Welcome back to the Lincoln Project. I'm your host, Reed Gailan. As we record, it's the

afternoon of February 8th, and we're just one day away from the beginning of Donald

Trump's second impeachment trial. On today's episode, we're joined by CNN legal analyst

and former New Jersey state prosecutor and prosecutor in the Southern District of New

York, Ellie Honek. Ellie, thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Reed. And

we're also joined by the co-founder of the nonprofit law firm, Whistleblower 8, Mark

Zade. Thanks for coming, Mark. Oh, it's my pleasure. You know, at the Lincoln Project,

we started saying last year, and our listeners have heard this, that we didn't believe that

the campaign would be over until Joe Biden took the oath of office on January 20th. And

sometimes you just hate to be right. We knew that he would not go quietly into that good

night. He certainly didn't, but all that culminated on January 6th when folks incited by him,

I believe, stormed the Capitol and ultimately sacked the building all because they were

trying to prevent Mike Pence and the United States Congress from taking their constitutional

action to open the electoral votes, count them and then ultimately make Joe Biden the president.

So Mark, I want to start with you because you have experience in the impeachment of Donald

Trump from last year around Ukraine. So are there any similarities between what you saw

last year or is it just a general Donald Trump with an abuser of his office? And this was

likely to be one outcome. You know, I'm sure we could come up with lots of parallels

to some extent. And I think what has made this so either difficult or confusing or complicated

in the sort of general media sense in the public is this discussion and understanding of the interplay

between what the law allows, what the Constitution allows and what politics allows or dictates.

You know, even when we talk about the constitutionality, et cetera, in both cases, at the end of

...