Conversation 437-011

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Well, we've got to put it out.

That's right.

I don't know.

I don't think I'm reconstructing it.

It would be really interesting to see how it is.

and I told you and the owner and I told you and the meeting to meet the panelist for the purpose of setting up a thing where Dean would then follow up and ask to put the buggers on the CIO's payroll.

See, neither John nor I has any recollection of being followed up, but you follow up to our, you report to him, you report to John, but you never discuss it with him.

He wasn't in the meeting with us.

So we have to give everything, we have to do this, and of course my problem Pat and Freddie and I, Pat said, you've got to do something with the water.

I said, is he agreeing?

And he said, yes we are.

And no matter how high it goes,

And I said, that's in there.

But he has a question on it.

He said, of course.

I wasn't trying to bother.

At that point, tell me the honest to God truth.

Are we trying to get Walters and Brady to get together?

I need to know it.

Tell me.

My belief, Jesus Christ, of that episode, and there was that one meeting.

And that's all.

I did not know that there would be meetings.

John says he didn't know that there would be meetings subsequently.

And I don't ever recall even intending to ask.

And as far as that meeting was concerned, I heard it was.

It was ridiculous.

The idea of which I said, there's five people getting in here, and we don't want this to go further.

Let's find out what the hell the score is.

Well, there's gold and silver in place.

There's CIA people involved.

There's Mexican money involved.

We were not concerned about the investigation I wanted to, not at all.

We were concerned about the investigation expanding beyond for reasons that now we have no problem saying because all that stuff is out.

That's exactly the reason.

And it is exactly the reason.

It's because we didn't want the plumber's operation.

Now, we don't think obviously.

In other words, you don't think I should be impeached for that?

For that?

Exactly.

I mean, you're doing what you had to do.

You get to the point, you know, where you're, you know, if I get out, I guess I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

I'm not going to go there.

The way you would, I think we've got to put it out.

I ought to put everything, and this was Erland's view the other day, and this was the point he was making to them, and I think you've had a mis- from what Al tells me, you've had a mis-behavioral position on this, which I'd like you to correct.

And, uh, because I know exactly what his position is.

He has a feeling.

John feels very strong, and he struck the bazaar and position and made the point that on this CIA event, you're making a mistake at the White House to let this be drawn out by the committee.

The White House should have gotten, should still get out ahead of it.

The men come out this afternoon.

And say what happened, and say why it happened.

That's right.

I agree.

to get off the trial or the Senate, or if McClellan calls me up to his committee, which he's saying he's going to do, then I've got to say it.

And then it sounds like an early winner argument defense rather than an offense of why the thing was really done.

Which I ordered you to do.

I directed that you get the gun, didn't I?

Yes, sir.

You did.

You remember, right?

I said get Walters and Helms.

Remember it.

I can't remember why we ended up, why it was to have Walters go over.

That's, you know, some question they raised, why bypass Helms.

Helms is busy with other things.

But I think it's probably that, just that Walters is the, that's the, uh, who, who you're cool with.

That's an amendment problem.

Yeah, he says we sent Walters over.

He says I didn't.

Maybe he only said the Mexican money.

We eliminated the et cetera.

The et cetera were several things, as I recall.

We went into, first of all, which he forgets to report even in his bedtime, the question of whether the CIA was involved at all.

I raised that point where John did.

And that was one of the questions we were supposed to determine with that.

If it was the CIA involved in the Watergate or if any of their people were involved.

And Tom said no.

And the next point was that the investigation of the Watergate, they've now got these five suspects arrested who are related to CIA.

And they're talking about Hunt.

They haven't arrested Hunt yet, but they were talking about Hunt at that point, who we knew was involved in the blunders then.

And we were concerned about the investigation going beyond Watergate.

I think we could have been to that.

Absolutely.

It's true.

We were.

And as a matter of fact, we were concerned and emphasized, and I think he probably emphasized to the Justice Department, to Silbert and everybody else, that this should be limited to the Watergate.

And Cliney's probably did too.

I did too.

And that, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Because we knew that these, by some horrendous coincidence, these same characters had been involved in another activity.

And we also knew that they'd been involved in another activity much earlier in the Bay of Pigs.

And there was concern, as I recounted, which she doesn't mention at all here, about the day of dates.

And I specifically got into that point, or John did, at that meeting.

But I sure as hell remember it.

Because I remember being interested in Nelson.

I jumped on that fast and too fast, too hastily.

I said, oh, we have no problem with the Bay of Pagans in any vein.

