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The Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump

Schiff cuing up the hits from Mueller’s vol. 1 of the report. Should be good tv.

Washington, DC – As part of a series of open hearings on the Mueller Report, on Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 9:00 am, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will hold an open hearing — “Lessons from the Mueller Report: Counterintelligence Implications of Volume 1.” The Committee will hear testimony from Stephanie Douglas and Robert Anderson, both former Executive Assistant Directors of the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

As part of this series of hearings and testimony, the Committee plans to speak with fact witnesses, national security experts, and others connected to the Special Counsel’s investigation to elucidate the issues and findings in the first volume of the report. This is the second open hearing in the series; the first focused on the Kremlin’s use of oligarchs and money to influence foreign actors. A subsequent hearing will explore the facts discussed in the report about Russian intrusions into U.S. elections infrastructure. The Committee also plans to consider targeted legislative initiatives designed to respond to the counterintelligence concerns highlighted by Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) stated:

“Since the release of the Mueller report, the American public has learned much about the President’s conduct, his campaign’s interactions with Russia and that nation’s interference in our election and affairs. The evidence has been both criminal and non-criminal, and implicated deep counterintelligence concerns over the potential compromise of U.S. persons. Our Committee’s goal will be to explain to the American people the serious counterintelligence concerns raised by the Mueller Report, examine the depth and breadth of the unethical and unpatriotic conduct it describes, and produce prescriptive remedies to ensure that this never happens again. That is a tall task, but it begins with a detailed focus on the facts laid out in the Special Counsel’s report.”

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The Judiciary and Intelligence Committee’s are heating up this week. Oversight Committee showing some movement too.

This week:

House Judiciary Hearing: Monday, June 10, 2pm

House Intelligence Hearing: Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 9:00 am

House Oversight Hearing: TBD

On Monday at 2 p.m. ET, the Judiciary panel will hold the first of a series of hearings on the Mueller report — though the star witness himself won’t be present. Mueller, who had been negotiating with the committee about providing testimony about his two-year investigation to Congress, recently made clear that does not want or plan to speak further about the investigation. Still, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said last week that he’s “confident” the special counsel will come speak to Congress soon — and is prepared to soon issue a subpoena to compel him, if necessary

[…]

Separately, the House Intelligence Committee will hold a rare open hearing on the counterintelligence implications of the Mueller report, in which Stephanie Douglas and Robert Anderson, former executive assistant directors of the FBI’s national security branch, are scheduled testify.

[…]

On Tuesday, the House will vote on a resolution to enforce the subpoenas for Barr and McGahn. The Judiciary Committee had voted in early May to advance a measure to hold Barr in contempt after Trump exerted executive privilege over the unredacted version of the Mueller report. The committee vote was the "culmination of nearly three months of requests, discussions and negotiations with the Department of Justice,” Nadler said at the time, for the report and its underlying evidence.

[…]

Democrats have issued at least 25 subpoenas this year targeting the Trump administration. Administration officials again defied Democrats’ subpoena power late last week when Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross failed to produce documents to the House Oversight Committee regarding the citizenship question on the 2020 census.

Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., has said that he plans to move forward with holding both officials in contempt. “We gave Attorney General Barr and Secretary Ross every opportunity to produce the documents the Committee needs for our investigation, but rather than cooperate, they have decided that they would rather be held in contempt of Congress," he said in a statement. "They produced none of the documents we asked for, they made no counter-offers regarding these documents, and they seem determined to continue the Trump Administration’s cover-up.”

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Watch :eyes: today at 2pm E

House Judiciary Hearing on Lessons from Mueller Report

Former White House Counsel John Dean as well as former U.S. attorneys and legal experts testify about lessons learned from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

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:clap::clap::clap:

The Justice Department, after weeks of tense negotiations, has agreed to provide Congress with key evidence collected by Robert S. Mueller III that could shed light on possible obstruction of justice and abuse of power by President Trump, the House Judiciary Committee said on Monday.

