The NPR Politics Podcast - Judiciary Hearing Opens Final Act Of Democrats' Trump Impeachment Saga

Episode Date: December 4, 2019

A panel of four constitutional law scholars are trying to put the allegations against Trump in a historical and legal context. Three of the professors support impeachment, one is opposed. This episode: political correspondent Scott Detrow, national security editor Phil Ewing, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Kelly Oldfield along with my fifth grade class, Team 202. We are wrapping up our journalism unit by listening to our podcast, The Team 202 Totally Tubular Talk Show. This podcast was recorded at... Was that Totally Tubular Talk Show? I love it. Sounds like it. It's 2 45 Eastern on Wednesday, December 4th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Hopefully one thing that won't change is my fifth graders

understanding how important journalism is in our world. Okay, here's the show! Man, that was awesome. Hey there, it's the totally tubular NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow, I cover the campaign. I'm Phil Ewing, election security editor. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. So the House Judiciary Committee officially took over the impeachment inquiry today. Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler kicked things off with a hearing. The House Committee on the Judiciary will come to order.

So bye-bye-bye, Intelligence House Committee on the Judiciary will come to order. So bye, bye, bye, Intelligence Committee. Hello, Judiciary Committee. This is the beginning of the Judiciary Committee's phase at the front and center of the impeachment inquiry. The hearing today, though, was a lot different than the hearings we saw for two weeks in Intelligence. Who were the witnesses that Judiciary heard from? They're not fact witnesses, as we saw in the previous phase. These are law professors. They were there to give a historical and legal context on impeachment, which Jerry Nadler said his members need as they decide whether to go ahead with impeachment. Their names are Noah Feldman of Harvard. Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear.

Pamela Carlin of Stanford. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify. Michael Gerhardt of UNC North Carolina. It's an honor and a privilege to join the other distinguished witnesses to discuss a matter of grave concern. And Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School. And that is the impeachment of a president of the United States. They gave their historic and legal views on these questions about impeaching the president. So before it was what happened and today is, okay, so is that impeachable? Is that a fair way to look at it?

Well, first these witnesses, constitutional experts, defined what an impeachable offense is. And then at least the ones called by the Democrats argued that what the president did rose to the level of impeachment and removal. Based on the evidentiary record before you, what has happened in the case today is something that I do not think we have ever seen before. A president who has doubled down

on violating his oath to faithfully execute the laws and to protect and defend the Constitution. That's the job of the Judiciary Committee, to take the facts that were determined in the Intelligence Committee and then show why these facts add up to abuse of power and an abuse of power that is bad enough to merit impeachment and removal from office. So to put it mildly, it seems very unlikely that House Republicans are going to listen to a constitutional expert and say, oh, that's a good point. I was wrong on this. I'm changing my mind. President Trump does deserve to be impeached. So like, who was the audience for today's hearing? That is an excellent question. That awkward silence was really telling because, wow, who is the audience? We know now that the hopes that Democrats might have had a couple of weeks

ago that they could convince a few moderate Republicans that impeachment was warranted are now dashed. In other words, there is no hope of convincing Republicans. There might be some hope of convincing some members of the public, but probably not because public opinion seems very locked in. So I think that they are making these arguments for posterity and history and to justify what it usual in Washington, need this kind of grounding from these scholars about the framers of the Constitution, about George Mason and George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and others, which were the subject of discussion at this hearing. I've heard of that last guy. Having had this colloquy with these experts about the origins of our republic, they'll then be better prepared to move ahead. Okay, so let's walk through what we heard at the hearing. Phil, you pointed out the three

experts called by the Democrats were all there arguing, yes, impeachable offenses occurred. We three are unanimous. Yes. What specifically were they talking about? Correct. Feldman, Carlin, and Gerhardt basically all said that the facts as they understand them about Trump and the Ukraine affair mean that Congress basically has no choice but to impeach. Keep doing what you're doing was their message to Jerry Nadler and the Democrats. If Congress fails to impeach here, then the impeachment process has lost all meaning. Any particular articles that they suggested? They litigated quite extensively whether they believe the president's actions in the Ukraine affair comport with the provisions in the Constitution with respect to impeachment, bribery, treason, high crimes and misdemeanors.

