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The Bolton Bombshell · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: What a day. John Bolton throws impeachment into chaos. President
0:05
Speaker 1: Trump's legal team comes out swinging on their first full
0:08
Speaker 1: day of arguments, and the senator of this very podcast
0:12
Speaker 1: drives at least one journalist completely up a wall. This
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Speaker 1: is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with
0:25
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles. Thank you so much to
0:28
Speaker 1: all of the listeners who have kept this show at
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Speaker 1: the top of the charts again now into our second week.
0:35
Speaker 1: What a big day. It started as a crazy day
0:38
Speaker 1: before the impeachment trial even began, because of a leak
0:42
Speaker 1: from the new memoir of John Bolton, the former National
0:45
Speaker 1: Security advisor, leaked to the New York Times, and it
0:48
Speaker 1: alleges that President Trump tied Ukraine aid to an investigation
0:54
Speaker 1: of the Biden's quid pro quo. He's guilty as charged,
0:58
Speaker 1: isn't that right? Well, today was a big and consequential day,
1:01
Speaker 1: and you're right, it started off crazy. We all had
1:04
Speaker 1: off yesterday, so I flew home, was home with my family,
1:07
Speaker 1: then came back to DC at the crack of dawn,
1:09
Speaker 1: walked into the Capitol. The press was going nuts. They
1:12
Speaker 1: were in a total tizzie The New York Times had
1:14
Speaker 1: broken the story that Bolton says there was a quid
1:17
Speaker 1: pro quo, and I got to say when I sat
1:20
Speaker 1: down at lunch today before we started the trial, there
1:23
Speaker 1: were a lot of Republican Senators who were feeling a
1:25
Speaker 1: little rattled by it. I mean, it was designed to
1:29
Speaker 1: shake people up in it. It had a little bit
1:31
Speaker 1: of that effect. I'm actually somewhat surprised that this shook
1:34
Speaker 1: up Republican senators because the story itself made all of
1:38
Speaker 1: these headlines a big splash. And yet it seems to
1:41
Speaker 1: me just reading about it, and especially given our previous
1:44
Speaker 1: conversations on how the quid pro quo was not really
1:47
Speaker 1: a big deal, that it's a lot of sizzle and
1:49
Speaker 1: no stake. Well, that's exactly right, and one of the
1:52
Speaker 1: most important things for people to understand. It does not
1:56
Speaker 1: matter if there was a quid pro quo or not.
2:00
Speaker 1: It does not matter. It doesn't make a difference for
2:03
Speaker 1: the issues before the sentence. Something we talked about last
2:05
Speaker 1: week in our first couple of podcasts. Look, quid pro
2:09
Speaker 1: quo sounds scary. It's a Latin phrase. I don't know
2:12
Speaker 1: what it means, but it sounds really bad all. Quid
2:14
Speaker 1: pro quo means as you exchange one thing for another,
2:17
Speaker 1: and this is not an exaggeration. Every president, yea, from
2:21
Speaker 1: George Washington to today has done quid pro quos by
2:24
Speaker 1: the hundreds, and foreign policy does it every single day.
2:29
Speaker 1: So whether or not it's a quid pro quote doesn't matter.
2:32
Speaker 1: The question is did the president commit high crimes and misdemeanors?
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Speaker 1: And a quid pro quo is not. Whether it is
2:38
Speaker 1: or not, it is not the constitutional stand. So then
2:41
Speaker 1: why is this such a big headline? Because that was
2:43
Speaker 1: my reaction to I said, hold on, I got to
2:45
Speaker 1: talk to the Senator about this last week. I can
2:47
Speaker 1: see through the headline. Why is everybody making such a
2:50
Speaker 1: big deal about the John Bolton leak. Well, look, part
2:54
Speaker 1: of it was that the defense team on Saturday had
2:58
Speaker 1: some fun pointing out that the evidence was contradictory whether
3:01
Speaker 1: it was a quid pro quo or not. So they
3:02
Speaker 1: leaned in a little bit saying there wasn't clear evidence
3:05
Speaker 1: there was a quid pro quo, and so that let
3:08
Speaker 1: the New York Times say, oh goodness, now we have
3:11
Speaker 1: someone saying there was. It doesn't matter because look, quid
3:18
Speaker 1: pro quos. Obama's a rand deal is a quid pro quo. Right,
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Speaker 1: Russia sanctions. I just passed last month sanctions on the
3:28
Speaker 1: Nord String to Russian gas pipeline. If a company builds
3:31
Speaker 1: the pipeline, they get sanctioned. That's a quid pro quo.