The exact scope of the material the Justice Department has agreed to provide was not immediately clear, though the committee signaled that it could be a breakthrough after weeks of wrangling over those materials and others that the Judiciary panel demanded under subpoena. The Trump administration’s blockade of the material had ground the Democratic investigations of Mr. Trump’s possible obstruction of justice and abuse of power to a halt.

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:eyes: Committee aide says the contempt vote is still on for tomorrow…

And now Nadler via twitter

NPR has the story,

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:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/06/10/politics/russia-investigation-start-doj/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FyuT3vGichu%3Famp%3D1

Attorney General William Barr’s review of the beginnings of the Russia probe will be “broad in scope and multifaceted” and will examine actions by US and foreign intelligence agencies, “as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals.”

The description was contained in a letter from the Justice Department to House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and released Monday just as the committee began a separate hearing on the Mueller Report.

The attorney general, while not specifying in this letter, has previously signaled that his review will include an examination of ex-British spy Christopher Steele’s work compiling research about President Donald Trump and his associates and commissioned by Fusion GPS, a research and investigative firm.

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What a transparent attempt to distract from what we really should be focusing on. Our country is in mortal peril – our democratic elections are under attack and instead of concentrating on that, the head of our Justice Department (along with the Republicans who installed him) are investigating the whistle blowers? Say what??? – On top of that, they’re casting about for legal technicalities to get the traitors off the hook.

I’ve posted this before, but I swear I’m printing it out and tacking it on the wall above my desk so I can look at it every time I see an article about Barr’s “investigation of the investigators” – And as long as Trump and Barr are in charge, you can bet there will be a lot more of them. Grrrrr… :angry:

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THIS is interesting video, based apparently on the Muller Report and today’s testimony with John Dean:

Former US attorney and now Michigan law professor Barb McQuade just had an interesting interaction with Florida Democrat and committee member Ted Deutch.

They talked about events detailed in Robert Mueller’s report that Donald Trump asked then White House counsel Don McGahn to call then deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and order him to “get rid” of special counsel Mueller. And then the president asked McGahn to lie about that, despite multiple urgings from Trump that he “change his recollection” about their exchange.

McQuade tells the committee that Mueller’s report that Trump asked McGahn to create a false document about their exchange regarding Mueller is “the most serious allegation.”

“This constitutes obstruction of justice” by the president, McQuade says.

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Anyone else having trouble with http://c-span.org ? Seems to be down…

It’s back.

Watch part 2 here :point_down:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?461399-3/house-judiciary-hearing-lessons-mueller-report-part-2&live

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The Daily Beast buried the lead here. The big takeaway is that even though the Judiciary Committee can now view documents from the Mueller investigation, Trump can still block access to crucial evidence by claiming “privilege.”

The Beast calls this a “hiccup” – I’d call it another major roadblock and an opportunity for more obstruction by the President. Will Trump play the “privilege” card once again – this time to negate Nadler’s recent victory in gaining access to the Mueller documents? We need to keep an eagle eye on how this plays out. I hope Judiciary Committee members immediately start culling through the documents in order to test this potentially obstructive maneuver by Trump and Barr. If they’re going down that road, let’s call them out right now.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee will be able to take notes on Mueller investigation evidence, and keep those notes after viewing the closely held documents, The Daily Beast has learned.

There may be a hiccup, however: A source familiar with the situation cautioned that the White House will likely have access to any evidence that could implicate its equities and executive privilege, and may try to step in and block members of Congress from seeing material it deems privileged.

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:eyes: Watch :point_down:

House Session

The House debates and votes on a resolution authorizing the Judiciary Committee to pursue court action on subpoenas issued for former and current Trump administration officials.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?461461-3/us-house-debate-enforcing-subpoenas

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Cross posting

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Watching the live House floor feed now…

:boom: It’s a done deal. It passed! :clap: :clap: :clap: :partying_face:

Yea: 229
Nay: 191

Democrats now have a powerful new tool to fiercely fight Trump’s shameful, ongoing obstruction of justice. :muscle: :fist:

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The appearance of the President’s eldest son Wednesday comes after a lengthy and contentious fight that spilled into public view after the committee issued a subpoena to Trump Jr. and he initially balked at testifying for a second time. …

The committee is interested in hearing again from Trump Jr. because of discrepancies between his testimony in 2017 and what other witnesses have told both the committee and the special counsel’s office.

