mr. philbin essentially began it all comes back to dershowitz. if the president can do under article two. was a point of calling witnesses and article two. the only constraining principle what is the limiting principle in the dershowitz argument if the president can seek foreign interference in the election that he believes his election is in the national interest then you cannot impeach him how damaging it may be what is the limiting principle and i suppose it's only this. it only requires the president to believe the reelection is in the national interest. and word require and extraordinary level of self reflection and insight for the president to conclude his own reelection is not in the national interest. not unprecedented mind you, that was the decision lbj ultimately arrived at. but i would not want to consider that a meaningful limitation on presidential power and neither should you. finally, counsel expressed in dignan's that we should suggest it's not just the senate or the president but also the senate. how dare the house manager sugges

mr. philbin says none of these witnesses would have relevance on article two. conceding they would have relevant evidence on article one. but that's not true either. imagine what you will see when you hear from the witnesses who ran the office of management end. or imagine what you will see when you read the documents from the office of management and budget. what you will see is what they have covered up. what you will see is the motive for their complete obstruction of congress. when you see not the redacted emails, not the fully blacked out emails that they deigned to give in the litigation under the freedom of information act. it you have proof of motive. when you see those documents, you will see how just fallacious these nonassertions of executive privilege are. you will see in essence what they have covered up. it could not be more relevant to whether there panoply of legal argumentation to justify we shall fight all subpoenas is merely a cover-up and legal window dressing. so these witnesses and documents are critical on both articles. now you also hear

mr. philbin. >> thank you, mr. chief justice majority leader mcconnell, democrat leader schumer, senators. it is remarkable that after taking the action of the breathtaking gravity of voting to impeach the duly elected president of the united states, and after saying for weeks that they had overwhelming evidence to support their case, the first thing that the house managers have done upon arriving finally in this chamber after waiting for 33 days is to say, well, actually, we need more evidence. we are not ready to present our case. we need to have subpoenas and do more discovery, because we don't have the evidence we need to support our case. this is stunning. it is a stunning admission of the inadequate and broken process that the house democrats ran in this impeachment inquiry that failed to compile a record to support their charges. it is stunning that they don't have the evidence needed to present their case, and that they don't really have a case. if a litigant showed up in any court in this country on the da

mr. philbin and then mr. sekulow. >> mr. philbin. >> mr. chief justice, members of the senate, the president opposes this amendment and i can be brief in explaining why. this amendment would say that any subpoena that was issued pursuant to the house's impeachment inquiry, that's any subpoena that they issued at all, becomes defined as a duly authorized subpoena for purposes of this amendment. and as we've explained several times today becaus the house began this inquiry without taking a vote, it never authorized any of its committees to issue subpoenas pursuant to the impeachment power. the first 23 subpoenas at a minimum that the house committees issued were all unauthorized and that is why the trump administration did not respond to them and did not comply with them. that was explained in a letter of october 18th from white house counsel pat cipollone to chairman schiff and others. that is a legal infirmity in those subpoenas. there has never been an impeachment inquiry initiated by the house of representatives against a president of the

mr. philbin said, cross-examination is the greatest engine to search for truth in our american system. they want to deny our ability to examine witnesses if cross-examination of witnesses is necessary. to discover the truth, how dare the white house and how dare the senate majority even contemplate a trial without witnesses or documents. my strong impression from the first two hours is not the case for witnesses and documents has gotten even stronger and i hope my colleagues, when we get to the end of it and get to questions, will embrace the need for procedures that would be required in a trial even in the traffic division. [inaudible] >> i don't think the white house because in the democratic case. i do think they put assertions on the table that they think goes in the case but the assertions, you can't just take the lawyers word for it. the assertions have to be proven. some of the assertions they ma made, we know them to be false. an example, jake sekulow said well, the president had aid to other countries. that's true but when you went to the examples, he sent aid to the northern

