Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Panel OKs ground rules in look at impeachment
WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee approved Thursday the ground rules for determining whether impeachment proceedings are warranted against President Donald Trump, even as some Democrats reiterated that there’s no impeachment investigation.
“If we have to go there, we’ll have to go there,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “But we can’t go there until we have the facts.”
It was the panel’s first recorded vote to press toward possible impeachment.
Voting along party lines, the panel approved rules for a continuing “investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment with regard to President Donald J. Trump.” The action clarified new procedures for lawmakers and laid out a process, albeit limited, for the president to respond.
Speaking after the vote, the committee’s chairman, U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, promised a series
of hearings to reach beyond the findings of former special counsel Robert Mueller.
The first hearing is scheduled for next week with Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager, who was considered an important witness in the special counsel’s investigation on obstruction of justice.
Thursday’s action was as much a symbolic display as it was a practical exercise of constitutional powers, aimed at showing federal courts and some Democrats that the House is serious about building an impeachment case, even if it is not yet taking the step of filing charges.
“This committee is engaged in an investigation that will allow us to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment with respect to President Trump,” Nadler said. “Some call this process an impeachment inquiry. Some call it an impeachment investigation. There is no legal difference between these terms, and I no longer care to argue about the nomenclature.
“But let me clear up any remaining doubt: The conduct under investigation poses a threat to our democracy. We have an obligation to respond to this threat. And we are doing so.”
The vote punctuated a legislative week in which Democrats appeared at times to be in disagreement about what the Judiciary Committee was doing, how it fits with other panels’ continuing investigations of Trump’s finances and policies, and how far they are willing to go toward impeaching Trump.
Pelosi has worked to avoid plunging the House into an all-consuming impeachment process and shied away from the phrase “impeachment inquiry.”
Shortly after Thursday’s vote, she swatted away questions from reporters about why there appeared to be a discrepancy between the way she and Nadler were describing what action was being taken.
“Why is it that you are hung up on a word?” she asked, urging reporters to instead look at the House’s investigative actions.
Senior Democrats and the lawyers advising them have a strong interest in demonstrating that the House is carrying out an impeachment inquiry, which maximizes their leverage in lawsuits to compel the cooperation of witnesses and secure grand jury testimony.
Pelosi’s concern is that an impeachment process would be divisive and ultimately fail to result in Trump’s removal, while potentially costing Democrats their jobs in conservative-leaning districts.
On Thursday, she portrayed the actions as a continuation of a Democratic strategy to methodically obtain facts about potential presidential wrongdoing through legislation, investigation and litigation that would proceed at the same pace it has for months. An impeachment vote may be the ultimate result of that process, she said, but the facts are not yet there.
“I stand by what we have been doing all along,” she told reporters. “I support what is happening in the Judiciary Committee, because that enables them to do their process of interrogation in their investigation, and I salute them.”
Outside groups that spent August flooding lawmakers’ telephone lines and showing up at town hall meetings to push impeachment called Pelosi’s approach out of step with the party’s priorities.
“It’s just an absurd position,” said Zac Petkanas, a Democratic strategist and president of Defend the Republic, a messaging group around the issue. He is a former campaign aide to Hillary Clinton.
Petkanas said the “discombobulation of some of the leadership messaging is disappointing” but not a blow to the efforts to push Judiciary Committee Democrats to act. “It kind of doesn’t even matter what she calls it, they’re doing the thing.”
Democrats’ strategy will be put to the test in coming weeks. The Judiciary Committee plans to convene hearings related to Trump’s role in hush payments to two women who said they had affairs with him, reports that he dangled pardons in front of immigration officials, and whether foreign and domestic government spending at Trump properties has violated the Constitution’s ban on profiting from the presidency. The committee also plans to continue to look at Russian election interference and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.
Democrats’ competing imperatives have so far led to an investigative process that has differed in pace and appearance from previous impeachment inquiries. Republicans pounced on the inconsistency Thursday, arguing that no matter what Democrats on the panel contend, they have not crossed the threshold into impeachment territory.
“As we say in Texas, this is fixing to be an impeachment,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican. “It’s not now, but it’s fixing to be.”
Republicans repeatedly pointed out that the panel had neither sought nor received a House vote authorizing an impeachment inquiry, as had been the case in the two previous modern presidential impeachments. Without it, they argued, the panel is still engaged in regular oversight. And some lawmakers suggested that the only reason Democrats have not pursued such a vote is that they lack the necessary support in their caucus.
“The Judiciary Committee has become a giant Instagram filter,” said Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the panel, “to make it appear that something’s happening that is not.”
Some Republicans though appeared to accept that an impeachment inquiry is coming in order to suggest changes to the resolution and accuse the Democrats of pursuing the president out of political spite. The Republicans’ campaign arm quickly took aim at the panel’s vulnerable Democratic lawmakers from swing districts, accusing them of “jumping on the impeachment train.”
Trump responded to the developments only indirectly, posting a series of quotes on Twitter from lawmakers and a Fox News contributor suggesting that Democrats are motivated purely by politics.
The president told reporters that he’s not concerned about the impeachment planning, calling it an “embarrassment” for the country. Asked if he believes Pelosi is scared of impeaching him, Trump said: “I don’t think she’s scared of anything. I think she’s a smart woman, and I think she knows exactly what she’s doing.”
The resolution approved Thursday allows Nadler to designate any hearing of the full Judiciary Committee or its subcommittees as part of the inquiry. Under the new procedures, staff lawyers are afforded time at the end of each hearing to directly question witnesses.
The resolution also includes rules for how information collected by the committee — including classified material and grand jury secrets — will be handled.
And for the first time, the committee’s vote grants Trump and his legal team specific due-process rights, by allowing his lawyers to respond to committee proceedings in writing in real time.
Nadler framed that as a matter of fairness, but Republicans pointed out that the language fell well short of the privileges extended to the president’s legal teams in impeachment inquiries of Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, where the defense was allowed to participate in all committee hearings, cross-examine witnesses and recommend witnesses for hearings.