on in congress this week to avoid a government shutdown. then the fulcrum editor-in-chief david hawkings previews the house debate and vote on impeachment articles against president trump. watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning, join the discussion. mr. chairman, there are 23 ayes and 17 nos. >> the article is agreed to. the resolution is amended is ordered reported favorably to the house. >> with the house earthquake is approving two articles of impeachment against president trump, abuse of power and obstruction of congress, the house rules committee will meet to determine the guidelines on how the debate will unfold in the house floor. watch live coverage of house rules tuesday at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3. watch on line at c-span.org slash impeachment or listen live with the free c-span radio app. joining us from miami this morning is alan dershowitz,

author of "the case against impeaching trump," and professor at harvard law school. mr. dershowitz, here's a headline in "the new york times" about this impeachment trial. trump's impeachment team may add alan dershowitz. will you be representing the president in the senate trial? >> i can't really comment on any possible conversations that i've had with the white house. i certainly am strongly opposed to impeaching the president on the two grounds proposed by the judiciary committee. neither of them is found in the constitution. they're the kind of broad, general, vague, open-ended criteria that can be weaponized against virtually any president when the opposing party has a majority in the house of representatives. it's hamilton's nightmare. hamilton said that the one thing he feared most was that impeachment would turn on the number of votes each party had rather than on the guilt or innocence of the person being impeached. and madison worried about open-ended criteria making a

president serve at the will of congress and turning us into the kind of parliamentary democracy that we fought against in the revolution. great britain, we didn't want a parliamentary democracy in which a president can be thrown out of office by a vote of nonconfidence. i'm strongly opposed to the two criteria for impeachment. i can't comment on any possible conversations i've had about playing a formal role in the senate trial. >> are you playing an informal role in advising the president? >> i don't -- i don't advise him directly. i write about it. i've written two books and probably 50 articles. the president's free to read them. i speak on programs like this and so you could say that i have given advice to the president. i'm not in a lawyer-client relationship with either the president or his lawyers. i have given advice to presidents going back in time to bill clinton and barack obama

and any president of the united states who asks me for advice. for example, i have advised the president and his team on the middle east peace process, on the recent executive order. but when it comes to legal advice, i'm not in a lawyer-client relationship either formally or informally with the president or his lawyers. >> and what are -- has the white house reached out to you at all? have you had any conversations with them? >> i was at the white house a week ago for the party. i met with various people in the white house. we primarily discussed the executive order, but i'm in touch with the white house as i have been with other white houses over time. but again, no formal legal relationship exists at this point in time, and i'm not free to comment about the content of conversations that i've had with the white house. >> you have a new book "guilt by accusation." what is this book about? and are you worried as you told

the "new york post" that you could be kept from representing the president or having some sort of role because of epstein accusations, jeffrey epstein accusations against you? >> well, i'm proud to have written this book. in the book i prove categorically that i never met the woman who accused me. she herself admitted that in emails to a friend and in a manuscript of her book, her own lawyer in a tape recorded conversation said it was impossible for me to have met her. that she's wrong, simply wrong. a former fbi director did a study and concluded that there was no basis for the charge. she told the fbi the names of the people with whom she had sex, didn't include me. told her best friends. so i have been completely exonerated. there's nothing to the charge against me at all. this is a woman who was falsely accused. tipper gore, al gore, bill clinton of being on epstein's islands. i have no fear. i'm an open book. i lived a completely honorable

life. so i'm not concerned about that. but when i was asked to testify on behalf of the republican side, there was some who said, gee, this accusation is out there, maybe we shouldn't have him testify. that's why i wrote a book called "guilt by accusation." there's flno evidence of guilt. there's guilt of accusation. if an accusation is enough to keep you from testifying or representing the president, we're moving to an age of mccarthyism of the kind i grew up with when if you were accused of having association with communism, you were deemed to be guilty regardless of the evidence. i'm going to fight against that. i've written in my book i've never refused to answer a question because i'm an open book. my life has been very honorable. 50 years at harvard, not a single complaint or suggestion of impropriety. i've done nothing wrong. and i'm not going to act as if i have something to hide. >> senator schumer yesterday unveiled the parameters for a