mr. philbin filibustered mro answer. they couldn't name a single witness or a single document. if that's the absolute immunity, i don't know what is. again, two of the senators who were most interested in deciding whether to vote for witnesses asked if they could find any instance where the president talked about biden before he announced for president, and they couldn't answer they just said, well, i only have the record. that's not true. and then back and forth, what did mulvaney mean when you said quid pro quo? what did bolton mean when he said drug deal? well, it's back and forth. it proves you want to know, ask them, bring them here as witnesses. so i thought that it was a great afternoon for us. i'm hopeful we can win the argument for witnesses and documents. we have always said it's appeal. there's tremendous pressure from a vindictive, nasty president on every republican senator. but i think they sit there as they listen to these questions and they know the public is totally on our side and we have a real shot to get witnesses and documents. >> what is your sense? >> my

mr. philbin did earlier today with that which is mr. mulvaney has issued two statements. one after his press conference and then monday after the new york times article concerning mr. bolton's alleged statement in his manuscript. i think the easiest thing is just to read them and understand what he said and to put it in to context for everyone in the chamber. this is the day of the press conference. once again, the media has decided to misconstrue my comments to advance a biassed and political witch hunt against president trump. let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between ukrainian aid and the 2016 election. the president never told me to withho withhold any money until the ukrainians did anything related to the server. the only reasons we were holding the money was because of concern of lack of support from other nations and concerns over corruption. multiple times during the more than 30-minute briefing where i took over 25 questions, i referred to president trump's interest in rooting out corruption in ukraine and ensuring tax dollars are spent respon

mr. philbin talks about the judicial right of cross-examination and how it was so sacred and western jurisprudence what is cross-examination involved? witnesses. the bottom line is very simple. we been making argument that we need witnesses and we the documents. we are making the argument that it won't take very long to get them as part of the trial. today we think the president's counsel for one thing, they made our case even stronger. senator berkowitz. >> the president's counsel has had three words since the beginning. burden of proof. that the house managers carry that responsibility, burden of proof. they are absolutely right. that's the way it works but the only way you can fulfill the burden of proof is to have access to witnesses and documents. so for anyone to argue there is a burden of proof but then say, i'm sorry, we are not going to let you call witnesses, you have the burden of proof, we are not going to let you have access to the documents. that is called a rigged trial. that's a typo trial you'd expect in russia or china but not here in the united states of america. not here in the

mr. philbin. saying the house managers assert that you can't have a trial without witnesses. and he said it's not that simple. actually, it is. it is pretty simple. it is pretty simple. in every court house in every state in every county in the country where they have trials, they have witnesses. and i think you heard mr mr. philbin tie himself into why this should be the first trial where there aren't any. but some things are as simple as they appear. a trial without witnesses is simply not a trial. you can call it something else, but it's not a trial. now, mr. sekulow said something interesting. he said the house investigates and the senate deliberates. well, he would rewrite our constitution with that argument. because the last time i checked the constitution, it said the houses shall have the sole power of impeachment and the senate shall try the impeachment. not merely deliberate about it, not merely think about it, not merely wonder about it. i know you're the greatest deliberative body in t

mr. philbin said that is because they followed the law. they followed the rules. that is not what happened here. thank you, mr. chief justice. >> thank you, counsel. senator from delaware. >> chief justice, on behalf of our colleagues senator louis vogler, again, marquis, murphy, menendez, i sent a question to the desk to our house managers. >> thank you. speak of question from senator carper and the other senators address to the house managers, the president'ss and offenders have claimed it is normal or usual to use foreign assistance, as the president did to achieve a desired outcome. how was the president's act and withholding security assistance to ukraine different from how the u.s. uses foreign assistance to achieve foreign policy goals and national security objectiv objectives, and how should we evaluate the defense argument that this is what is "done all the time?" >> mr. chief justice, senators, thank you for the question. so, to understand the answer to this, you don't have to look inside the president's mind. you just have to look at recent history and

