nfc. >> is he the person that put it in the server? >> he testified to it. you have to ask him. i'd love to do this. we would love to have these witnesses -- >> love to have the server? >> i'd love to have the witnesses. >> we have people running around ukraine looking for a server under some cloud strike notion. >> we have 67% of the officials bribing officials as well. that's -- there's no credible witness that said there's anything in the transcript that was not there. none of your witnesses -- >> i find the president goes out, issues this unclassified statement and there's a statement out there somewhere in a classified server that may have gotten there mistakingly according to mr. morrison as you're testifying, but my question ultimately would be why is it there? why hasn't it been retrieved and why have you all not received it. i digress. let me go on and finish up with

this unclassified -- >> mr. hastings, there's an implication here and i'd like a clarification. are you implying there's another transcript out there? >> i'm implying there's more than what we have here. >> which no witness testified to. no witness of your witnesses testified to -- >> understood. >> i was making sure you didn't believe there was another transcript out there. >> i don't know what is out there. i know -- >> that's about like with us the intelligence committee's findings that they haven't transferred over to judiciary. >> i'd like to see what's in the server. >> i'd like to see -- you and i are in agreement >> in that regard. we are. i'd also -- let me tell you what -- even the media in dealing with this statement have not gone into certain of this particulars. here's what was said by mr. zelensky.

i'm truncating this shoe i can get off and let other members go about their business. he said i would also like to thank you for your great support. this is mr. zelensky talking to president trump on july 25. in the area of defense. "we're ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps, specifically we're almost ready to buy javelins from the united states for defense purposes." president trump replies, "i'd like you to do us a favor though". >> this is from the man buy javelins. he goes immediately for i'd like you to do us a favor. a lot of emphasis has not been placed on that language. i'm not a linguistic person.

the last time i recall somebody asking me to do a favor though, it was for something that they wanted, and i can't believe that policy is what he was talking about. he goes on to say because our country has been through a lot. ukraine knows a lot about it. i'd like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine. they say cloud strike. i guess you have one of your wealthy people, the server. they say ukraine has it. there's a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. i think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. i'd like to have the attorney general", meaning our attorney

gener general. my question is why would you like the attorney general to call your people? and "i'd like you to get to the bottom of it. as you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named robert mueller, an incompetent performer. but they say a lot of it started with ukraine." my question is, who said that? the only people that i know that said that are the russians. >> thank you very much for raising this important point. dr. fiona hill, leading russia expert who figures importantly in this whole matter has testified before this committee and it's completely

uncontradicted that this crowd strike story about ukraine being the one that attacks our election in 2016 is russian disinformation. the president there was repeating russian disinformation and propaganda. either wittingly or unwittingly. he really thought he had something there, but that's what he was repeating. there's nothing behind it. it's been completely debunked and discredited. but what makes me suspicious, mr. hastings, is that he decided to tie that in with his other plan, which is to get president zelensky to come and to point the finger at joe biden and say, this is a guy we're investigating. you talk about national security and how national security was compromised. obviously america is a country that nations all over the world look to. we're interested in our -- the security of our land and our people but also that of our allies. our strategic partners around

the world. we should have some interest? what happens to ukraine and whether russia will trample them or not. if we say that forever hereafter we're going to allow the president of the united states to use the awesome powers of his office to shake down particular governments, whether they're tyrants and despits or struggling democracies that need our help but the president is allowed to shake them down, get them involved in a covert basis in our campaign. guess what? the president might think he's slick but now there's a foreign government that has guts to -- they have leverage on us at that point. >> would you allow me? >> of course. >> i think the process -- we're looking the wrong direction here. i think it is interesting that we can talk about all the other

corruption around the world and the dislike of the way this president has dealt with them. this is a backwards look, not a forward look. you've rightly read the transcript. he was talking about robert mueller, which was coming out of the 2016 election, all the problems -- >> did you read the mueller report? >> i read every bit. it's my committee. >> and you disagree with the findings? >> i agree with them. no collusion with russia and he agreed -- >> and mueller said there were ten obstructions of justice by the president. do you agree with that? >> no. because he didn't. because he didn't. >> interesting. >> he didn't listen to the judiciary committee when they said here this, here's this. i disagree with your conclusion. you have to take the whole transcript. this is what i'm talking about here. when you look here, he's looking backwards. the mueller report -- >> i'm going to reclaim my time. and fiona hill is interesting.

