Judiciary panel to set rules for impeachment probe
WASHINGTON » The House Judiciary Committee will vote Thursday to establish rules for hearings on impeachment, escalating the panel’s investigations of President Donald Trump even as many Democrats remain wary of the effort.
The resolution is a technical step, and the panel would still have to introduce impeachment articles against Trump and win approval from the House to bring charges against Trump. It’s unclear if that will ever happen, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has urged caution on the issue, saying the public still isn’t yet supportive of taking those steps.
Even if the House did recommend impeachment charges against the president, the Republicanled Senate is unlikely to convict him and remove him from office.
Still, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler has said that the committee will move forward with impeachment
Lawmakers eye stopgap spending bill.
Democrats controlling the House are proposing a government- wide temporary funding bill to prevent a federal shutdown at month’s end and to give the Senate time to get moving on $ 1.4 trillion in spending bills to fill in the details on this summer’s bipartisan budget and debt deal.
House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D- N. Y., said Monday that the temporary funding bill would likely extend until “sometime in November.”
The GOP- held Senate is likely to go ahead with the move, and all sides want to avoid a repeat shutdown after President Donald Trump forced a partial 35- day government shutdown last year in hopes of winning more funding for his long- sought border wall. But a fight is looming in that chamber over Trump’s $ 5 billion request for 200 miles of new fencing along the U. S.- Mexico border. — The Associated Press hearings this fall, bolstered by lawmakers on the panel who roundly support moving forward. Thursday’s vote will set rules for those hearings, empowering staff to question witnesses, allowing some evidence to remain private and permitting the president’s counsel to respond.
The committee says that the resolution is similar to procedural votes taken at the beginning of the impeachment investigations into Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
“The adoption of these additional procedures is the next step in that process and will help ensure our impeachment hearings are informative to Congress and the public, while providing the president with the ability to respond to evidence presented against him,” Nadler said in a statement. “We will not allow Trump’s continued obstruction to stop us from delivering the truth to the American people.”
The committee has also filed two lawsuits against the administration after the White House repeatedly blocked the panel from obtaining documents and testimony.
Pelosi has said she wants to see what happens in court before making any decisions on impeachment.
The first hearing under the new impeachment rules would be with Corey Lewandowski on Sept. 17, the panel also announced Monday. Lewandowski was frequently mentioned in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which the committee has been investigating. According to Mueller’s report, Trump asked Lewandowski to deliver a message to then- Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking him to limit Mueller’s probe.