TODAY IN CONGRESS:
Your One Stop Shop For Learning What Our Congress Critters Are Up To!
IT’S IMPEACHMENT HEARING DAY!
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 —
10:00 am — Judiciary Hearing on Constitutional Framework for Impeachment (The House Judiciary Committee holds a hearing with legal experts to discuss the constitutional framework for potentially drawing up articles of impeachment against President Trump.)
10:00 am — House Session (The House will possibly work on the final version of the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act. (S. 151) requiring phone companies to block robocalls without charging customers any extra money.)
2:00 pm — House Oversight Subcommittee Hearing on Vaping and E-Cigarettes (Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, testifies before a House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on vaping and e-cigarette flavors.)
Senate —
10:00 am — Senate Session (The Senate meets with work expected on judicial and executive nominations. Current government funding expires on December 20.)
2:30 pm — Senate Armed Services Subcommittee Hearing on Military Suicide Prevention (The Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel holds a hearing on preventing suicide in the military.)
Yesterday’s Votes:
House — No significant votes.
Senate — No significant votes.
Comments:
Today’s Events – Well, if your not watching today’s Judiciary Committee Impeachment Hearing, why not? It’s my obvious pick for C-Span viewing today. Details on what to expect below under “Committee Activity”.
COMMITTEE SUBPOENA WARS & IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS —
Today’s Impeachment/Subpoena HeadlineS:
House Intelligence Committee Releases Their Impeachment Report Containing New Bombshells
___________________________________________________________________________________________
House Judiciary Committee Holds First Impeachment Hearing TODAY
Details below under “COMMITTEE ACTIVITY”.
COMMITTEE ACTIVITY:
Introduction:
NOTE #1: Before I get started with today’s long list of subpoena and impeachment activity, let me say that I have decided to do away with posting the repetitive “Background” section here on each Committee activity, in an effort to shorten an already too long post. Instead each background section will include a link to my September 26 Diary containing the full backgrounds for those who need to get up to speed. I will keep editing that Diary as time goes on to keep the background up to date. Below, I will post only recent developments (stuff that happened the day before) and any new developments.
NOTE #2: Because of all the impeachment stuff happening all at once, these TIC diaries are getting way too long. So in a somewhat futile attempt to shorten things a bit, I have removed the Committee subpoenas that have been inactive for weeks. You can still find out about them in my September 26 Diary (CLICK HERE). Also, I will still keep a check on them and if something new happens in any of them, I will post it in future TIC diaries.
NOTE #3: Well my September 26 Diary containing the full backgrounds on each of the subpoena and impeachment activities has gotten too long, so the character limit has made it impossible for me to use this diary to post new background information. So starting November 22, I have posted background information from November 22 going forward in this November 22 Background #2 Diary and I will keep it updated until I run out of space again. I have put in a new link to the November 22 TIC for you to access it in each Committee Activity below. I have also kept the old link to the September 26 Diary so you can obtain the pre-November 22 background information. I hope this makes sense? If not, just send me any questions you have in the comment section.
Now on with the show. (New and Important stuff in bold)
House Judiciary Committee Barr Subpoena for Unredacted Mueller Report —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — On Monday (Dec. 2), the DoJ filed a Legal Brief with the DC Court of Appeals in opposition to the release of Mueller Grand Jury materials to Congress. According to this NPR Report:
The Justice Department says releasing secret grand jury documents from then-special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe to House lawmakers engaged in the impeachment inquiry could discourage future witnesses to presidential abuse from cooperating with grand juries.
"It is not difficult to imagine that a witness in a future investigation of alleged presidential misconduct might be deterred from testifying fully or frankly if she believed that her testimony would be readily disclosed to the House for use in impeachment proceedings," Justice Department lawyers wrote in a brief filed on Monday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Attorneys for the Justice Department are asking the appeals court to reverse a lower court's decision ordering the transfer of Mueller grand jury material to House investigators on a two-pronged argument: that an impeachment inquiry is not a "judicial proceeding" and that the House does not really need the documents to complete the impeachment investigation.
Also, there is this:
On Monday, Justice Department lawyers disputed that the 1974 case settled the issue, insisting that since the impeachment inquiry is not a "judicial proceeding," the material cannot fall within the confidential material exception the House lawyers cite.