3:34
Speaker 1: You build the pipeline, you get sanctions. You're admitting to
3:36
Speaker 1: a quid pro quo right now. And Venezuela sanctions. We're
3:40
Speaker 1: telling Venezuela today that if Nicholas Maduro steps down from Venezuela,
3:44
Speaker 1: will lift sanctions. And we do by the way carrots
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Speaker 1: and sticks all the time, where we'll give you aid,
3:49
Speaker 1: will impose sanctions. That's how we conduct foreign policies. So
3:54
Speaker 1: the Bolton leak, the quid pro quo news, that doesn't
3:57
Speaker 1: matter to the argument for impeachment itself. And yet surely
4:00
Speaker 1: it matters to the impeachment trial, because now we're hearing
4:04
Speaker 1: more reports that we could drag this thing out weeks
4:07
Speaker 1: and weeks and finally hear from the witnesses, which the
4:11
Speaker 1: Democrats have been asking for now for weeks. So I
4:14
Speaker 1: think the chances of the Senate hearing witnesses and of
4:16
Speaker 1: the trial being dragged on that those chances have increased.
4:20
Speaker 1: We will vote probably on Friday, whether or not additional
4:23
Speaker 1: witnesses will be brought in. All forty seven Democrats will
4:27
Speaker 1: vote yes, if four Republicans join them, if fifty one Republicans,
4:30
Speaker 1: if fifty one Senators vote yes, then we're going to
4:33
Speaker 1: have additional witnesses. Do you think that those four Republican
4:37
Speaker 1: senators will go over and now vote for the witnesses? Hey,
4:40
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not certain about that. I think there
4:42
Speaker 1: are a couple who have been pretty clear they will.
4:44
Speaker 1: I don't know if we get to four. And you know,
4:46
Speaker 1: one of the striking things, I don't know that I
4:49
Speaker 1: have seen two Senate meals more different than lunch today
4:55
Speaker 1: and dinner today. How so what's the difference? All right,
4:58
Speaker 1: So lunch today everyone had just out and back they
5:00
Speaker 1: were there. The press was all in a frenzy about
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Speaker 1: John Bolton. We're talking about, oh, we gotta have witnesses,
5:05
Speaker 1: quit pro quo. Not sure what quid pro quo is.
5:09
Speaker 1: And then we had this afternoon where the Trump defense
5:12
Speaker 1: team finally got to put on their arguments and their
5:16
Speaker 1: evidence and listen, as you know, I have been begging
5:20
Speaker 1: them put on systematically. Clearly the evidence of Barissma and Hunter,
5:25
Speaker 1: Biden and Joe Biden, all of the evidence of corruption.
5:29
Speaker 1: That's what matters. The central question in this trial is
5:34
Speaker 1: whether a president can investigate corruption, and the answer to
5:37
Speaker 1: that is obviously yes, if they're real incredible allegations of corruption.
5:41
Speaker 1: With Hunter and Joe Biden, Barissma that there was enormous
5:44
Speaker 1: evidence of corruption. We finally heard that today and by
5:48
Speaker 1: dinner time the Republican senators were happy. The last serene
5:53
Speaker 1: it was totally different because we'd just gone through several
5:58
Speaker 1: hours of the actual defense in the case, which finally
6:02
Speaker 1: got to be able to put onto. Okay, well, I
6:03
Speaker 1: want to get into those arguments then, because this was
6:05
Speaker 1: a pivotal day. We got a little preview of the
6:07
Speaker 1: Trump team's arguments on Saturday, but today was the first
6:11
Speaker 1: full day. Last week the Democrats make their arguments, and
6:14
Speaker 1: then this week the Trump team gets to do it.
6:16
Speaker 1: It opened up with Ken Starr, who was the star
6:20
Speaker 1: of the Clinton impeachment trial back in the nineties. Then
6:23
Speaker 1: it went on to some of President Trump's other lawyers.
6:25
Speaker 1: Toward the end, you get Alan Dershowitz, very famous lawyer,
6:29
Speaker 1: a professor of yours. I believe you know him well.
6:32
Speaker 1: Taught me criminal law one oh one my first week
6:34
Speaker 1: in law school, and I've known him twenty five thirty years.
6:37
Speaker 1: So I hate to put you on the spot because
6:39
Speaker 1: you know one of the lawyer. You know multiple lawyers
6:41
Speaker 1: who were arguing today. How did they do? They did
6:45
Speaker 1: very well. This was a very good day for President Trump.
