committees in place. we have other events that all of us have. it ought to be opened up to everybody. my name was on the list because i was on the oversight committee. let andy diggs in. they stopped. what are the democrats hiding that they don't want to be seen? let's have an open and fair process. let's have cross examination. let's have witnesses on both sides. mckinley, the ambassador i saw yesterday, he got exacerbated with adam schiff trying to create smoke, or trying to find every little word to indicate donald trump was doing a bad job -- he resigned because he is an older gentleman and did not want to do it anymore. host: yesterday it was gordon

sondland, to to go to any of it? washington journal continues. host: delicate stacey plaskett at our table this morning, we thank you for being here. on the your thoughts passing of congressman elijah cummings and what it was like to serve with him on the oversight committee. thisr: this -- guest: would have been my third term with representative cummings on oversight and he really was a mentor to me in many ways. you have heard so many reflections from individuals in the past day and the thing that stands out so much about him is he was a man of god. people talk about the fact that both of his parents for sharecroppers and they came to baltimore, he was born and raised there, but what is more important to know about his parents as they were both preachers.

he was raised in that and really demonstrated it. many people talk about it but he walked about it. across the aisle, everyone has to say elijah cummings was a fair person. even if you did not agree with them, he always stood for what is right. i set right below him and this congress and oftentimes felt hee, he is such a gentleman, needs someone who is tough to be there. not that he needed the protection, but i felt like that was my role because he was so kind. you felt oftentimes the people were taking advantage of that on the others. that he would want to be so fair -- i would say to him, chairman, they are not going to be as fair to you as you are to them. let's use this rule, let me make a motion. he would say no, i don't wanted to degenerate to that. these are tough issues, let's

try to do it in a fair manner so at the end of the day, when people look back on this, they can't ever say we did not give the other side a chance. host: do you think that should be prescribed to the impeachment inquiry because republicans are saying without holding a full house vote that the democrats are not being fair to republicans and the president and their ignoring president. guest: i don't think this is the same precedent as was and some of the others. for example, in the clinton impeachment, there was a special prosecutor who worked on this for quite a while. and then brought the information to the congress, at which point we took a vote. we have not had a special prosecutor working on the issues of the ukraine and some of these others. we have done the investigation ourselves. after that investigation, there might be a point in time where we take a vote where we say,

yes, we are going to bring this to the public and let them see what we have. host: why not allow cross examination by white house lawyers in these depositions? it is another issue were republican say democrats are not being fair to the president. guest: this is not a criminal investigation. under criminal law, there are things that individuals would have to have an he would have to have cross examination. under a criminal investigation, we would take away his liberty in terms of being able to put someone in jail. here, this is not in the same manner. we are having in the patient inquiry, which is something the legislature and the congress is allowed to do and there are no rules in regard to that. the president has his party and everyone of these depositions. i was in one of the depositions and the republicans and their

counsel had numerous questions for the witness at that time. host: how many have you attended and for how long? guest: i was at the deposition with the former ambassador to the ukraine and i was in there for several hours. host: did you go yesterday? guest: no, i had a hearing. host: why have you not participated more in these depositions? guest: some of the depositions were going on while we were on recess. i happen to be here during one of the depositions and made it a point to be there. the last deposition that was happening, i had hearings where i was the chair and we had witnesses, so i was unable to attend. host: who is conducting the interviews during these depositions? guest: individuals are coming with their own counsel and there is counsel on both sides that are doing the primary questioning. host: what was your reaction to

the acting chief of staff mick mulvaney's news briefing where he said politics does play a role in foreign policy? guest: i think it is an interesting statement he is making because we know that when an individual comes into office, their policies are the ones that are being acted on and those policies, of course, a republican's policy will be different. manner,that in some people's political leanings do dictate. what i think he is confluent and, again, is the difference between politics and campaign. the things he was interested in art related to a campaign. i have his statements great fear for mick mulvaney and some of the statements he has made because they do seem to go against campaign finance laws and the emoluments clause. had.ther discussion he

those are things we will have to look at. i, as a democrat, may have a different view about how we should act in other countries, but that is not allow me to bring my campaign or political election activities in that foreign policy. host: the chief of staff after that news brief put out a statement to clarify his remarks and he said, let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between ukrainian military aid in the 2016 election. guest: i know that is a phrase they love putting out there -- quid pro quo -- but what we do have is them saying if you do this, the allegation we are looking at in this impeachment inquiry is saying we are holding taxpayer dollars in an amount the congress, bipartisan, both chambers, have agreed are

supposed to go to a foreign country that is our ally, that is fighting against a foe of ours, russia. i don't think many people realize russia is our foe, and we will hold that money back from you unless you do something that will benefit me, personally, in a political election. that is wrong. that is in fact what we are hearing the president say, mick mulvaney say, as well as many other individuals that are now coming forward. host: we will go to jack in tennessee, independent, you are up first. go ahead. caller: they picked the right person to get after trump. he is a very crooked person. base foriling up the trump. as an independent, i am a 79-year-old vietnam veteran.