"Even within the terms of the 'judicial proceeding' exception, the Supreme Court has stressed that secrecy remains the default," Justice Department attorneys wrote in their brief.
So the Trump/Barr DoJ is now trying to re-argue the Nixon case. We will see how far that gets them with the Appeals Court on Jan. 3.
New Developments — None.
House Judiciary Committee McGahn Subpoena —
Background —Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — On Wednesday [Nov. 27], the same day as Judge Jackson issued her 7 day stay, DoJ Filed an appeal and request for a longer stay the the DC Court of Appeals. In response, the Court of Appeals granted their own stay and agreed to hear the case on an expedited schedule. According to this NBC News Report:
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia acted hours after U.S. District Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson issued a seven-day stay of her own order to give her time to consider the government's request for an even longer stay.
Such holds, known as administrative stays, are often issued to give lawyers a chance to file their appeals, and Jackson said her order "should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits" of keeping her ruling on a longer hold.
The federal government, which argues that senior White House advisers are absolutely immune to congressional subpoenas, then appealed for the extra time to the circuit court, which set an expedited schedule for the underlying appeal with oral arguments on Jan. 3.
So it looks like Jan. 3 is going to be a Big Court Day. BUT!
In a late in the day decision on Monday, U.S. District Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson issued a ruling denying DoJ’s request for an extension of her seven (7) day stay which expired at midnight on Monday. According to this TPM Story:
U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson denied Monday the administration’s request for a stay. The administration has already asked an appeals court to put on hold her order from last week that McGahn testify. The appeals court has put the ruling on an administrative hold, and has scheduled briefing and oral arguments on the merits of the appeal.
On Monday, the judge said that the Justice Department could not “make a persuasive showing of irreparable harm in the absence of a colorable argument that McGahn’s mere appearance before the Judiciary Committee would, in and of itself, be harmful.”
She also brought up the House Judiciary Committee’s emphasis, in opposing the stay request, on the possibility that McGahn could testify for the ongoing impeachment proceedings.
“[T]the Judiciary Committee would almost certainly lose the chance to question McGahn as part of the present impeachment inquiry if a stay order issues, which would unquestionably harm the ongoing investigation that the Judiciary Committee is conducting, and by extension, would also injure the public’s interest in thorough and well-informed impeachment proceedings,” she said.
HOWEVER, the TPM Story also states:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that the administrative stay would last “pending further order of” the appeals court. It has scheduled oral arguments for Jan. 3.
So not being a lawyer, I am not sure what effect the Judge’s ruling on McGahn’s testimony. I can only surmise that the Appeals Court “Administrative Stay” will allow McGahn to avoid testifying, if he chooses to avoid testifying, through at least Jan. 3, effectively replacing the Judge’s expired stay. My guess is we will see how McGahn responds soon.
New Developments — None, waiting for Jan. 3 Appeals Court Hearing.
House Oversight Committee Files Lawsuit to Enforce its Subpoenas to Wilbur Ross (Commerce Secretary) and AG William Barr —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — None.
New Developments — None, waiting on Court date for House subpoena lawsuit.
House Intelligence, & Judiciary Committees’ Impeachment Investigation —
NOTE #1: This used to be the “House Intelligence Committee’s Whistleblower Investigation”, but I have changed the heading to include the other committees involved and to allow for a broadening of the scope of the investigation.
Background —Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — Here are some recent developments:
- House Judiciary Committee Announces Constitutional Expert Witness List — The Committee has released its expert witnesses for this Wednesday’s Hearing. According to this POLITICAL Report:
Democrats will call Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law professor, Pamela Karlan, a law professor at Stanford, and Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina.
Republicans on the panel, meanwhile, will call Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who has written extensively about the Trump impeachment inquiry, as their witness.
Wednesday’s hearing is set to focus on laying out the constitutional grounds for impeachment, as Democrats look to make the case that Trump violated his oath of office by attempting to leverage military aid and a potential White House visit to pressure Ukraine's president to commit to political probes. Republicans, faced with a damaging set of facts laid out in two weeks of public testimony last month, will argue that Democrats have not uncovered evidence that Trump‘s behavior is impeachable.
