The Impeachment of Donald Trump.

[The Romulan Republic]

Momentum has been building for impeachment lately, and in light of recent developments, including the initiation of an impeachment inquiry in all but name, now seems like a good time to create a thread specifically for the discussion of Trump's likely impeachment.

In recent developments, a majority of House Democrats now openly support an impeachment inquiry. The House is already effectively pursuing an impeachment inquiry without officially doing so, and is using that as the basis for subpoenaing information, as discussed in this thread:

https://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic ... 2&t=168440

Now, however, we have our first hint of something approaching a clear time table, with Judiciary Chair Nadler saying that his panel could move to impeach Donald Trump by the end of the year:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/05/politics ... index.html

(CNN)House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said Monday that his panel could move to impeach President Donald Trump by the end of the year, laying out an ambitious fall schedule that could lead to a history-making move by House Democrats to try to remove the President from office.

The comments are the latest indication that efforts to impeach Trump are gathering new steam with a majority of House Democrats now publicly supporting an impeachment inquiry, even as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has for months resisted such a move, though she has increasingly left open the option of moving ahead.

Nadler said on MSNBC Monday that his panel could vote later this year on articles of impeachment. First, Nader said, they would pursue their fights in court to get information from the Trump administration, hoping to get court decisions by end of October or early November. Then, he promised September hearings with witnesses "who are not dependent on court proceedings."

And he added: "If we decide to report articles of impeachment, we could get it in the late fall, later part of the year."

That calendar, however, does not take into account any appeals that could take place, which could drag out court fights beyond the fall -- and it's unclear how more time-consuming legal battles would impact Nadler's plans.

But the New York Democrat said that 2020 election-year politics would not influence his panel's ultimate decision on moving head.

As they left for their summer recess, Nadler's committee announced a new court filing seeking grand jury information gathered during special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. The committee said in the suit that articles of impeachment are "under consideration as part of the Committee's investigation, although no final determination has been made."

While Pelosi has resisted calls to open up an impeachment probe, she green-lit the language in the lawsuit. In the past, she has said that moving forward with impeachment in the House would be fruitless since two-thirds of the GOP-led Senate is highly unlikely to convict him and remove him from office. But after last month's Mueller hearings in the House, she indicated that was not her primary concern, saying instead they needed to focus on the court fights first before deciding whether to move ahead.

In a Friday statement about the state of House investigations into the President, Pelosi spotlighted the impeachment language in the Judiciary lawsuit and added: "We owe it to our children to ensure that no present or future president can dishonor the oath of office without being held accountable. In America, no one is above the law. The President will be held accountable."

Nadler's committee also plans to move forward with a lawsuit this week to seek testimony and records from former White House counsel Don McGahn, and has authorized subpoenas to a dozen other former White House officials and Trump associates, including former White House officials Michael Flynn, John Kelly and Rick Dearborn, along with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner. It's unclear which witnesses Nadler wants to bring forward for September hearings.

At this point, Trump's impeachment in the House seems as close to a sure thing as such a thing can be, before its actually happened. And it is undoubtably richly deserved on the merits of the evidence. However, it is also as close to certain as it can be that the Senate will acquit him regardless of that evidence. Certainly his conviction and removal is not something that we can count on. The goal, then, is a symbolic condemnation of Trump's actions, and to force his supporters to go on the record acquitting him despite his obvious guilt. The question is: can the Democrats make that case to the people, and is the risk of Trump being acquitted, even if its in a rigged trial, following an unpopular impeachment outweighed by the risk of not impeaching- of sending the message that Trump must not be that bad, since we're not impeaching him (Julian Castro raised this point in the last Presidential debate), of alienating the base and reinforcing the idea that the Democrats don't really stand for anything, and of setting a precedent that even a blatantly criminal and despotic President will not be impeached.

[The Romulan Republic]

Nadler confirms the Judiciary Committee is engaged in impeachment proceedings:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/08/politics ... index.html

(CNN)The House Judiciary Committee is now engaged in a full-blown investigation and legal fight with the goal of deciding whether to recommend articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump by the end of the year, according to Democratic officials involved in the effort.

Recent court filings and public statements by top Democrats point to a dramatic escalation after lawmakers debated internally for months over mounting an impeachment inquiry into the President.

As additional House Democrats continue to call for the House Judiciary Committee to launch an impeachment inquiry — which more than half the caucus now supports — Democratic sources say the issue is essentially moot since what the panel is doing is basically that: investigating whether Trump should be impeached.

The more aggressive posture could help House Democrats convince the courts to side with them in their legal battles with the Trump administration. But it still remains to be seen whether it ultimately leads to the House taking the historic step of making Trump just the third president to be impeached.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler backs an impeachment inquiry and has made clear in a series of steps and public statements that he is actively considering recommending articles of impeachment in an attempt to remove Trump from office, something the House made clear in a new lawsuit to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify.

"This is formal impeachment proceedings," Nader told CNN's Erin Burnett Thursday on "OutFront."

In the fall, the House Judiciary Committee plans to hold a set of hearings with key witnesses whose testimony would be part of the committee's impeachment deliberations, according to multiple sources.

And after months of resisting formal impeachment proceedings, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's tone over impeachment has shifted in recent days, endorsing the House Judiciary Committee moves and making clear to her caucus that the panel is considering whether to use its constitutional power to try and remove Trump from office.

What's less clear, is whether Pelosi is simply blessing the moves in an attempt to bolster the House's court cases or if she's seeking to set the stage for impeaching Trump. Publicly, she's not ruling out impeachment.

Nadler, for his part, is making increasingly clear where he stands.

"He has said it many times over the past few weeks now," one source familiar with Nadler's thinking said when asked if he supports an impeachment inquiry. "It's as clear as day."

Impeachment inquiry shifts

Previously, however, Nadler privately pushed Pelosi to support opening a formal impeachment inquiry, making the argument that doing so would improve the House's chances in court. Up until this past month, Nadler had mostly avoided answering questions about whether he backed an impeachment inquiry.

"As I said, we are launching an inquiry now, and whether we'll launch an impeachment inquiry, it may come to that," Nadler said in a June interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, drawing a distinction between his committee's investigation and an impeachment inquiry.
Yet at a July hearing, Nadler telegraphed where his committee was going ahead of former special counsel Robert Mueller's testimony, saying, "Articles of impeachment are under consideration as part of the committee's investigation, although no final determination has been made."

Nadler's rhetoric shifted more decisively at the end of last month when his committee petitioned a federal court to provide the House with secret grand jury material from Mueller's investigation. The committee's lawsuit said explicitly that it was conducting its investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment, and Nadler said it was "in effect" an impeachment inquiry.

"There is one difference which you could draw," Nadler said at a news conference in late July. "If you said that an impeachment inquiry is when you're considering only impeachment, that's not what we're doing. We are investigating all of this and we are going to see what remedies we could recommend, including the possibility of articles of impeachment. We're not limited to that, but that's very much the possibility as a result of what we're doing."

The committee's lawsuit filed Wednesday to obtain testimony from McGahn, who has ignored the committee's subpoena at Trump's direction, was clearer about the aims of the panel's probe, calling him the "most important witness" besides the President himself.
"The Judiciary Committee is conducting an investigation to understand the scope and extent of misconduct by President Trump, and that investigation includes consideration of whether the Judiciary Committee should exercise its Article I powers to recommend articles of impeachment," the lawsuit said.

