Political Quotes

“I send a question to the desk on behalf of myself and on behalf of Senator Lee. The CHIEF JUSTICE. Thank you. The question from Senators Hawley and Lee is for counsel to the President: The U.S. Federal Courts have held, most prominently in the Blagojevich case, that it is not unlawful for a public official to condition his official acts on official acts performed by another public officer. Is there any application to the allegations against President Trump? Mr. Counsel PHILBIN. Mr. Chief Justice, Senators, thank you for that question. I think an important threshold point to make here is that we are not even in the realm of exchanging official acts, because there has been no proof of a quid pro quo here. We are not in the realm of a situation where there is one official act being traded for another. I think that we have gone through the evidence that makes it quite clear that both, with respect to a meeting with the President--a bilateral meeting--and with respect to the temporary pause of security assistance, the evidence just doesn't stack up to show that President Trump linked either of those. Both took place--the meeting and the release of the aid--without Ukrainians doing anything, announcing or beginning any investigations. There is nothing in the transcript linking them to a quid pro quo. The Ukrainians didn't even know that there had been a temporary pause on the aid, and I could go on with a list of points on that.…”