ukrainians and hill said they bet on the wrong horse. after being reminded by ken vogel that the various ukrainian officials, the parliament was providing false information to nellie ohr that made its way to the steele dossier and aligning with clinton. it's backwards. >> were you there when mrs. hill testified? >> not for mrs. hill. i'm happy to read the transcript. >> all i can tell you is she dropped a dime on president trump's actions in ukraine. >> but not enough to find it in articles of impeachment. >> perhaps alone -- >> abuse of power -- we disagree on this. this is where we can disagree. i disagree with abuse of power is a catch-all for this -- >> i'm going to reclaim my time. you're going to filibuster and i'm going to reclaim my time from you. both of ya'll talk fast, i might

add in defense of mr. collins for a minute. it's very -- continuing what president trump says is "it's very important that you do it, if it's possible." truncating again because there's so much in here. i'll try to start mid paragraph with zelensky's reply. "i'd also like and hope to see him having your trust." he's talking about ambassador that he's sending to the united states. and your confidence and have personal relations with -- so we can cooperate even more so. i'll personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with mr. guliani just recently. we're hoping very much that mr. guliani will be able to travel to ukraine, and we meet once he comes to ukraine ".

my question there is, meet about what? when guliani comes to ukraine. the president just recently said that guliani is a good man and a patriot. he's doing this for love. last time i bought an airline ticket, i didn't present something that said love. the question becomes who is paying guliani. i have a theory about it, but i won't go into it. he says "i just want to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. i'll make sure that i surround myself with the best and most experienced people." he goes on at some point "so we can continue our strategic partnership. i also plan to surround myself with great people in addition to that investigation. i guarantee as the president of ukraine that all the

investigations will be done openly and candidly. that i can assure you". then trump says" good, because i heard you had a prosecutor", porshenko" that was really good and he was shut down and it was unfair. a lot of people are talking how they shut your good prosecutor down and you had some bad people involved." "mr. guliani is a highly respected man. he was the mayor of new york city, a great mayor. i'd like him to call you. i'd also -- i'll ask him to call you with the attorney general. rudy knows what is happening. he is a very capable guy. if you could speak to him, that would be great. the former ambassador from the united states, the woman, was bad news. the people she was dealing with in the ukraine were bad news.

so i just want to let you know that. the other thing, there's a lot of talk about biden's son, that biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution. if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me." zelensky says, truncating again, that "since we have won the absolute majority in person, my candidate who will be approved by the particlement and start as the new prosecutor in september, he or she will look in to the situation, specifically to the company. my guess is he's talking about burisma. "the issue of the case is the

issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and we'll work on the investigation of the case. on top of that, i'd kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide us. it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the ambassador to the united states from ukraine. as far as i can recall, her name was yovanovitch. now, that lady didn't deserve president trump commenting that she was going to go through some things. i quote him. "i'll have mr. guliani give you a call. i'm also going to have attorney general barr call and we'll get to the bottom of it. i'm sure you'll figure it out. i heard the prosecutor was treated badly. now everybody in the european

union, friends of mine knew that porshenko was a crook. everybody knew that and trump knew that or should have or had poor staffing during that period of time. i'm going to end here where he says, "good, thanks very much and i appreciate that. i'll tell rudy and attorney general barr to call." i just can't believe that perry and sondland and rudy guliani or whoever the three amigos were were running around in ukraine in some fashion aside from the diplomatic responsibilities that we have with any country. yes, mr. collins, we do have an fbi. we do have people that do investigations in foreign countries when there's

commissions of crimes and we don't use people running around. otherwise, they could use me. i was on the intel committee. people could have asked me. i went to ukraine. i did after the orange revolution, the monitoring that led to them being able to stand up there. thanks to the lithuanians and the polish along with brazinski at this time that we did that and then i went back a second time to ukraine to monitor their rookie. i'm no rookie in this stuff. when it comes to policy, what we have here is a corrupt president that wanted to do something to advance his political circumstances. as the chairman says, that is so wrong. what say you, mr. grassley? >> first of all, moved by your statements and also by your work

