, and that turned out all to be lies. we were right, and those accusing us of not facing the truth were the ones who were not facing the truth. we heard about all kinds of other allegations. we said, wait, those don't seem to be supported. there was a lot of media support for those positions. but we still persisted that we were the ones that were right. and this week, these things are all being borne out. we were right, they were wrong,

and now we're not hearing anybody come in and say, hey, we're really sorry when we accused you all of being crazy and not facing the truth, you were right, there was no russia collusion. you were right, there was no extortion. and my friends across the aisle keep changing the subject. what the call made clear is we're interested in finding out about if there was ukranian collusion or interference in our election. now, it's amazing how the majority can take two positions that counterindicate each other. first of all, they say there was no effort by republicans, including president trump, to stop foreign interference. we heard that yesterday and

today. yet the only way to step up and do what president obama refused to do -- if you remember, president obama belittled president trump, candidate trump, for saying he was concerned about outside interference. and, in fact, president obama made a mockery of anybody that was so stupid that they thought somebody like russia and others might interfere and affect our election. he made fun of them. he wouldn't do anything about outside interference, because apparently he must have thought the outside interference was going to help hillary clinton. as we've heard there apparently are some people who certainly are accused in ukraine of doing all they could to help hillary clinton. in fact, it was unheard of to have a foreign ambassador in our country step up and come out with support for hillary clinton. so what we continue to see is projecting. somebody on their side engages in illegal or improper conduct,

and that's what they accuse president trump or us of doing. and all of this self-righteousness about, you know, for political purposes, i mean, this is from a transcript from december 1st, 1943 when president roosevelt was talking to marshall stalin. this was in tehran they were apparently meeting. but he wanted to talk to him about internal american politics. and from stenographers, they say that president roosevelt said they were in the united states. six to seven million of polish extractions. he didn't want to lose their vote. as a result he was going public. he didn't care, basically, when the soviet union took over

poland, they didn't care if they cut down poland's borders from the east and the west. they say jokingly that when the soviet armies invade and occupy these areas of lithuania, latvia, estonia, he did not plan to go against them on this. this has been going on for many decades, and here they come up on the one guy who wants to get to the bottom of 2016 foreign interference, and what do they accuse him of, of getting foreign interference. no, you can't root out foreign interference until you know what it was. you can't have it both ways -- well, i guess the democratic party can't ha have it both wayt this has got to stop before it goes too much further. i yield back.

>> the gentleman yields back. for what purposes does mrs. cical cicallini seek recognition? for what purpose does mr. shavitz seek word? >> to strike the last word. >> i said previously in this committee that you are going against the wrong guy. it should be joe biden or hunter biden. that hunter biden had just put himself smack dab in the middle of that corruption, and that even though democrats and many of their friends in the media would have you believe that bth burisma/biden corruption, this was all just a vast right wing

conspiracy allegation, when in actuality, it was the obama administration that raised this issue first. back in 2015, george kent reported his concerns about hunter biden to the vice president's office, and the former ambassador to ukraine, marie yavonovitch, said she was coached by the obama administration on how to answer pesky questions related to hunter biden and burisma that might arise during her senate confirmation process. and nearly every single witness who testified at the intelligence committee impeachment inquiry agreed that hunter biden's burisma deal created, at the very least, an appearance of a conflict of interest. yet the democrats on the intelligence committee under chairman schiff and now democrats in this committee are determined to sweep all this under the rug, ignore it, not

let us call witnesses on it. instead a rush to impeach this president. you've got the vice president, joe biden, in charge of overseeing our ukranian policy, and his son, hunter biden, receiving $50,000 a month, even though he had no identifiable expertise and energy or in ukraine, yet the democrats wouldn't let us call witnesses or delve into this. and it was interesting that joe biden got in an argument with a man at one of his events in iowa recently. he called the man a liar and cal len -- challenged him to a push-up contest and spouted off a bunch of other malarkey, and now this country is conducting an impeachment against the

