TODAY IN CONGRESS (TIC) — SPECIAL EDITION
INTRODUCTION — Well Congress is on recess this week for the Thanksgiving Day holiday. So I thought this might be a good time to take a deep breath and look around to see where things are and where they might be going with the Impeachment Inquiry, as we all sit around waiting for our turkey dinner to digest. As alluded to in the title, this diary will focus on three (3) aspects of the Impeachment Inquiry:
1. The first being a Recap of the Intelligence Committee Hearings;
2. The second being a review of the New Developments since my last TIC post on Friday, November 22; and
3. The third being A Look Forward on where the Impeachment Inquiry might go from here and where IMO I think it should go. So without any further blabbering on my part, let’s get on with it.
1. Recap of the Intelligence Committee Hearings:
I originally intended to write up a summary of the Intelligence Committee Hearings conducted over the past two weeks complete with highlights of each witness’s testimony and what each witness contributed in terms of building a case for Articles of Impeachment. But I have decided against doing that. Partly because most if not all of you DK folks have already viewed or read a number of recaps by now, and partly because, honestly, I am experiencing a bought of laziness after my Turkey Day feast and really did not feel like expelling all the mental energy required to write such a summary. But mostly because our own Mark Sumner has already done a remarkable job of writing up two stellar recaps of the Intelligence Committee Hearings.
The first Mark posted on Friday (Nov. 22) [LINK HERE] which he entitled “An Abbreviated Guide To Two Weeks Of Public Hearings In The Impeachment of Donald J. Trump”, but what a would describe as more of a comprehensive witness by witness review.
The second Mark posted on Sunday (Nov. 24) [LINK HERE] where he has posted a truly abbreviated recap at the beginning of his Sunday APR, in which he lays out in a few words, each witnesses contribution in somewhat humorous but to the point fashion.
I urge you to read both of Mark’s great posts, because frankly he has done a much better job at recapping the Impeachment Hearings than I could of done.
2. New Developments Since Nov. 22:
So a lot of Congressional Events have occurred since my last TIC post, as new news keeps BREAKING at a RECORD BREAKING Pace. Here’s are some of the more significant developments since my last TIC post in chronological order:
- President Trump (the Impeachment Defendant) and A Group of GOP Senators (Some of the Impeachment Jurors) Meet Over Lunch to Plot Their Senate Trial Strategy — On Thursday [Nov. 21] a group of Republican senators and senior White House officials met privately to map out a strategy for a potential impeachment trial of President Trump, including proceedings in the Senate that could be limited to about two weeks, according to multiple officials familiar with the talks, according to this Washington Post report. The gang consisted of:
Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Ron Johnson (Wis.), John Neely Kennedy (La.), Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) met with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, senior adviser Jared Kushner, and counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, according to the officials, some of whom requested anonymity to discuss a private meeting.
So if this was going to be like a normal trial (which I would argue the Founding Fathers intended it to be) this would be blatant, out in the open Jury Tampering. But this is an Impeachment trial and unfortunately there is nothing written in the Constitution prohibiting such tampering. Still the meer fact that the Constitution calls this a trial with a Judge and refers to the Senators as the “Jurors”, should be enough of a hint that this sort of pre-trial tampering is just plain wrong. Also, as expressed in this DK Diary by Laurence Lewis, it appears the strategy being cooked up by the Defendant and some of his Jurors, is to rush through the trial with the Jury voting to not hear some witnesses. Can you say reverse Kangaroo Court!
- State Department Releasing Documents in Response to a FOIA Court Order — On Friday evening [Nov. 22], as has been the case most every Friday evening since Trump took office, the media received a document dump. The State Department released nearly 100 pages of records in response to a Federal Judge’s ruling on FOIA lawsuit filed by American Oversight, a little known non-partisan, nonprofit ethics watchdog group seeking a range of documents related to the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine. According to this Press Release by American Oversight:
Among other records, the production includes emails that confirm multiple contacts in March of 2019 between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, at least one of which was facilitated by President Trump’s assistant Madeleine Westerhout.
American Oversight is reviewing the production to assess whether the State Department has fully complied with the court’s order.
