Some in Pelosi's leadership team rebel on impeachment, press her to begin an inquiry
Source: Washington Post
At least five members of Pelosis leadership team four of whom also sit on the House Judiciary Committee, with jurisdiction over impeachment pressed Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a closed-door leadership meeting to allow the panel to start an inquiry, which they argued would help investigators attain documents and testimony that Trump has blocked. Several hours later, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler met with Pelosi as well and made the case to start the inquiry, he later told his panel member on a call.
Pelosi declined to endorse the idea both times, according to the officials either in or familiar with what happened in both meetings. She and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) argued that such an inquiry would undercut other House investigations or that the idea was not supported by other members in the caucus.
Its a fact-finding process, said Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.) of the push to start an impeachment inquiry. Cicilline was one of the lawmakers who make the case to Pelosi in the meeting. Theres no doubt that opening an inquiry strengthens the hand of Congress in forcing compliance with subpoenas, whether its for documents or individuals.
The meeting marks the first time a chairman and top rank-and-file lawmakers including members of Pelosis leadership team have lobbied her to change her long-held position on impeachment. Judiciary Committee members for days have discussed how to move the speaker toward their thinking, but few have been willing to break with her publicly.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pelosis-leadership-team-rebels-on-impeachment-presses-her-to-begin-an-inquiry/2019/05/20/263c11de-7b5b-11e9-a66c-d36e482aa873_story.html?utm_term=.527eff8707e8
I am guessing Pelosi wanted this leaked, so it would look like she was pushed into an impeachment inquiry reluctantly. A pretty good strategy, if that is the case.
Either way, the impeachment dam is starting to break.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,122 posts)Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!
stopbush
(24,396 posts)we get it. Everybody gets it. Its part of the process of Ds insulating themselves.
Were now at the point where the trigger needs to be pulled.
LiberalLovinLug
(14,173 posts)to speculate on.
Because if your theory is correct, then what is she expecting, or hoping for? The Impeachment strategy to fail? So she can be right? And we lose the 2020 election? What good does that do?
I would make just as much sense to jump on board, go all in, and for gawd's sake show some passion and conviction about it. Especially if you STILL lose. But I think we'd win exposing Trump all the more.
SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)As Hillary said in her Op Ed, Mueller documented "a serious crime against all Americans." Trump's crimes are blatant and horrific.
As Elizabeth Warren says, we must do the right thing and stand on principle. Otherwise, what do we stand for? And what if we don't impeach and still lose in 2020? Then where are we?
We have the majority in the House to impeach now, we must do so. We must go on record trying to hold this criminal accountable for his crimes, otherwise history will not be kind to us.
Hillary is calling for formal impeachment investigation hearings:
During Watergate, the House Judiciary Committee also began a formal impeachment inquiry that was led by John Doar, a widely respected former Justice Department official and hero of the civil rights struggle. He was determined to run a process that the public and history would judge as fair and thorough, no matter the outcome. If todays House proceeds to an impeachment inquiry, I hope it will find someone as distinguished and principled as Doar to lead it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-mueller-documented-a-serious-crime-against-all-americans-heres-how-to-respond/2019/04/24/1e8f7e16-66b7-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html?utm_term=.108a5648959e
Hillary should know, she was there. The process started with a formal House Resolution: "An impeachment process against Richard Nixon was formally initiated on February 6, 1974, when the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution, H.Res. 803, giving its Judiciary Committee authority to investigate whether sufficient grounds existed to impeach Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States of high crimes and misdemeanors, primarily related to the Watergate scandal....The Judiciary Committee set up a staff, the Impeachment Inquiry staff, to handle looking into the charges, that was separate from its regular Permanent staff. Based upon the recommendations of many in the legal community, John Doar, a well-known civil rights attorney in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who was a long-time Republican turned Independent, was hired by Rodino in December 1973 to be the lead special counsel for the Impeachment Inquiry staff. Doar shared with Rodino a view that the Senate hearings had gone overboard with leaked revelations and witnesses compelled to testify under immunity grants; they were determined to do things in a more thorough and objective process." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_process_against_Richard_Nixon
That is what we need to do now.