mr. philbin and mr. sekulow will argue this. >> mr. chief justice, members of the senate, the president opposes this amendment, and i can be brief in explaining why. this amendment would say that any subpoena that was issued pursuant to the house's impeachment inquiry -- that's any subpoena that they issued at all -- becomes defined as a duly authorized subpoena for purposes of this amendment. and as we've explained several times today, because the house began this inquiry without taking a vote, it never authorized any of its committees to issue subpoenas pursuant to the impeachment power. the first 23 subpoenas at a minimum that the house committees issued were all unauthorized and ultra vires. and that is why the trump administration did not respond to them and did not comply with them. that was explained in a letter of october 18th from white house counsel pat cipollone to chairman schiff and others. that is a legal infirmity in those subpoenas. there has never been an impeachment inquiry initiated by the house of representatives ag

mr. philbin brought up the issue of the articles -- not necessarily to the article but even the process seem to be invalid where there needs to be a vote. i don't think nancy pelosi really has the authority of not voting in getting the consistence as an individual even with her title it does not appear she has the authority to begin what was started and then of course you could go down the rules being unfair and all of that. so does the president have any recourse there. i think if you take this and steps it would be a vital question to ask and get through before you keep going on and on especially if we have the witnesses coming on. >> tom in virginia please go ahead with your question. >> thank you. there is no question that president trump as the ukraine's to look into the bindings, we have all heard that. i've watched the hearings in the senate trial. the one thing i have not seen from anybody is any evidence that the reason for asking the ukrainians to look into it was for his political gain. what evidence has been presented that he did say truly for his political gain. i have not seen

mr. philbin, mr. chief justice, members of the senate. the president opposes this amendment and i can be brief and explain why. this amendment would say that any subpoena that was issued pursuant to the house as impeachment inquiry, any subpoena that they issued at all becomes defined as a duly authorized subpoena for purposes of this amendment. as we have explained several times today, because the house began this inquiry without taking a vote it never authorized any of its committees to issue subpoenas pursuant to the impeachment power. the first 23 subpoenas at a minimum that the house committee's were all unauthorized. that is why the trump administration did not respond to them and did not comply with them, that was explained in a letter on october 18th from white house counsel pat cippollone to chairman adam schiff and others. that is a legal infirmity in those subpoenas. there has never been an impeachment inquiry initiated by the house of representatives against a president of united states without it being authorized by a vote of

really september 11th only because of the committee and the whistleblower who we've never seen mr philbin dealt with that in great detail not going to go over that again but you know the new high court the anti-corruption court was an establishing did not sit until september 5th 2019. so while the president of ukraine was trying to get reforms put in place the court that was going to decide corruption issues was not set until september 5th i want i want you to think about this for a moment too they needed a high court of corruption for corruption. think about that from now that's good that they recognized it but remember when i said the other day it don't make wave a magic wand and now ukraine doesn't have a corruption problem the high court of corruption which they have to have because it's not just pass corruption they're concerned about ongoing corruption issues and you could put all of your witnesses back on the under oath in the next hearings you'll have when this is all over and you're going to be back in the house we'll be doing this again put them all back under oath and ask them

member of parliament fritz he's a defense expert with the governing democrats in germany welcome mr philbin join 1st an initial comment from you in response to the strikes. well evidently i think the airstrikes are an acceptable it's it's simply not the way to proceed in a situation like this you have to really have to deescalate and start negotiating again escalating by striking each other will only makes the situation worse ok so it is unacceptable to have these airstrikes but what impact do you think these airstrikes going to have on the president's off a u.s. troops in iraq well the iraqi parliament has made a decision that it doesn't want the u.s. troops in iraq any more this should have a more important impact on the world washington says because you have to look at this from the iraqi point if you you know the americans have killed in general from iran on iraqi soil endangering iraqis the iranians have launched air strikes against you are american troops stationed on iraqi soil again endangering your iraqi citizens if i were in charge of the security and safety of my population this