trump is the second best president we had behind reagan. i hope they vote to impeach him to help him. he could not have purchased the advertisement this has been for him. host: i just want to point out two things he said. he is talking about adam schiff. the criticism is he did theparody at the top of the hearing. did you agree with that? second of all, the whistleblower met with committee staff before he officially launched this complaint. one, -- first, i want to thank you for your service to this country, you said you are a vietnam vet and we appreciate what you did. you thatagree with adam schiff is crooked. there has never been any

allegations of misconduct about adam schiff. i think you have to give some kind of evidence for why you feel that way and whether you dislike him or not, or dislike is politics, that is not make an individual crooked. -- het think adam schiff is what hedy, that wanted to say at the hearing and members make a lot of comments. i don't think it was crooked for the whistleblower to talk to members of the committee. that individual is free to speak to whoever they want to speak with, whether republican or whoever. as for impeachment, this is something that many of us have not wanted to come to. i have not been one who has, elected, president was

who wanted to impeach him. that is ridiculous. i don't have to agree with you to respect the office and the fact you were elected. many of us have come to the point where there are allegations that have been made, that have been substantiated by several people, that are credible, that are building on what we already know that leads us to the point where we have a constitutional duty to make an inquiry at investigate those allegations and that is what we are doing. i think it is sad we have come to this point but what is really sad is the president has taken us to this place. host: the third complaint against adam schiff is part of the censure that republicans want to put on the house floor. it was said that adam schiff lied on multiple occasions when he told reporters that he and his committee staff had no contact with the so-called whistleblower when in fact they had. guest: that is something that

procedurally we will have to take up. the democrats are in the majority at this point and the floor is being managed by the speaker, as well as mr. hoyer and mr. clyburn. pennsylvania,n republican. caller: good morning. host: good morning. intor: my daughter swears the united phase -- united states air force today and i'm so proud. daughter we are proud of her commitment to the country and that is an amazing feeling he must be having. caller: thank you, it truly is. you are so educated and you are so polite and i am a conservative, that means i respect god, the united states and life.

,dam schiff did not do a parody he was lying and he got caught lying so he changed his tactics. my bottom line is, everyone i know, we are no longer falling for the democrat tricks are lies, and whether you think you are doing this honestly out of what is the right thing to do, most people i know see it as the democrats will do nothing -- i mean, will stop at nothing, the ends justify the means. the american people elected donald and they will again in a landslide because we now see through the democrats' dirty tactics. guest: you are attempting to demonize one person, that being adam schiff, and this was a decision made by multiple individuals and having multiple caucus meetings. many of us came to this

conclusion that we needed to go about impeachment very reluctantly because we do not willto do something that seem to be purely political. some of us were very reluctant and sad to have to come to this position. i don't know if you've seen the editorial that was done by moderate democrats on our side of the aisle, who all had military or national intelligence -- having worked through intelligence groups through their careers before coming to congress, who reluctantly came to the conclusion that what the whistleblower said is something we to look into. it would appear, unfortunately, that each one of the witnesses and other individuals coming ownard, and the president's admission on television, is that, in fact, he used tax bear

dollars -- taxpayer dollars to get the president of ukraine to do something that would personally benefit him. that is not something the constitution allows and not something that we as members of congress can allow this president to continue to do. if it were a democrat doing it, i would help congress would also see that person was doing something wrong and potentially having an abuse of their powers. i think that is the concern we have. we need to be fair across-the-board with whether the president is a democrat or republican. watching the transcripts and seeing what happens in watergate, many republicans came to the conclusion after hearing the evidence that there republican president had committed high crimes and treason -- hi misdemeanors against the united states. along, we might see

other republicans coming to that same conclusion. hope we would rise above partisan details. denver, colorado, democratic caller. caller: good morning, representative. guest: good morning, sir. caller: i was thinking about your beautiful home about the virgin islands. guest: thank you for your concern. caller: thoughts and prayers to everyone there. i got thrown off track by some of these republican calls you are getting about adam schiff line. all, they don't understand the distinction between paraphrasing and a parody.