And that surprised me because I had gotten the impression from you that the CIA did have some concern about the Bay of Pagans.

And his impression was, oh, we're not concerned about their charging bags.

We have nothing to hide on the Bay of Pagans.

Now, Ervin tells me just the last few days that that isn't true.

The CIA was very concerned.

Apparently, he was doing on the Bay of Pigs stuff at some point.

There is a key memo missing from the CIA where somebody has caused it to disappear that impeded the effort to find out what really did happen in the Bay of Pigs.

In any event, we raised the Bay of Pigs.

We raised the concern about the investigation going to be part of the question of whether the CIA was involved.

The question of the Bay of Pigs.

And I guess, I don't remember it, but I have to question that he says at the point that we had heard there was some question of Mexican money involved in this and raise the question, is the Mexican money CIA?

Yeah.

Does that get into covert sources?

No, we don't know what the Mexican money is.

I have no idea.

And I don't think we did.

Because it hadn't come out in the paper yet about the Mexican money coming out a couple days later.

that the FBI had indicated, I think through Dean, that they were concerned about the CIA.

And even later than that, they kept coming back that they thought there was CIA involvement, or at least Dean said so.

And this now goes back to, I think, you have a second case here.

And this is somehow what has got to be gotten out of Dean picking up a different line of inquiry than this.

Because if you look at the MECOCs, even, the line of inquiry that...

It doesn't hurt us.

Your recollection of the meeting.

You know, it's interesting.

I've noticed this before, but it's interesting.

The voters didn't run these Mepcons until June 28th.

which was, he then went back after he had three meetings with the dean, I don't know, and then saw all that kind of content, and then went back and re-enrolled with them.

The only connection between the dean meetings is this thing of the dean saying, can you check with Erickson on the phone?

Well, the dean told Rudy,

Dean called Walters.

June 26, three days later, said he wanted to see him about the matter that Eroedman and Haldeman had discussed with him on the 23rd.

I can check this out with Ben if I wish.

I called Eroedman to find out if this was all right.

After some difficulty, I reached him and he said I could talk to Eroedman.

That's possible too, although Eroedman says it didn't happen.

But even then, we thought he was working on it.

Well, that's an honest basis.

Let's talk about this one.

Well, I'm not so sure, right?

Certainly, this must be Plummer's thing.

That's all we should put out today.

I cannot allow it to go out.

And that's a committee.

All that's going on.

without having our side of the internet.

You gotta get back into the building.

I think there's this whole, this whole piece of city.

It's supposed to build up.

On the water thing, it's all part of a grand game.

I'm about to get back to the deep mill.

And into the whole Tom Houston project and all that stuff.

We've got a good record on that.

That's for sure.

You don't want to get that out, do you?

No.

Try it.

It's the editor of the Dean paper.

Get it all on that.

Get it all.

I put the whole goddamn thing up.

Put the whole thing there, sit there.

But it's not watered in.

That's, I mean all of that has got to be put out as, as, as a practice.

And, and actually that gets to your wiretaps.

Which is already out anyway.

Because your wiretaps, the pumper's operation.

The unanimous recommendation of each one of these agencies is that this has to be developed.

And then turn it off.

Right.

Well, that, that's the other thing I don't want.

I knew that it never started.

Well, it was turned off.

Solid evidence.

I just thought that it was turned off.

I just thought that it was

policy paper was withdrawn.

They make the case that if you turn it off, you make a list of things in order to accomplish the same thing you were trying to accomplish.

What did you do?

Bumpers out of bridge.

Another break-in involved in the bumpers out of bridge.

I think once we're planned,

What was the point?

And I started to believe everything.

First, he was trying to do it.

He was trying to do it.

him out of courier and so forth and so on and so he didn't want that.

He was going to have to admit it.

But that means, of course, that I came up with the thing today.

Of course, that I came up with the thing today.

And also, it's our experience.

It's our experience.

Okay.

No, I think you have a case here of people moving out, and I think Mitchell was the one that really dealt with it.

And I think he indicates that in some of his letters.

Now, this gets to the next point.

You put this stuff out, then you get to the next question, which is how, whether we can preserve my notes.

Well, I talked about your notes.

John?

I don't know.

He's had some problems, too.

Well, yeah, John had talked to me about these problems and so forth and so forth.

But let me say this.

The notes that you make, the view that any presidential assistant makes in a conversation with the president are made not for the benefit of the individual, but for the poor depression.

That's the thing.

They are there for the president's notes, and I think we have to maintain absolute security on those notes.

You will testify on them.