6:48
Speaker 1: This was a very bad day for the Democrats. And
6:50
Speaker 1: I gotta say watching the Democrats at council table, when
6:56
Speaker 1: Pam Bondi got up, when so Pam Bondi is won
6:59
Speaker 1: a President Trump's law right and Eric Hirshman, who are
7:01
Speaker 1: two of the lawyers for the for President Trump, they
7:04
Speaker 1: both got up and they laid out the evidence of Barisma,
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Speaker 1: the Ukrainian natural gas company that was built in corruption,
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Speaker 1: that was paying Hunter Biden a million bucks a year.
7:15
Speaker 1: And they finally showed the tape of Joe Biden bragging
7:20
Speaker 1: about how you want to talk about quid pro quo?
7:22
Speaker 1: So on Donald Trump. The evidence is conflicting on whether
7:27
Speaker 1: there's a quid pro quo. There's some evidence that some
7:29
Speaker 1: testimony said there was, some testimony said there was. It
7:31
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, do you know, the one undisputed quit pro
7:35
Speaker 1: quo in this in this entire proceeding, Joe Biden. Joe
7:39
Speaker 1: Biden on video said he told the President of Ukraine
7:42
Speaker 1: he would block a billion dollars in aid unless he
7:47
Speaker 1: fired the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Barisma, which was
7:52
Speaker 1: paying his son Hunter Biden a million bucks a year.
7:54
Speaker 1: And as you know, Biden ends it with going, well,
7:57
Speaker 1: son of a bitch, they fired him. That's a quid
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Speaker 1: pro quo, and Biden not only admits to it, he
8:02
Speaker 1: brags about it. He's proud. And I got to say
8:05
Speaker 1: playing that, I think the Trump team did a good
8:07
Speaker 1: job laying it out. I think they walked through the evidence.
8:10
Speaker 1: But but I spent a good chunk of it just
8:12
Speaker 1: watching the house manager's faces. I gotta say Adam Schiff
8:16
Speaker 1: was ashen. I mean really that their faces were horrifying
8:20
Speaker 1: because we couldn't see that. I certainly didn't see that
8:22
Speaker 1: they so you would see him kind of try to
8:25
Speaker 1: smile and like puff up his chest and then it
8:28
Speaker 1: sort of slumped down. But the interesting thing is they
8:31
Speaker 1: knew this was coming. It's why several days ago, I said,
8:35
Speaker 1: the house managers through Joe Biden un the bus because
8:38
Speaker 1: when they spend several hours of their presentation making the
8:42
Speaker 1: case that there is zero evidence to investigate Borismo or
8:46
Speaker 1: the Biden's for corruption, which is a laughable proposition, they
8:50
Speaker 1: knew to a metaphysical certainty that today would happen. In
8:54
Speaker 1: other words, they knew. They knew about the Son of
8:56
Speaker 1: a Bitch video. I mean, it's not like they're living
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Speaker 1: in a cave and they set it up. They team
9:01
Speaker 1: about the video we played last week on the podcast
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Speaker 1: where ABC asked Hunter Biden, would you have gotten this
9:06
Speaker 1: job been paid a million bucks a year if your
9:10
Speaker 1: name wasn't Biden. He's like, no, I mean, they knew
9:12
Speaker 1: that was coming, but it was still painful. But did
9:15
Speaker 1: you know that the Trump team would be so aggressive
9:18
Speaker 1: because I going into it, I had this fear, and
9:20
Speaker 1: we talked about it on the show that the Trump
9:22
Speaker 1: team would play it cautious, play it's safe, simply answer
9:25
Speaker 1: the Democrat accusations from last week, and instead they got
9:29
Speaker 1: pretty aggressive. Well, I think they heard from a lot
9:33
Speaker 1: of voices that they needed to affirmatively present the president's
9:37
Speaker 1: defense that the president is innocent and there's a reason
9:40
Speaker 1: he's innocent. It is perfectly okay, and in fact that
9:43
Speaker 1: the president's got a responsibility if there's credible evidence of
9:47
Speaker 1: corruption to investigate that evidence. Yeah, and you know it
9:52
Speaker 1: was striking. You remember in the first couple of days,
9:54
Speaker 1: Jerry Nadler, one of the house managers, he said, out
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Speaker 1: of hundreds of thousands of Ukraine companies, why would Trump
10:02
Speaker 1: be interested in this one? And the screaming answer as well,
10:07
Speaker 1: as far as I know, it's the only Ukrainian company
10:10
Speaker 1: that was paying the son of the vice president a
10:13
Speaker 1: million bucks a year. And the point is, it's not
10:16
Speaker 1: about some abstract interest in Ukrainian corruption. It's not like
10:21
Speaker 1: the President's worried about someone knocking off seven elevens in Ukraine. Right,
10:24
Speaker 1: This is about American corruption. This is about the prospect
10:28
Speaker 1: of a corrupt foreign company effectively bribing the vice president
10:33
Speaker 1: of the the United States. Now that may not be the case.