mr. philbin dealt with that in great detail. i'm not going to go over that again. but, you know, the new high court, the anti-corruption court, wasn't established and did not sit until september 5th, 2019. so while the president of ukraine was trying to get reforms put in place, the court corruption issues was not set until september 5th. i want you to think about this for a moment, too. they needed a high court of corruption, for corruption. i mean, think about that for a moment. now, that's good that they recognized it, but remember when i said the other day you don't wave a magic wand and now ukraine doesn't have a corruption problem? the high court of corruption, which they have to have, because there's not just past corruption, they're concerned about ongoing corruption issues and you could put all of your witnesses back on the -- under oath in the next hearings you will have when this is all over and you're going to be pack in the house and we will be doing this all over again, put them under oath and ask them, mr. schiff, is there a problem of corruption in

mr. philbin, and mr. t that you can't have a trial without witnesses, and he said it is not that simple. actually, it is. it is that simple. in every courthouse, in every state and every county in the country where they have trials they have witnesses. and i think that you heard mr. philbin tie himself into knots as to why this should be the first trial in which witnesses are not necessary. but you know, some things are just as simple as they appear. a trial without witnesses is not a trial. you can call it something else, but it is not a trial. mr. sekulow said something interesting. he said that the house investigates and the senate deliberates. well, he would rewrite the constitution with that argument. because the last time i checked the constitution, it said that the house shall have the sole power of impeachment, and the senate shall try the impeachment, and not merely deliberate about it or merely think about it or merely wonder about it. i know that you are the greatest deliberative body in the wor

mr. philbin, say? quote, cross-examination is the greatest engine to search for truth in our american legal system. but they want to deny our ability to examine witnesses. if cross-examination of witnesses is necessary to discover the truth, how dare the white house and how dare the senate majority even contemplate a trial without witnesses or documents? my strong impression from the first two hours is that the case for witnesses and documents has gotten even stronger, and i hope my colleagues, when we get to the end of this and the senate's questions will embrace the need for procedures that would be required in a trial even in the traffic division of the richmond general district court. >> senator tim kaine, democrat of virginia, saying that in his view the case for witnesses has been improved here. pierre thomas, i want to bring you in as well. one of the things that the president's lawyers also focused on is the witness the democrats didn't bring. of course that's the whistle-blower. >> exactly, ge

mr. philbin did earlier today with that which is mr. mulvaney has issued two statements, one after his press conference and one monday after the new york times article concerning mr. bolton's alleged manuscript, statements in his manuscript. i think the easiest thing is to read them and understand what he said and to put into context for everyone in the chamber. this is from -- this is the day of the press conference. once again the media has decided to misconstrue my comments to a biased political witch-hunt against president trump. let me be clear there was absolute in no quid pro quo between ukrainian military aid in any investigation into the 2016 election. the president however, told me too withhold any money until the ukrainians did anything related to the server. the only reason we were holding the money was because of concern about lack of support from other nations and concern over corruption. multiple times during the 30 minute briefing i took 25 questions and i referred to president trump's interest in rooting out corruption

did with that i will turn it over to pat philbin. >> mr. chief justice, members of the senate, majority leader mcconnell, i would like to make a couple of observations related to the abuse of power charge in the first article of impeachme impeachment. i wouldn't presume to elaborate on professor dershowitz visitation from yesterday that i thought was kind of late and compelling that i want to add a couple of very specific points in support of the exhibition of the constitution and the impeachment clause that he set out. it became a focus on the point in the debate about the impeachment clause at the constitutional convention where the administration was offered by georgeio mason as they ground for impeachment. james madison responded that that was a bad idea and he said that it would be the equivalent to the tenure of the pleasure of the senate, and the deep-seated concern that matheson hammock that is part of the whole design of the constitution for ways that can lead to the exercise of arbitrary power the constitution was designed to put

mr. philbin told with that in great detail. i'm not going to go over that again. but you know, the new high court, the anticorruption court, wasn't established and could sit until september 5, 2019. so while the president of ukraine was trying to get reforms put in place, the court that wabut was going to decide corruption issues was not set until september 5. i want you to think about this a moment. they needed a high court for corruption. think about that for a moment. it's good that they recognized it. but remember what i said the other day. you don't wave a magic wand and now ukraine doesn't have a corruption problem. the high court of corruption, which they have to have, because it's not just tax corruption. they are concerned about ongoing corruptionnd issues, and you cod put all of your witnesses that under oath in the next hearings you will have when this is all over and you will be back in the house and doing this all again. put them under oath and ask them, mr. schiff, is there a problem of corruption in ukraine. and if they get up there and say no, ever