I think you can testify on them, but...

I talked to Al about this, but I, in your notes, look, we can see what a note that was made at your meeting is susceptible to, that March 21st is susceptible to a number of interpretations unless you know the context of it and how it came out.

And there's no way you can possibly get that out in any arena that we can get in, even in a secret grand jury.

Yeah.

And...

You don't remember what it was in other words.

Al says, I was supposed to say, sure the pelicans are, but not you or something.

Well, maybe it was just maybe Al.

Al said he doesn't know.

But maybe he remembered what it was in the context of.

I don't know.

I can't remember.

I don't know.

The only thing I can think of is the March 1st conversation with this guy.

He related that to Al, his best friend, you know.

He knows about that.

Goddamn it, that's it.

But that's, again, something where Dean was reporting the whole goddamn crazy scheme.

Which had one follow-up, unfortunately.

When the whole thing was .

That's right.

I didn't say that.

I think that's the first time I ever heard about black .

I think it was, too, from the way you were listening to that tape and the way you asked the questions you asked and all that.

I sure had that impression.

You were probing all kinds of questions, really.

But I .

I don't believe that.

That was just done.

That was a routine thing because Compock had an agreement with us that he didn't have to raise money.

That he was to work on other projects because he was tired of fundraising.

And he wouldn't undertake a fundraising thing unless he had an okay from here.

raised funds by the committee for the defendants.

Because there was an effort.

We were fully aware of that.

I was not aware of it.

No, I don't believe you were.

Oh, I was not aware of it.

That's right.

I had no discussion with you about it because it wasn't anything of any concern.

You didn't think I was aware of it?

I don't think so.

I hope you find out because he testified that I don't want to have Victor or myself alive and say that I was not aware of it.

I was not aware of that.

No, I don't think John has anything to do with it.

Combot never spoke to me about it.

I never spoke to him.

Mitchell never spoke to me about it.

And that's why I haven't been seeing him.

And you were aware, as everybody was, in a general sense, that there were the Cuban Defense Fund and that sort of thing.

You were aware of that.

I sure was.

And a perfectly logical thing, that funds were being raised to defend these people who had been caught doing something over there.

Got it.

there was some sense of obligation by the committee to take care of their legal fees, and so on.

That in itself, there's nothing wrong with.

Where it's wrong is if you tie that, if they can conclusively tie that to an effort to get them not to testify, or to falsely testify, then there was an effort to obstruct justice.

And the problem is that it now appears after the fact that that was engaged.

Then, however, according to our attorneys, one must go back and establish the intent of the individual participating in such an conspiracy.

In other words, the fact of his having, of my having moved the 350 over there, or having approved Comvoc raising money for over there, is not an insult.

involvement in the conspiracy unless we intended that that be used for the purpose of causing them not to testify.

And Bob, that was counter purpose.

How so?

It wasn't John's purpose in Washington.

There was an interest in keeping him from getting off the reservation as Dean put it, in terms of talking about their other activities.

And there was a concern about

You don't have to be laid out anywhere.

The problem is, you see, if I let the barrier down,

Now, one area that I think I can let the barrier down on executive privilege without defeating my lawyer's question, I don't see why we can't work it out, is to let me testify and even produce my notice.

I can sure testify from it.

Testify as to third-party conversations.

In other words, conversations I had with Dean or Colson.

Let me say that on those, I think I would read it.

I'd even put out comments.

But the rough ones are all in the investigation period, and we can establish that that's what they are.

That they're in this period where you were in the middle of trying to find out what the hell really had gone on.

They were all in the February, March, April period.

My notes, I went through, you know, I keep all those yellow notes, and I got them when I was in media.

Elliot Richardson calls and has something that I have to discuss with you.

I make a note of that and then I talk about it with you and I note what happens on it and I keep that with that file of notes also.

My file of notes for a year is about that thing.

And so take the period from since Watergate to now.

The notes are about that thing.

Now, I went through there and I pulled out all of those that had any mention of Watergate, directly or indirectly, and that stack is about that thick.

Then you go through, and out of that stack, that thick, the amount that is pre-March of Watergate is about that thick.

Virtually all of this is March and April.

Well, the March thing are we talking about then?

point that there was a problem of a question of a conspiracy.

But that's the first time we hear about that problem from our lawyer.

And now we know that we don't know.

And now I suspect that he was

I mean, about the demand for money, you know, so forth.

Right?

I think so.

That demand had just come in, and that was the only other thing.

I didn't know what it was.

I needed one of the patents.

That's right.