Trump Jr. appeared before the Senate Intelligence, Senate Judiciary and House Intelligence Committees in 2017, and the release of the Mueller report prompted a new round questions about what Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary panel, which released a transcript of his interview.

Trump Jr. testified he only told Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort ahead of time about the Trump Tower meeting in which a Russian attorney promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. But then-campaign deputy Rick Gates, who pleaded guilty in the special counsel probe, told Mueller that Trump Jr. talked about a lead on negative information about the Clinton Foundation at a campaign meeting in the days before the Trump Tower meeting.

Trump Jr.'s testimony on the Trump Tower Moscow project has also been scrutinized, in which he said he was “peripherally aware” of the project. But Mueller’s report says Cohen testified he discussed the project on multiple occasions with Trump Jr. and that the discussions were not just "idle chit chat."

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This is a follow up to an earlier report by The Daily Beast above.

Bad news here. Bigly.

When House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced on Monday that he had reached an agreement with the Justice Department to view some of the underlying evidence behind Special Counsel’s Robert Mueller’s report. The announcement was hailed as a major breakthrough for the Democratic Party’s oversight efforts.

But Nadler may get less than expected.

That’s because the Trump White House will work with the Justice Department to decide what exactly the committee gets to see, two senior administration officials told The Daily Beast. And, so far, the White House has not waived executive privilege regarding any of Mueller’s materials, the two officials said.

I’d say there is zero chance that Trump will allow one shred of evidence that is in any way damaging to him to make it into the materials that can be viewed by members of the Judiciary Committee.

Unless Nadler knows something we don’t, I think he just got played. (BTW, sorry to say it since I’m a huge Nadler fan.) If the White House stonewalls here as they have in every single case where Congress has tried to view Mueller evidence, then I don’t see how Nadler’s deal we’ll move the ball down the field one inch. The optimist in me wants to think otherwise. We should soon know the outcome as Judiciary Committee members start viewing the documents. They better do that quickly and squawk loudly if they find crucial evidence is once again out of reach.

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House Intel Committee on Mueller Report Lessons Learned

The House Intelligence Committee holds a hearing to discuss the lessons learned from the Mueller Report

:eyes: Watch :point_down:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?461556-1/house-intel-committee-mueller-report-lessons-learned&live
.

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House Oversight Votes on AG Barr & Commerce Sec. Ross In Contempt of Congress

The House Oversight and Reform Committee votes on holding Attorney General Barr and Commerce Secretary Ross in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoenas related to a citizenship question added to the 2020 Census.

:eyes: Watch at 10am ET

https://www.c-span.org/video/?461640-1/oversight-committee-vote-holding-ag-barr-commerce-secretary-ross-contempt

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The committee has recessed. They have postponed the vote until 4pm ET.

Cummings does an awesome job as the chair. I marvel at his patience with Meadows and Jordon who, in addition to laying out non-stop specious arguments, are total D heads.

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The link from @Pet_Proletariat above will play the archived video from this morning’s session (Part 1).

If you want to tune into the live stream of the committee as it reconvenes to hold the vote, here’s the updated link (Part 2):

https://www.c-span.org/video/?461640-2/oversight-committee-vote-holding-ag-barr-commerce-secretary-ross-contempt&playEvent

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:boom: :clap: :clap: :clap:

The House Oversight Committee voted Wednesday to hold both Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress for not complying with subpoenas for documents related to the Trump administration’s controversial decision to add a question on U.S. citizenship to the 2020 census.

The committee passed the resolution by a vote of 24-15. Just one Republican, Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, joined Democrats in voting yes.

Cummings held off the vote until later in the day so members could review the Justice Department’s explanation of President Trump’s invocation of executive privilege. A letter from the DOJ announcing the invocation of executive privilege arrived shortly before the hearing began Wednesday morning.

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