power to determine its own rules. when president nixon during the time he was going to be impeached ruling how that proceeding would go forward. when the clinton impeachment was brought forward, there was a unanimous consent request to govern how we conducted ourselves and i'm not sure how likely it would be that we would get a unanimous consent request. i'd like to ask unanimous consent without objection to enter into the record a letter that was sent to the chairman of the judiciary committee signed by 70 republican members including the republican leader every parliamentary tool available to us and committee on the house floor, to highlight your inaction translated means to try to delay them to make this process as impossible as it can be made.

i'm not sure in light of this letter that we could get a unanimous consent request and these seedings and break for a cup of coffee, never mind, i just want to stay for the record because i think it's important that i think the house has engaged in a fair impeachment inquiry process. democrats and republicans have had equal opportunity to participate. members both parties have been involved in every step of this process and closed-door depositions to questioning witnesses and open hearings, the committees have more than 100 hours of deposition testimony from seven key witnesses, held seven public hearings which included republican requested witnesses, produced a 300 page public report that laid out their findings and evidence, the judiciary committee then took that report and conducted two public hearings evaluating the evidence before reporting that

you will articles i should also point out that president trump was provided an opportunity to participate in a judiciary committee's review of the evidence presented against him as president clinton was during the impeachment inquiry he chose not to participate. in president trump debate has not provided any exculpatory evidence but instead has blocked numerous witnesses from testifying about his actions. mr. raskin, i saw you scribbling furiously while mr. collins was testifying, i don't know whether there something you wanted to respond to. >> my friend speaks very fast so it's hard to keep up with everything he is saying. is a couple of things. it's all right. i'm from massachusetts and people say the same thing about my accent.

i give you credit, you are making an effort at the beginning and so was i. they accused me of the same. he raises some really important points and i love the chance to briefly address them. one thing that we've been hearing is that we didn't charge crimes and in some sense, that duplicates a basic confusion that people have about what the process is. we are not criminal prosecutors prosecuting a criminal to send to jail. that's not what we are doing. we are members of congress working to protect the country against a president who is committing high crimes and misdemeanors that his constitutional offenses against the people of the country. lots of the conduct that we plead in our specific articles alleging abuse of power and obstruction of justice themselves could become part of criminal indictments later on.

spread this confusion that they didn't go in there when they were the very first ones to be saying and continue to say the department of justice cannot prosecute the president. the president may not be indicted, the president may not be prosecuted while he is in office, that's the position they take. they cannot turn around and say you can't impeach him because you haven't charged him with any crimes and prosecuted him and indicted him. has a win, tails you lose is the essence of that argument. and if you go back to the richard nixon case, we didn't have to see that he had been convicted of burglary and the district of columbia by ordering the break into the watergate hotel before he was charged with abuse of power as a high crime and misdemeanor. that's exactly what we are charging president trump with here. we don't have to first go out and prove that he committed bribery or committed services

fraud or committed extortion, all things that he could be prosecuted for. later, we simply have to allege the course of constitutional criminal conduct he was engaged in. so we can set that one aside. a second thing that my friend said was that there were no fact witnesses, that this was based on the report that was delivered to us by the house committee and that's a play on words too. there were 17 fact witnesses who appeared before the house committee on intelligence, the house oversight committee and the house foreign affairs committee. the way that we structure this impeachment process which is completely our prerogative under article one, section two is to have the fact investigation into involving foreign governments so far in the intelligence committee then to have them bring the facts in a

comprehensive report to the house judiciary committee which would then make the decision about the law. do all of these events rise to what we think is impeachable conduct and of course, we did so there are lots of fact witnesses. we also had the counsel for the house intelligence committee come into deliver the report and defend the report and all of my friends on the other side of the aisle have the chance to question as we have the chance to question. when you say there were no fact witnesses, that is a perfect description of what took place during the bill clinton impeachment because all of that took place as part of the independent counsel investigation by ken starr, closed-door secret depositions taking place there. they came to deliver the report and remember all the boxes and material they brought over and gave it to the house judiciary committee.