senate trial. what he would like to see. he wants mick mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, and john bolton, the former national security adviser, to testify. should they have to testify? >> well, the first question is are there sufficient allegations to justify a trial? remember, the analogy is a grand jury, the house is the grand jury, the senate is the jury. and if the grand jury has indicted for something that's not a crime, for example, if a grand jury indicts a man and a woman for marrying each other and they're of different races, obviously that would be unconstitutional. you wouldn't have a trial. you'd make a motion to dismiss. and here we have two allegations that are not in the constitution that are the kind of allegations that the framers of the constitution were very much against. so i think the first issue is whether there should be a trial at all, or whether the allegations fail on their face. and i think that decision has to be made before you introduce any evidence. the hypothetical i've given, if you had a married couple, they

would take no evidence on that. it would be unconstitutional to have a trial. so i think the first step has to be to determine whether the impeachment allegations satisfy the criteria. take for example obstruction of congress. obstruction of congress is because the president as head of the executive branch demanded that before any people in the executive branch comply with this sufficient, there would be a court order. there would be a judicial order. just friday, the supreme court granted a tertiary review in three cases in which they said we're going to look at that issue. so obviously that is a very plausible issue. and that can't be a ground for impeachment. i would strongly recommend that democrats who are now on the fence, who live in districts where they know their constituents are not strongly in favor of impeachment, should at the very least strike the obstruction of justice from the charges. there's just no basis for that in the supreme court, i think pulled the rug out from under the democrats in the decision on

friday to grant review of cases involving the power to subpoena and whether the president has the right to invoke various privileges. >> on the abuse of power, do you believe that the president asked a foreign government to interfere in our elections? >> i'm not involved in the facts of the case. i think the evidence has to be looked at. but i don't think that would be grounds for impeachment. i think presidents constantly take actions that are designed to help their electoral prospects. if you go back to abuse of power and if you allow that to be a criteria for impeachment, abraham lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. franklin roosevelt confined japanese americans in detention centers. john kennedy authorized the tapping of martin luther king's telephones. we've had every -- every controversial president has been accused of abuse of power. and so i don't even get to the

factual issues. abuse of power is simply not a criteria. if the framers wanted abuse of power to be a criteria for removing the president, it would have been simple. just put it in the constitution. treason, bribery, other high crimes and misdemeanors, or abuse of power. they didn't do that. they didn't do obstruction of congress. and this is, as jonathan turley aptly put it, there is not a jazz concert where improvisation by congress is to be accepted. there has to be a violation of the specific terms of the impeachment provisions in the constitution. and that's just not been alleged. if it hasn't been alleged, what the facts are is not significant. you have to first decide whether there's been an allegation of an impeachable offense. i think the answer is there says not been an allegation of an impeachable offense. i'm surprised that democrats didn't put bribery in there. >> well, they -- >> they were talking about it. but they left bribery out. that would have at least

satisfied the words of the constitution, then they would have had to prove the elements of bribery which i think they couldn't do which is probably why they left it out. but to go to two vague criteria like obstruction of congress and abuse of power is -- is hamilton and madison's nightmare. >> in the 600-page report that was released by house judiciary committee democrats last night, they do say bribery. they point to bribery and say the president solicited a bribe by asking the ukraine leader to call for an investigation into the bidens in exchange for a white house meeting and that military aid. >> so why don't they put that as one of the allegations that is to be voted on by the judiciary committee and then voted on by the house? you can't just throw things in there and accuse people of things. if you're going to make an accusation, put it as one of the charges and then that can be debated. but you can't have it both ways. you can't charge abuse of power and obstruction of congress as

the only two impeachable offenses and say, and by the way, there's bribery and other things, as well. you have to really decide what you're going to charge the president with. that's the minimum required by use process of law. >> mr. dershowitz, you don't think then abuse of power, that -- that the democrats' allegation that he solicited a bribe is an abuse of power. >> no. the point i'm making is a very different one. that is abuse of power is not in and of itself a criteria for impeachment. even if they were able to prove abuse of power, that may be a good reason for voting against somebody in an election. but abuse of power is just too broad a concept. i can give you 20 presidents throughout history that have been accused of abuse of power by the opposing party. most recently obviously when president bush went to war in iraq, he was accused by democrats of abuse of power.

