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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBREAKING: DoJ has filed brief arguing the House Judiciary's impeachment inquiry ISN'T ONE.
Citing Pelosi and Hoyer's statements as evidence.
[link:http://
Link to tweet
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malaise
(268,977 posts)NOW!
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)oregonjen
(3,336 posts)panader0
(25,816 posts)malaise
(268,977 posts)Was going to check on you
panader0
(25,816 posts)I'll be in touch.
oregonjen
(3,336 posts)I should have guessed that.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)I guess they are going to whine to the United States Supreme Court next.
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)And some people here will line up right with this BS argument because ... that's what they do
FBaggins
(26,733 posts)Lets not forget that that group included you until a couple months ago.
Once again... when did the inquiry begin?
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)Nadler and the other Judiciary Committee Members made clear that they have opened an impeachment inquiry that could lead to Articles of Impeachment against Trump.
And this has been managed brilliantly.
As many have pointed out, if a vote were taken today on the House floor on whether to open an impeachment inquiry, it would fail and fail badly. Pelosi and Nadler have very skillfully and expertly worked around that possibility. And this didn't just start today.
A month and a half ago, Nadler announced a series of hearings he promised would pursue targeted legislative, oversight and constitutional remedies designed to respond to these matters. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-03/nadler-plans-mueller-report-hearings-starting-with-john-dean
In his announcement, Nadler very specifically stated that the hearings wouldn't be limited to legislative and oversight purposes, but also are targeted toward "constitutional remedies." The only constitutional remedy available to the House to respond to the behavior described in the Mueller Report is impeachment.
This language was very intentional. Among other things, it positioned the Committee to request grand jury materials under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)'s provision that allows a court to release grand jury materials in connection with a proceeding "preliminarily to" an impeachment inquiry.
Today, the Committee announced not only that it is indeed conducting an impeachment inquiry, Nadler and the others said that this inquiry didn't start today, but has been going on for some time - but this is the first time they have come out and said it.
So we are now exactly where many people have been demanding we be. The House is conducting a full-blown impeachment inquiry. They are about to get a court order compelling Don McGahn to testify or face jail and fines. They are in court seeking the grand jury materials.
And they pulled this off without a House vote that would have gone down in defeat. This was a brilliant move by Pelosi to move the inquiry forward while protecting the more vulnerable and conservative members of her caucus from having to vote for one.
Nicely done, Madame Speaker and Chairman Nadler.
Make no mistake about it. Impeachment is in play, y'all.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212320474
FBaggins
(26,733 posts)And not when they decided to change strategy.
When do their official claims say that it began?
But just for curiosity sake... when in June?
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)Go read the pleadings and you'll get your answer. I'm not your research assistant.
FBaggins
(26,733 posts)I no longer think its a coincidence
And lets not forget. Only one of us claims to be a constitutional scholar.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,648 posts)RKP5637
(67,108 posts)elleng
(130,895 posts)I think DoJ's brief LOSES.
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)Impeachment is what Congress says it is. And in this instance, as in most, it is the Judiciary Committee that is delegated the responsibility to pursue impeachment and it the Judiciary Committee says it is conducting an impeachment inquiry, it is conducting an impeachment inquiry, regardless what Trump's lawyers say. The executive branch doesn't get to overrule Congress' representation of how it's doing its business.
FBaggins
(26,733 posts)And of course anyone who disagrees with you on a given day...
... but their position was predictable. Its also a number of Democrats (including some senior to Nadler) who are saying that the House is not currently considering it. Youre claiming that impeachment is what the House says it is (close enough) but also that they delegated that to Nadler despite a lack of a vote doing so and the denial of those whose permission was not even sought.
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)Nadler has said that an impeachment inquiry is underway and since he has the power to initiate an inquiry without a House vote, it doesn't matter what some Members are or aren't saying.
As I said, please go research the pleadings and House rules, procedures, practices and history on impeachment. You may learn something.
Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)The empressof all
(29,098 posts)That's my understanding at least.
Grasswire2
(13,569 posts)Significant advantages exist for House if it an inquiry of impeachment.
Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)no matter what they call the hearings.
Response to Grasswire2 (Original post)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
targetpractice
(4,919 posts)... Nancy is afraid that all the evidence and witnesses that they can't access may not be as compelling as assumed. Afraid it will blow up in the Dems faces.
Poiuyt
(18,123 posts)I think she's afraid that the voters in the purple districts will look upon any impeachment proceedings negatively DESPITE compelling evidence and thus hold it against the Democratic representatives..
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)is doing take a backseat.
There is nothing in the law or Supreme Court procedure that requires the Court to put Congress "first in line" in an impeachment investigation. The Court is likely to place a high priority on it, but it doesn't have to.