The complaint continued: "To fulfill its duties, the Judiciary Committee must obtain testimony and evidence from witnesses to the President's actions to determine whether to recommend such articles against the President, or whether to recommend additional or alternative articles that the Judiciary Committee may prepare."

Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, has repeatedly accused Democrats of trying to have it both ways by appearing like they are conducting impeachment proceedings when they are not actually doing so.

More than half of Democrats now back impeachment inquiry

The committee's argument that it's effectively conducting an impeachment inquiry already comes after months of House Democrats slowly growing in numbers backing the formal opening of an impeachment inquiry. Their ranks grew from several dozen in the days after Mueller's May public statement where he emphasized the investigation did not exonerate the President to more than half of the caucus this month.

But the committee is now arguing that the Democrats' calls for an impeachment inquiry are unnecessary.
In court, the Trump administration has argued that the House's subpoenas to date lack a legislative purpose. By asserting the investigation is directly tied to impeachment, the committee has a reason under the constitution to pursue the documents and testimony it's seeking.

Democrats argue that the forthcoming committee hearings will be clearly linked to their impeachment deliberations. In July, the committee voted to authorize subpoenas for 12 individuals, including the President's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. But the committee is considering bringing in officials on their list who did not serve in the White House — which Democrats hope will prevent claims of executive privilege from the White House, although the White House would likely seek to block any discussion about events that took place after the 2016 election.

The committee is expected to issue some those subpoenas in the coming weeks to seek testimony in September and October, potentially to Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager; David Pecker, the chairman of National Enquirer parent company American Media Inc.; and Dylan Howard, a lawyer for the women alleging affairs with Trump who received hush-money payments during the 2016 campaign.

Pelosi has shifted her tone over impeachment in recent weeks -- and aides say she's green-lit the language in the House lawsuits that contend the committee is considering voting on whether to impeach the President. She has long contended the House needs to be methodical in its approach, but has consistently batted away talk that the chamber's goal was to impeach Trump, arguing such a move would be divisive and ultimately unsuccessfully since two-thirds of the GOP-led Senate would need to vote to remove Trump from office.

Pelosi's recent posture is different than in March, when she argued that "I don't think we should go down that path" of impeachment, later saying that doing so may not be worth it because it will "end at the Senate's edge." In May, Pelosi claimed the House is "not on a path" to impeachment, arguing to CNN in June that there's "nothing as divisive to the country, in my view, as impeachment."
Since the Mueller testimony, however, she has instead said the focus is on their court battles first, keeping the door more open than she had previously in suggesting the House could impeach Trump. And asked by CNN after the Mueller hearing if she's still concerned that the GOP-led Senate would acquit the President, making impeachment fruitless, she claimed she was "never" concerned about what the Senate would do.

"If we have a case for impeachment that's the place we will have to go," Pelosi said after the Mueller hearing. "But the stronger our case is the worse the Senate will look for just letting the President off the hook."

Recent statements also spotlight Pelosi's difference in tone. In a letter to her caucus this week, she noted the language in the House Judiciary lawsuit, calling it a "significant step" and quoting directly from the suit to say that the House must have all the facts to consider whether to use its constitutional power of "utmost gravity -- approval of articles of impeachment."

Pelosi added: "No one is above the law."

Some Democrats argue that Pelosi may be changing her tune to help their legal case and may ultimately resist moving forward. But it's unclear how she'll come down.

"I think she feels the need to keep the investigative momentum going," said one Democratic lawmaker who is close to Pelosi. "But she's not going to impeachment until she thinks the public is ready."

CNN's Caroline Kelly contributed to this report.

At this point, it may not matter what Pelosi wants. She would do well to go with the majority of her caucus on this, not tear them apart going into 2020.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

Here's the thing about impeachment, it's entirely political. Given that Moscow Mitch is in charge of the Senate, he can simply make it impossible to get a genuine case out.

Pelosi has been working on the long-game here, using the rulebook to keep the dozens of investigations going without the GOP doing of their rallying cry bullshit. Trump and the GOP can't focus on most of the investigations, which is their downfall.

The moment the word 'impeachment' starts, the GOP propaganda machine will kick into high gear and simply demolish any hope that this would end well.

If reality is seriously taking my future timeline notes and using it as a basis, then the next few decades are going to be bad for the US and the rest of the world would simply plan to do shit that would make General Plan Ost look like a picnic.

[The Romulan Republic]

Here's the thing about impeachment, it's entirely political. Given that Moscow Mitch is in charge of the Senate, he can simply make it impossible to get a genuine case out.

Pelosi has been working on the long-game here, using the rulebook to keep the dozens of investigations going without the GOP doing of their rallying cry bullshit. Trump and the GOP can't focus on most of the investigations, which is their downfall.

The moment the word 'impeachment' starts, the GOP propaganda machine will kick into high gear and simply demolish any hope that this would end well.

If reality is seriously taking my future timeline notes and using it as a basis, then the next few decades are going to be bad for the US and the rest of the world would simply plan to do shit that would make General Plan Ost look like a picnic.

Granted that it is extremely unlikely that any case will go anywhere in the Senate.

So, yes, the goal is primarily political symbolism.

However, I'm not at all sure a low-key and ambiguous impeachment is the best way to go then. Because if this is all about optics, what the Democrats have done is muddy the optics. Sure, it has prevented the GOP rallying against them on it. But it has also squandered a chance to fire up their own base around the issue and to focus the national conversation on impeaching a criminal, despotic president.

A half-impeachment out of the public spotlight strikes me as the worst of both worlds- no conviction, and no PR benefits. Maybe they want to collect more evidence first. Alright. But at some point they're going to have to make a choice- impeach, or not impeach. And they won't be able to walk the middle of the road forever.

[The Romulan Republic]

This is a pretty good run down on how to do impeachment:

https://usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019 ... 987109001/

Centralize and simplify the impeachment narrative. Show how Trump's abuses relate to each other and how they started on the day he took his oath.

A majority of House Democrats now favor an impeachment inquiry. They are responding to the unavoidable evidence of significant wrongdoing by President Donald Trump and his resistance to any oversight or accountability, and they are right. The House has taken important new steps in this direction and should continue with a full impeachment inquiry.

In court filings over the last two weeks, the House Judiciary Committee has acknowledged that it is considering articles of impeachment and needs access to the evidence collected by the special counsel and testimony by former White House counsel Don McGahn to determine “whether to recommend articles of impeachment.”

In a CNN interview Thursday, Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler characterized these filings as "formal impeachment proceedings." And they are important steps in the impeachment process. How do we get from here to a full inquiry?

Consolidate and speed impeachment

At a minimum, a single committee should assume responsibility for considering potential grounds for impeachment, consolidating the relevant evidence in a committee report, and — if that committee believes there is evidence that the president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors — reporting an impeachment resolution to the House for an up-or-down vote.

Other committees have been pursuing lines of inquiry that are relevant to potential articles of impeachment against Trump. The House Oversight Committee has held hearings investigating the president’s potential complicity in a multifaceted scheme to evade enforcement of campaign finance law and cover up those offenses. The House Ways and Means Committee invoked a rarely-used but unambiguous statute in its attempt to obtain copies of the president's taxes, which could yield evidence of the president’s violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clauses, and the committee has now been forced into court to compel the Treasury Department to comply with the law.