In a statement by American Oversight’s Director Austin Evers:
“We can see why Mike Pompeo has refused to release this information to Congress. It reveals a clear paper trail from Rudy Giuliani to the Oval Office to Secretary Pompeo to facilitate Giuliani’s smear campaign against a U.S. ambassador.
“This is just the first round of disclosures. The evidence is only going to get worse for the administration as its stonewall strategy collapses in the face of court orders.
“That American Oversight could obtain these documents establishes that there is no legal basis for the administration to withhold them from Congress. That conclusively shows that the administration is engaged in obstruction of justice. The president and his allies should ask themselves if impeachment for obstruction is worth it if the strategy isn’t even going to be effective.
“This lawsuit is just one of several American Oversight is pursuing to bring transparency to the Ukraine investigation. The public should expect more disclosures, over the administration’s strong objection, for the foreseeable future.”
Here is a little excerpt of what American Oversight has learned from these documents:
The documents show a March 26, 2019, call between Rudy Giuliani and Mike Pompeo. (Page 39 of document)
A March 28, 2019, email includes a list of scheduled calls for Pompeo. Calls include Rudy Giuliani on March 29, and Rep. Devin Nunes on April 1, 2019.
During his closed-door testimony, career diplomat David Hale mentioned two calls between Pompeo and Giuliani, one on March 28, 2019, and one on March 29. The documents include a March 28 email to Hale indicating that Pompeo had been the one to request a call with Giuliani. (Page 45)
The March 29 call appears on page 46, and the confirmation of its scheduling is on page 44.
You can read the entire 100 pages of released documents HERE courtesy of American Oversight. Yes, these are some of the same documents that were subpoenaed by Congress and which the State Department has refused to turn over.
What baffles me about this release of documents (and apparently there will be much more to come according to American Oversight) is why the State Department didn’t appeal the Judge’s ruling and seek a stay from an Appeals Court to at least delay the document release?
The only thing I can think of is while Pompeo had his best lawyers guarding the front door of the document vault against the Congresses subpoena, he left non-political, career State Department attorneys guarding the back door to the vault against the Citizen Group FOIA request. Those back door guards being career attorneys who simply followed the FOIA law and saw no reasonable grounds for appeal. Pompeo must be pissed.
Anyway they haven’t been 100% forthcoming in providing the FOIA documents according to American Oversight:
The State Department did not produce a formal directive recalling Yovanovitch or a formal readout of Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky. Both of these were covered by the court’s production order.
More litigation to come I presume.
- Lev Parnas (Giuliani Stooge #1) Attorney Announces His Client Wants to Sing Like a Bird — On Friday evening (Nov. 22) there was this CNN Report:
The attorney, Joseph A. Bondy,
represents Lev Parnas, the recently indicted Soviet-born American who worked with Giuliani to push claims of Democratic corruption in Ukraine. Bondy said that Parnas was told directly by the former Ukrainian official that he met last year in Vienna with Rep. Devin Nunes.
"Mr. Parnas learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December," said Bondy.
Shokin was ousted from his position in 2016 after
pressure from Western leaders, including then-vice president Biden, over concerns that Shokin was not pursuing corruption cases.
So Nunes is not just one of the group of GOP House Members pushing the totally phoney, Russian Born Biden/Burisma Conspiracy Theory being peddled by Shokin, he apparently was in on its creation. The CNN Report goes on:
Bondy told CNN that his client and Nunes began communicating around the time of the Vienna trip. Parnas says he worked to put Nunes in touch with Ukrainians who could help Nunes dig up dirt on Biden and Democrats in Ukraine, according to Bondy.
That information would likely be of great interest to House Democrats given its overlap with the current impeachment inquiry into President Trump, and could put Nunes in a difficult spot.
Bondy told CNN his client is willing to comply with a Congressional subpoena for documents and testimony as part of the impeachment inquiry in a manner that would allow him to protect his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
Bondy suggested in a
tweet on Friday that he was already speaking to House Intel though the committee declined to comment.
Yes, the Committee should arrange to have Parnas testify (first in a closed door deposition, and then in a Public Hearing if necessary). But no, they should not grant him immunity from prosecution in advance. And yes, Nunes should be and probably will be brought up on Ethics charges in the House.
