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***Live Updates*** House Judiciary Committee Holds Impeachment Hearing

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The House Judiciary Committee will hold an impeachment inquiry hearing on Wednesday examining if President Donald Trump’s actions warrant impeachment.

Democrats will call three law professors—Pam Karlan (Stanford), Michael Gerhardt (University of North Carolina), Noah Feldman (Harvard). Republicans will call Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University.

Even some of the most ardent impeachment activists have been worried that Chairman Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) committee, which will also be responsible for potentially drafting the articles of impeachment, could turn more Americans against impeachment. Aware of this, Nadler on Tuesday reportedly told Democrats that he is “not going to take any sh*t” at the hearing.

Jordan Sekulow, one of Trump’s attorneys, may have said it best when he stated on Monday: “There’s nothing the American people want to hear less than a bunch of overly educated law professors give their advice.”

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for live updates. All times eastern.
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4:43 PM: Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) asks the witnesses how many voted for Donald Trump. After Karlan, whose views are obvious, objects and says she doesn’t have to answer that, he asks how many supported Trump.

4:38 PM: Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) asks Feldman why the founders chose bribery as an impeachable offense. Feldman says it was commonly used in impeachment offenses in England, and that’s why they specified it. Lieu then cites this tweet to make the case that the bribery standard has been met.

4:35 PM: Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) calls out Karlan for accusing Trump of using the “royal we.” Says it is “audacious” for her to do so. He also calls out Feldman for claiming that he was an “impeachment skeptic” before the Ukrainian phone call because Feldman had claimed that “defamation by tweet” is an impeachable offense.

4:15 PM: Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Karlan then get in a discussion about immigrants who have gone back to their home countries and being mocked for thinking America stands for the rule of law, democracy under Trump. Committee now in another five-minute recess.

4:07 PM: Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) rips the “sham” impeachment process. He says the precedent that this kind of process is setting is dangerous.

3:57 PM: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) points out Karlan donated to Warren, Obama, Clinton. Gaetz asks Karlan about her past comments about how liberals want to cluster and conservatives want to spread out more on the “Versus Trump” podcast… Gaetz calls out Karlan for making a joke about Barron Trump… he says it makes Karlan seem “mean.” Gaetz asks the witnesses to raise their hand if they have personal knowledge about the truth or falsity of a  a single material fact in Schiff’s report. Nobody raises their hand. Gaetz then talks about wiretapping and says maybe it’s a different president we should be impeaching.

Karlan also said she donated more money to Clinton because she has been giving more money to charity because of all the poor people in the United States under Trump. Huh?

3:51 PM: Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Karlan discussing Trump’s abuse of power. Karlan says Trump used the “royal we” when he asked the president of Ukraine to do “us” a favor. She says kings use “us” when they mean “me.”

3:46 PM: Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) points out that fact witnesses were called in front of the Intelligence Committee and says the process has been unfair. She says she doesn’t understand why they are holding this hearing when Democrats do not even know what the charges are going to be against Trump. Roby rips the lack of transparency and openness, pointing out the Intelligence Committee’s finalized report has still not been presented to the Judiciary Committee.

3:41 PM: Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) asks the witnesses why Trump’s withholding of military aid was an “abuse of power.” Richmond using Turley’s past quotes about “viable impeachable” offenses against him after playing a video of Turley’s remarks.

Turley, when asked by Rep. Roby (R-AL) if he wants to respond, says the abuse of power needs to proven and not just inferred.

3:35 PM: Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) commends Turley for insisting that impeachment should not conducted so quickly.

3:30 PM: Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) does not think the House is a swamp and says she was a physician’s assistant in a trauma unit. She says she would have abused her power if she asked patients for a “favor” to be moved up in line and says that’s akin to what Trump did when he asked a favor from the president of Ukraine.

3:26 PM: Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), addressing Turley, says the other law professors have “amorphous” standards for impeachment. He wonders if former President Obama could have been impeached for declaring that the Senate was in recess and making appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. Also discusses various actions by Lyndon Johnson (wiretapping), Kennedy (wiretapping, ordering his brother to deport East German Ellen Rometsch after having an affair with her)…

House Judiciary Committee

3:21 PM: Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) asks the law professors if Trump abused his power in dealing with the Ukrainians and they all, of course, agree with him that he did.