so we are throwing the exact same pattern that took place there, it its own fact investigation through this assortment of committees. finally, let me just say a word about the fairness of the process and we all know what they teach you in law school which is the facts are against you, you pound the law. the laws are against you, you pound the facts. the law and the facts of against you, you talk about process and you pound the table. i'm afraid i've seen a little bit of that in the performance of our colleagues here and i don't blame them because they are dealing with the hand that they were dealt. we have 17 fact witnesses and all of their depositions and all of it was published in all of their reports, everybody can find it and all of their

testimony is essentially unrefuted and uncontradicted. it's tells one story which is the president of the united states have a shakedown of a foreign power. we in congress had voted for a besieged struggling democracy, ukraine to defend itself against russian invasion and attack. to coerce the president of that foreign government, president zelensky to get involved in our election campaign. he wanted president zelensky to make an announcement on television that joe biden was being investigated. what does that have to do with the foreign policy of the united states? what does it have to do with what congress voted for? what are that have to do with any legitimate interest of the u.s. government? the other thing he wanted president zelensky to do was to rehabilitate the completely discredited conspiracy theory

that it was ukraine and not russia that interfered in our election. our entire intelligence committee. the nsa, the cia, the fbi. the senate committee on intelligence, all of them say the same thing which is that it was russia that conducted with the department of justice called a sweeping and systematic campaign against our election in 2016. remember, they injected propaganda into our policy through social media, facebook and twitter and so on. they directly conducted cyber innovation and attack and espionage against the democratic national committee. hillary clinton's headquarters, and they directly try to get into our state boards of election, not two or three, all 50 of them they try to get into, that's what russia did and that we have the president of the united states telling president zelensky that if he wants a $391 million that we voted for and that he's been

certified for by the department of defense and the department of state clearing every anticorruption screen that would've been put in place and called for by congress, does he want the money and does he want the white house meeting he desperately wanted to show america was on ukraine side and not russian side. he wanted to get that stuff, he had to come and get involved in our presidential campaign had to rehabilitate this discredited story about 2016. i yelled back. >> thank you. some of the commentary on the news from some of the pundits, i think people need a lesson in constitutional law and why it's great that you are here. let me ask you a basic question that sometimes people don't understand, why is impeachment in the constitution? >> that's a great question and mr. collins invoked indirectly my favorite american revolutionary, tom payne who wrote common sense and the age of reason and said you cannot have one without the other, in

other words you need the common sense of the people and you need people to be conducting things according to reason. rationality, facts, empiricism, science. but why did payne come all the way over here to participate in the american revolution which was not for him to win? america was the first nation in history born of a revolutionary struggle against the idea that you could have hereditary rule, payne said a hereditary rule is as ridiculous as a hereditary mathematician. or a hereditary artisan. he said the people have got to decide on their own leaders. now, impeachment is an instrument that our founders put into the constitution informed by the british experience. there was impeachment that parliament had but it wasn't against the king, it was only against royal ministers. why?

because of the british doctor and the do no wrong. the king can do what he wants. the king can do no wrong and therefore can't be impeached but are founders insisted not just for others civil officers that might create high crimes and misdemeanors but i guess the president himself and the president and the domestic emoluments clause is limited to a fixed salary and office which could be neither increased or decreased by congress and he can't receive any other emoluments from the government's help. the president is effectively an employee of the american people, he is not above the people, he is a servant of the people like all of us are in the president's core job is what? to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. he doesn't faithfully execute the laws, if he thwarts the laws and triples the loss and commits crimes against american people, then we are not going to send him to prison, but he needs to be removed. >> why is it abuse of power and

impeachable offense? >> abuse of power is the essential impeachment offense. that's why it's in there. what it's about is elevating the personal interests and ambitions of the president above the common good, above the rule of law and above the constitution. the founders didn't want a president who was going to behave like a king. we wanted a president who was going to implement the law might go out and implement the affordable care act and implement environmental law so that's their job, that's what you're supposed to be doing. we met we have seen evidence the president decided to withhold important official acts. the white house visit, military aid in order to pressure ukraine to announce investigations of vice president biden in the 2016 elections. why does that constitute impeachable defense? >> it basically implicates every single one of the concerns that were raised by the founders at the constitutional convention.

one, it places the personal political agenda of the president over enforcing the laws. and it drags foreign powers into our election. that is something the framers were terrified about, there was a great exchange between adams and jefferson about just this issue that they would be constant foreign intrigue and influence because we would be an open democracy so people would try to exploit our openness by getting involved in our elections with their foreign government concerns which is why the president had to have complete undivided loyalty the american people into the american constitution and not get involved with foreign governments, not drag foreign governments into our affairs. so basically, you have everything the framers were concerned about tied up in one bundle. involving foreign governments in our elections, the president's

