TODAY IN CONGRESS (TIC):
Your One Stop Shop For Learning What Our Congress Critters Are Up To!
WHAT’S NEWS?:
Since Congress is now partially in Session, I have decided to restart my TIC posts, even though not much is going on legislatively or in Committees.
In the Senate, #MoscowMitch, or maybe it should be #COVIDMitch, has decided to convene the Senate against Doctor’s Orders to ram through the promotion of his protege, Justin Walker and other Trump Appointees. As described in McJoan's Post the other day, that's the 38-year old Kentuckian who McConnell got onto the district court in Kentucky just last fall, despite the fact that he was rated as unqualified by the American Bar Association because he had never even participated in a trial. And now, the most concrete thing on the Senate agenda is putting Walker on the second highest court in the nation. That’s right, McConnell is risking the lives of his fellow Senators, not to provide further aid for the American people suffering physically and economically from the Corona virus pandemic, but to do what his GOP Senate does best, ram through nominations of totally unqualified Trump appointees. To make matters worse, #COVIDMitch has refused to put in place any mandated precautions against the spread of the virus among fellow Senators and their staffs, simply saying about masks, “wear’em if you got’em.”
In the House, CRICKETS! They are still out with, as far as I know, no definite date to return. While obeying Doctor’s orders, they still don’t have a plan for how to conduct House business SAFELY during the pandemic, although they have been working on one for weeks. I am not going to go into detail about how this frustrates and angers myself and others. If you want to get a taste of it, you can read McJoan’s Post HERE and my followup RANT HERE. Suffice it to say, that in this pandemic crisis, our Representatives are Essential Workers and as such, they need to figure out how to do their job SAFELY and SOON!
However, to be fair, the House did schedule a Committee Hearing for today to obtain testimony from Dr. Anthony Fauci on the Corona pandemic, but the White House pulled the plug on that saying Dr. Fauci was too busy to waste time sitting in a Congressional Hearing. Yeah Right! Is this a temporary delay or the beginning of another White House Cover Up?
Now on with your regular scheduled program!
Here’s today’s schedule with the events I think may be the most interesting in bold. You can watch C-Span HERE. NOTE: Sometimes C-Span posts additional Congressional events not on my list, later in the day.
Today’s Events:
House — Pro Forma Session Only.
Senate —
11:00 am — Senate Session (The Senate resumes debate on the nomination of William Evanina to be Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC).)
2:30 pm — Senate Banking Committee Confirmation Hearing For Special IG for Pandemic Recovery Funds and HUD Nominee (The Senate Banking Committee holds a confirmation hearing for Brian Miller to be the special inspector general for the Treasury Department pandemic recovery funds and Dana Wade to be a federal housing commissioner and HUD assistant secretary for housing.)
Monday’s Votes:
House — No Votes.
Senate — Nomination Vote
Comments:
Today’s Events – Not much going on in front of the C-Span cameras today. But you could watch the Senate to see who is and is not wearing a mask.
COMMITTEE ACTIVITY:
Introduction:
To shorten things up, I have decided to only post Committee activities where there are new or recent developments. No sense in wasting a lot of characters in a limited field when nothing is going on.
NOTE #s1 — 4: To keep this diary as short as possible while still providing a means for new readers to obtain a chronological history on each Committee Activity topic/event below, I have squirreled away the Background information on these topics in other previously posted diaries. So each topic’s Background section below will include links to my September 26, 2019 Diary for Background prior to November 22, my November 22, 2019, 2019 Diary for Background between November 22, 2019 and January 30, 2020, and my January 30, 2020 Diary for Background from January 30, 2020 until today. This and other regular TIC diaries will only include Recent Developments (stuff that happened the day before) and New Developments on each Committee topic/event. Also, I will discontinue posting Committee topics/events that have been inactive for weeks, but their histories will remain in the Background Diaries. If something new happens on these discontinued topics/events, I will bring them back from the dead and post it in the regular TIC.