for democracy and for freedom and anti-corruption in europe. that is something that has been very important to you. the president essentially empow empowered and outsourced an alternative channel to the regular department of state and national security council officials. and rudy guliani, as you said, was at the heart of it. we have a lot of testimony from witnesses that said when the president got some of report on ukrai ukraine, talk to rudy. he has the franchise on ukraine. we know what rudy wanted to do. he said we had an update on it. rudy is front and center in the campaign to -- >> on fox news this morning. >> he's front and center to smear our ambassador, the u.s. ambassador to ukraine who is fighting corruption. she understood that ukraine had a chance here with the election

of president zelensky. and instead of bolstering ukraine, helping them getting the aid that we voted for them, aid that had been approved by the department of defense, having cleared all of the anti-corruption criteria that we have legislated in the department of state, which had done that, all of the ts are crossed and the is are dotted and the money set and the president holds it up. he puts this other team in action to engineer the shakedown against president zelensky in order to get the political favor or the domestic political errand as dr. hill said that he wanted. >> it is in my judgment a shame of what happened. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, i can't believe that they won't address the facts as you have just outlined them and as i have attempted to and as the chairman has. all they want to talk about is

process. this ain't about process. this is about the president abusing his power. you all will pardon me for not using my inside voice, but ya'll don't either. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> happy to yield to the gentleman from georgia, mr. woodall. >> thank you. i rarely find myself in disagreement with my good friend from florida. more often than not i find myself educated by him. i have to disagree with him today because this is all about process. it's all about process. i don't know how many minds were changed when the gentleman from florida were changed again. i suspect none. folks know what they think that they know, but to my friend from florida's point, is there a

verbatim transcript somewhere? i don't know. you asked the question to the two witnesses that we had called to testify, two of the brightest members of congress in my estimation. they don't know. if i understood my friend from georgia correctly, there were no witnesses that are working on that transcript that you had an opportunity to talk to directly? >> no, we had no witnesses in judiciary. >> so my friend from florida is rightly outraged by his perception of wrongdoing. i hope that he's equally outraged by the inability to get information, not just our ability sitting here on the rules committee today but your inability. if we had intelligence commitsty member here, they could have answered mr. hasting's question. and i don't know. i'll ask my friends as mr. hastings did, is there

somebody in this room, on this committee that believes that the american people and our support of the constitution that we've always sworn to uphold is threatened by having a member of the committee of jurisdiction be here to share with us? how are the american people advantaged by the absence of our -- by the inability of our witnesses to answer mr. hastings questions? how is america advantaged by that? my friend from georgia leading the judiciary committee said that he was told and i hope i'm misquoting you, mr. collins. i misquoted you before so i won't take any offense in your correcting me. i believe you said that you asked the chairman about a minority witness day and he dismissed it as dilatory. >> that was included in a long letter. very similar to the letter that

was given. >> i have the letter that was sent to mr. cole. if we needed a finer chairman on the democratic side of the aisle, we might have other choices on our side but there's no finer chairman on the democratic side than my chairman on the rules committee and the staff to support him. i don't know if you've seen the letter. i'll share with you what it says, mr. collins. it says that not to worry. in this case, however, it says, chairman nadler has appropriately said that he will work with the minority to schedule their hearing. >> will the gentleman yield -- maybe he wasn't here when i reference the response before. he says i'm willing to work with the minority to schedule such a hearing. >> my friend from massachusetts misconstrued my statement. i stipulate what you're saying

is absolutely true. absolutely true. >> can i interject? >> i was going to ask my friend from georgia what good it was going to do to hold the minority hearing two days or three weeks after we voted -- >> what does it matter if you throw the person in jail and say the innocence will come around? that's not what happens here. you can't say oh, we'll -- chairman nadler came in and said april 1 next year looks like a great day for your minority day hearing what good does that do? none. it goes to the basic fairness. i want to say one thing if you allow me, mr. woodall. there's no witnesses that says there's a transcript and that the transcript that we have is not accurate. that's a fact. i talked about process and will continue to. i also acknowledged and i'm a factual defense of what i believe the facts are wrong here. you may disagree with my interpretation of that. i made a factual defense. i'll go back to it.

