ZitatVery nice trick here by the Lawfare advisory and rules committee that is handling the construct of the “Official House Inquiry” on impeachment. It is such a good trick it has everyone crossed-up and confused. Likely, that is by design.
On Thursday of this week Speaker Pelosi is bringing to the floor a resolution to affirm her previous declaration of an “Official House Inquiry”. Mrs. Pelosi is very purposefully and carefully telling reporters this is not a “House resolution on impeachment”. Read the wording carefully:
(check link above)
Zitat Speaker Pelosi is holding a vote, a resolution, to affirm her previous declaration of a House “inquiry”. The resolution is currently being written by Lawfare. Pelosi is not delivering a House “Resolution on Impeachment” for a vote, because if she did hold a vote on an impeachment resolution, the minority and the Executive branch would gain rights therein.
This is a House vote to show support for Pelosi’s previous unilateral decree. Right now the rules committee is adding language to the resolution that will provide additional one-sided support for a completely partisan process.
As always, worth clicking through to read the entire article at CTH.
Money quote:
Here’s where it gets interesting.
ZitatThe Thursday vote will likely have a rule process to conjoin the House Judiciary Committee (HJC) with the House “official impeachment inquiry”.
Why now? Because the HJC just won a legal ruling from DC Judge Beryl Howell granting the Judiciary Committee formal impeachment authority. {Go Deep}
Lawfare is hoping that through this Thursday vote scheme they will be able to twist the legal process into providing their House inquiry judicial enforcement authority, or punishment possible for the executive not complying with a House committee subpoena. They are hoping to achieve this by bringing in the House Judiciary Committee and the judicial enforcement authority they were just granted by Judge Howell.
ZitatUPDATE: In the DC court the DOJ has filed a motion to stay the Judge Howell ruling as they appeal the decision. The stay motion appears pretty solid on three of the four corner arguments.
The weakest aspect to the motion is the legal framework around “judicial enforcement authority.” In part because the impeachment precedent is thin; and in part because the Judiciary Committee angle is about gaining evidence underneath the Mueller report – not the House Ukraine investigation.