10:34
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that happened, but there's more than enough
10:37
Speaker 1: evidence to investigate it and find out whether it did.
10:40
Speaker 1: So you think that the Trump team did a good argument,
10:43
Speaker 1: Ken Star, Alan Dershowitz, everybody in the middle. I actually
10:48
Speaker 1: think that the biggest fireworks of the day were not
10:50
Speaker 1: presented by the Trump legal team. I think they were
10:53
Speaker 1: presented by you when you were talking to the press,
10:56
Speaker 1: because during one of these breaks you had a press gaggle.
10:59
Speaker 1: You were answering their questions and speaking to them. You,
11:02
Speaker 1: more than anybody that I've seen, have been very aggressive
11:05
Speaker 1: on this, saying that this impeachment is about Bisma, it's
11:08
Speaker 1: about corruption in Joe, a potential corruption by Joe Biden
11:12
Speaker 1: in the Obama administration. Go after that. I think you
11:15
Speaker 1: got under the press's skin so much that at one point,
11:20
Speaker 1: one of these reporters suggested throwing your nine year old
11:24
Speaker 1: daughter in jail. Do we have the clip? Basically got
11:30
Speaker 1: a job that vice president? If that's a crime, I name,
11:34
Speaker 1: shouldn't half of your children be in prison? My children
11:37
Speaker 1: are nine and eleven. I'm sorry that you want to
11:39
Speaker 1: throw a nine year old in prison, but at this point,
11:42
Speaker 1: my my third grader plays basketball and softball at our school.
11:47
Speaker 1: So so stop playing the nasty no, no, stop playing
11:50
Speaker 1: the nasty Washington game attacking a nine year old. All right?
11:59
Speaker 1: You know, I I love that you kept your cool
12:01
Speaker 1: there and you kind of laughed it off, but that
12:04
Speaker 1: is pretty deranged for a reporter to say they want
12:07
Speaker 1: to throw your kid in jail. Well, you know, it
12:09
Speaker 1: shows the desperation of the press corps. So Trump has
12:15
Speaker 1: had a lot of consequences for America, many of which
12:18
Speaker 1: have been fantastically good in terms of policy, in terms
12:20
Speaker 1: of substance. One of which that has been also really
12:24
Speaker 1: really good is exposing the rampant bias of the media.
12:28
Speaker 1: And Donald Trump has broken the media that their role
12:32
Speaker 1: right now is they're desperate to be the defenders of
12:34
Speaker 1: the Democrats. And so I had just finished standing up
12:38
Speaker 1: and saying today with devastating for the house managers and
12:41
Speaker 1: walking through a little bit of the evidence of corruption
12:44
Speaker 1: that was laid out, the media doesn't want to cover
12:46
Speaker 1: any of this. So what that guy was doing, I
12:49
Speaker 1: mean he was trying to say, well, everybody does it,
12:51
Speaker 1: Come on, your kids do it? And they're desperately Okay,
12:54
Speaker 1: so I got news for the media. No, everybody doesn't
12:57
Speaker 1: do this. I promise you. If there's anybody else in
13:01
Speaker 1: Washington that has a kid making a million bucks a
13:04
Speaker 1: year from a corrupt company that is getting favors from
13:08
Speaker 1: the Vice president of the United States, that ain't something
13:11
Speaker 1: everybody does. Like. Look, I mean it's they're trying to
13:16
Speaker 1: cover it up as Oh, it's Uncle Joe, it's no
13:19
Speaker 1: big deal. This is bad stuff. This stinks. You know.
