The trial of Donald J. Trump

[Munchmasterman]

You're wrong. The full house doesn't have to vote to issue subpoenas.

Philbin knows that too. Just more flagrant lies from the lying liars.

"Whataboutism" in trumps case is used to justify bad behavior without admitting it is bad behavior. Your complaining about Obama is being directed to the wrong audience. Ask the repubs why they didn't impeach him. They controlled the house for 6 of his years.
To be honest, I really didn't think there would be such wide-spread blind devotion to trump. Before the election, the sheer numbers of never-trumpers who pointed out all his glaring inadequacy and lack of character seemed to indicate the repubs would nominate someone else.
As the number of repubs climbs while embracing his lie about everything mindset shows we are in decline. trump is the worst possible role model there is. He is a scumbag without the spirit of our country. It's not that he is a repub because he isn't. He has many of the negative traits I can't stand.

He'll always be a guy from Queens who never got over the rejection he got from Manhattan.


And one other question. Since all federal impeachments that reached the senate had allowed witnesses, why shouldn't this one?


"The House of Representatives adopted a resolution on June 11 authorizing Rep. Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House Committee on the Judiciary, to go to court to pursue civil enforcement of subpoenas issued to Attorney General William Barr and former White House Counsel Don McGahn. Importantly, however, the measure also makes changes that will increase the power of House committees to pursue enforcement of additional subpoenas.

At present, House Democrats have chosen not to open a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. But other efforts to investigate potential misconduct by the executive branch and to check the president’s use of executive authority are proceeding on several fronts. In a number of cases—such as the attempts to obtain Trump’s personal financial records and to limit the administration’s ability to spend money on a border wall—this work has involved going to court. The resolution regarding subpoena power sets up the potential for another round of lawsuits.

The powers with which congressional committees are vested to develop legislation and conduct oversight are granted to them by their parent chambers, the House and the Senate. Questions about how much power House committees should have to issue and enforce subpoenas aren’t new. Prior to 1975, only a few House committees had the power to issue subpoenas as a matter of course under the Rules of the House of Representatives, while other panels were routinely granted the authority as part of separate investigative resolutions reported out of the House Committee on Rules and adopted by the House. But in 1973-1974, as part of a broader reform effort, the House considered whether to change this approach. Some members, including Rep. Richard Bolling, who was leading the House Select Committee on Committees, maintained that the House had become too permissive in granting committees subpoena power. “What has happened in the present situation,” he argued in a 1974 hearing, “is that it becomes a matter of rivalry and prestige. If one committee has got it, the other committee wants it, too.”

Bolling’s panel suggested tightening these procedures; under its proposal, committees and subcommittees could request subpoena power for specific purposes and could issue subpoenas “only upon the authorization of the House … expressly for (and limited to) that investigation or activity or series of investigations or activities.” (Three of the four committees that already had subpoena power would maintain it.) Once granted subpoena authority, a majority of the members on the committee would have to approve their issuance, and “compliance with any subpena [sic] issued by a committee or subcommittee … may be enforced only as authorized or directed by the House.”

Ultimately, however, the House adopted a different reform, recommended by the Democratic Caucus’s Committee on Organization, Study, and Review. This reform granted all committees and subcommittees subpoena power; however, it contained the same suggestions of Bolling’s committee on majority approval and requiring House approval for enforcement. As Margaret Taylor and one of us discussed recently on Lawfare, the House has repeatedly expanded committees’ subpoena power since then. The House has maintained, however, the requirement that enforcement of compliance with a subpoena must be authorized or directed by the full chamber. Indeed, in 2008, when the House sought to enforce a subpoena against White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten through civil federal court proceedings—the first time Congress attempted to do so by adopting a single-chamber resolution to authorize the filing of its own lawsuit—the process began with a vote of the full House.

The June 11 resolution passed by the House changes this, however. Now, committee chairs have the ability to go to court on behalf of their committees to try to force compliance with subpoenas they’ve issued without first receiving approval of the full House. Instead, committee chairs will require the approval of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), which comprises the speaker, the majority leader, the majority whip, the minority leader and the minority whip. Specifically, the resolution states that a vote of the BLAG—on which Democrats have a majority—“is the equivalent of the vote of the full House of Representatives.”

Why might House Democrats be continuing this expansion of House committees’ subpoena power now? One possibility is that it is a product of the House’s litigation strategy. As Mike Stern, a former lawyer in the House General Counsel's office, has explained, the House could arguably have used the BLAG alone to authorize lawsuits to enforce committee subpoenas, without adopting this most recent resolution—but would have had to reconcile such an action with the provision in the House rules requiring the chamber to authorize or direct efforts to enforce compliance with a subpoena. The current House leadership has initiated other litigation on the House’s behalf using just the BLAG, including its challenge to Trump’s efforts to construct a border wall. But existing case law in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia most squarely supports the conclusion that “the House as a whole has standing to assert its investigatory power” and can authorize individual committees to do so by enforcing its subpoenas. Hence, the resolution may be an effort to avoid possible standing issues by strengthening the case that the BLAG can authorize such legal action in the House’s name. (Notably, while another D.C. district court judge recently ruled against the House on different standing grounds in the border wall case, he distinguished that matter from case law relating to the House’s investigatory and oversight authority.)

Reporting also suggests that the House would like to avoid taking up floor time with repeated votes on the House floor. Floor time can be a hot commodity in Congress, though this is often less of an issue in the House than in the Senate (where layover requirements related to filing cloture in the presence of a filibuster can eat up significant time). In addition to saving time, avoiding individual floor votes on resolutions authorizing civil enforcement of subpoenas also allows more vulnerable House Democrats to avoid being tagged as “repeatedly voting to harass the president” or whatever other criticisms might be levied against them in the 2020 campaign.

At the end of the day, civil enforcement in response to noncompliance with a House subpoena still has the potential to be a long, slow slog through the courts. The Miers litigation, for example, took roughly 19 months to resolve. But the House’s decision to make it easier for committees to pursue litigation represents another step in Democrats’ efforts to use their powers to investigate the executive branch without—yet—moving to a full impeachment inquiry."

https://www.lawfareblog.com/house-st...na-enforcement

The courts have already ruled on testimony by white house personnel. The courts have said McGahn must testify. And if he has to testify, others will too. Not all of their appeals will make it to the top. It is under appeal with SCOTUS but a decision is expected in May or June.

"WASHINGTON — The former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II must testify before House impeachment investigators about President Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Mueller inquiry, a judge ruled on Monday, saying that senior presidential aides must comply with congressional subpoenas and calling the administration’s arguments to the contrary “fiction.”