Now on with the show. (New and Important stuff in bold)
House Judiciary Committee McGahn Subpoena —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Nov. 22 to Jan. 30 CLICK HERE. Post Jan 30 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — On April 28, 2020, a virtual Court Hearing, held by video/audio link, was an eye opener in terms of the questions/remarks from the Judges. Not only did almost all of them show sympathy and support for Congress’s case, but they made no bones about showing how ridiculous the White House’s arguments were. There is already a short diary on this from Boogidapi which has a link to this well written POLITICO Story, so I would urge to click on the links for an in depth read. But here are some highlights from POLITICO:
Barring Congress from enforcing its subpoenas in court could push lawmakers toward arresting senior Trump administration officials or pursuing even more extreme measures, several appeals court judges suggested Tuesday.
It was the second time in recent months that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has openly mulled the bizarre and unnerving prospect of armed conflict between the House sergeant-at-arms and FBI agents if other, more peaceful options for the House to obtain information from the executive branch are closed off.
This is referring to the Congressional power of “Inherent Contempt of Congress” which has not been used since the late 1800s, but which was previously found to be Constitutional by the Supreme Court.
Here’s part of the White House argument and a Judge’s reaction:
A lawyer representing the Trump administration offered a sweeping argument that Congress has no authority to take legal action to enforce its subpoenas because that power lies solely with the president. Rather, lawmakers must rely on a set of political tools — from choking off funding to blocking presidential nominations to impeachment — to bend a stonewalling president to the Congressional will.
“Issuing subpoenas — that's a prerogative of Congress. Enforcing subpoenas and enforcing laws — that’s a prerogative of the president,” Justice Department attorney Hashim Mooppan said.
The House’s top lawyer, Doug Letter, said DOJ’s position would upend decades of practice in congressional investigations and effectively leave lawmakers powerless to stand up to an obstructive administration.
“If the court goes with the Justice Department arguments … congressional oversight as it has been known for this country for years is going to change and be very, very different,” Letter said.
Judge Nina Pillard, an Obama appointee, said DOJ’s stance would leave the House with little but “huge, blunt, disproportionate nuclear options” to try to procure information.
Then there is this from a Judge who you may remember:
“Disputes between the political branches about their institutional prerogatives have occurred since the founding, but lawsuits between them are a novel and unsanctioned tactic,” Mooppan said.
But Judge Merrick Garland said foreclosing all suits by Congress could allow a rogue president to spend wildly, like by paying for health insurance for every American even if Congress never authorized such a program.
“Does Congress have standing to challenge that?” asked Garland, an appointee of President Bill Clinton.
“No,” Mooppan replied.
“NO”, REALLY! What a Hippocratic this Mooppan character is. It’s insulting to the justices to think that this GOP lawyer would actually defend a future Democratic President’s decision to provide M4A to all Americans by Executive Order.
Now it’s likely that the full DC Court will hand Congress a victory when they make their ruling, since most Judges left little doubt where they stand during the session. There is also little doubt that the White House and its pet DoJ will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. If they take the case, they likely would hear the case during the Fall session and probably not issue a final decision until after the November election. But there is an outside chance that they could refuse to take up the case based on the ridiculous nature of the White House argument, in which case the lower court ruling would stand and we could see McGahn in the witness chair this summer.
But if the White House gets the case before SCOTUS, I am sure many of you would say that they succeeded in running out the clock making McGahn’s testimony moot. But beside the fact that I think hearing from him would still be valuable after the election in terms of post-election prosecution of Trump, it is the principle of the thing that is most important. And that principle is that the Executive Branch must honor Congressional Subpoenas, PERIOD. Not only to set the legal precedent for future Congressional subpoenas, but to insure we preserve this vital check on Executive power to avoid losing our democracy bit by bit.
New Developments — None.
That’s It For Now! Stay Separated and Stay Healthy!