Memo Shows President Trump Prodded Ukraine On Biden Claims

Speaker 1: 00:00 The formal impeachment inquiry launched by the house of representatives into president Trump's conduct is by any measure historic. Only two presidents have been impeached. Neither one was removed from office, but not only presidents can be impeached. The constitution says all civil officers of the United States can face impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. My next guest, Pamela Naughton, is one of the rare federal prosecutors who have taken part in an impeachment proceeding. She served as associate special counsel in the impeachment of chief judge Walter Nixon in 1989 Pamela Naughton is now a partner with DLA Piper global law firm and Pamela, welcome to the program. Speaker 2: 00:42 Thank you very much. Marine. Speaker 1: 00:44 Can I ask your reaction? Not in a partisan way, but as a former prosecutor to the speaker's decision to launch impeachment hearings? Speaker 2: 00:52 Yes. It was not a necessary step. I think people need to understand that the committee itself was on its way to conducting an impeachment inquiry, but it was a significant step, I think politically in terms of gathering momentum from the caucus, uh, to move forward and to also coordinate the six committees that had been looking at these issues Speaker 1: 01:16 is impeachment in general. Would you say more political than legal? Speaker 2: 01:20 Yes, it's totally a political question. The us Supreme court decided that actually in our case, Nixon V U S in which a judge Nixon attempted to challenge his removal from office by saying the Senate did not conduct a proper trial and the U S Supreme court ruled that that was not a, just a shareable question that they did not have jurisdiction over impeachment. So it is a completely political question in the eyes of the Supreme court. Speaker 1: 01:50 Well, what does an impeachment inquiry consist of? How is an inquiry like that conducted? Speaker 2: 01:56 Every one is different. There are no standard rules. Typically they have started in the judiciary committee. Typically the chairman would assign it to a subcommittee and then a subcommittee does the investigation reports to the full committee, full committee votes on the articles, and then sent to the house floor. Speaker 1: 02:15 Everyone always questions what the term high crimes and misdemeanors actually means. Now you were assistant special counsel in the judge Nixon impeachment. What kinds of evidence did you feel Rose to that standard? Speaker 2: 02:29 Our case was actually very unique in that there was a judge who had actually been convicted of a criminal offense of perjury in the grand jury and was serving a five year sentence in prison. So there was really no question that he had committed a crime. But in the 19 prior impeachments that have been conducted in our country, that's of both presidents and judges, nearly none of them had been convicted actually of a crime. I think judge Clayborne had been and judge Nixon. It's been rare that someone's actually been committed a crime, high crimes and misdemeanors. The term misdemeanor doesn't mean jaywalking or like a minor offense. It means miss demeanor. It means failure to act appropriately in your office. It was a substitute word for maladministration. So judges have been impeached for things like mental illness, drunkenness, going way beyond their authorized bounds and ordering litigants to do certain things. It's not essential, nor is it necessary for anyone to prove that the office holder has committed any kind of crime under the penal code. Speaker 1: 03:46 Is the impeachment process for let's say a judge different from the process of impeaching a president? Speaker 2: 03:52 Not necessarily. Again, each impeachment has its own set of rules and will be conducted the way that house of Congress wants to conduct it. That goes for the trial in the Senate and it also goes for the proceedings in the house of representatives. Uh, it's not even essential that the [inaudible] judiciary committee report out the articles of impeachment, but that's been the tradition Speaker 1: 04:16 in the case of the Trump impeachment inquiry. Is it your sense that the house will be investigating more than the phone call made to Ukraine's president? Speaker 2: 04:26 Yes, absolutely. And you see that because a speaker Pelosi assigned the investigation to all six of the, uh, of the committees that are currently looking at it. In other words, there is way more than just the phone call in terms of the complaint filed. Both a whistleblower, but the complaint filed by the whistleblower may raise a number of questions that have to do with foreign relations intelligence and other issues. It, for instance, it may have been unlawful to have impounded the funds in the first place by OMB. There's no apparent authority for OMB to have a pounded the fund, so they need to look at all of those things. Speaker 1: 05:07 No. You know, as a person who's been so deeply involved in the PR in this process, what are you looking for? What kind of information do you think will be revealed? Speaker 2: 05:16 Oh, I'm looking for a lot of things. For one thing, there are conversations with Vladimir Putin right after the call was the Lensky. I would like to know what that call was about. It wasn't about forest fires only and that would be one of the areas of inquiry I would have because of course it was in Putin's interest not to have that military aid sent to the Ukraine. I would be looking at the actual timeline of when those funds were impounded by OMB and what authority OMB had to do that and what direction B was taking and from and for what I would also be looking at, um, according to reports today and, uh, the memorandum transcript that was made public today, that attorney general BARR was involved, uh, along with Rudy Giuliani and in trying to get the Ukraine to, uh, somehow to do this investigation of, uh, Biden and his son. That involvement by the attorney general and the department of justice should also be looked at by the judiciary committee. Speaker 1: 06:28 What do you expect to be the timeframe for this process? Speaker 2: 06:31 If it's just based on the Ukraine situation, I would expect that they could do that in a fairly short period of time, particularly if they forgo some recesses and have hold some hearings very fairly quickly. Chairman Schiff indicated that they would be ready to proceed very quickly, uh, along those lines. If they did all the investigations and intelligence committee on this issue and then sent it over to the full judiciary committee, that full judiciary committee would not have to hold hearings. They could just vote on it and then Sunday articles to the floor. But I think one of the other articles they are thinking of doing is making it in a peach will fence simply to fail to respond to congressional subpoenas, failed to produce documents as all part of an obstruction of a congressional investigation. If that's an article of impeachment as well. That may take a little bit more time. Uh, in terms of marshaling that evidence, Speaker 1: 07:33 what would a Senate trial be like? What would have to happen for the president to actually be removed from office? Speaker 2: 07:40 Well, a trial would have to be held. Uh, the, the senators comprise the jury. The president would essentially be a defendant in the trial, would get his own counsel and get time to present his own evidence. Um, hearsay's allowable generally in an a pH mint hearing. Each impeachment has its own set of, of rules. But typically impeachment, I mean, excuse me, hearsay. It would be allowed. It's not like a court trial where rules of evidence apply. Uh, then closing arguments are delivered and then the Senate votes, and if the Senate votes by two thirds to remove the president from office, he is thereby removed at the conclusion of the vote. And the vice president is sworn in. As president, Speaker 1: 08:28 I've been speaking with former federal prosecutor of Pamela Naughton, now a partner with DLA Piper global law firm. Pamela, thank you so much. Speaker 2: 08:36 You're very welcome. Right.