government in its election-related interference activities. this for that. night, manager schiff complained that the regarding foreign interference and instead decided that he would listen to meet that he trusted and he would inquire about the ukraine issue himself. mr. schiff did not like the fact that the president did not apparently blindly trust some of the advice he was being given by the intelligence agencies. first of all, let me be clear. disagreeing with the president's decision on foreign policy matters or whose advice he's going to take is in no way an impeachable offense. second, mr. schiff and mr. nadler of all people,

because they chair significant committees, really should know this. and they should know what's happened. let me remind you of something. just .6 of a mile from this chamber sits the foreign intelligence court, also known as the fisa court. it is the court established and authorized under the foreign intelligence surveillance act to oversee requests by federal agencies for surveillance orders against foreign spies in the united states including american citizens. because of the sensitive nature of its business, the court is a more secret court. its hearings are closed to the public. in this court there are no defense counsel, no opportunity to cross examine witnesses and no ability to test evidence. the only material the courtesies are the materials submitted on trust -- on trust -- by members of the intelligence community

with the presumption that he would be acting in good faith. on december 17th, 2019, the fisa court issued a scathing order in response to the justice department inspector general's report on fbi cross fire hurricane investigation. we already know the conclusion. that report detailed the fbi's pattern of practice, systematic abuses of obtaining surveillance order requests and the process they utilized. in its order -- and this is the order from a court. i'm going to read it. this order responds to reports that personnel of the federal bureau of investigation provided false information to the national security division of the department of justice and withheld material information

from the nsd which was detrimental to the fbi's case in connection with four applications to the foreign intelligence court. when the fbi misled nsd in the ways that are described in these reports, they equally misled the foreign intelligence surveillance court. this order's been followed up. there's been another order. it was declassified just a couple of days ago. thanks in large part, the court said, to the office of inspector general's u.s. department of justice, the court has received notice from material statements and omissions from applications filed from the government in the above captioned documents. doj assesses that with respect to the applications -- and lists two specific docket numbers -- 17375 and 17365 if not earlier, there was insufficient

predication to establish probable cause to believe that carter page was acting as an agent of a foreign power. the president had reason to be concerned about the information he was being provided. now, we could ignore this. we could make believe this did not happen. but it did. so, as we begin introducing our arguments, i want to correct a couple things in the record as well. that's what we're doing today. we really intend to show over the next several days that the evidence is actually really overwhelming that the president did nothing wrong. mr. schiff and his colleagues repeatedly told you that the intelligence community assessment, that russia was acting alone, responsible for the election interference, implying this somehow debunked

the idea that there might be interference from other countries, including ukraine. mr. nadler deployed a similar argument saying that president trump thought, quote, ukraine not russia interfered in our last presidential election. this is basically what we call a straw man argument. let me be clear. the house managers over 23-hour period kept pushing this false dichotomy that it was either russia or ukraine, but not both. they kept telling you the conclusion of the intelligence community and mr. mueller was russia alone with regard to the 2016 elections. of course that's not -- the report that bob mueller wrote focused on russia interference. although there is some information in letters regarding ukraine, and i'm going to point to those in a few moments.

in fact, let me report -- i think i'll talk about this letter right now. this is a letter dated may 4th, 2018 to mr. urie the office of the prosecutor general of ukraine. it was a letter requesting that his office cooperate with the mueller investigation involving ukraine issues and issues involving ukraine government or law enforcement officials signed by senator menendez, senator leahy, and senator durbin. i'm doing this to put this into entire perspective. house managers tried to tell you that the importance -- remember the whole discussion of my colleague mr. purpura talked

about this between president zelensky and president trump and the bilateral meeting in the oval office of the white house as if an article of impeachment could be based upon a meeting not taking place in the white house but taking place someplace else like the united nations general assembly where it, in fact, did take place. now, dr. fiona hill was clear in saying that a white house meeting was supplied to the ukrainian government with the legitimacy it needed especially vis-a-vis the russians and the recognition of their legitimacy as a sovereign state. but here's what they did not play. here's what they did not tell you. and i'm going to quote from dr.