- Lev Parnas (Giuliani Stooge #1) Has Turned Over TAPES — On Sunday (Nov. 24) it was reported that indicted conspirator Lev Parnas, (through his lawyer) has turned over video/audio recordings and photographs to the House Intelligence Committee of meetings between Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump. According to this ABC News Report:
The House Intelligence Committee is in possession of audio and video recordings and photographs provided to the committee by Lev Parnas, an associate of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who reportedly played a key role in assisting him in his efforts to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and Ukraine, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
The material submitted to the committee includes audio, video and photos that include Giuliani and Trump. It was unclear what the content depicts and the committees only began accessing the material last week.
All I can say is: “OH Boy, Oh Boy, We Got Tapes!”
- Internal White House Correspondence Reportedly Shows an Effort to Cook Up Phoney Reasons for Withholding Ukrainian Military Aid and Determine Legality — According to this Washington Post Report:
A confidential White House review of President Trump’s decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine has turned up hundreds of documents that reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification for the decision and a debate over whether the delay was legal, according to three people familiar with the records.
The research by the White House Counsel’s Office, which was triggered by a congressional impeachment inquiry announced in September, includes early August email exchanges between acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials seeking to provide an explanation for withholding the funds after President Trump had already ordered a hold in mid-July on the nearly $400 million in security assistance, according to the three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.
That is the one thing that stood out to me during the Hearings. Although, Democrats found it hard to find direct witnesses who said explicitly that Trump told them to withhold the Aid until Zelensky publicly announces the Burisma/Biden/2016 investigations, the Republicans were totally unable to offer any other plausible explanation for why the funds were being withheld. Now we find out that the White House Gang was trying to cook up some phoney reasons, but apparently failed since none were made public (of course Mulvaney did blurt out the real reason). They also were trying to determine reasons why it was legal for the President to withhold funds duly appropriated by Congress and signed into law by Trump himself. Apparently, they failed at that too. The actual E-mails detailing what was being planned have not been released, but I did hear a report that the American Oversight watchdog group has filed a FOIA request to obtain them.
- Judge in McGahn Subpoena Case Issues Ruling Saying McGahn Must Testify — On Monday [Nov. 25], Federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson handed down a historic ruling in the McGahn subpoena case, ordering him to honor the Congress’s lawful subpoena to appear before and give testimony to the House Judiciary Committee and thoroughly eviscerated the Trump DoJ argument of “Absolute Immunity”. There is already a lot written about this ruling and this DK Diary by Mokurai has links to many of the news reports. So I am not going to try to summarize the Judge’s 120 page ruling. But here’s my favorite excerpt:
Thus, for the myriad reasons laid out above as well as those that are articulated plainly in the prior precedents of the Supreme Court, the D.C. Circuit, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, this Court holds that individuals who have been subpoenaed for testimony by an authorized committee of Congress must appear for testimony in response to that subpoena—i.e., they cannot ignore or defy congressional compulsory process, by order of the President or otherwise.
Sounds to me the Judge is saying, in a roundabout, read between the lines way, that what McGahn did and other witnesses are doing in refusing to comply with a legal Congressional subpoena because the President requested that they ignore it, was/is illegal. They are personally breaking the law and the President’s request is no shield against prosecution.
Although this ruling is not directly applicable to John Bolton and other witnesses since he is not a part of this subpoena case and he has not yet received a Congressional subpoena, it is indirectly related to Bolton and others since it strike’s down DoJ’s argument of Presidential “Absolute Immunity” which the White House has applied to block all its current and former staff from testifying. So far Bolton has been silent on what, if any effect the ruling in the McGahn case may have on him appearing before Congress. The last statement from Bolton’s attorney is that if subpoenaed by Congress, he will abide by the upcoming ruling in the Kupperman case (Kupperman is a Bolton staffer who is asking the court to decide whether he should abide by a Congressional subpoena to testify or abide by the President’s request that he not testify). That case has a Hearing scheduled for December 10.
In response, to Monday’s ruling, McGahn’s attorney says he will testify unless a stay is issued. So, as expected, according to this DK FP Post by the GREAT Mark Sumner:
On Wednesday morning, the DOJ asked Jackson to halt the implementation of the decision while it prepared an appeal.
