bringing lawmakers a step closer to the possible impeachment of president trump how worried should he be about this let's talk with someone who knows the inclusion process very well former u.s. representative elizabeth holtzman a 4 time democratic congresswoman from new york she served as a member of the house judiciary committee that investigated the role of president nixon in the watergate scandal and voted to impeach him she's the author of the book the case for impeaching trump she joins me from new york elizabeth though we are all just spinning wheels he's going to be impeached in the house and not convicted in the senate and everyone thinks that. well you know something larry really nobody knows what's going to happen when we started the impeachment proceeding against richard nixon and october on 1973 after the saturday night massacre we didn't know what a high crime and misdemeanor was there was no headcount in the house judiciary

committee no headcount in the house no headcount in the senate we had no idea was there be enough votes whether it be an impeachable case or what was going to happen and as it turned out the the matter never even got to the house of representatives and much less to the senate because the president resigned the case was so strong and so fairly may that the professional he resigned. but that's not good news so we'll never answer the question well we don't you know it's going to happen here we still have 2 people who've been to henchmen of rudy giuliani's one of whom is now who've been indicted for campaign finance violations who were active in ukraine one of them is now cooperating with the congress let's see we don't know what's going to happen we didn't know about the tapes on. saturday at the smoking gun tape nobody knew at the end what we would find so i think the most important thing is

for the democrats and republicans who care about our country and our constitution to present the evidence to examine the evidence to give the public opportunity to kick the tires to scrutinize the credibility of the witnesses and then come to a conclusion about what's going to happen i think it's premature to say that. there won't be he won't be removed listen 2 months ago everybody was saying the house would never move to impeach but look where we are now. what do you make of embezzlers someone changing his testimony. well it's probably a smart thing for him to do that because there were several witnesses who contradicted him. you know i guess that's part of what happens sometimes a memory can be refresh or sometimes witnesses slanting testimony to to protect somebody but i think the most important thing now is that he's acknowledged there was basically a quid pro quo here he's still trying to protect the president by saying he didn't

know who ordered the quid pro quo but he was delivering the quit pro quo message to ukraine and many of his supporters assume altie even if there was a quid pro quo that's not a crime. well 1st of all it could be a crime if you just look at the at the transcript of the june to july 25th telephone call where trump is asking for a quote unquote favor. that call in and of itself was so damaging that the general counsel for the cia forwarded that to the justice department as a criminal referral they didn't see this as a big nothing burger they saw this as a potential crime and we're not talking about antitrust people we're talking about trump's own appointees so i don't think you can just blow this off as as trump and

his minions are doing is it's a big nothing nothing happened it was serious enough to warrant a referral to the justice department is a potential crime that's something that tells you that right on the face of it it was serious and it is serious now we know more than the phone call we know that the funds were cut off we know meeting was denied. and we know this was done basically to get. ukraine to do such a trump's dirty work in connection with the 2020 campaign president can't do that abuse of power total abuse of power that was that was if you go back to nixon and watergate that was the centerpiece of the impeachment activity against richard nixon he used the presidency to cover up something the break in which it had been exposed could have affected the election in 2972 well trump is trying to affect the election in 2020 in his using his powers we have

a direct correlation we can't brush that off and say it's just nothing the whistle blower i mean it was you know to tax the anonymity of the whistle being. but after all this time do you think personally that the whistleblower be the he or she should come forward. well i you know i don't think so because i think the laws are in place to encourage people to come forward without fearing retaliation and now the whistleblower is irrelevant we have the facts of the transcript of the call we have the testimony of u.s. diplomats who are involved and transmitting the quid pro quo the whistleblower or brings nothing to a bill anymore he just started this matter but the question is now what are the facts and had and how do we present them i mean the president wants

a whistleblower to come forward why is the president stopping everybody who has information about this or trying to stop them from coming forward he's involved in a cover up big time the federal trial of long term trump advised g.o.p. up with the rug just don't isn't the way things are going to learn a lot of. we might though it's pretty narrowly focused about whether roger stone lied to congress i guess it's possible that really what roger stone was lying about had to do with his own conversations with trump which so far have been concealed we don't exactly know what he was saying to trump we do know that he that he roger stone was in touch either directly or indirectly with songe and was in touch directly or indirectly with the russians . and he was communicating with trump about information he got from both sources so

we don't know all the details roger stone is basically stonewall but i don't know that we'll get a lot more information about trump maybe a bit but not a lot of former speaker of the house and trying to send to newt gingrich said that nancy pelosi as we said decision to move forward with the voted through into sieges will lead to an impeachment inquiry using an enormous screw to defeat in a terrible idea because of its partisan money so i would use spawn to speak again. well i definitely wasn't a defeat in the house approved the procedure to go forward i think it's a very sad commentary that no republican joined in that i go back again to watergate what happened there was. more than 400 members of the house supported the inquiry most of the members of the house judiciary committee did not vote for him to articles of impeachment although they voted to allow the proceeding to go