interest over everything else, and then essentially threatening the rule of the people and democracy. >> where do you draw the line between the legitimate use of presidential power and an abuse of power and why is it significant if president trump acted for his personal political advantage and not the furtherance of any valid national policy objective? >> that's a good question because our colleagues have shrewdly zeroed in on the fact that some of the witnesses including ambassador sondland said of course there was a quid pro quo, the president was not going to release the aid, not going to have the meeting until he got what he wanted in terms of interference and then even the president chief of staff said of course there was quid pro quo. he is saying yes, this is the way we proceed, get used to it. and our colleagues have said there is always quid pro quo's tied up in foreign policy. in other word, it is legit to say to a foreign government we

will give you this aid if you can imply that the aide is all being used in the proper way. we will give you this assistance if you attend these conferences and meetings with us to make sure the assistance is being used properly. a look at what happened here. this was an arrangement where the president conditioned all of this foreign assistance that we had set the department of defense, $191 million to the department of state to help ukraine defend itself against russia and the president said when he was holding out for was the interference of the ukrainian president in our election to harm his political opponent. i think everyone can recognize that is not the normal kind of push and pull and arrangements that nations make for each other because the president privileged its own political interest and

that's why it was all done secretly and luckily there were witnesses who were going to come forward and to explain what happened. >> i will ask yo you and mr. ran the same question, was the call perfect and was it appropriate for him to ask another country to investigate an american citizen? >> there was nothing wrong with the call and if you look at it again, the problem i'm having right now is the last 15 minutes of this. a great moratorium on a lot of things that mean nothing to the actual impeachment. we get to the bottom line here and honestly, i'll get back to it later because everything has been thrown out here exactly what the problem we've had in the discussion on this idea, we have disproven the fact, so i can talk about both of them, the problem we have here is this is

the very problem we have and i'll just address one thing. i'll give it to him. >> i'm looking at the president, the transcript that i would like you to do us a favor. do you think it was a perfect call? >> lieutenant colonel vindman said it was a perfect political call. whatever it was asked, whatever u.s. policy to ask a foreign leader to open a political investigation. certainly the president was well in his right to do that. >> do you think the president's right to ask a foreign government to investigate a u.s. citizen like that? >> is absolutely wrong and what of the things about the hearings is every single member of congress has at least endorsed it impeachment inquiry has been saying it is completely wrong to use means at his disposal to drag foreign governments into our election and we were unable to get our colleagues on the

judiciary committee to weigh in on that saying let's assume that you think, let's stipulate that you think the president did nothing wrong here. do you think it's wrong for the president of the united states to get foreign powers involved in our election and we couldn't get an answer. i reassured mr. collins, i believe in his heart, he thinks that's wrong and i certainly would not want that to become the pattern for all future presidencies. >> i don't want this to become the pattern for the future impeachments. this is the problem i have in the understanding here is i guess it's okay to get involved in the 2016 election when you play a third party to pay for a dossier. these are the kind of things we can talk about but the interesting issue that is just discussed here is exactly where we are right now in a question and comment. what mr. raskin just brought up is an interesting point. is it okay if you're running for president that you can't be investigated? even if you did something overseas? so if you are running for

president and you did something overseas, it would be off-limits according to mr. raskin's argument for the united states government to investigate that. that's the argument he just set up. >> i mention this in my opening statement, the frustrating thing is i would see so obvious to so many of us about inappropriate behavior that we can't even get -- i look at our former colleague charlie dent, republicans actually discussed about president's behavior. now a republican colleague of ours said we witnessed "an impeachable moment. former republican congressman said clearly some type of quid pro quo when asked if he thought it was warranted, he said i do. served on the judiciary committee during the clinton impeachment said last month and a tweet without a doubt that barack obama had done the things revealed in the testimony, we

republicans would have impeached him. former republican congressman from florida set every republican knows he was asking for dirt on joe biden in exchange for releasing military funds. let's go on to do you want to respond to? >> i'd be delighted to. one thing is i may have gotten the numbers wrong, they had $250 million appropriation for the purposes of aiding ukraine. i may have misspoken. but as to that point, again, i feel for my friends because i think they are put into a situation so to speak which is what president trump was quoted as saying about what he wanted to do with president zelensky, wanted him in a box about the statement but i think they are put into something of a corner here because the president has declared his conduct perfect and

he can do whatever he wants. so they are unable to say to make the case that i would make if i were trying to defend the president, i would say that was totally wrong and off-limits but it's not impeachable for x, y, nz reasons but they're not allowing anybody that space to say it. they must go with the president's assertion that this was categorically correct. there was nothing wrong with it, it was perfectly right and he quoted legal scholars who told him that the call was perfect as well. >> is i want to move my questioning along here a little bit, let me ask you on the issue of obstruction of congress, why is obstruction of congress and impeachable offense? >> this is something mr. collins made a very important point which is that we've got to think about this in the institutional terms and he rightly calls that redouble our commitment to fairness in the process. i've seen lots of fairness in this process. in the closed-door depositions,