13:28
Speaker 1: One of the things the Trump's defense team did today
13:32
Speaker 1: is they played from the ABC clip with Hunter Biden
13:34
Speaker 1: a component. We still don't know, by the way, how
13:36
Speaker 1: much money Hunter Biden made. Well, we know he was
13:38
Speaker 1: driving around Hollywood in a very expensive Porsche, so I
13:41
Speaker 1: think he did pretty well well. An ABC asked him, so,
13:43
Speaker 1: how much did this corrupt Ukrainian natural gas company pay
13:47
Speaker 1: you while your dad was vice president? And why while
13:49
Speaker 1: he was leading Ukraine policy for the Obama administration, And
13:53
Speaker 1: he said, well, I'm not going to tell you. I
13:54
Speaker 1: don't have to be open kimono. Well, do you know
13:58
Speaker 1: that nobody knows how much he was paid with We
14:00
Speaker 1: know it was at least eighty three thousand dollars a month,
14:02
Speaker 1: but he's never answered that, and the house managers have
14:05
Speaker 1: no desire to know the answer to that. Well, what's
14:08
Speaker 1: so shocking to me about many of these interviews, and
14:11
Speaker 1: that clip in particular, is the media have been going
14:14
Speaker 1: after not just you, but a lot of Republican senators,
14:17
Speaker 1: and they've been assailing you all for not being objective
14:20
Speaker 1: and completely without an interest in this impeachment trial, because
14:25
Speaker 1: you know your Republicans. Of course, in impeachment trials different
14:28
Speaker 1: than other trials, right, you're going to have interests on
14:31
Speaker 1: both sides. The one group that is supposed to remain
14:34
Speaker 1: disinterested objective is the media. And then the moment you
14:38
Speaker 1: get over the target of what this impeachment is all about,
14:42
Speaker 1: they clearly lose their minds. Well, you know, Judge ken
14:46
Speaker 1: Starr started the argument today and he did a very
14:48
Speaker 1: good job of pointing out so a lot of folks
14:51
Speaker 1: in the media like to say, oh, the senators are jurors.
14:54
Speaker 1: That's not in fact, right. And in the Clinton impeachment trial,
14:59
Speaker 1: a Democrat senator objected to senators being called jurors, and
15:03
Speaker 1: Chief Justice Rank quest sustain the objection. Starb actually put
15:06
Speaker 1: it very well. The Senate is a court, which means
15:09
Speaker 1: the Senate where the judges, where the jurors were deciding
15:13
Speaker 1: questions of law and fact. And we're not supposed to
15:16
Speaker 1: be disconnected from the process. The framers knew what they
15:19
Speaker 1: were doing when they handed it to the upper Chamber
15:21
Speaker 1: of Congress. But you know what we do need to
15:25
Speaker 1: do is keep the focus on the actual legal question,
15:29
Speaker 1: which is whether high crimes or misdemeanors were committed. And
15:33
Speaker 1: it's why. Look, the fundamental answer, the reason the House
15:38
Speaker 1: Manager's case fails and the president will be acquitted is
15:43
Speaker 1: because presidents, it's not an impeachable offense to investigate credible
15:48
Speaker 1: evidence of corruption. By the way, it would have been
15:51
Speaker 1: very different if Trump had said to Ukraine, hey, would
15:55
Speaker 1: you concoct some fake and bogus material on Joe Biden
16:00
Speaker 1: and fraudulently accused him of something. Look, we'd have a
16:02
Speaker 1: totally different case there, right, But that's not what he said.
16:05
Speaker 1: All of the evidence, one hundred percent of it said
16:08
Speaker 1: investigate what happened. This is bad Biden bragged about getting
16:12
Speaker 1: the prosecutor fired. It is not an impeachable offense to
16:16
Speaker 1: investigate credible evidence of corruption. That's the issue that matters,
16:21
Speaker 1: and the press is going to try to change the subject.
16:25
Speaker 1: You know what, this this Bolton bombshell today. It won't
16:28
Speaker 1: be the last bombshell. We'll see another one coming up
16:31
Speaker 1: later this week. And actually, a bunch of us in
16:33
Speaker 1: the Judiciary Committee who went through Kavanaugh, Yeah, we were
16:36
Speaker 1: saying we're kind of stealed to this because we saw
16:38
Speaker 1: I remember, day after day there was another revelation. By
16:42
Speaker 1: the end of it, they had him in high school,
16:44
Speaker 1: like drugging people and like participating in you know, all
16:47
Speaker 1: sorts of I mean, it got Remember Michael Avanettie, briefly
16:51
Speaker 1: the media wanted him to be the Democratic nominee. He
16:54
Speaker 1: was this lawyer who would go on CNN. This was
16:57
Speaker 1: during now Justice Kavanaugh's information hearings to the Supreme Court.
17:01
Speaker 1: It was the timing of every big scandal bombshell. It
17:05
Speaker 1: seems so perfectly coordinated. And that's what I mean, that
17:08
Speaker 1: is the big news of the day. Is this Bolton bombshell.