hill's testimony on page 145 of her transcript. these are her words. this is what she said under oath. it wasn't always a white house meeting per se, but definitely a presidential-level meeting. you know, a meeting with zelensky and the president. i mean it could have taken place in poland, in warsaw. it could have been, you know, a proper bilateral and other context. but in other words, a white house-level presidential meeting. that can be found on page 145. and contrary to what manager schiff and other managers told you is this meeting did in fact occur. it occurred at the un general assembly on september 25th, 2019. those were the words of dr. hill that you did not hear.

this case is really not about presidential wrong doing. this entire impeachment process is about the house managers insistence that they are able to read everybody's thoughts. they can read everybody's intention even when the principle speakers, the witnesses themselves insist that those interpretations are wrong. manager schiff, managers garcia and demings relied heavily on selected clips from ambassador sondland's testimony. i am not going to replay those. my colleague, mr. purpura, played those for you. it's clear. we're not going to play the same clips seven times. he said it. you saw it. that's the evidence. ms lofgren said that numerous

witnesses testified, quote, they were not provided any reason for why the hold was lifted on september 11th, again suggesting that the president's reason for the hold, ukrainian corruption, and burden sharing were somehow created after the fact. but, again, as my colleague just showed you, burden sharing was raised in the transcript itself. mr. schiff stated here that just like the implementation of the hold, president trump provided no reason for the release. this also is wrong. in their testimony, ambassadors volker and sondland said that the president raised his concerns about ukrainian corruption in the may 23rd, 2019 meeting with the ukraine delegation. deputy defense secretary laura

bap testified that she received an email in june of 2019 listing follow-ups from a meeting between the secretary of defense chief of staff and the president relating specifically to ukrainian security assistance including asking about what other countries are contributing. burden sharing. that could be found in laura cooper's deposition, pages 33 and 34. the president mentioned both corruption and burden sharing to senator johnson, as you already heard. it's also important to note that as ambassador david hale testified that foreign aid generally was undergoing a review in 2019. from page 84 of his november 6,

2019 testimony, he said the administration did not want to take a, sort of, business-as-usual approach to foreign assistance, a feeling that once a country has received a certain assistance package, it's something that continues forever. didn't talk about that in their 23-hour presentation. dr. fiona hill confirmed this review and testified on november 21, 2019. i'm going to again quote from page 75 of her testimony, that quote, there had been a directive for wholesale -- a whole scale review of our foreign policy, foreign policy assistance, and the ties between our foreign policy objectives and that assistance. this had been going on actually for many months. so, multiple witnesses testify that the president had long-standing concerns and

specific concerns about ukraine. the house managers understandably ignore the testimony that took place before their own committees. in her testimony of october 14th, 2019, dr. hill testified at pages 118 and 119 of her transcript that she thinks the president has actually quite publicly said that he was very skeptical about corruption in ukraine. and then she said again in her testimony, and in fact, he's not alone because everyone -- because everyone -- has expressed great concerns about corruption in ukraine. similarly, ambassador yovanovitch testified that they all had concerns about

corruption in ukraine and as noted on pages 142 of her deposition transcript, when asked what she knew about the president's deep-rooted skepticism about ukraine's business environment, she answered that president trump delivered an anti-corruption message to former ukrainian president poroshenko in their first meeting in the white house on june 20th, 2017: nsc senior director morrison testified that he was aware the president thought ukraine had a corruption problem, and he continued, as did many others familiar with ukraine. and according to her testimony, special adviser for ukraine

negotiations at the state department catherine croft also heard the president raise the issue of corruption directly with then president poroshenko of ukraine during a bilateral meeting at the united nations general assembly, this time in september 2017. special adviser croft testified she also understood the president's concerns that, quote, ukraine is corrupt because she has been -- this is her words -- tasked to write a paper to help then nsa head mcmasters make the case to the president in connection with prior -- prior -- security assistance. these concerns were entirely justified. when asked -- again, a quote from dr. hill's october hearing

