Impeachment Today: House Votes to Move Forward on Open Hearings
The House voted today (232 yea, 196 nay, 4 not voting) for the resolution detailing the process and next steps for the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Going into the morning session, 230 members had indicated a willingness to support an impeachment inquiry/investigation or outright impeachment.
The facts in evidence made it easier for even most of the swing-district Democrats to say the president should have to answer for his actions after weeks of testimony in which current and former administration officials have described a wide-ranging effort by the Trump team to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open an investigation into a political opponent — former Vice President Joe Biden.
The measure drafted by House Democrats lays out the ground rules for public hearings, provides procedures for the president and his counsel to respond to evidence and sets out the process for considering articles of impeachment in the Judiciary Committee and the full House.
.@SpeakerPelosi: "I don't know why Republicans are afraid of the truth. Every American should support allowing the American people to hear the facts for themselves. That is really what this vote is about.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1189920002595532802?s=20
Democrats aren’t being stupid here. Once the GOP made-for-TV temper tantrum subsides, obstruction would have been a likely option. And here are the consequences if they do, via Roll Call:
Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler has “the discretion” to deny the president and his counsel the ability to call or question witnesses or otherwise “impose appropriate remedies” if the administration refuses to make witnesses available for testimony or fails to produce documents to any House investigating committee.
That provision applies to Trump's stonewalling of any ongoing probes in the Intelligence, Oversight, Foreign Affairs, Judiciary, Financial Services and Ways and Means committees.
The Trump White House has already blocked administration officials from participating in closed-door depositions in the impeachment inquiry led by the Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs panels, although some have defied the order and testified under subpoena.
House Republicans, who have used a false narrative about transparency as their first line of defense, will now pursue narratives about the legitimacy of the President’s actions and ramp up their attacks on Democrats and any witnesses who testify.
As Meter Blades at Daily Kos notes, there’s a word for what Congressional Republicans are doing: accomplices.
No matter what they say about unfairness and kangaroo courts, most Republicans in Congress know that these criticisms of the ongoing committee investigations are malarkey. They also know that Donald Trump has done what he is accused of having done, violating a part of the Constitution that the founders were insistent upon including to avoid exactly the kind of abuse of office that Trump and his pack have been engaged in all along. They know this because he admits it. His lawyer admits it. Credible witnesses confirm it. Breaking it down so even an oh-so-patriotic white nationalist can get it: Unless you think he’s lying again, Donald Trump admits that he endangered U.S. and Ukrainian interests for the purpose of personal and political gain.
On the way out the door, they’ve continued to fling as much poo as possible on the process thus far. Yea, yea, yea. Nunes says Democrats are a cult. Kevin McCarthy says this is about overturning the 2016 election.
Here’s the lone--so far--House (formerly) GOP defector:
https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1189908884162568193?s=20
Republicans have also used their TV time to claim that impeachment has stopped the House from doing its job of legislating. They apparently have forgotten about the 475 pieces of legislation already passed, including bills to lower drug costs, ensure that the minimum wage becomes a livable wage, close loopholes in the background check system, provide disaster relief for Americans suffering in the wake of natural disasters, and much more.
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Dear Leader has made his wishes clear. On Wednesday morning he Tweeted:
"Republicans are very unified and energized in our fight on the Impeachment Hoax with the Do Nothing Democrats, and now are starting to go after the Substance even more than the very [unfair] Process because just a casual reading of the Transcript leads EVERYBODY to see that ... the call with the Ukrainian President was a totally appropriate one."
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In the background, senior Republicans are already contemplating ways to game any vote in the U.S. Senate.
Here’s Joan McCarter:
Moscow Mitch McConnell is going to take Donald Trump's quid pro quo and run with it. If he has anything to say about it—and he does: He's the final word—the impeachment recommendation that the House will almost certainly refer to him will be quickly dismissed.
He couldn't be more clear in sending that message. Here's what he said on Wednesday: "Look, I think it’s pretty clear our Democratic colleagues do not have a great affinity for President Trump, but the country cannot afford for Democrats in Congress to take a one-year vacation from any productive legislation just because they’d rather obsess over impeachment."
At Politico they’ve posted a story detailing how the President is literally bribing Senators with campaign funding:
President Donald Trump is rewarding senators who have his back on impeachment — and sending a message to those who don't to get on board.
Trump is tapping his vast fundraising network for a handful of loyal senators facing tough reelection bids in 2020. Each of them has signed onto a Republican-backed resolution condemning the inquiry as “unprecedented and undemocratic...”
...Republican senators on the ballot next year are lagging in fundraising, stoking uncertainty about the GOP’s hold on the chamber, and could use the fundraising might of the president. Trump’s political operation has raked in over $300 million this year.
My sense of the ultimate GOP response to articles of impeachment sent to the Senate will be to say the President’s actions don’t rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
"High crimes and misdemeanors" is a phrase from Section 4 of Article Two of the US Constitution: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
So the Trumplican message to the American people will be that president is above the law, that the institutions of government can be abused without consequence, and that anybody who says otherwise is scum.
Also...
https://twitter.com/matthewjdowd/status/1189711152214953984?s=20
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