president obama was accused of abuse of power for the fast and furious. it's a cliche that gets thrown around politically. it's the last thing you want to be able specific criteria for impeachment abuse mean? it is to vague. madison said you don't want open ended, vague criteria that can be used against any president by the opposing party. in hamilton's terms, that would turn impeachment into who has the most votes, which is exactly what we are seeing. this is the first impeachment in history to go strictly along party lines. that is what the framers were very strongly opposed to, that is why they required a two thirds vote in the senate, presiding chief justice. i wish they required a two thirds vote in the house, they did not. they analogized it to 23 members of the grand jury, all you need is 12 to indict. you need a unanimous jury to

convict. >> jim in colorado, democratic caller. >> thank you for your good review of what we are going through. i have an interesting question. does the impeachment process, the hearings that we have had, are those subject to judicial review? >> what a great, great question. the answer is clear, we just don't know. two justices of the supreme court have suggested that in an appropriate case, it might be subject to judicial or review. let's see they think the two thirds is too much. we have 60% but we have not made 67%, let's

change the rule and permit impeachment based on 60%. that would be subject to judicial review. i don't like to chief justice, we don't want him to preside. that would be subject to judicial review. what if the house impeaches on grounds not in the constitution? is that subject to judicial review? we just don't know. nobody has tried it. i doubt the supreme court would grant review at this stage in the case but it might. the constitution has two conflicting points of view. on the one hand, it says the senate shall be the sole judge. that suggests no judicial review. hamilton 78 said every act of congress that is unconstitutional should be subject to judicial review in our system. the judiciary is

the umpire between the branches of the executive and legislature. the answer is we just don't know and we may never find out. >> allan in wisconsin, independent. >> good morning. what if president trump spied on us citizens informational data and the phone on the ally leader? >> i am having trouble hearing him. >> we are having trouble hearing you. did you hear the first part of the? >> i did not. >> i think he was referring to the ig report they came out last week. >> the ig report suggests we have a problem with the fisa

court. they don't hear two sides of an issue. they rely on the credibility of the information provided by the fbi. the ig is nonpartisan, a career person who is very objective. they had some serious criticisms of the process by which the pfizer report, but allows spying on an american citizen is allowed. i would like to see fisa appoint a devil's advocate committee of three prominent lawyers one judge and prosecutor who have security clearance and can present the other side so when an application is made to spy on an american citizen, both sides are heard. the fisa court can be assured they're hearing all of the evidence. with this fisa application, they were

denied crucial evidence. there were renewed applications after fbi agent had information strongly suggesting the information they originally provided was not valid and they did not inform the fisa court of the new information. >> donaldn in michigan, republican. >> good morning. i have a couple of questions. i am not very good at this ad libing. i want to know if people make mistakes on purpose or that people sometimes do sloppy things on purpose, that would explain a lot with what happened with the fbi. i would also like to know why the democrats are not upset when clinton was elected with 43% of the popular vote. they did not seem to have a problem with that. i don't know if he knows a lot about history, but i would like to read a little something i wrote. a few words

about iraq and war. for a first-hand account, go to a book without hesitation by a retired general. he was a chairman during the clinton administration. if you read 420 through 424. iraq invaded kuwait, that got the u.s. into war to get iraq out. there was an agreement signed requiring saddam to allow wmd inspections. there were 366 attempts to shoot down u.s. and british planes. in the