It's finally time:We are on the path to Trump impeachment and saving what our Founders gave us

Other House committees have begun investigating President Trump’s other potentially impeachable abuses by issuing subpoenas for evidence and testimony regarding his personal financial interests and the extent to which he has used his office to enrich himself and his family. All of these efforts have built a strong foundation for an impeachment inquiry, and all of these committees should continue robust oversight, but it is time for a single body to take charge of the impeachment case.

Americans need simplicity and clarity

There is no procedural requirement that the House explicitly delegate impeachment jurisdiction to a committee, but there are significant advantages to it doing so. The American people deserve an organized process in which it is clear what abuses of power are being investigated and what rationale is being advanced for potentially removing the president from office. The easiest way to get there is for a single committee to assume those responsibilities, either through referrals from other committees or through an explicit grant of jurisdiction from the House or the relevant committee if the inquiry is consolidated within a single subcommittee.

Stop dithering, Democrats:Impeach Donald Trump now or change the channel for good.

Starting a full impeachment inquiry will also allow the House to proceed as expeditiously as possible, and time is of the essence. Although the 17 months that are left in the 116th Congress may seem like a lot of time, President Trump has already delayed congressional efforts to hold him accountable by forcing committees to file legal actions to enforce subpoenas that are facially valid. Committing to an impeachment inquiry requires that there be time for the House to consider an impeachment resolution if a committee approves one. If that resolution were to pass the House, the Senate would then need time to try the case.

A full impeachment inquiry would also allow Congress to explain to the American people how the president’s potentially impeachable courses of conduct relate to each other. By centralizing the discussion, Congress could show that the president’s obstruction of justice, as outlined in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony and report, ties in with his potentially criminal scheme to defraud campaign finance law and then cover it up while in office; and his receipt of unconstitutional profits, gains or advantages from foreign and domestic governments with direct interests in U.S. policymaking.

It is time for the House to consolidate and explicitly define the impeachment inquiry that is already under way. All of these seemingly disparate threads should be woven together to show the American people the unprecedented and potentially constitutionally repugnant abuses of power and position that this president has engaged in since he first set foot in the Oval Office.

Noah Bookbinder is the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Follow him on Twitter: @NoahBookbinder

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

Basically, stop dithering, and focus things for maximum clarity. I could not agree more.

[The Romulan Republic]

More subpoenas:

https://cnn.com/2019/08/15/politics/lew ... index.html

The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday issued subpoenas to former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and a former White House official as it ramps up its investigation to determine whether to impeach President Donald Trump.

The committee issued the subpoenas Thursday to Lewandowski and former White House aide Rick Dearborn, requesting they testify publicly before the committee on September 17. Both Trump aides were cited extensively in the obstruction of justice section of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

The subpoenas don't come as a surprise — the duo was included when the committee authorized subpoenas to 12 individuals last month — but they signal the direction the committee is taking as it looks to quickly gather evidence that could lead to pursuing impeachment.

The House has not voted on a formal impeachment inquiry, but House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler says his committee's investigation constitutes "formal impeachment proceedings" and the committee has a goal of deciding whether to recommend articles of impeachment by the end of the year.

"It is clear that any other American would have been prosecuted based on the evidence Special Counsel Mueller uncovered in his report," Nadler said in a statement. "Corey Lewandowski and Rick Dearborn were prominently featured in the Special Counsel's description of President Trump's efforts to obstruct justice by directing then-White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire the Special Counsel, and then by ordering him to lie about it."

Peter Chavkin, Lewandowski's attorney, questioned why Lewandowski was receiving a subpoena from the committee.
"Mr. Lewandowski has voluntarily appeared before and cooperated with Congress three times answering questions for hours. He also has spoken for hours with the Special Counsel's office. In light of this, it is fair to ask what could be gained from requiring him to appear yet again," Chavkin said, declining further comment.

A Republican Judiciary Committee aide also criticized the subpoena, accusing Democrats of wasting "more time and taxpayer dollars as Democrats demand information we already have."

So far, the committee's subpoenas have not yielded much of value beyond dozens of objections to questions about anything that happened in the Trump administration and a pair of lawsuits to try to obtain former special counsel Robert Mueller's grand jury information and testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn.

The subpoena to Lewandowski comes as he is considering a Senate bid in New Hampshire. He's attending the President's rally Thursday night in the state, and White House aides say to expect Trump to bring up Lewandowski's potential Senate run.

By subpoenaing Lewandowski, the committee hopes it can avoid the executive privilege fight with the White House, which has directed McGahn, former White House communications director Hope Hicks and former deputy White House counsel Annie Donaldson not to answer questions beyond the 2016 election. Unlike those officials, Lewandowski never served in the Trump administration.

But it's unclear if Lewandowski will be forthcoming about the key episodes referenced in the Mueller report that will want to press him on, such as when the President instructed him to tell then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to curtail the Mueller investigation and Lewandowski did not act on it. White House officials have been engaged in preliminary discussions about invoking executive privilege to limit Lewandowski from complying with the subpoena, according to three sources.

Lewandowski testified before the House Intelligence Committee last year behind closed doors, and he did not answer questions about anything that occurred beyond the 2016 election.

The committee last week filed a lawsuit to force McGahn to comply with its subpoena after he did not appear under subpoena for a hearing in May. The outcome of that case is likely to determine whether other former Trump officials can refuse to answer questions about the Trump White House. But it's likely to take months, if not longer, before the case is decided.

The Judiciary Committee has pointed to two episodes involving Lewandowski from the Mueller report as clear cases of obstruction of justice.

The first was when Trump told Lewandowski to ask Sessions to limit the Mueller investigation not to investigate the Trump campaign but to "move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections." Lewandowski tried to set up an in person meeting with Sessions, but did not do so, according to the special counsel.

That led to the second episode the committee cited, which also involved Dearborn. A month after making the request to Lewandowski about Sessions, the President followed up with Lewandowski and told him that if Sessions did not meet with him, he would be fired.

Lewandowski did not deliver the intended message to Sessions. Instead, he asked Dearborn to speak to Sessions, believing he would be a better messenger, the special counsel wrote.

Lewandowski gave Dearborn a typewritten version of the President's message, which "definitely raised an eyebrow" for Dearborn and made him uncomfortable, according to Mueller's team. Dearborn told Mueller he did not recall if he knew the message was from the President. Dearborn later told Lewandowski he had handled the situation but he did not follow through.

This story has been updated with additional developments Thursday.

CNN's Kara Scannell, Jeremy Diamond and Kaitlan Collins contributed to this repo]

Lewandowski is a good one to go after to build an obstruction case.

[The Romulan Republic]

Looks like one of Pelosi's top deputies has broken ranks on impeachment.

https://pbs.org/newshour/politics/no-4- ... nt-inquiry

No. 4 House Democrat issues call for Trump impeachment inquiry
Politics Aug 19, 2019 4:33 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Ben Ray Luján on Monday became the highest-ranking Democrat in the House to call for an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, saying it’s time to hold him accountable.

The New Mexico congressman, third in line behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a 2020 candidate for Senate, said Trump has not tried to secure American elections from foreign interference.

“I support moving forward with an impeachment inquiry, which will continue to uncover the facts for the American people and hold this president accountable,” Luján said in a statement . He said former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report left no doubt that Trump’s campaign made “sustained and frequent attempts…to establish ties to the Russian government and an eagerness to benefit from hacked information. Trump, he added, “is abdicating his responsibility to defend our nation from Russian attacks and is putting his own personal and political interests ahead of the American people.”

