Rep. Justin Amash (D) Michigan Says Trump Has Engaged In Impeachable Conduct; GOP Congressman Says Trump Should Be Impeached; Trump Pardons Fans, Awards Friends; President Trump Has Issued 10 Pardons Including Arpaio, D'Souza.
S.E. CUPP, CNN UNFILTERED: Welcome to Unfiltered. Here is tonight's breaking news headline. This is big. The debate over impeachment seemed like a non-starter, given republicans have circled the wagons around President Trump for two-plus years. But hours ago, a GOP lawmaker said President Trump has, in fact, engaged in impeachable conduct. Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, in a long Twitter thread today, wrote, here are my principal conclusions. Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller's report. President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct. Partisanship has eroded our system of checks and balances. A few members of Congress have read the report. I offer these conclusions only after having read Mueller's redacted report carefully and completely, having read or watched pertinent statements and testimony and having discussed this matter with my staff, who thoroughly reviewed materials and provided me with further analysis. In comparing Barr's principal conclusions, congressional testimony and other statements to Mueller's report, it is clear that Barr intended to mislead the public about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's analysis and findings. Barr's misrepresentations are significant but often subtle, frequently taking the form of sleight of hand qualifications or logical fallacies, which he hopes people will not notice. Under our constitution, the President shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. While high crimes and misdemeanors is not defined, the context implies conduct that violates the public trust. Contrary to Barr's portrayal, Mueller's report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment. In fact, Mueller's report identifies multiple examples of conduct satisfying all the elements of obstruction and justice and undoubtedly any person who is not President of the United States would be indicted based on such evidence. Impeachment, which is a special form of indictment, does not even require probably cause that a crime, for example, obstruction of justice has been committed. It simply requires a finding that an official has engaged in careless, abusive, corrupt or otherwise dishonorable conduct. While impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances, the risk we face in an environment of extreme partisanship is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy too often but rather that Congress will employee so rarely that it cannot deter misconduct. Our system of checks and balances relies on each branch's jealously guarding its powers and upholding its duties under our constitution. When loyal to a political party or to an individual trumps loyalty to the constitution, the rule of law, the foundation of liberty crumbles. We have witnessed members of Congress from both parties shift their views 180 degrees on the importance of character, on the principles of obstruction of justice, depending on whether they're discussing Bill Clinton or Donald Trump. Few members of Congress even read Mueller's report. Their minds were made up based on partisan affiliation, and it showed with representatives and senators from both parties issuing definitive statements on the 448-page report's conclusions within just hours of its release. America's institutions depend on officials to uphold both the rules and spirit of our constitutional system, even when to do so is personally inconvenient or yields a politically unfavorable outcome. Our constitution is brilliant and awesome. It deserves a government to match. Again, that was Justin Amash's full Twitter thread just hours ago. Here's the deal, democrats, like Nancy Pelosi, have insisted that impeachment would require public support and the support of republicans. Well, they don't have plural yet, but they do have one. That's significant. So will one turn into some? For more on this, let me bring in Bill Kristol, Director of Defending Democracy Together. Welcome, Bill. So Justin Amash has, as you know, criticized the President before. How big a deal is this line of criticism though?</s>BILL KRISTOL, DIRECTOR, DEFENDING DEMOCRACY TOGETHER: I think it's a big deal. I think Trump supporters will say that Amash has speculated about challenging Trump in 2020, maybe as a libertarian. He's a bit of a loner in Congress. I mean, for better or worse, he follows his own path. I think he takes the constitution very seriously. But I think what he wrote in that Twitter -- the impressive thing for me though is that Twitter thread, which as you read the whole thing, is very sober, very serious. He claims to have read the report, discussed it with his staff, with other lawyers and experts. And I think it does sort of put front and center the question that, in a funny, way the democrats haven't done because they're so concerned about the politics of this, which is what does the report say, what are the obligations of the House in pursuing the possible conclusions of the report or suggestions of the report and shouldn't they have hearings to find out what the truth is about some of these questions of obstruction and so forth? And I think Amash puts that front and center. So it's not so much that he's one republican out of 240, and that's one vote and so forth, I think it's going to put a lot of pressure on democrats and republicans in the House to sort of say, you know, could we get serious about taking the report seriously? Can we have hearings where experts discuss each of the possible issues of obstruction and get a little bit away from, gee, is it risky for the democrats to do this and, you know, all that sort of thing.