dictionary war between nations. if the dictionary is correct, how did bush start war in iraq when there had been war for some years? >> the constitution requires explicitly that no war can be conducted without the approval of congress. since the second world war, we have had no declarations of war. presidents have assumed without necessary constitutional authority the right to start wars or continue wars, or engage in military activities. clinton did only get a minority of the votes but there was a third-party candidate in that case. he got a substantial number more votes than his major opponent, whereas in the most recent election, the winning candidate got fewer votes than the losing candidate but more electoral votes, but that is the way the system works. if we abolish the electoral college, candidates would campaign more in new york and california and the

candidate who lost the popular vote might have won the popular vote. we play by the rules and the rules are the rules of the electoral college, so president trump won a legitimate election. i voted against them, i am a liberal democrat, but i don't challenge the legitimacy of his election. >> president trump tweeted out, read the transcripts, the impeachment hoax is the greatest con job in american history. should the president play a role in his defense in the senate? >> absolutely not. i have defended people for 55 years and i never, allow my clients to play a role. they want to assert their innocence, but the burden is on the others to prove guilt and generally i

have advised my clients to play a passive role in their own trials. there have been rare occasions where i had a client take the witness stand and testify but the fear of a perjury trap is far too great. you can fall into a perjury trap by telling the truth. if you tell the complete, honest truth but the other side has a witness who has a different assessment and comes forward, you could be indicted for perjury and i have seen that too often to ever recommend to a client in a highly controversial case to participate factually and actively in his or her own defense. >> have you spoken to the president about this directly? >> i can't comment about any conversations i have had with the president. i have had conversations with every president since certainly bill clinton. my conversations with presidents have to remain

confidential. they are not covered by lawyer-client. if there were no privilidge id have to testify. >> have you spoken to the white house counsel? >> i met them for the first time at the hanukkah party. i liked him very much. he seemed terrific. one of my former research assistants works for him and introduced me to him. i think the president has some wonderful, wonderful people working for him. one of the great lawyers in our country works for the president. he has a very, very good legal team. >> who do you think will be representing the president and the senate trial? >> i don't know the answer to that. i think the white house counsel has a role to play as the white house counsel did in the clinton case. i did advise president clinton's legal team

during that impeachment now is on the national board of the american civil liberties union when nixon was impeached and i strongly took the view i did not think the aclu should support nixon's impeachment. i thought they should defend his procedural rights and safeguards to make sure the constitution was complied with. i have taken the same consistent position with impeachment since the early 1970's. >> do you think it is appropriate that mitch mcconnell is discussing the impeachment when he is supposed to be a juror with the white house? >> that happened during the clinton impeachment, as well. i wish the whole process was less partisan and political and more traditional. both sides have weaponized it and made it into a partisan debate. it happened during the clinton impeachment

and it is happening now. it would be far better in general if the process were more traditional and less partisan. >> how do you assess the white house strategy so far? >> i think there are many strategies. i think the president's strategy is to tweak. reasonable people can disagree about that, i think the president's strategy is to tweet. i think the strategy has been fairly effective fighting fire with fire. we will wait and see what happens with the impeachment. you judge results after they are completed. >> georgia, democratic caller, you are next. >> i am very upset with you this morning. i, as an african-american, can see you are letting this white man who is in the white house get away with anything he wants to get

away with. he made a statement that he could take a gun and shoot african-americans and anyone else he wants to shoot. from that point on, i opened a shop. we hate and despise this man. he is a klansman. he is the only one who can go out of these rallies and they are white nazis in the audience and tell them what he could do to african-americans. we are not going to have it. who is the governor of kentucky? it is not matt bevin. who is the governor of louisiana? it is not the mande had. we turned virginia blue. we won bucks county in pennsylvania. don't sit here and tell me demographics don't

matter. >> i am certainly very happy there are large numbers of african-americans who vote in our primaries and elections. i think african-americans can have it in norma's effect on the elections. have an enormous effect on the elections. nobody speaks for all african-americans like nobody speaks for all jews. the president never said he could take a gun and shoot african-americans. he foolishly said he could take a gun on fifth avenue and shoot someone and still be president. i don't see how that could be

