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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host David Axelrod.

Dan Goldman became a familiar figure to Americans a year ago when he was the Senior Advisor and Director of Investigations for the House Intelligence Committee.

Did most of the questioning of witnesses in the probe leading up to the first impeachment of Donald Trump?

He also is a veteran prosecutor who worked in the Southern District of New York and a well-known legal commentator, and I thought it would be great to sit down with him now to talk about what's going on, and also to talk about his very interesting and unique journey.

Here's that conversation.

Dan Goldman, it's really great to see you particularly at this moment. You've got a rich story and I want to explore that, but first I want to tap your expertise, so welcome. Good to see you.

Thanks so much for having me, David. It's great to be here.

We were joking before we started rolling about it's sort of a not funny joke about the fact that impeachment has now become an annual event you were involved in the last one.

I'm wondering as you observe this one, what your sense is of how it's a much different kind of trial than the one that you were involved in, because you're sitting in a room full of witnesses.

There are a number of reasons it's different, but that is certainly a critical one.

And not just the witnesses in the Senate, but so many Americans witnessed these events, who are watching them again, unlike the Ukraine matter where it was more of a typical investigation where you don't have live footage of everything that transpired.

This one you do and the senators, I think, certainly felt like they were brought back to that day, but what was interesting and I think so powerful about the presentation of the narrative of what occurred on January 6th is so many of the senators had no idea so about so much of what was shown.

Everyone had their own individual experience, but no one understood what was happening across the Capitol or outside or downstairs or upstairs they just lived it themselves.

And I thought what was really powerful is and the House managers did an excellent job.

And some of my former colleagues putting this together is that it really painted the fullest picture we've seen yet about what exactly happened on that day and how close so many of these senators and other officials were to being in the line of fire.

I'm not a lawyer, I defied my mother and I never did become a lawyer, but I don't think it took a lawyer to see that was a very tight case yesterday, not just the vivid depiction of events as you said, but the build up to it.

The case of what Trump did for months and months and months leading up to it, the case about what he did to actually bring people to Washington on that day and to, before he ever spoke, creating a sense of premeditation for what happened.

And then the case about what he didn't do once the insurrection was going on and his failure to act, which should be infuriating to senators, but also really goes to the essence of whether he lived up to his oath.

And you could absolutely have charged an entire separate impeachable offense based on his dereliction of duty after the fact that day, but it goes right to the heart of what his state of mind was and why we do know that this was what he expected and what he wanted.

But what I really thought was effective is, you know, when you sit and watch, whether it was that 13 minute video on day one, or the presentations of Stacy Plaskett and Eric Swalwell yesterday going through the actual riot Donald Trump, of course, is not a part of that aspect of the story.

What occurred at the Capitol did not include Donald Trump. He was notwithstanding the fact that he told them he was going to go there. He wasn't there.

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