I was hoping the Dems. requested former Special Prosecutor Ken Starr or Fox News favorite Judge Andrew Napolitano to testify. Both have been on Fox News arguing that what Trump has done are impeachable offenses. It sure would have put Republicans in a difficult spot having to go against their own kind.
- White House Says It Won’t Participate in First Judiciary Committee Impeachment Hearing — According to this POLITICO Report:
The White House informed House Democrats on Sunday that it will not participate in the Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment hearing, excoriating Democrats’ impeachment inquiry as a “baseless” and “partisan” exercise in scathing five-page letter to the panel’s chairman.
The decision indicates that President Donald Trump has listened to his allies and some congressional Republicans who argued that a White House presence at the hearing would validate a process they have harangued as illegitimate and partisan.
Sounds like a win win to me. Now we only have to deal with the crazy Republicans on the Committee and not both them and the crazy Trump defense team. Also, this leaves people to speculate that maybe you don’t want to defend yourself because you have no defense.
- House Intelligence Committee Reviewing Final Impeachment Report — Public Release and Vote on Tuesday — According to this POLITICO Report:
Members of the House Intelligence Committee will begin reviewing a report Monday on the panel's investigation of President Donald Trump's efforts to press Ukraine to investigate his Democratic adversaries, a crucial step in the House's fast-moving impeachment inquiry.
Lawmakers on the panel will get a 24-hour review period, according to internal guidance sent to committee members and obtained by POLITICO. On Tuesday, the panel is expected to approve the findings — likely on a party-line vote — teeing it up for consideration by the Judiciary Committee, which is in turn expected to draft and consider articles of impeachment in the coming weeks.
The House has been moving quickly to investigate Trump since Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry on Sept. 24. Democratic leaders, including Pelosi, have refused to assign a public end date to their investigation but many lawmakers have said privately they hope to wrap up by the end of the year.
After the vote, the ball will be officially in the House Judiciary Committee’s court. Also, on Monday’s Rachel Maddow Show, Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff announced that the report will be made public on Tuesday (TODAY). He described it as long, but he did not go into detail.
New Developments — More BREAKING Impeachment news because it’s a day that ends in “y”.
- House Intelligence Committee Releases and Votes on it’s Impeachment Report — On Tuesday [Dec. 3], the House Intelligence Committee publicly released it’s 300—page Impeachment Report. According to this CNN Report:
The report is broken down into two sections, one on Ukraine and the other on obstruction of Congress — both of which are expected to be separate articles of impeachment.
Democrats alleged that the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — in which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden — was the "dramatic crescendo" of a months-long campaign driven by the President that involved a number of senior officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
"The President engaged in this course of conduct for the benefit of his own presidential reelection, to harm the election prospects of a political rival, and to influence our nation's upcoming presidential election to his advantage," the report says. "In doing so, the President placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the US presidential election process, and endangered US national security."
Democrats charged that the White House's obstruction of their impeachment investigation was an "unprecedented campaign," detailing the numerous subpoenas that were defied over the two-month investigation.
"Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a stronger or more complete case of obstruction than that demonstrated by the President since the inquiry began," the report says.
But most significantly, the report reveals shocking new evidence:
The call logs also spur new questions, such as why Giuliani made several phone calls to the Office of Management and Budget and the White House in April, as the campaign against Yovanovitch was in full swing.
Although the call logs reveal whose phones sent/received the calls and now long they lasted, they don’t provide what was said during each call. Besides Giuliani, the call logs show Lev Parnas (Giuliani’s Associate) and Devin Nunes (the worried man in the opening photo) were involved in numerous calls with Giuliani and other co-conspirators. With regard to Nunes:
Asked about Nunes' involvement, Schiff said: "There's a lot more to learn about that and I don't want to state that that is an unequivocal fact, but the allegations are deeply concerning."
BTW, Schiff also said that Nunes was fully aware of these call logs which implicate him in the plot as he sat in there in the Hearings.
The report also reveals that Lev Parnas is still providing documents to the Committee in response to his subpoena, which Schiff said the Committee is evaluating. Parnas is pretty much begging to cooperate with the Committee and Schiff has said that the Committee is in negotiations with Parnas’ lawyers and the SDNY to possibly get Parnas to testify before the Committee.