3:15 PM: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) says this is a “pre-determined impeachment done in the most unfair fashion we have ever seen.” Jordan says Democrats promised that the whistleblower would testify and changed their mind because they knew people would out the whistleblower worked with Schiff and his staff. Jordan says the reason the process has been unfair is because the facts are on Trump’s side and not the Democrats’ side.

3:10 PM: Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) asks Karlan if he agrees with Turley’s “impulse buy” comment. Karlan says Congress must act now to prevent meddling in the next election. Johnson says this is a “break the glass moment” and impeachment is the only remedy.

3:05 PM: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) says the facts are disputed and the evidence is simply “hearsay on hearsay.” He wants important fact witnesses to be called.

3:00 PM: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) also cites treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors. He wants Feldman to elaborate further on “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Feldman repeats the definition that he has been giving throughout the hearing. He makes a distinction between a “misdemeanor” and “high misdemeanor.” Cohen asks Karlan, Gerhardt, and Feldman if Trump has sacrificed the national interest for his own. Karlan says he did when he wanted the Ukrainians to announce that they were investigating the Bidens. Gerhardt talks about obstruction of Congress.

2:55 PM: Rep. Chabot (R-OH) says the Trump-hating base has wanted impeachment as soon as Trump was elected. He says we are undertaking an “academic exercise” instead of hearing from fact witnesses like Schiff or Hunter Biden. He points out that Democrats introduced impeachment resolutions as soon as the new Congress started. Chabot calls out the “very wise” Nadler from the past for his past remarks on impeachment and says impeachment by one major party that is opposed by the other will result in the bitterness that he predicted. He says Nadler is not following his past words against partisan impeachment that tries to overturn a national election. He says he and the Democrats are doing exactly what they warned us against back then. Chabot says Nadler seems “bound and determined” to move forward with impeachment and the American people deserve better. Chabot, after saying that Democrats don’t like Trump’s tweets and the fact that Mueller’s investigation flopped, predicts Trump will be elected to a second term with the help of this “impeachment charade.”

2:50 PM: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) is now up. She speaks about her time on the Judiciary Committee in the 1990s during Clinton’s impeachment. She asks Karlan to comment on the “strength of the record.” Karlan says it is not “wafer thin” and speaks about how the record fits in to the “pattern of behavior” by the president. Jackson Lee asks about comparisons between the kings the framers were afraid of and Trump. Karlan says, contrary to what Trump claimed, Article II does not let him do whatever he wants. She says the Constitution forbids titles of nobility and says while Trump can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron.”

2:46 PM: Sensenbrenner cites Gerald Ford’s remark about high crimes and misdemeanors being whatever the House of Representatives says it is, and he disagrees with that, saying the House would essentially have control over the president. He says the public is getting sick and tired of impeachment because they know that less than a year from now they will be able to choose a new president or re-elect Trump.

2:45 PM: The hearing is about the resume. Nadler calls the committee back to order and Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI) gets his five minutes.

1:26 PM: Rep. Lofgren (D-CA) asks Karlan how Trump’s conduct compares to Nixon. Karlan says “not favorably.” She says Nixon abused domestic law enforcement while Trump has asked a foreign country to do that. She says it’s like a “daily double.” Gephardt, when asked the same question, agrees with Karlan. He says impeachable offenses “don’t have to be criminal offenses,” and he says we are talking about “abuses of power that only a president could commit.” Lofgren says this is not a something she was looking forward to–not of “joy” but of “solemn obligation.” Nadler recesses until the conclusion of votes in the House.

1:21 PM: Collins says it is “simply malpractice” to say the founders would have found Trump guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

1:17 PM: Nadler, beginning the five-minute rounds, now asks Feldman about bribery, and Feldman says the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. He says bribery had a clear meaning in the Constitution and Trump’s actions constitute bribery under the Constitution. Karlan says Taylor never read Samuel Johnson’s definition of bribery, which she says was the crime of giving or taking rewards for “bad practices.”

1:16 PM: Nadler says this is the moment the White House would have had a chance to question the witnesses but they declined to participate.