interpreted as having a direct targeting of african-americans. african-americans should vote their interests and in large numbers. african-american voting contributed to the election of democrats in the past and i encourage african-americans to vote in large numbers in the primary and elections. >> independent caller. >> thank you for taking my call. if we let this thing go with trump soliciting foreign powers to interfere in our elections, our elections will be tainted forever. he has already said he is going to cheat and this is going to destroy our markets. 75% to 80% of the people know that trump did something wrong, even though they don't agree with impeachment, i think it is a dirty process and i think it is bad, but that does not mean the other people they are going to

vote for trump just because they don't think he should be impeached. i think the democrats are making a big mistake. the other point i want to make is trump was so crazy about investigating and getting the truth out here and being transparent, why didn't we investigate his kids who don't have a clearance in the white house? i think that is dangerous. why didn't he turned over his tax records? he gave away syria to the russians. he

would give away ukraine to russia if the whistleblower had not come out. we have to wake up. >> you have made some strong arguments why you are going to vote against trump and why people should. people should take all of that into account. nobody is saying the president should not be accountable for his actions. impeachment is not a substitute for elections. impeachment as you yourself suggested is a political game and it should be reserved for extreme cases. we have only had two impeachments in american history, both failed to secure convictions. one did not go to but it succeeded, president nixon resigned. the question

for all americans is, the conduct you disapprove, does it rise to an impeachable defense? that does not mean the president should not be held accountable for his actions. >> those criteria? >> treason, bribery, which basically people know what it means, high crimes, crimes against governance and i will give it example. when alexander hamilton was the secretary of the treasury, he committed a serious crime of adultery a serious crime at the time. and then he paid hush money to quiet down. then he was accused of using treasury funds to pay the hush money, that is when he

admitted the adultery and the hush money. that would have been a high crime. adultery is a low crime. what president clinton did is a low crime. the hard word in the constitution is high misdemeanor. my view is that the framers intended criminal type behavior, this demeanor is a species of crime. i don't think the criteria are met by broad allegations such as obstruction of congress and abuse of power. >> here is what the house judiciary committee wrote in the report about abuse of power, the justice observed the purpose of the constitution was not only to grant power but you keep it from getting out of hand. as the framers created a

formidable chief executive, they make clear impeachment is justified for abuse of power. edmund randolph was explicit in this point what explaining why the constitution must authorize presidential impeachment, he warned the executive will have great opportunities of abusing power. madison stated impeachment was necessary because the president might preferred his administration into a scheme of oppression. advocating that new york ratify the constitution. hamilton set the standard of impeachment. >> here is the way it worked. there are two issues. there was a debate if we should have impeachment. people gave reasons for why we need impeachment and abusing power is one of the reasons. that is completely separate. the reasons are separate from the criteria. what the framers decided on were broad reasons for impeachment but very narrow criteria. in order to impeach, you need to find treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors. once you find the

criteria, that is the prerequisite. that you could ask if it is in abuse of power. president bill clinton's low crime was not in abuse of power. that was an erroneous use of the impeachment power. this confusion between the reasons that the framers wanted to have impeachment, which included abusing power, and the criteria they settled on, which were striking a compromise between broad terms and the kind of narrow terms that would restrict the power of congress to remove a duly elected president. finding a head crime finding a high crime is necessary but not sufficient for removal. that is exactly what hamilton said in he described the full criteria and said all of these partake of violations of public trust, which could be called political and terms like abuse of power.