But what do you know, the hell he was being held for?

Nobody told me, and I didn't discuss it with Pat.

So there again, it was the same effort to raise money that I was aware of, that I had no knowledge was a problem.

I didn't know what the hell he was raising for.

The area I don't know about is what problems we run into with Chuck.

I know exactly what problems he has with me.

And I know, I feel they can all be dealt with, with my notes and everything else, and that is definitely hard to deal with.

But, see, when I read those notes... Let me say, on notes, though, I think we've got to stand firm on any notes that were made of conversations with the President.

I don't mind John saying that, for example, the president told you to go in and talk to these people.

That doesn't bother me either.

I mean, even though I know you're going to give on that either.

But John's got to protect himself on that.

You know what I mean?

The only thing that I can say is that I think that certainly he is, certainly John, and certainly John, I don't want to be straight, but absolutely bizarre to face John in the water.

It's kind of a suspicious kind of John who plays a tough game.

I didn't know a thing about this fucking thing until he started his investigation.

That's right.

The pressure John has put on Bazaar is to get this thing out on the basis that he knows he's going to have to get it out.

He thinks it's better for it to have come out from here first.

Not for him, but for the White House, for the president.

And I think it is.

Why not get this out and a statement by John

And by you, at the same time.

So today, you might have it down there.

Sign it, and the rest will turn to you, son of a bitch.

I agree with that.

I think it would be better to get it out ahead.

But the point is whether or not you would talk to me about it.

You're right, Mike.

Sure.

You were sworn in today.

Yeah.

You were sworn in today to all our students.

Even though none happened thereafter, you guys had the farthest thing from their mind.

There was no knowledge, whatever.

Nobody had any knowledge of Dean talking to Waller's with regard to putting them on the payroll.

How was that ever discussed with anybody?

I sure don't remember anything about that.

I have a problem swearing or anything like that.

I have a very tough problem swearing in English because I don't know

What kinds of things could have been mentioned?

He was going through all kinds of bizarre schemes.

At one point he had me convinced that there was a CIA project.

He had me convinced that there wasn't.

In fact, as I sat and listened to the testimony this morning, I became convinced again that there was a real possibility that the one he was assigned

the two cops that investigated and disagreed on your testimony on whether the door had to be taped open to be locked from inside and there's something strange about the fact that for the seven minutes from the time that the lookout across the street saw the

Dean, for example, never had any conversation about clemency.

He never had any.

Well, no, his testimony is that he talked to an early woman, and that's where Dean gets his tail countered.

An early woman apparently did have a conversation with you on clemency at an early point.

Walking the beach?

Yeah.

Saying that this may come up later?

Yeah.

That was all?

I don't know what it was, but that's the only thing that you remember, sir.

You know, the thing that I see here is that later on, these fellas are gonna wanna punish him.

But we didn't, we didn't talk about getting him or providing for him.

You know, John has some stuff about, and he recalls the conversation he had with you about there must be no cover and all that.

You went into a big historical thing about Truman.

He said that was the hot Truman that got into trouble was on a cover.

When was that?

In June.

The same day you had to walk on the beach, but at an earlier meeting in your office, I think.

He may not bring it up.

I think he just wrote it down.

He didn't go into his notes about that with me.

He just said it wasn't a demo.

It was a later conversation one day.

He brought it up.

But the earlier conversation went very much the other way and had involved in it a system that showed

The charge would be to me to get out a watergate sword even then.

July 7th or something like that.

I think so too.

I wanted Walters to do it because I knew that he was trusted.

He could find out what the hell the factory were, you know what I mean?

I didn't want any goddamn cover up in the CIA.

There was a question, as I recall, the bank money question had just come up.

It had not come up until this point yet.

But did we know at that time it was our money?

Yeah.

The bank came out.

It was tied in on the 20th.

It's not in cash.

It's part of the FBI.

But the deep papers were, the famous safe papers, you know what they were?

The whole, well, just, but the goddamn ink was there at all.

That we know.

That's fine.

I knew it had never, or I understood when Hayden called me about that.

He didn't have anything on it yet.

He just said, it's got your name on it.

He said, you recall that never, nothing happened.

He said, well, I don't know if there was ever any action being taken and Houston left.

Houston's got a call.

He called me a day or two ago.

Cardalo, or Cardalo or something like that.

He said, he remembered.

Oh, so, in other words, they would have a date.

Remembered.

It was a goddamn, you know, one of these plans of people.

I don't think I ever looked for a fucking plan.

I didn't either.