17:12
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're right it won't be the last. But
17:14
Speaker 1: for those of us who don't know the inner machinations,
17:16
Speaker 1: how this was leaked, who leaked it, Who's going to
17:19
Speaker 1: leak the next one? I guess the question all of
17:22
Speaker 1: us have is what happens next. Let's say that because
17:26
Speaker 1: of this bombshell from John Bolton, we now get witnesses
17:31
Speaker 1: and this trial drags on well passed Saturday, maybe for
17:34
Speaker 1: weeks and weeks. What are we going to look forward
17:37
Speaker 1: to next? So we don't know for sure. Tomorrow will
17:39
Speaker 1: be the last day of arguments opening arguments for the
17:42
Speaker 1: Trump legal defense team. Okay, so they'll start tomorrow at
17:45
Speaker 1: one o'clock. Go as long as they go. Then the
17:48
Speaker 1: next two days we're gonna have questions from senators eight
17:51
Speaker 1: hours a day for two days. We ask questions, but
17:55
Speaker 1: we don't get to ask them ourselves. We write them
17:57
Speaker 1: down and the Chief Justice asked them for us. So
17:59
Speaker 1: I will say to the folks listening to this podcast,
18:02
Speaker 1: if you have questions that you want me to ask,
18:06
Speaker 1: either the House managers or Trump's legal defense team, suggest
18:11
Speaker 1: them you can. You can tweet them. I'm at Ted
18:14
Speaker 1: Cruz and just put hashtag verdict. And we are looking
18:17
Speaker 1: at what's what's what's online on Twitter and looking for
18:20
Speaker 1: questions that will help help focus on the issues that matter.
18:25
Speaker 1: After the questions are over, then at the end of
18:28
Speaker 1: the week, we're going to vote up or down our
18:30
Speaker 1: additional witnesses necessary. If we get fifty one Senators who
18:34
Speaker 1: say yes, then frankly, it's Katie bar the door. If
18:39
Speaker 1: it ends up that there are four Republicans who join
18:41
Speaker 1: the Democrats and say, okay, we need to hear from
18:43
Speaker 1: John Bolton, I think that's possible. I will give you
18:45
Speaker 1: some good news if that happens. I'm extremely confident we
18:48
Speaker 1: will also hear from Hunter Biden. So you don't think
18:51
Speaker 1: there's a world in which they vote for witnesses. But
18:54
Speaker 1: the only witness who is called is John Bolton's zero,
18:57
Speaker 1: chancel zero. And the Democrats are terrified about that. You know,
19:01
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer's like, no, no no, no, we can't call Hunter Biden.
19:03
Speaker 1: You're seeing Democratic senators going no, no, no, don't call
19:06
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden. Look, today's testimony revealed if there's one witness
19:10
Speaker 1: that was called, it should be Hunter Biden because he's
19:12
Speaker 1: right at the center. And remember, the issue is not
19:16
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden. I don't know the guy. It looks like
19:18
Speaker 1: he's led to a pretty troubled life. The question is
19:21
Speaker 1: not even about whether he's involved in corruption. It's about
19:25
Speaker 1: whether his father, the vice president, who was making the
19:30
Speaker 1: Obama administration's policy and leading it, whether he was involved
19:34
Speaker 1: in corruption. And that's a question that goes right to
19:37
Speaker 1: the heart of Trump's asking it to be an investigated.
19:41
Speaker 1: And I want to underscore a point we said last
19:43
Speaker 1: week because it people may not have focused on its importance,
19:48
Speaker 1: and it's about to become very very important. If we
19:51
Speaker 1: have witnesses, which is if Hunter Biden has called as
19:53
Speaker 1: a witness. If we subpoena Hunter Biden, he will almost
19:56
Speaker 1: certainly plead the fifth He'll almost certainly come in and
19:58
Speaker 1: say I refuse to answer questions. And he has a
20:03
Speaker 1: right under the under the Bill of right. He doesn't
20:05
Speaker 1: want to testify and admit to committing a crime. Here's
20:08
Speaker 1: a piece almost nobody knows if he does that. There
20:13
Speaker 1: is a statute that explicitly gives the Senate the power
20:16
Speaker 1: to give him testimonial immunity, which means he would be
20:20
Speaker 1: immune from being prosecuted for what he says in his testimony.
20:26
Speaker 1: Why does that matter? You may think, gosh, immunity sounds
20:29
Speaker 1: like a good thing for him, It's actually not, because
20:31
Speaker 1: immunity means we can force him to testify, because we
20:35
Speaker 1: want to get the evidence of what did your dad know?