we should never confuse the reasons for why we have impeachment with the criteria that are specific and set out for impeachment. >> house democrats have set the criteria is bribery, the president asked a foreign power >> they should have charged him with that. why did they not charge him with bribery? >> how would they do that? >> allege they are charging him with three offenses, abuse of power, obstruction of congress and bribery, but they did not include bribery. the democrats made a decision to exclude bribery. they did not listed as one of the criteria and the most elemental aspect of due process is you cannot put

someone on trial for something you have not explicitly charged him with. put it in the context of a criminal case. let's assume someone is charged with abusing authority, which is not a crime. the evidence they introduce is bribery and that is not enough. you would move to strike the indictment. any judge would dismiss the case because he had not been charged with bribery and the indictment has to contain all of the elements and a grand jury indictment has to charge specific crimes. the same would be true within impeachment by the house of representatives. >> texas, tom, republican. >> thank you for taking my call. i think he is correct. there is no impeachable crime. does anyone know if joe and hunter biden has been investigated by united states government agency? if so, which government agency investigated them? were they proven innocent? where can i see the report that exonerated them? if there was

no investigation, there is a possibility they are guilty of something and i would expect the president to look into the matter. it does it matter if joe biden is running for the president or not. >> i think you are making the same mistake the democrats are making. you are saying we should look into see if there is a crime. that is not how the american system operates. that is how the stalinist system operated. i don't want to see hunter biden investigated to determine wether there was a crime. i see no evidence hunter biden committed a crime. did he take advantage of his father's status of vice president and

become a member of the board and get all that money? sure. is that a political sin? yes. is that a crime? i don't see it. i don't want to see the criminal justice system weaponized against democrats or republicans. it should be reserved for obvious crimes that jump out at you. what crime would hunter biden have committed? let's assume he did something wrong in ukraine. crimes committed against united states of america, yes, we have a federal practices act but that is limited. i think it would be a mistake to start at

this point investigating hunter biden. the issue of weather joe biden, someone i have known for many years and admire, wether or not he did the right thing by saying to the ukrainian authority that he wants to make sure certain things were done, that would be worth looking into because he is the former vice president of the united states and a presidential candidate. but at the moment i don't see any criminal behavior. politically, if you are running for office, you open yourself up to all kinds of political investigations, rather than criminal investigations. i don't want to see the criminal justice system weaponized against either party. >> we will go to montgomery village, maryland, democratic caller. >> please give me a moment as i try to get my thoughts together. it would be interesting to know i know you have been a criminal defender. i don't want to get into ad hominem attacks. my point is that you said articles of impeachment are incorrect. the reason bribery was not included in the indictment is because the president has obstructed the people who could help congress prove that case from testifying. it is interesting that on one hand, i wish the framers had done such and such. high crimes and misdemeanors are whatever the congress says it is.

>> no its not. >> i watched the investigative committee and the judicial committee and they could not make the case for bribery because the president obstructed people from testifying >> two points in response. number one, the president did not obstruct anything. congress could have simply gone to the court and asked the court to issue orders compelling them to testify and then the president would have had to comply unless

there would have been an obstruction of justice. they said they did not have the time to do it. they have plenty of time and you can get expedited judicial orders as they did in the nixon case and clinton case. your view that an impeachable offense is whatever the house says it is, maxine waters said that too, she is just completely wrong. you take an oath as a member of the house of representatives to follow the constitution. the house just can't make it up. what if the house impeached someone on maladministration? that word was put before the constitutional convention and it was rejected. can the house say we are smarter than the framers of the constitution? we accept as a criteria for impeachment what the framers rejected. they can't do that.

that would violate their oath of office. could they get away with it? maybe, if there was no judicial review. but it would be unconstitutional to have the criteria for impeachment, something the framers explicitly rejected. that is what i believe is happening here. >> kansas, jeremy, independent. >> thank you for taking my call. in terms of understanding this political moment in the criminality we are dealing with, i would like to bring up some books, the authors and content of which c-span should consider featuring. number one, house of trump, house of boudin, the untold story of donald trump and the russian mafia. it looks as a money laundering organization tied to organized crime. number two, how the russian mob has invaded america. number three, proof of collusion, how trump betrayed

america and now proof of conspiracy, how international collusion is threatening american democracy. finally, i would ask mr. dershowitz to address the topic the israeli born former executive producer and a reporter who reported jeffrey epstein was being run by israeli military intelligence. and the allegations in the book an intelligence agent who worked to set up money laundering instruments around the world. mr. dershowitz, your background in defending epstein suggests you might be an agent, i would backgroundaddress that., your

