Republicans spent more time attacking Democrats — and didn't defend the president: Obama lawyer

On Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's "All In," former Obama solicitor general Neal Katyal observed that Republicans devoted almost all their time in the impeachment hearing on Wednesday to attacking the Democrats who opened the investigation — and virtually none of it trying to defend President Donald Trump's actual conduct in Ukraine.

"As a defense attorney watching all of this today, I was kind of embarrassed for defense attorneys, because I didn't see an actual, substantive, defense of Trump's conduct," said Katyal, who authored the new book Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump. "I think it really came to the fore when Professor Turley was asked the question, has a president ever gagged all these witnesses and stonewalled Congress from any documents, e-mails, et cetera, and he couldn't answer the question. But we know the question. No president has done that before."

"If the Republicans allow this behavior to go unchecked, a President Warren or President Sanders can just say, you know, I'm not going to bother cooperating with impeachment," added Katyal. "Impeachment — and the book goes into this — is the central thing our founders put in the Constitution to protect you and me from a president who puts his interests above those of the American people. You can't just read it out of the Constitution because you don't like it."

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