i saw the democratic council get an hour, the republican council get an hour, democratic members get the question i have seen this committee bend over backwards to get all of the depositions out as quickly as possible by the president of the united states is stopping at least seven witnesses from coming forward. may be more than that but he has blockaded witnesses. the president who says the process is unfair is the one who stopping everybody from coming to testify and is essentially trying to blockade the whole investigation. why is this essential? it is essential because for institutional reasons because in the future, it might be a majority democratic congress, but in any event, it is congress and one of our jobs as members of congress is to make sure that the president does not violate the laws. we are supposed to stand

sentinel to make sure that the president will only enforce the laws, or basically execute it. what happens if you get a president who totally trashes the law? certainly they can imagine a situation where the president advertises spectacular disrespect and trashes the law. what is our ultimate check against that? it is going to be impeachment. that's why it's in the constitution but now we have a president for the first time in american history says i am going to try to block the ability of congress to impeach me by not turning over one single document, by trying to hold back people from testifying like secretary pompeo, like chief of staff mick mulvaney, like multiple other members of the administration. i don't want them to come forward and testify. so were going to have to use her common sense to right conclusions about what that means. what is our common sense tell us when you have all these other

people coming forward and testifying about the misconduct of the president than the president trying to block everybody else from coming forward to testify in the administration? >> we requested several documents and testimony from this administration and what have they done in response? nothing. it's important for people to understand this for the record. request for documents from the state department, ignored. request for documents from the department of defense, ignored. request for documents from the vice president, ignored. request for documents from giuliani associate lev parnas, ignored. request for documents from giuliani associate ignored. a request from documents from the white house, ignored. request for documents for rudy giuliani the president's lawyer, ignored. request from national security advisor john bolton, ignored. request for the testimony of white house chief of staff mick mulvaney, ignored. here's a list of all of the

requests that were made, the red marks or basically demonstrate noncompliance, they have been ignored. i think this is what you call obstruction, plain and simple. and the only people that have complied with our request have been patriotic public services. and i guess i would just ask what presumptions should we make when the president prevents witnesses from complying with congressional subpoenas? >> let's use our common sense. people who have exculpatory evidence which is just a fancy way of saying evidence that shows they are innocent want the court to see the evidence. people who have evidence that demonstrates their innocence would bring that to congress, people who other evidence which they think may be inculpatory, people have evidence which may lead people to believe in their guilt will try to keep it away. but you just make a really profoundly important point, mr. chairman, which is articles

one and article two of the impeachment articles, do we want to send a president that they can become united states by inviting foreign powers to get involved in our election than one thing you're in if congress decides that their conduct is impeachable and involves high crimes and misdemeanors, they can pull the curtain down over the executive branch and not allow any investigation, not allow subpoenas to be honored in someone? that is a very dangerous prospect that would have terrified and shocked the framers of our constitution. >> thank you. i'm going to yield to the ranking member who i'm sure has lots of questions but i do want to take a moment, i think it's important that we remember this. i want to remind everybody why we are here today. the president abuse the power of

his office for his own personal gain and obstructed a congressional investigation to look into that conduct. how did he do that? he withheld a good for a country that was under siege by russia to help for his political campaign. president trump's abuse of power has endangered our free elections and national security remains an ongoing threat to them both. he has shown us a pattern of inviting foreign interference in our elections and is trying to cover it up twice and he has threatened to do it again. with the 2020 elections fast approaching, we must act with a sense of urgency to protect our democracy and defend our constitution. on our first day as members of congress, we took an oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic. i do not swear allegiance to a political party. i swore allegiance to the constitution and the help of my colleagues will do the same. with that, i yield to the ranking member for any questions he may have. >> thank you very much and you are right, i do have a lot of

questions and i appreciate your forbearance. in this sense in the finest sense of the word. so i express my appreciation for that. to my friend mr. raskin, a number of my questions have been drafted or were originally crafted for chairman nadler. you may or may not be able to answer those directly. we certainly understand why he's not here and has mr. chairman said, we sympathize with him the difficult time but we think it is still important for the record. mr. chairman, i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a document authored by congressman jerry nadler and posted on jerry nadler.com on november 16th of 2016. >> without objection. >> thank you. in this document, he wrote "we