transcript -- certainly -- these are her words -- eliminating corruption in ukraine was one of, if the central, goals of the foreign policy. now, does anybody think that one election of one president that ran on a reform platform who finally gets a majority in their legislative body that corruption in ukraine just evaporates? that's like looking at this -- goes back to the mueller report. you can't look at these issues in a vacuum. virtually every witness agreed that confronting corruption could be at the forefront of u.s. policy. now, i think there's some other things we have to understand about timing.

this, again, is according to the testimony of tim morrison. his testimony. this is when president zelensky was first elected. there was -- this is -- these are his words -- there was real concern about whether he would be a genuine reformer and whether he would genuinely try to rout out corruption. it was also unclear whether president zelensky's party would actually be able to get a workable majority. i think we're all glad that they did. to say that that's been tested or determined, that corruption in ukraine has been removed, the anticorruption court of ukraine did not commence its work until september 5th of 2019, 121 days ago, four months ago.

we're acting as if there was a magic wand, that there was new elections and everything was now fine. i will not, because we're going to hear more about it, get into some of the meanings the vice president had. you'll hear that in the days ahead. manager crow said this: what's most interesting to me about this was president trump was only interested in ukraine aid. his words. nobody else. the u.s. provides aids to dozens of countries around the world, lots of partners and allies. he didn't ask about any of them, just ukraine. i appreciate your service to our country, i really do. i didn't serve in the military. and i appreciate that. but let's get our facts

straight. that is what manager crow said. here's what actually happened. president trump has placed holds on aid a number of times. we just take basic due diligence to figure this out. in september 2019, the administration announced it was withholding over $100 million of aid to afghanistan over concerns about government corruption. in august 2019, president trump announced that the administration and seoul were in talks to substantially increase south korea's share, burden sharing, of the expenses of u.s. military aid support for south korea. in june, president trump cut or paused over-$550 million in foreign aid to el salvador, honduras, and guatemala because those countries were not fairly sharing the burdens of providing mass migration to the united

states. in june, the administration temporarily paused $105 million in aid to lebanon. the administration lifted that hold in december with one official explaining that the administration continually reviews and thoroughly evaluates the effectiveness of all united states foreign assistance to ensure that funds go towards activities that further u.s. foreign policy and also further our national security interests like any administration would. in september 2018, the administration cancelled the $300 million -- $300 million -- in military aid to pakistan because it was not meeting its counterterrorism obligations. you didn't hear about any of that from my democratic colleagues and house managers. none of that was discussed.

under secretary hale, again, his crypt, said aid has been held for various countries across the world for various reasons. dr. hill similarly suggest there is freeze put on aid, also freed at a time of a lot of reviews going on on foreign assistance. that's the hill deposition transcript. she added -- this was one of the star witnesses for managers. she added that in her experience stops and starts are sometimes common with foreign assistance and that the office of management and budget holds up dollars all the time including dollars going to ukraine in the past. similarly, ambassador volker affirmed that aid gets held up from time to time for a whole assortment of reasons.

manager crow told you that the president's ukraine policy was not strong against russia, noting that we help our partner fight russia over there so we don't have to fight russia here. our friends on the front lines and trenches and with sneakers. this was following the russian invasion of ukraine in 2019, the united states has stood by ukraine. while it's true the united states has stood by ukraine since the invasion of 2014, only one president since then took a very concrete step. some of you supported it. and that step included actually providing ukraine with lethal weapons including javelin missiles. that's what president trump did. some of you in this very room, some of you managers, actually supported that. here's what ambassador taylor said that you didn't hear in the 23 hours. you didn't hear this.