The 120-page decision by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia handed another lower-court victory to House Democrats in their fight to overcome Mr. Trump’s stonewalling.

“Presidents are not kings,” wrote Judge Jackson, adding that current and former White House officials owe their allegiance to the Constitution. “They do not have subjects, bound by loyalty or blood, whose destiny they are entitled to control.”

The Justice Department, which is representing Mr. McGahn in the lawsuit, will appeal, a spokeswoman said. Still, the ruling by Judge Jackson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, could have broader consequences for the investigation into the Ukraine affair.
In rejecting the Trump administration’s sweeping claim that top presidential advisers, as Mr. McGahn was, are absolutely immune from being compelled to talk about their official duties — meaning they do not even have to show up — the judge said the same is true even for those who worked on national security issues.

Notably, John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, has let it be known that he has significant information about the Ukraine affair at the heart of the impeachment inquiry but is uncertain whether any congressional subpoena for his testimony would be constitutionally valid. He wants a judge to decide.

Judge Jackson’s ruling also came on the same day that another federal judge in Washington held out the possibility that more documents about the Ukraine affair could yet see the light of day, ruling that emails between the White House and the Pentagon about the freezing of military aid to Ukraine should be released under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

But even as those rulings suggested that more potential evidence for impeachment investigators might become available as the cases play out, House Democrats said the Intelligence Committee would deliver a report soon after Thanksgiving making the case for impeaching Mr. Trump, moving forward rather than waiting for the inevitable appeals to drag on.

Democrats are compiling a list of “noncompliance with lawful subpoenas” as part of the report so the Judiciary Committee can consider drafting an article of impeachment charging Mr. Trump with obstructing Congress, the intelligence panel’s chairman, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, wrote in a letter to colleagues on Monday.
Indeed on Monday, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked an appeals court ruling in another case that required Mr. Trump’s accounting firm to turn over financial records to another House committee while justices decide whether to take the case. If they do choose to hear arguments, the justices might not issue a final ruling on the matter until late June.

THE LAWYER AT THE CENTER OF TRUMP’S LEGACYDonald McGahn’s efforts to reshape the American judiciary won him praise from conservatives even as his central role in the Mueller report angered President Trump and his supporters. Watch this episode of “The Weekly” on FX and Hulu.
Several potential witnesses to what Mr. Trump said and did to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations that could benefit him politically — like Mr. Bolton and Mr. Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney — have declined to testify because the administration instructed them not to, claiming that current or former senior officials are constitutionally immune.

Mr. Bolton, who met alone with Mr. Trump about why he was freezing a military aid package to Ukraine in August, has threatened to sue if Democrats try to compel him to testify, seeking a court ruling about whether such a subpoena is legally valid.

A lawyer for Mr. Bolton, Charles J. Cooper, has previously argued that Mr. Bolton’s situation is different from Mr. McGahn’s because Mr. Bolton’s official duties centered on foreign affairs and national security matters. But Mr. Bolton’s intentions and desires are unclear.

Mr. Bolton has become an enigmatic figure in the impeachment drama. According to other testimony, he strongly opposed the Ukraine pressure campaign and told aides to report what was going on to White House lawyers. He left the White House under rancorous circumstances in September and has since criticized Mr. Trump’s foreign policy.

But it remains unclear what he would tell impeachment investigators if he were to appear, and House Democrats are nervous that he is such a wild card he could just as easily hurt their case as help it. He accused the White House last week of not giving him back his Twitter account when he left, then teasingly asked if it was “out of fear of what I may say?”
In her ruling, Judge Jackson appeared to respond to Mr. Cooper’s notion. She wrote that the law required not just Mr. McGahn, but also “other current and former senior-level White House officials” who receive a subpoena to appear — and that it made no difference if they worked on domestic or national security matters.

Still, she emphasized, her ruling is only about whether Mr. McGahn must show up to be asked questions. It leaves unanswered whether the questions that lawmakers want to ask him — primarily about conversations with Mr. Trump detailed in the Mueller report — are subject to executive privilege, suggesting that even if Congress ultimately wins a Supreme Court ruling forcing Mr. McGahn to show up, the litigation process might have to start all over again.

The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Mr. McGahn in May after the release of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. It showed that Mr. McGahn was a key witness to several of the most serious episodes in which Mr. Trump sought to obstruct the Russia investigation.

But Mr. Trump, who had openly vowed to block “all” oversight subpoenas after Democrats took control of the House in the 2018 midterm election, instructed Mr. McGahn not to cooperate.

In August, the House Judiciary Committee sued Mr. McGahn, seeking a judicial order that he comply with the subpoena. That same day, the panel also asked a judge for an order permitting it to see secret grand jury evidence gathered by Mr. Mueller, which Attorney General William P. Barr declined to provide to Congress. (Another federal judge ruled for Congress in the grand jury case a month ago, but the administration has appealed.)

The court filings said the House needed the information not just for oversight purposes, but also for an impeachment inquiry. While the impeachment focus has since shifted to the Ukraine affair that burst into public view in September, House Democrats are still considering an article of impeachment that would accuse Mr. Trump of obstruction of justice.

A question pervading both disputes is whether the Constitution permits Congress to subpoena aides to a president like Mr. McGahn and, potentially, Mr. Bolton, to talk about their official duties — or whether the president’s secrecy powers make his aides absolutely immune from such subpoenas.
Administrations of both parties have taken the position that “Congress may not constitutionally compel the president’s senior advisers to testify about their official duties,” as a 15-page legal opinion from Steven A. Engel, the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, put it. But there is no definitive court precedent on the issue.

In 2008, another Federal District Court judge, John D. Bates, rejected that theory in a subpoena dispute. He ruled that President George W. Bush’s former White House counsel Harriet Miers had no right to skip a hearing for which she had been subpoenaed. Judge Bates, a Bush appointee, said she had to show up — although she might still refuse to answer specific questions based on a claim of executive privilege.

But because the Miers dispute was then resolved before an appeals court weighed in, Judge Bates’s opinion does not count as a controlling precedent for other disputes raising the same issue. That left the Obama administration, in a 2014 memo, free to take the position that Judge Bates had been wrong, and the Trump legal team echoed that logic.

In declaring that absolute immunity from congressional subpoenas for senior-level presidential aides “simply does not exist,” Judge Jackson spoke scornfully of the memos by the Office of Legal Counsel, sometimes called O.L.C., saying otherwise.