in defending epstein suggests you might be an agent, i would ask you to address that. (laughs) >> that is just paranoid drivel. the fact i am a russian agent i am independent. i represented jonathan pollard because i thought his sentence was excessive. the idea that russia and israel combined, russia supports syria, iran, indirectly hezbollah, people who are dedicated to the complete destruction of israel. russia votes against israel at the united nations on almost every occasion. i am proud of my career as a criminal defense lawyer. i have defended some of the most controversial people in history. i think of myself

in the tradition of john adams, who represented the boston massacre soldiers. i think of myself in the tradition of so many other defense lawyers throughout history who have endured criticism for defending the most unpopular people of their agent generation. i am 81 years old and hope to continue defending people you don't like and who most americans don't like because the need for a defense attorney to stand up to excessiveness of the prosecution and paranoid views you have expressed, what intelligence agency would trust jeffrey epstein to work for them? these are just allegations that are being thrown out there, there is no truth whatsoever to any of them. there is no truth to any

claim i have been an agent for a foreign country. i am a loyal, patriotic american. my grandparents came here to get away from the oppressions of eastern europe. i am patriotic and will continue to do what i feel the constitution demands of me. >> we will go to wisconsin, republican line, you are next. >> thank you for taking my call. i have a question. they say wanting an investigation of what happened back in 2016, is that a confusing question or hissy looking at 20 coming up? biden is a candidate, so maybe

they are looking at 2020. or was he asking for an investigation of the past election of 2016? >> what is your point of asking that question? what is your point? >> that is the confusing part. people are saying he is trying to corrupt the 2020 election, or was he looking for information on what happened in 2016 to distinguish the two? my other question, adam schiff, was he right? was there anything wrong with what he did by releasing telephone data? my other question about this impeachment thing, why would they have secret meetings, interrogations is what i call them, to me it seems like they were trying to trap the witnesses about what to say and how to say it. no cameras were involved. and then they opened it up to the public afterward. if i were donald trump, i would

have been upset. if you are going to investigate me, be open on all facts. >> transparency is important when there is an impeachment proceeding. the intelligence committees do have the power to have sessions that are subject to closure because the national security material and summation. and wether it was 2016 or 2020, who knows? the conversation was vague in general. i think the democrats realize there was not enough in the conversation to charge anything specific, which is why they went to abuse of power. >> ohio, independent, you are on the air with alan

dershowitz. go ahead. >> >> you are beautiful as usual. i have spent two years trying to get on. (laughs) >> go ahead. >> alan, i listen to you, oh, shoot, i done for their names. the one who testified. all three of you guys are pretty much on the same page as far as the constitution. i learned something that i had never heard before that i really respect. my side of this impeachment thing, congress the underlying thing i see, congress was to limit the power of the presidency and the power of the judicial system. the reason they would not let the judicial system say wether these guys had to testify or

not. >> i think that is right. >> they went too fast without enough insight. the republicans requested six or eight witnesses, they only got two. >> what should have happened is congress should have subpoenaed the witnesses they wanted and gone to court. he would have complied with a judicial order if the court said he had to testify, he would have testified. he has executive authority. he would not have testified. i believe they would have had expedited instead the congress wanted to circumvent the courts and argue a president who fails to comply with a subpoena of congress by that very fact is obstructing

congress. that is just wrong as a matter of law, a separation of powers, checks and balances. the obligation is to go to the court, get a judicial order. if the president fails to listen to the judicial order, that is obstruction. >> a republican caller, your turn. >> i have a question for mr. dershowitz, how is abuse of power different from a difference in policy? if biden was not running, could investigation take place? third, how can information from a

foreign influence affect our elections if our ballot boxes are secure? >> first of all, abuse of power is something that can be used as a symbol of disagreement over policy. if you listen carefully to the testimony from the intelligence committee, which i listen to carefully, it was largely an argument over differences in policy. how to approach ukraine, wether the president was satisfied with the ambassador to ukraine. i don't think it rose to the level of an impeachable offense. i worry very much about a concept like abuse of power. virtually every controversial president has been accused of the opposing party of abuse of power. i can't remember the other question. >> she said how could