I had, I think I probably had something in there about the surrogate's entry to be birthed through, of course.

We proved it.

It was put up there as a plan approved by all the

Well, that's the project.

You call them all into your office, all those heads, and you said, I want you to all work together on this.

I'm tired of all this crap with everybody competing and all the problems we have.

And here you get this worked out.

Houston is to be the focal point.

You're to develop a plan that you all agree on, and then we're to get moving on.

They developed a plan.

Hoover was the chairman of the group.

And he disagreed with the plan when it was presented.

It was a unanimous plan, except for Hoover.

Hoover submitted the report, but entered his...

Objections.

And as a result of the plan, it never got implemented.

It was disapproved.

Well, apparently it was approved at some point.

At least there's an M.O.

from me saying the plan was approved.

Yeah, M.O.

from you was saying it was approved.

But then two days later, it was called out.

I see.

Two days later.

So we're solid on that.

Let me say we're solid on that.

I want to get that out.

I couldn't imagine that we had a problem with that.

We always have a problem with it.

Because they've become public now or authorized.

I've been authorized.

By the president.

The matter up because it was no longer.

My lawyers like the idea of a public disclosure.

They don't like.

They don't want you to do that.

And they're going to do that.

But we're in this fight.

I'll be quick.

Get a water cut.

Got everything.

Let's get a high five.

got to do is put all this out.

And I think it's got to be, it should not be the president going on television.

It's not a television type story.

It should be a very careful document issued by the White House that puts these matters into perspective and so on.

And I think Bazzard's idea of then demanding an impeachment

What he's after is just the impeachment vote.

The House, and he's probably right.

The House would never vote him impeached, so there'd never be a trial.

and the House, you're still a hell of a lot better off.

You can't stop an impeachment vote if any member asks for it.

You're the only one.

As I understand it, it only takes one vote.

If a member moves to impeach and the motion is seconded, then all business of the House stops immediately.

And this becomes the privilege of business.

And the House must move to

debate and vote on the matter of impeachment.

Well, that's probably what we're after.

And proven is no other business can come before it.

I think you gotta face the possibility that you may, because you've got a bella abso here, somebody who, with the moment of her cohorts, is capable of the motion and the section and whatever it is that's required.

You're going to have to work our lawyers over.

I can see some appeal to the strategy that Bizarre argues of having an impeachment vote and having it not carry.

The people in this country are thinking, for God's sake, get this goddamn mess cleared up so we can have soap operas in Florida.

They ruined our whole television thing.

So you get the whole thing out, and you say, there are the pipes.

This must be certain.

I'll tell you, round over, you probably didn't see any other than Jesus Christ, this guy,

deserves to be Secretary of State when this thing goes around.

I understand that very well.

He did a superb job, and he came on with an opening statement that was a real tearjerker, and it came from this, you know, bespectacled, clerk-looking type, young, baby-faced young guy who just said it as strongly as he could what great people he had worked with in this campaign, and they were dedicated to the service of the greatest president this country's had.

and made his whole vision to be one heavenly God.

He did a hell of a job of answering the questions and of showing the conviction of what needed to be done and why not be ground down by anybody.

And that's the attitude that we need to establish, I think, out of here.

And all of us have got to back up, which is that the things that we're being done, we've got to separate them.

They're going to separate the problems of the leaks and the internal security problems and all that sort of thing from the Watergate and the campaign.

And you've got to justify and proudly say it.

And say we would have been, given the circumstances, we would have derelict in our duty if we hadn't.

In fact, we probably would have derelict in not going further than we went.

If we're subject to any criticism, it was in not pursuing the thing.

More vigorously.

And letting some things get away.

Like the Pentagon Papers.

And oh, the whole business about the coffee was promised and so on.

Well, also, in complete fairness, every time he raised the president in any way, Sam Urban immediately leaped in

He said this evidence is second.

As you're saying, it is not acceptable as legal evidence as to any involvement of the President of the United States.

It is only acceptable as to Mr. McCord's deals with Mr. Coffey.

And because we're not bound by rules of evidence, we will accept it in that sense.

But we will not.

It is not accepted as evidence in any way involving the President.

And he does the same thing when they get to Mitchell and the Booger and some of their things.

But he does it much stronger than the president.

And others did.

Bernie just smashed it.

Bernie said, look, you're raising all kinds of things here.

You're not identifying.

You're accusing people indirectly and all this sort of stuff.

You know, banging around and everything.

What's going to happen?

