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CNN Live Event/Special

The Impeachment Trial of Donald J. Trump. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired January 22, 2020 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), C.A.: For how can any country trust the United States as a model of governance if it's one that sanctions precisely the political corruption, an invitation to foreign meddling that we have long sought to eradicate in burgeoning democracies around the world? To protect against foreign interference in our elections, we have guardrails built into our democratic system.

We have campaign finance laws to ensure that political assistance can come only from domestic actors and we take seriously the need to shore up the integrity of our voting systems so that a foreign government or actor cannot change vote tallies. The promise of one person, one vote is only effective if each vote is cast free of foreign interference. Americans decide American elections -- at least they should.

Now, what if electoral corruption is even more insidious. What happens when the invitation comes from within? Our framers understood that threat too. George Mason noted at the Constitutional Convention that impeachment was a necessary tool because the man who has practiced corruption and by that means procured his appointment in the first instance could seek to repeat his guilt.

In June of last year, President Trump was clear that if a foreign government offered dirt on his political opponent, he would take it. A statement deeply at odds with the guidance provided at the time by his own FBI director, the former federal elections commissioner and chair and our Constitution written some 233 years ago. In no uncertain terms it admonishes that any person holding office of profit or trust, it admonishes against them accepting of any present from a foreign state.

But President Trump did more than take the foreign help in 2019 as he had done 2016. This time he not only asked for it in the July 25th call, but when he didn't get the help from the Ukrainian President in the form of the announced investigations, he withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funded military aid and a coveted White House meeting to increase the pressure on Ukraine to comply.

And later he demonstrated no remorse and continued to encourage Ukraine to conduct the political investigations he wanted, even asking other countries to do so. The consequences of these actions alone have shaken our democratic system. What message will we send if we choose not to hold this president accountable for his abuse of power to solicit reelection interference in our upcoming election?

The misconduct undertaken by this president may leave future presidents to believe that they too can use the substantial power conferred on them by the Constitution in order to undermine it. Nothing could weaken the integrity of our elections more and no campaign finance law or statement by a future FBI director could stand up to the precedent of electoral misconduct set by the President of the United States if we do not say clearly that this behavior is unacceptable and more than unacceptable, impeachable.

We also undermine our global standing as a country long viewed as a model for democratic ideals worth emulating. We have for generations been the shining city upon a hill that President Reagan described. America is not just a country but also an idea. But what worth is that idea if when tried we do not affirm the values that underpin it. What will those nascent democracies around the world conclude that democracy is not only difficult but maybe that it's too difficult, maybe that it's impossible. And who will come to fill the void that we leave when the light from that shining city upon a hill is extinguished?

The autocrats with whom we compete who value not freedom and fair elections but the unending rule of a repressive executive. Autocrats that value not freedom of the press and open debate but disinformation, propaganda and state sanctioned lies.

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Vladimir Putin would like nothing better. The Russians have little democracy left thanks to Vladimir Putin. It's an autocracy, it's a thugocracy (ph). The Russian storyline, the Russian narrative, the Russian propaganda, the Russian view they would like people around the world to believe is that every country is just the same, just the same corrupt system. There's no difference. It's not a competition between autocracy and democracy. No, it's just between autocrats and hypocrites.

They make no bones about their loss of democracy. They just want the rest of the world to believe you can't find it anywhere. Why take to the streets in Moscow to demand something better if there's nothing better anywhere else? That's the Russian story. That's the Russian story.

That's who prospers by the defeat of democracy. That's who wins by the defeat of our democrat ideals. It's not other democracies, it's autocrats who are on the rise all over the world. I think all of us in this room have grown up in a generation where each successive generation lived with more freedom than the one that came before.

We each had more freedom of speech and association, freedom to practice our faith. This was true at home; it was true all over the world and I think we came to believe this was some immutable law of nature only to find it isn't. Only to come to the terrible realization that this year fewer people live in freedom than last and there's no guarantee that next year people will live in more freedom than today.

And the prospect for our children is even more in doubt. It turns out there's nothing immutable about this. Every generation has to fight for it. We're fighting for it right now. There's no guarantee that this democracy that has served us so well will continue to prosper. We will struggle to protect this idea and even as we do we will struggle to protect our security in more tangible ways.