Regular oversight hearings do not give authority to Congress to obtain Mueller's grand jury info, only formal impeachment proceedings can do that.
As Lawrence Tribe stated in the Washington Post:
In a 2-to-1 decision in McKeever v. Barr, the court reaffirmed the principle of grand jury secrecy and concluded that a court has no inherent power to release grand jury information. This decision will give Barr a plausible basis to resist the Judiciary Committees subpoena of the entire Mueller report, even if the committee goes to court to enforce it. But both the House and the attorney general have ways to cope with this obstacle, if they have the political will and the professional judgment to do so.
In McKeever, two Republican appointees, including President Trumps former deputy White House counsel, concluded that grand jury information must remain confidential unless a request for disclosure falls within one of the narrow exceptions listed in the federal rules of criminal procedure. The court refused to allow the disclosure of grand jury proceedings relating to the 1957 indictment of an FBI agent suspected of conspiring with the regime of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo to kidnap and murder an outspoken critic. Even though all the witnesses and principals died long ago, the court concluded that a historian writing a book about the incident could not get access to the grand jury proceedings.
In the face of Barrs decision not to disclose any of the Mueller report to the public or even to the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D- N.Y.) until Barr and his team have scrubbed the report of grand jury information (and other material), Nadler and committee Democrats have authorized a subpoena for the full report, setting the stage for a court fight over the committees right to see grand jury information. Although the public need underlying the request for disclosure in McKeever was much less pressing, the decision in that case undermines the position of Nadlers committee, because the controlling federal rule contains no exception allowing congressional oversight committees to demand access to otherwise secret grand jury proceedings.
One of the exceptions to grand jury secrecy is disclosure preliminary to or in connection with a judicial proceeding. To authorize disclosure of the Watergate grand jury information, the special prosecutors office argued that the House had authorized its Judiciary Committee to conduct a formal impeachment inquiry and that such an inquiry could be fairly analogized to a grand jury investigation and thus a judicial proceeding. Both the district court and the court of appeals agreed, and the Judiciary Committee obtained both the report and the underlying evidence.
Significantly, the appeals court decision several days ago reaffirmed that exception. All three judges agreed that an impeachment inquiry falls within the exception for judicial proceedings and coheres with other rulings about the proper scope of grand jury secrecy.
But Pelosi has declined to allow the Judiciary Committee to open even a preliminary impeachment inquiry, asserting rather bizarrely that Trump is not worth it. That decision may hamstring Nadlers quest for the complete Mueller report. Nothing in the federal rules creates an explicit exception allowing congressional committees exercising general powers of government oversight to demand access to secret grand jury material. So, Pelosi and Nadler are confronting a dilemma of their own making: either revisit the politically fraught impeachment question or concede that the House is at the mercy of whatever judgment the attorney general makes in excising grand jury information, which may include the most salient material about possible collusion and obstruction of justice.
For his part, Barr also has delicate judgments to make. If he is so inclined, the attorney general could properly opt to exclude only the names and actual testimony of grand jury witnesses while nevertheless informing the Judiciary Committee and the public about the substance of the information developed during the proceedings. Unfortunately, Barr has given every indication that he intends to make needlessly sweeping redactions, especially having ruled that, in his judgment, the evidence of obstruction of justice did not rise to the level of a prosecutable crime. Trumps selection of his new attorney general may prove to be his best line of defense unless Pelosi revisits her stance and directs the House Judiciary Committee to include impeachment within its investigatory ambit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-full-mueller-report-could-be-released--if-the-house-opens-impeachment-hearings/2019/04/08/e47fff42-5a14-11e9-a00e-050dc7b82693_story.html
Not only would trying to recreate the grand jury testimony be time-consuming and wasteful in a regular oversight hearing, now that the White House has ordered all Trump aides, including McGahn, to not respond to Congressional subpoenas, it will be next to impossible to do it in light of case law. But not if it is a formal impeachment investigation hearing. That is why we must go this route, and do it immediately.