javelin missiles are serious weapons. they will kill russian tanks. ambassador yovanovitch agreed stating that ukraine policy under president trump actually got stronger, stronger than it was under president obama. there's talks about sanctions. president trump has also imposed heavy sanctions on russia for president zelensky thanked him. the united states has imposed heavy sanctions on russia. president zelensky thanked him. manager jeffreys said the idea trump cares about corruption is laughable. this is what dr. hill said. they didn't play this. eliminating corruption in ukraine was one of if not the central goal of u.s. foreign policy in ukraine.

let me say that again. dr. hill testified that eliminating corruption in ukraine was one of, if not the central goal, of u.s. foreign policy in ukraine. you're taking notes, you can find that at the hill deposition transcript 34: 7-13. dr. hill also said that she thinks the president is actually quite publicly said that he was very skeptical about corruption in ukraine. in fact he's not alone. she said this as well, everyone has expressed, again, great concerns about corruption. ambassador yovanovitch, they didn't play this, she also said we all had concerns. national security director morrison confirmed that, quote, he was aware that the president thought ukraine had a corruption problem as did many other people familiar with it.

i am not going to continue to go over and over and over again the evidence that they did not put before you because we would be here for a lot longer than 24 hours. but to say that the president of the united states did not -- was not concerned about burden sharing, that he was not concerned about corruption in ukraine, the facts from their hearing, the facts from their hearing, establish exactly the opposite. the president wasn't concerned about burden sharing. read all of the records. and then there was mr. schiff

saying yesterday maybe we can learn a lot more from our ukrainian ally. let me read you what our ukrainian ally said. president zelensky. when asked about these allegations of quid pro quo, he said i think you read everything. i think you read the texts. he says we had a good phone call. these are his words. it was normal. we spoke about many things. i think, and you read it, that nobody pushed me. they think you can read minds. i think you look at the words. i'm going to yield the balance of my time to my colleague, the deputy white house counsel pat fieldman. he's going to address two issues, one involving issues related to -- because this came up near the end, so i want to do

this in a sequence -- obstruction as it related to subpoenas that were issued. he's also going to touch on due process issues since it was at the end of the freshen mr. chief justice. >> mr. chief justice, senators, majority leader mcconnell, democratic leader schumer, good morning. as mr. sekulow said i'm going to touch on a couple of issues related to obstruction and due process. just to hit on some points before we go into more detail in the rest of our presentation. i'd like to start with one of the points that manager jeffries

focused a lot on related to the obstruction charge in the second article of impeachment because he tried to portray a picture of what he called blanket defiance, that there was a response from the trump administration that was simply we won't cooperate with anything, we won't give you any documents, we won't do anything, and it was blanket defiance really without explanation that that was all there was was just an assertion that we wouldn't cooperate. and he said, and i pulled this from the transcript, that president trump's objections are not generally rooted in the law and are not legal arguments. that's simply not true. that's simply not true. in every instance where there was resistance to a subpoena for witness or documents, there is a legal explanation of the justification for it. for example, they focused a lot on an october 8th letter from the counsel to the president, pat cipollone. but they didn't show you an october 18th letter which is up on the screen now that went

through in detail why subpoenas that had been issued by manager schiff's committees were invalid because the house has not authorized your committees to conduct any such inquiry or to subpoena information in furtherance of it. that was because the house had not taken a vote to authorize the committee to exercise the power of impeachment to issue any compulsory process. and i'm going to get into that issue in just a moment. not only was there a legal explanation, a specific reason for every resistance, not just blanket defiance. every step that the administration took was supported by an opinion from the department of justice from the office of legal counsel. and those are explained in our brief and attached in our trial

memorandum as an appendix. mr. jeffries and other managers suggested no attempt to accommodate. that's also not true. in the october 8th letter that mr. cipollone sent to speaker pelosi, it said explicitly, quote, if the committees wish to return to the regular order of oversight requests, we stand ready to engage in that process as we have in the past in a manner consistent with well-established bipartisan constitutional and respect for the separation of powers enshrined in the constitution, end quote. it was manager schiff and his committees that did not want to engage in any accommodation process. we had said that we were willing to explore that. house managers have also asserted a number of times --

