Three Legal Experts Say President Trump Committed Impeachable Offenses, One Disagrees; President Trump Meets With Turkey's President Erdogan at NATO Summit; Gathering Tense as Trump Clashes with World Leaders
NICK WATT, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello everyone, I'm Nick Watt. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour, new calls for Donald Trump to be impeached as Republicans try just about anything they can to slow the process down. Plus, Trump slams "two-faced" Justin Trudeau after Canada's prime minister is caught dissing the U.S. president behind his back. And a who's who list of politicians and movie stars team up to fight climate change but can they succeed where so many others have failed?</s>WATT: The impeachment of the U.S. president Donald Trump is one big step closer to reality but still many miles to go. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has taken over the historic process. It began on Wednesday with a public lesson on constitutional law. What are impeachable crimes and did President Trump commit any? The news is not good for him. CNN's Alex Marquardt has more.</s>ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The blistering conclusion from all but one of the witnesses that the president should be impeached.</s>NOAH FELDMAN, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL PROFESSOR: I believe the framers would identify President Trump's conduct as exactly the kind of abuse of office ...</s>MARQUARDT (voice-over): Professor Noah Feldman from Harvard laying out the reasons the president committed impeachable offenses alongside professors Pamela Karlan and Michael Gerhardt who agreed. All three were invited by the Democrats.</s>MICHAEL GERHARDT, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA SCHOOL OF LAW PROFESSOR: If what we're talking about is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable.</s>MARQUARDT (voice-over): Karlan hitting back at ranking member Doug Collins who dismissed the hearing and suggested the experts hadn't digested all of the facts of the investigation.</s>PAMELA KARLAN, STANFORD LAW SCHOOL PROFESSOR: Mr. Collins, I would like to say to you, sir, that I read transcripts of every one of the witnesses who appeared in the live hearing ...</s>MARQUARDT (voice-over): The lone witness called by Republicans, Professor Jonathan Turley said he was not a supporter of the president's, but argued the record for impeachment is wafer thin.</s>JONATHAN TURLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL PROFESSOR: Close enough is not good enough. If you're going to accuse a president of bribery ...</s>MARQUARDT (voice-over): Turley, who testified in the Clinton impeachment warned that a slip-shot impeachment process could pave the way for more in the future.</s>TURLEY: That is why this is wrong. It's not wrong because President Trump is right ...</s>MARQUARDT (voice-over): From the get go, Republicans blasted the hearing and the entire process.</s>REP.  DOUG COLLINS (R-GA): But this is not an impeachment. This is just a simple railroad job ...</s>MARQUARDT (voice-over): GOP members interrupting and delaying proceedings with procedural maneuvers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Chairman, may I make a parliamentary inquiry before you ...</s>MARQUARDT (voice-over): While Chairman Nadler previewed possible articles of impeachment, which may include obstruction of justice. Going back to the Mueller probe.</s>REP.  JERRY NADLER (D-NY): President Trump took extraordinary and unprecedented steps to obstruct the investigation.</s>MARQUARDT (voice-over): The experts drew on history, repeatedly making the case that the country was founded on principles opposing absolute power.</s>KARLAN: So kings could do no wrong because the king's word was law. And contrary to what President Trump has said Article II does not give him the power to do anything he wants.</s>MARQUARDT: In comparing President Trump to a king, Professor Karlan also said that the president could name his son Barron, but not make him a baron. And that got a lot of blowback, including from the White House for invoking the president's teenage son. Just a short time ago, Professor Karlan apologized saying she was wrong to do that and she regretted it. But also said that she wishes the president apologized himself for all that he's done -- Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.</s>WATT: Former assistant U.S. attorney David Katz joins us now. David, it was pretty remarkable; even the Republican witness called today said that President Trump's phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine was not appropriate. And his sort of defense, I suppose, seemed to be, just slow it all down. Listen, I was expecting a bit of a yawn fest but it was anything but that.</s>DAVID KATZ, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It was not dusty and dull, it was really interesting. They brought the Constitution to life. These professors showed that this is not a coup, this is a key part of our Constitution. The way we elect presidents is one way and the way we remove them is another way, by impeachment. And so what Adam Schiff's committee did and what Nadler did today was to follow down that path, which is exactly what is prescribed by the law of the land and regarding the Republican law professor, I think he had to conceive that the facts are terrible for Trump. I mean, one thing that Republican senators seem not to be willing to come out and say is that the facts are terrible. This is not a perfect call. This was an awful call. It was hidden on a secret server so nobody would find it. It was only on account of the whistleblower and his courage that we found out about it. And then there has been all the spin and hiding ever since. And Nadler is right. There has been tampering with witnesses. There has been obstruction of justice. You know, the other presidents who have come under impeachment inquiries have actually cooperated with the investigation. Only Trump has stonewalled, told his officers, cabinet officers and other employees not to testify. And as Nadler also said, there has been the creation of false records. That is what happened with McGahn. They still are going to try to get to McGahn perhaps down the road. But for now we have this conspiracy, this plotting to do this quid pro quo with the Ukrainian incoming president. We have the obstruction of Congress and we have the obstruction of justice along the lines Nadler has pointed out.