mr. philbin will make this argument. >> thank you. >> mr. chief justice, members of the senate, i will be brief. and this may seem like some deja vu all over again because we've been arguing about the same issues, really, over and over and over for a long time. and i think that's something that americans don't -- one of the things they don't really understand about washington is how it could be the house democrats think it is the best use of time for this body to spend an entire day deciding simply the issue of when this body should decide about whether or not there should be witnesses and documents subpoenaed because that is the issue before the body now. it's not the question finally of whether there should be witnesses or documents, as the majority leader has made clear multiple times. the underlying resolution simply allows that issue to be addressed a week from now. the only question at issue now -- and the house managers keep saying, how can you have a trial without witnesses? how can you have a trial without documents? that's not even

mr. philbin filibustered because he had no answer, they could not answer a single witness or single document. if that is not absolute immunity i don't know what is. again two of the senators who are most interested in deciding whether to vote for witnesses asked if they could find any instance where the president talked about biden before he announced for president and they cannot answer. they said i only have the record. that is not true. and then -- back-and-forth. what did mulvaney mean what did mulvaney mean when he said drug to. that was back-and-forth. do you want to know, ask them, bring them here as witnesses. so i thought that it was a great afternoon for us, i am hopeful we can win the argument for witnesses and documents. we have always said uphill, there is tremendous pressure from an invective nasty president on every republican senator but i think they sit there as they listen to the questions and they know the public is totally on our side and we have a real shot to get witnesses and documents. >> my gut tells me we are making progress, progress, progress and i certainly am ho

mr. philbin. >> the question from senator kennedy and senator ernst from both parties, the house managers will be first. if the president asked for investigation of possible corruption by a political rival, under circumstances that objectively are in the national interest, should the president be impeached if the majority of the house believes the president did it for the wrong reason? >> the president of course is entitled to conduct a foreign policy, and is entitled to look into corruption in the united states or elsewhere. they are entitled to use the department of state or other purposes. he is not entitled to target an american citizen specifically, nor did he do so innocently here. it was only after mr. biden became an announced candidate for president that he suddenly decided the ukraine ought to look into the bidens. it might be very -- he made it very clear that he wasn't interested in investigation. he was interested in an announcement of investigation just so the bidens could be smeared. so it's probably never suitable for a president to order an investigation of an american ci

mr. philbin concluded on the importance of executive privilege. we have three branches of government, not two. if you impeach the president, make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to court, it isn't an abuse of power. it is your abuse of power. with regard to executive privilege, it was mr. nadler who said -- called it "executive privilege and other nonsense." when attorney general holder refused to comply with subpoenas, president obama invoked executive privileges arguing "compelled disclosure would be inconsistent with the separation of powers established in the constitution." executive power and other nonsense." manager schiff wrote that the white house assertion of executive privilege was backed by decades of precedent that has been recognized and has recognized the need for president and his advisors to receive candid advice and information from their top aides. executive privilege and other nonsense." the "nonsense," we talk about this the other night. it's to treat the separation of powers and constitutional privileges as if they w

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

mr philbin? thank you, mr chiefjustice.cconnell, democratic leader schumer, senators. it is remarkable that after taking the actions of the breathtaking gravity of voting to impeach the duly elected president of the united states, and after saying for weeks that they had overwhelming evidence to support their case, the first thing that the house managers have done upon arriving finally in this chamber, after waiting for 33 days, is to say, "well actually, we need more evidence. we aren't ready to present our case. we need to have subpoenas and do more discovery because we don't have the evidence we need to support our case. " this is stunning. it is a stunning admission of the inadequate and broken process that the house democrats ran in this impeachment inquiry that failed to compile a record to support their charges. it is stunning that they don't have the evidence they need to present their case, and that they don't really have a case. if a litigant showed up at any court in this country on the day of trial and said to t