this came up on that first long night when we were here until 2:00 as well -- that the trump administration never asserted executive privilege, never asserted executive privilege. and i explained at the time that's technically true but misleading. misleading because the rationale on which the subpoenas were resisted never depended on an assertion of executive privilege. each of the rationales that we have offered -- and i'll go into one of them today -- that the house subpoenas were not authorized does not depend on making that formal assertion of executive privilege. it's a different legal rationale. the subpoenas weren't authorized because there was no vote or the subpoenas were to senior advisers to the president who are immune from congressional compulsion or the subpoenas were forcing executive officials to testify without the presence of

legal counsel which is affirmty. let me turn to the specific issue of the invalidity of the subpoenas because they weren't supported by a vote of the house authorizing manager schiff's committees to exercise the power of impeachment to issue compulsory process. manager jeffries said there were no supreme court measurements suggesting such a requirement and every investigation into a presidential impeachment in history has begun without a vote from the house. and those statements simply aren't accurate. there is supreme court precedent explaining very clearly the principle that a committee of either house of congress gets its authority only by a resolution from the parent body.

united states versus rumley and watkins versus united states make this very clear. and it's common sense. the constitution assigns the sole power of impeachment to the house of representatives, to the house, not to any member, not to a subcommittee. and that authority can be delegated to a committee to use only by a vote of the house. it would be the same here in the senate. the senate has the sole power to try impeachments. but if there were no rules that had been adopted by the senate, would you think that the majority leader himself could simply decide that he would have a committee receive evidence, handle that, submit a recommendation to the senate, and that would be the way that the trial would occur without a vote from the senate to give authority to that committee? i don't think so. it doesn't make sense. that's not the way the

constitution assigns that authority. and it's the same in the house. here, there was no vote to authorize a committee to exercise the power of impeachment. and this law has been boiled down by the d.c. circuit in exxon corp. versus ftc to explain it this way. to issue a valid subpoena, a committee or subcommittee must conform strictly to the resolution establishing its investigatory powers. there must be a resolution voted on by the parent body to give the committee that power. and the problem here is there is no standing rule. there was no standing authority giving manage schiff's committee the power potential use the power of impeachment to issue compulsory process. rule ten of the house discussing legislative authority. it doesn't mention impeachment. and that is why in every presidential impeachment in

history the house has initiated the inquiry by that inquiry. so, contrary to what manager jeffries suggested, there has always been in every presidential impeachment inquiry a vote from the full house to authorize a committee. and that is the only way the inquiry begins. there were three different votes for the impeachment of president andrew johnson. in january 1867, in march 1867, and in february 1868. for president nixon, chairman of the house judiciary committee explained there was a move to have him issue subpoenas after the saturday night massacre. and they determined that they did not have that authority in the house judiciary committee without a vote from the house. and he determined as he explained that a resolution has

always been passed by the house. it is a necessary step if we are to meet our obligations. there's been reference to investigatory activities starts in the house judiciary committee in the nixon impeachment prior to the vote from the house. but all that the committee was doing was assembling publicly available information and information that had been gathered by other congressional committees. there was never an attempt to issue compulsory process until there had been a vote by the house to give the house judiciary committee that authority. similarly, in the clinton impeachment there were two votes from the full house to give the house judiciary committee authority to proceed, first a vote on a resolution 5-5 just to allow the committee to examine the independent counsel report and determine, make recommendations on how to proceed, then a separate

resolution. house resolution 581 that gave the house judiciary committee subpoena authority. and at the time in a house report, the house judiciary committee explained -- i'm quoting -- because the issue of impeachment is of such overwhelming importance, the committee decided that it must receive authorization from the full house before proceeding on any further course of action because impeachment is delegated solely to the house of representatives by the constitution, the full house of representatives should be involved in critical decision making regarding various stages of impeachment. here, the house democrats skipped over that step completely. what they had instead was simply a press conference from speaker pelosi announcing that she was directing committees to proceed with an impeachment inquiry against the president of the