</s>WATT: David, it almost seemed today that the framers of the Constitution had Donald Trump in mind when they wrote about high crimes and misdemeanors and bribery and their concerns about influence and foreign power. I'm sure they did not, I imagine the president would be a reality TV star or that foreign power would be Ukraine but it almost seems tailor made for the situation and this president.</s>WATT: Well, yes, they were very worried that in replacing a king and a king's absolute powers they were just end up with a president who would arrogate to himself those powers. Of course, they thought of a man at that time. And they wanted to make sure that Congress had a way to remove someone who acted unlawfully, who abused his power, because history had another way to remove autocrats and tyrants. And they did not want to go the way of Caesar and Brutus, right? And so they set up this impeachment but as I say it is not a coup; it is the means that are set forth and even the Republican law professor got dressed down for the fact that he thought there was a strong case against Clinton. He testified to that effect. He had also represented a judge and he had made a bunch of specious arguments and none of the senators accepted the arguments on behalf of the judge. So he had his own problems, the Republican law professor. The other three professors were, I, thought dynamic. And as one of them said, if this does not warrant impeachment, what does? It is exactly what the framers had in mind, although as you, say they probably thought it would be England or France who would give a bribe of some sort to a weak American president. It would not be Ukraine. But the world turns and we have Trump and Ukraine and we have this, I will do you a favor. Now he is trying to gloss that now but it was very clear from the context and the follow-up, that Trump wanted a personal political favor for himself, not something for the entire --</s>WATT: David, let's just talk about this, because the president just tweeted in the past hour or so, trying, it seems like a pretty new defense for this call, which, remember, the transcript came out, what, two months ago? The president now in a tweet is saying, "When I said in my phone call to the president of Ukraine, 'I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it,', with the word 'us,' I'm referring to the United States, our country." So it seems that he is trying to rebut this idea that this was bribery. But two months later, this comes out.</s>WATT: Yes, it is certainly after the fact. It reminds, me I'm a criminal defense attorney now, of something which is not good for a criminal defendant where, suddenly after all these things come out, there is a big explanation.</s>KATZ: And a lot of times, once you really vet what is going on, you have to tell a client, you know, you really have to plead guilty in this case before you make it even worse. Of, course the president does not plan to plead guilty. He plans to have the senators go to bat for him and he is betting that they cannot get 20 Republican senators, no matter what the evidence is, to vote to remove him from office. But I don't buy this explanation for several reasons. First of all, there is this thing known as the kingly we, you know, do something for us. And I don't think he meant the kingly we, meaning us, the country. I think what he meant is do something for me personally and if he ever used the word us, if refers to me and my team, because it is so easy, Nick, to always say, well, of course, I thought I would be a better president, I thought Biden would not be a good president, yes, I wanted to hurt my main rival but it was not for my political advantage, it was because I'm so good for the country and so good for the country, if Ukraine gins up a case out of nowhere on this man and his son, because that would help me get reelected, boy, that is good for all of us. I don't buy it. I think this is a very late in the day 11th hour spin.</s>WATT: But David, as you, say the Democrats will need 20 Republican senators to join them in order to remove Trump from office. David Katz, thanks as always for joining us.</s>KATZ: Pleasure to be with you.</s>WATT: Now as the impeachment storm clouds cause get darker, U.S. president Trump is now back in Washington after the NATO meeting in the U.K. And he has had an unpleasant few days, that very public spat with French president Emmanuel Macron, then becoming the butt of the joke behind his back for other world leaders. CNN's Nina dos Santos has the details.</s>NINA DOS SANTOS, CNNMONEY EUROPE EDITOR: Day two of the NATO gathering brought the usual pledges of unity and collective support that you would expect from a transatlantic alliance that now has 29 members and has brought peace and stability to around about a billion people across the globe these days. However, behind the scenes, the cracks quickly began to show, with bad temper and discord very much being recorded at various bilaterals and press conferences and also behind the scenes at this event in Buckingham Palace that took place on Tuesday evening when the queen hosted a reception for world leaders. Four of those world, leaders including the leader of Canada, the U.K., France and also the Netherlands, were overheard discussing the U.S. president, the biggest guest of all at this summit, behind his back.</s>BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER (from captions): Is that why you were late?</s>JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER (from captions): He was late because he takes a four -- 40-minute press conference off the top every time. Oh, yes, yes, yes, 40 minutes. He announced -- I just watched, I watched his team's jaws just drop to the floor.</s>DOS SANTOS: That's in turn prompted President Trump to call in particular the prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, "two-faced."</s>TRUMP: Well, he is two-faced.</s>QUESTION: Do you think that Germany's</s>TRUMP: And honestly with Trudeau, he is a nice guy. I find him to be a very nice guy. But you know, the truth is that I called him out on the fact that he's not paying 2 percent and I guess he is not very happy about it. I mean, you were there, a couple of you were there, and he is not paying 2 percent and he should be paying 2 percent in Canada. They have money and they should be paying 2 percent so I called him out on that and I'm sure he was not happy about it. But that's the way it is. Look, I'm representing the U.S. and he should be paying more than he is paying. And he understands that. So I can imagine -- I can imagine he is not that happy but that is the way it is.