Impeachment would give House Dems best look at prez – experts
Congressman Jerrold Nadler would have a stronger hand prying information out of the Trump White House about Russian election interference and other scandals if he launched impeachment proceedings, legal experts testified Wednesday.
Democrats in Congress have been extremely shy of using the I-word, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly rejected calls to go there, saying the process is divisive.
Congress instead has opted for aggressive oversight, a process that would make Trump “self-impeachable” — as Pelosi described it — in the next election.
As part of that, Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee demanded earlier this month that Attorney General William Barr turn over all of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling, as well as all the underlying evidence. The committee voted to hold him in contempt when he refused and Trump asserted the entire cache of information was protected by executive privilege.
At a committee hearing Wednesday, four experts said Nadler (D-Manhattan) and Congress certainly have a right to obtain much of the information they want, and that it was unprecedented for a White House to assert, as Trump’s has, that it would answer no subpoenas from Congress or provide information in some 20 investigations.
“When I think of a word to describe that, the only one that comes to mind is contemptuous,” said Georgia State University law professor Neil Kinkopf.
They disagreed on what information a judge might let Trump protect, though, noting any White House can invoke executive privilege to keep secret its own deliberations and any discussions that stay entirely within the executive branch.
But the balance for what must be released shifts to Congress if there is reasonable suspicion the White House is trying to hide misdeeds. The strongest way to make that claim to a judge is through an impeachment proceeding, rather than traditional congressional oversight probes.
“This body has decided to proceed as an oversight matter, not an impeachment matter. That will weigh heavily in any fight with the White House,” said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.
“The courts have indicated that on impeachment matters there is a heavy deference that is given to this body that as a conventional oversight matter becomes more mixed,” Turley added.
Turley agreed that in any case Congress will be able to compel the testimony of various Trump administration officials and obtain documents that clearly are not privileged. But he agreed with Republican complaints that Nadler’s subpoena was too broad because it asks for materials from the grand jury in Mueller’s probe. By law, such information is required to be kept secret.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (DBrooklyn) hoped to establish that Congress does have a right to see grand jury material, at least in a secret setting.
Paul Rosenzweig, a former counsel for House Republicans, said it does. “I believe that would be strengthened if impeachment proceedings were to begin,” Rosenzweig said.
To clarify, Jeffries asked if Congress still had a right to such material if the goals are to investigate possible obstruction of justice, abuse of power and a “culture of corruption at Pennsylvania Ave.”
“All of those are suitable and cautious preliminary steps in anticipation of the possibility of considering impeachment, and therefore this committee has not only a legitimate oversight interest, but one of the highest constitutional moment,” said Rosenzweig.