united states. speaker pelosi didn't is are the authority to delegate the power of the house to those committees on her own. so, why does it matter? it matters because the constitution places that authority in the house and ensures that there is a democratic check on the exercise of that authority, that there will have to be a vote by the full house before there can be a proceeding to start inquiring into impeaching the president of the united states. one of the things that the framers were most concerned about in impeachment was the potential for a partisan impeachment, a partisan impeachment that was being pushed merely a faction. and a way to ensure a check on that is to require a democratic accountability from the full house to have a vote from the entire house before an inquiry can proceed. that didn't happen here. it was only after five weeks of

hearings that the house decided to have a vote. and what that meant at the outset was that all of the subpoenas that were issued under the law, the supreme court cases i discussed, all of those subpoenas were invalid. and that is what the trump administration pointed out specifically to the house. that was the reason for not responding to them because under long-settled precedent, there had to be a vote from the house to give authority. and the administration would not respond to subpoenas that were invalid. now, the next point i'd like to touch on briefly has to do with due process because we've heard from the house managers that they offered the president due mmittee.at the house judiciary d mr it ashat he sent the president a

letter, the president's counsel a letter, offering to allow the president to participate and the president's counsel just refused as if that was the only exchange. and there's just a blanket refusal to participate. but let me explain what actually happened. i should note before i get into those details there was a suggestion also that due process is not required in the house proceeding, that it's simply a privilege. but that wasn't the position that manager nadler has taken in the past. in 2016, he said, quote, the power of impeachment is a solemn responsibility assigned to the house by the constitution and to this committee by our peers. that responsibility demands a rigorous level of due process. in the clinton impeachment of

1998, he explined what does due process mean, it means among other things the right to have witnesses, call your own witnesses, and to have the assistance of counsel. i think we all know those rights were denied to the president in the first two rounds of hearings, the first round of secret hearings in the basement bunker where manager schiff had three committees holding hearings and then in a round of public hearings to take the testimony that had been screened in the basement bunker and have it in a public televised setting which was totally unprecedented in any presidential impeachment inquiry in both the clinton and nixon inquiries. for every public hearing the president was allowed to be present by counsel and cross examine witnesses. but the house managers say that's all right because when we got to the third round of hearings after people had testified twice, then we were going to allow the president to

have son-in-l have some due process. but the way that played out was this: first, they scheduled a hearing for december 4th that was going to hear solely prolfr law professors. by the time they wanted the president to commit whether to participate, it was unclear how many law professors or who they were going to be. the president's lawyers wrote back and declined. at the same time, manager nadler asked what other rights under the house resolution 660, the rules governing the house inquiry, the president would like to exercise. and the president's counsel wrote back asking specific questions in order to be able to make an informed decision and asked whether you intend to allow fact witnesses to be called including the witnesses who had been requested by

ranking member nunez, whether you allow to counsel to cross examine fact witnesses, and whether your republican colleagues on the judiciary committee will be allowed to call witnesses oof their choosing. and manager nadler didn't respond to that letter. there wasn't information provided, and we had discussions with the staff on the judiciary committee to try to find out what were the plans, what were the hearings going to be like. and the week played out, on december 4th, there was the hearing with the law professors. the first hearing before the judiciary committee. and on december 5th, the morning of december 5th, speaker pelosi announced the conclusion of the entire judiciary committee process because she announced that she was directing chairman nadler to draft articles of impeachment. so, the conclusion of the whole

process was already set. then after the close of business on the 5th, we learned from the staff that the committee had no plans other than a hearing on december 9th to hear from staffers who had prepared hipsi committee reports. they had no plans to have other hearings, no plans to hear from fact witnesses, no plans to do any factual investigation. so, the president was given a choice of participating in a process that was going to already have the outcome determined. the speaker had already said articles of impeachment were going to be drafted. and there were no plans to hear from any fact witnesses. that's not due process. and that's why the president declined to participate in that process because the judiciary kmo committee had already decided

they were going to accept an ex parte record developed in manager schiff's process, and there was no point in participating in that. so, the idea that there was due process offered to the president is simply not accurate. the entire proceedings in the house from the time of the september 4th press conference until the judiciary committee began marking up articles of impeachment on december 11 lasted 78 days. it's the fastest investigatory process for a presidential impeachment in history. and for 71 days of that process, for 71 days of the hearings and the taking of depositions and hearing testimony, the president was completely locked out. he couldn't be represented by counsel. he couldn't cross examine witnesses.