“Absolute testimonial immunity for senior-level White House aides appears to be a fiction that has been fastidiously maintained over time through the force of sheer repetition in O.L.C. opinions, and through accommodations that have permitted its proponents to avoid having the proposition tested in the crucible of litigation,” she wrote."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/u...ny-ruling.html

Originally Posted by HedonistForever

Just finished watching the first days presentation by the defense and I thought it was quite effective countering all the lies told by Schiff and company but especially manager Jefferies whose lie after lie attorney Philbin categorized nicely.


Philbin was tasked with explaining the legal arguments behind the accusations from Jefferies and others that Trump decided on a "whole scale blocking of all subpoena's without any legal justification". Well, Philbin laid it all out in detail why that was a lie. He quoted chapter and verse as to why the initial request for subpoena's in the impeachment trial were illegal because they were sent without a full vote from the House. Remember the brilliant Nancy Pelosi decided to take it upon herself to start an impeachment inquiry without the required full vote of the House and any subpoena's issued before that vote were invalid. Jefferies continued to repeat the false notion that Trump merely ignored any request to negotiate which Trump's team also proved untrue.



And remember, as I have posted several times now ( Yikes, I'm starting to sound like the Democrat managers ) Obama ( close your eyes if whataboutism offends you ) refused subpoena's and document's for 2 years under Executive Privilege before a court orderd him to in the Fast and Furious case where his "wingman" AG Holder was found in contempt of Congress but apparently, that wasn't enough to get impeached. Funny how that works huh?. Trump is merely asking that his privilege be observed until a court tells him what he can keep from Congress and what he can't.


If it is agreed that witnesses can be called, undoubtedly Trump will assert EP on every member of the Executive branch and it will take a court order, not something John Roberts or even a majority of Senators can over ride.


Jay Sekulow was every effect in countering all the lies told about connecting aid to an investigation of the Bidens with a reoccurring "they didn't tell you that, did they". A very good day for Republican Senators who need ammunition if they are going to tell their constituents why they voted not to convict the President.

[Munchmasterman]

So the only guy these wired FBI agents could trick was the new National Security Advisor?
And they tricked him so well he admitted he was guilty?

Sorry Mr. Hanky.
You're a funny guy.

You're ignoring the fact he pled guilty, he lied about the recording they made when he called the Russians, etc.

I included a link that detailed how he got caught in the post you replied to.

Below is a link proving your second lung shredding scream.

And I have to ask if you have a link to prove anything you've said?

Does getting the last word mean anything when it's total bullshit?

No, the FBI did not say Michael Flynn did not lie, as Donald Trump said

"But apparently Flynn didn’t appear flustered or nervous when he lied to the FBI. A partially redacted FBI memo — known as a 302 — states that the FBI agents said Flynn "did not give any indicators of deception." During Michael Flynn’s sentencing phase, the special counsel reiterated the agents’ impression.

This seems to be the basis for Trump’s claim. But Trump’s selective reading gives a false impression itself.

Lawyers for the special counsel’s office said Flynn’s seemingly guileless demeanor did not change the fact that he was lying — which Flynn himself admitted."

Trump is taking FBI agents’ impressions completely out of context. The agents who interviewed Flynn about his contacts with the Russian ambassador before Trump became president said he did not appear to be lying — meaning, he didn’t seem nervous or exhibit the usual traits of deception.

That’s quite different from their factual conclusion: Flynn lied to them. Flynn pled guilty to intentionally making false statements and is awaiting sentencing.

We rate this False.

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...not-lie-donal/

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Bullshit! FACT: Agents wearing wires authorized by the FISA warrants went to the fucking White House to entrap whom ever they fucking could! Flynn was targeted not only because he was working with Trump but also because Odumbo had a hard-on for him because of their significant policy disagreements over policies regarding the War on Terror.

PLUS, the fucking agents who originally investigated Flynn said they did not believe Flynn was lying! But that changed and the original 302s disappeared. Flynn will be fucking exonerated when the whole fucking case is thrown out because of government malfeasance.





+1

[claudefive]

gawd all that shit above is nothing but a biggly nothing burger

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by Munchmasterman

So the only guy these wired FBI agents could trick was the new National Security Advisor?
And they tricked him so well he admitted he was guilty?

Sorry Mr. Hanky.
You're a funny guy.

You're ignoring the fact he pled guilty, he lied about the recording they made when he called the Russians, etc.

I included a link that detailed how he got caught in the post you replied to.

Below is a link proving your second lung shredding scream.

And I have to ask if you have a link to prove anything you've said?

Does getting the last word mean anything when it's total bullshit?

No, the FBI did not say Michael Flynn did not lie, as Donald Trump said

"But apparently Flynn didn’t appear flustered or nervous when he lied to the FBI. A partially redacted FBI memo — known as a 302 — states that the FBI agents said Flynn "did not give any indicators of deception." During Michael Flynn’s sentencing phase, the special counsel reiterated the agents’ impression.

This seems to be the basis for Trump’s claim. But Trump’s selective reading gives a false impression itself.

Lawyers for the special counsel’s office said Flynn’s seemingly guileless demeanor did not change the fact that he was lying — which Flynn himself admitted."

Trump is taking FBI agents’ impressions completely out of context. The agents who interviewed Flynn about his contacts with the Russian ambassador before Trump became president said he did not appear to be lying — meaning, he didn’t seem nervous or exhibit the usual traits of deception.

That’s quite different from their factual conclusion: Flynn lied to them. Flynn pled guilty to intentionally making false statements and is awaiting sentencing.

We rate this False.

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...not-lie-donal/

You know where you can shove that Politifact bullshit, don't you? Even Comey admitted that his agents didn't think Flynn lied, and an extorted plea is not a valid plea. The government's case was conducted in bad faith, and Flynn will be exonerated.

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by Munchmasterman

You're wrong. The full house doesn't have to vote to issue subpoenas.

Philbin knows that too. Just more flagrant lies from the lying liars.

"Whataboutism" in trumps case is used to justify bad behavior without admitting it is bad behavior. Your complaining about Obama is being directed to the wrong audience. Ask the repubs why they didn't impeach him. They controlled the house for 6 of his years.
To be honest, I really didn't think there would be such wide-spread blind devotion to trump. Before the election, the sheer numbers of never-trumpers who pointed out all his glaring inadequacy and lack of character seemed to indicate the repubs would nominate someone else.
As the number of repubs climbs while embracing his lie about everything mindset shows we are in decline. trump is the worst possible role model there is. He is a scumbag without the spirit of our country. It's not that he is a repub because he isn't. He has many of the negative traits I can't stand.

He'll always be a guy from Queens who never got over the rejection he got from Manhattan.