Talk of impeachment has escalated in recent months after Trump began fighting subpoenas from Congress.
Mueller concluded there was insufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but he also did not exonerate the president on questions of whether he committed obstruction of justice. Trump has denied wrongdoing and characterized the investigation as a “witch hunt.”

Luján’s announcement makes him the highest ranking of 121 House Democrats to call for opening an inquiry, according to an Associated Press tally. That’s a majority of the 235 Democrats, though not all of those who back an inquiry would vote for Trump’s removal from office. Doing so would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans.

Still, Luján’s call is a significant data point in the ongoing assessment of the House Democrats’ mood on impeachment. In the House hierarchy, he ranks behind Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and House Democratic Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina.

Pelosi has said Democrats need to wait for court decisions before they decide whether to approve articles of impeachment. At the same time, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, said that what his committee is doing now amounts to “formal impeachment proceedings” — and that Democrats will make a final decision by the end of the year.

Talk of impeachment has escalated in recent months after Trump began fighting subpoenas from Congress. Democrats had originally said they wanted to start by investigating Trump and doing their own review of Mueller’s report. But that has proved to be impossible because people Mueller interviewed have, on Trump’s orders, defied subpoenas.

The House Judiciary Committee has filed a lawsuit in federal court to force the testimony of one of the Mueller report’s key witnesses, former White House counsel Don McGahn. And last month the panel filed a petition to obtain secret grand jury testimony underlying the Mueller report. Both lawsuits made the argument that the committee needs to hear from witnesses and know more about Mueller’s findings to decide whether to recommend impeachment to the full House.

Many of the House’s moderate Democrats, especially in districts that voted for Trump in 2016 but for Democrats last year, want to stay far away from impeachment proceedings.

And some Democrats are torn. They know impeachment could be politically treacherous and cost them some support from independent voters in the 2020 election. But they also believe that Trump has committed the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the Constitution lays out, and they don’t want to set a precedent for inaction.

[Broomstick]

TRR, I think you are mistaking "I really hope and want this to happen" for "this is going to happen".

I'd be totally OK being wrong on this, but I don't believe that Trump will be impeached before the next election. I'm just not convinced that Congress is going to get off their collective asses and do this.

[The Romulan Republic]

TRR, I think you are mistaking "I really hope and want this to happen" for "this is going to happen".

I'd be totally OK being wrong on this, but I don't believe that Trump will be impeached before the next election. I'm just not convinced that Congress is going to get off their collective asses and do this.

I think we'll have a pretty good idea by the end of the year, probably. The Judiciary Committee is currently considering whether to recommend articles of impeachment, and its chair, Rep. Nadler, has said they'll decide by the end of the year, as I recall. So for the first time we have a fairly clear timeline, rather than the possibility of Pelosi just endlessly stringing us along and never making up her mind until she runs out the clock. There's also simple logic: wait past the end of this year, and you're getting pretty close to the election. If they're going to do it at all, they have to do it soon. So one way or another, we'll probably know by the end of the year.

Now, its possible, I suppose, that the possibility of impeachment is just bullshit being fed us by Democratic leadership in the House to keep the progressives placated, but if so that's a phenomenally stupid move. Because they've now given us a timetable, and they're going to have to make a choice on the matter, right at the height of primary season. So if that was their game, they'd be setting up a potentially major rift in the party during the primaries.

Its also possible, in theory, that the Judiciary Committee will decide not to recommend impeachment. But that seems even more unlikely. Nadler is on record saying he believes Trump is a criminal, numerous members of the Judiciary Committee are on record supporting at least an impeachment inquiry, and they can't possibly argue against it on the merits of the evidence. Nadler is also under a lot of pressure to impeach, and IIRC is facing a primary challenge from the Left. So there's that factor as well.

It is also possible that a recommendation might be made to impeach, but fail to gain enough votes to pass, particularly if Pelosi refuses to endorse it. It would probably gain a majority of Democratic votes in the House, but if a significant number of Democrats are holdouts, then combined with Republican no votes, it might not get a majority of the full House. That's possible. But the momentum in Congress has been decidedly toward impeachment, not away from it, and Trump is only going to keep giving the House fresh reminders of why he deserves impeachment.

So:

One or more votes on impeachment? Effectively certain. Rep. Green will try again, if no one else does, and has already said as much.

The Judiciary Committee recommending articles of impeachment? Likely.

A majority of House Democrats voting for impeachment? Likely.

An actual successful impeachment vote in the House? Could go either way. Likely depends on how many of those endorsing an impeachment inquiry will actually be willing to go all the way to full impeachment.

Conviction in Moscow Mitch's Senate? Its more likely that I'll win the lottery.

Trump peacefully leaving office without an armed escort showing him to the door (in the unlikely event he were convicted)? Probably not terribly likely either.

[The Romulan Republic]

As expected, Green's going to try again, vowing to introduce another motion to impeach next month:

https://npr.org/2019/08/21/752699106/bu ... each-trump

With a majority of House Democratic lawmakers now behind him, Rep. Al Green says he'll try for a fourth time to impeach President Trump when Congress returns next month.

Green first filed articles of impeachment the day before Trump was sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 2017.

Now, more than 120 House Democrats have publicly said they support an impeachment inquiry, according to NPR's tracker.

"Things start with a spark, and sometimes the spark is ignored," Green said following a Houston forum with his constituents earlier this month. "Other times the spark can cause others to become consumed with the righteousness of a cause and participate in the cause itself."

The eight-term congressman has remained the lone lawmaker calling for Trump's impeachment from the House floor for more than two years. But during that time, he's been joined by a steady stream of Democrats as they took control of the chamber this year.

However, Democratic leadership, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are urging patience and remain resistant to Green's plan. New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Lujan is the lone leadership member behind an impeachment inquiry.

"This is not a position I've reached lightly," Lujan said in a statement Monday.

Try, try again

Green first made his impeachment call from a Republican-controlled chamber days after Trump fired his then-FBI director James Comey in May 2017.

The move came on the heels of concerns that Trump obstructed a Department of Justice investigation into Russian ties to his 2016 presidential campaign.

At the time, only a handful of lawmakers were publicly supportive of impeachment, including Democratic California Reps. Brad Sherman and Maxine Waters. Green, who is African American, said he received several racist and threatening messages in response.

He said he's upped his security since those messages.

"There's always a canary in the coal mine," Green said. "It has been my misfortune to be the canary in the coal mine."

Since that first call, Green has called for impeachment on the House floor two more times. In the most recent attempt on July 17, the House voted 332 to 95 to stop the discussion.

Green says his impeachment case against Trump began in a law school class he attended at Texas Southern University in the early 1970s.

"And my guess is, if I hadn't gone to law school, I wouldn't have had that sense of how to remove a president from office," said Green, 71.

And Green has made it a central talking point, talking to voters from Michigan to Mississippi during a bit of an impeachment tour this summer.

Although, Green, a former judge and head of the Houston NAACP, is quick to say he also discusses "kitchen table issues," such as Social Security, health care and voting rights.

But "part of the kitchen table issues now is that of impeachment," Green said. "Wherever I go, I usually bring it up ... It's just rather unusual for me not to bring it up because we truly want to deal with the issues that are impacting all of us - this has to be one of them."