20:37
Speaker 1: You know. One of the interesting things that we heard today,
20:40
Speaker 1: So Hunter Biden had two business partners. It's guy Devin
20:44
Speaker 1: Archer was also on the border Barisma, and then John
20:47
Speaker 1: Kerry's son in law. What a coincidence or not? Son
20:51
Speaker 1: in law stepson rather and his stepson when his two
20:55
Speaker 1: business partners joined the board. He sent an email to
21:01
Speaker 1: the State Department to his stepfather's chief of staff saying,
21:06
Speaker 1: Devin and Hunter have joined the board of Barisma. I
21:08
Speaker 1: don't know why they did this, but I got nothing
21:10
Speaker 1: to do with it, and he broke off doing business
21:13
Speaker 1: with them because of their poor judgment in getting paid
21:17
Speaker 1: millions from this corrupt company. You know, we actually got
21:20
Speaker 1: a mail bag question specifically about the ability of the
21:25
Speaker 1: Senate to force Hunter Biden to testify. And the question
21:29
Speaker 1: comes from Susan. If the Senate forces Hunter Biden to
21:34
Speaker 1: testify by granting him immunity, would he also receive immunity
21:39
Speaker 1: if he perjured himself during the testimony? So if he lies, so,
21:44
Speaker 1: immunity does not immunize you from perjury, and it doesn't
21:47
Speaker 1: immunize you from the underlying crimes. But it does it
21:52
Speaker 1: does prevent any prosecutor from using your testimony as evidence
21:56
Speaker 1: against you. Well, then there's a similar follow up. And
21:58
Speaker 1: by the way, the way the statute works is the
22:00
Speaker 1: Senate fifty one senators vote to grant immunity. We then
22:03
Speaker 1: have to go to a federal district court and file
22:05
Speaker 1: that But the District Court has to grant it. Right,
22:08
Speaker 1: it's mandator into the statute that I've seen that nowhere
22:12
Speaker 1: in the press. Obviously, I think Hunter Biden's probably sweating
22:14
Speaker 1: about that, and the Democrats in the House are probably sweating.
22:17
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is sweating more. And by the way, I'll
22:19
Speaker 1: tell you some of the happiest faces in that Senate
22:23
Speaker 1: where Bernie, Elizabeth Warren and Klobuchar. Now, I mean they
22:30
Speaker 1: this was a bad, bad day for the House Democrats case,
22:35
Speaker 1: but also for Joe Biden was this was not pretty.
22:38
Speaker 1: So let's say President Trump gets off the hook, he
22:41
Speaker 1: is not removed from office. Matthew asks, does the Fifth
22:44
Speaker 1: Amendment regarding double jeopardy attach? Should the Senate exonerate the president?
22:50
Speaker 1: Can the president be tried again for the same articles.
22:54
Speaker 1: I don't think we've ever seen that situation in history.
22:56
Speaker 1: So impeachment and prosecution for chrim defense are two different matters.
23:01
Speaker 1: So yes, you can be tried separate. Now, you've got
23:05
Speaker 1: to prove a crime. You got to prove beyond a
23:06
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt. And amazingly enough, the House managers have an
23:10
Speaker 1: alleged a crime. It's one of the things actually, Alan Dershowitz.
23:13
Speaker 1: Professor Dershowitz at the end did a really good job
23:15
Speaker 1: of walking through the constitutional history that you can't high
23:20
Speaker 1: crimes or misdemeanors, requires that you prove that the president
23:25
Speaker 1: has committed a crime on the order of treason or bribery,
23:29
Speaker 1: because that's what the Constitution said, And it was very interesting.
23:33
Speaker 1: Professor Dershowitz walked through a couple of other provisions of
23:36
Speaker 1: the Constitution which almost no one knows who's looked at this.
23:39
Speaker 1: So you know the impeachment clause, but there are two
23:41
Speaker 1: other places where impeachment is referenced in the Constitution beyond
23:46
Speaker 1: the power of impeachment and the trial. The impeachment clause
23:49
Speaker 1: just saying that the Congress has the power to impeach
23:51
Speaker 1: the president and the Senate will conduct the trial. And
23:53
Speaker 1: actually the Constitution uses the word soul twice says the
23:57
Speaker 1: House has the sole power of impeachment and the Senate
24:00
Speaker 1: has the sole power to try impeachment. So the only
24:03
Speaker 1: times the word sol is used in the Constitution concerns impeachment.
24:07
Speaker 1: But there are two other references. Number one in Article
24:10
Speaker 1: two concerns the presidency. It gives the president the power
24:15
Speaker 1: to grant pardons and reprieves for offenses against the United
24:19
Speaker 1: States except in cases of impeachment. So the president can't
24:24
Speaker 1: pardon impeachment. But it also says offenses against the United
24:28
Speaker 1: States which are crimes. In Article three of the Constitution,
24:33
Speaker 1: which concerns the judiciary, the Constitution says trial of all crimes,
24:39
Speaker 1: except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury. Now,
24:43
Speaker 1: what does that imply? Impeachment are crimes, And so the
24:47
Speaker 1: House Democrats have admitted that they aren't alleging a crime.