Support for an independent and democratic Ukraine, which is the literal bulwark against Russian expansionism in Europe, is essential to our security. Russia showed that when it invaded Ukraine in 2014 and sought to redraw the map of Europe.

Was our commitment to Ukraine's independence, the sovereignty just an empty promise or are we prepared to supports its efforts to keep Russia contained so that they and we may all eventually enjoy a long peace?

Russia is not a threat, I don't need to tell you, to Eastern Europe alone. Ukraine has become the de facto proving ground for just the types of hybrid warfare that the 21st century will become defined by -- cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, efforts to undermine the legitimacy of state institutions, whether that is voting systems or financial markets.

The Kremlin showed boldly in 2016 that with the maligned skills it honed in Ukraine, they would not stay in Ukraine. Instead, Russia employed them here to attack our institutions and they will do so again. Indeed, they've never stopped.

Will we allow the primary country now fighting Russia to be weakened, placing our troops in Europe at greater risk and opening the door to greater interference in our affairs at home? If we allow the President of the United States to pursue his political and personal interests rather than the national interest, we send a message to our European allies that our commitment to a Europe free and whole is for sale to the highest bidder.

The strength of our global alliances relies on a shared understanding of what that alliance stands for, one built on the rule of law, on free and fair elections, on a shared struggle against aggression from autocratic regimes.

We are countries built on a commitment to our people, not unyielding loyalty to a President who would be king. A President has a right to hold a call with a foreign leader, yes.

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And he has the right to decide the time and location of a meeting with that leader, yes. and he has a right to withhold funding to that leader should the law be followed and the purpose be just, but he does not, under our laws and under our Constitution, have a right to use the powers of his office to corruptly solicit foreign aid -- prohibited foreign aid in his re-election. He does not.

He does not have the right to withhold official presidential acts to secure that assistance and he certainly doesn't have the right to undermine our elections and place our security at risk for his own personal benefit. No President, Republican or Democrat, can be permitted to do that. Now, let me turn to the second article of impeachment, which charges the President with misusing the powers of his office to obstruct and interfere with the impeachment inquiry. The evidence you'll hear during the House presentation is equally undeniable and damning.

President Trump issued a blanket order directing the entire Executive Branch not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry and to withhold all documents and testimony. His order was categorical, it was indiscriminate and historically unprecedented.

No president before President Trump has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry or sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively the ability of the House of Representatives to investigate high crimes and misdemeanors.

The President was able to block agencies across the Executive Branch from producing any records or documents to the House Investigative Committees, despite duly authorized subpoenas. The White House continues to refuse to produce a single document or record in response to a House subpoena that remains in full force and effect.

The Department of State and Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense continue to refuse to provide a single document or record in response to House subpoenas that remain in full force and effect.

It is worth underscoring this point -- the House has yet to receive a single document from the Executive Branch agencies pursuant to its subpoenas. Not a single piece of paper, e-mail or other record has been turned over, not one.

While I pause to get a drink of water, let me let you know for your timing I have about 10 minutes left in my presentation. So the end is in sight.

President Trump has also successfully blocked witnesses, nine of them, under subpoena from testifying, witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the President's actions, including his closest aides, some of whom were directly involved in executing the President's improper orders.

These witnesses include Mick Mulvaney and Robert Blair, Russell Vought, the acting head of the Office of Management and Budget, Michael Duffey, a senior official, and the President's chief legal advisor on the National Security Council, John Eisenberg, among others.

The managers will present in detail what these officials knew about their role in executing different parts of the President's scheme. There is no dispute nor could there be that President Trump's order substantially obstructed the House impeachment inquiry. That obstruction continues unabated today, even as we stand here at the start of the President's trial.

And the President has been able to do so only because of the uniquely powerful position that he holds as our Commander in Chief. No other American can seek to obstruct an investigation into his own wrongdoing this way.

No other American could use the vast powers and levers of his government to conduct a corrupt scheme to benefit themselves and then use those same powers to suppress evidence and bar any cooperation with the authorities investigating them -- not a police chief, not a mayor, not a governor, not any elected official in the country and certainly not any non-elected official in the country.

Well those folks watching us from around the country, you know what would happen to them if they defied a lawful subpoena. They got a subpoena commanding them to appear, you know what would happen to them because they're not above the law. They'd be arrested, they'd be detained, they'd be incarcerated.

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They would be forced to comply. They're not above the law and neither are we and neither is the president.