"It's not the best thing... politically"

But not everyone agrees that impeachment is the answer.

At a local forum for Green's 9th Texas congressional, longtime acquaintance Riyad Abu-Taha says beating Trump in the 2020 presidential elections maybe more beneficial. Green had ended the meeting on his case for impeachment.


YouTube
"I think the best thing to do is really to find a good good candidate from the Democratic Party where you know they can beat [Trump] in 2020 and then you know then he can be tried for criminal acts," said Abu-Taha, who runs a Houston area media group.

Green has also faced off against Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders who want to take a more conservative approach. Recently, Rep. Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said an impeachment inquiry was already underway.

However, Nadler has yet to issue a direct statement saying he's publicly in support, in line with Pelosi's directives to her party to be patient.

That's irritated Green, who says lawmakers need to be clear about their positions on impeachment, and face the consequences either way.

In the end, Green knows he's taking significant political risks.

"I don't know how people will ultimately see this when they go to the polls to vote. Taking this position is no assurance that I'm going to get re-elected," Green said. "So I'm just convinced that it's not the best thing to do politically for me, but it's the right thing to do. And when you do the right thing, in my opinion, the other things will take care of themselves."

I don't think he'll win this one either, the House will likely wait for the Judiciary Committee's conclusions, but his repeated efforts may help us gauge whether support is rising or falling, and by how much.

[The Romulan Republic]

Another step forward- the House Judiciary Committee will vote to formally define their impeachment inquiry:

https://politico.com/story/2019/09/06/h ... mp-1484435

The House Judiciary Committee is preparing to take its first formal vote to define what Chairman Jerry Nadler calls an ongoing “impeachment investigation” of President Donald Trump, according to multiple sources briefed on the discussions.

The panel could vote as early as Wednesday on a resolution to spell out the parameters of its investigation. The precise language is still being hammered out inside the committee and with House leaders. A draft of the resolution is expected to be release Monday morning.

The issue was raised Friday during a conference call among the committee's Democrats. A source familiar with the discussion said any move next week would be intended to increase the “officialness” of the ongoing probe, following a six-week summer recess in which some Democrats struggled to characterize to their constituents that the House had already begun impeachment proceedings. Democrats are hopeful that explicitly defining their impeachment inquiry will heighten their leverage to compel testimony from witnesses.

Though the language of the resolution is still in flux, some sources said it could incorporate elements of traditional impeachment probes, such as offering access to the president's attorneys or providing for more time to question witnesses. There was discussion among some Democrats on Friday’s call about the strength of the language in the resolution, according to sources briefed on the call.

Advocates of opening a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump have clamored for the Judiciary Committee to more clearly spell out the contours of its investigation -- a move they hope strengthens the House’s hand in a handful of court cases to obtain evidence and testimony against the president.

In early August, Nadler publicly declared that his committee had already launched impeachment proceedings despite taking no formal vote to do so. The claim sparked confusion, even among some Democrats, who sought clarification as they faced questions from progressive constituents about the status of the House's effort to recommend Trump's removal from office.

The committee has also repeatedly described an ongoing “impeachment investigation” in court filings submitted during the recess, part of legal efforts to compel testimony from witnesses to allegations that Trump attempted to obstruct an investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. By declaring impeachment under active consideration, the committee has sought to convince judges of the urgency of providing Democrats with the evidence they're seeking.

But Republicans on the committee protested loudly that impeachment proceedings require a vote, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi's resistance to a formal impeachment inquiry -- despite her support of the Judiciary Committee's legal filings -- has complicated the House's posture further.

In addition to probing potential obstruction of justice by Trump, the Judiciary Committee is weighing allegations that Trump directed hush money payments to women accusing him of extramarital affairs in the weeks before the 2016 election, as well as evidence that Trump has sought to steer U.S. and foreign government spending to his luxury resorts, raising questions about whether he has violated the Constitution's Emoluments Clause.

Until now, Trump-related investigations had been a patchwork effort by six congressional committees. The Ways and Means Committee, for example, is pursuing Trump's tax returns in court. The Financial Services Committee and Intelligence Committee are seeking Trump's financial records from Deutsche Bank and Capital One. The Foreign Affairs Committee has sought details about Trump's interactions with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who the intelligence community has assessed sought to boost Trump's 2016 electoral prospects. And the Oversight Committee had initially taken the lead on allegations about hush money payments, calling Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to testify in February before he went to prison on charges connected to the scheme.

The Judiciary Committee had mostly kept focused on obstruction of justice and the fallout from former special counsel Robert Mueller's report, made public in April, that revealed hundreds of contacts between Russians and Trump campaign associates, as well as repeated attempts by Trump to constrain or shut down the probe altogether. Mueller testified publicly to the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees in late July, days before the House departed for its six-week recess.

But his testimony uncorked a surge of support for launching formal impeachment proceedings. More than half of the House's 235 Democrats now support taking that step. The number has grown steadily, even after Nadler suggested impeachment proceedings had begun.

But the momentum has been tempered by Pelosi, who warned Democrats in an Aug. 23 call that public sentiment hasn't kept pace. Polls show most Americans still generally oppose opening impeachment proceedings, even though Democratic voters largely support the move.

Many of the Democrats who declared support for an impeachment inquiry did so because they said it would help break through Trump's stonewalling of the six committee investigations. They argued that without formal impeachment proceedings, Trump could continue to claim blanket immunity for his top aides and allies, preventing them from testifying or complying with congressional subpoenas. Trump has blocked several of his most senior aides -- including former officials who provided some of Mueller's most damaging testimony -- from speaking to Congress.

They include former White House counsel Don McGahn, who told Mueller about multiple attempts by Trump to have the special counsel removed and described an atmosphere of chaos in the West Wing shortly after Mueller's appointment. They also include former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, who provided limited testimony to the committee but refused to discuss her tenure in the White House.

Sarah Ferris contributed to this story.

About time they dropped this half-assed, wishy-washy "We're impeaching but not officially" nonsense. We know that, realistically, we're not getting a conviction in Moscow Mitch's Senate. Therefore, impeachment is about political and moral symbolism, at this point. Soft-peddling it loses the symbolic impact while retaining the controversy, essentially inviting the worst of both worlds.

[The Romulan Republic]

Thursday set as the day they'll set out guidelines for formal impeachment hearings:

https://aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/hous ... 10820.html

The House Judiciary Committee will vote on Thursday to establish rules for hearings on impeachment, escalating the panel's investigations of President Donald Trump even as many Democrats remain wary of the effort.

The resolution is a technical step, and the panel would still have to introduce impeachment articles against Trump and win approval from the House to bring charges against Trump. It's unclear if that will ever happen, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has urged caution on the issue, saying the public still isn't yet supportive of taking those steps.

Even if the House did recommend impeachment charges against the president, the Republican-led Senate is unlikely to convict him and remove him from office.

Still, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler has said that the committee will move forward with impeachment hearings this fall, bolstered by politicians on the panel who roundly support moving forward. The vote on Thursday will set rules for those hearings, empowering staff to question witnesses, allowing some evidence to remain private and permitting the president's counsel to respond to testimony.

The committee said that the resolution is similar to procedural votes taken at the beginning of the impeachment investigations into Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

"The adoption of these additional procedures is the next step in that process and will help ensure our impeachment hearings are informative to Congress and the public, while providing the president with the ability to respond to evidence presented against him," Nadler said in a statement. "We will not allow Trump's continued obstruction to stop us from delivering the truth to the American people."