we talked about the four things that didn't change. the pressure. there's five meetings. if you want to draw a correlation between the conditioned aid and should have come up in these five minutings on july 25, we have the transcript of the call. july 26, volcker and taylor met with zelensky. the investigations never came up. august 27, john bolton met with president zelensky. aid never came up. september 1, vice president pence met with zelensky in warsaw. aid never came up. september 5, senators johnson and murphy met with zelensky again. the supposed link in aid never came up. i point out the last two. they're important. the last two were after it became public knowledge through politco that the aid was being held. nothing came up. facts matter. when you don't have the right facts, then you have to go to the amorphous topics. i have fought back on facts. >> mr. raskin appropriately

points out that we're doing is precedent setting. i think he asked us to think of the right question. his question was if this were a democratic president, would your answer still be the same. i could care less about the republican president and democratic president. i know mr. raskin has a love of the law. my question, how are the american people advantaged by mr. collins having no opportunity to put together a list of fact witnesses of his choosing? have them share their story and then the very able majority on the judiciary committee, the democrats, cross examine those witnesses? how are the american people advantaged by that absence? >> the first thing we need to say again is that the president and his team had the power to call whatever witnesses they wanted.

>> if i could reclaim my time for a moment. you've said that several times. the first time you said it, you properly caveated it with any of the 17 witnesses that the democrats called on the intelligence committee, the president could have called anyone of those democratic witnesses back to testify again. i don't believe you mean the president has the right to call any witness that he wants in front of the judiciary committee. you wouldn't give the ranking member the right to call people in front of the judiciary committee. >> he doesn't have the right to call irrelevant witnesses. it would have been up to the chair to decide if the person was relevant or not. >> so to be clear -- i misunderstood. the president has the ability to call a witness in the judiciary committee other than the 17 witnesses other than the democrats decided that they were going to deposition. >> he could have submitted names -- >> my ranking member submitted names. the answer was no, we're not going to do that. your definition of the fair and free process that advantages the

american people is that the president could submit any name he wants to. the chairman says no. >> we're in the process of collecting information for a indictment. the trial process takes place in the senate. that's where they conduct a trial where their rules will govern and anybody presumably will be able to bring in whatever witnesses that they want to bring in. now, we have tried to run an open, fair and transparent process. >> reclaiming my time. you frequently and did when we established the rules for the impeachment process in this committee, you frequently referred to the grand jury room. the grand jury room is not intended to be a place of fairness. it's intended to be a room of indictment. >> will you yield? >> what did you just say? >> the grand jury room is not intended to provide fairness to

any defendant. it's intended to indict as my friend from maryland simply stated. the defense comes next. >> understood. but are you saying that prosecutors don't have any other responsibility in the grand jury other than to indict? >> of course not. >> okay. >> i want to make sure. >> of course not. >> mr. woodall -- >> the prosecutor has an obligation to the people that the prosecutor -- in the same way that we have that same obligation and the words -- i want to quote him correctly. mr. raskin said there's plenty of fairness in this process. my question was how are the american people advantaged by mr. collins getting absolutely no witnesses before the committee and the white house getting absolutely no witnesses in front of the committee. the answer is mr. woodall, this

wasn't intended to be a defense for the president. >> i clearly didn't make myself clear. the president and mr. collins could have called any of the witnesses who appeared, any of the 17 sworn -- >> any of your -- >> it's not yours or mine. they're american citizens. >> these are the -- >> the social security -- >> reclaiming my time. >> let me say we can't speak over one another because the stenographer can barely keep us because we all talk so fast. if we're talking over each other. i caution everybody, the witnesses and members of the committee to ask a question and let the witness answer. >> and i'm hamstrung, mr. chairman, but the fact that mr. raskin isn't the decision maker on these issues. and again, to mr. collins point about the clock being the master. mr. nadler, chairman nadler, has put in months of work on this.