And yet, despite the fact that he is not above the law, the President's extensive and persistent efforts -- the president -- the House heard from courageous witnesses who did obey lawful subpoenas. And we gathered overwhelming evidence. The House built a formidable case that forms the basis of these articles.

The second Article for Obstruction of Congress is not simply about President Trump's decision to obstruct a congressional investigation or even an impeachment inquiry. It should not be misunderstood as a routine dispute between two branches of government. Nor should it be reduced to the notion that the president was simply protecting himself or fighting back against a partisan or overzealous Congress.

The charges in the second Article are much more serious and urgent than that. First, the president's attempt to obstruct the inquiry so categorically and comprehensively is part and parcel of the president's furious effort to conceal, suppress, and cover up his own misconduct.

From the very first moment his actions were at the risk of coming to light, President Trump sought to hide and cover up key evidence, even as his scheme to pressure Ukraine was still under way.

As the House presentation will make clear, the president's cover-up started even before the House began to investigate the president's Ukraine-related activity. The president learned early on of the existence of a lawful whistle-blower complaint from within the intelligence community that would ring the first alarm.

He deployed the White House and Justice Department to intervene in an unprecedented fashion to conceal and then withhold from Congress, for the first time ever, a credible and urgent whistle-blower complaint even though the law requires that it be provided to the congressional intelligence committees.

Once the impeachment inquiry was under way in late September, the president used the immense and unique power at his disposal to direct and maintain at every turn the categorical defiance of congressional scrutiny, even as he attacked the inquiry itself and its witnesses.

The president offered multiple and shifting justifications for obstructing the House's inquiry, each of them deficient while his actions and statements powerfully reflect his own consciousness of guilt.

Second, the ramifications of the president's obstruction go beyond the sinister motives of simply covering up his actions. His obstruction strikes at the heart of our Constitution. It threatens the last line of defense of our founders purposely enshrined in our system to protect our democracy.

If presidents can obstruct an impeachment inquiry undertaken by the House, and evade accountability in the Senate, for doing so, they usurp an essential power granted exclusively to the Congress and for a reason. Presidents could seize for themselves the power to neutralize and nullify the impeachment clause in order to shield themselves from any accountability.

And if Congress is unable to investigate and impeach a president for abuse of their office, our democracy's essential check on a rogue president will fail. It would no longer protect the American people from a corrupt president who presents an ongoing threat.

This is the outcome every American should be concerned about and one that the founders warned us about. Through the impeachment clause, the framers of the Constitution empowered Congress to thoroughly investigate presidential malfeasance, and to respond if necessary by removing the president from office.

This entire framework depends upon Congress's ability to discover and then to thoroughly and effectively investigate presidential misconduct. Without the ability of Congress to do that, the impeachment power is a nullity. If you can't investigate it, you can't enforce it, you can't apply it.

What we confront here in the second Article of Impeachment is therefore an impeachable offense aimed at destroying the impeachment power itself. When a president abuses the power of his office to so completely defy House investigators, and does so without lawful cause or excuse, he attacks the Constitution itself.

He confirms that he sees himself as above the law. His actions destabilize the separation of powers that defines our democracy and preserves our freedom, and establish an exceedingly dangerous precedent.

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And he proves that he is willing to destroy a final safeguard against tyranny, a safeguard meant to protect the American people just to advance his own personal interest in covering up evidence.

The House presentation of the second Article will therefore focus on three core areas that confirm the president's obstruction and require his removal from office. First, the singular importance and role of the impeachment clause for our democracy and why an effort by a president to obstruct an impeachment inquiry is in and of itself an impeachable offense.

Second, why the president's extensive effort to cover up evidence of his misconduct is unprecedented in American history and without lawful cause or justification. And finally, why the president's obstruction poses a direct threat to our system of self-governance, with consequences for all Americans today, and in the future, and for both chambers of Congress.

Over the coming days, you will hear from the House managers details of this scheme and the effort to hide it from Congress. The Articles of Impeachment that the House presented go to the heart of those efforts. And let me share a few key takeaways.

The House of Representatives has found that using the powers of his office, President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

He did so through scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his re-election, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence of 2020 U.S. presidential election improperly and to his advantage.