On Wednesday afternoon, Judge Jackson agreed to do so, but, as TPM notes, the administrative stay is limited to a seven days. The judge made it clear in her statement that the stay should in no way “be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of the motion for stay pending appeal.”
Whether Judge Jackson will give the DOJ a requested longer stay is still up in the air, but considering the force of her decision—which declared that there was no such thing as the Trump White House’s claimed “unlimited immunity” for members of the executive branch, and stated bluntly that “presidents are not kings”—she made clear her position that there is absolutely no merit in the case being pressed by the DOJ. That leaves the possibility that the seven-day time-out could expire in the middle of next week, and that Jackson could very well refuse to extend the stay.
Which means the DoJ will have to hustle (over the Holiday) to put together an Appeal to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and a request for a longer stay. Let’s be clear, a stay does not prevent McGahn from testifying if he so chooses, it just temporarily keeps him out of legal trouble since it stays the Judge’s order compelling him to testify.
- SCOTUS Issues A Stay In The Case Involving the House Committee’s Subpoena of Trump’s Tax Returns — In a one page ruling on Monday [Nov.25], which you can read HERE courtesy of the DK Diary by MTmofo, SCOTUS granted Team Trump its requested stay in the case of Congress’s subpoena of Mazars (Trump’s former Accounting Firm) for Trump’s financial records including his tax returns. The stay temporarily prevents Mazars from handing over Trump’s financial records/tax returns by the deadline imposed by the Court of Appeals ruling. As stated in the SCOTUS ruling, the stay is to allow for the filing and disposition by SCOTUS of a writ of certiorari by Team Trump by no later than December 5 (i.e., Trump must submit a request for SCOTUS to take the case by December 5, and if he does, the stay will remain in effect at least until SCOTUS makes its decision on whether to hear the case or not).
I have heard a lot of legal Pundit speculation that this means SCOTUS is planning to take the case and a lot that this doesn’t provide any indication that they will or won’t hear the case. The most plausible legal opinion I have heard on this is that SCOTUS is just buying itself time to consider whether to hear both Trump tax cases that are now being elevated to the Supreme Court level. The two cases are this Congressional subpoena case and the case of the Manhattan DAs subpoena of Mazars for Trump’s tax returns. Since they are similar with respect to the fact that they both involve the subpoenaing of Trump tax returns from Mazars, it makes sense that SCOTUS would want to decide on whether to hear them at the same time. However, the cases are different in that Congress is seeking the returns as part of its Executive Oversight role and the Manhattan DA is seeking them as part of a criminal investigation into Trump’s payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels for which Michael Cohen was convicted and incarcerated. They could decide to hear both cases, hear neither case or hear one and not the other. We will see.
- House Oversight Committee Files Lawsuit to Enforce its Subpoenas to Wilbur Ross (Commerce Secretary) and AG William Barr — If you remember way back when, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed both Ross and Barr for testimony and documents related to Trump’s failed attempt to have a citizenship question added to the 2020 Census form. If you need your memory refreshed, you can go to my August 27 TIC to get it refreshed. As summed up in Hunter's FP Post:
This investigation is over Wilbur Ross' now-proven lies (including perjury) on the origins of the citizenship question the administration attempted to stuff into the 2020 census over the strong objections of census officials.
Both Ross and Barr were held in Contempt of Congress by a House vote for failure to honor their subpoenas, and nothing has happened in this matter since then. Frankly I thought the Committee had decided not to enforce their subpoenas since Trump/Ross decided not to add the citizenship question to the Census. But, on Monday [Nov. 25] the House Committee announced it was filing a lawsuit in Federal Court to enforce these subpoenas. Why, you may ask? I’m really not sure, other than not allowing Barr and Ross to get away with defying Congress. Why Now, you may ask? That’s an easier question. Both Barr and Ross have used the phoney legal argument of “Presidential Absolute Immunity” to defend defying their Congressional Subpoenas. This is the same legal argument that just went down in flames in the Federal Judge’s ruling in the McGahn case. I think that the House Oversight Committee sees this McGahn ruling as adding significant support to their case, and by the time the Ross/Barr case has a Hearing in Federal Court, the McGahn case will have wound its way through the Appeals process and a final decision in that case (if in Congress’s favor as is expected) will make the Barr/Ross case a legal slam dunk.