not as much time as chairman schiff has put in on this. but put in months of work and we have neither of the two committee chairman who have done all of the work here be forced to answer our questions. i have no doubt that mr. raskin is exasperated because he is an answerer. he's a fact provider. he educated this committee on a regular basis on matters of the law. but it offends my sense of fairness that my ranking member can't have a witness of his choosing. i'm not talking ant 100 witnesses. i'm talking about a witness of his choosing to come. the process gets described over and over again, the white house had plenty of opportunity and everybody had an equal chance to question. nonsense. nonsense. and to let that record stand perpetuates the myth that this is supposed to have been a fair process.

i would argue it couldn't have been a fair process. it wasn't. mr. collins? >> just so we're clear here. the operative word that my friends from maryland said was tried. i'll give a try. it wasn't a good one to be fair in this. for me -- again, you can't have it both ways. you can't call it a grand jury where the prosecution calls witnesses. they have to depend on the prosecutor to live up to integrity. you can't have it and say we're a grand jury and then you can't say we're going to make it fire and give their side of the defense. they don't do that in a grand jury. here's the issue. in a court where i practiced, i never went to the prosecutor and say who can i call? the prosecutor said you can call my witnesses. at least at some point in that mix, mr. raskin, would at least -- and others on the democratic side, they would have to acknowledge that having the chairman determine relevancy of

my witnesses called or the white house's is a problematic exercise because it's their determining relevancy that is discounting any possibility, any possibility of exculpatory evidence coming from one of my witnesses. they're saying they're irrelevant so we don't want to hear from them. let's make that clear. that's why this was, again -- we said it's very unfair process. >> mr. raskin, you said earlier and rightfully, you said some folks can't conceive that the call was not perfect. surely folks could concede that things were not perfect. mr. collins did not characterize the call as perfect. my question is, can't you concede -- >> i don't think anybody said that. who said that? >> mr. collins. he said he wasn't describing it as perfect. he described it as noncriminal. i'm misquoting his statement. my question to you is can you not concede that having the

chairman who is leading the impeachment inquiry determine relevancy for lack of a better word defense witnesses is flawed? >> yeah. so this was the exact same process that took place in the clinton impeachment. the same process in the nixon impeachment which is the minority gets the right to request witnesses. if they're relevant, they will be accepted. it's hard to know what to do otherwise in an environment where people are bringing all kinds of extraneous conspiracy theorys to explain what's going on. >> to quote you back to you because i want to use the best sources i can. when you quoted -- when you cited the house rule that required the minority witnesses be heard, you said in your recollection that's not a condition precedent, to having the hearing and reporting the bill. you're of course right. >> you're talking about the

minority hearing >> yes. >> yeah. >> there's absolutely no house rule that requires that we hear from the minority before not just the dye has been cast but the bill has been reported on the floor and sent to the president. that is not a requirement. you're right that we should probably go back a and look at that if we're trying to give the minority a voice. but you have to tell me how the american people are advantaged by hearing from exculpatory witnesses after the house has voted. >> okay. first of all, if there's a name of an exculpatory witness, put it forward that we've done nothing to try to get all of the president's men to come and testify. it's the president blockading secretary pompeo and secretary perry and the director of office and management budget and numerous other witnesses. to me it's the height of irony that you guys are making the argument that somehow we don't want the evidence in. we want all the evidence. that's why we want to hold the president in obstruction of

justice because he's preventing us from getting -- >> it would not surprise me if you're right. so let me ask the gentleman from georgia, is that right? you submitted a list of witnesses and the president said that those witnesses wouldn't be allowed to testify? >> no, the president didn't say that. >> nobody said that. >> this is why hearings are good mr. raskin said it twice, if i would have called one of the 17 i would have got them. he said it a couple times, if not more. he said it several times. i understand this is tough. he is in a very tough position. he's doing an add mirable job for what he's doing. it's interesting that that would come out. i know he's an integral part of that team that if i called one of the 17, they would have been accepted, which is interesting. wouldn't it be logical for the chairman to call some of those 17 so we could have had the impression that we were doing our interviews? what happened in the intel committee, after you talked to