</s>CUPP: Right. So, as you point out, he's not fully calling for impeachment. He didn't call for it in that very lengthy Twitter thread, and I think that's probably on purpose. So do you then think he's really just conditioning an environment in which democrats can go ahead and move forward with their -- you know, with their plan to do this?</s>KRISTOL: Well, I think the plan to have hearings. Because the truth is we have the Mueller report. We don't quite have all of it. There're the redactions. But there's a lot of questions that left hanging. We'd like to see testimony from people or actually from Don McGahn to Corey Lewandowski, the people who were cited in that report. Now, if the White House asserts executive privilege, the House Judiciary Committee may just have to go ahead and say, well, we're just going to have to stipulate that what Mueller reports is correct, he's not making things up. But they're entitled to have witnesses to be called and Trump should produce witnesses on the other side. White House should have witnesses that would say, no, no, that's an incorrect account of what Trump said to Comey or what Trump said to McGahn or what Trump said to Lewandowski. So I think what this does is greatly increase the chances of a House Judiciary Committee moving ahead in a serious way, I hope, with a set of hearings that should explicitly not be for the sake of impeaching Trump but for the sake of following up on this report to see whether it's appropriate to -- whether it's appropriate to do it. Maybe it's impeachment, maybe it's nothing, maybe it's a censure or something in between, maybe it's impeachment on some accounts but not enough accounts. So, you know, that I think -- I think Amash has done a real service personally though in laying it out in a sober way. He didn't -- and he really --now, he has to be ready to defend his points. He's claiming he read the report, he discussed it with staff and with lawyers. I assume he'll be on TV and on radios and interviews. And he has to really lay out, he has to be able to lay out what is so worrisome to you and not just the headline, you know?</s>CUPP: And to that point, we should let people know, we did call Justin Amash, we asked for him to come on. He was unavailable. But I'm sure, as you say, he will have to go on television and more elaborately explain his point of view. Let's talk about Michigan though for a second. It's a state that Trump won. It seems now entirely gettable for democrats. Do you think that's part of his calculus as well?</s>KRISTOL: No, because since he's now going to get primaried in the republican, he's interstate (ph) for a republican district. He's going to get primaried by a pro-Trump republican, presumably. I think he was thinking possibly running as a libertarian, even for the presidency. So who knows what his own personal ambitions are. I don't know him well and I don't know. Obviously, I don't -- it's not worth speculating on. But, again, I think what's impressive about this is the degree to which he presents himself as a sober member of the House trying to do the House's constitutional duty. And I think it would be good for the country if an awful lot more people -- they're intelligent people in the House. They're republicans and democrats. They should read the report and they should give us the benefit of their thinking and what they would like to know and the House Judiciary Committee should begin sketching out the kinds of hearings they should have. I think this kind of -- all the politics and then, of course, the complicated subpoenas and all that have been sort of a distraction from the fact that Robert Mueller and his team delivered a lengthy report, which is full of interesting and, you know, consequential conclusions, some of which are very disturbing about the President's behavior, if you actually read the report.. And it's up for the House to decide how disturbing and really what the truth is and whether it warrants impeachment or not or maybe censure a bit in any case to move. It would be terrible not to have hearings and not to really ever -- just to drop the ball because some democrats decide, oh, it's a little risky, politically. It would be terrible to rush to judgment and say, you know, we're just going to go right ahead with some partisan vote. And I think Amash has done, as I said, a real service in creating the possibility of a more sober and serious approach to this.</s>CUPP: Well, as you say, it's up to the House, but would you expect now someone like Senator Ben Sasse, who has been equally critical of the President to maybe also weigh in on this now that Justin Amash has?</s>KRISTOL: You know, the senators might have a little bit of an excuse that they kind of, you know, go up (ph). And I think other House members, including serious republicans who haven't been lapdogs for the White House, who are now going to get asked this on tomorrow or Monday or Tuesday, when they'll be here in Washington. And it will be very interesting to see what they say, especially ones around the Judiciary Committee but also others who have some knowledge, people on the Intelligence Committee and so forth. And so I -- yes, I think this really does put front and center the question of impeachment in a funny way more. Justin Amash is a backbench republican congressman, may have put it front and center more than Nancy Pelosi and Jerry Nadler and all these important democrats who have been doing all these other things except discussing the actual report and what the obligations of the House pursuant to it are.</s>CUPP: Well, we'll see. As I mentioned, Nancy Pelosi has said to move forward on impeachment would require public support. There isn't that yet. Public calling for impeachment is not supportive and bipartisan support. She's got one. We'll see if she can get anymore. Bill Kristol, thanks so much for joining me tonight.</s>KRISTOL: Thanks,</s>S.E. CUPP: Up next, the controversial abortion laws that passing in many state houses have reignited a very personal debate and drawn pushback from some unexpected places. That's next.