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The Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump

More to come, I’m sure. :smirk:

So far only The Hill has the story.

Ah, Natasha Bertrand has it, yes!

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Two Russian Investigation prosecutors are in negotiations to talk w/ House Judiciary Committee - James Quarles (had worked on Watergate) and Aaron Zebley (cybersecurity specialty)

House Democrats Seek Closed-Door Testimony of Mueller Deputies

Two former prosecutors on special counsel’s team in negotiations to testify the same day as Robert Mueller’s open hearing

By

Byron Tau and

Dustin Volz

July 9, 2019 6:18 pm ET

WASHINGTON—House Democrats are seeking to hear from two senior deputies to former special counsel Robert Mueller in closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill next week, the latest attempt to learn more about the Russia investigation in the face of Mr. Mueller’s vow to only discuss the facts laid out in his report.

Two former prosecutors on the special counsel’s team, James Quarles and Aaron Zebley have been in negotiations to testify behind closed doors to the House Judiciary Committee on the same day that Mr. Mueller would appear…

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And look…DOJ wants to control their testimony…

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is seeking to discourage Robert S. Mueller III’s deputies from testifying before Congress, potentially jeopardizing an agreement for two of the former prosecutors to answer lawmakers’ questions in private next week, according to two government officials familiar with the matter.

The department told the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees last week that it was opposed to the testimony and had communicated its view to the two former members of Mr. Mueller’s team, Aaron Zebley and James L. Quarles III, according to a senior congressional official familiar with the discussions. A Justice Department official confirmed that account and said that the department had instructed both men not to appear.

It is unclear what effect the Justice Department’s intervention will have on the men’s eventual appearances, but it raises the prospect that a deal lawmakers thought they had struck last month for testimony from Mr. Mueller, the former special counsel, and the two prosecutors could still unravel.

Thx @rusticgorilla

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A migrant woman whose 19-month-old daughter died weeks after being released from a U.S. detention facility gave emotional testimony at a congressional hearing Wednesday, saying her daughter died because of "neglect and mistreatment."

Yazmin Juárez, who left Guatemala with her daughter Mariee to seek asylum in the United States, spoke about her daughter’s death during a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on Wednesday afternoon. Mariee died of a viral lung infection in May of last year, her mother said, a few weeks after being released from the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“We came to America, where I hoped to build a better, safer life for my daughter Mariee,” Juárez said in Spanish, sitting next to a photo of herself and her daughter. “Unfortunately, I watched my baby girl die, slowly and painfully. A few months before her second birthday, she ceased to exist.”

Watch the full hearing here :point_down:

Watch just Yazmin Juárez‘s testimony here :point_down:

I watched her testimony but not the entire hearing, just FYI.

Update: I wanted to include links to the original story that we previously tracked on the Immigration Thread.

:pushpin:

:pushpin:

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The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a dozen new subpoenas targeting a who’s who of witnesses cited in Robert S. Mueller III’s report as Democrats sought to elevate their showdown with President Trump over episodes of possible obstruction of justice documented by the special counsel.

The panel also approved a separate group of subpoenas seeking information about the Trump administration’s practice of separating children from their families at the border. And House Democratic leaders set Tuesday for a full House vote to hold Attorney General William P. Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt of Congress over their refusal to relinquish documents related to the administration’s efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

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Cross posting thanks :pray:

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@matt I maxed out the character count in the header. I was 2,000 over the 70,000 max. :flushed: I have this backed up locally. Any suggestions on how I should proceed? I could spilt it into monthly threads? Or individual committees? Or create a new companion wiki thread and leave this thread a posting thread?

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-offers-to-delay-testimony-one-week-to-give-lawmakers-more-time-for-questions/2019/07/12/21849ffe-a4ae-11e9-b732-41a79c2551bf_story.html?utm_term=.e55b765bbb7b

Former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is offering to postpone his congressional testimony by one week to give lawmakers more time to question him about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Trump.

Mueller is scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees on July 17 in a much-anticipated public appearance since he gave a short statement following the conclusion of his nearly two-year investigation. Mueller is perhaps the one person lawmakers and the nation have been wanting to hear from the most.

His offer to appear instead on July 24 is being considered by the congressional panels, according to multiple officials familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity Friday to discuss sensitive talks.

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:smirk:

The House voted Friday to curb President Trump’s ability to strike Iran militarily on Friday, adopting a bipartisan provision that would require the president to get Congress’s approval before authorizing military force against Tehran.

The 251-170 vote reflects lawmakers’ growing desire to take back long-ceded authority over matters of war and peace from the executive branch, a reclamation legislators contend has grown increasingly urgent amid escalating tensions with Iran. It also reflected a war weariness on both sides of the aisle after 17 years of conflict in the Middle East; 27 Republicans joined all but seven Democrats to approve it.

Last month, Mr. Trump led the United States to the brink of a retaliatory missile strike before abruptly reversing course minutes before launch. On Thursday, three Iranian boats briefly tried to block passage of a British tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Britain’s Ministry of Defense.

Mr. Trump said last month he believes he does not need congressional approval to strike Iran. The vote Friday amounted to a pointed and bipartisan rebuttal — led by strange ideological bedfellows, Representatives Ro Khanna, a liberal Democrat from California, and Matt Gaetz of Florida, one of Mr. Trump’s most strident Republican allies in Congress.

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House Oversight Committee Report on Child Separations by the Trump Administration

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Missed this story last week…

Senate investigators have added yet another name to the constantly evolving cast of characters in the Russia investigation.