- Transcript of OMB Official Mark Sandy’s Closed Door Deposition Released — The transcript of Mark Sandy’s closed door testimony has been released by the House Impeachment Committees. According to this Wednesday [Nov. 27] CNN Report:
Mark Sandy, a career official in the Office of Management and Budget, said that the White House did not tell his office that the aid was being frozen over concerns about other countries' contributions until months after the hold was put in place. Sandy described deep dissatisfaction within the OMB after the hold was put in place, including questions being raised about the legality of the freeze and the resignations of officials who expressed concerns about the move.
Furthermore,
Sandy said that when he learned the aid was withheld on July 19, after returning from a vacation, he raised legal concerns because the funds had to be obligated by September 30, the end of the fiscal year, under the Impoundment Control Act. The law, passed in the 1970s, prohibits a sitting US president from unilaterally withholding funds that were appropriated by Congress. Some liberal-minded scholars have opined that Trump broke the law when he froze the aid, because the $390 million in military help for Ukraine had been appropriated by lawmakers.
You can read the full Sandy transcript HERE.
- House Judiciary Committee Announces First Impeachment Hearing on December 4 — According to this POLITICO Article:
The House Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing next week on the impeachment of President Donald Trump, as Democrats move quickly to the next stage of a process that is likely to lead to the third-ever presidential impeachment before the end of the year.
The hearing, scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 4, will feature a panel of constitutional experts and focus on the definition of an impeachable offense and the “procedural application of the impeachment process,” according to committee aides.
“The impeachment inquiry is entering into a new phase,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “Our first task is to explore the framework put in place to respond to serious allegations of impeachable misconduct like those against President Trump.”
Most notably, the hearing will give Trump and his legal team the option to participate. The president and his allies have blasted Democrats over their impeachment inquiry, saying it has failed to include meaningful due process for the president.
Nadler sent a letter to Trump on Tuesday notifying him of his lawyers’ opportunity to attend and giving the president a deadline of Dec. 1 to inform him of whether his attorneys plan to participate.
Well, things are moving fast on the impeachment front. I’ll explore whether that’s a good or bad thing in my “Looking Forward” section below.
3. Looking Forward With Respect To Impeachment:
As we look ahead and try to figure out where this House Impeachment process will go from here, two (2) important questions come into play. They are:
1. Should the House pursue an impeachment focused solely on Trump’s Ukraine crimes (i.e., the “Single Shot” Approach) or on all of Trump’s provable crimes (i.e., the “Shotgun” Approach)?
2. When should the House Vote on Articles of Impeachment and Turn Trump Impeachment Process Over to the Senate for Trial?
These two questions which I am sure Nancy Pelosi and others in the Dem. leadership are continuing to agonize over, are at the crux of the problem of how to move forward with the impeachment process. To complicate matters, these are not two independent questions, they are intertwined. For instance, a decision to quickly turn Articles of Impeachment over to the Senate, could preclude the gathering of the evidence (documents and testimony) needed to prove a broader range of Trump’s crimes. Anyway here are my thoughts on how these two questions should be answered and then on how those answers can provide the maximum benefit to our side and the Rule of Law.
So first:
Should the House pursue an impeachment focused solely on Trump’s Ukraine crimes (i.e., the “Single Shot” Approach) or on on all of Trump’s provable crimes (i.e., the “Shotgun” Approach)?
First, let me clarify that when it comes to the general Articles of Impeachment, they will probably be very similar to the ones drafted for Nixon, being:
1. Abuse of Power;
2. Obstruction of Justice;
3. Contempt of Congress; and possibly
4. BRIBERY, which would be specific to the Ukraine plot.
What the above question deals with is whether the specific crimes and abuses listed under these Articles will be limited to the Ukraine Plot or include Trump’s other provable crimes (e.g., Obstruction of Justice during the Trump/Russia investigation, Campaign Finance violations from the SDNY investigation, Emoluments Clause violations, etc.).
