Tag: House impeachment inquiry

Appeals court delays House’s access to Mueller grand jury secrets

The D.C. court granted the Justice Department’s request while it considers whether to grant a longer stay.

A federal appeals court has put a temporary hold on a judge’s order requiring the Justice Department to give the Democratic-led House grand jury material from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that could be fodder for the ongoing impeachment effort against President Donald Trump.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an order Tuesday granting the Justice Department’s request for an administrative stay of Chief Judge Beryl Howell’s ruling Friday, in which she concluded House lawmakers were entitled to the usually secret grand jury information.

Howell also had rejected a key White House argument: The impeachment investigation is unconstitutional because no House vote has been taken to initiate it.

View the complete October 29 article by Josh Gerstein on the Politico website here.

In impeachment inquiry, Republican lawmakers ask questions about whistleblower, loyalty to Trump and conspiracy theories

Washington Post logoRepublican lawmakers have used the congressional impeachment inquiry to gather information on a CIA employee who filed a whistleblower complaint, press witnesses on their loyalty to President Trump and advance conspiratorial claims that Ukraine was involved in the 2016 election, according to current and former officials involved in the proceedings.

GOP members and staffers have repeatedly raised the name of a person suspected of filing the whistleblower complaint that exposed Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to conduct investigations into his political adversaries, officials said.

The Republicans have refrained during hearings from explicitly accusing the individual of filing the explosive complaint with the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general two months ago, officials said.

View the complete October 26 article by Greg Miller and Rachael Bade on The Washington Post website here.

In impeachment inquiry, Republican lawmakers ask questions about whistleblower, loyalty to Trump and conspiracy theories

Washington Post logoRepublican lawmakers have used the congressional impeachment inquiry to gather information on a CIA employee who filed a whistleblower complaint, press witnesses on their loyalty to President Trump and advance conspiratorial claims that Ukraine was involved in the 2016 election, according to current and former officials involved in the proceedings.

GOP members and staffers have repeatedly raised the name of a person suspected of filing the whistleblower complaint that exposed Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to conduct investigations into his political adversaries, officials said.

The Republicans have refrained during hearings from explicitly accusing the individual of filing the explosive complaint with the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general two months ago, officials said.

View the complete October 26 article by Greg Miller and Rachael Bade on The Washington Post website here.

Republicans are wrong on process, too

Washington Post logoTHERE IS an old Washington saying that if you’re arguing about process, you’re losing. A follow-on maxim might be: If you are wrong on process, too, you must really be in trouble.

That would apply to the 30 or so Republicans who stormed a Wednesday House Intelligence Committee hearing in a secure Capitol facility, objecting that Democrats have, so far, conducted impeachment proceedings behind closed doors.

The stunt disrupted the testimony of Pentagon official Laura Cooper and temporarily distracted Washington from the evidence of President Trump’s misconduct. The latter seemed to be the point, but Ms. Cooper simply testified a few hours later.

View the complete October 24 editorial by The Washington Post Editorial Board on their website here.

‘This is a lie’: Critics slam Trump’s desperate claim that Ukraine didn’t know he withheld military aid

AlterNet logoDemocratic lawmakers and impeachment supporters on Wednesday called out President Donald Trump for suggesting on Twitter that Ukrainian officials were not aware that military aid was being withheld as part the administration’s efforts to convince the country’s leader to publicly launch an investigation involving former Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump’s tweet was a “relatively lackluster” response to career diplomat William Taylor’s 10 hours of “explosive” testimony Tuesday about the administration’s “pervasive” attempts to force a Ukrainian investigation into an energy company that employed Biden’s son Hunter. Taylor testisfied behind closed doors to the House Oversight, Intelligence, and Foreign Affairs committees as part of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Trump.

Shortly before a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—which provoked a whistleblower complaint that led Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to finally launch an impeachment inquiry last month—Trump instructed acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to hold back $391 million in military aid for Ukraine.

View the complete October 23 article by Jessica Corbett from Common Dreams on the AlterNet website here.

House Democrats zero in on ‘abuse of power’ in Trump impeachment inquiry

Pelosi is said to favor one sweeping charge related to Ukraine, but there’s some debate about the need for additional charges.

WASHINGTON — House Democrats are zeroing in on a framework for their impeachment case against President Donald Trump that will center on a simple “abuse of power” narrative involving the president’s actions regarding Ukraine, according to multiple people familiar with the deliberations.

As Democrats continue closed-door depositions with critical witnesses and prepare to move to the next phase of public hearings, they are wrestling over which elements and evidence to bring in, which to leave out. The goal is to explain to the public the reasoning and relevance of any eventual impeachment charges.

Democratic House committee chairs and leaders are still debating the need for additional articles or charges that extend beyond the president’s dealings with Ukraine, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been adamant that the case against Trump must be targeted and easy to communicate in order to build public support, according to those familiar with discussions.

View the complete October 21 article by Heidi Przybyla on the NBC News website here.

Pelosi: No House vote on impeachment inquiry

The Hill logoSpeaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday she will not stage a vote on the House floor to officially launch an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

The decision came after Democratic leaders, returning to Washington following a two-week recess, had reached out to members of their diverse caucus to gauge the party’s support for such a vote.

After back-to-back meetings with party leaders and then the full caucus, Pelosi announced that no such vote would take place. Democratic aides emphasized, however, that the process remains fluid and that Pelosi may reverse course and stage such a vote at any point in the future.

View the complete October 15 article by Scott Wong and Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.

House Democrats subpoena White House in impeachment inquiry

Axios logoHouse committees leading the impeachment inquiry against President Trump subpoenaed acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Friday.

The big picture: This comes after nearly a month of White House refusals to comply with House investigations into whether Trump jeopardized national security by pressing Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 presidential election, and by withholding security assistance provided by Congress to help Ukraine, per the subpoena. The committees are demanding documents by Oct. 18.

    • “After nearly a month of stonewalling, it appears clear that the President has chosen the path of defiance, obstruction, and cover-up,” the letter reads.

The state of play: Several White House officials have told Axios’ Alayna Treene that the administration has no plans of complying with the committees’ demands for interviews or documents without a full House vote formally approving an impeachment inquiry.

View the complete October 4 article by Orion Rummler on the Axios website.

House questions Volker as impeachment probe ramps up

The Hill logoLawmakers from three House committees on Thursday began questioning Kurt Volker, the Trump administration’s former special envoy to Ukraine, as Democrats accelerate their impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

Volker, who resigned his post last week, was one of the figures named in the whistleblower complaint indicating that Trump had pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate corruption allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden, while delaying hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid that had been approved by Congress.

The notion that Trump would enlist the help of a foreign leader to gain a political advantage over a domestic rival outraged Democrats, who have heightened their investigative scrutiny of the president and could be drafting impeachment articles before the end of the year.

View the complete October 3 article by Scott Wong and Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.