1:08 PM: Taylor says the media had been asking numerous questions about Hunter Biden’s dealings with Burisma. Cites reports from ABC and the New York Times. Taylor says Trump simply asked the same questions the media were asking while speaking to the president of Ukraine. He says Trump’s record is “wafer thin” compared to Nixon’s and Clinton’s. He says there is a difference between requesting an investigation and a quid pro quo. He says you have the “stick the landing” and he doesn’t see “proof of a quid pro quo” regardless of his biases.

12:56 PM: Paul Taylor, the GOP’s counsel, now begins his questioning.  He speaks about Hamilton’s concerns about hyper-partisan impeachments. Taylor points out that support for impeachment is coming from the most elite and coastal areas in the country. Turley says “you can’t impeach a president like this.” He says impeachment requires periods of “saturation and maturation” where the public has to catch up. He says if you rush this impeachment, “you are going to leave half the country behind.” He says this is not an “impulse-buy item” and it is not what the founders envisioned. He says the public caught up re: Nixon’s impeachment, which Turley says was the “gold standard.” Turley says Trump’s supposed crimes do not meet any reasonable definition of those crimes.

12:55 PM: Turley says you can’t say Trump is above the law and say the crimes he supposedly committed can’t be established.

12:50 PM: Collins again talking about how the “clock and the calendar” are dominating the impeachment process for Dems. He says there is not even bipartisan agreement on the facts and talks about the “exculpatory evidence” in other reports. Turley says “fast and narrow” is not good for impeachment. He says impeachment is like buildings — there needs to be a ratio between foundation/height and impeachment is the highest building.

12:46 PM: Turley says “it’s your abuse of power” if you impeach Trump “obstruction” (high crime and misdemeanor) for going to the courts.

12:42 PM: Turley also says “obstruction” is a crime with meaning and case authority. He says “impeachments have to be based on proof” and not on “presumptions.” Turley says “fast is not good” for impeachment and says nobody has explained to him why Democrats want to set the record for the speediest impeachment. Turley says the theory is that Trump obstructed Congress by not turning over materials requested by the committee. Turley says Trump has gone to the courts and “he’s allowed to do that. We have three branches, not two.”

12:38 PM: Turley says the founders rejected a “boundless” definition of bribery. Turley says this is not “improvisational jazz” and “close enough is not good enough.” He says it is unfair to accuse someone of a crime and say the definition of that crime is invalid because this is just “impeachment.” He says if you are going to accuse Trump of bribery, you have to make it stick because you are trying to impeach and remove a president elected by the people.

12:35 PM: Turley says the bribery theory is flawed. He says bribery had a meaning at the time of the founding and was “not some over-arching concept” that Schiff discussed.

12:30 PM: Ranking Member Collins now gets 45 minutes as the hearing resumes. Collins jokes that Turley is “well rested” and asks him to elaborate on anything that he disagrees with. Collins says “this is the coldest hearing room in the world” and “this chair is terrible.” (presumably talking about the furniture)

12:09 PM: Feldman says we may meet Madison and Hamilton in the afterlife and they are going to ask “what did you do?” (when Trump corrupted the process, etc.) and the only answer is impeachment. And… after that response, the House takes a ten minute recess.

12:04 PM: Eisen now turns to “obstruction of justice.” Gerhardt says based on the Mueller report, there are a number of facts that indicate Trump has obstructed justice.

Will Democrats expand the impeachment scope beyond Ukraine as Nadler seemed to hint in his opening statement?

12:01 PM: Eisen now turning to “obstruction of Congress.” Gerhardt says “there is more than enough” evidence to charge Trump with the “impeachable offense” of “obstruction of Congress.”

11:57 AM: Feldman says even attempting to withhold aid from Ukraine is still impeachable. He says the “attempt itself is the impeachable act.” Karlan agrees. Gerhardt says in the history of impeachment, everyone who has been impeached has failed in getting what they wanted.

11:47 AM: Eisen asks Karlan about “other high crimes and misdemeanors” that are specifically identified in the text of the Constitution. She asks “treason and bribery.” Karlan says Trump’s action establish “the high crime of bribery.” She says the meaning of “bribery” in the Constitution must be distinguished from the definition in the U.S. criminal code. She says the founders were not referring to a statute. She says the framers were thinking about bribery that was understood in the 18th century. Eisen asks Karlan if there was “Constitutional bribery,” and she says there was if they conclude that Trump asked for Biden and his son to be investigated.

