Impeachment Reaches Decision Stage as Democrats Review Evidence
Testimony and documents unearthed so far could be the foundation of at least three articles of impeachment.
(Bloomberg) -- House Democrats are starting to compress weeks of depositions, documents and testimony into a report almost certain to result in articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, as the White House wages a campaign to discredit the investigation.
Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff won’t rule out more witnesses or other avenues of investigation beyond a central focus: whether Trump tried to use his office to force Ukraine into announcing a politically motivated probe.
“The investigation isn’t going to end,” Schiff said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Yet he acknowledged that “there is a sense of urgency” to quickly draft a report for the Judiciary Committee -- which would begin any formal impeachment -- so that the whole process can be wrapped up before 2020 campaigns begin in earnest.
Yet a court case and a continued steady drip of other documents and emails that have emerged over the past week may make it difficult for Schiff and Democrats to meet a goal of sending an impeachment case to the Senate for trial at the start of the new year.
The two weeks of public hearings provided new evidence linking Trump and senior administration officials to investigations of Joe Biden and the 2016 election they pushed Ukrainian leaders to announce in exchange for a White House meeting and security assistance. The 12 career diplomats, civil servants and political appointees who testified also detailed the back-channel diplomacy led by Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, which undermined long-held U.S. foreign policy objectives.
Testimony and documents unearthed so far could be the foundation of at least three articles of impeachment, including bribery, abuse of power, and obstruction of Congress, according to officials familiar with Intelligence Committee plans. Other potential other articles, such as possible witness tampering, have not been ruled out.
Republicans Firm
So far the inquiry hasn’t shaken Trump’s solid support from Republican lawmakers, or caused a shift in public sentiment for impeaching the president.
“There was no direct evidence of pressure on the Ukrainian government to do a certain act in order for the aid to go forward,” Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi said Sunday on NBC. “I think the American people are moving away from the Democratic position on this.”
A court ruling expected on Monday could set the precedent for whether additional Trump administration officials will be required to comply with congressional subpoenas. Former White House Counsel Don McGahn asked a federal judge to decide whether he must answer questions from the House Judiciary Committee under a subpoena that predates the impeachment inquiry.
Several White House officials, including former National Security Advisor John Bolton, said they would answer Congress’s questions if ordered by the courts. This precedent could also apply to Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and possibly Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday if Bolton should testify, Schiff said: “People like John Bolton, whose deputies had the courage to come in and testify, are going to have to answer one day why they saved what they knew for a book rather than tell the country when the country needed to know.”
Bolton on Friday returned to Twitter after a long absence and cryptically suggested that he has much to reveal about his time in the White House. It was unclear whether he was referencing his break from Twitter, his soon-to-be-released book or the impeachment inquiry.
While calling cabinet members to testify could extend the inquiry’s time line, these witnesses could provide the firsthand accounts of conversations with Trump that Republicans have said are lacking in the evidence presented thus far.
Democrats say the Intelligence Committee has already answered the three main questions it set out to answer: Did Trump seek politically motivated investigations? Did Trump abuse the power of his office? Did Trump seek to obstruct Congress and cover-up evidence?
Articles of Impeachment
Representative Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut on the Intelligence Committee, said his fellow House Democrats -- and the American public -- will see the open testimony and published transcripts of private depositions as supporting the allegations against Trump.
“I haven’t spoken to all 240 or so of my colleagues, but I don’t think any Democrat in the Congress who looked at what happened over the last two weeks and said, ‘Gosh, there’s nothing there,’” Himes said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
The next step, according to rules established by a House resolution approved last month with only Democratic votes, will be a report drafted by the Intelligence Committee, in consultation with Oversight and Foreign Affairs panels, that will be sent to the Judiciary Committee to write the articles of impeachment. Other panels, such as the Ways and Means Committee investigating Trump’s taxes, could draft their own reports, which do not have to be approved first at the committee level.
This would kick off additional public hearings in the Judiciary Committee, chaired by New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler, during which Trump and his lawyers can present their defense, including cross-examining any witnesses and requesting evidence. If they choose to fully engage with the process, rather than writing it off as an illegitimate partisan exercise, this phase could last longer and potentially delay a vote on the House floor.
Intelligence Committee Democrats as of Friday had not scheduled a meeting to sort through the panel’s final decisions. The House is in recess until Dec. 3, although the committees leading the inquiry worked through previous recess weeks.
Republicans on the committee say Schiff has not given them a due date for a minority report that could be appended to the Democratic reports.
Additional Witnesses
One of the variables leaving the time line unsettled, according to one Democratic Intelligence Committee member, is the possibility of calling additional witnesses for closed-door testimony. None have been scheduled, but Schiff left open that possibility.
Trump on Saturday said Schiff himself should be called to testify, echoing complaints from House Republicans that Schiff must say under oath what he knows about the whistle-blower whose complaint in September kicked off the inquiry.
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee can suggest witnesses, but they must be approved by the majority of panel members. If the House impeaches Trump, the process will go to a Senate trial where a two-thirds majority would be needed to aremove him from office. Republicans control the chamber.
Adding a potential wrinkle to the House probe, a lawyer representing Lev Parnas, one of Giuliani’s associates indicted for campaign finance violations, told CNN on Friday that his client is willing to speak with House impeachment panels. Attorney Joseph Bondy said Parnas met with Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, and other Ukrainian officials in Europe last year to discuss investigations of Biden.
Schiff said Sunday that meeting could lead to an ethics probe of Nunes, who has been one of Trump’s chief defenders in the House.
“If he was on a taxpayer-funded CODEL -- and I say ‘if’ -- seeking dirt on a potential Democratic candidate for president, Joe Biden, that will be an ethics matter,” Schiff said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” using the term for a congressional delegation. “That’s not before our committee.”
Nunes said he planned to sue CNN and the Daily Beast, who first reported the lawmaker’s meeting.
“It’s not okay to work with someone who’s been indicted, to build a media narrative to try to dirty up the people who are doing the work on behalf of the American people,” the California Republican said via telephone on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News.
To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton, Steve Geimann
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