Thread by @moscow_project

The House Judiciary Committee is holding its first public impeachment hearing today. Watch it here, and follow along for our live analysis: c-span.org/video/?466833-…

As always, the hearing begins with Republican process objections—which, as always, disregard the rules that the House approved weeks ago, which have so far been scrupulously followed. cbsnews.com/live-news/trum…

.@RepJerryNadler: "The facts before us are undisputed": Trump extorted the Ukrainian government, withholding a White House meeting and military aid in exchange for illegal assistance in the 2020 election.

@RepJerryNadler Nadler draws the connection to the Russia investigation: Trump's solicitation of illegal foreign interference in his election campaigns—and his unprecedented efforts to obstruct justice.

@RepJerryNadler "President Trump welcomed foreign interference in the 2016 election. He demanded it for the 2020 election. In both cases, he got caught. And in both cases, he did everything in his power to prevent the American people from learning the truth about his conduct."

@RepJerryNadler "Never before ... have we been forced to consider the conduct of a president who appears to have solicited personal political favors from a foreign government. Never before has a president engaged in a course of conduct that included all the acts that most concerned the framers."

@RepJerryNadler "President Trump did not merely seek to benefit from foreign interference from our elections. He directly and explicitly invited foreign interference in our elections. He used the powers of his office to try to make it happen."

@RepJerryNadler Collins claims that the House Judiciary Committee never held hearings about the Mueller report.
Apparently he forgot about the hearings the Judiciary Committee held about the Mueller report, including with Mueller himself. nbcnews.com/politics/congr…

He also appears to have forgotten that the White House has sued again and again to prevent any witnesses to Trump's impeachable conduct in the Russia investigation from testifying. washingtonpost.com/local/legal-is…

Collins rails against the lack of fact witnesses testifying before the Judiciary Committee.
Here, from the Intel Committee's report released yesterday, is the list of fact witnesses Trump has blocked from testifying in the Ukraine investigation: intelligence.house.gov/report/

Collins didn't present a single counterargument to the allegations explained forward in immense detail yesterday in the Intel Committee's report.
That's because there's no counterargument, because Trump did exactly what he's been accused of doing. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/trump…

.@NoahRFeldman puts it clearly: "On the basis of the testimony and the evidence before the House, President Trump has committed impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors by corruptly abusing the office of the presidency."

@NoahRFeldman "The words high crimes and misdemeanors refer to abuse of the office of the presidency, for personal advantage or to corrupt the electoral process or to subvert the national security of the United States."
Feldman's explanation sounds a whole lot like exactly what Trump did.

@NoahRFeldman Yep: "President Trump's conduct as described in testimony and evidence clearly constitutes impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors under the Constitution."

@NoahRFeldman More clarity from Feldman: "On its own, soliciting the leader of a foreign government in order to announce investigations of political rivals and perform those investigations would constitute a high crime and misdemeanor"—but Trump didn't stop there.

@NoahRFeldman Professor Karlan opens forcefully: "Everything I read on those occasions tells me that when President Trump invited—indeed, demanded—foreign involvement in our upcoming election, he struck at the very heart of what makes this a republic to which we pledge allegiance."

@NoahRFeldman "What has happened in the case today is something 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."

@NoahRFeldman Professor Kaplan ends with equal force: "What happened in 2016 was bad enough ... If we are to keep faith with our Constitution and with our republic, President Trump must be held to account."

@NoahRFeldman .@MichaelGerhard8: "Both the context and gravity of the president's misconduct are clear." He has committed many of the same impeachable offenses as Nixon—and worse.

@NoahRFeldman @MichaelGerhard8 The president's defenses "boil down to the assertion that he is above the law ... If Congress fails to impeach here, then the impeachment process has lost all meaning."

Turley says this impeachment is like that of Andrew Johnson, where Congress had to pass a new law for the president to break.
Apparently he forgot that bribery, extortion, and obstruction of justice are all illegal—and the first is explicit constitutional grounds for impeachment.

Professor Karlan: "By inviting a foreign government to influence our elections, it takes the right away from the American people ... Foreign governments don't interfere to benefit us. They intervene to benefit themselves."

.@NoahRFeldman: When the founders wrote impeachment into the Constitution, "they were specifically worried about a situation where the president used his office to facilitate corruptly his own re-election."

@NoahRFeldman Abuse of power is not just an impeachable offense—it is, in fact, the exact reason why impeachment exists in the Constitution.

@NoahRFeldman Professors Feldman, Kaplan, and Gerhardt are unanimous: The president has committed impeachable offenses.