The committee has also filed two lawsuits against the administration after the White House repeatedly blocked the panel from obtaining documents and testimony. Pelosi has said she wants to see what happens in court before making any decisions on impeachment.

The first hearing under the new impeachment rules would be with Corey Lewandowski on September 17, the panel also announced Monday. Lewandowski was frequently mentioned in former special counsel Robert Mueller's report, which the committee has been investigating. According to Mueller's report, Trump asked Lewandowski to deliver a message to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking him to limit Mueller's investigation.

The committee has also invited two other witnesses mentioned in the report, former White House aides Rick Dearborn and Rob Porter. The White House has previously blocked former employees from testifying, but Lewandowski never officially worked for the White House.

READ MORE
What is US impeachment? Six things to know
The resolution that the committee will consider Thursday would set parameters for the panel's impeachment hearings in an attempt to give congress members more powers to investigate the president. It would allow committee lawyers to question witnesses for an additional hour - 30 minutes for each side - beyond the five minutes allowed for committee members. Evidence would be allowed in private session to protect the confidentiality of sensitive materials, and any full committee or subcommittee hearing could be designated by Nadler as part of the committee's probe into whether to recommend articles of impeachment.

Broader investigation
The procedural vote comes as the panel broadens its impeachment probe beyond Mueller's report, which has consumed most of the committee's energy since it was released in April. The Judiciary panel, along with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, announced Friday that they are demanding information about the spending of taxpayer money at the president's hotels and properties, partly to inform the impeachment investigation.

READ MORE
US House panel calls on former top Trump aide Flynn to testify
The committees said there have been "multiple efforts" by Trump and administration officials to spend federal money at his properties, including Vice President Mike Pence's stay last week at a Trump resort in Doonbeg, Ireland.

Aside from reviewing his use of Trump's properties, the Judiciary panel is also expected to investigate hush-money payments Trump made to kill potentially embarrassing stories, and has subpoenaed the Department of Homeland Security to explore whether the president offered pre-emptive pardons for lawbreaking. More subpoenas are likely.

Meanwhile, several other committees are also investigating the president - though not under the auspices of impeachment, which is the jurisdiction of the Judiciary panel.

In one of those probes, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff wrote former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and demanded that he appear for testimony on September 25. In the letter, dated Friday, Schiff said that Flynn had failed to comply with the panel's June subpoena or "cooperate with the committee's efforts to secure your compliance."

Flynn admitted lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States and awaits sentencing.

READ MORE
US House Democrats launch probe into Trump, Giuliani and Ukraine
The intelligence panel said also Monday that it will investigate possible efforts by Trump and his personal lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, to pressure the government of Ukraine to assist Trump's 2020 presidential campaign.

The intelligence panel and the House Foreign Relations Committee and the Oversight Committee are demanding records related to those efforts. The committees said in a joint release that the record request is a "first step in a broad investigation into this matter."

Giuliani said earlier this year that he would travel to Kiev to urge the government to investigate the origins of Mueller's probe and the involvement of former Vice President Joe Biden's son in a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch. Giuliani later scrapped that trip.

Aiming to decide whether to recommend impeachment by the end of the year.

There's really only one way they can go on this, if they have any respect for the law or their duty at all, and IIRC the Judiciary Committee tends to lean pro-impeachment as is. So I'm pretty confident we'll get a recommendation to impeach. Whether it passes on the House floor, and they actually do impeach... probably depends on whether Pelosi's fear of impeachment is outweighed by her fear of ignoring a recommendation for the Judiciary Committee and the wishes of the base going into the height of primary season. I give it fifty-fifty, maybe forty-sixty that they'll impeach.

And about one in a million that they'll get a conviction, so their job is to lay the evidence out there as strongly as possible for the Electorate.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I'm very curious now what the great orange imp is going to do between now and Thursday. People often claim that much of Trump's ridiculous activity is carefully calculated to distract the media (I personally don't think he's that calculating, it's just that since he spews out ridiculous things at such a high volume of course sometimes it will overlap with other important events in a suspiciousish way, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility). Therefore, we might expect him to do something especially cartoonish tomorrow or Thursday to try and fixate the narrative on something else.

[Elheru Aran]

I'm very curious now what the great orange imp is going to do between now and Thursday. People often claim that much of Trump's ridiculous activity is carefully calculated to distract the media (I personally don't think he's that calculating, it's just that since he spews out ridiculous things at such a high volume of course sometimes it will overlap with other important events in a suspiciousish way, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility). Therefore, we might expect him to do something especially cartoonish tomorrow or Thursday to try and fixate the narrative on something else.

He already referred to Bahamas evacuees as 'gang members'. I figure it's pretty likely he's going to push the scandal of refusing entry to refugees from the Bahamas, you know that place that just got pretty much literally flattened by a massive hurricane that's about as close to 'next door' to the United States as you can get, full of rich people cruise vacation spots... I mean sure there's probably a decent amount of drug activity to feed the one-percenters' habits, but come on.

[The Romulan Republic]

Judiciary Committee authorizes an impeachment inquiry in a straight party-line vote.

https://bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49679955

A US congressional committee has voted to press ahead with an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.

The Democratic-controlled House Committee on the Judiciary voted along strict party lines to designate certain hearings as impeachment sessions.

The panel says it hopes to decide whether to recommend impeachment to the full House by the end of the year.

However, the Republican majority in the Senate means any eventual trial of the president would be likely to fail.

What exactly did the House committee just do?
The House panel voted 24-17 on Thursday on a procedural step to approve guidelines for its investigation of the president, including allowing lawyers to question witnesses publicly.

The committee has been frustrated by the refusal of several current and former White House officials to testify in its ongoing hearings.

Democratic committee chairman Jerry Nadler said as he opened the proceedings: "Some call this process an impeachment inquiry. Some call it an impeachment investigation.

"There is no legal difference between these terms, and I no longer care to argue about the nomenclature.

"But let me clear up any remaining doubt: the conduct under investigation poses a threat to our democracy. We have an obligation to respond to this threat. And we are doing so."

According to the Washington Post, any possible charges against Mr Trump could include obstruction of justice, abuse of power and defiance of subpoenas.

But the Democrats' move was scorned by Republicans.

Georgia congressman Doug Collins, the top Republican on the committee, said: "My colleagues know very well they don't have the votes to authorise impeachment proceedings on the House floor, but they want to impeach the president anyway.

"So, they are pretending to initiate impeachment."

Most US voters (59%) oppose removing the president from office, according to a recent opinion poll.

The Democratic leadership is concerned that an impeachment inquiry could backfire ahead of next year's presidential election.

If the judiciary committee recommended articles of impeachment to the full House of Representatives, it would require a simple majority to proceed to a trial in the Senate.

But only a minority of House lawmakers, all liberal Democrats, currently support such a drastic step.

Democrats have characterised the proceedings in different ways.

House Democratic leader, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has avoided the I-word, emphasising instead that the committees wishes to "legislate, investigate and litigate".

On Wednesday, House Democratic whip Steny Hoyer, of Maryland, indicated to journalists there was no impeachment investigation.

He later said he had misconstrued the question as referring to "whether the full House is actively considering articles of impeachment, which we are not at this time".

So, the Judiciary Committee is now officially holding impeachment hearings.