president and they're ignoring something that truly doesn't smell right. wa wafer-thin evidence. this is a man who confessed they didn't vote for president trump. all four witnesses hadn't voted for him. wafer-thin evidence, that's what we're being called to vote on impeachment on. it looks like one thing, usmca trade deal, very important to replace nafta, it looks like we're about to get that across the finish line. i certainly hope so. that would be good for the country. it's bipartisan. i think if there's anything good to come out of this impeachment, it's that that probably will be passed -- we did something. we had 16,000 americans who died from opioid overdoses last year alone, i think it was 70,000 the

year before that. even though the number has gone down a bit, it's not necessarily because we're doing a whole lot better, it's because in narcan, not quite as many people were dying, it was people involved in these drugs. we have far too many people coming across our southern border. that's something we ought to be able to work on in a bipartisan manner in this committee to do something about that, and our lauds th laws that need to be reformed. we have a $23 million debt over our head. the reason i mention these is this committee hasn't been doing a thing because we spent all our last year on impeachment in one form or another. i have a bill, a balanced amendment, moving in the right direction to do something about that. we should have done it years ago. other things like infrastructure not in our jurisdiction, but the

united states congress ought to act on it. our highways and bridges are crumbling in this country. it's actually something we generally agree on, but the democrats probably don't want the president to take any credit for that, so that's not likely to happen. it's unfortunate taking up all this time on impeachment when there are so many other things we ought to be working on for the benefit of the american people. >> what purpose does mr. jordan seek recognition? >> i yield to the ranking member. >> it is amazing, though, they've gotten really sensitive about process on the majority side when we pointed out the tragedy and travesty of being a rubber stamp in this committee. let me remind, as he said a few minutes ago, it all goes to the whim of the chairman and the majority. they can't send anybody they want. it all goes to their majority opinion. i give it back to the gentleman.

>> if democrat can't prove that the bidens are clean, then president trump can't be found guilty of abusing power if he's asking a reasonable question. they cannot prove that the questions into the bidens are unreasonable. now, the gentleman from new york said, you just aren't listening to the witnesses. i listen very closely to the witnesses. what i heard from mr. kent was they were so concerned about burisma they had to pull out the party of the embassy. i listened to ambassador yavonovitch when she gave testimony. she said she had to do special preparation when having to ask questions about why joe biden's son was off with some energy company. if it's okay for the obama administration to ask those questions, why isn't it okay for president trump to ask those questions? here's one thing i know. corrupt people, they don't just deal once. they get into this cycle and

culture of corruption, and it's disappointing. i go back to this new yorker article. one of kathleen's motions, this is regarding hunter biden's divorce, came into reference with a large diamond that came into hunter's possession. when i asked him about it, he said he had been given the diamond by chinese energy tycoon yi yen. he met yi in chicago, and they surprised him by giving him vintage scotch worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. he wasn't just taking weird jobs from out crathe ukranians. the american people know this is an impeachment that is losing steam. i was watching cnn on the way in

this morning, and i heard gloria bulger say this is bad for democrats. and once we ever these public hearings, we'll have the basis for impeachment. well, you had the hearings, you called witnesses, and you know what? you're losing ground. you're losing ground with the media, you're losing ground with the voters and you're even losing ground with your own democratic colleagues. i believe the republican reporting i've seen are begging you to pursue something other than impeachment. this blood lust for impeachment is not going to be visited on us or president trump. it's going to be visited on your own members and they're asking you not to do this. the only standard that speaker pelosi, chairman nadler and chairman schiff set was a bipartisan standard. they said, this has to be

bipartisan. they said it all throughout the 2018 calendar year. but now the only thing that's changed is not a strengthening of the evidence, it's that we're going into a new election. they have taken a look at the candidates they have in the democratic field, and they realize they have to have this impeachment platform because president trump is incapable of fighting a fair fight. we know that. the american people know that. so the only bipartisan vote that occurred on impeachment was a bipartisan vote against opening the inquiry. and the only possibility for movement from that vote to now, despite wasting all of our time, despite having all these hearings, despite the damage to our institutions through this very weird and aberrational investigation is that you'll lose voters that you started with. you have risk of losing more than two of your members. you know what?

