Good Jobs Report and The White House Strikes Back On "Formal" Impeachment Inquiry

Trump's re-election prospects hinge on the economy and jobs, jobs, jobs. This latest report turns some frowns upside down, although the global economy remains fraught.

On the impeachment front, the White House is reportedly about to emphasize a point I ranted about in late September: Unlike with the precedent set by Nixon and Clinton, there has not been a full House vote authorizing an impeachment inquiry.

The NY Times explainer from mid-September is a good starting point. The gist - the House can subpoena material as part of their routine oversight responsibilities. They can also subpoena material in the context of an impeachment inquiry. Impeachment related subpoenas carry more weight in Executive Privilege fights. They also have a different legal status - a duly authorized impeachment inquiry has the same status as a judicial inquiry, so the DoJ can transfer normally-secret grand jury material to them.

That grand jury question is being litigated now. The House Judiciary Committee wants the Mueller grand jury testimony; the DoJ says they don't have the standing of a judicial inquiry. Tense times for the judge!

As to rules and precedent, the Times paints an uphill struggle for the Democrats:

The Republicans argue that the Judiciary Committee does not inherently have the authority to conduct a presidential impeachment investigation on its own. The standing rules of the House explicitly outline the panel’s jurisdiction, including the impeachment of judges, but they do not mention presidential impeachments, proving that the two are different, Republicans aides say.

I have not verified that but if its true, the Democratic position must be that the full House explicitly delegated to the Judiciary Committee the power to open an impeachment inquiry into judges and implicitly delegated one of their gravest powers, the ability to initiate an impeachment inquiry into the President. Really?

History is also not helpful for the Pelosi/Nadler position:

This is not exactly your father’s presidential impeachment investigation.

Democrats are deviating in key ways from the way the House launched the two presidential impeachment inquiries of the modern era.

When the Judiciary Committee was investigating whether to impeach President Richard M. Nixon in the 1970s and Bill Clinton in the 1990s, it ultimately sought and received explicit authority to conduct each of those inquiries by a vote of the full House.

In this case, the Judiciary Committee led by Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, has neither asked for nor received such a vote.

[Big Skip and...]

But Democrats’ strategy is not without risk. House parliamentarians, nonpartisan aides who help interpret and enforce the rules of the House, would likely make a more conservative recommendation, people who work with them said. If lawmakers want to ensure that a judge will recognize what they are doing as impeachment, it would be better to follow the most well-worn path.

“They can say they are doing it, but what will a judge think, given the precedent in the past?” said Michael Conway, who served as a Judiciary Committee lawyer in 1974 during the Nixon impeachment.

The Congressional research Service prepared an overview of impeachment, updated August 12, 2019 (Quite a date, yes? Whistleblower conspiracists will gasp!).

This passage from the summary is not helpful to the Pelosi position.

So what has been going on? My madcap speculation is this: Trump's tax returns are a key to this.

The current House effort to get Trump's tax returns by way of a routine oversight subpoena is likely to fail. However, a duly authorized House impeachment inquiry will easily win any court fight to collect Trump's tax returns. That is from law professor Andy Grewal.

So - Team Trump originally released the transcript of the controversial Ukrainian call in part (OK, maybe a small part) to pre-empt a full House impeachment vote authorizing a subpoena of the call transcript. Their fear was (and is) that, with such authority, the House will inevitably subpoena Trump's returns. That pre-emptive release seems to have failed as a PR strategy, so they've shifted course.

And on Pelosi's side of the aisle? Why hasn't she un-muddied the waters and held a vote?

Several reasons. Until recently, the Speaker probably didn't have 218 Democratic votes. Now she does.

But Nancy Pelosi has a dual role - she is Speaker of the House but also Herder of Cats.

As Speaker of the House, she has an eye on history and would like to pick up a few Republicans on a full House impeachment inquiry vote. Thirty-one Democrats crossed over in October 1998 to open an inquiry against Bill Clinton; Pelosi was there and might have that number in mind. I doubt she is near that so far.

As Herder of Cats my guess is that Pelosi, oddly enough, shares a fear with Team Trump. She may be very concerned that the Maddow wing of her party will take the focus off the Ukraine by subpoenaing Trump's tax returns and promptly leak them, irresistibly and illegally.

And with that dive down a rabbit hole the process will collapse amidst mutual accusations of lawlessness and bad faith. But with great CNN ratings!

 

Comments

[Dave (in MA)]

First!

[henry]

Are we there yet?

[henry]

If the House is racing Vance for the tax returns... what is the prize for the winner?

[Narciso79]

Ambassadors have little to do with foreign military sales, which is something je dyer was trying to explains. As for other assistance thsr comes through aid. These matters would be handled through the company or the nsc; i thought miss hill would be the leaker because of that.

