Weird new fight within the House Judiciary Committee, Republicans are arguing that in order for the committee to see the unredacted Mueller report and the underlying evidence, the committee would first have to open an impeachment investigation.
Looks like they’re trying to push Dems into making an impeachment play. I don’t think they can do that… Dems should keep making the legislative argument and open a 9/11 style Commission investigation into how to prevent future elections from being perverted. Then Dems can hold the Republicans publically accountable for not addressing this issue sooner.
Do Democrats have to begin the process of impeaching President Donald Trump in order to access special counsel Robert Mueller’s secrets?
That legal debate began raging inside the House Judiciary Committee on Friday after a new federal court ruling suggested that Congress’ access to some confidential evidence — like the kind obtained by Mueller — hinges on lawmakers launching a “judicial proceeding.”
Republicans on the committee say the only “judicial proceeding” Congress can lead is an impeachment inquiry – a claim they say is backed up by legal precedent and history. Democrats would have to launch one against Trump if they want Mueller’s grand jury evidence, Republicans say.
[…]
Judiciary Committee Democrats are also pushing back against the notion that impeachment would be a requirement to get Mueller’s grand jury evidence. Democrats say courts haven’t ruled out other avenues that would count as “judicial proceedings.”
“I can understand why Republicans would like to interpret this morning’s decision as cutting off all access by congress to these materials. There’s probably something very damaging to the president there,” said a Democratic Judiciary Committee counsel. “But no court, including the D.C. Circuit in this morning’s case has ever held that Congress must be in an impeachment proceeding in order to access grand jury materials.”
To bolster their case, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) has argued that Congress received access to grand jury material amassed by prosecutors in investigations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Ken Starr, the independent counsel who investigated Clinton, turned over a mountain of grand jury material to Congress, Nadler noted earlier this week.
“As a legal matter, the Judiciary Committee has always had access to grand jury material involving questions of presidential misconduct, and I can’t imagine the courts ultimately deciding otherwise in this case,” said Julian Epstein, who was the committee’s chief counsel in 1998, when Democrats received Starr’s grand jury evidence. “This Republican gamesmanship of wanting an impeachment declaration is childish form over substance, and the courts will not likely bow to that kind of rhetorical legerdemain.”
The House Intelligence Committee may have a claim to the information as well, said Barb McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, in a call with reporters. “One of the other exceptions to the grand jury secrecy rule is that an attorney for the government may disclose grand jury material to a federal official whose job includes foreign intelligence work,” she said.