cannot wait for years to vote mr. trump out of office, so we must do everything we can to stop trump and his extreme agenda now." mr. raskin, on august 8th, chairman nadler stated with respect to the judiciary committee's hearing regarding the mueller report that this is a formal impeachment proceeding, but the house did not actually authorize impeachment proceedings until the adoption of 660 on october 21st. so i think it's important to clarify for the record when those impeachment proceedings actually started. was chairman nadler correct by saying they start august 8th or did they begin when the house authorize them on october 31st? >> forgive me, i was not prepared to answer that question but i think the judiciary committee has taken formal positions which we can track

about this question. i would just direct you to article one, section two. the house of representatives is the sole power of impeachment and can design and structure impeachment. >> not outside of house rules, they can't. not without passing a resolution that goes outside house rules. they were going outside of house rules and again, they have not been here forever trying to make this happen, this is what happened, they went outside of house rules that's the problem i have with this and we can discuss that more in depth. >> this has been going on for quite some time, longer than the former proceedings. mr. raskin, on december 10th, 1998 during the clinton impeachment proceedings, chairman nadler stated in the house judiciary committee that "there must never be and there will be voted impeachment over and impeachment supported by one

of our major political parties and opposed by another. such an impeachment will produce divisiveness and bitterness and politics for years to come and will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions." do you believe this impeachment which is supported by only one political party has produced bitterness in the current political climate? >> i'm going to have to allow chairman nadler to speak for his own words. >> i certainly understand. >> there has been a lot of bitterness and division in our country for several years now proceeding any impeachment proceeding and it's a sad thing and i hope everybody rallies around the constitution because it's the constitution that will get us through this difficult time in our history. let me just say about the clinton impeachment.

the conduct that president clinton was charged with which was he hadn't been convicted or prosecuted, but essentially charged with perjuring himself and describing private conduct and the conduct that we are looking at today goes right to the heart of why impeachment is in the constitution. impeachment is in the constitution because of public offenses by political leaders against democracy itself so i think you cannot compare what president clinton was impeached for in the house of representatives and i hold no brief for his conduct in any way but i don't think you can compare that to the massive overwhelming and unrefuted evidence we have that the president of the united states today has tried to drag a foreign power into our elections to his own political advantage. >> was in exactly the question i asked, but let me turn to mr.

mr. collins and see if you agree with mr. raskin's or if there's anything you would disagree with their home what's been impact of this process from a domestic politics since it has been partisan in nature? >> i will cut some slack that he was trying to answer for the chairman's own words and i get that, but i think there are several things, let's just talk for a minute, let's unpack what has happened here because the only thing i appreciate out of the last few minutes as the chairman trying to bring that in about impeachment. i agree this is about impeachment here to what i disagree is that it's not about abuse of power and it would come a lot better from the majority if they had not had a long history and written record, this is something you love to see because it's a written record of motive. you've seen it since the day he was elected. you've seen it in this whole process working out, he saw it last year when my chairman ran for the job because he would be

the best for impeachment. a mueller report that didn't give them everything they wanted and then we came into a call. this is a pattern and i've said this to my chairman who i respect, you got the votes, you can go explain it to the american people, this is what we are looking at. but there are a few things here that are interesting. as i said earlier on, the time and clock are terrible masters and i've heard it from the chairman of this committee, we've got to do this because of the 2020 election. put in a candidate that is worth voting for instead of going after a president who you are having trouble beating because of the things that happened in our country with unemployment and the economy going good and everything else. that's what political primaries are for, not this. having now set a standard that if he ran for president, you can do anything you want overseas.

in the response to the chairman's question about requesting stuff, if the chairman knows in my chairman knows because my chairman likes subpoenas, likes to press them anyway. but the secretary of defense responded opening negotiations, part of the document and what we did get from the intelligence committee had lmb records. they were issues here that i have had problems with all year and this and you didn't receive a letter as we have done in the past and the majority under president obama, the thing that amazes me as it seems like the majority this year all of a sudden discover the executive branch and the legislative branch don't play well together. we saw this happen over and over. how was an oversight may 1st 2 years here.

currently being stonewalled and stopped, finally the courts did rule and this is your problem. the court said many years later that they did violate and that was done. it's a terrible master. and you are having to do this because you promised, you promised it. we are carrying through on a promise. the other thing is we talked about fairness. no one's question the fact that they question that fact, but what about the fact of the majority preventing witnesses under rules from using agency counsel even under the impeachment investigation. the third branch to even rule on claims when no one was done, you withdrew from the lawsuit. so it is not a matter of time