them, they -- then they had to come back and some reuped their testimony. why wouldn't we have brought them back? you've done this a couple times. we did get that in the majority whose job it was to prosecute this didn't do it as well. >> as you recall, we fought that on our side of the aisle when this process being set up. thought it was odd that the intelligence commitsty was the only one talking to fact finders. tried to require that exculpatory evidence be provided to the judiciary committee. i want to touch on one more piece of process. my friend from florida raised it. he raised it in the context of mr. mcconnell and mr. graham, senator mcconnell and senator graham and they should recuse themselves because they have already picked a dog in this particular fight. i think we say things to people around here that the american people listen to that turned out

to be flawed. again, i think everybody on this committee has great respect for mr. raskin. he's not just a value member of the judiciary committee. he's a more valuable member of our rules committee. but because i didn't -- when i found out i wouldn't have a chance to talk to mr. nadler, i went and brushed up on raskin's policy. i think they misquoted you, to be fair, mr. raskin. but salon did an interview you with you before the president was elected. their headline is "at least one democratic congressman is already preparing to impeach donald trump." the article is donald trump won't be sworn in another 48 hours. one democratic congressman has seen enough. you go on to talk about the

emoluments clause. i think your legitimate questions about those issues. that was 48 hours before the president was sworn in. you're sitting on the grand jury that is impartially considering the evidence. the emoluments clause that yo were quoted on supporting impeachment of 48 hours before the president was elected, i can't find anywhere in the articles that we see before us today. have you changed your mind from then or do you think as politco is reporting that we're going to see part two of impeachment come down the road, that this was just impeachment number 1 and there's going to be impeachment number 2 and impeachment number 3? >> thanks for that question. i would like to have a separate hearing on the emoluments

clause. i'd written about it. i'm here to represent the judiciary committee because of the absence of mr. nadler. it wouldn't be fair for me to get into that. i wouldn't with representing the views of the entire judiciary committee. >> that's perfectly fair. when we voted to table as mr. cole referenced in regard to mr. mcgovern's vote in december of 17, of course you opposed that motion to table as well. and at that time you said it was a vote out of frustration. and that what you wanted was a real inquiry into corruption and criminality in the trump administration. this was two years before this phone call ever happened. so again, i'm looking at articles of impeachment here. i have members of the judiciary committee that were certain of corruption and criminality in the trump administration that

exists nowhere here. >> mr. woodall, you would cobb seed there's other episodes of corruption in the business career of president trump and the political career that are not part -- all part of this process. i don't know if -- look, there's patterns of conduct and behavior that have been noticed. one of them is extremely relevant to this investigation. that's what took place in 2016. that is when donald trump invited in russia, the whole world heard him say it, invited russia to come to our election. he welcomed their interference. the special counsel found more than 100 contacts between the trump campaign and russia nationals there. and then when it began to happen, the president moved to obstruct the investigation. that's in the mueller report, which we talked about today. all of those episodes of corruption. so there's a pattern of evidence

and i don't know -- look, when bill clinton got impeach for what he did, you can find republicans that had been calling for his impeachment for several years for other stuff. there were conspiracy theories about him going on for years. that doesn't necessarily discredit what happened in impeachment of bill clinton. you have to take it in its own terms. we're trying to get back to the facts of what happened here. >> you're mistaken my intent. i was not citing comments that you made in the past to put you as a never trumper who's sole purpose was to reverse a legitimate american election. that was not my intent. my intent was to mention you as someone that is a thoughtful legal mind that had other legal concerns going back for years. when folks say rob what do you mean this process is rushed? we've done it 90 days. isn't that long enough? no. that's faster than any other

process. faster than the fast and furious documents. but what isn't is a complete process i think by your own testimony here that there's more we could have done that we didn't do. my question is, because i do thinker with about advantaging the american people and the republic and the constitution. are we advantaged, are the american people advantaged by -- because again, politco is reporting that the investigations are going to continue. the investigations do not stop with the house vote tomorrow, we will continue to investigate the potential impeachment of the president long after we have already voted to impeach the president is the story that is out there today. are we advantaged as an institution to have impeachment number 1 and impeachment number 2 and number 3 as we did in the bill clinton era, put all of the articles in a single document after a longer and more thorough

