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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. After months of

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Speaker 1: resisting calls for President Trump's impeachment, Nancy Pelosi announced that

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Speaker 1: the House will launch a formal impeachment inquiry of President

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Speaker 1: Trump yesterday. Impeachment has the potential not only to force

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Speaker 1: Trump from office, but to reshape his presidency in the election.

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Speaker 1: Joining me as constitutional law experts Stephen Vladick, professor at

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Speaker 1: the University of Texas Law School, Steve Pelosi said she's

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Speaker 1: directing six committees that are already investigating Trump to proceed

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Speaker 1: with their investigations under the umbrella of a formal impeachment process.

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Speaker 1: How is that different from what the committees have already

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Speaker 1: been doing. I mean, Jude, I think that's the reality

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Speaker 1: is it's not that different at all. I think it's

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Speaker 1: just formalized. Is at least from a political sense that

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Speaker 1: the House is now looking at this with an eye

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Speaker 1: towards potentially considering specific articles of impeachment, you know, legally, June,

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Speaker 1: I don't think it makes a difference whether this is

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Speaker 1: part of a formal impeachment inquay or otherwise. Everything is

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Speaker 1: fair game until there's the actual impeachment articles voted up

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Speaker 1: or down by the full House. We have all heard,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to hear over and over again, the

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Speaker 1: term high crimes and misdemeanors. Some legal landlists have said

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Speaker 1: that the Mulla Report shows actual crimes were committed, but

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Speaker 1: explain what high crimes and misdemeanors are? Yes, And the

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Speaker 1: Constitution refers to impeachment in six different places. And it's

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Speaker 1: an article two sections four that actually defines what impeachment

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Speaker 1: is available for, and it says treason, bribery, or other

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Speaker 1: high crimes or misdemeanors. But you know, do you know

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Speaker 1: what's important I think for everyone to understand is UM

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Speaker 1: the question of what counts as a high crime or

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Speaker 1: MISDEMEANORUM is one of the Constitution commits to Congress. That

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Speaker 1: is to say, it's Congress's job as part of both

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Speaker 1: considering articles of impeachment in the House and then on

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Speaker 1: the Senate side voting whether to convict or e quit

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Speaker 1: to decide for itself whether the President's conduct rises to

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Speaker 1: the level of the high crime romstimetor it's a political definition, June,

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Speaker 1: not a legal one. Central to the impeachment inquiry will

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Speaker 1: be whether Trump pressured Ukraine to open a criminal inquiry

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Speaker 1: linked to Joe Biden's family in exchange for restoring US

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Speaker 1: military aid that Trump froze prior to the call. Now,

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Speaker 1: this morning, a rough transcript of the phone call was released,

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Speaker 1: showing Trump as the president of Ukraine to work with

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Speaker 1: his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the U S. Attorney General,

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Speaker 1: William Barr, to look into political rival Joe Biden and

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Speaker 1: his son. What is your take on that phone conversation? Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, June, I think it's worth stressing first that

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Speaker 1: it's just, you know, the White House's own prepared summary.

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Speaker 1: But even what the White House put out voluntarily, I

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Speaker 1: think it's fairly damning for the president. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: President is basically on record encouraging the lead or of

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Speaker 1: a foreign government to help him dig up on a

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Speaker 1: political opponent, and I think quite overtly implying that he

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Speaker 1: will withhold military aid if he does not. I'm not

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Speaker 1: even sure you need the quid pro quote for this

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Speaker 1: to be impeachable. But the notion that we should be

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Speaker 1: okay with any president investing and enlisting foreign powers in

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Speaker 1: digging up dirt on our political opponents. Man, that's a

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Speaker 1: terrible precedent to be said in You know, I feel

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Speaker 1: like this really does at least put the onus on

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Speaker 1: the House to take this further, to see what else

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Speaker 1: there is to find, to figure out what's at the

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Speaker 1: heart of this full whistleblower complaint, in which I think