So, there has been a lot of discussion about this question both here on DailyKos and in the media. The arguments for each that I have heard have been:
The “Single Shot” Approach, with the single shot being the Ukraine BRIBERY Plot, is that it is both a slam dunk in terms of evidence and is easy for the public to understand.
The “Shotgun” Approach, meaning charging Trump with all his provable crimes, is that not doing so gives Trump a pass for some very serious crimes and sets a bad precedent for down the road by considerably raising the bar for what should be considered as impeachable offenses.
It appears that some in the media favor the “Single Shot” or “Silver Bullet” Approach while folks here at DK have come down on the side of using the “Shotgun” Approach, as for example this recent FP Post by Joan McCarter. Let me say I come strongly down in favor of the latter and here’s why.
Having the Ukraine BRIBERY Plot be the focus of the impeachment process because its a slam dunk with regard to evidence and easy for the public to understand is fine (BTW — I think the easy to understand argument is demeaning to everyone with a Grade School education or higher). But why should that preclude including Trump’s other provable crimes under the Articles of Impeachment? What is the harm in listing his other provable crimes? The greater harm, I would argue, is in NOT including them. The logistical reality of the current situation makes impeachment of this President a one shot deal, in that if the impeachment is based solely on the Ukraine Plot and he is acquitted in the Senate, there is no realistic way of coming back afterwards with a second impeachment for the other provable crimes. Meaning that Democrats would be giving Trump an undeserved pass on his other serious offenses, and would be setting a precedent making it difficult if not impossible for Democrats to impeach future Republican Presidents on similar crimes. It opens pandora's box making Emoluments Clause, Campaign Finance violations unimpeachable. It also begs the question that if you are charging the President with Obstruction of Justice in the Ukraine investigation, why would you not charge him with Obstruction of Justice in the Trump/Russia investigation? Both are equally provable and serious.
Anyway, to wrap up, it is uncertain which way the Dem. leadership will come down on this question at this time. Although it appears some may be heading towards the Ukraine only option, I can’t believe Larry Nadler will just give up on the charge of Obstruction of Justice in the Trump/Russia investigation, which his Committee has already put in months of work on. The question, I think Pelosi and the others in the Dem. Leadership team need to grapple with when it comes to deciding which specific charges against Trump should be included under Articles of Impeachment is this:
Given the same set of facts and evidence, what charges would Republicans bring against a Democratic President?
If House Democrats honestly answer the above question, than what should be the charges included in the Trump impeachment becomes clear (all of them). Because to leave out some will cement the double standard that it’s only impeachable if a Democrat President does it, which the hippocratic Republicans will have no problem adopting as a principle in the future.
In the end it may boil down to the timing of additional witnesses and documents. Which gets us to Question #2.
So second:
When should the House Vote on Articles of Impeachment and Turn Trump Over to the Senate for Trial?
So I have one question with respect to the above question. What’s the Rush?
I fail to see why the House Democrats appear to be in such a rush to turn Articles of Impeachment over to the Senate. The two reasons for a fast paced impeachment process I have heard are:
1. We need to move fast to keep the public’s attention and to keep the polls moving in the direction of impeachment and removal.
This is a bad argument for two reasons. First, impeachment is not a political process, it's a Constitutional process. By that I mean it was not the intention of the Founding Fathers that impeachment be used only when the majority of the electorate supported its use. It was clearly their intention that it be used to remove a President who has committed serious crimes against the United States, regardless if the majority of the electorate wanted him removed or not. So the polls shouldn’t matter. But assuming they do for purely political reasons, the second reason the argument for a fast impeachment is a bad argument is that the polls are steadily moving in the impeach and remove direction and there is no sign that they will move in the other direction. In fact, it is logical to assume that as more evidence of Trump's crimes come out over time, the more the public polls will move towards impeachment and removal. So rushing through things and omitting new evidence as it becomes available makes no sense from a public sentiment perspective.
2. We need to get this over with before the February Presidential Primaries (this, being the Senate trial and vote) so our Dem. Senators who are also Presidential candidates don’t get pulled off the campaign trail just as the Primaries begin.