And for these first three witnesses, the ones brought in by Democrats, they said, yes, whichever combination of those things, the House Judiciary Committee and the full house, if we get to that point, decide to bring up they thought fit the facts. Mara, the cable famous Jonathan Turley was the witness that the Republicans wanted at the table. What did he say? Right. He had a really interesting argument. First of all, he did say something that you could say both made his testimony more powerful, but also might have really ticked off the president when he said that he doesn't believe the call was perfect. But he did say that he doesn't think requesting help in the form of an investigation into a political rival from a foreign country was grounds for impeachment. He said there also wasn't any proof of a quid pro quo. And here's what he said about impeachment. He basically made the bar

for impeachment much higher than the Democrats are describing it. I'm concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and an abundance of anger. I believe this impeachment not only fails to satisfy the standard of past impeachments, but would create a dangerous precedent for future impeachments. In other words, he's saying, Democrats, beware of what you wish for. The next time there's a Democratic president with an opposition party House of Representatives, this could be happening to you. But he did basically say that lying under oath about sex, which is what Bill Clinton did and was impeached for,

and covering up a burglary, which Richard Nixon probably would have been impeached for if he hadn't resigned, were worse than asking a foreign power to help you in an upcoming election. That's what he was arguing. What about the Republican lawmakers on the committee, though? What was their strategy today? The ranking member is Georgia Republican Doug Collins, and he and his members have been very critical not only about the merits of the Ukraine affair. They argue that the president's actions and the actions of the administration aren't improper or against the law, but also the process the Democrats have followed has been inappropriate. They say they're moving too fast. There's still evidence they haven't developed, and they are frustrated by how unfairly they say they and the president have been treated so far.

So the White House had been invited to participate in this hearing. And after weeks of complaining that they did not have a seat at the table, the White House declined to participate in this hearing. Did we hear anything from President Trump or other members of the administration today as this hearing went on? The president was in England for the NATO summit, and he did talk about impeachment today. He said impeachment was a dirty word. He also impugned the patriotism of Democrats. He said, you have to wonder if they love their country. So these are comments, the kind of comments he's made all along, but he certainly didn't take the opportunity to change the subject when he was overseas. So one last thing on this. There has been this discussion of as this moves forward,

do House Democrats keep the focus on Ukraine or do they suddenly broaden it out and get into allegations in the Mueller report, obstruction of justice among them, today seemed entirely focused on Ukraine. Is that a signal that going forward, any articles of impeachment will just be focused on Ukraine? Do we know that yet? That's not clear. And one thing that did come out of the hearings on Wednesday was that at least for Jerry Nadler, the chairman,

and the majority counsel, Norm Eisen, the Mueller obstruction of justice allegations and other things from the Russia investigation appear to be a live issue for them. They asked witnesses about them in addition to things from the more recent Ukraine affair. So we don't know what the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will decide because she's ultimately in charge of this whole process, even though Jerry Nadler is doing this phase of it,

and what points they will try to hash out internally if and when they get to the point of actually drafting legislation to impeach the president. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we get back, a closer look at those mysterious phone calls between Rudy Giuliani and the White House. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Last Day, a new podcast from Lemonada Media about the things that are killing us. Best-selling author Stephanie Whittles-Wax, who lost her brother to an overdose in 2015, hosts the show with humanity, wit, and a quest for progress.

Season one explores the opioid crisis. Last Day zooms in on one person's last day of life, explores how they got there, and then zooms out to understand the bigger picture with an ear toward solutions. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. An American, a Russian, and a Ukrainian walk into a bar. No, this is not the impeachment hearings. It's a comedy competition in Ukraine. I'm Gregory Warner, the high stakes of comedy in a country led by a comedian. It's a social mission to unite the country.