However, Pelosi and Hoyer continue to undercut their own party on this issue. As a result, we have a half-assed impeachment effort with little media attention, moral authority, and energy.

Pelosi is a God Damn coward, and should be expelled from the Speakership.

[The Romulan Republic]

https://politico.com/story/2019/09/13/j ... se-1494621

The Justice Department on Friday flatly rejected House Democrats’ claim that they’re in the midst of an “impeachment investigation” into President Donald Trump, pointing to the scattershot messaging by Democratic leaders in recent days — even citing Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reluctance to use the term at a news conference just a day ago.

In a new court filing on Friday, Justice Department lawyers argued that the House Judiciary Committee’s effort to obtain former special counsel Robert Mueller’s most sensitive secrets — evidence and testimony collected by a grand jury — should be denied, in part because House Democrats can’t agree on what to call their investigation.

“Most prominently, the speaker of the House has been emphatic that the investigation is not a true impeachment proceeding,” the lawyers wrote, citing Pelosi’s June statement that Democrats were “not even close” to such a move.

House Democrats’ attempt to access Mueller’s grand-jury information hinges on the courts acknowledging that they are conducting an impeachment investigation. The Judiciary Committee argued in late July that their impeachment investigation satisfies one of the exceptions to federal grand jury secrecy rules: that the House is engaged in an “impeachment investigation” and therefore is taking an action preliminary to a “judicial proceeding” — the Senate’s trial on whether to remove Trump from office.

But the Justice Department rebuffed that claim on Friday, citing inconsistent statements from senior Democratic leaders — as well as their own claims that the ongoing investigation might lead to innumerable outcomes other than an impeachment vote.

“The committee’s own description of its investigation makes clear that it is too far removed from any potential judicial proceeding to qualify,” the filing states.

“As the committee’s chairman has stressed—and as the speaker of the House and the House majority leader both reiterated this week—the purpose of its investigation is to assess numerous possible remedial measures, including censure, articles of impeachment, legislation, Constitutional amendments, and more,” it continues. “What may come of this investigation—if anything—remains unknown and unpredictable.”

Senior Democrats expressed concern this week that the lack of a unified message on impeachment could hurt their prospects in court, as they seek access to Mueller’s secret files and testimony from his key witnesses, which they say is necessary in order to determine whether Trump should be impeached.

Even if a judge determined that the House activities were close enough to a preliminary impeachment probe, the Justice Department’s lawyers went further, arguing that impeachment itself — and a removal trial in the Senate — would still fall short of an exception to grand jury secrecy.

“mpeachment proceedings in Congress — including hypothetical removal proceedings in the Senate — are not ‘judicial proceedings’ under the plain and ordinary meaning of that term,” they wrote.

The filing comes a day after the committee approved a set of technical procedures for its impeachment investigation, the most significant legislative move yet in Democrats’ potential effort to oust the president. Impeachment supporters said approving the parameters was a historic embrace of ongoing impeachment proceedings, but other Democrats — including Pelosi — publicly downplayed the move.

The messaging whiplash highlighted some Democrats’ reluctance to embrace the “impeachment” moniker, amid competing political priorities within the House Democratic Caucus. Moderate Democrats, particularly those who are vulnerable in 2020, have shied away from impeachment talk, while the party’s progressive base has urged Pelosi and her leadership team to adopt a more aggressive posture.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) initially offered a flat “no” this week when asked if an impeachment investigation had begun, even though he had signed off on the House’s legal filings which stated otherwise. He later walked back those comments. And the No. 5 House Democrat, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, on Wednesday said he wasn’t sure whether an impeachment investigation had begun, before voting to support it on Thursday.

Last month, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said his panel was engaged in “formal impeachment proceedings,” a rhetorical escalation that echoed what House lawyers had told federal judges in recent court filings. Nadler has also said that if the courts move quickly to address the House litigation, his committee could recommend articles of impeachment by the end of the year. The Justice Department cited Nadler’s comments in its filing on Friday.

Nadler and his allies say no formal vote of the House is needed to open an impeachment inquiry, noting that the impeachment of judges and some executive branch officials that the Judiciary Committee has overseen in recent decades required no House authorization.

Though DOJ lawyers attributed their argument in large part to the fact that Democrats said impeachment wasn’t the sole focus of their investigation, Nadler reiterated Friday night that it remains just one possible outcome.

“We have been very clear the last several months in filings into with the court, in public statements, in official statements in the committee that we are conducting an investigation with the purpose, among other things, of determining whether to report articles of impeachment to the entire House,” he said on CNN, when asked to respond to DOJ’s argument.

But Republicans say impeaching a president is a weightier step and that Democrats are refusing to provide the probe full House authorization because they lack the votes — a dynamic driven in part by Pelosi’s outward resistance to taking that step.

Pelosi is mindful of forcing her most vulnerable caucus members to take a politically difficult vote when impeachment efforts are all but doomed in the Republican-controlled Senate. She has repeatedly argued for continued litigation against and investigation of the president even though a majority of House Democrats now favor impeachment or an impeachment inquiry.

Republicans have pointed to Pelosi’s comments as evidence that no formal inquiry has begun, with GOP leaders calling Democrats’ setup a “sham.”

“Their imaginary impeachment is going nowhere,” House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said Friday morning at House Republicans’ annual retreat in Baltimore.

In their own legal filings, Democrats say they need Mueller’s grand jury material because it could pertain to their consideration of articles of impeachment against Trump. Mueller, in his 448-page report released in April, revealed evidence — some based on grand jury testimony — that Trump repeatedly attempted to obstruct the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Justice Department on Thursday shared with the Obama-appointed judge — Beryl Howell, chief judge of the federal district court in Washington — elements of the grand jury material the House is seeking to obtain.

In their initial filing in July, Democrats argued that their authority for claiming to be in the midst of an impeachment probe stems from “Jefferson’s Manual” — a guide to parliamentary procedure employed by the House and Senate. The manual indicates that impeachment proceedings can be launched in a variety of ways, not just through a formal vote of the House. One method is via the referral of articles of impeachment to the Judiciary Committee.

As Nadler and other Democrats note, the House referred articles of impeachment to the committee in January, and they say those articles are now officially under consideration for approval or amendment.

Democrats in recent weeks have pointed to a series of House actions they say bolster their position. In early June, the House voted to allow all committee chairs to enforce subpoenas in court — with the approval of House leaders acting on behalf of the entire chamber.

And last month, the House adopted a resolution declaring all Trump-related subpoenas and demands for information — retroactively and into the future — to have the support of the full House. Impeachment inquiry supporters say this is evidence that the House intended, however indirectly, to back impeachment proceedings without a formal vote.

Similarly, Judiciary Committee officials have noted that previous votes to authorize impeachment proceedings have been intended to empower the committee to issue subpoenas and convene depositions in an era when committees had far less authority than they do in the modern era. Now, the committee already has subpoena and deposition authority, they note.

Matthew Choi contributed to this report.

Pelosi's sabotage of the Judiciary Committee on impeachment is now actively hurting their legal case, and shielding Trump. Pelosi is smart enough to know this. One can only conclude, therefore, that she is knowingly and willfully sabotaging her own party, and shielding Trump, on impeachment.