mr. philbin who is not a spell binding performer went on about how it was legitimate in their view not toration. i thought that was a particularly weak performance. but, you know, if you are inclined to the defense point of view, there were facts and arguments to justify your position this morning. >> i wonder what you thought. >> i agree with what mr. tuoobi had to say. interesting looking back a day, in the final closing argument that chairman adam schiff made, he did a prebuttal, doesn't have opportunity to come back after what the president's lawyers say, i think i didn't tick them off, have a chart or excel spread sheet, i think everything raised today was in some way anticipated by adam schiff yesterday. if you're the type of juror that paid attention, care about listening to facts and arguments and remember what adam schiff yesterday, you had some response to things that were said today, but overall, no major change. what people say on social media, it was a smart thing to not take too much time. i don't know if that's a function of wanting to be respectful of senators' times or th

mr. philbin referenced an article that came out yesterday, at the time a very high defense official with ukrainians. this is interesting. i'm going to read this article, because i think it is important. i suggested to the senate if they wish to have something to consider further on this. he said he first found out that the u.s. was withholding aid by believing politico's article published august 28th. u.s. officials and ukrainian diplomats including the country's foreign minister has said publicly that he have was aware of problems early as july. i was really surprised and shocked, because just a couple of days prior to that, actually had a meeting with john bolton. i had several meetings with him, and we had extensive discussions. the last thing i expected to read is about military aid being frozen. i was trying to get the truth. was it true or not true? it was a panic inside the zelensky administration saying zelensky was convinced there have been some sort of mistake. that is president zelensky. putting calls to the national security council and other officials in washington want to m

mr. philbin did earlier today with that. mr. mulvaney has issued two statements.fter his press conference and then one monday after "the new york times" article concerning mr. bolton's alleged manuscript. the alleged statements in his mamt. i think the easiest thing is to read them. to understand what he said and to put it into context for everyone in the chamber. which is the from, this is day of the press conference. once again, the media has decided to misconstrue my comments to advance a biassed and political witch hunt against president trump. let me be clear. there was absolutely no quid pro quo between ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election. the president never told me to withhold any money until the ukrainians did anything related to the server. the only reasons we were holding the money was because of concern about lack of support from other nations and concerns over corruption. multiple times during the more than 30-minute briefing where i took over 25 questions, i referred to president trump's interest in rooting out corrupt

mr. philbin spoke for five minutes and talked about the various types of immunities and privileges the president could invoke but did not answer my question. so i ask once again, can you name a single witness or document that the president turned over to the house impeachment inquiry. it is directed to both parties and president's counsel goes first. >> mr. chief justice, minority leader schumer, thank you for that question. i apologize if i was not direct in getting to the nub of the question yesterday. i was intending to explain the rationales that the administration had provided for its actions and to explain contrary to the question it was not absolute defiance and not a blanket assertion that we won't do anything. that's the way the house managers have tried to characterize it. let me be clear. there were document subpoenas issued prior to the adoption of house resolution 660. the president explained, the administration explained in various letters that they were invalid and there were no documents produced in response. there were to documents produced in response because all of the apps we

mr. philbin is not ready for primetime or the afternoon as the case may be.u know, i think that adam schiff is just in charge of, and you know, acting like a lead prosecutor. i think that congresswoman lofgren while not as theatrical of a performer, she had a good argument to make, and she made it effectively, because what she did was that she went through the evidence and said, there would be evidence, there would be emails associated with these meetings and there would be documents that are relevant here, and she showed exactly where. it looks like we won't see them at this stage in the trial. >> and now, let me ask you, because impeachment is not just a matter in the trial of the facts and the evidence, but it is also a political matter. adam schiff is a former prosecutor and i see why a lot of people think that he is effective, and i also think that a lot of republicans see him as a very part san democrat. -- partisan democrat, and do you think that the audience we are talking about here is one or two democrats who are iffy like manchin and the senator fr