24:51
Speaker 1: So this is a unique historical situation inasmuch as we
24:55
Speaker 1: have the impeachment going on, but when the Congress impeach
24:58
Speaker 1: the president, they did not accuse him of a crime.
25:02
Speaker 1: So are you saying we're just in uncharted territory. We are.
25:05
Speaker 1: It has never happened in history that a president has
25:08
Speaker 1: been impeached without the article's alleging he's committed a crime.
25:12
Speaker 1: And actually, something ken Starr said that was really powerful.
25:14
Speaker 1: We have never before in history seen a president impeached
25:17
Speaker 1: on a pure partisan vote. Only Democrats voted for it.
25:21
Speaker 1: And ken Starr made a great point. You know, the
25:23
Speaker 1: Constitution requires for conviction to remove a President two thirds
25:27
Speaker 1: of the Senate. Impeachment was supposed to be a consensus,
25:31
Speaker 1: a national consensus that this crosses a high threshold. There
25:36
Speaker 1: ain't that consensus, and so fighting this is just a
25:40
Speaker 1: partisan battle. The way the Democrats are doing is wrong.
25:43
Speaker 1: You know. The conclusion I draw from all of this
25:47
Speaker 1: is one of anxiety because we are in uncharted territory here.
25:50
Speaker 1: I think it's going to make the question time on
25:53
Speaker 1: Thursday so important. So please, to all of our listeners,
25:55
Speaker 1: get your questions in, tweet them at Ted Cruz, use
25:59
Speaker 1: the hashtag verdict, and we will try to get those
26:01
Speaker 1: questions asked during the impeachment trial. Then you can come
26:04
Speaker 1: back here afterwards. You know this is an early night,
26:06
Speaker 1: it's not even midnight yet. You've made it over from
26:09
Speaker 1: the Capitol and we will go through all of it. Then,
26:12
Speaker 1: thank you. Two things I want to follow up on
26:14
Speaker 1: quickly because I have been given an assignment. Okay, so
26:17
Speaker 1: last week you'll recall I mentioned that I brought up
26:19
Speaker 1: with Caroline, my eleven year old daughter, when we had
26:21
Speaker 1: risen to the number three podcasts in the country. I
26:24
Speaker 1: called her and told her and she said, Dad, I
26:26
Speaker 1: really don't care. So I got home Saturday night. Sunday yesterday,
26:30
Speaker 1: I was home and I told Caroline, you know, we
26:33
Speaker 1: rose from number three all the way to number one,
26:35
Speaker 1: and look, I thought that was kind of you know,
26:37
Speaker 1: you know, trying to like, you know, get my daughter
26:39
Speaker 1: to think that's cool. And she said, I know, and
26:42
Speaker 1: you passed Joe Rogan. And she said, and Joe Rogan
26:47
Speaker 1: interviewed Robert Downey Junior, and that's the coolest thing in
26:49
Speaker 1: the world. Caroline is like obsessed with Iron Man and
26:53
Speaker 1: she's like, if he interviewed Robert Downey Junior. I don't
26:55
Speaker 1: know how you passed him, Dad, I don't know how
26:57
Speaker 1: that happened, but that's really cool. That's six to agrees
27:00
Speaker 1: of Kevin Bacon. And I gotta say, for any dat
27:03
Speaker 1: of an eleven year old, it is really hard to
27:06
Speaker 1: like impress an eleven year old with anything. So I
27:09
Speaker 1: thought it was very cool that passing Joe Rogan did
27:12
Speaker 1: it with Caroline Cruise and that that made me pretty happy.
27:14
Speaker 1: And there's a coincidence we passed Joe Rogan's show with
27:18
Speaker 1: this show Verdict with Ted Cruz just about a day
27:21
Speaker 1: or two after Joe endorsed Bernie Sanders is that a coincidence? Look,
27:24
Speaker 1: I think it's it's cause and effect. But let me said,
27:26
Speaker 1: everyone listening, if you haven't subscribed and signed up for
27:32
Speaker 1: this podcast going forward, please do because because this uh,
27:35
Speaker 1: we're having fun, we really appreciate it, and it looks
27:38
Speaker 1: like with everything and uncertainty, I'll probably being stuck in
27:40
Speaker 1: DC for quite a while now, so be sure to
27:42
Speaker 1: tune back. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
27:53
Speaker 1: This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruise is being brought
27:56
Speaker 1: to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, a political
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Speaker 1: for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.