Moreover, it is up to Congress to decide whether or not it is conducting an impeachment investigation. If the Judiciary Committee says it's conducting an impeachment inquiry, it is conducting an impeachment inquiry, regardless what the departments that report to the subject of said impeachment inquiry claim. And the Committee has said on the record in its official pronouncements and duly passed resolutions that it is indeed conducting an impeachment investigation. It doesn't matter what the Speaker of the House says in interviews or press briefings
This is a ridiculous, frivolous argument by DOJ, just another one of its many stalling tactics.
FBaggins
(26,733 posts)Yes... its up to Congress. Thats the point.
Congress speaks through majority votes.
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)the only way in which Congress speaks.
But the majority of the Judiciary Committee voted yesterday to pursue an impeachment investigation. That is more than enough for this to be an impeachment investigation since vote by the Committee or the full House is not necessary to initiate an impeachment investigation. The chair can undertake an investigation on his or her own prerogative without any vote at all. In fact, previous impeachment have occurred based on investigations taken up in the Judiciary Committee at the direction of the chairman without a vote.
But, speaking of "contradictory" if "majority votes" were really the only way in which Congress speaks, why do you care what Nancy Pelosi says or doesn't say in interviews since what she says in interviews isn't a House majority vote?
FBaggins
(26,733 posts)That same nonsense about me not understanding how things work was what you were claiming when you held exactly the opposite position.
Awfully convenient memory youve got there
Grasswire2
(13,569 posts)And on the right of Congress to investigate criminal actions of a POTUS?
Looks like both will come before the court.
Response to Grasswire2 (Reply #15)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
FBaggins
(26,733 posts)If a court denies their request on this basis... it might persuade recalcitrant Democrats to change their minds on a House vote.
world wide wally
(21,742 posts)Kid Berwyn
(14,898 posts)Bill Barr, Capitalisms Invisible Army.
Bill Barr: The Cover-Up General
"At the center of the criticism is the chief articulator of Bush's imperial presidency," we reported in 1992, "the man who wrote the legal rationale for the Gulf War, the Panama invasion, and the officially sanctioned kidnapping of foreign nationals abroad"
by FRANK SNEPP
The Village Voice, APRIL 18, 2019
Snip...
For the next two years, as chief of the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel, Barr played a key role in shaping Richard Thornburghs stormy tenure as attorney general. In a job that was essentially political, he helped maintain the administrations ideological purity by screening out judicial candidates who werent conservative enough. He also drafted two key documents rationalizing the U.S. invasion of Panama and the seizure of General Manuel Noriega.
Snip...
In mid 1990, as Thornburghs own problems with Congress deepened, Barr was tapped to run interference, and was named deputy attorney general. The appointment came just in time for him to draft another landmark tract for the administration, the legal pretext for the undeclared war against Iraq. It would have made any Nixonite proud. Explaining it later to Congress, Barr said he believed there was a gray zone between a declared offensive war and an emergency defensive action where there is latitude for the president, if he believes that the vital interests of the United States are threatened by foreign military attack, there is room for him to respond.
Barr did not make clear how the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait equaled an attack on vital American interests, but to his credit, at the moment of decision itself, he did counsel the president to soften the impact of his unilateral rush to war by seeking a declaration of congressional support. That piece of advice, much akin to Johnsons leveraging of the Tonkin Gulf resolution, helped to keep the naysayers at bay.
Barrs service to the administration, however, wasnt limited simply to such flashes of political savvy. In 1991 he became active in stone-walling the Iraqgate and the BCCI investigations and further gratified conservatives by keeping up the tattoo on their favorite hot-button issues. Embracing immigration policy as his own, he helped craft an exception rule that automatically barred HIV-positive sufferers from entering the country. Civil libertarians charged illegal discrimination and even racism, since many of those excluded were black Haitians. Barr assured Congress that the policy was meant only to keep out people who might be thrown back on public welfare.
Flogging another conservative hobbyhorse, Barr fought hard as deputy AG to keep federal courts from expanding their right to review state criminal convictions on writs of habeas corpus. As a devout Catholic, he also pandered to the antiabortion crowd, even torquing the law in August 1991 to advance their crusade. The challenge came when a federal judge in Wichita issued an order barring anti-abortion demonstrators from blocking access to a clinic. The Justice Department intervened to try to force a lifting of the ban. Later asked about this by Congress, Barr gave an exquisitely technical rationale, asserting that though the demonstrators were lawbreakers . . . treading on other peoples rights, they should be dealt with in state court, not federal court thus the federal judges order was unenforceable.
Continues...
https://www.villagevoice.com/2019/04/18/attorney-general-william-barr-is-the-best-reason-to-vote-for-clinton/
Barr is the rock from under which crawl all manner of the vilest treasons.
malaise
(268,977 posts)on Lawrence
Grasswire2
(13,569 posts)the house TV is otherwise occupied by the Big Bang addict.