here, it is not a matter of fact. when we go back to it, i cannot repeat this over and over again because it comes up, put pressure on the world leader. this pressure is amazingly because the guy who was supposed to be pressured did not it ever happened. on multiple occasions, that we never talked about conditionality of eta. the only time that they talked about this outside of presumption and hearsay, presumption and hearsay. the main witness said, that's what i presume. when he actually asked the president straight up what he wanted, he said i want nothing. that's all he did. and it is not a court of law because this was over a long time ago. we could've gotten to this place. liberals have allowed us to get to this place because majority rules in this place. the issue is sad because to continue this line of thought

after the president of ukraine has come out and denied it, you are either calling him a pathological liar, but he was actually called in our committee last week about her life. he was actually called that. compared to a battered wife. how low have we sunk? this is the problem because at the end of the day, and we can go into the process files and everything else, but i took my own chairman at his word when i read about his comments 20 years ago. so the judiciary committee should not take the report and investigate it if so, otherwise we become a rubber-stamp. congratulations. our judiciary committee became a rubber-stamp. i hope we recover because that's all we are doing right now, rubber-stamping what adam schiff does under his own time in his own way. a man who has also been after

this president since day one and would not come and testify. that's the most amazing shocking thing to me in this whole process but i can understand why we have an impeachment, this is cutting to the fact, you don't like the guy. you don't like how he does business because when you start talking about the pressure on a foreign power to do something to even get to that remotely, you are having that in the transcript instead of giving us a favor or our country do us, you have to change to me. you have to change the facts. last time i checked, this country is not kind to those who are accused of having those in power to fit the game, that is not due process. here is why we are here, they never change. for facts that will never change. goes straight to the heart of anything outside of abuse, there is no pressure.

the transcript shows no conditionality of aid. in the intelligence committee report was mr. sondland who after he got past his perfect opening statement, when question said that's what i presumed it to be and would actually talk to the president of the united states, he was told i had a conversation, he said there was nothing discussed of conditionality. so how do you put this much faith in mr. sondland when he has conditionally told stories that change? and all of the rest were hearsay? all of the rest were and even colonel vindman who i respect as a soldier said it's okay. for a president to do that to ask for a political investigation because it happens. he even said that. so the question comes back, crane was not even aware their aid was withheld, and ukraine didn't open an investigation to get the money.

>> the first part is an impeachment inquiry? has the president ever been impeached without votes from the minority party before? >> i think there's some discussion about that with the johnson impeachment for many years ago but that's when congress set himself up with the law so you have to say that was an impeachment. in a modern day, this is a partisan impeachment. >> speaker pelosi said an impeachment must be "compelling and overwhelmingly bipartisan." only democrats voted for it, there is bipartisan opposition to the inquiry and appears that will be bipartisan opposition to the articles. ranking member collins, given all of that, do you believe the upcoming vote on 755 complies with the standards set by the speaker herself? >> you know, it comes nowhere close. >> is it your belief that the arbitrary deadlines for the

democratic majority than building a viable case if, in fact, there is cause for impeachment? >> their own words convict them of that. >> the premise of these articles of impeachment rest on a pause placed on ukrainian security assistance. a pause less than two months. democrats have spun grade of narratives as to the meeting at the moment of this but offered no factual evidence. did ukraine ever initiate investigations into the bidens? back no. >> was the aid ultimately released? >> yes. >> t believe the taxpayer dollars of the american people are well served by the pause? >> not policymakers, not administrative officials in different offices are not the one who have final authority of this. the president's call is the president's decision and he made a call. >> is it unusual for aid to be paused by a chief executive? to the democratic majority of

four witnesses with first-hand evidence of any potential of quid pro quo with the ukrainian controversy? >> no. >> is any one of the trump administration been charged with convicted of a crime under the current allegations related to the ukraine? >> no. burisma let me continue. is my understanding that the minority properly exercised his right under clause 2 jay 1 under rule 11 to demand a minority hearing. is that the case? what day did you ask for that hearing? the first day when we convene to the judiciary committee. i don't have the dates in front of me. i will be happy to provide that. has that hearing but scheduled? >> it was summarily dismissed by a long letter which was told in essence it was deli dilatory.

>> on the first day that it could have been made. are you familiar with the following statement, entitled to one additional day of related hearings in which to call their own witnesses and the majority of the minority members make their demand. >> they invoke that at that hearing. >> i was unaware of that before this. >> a document entitled rules, based on review of the hearing video, the minority properly presented their request to chairman nadler before the original hearing concluded. are you familiar with the memo written by former rules committee chairman david dreyer regarding the application and the house rule governing minority hearing?