forward i think the idea that the republicans are going to stand as a as a vehicle of obstructionism it's just wrong and it's very sad if there's nothing to hide here let the facts come out to the american people let mulvaney testify let pompei o testify the repub. this is so interested in transparency and in the facts and in the truth why don't they call in the president to let all these people come forward and tell the facts then the american people can make up their minds about what happened numbers the congress can make up their minds about what happened to base of all the information they're not interested in all the information this is an effort to obstruct and prevent the truth from coming out and to keep the american people in the dark that's very sad but the congress and the democrats are going to go forward as fairly and as professionally as they can and that's what's happening now using next week well i think the american people are going to learn

a lot there's a lot of this stuff has been behind closed doors and a lot of people have been saying oh it's a big nothing or oh these people are never trumped birds or all of these people are bad american people get to see it for themselves and they can make up their own minds that's why the public hearings are being held so why are the republicans getting so upset there's so agitated about what's past news and not even relevant public is going to get to see the witnesses that's the critical thing is grow hole in your opinion. it could be good be it dr it could be you know i'm going to bribe an elected official in the elected officials going to promise me to do something for me in return of course a crime it could it depends on the circumstances what happened here was you know it was that the united states government the president himself using the powers of his office tried to force ukraine a fragile democracy to do something by using the powers of the presidency

withholding military aid withholding the opportunity of a meeting to force ukraine to do something that would help trump and his election not for the benefit of the american people but to help trump in the 2020 election that's completely impermissible whether you call it quid pro quo or quote quit doesn't matter what you call it as shakespeare said a rose by any name smells just as sweet well stink by any name also stinks. did they write it poorly when they wrote high crimes and misdemeanors and you know it was a traffic ticket why are you not letting anyone off the care you getting to the framers of the constitution i think well no i don't think they got hiker. i don't think a high crime in this demeanor involves a traffic ticket and gerald ford once said that you know high crimes and misdemeanors anything the house of representatives wants to say have

a say and spike think there are no it's not right because it's never actually voted for impeachment well i shouldn't say that that if you go back to the framers of the constitution i think they had something relatively clear in mind when they high crimes and misdemeanors and a term stands out by itself there's 3 grounds for impeachment treason which is defined in the constitution bribery we all know what that's about and other high crimes and misdemeanors so other means that high crimes and misdemeanors is of the same seriousness as treason and bribery but actually if you really this goes back to ancient british parliamentary practice if you go back to that practice and you read the history of legal history which is boring as you know what what it tells you is that high crimes and misdemeanors really and agree just abuse of power and how it's been defined over our our course of american history is that agree just abuse of power that threatens our democracy or that threatens the liberties of

america i think you should thank you congresswoman see pointing out to me that taking on the founding fathers and they came into congress and thanks for your time today thank you always love having you on a level playing here right after the break. aeroflot russian and lions. in a world of big partisan movies lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever

we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. aeroflot russian and lights.

gunpowder was introduced in a changed global geopolitics forever and you can't on invent gunpowder coyness change now the whole notion of what money is and you cannot uninvented there's no turning back. time of the time cold parishioners repeat the same mantra sustainability it's very important to accelerate the transition to sustainable transport sustainability stay number manage a more equitable and sustainable. they claim their production is completely hama's . companies want us to feel good about buying their products while the damage is being done far away this is something else this that's going to mean and i mean. this is something you listen we don't don't even i'm stunting then we understood it

would say we're going. well go back to politicking the house moves closer to a possible impeachment of the president who's in the stronger position at this stage of the inquiry house democrats or president trump let's begin there with the political panel they are joe pollock's senior editor at large it is time to let breitbart news he joins us here in studio and in mountain view california zach friend who worked for barack obama and john kerry's presidential campaigns as a spokesman and strategist where is all is going do you think jack lew going to have an impeach president yeah i think we will have an m.p.h.