[Narciso79]

Carrying over from the other thread:
https://mobile.twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1179987190358646785

[Narciso79]

The weeds, of the matter:

https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/09/30/july-2019-ukraine-launched-probe-of-military-sale-by-fundraiser-for-adam-schiff/

[Narciso79]

Does anybody know what they are talking about, the weapons were paid for in april, but they didnt ask for them tilm july.

[henry]

CNBC Politics @CNBCPolitics
47m

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam today invoked emergency powers and banned face masks, saying the order goes into effect on Saturday, Oct. 5. Consequences for breaking the ban include up to one year in jail and a fine of 25,000 Hong Kong dollars ($3,187)

[Narciso79]

Thats what it looks like:

https://mobile.twitter.com/jabeale/status/1179975425746968576

[Narciso79]

Whats up now?

[henry]

another new thread... that shows up on the home page.

https://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2019/10/good-jobs-report-and-the-white-house-strikes-back-on-formal-impeachment-inquiry-4.html#comments

[Jane]

Finally: The end!

[Jane]

Rush is over the moon! How fun!

[jimmyk]

Posted to a dead thread, not even one of the multiple universes of this one.

On the encryption issue, I haven't read what Barr actually did, but why wouldn't this fall under the same tent as search warrants? Granted the potential for abuse, but we give up privacy if a judge decides to give police a search warrant. There has to be probable cause, etc. So shouldn't the government be able to get a warrant to search our phones? I'm as suspicious of government as anyone, but if Muhammad and Achmed are planning to blow up Grand Central Station, I'm ok with letting the government get into their phones, subject to getting a warrant.

[cathyf]

Hey everybody yesterday as a comment on a Facebook post I saw what was supposedly a screen shot of the whistleblower form, specifically the part “whom do I submit my complaint to?” This screen shot showed a whole list, with the ICIG in the middle, but also congressional intelligence oversight committees on the list. How sure are we that all complaints must first go to the IG? (Of course I can’t find it now because Facebook is evil...)

[jimmyk]

Was up at Columbia today and saw this:

The inscribed names above the columns are Homer, Herodotus, Sophocles, etc. On the banner above they've put Angelou, Anzaldua, Chang, Hurston, etc. Who's going to explain to these snowflakes that no one is going to know who those people are 100 years from now (if they even know now)?

[Another Bob]

Jimmy, CBP and I think TSA don’t need warrants to search your phone or other electronic devices.

Even in warrant situations, are you required to provide passwords / decryption keys which may be only in your head?

[Narciso79]

The second is in her own words a queer chicana poet, i dont know who chang is.

[JimNorCal]

.

[JimNorCal]

Hurston? Is that a character from the TV series Gilligan's Island?
No, that was Thurston

[jimmyk]

narc, putting those names up against the likes of Plato and Aristotle has the opposite effect of what they intend. Like putting Ray Oyler in the Hall of Fame.

[Narciso79]

I know its an outrage.

[JM Hanes]

This like one of those progressive (old sense) dinner parties, where you go from house to house for each successive course!

[JM Hanes]

henry:

I marked this quote for comment from something you posted yesterday:

"“During a phone call with Xi on June 18, Trump raised Biden's political prospects as well as those of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who by then had started rising in the polls, according to two people familiar with the discussion.”"

According to whoever wrote it, I assume this was supposed to represent compromising behavior of some sort, but when a lot of people (including some of the usual suspects from the previous administration, I believe) have been advising Xi not to surrender ground to Trump because he will not be reelected, I think a few words on the prospects of Biden and Warren would be both sensible and well warranted. I wish I could recall the context precisely, but I do remember there was a specific point at which I got the clear impression that Xi was rather suddenly backing away from cooperation with Trump, presumably having been persuaded to wait him out, in favor of dealing with a new Democratic administration.

[Narciso79]

More nuanced than the transcripts presented;

https://mobile.twitter.com/GOPoversight/status/1180139265461800960

[JimNorCal]

.

[JimNorCal]

Excellent, excellent point, JMH.
Turnabout is fair play, when Dems are undermining US policy.

[JimNorCal]

.

[JimNorCal]

.

[Jim Eagle]

Is this the officially designated thread or are we using all 6 of them?

[Threadkiller]

Nice try, TM, but I think TomR will still find us...

Get well TomR!

[jimmyk]

Anyone else seeing posts appear, disappear, and reappear. Typhuspad must be in the hands of the IC.

[Jim Eagle]

I have now going to all the other dummy sites and it appears this is the most active and current site. But I could be wrong.

[JM Hanes]

JiB:

I've decided to stick with this thread for the time being, but I had to pull your comment over from one of the previous iterations of the JOM universe (don't ask me which!):

"This is not the house with the best treats"

They could probably hear me laughing next door. And I can't even see my neighbors. So funny!

[JM Hanes]

Not the right choice, apparently!