mr. philbin also made this bizarre argument, in my view, sort of saying the president can deny congress oversight and it's congress that's violating the separation of powers by insisting on oversight when that's exactly why the article of impeachment exists in the first place and how it's supposed to function. so this -- this -- this conflict that's been created around are we protecting the constitution by defying it? or are we protecting it by protecting it? i think i would argue that we're protecting it by protecting it. >> and in some sense, i mean, all foreign aid is conditioned. this aid to ukraine, this military aid was conditioned. it was conditioned by the congress. it was written into the legislation authorizing it, and ukraine met all of the conditions. >> officially. certifiers -- >> that's why donald trump had to stop it because ukraine had met every single specified condition and there was nothing else that could stop it except the president telling people they must. >> we're going to take a quick break right here. we've got senator chris coons is going to be joining us. "washington

had either testified before the grand jury or before the house committees were new witnesses when mr philbin said it is correct under a constitutional design they're supposed to investigate you were to deliberate but what they're asking you to do is now become the investigative agency the investigative body. if they needed all this additional evidence which they said they don't need and by the way not only did they say in the record this is house manager nat'l or quote it's on when he was on c.n.n. back on the 15th of this month we brought the articles of impeachment because despite the fact that we didn't hear from many witnesses we could have heard from we heard from enough witnesses to prove the case beyond any doubt at all. the same could be saying represented laughter and you know we've had we have evidence proving the case through for example at the meeting when bolton said it was a drug deal well we have back witnesses hill was there been was there saddam was there so this idea that they haven't had witnesses. is that's the smokescreen you've heard from a lot of witnesses the problem

mr. philbin. >> mr. chief justice, senators, majority leader mcconnell, minority leader schumer. the other day as we open our presentation, i touched on two areas, some of the due process violations that characterize the precedence in the house, some of the fundamental mischaracterizations and errors that underpin house democrats charge of obstruction. today i will complete the presentation on those points to round out some of the fundamentally unfair procedure that was used in the house and its implications for this proceeding before you now. and also addressee in detail the purported charges of obstruction in the second article of impeachment. on due process, there are three fundamental errors that in fact, of the the house. the first is, as i explained on saturday, the impeachment inquiry was unauthorized and unconstitutional from the beginning. no committee of the house has the power to launch an inquiry under the houses impeachment power unless the house itself has taken a vote to give that authority to a committee. i do in cases such as united states versus watkins the supr

mr. philbin referenced the statement, the house managers came back and said, mr. admitted there was a quid pro quo. that's not true. if mr. mulvaney misspoke or if the words were garbabled, he corrected it that day and has been very clear. thank you. >> mr. chief justice. >> senator from maryland. >> mr. chief justice i send a question to the desk for the president's counsel and the house managers. >> the question to both parties. the house managers will go first. what did national security adviser john bolton mean when he referenced whatever drug deal sondland and mulvaney are cooking up on this, end quote, and did he ever raise that issue in any meeting with president trump? >> mr. chief justice, senators, when john bolton and this is according to dr. hill's testimony brought up the "drug deal," it was in the context of a july 10th meeting. there were two meetings that day. there was a meet iing the ambassador was present for. in the first meeting the yukra e ukrainians wanted to raise the topic of getting the white house meeting that president zelensky wanted.

mr. philbin did earlier today with that which is mr.y has issued two statements, one after his press conference and one monday after the new york times article concerning mr. bolton's alleged manuscript, statements in his manuscript. i think the easiest thing is to read them and understand what he said and to put into context for everyone in the chamber. this is from -- this is the day of the press conference. once again the media has decided to misconstrue my comments to a biased political witch-hunt against president trump. let me be clear there was absolute in no quid pro quo between ukrainian military aid in any investigation into the 2016 election. the president however, told me too withhold any money until the ukrainians did anything related to the server. the only reason we were holding the money was because of concern about lack of support from other nations and concern over corruption. multiple times during the 30 minute briefing i took 25 questions and i referred to president trump's interest in rooting out corruption in ukrai