Pelosi is a fucking traitor, and should be primaried and expelled from the Speakership immediately. She deserves to go down in history as a collaborator for this, who shielded the most dangerous criminal President America ever had.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

Pelosi's sabotage of the Judiciary Committee on impeachment is now actively hurting their legal case, and shielding Trump. Pelosi is smart enough to know this. One can only conclude, therefore, that she is knowingly and willfully sabotaging her own party, and shielding Trump, on impeachment.

Pelosi is a fucking traitor, and should be primaried and expelled from the Speakership immediately. She deserves to go down in history as a collaborator for this, who shielded the most dangerous criminal President America ever had.

TRR, you are a fucking idiot. A really big idiot. You are NOT looking at the bigger picture here. Pelosi is doing this by the book so the GOP will NOT have any method to defang the investigation. This sort of thing is entirely political and takes time, time to keep this under the radar to ensure that the GOP doesn't ruin it for everyone.

[Gandalf]

TRR, you are a fucking idiot. A really big idiot. You are NOT looking at the bigger picture here. Pelosi is doing this by the book so the GOP will NOT have any method to defang the investigation. This sort of thing is entirely political and takes time, time to keep this under the radar to ensure that the GOP doesn't ruin it for everyone.

I assume you've some evidence for this wacky set of claims?

[The Romulan Republic]

TRR, you are a fucking idiot. A really big idiot. You are NOT looking at the bigger picture here. Pelosi is doing this by the book so the GOP will NOT have any method to defang the investigation. This sort of thing is entirely political and takes time, time to keep this under the radar to ensure that the GOP doesn't ruin it for everyone.

I assume you've some evidence for this wacky set of claims?

Of course he doesn't. He's just hoping ranting personal attacks at me in brightly-coloured all-caps will distract from that.

As far as I can see, "Going by the book" (to the extent that there is a "book" for a process used as rarely, and only in extraordinary circumstances, as impeaching a President) is exactly what Nadler is doing: starting a formal impeachment inquiry in the House Judicial Committee, subpoenaing evidence, and then deciding whether to have the Judiciary Committee recommend Articles of Impeachment for a vote on the House floor.

What is not "by the book" is the Speaker of the House and her top deputies publicly undercutting the Judiciary Committee, sending mixed messages and denying an impeachment inquiry is even happening, which directly provides ammunition to the Administration in court to block the Judiciary Committee's investigation.

Pelosi is undercutting him, I suspect because she mistakenly equates this situation to the failed Clinton impeachment which backfired on Republicans, and her goal is and always has been to make a show of investigating Trump, dig up dirt to use in the campaign, but run out the clock on impeachment and "let the voters decide" rather than doing her Constitutional duty and impeaching a corrupt, criminal, and despotic President.

Edit: Frankly, at this point, Nadler should tell Pelosi to go fuck herself, recommend Articles of Impeachment with or without her approval, and if they pass, which will weaken Pelosi's leadership, the House should vote to expel her from the Speakership (even a few dozen Democrats defecting will do it, since she'd have zero Republican support). Preferably with Nadler taking her place as Speaker.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

TRR, you are a fucking idiot. A really big idiot. You are NOT looking at the bigger picture here. Pelosi is doing this by the book so the GOP will NOT have any method to defang the investigation. This sort of thing is entirely political and takes time, time to keep this under the radar to ensure that the GOP doesn't ruin it for everyone.

I assume you've some evidence for this wacky set of claims?

... have you seen what happened with the Mueller investigation? It was so by the book that the attacks that the GOP tried to use to defeat it simply bounced off, and the fact that it is only the current DoJ policy of not indicting a President that is basically holding him back to simply get Trump under cuffs for Obstruction of Justice.

OR have you forgotten already?

[The Romulan Republic]

TRR, you are a fucking idiot. A really big idiot. You are NOT looking at the bigger picture here. Pelosi is doing this by the book so the GOP will NOT have any method to defang the investigation. This sort of thing is entirely political and takes time, time to keep this under the radar to ensure that the GOP doesn't ruin it for everyone.

I assume you've some evidence for this wacky set of claims?

... have you seen what happened with the Mueller investigation? It was so by the book that the attacks that the GOP tried to use to defeat it simply bounced off, and the fact that it is only the current DoJ policy of not indicting a President that is basically holding him back to simply get Trump under cuffs for Obstruction of Justice.

OR have you forgotten already?

I'm not arguing that "by the book" is a bad idea (though one might point out that for all the crimes exposed in the Mueller Report, it has lead to virtually zero concrete action or constraint of the criminal Trump Regime). I am arguing that Pelosi's actions are not by the book at all.

Did you even bother to read my post?

[Ralin]

... have you seen what happened with the Mueller investigation? It was so by the book that the attacks that the GOP tried to use to defeat it simply bounced off, and the fact that it is only the current DoJ policy of not indicting a President that is basically holding him back to simply get Trump under cuffs for Obstruction of Justice.

OR have you forgotten already?

Exactly what harm has the Mueller investigation done to Trump and the GOP that they need to 'defeat?'

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

... have you seen what happened with the Mueller investigation? It was so by the book that the attacks that the GOP tried to use to defeat it simply bounced off, and the fact that it is only the current DoJ policy of not indicting a President that is basically holding him back to simply get Trump under cuffs for Obstruction of Justice.

OR have you forgotten already?

Exactly what harm has the Mueller investigation done to Trump and the GOP that they need to 'defeat?'

Here's the thing, there are two investigations that are under the umbrella of the Mueller Investigation: the Criminal Investigation that has the report and the Counterintelligence Investigation which is still underway. The Mueller Report (which is about the Criminal Investigation) all but outright stated outright that Trump and Co are guilty of Obstruction of Justice (even if they weren't successful, please note that in the US, you'll still get charged with Obstruction of Justice even if you aren't successful), this is despite the fact that a good third or more is covered in black ink because they are part of ongoing criminal cases (which is standard procedure).

When Mueller was put under the microscope when he got called into Congress, he outright stated it was DoJ policy being the only block to indicting Trump.

Mueller made sure that every T is crossed and I is dotted in the investigations, and despite the GOP trying to kill it, they couldn't because there is no leverage to do so.

[houser2112]

When Mueller was put under the microscope when he got called into Congress, he outright stated it was DoJ policy being the only block to indicting Trump.

Mueller made sure that every T is crossed and I is dotted in the investigations, and despite the GOP trying to kill it, they couldn't because there is no leverage to do so.

Maybe my memory is faulty, but from what I remember of the Congressional inquiry, Mueller was very careful to not say "We would have indicted Trump if not for DOJ policy, and if the subject of the investigation was any other person we would have brought indictments", but something more like "Because DOJ policy prohibits indicting a sitting President, we didn't even consider indicting Trump, we just gathered evidence and let the report speak for itself (and it's on you guys to do any indicting as you see fit)".

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

When Mueller was put under the microscope when he got called into Congress, he outright stated it was DoJ policy being the only block to indicting Trump.

Mueller made sure that every T is crossed and I is dotted in the investigations, and despite the GOP trying to kill it, they couldn't because there is no leverage to do so.

Maybe my memory is faulty, but from what I remember of the Congressional inquiry, Mueller was very careful to not say "We would have indicted Trump if not for DOJ policy, and if the subject of the investigation was any other person we would have brought indictments", but something more like "Because DOJ policy prohibits indicting a sitting President, we didn't even consider indicting Trump, we just gathered evidence and let the report speak for itself (and it's on you guys to do any indicting as you see fit)".

Which is nice, political words for what I've said.