On April 5, just 2 weeks after Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted his final report on Russia’s election interference, the Senate Intelligence Committee sent a letter to a British security consultant named Walter Soriano asking for a voluntary, closed-door interview and documents with various Russia probe figures dating back to June 2015.

[…]

“They’re surprised by how connected he seems to several people of interest,” this person said, including the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska — a former business associate of Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who offered Deripaska private briefings about the campaign in 2016. Deripaska is believed to have worked with Soriano on corporate intelligence matters, this person said.

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A Democratic lawmaker says he will force a vote on articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump by next week, a dramatic step that could force the Democrat-led House to consider the measure for the first time, even over the objection of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“The President of the United States is a racist, a bigot, a misogynist, as well as an invidious prevaricator. To say that Donald John Trump is unfit for the Office of the President of the United States is an understatement," said Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who cited Trump’s racist tweets over the weekend about Democratic congresswomen as the impetus for his third effort to push through an impeachment vote.

Green forced two votes on impeachment articles in 2017 and 2018, when Republicans ran the House, citing similar controversies, including Trump’s comments about demonstrators in Charlottesville and his description of African nations as “shithole countries.”

In both cases, about 60 of Green’s colleagues joined him to support advancing the impeachment measure, but the moves were easily defeated, with most Democrats describing it as premature. Since then, former special counsel Robert Mueller issued a report providing compelling evidence that Trump attempted to obstruct his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, leading dozens more of Green’s Democratic colleagues to embrace an impeachment inquiry.

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White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday defied a congressional subpoena, refusing to show up for testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee about her violations of the Hatch Act and prompting House Democrats to threaten to hold her in contempt of Congress.

In a letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the panel, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone asserted the Trump administration’s long-standing view that current and former presidential advisers are “absolutely immune” from congressional testimony, writing: “Ms. Conway cannot be compelled to testify before Congress with respect to matters related to her service as a senior adviser to the president.”

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Oy! Sorry I missed this! First, this is incredible work!

I bumped up the total post size as an interim step, so you should be able to update the header now.

We could use the header in this thread as an index + the general congressional news and Other Related House and Senate Committees list, then spin off each committee investigation into its own wiki topic, which would result in something like this:

Congressional Committee Investigations into Trump 2019

  • General congressional news
  • Other Related House and Senate Committees

Separate topics:

  • Judiciary Committee Investigations into Trump 2019
  • Oversight And Reform Committee Investigations into Trump 2019
  • Ways And Means Committee
  • Financial Services Committee

What do you think?

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@matt

It’s simple and clear. Hopefully I’ll find a block of time to lay this out this week. Thanks :pray:

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Cross posting :pray:

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Cross posting :pray:

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Letter from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Nadler to Hope Hicks dated July 18th, 2019.

https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/democrats.judiciary.house.gov/files/documents/7.18.2019%20Letter%20from%20Chairman%20Nadler%20to%20Hope%20Hicks%20(002).pdf

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/07/18/politics/hope-hicks-house-judiciary-testimony/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fcurrentstatus.io%2F

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler wrote to Hicks asking if she wanted to voluntarily clarify her testimony, saying the new evidence “raises substantial questions about the accuracy” of several statements she made.

In her appearance last month before the Judiciary Committee, Hicks said “no” when asked multiple times by Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee whether Hicks was ever present when Trump and Cohen discussed Daniels, according to a transcript released of the closed-door interview.

She also said she had no information about Daniels other than what she learned from reporters.

"Again, I had no knowledge of Stormy Daniels other than to say she was going to be mentioned in the story amongst people that were shopping stories around," Hicks testified. "There were no specifics offered by the reporter, and I didn’t have any other information other than what was being relayed to me by the reporter."

She said she denied the affair in a 2016 statement to the press because "that was the response that was dictated to me."

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Unredacted Documents Released in Cohen Case

Search warrants made public Thursday show that the FBI believed then-candidate Donald Trump spoke with his attorney Michael Cohen and aide Hope Hicks during the 2016 campaign about silencing news stories related to his alleged affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

Why it matters: The Southern District of New York’s investigation into hush money payments, which has now concluded, resulted in Cohen being sentenced to prison for three years for campaign finance violations. Trump — who was previously referred to in court documents as “Individual 1” — has denied allegations of his involvement in the scheme.

What they’re saying:

"I have learned that in the days following the Access Hollywood video, Cohen exchanged a series of calls, text messages and emails with Keith Davidson, who was then Clifford’s attorney, David Pecker and Dylan Howard of American Media, Inc. (“AMI”), the publisher of the National Enquirer, Trump, and Hope Hicks, who was then press secretary for Trump’s presidential campaign.

“Based on the timing of these calls, and the content of the text messages and emails, I believe that at least some of these communications concerned the need to prevent Clifford from going public, particularly in the wake of the Access Hollywood story.”
— Unnamed FBI agent

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:eyes: Watch: Acting Homeland Security Secretary Testifies on Migrant Children Policy

https://www.c-span.org/video/?462642-1/acting-homeland-security-secretary-testifies-migrant-children-policy

:star: Highlighted Clip:
Chairman Cummings Criticizes DHS Secretary Over Treatment of Children at Border

During a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on treatment of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border, committee chair Elijah Cummings (D-MD) chastises Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan over declining living conditions for minors at the border. The chairman cites on instance at a particular facility where some children were sleeping near their own feces, saying the impact one them will last for decades.

:eyes: Watch here

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