president but i don't think you're going to convicted president seems like much like the country i think congress has already kind of made up their mind in these regards of a brit really had to sort of make a political and practical decision i think the democrats have made the political calculation that even some of these risky districts that actually works out ok for him but from a practical side i think ultimately if the end of the day i don't see the senate moving forward with any sort of conviction joe what do you think. i agree i think that the house will likely impeach the president on strict party lines we had 2 democrats vote against the impeachment inquiry and the rest of the democrats vote for the inquiry and i think they'll stick to that i think they'll impeach the president it's not going to be what they'll impeach him for because i don't think anything he's being accused of doing violates the constitutional requirement treason bribery high crimes and misdemeanors but he spoke to a fun country to help in the presidential campaign to get information on the opponent well that's how this money is does he one of the again you take it if you

what did you say you know what i find interesting is that for years when we were looking at the russia investigation democrats including adam schiff who's now chairing the intelligence committee where the anger is taking place they said that it had been not only possible but commendable for the obama administration and the f.b.i. and the intelligence services to look into then candidate trump because they had to know if someone who could be president of the united states was corrupt or compromised in some way by a foreign government suddenly that's now gone from being a national interest to an impeachable offense and i don't think that there's any question that democrats have been trying to find something with which to impeach this president do you think it was a. quid pro quo. oh yeah i mean i think it's it's one question i mean i got as they told me i respectfully disagree i mean if i mean the republicans would have jumped all over this when they were in the wider majority of this what about the

obama administration to him the exact same thing i mean i think realistically though the house has an oversight function i mean they have a constitutional responsibility to do exactly what they're doing i mean in some respects we may become a nerd to the idea that some of these crimes are basically committed in point of view every single day is sort of a governance by tweet that i think a large portion of the country almost doesn't even care about what the standard might be but if we. think about it from a historical perspective this is a pretty significant thing that the president did to make these requests to investigate you know his political woman the one candidate it seems like he really doesn't want to run against but i really do think it was a quid pro quo and by the way i mean with the president's out there selling t. shirts saying read the transcript which isn't even the transcript just sort of an overview of what went down and that's exactly what we're reading and it doesn't look particularly good but with that said there'll be public hearings i think that's good because people can now see and judge themselves the credibility the witnesses none of this will be done behind closed doors moving forward and we'll

see if nothing else is going to take up all the oxygen even in the 2020 race in the coming weeks and months to the impeachment inquiry and i think that will at least get a better sense of the information that's out there and i want to ask what lot of the president break. well i mean i think that the president was seeking foreign interference remember the constitution to me under article one section 5 it's not like it's a very complex thing it's really in the houses purview to make a determination of what a high crime and misdemeanor is and i think that it's safe to say that's ultimately a political decision there is no legal metric as you know just like when republicans were clamoring for there to be some sort of impeachment inquiry vote there's nothing in the constitution that requires that i mean end up being held and now they're complaining about what grounds it's being based on so the constitution's pretty vague it just provides the oversight function on the house that provides the jury side on the senate and we'll see where it actually goes exactly sense and i think it's very interesting which i would actually agree with. he used the word oversight and no matter what you think of what the president did

when he spoke to ukrainian government i think that looking at those discussions is the proper function of congressional oversight it's not impeachment you have a long way to go before you get to a question of whether the president should be impeached or not and so interesting to me that prior to this we were told that the congress would follow the conclusions of the mother investigation and so forth more democrats wanted to impeach after mother found no rush of collusion than did before and it's been clear that democrats have tried to use these investigations in these processes to try to build up some sort of political support for impeachment i don't think it's there but i think also that what they're discussing is simply a political vendetta they want to feel better about the fact they lost in 2016 and they want to set the stage for winning in 2020 and you know the appropriate response to this is if you don't like what the president didn't ukraine and some people think it was commendable i do i think you have to look into the corruption that has existed in the past to joe biden is not granted immunity from investigation and prosecution simply by the fact that he's running for president i

think you have to look into it especially when you doing with ukraine so but what are your views on that that's a that's a function for oversight that's not an impeachable offense and we have yet to hear about anything the president actually did to break the law. zach is that do. whatever congress thinks is impeach you lose impeach you say well if you look at the constitution i think that actually there's a lot of latitude given to the house and if you think about the framers which still brings up one of their main concerns dealt with foreign intervention remember why we fought the revolution why did we try if the constitution anyway was to establish a new government that was broken from these foreign interests and foreign interference and we had an entire revolution fall for that reason so i think that there actually is something to be considered when a foreign government is asked functionally to interfere in our election in regards to the mower report member obstruction of justice is also i think under most people's belief an impeachable offense at least just as bill clinton how that panned out for him and i'll say republicans seem to have an interest in not and

miller his conclusion on that is everybody well knows was was ultimately but under justice rules they didn't feel they could pursue it so i think that there is something here and i think there's a lot a lot of through the house that's not correct the special counsel forwarded his discussion of possible obstruction of justice to the chair in general who decided none of this was prosecutable but not because of the memorandum saying a president can be prosecuted while in office and miller actually clarified that wasn't the reason they didn't do it they just felt that there wasn't enough there to make the case and that some of the back and forth between the president and his opponents was simply just politics and had nothing to do with obstruction but i want to just make one make one of the point there. i agree with you that foreign intervention foreign interference in our election is a serious thing why shouldn't president trump get to the heart of ukrainian interference in the 26000 election when we know from mainstream media sources politico for example that the democratic party was actively seeking information on trump from the ukrainian government the previous government that is before this one