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Speaker 1: this phone call was only part of the provocation. I

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Speaker 1: don't know that this mixed clearly that the House ought

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Speaker 1: to impeach the president, but I think it certainly suggests

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Speaker 1: that there's something worth pursuing here. President Trump has been

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Speaker 1: stonewalling congressional inquiries, refusing to produce documents or to allow

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Speaker 1: former aids to testify. Well, changing this into an impeachment inquiry,

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Speaker 1: change that in any way, as far as the courts

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Speaker 1: are concerned, June, that's the one place where this might

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Speaker 1: make the difference. You know, the President and the Justice

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Speaker 1: Department have been arguing in a bunch of these subpoena

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Speaker 1: related lawsuits that Congress doesn't have the power to issue

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Speaker 1: such subpoenas outside the context of an impeachment inquiry. I

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Speaker 1: think that those arguments are wrong. I think the courts

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Speaker 1: would have ultimately rejected them. But now the move toward

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Speaker 1: a formal impeachment inquiry in the House really does, I think,

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Speaker 1: remove the foundations from under even those arguments. Now the

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Speaker 1: courts can say whether or not there has to be

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Speaker 1: a formal impeachment inquiry in order for Congress to issue

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Speaker 1: this kind of subpoena. Now there is one, and so

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Speaker 1: that argument goes by the wayside. In the case of

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Speaker 1: President Nixon and President Clinton, the full House voted for

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Speaker 1: resolutions directing the House Judiciary Committee to open the inquiries.

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Speaker 1: Is Nancy Pelosi skipping that step or will it happen

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Speaker 1: when she sees there are enough votes for it. She

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Speaker 1: might be skipping that step too. It's important stress that

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Speaker 1: that step was not necessary. The Constitution is clear that

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Speaker 1: the House basically is free to set its own rules

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Speaker 1: about how to do everything leading up to actually voting

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Speaker 1: for impeachment. And so I think it's just a question

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Speaker 1: of whether, as a matter of political expediency, that kind

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Speaker 1: of vote by the full House is actually helpful or not.

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Speaker 1: There's nothing in the law, there's nothing in the Constitution.

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Speaker 1: There's nothing even in the Houses rules that condition the

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Speaker 1: House's power to investigate any federal official, including listed in president,

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Speaker 1: on some kind of anticipatory formal investigation opening vote by

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Speaker 1: the full body also not in any formal sense, but

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Speaker 1: usually the Judiciary Committee would recommend the articles of impeachment.

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Speaker 1: Is that likely to happen here? What do you see

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Speaker 1: the scenario being? We're still not sure on how it's

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Speaker 1: going to play out in the House. You know, Speaker

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Speaker 1: Pelosi suggested quite correctly that there are six different committees

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Speaker 1: that have been investigating things that might be related to

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Speaker 1: a potential impeachment of the president. One possibility is to

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Speaker 1: just refer the full investigation to the Judiciary Committee, have

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Speaker 1: the Diciary Committee go first. Another possibility that's been floated

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Speaker 1: is to have the Speaker set up what's called a

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Speaker 1: select committee that would actually draw on members from across

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Speaker 1: the six committees with jurisdiction. You know, I think that's

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Speaker 1: really June at this point, mostly a formality. I think

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Speaker 1: the real question is are the politics going to shift

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Speaker 1: at all in light of today's disclosure, In light of

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Speaker 1: what we still you know, I think are going to

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Speaker 1: learn about the whistleblower complaint that set off this latest affair,

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Speaker 1: and frankly, June, about the other matters for which the

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Speaker 1: House was already investigative President Trump, where there might now

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Speaker 1: be you know, more expedited resolution and potentially more dirt

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Speaker 1: that adds thumbs to the scale in favor of impeachment.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Steve for giving us the legal parameters here.

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Speaker 1: That's Steve Vladdock. He's professor at the University of Texas

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Speaker 1: Law School. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast.

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Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Rosso.

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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg m HM.