"Apples to Clouds"

The Investigation

ABC News

News, Politics

3.6 • 739 Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2020

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over 20 years ago, he was part of an investigation into a sitting president and senior counsel to Ken Starr. Now, Paul Rosenzweig joins "The Investigation" co-hosts Chris Vlasto and Katherine Faulders, and calling the impeachment trial of President Trump a "watershed moment in American history" and summarizing the Senate leadership’s strategy as "very simple—to move as fast as they can...avoid as much evidence as possible." But Rosenzweig, who currently serves as resident senior fellow of the National Security and Cyber Security Program at the R Street Institute, cautions against comparing this era to the time of Clinton: "The comparison...is kind of apples to clouds...[in] which every assertion of executive privilege was eventually overcome." Later, ABC News chief White House correspondent and co-host of the "Powerhouse Politics" podcast Jonathan Karl shares his latest reporting on the White House response and his own prediction that the Senate trial will last "two weeks or less," largely due to "impeachment fatigue in the country."

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Recommended listening...

-- Start Here: The daily 20-minute news podcast from ABC News. http://bit.ly/2SA62eg

-- Powerhouse Politics: Headliner interviews and in-depth looks at the people and events shaping U.S. politics. http://bit.ly/2SsGwr7

-- FiveThirtyEight Politics: Nate Silver and the FiveThirtyEight team cover the latest in politics, tracking the issues and "game-changers" every week. https://53eig.ht/2RF3eb1

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to The Investigation. I'm Chris Blasto, senior executive producer here at ABC News. I'm also joined by my co-host, ABC News reporter Catherine Fulters, who covers the White House and Capitol Hill. It's gearing up to be a busy and historic week here in Washington as the
0:21.5	Senate impeachment trial of President Trump commences. The president's defense team deepening their
0:26.8	bench last week announcing that former independent counsel Ken Starr and his deputy Robert Ray,
0:31.9	along with constitutional law professor Alan Dershowitz, who actually did the talk show circuit last week, making his
0:39.2	case why he thinks this impeachment should not continue and should be dismissed. But joining us
0:45.3	now, Paul Rosenzweig. He served as a senior counsel to Ken Starr during the Whitewater investigation.
0:51.2	Welcome, Paul. Thanks for having me. Second impeachment in the last 21 years.
0:56.9	What are your thoughts about this impeachment in a very general way?
1:01.4	Well, I think it is likely to be viewed as a watershed moment in American history.
1:11.3	I don't say that lightly, but how we approach this impeachment, what its ultimate result is,
1:19.6	and whether or not this impeachment becomes a pure political football
1:27.1	or can be resolved in some way that is more solemn
1:30.7	and reflective of the seriousness of the allegations being made is something that's going to
1:37.8	resonate in American history for the next 30 to 50 years.
1:42.9	Do you see, we actually had a conversation last week with some of our colleagues,
1:47.9	where we mentioned that Nancy Pelosi and the Republicans are kind of treating this maybe perhaps
1:55.3	like a highway bill and not say the solemnness of an impeachment of a president.
2:01.0	Would you agree?
2:02.2	I'd certainly agree with respect to the House Republicans who have not covered themselves
2:08.7	with glory.
2:10.2	I think that the lack of even the patina of bipartisanship, even as to the process involved, has radically colored the way in which the American public perceives this impeachment.
2:29.5	Perhaps it's asking too much in this time of Trump to seek a more nuanced and balanced view of what's
	...

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