Tag: U.S. House

Here’s how Nancy Pelosi can call Trump’s bluff — and destroy the White House argument against impeachment

AlterNet logoBased upon a specious contention from the White House — and parroted by some of Donald Trump’s most avid defenders – that the current House impeachment inquiries are unconstitutional, a long-time political analyst said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) should call the president’s bluff and hold a vote on going forward.

According to Michael Tomasky, writing for The Daily Beast, Pelosi holds a solid majority on the House that would likely grant approval and would stick a fork in one of the White House’s main complaints.

Writing, “There’s no constitutional or legal requirement that they have such a vote. Remember—in the Watergate era, the House Judiciary Committee started hearings they called impeachment hearings in October 1973; the full House vote came in February 1974,” Tomasky made the case for doing it anyway.

View the complete October 28 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Democrats threaten contempt after White House official refuses to testify

The Hill logoHouse Democrats are threatening to charge a key witness in their impeachment investigation with contempt after he defied a subpoena and failed to show up at the Capitol Monday morning.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the lawsuit filed by Charles Kupperman, a deputy to former national security adviser John Bolton, questioning his obligation to appear before Congress “has no basis in law” since Kupperman is now a private citizen. 

Schiff said Democrats will forge ahead with their impeachment investigation, vowing not to let the White House bog their investigation down in the courts.

View the complete October 28 article by Mike Lillis and Olivia Beaver on The Hill website here.

In impeachment inquiry, Republican lawmakers ask questions about whistleblower, loyalty to Trump and conspiracy theories

Washington Post logoRepublican lawmakers have used the congressional impeachment inquiry to gather information on a CIA employee who filed a whistleblower complaint, press witnesses on their loyalty to President Trump and advance conspiratorial claims that Ukraine was involved in the 2016 election, according to current and former officials involved in the proceedings.

GOP members and staffers have repeatedly raised the name of a person suspected of filing the whistleblower complaint that exposed Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to conduct investigations into his political adversaries, officials said.

The Republicans have refrained during hearings from explicitly accusing the individual of filing the explosive complaint with the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general two months ago, officials said.

View the complete October 26 article by Greg Miller and Rachael Bade on The Washington Post website here.

Judge orders DOJ to release grand jury material from Mueller report to Congress

The Hill logoThe Department of Justice (DOJ) must hand over to Congress certain redacted information from Robert Mueller‘s special counsel report, a federal judge ruled Friday in a major win for House Democrats investigating President Trump.

And Howell ruled that the House does not need to authorize the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry with a floor vote in order to be legitimate, in a full-throated rebuke of the president’s attacks on the proceeding.

“In carrying out the weighty constitutional duty of determining whether impeachment of the President is warranted, Congress need not redo the nearly two years of effort spent on the Special Counsel’s investigation, nor risk being misled by witnesses, who may have provided information to the grand jury and the Special Counsel that varies from what they tell [the House Judiciary Committee],” Howell wrote in her decision.

View the complete October 25 article by Harper Neidig on The Hill website here.

Now House Republicans Hate The Rules They Made

Congressional Republicans don’t want to debate President Donald Trump’s attempt to extort political prosecutions of Americans from Ukraine — and given the damning facts emerging every day, their reluctance is understandable, if not honorable. But whining about the process of the impeachment inquiry is only bringing them and their party into deeper disrepute.

Consider the ill-advised and possibly illegal invasion of a secure room in the Capitol on Oct. 23, when a gang of House Republicans led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), delayed the closed testimony of Pentagon official Laura Cooper. Brandishing cellphones and carrying on like the drunken frat boys they once were, Gaetz and his cronies then held a pizza party — and, after a few hours, departed. The hearing went on without them.

By busting into the Secure Compartmented Information Facility, the Gaetz gang jeopardized national security far more brazenly and purposefully than Hillary Clinton’s errant emails ever did. Those politicians know that cellphones and other electronic devices are barred from any Secure Compartmented Information Facility in Washington, and they also know why: to prevent foreign theft of U.S. secrets. At least one member apparently realized that the phones shouldn’t be there and tried to collect them, but it was too late

View the complete October 24 article by Joe Conason on the National Memo website here.