republicans are united. we see this fofr whr what it is. we know that what my colleague from ohio said is what it is. it is what motivates them for this bizarre behavior. it's not just an attack on the presidency. it's an attack on us. it's an attack on those of us who believe in this president, who understand very well who we voted for, and he's got some nontraditional ways of doing business, but we also see the great success of this country. more jobs, more opportunity. they have no answer for that in the upcoming election and it's why we're here. >> the gentleman's time is expired. what's the purpose of mr. biggs' recognition? >> move to strike the last word. >> it is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i mentioned before that looking at the evidence, i'm stunned that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle perpetually read every interference you can make in the light most negative

to the president, and yet this whole proceedings and the way this has been shaped up indicates that there is an incredible inference against their credibility because of the way they've stacked the cards against the president. so i want to revisit -- i support the gentleman's amendment and i want to read this from a ukranian source who is named and cited in a recent publication. it says, quote, by inviting influential foreigners, ukranian business wants to get additional protection. pr allow mechanisms to grab additional issues of interest. by having hunter biden on board, they wanted to get cover because americans are scared by the u.s. presidency and ukraine. hunter biden, using capabilities from his family, acted as a buffer between ukraine and law enforcement agencies. his work of a corrupt official

smells. let's take a look at the transcript our colleagues keep referring to. page 4. the other thing, president trump says, there is a lot of talk about biden's son, that biden stopped the prosecution. a lot of people want to find out about that. so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. biden went around saying he could stop the prosecution. that's the evidence they want to impeach president trump for. it begs the question, really, do you get immunity? is it an immunity-granting event to have a relative run for public office? do you get immunity for that? let's flip it on its end. the question is, does the president have the authority to request an investigation? most assuredly. he mentions the attorney general

here. it is clear he would like an investigation into the corruption surrounding ukraine. because what does president zelensky go on to say? he goes on talking about trying to restore the honesty in his country. that's what he's talking about. you've got the attorney general, you got the president of both countries acknowledging that there is corruption, let's get it fixed up. it leads you back to the whole question of the democrats wanting to impeach president trump for these amorphous abuse of power issues, these amorphou srs obstruction of congress issues. it's just bizarre. hunter biden is placed on the board of burisma in 2014. joe biden calls for the removal of the chief prosecutor in 2016. in the meantime, evidence is

clear that burisma paid about $3.4 million to the company of hunter and his partner archer. that is really intriguing the investigations surrounding burisma stock, and burisma's reputation around ukraine is low, and it was dubious even before this impeachment inquiry raised it to new attention. let's face it, according to ukranian sources, burisma is not on everyone's front burner in ukraine. but it is here. because we were providing hundreds of millions of dollars to tukraine in foreign aid. and this president said, we need to stop corruption. he mentions specifically the corruption he had heard about. is that impeachable? no. it's asking for an investigation to get to the bottom of it

because you do not get immunity just because your father is running for public office. just because anyone related to you is running for public office. and i will tell you, this president has done a remarkable job in spite of three years of constant harassment by the democrats of this body and the media on the left of this country. we have a great economy. he's trying to bring order to the border. we have more people working than ever before. this president has restored the military and actually prestige around the world. there are no more apology tours on the foreign policy side that we saw in the previous administration. he has really worked to make america's esteem and greatness. >> ms. ci irks krrkscica caline.