Most significantly, Schiff made clear that the Intelligence Committee’s investigation is still ongoing and if new significant evidence is uncovered, they will issue a supplemental report to the Judiciary Committee.
As expected, on Tuesday evening the Committee voted along Party lines to send their report onto the Judiciary Committee. You can read the entire report HERE.
- Judiciary Committee Holds First Impeachment Hearing — The Judiciary Committee will hold it’s first Impeachment Hearing today which will focus on what constitutes and Impeachable offense. As noted above, Democrats will call Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law professor, Pamela Karlan, a law professor at Stanford, and Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, while Republicans will call Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who has written extensively about the Trump impeachment inquiry, as their witness. While having Constitutional Scholars go over what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote impeachment into the Constitution may seem somewhat dull and dry to some, its important to pay attention to the questions being asked to see where the Committee might be heading, as discussed in this PBS Story:
House Democrats still have to decide whether to focus exclusively on Ukraine, or go after Trump on a broader range of issues — a dilemma Democrats have struggled with since formally launching the impeachment inquiry in September.
Should Democrats decide to broaden their case against Trump, they’d likely focus on Mueller’s special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and ties to the Trump campaign. In his final report, Mueller did not draw a conclusion about whether Trump obstructed justice. But Mueller pointed out ten instances where there was evidence the president or his associates tried to interfere with the probe.
If Democrats focus on the special counsel probe Wednesday, it could signal they are leaning towards adding obstruction of justice from that investigation to the list of articles of impeachment.
So how will Nadler Handle the Disruptive Republican Clowns on his Committee? We have this from POLITICO:
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler had a blunt message as he privately addressed Democrats the day before his panel assumes a starring role in the impeachment inquiry.
“I’m not going to take any shit,” Nadler said in a closed-door prep session Tuesday morning — a rare cuss word from the lawyerly Manhattan Democrat that prompted some lawmakers to sit up in their chairs, according to multiple people in the room.
Nadler’s warning shot referred to likely GOP antics to try to undermine the first impeachment hearing in the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
I sure hope he means it.
House Financial Services Committee and House Intelligence Committee Deutsche Bank and Capital One Subpoenas (Trump’s Banking Records) —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — None.
New Developments — Well, the House’s Deutsche Bank and Capital One Subpoenas of Trump’s financial records is back in the news, so it’s been added to today’s TIC. And its another legal loss for Trump in his bid to keep his financial past a secret. According to this POLITICO Report:
President Donald Trump suffered another loss Tuesday in his effort to block House Democrats from obtaining his financial records, a matter that is now likely to make its way to the Supreme Court.
A federal appeals court in New York ruled 2-1 that Deutsche Bank and Capital One should comply with subpoenas from the House Financial Services and House Intelligence committees seeking information about Trump’s finances, upholding a decision by a federal court in May.
The subpoenas seek documents including tax returns, evidence of suspicious activity and, in the case of Deutsche Bank, any internal communications regarding Trump and his ties to foreign individuals.
Trump now has seven days to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court, and the 2nd Circuit is ordering a process that will allow the president to object to specific items, like checks, that may be particularly personal and explain why those should be excluded.
Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Trump, said the president is considering an appeal.
With each Judicial win the House moves closer and closer to obtaining Trump’s financial history which is sure to be criminal based on the lengths Trump is going to to hide his finances.
House Ways & Means Committee & Manhattan DA Subpoenas (Trump’s Tax Returns) —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. BTW — I know this gets confusing but there are really three (3) cases going on aimed at Trump’s tax returns. One is the case brought by the House Committee to get the IRS to turn over Trump’s taxes as required BY LAW. The second is the case brought by Trump against the Manhattan DA to block the DA’s subpoena of Mazars, Trump’s former accounting firm, to provide the DA with Trump’s tax returns as a part of a State criminal investigation. The third is a case brought by Trump against NYS to block his State tax returns from being turned over to Congress in accordance with a recently passed NYS Law. I hope this helps keep things straight!
Recent Developments — None.
New Developments — None, waiting for SCOTUS to decide if they will hear 2 of Trump’s tax cases.