President Trump also sought to pressure the government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official United States government acts of significant value to Ukraine on Ukraine's public announcement of these investigations. And he engaged in this scheme or course of conduct for corrupt purposes in pursuit of his personal political benefit.

In doing so, President Trump used the powers of the presidency in a manner that compromised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the U.S. democratic process. He thus ignored and injured the interests of the nation.

As part of the house's impeachment inquiry, the committees undertaking that investigation served subpoenas, seeking documents and testimony deemed vital to the inquiry from various executive branch agencies and offices, current and former officials. In response and without lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed executive branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas.

President Trump thus interposed the powers of the presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the sole power of impeachment vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives.

As George Washington and his troops retreated across the Delaware River in early December 1776 they were read the words of Thomas Paine published that month in his pamphlet, The American Crisis. These are the times that try men's souls, the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country. But he that stands by it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Seventeen days later, George Washington crossed the Delaware leading to a decisive victory for those who would come to shape our promising young country. As much as our founders feared an unchecked chief executive able to pursue his own will over the will of the people.

They also feared the poison of excessive factionalism that could divert us from a difficult service to our country. As George Washington warned in his farewell address, the common and continual mischief's (ph) of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of the wise people to discourage and restraint it.

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Now our political parties and affiliations are central to our Democracy ensuring that good and bad political philosophies alike, are considered in the market place of ideas. Here the American people can choose between the policies of one party or another and make decisions about their political leaders up to and including the President of the United States based on the degree to which that person represents their interest and values.

That is not factionalism. That is the foundation of our Democracy but when a leader takes the reins of the highest office in our land and uses that awesome power to solicit the help of a foreign country to gain an unfair advantage in our free and fair elections. We all, Democrats and Republicans alike, must ask ourselves whether our loyalty is to our party or whether it is to our Constitution.

If we say that we will align ourselves with that leader allowing our sense of duty to be usurped by an absolute (ph) executive, that is not Democracy. It is not even factionalism, it is a step on the road toward tyranny. The damage that this President has done to our relationship with (inaudible), strategic partner will be remedied over time. And Ukraine continues to enjoy strong bipartisan support in Congress.

But if we fail to act, the damage to our Democratic elections, to our national security, to our system of checks and balances will be long lasting and potentially irreversible. As you will hear in the coming days, President Trump has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance.

His conduct has violated his oath of office and his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the law. He has shown not willingness to be constrained by the rule of law and as demonstrated that we will continue to abuse his power and obstruct investigations into himself causing further damage to the pillars of our democracy if he is not held accountable.

He can not be charged with a crime so says the Department of Justice. There is no remedy for such a threat but removal from office of the President of the United States. If impeachment and removal can not hold him accountable then he truly is above the law. We are nearly two and half centuries into this beautiful experiment of American Democracy but our future is not assured. As Benjamin Franklin departed the Constitutional Convention he was asked, what have we got? A Republic or a Monarchy? He responded simply, a Republic if you can keep it. A fair trial, impartial consideration of all of the evidence against the President is how we keep our Republic. That concludes our introduction.

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT: The majority leader is recognized.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): (inaudible) colleagues, I suggest we have a recess until 10 minutes to 4 at which moment we'll reconvene (inaudible) to call the chair.

ROBERTS: Without objection, so ordered.

(RECESS)

MCCONNELL: I suggest we have a recess until 10 minutes to 4:00, at which moment, we will reconvene, subject to the call of the chair.

ROBERTS: Without objection, so ordered.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: A very, very powerful and forceful speech, two -- almost two-and-a-half-hours, by Adam Schiff, the lead House manager.

That means the Democrats and the other House managers, they have another, what, 21-and-a-half-hours to go over today, tomorrow and Friday, a total of 24 hours over three days.

And, Jake, if the president of the United States, who is aboard Air Force One now, flying back to Washington from Davos, Switzerland, if he was listening, he heard a very, very strong case from Adam Schiff why he, the president of the United States, should be convicted and removed from office.

And we suspect he's watching on television, because he's been tweeting over the last hour or so.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Yes.

And if you strip away the Thomas Paine and the Ben Franklin and the Alexander Hamilton, I was struck by two things, one, Schiff, Chairman Schiff, very forcefully saying that the reason President Trump needs to be removed from office is because he will cheat to get reelected, simply put.

And then the other thing that struck me was how much of the case that Schiff presented was merely running videotape of Trump and his administration officials --

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