mr. philbin said that's because they followed the law. they followed the rules.here. >> thank you. >> thank you, counsel. the senator from delaware. >> chief justice, on behalf of senators booker, car den, chain, markey, metro area nen duz, murphy, shaheen, i send a question to the desk for house managers. >> thank you. the question from senator carper and others to house managers. the president's aides and defenders claim it is normal or usual to use u.s. foreign assistance as the president did to achieve a desired outcome. how is the president's act in withholding security assistance to ukraine different from how they use foreign assistance to achieve foreign policy goals and national security objectives and how should we evaluate the defense argument that this is what is, quote, done all the time, end quote. >> mr. chief justice, senators, thank you for the question. so to understand the answer to this, you don't have to look inside the president's mind, you have to look at recent history and then what was done last year. as i talked about earlier, even yester

mr. chief justice. our goal is to be finished by dinnertime, and well before. we will have three presentations. first will be pat philbin, deputy white house counsel, then jay sekulow will give a presentation, we will take a break if that is okay with you mr. leader, then after that, i will finish with the presentation. so that is our goal for the day, with that, i will turn it over to pat philbin. >> mr. chief justice, members of the senate, majority leader mcconnell, minority leader schumer, i would like to start today by making a couple of observations related to the abuse of power charge in the first article of impeachment, and i wouldn't presume to elaborate on professor dershowitz's presentation from yesterday evening which i thought was complete and compelling, but i wanted to just add a couple of very specific points in support of the exposition of the constitution in the impeachment clause that he set out. it begins from a focus on the points in this debate about the impeachment clause of the constitutional convention where maladministration was offered by george mason as a grounds for impeachment, and james ma

mr. philbin said and what he didn't say, i guess, when he was asked specifically about that handling of the manuscript. >> reporter: the difference and nuance between whether you heard about what was in the manuscript and whether you saw a copy and looked at it, reviewed it yourself. it is an interesting twist in this. the language that you and i have been talking about the last couple of days has been extraordinarily careful from the white house and particularly from national security council, you heard that same language from pat philbin, even though senators a couple times went back and said wait a second, did you hear anything problematic, did you even realize there would be something problematic in the bolton manuscript. that's one of the notable question and answer moments that came up. there were a couple others as well, chuck. both were things you referenced at the top of the show, one has infuriated democrats, the argument from deputy white house counsel pat philbin seeming to suggest a president seeking information from a foreign entity would in fact not be problematic, and the ar

mr. chief justice, patrick philbin will present our -- >> very well. mr. philbin. >> thank you mr. it is remarkable that after taking the action of the breathtaking gravity of voting to impeach the duly elected president of the united states, and after saying for weeks that they had overwhelming evidence to support their case, the first thing that the house managers have done upon arriving finally in this chamber after waiting for 33 days is to say, well, actually, we need more evidence. we're not ready to present our case. we need to have subpoenas and we need to do more discovery because we don't have the evidence we need to support our case. this is stunning. it's a stunning admission of the inadequate and broken process that the house democrats ran in this impeachment inquiry that failed to compile a record to support their charges. it's stunning that they don't have the evidence they need to present their case. and that they don't really have a case. if a litigant showed up in any court in this country on the day of trial and said to the judge, actually, your honor, we're not

mr. philbin.president asks for an investigation of a possible corruption by political rival under circumstances that objectively are in the national interest, should the president be impeached if a majority of the house believes the president did for the wrong reason? >> he's entitled to look into corruption in the united states or elsewhere. he's entitled use the department of state for that purpose or any other department. he's not entitled target an american citizen specifically. nor, did he do so innocently here. it was only after joe biden was a candidate for president, that he decided ukraine needed to look into the bidens. he made it clear he was not interested in an investigation. he was interested in an announcement of an investigation so the bidens could be smeared. so, it's probably never suitable for a president to order an investigation of corruption and there's an investigation ongoing. the justice department can certainly ask the foreign government for assistance in that investigati

mr. philbin just told you.u 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 for 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 the ukraine. and as my colleagues have shown, they failed to give you key facts about a meeting and lots of other evidence that they produce themselves. but let's talk about the meeting. it's all about an invitation about a meeting. if you look at the first transcript, at the first transcript the president said to president zelensky, when you're s