Office Of Management And Budget Official To Testify To Congress Regarding Delay In Providing Military Aid To Ukraine
WHITFIELD: Right now, White House Budget official, Office of Management and Budget official, Mark Sandy is testifying behind closed doors on Capitol Hill. Sandy's deposition comes fresh off of the heels of an eventful week filled with riveting public hearings in which we got to hear firsthand scathing testimony about the president's actions regarding Ukraine. Joining me right now to discuss is Cass Sunstein. He is a former administrator from the White House Office of Information and Regulator Affairs under President Obama, and author of "Impeachment, A Citizen's Guide." Professor, Cass, good to see you.</s>CASS SUNSTEIN, AUTHOR, "IMPEACHMENT, A CITIZEN'S GUIDE": Good to see you.</s>WHITFIELD: What were some of your key observations made in this week of public testimony?</s>SUNSTEIN: There's been a great deal of clarity in a really short time. I think everyone agrees now that if the president actually used taxpayer money successfully to coerce or influence Ukraine to interfere in our elections by prosecuting the family of a potential political opponent, if he intentionally did that and if he had succeeded, that would be an impeachable offense. I think there's consensus on that, which greatly narrows the grounds for reasonable disagreement.</s>WHITFIELD: So you heard from career diplomats talk about their suspicions, their reservations, and then also with the former ambassador Yovanovitch talk about being a target of a smear campaign. In what category do those things fall when it comes down to Democrats trying to build their case? Because in their testimonies none of them got direct orders from the president, but they felt the incoming, which they suspect came from his direction?</s>SUNSTEIN: I hope it isn't a Democratic clear effort to get rid of the president, as some of them want to do that. I hope on balance they're trying to figure out what happened and made up their mind. Bracketing that point, a smear campaign isn't an impeachable offense. It's not good, it's irresponsible. Maybe it's worse than that, probably it's worse than that. But what we really want to focus on is whether there's a high crime, a misdemeanor. Bribery would count as that. Extortion would count as that. Something that's in the general domain of those two would count. But by itself the fact of smearing an ambassador or acting in this unprofessional and maybe hateful way, that would not be impeachable.</s>WHITFIELD: So today we know Mark Sandy of the Office of Management and Budget is testifying behind closed doors, this is the deposition phase, today, on a rare Saturday of testimony. His testimony might be in the category of the whole follow the money, right, if an explanation and perhaps even a directive as to whose idea was it to withhold this military aid to Ukraine and why. How do Democrats need to be directing their questioning to him today in order to get to the answers that are with clarity?</s>SUNSTEIN: I would hope both Democrats and Republicans would be focusing on the question whether the president used taxpayer money to try to get the Ukrainian government to criminally investigate an American politician or his family. If that's what happened, we're in a very grave area, one that we really haven't seen before. Or whether instead this was not really a presidential campaign or effort, it was a casual hope but not one of the core reasons why funds were being withheld. So the question is really I think very straightforward, which is did the president personally seek to use this office to try to get a criminal investigation of someone whom he targeted for one reason only, that is he was a Democrat and potentially a presidential candidate.</s>WHITFIELD: And then next week, the U.S. ambassador to the E.U., Gordon Sondland is to testify publicly. Republicans and Democrats, of course, get a chance to ask him questions as well. He's already it to change his testimony or modify his previous testimony. And now he'll be speaking on a public stage, answering the questions about that phone call that was overheard, what kind of direction he was receiving. What questions would you ask of him if you had the opportunity?</s>SUNSTEIN: I'd want to know whether the thought was this was a neutral effort to get at corruption in general in Ukraine, or whether this was a targeted effort to go after Vice President Biden and his family. I'd want to know whether the president believed, in fact, on the basis of evidence that there had been corruption on the part of someone in the Biden family. That would go to whether the president was acting sincerely or whether instead he was acting on the basis of political self-interest. So the only two issues really that look like they have bright lights around them right now are, first, did the president succeed in some sense in damaging our relationship with another country by withholding money for several months, and also, did the president seek neutrally to investigate corruption, or was he instead thinking this is really a political mission he's sending our foreign affairs apparatus on?</s>WHITFIELD: Cass Sunstein, always good to see you. Thank you so much.</s>SUNSTEIN: Thanks to you.</s>WHITFIELD: We'll be right back.