And one other question. Since all federal impeachments that reached the senate had allowed witnesses, why shouldn't this one?


"The House of Representatives adopted a resolution on June 11 authorizing Rep. Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House Committee on the Judiciary, to go to court to pursue civil enforcement of subpoenas issued to Attorney General William Barr and former White House Counsel Don McGahn. Importantly, however, the measure also makes changes that will increase the power of House committees to pursue enforcement of additional subpoenas.

At present, House Democrats have chosen not to open a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. But other efforts to investigate potential misconduct by the executive branch and to check the president’s use of executive authority are proceeding on several fronts. In a number of cases—such as the attempts to obtain Trump’s personal financial records and to limit the administration’s ability to spend money on a border wall—this work has involved going to court. The resolution regarding subpoena power sets up the potential for another round of lawsuits.

The powers with which congressional committees are vested to develop legislation and conduct oversight are granted to them by their parent chambers, the House and the Senate. Questions about how much power House committees should have to issue and enforce subpoenas aren’t new. Prior to 1975, only a few House committees had the power to issue subpoenas as a matter of course under the Rules of the House of Representatives, while other panels were routinely granted the authority as part of separate investigative resolutions reported out of the House Committee on Rules and adopted by the House. But in 1973-1974, as part of a broader reform effort, the House considered whether to change this approach. Some members, including Rep. Richard Bolling, who was leading the House Select Committee on Committees, maintained that the House had become too permissive in granting committees subpoena power. “What has happened in the present situation,” he argued in a 1974 hearing, “is that it becomes a matter of rivalry and prestige. If one committee has got it, the other committee wants it, too.”

Bolling’s panel suggested tightening these procedures; under its proposal, committees and subcommittees could request subpoena power for specific purposes and could issue subpoenas “only upon the authorization of the House … expressly for (and limited to) that investigation or activity or series of investigations or activities.” (Three of the four committees that already had subpoena power would maintain it.) Once granted subpoena authority, a majority of the members on the committee would have to approve their issuance, and “compliance with any subpena [sic] issued by a committee or subcommittee … may be enforced only as authorized or directed by the House.”

Ultimately, however, the House adopted a different reform, recommended by the Democratic Caucus’s Committee on Organization, Study, and Review. This reform granted all committees and subcommittees subpoena power; however, it contained the same suggestions of Bolling’s committee on majority approval and requiring House approval for enforcement. As Margaret Taylor and one of us discussed recently on Lawfare, the House has repeatedly expanded committees’ subpoena power since then. The House has maintained, however, the requirement that enforcement of compliance with a subpoena must be authorized or directed by the full chamber. Indeed, in 2008, when the House sought to enforce a subpoena against White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten through civil federal court proceedings—the first time Congress attempted to do so by adopting a single-chamber resolution to authorize the filing of its own lawsuit—the process began with a vote of the full House.

The June 11 resolution passed by the House changes this, however. Now, committee chairs have the ability to go to court on behalf of their committees to try to force compliance with subpoenas they’ve issued without first receiving approval of the full House. Instead, committee chairs will require the approval of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), which comprises the speaker, the majority leader, the majority whip, the minority leader and the minority whip. Specifically, the resolution states that a vote of the BLAG—on which Democrats have a majority—“is the equivalent of the vote of the full House of Representatives.”

Why might House Democrats be continuing this expansion of House committees’ subpoena power now? One possibility is that it is a product of the House’s litigation strategy. As Mike Stern, a former lawyer in the House General Counsel's office, has explained, the House could arguably have used the BLAG alone to authorize lawsuits to enforce committee subpoenas, without adopting this most recent resolution—but would have had to reconcile such an action with the provision in the House rules requiring the chamber to authorize or direct efforts to enforce compliance with a subpoena. The current House leadership has initiated other litigation on the House’s behalf using just the BLAG, including its challenge to Trump’s efforts to construct a border wall. But existing case law in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia most squarely supports the conclusion that “the House as a whole has standing to assert its investigatory power” and can authorize individual committees to do so by enforcing its subpoenas. Hence, the resolution may be an effort to avoid possible standing issues by strengthening the case that the BLAG can authorize such legal action in the House’s name. (Notably, while another D.C. district court judge recently ruled against the House on different standing grounds in the border wall case, he distinguished that matter from case law relating to the House’s investigatory and oversight authority.)

Reporting also suggests that the House would like to avoid taking up floor time with repeated votes on the House floor. Floor time can be a hot commodity in Congress, though this is often less of an issue in the House than in the Senate (where layover requirements related to filing cloture in the presence of a filibuster can eat up significant time). In addition to saving time, avoiding individual floor votes on resolutions authorizing civil enforcement of subpoenas also allows more vulnerable House Democrats to avoid being tagged as “repeatedly voting to harass the president” or whatever other criticisms might be levied against them in the 2020 campaign.

At the end of the day, civil enforcement in response to noncompliance with a House subpoena still has the potential to be a long, slow slog through the courts. The Miers litigation, for example, took roughly 19 months to resolve. But the House’s decision to make it easier for committees to pursue litigation represents another step in Democrats’ efforts to use their powers to investigate the executive branch without—yet—moving to a full impeachment inquiry."

https://www.lawfareblog.com/house-st...na-enforcement

The courts have already ruled on testimony by white house personnel. The courts have said McGahn must testify. And if he has to testify, others will too. Not all of their appeals will make it to the top. It is under appeal with SCOTUS but a decision is expected in May or June.

"WASHINGTON — The former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II must testify before House impeachment investigators about President Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Mueller inquiry, a judge ruled on Monday, saying that senior presidential aides must comply with congressional subpoenas and calling the administration’s arguments to the contrary “fiction.”

The 120-page decision by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia handed another lower-court victory to House Democrats in their fight to overcome Mr. Trump’s stonewalling.

“Presidents are not kings,” wrote Judge Jackson, adding that current and former White House officials owe their allegiance to the Constitution. “They do not have subjects, bound by loyalty or blood, whose destiny they are entitled to control.”

The Justice Department, which is representing Mr. McGahn in the lawsuit, will appeal, a spokeswoman said. Still, the ruling by Judge Jackson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, could have broader consequences for the investigation into the Ukraine affair.
In rejecting the Trump administration’s sweeping claim that top presidential advisers, as Mr. McGahn was, are absolutely immune from being compelled to talk about their official duties — meaning they do not even have to show up — the judge said the same is true even for those who worked on national security issues.

Notably, John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, has let it be known that he has significant information about the Ukraine affair at the heart of the impeachment inquiry but is uncertain whether any congressional subpoena for his testimony would be constitutionally valid. He wants a judge to decide.