@NoahRFeldman .@NoahRFeldman: "If we cannot impeach a president who abuses his office for personal advantage, we no longer live in a democracy. We live in a monarchy or we live under a dictatorship. That's why the framers created the possibility of impeachment."

@NoahRFeldman "If you don't impeach a president who has done what this president has done, or at least you don't investigate and then impeach, if you conclude that the House Committee on Intelligence's findings are correct, then what you are saying is it's fine to go ahead and do this again."

@NoahRFeldman Professor Karlan: The framers worried that "the president, because he was only going to be in office for a little while would use it to get everything he could."
That sounds exactly like what Trump is doing.

@NoahRFeldman When Ambassador Volker warned Ukrainian officials against opening politically-motivated investigations, one responded, "You mean like asking us to investigate Clinton and Biden?"
That's exactly what Professor Karlan is describing here.

@NoahRFeldman "Do President Trump's demands on Ukraine also establish the high crime of bribery?"
"Yes, they do."

@NoahRFeldman It doesn't matter that Trump released the aid under pressure.
It doesn't matter that Zelensky didn't make his announcement.
What Trump did was impeachable regardless.
themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

@NoahRFeldman "One of the things to understand from the history of impeachment is everybody who's impeached has failed. They've failed to get what they wanted, and what they wanted was not just to do what they did, but to get away with it. The point of impeachment ... is to catch that person."

@NoahRFeldman Gephardt: There isn't just enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of Congress—there's *more* than enough evidence.

@NoahRFeldman "A president who will not cooperate in an impeachment inquiry is putting himself above the law. Putting yourself above the law ... is the core of an impeachable offense because if the president could not be impeached for that, he would in fact not be responsible to anybody."

@NoahRFeldman Trump's obstruction of justice is clearly laid out not just in the Ukraine scandal but in the Mueller report as well.
That's because the report was an impeachment referral.
themoscowproject.org/dispatch/muell…

@NoahRFeldman "The president's views about the propriety of foreign governments intervening in our election process are the antithesis of what our framers were committed to"—he welcomes it as long as it helps him.

@NoahRFeldman .@NoahRFeldman has not been out to impeach Trump from the beginning.
In fact, he was skeptical even after the release of the Mueller report—until the summary of the July 25 call and the subsequent evidence showed Trump's open abuse of power.

Collins opens with a demand for more information before moving forward with impeachment.
We agree. Let's start with the White House ending its corrupt cover-up, allowing witnesses to testify, and releasing the thousands of documents they're withholding. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/the-t…

Turley argues that the framers only meant for the constitutional ban on bribery to refer to one head of state receiving money directly from another.
That conflicts with all three other witnesses—but it's something Trump's doing, too.
americanprogress.org/issues/democra…

Collins gets back into his favorite nit-pick, about how investigators have described Trump's actions as quid pro quo, bribery, and extortion.
That's because, as was established in the House Intelligence Committee, what Trump did fits all three.

https://twitter.com/moscow_project/status/1194662806622212100?s=20

Turley: "If you *prove* a quid pro quo, you might have an impeachable offense."
Who wants to tell him about Gordon Sondland, who explicitly testified not just that there was a quid pro quo, but that the order came from the president?
nymag.com/intelligencer/…

Trump's defenders: Democrats just want to relitigate the 2016 election!
Also Trump's defenders: This map of the 2016 electoral vote proves we shouldn't impeach Trump.

The Republican lawyer is now arguing that demanding an investigation into the Bidens was perfectly reasonable ... by citing the allegations Rudy Giuliani pushed into the New York Times ... which witnesses have described as "conspiracy theories."

https://twitter.com/moscow_project/status/1196903372248494081?s=20

Turley keeps saying that, unlike Nixon and Clinton, Trump is not being accused of lying under oath.
That's false. The Roger Stone case just demonstrated that Trump may have lied under oath in his written testimony to Mueller. cnn.com/2019/11/14/pol…

.@NoahRFeldman debunks Turley's claim that investigators haven't accused Trump of violating the law: "I want to be very clear. The Constitution is law. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land"—and the Constitution makes presidential bribery illegal.