he couldn't present evidence. he couldn't present witnesses for 71 of the 78 days. that's not due process. and it goes to a point that mr. cipollone raised earlier. why would you have a process like that? what does that tell you about the process? as we've pointed out a couple of times, cross examination in our legal system is regarded as the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth. it's essential. the supreme court has said for any determination that's important that requires determining facts, cross-examination has been one of the keys for due process. why did they design a mechanism here where the president was locked out and denied the ability to cross examine witnesses? it's because they weren't really

interested in getting at the facts and the truth. they had a timetable to meet. they wanted to have impeachment done by christmas, and that's what they were striving to do. now, as a slight shift in gears, i want to touch on one last point before i yield to one of my colleagues. and that relates to the whistleblower. the whistleblower who we haven't heard that much about who started all of this. the whistleblower, we know from a letter that the inspector general of the intelligence community sent that he thought that the whistleblower had political bias. we don't know exactly what the

political bias was because the inspector general testified in the house committees in an executive session, and that transcript is still secret. it wasn't transmitted up to the house judiciary committee. we haven't seen it. we don't know what's in it. we don't know what he was asked and what he revealed about the whistleblower. now, you would think that before going forward with an impeachment proceeding against the president of the united states that you would want to find out something about the complai complainant that had started all of it because motivations, bias, reasons for wanting to bring this complaint could be relevant. but there wasn't any inquiry into that. recent reports, public reports, suggest that potentially the

whistleblower was an intelligence community staffer who worked with then vice president biden on ukraine matters which, if true, would suggest an even greater reason for wanting to know about potential bias or motive for the whistleblower. and at first, when things started, it seemed like everyone agreed that we should hear from the whistleblower including manager schiff. and i think we have what he said. >> yes, we would love to talk directly with the whistleblower. we'll get the unfiltered testimony of that whistleblower. we don't need the whistleblower. >> what changed? at first manager schiff agreed we should hear the unfiltered testimony from the whistleblower. but then he changed his mind. and he suggested that it was

because now we had the transcript. but the second clip there was from september 29th which was four days after the transcript had been released. but there was something else that came into play, and that was something manager schiff had said earlier when he was asked about whether he had spoken to the whistleblower. >> we have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. we would like to. >> and it turned out that that statement was not truthful. around october 2nd or 3rd, it was exposed that manager schiff's staff, at least, had spoken with the whistleblower before the whistleblower filed the complaint and potentially had given some guidance, some sort to the whistleblower. and after that point, it became critical to shut down any inquiry into the whistleblower.

and during the house hearings, of course manager schiff was in charge. he was chairing the hearings. and that creates a real problem from a due process perspective, from a search for truth perspective because he was an interested fact witness at that point. he had a reason since he had been caught out saying something that wasn't truthful about that contact. he had a reason to not want that inquiry. and it was he who ensured that there wasn't any inquiry into that. now, this is relevant here, i think, because as you heard from my colleagues, a lot of what we've heard over the past 23

hours, over the past three days, has been from chairman schiff. and he has been telling you things like what's in president trump's head, what's in president zelensky's head? it's all his interpretation of the facts and the evidence, trying to pull inferences out of things. and there's another statement that chairman schiff made that i think we have on video. >> you admit all you have right now is a circumstantial case? >> actually no, chuck. i can tell you that the case is more than that. i can't go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now. so, again, i think -- >> so you have seen direct evidence of collusion? >> i don't want to go into specifics, but i can say there's evidence that is not circumstance shl and is very