That would be very interesting to see what comes of it.

in office and ignore it, or whether you're going to resign, or whether you're going to be impeached and fight it, or whether you're going to be impeached and not fight it, or whether you're going to be impeached and resign before tried, or whatever.

Doesn't make any difference what of any of those courses.

You've got to get this out.

Because you can't either stay in or go down with this thing screwed up in the public mind.

So it's got to go out.

It's got to go out completely and clearly.

And I agree that it would probably be a good idea for John and me to back it up with that.

Maybe not right with it.

Maybe we ought to do it.

Maybe the White House statement ought to be on and ours ought to follow it or something.

So it doesn't look like that.

I don't know.

in some accusatory way, but he just said, you know, that's, in asking questions, they quote the Washington Post reports and such and such and so and so.

And he kinda, he said sort of sadly, he said, gee, I just, it's so hard to deal with that sort of thing.

They made that report.

They said I was in on Sunday tearing through all the files and shredding up all the papers.

They said, he said, I wasn't even in the District of Columbia on Sunday.

I wasn't in the office at all on Sunday.

And I did not, from the time of the water meeting, shred one paper of any size or shape at any time.

Then he said that you kept going into McCord's office and ordering everybody out of the area.

He said, I went into McCord's office once with an FBI agent who wanted to look at McCord's files.

And I took him in to see McCord's files.

And there were officers, security guards, sitting around the office smoking and having coffee.

And I asked them to leave the office at the request of the FBI agent so that he could converse with me about the files.

And then they said, some men, he said, now there was another time.

They picked up a big book and Martinez, one of the spy, one of the break-in guys, had a book.

And they discovered initials in it, three initials, R-O-J-M. And, I don't know, somebody else.

And he said, so the Washington Post was my initial, Robert Odle, and J.M.

was Jeff Maguder, and someone else was someone else in the committee.

So it was assumed that we were involved with this man.

Well, two days later, it was confirmed by the FBI that those three initials were the initials of the three FBI agents who had confiscated the book and who had identified it as evidence and put their initials on the evidence to so identify it.

But the folks never proved it, that retraction of their earlier story.

You know, he has these little examples like this that he weaves in and does it kind of sadly as he goes along, which is effective as hell for the people that are watching.

You never find out about it after.

No question.

Implication.

Absolutely.

No way that it could be otherwise.

Don't tell me this unless you believe it.

God damn it.

I've got to have a good advice now.

I don't know.

Right.

No.

I'm retiring you in the basement.

You can't do your job because of all this information.

I'm going to retire you.

You've got to retire me before I clear your name.

Shit.

I can't do it, Bob.

That's the same idiotic reasoning that Ray Price made on that I should resign to clear my name.

My resigning didn't clear my name.

My resigning proved to everybody in the world, except the few people who believe in me, that I'm guilty.

And your resigning will prove it.

It will prove that you're guilty and that I'm guilty and that everybody else in here is guilty.

And so therefore, you're guilty.

Why?

Because you aren't guilty.

Why?

But you don't make your name by resigning either.

You're damn right I'm not.

But see, my resigning doesn't shake the world.

Your resigning does.

My resigning was necessary for...

My view would be if you're impeached, that you should stand trial and fight like hell.

And if you win, you would not get to win your impeachment trial.

Yes, sir.

You have to.

Absolutely.

Because you're not impeachable.

You haven't done anything that's grounds for impeachment.

I don't think the House will impeach you.

But even if they do,

I can't concede that you wouldn't win the trial, but my view would be that if you're impeached, you must stand trial.

Oh, sure.

And you must clear yourself.

Once having done so, I would suggest that you might look at it at that point in time and feel that it would be wise to resign.

Right.

Because I don't see any possibility for you resigning except after you've been impeached and tried.

Or you might decide to repeat, you might decide not to serve.

It looks like you're afraid of the trial.

But on the argument that the world can't take a trial of the president in this case, then that might be the right thing to do at that point in time.

That's the thing a lot of your friends are arguing.

And if you are, then if that's what you would do, then you should.

That's the scary outside theory.

You wouldn't take the presidency in 61.

This is the contested votes that you would take to hold the presidency now.

But it's not yet.

Not yet.

You could see it coming.

He was spelling out a scenario that would down the line get to a point where an impeachment would take place.

And his point was it would be a disaster to have an impeachment trial that you would by only one vote roll in the Mike Johnson case.

You don't mind, why don't you stand by?

Keep it.

to give his argument.

What he's doing is raising questions and tactics as to what is the most effective way to fight.

And it's somewhat .

Do you want me to stand by?

Yeah?

OK.