House hearings on the impeachment of Donald J. Trump are back on Tuesday … only smaller. From one of the largest hearing rooms in the House during the inquiry to one of the most snug, the main players in the House hearings squeezed into the side chamber allocated for the Rules Committee on Tuesday morning in an attempt to beat out the rules for the handling of the articles of impeachment and the final vote before the full House.
Republican Doug Collins opened with a complaint that just the fact that the House was engaging the Rules Committee showed that there was disagreement, which was somehow disqualifying to the whole process. However, others pointed out that this is the process, or at least the process as it has been followed in other impeachments, including impeachments of judges and federal officials.
Democratic Rep. Jaime Raskin did a sterling job of dismissing the claim that charges against Trump were “different” because there were “no legal charges,” a position that’s being pushed not just by Collins and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, but also by Mitch McConnell in the Senate. Raskin pointed out that the Department of Justice has made clear its position that Trump can’t be indicted, and that it can’t even consider an indictment against Trump. So there can never be any charges directed at him other than those raised by the House—just as Richard Nixon wasn’t charged with burglary. As Raskin pointed out, this demand is an attempt to give Republicans a “Heads I win, tails you lose” position that can be used to ignore the evidence of Trump’s actions.
Tuesday, Dec 17, 2019 · 5:56:59 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
A lot of questions have come up around Nadler’s refusing to schedule a minority day of hearings. And my best read on that is that … yeah, not giving Republicans that day was silly. Democrats could have quashed any attempt to use that day for dragging in the whistleblower or Hunter Biden. An extra day of the same back and forth might even have been a good thing, and it certainly would have punctured what’s probably the biggest point that the GOP has in the “unfair” bit.
Tuesday, Dec 17, 2019 · 6:10:54 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
While Raskin does a good job of defending the impeachment on the facts of the case — probably better than Nadler would have done — it’s clear that stepping into this role last minute is tough for him when it comes to some of the process issues where Nadler had charge.
Tuesday, Dec 17, 2019 · 6:31:08 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
Collins just claimed that Nadler said “no, we’re not having it” on the minority day of hearings … which Nadler never said during the actual hearings. Unless it was something said outside of camera, Collins is stating something that’s very much not true.
Tuesday, Dec 17, 2019 · 5:27:01 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
The byplay here is quite different from that in previous hearings, with Collins and Raskin acting essentially as advocates, if not attorneys, on the topic. And both are taking an approach that is different from what’s been seen previously.
Interestingly, for a committee whose job is enforcement of the chamber’s complex rules, Rules Committee chair Jim McGovern seems able to operate more fluid manner, moving back and forth, and in some cases gaining more natural statements from the participants than we’ve seen in previous hearings.
Tuesday, Dec 17, 2019 · 5:33:57 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
I should have made clear sooner that this would have been Doug Collins and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, but Nadler is not there because of a family emergency. So Raskin is stepping into his role.
This is particularly clear because Republican ranking member Tom Cole is directing a series of questions toward Raskin that ask him about personal statements by Nadler, resulting in some rather awkward exchanges.