a foreign government influence our election? >> there are many ways. through social media, not through direct access to the ballot box. i think we can secure those, hopefully. there are other ways in which foreign governments can try to influence our elections. we have tried to influence foreign elections. i have no doubt in my mind president obama worked very hard to try to get benjamin netanyahu defeated when he ran for prime minister last time around. i think probably other governments try to influence our elections, we try to influence tears. there is a big difference between influencing them publicly. we know sanders went to london and campaigned for the losing candidate for prime and astir. prime minister. we know other people were strongly supportive of boris johnson. people think it is in the american interest

to have certain people when and lose in foreign elections. the question is are they legitimate efforts? tampering with the ballot would be illegitimate. hiding who you are might be illegitimate but having a press conference and saying we think it would be better for britain if so and so one, that is a different matter. >> mr. dershowitz, is it legitimate to do as democrats charged that the president asked for foreign interference for his own political gain? >> i think many

presidents take action in foreign policy for their own electoral gain. we know decisions were made about bombing cambodia or stopping this action or not. looking at the ballot box implications for wether it would hurt or help an election. if you try to make that a ground for impeachment, a president thinking about how a decision will influence his electoral prospects, i think that would be far too broad. you could make it a crime if congress passed a statute to ask a foreign government to

investigate a political opponent. it is not a crime and that is what you have to use vague terms like abuse of power. >> new mexico, democratic caller. >> good morning. it is obvious to me you are the victim here. >> don't feel sorry for me. >> epstein used you. i think you are being used again. you are obviously not able to be a judge of character. my question is when trump is proven to be as bad for this country as epstein was for little girls, will you admit you were wrong and fade away or will you be deceived again? >> i don't think i was deceived. i represented people accused of serious crimes. i represented o.j. simpson. i represented many people you don't like and some who i don't like. that is my job. i represented epstein. i was his lawyer. he paid me for every minute i spent with him. we worked out a deal with the government that represented the comparative strength of our site and their side. i will continue to defend the people and the constitution. epstein did not use me. i never met any of the young women, i did not know young women were involved. i was introduced to him by a wife. i was told he was a close president to the president of

harvard. my association with them was largely academic and that it became presidential professional when i supported him. when i represented him. i will continue to defend the constitution, i will continue to defend the sixth amendment and i will do it proudly because i am serving the interests of the rule of law and the constitution. >> dallas, texas, republican. >> thank you for taking my call. i would like to know if alan could reflect on the relationship between the powers of government, executive and congressional, how it fits with

a statement i heard from a committee member, stating congress had the sole power to impeachment. i understood that to mean they had the sole power to bring charges of impeachment. what would be their next step? i apologize for my ignorance. >> it is an excellent question. that does not mean it is not subject to judicial review. every act of congress according to federalist paper 78 written by hamilton is subject to judicial review. it implemented federalist paper 78. every act of congress, hamilton said, that violates the constitution is void. wether congress would have the power to impeach a president based on

nonconstitutional criteria and wether the courts could intervene is a question we don't know the answer to. it has never been tested and might never be tested. our constitution is not perfect. the impeachment power did not cover incapacity. a president who did not do anything bad but he just had a stroke and was not capable of governing. we have to amend the constitution. if we think abuse of power should be a criteria for impeachment, we have an

obligation to amend the constitution. i doubt you would get a lot of votes for that. members of both parties would say that gives far too much power to congress. abuse of power? we are not going to vote for that. just as the framers did not vote for maladministration. congress cannot just add that to the constitution without amending the constitution, something i doubt they would do if they were asked to include abuse of power. >> alan dershowitz, thank you for the conversation this morning. >> thank you.

good morning this hearing on the subcommittee on readiness and management, will come to order, today this subcommittee meets to receive the testimony from david nor quest concerning the department of defenses 2018 and