i wish to strike the last word. we have passed nearly 400 bills since the president took office. they range from prescription drugs, to provide equal pay for equal work, to raise the minimum work for 33 million americans, the biggest watergate, to respond to neutrality, climate crisis, universal background checks, and we recently completed negotiations on the new trade deal. sadly, 88% of those bills are lying on mitch mcconnell's desk awaiting action. so i urge my colleagues on trying to mischaracterize one of the most ridiculous conversations in history. we ask that they bring those

jobs to the floor. there's been this effort to really confuse what this is about, what this impeachment is about. it is about the president of the united states using the power of his office to smear a political opponent, to drag a foreign power into our elections, to corrupt the elections and leverage hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to accomplish that objective. so this amendment would like to wish away the motive of the president to engage this this corrupt scheme, but you can't wish it away, you can't amend it away. the facts are the facts. the allegations we're talking about here originated in 2015. that's according to the minority report as well. in 2017 and 2018, foreign assistance was provided by ukraine. what happened in 2019? what changed? the president is losing in a national poll by double digits to joe biden. we also -- those are the facts.

third, multiple witnesses. trump administration officials testified that vice president biden did nothing wrong, including mr. kent, ambassador yavonovitch, mr. holmes, ambassador volker. vice president biden's firing of the prior prosecutor was done in accordance with official u.s. policy. it was approved by the justice department. it was the policy of the united states. it was supported by the european union and many countries throughout europe, and a bipartisan coalition in congress. this was a corrupt prosecutor. it was official u.s. policy that the vice president was executing. by contrast, what we have in this case, the basis of this impeachment proceeding, is exactly the opposite. what president trump was doing was not official u.s. policy and all the witnesses confirmed that. it was not done through the justice department and it was done again the advice of all of his advisers.

that's what's very different with what we're confronting today and this is work that was not done by the apparatus of the state department, this was an effort led by the president's personal attorney, rudolph giuliani. the scheme was led by this whole apparatus outside the state department. let's not confuse these two things. facts maerkts the truth matters. you cannot continue just to make assertions when the record is completely the opposite. i'd like to yield to the gentleman from california, mr. swalwell. >> i thank the gentleman. if president trump and my republican colleagues were so interested in rooting out corruption in ukraine, there was so much they could do that they never did. my republican colleagues for many years were in the majority. for many years the vice president's son was on this board. they never investigated this. their concern only came about once vice president biden became president trump's chief political opponent.

on april 21 of this year, president trump called president zelensky to congratulate him. in his talking points, president trump was told to bring uprootiuproot i -- up rooting out corruption in ukraine. the president never did it, but they said the president had. july 25th again, national security councilmembers worked really hard to tell the president, impress upon the ukranian president he needs to root out corruption in his country. the president never brings up corruption. the president wanted to investigate any individual u.s. citizen. there is a formal process we go through. the president never asked the attorney general to do this. the president was never interested in fighting corruption in ukraine. he was only interested in weaponizing corruption in ukraine for his own personal benefit, and that's why we must hold him accountable for an abuse of power. and i yield back.

>> the gentleman yields back. i recognize the gentleman for his request. >> this article came out july 12, 2019, two weeks before the call to president zelensky, where he asked if he should worry about running against joe biden. >> no objection. there are votes on the floor, a number of votes on the floor. the committee will stand in recess until after the votes. please reconvene immediately after the votes. the committee stands in recess. >> all right, they started at 9:00 this morning eastern time. it's now approaching 1:00 p.m. here on the east coast. four hours of this hearing. they've been reviewing amendments, two amendments specifically so far, two of the articles of impeachment, two articles of impeachment against the president of the united states, abuse of power, obstruction of congress. they're getting through the second amendment. the democrats are in the

majority. so thoseme amendments with republicans clearly will fail. it's interesting, jeffrey toobin, the republicans are making their arguments. the democrats are countering with their well-known arguments. they're simply going back and forth. a whole lot of new information, however, has not come guarforwa. >> wolf, i move to strike the last word. that means i'm allowed to talk. what struck me about this hearing is how donald trump in a way has already won. how much did we hear about hunter biden? over and over again about hunter biden. that's what the republicans are talking about constantly. and, you know, there are questions about hunter biden's behavior. so this incredible shift of emphasis -- and you know it's going to be a real challenge for us as journalists to decide how much to follow along with this. but the idea that we are sitting here