House Judiciary holds high-stakes impeachment hearing

Daniel Goldman, lawyer for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, said President Trump's behavior is "a clear and present danger" to future US elections.

"President Trump's persistent and continuing effort to coerce a foreign country to help him cheat to win an election is a clear and present danger to our free and fair elections and to our national security," he said.

Goldman is still giving his opening statement, but he'll come back to the idea of "clear and present danger," according to a copy of his prepared remarks.

According to the remarks, he'll end with this thought:

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The House Judiciary Committee's lawyers just finished up their opening arguments. The House will now hear from lawyers representing House Intelligence Committee Republicans and Democrats.

Democratic intel lawyer Daniel Goldman took the seat of Democratic judiciary lawyer Barry Berke. GOP lawyer Steve Castor stayed seated, since he's representing both committees for the Republicans.

During this switch, Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado, asked Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler why the Judiciary lawyers were not sworn in.

"The Chairman is allowed to administer an oath, Not mandated to. But it has been the practice of this committee to administer oaths to witnesses. I'm wondering why we have not ministered the oath in this situation?" he asked.

Nadler said Berke and Castor were "not witnesses" but instead staff of the committee.

"I'm going to administer the oath to the two witnesses who are now coming before us to make presentation," Nadler said.

Castor and Goldman were then sworn in.

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In his opening argument, Republican counsel Steve Castor criticized the Democrats' impeachment inquiry, calling it "rushed."

Castor's argument about the speed of the investigation has been repeated by GOP lawmakers throughout the impeachment process.

At last week's hearing, Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee, including their witness, repeatedly pointed out how fast the investigation was moving.

But President Trump appeared to undercut their argument when he dared the House to “impeach me, do it now, fast.”

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President Trump is on Twitter this morning, retweeting both himself and others as the House Judiciary Committee holds its second impeachment inquiry hearing.

Trump retweeted one of his tweets from last week. In his earlier tweet, Trump instead that Ukraine's President has said Trump "has done nothing wrong." Today, he added, "The Do Nothing Democrats are a disgrace!"

Trump also retweeted a message from conservative radio host Buck Sexton, who said that in a "time of tremendous American economic prosperity," Democrats are "trying to ram Russia/Ukraine hysteria down the throats of normal Americans."

Trump added, "True!"

In the Democrats’ presentation laying out their argument for impeachment, they repeatedly used President Trump’s own words against him, including a video clip of Trump saying, “I have the right to do whatever I want as President.”

They also used a clip of the President when he was a candidate asking Russia, “if you’re listening,” to surface some of Hillary Clinton’s emails. And they have quoted from the transcript of Trump asking the Ukrainian president for a “favor” in investigating his political rival.

The stream of quotes and clips illustrate Trump’s sometimes-unorthodox speaking style, which is rarely from a script. In one clip, he was speaking before boarding his helicopter, a now common occurrence at the White House. 

They demonstrate the potential downsides of Trump’s penchant for speaking at length on-camera.

The White House has used Trump’s willingness to speak to reporters on-the-record as evidence of radical transparency, and they have cited his decision to release his call transcript with Ukraine as evidence of his innocence.

But it’s those very off-the-cuff comments that Democrats are using to impeach him.

At the conclusion of House Democrats' Counsel Barry Berke's opening statement at today's hearing, GOP Rep. Mike Johnson tried to introduce a point of order to strike from the record parts of what Berke said.

Nadler responded to Johnson by telling him that his point of order was "not sustained" because "witnesses are not subject to the rules of decorum in the same way members are."

Republicans continued to protest that Berke's words violated the rules of the House. Eventually, the committee voted to table the motion.

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Steve Castor, the lawyer for the House Judiciary Committee Republicans, is now laying out the GOP's arguments against impeachment.

Castor is a veteran of the House Oversight Committee: He has served under five Republicans since 2005. In that time, Castor has been a key player on a number of investigations, including into the Justice Department's botched gun trafficking operation known as Fast and Furious, the IRS targeting of conservative organizations, the Trump White House overriding security clearance denials and other high-profile probes. Castor's skillset was deemed so valuable that he was added to the Intelligence Committee so that he could participate in the impeachment hearings.

He's also worked for Intelligence Republicans in this impeachment inquiry: Castor served as the GOP counsel during the impeachment inquiry hearings, where he questioned the witnesses.

Barry Berke, the Democrats' counsel, described why he thinks the impeachment inquiry is critical for future generations.

He made the case for a fair discussion based on facts, saying, "History, future generations will be the judge."

Berke continued: "But that is a reason for us to have a fair debate about what the undisputed facts show. It is a reason to talk about whether we want our children and grandchildren to live in a country where the president-elected by the people can put his own personal and political interests over the interest of the people who elected them. It is a reason for these debates to, again, fairly focus on the facts and to make sure the presentations we're going to hear will not distort the record, focus on process points, raise extraneous matters that really are intended to distract rather than focus on what the conduct was at issue here. It is a reason to focus on the facts and what is in the country's best interest. History, future generations will be the judge."

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Counsel for House Democrats, Barry Berke, said President Trump's conduct has shown a "trifecta" of impeachable offenses.

He said the Founding Fathers laid out three behaviors that could lead to impeachment.

"They spelled them out as warning signals that if a president violated or committed one of these, that would be a reason to potentially impeach that president. They were abuse of power, betrayal of the national interest, corruption of elections" he said. "And what is so extraordinary is the conduct we're going to be talking about today of President Trump didn't violate one of these, but all three."

He added:

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