Judge Jackson’s ruling also came on the same day that another federal judge in Washington held out the possibility that more documents about the Ukraine affair could yet see the light of day, ruling that emails between the White House and the Pentagon about the freezing of military aid to Ukraine should be released under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

But even as those rulings suggested that more potential evidence for impeachment investigators might become available as the cases play out, House Democrats said the Intelligence Committee would deliver a report soon after Thanksgiving making the case for impeaching Mr. Trump, moving forward rather than waiting for the inevitable appeals to drag on.

Democrats are compiling a list of “noncompliance with lawful subpoenas” as part of the report so the Judiciary Committee can consider drafting an article of impeachment charging Mr. Trump with obstructing Congress, the intelligence panel’s chairman, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, wrote in a letter to colleagues on Monday.
Indeed on Monday, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked an appeals court ruling in another case that required Mr. Trump’s accounting firm to turn over financial records to another House committee while justices decide whether to take the case. If they do choose to hear arguments, the justices might not issue a final ruling on the matter until late June.

THE LAWYER AT THE CENTER OF TRUMP’S LEGACYDonald McGahn’s efforts to reshape the American judiciary won him praise from conservatives even as his central role in the Mueller report angered President Trump and his supporters. Watch this episode of “The Weekly” on FX and Hulu.
Several potential witnesses to what Mr. Trump said and did to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations that could benefit him politically — like Mr. Bolton and Mr. Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney — have declined to testify because the administration instructed them not to, claiming that current or former senior officials are constitutionally immune.

Mr. Bolton, who met alone with Mr. Trump about why he was freezing a military aid package to Ukraine in August, has threatened to sue if Democrats try to compel him to testify, seeking a court ruling about whether such a subpoena is legally valid.

A lawyer for Mr. Bolton, Charles J. Cooper, has previously argued that Mr. Bolton’s situation is different from Mr. McGahn’s because Mr. Bolton’s official duties centered on foreign affairs and national security matters. But Mr. Bolton’s intentions and desires are unclear.

Mr. Bolton has become an enigmatic figure in the impeachment drama. According to other testimony, he strongly opposed the Ukraine pressure campaign and told aides to report what was going on to White House lawyers. He left the White House under rancorous circumstances in September and has since criticized Mr. Trump’s foreign policy.

But it remains unclear what he would tell impeachment investigators if he were to appear, and House Democrats are nervous that he is such a wild card he could just as easily hurt their case as help it. He accused the White House last week of not giving him back his Twitter account when he left, then teasingly asked if it was “out of fear of what I may say?”
In her ruling, Judge Jackson appeared to respond to Mr. Cooper’s notion. She wrote that the law required not just Mr. McGahn, but also “other current and former senior-level White House officials” who receive a subpoena to appear — and that it made no difference if they worked on domestic or national security matters.

Still, she emphasized, her ruling is only about whether Mr. McGahn must show up to be asked questions. It leaves unanswered whether the questions that lawmakers want to ask him — primarily about conversations with Mr. Trump detailed in the Mueller report — are subject to executive privilege, suggesting that even if Congress ultimately wins a Supreme Court ruling forcing Mr. McGahn to show up, the litigation process might have to start all over again.

The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Mr. McGahn in May after the release of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. It showed that Mr. McGahn was a key witness to several of the most serious episodes in which Mr. Trump sought to obstruct the Russia investigation.

But Mr. Trump, who had openly vowed to block “all” oversight subpoenas after Democrats took control of the House in the 2018 midterm election, instructed Mr. McGahn not to cooperate.

In August, the House Judiciary Committee sued Mr. McGahn, seeking a judicial order that he comply with the subpoena. That same day, the panel also asked a judge for an order permitting it to see secret grand jury evidence gathered by Mr. Mueller, which Attorney General William P. Barr declined to provide to Congress. (Another federal judge ruled for Congress in the grand jury case a month ago, but the administration has appealed.)

The court filings said the House needed the information not just for oversight purposes, but also for an impeachment inquiry. While the impeachment focus has since shifted to the Ukraine affair that burst into public view in September, House Democrats are still considering an article of impeachment that would accuse Mr. Trump of obstruction of justice.

A question pervading both disputes is whether the Constitution permits Congress to subpoena aides to a president like Mr. McGahn and, potentially, Mr. Bolton, to talk about their official duties — or whether the president’s secrecy powers make his aides absolutely immune from such subpoenas.
Administrations of both parties have taken the position that “Congress may not constitutionally compel the president’s senior advisers to testify about their official duties,” as a 15-page legal opinion from Steven A. Engel, the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, put it. But there is no definitive court precedent on the issue.

In 2008, another Federal District Court judge, John D. Bates, rejected that theory in a subpoena dispute. He ruled that President George W. Bush’s former White House counsel Harriet Miers had no right to skip a hearing for which she had been subpoenaed. Judge Bates, a Bush appointee, said she had to show up — although she might still refuse to answer specific questions based on a claim of executive privilege.

But because the Miers dispute was then resolved before an appeals court weighed in, Judge Bates’s opinion does not count as a controlling precedent for other disputes raising the same issue. That left the Obama administration, in a 2014 memo, free to take the position that Judge Bates had been wrong, and the Trump legal team echoed that logic.

In declaring that absolute immunity from congressional subpoenas for senior-level presidential aides “simply does not exist,” Judge Jackson spoke scornfully of the memos by the Office of Legal Counsel, sometimes called O.L.C., saying otherwise.

“Absolute testimonial immunity for senior-level White House aides appears to be a fiction that has been fastidiously maintained over time through the force of sheer repetition in O.L.C. opinions, and through accommodations that have permitted its proponents to avoid having the proposition tested in the crucible of litigation,” she wrote."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/u...ny-ruling.html

the courts have made a preliminary ruling. that ruling is subject to appeal and judicial review in the appellate courts. and the judge who ruled is an Obama appointee as are most of the liberal assholes that have tried to legislate from the bench against Trump. the ultimate decider will be the Supreme Court not some bitch in D.C. who thinks she's a "resistance fighter" against Evil Lord Donald.


you may be aware .. or not .. that to date every legal verdict that the lower courts have ruled against Trump's actions have been overturned in favor of Trump yeah? the travel ban, remember that? upheld by the Supreme Court. redirecting Defense Dept funds to secure the border? upheld by the Supreme Court. name me one time a case has gone the full appellate route that went against Trump? none, muncher .. NONE!. this will end the same way. the concept of executive privilege has long been established in the courts and the vast majority of times the president's rights to executive privilege have been .. wait for it .. upheld.