investigation and have this sent to the senate once? >> i'm going to ask my stuff -- i believe the clinton investigation moved more quickly after the starr report arrived in congress than we have so far. your basic question is an excellent one. you ask an excellent question here. all i can say is that we have a clear and present danger to our democracy right now because of the electoral corruption. this president invited in a foreign power to come and interfere in our election. he used all of the resources of his office to cooers president zelensky to come in to make these announcements that he wanted for a totally political purpose. we have to deal with this. we have a very serious and complicated problem to address as a country right now, which is

do we want to establish that this can be the norm going forward, that any president, whether they're last name is trump or obama or anything else, can go to foreign governments in the middle of a campaign, lure them in either through coercion or through honey, whatever it might be and get them to participate in our election. that's a really serious problem. so look, i agree with you. and you know, you asked a very good question, mr. woodall. there's other things that are not part of this but that is because of the urgency of this situation. >> i take that point. >> i'll say it again. clock and calendar. that's why we're doing it. that's what it is. they why we say things like imperati imperative. it's a clock and calendar issue. when this fails, there will probably be others. that's reported widely, not just in magazines. straight out of the words of mr. schiff, straight out of the words of mr. green, other

colleagues we've had. the current lack of proof is another reason why an abbreviated investigation is so damaging for the case of impeachment. it doesn't have the footing. if you're doing it because you want to get into an election when the discussion was a previous one, issues -- i can't help you in time and calendar will take over. >> we're talking today about reversing america's last election. i worry about the election after that or the one after that. of course there's always differences of opinion. i disagree with my chairman about much more than i agree with him about. but that doesn't mean that we can't find a process to move forward on together. it is not more divided in this congress today than it was in 1998 when folks found a process that that i could work on together because as much as we

cared about the presidency then, we cared more about the constitution later. we found a way to move forward. moving forward in a partisan way is going to have repercussions. my friend from maryland knows that. he believes it's worth the risk. but it's a measurable and substantial risk. certainly the 13 of us, 14 with mr. collins here today, are going to be judged on that front because despite our own personal interests in the facts, we're not a fact committee. we're a process committee. i don't believe america is going to judge us harshly because of the way the facts come out. i think america is going to judge us harshly because of the process that has come forward. with that, i yield back. >> let me just say, i -- you know, we keep on hearing a lot about the clock and calendar. but i would remind everyone that

we are here because of abuse and obstruction. the president's abuse of power and obstruction of congress. that's why we're here. and you know, i said in my opening and i'll say this again, we just have a difference of opinion. my friends characterize this as trying to overturn the last election. i look at this as a crime in progress. we're trying to prevent the president from rigging the next election. again, i have never ever seen or witnessed a moment like this where a president of either party has publicly invited foreign intervention in our election. he did it while he was running for president, he did it with ukraine. and the administration has purposely decided not to cooperate to drag their feet hoping that, you know, we'll get through the next election. i mean, this is -- i said it's wrong. it's beyond pale.

we have a difference of opinion on this. i yield to the gentle lady from california, mrs. torres. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to both of you for being here. i also want to thank my colleagues that have spoke before me today for using your indoor voice and for exercising a decorum. we're on the third floor of the u.s. capitol. we have to respect each other. today we regrettably faced one of the most solemn duties, the constitution that is in congress. i like all of you here did not come to congress to impeach a president. as a matter of fact, on january 20th of 2017, i stood in the freezing rain to watch donald trump be sworn in as the 45th

president of the united states. i was there in good faith. i was there because i believe in the peaceful transfer of power. i was there because i believe in the rule of law. and maybe foolishly i also believed in second chances. that we would have elected someone that can stand up and represent all americans. but then in september president three months ago, we learned that president trump had withheld critical military funding to ukraine. a strategic partner in a war with russia. and then october 3, president trump announced that china and

ukraine should investigate his political rivals on national tv. the president's personal attorney also said that biden should be investigated. now, president trump famously said that he could shoot someone dead in the middle of fifth avenue in new york city and he would get away with it. what mindset do you have to be in to say this out loud on national tv and to believe that? well, anyone that turns a blind eye to behavior like this is providing him that right.