</s>DOS SANTOS: The president decided to leave early and then canceled a press conference that had originally been planned. Now aside from these strained interpersonal relationships that also saw Presidents Trump and Macron spar after a bilateral that they had, there were some really serious issues that NATO has to contend with. In fact, it is the likes of President Trump and President Macron who sort of set the stage for this after the U.S. president a few years ago called NATO obsolete and criticized other members for not contributing their fair share of defense spending. More recently President Macron went into the summit calling the alliance brain dead. They have various issues to contend with over the next few years, some of which were discussed at the summit, including the likes of Russia. But also whether or not terrorism should play a bigger part in some of the challenges they have to consider, things like cyber crime and so on and so forth. One of the biggest challenges for NATO actually comes within its own ranks. That's Turkey. After this country recently controversially decided to purchase a missile defense system from Russia, one of the big original foes of NATO when it was born during the height of the Cold War. Turkey's leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also taken time to lobby other leaders to try and gain support for his fight against Kurdish troops in Syria.</s>DOS SANTOS: Ones that he deems to be terrorists and other NATO members have seen as allies. Either way, this was supposed to be a celebration of unity and what NATO had achieved over the last 70 years. Instead, it appears as though this bloc is having something of a three-quarter life crisis these days -- Nina dos Santos, CNN, London.</s>WATT: Joining me now from Washington is David Sanger. He's a CNN political and national security analyst as well as a national security correspondent for "The New York Times." David, let's start with that hot mike video captured by the pool camera man, my friend, Andy Lawrence. There is little that would annoy President Trump more than that, the cool kids mocking him behind his back. But will there be any serious repercussions?</s>DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Donald Trump is not somebody who lets up on a grudge early on. When he said that he thought prime minister Trudeau was being two-faced, which I think is what he said to reporters before he left somewhat abruptly, it was clear that it got under his skin. He likes to be the one who not only dominates the conversation and does the disruption himself but who others feel as if they have to fall in line behind him. A few years ago that is exactly what happened at these summits. But now, basically the other leaders are on to him. I think they understand what -- how they are going to manage him. You notice prime minister Trudeau was not exactly full of apologies for anything that he said today. I think he sort of felt like he had been caught uttering a truth in private.</s>WATT: And putting that aside, NATO is now 70 years old, pretty much founded to keep Stalin out of Europe. Stalin's successor Putin must be enjoying not just that but the general level of disunity that appears to be within</s>NATO. SANGER: In some ways they would've been better not holding the 70th anniversary, first of all if you are going to hold it, you would have expected to hold it in Washington because that's where the treaty was signed. But having decided to hold it not in Washington, at least what you wanted to do was come out with a common understanding of mission. And separate and apart from the issues with President Trump, they were incapable of doing that. Is the mission at this point to contain and push back at a revanchist Russia that is once again trying to flex its muscles? Is it to deal with a rising China, as many suggested, was a new task? Was it to finally build up some offensive cyber capability that could push back at the one type of attack that all of the member countries are receiving, much of it from Russia? Is the real goal out here to operate out of area as President Trump seemed to suggest? I'm not sure that President Trump recognized it in Afghanistan and the Balkans; NATO has already operated out of that area. But he looked to be moving toward any other purpose for NATO other than trying to contain Russia.</s>WATT: And what about Erdogan? They did manage to bring him slightly more back into the fold this time.</s>SANGER: Slightly and then he dropped his objections to some of the activities that NATO was going to take in Eastern Europe. But on a fundamental issue, which is that President Erdogan is getting ready to deploy a Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system that is designed to shoot down the aircraft that he is buying from the West and will probably help the Russians understand a little bit more about the patterns of those aircrafts, that issue was completely unresolved. Or if it got resolved in some way in the private meeting between President Erdogan and President Trump, we certainly did not hear about it. So you have one truly outlier nation within NATO that is flaunting the rules, buying their equipment from a significant adversary. And they do not have a mechanism for dealing with this. There is no way to throw out a NATO member. They wouldn't even if there was such a mechanism. And that was the elephant in the room. And nobody wanted to debate about it.</s>WATT: I have to say, watching this summit and the general diplomatic shenanigans going on recently. I am no longer convinced that if one member of NATO was attacked, the others would be certain to rally around. Am I wrong in that?</s>SANGER: No, you are not wrong in that. That is the essence of what President Macron was saying when he declared that NATO was brain dead. He was not saying the organization itself was incapable of coming up with strategy, although I think they have not been fabulous with that. What he was saying is that they could no longer trust that the United States would be there to defend them. And, in the one area where we have all seen the most form of attacks in the past three or four years, which is cyberspace, it is certainly not clear that they have agreed on a collective form of action to go deal with that issue. I cannot think of any more urgent, short of war issue that could bring together the members of NATO. And yet, they do not seem to be seriously grappling with it.</s>WATT: David Sanger in Washington, thank you so much.</s>SANGER: Always great to be with you.</s>WATT: North Korea sends a warning to the United States and its leader takes a ride on the back of a white horse up a sacred mountain. Why Kim Jong-un's jaunt could signal something big to come.