he clearly paraphrased what the president wrote in the memo. it was the exact same context and it sounded like a mafia shakedown. context ofn the mafia members saying the same thing. that is paraphrasing. that out of the way. you guys are doing a good job. the president is unfit. it became clear in the session perp losey had to walk out. -- it became clear in the session when nancy pelosi had to walk out. thetweets, everything shows

signs of a mental decline. we went through this with reagan. havenot a doctor but i studied psychology and have a masters degree. we all know when someone in our family is mentally sick. we can't make a diagnosis. we know when something is wrong with them. and ashamed of his children the base because they know if something is clearly wrong with the leader of the free world. guest: thank you for your comments. the memberst, what of congress are looking at in this impeachment inquiry is the actions of the president and not his mental state. i would not want to go into that area at all. you spoke about the virgin islands, the virgin islands is still recovering after the hurricanes. we have billions of dollars we

are waiting for from the federal government. it is difficult for me to be talking about this, knowing federal agencies are holding the purse strings on hundreds of millions of dollars for people in my territory. should we not even make the inquiry, history will not look kind on us. leadership requires us to sometimes do difficult things. the oversight in reform committee, which was until yesterday chaired by elijah cummings. we have a duty to do our job. we all swore in oath of office and we are following through. we are having these depositions behind closed doors because we don't want the partisan ranker to be involved in the conversation. we don't want to allow members

to grandstand or use talking points in their five minutes to not do the right thing. host: another issue this week has been the supreme court cases . why is this important? guest: thank you for bringing it up. this week, the supreme court heard arguments on the insular cases. they are a set of cases that were decided in the early 1900s at the supreme court. the decision-maker, the person who wrote the decision was the same person who wrote plessy v ferguson. people who live in the territories are alien races who cannot understand anglo-saxon principles of law so they cannot have the same rights as americans living in the united

states. we know that theory not to be true. however, the federal government botheen relying on them, democrat and republican administrations in their treatment of the territories. we are asking the supreme court to overturn these cases. congress had the ability to turn andnd turn off citizenship rights for people living in the territories. the anglo-saxon -- an individual's citizenship and rights go with the land. it is been important the supreme court was even willing to hear these cases at this time. the members of the territories introduced a resolution, condemning the insular cases and are hoping members on both sides of the aisle -- we have members

of the territories. people immediately think we are democrats. that is not the case. both in my own islands of the virgin islands and the other territories. the top two elected officials, the governor of the member of congress usually members of opposite parties, republican and democrat. understandricans to we are very much americans. we fight in numbers greater then the united states per capita in going to war and making that ultimate sacrifice for our country. we want to have the responsibilities, as well as the benefits of being american. host: have you been assured of a house vote by nancy pelosi? guest: we have not. we introduced it this week and we will bring it to her and we are trying to get the cosponsors to bring into to the floor. host: new york, independent.

caller: can you hear me? guest: yes, sir. caller: i don't believe there is enough evidence to impeach the president and get him out of office, that's not going to happen. if he gets reelected, i think he will do a lot for this country. the democrats and the republicans screwed americans when they passed the free-trade agreement. george bush started it, clinton passed into law, made the free-trade agreement. those guys knew -- the rich are going to move the companies south and get cheap labor. it is ridiculous that nobody sees what happened. thatou have a guy in there wants to do away with the free-trade agreement and get the country great again, and it would make the company great again. it is interesting he

brings the trade issue up. with theeen meeting democratic coalition. we have been trying to get concrete principles that are in the new trade agreement and have been unable to get them. we want to make an assessment about what it is and what it does not look like. i have to disagree with the caller because i think the president is in favor -- this is another form of nafta that he has been working on. if you write a contract the same way, it is the same agreement. mike in texas, republican. caller: how are you all this morning? say i don't know what you democrats are up to but it is not going to work. there is no wait you will ever

impeach president trump. he will get reelected at the next election. why waste your time with that? why not do the job you are supposed to be doing? host: i am going to jump in because the house is about to come in. most respectfully, impeachment is what the house does that determines an individual has in fact done things which could be allowed them to be removed from office. it is a vote that the house takes. it then goes to the senate and the senate holds a trial to determine if in fact the president should be removed from office or someone else should be removed from office and that impeachment. it is a two-part process. the house is doing our part because we believe we have a constitutional duty to ensure

the president has not abused his power, and we will see where it goes. we don't know if we will vote to impeach him. we are reviewing the evidence. passed many bills. we have over 100 bills that were passed in the house related to , votingducation rights, campaign-finance reform and we are waiting for the senate to take that up. you should ask mitch mcconnell. host: the house is about to >> c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up this morning, politico pro employment and immigration reporter ian cauldron discusses the tentative and to the uaw

general motors strike and what it means for the future of it unions. and then bradford came talks about president trump's brand of populism and its impact on american politics. watch c-span's "washington journal" at 7:00 this morning. join the discussion. as congressional democrats in the white house continue to disagree over how the impeachment inquiry should be conducted, a supreme court case has been invoked as one that perhaps offer some guidance. joining us to discuss this case, jeffrey rosen. nixon case is the not richard nick seven and it is not even the case of presidential impeachment. what was this case about?