>> i asked unanimous consent of this memo be made part of the record and will know that the memo states in part that a point of order may lie against reported measure which was improperly rejected. >> i would ask unanimous consent in the records, a response to your letter and we can talk about that after your question. >> thank you, mr. chairman. during the markup of 755, chairman nadler overruled consideration of the resolution interpreting that the rule requires that the minority hearing date occur prior to the consideration relevant measure in a matter that would permit them minority to delay. were you trying to improperly delay conceding this? >> one of these hearings had proper follow-up rules. >> you made this request a very first day of hearings.

>> the hearing at which the man was properly made was entitled the impeachment inquiry of donald j. trump. colleagues on the other side of the aisle offered a number of reasons why chairman nadler's refusal to schedule the minority hearing is appropriate, i would like to take a moment to respond to those. my colleagues claim the history of the rules suggest it was designed as a backstop to ensure the minority gets at least one witness at a hearing. i did not find its reason to be compelling. that indeed was the purpose of the rules become a plain reading of the text and reason itself would say otherwise. traditionally, it's been used as a negotiating point between the majority and minority regarding the number of witnesses. the mere fact minority has a witness at the hearing does not mean that there is an implicit waiver to demand the minority day hearing. there are times in which the minority who waives the right to a majority day hearing.

for example, our discussions regarding medicare for all hearing, we waive that right to a minority day hearing in order to secure a few more witnesses. at any time, did you waive your rights under clause of rule 11? >> i did not and i believe that's why we're here today. >> did you request a second to stand as they provide that second witness in exchange for waiving your rights for minority day hearing? >> was not even discussed. >> previously quoted joint committee on organization in 1966 recommendation was stated at a minimum safeguard we established for those infrequent incidents when the witness representing the minority position not a lot of time. perhaps in 1966, majority was more willing to provide this to them minority. however, that is not the case today.

witness was allotted time in this case but not witnesses. in other words, we didn't get anything in exchange for our right not being exercised, this may have been one reason for the adoption of the minority hearing, it doesn't render meaningless the plain reading of the text. i spent a long time on this but i think it's very important. we simply given something that we think by right we should have added but actually subject this to a point of order. my colleagues also claim chairman nadler is not required to schedule a minority hearing day before the matters reported out of committee. you've got to be kidding. in other words, we cannot agree that the house intended that the right for the minority hearing date can be fulfilled by scheduling a hearing on a measure after the measures voted out of the full committee. doesn't make any sense. so with presumed passage of these articles of impeachment, as in the minority hearing day now irrelevant?

>> i believe it is and that's the concern many of us have who institutionally love this place. >> even if chairman nadler didn't believe the house rules required him to schedule the minority hearing the day prior to marking up the articles of impeachment, as a member of scope both judiciary committee and the rules committee, would it be better for the institution of the american people just to schedule the hearing, it is just one day. >> thank you, i just learned of it the other day when mr. collins raised it and i looked at the rule and it does say that the chair of the committee is not required to schedule the minority hearing as a condition precedent to the continuing course of legislative action. and having been in the minority for my first term, i feel your exasperation about that that might not happen before the bill passage and if we want to make a change, that is something we

should talk about for future congresses. >> i appreciate that and i appreciate the sentiment behind it because i know it is sincere. again, i can go on and on on this but we do believe there is a violation, we appreciate your letter which is very respectful, we tried when you made the request. and to us, the facts are clear. chairman nadler ignored the right of minority committee being ignored by the democratic majority now and by doing so, it fundamentally alters the tools available for the minority. and all future minorities so i do hope the rules committee will correct this misguided decision and refrain from raising all points of order against the bill and the very least have the matter debated on the house floor. after the adoption and before the judiciary committee's first hearing pursuant to that resolution, ranking member collins wrote seven letters chairman nadler on the subject of the committee's considerati

consideration. on november 12, he wrote chairman nadler regarding the manner in which the intelligence committee conducted their investigation. on november 14th, he wrote chairman nadler demanding the same transparency and fairness that existed in prior impeachment queries be prioritized in the current inquiry. on november 18th, he wrote chairman nadler regarding the credibility of a particular witness and chairmanships coordination with certain witnesses to conceal basic and relevant facts. on november 21st, he wrote chairman nadler asking that he obtained all documents and information from chairman schiff pursuant to house resolution 660 and its accompanying procedures. on november 30th, the persistent mr. collins wrote chairman nadler asking for an expanded panel and a balanced composition of academic witnesses to opine on the subject matter on that