11:42 AM: Karlan says the framers required a president to be a “natural-born citizen” because they were worried about foreign influence. She also brings up the Emoluments Clause and says the framers were worried that the president would use the office to enrich himself because he would be there for a short time. She also goes on about impeachment is about America not looking hypocritical re: promoting democracy worldwide and being a shining city on a hill.

Feldman says the Constitution provided for impeachment is for a situation like the one before the committee. He says the framers understood that the president would be motivated to use the power of his office to keep himself in office and gain financially from it. He says the framers “would expect the House of Representatives to take action in the form of impeachment” against Trump.

11:36 AM: Eisen asks Turley whether he wrote an article in which he stated that impeachment does not require a crime. Before Turley tries to explain, Eisen won’t let him and says it was simply a “yes or no” question. Eisen worried about what Turley would say. Turley says Eisen read his Wall Street Journal article well.

Karlan says Trump’s actions cut to the heart of the democracy and so if the House does not impeach Trump, they are basically telling him to go ahead and do it again. She says it is the committee’s responsibility to ensure that Americans vote in “fair and free elections” next fall.

11:30 AM: Feldman, Gerhardt, Karlan say Trump committed an impeachable offense by abusing his office.

11:24 AM: Nadler gets 45 minutes of questioning. Nadler asks Karlan if Trump’s actions with Ukraine endangers the right to vote. Karlan says it does. Nadler now tees up questions to Gerhardt about Trump’s obstruction. He asks Feldman why the framers believed a president should sometimes be impeached before the election. Feldman says Trump must be impeached because he used his office to gain an advantage.

Norm Eisen, the Dems’ counsel, asks Feldman what abuse of power means. Feldman talks about using his office to gain an advantage. Asked why that is impeachable conduct, Feldman says the only recourse is impeachment because the president can’t be charged criminally while in office.

11:21 AM: Republicans motion to get the “whistleblower” to testify. Another tedious roll call vote.

11:12 AM: Turley now giving his opening statement. Turley says he is not a supporter of Trump and did not vote for him. He says his feelings about Trump should be irrelevant to the impeachment question and that should apply for those on the committee. He says he is worried about lowering the impeachment standard and worries about “creating a dangerous precedent” for future impeachments.

Turley says this impeachment would rival Johnson’s impeachment as the shortest in history. He says this would be the first impeachment in history without the establishment of evidence of a commission of a crime. Turley says we are living in the very period described by Alexander Hamilton (“agitated passions”) and everyone is mad. He says this is wrong because “this is not how you impeach an American president.” Again goes back to how this type of impeachment will create a dangerous precedent that will haunt future presidents.

11:11 AM: Gerhardt says he stands with the framers that nobody is above the law.

“No misconduct is more antithetical to our democracy, and nothing injures the American people more than a president who uses his power to weaken their authority under the Constitution as well as the authority of the Constitution itself,” he says. “If Congress fails to impeach here, then the impeachment process has lost all meaning, and, along with that, our Constitution’s carefully crafted safeguards against the establishment of a king on American soil.”

11:01 AM: Gerhardt now giving his opening remarks. He accuses Trump of committing bribery. Says he also obstructed justice and obstructed Congress. He says the Constitution secures the principle that no man is above the law. He cites North Carolina’s James Iredell, who said that the president “is of a very different nature from a monarch. He is to be personally responsible for any abuse of the great trust placed in him.” He says Trump has attacked all of the safeguards in the Constitution preventing a “monarchy.”

10:58 AM: Karlan, showing her anger, with the “unprecedented” talking point. Democrats and their witnesses will try to make the case that Trump has been worse than Nixon and Clinton:

Based on the evidentiary record, what has happened in the case before you 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.” The evidence reveals a President who used the powers of his office to demand that a foreign government participate in undermining a competing candidate for the presidency.

