Impeachment Today: Congressional Hearings at a Crossroads
This morning Charles Kupperman, a former national security aide, didn’t show for a deposition on Capitol Hill. His attorneys announced on Friday that he is seeking a judge’s ruling on whether to testify.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff responded to the no-show by saying the administration’s efforts to block testimony is strengthening the case for impeachment based on obstruction of Congress.
From Politico:
Though Kupperman is seeking a court ruling on his obligation, Schiff said he doesn’t intend to allow potentially lengthy court battles to slow Congress’ march toward articles of impeachment, which many Democrats would like to see passed by the end of the year.
“We are not willing to allow the White House to engage us in a lengthy game of rope-a-dope with the courts,” he said.
Two more White House officials are apparently willing to testify this week, and are expected to confirm key events. And there are other officials from the State and Defense Departments involved in Ukraine policy set to appear.
Public approval of the impeachment inquiry, meanwhile, keeps climbing, with 55% approving and 43% disapproving, up from 51% approval one week prior, according to a new Quinnipiac poll backed up by polling averages.
At some point in the next couple of weeks the impeachment inquiry is going to have to decide whether to move on to the public testimony part of the process.
From the New York Times:
Many Democrats involved in the inquiry already believe they have collected enough to impeach him for abusing his power by enlisting a foreign government to smear his political rivals. But to persuade the public — and the necessary number of Republican senators — that the president should be convicted and removed from office, they may need additional proof tying him directly to certain elements of the alleged wrongdoing. They could potentially unearth stronger evidence by turning to the courts, but that could also stall the case for months and risk losing public support, much as some Democrats believe happened in the Russia inquiry.
“As in many investigations, you get to a point where you have to decide how much is enough and whether the incremental value of the additional juice is worth the squeeze,” said Ross H. Garber, a lawyer who is one of the nation’s leading experts on impeachment. “If anything, they may be surprised by how much cooperation they have gotten from witnesses already, notwithstanding the position of the executive branch.”
At this point the best scenario Republicans can hope for is acquittal by the Senate--and that’s not a given.
From the Washington Post:
Republican senators are lost and adrift as the impeachment inquiry enters its second month, navigating the grave threat to President Trump largely in the dark, frustrated by the absence of a credible case to defend his conduct and anxious about the historic reckoning that likely awaits them.
Recent days have delivered the most damaging testimony yet about Trump and his advisers commandeering Ukraine policy for the president’s personal political goals, which his allies on Capitol Hill sought to undermine by storming the deposition room and condemning the inquiry as secretive and corrupt.
Those theatrics belie the deepening unease many Republicans now say they feel — particularly those in the Senate who are dreading having to weigh their conscience against their political calculations in deciding whether to convict or acquit Trump should the Democratic-controlled House impeach the president.
Benjamin Wittes, writing at Lawfare, makes the case that the evidence --no matter how overwhelming-- may not be the ultimate arbiter in the Senate, quoting Alexander Hamilton:
The prosecution of [impeachments], for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influences, and interests on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of the parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.
Hamilton’s point was that guilt or innocence might be not be dispositive in impeachment trials. It was not that guilt or innocence doesn’t matter in the face of political power. There’s a temptation to conflate these two points. If the president’s defense has crumbled but that fact will not trigger his removal, does it even matter? In fact, the crumbling of the president’s defense matters a great deal—even if the wall ultimately holds, even if a large segment of the public refuses to engage that reality and even if a large cadre of elected officials chooses to keep escalating the noise instead of either accepting Trump’s guilt or mounting a substantive defense of his actions.
The collapse matters—even if it does not prove dispositive politically—because persuasion matters and thus persuasiveness matters. The last line of defense against a lawless, oathless president is the electoral process, and clarifying Trump’s conduct before the electorate is thus crucial to voters’ ability to make informed decisions. The process of evaluation itself also plays an important role here. The definition in the minds of members of Congress of what is unacceptable helps to articulate and reinforce norms of behavior. In a period in which we are fighting to defend norms, that articulation and reinforcement is a critical exercise…
His legalistic approach says it’s the process rather than the determination that matters. I disagree.
I believe a Senate hearing absent ongoing public protest will give the President’s defenders no reason to abandon their positions, which are dictated more by concern for reelection than democracy.
Various groups around the country are already organizing for mass public on the eve of whenever the House of Representatives decides to vote on the articles of impeachment.
It’s not just street protests that are needed. It’s more like all of the above.
The national leadership of Indivisible (I work with a local chapter) has set up a five step plan for keeping the heat up. Whatever you do doesn’t have to be exactly what’s listed below. Other organizations, including the ACLU for one, have action plans.
The point is: don’t take Impeachment for granted, or assume that it won’t make a difference.
No matter what news happens, no matter what bananas Republican stunt they try next, we just need to keep the pressure on:
Step 1: Call both of your senators and demand that they support a transparent and fair impeachment trial at 855-980-2355. We’ve got a script you can use here.
Step 2: Subscribe to our all-new web series Impeachment Daily on YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram, starring our Director of Democracy Policy, Meagan Hatcher-Mays, dishing out daily updates on Trump’s crimes and what you can do to pressure your member of Congress to hold him accountable.
Step 3: Pick a shift to make some calls connecting voters to Senators to demand a complete and fair impeachment trial. We've identified 13 Senators who our political and policy experts believe we can sway -- and now we're asking you to call progressive voters in their states and ask those voters to use their power and turn up the pressure on their elected officials.
Step 4: The House is going on recess from Nov 3 - 11. It’s time to meet them in your home turf. Find a town hall or district-office event and get ready to ask Republicans #OneSimpleQuestion (try using some of our birddogging tactics to boost your impact).
Step 5: As we quickly approach a historic impeachment vote in the House, we have an opportunity to make this vote a turning point. Click here to host or find a "No One is Above the Law" event the evening before the House vote, calling on your representative and senators to put an end to this bigoted, hateful presidency.
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https://twitter.com/RickPetree/status/1188857294253113345?s=20
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Lead graphic: Master Steve Rappaport via Flickr