what about witnesses? Schiff doesn't want witnesses, he wants only his witnesses. Schiff himself is a potential witness and he's already trying to avoid it by claiming he's not a "fact witness". Ah but he is a fact witness! to the fact, admitted by his staff, that the weasel-blower Ciaramella coordinated his complaint with Schiff's staff before filing it. they wrote it for him. Schiff himself can claim he wasn't aware. well his staff was so call them all, starting with the weasel-blower's buddy Sean Misko. that's gonna pump those lagging viewer numbers up yeah? bahahaaaa


Schiff has also stated in public that if Hunter Biden is called to testify then no one should testify. why is that muncher? what's the pencil-neck trying to hide? does Schiff have conclusive evidence that exonerates the Biden's? why hasn't he released it? just like that "evidence" he claims he's seen 3 years ago of Trump's collusion with Russia? haven't seen that yet either. and it's not even a part of this sham impeachment. why is that? because it doesn't exist and Mueller failed to find it. he had one job ... bahhaahaaaa

so let's call the witnesses! ALL OF THEM or NONE. Schiff can't dictaste .. er dictate now. he's not in charge in the Senate. Mitch is. and McConnell won't give the Democrats a platform to .. wait for it .. obstruct justice! bahaaaaaa

this farce is over the moment that the real players are called, Schiff, Atkinson and the weasel-blower. who cares how many times Bolton says "In my opinion .. i don't agree with Trump"? same with Vindman and that bitch ex-ambassador.


now about the legal opinions of lawfare ..









BAHHAHHAAAAAAAAA

[WTF]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Bullshit! FACT: Agents wearing wires authorized by the FISA warrants went to the fucking White House to entrap whom ever they fucking could! Flynn was targeted not only because he was working with Trump but also because Odumbo had a hard-on for him because of their significant policy disagreements over policies regarding the War on Terror.

PLUS, the fucking agents who originally investigated Flynn said they did not believe Flynn was lying! But that changed and the original 302s disappeared. Flynn will be fucking exonerated when the whole fucking case is thrown out because of government malfeasance.





+1

Flynn might get a pardon but your repeated lies about the 302s will not change the fact that he has admitted lying and will be sentenced.

[HedonistForever]

Originally Posted by Munchmasterman

You're wrong. The full house doesn't have to vote to issue subpoenas.

Philbin knows that too. Just more flagrant lies from the lying liars.


Philbin presented a legal argument that 51 Republicans will have to decide is true or not true. Neither you or I will make that decision. Normally a matter such as this when two parties take opposite sides on a Constitutional issue, it is up to the SC to decide who is right and who is wrong. In this instance, neither Pelosi or Philbin get to decide this question, 51 Senators do.


For those that didn't hear Philbin's legal reasoning and are interested, here is his argument along with everything else you might want to know about the defense strategy.


https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Trial-Memorandum-of-President-Donald-J.-Trump.pdf



It was entirely proper for Administration officials to decline to comply with subpoenas issued pursuant to a purported “impeachment inquiry” before the House of Representatives had authorized any such inquiry. No House committee can issue subpoenas pursuant to the House’s impeachment power without authorization from the House itself.


On precisely that basis, OLC determined that all subpoenas issued before the adoption of House Resolution 660 on October 31, 2019, purportedly to advance an “impeachment inquiry,” were unauthorized and invalid. Numerous witness subpoenas and all of the document subpoenas cited in Article II are invalid for this reason alone.


These invalid subpoenas imposed no legal obligation on the recipients, and it was entirely lawful for the recipients not to comply with them.


The belated adoption of House Resolution 660 on October 31 to authorize the inquiry essentially conceded that a vote was required and did nothing to remedy the inquiry’s invalid beginnings.


A Delegation of Authority from the House Is Required Before Any Committee Can Investigate Pursuant to the Impeachment Power.


No committee can exercise authority assigned by the Constitution to the House absent a clear delegation of authority from the House itself.



The Constitution assigns the “sole Power of Impeachment”256 to the House as a chamber—not to individual Members or subordinate units.



Assessing the validity of a committee’s inquiry and subpoenas thus requires “constru[ing] the scope of the authority which the House of Representatives gave to” the committee.


Where a committee cannot demonstrate that its inquiries have been authorized by an affirmative vote of the House assigning the committee authority, the committee’s actions are ultra vires, and its subpoenas have no force.



To pursue an “impeachment inquiry,” and to compel testimony and the production of documents for such an inquiry, the committee must be authorized to conduct an inquiry pursuant to the House’s impeachment power.



That power is distinct from the power to legislate assigned to Congress in Article I, Section 1. Congress’s power to investigate in support of its power to legislate is limited to inquiring into topics “on which legislation could be had.” An impeachment inquiry is not subject to the same constraint.


An impeachment inquiry does not aid Congress in considering legislation, but instead requires reconstructing past events to examine the conduct of specific persons. That differs from the forward-looking nature of any legislative investigation.



Given these differences, a committee seeking to investigate pursuant to the impeachment power must show that the House has actually authorized the committee to use that specific power. The Speaker of the House cannot treat the House’s constitutional power as her own to distribute to committees based on nothing more than her own say-so.



That would exacerbate the danger of a minority faction invoking the power of impeachment to launch disruptive inquiries without any constitutional legitimacy from a majority vote in the House. It would also permit a minority to seize the House’s formidable investigative powers to pursue divisive investigations for partisan purposes that a House majority might not be willing to authorize. House Democrats have not identified any credible support for their theory of authorization by press conference.



Nothing in the House Rules adopted at the beginning of this Congress delegated authority to pursue an impeachment inquiry to any committee. In particular, Rule X, which defines each committee’s jurisdiction, makes clear that it addresses only committees’ “legislative jurisdiction”—not impeachment.


Rule X does not assign any committee any authority whatsoever with respect to impeachment. It does not even mention impeachment. And that silence is not accidental. Rule X devotes more than 2,000 words to describing the committees’ areas of jurisdiction in detail.


The six committees that Speaker Pelosi instructed to take part in the purported impeachment inquiry here have their jurisdiction defined down to the most obscure legislative issues, ranging from the Judiciary Committee’s jurisdiction over “[s]tate and territorial boundary lines”263 to the Oversight Committee’s responsibility for “[h]olidays and celebrations.”


But Rule X does not assign any committee authority regarding impeachment. Neither does Rule XI’s grant of specific investigative powers, such as the power to hold hearings and to issue subpoenas.


