What’s next as House committees launch impeachment probes?
WASHINGTON — House Democrats are planning a rapid start to their push for impeachment of President Donald Trump, with hearings and depositions starting this week.
Democratic leaders have instructed committees to move quickly — and not to lose momentum — after revelations that Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate his potential 2020 Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, and his family. The action is beginning even though lawmakers left town Friday for a two-week recess.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., says his committee is moving “expeditiously” on hearings and subpoenas. That committee, as well as the House Oversight and Reform Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have scheduled depositions starting this week for State Department officials linked to Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
Members of the House Intelligence Committee have been told to be prepared to return to Washington dur
ing the break. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told the Democrats they need to “strike while the iron is hot” on impeachment, sending the committees into overdrive.
Schif, whose committee has been negotiating to interview the whistleblower, said Sunday that his panel has agreed to hear from the whistleblower, who would testify “very soon.” The exact date depends on how quickly acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire completes the security clearance process for the whistleblower’s lawyers.
The whistleblower’s identity is not publicly known. In the complaint, the whistleblower said White House officials moved to “lock down” the details of Trump’s call by putting all the records of it on a separate computer system.
The inspector general who handled that complaint, Michael Atkinson, is slated to testify to the Intelligence Committee in private Friday.
Lawmakers on the committee say they also want to speak to White House aides present for the call and to Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, who urged the investigations. Giuliani said Sunday he “wouldn’t cooperate” with Schiff, but if Trump “decides that he wants me to testify, of ourse I’ll testify.” Schiff hasn’t decided to call Giuliani.
Democrats say they hope to finish the investigation in a matter of weeks — perhaps even before Thanksgiving.
Once the committees have finished their own investigations, the committees will submit their findings to the House Judiciary Committee, which oversees the impeachment process.
Articles of impeachment would be drafted by the Judiciary Committee and, if adopted, sent to the House floor.
The Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has said he wants resolution on impeachment by the end of the year.
Republicans have focused their ire about impeachment on the Democrats, criticizing the probes as a rerun of a twoyear investigation into Russian election interference in the 2016 election.
California Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said Democrats “don’t want answers, they want a public spectacle.”
“They have been trying to reverse the results of the 2016 election since President Trump took office,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
If the House votes to approve charges against Trump, the Republican-led Senate would then hold a trial.
Some Senate Republicans have expressed concerns about Trump’s interactions with Ukraine, but there are few signs that there would be enough discontent to convict the president, who still has strong support in the GOP ranks. If Trump were impeached, it would take a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict him and remove him from office. A memorandum from Senate Republicans circulated over the weekend acknowledged it would be hard for McConnell to block an impeachment trial, but he could deflect any House-approved impeachment articles to a committee.
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., has said his committee will investigate the Ukraine matter but “don’t expect us to move at light speed — that will probably happen in the House.”
Trump would join a rare group if the House moves forward toward impeachment. Only two presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Both won acquittal in the Senate.
President Richard Nixon, who faced impeachment proceedings, resigned from office in 1974.