and trump wanted to get to the bottom of it and i think that's the gentleman don't you told you honestly you honestly believe that the president's motives were nothing but altruistic and this i mean that's basically the argument they're making that he was not they had no self bullet. the interest on this and he was just randomly not holding up aid to a foreign government by the way which people end up dying as a result of him holding up aid because he had no political interest in that i mean that's a give me a break that well past the basic smell test so if you if you think the president is responsible for people dying in ukraine because aid that was withheld for however many days or weeks before ultimately being given i would ask your opinion of the president you worked for who didn't give any military aid to ukraine but the question you ask is really sort of a straw man you say are you saying that the president had no personal or political interest well he may have had a personal political interest but we don't impeach presidents for doing things that are in their political interest if they're also good for the country as

a whole and i think finding out about ukrainian intervention in 2016 is something we all his own and all have an interest in embezzler tail as in his testimony embarrassed you or the president no no no because everybody who has practiced law understands that a witness who has no direct knowledge of something is usually not admitted to testify before the court taylor has firsthand not firsthand information 2nd or 3rd he has information from other people what we call hearsay evidence he heard somebody describe a conversation with somebody else who talked to somebody else that maybe this is what happened when you read when you read what the president said what he called a perfect phone call you didn't read could poco into this did not you did not know . zag did you read into it. i think the majority of the country read it that way i mean maybe we're in a world where nobody can believe even what's before their eyes as long as the president tells them what they're reading isn't true as they just spell it out for

me not in the transcript where it isn't i mean you know i don't know if you have it in front of you but but what did the president say that said to make this a quid pro quo by the way we're not even have been at least said oh listen can you do me a favor. and he said do me a favor far earlier. then this question about biden comes much later in the conversation nor did he say unless you do this for me i'm not going to give you a using trump was not a. little i think he was i think i should i am interested as well and i was interested before this phone call you know we did the early investigations one of our editors i should say did the early investigations into joe biden 100 biden in brazil holdings that's never been fully investigated by congress anybody else and now we're finding out just came on the wall street journal this week that verismo tried to approach the obama state department and mentioned when it made this overture that hunter biden was on their board so clearly having the vice president's son was something they sought to take advantage of having having him on their board and so we haven't found out what happened there fully certainly it was

a conflict of interest for joe biden and i think even some democrats have said that you know well maybe 100 we don't know 100 biden did might have been nothing wrong but to have the sitting vice president who is the point man for president obama in ukraine whose son is now on a major gas companies board in ukraine that's a conflict of interest that probably means biden should have been the one doing it and i don't know what's there but i think when you look back at what happened in 2016 and why ukraine intervened in our election which they tried to do they tried to help the d.n.c. and hillary clinton campaign dig up dirt on trump zagg would be the goal is golding as we look at the elections next year. why i think we had a little bit of a take democratic enthusiasm on tuesday night with democrats over performed in a lot of rural areas especially in kentucky and while they didn't win in mississippi they still are performed in virginia was a clean sweep do i think that this pretends to a democratic sweep in 2020 no i think that ultimately the whole action is going to be decided in a couple of industrial midwestern states but i do think what's interesting about it

is that if the democratic enthusiasm holds you're going to start seeing a lot more state legislature slip a lot of county commissioners or county supervisor city councils county clerks a lot of positions that actually have a lot of influence in a lot of these areas on voting rights a lot of other. issues so i think what you are seeing is significant enthusiasm in an off year elections it's been sustained and 2018 and now in these most recent elections on tuesday that does bode well for democrats and some of the states again whether that actually means they can flip the white house in 2020 just depends on michigan wisconsin and pennsylvania really and whether or not they have been able to win back some of the voters of flip thank you zach thank you larry joe pollak and zach friend and we thank them for their time today and we thank you for joining me on this edition of politicking remember you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget to use the politicking hash tag and that's over this edition of politicking.

aeroflot russian and lights. you know world of big partisan movies lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the bats and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time

is now for watching closely watching the hawks. terrorists long russian and lights. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics small business i'm show business i'll see you then.

cuckoos in the nets the u.s. charges 2 former twitter self with being saudi spies accusing them of gathering data on thousands of users critical of riyadh. whistleblowers become the new frontline in the political battle being waged in washington as a bill to protect their identities is blocked in the u.s. senate. tackling hate in hospitals health trust in england plans to root out racism by threatening to withhold treatment for people who abuse star. a message is 0 tolerance towards a police to a level of control the n.h.s. used to treat they should treat people. without question.