LiberalLovinLug
(14,173 posts)My point was that I don't think its a ruse. That she "wanted it leaked". I think Nancy will, in fact, have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the impeachment table. I think she is well meaning. In that legislative advancements of at least partial victories in such things as infrastructure spending is important. But she is either living in a bubble too long, or afraid of the drama that would overtake Washington, and the whole country, and the part she would have to play. She likes the slow plodding along, least offensive, approach. Where sometimes its two steps forward, one step back, and even if its one step forwards, two steps back...at least we got that one step in. That voters only care that something gets done in Washington. Which is important of course, but we are in a national crisis. Time to drop everything, roll up your sleeves and fight! This is why I had trepidation over Nancy retaining the speakership. In this new Trump era, we need a more militant leader to counter the daily onslaught of Trumpism.
Rhiannon12866
(205,320 posts)joshdawg
(2,648 posts)Get it on record that the Democratic House has impeached the POS in the White House.
It will be on party lines: all the Democrats will vote for and ALL the republicans will vote no.
Same in the Senate: all Democrats will vote for removal from office and ALL republicans will vote no.
This will prove that the republicans in Congress are gutless, spineless, cowards and will also prove that
the ignorant cowardly voters for republicans will cheer them on.
D's do the right thing.
R's do what cowardly, spineless, assholes do.
JMHO.
LenaBaby61
(6,974 posts)I hope this article from the Post IS correct.
You know, I STILL have nightmares over this 👇🏻
WASHINGTON (AP) The day after Democrats swept to power, Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi stood before the cameras and declared impeachment was off the table. That was November 2006.
More than a decade later, Pelosi, again facing a restive left flank but one ready to confront President Donald Trump, says shes not for impeachment.
Its a remarkably consistent stance from Pelosi, who voted against the impeachment of Bill Clinton, tamped down efforts to impeach George W. Bush and now is leading the House through another moment when a vocal part of the electorate wants to end a presidency.
https://www.apnews.com/415486c7492a4cd0b6f8eccd2b7bd19e
IF we 'believe' that hideous lying, treasonous, racist, imbecilic FATSO can be voted out in 2020, how can that be accomplished when:
1) We may not even have an election.
2) The ruskies may REALLY fuck shit up THIS time around in states other than Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In other words, in all 50 states of this union, but with FEELING this time. Kamala said that a thuglican colleague told her that McTurtle is stopping ANY legislation from reaching the floor which might protect our upcoming elections from ruskie interference. I certainly believe this, because thuglicans HAVE to have ruskie HELP again to make sure they can take back the house just in case Dem and other voters overwhelm the voting systems and turn out in massive numbers to vote the Bums OUT of the Presidency and the Senate.
Lastly:
3) IF enough Dem voters even get an inkling that THEIR base, who by the way is responsible for the blue wave that gave Dems the Congress back, gave us the most diverse Congress in HISTORY and Pelosi the Speakership once again in 2018, is being IGNORED by their own leadership, then that could suppress them from coming out and voting. ALL, ALL, ALL of my friends are just as LIVID 12 years later as they were in 2006 when impeaching Bush et al was taken off the table" completely, and with little to NO discussion about what happened with war criminals Dubya and Cheney.
watoos
(7,142 posts)If our base turns out, we win, even with machine tampering and Russian and far right social media bull shit propaganda. We know better this election. Trump's base will not grow between now and election.
I have wondered and posted this here before. Speaker Pelosi has to have in the back of her mind that she was Speaker in 2010 when Democrats lost a record number of seats, 64 net I think. She doesn't want a repeat so she understandably is putting an emphasis on the political repercussions for impeachment. I agree with your post. We need to show strength which should gin up the millennials to come out and vote. Hillary lost because of Russia but really because our base did not turn out to vote for president.
LenaBaby61
(6,974 posts)SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)FreepFryer
(7,077 posts)This is the same thing.
Keep up the pressure
DON'T ATTACK DEMOCRATS
pazzyanne
(6,552 posts)Javaman
(62,530 posts)personally, I think it's about timing.
she hasn't ruled it out but she certainly isn't perusing it.
I believe, if she were to launch a impeachment investigation now, by the time the election rolls around the repukes will have completely derailed the narrative.
I'm of the belief that something will happen, impeachment-wise, come October/November. once we are in the one year to go election cycle, having impeachment hearings start, it will dominate the news cycle for months.