This makes no sense also. As I have often said in the past, “In Politics, Timing is Everything” and as such he (or she) that controls the timing of events has the political advantage. Therefore, in this case, Pelosi and the Democrats control the timing of the Impeachment Process up until they turn the Articles of Impeachment over to the Senate, at which time #MoscowMitch McConnell and the GOP Senators will take control of the timing. Meaning that if the Democrats try to rush through the House impeachment process and send Articles to the Senate before the end of the year, it is probable that McConnell would delay starting the Senate trial until February so as to cause the maximum disruption of the Dem. Primary process. Anyone who thinks Mitch won’t be that politically deveas should consult the Merrick Garland Supreme Court appointment case. I am sure Pelosi and her team are aware of this fact, and as such, they might want to consider slowing things down a bit so as to hand over Articles to the Senate in late March or early April so as to allow the Dem Presidential Primaries to shake out a bit.
There are other reasons/benefits for the House to take more time to complete its Impeachment investigation before turning over Articles of Impeachment to the Senate.
First, it will allow time to gather more evidence from documents and witness testimony. As I have said before, the facts and evidence should dictate the investigative timeline, not the other way around (i.e., the timeline should NOT dictate what facts and evidence are considered). Now I am not saying the House should take months and months for all the court battles to play out in order to gather every little bit of documentary evidence and the testimony of every last witness. On the other hand they shouldn’t rush past opportunities to gather documentary evidence that become available and hear from critical witnesses who are willing to testify in response to subpoenas and Court rulings. It makes no sense to me to tell a key willing witness that it’s too late to hear their testimony because we are past the Hearing stage. It would look pretty silly.
In particular, there are what I consider, two very important witnesses that may become available to testify in the next few weeks.
One is John Bolton, whose lawyer has said will testify if subpoenaed and if directed by the Courts, in the case of his Aide, Mr. Kupperman’s case which goes to a Court Hearing on December 10. Bolton is clearly taking the same stance as Kupperman in that they simply want to Court to order them to honor a Congressional subpoena to testify as a CYA move. So its unlikely they would appeal such a ruling that will likely come before the end of December. Bolton likely has a lot more damaging evidence to offer against Trump with regard to the Ukraine Plot and seems very eager to present it to Congress if he can get the Court to cover his a$$. Waiting a few weeks, not months to get his testimony seems prudent to me.
The other is Don McGahn who can corroborate much of Trump’s Obstruction of Justice during the Trump/Russia investigation. His case is a little different in that it is DoJ (on behalf of Trump) who is trying to block his testimony. As you know, DoJ lost in the initial Court ruling and is now filing an Appeal. McGahn, for his part, says he will testify if the Courts ultimately decides he must honor the Congressional subpoena. Congress is sure to request an expedited appeal as they have done in the past with other impeachment related cases. So if the Appeal is expedited and SCOTUS refuses to take the case (which seems likely based on the DoJ’s baseless (silly) immunity argument) we could see McGahn also become available to testify in the next few weeks. Again, waiting a few weeks, not months to get this important testimony seems prudent to me, even if McGahn sticks to only telling Congress what he told Mueller.
Other witnesses like Parnas and other documents like Trump’s tax returns could become available between now and the end of February, and could be included if they do.
Another reason why a late March or early April hand over to the Senate makes sense, is it will likely place the Senate trial smack dab in the middle of Senate Primary Election Season which begins in March and primarily runs through June. As such, it would place GOP Senators running for reelection in purple States in the unenviable position of having to vote on conviction or acquittal of Trump at a time when they would be politically the most vulnerable. A vote to convict would likely earn them a Trumpian opponent in the Primary who could very well take them down. However, a vote to acquit would make them equally if not more vulnerable to defeat by a Democratic opponent in the November general election. So, in a nutshell, a late March or early April Senate trial could very well be the optimum time that could give us our best chance at flipping the Senate. Yes, this would be political hardball on the Democrats part, but you know if the tables were turned, the Republicans would not think twice about doing it to us.
So to sum up, I hope the Democrats take my advice. Impeach Trump on all of his proveable crimes (i.e, crimes that are supported by sufficient evidence) and turn over Articles of Impeachment to the Senate for trial in late March or early April.
That’s All I have For Now. I will be back next week when Congress returns for my regular TIC posts. Hope you all have had a pleasant and safe THANKSGIVING!