Trump's defenders say the House is trying to "impeach [Trump] over a conversation he had with another head of state."
Let's be clear: That call was part of a months-long scheme to extort Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election.
themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

Sensenbrenner: "There was no impeachment investigation into Biden" when he got Viktor Shokin fired.
That's because, as witness after witness has testified, what Biden did was part of a legitimate anti-corruption effort—the exact opposite of what Trump did.

https://twitter.com/moscow_project/status/1194689764517134336?s=20

Chabot is the latest in a long line of Trump defenders to say that House Democrats are bound to impeach Trump because it's what their base wants.
It's actually what the majority of the American people wants—and have wanted for more than two months. projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-po…

Gohmert gives the GOP's greatest hits:
-Says the facts are disputed without disputing a single one
-Demands more fact witnesses without mentioning that the White House is blocking them
-Changes the subject to the Bidens, Chalupa, the whistleblower, etc.
nytimes.com/2019/10/08/us/…

Karlan summarizes the case against Trump in 30 seconds or less (15 seconds, to be precise)

Jim Jordan is the first Trump defender to actually try to dispute the facts in the case.
Everything he said is either false or irrelevant. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

-Yes, Ukraine knew that aid was being withheld. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

-Yes, the July 25 call was a quid pro quo. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

-Multiple witnesses have explained why, despite all the evidence, Zelensky would toe the line with Trump.

https://twitter.com/moscow_project/status/1194694447835025410?s=20

-and Zelensky was all set to deliver exactly what Trump wanted when congressional pressure forced Trump to release the aid. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

Turley, October 12: "The first day that Trump’s Ukraine call was disclosed, I stated that—if a quid pro quo were proved—the alleged self-dealing with military aid would be an impeachable offense."
That exact quid pro quo has been proved for weeks.
thehill.com/opinion/campai…

Turley, October 23: "If you can establish intent to use public office for personal gain, you have a viable impeachment offense."
That's exactly what's been proven again and again. So why is he testifying *against* impeachment? thehill.com/opinion/judici…

Reminder: Contrary to what Turley and Roby are saying, the House *has* subpoenaed several witnesses with direct knowledge.
The White House has just blocked all of them from testifying.
Here's the list from yesterday's report:
intelligence.house.gov/report/

Reminder: Matt Gaetz was investigated for trying to intimidate Michael Cohen before his testimony.
Now he's berating witnesses for incivility, all in defense of a president who, among so much else, once called for the execution of the whistleblower.
cnn.com/2019/05/08/pol…

Gaetz suggests that Horowitz's report will reveal that the Obama administration improperly wiretapped the Trump campaign.
Multiple reports say that's not what the investigation found—although Bill Barr may just lie and say it did. washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

The founders had three potential abuses of power in mind when they wrote impeachment into the Constitution.
Donald Trump has committed all three.

FACT CHECK: Yes, Rep. Reschenthaler, military aid did come up in Trump's call with Zelensky. In fact, it was the last thing they discussed before Trump asked Zelensky to "do us a favor, though."

You know who else linked military aid to the "favor" Trump wanted?
Trump's chief of staff and OMB Director Mick Mulvaney: washingtonpost.com/video/politics…

Trump's defenders keep demanding firsthand witnesses before they'll believe the facts in front of their eyes.
They should take that up with the White House, which has run a "categorical blockade" to deny the House firsthand testimony and documents.

The newest GOP talking point is apparently that Trump and Zelensky "never mentioned military aid" or "the 2020 election."
The first is flatly false.
The second is totally laughable.

https://twitter.com/moscow_project/status/1202349113116942336

Armstrong: "In order for this whole thing to stick we have to believe that [Zelensky] ... has no choice but to parade himself out there and demoralize himself for the good of his country."
That's exactly what happened, as multiple witnesses have explained.

https://twitter.com/moscow_project/status/1194694447835025410

@RepJoeNeguse runs through just some of Trump's obstruction efforts—and how they compare to previous presidents' relative compliance with the impeachment inquiries into them.

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themoscowproject.org/dispatch/yes-m…

A story @RepGregSteube apparently missed:
The House Judiciary Committee offered for Trump or his counsel to attend today's hearing.
The White House rejected the offer. politico.com/news/2019/12/0…

@RepGregSteube "The reason it's necessary to take action now is that we have a president who has in fact sought to corrupt the electoral process for personal advantage. Under those circumstances, the framers' remedy, impeachment, is the only option available."

@RepGregSteube .@RepDougCollins argues forcefully for the White House to stop its categorical obstruction and allow fact witnesses to testify before Congress:

House Intel Republicans attacked witnesses for offering opinions about whether what Trump did was wrong or illegal.
Now, Collins claims those witnesses *didn't* offer opinions as to whether what Trump did was wrong or illegal.
Either way, what Trump did was wrong and illegal.

"The Constitution has a solution for a president who places his personal or political interests above those in the nation: the power of impeachment."

Nadler runs down—and debunks—each of the Republicans' process complaints.
"I am left to conclude the only reason my colleagues rush from one process complaint to the next because there is no factual defense for President Trump."

"The president is a continuing threat to that constitution and to our democracy ... I urge my colleagues, stand behind the oath you have taken. Our democracy depends on it."