GOP worries it’s losing impeachment fight

The Hill logoRepublican senators fear President Trump and their party are losing the public opinion fight over impeachment.

Many in the GOP think House Democrats are playing politics with impeachment and that Trump’s actions don’t merit impeachment. They also think the media is biased against the White House and the president.

All the same, they think they’re losing the public battle and that Trump’s lack of discipline is hurting them.

View the complete October 25 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

How does this impeachment process compare with Nixon and Clinton?

Washington Post logo“We know what a constitutionally serious impeachment process would [look] like; we saw that happen both with President Nixon and with President Clinton. This is not that. This is not a search for the truth. This is not a situation where you’ve got the majority, the Democrats, who are upholding their constitutional duty and trying to get to the truth.”

— Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), speaking to reporters, Oct. 22

A persistent complaint by Republicans is that the Democrat-led House of Representatives is conducting an impeachment inquiry against all precedent and tradition. As we have noted previously, the House impeachment inquiry is akin to a grand jury and a prosecutor filing charges, while the Senate holds a trial.

Now let’s look at a narrower question, reflected in the quote — how does the current situation compare with the impeachment inquiries against Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton? The proposed Senate resolution introduced Oct. 24 by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and co-sponsored by 44 colleagues also unfavorably compares the current process with the impeachment process used against Nixon and Clinton.

The answer depends on where you start the clock.

View the complete October 25 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

‘My most disturbing day in Congress’: Democrat leaves US diplomat’s hearing shaken by Ukraine testimony

AlterNet logoThe US diplomat who protested against President Trump’s pressuring Ukraine to investigate a political rival in exchange for military aid is testifying on Capitol Hill today in a closed-door session. According to reports, Taylor, who was the top American diplomat in Ukraine after Trump’s ouster of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, is expected to be questioned by House investigators on what he thinks Trump’s motives were in trying to orchestrate a quid pro quo with Ukraine’s government.

While details on Taylor’s exact testimony are still unknown, Fox News reporter Chad Pergram suggested in a tweet this Tuesday that Taylor is already confirming Democrats worst fears. One of those Democrats, Rep. Andy Levin (MI), was overheard saying, “It’s only noon and this is my most disturbing day in Congress so far.”

Taylor became a central figure in President Trump’s Ukraine fiasco after leaked text messages showed him condemning Trump’s push for a quid pro quo.

View the complete October 22 article from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

House Democrats zero in on ‘abuse of power’ in Trump impeachment inquiry

Pelosi is said to favor one sweeping charge related to Ukraine, but there’s some debate about the need for additional charges.

WASHINGTON — House Democrats are zeroing in on a framework for their impeachment case against President Donald Trump that will center on a simple “abuse of power” narrative involving the president’s actions regarding Ukraine, according to multiple people familiar with the deliberations.

As Democrats continue closed-door depositions with critical witnesses and prepare to move to the next phase of public hearings, they are wrestling over which elements and evidence to bring in, which to leave out. The goal is to explain to the public the reasoning and relevance of any eventual impeachment charges.

Democratic House committee chairs and leaders are still debating the need for additional articles or charges that extend beyond the president’s dealings with Ukraine, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been adamant that the case against Trump must be targeted and easy to communicate in order to build public support, according to those familiar with discussions.

View the complete October 21 article by Heidi Przybyla on the NBC News website here.

House rejects GOP measure censuring Schiff

The Hill logoDemocrats in the House turned aside a GOP-led privileged resolution to censure House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Monday in a straight party-line 218-185 vote.

Republicans and President Trump have increasingly targeted Schiff, a public face of the impeachment effort.

They have taken issue with Schiff’s exaggerated account of the details of President Trump‘s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a hearing in September. Schiff has defended his remarks as being an intentional parody of Trump’s comments.

View the complete October 21 article by Juliegrace Brufke on The Hill website here.