Each committee’s specific investigative powers under Rule XI are restricted to Rule X’s jurisdictional limits—which do not include impeachment. Rule X’s history confirms that the absence of any reference to “impeachment” was deliberate.



When the House considered a number of proposals between 1973 and 1974 to transfer power from the House to committees and to remake committee jurisdiction, the House specifically rejected an initial proposal that would have added “impeachments” to the Judiciary Committee’s jurisdiction.


Instead, the House amended the rules to provide standing authorization forcommittees to use investigatory powers only pursuant to their legislative jurisdiction (previously, for example, a separate House vote was required to delegate subpoena authority to a particular committee for a particular topic).


Thus, after these amended rules were adopted, committees were able to begin investigations within their legislative jurisdiction and issue subpoenas without securing House approval, but that resolution did not authorize self-initiated impeachment inquiries.


Indeed, it was precisely because “impeachment was not specifically included within the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee” that then-Chairman Peter Rodino announced that the “Committee on the Judiciary will have to seek subpoena power from the House” for the Nixon impeachment inquiry. The House majority, minority, and Parliamentarian, as well as the Department of Justice, all agreed on this point.



More Than 200 Years of Precedent Confirm that the House Must Vote to Begin an Impeachment Inquiry. Historical practice confirms the need for a House vote to launch an impeachment inquiry. Since the Founding of the Republic, the House has never undertaken the solemn responsibility of a presidential impeachment inquiry without first authorizing a particular committee to begin the inquiry.


That has also been the House’s nearly unbroken practice for every judicial impeachment for two hundred years. In every prior presidential impeachment inquiry, the House adopted a resolution explicitly authorizing the committee to conduct the investigation before any compulsory process was used.

[B] In President Clinton’s impeachment, the House Judiciary Committee explained that the resolution was a constitutional requirement “ecause impeachment is delegated solely to the House of Representatives by the Constitution” and thus “the full House of Representatives should be involved in critical decision making regarding various stages of impeachment.”

As the Judiciary Committee Chairman explained during President Nixon’s impeachment, an “authoriz[ation] . . . resolution has always been passed by the House” for an impeachment inquiry and “is a necessary step.” Thus, he recognized that, without authorization from the House, “the committee’s subpoena power [did] not now extend to impeachment.”

Indeed, with respect to impeachments of judges or lesser officers in the Executive Branch, the requirement that the full House pass a resolution authorizing an impeachment inquiry traces back to the first impeachments under the Constitution.



That historical practice has continued into the modern era, in which there have been only three impeachments that did not begin with a House resolution authorizing an inquiry. Each of those three outliers involved impeachment of a lower court judge during a short interlude in the 1980s.


Those outliers provide no precedent for a presidential impeachment. To paraphrase the Supreme Court, “when considered against 200 years of settled practice, we regard these few scattered examples as anomalies.”


In addition, as explained above, “[t]he impeachment of a federal judge does not provide the same weighty considerations as the impeachment of a president.” Setting aside these three outliers, precedent shows that a House vote is required to initiate an impeachment inquiry for judges and subordinate executive officials. At least the same level of process must be used to begin the far more serious process of inquiring into impeachment of the President.



The Subpoenas Issued Before House Resolution 660 Were Invalid and Remain Invalid Because the Resolution Did Not Ratify Them. The impeachment inquiry was unauthorized and all the subpoenas issued by House committees in pursuit of the inquiry were therefore invalid. OLC reached the same conclusion.



The vast bulk of the proceedings in the House were thus founded on the use of unlawful process to compel testimony. Until now, House Democrats have consistently agreed that a vote by the House is required to authorize an impeachment inquiry. In 2016, House Democrats on the Judiciary Committee agreed that “[i]n the modern era, the impeachment process begins in the House of Representatives only after the House has voted to authorize the Judiciary Committee to investigate whether charges are warranted.”


As current Judiciary Committee member Rep. Hank Johnson said in 2016, “[t]he impeachment process cannot begin until the 435 Members of the House of Representatives adopt a resolution authorizing the House Judiciary Committee to conduct an independent investigation.”


As Chairman Nadler put it, an impeachment inquiry without a House vote is “an obvious sham” and a “fake impeachment,” or as House Manager Rep. Hakeem Jeffries explained, it is “a political charade,” “a sham,” and “a Hollywood-style production.”



These invalid subpoenas remain invalid today. House Resolution 660 merely directed the six investigating committees to “continue their ongoing investigations” and did not even purport to ratify retroactively the nearly two dozen invalid subpoenas issued before it was adopted,as OLC has explained.


The House knows how to use language effectuating ratification when it wants to—indeed, it used such language less than six months ago in a resolution that “ratifie[d] . . . all subpoenas previously issued” by a committee.289 The omission of anything similar from House Resolution 660 means that subpoenas issued before House Resolution 660 remain invalid, and the entire fact-gathering process pursuant to those subpoenas was ultra vires.




Contrary to false claims from House Democrats, the President did not “declare[] himself above impeachment,” reject “any efforts at accommodation or compromise,” or declare “himself and his entire branch of government exempt from subpoenas issued by the House.”


The White House simply made clear that Administration officials should not participate in House Democrats’ inquiry “under these circumstances”—meaning a process that was unauthorized under the House’s own rules and suffered from the other serious defects. The President’s counsel also made it clear that, if the investigating committees sought to proceed under their oversight authorities, the White House stood “ready to engage in that process as [it] ha[s] in the past, in a manner consistent
with well-established bipartisan constitutional protections.” It was Chairman Schiff and his colleagues who refused to engage in any accommodation process with the White House.




The President Properly Asserted Immunity of His Senior Advisers from Compelled Congressional Testimony.



If you wish to continue your education, you can pick this up on page 43


"Whataboutism" in trumps case is used to justify bad behavior without admitting it is bad behavior.



As in every other legitimate use of "whataboutism" it is used to point out hypocrisy as it does here.


Your complaining about Obama is being directed to the wrong audience. Ask the repubs why they didn't impeach him. They controlled the house for 6 of his years.


Because it didn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense, kinda the point.


To be honest, I really didn't think there would be such wide-spread blind devotion to trump.


I can't speak for anybody else but my devotion is to the law and the law applies to everybody not just to the party you hate. I only support Trump in that I agree with his policies. The man, I couldn't care less about and if Democrats want to put him in jail after 2024, be my guest.


trump is the worst possible role model there is.



I don't disagree but I don't vote for role models with policies I do not approve of. I vote for whom ever advances the policies I want to see for this country and if that has to be an abrasive, narcissist, so be it.



And one other question. Since all federal impeachments that reached the senate had allowed witnesses, why shouldn't this one?