On Rough Translation from NPR. And we are back. As we've been talking about, the House Judiciary Committee is taking the lead now. They are picking up where the Intelligence Committee left off, and that was with the big report the Intelligence Committee issued based on its investigations, its hearings. We talked about that yesterday. There were a couple new pieces of information in that report, though, that it's worth spending a few minutes on, and that is logs of phone calls and text messages that the committee was able to get through a subpoena to AT&T. So, Phil, let's start off with this.

There were records of phone calls between Devin Nunes, the top Republican on that committee, with Rudy Giuliani. And more interestingly, with Rudy Giuliani's indicted associate, Lev Parnas. That's right. This is kind of like one of those Star Wars prequels that tells the story that is then developed in a subsequent movie. So we know the broad structure of this Ukraine story and about what witnesses have said. Is Lev Parnas Jar Jar Binks? Yes, Lev Parnas is Jar Jar in this story. And so on the one hand, you might be interested in the story of how the Death Star plans were stolen, but you don't need to know how it happened in order to be able to understand the events of a subsequent movie.

So the big picture here is we know Rudy Giuliani was working with many people to try to spread his narrative, his messaging about Ukraine early in this year. And what we're learning now is that his phone calls included contacts with the White House, which is perhaps not surprising. His client is the president of the United States and also with the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes. But these calls from Parnas, Giuliani's associate, to Nunes also are interesting. We don't know everything about them. We don't know the details of what they might have discussed. But Parnas' attorney has told our colleague, Ryan Lucas, that he helped facilitate a trip by Nunes to Europe earlier on in this process. So we're getting ready to learn more about this. But what this incident or what this material reveals is how

closely all the parties involved were coordinating and communicating at a time we now know the White House wanted its ambassador to Ukraine, Masha Yovanovitch, to be recalled there because it wasn't happy with her and it wanted to, according to Democrats, clear her out of the way to begin to initiate what we now know as the Ukraine affair. So a few things. First of all, my apologies. I thought you were referencing the Phantom Menace. In fact, you were referencing the much superior Rogue One there. Secondly, more importantly, this does remind me of early in 2017 when the Intelligence Committee started looking at all of the Russia allegations out there that we had word of Devin Nunes shuttling back and forth to the White House. And there were questions about coordination as he

allegedly was conducting oversight. What is he saying about these phone calls? Nunes was asked about this on Fox News, and he didn't rule out the possibility he had talked with Parnas. You know, it's possible, but I haven't gone through all my phone records. I don't really recall that name. I remember the name now because he's been indicted. What also this story underscores for us is that Nunes is a longtime supporter of Trump. He's an ally. He's on his team. And he's working with him and his associates, including, as we now know, Giuliani and Parnas,

to help get the message out in this case about Ukraine. And we found out about other phone calls between Rudy Giuliani and the Office of Management and Budget in the White House. What's going on there? Well, there are records that Giuliani made a lot of calls to the White House. Those might be unsurprising since he is the president's personal lawyer. But why was he calling the Office of Management and Budget? The Office of Management and Budget could matter here because that is the department that held the military aid to Ukraine. Right. Those phone calls took place in late April, April 23rd and 24th. And then one other thing to note here on the morning of April 24th, Giuliani went on Fox News and he said in an interview,

keep your eyes on Ukraine. And he began to talk about the storyline that we've now become so familiar with, with the alleged interference in the ambassador there. So short story, what do these call records add to our big picture understanding of what's been going on? What we've done here is zoom in on a phase of this story, which is a subplot to the main story. And we have more details about it. We understand more texture about what was taking place. But the bigger picture story has not changed. And in fact, we know how it turns out this leads to Democrats initiating an impeachment inquiry of the president. All right, that is a wrap for today. We'll be back tomorrow. Until then, you can keep up with all of the latest updates by heading to NPR.org, by listening to your local public radio station, or checking us

out on the NPR One app. I'm Scott Detrow, I cover the campaign. I'm Phil Ewing, election security editor. And I'm Mara Liason, cover the campaign. I'm Phil Ewing, election security editor. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.