>> the case was about walter nixon. three articles of impeachment where. did. -- were adopted. drama focused on what happened in the senate. impeachmentesented rule 11. ofre was a committee senators appointed to receive testimony and that is what the committee did. and based on the committee report, the senate convicted judge nixon. he was removed from office. he sued and said senate rule 11 violates the constitutional grant of authority for the senate to try all impeachment does it prohibits the whole senate from participating. in the district court and the court of appeals said the claim was non-jews -- nonjudicial ball. it involves a political question. court agreed. wasin a decision that unanimous although it has some important concurring opinions, the supreme court said it is indeed nonjudicial. and they had a bunch of different reasons for that conclusion. host: we talk about judicial due process. is there such a thing when it comes to impeachment? the requirements of the constitution itself and the supreme court said there are three textual requirements in the constituti

. >> not president nixon, but walter nixon, the supreme court has no role whatsoever in impeachment. the president keeps tweeting i'll see you in my supreme court over this fake impeachment. he can try to bring it to the supreme court. he will lose. the supreme court has been clear. there could be any number of documentary issues or something like that, that are brought in the context of criminal proceedings. even there, i don't have reservations. people had reservations when the nixon tapes case went to the u.s. supreme court, part of the criminal investigation against him. four justices were appointed by president nixon himself. justice rehnquist recused. the other three sat on the case. all three ruled against president nixon. that will happen here because the president has made ridiculous, absurd executive privilege claims and cried wolf too many times. and i can't imagine that this supreme court would countenance that kind of lawlessness from our chief executive. >> neal katyal, thank you. >> thank you. >> up next, our next guest will talk about just what it is that the presiden

walter nixon. the house gets to decide its own rules. as the house wants to delegate certain powers to a committee or to a chair, the house gets ozzy who that that's not a subject for this court to get into. no.supreme court said >> in that case, there was specific authorization from the senate as a whole to that committee to try to gather evidence. specific authorization from the full senate. it was not under some generalized authority. >> the senate said, the parliamentarian agreed, the judiciary committee can do this under its current authority. that would have been just as valid but let me make that clear. again, this court, the supreme court said that is not subject for you to examine. that is outside. i have to address one thing. the law enforcement point -- look. at any number of things that congress investigates involves criminal activity. the congress had a massive investigation of 9/11. they did it at the exact same time that the criminal investigation was going on. nobody would possibly have said oh, gosh, this involved hijack

private practice in washington where he did white collar criminal law, including defending judge walter nixon impeachment trial before the u.s. senate. he is now the author of several acclaimed books, including "a peach mint -- including, "impeachment, the trial of andrew johnson." thank you so much for being here. there's a lot of talk right now about whether what is being done with the investigation of president trump is fair. why doesn't he have counsel present as question. from president before, isn't it true what the congressman from texas says that in the case of nixon and in the case of clinton, opposing counsel were present? >> it is true, but it is an incomplete story. both of those cases went forward after long special counsel investigations which had nailed down all of the relevant facts. by the time it got to the house, it was time to bring people forward publicly and let the public see what the evidence was and what the situation for impeachment was. in this case, we have not had that. they are finding things out every day. it is an investigative stage. they have held out the pos

thing i had not been before, were mixing and kissinger -- where nixon and kissinger go out to see the dying general eisenhower at walter reed. he gives them some specific advice. brush withnger has a the former general. ambassador lord: henry not only recall strategy and specific milestones but he punctuates the copy with anecdotes. in this case, it was early in the administration, kissinger had the conventional mistaken view that eisenhower was a guy.t i think eisenhower was one of our great presidents. and went out as a courtesy given eisenhower's interest in national issues and they had a meeting with the middle east and they went out to walter reed hospital. the very next day, not because --their meeting but because they told eisenhower about an eisenhower chewed kissinger out. how dare you let this stuff get out in the public. kissinger said, i am not sure i can control this. he said, young man, if you cannot control these things, you do not deserve it. >> from the very first weeks of the administration, plagued by leaks. before we get into talking about the book, i want to talk about you. when you are a high scho

walter flowers. i'm not sure we would like his views on a number of issues. the he decided that even though richard nixon was good for his richard nixon is the origin of the dog whistle, richard nixon was undermining the structure of this country. the corns were from belt. another was from roanoke, virginia. one was from rural maine. one was from upstate new york. these were the real heroes of 1974. one would hope that should we ever be in a similar presidency again, that those kinds of heroes are among us. if he had destroyed the tapes, would he have finished his term? >> yes. no doubt in my mind he would have finished his term. so why didn't he? -- this ishat makes really, really interesting and important about this era. richard nixon self sabotaged. not because he wanted to leave office as he said. i will not do that anymore. i was the director of the nixon library when it became a federal institution. nixon was a temperamentally -- was temperamentally ill-suited to be president and that he was an introvert and an extra efforts job.- extroverts what he did not know, other than being sneaky and running

very interesting thing that i haven't seen before, where nixon and kissinger go out to see the ailing and in fact, dying general eisenhower, at walter reed. and he gives them some very specific advice and henry kissinger has also kind of a brush with the former general. >> it's an interesting anecdote. and what's interesting about this book, that henry not only would call strategies and specific milestone, but he punctuates his recounting with anecdotes. some revealing. some amusing. in this case, it was early in the administration, kissinger had the conventional mistaken view that eisenhower was a decent guy but wasn't brilliant, you know, he soon learned differently and by the way i think eisenhower is one of our great presidents, in my opinion, so they went out to, as a courtesy, in one sense, but also given eisenhower's interest in national issues, and they just had an meeting on the middle east i think it was, and they went out and greet him at walter reed hospital. the very next day, not because of their meeting, but because of somebody in the nsc, there was a leak in the press about what had happened, the meeting, the very th

president since richard nixon has made every one of their tax returns fully public while those tax returns were automatically being audited by the irs. joining us now is walter. he is the former director of the u.s. office of government ethics. he resigned in protest of the trump administration's failure in the category of ethics. and john heilemann is back with us. and, walter, i want to get your reaction to this reporting tonight on the whistle-blower now within the irs. and we seem to be learning more about it. we are maybe week as way from seeing exactly what that is, but it sounds like a political appointee reaching in and some way interfering with what has disr -- the understanding is somebody may have reached out to try to influence it. treasury department officials don't communicate with irs officials about specific reports. so that's extraordinary. but the existence of this complaint itself even if investigation ultimately clears whoever allegedly did this shows why congress needs access to these tax returns of the president. and of course we're only in this position because the president didn't release his tax returns. >> yes. and, john, it turns o