10:52 AM: Karlan now giving her opening statement. She says he read the transcripts of every witness and is insulted by the suggestion that the witnesses did not. Karlan speaking about the importance of elections in the Constitution and says the framers realized that elections alone would not guarantee that the United States would remain an republic. She also builds up William Davie like Feldman and says George Mason insisted that a president who “procured his appointment in the first instance” through improper and corrupt acts should not “escape punishment, by repeating his guilt.” She says we know “that list was designed to reach a president who acts to subvert an election”– whether it is the election that brought him into office or is an upcoming election for a second term. She says the idea that a president would seek a foreign government’s help to help him get re-elected would “horrify” the founders. She says the “essence of an impeachable offense is a president’s decision to sacrifice the national interest for his own private ends.”

10:50 AM: Republicans trying to slow down the process with various motions. The side that does this always looks bad, as Democrats did during the Kavanaugh hearings. These people never seem to learn, though.

10:38 AM: Feldman is the first the speak. He says Trump has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” by abusing the office of the presidency.  Feldman, talking about the founders and impeachment, says William Davie of North Carolina said that “if the president could not be impeached, he will spare no efforts or means whatever to get himself re-elected.” Feldman arguing “high crimes and misdemeanors” refers to a president using his office for personal advantage, to corrupt the electoral process, or compromise national security.

“President Trump’s conduct as described in the testimony and evidence clearly constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under the Constitution,” Feldman says of Trump’s phone call with the president of Ukraine.

10:35 AM: Nadler does not recognize Republicans before introducing and swearing in the witnesses. Nadler asks the witnesses to limit their opening statements to ten minutes.

10:32 AM: Collins puts forth a motion requiring Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to testify. Now we have our first tedious roll call vote. Motion to table is agreed to along partisan lines.

10:30 AM: Collins says Democrats have a “deep-seated hatred” for a man who came to the White House and did what he said he was going to do. He says this will be “one of the first impeachments” in which the facts are disputed. “This is not an impeachment. This is simply a railroad job,” Collins says. He says the impeachment process began with “tears in Brooklyn” in 2016 when the election was lost.

“What a start of a party,” Collins says, referring to the four law professors.

10:20 AM: Ranking Member Collins now starting his opening statement. Collins says there’s nothing new and this is the “same sad story.” Collins says Nadler talked about impeachment before he was even sworn in as chairman. “This is sad,” he continues.

Collins says this impeachment inquiry “is not about facts” and says Democrats “are already drafting articles. Don’t be fooled.”

Collins says the “clock and the calendar” are driving the impeachment inquiry. He says they want to do it before the end of the year (because they are scared of the elections next year).

Collins says that Americans will realize why most of them did not go to law school after listening to these Constitutional experts. He reiterates that there are no fact witnesses today. He says he has no idea what they are doing for the next two weeks without fact witnesses.

“What a disgrace to this committee,” he says. “To have the committee of impeachment simply take from other entities and rubber stamp it.”

10:19 AM: Nadler says today’s witness panel will discuss whether Trump has committed treason, bribery, or high crimes or misdemeanors. Nadler says the House must act “swiftly” if Trump has committed impeachable offenses.

10:15 AM: Nadler says “the storm in which we find ourselves today was set in motion by President Trump.”

“I do not wish this moment on the country,” he continues. “But we have each taken an oath to protect the Constitution, and the facts before us.” are clear.”

10:12 AM: Nadler accuses Trump of welcoming foreign interference in the 2016 and demanding it for the 2020 election. He says Trump got caught both times.  Nadler says former President Bill Clinton “physically gave his blood” while Trump has ordered witnesses not to testify.

10:09 AM: Nadler begins his opening statement and claims the facts are “undisputed.” He accuses Trump of withholding”vital military aid” from Ukraine and covering up his efforts and engaging in “extraordinary and unprecedented” steps to obstruct the investigation. Nadler setting up the case for Democrats to argue that Trump is worse than Nixon.

10:07 AM: Nadler is about the start the hearing.

9:50 AM: Karlan donated $1,000 to Warren. Look for the media to build up Gerhardt after today’s hearing as a more “unbiased” witness.

9:45 AM:

9:35 AM: House Dems in private meeting. Pelosi reportedly would not commit to a timeline.

9:30 AM: Here are the opening statements for Feldman, Karlan, Gerhardt, and Turley.

Ranking Member Collins:

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