hearing. he wrote chairman nadler asking for clarity on how he plans to conduct the impeachment inquiry referencing five previous letters he had sent to questions that were never answered and on december 3rd, he wrote chairman nadler reminding him of his recent letters requesting the judiciary committee provide the president due process with the intelligence committee and chairman schiff did not. is my understanding that chairman nadler never provided a response to any of these lette letters. your knowledge, is chairman nadler generally not respond to letters from ranking minority members? >> no, and i will concede to mr. collins, like the affirmatiof ormention thomas jea prolific letter writer. i don't know whether or not they engaged in conversations to follow up on any of those but altogether on a daily basis pretty much. so i can't speak for the

chairman. >> i want to note that a recent letter to the chairman, he did respond and we appreciate that very much. >> we don't get a lot of answers and this was very true, we got one answer on our witness list and that was it. the other was a discussion when i asked for another witness and it turned into an interesting conversation, asking for ratios and all i was asking for was another witness and told me it's too late and that's all i got. i appreciate the chairman. >> i recognize that and that is true of all of us but this committee does in a sense have a special responsibility to make sure the other committees operate according to our rules and common courtesy. mr. collins, articles of impeachment are based on a report written by chairman schiff and transmitted judiciary committee, correct? did that impeachment report rely on hearsay to support their

assertions? and what explanations did chairman schiff provide when asked why hearsay was incorrectly presented as evidence? >> despite its his own making up the phone call to start with but also he has not really provided it because he didn't come testify in my committee. >> did you ask chairman nadler to invite chairman schiff to come testify? >> i did. >> just to be clear, you are asked to vote on articles of impeachment against our commander in chief based on a report full of unsubstantiated allegations in hearsay and you are not permitted to ask the author of the report any questions? >> that is correct, all they got was a staff member. >> i would like to note for the record that chairman schiff refused to discuss the report with the minority when he was more than willing to appear on n "fox news sunday" just two days ago, unfortunately abundantly clear the report is made for

television rather than the result of a transparent thorough bipartisan investigation and also worth noting, this is a really odd thing for us because judiciary committee is the main committee of impeachment, that has historically been the case. is clearly not the case here. the committee on intelligence is the main committee. >> is there any counsel there? >> to work on impeachment. we got at the end to finish it. >> there's a difference between window dressing and substance. two or three hearings at the end where you don't even question the author of the report, you are not allowed to question the author of the report on which impeachment is based, the president never had representation there and the president was there, he could ask questions but the main place for all of these things come out, the president was

, the president was excluded. you are not allowed to ask the author of the principal report any questions. >> you just presented in a short summation which i have always admired, the crux of the whole problem. by the time he got to judiciary, it was a done deal. the train was past the station and they had to run to catch up. it was already decided what they wanted to do. i have heard this argument nuke and dress it up. when we go to the institutional integrity problem we have, when you do whatever you think of hrs 660, the only place that truly provided the opportunity for fairness for the president and the administration was in the judiciary committee. at that point, they would've been a ball to ask the witnesses they were never -- there's no way and i don't care how much the majority pretties it up, there's no way you you can call

in four law school professors, two staff members and that's the only hearings you have to provide any opportunity for the president to question. i've heard from my majority colleagues, and as a former defense attorney i think it's funny. if he's innocent, tell him to come prove it. one is that every part of what we should be doing here. i don't think any of my civil libertarians, they ought to be laying awake at night thinking how can i be associated with this. no owner what you think, there's a way to do it fairly. they have been trying to do it for three years. >> mr. raskin's, did you have any conversations with chairman schiff about the contents of the report? >> i am certain i have along the way, yes. >> really? no one evidently on our side had any conversations. to your knowledge, did chairman nadler have conversations with chairman schiff about the contents of the reports? >> you mean the substance of the

report? as a committee we have been talking about the substance of it for a long time now. >> we have been talking about the substance of the report. we didn't have the opportunity to question the person who authored the report. >> i see what you mean. >> either formally or informally, to my knowledge. again, the console for the intelligence committee came over to discuss the factual findings in the intelligence committee's report. >> he is not the principal author of the report. he's the counsel for the committee. by the way, a fact witness as well in many ways. >> if i could respond to this general line of attack, house resolution 660 had a number of significant procedural protections for the president,

even on the house side. as you know, the role of the houses to act. the actual trial takes place in the senate but we had significant procedural protections. we invited the president and his counsel to attend all hearings. we provided th the presents cont the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses. we provided the president's council the opportunity to make presentations of evidence before the full judiciary committee including the chance to call witnesses. the president chose not to avail himself of any of those opportunities. it reminds me, the president locating the witnesses and saying you don't have enough people with direct first-hand evidence. >> where those rights provided only in judiciary committee? you are not the principal committee of impeachment. you are sort of a final stop. did the president get those