five gop primaries have been cancelled. kansas, alaska, south carolina, arizona, nevada. gop republicans across the nation are locked in step to defend at any cost the bad actions and illegal actions of this president. the facts are clear. to quote the "usa today" editorial board, trump used your tax dollars to shake down a vulnerable foreign government to interfere in a u.s. election for his personal benefit. ambassador gordon sondland, the president's hand picked

ambassador to the european union testified to his abuse of power under oath. he said i know that members of this community have framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question. was there a quid pro quo? as i testified previously with regard to the request, to the requested white house call and white house meeting, the answer is yes. we also have the rough transcript open trump's july 25th call released by the president himself. for all the claims that president trump was withholding military aid over corruption in ukraine, he never once uttered the word corruption in the call. he does ask for a favor though.

a favor that has nothing to do with u.s. national interests. and everything to do with his own political interests. trump's actions were clear abuse of presidential power. he conditioned official acts of office on a political advantage in the next election. think about that. all of us here, members of congress, have taken ethics, training, on the house rules. and on federal crimes. i just did the training last week. we've all sworn the same oath of office to protect and defends our constitution. imagine if a city in our

district asked for our help with a grant or an appropriations request, would any of us reply i would like you to do us a favor though. announce an investigation into my political opponents. of course not. why would you not do that? because no one, no one is above the law. not even the president. you know that asking for that type of favor is illegal. the rule of law is what gives our great country its strength. the rule of law is what separates us from third world countries where dictators reign for decades on. the rule of law is what makes us

our great country, the envy of the world. the place that other countries look for inspiration as they grow their own democracy. it's the rule of law that brings all of us here today. as the only member of congress from central america, take it from me, that we never want to see a day when the rule of law fades away. i never want to see a day where american families have to send their children to live outside of the country because of public corruption. look at honduras. their constitution banned presidential re-elections. they clearly states if

presidents tried to get rid of the re-election ban, that they should be removed from office immediately. despite this, president hernandez ran again any kwwaany. the supreme court in honduras got rid of term limits. now he's serving his second term in violation of his country's founding principles. honduras is now a narco state. we have thousands of honduran families seeking asylum. in guatemala, the people have been waging an uphill battle against corruption for years. former president molina took bribes in exchange for lower taxes. millions of tax dollars lined the pockets of high-ranking officials instead of meeting the needs of the people in one of

the poorest countries in latin america. today president trump said after a meeting with president morales, in guatemala they handle things much tougher than the u.s. imagine that. cfig, the anti-corruption organization formed to bring justice to guatemala brought hundreds of cases or corruption to light. once again, they began -- once they began investigating president jimmy morales for illegal campaign financing, he promptly shot down the commission. does this sound familiar to anyone? president morales informed the former attorney general who worked to fight corruption to seek asylum in the united states because her safety is now at

risk. does this sounds familiar to anyone? i bring these examples up to remind my colleagues that the future house of our democracy is not assured. we can slide back to tyranny one corrupt act at a time. until our democracy is like the fake village in north korea that faces the dmz, a nice looking facade, the masks of tyranny within, that's why the articles of impeachment are so important. mr. chairman, the constitution did not come from a higher power. it is just a document, a piece of paper with words written on it. but we the people give the

constitution its power. we the people decide to follow and honor our laws. today we the people must agree that the laws apply to everyone. including the president of the united states. that is the president that we expect of all elected officials. it's the president that we must re-affirm in these proceedings. 60 years ago martin luther king issued a warning during the civil rights era which resonates very much with the choice before us today. dr. king said, "if you fail to act now, history will have to record that the greatest tragedy

of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people but of the appalling silence of the good people." let's move forward. >> as you can see, we're watching live coverage of the house committee as they debate at some point on wednesday, the full house comes to session. about 9:00 a.m. eastern time on wednesday. the formal debate will

this could go on for at least another few hours. it is paving the way for a vote on impeaching the president of the united states for the first time in 11 decades. that seems to be ironclad right now. with growing indications are that of modern democrats who have been increasingly jumped off with most indicating that they will vote for one or both articles of impeachment that will come up for a vote tomorr tomorrow. we don't know the exact timing of that. what we know is that the votes are there. a lot of this is pol