much worthy of investigation. hisvince whawas in march ofelng prt trump ha colluded with russia. of course the mueller report, as mr. sekulow pointed out, after $32 million and over 500 search warrants, roughly 500 search warrants, determined that there was no collusion, that that wasn't true. and we wanted to point these things out simply because for this reason: chairman schiff has made so much of the house's case about the credibility of interpretations that the house managers want to place on not

hard evidence, but on inferences. they want to tell you what president trump thought. they want to tell you don't believe what zelensky said. we can tell you what zelensky actually thought. don't believe what the other ukrainians said about not being pressured. we can tell you what they actually thought. it is very relevant to know whether the assessments of evidence he's presented in the past are accurate. and we submit that they have not been and that that is relevant for your consideration. with that, i will yield to my colleague mr. cipollone. >> mr. chief justice, members of the senate, i have good news. just a few more minutes from us today. but i want to point out a couple of points.

number one, just to follow up on mr. philbin just told you. do you know who else didn't show up in the judiciary committee to answer questions about his report in the way ken starr did in the clinton impeachment? ken starr was subjected to cross-examination by the president's counsel. do you know who didn't show up in the judiciary committee? chairman schiff. he did not show up. he did not give chairman nadler the respect of appearing before his committee and answering questions from his committee. he did send his staff. but why didn't he show up? another good question you should think about. now, they've come here today and they basically said let's cancel an election over a meeting with

the ukraine, with ukraine. and as my colleagues have shown, they failed to give you key facts about the meeting and lots of other evidence that they produced themselves. but let's talk about the meeting. they said it was all about an invitation to a meeting. if you look at the first transcript, at the first transcript, the president said to president zelensky when you're settled in and ready, i'd like to invite you to the white house. we'll have a lot of things to talk about. but we're with you all the way. and president zelensky said well, thank you for the invitation. we accept the invitation and look forward to the visit. thank you again.

then president zelensky got a letter on may 29 inviting him again to come to the white house. and then, going back to the transcript of the july 25th call, again a part of the call that they didn't talk to you about, president trump said whenever you would like to come to the white house, feel free to call. give us a date, and we'll work that out. i look forward to seeing you. president zelensky replied thank you very much. i would be very happy to come and would be happy to meet with you personally and get to know you better. i'm looking forward to our meeting, and i also would like to invite you to visit ukraine and come to the city of kiev which is a beautiful city.

we have a beautiful country which would welcome you. then he said, on the other hand, i believe on september 1, we will be in poland and we can meet in poland, hopefully. now, they didn't read you that part of the transcript, and they didn't tell you what happened. a meeting in poland was scheduled. president trump was scheduled to go to poland. he was scheduled to meet with president zelensky. what happened? president trump couldn't go to poland. why? because there was a hurricane in the united states, and he thought it would be better for him to stay here to help deal with the hurricane. so, the vice president went. why didn't they tell you that? why didn't they tell you that

president zelensky suggested, hey, how about we meet in poland? why didn't you tell them that that meeting was scheduled and had to be cancelled for a hurricane? why? so, that was our first question that we asked you. you heard a lot of facts that they didn't tell you, facts that are critical, facts that they know completely collapse their case on the facts. now, you heard a lot from them. you're not going to hear facts from the president's lawyers. they're not going to talk to you about the facts. that's all we've done today. and ask yourself, ask yourself, given the facts you heard today that they didn't tell you, who doesn't want to talk about the facts? who doesn't want to talk about the facts? the american people paid a lot

of money for those facts. they paid a lot of money for this and they didn't bother to tell you. ask yourself why. if they don't want to be fair to the president, at least out of respect for all of you, they should be fair to you. they should tell you these things. and when they don't tell you these things, it means something so think about that. impeachment shouldn't be a shell game. they should give you the facts. that's all we have for today. we ask you out of respect to think about, think about whether what you've heard would really