Cross posting
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Watching the live House floor feed now…
It’s a done deal. It passed! 
Yea: 229
Nay: 191
Democrats now have a powerful new tool to fiercely fight Trump’s shameful, ongoing obstruction of justice. 
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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
Watch 
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.
Watch at 10am ET
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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):
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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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Thanks for holding down the fort @Keaton_James ! We’re one step closer to checking this ridiculous administration.
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The House Intelligence Committee has issued subpoenas for former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former deputy Trump campaign chairman Rick Gates, two of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s most important cooperators.
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https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2019/06/13/judiciary-committee-mueller-report-1364594
The initial group of lawmakers includes Reps. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.), Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and will include committee counsels. It’s the beginning of a round of visits by lawmakers to the Justice Department to see Mueller’s interview transcripts, witness notes and other potentially explosive pieces of information that Mueller used to compile his 448-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether President Donald Trump attempted to obstruct the probe.
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Most important paragraphs:
It’s also unclear which pieces of Mueller’s evidence would be made available and which might be withheld, either under executive privilege or other restrictions. The House on Tuesday authorized the committee to sue Barr for all of Mueller’s underlying evidence, but Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) has indicated he doesn’t expect to initiate that lawsuit until he determines whether the committee is privy to enough information.
“If important information is held back, then we will have no choice but to enforce our subpoena in court and consider other remedies,” Nadler said this week.
Wish I knew the answers to these questions:
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How will anyone viewing the material know if a document is missing?
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If they do know a document is missing, will they know why it is missing? Was it withheld under “executive privilege” (Trump’s doing) or for another reason and, if so, what is that reason (e.g., some reason arbitrarily made up by Barr or a legitimate reason such as national security)?
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Ultimately, how will the public know that Trump’s appointed Attorney General who has been acting like his personal defense lawyer has not tampered with this evidence?
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Missed a bunch, sorry guys I’ve had a full plate this week.
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House Democrats are weighing legislation to scrap the executive guideline that bars the Justice Department from indicting a sitting president.
The informal rule is decades old but has come under heavy new scrutiny since Robert Mueller cited it explicitly as the reason he declined to recommend — or even consider — bringing obstruction charges against President Trump during the course of his 22-month investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
In response to the special counsel’s report, Democrats are piecing together a package of legislation focused largely on shielding elections from foreign influence, including proposals to bar candidates from accepting foreign help of any kind, while making it mandatory that campaigns alert the FBI when such offers are extended.
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Democrats investigating Donald Trump for obstruction of justice are eyeing a new strategy to break the president’s all-out oversight blockade: calling witnesses who never worked in the White House.
Key lawmakers tell POLITICO they hope to make an end run around Trump’s executive privilege assertions by expanding their circle of testimony targets to people outside government who nonetheless had starring roles in Robert Mueller’s final report. That includes presidential confidants like former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
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Democrats are quietly airing concerns that battles with President Trump, including investigations of the president and his administration along with the noisy debate over impeachment, are overshadowing the party’s agenda, threatening its grip on the House in 2020.
That narrative has been fueled by Trump, who has used his Twitter feed and interviews to lambaste Democrats as the “Do Nothing Party,” when in fact they have spent the first five months of their House majority ticking through agenda items they highlighted in the midterm campaign, addressing matters including health-care prices, political corruption and background checks for gun buyers.
But voters aren’t paying much attention, party leaders are finding, leading them to redouble their messaging efforts — including by placing a target on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has blocked consideration of the Democratic bills.
In recent weeks, Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has briefed fellow House leaders in private meetings about focus groups the committee commissioned in three key political battlegrounds. The upshot, according to four Democrats familiar with the findings, is that the public’s impression of the new House majority is bound up in its battles with Trump, not in its policy agenda.
That has prompted anxiety about whether the Democratic strategy to hold the House in 2020, by focusing intently on health-care costs and other kitchen-table issues, can be effective amid the president’s attacks.
“Obviously we want to get the word out about the good bills that the House is able to get passed,” said Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.), a DCCC vice chairman. “But it seems like there is a preoccupation with what’s happening as it relates to the White House, and so everything else sort of gets drowned out.”
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Good highlight piece for this lesser known committee and the work that they have done.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee is quietly amassing documents on allegations of politically motivated retaliation at the State Department. It’s looking into whether Trump has violated foreign emoluments and conflict of interest rules, and lawmakers are working to find out more about the president’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and how Trump leads American foreign policy behind the scenes — all without the fanfare associated with the other committees’ work.
The committee’s record on securing documents and witnesses isn’t flawless, mostly due to the Trump administration’s stonewalling of Democrats’ myriad inquiries targeting the president. But unlike other committees that have faced the same roadblocks, the Foreign Affairs Committee hasn’t issued a single subpoena, held an official in contempt of Congress or taken an issue to federal court to secure critical documents and witness testimony.
“We’re not looking to throw bombs or pick partisan fights. We’re just looking to get facts,” said a committee aide, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the panel’s work. “The steady, painstaking approach is producing results.”
These probes don’t often grab headlines, but they’re a centerpiece of Democrats’ efforts to dig into Trump’s posture toward Russia — whether it’s downplaying the threat of Russian interference in U.S. elections, or refusing to directly criticize Putin.
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Hope Hicks, once a close aide and communications director for President Donald Trump, becomes on Wednesday the first member of his inner circle to testify to the congressional panel leading a probe into possible obstruction of justice by Trump.
Democrats who control the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee believe Hicks can provide important insights into troubling chapters of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and Trump’s efforts to interfere with the investigation.
“She’s our first fact witness,” said Jamie Raskin, a Democratic lawmaker on the committee. “Having somebody talking about what happened from a personal perspective will be a dramatic debut for the committee.”
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