December 2nd 2019

By Mark Sumner

Daily Kos

The report from the House Intelligence Committee covering evidence gathered by the impeachment inquiry in both public and closed door testimony is nearing completion. The report will be available for review by members of the committee on Monday evening, with a vote of the committee scheduled for Tuesday evening. That vote will not be on impeachment itself, but on the approval of the report, which will then be forwarded to the House Judiciary Committee for the next action in the impeachment of Donald Trump.

CNN states that the report represents a final chance for Democratic members of the Intelligence Committee to sum up the case against Trump and present the evidence in a way that’s compelling and concise. The report will not actually include articles of impeachment, but any articles that emerge from the Judiciary Committee will almost certainly be founded on the information forwarded in this report.

As a sign of how quickly everything is moving, the Judiciary Committee has already scheduled its first hearing on impeachment for Wednesday. This makes it likely that Republicans will conduct multiple efforts on Monday and Tuesday to delay the process and confound the tightly scheduled events, but House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff has so far displayed little patience with stunts, as well as a willingness to take swift action according to House rules.

The report features information gleaned from the testimony of 17 people — including a number of current and former members of both the State Department and the National Security Council. It does not include documents from either of those sources, as the White House has continued to refuse to comply with subpoenas from the House despite a series of votes to authorize the impeachment process.

House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler has set a December 6 deadline for the White House to release the documents and announce cooperation with the House impeachment authorities. If the White House does not comply by that date, it will likely generate additional charges of obstruction and contempt of Congress — though it seems probable that some charges of this nature will already be included in any articles of impeachment.

Last week, Schiff sent a letter to House members informing them that, even though the impeachment inquiry is moving to Judiciary, the Intelligence Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee, and Oversight Committee are all engaged in ongoing investigations related to Trump, and additional witnesses may be called by those committee. Any additional evidence or testimony may be forwarded to the Judiciary Committee for consideration in the impeachment process.

While some have argued that the impeachment action should be purely related to Trump’s attempts to extort Ukraine into interfering in a U.S. election, others have argued for additional counts to be included, such as Trump’s known campaign finance violations related to silencing two women, Trump’s perjury in response to written questions from the special counsel team, and the acts of obstruction noted in the special counsel report.

Posted with permission