It might very well, they haven't voted yet but since we already know that Trump will assert EP for all 4 witnesses that Democrats want, what is the point in voting for witnesses that only Republicans will get passed?



When Republicans are asked why they didn't vote for witnesses, they should answer "for the same reason House Democrats decided not to subpoena these 4 people, it would take a court decision and if these 4 are so important, why didn't the House issue the subpoena's and wait"?

They obviously thought they had enough evidence without them and told us so day in and day out and impeached but now they think they don't have enough to convict? I thought the phone call was all they needed.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by WTF

Flynn might get a pardon but your repeated lies about the 302s will not change the fact that he has admitted lying and will be sentenced.

An "extorted" plea is not a "valid" plea. Comey admitted publicly that his agents did not believe Flynn lied. FISC has termed two of the FISA warrants "not valid", and the DOJ now refuses to defend the other two. The government's case is falling apart because of government malfeasance, and Flynn will be exonerated because "fruit of the poisonous tree" is invalid in an American court room.

[dilbert firestorm]

the house never issued a formal impeachment inquiry for the the committee?

[oeb11]

HF - Thank you for a good read.

Unfortunately - the Fascist DPST's are so caught up in their hatred that their reasoning cortex is no longer functional.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

An "extorted" plea is not a "valid" plea. Comey admitted publicly that his agents did not believe Flynn lied. FISC has termed two of the FISA warrants "not valid", and the DOJ now refuses to defend the other two. The government's case is falling apart because of government malfeasance, and Flynn will be exonerated because "fruit of the poisonous tree" is invalid in an American court room.

You were wrong about Sullivan a year ago and you're still wrong today.

I think you shoved some poisonous fruit up your ass...

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by WTF

You were wrong about Sullivan a year ago and you're still wrong today.

I think you shoved some poisonous fruit up your ass...

I see you're still think those FISA warrants are valid?

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by WTF

You were wrong about Sullivan a year ago and you're still wrong today.

I think you shoved some poisonous fruit up your ass...

Noticed that you didn't make the effort to substantiate your claim, and only a very biased and ignorant individual would claim that an altered 302 isn't malicious distortion and representative of government malfeasance.

[HedonistForever]

Originally Posted by Munchmasterman

"The House of Representatives adopted a resolution on June 11 authorizing Rep. Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House Committee on the Judiciary, to go to court to pursue civil enforcement of subpoenas issued to Attorney General William Barr and former White House Counsel Don McGahn. Importantly, however, the measure also makes changes that will increase the power of House committees to pursue enforcement of additional subpoenas.

At present, House Democrats have chosen not to open a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. But other efforts to investigate potential misconduct by the executive branch and to check the president’s use of executive authority are proceeding on several fronts. In a number of cases—such as the attempts to obtain Trump’s personal financial records and to limit the administration’s ability to spend money on a border wall—this work has involved going to court. The resolution regarding subpoena power sets up the potential for another round of lawsuits.

The powers with which congressional committees are vested to develop legislation and conduct oversight are granted to them by their parent chambers, the House and the Senate. Questions about how much power House committees should have to issue and enforce subpoenas aren’t new. Prior to 1975, only a few House committees had the power to issue subpoenas as a matter of course under the Rules of the House of Representatives, while other panels were routinely granted the authority as part of separate investigative resolutions reported out of the House Committee on Rules and adopted by the House. But in 1973-1974, as part of a broader reform effort, the House considered whether to change this approach. Some members, including Rep. Richard Bolling, who was leading the House Select Committee on Committees, maintained that the House had become too permissive in granting committees subpoena power. “What has happened in the present situation,” he argued in a 1974 hearing, “is that it becomes a matter of rivalry and prestige. If one committee has got it, the other committee wants it, too.”

Bolling’s panel suggested tightening these procedures; under its proposal, committees and subcommittees could request subpoena power for specific purposes and could issue subpoenas “only upon the authorization of the House … expressly for (and limited to) that investigation or activity or series of investigations or activities.” (Three of the four committees that already had subpoena power would maintain it.) Once granted subpoena authority, a majority of the members on the committee would have to approve their issuance, and “compliance with any subpena [sic] issued by a committee or subcommittee … may be enforced only as authorized or directed by the House.”

Ultimately, however, the House adopted a different reform, recommended by the Democratic Caucus’s Committee on Organization, Study, and Review. This reform granted all committees and subcommittees subpoena power; however, it contained the same suggestions of Bolling’s committee on majority approval and requiring House approval for enforcement. As Margaret Taylor and one of us discussed recently on Lawfare, the House has repeatedly expanded committees’ subpoena power since then. The House has maintained, however, the requirement that enforcement of compliance with a subpoena must be authorized or directed by the full chamber. Indeed, in 2008, when the House sought to enforce a subpoena against White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten through civil federal court proceedings—the first time Congress attempted to do so by adopting a single-chamber resolution to authorize the filing of its own lawsuit—the process began with a vote of the full House.

The June 11 resolution passed by the House changes this, however. Now, committee chairs have the ability to go to court on behalf of their committees to try to force compliance with subpoenas they’ve issued without first receiving approval of the full House. Instead, committee chairs will require the approval of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), which comprises the speaker, the majority leader, the majority whip, the minority leader and the minority whip. Specifically, the resolution states that a vote of the BLAG—on which Democrats have a majority—“is the equivalent of the vote of the full House of Representatives.”

Why might House Democrats be continuing this expansion of House committees’ subpoena power now? One possibility is that it is a product of the House’s litigation strategy. As Mike Stern, a former lawyer in the House General Counsel's office, has explained, the House could arguably have used the BLAG alone to authorize lawsuits to enforce committee subpoenas, without adopting this most recent resolution—but would have had to reconcile such an action with the provision in the House rules requiring the chamber to authorize or direct efforts to enforce compliance with a subpoena. The current House leadership has initiated other litigation on the House’s behalf using just the BLAG, including its challenge to Trump’s efforts to construct a border wall. But existing case law in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia most squarely supports the conclusion that “the House as a whole has standing to assert its investigatory power” and can authorize individual committees to do so by enforcing its subpoenas. Hence, the resolution may be an effort to avoid possible standing issues by strengthening the case that the BLAG can authorize such legal action in the House’s name. (Notably, while another D.C. district court judge recently ruled against the House on different standing grounds in the border wall case, he distinguished that matter from case law relating to the House’s investigatory and oversight authority.)

Reporting also suggests that the House would like to avoid taking up floor time with repeated votes on the House floor. Floor time can be a hot commodity in Congress, though this is often less of an issue in the House than in the Senate (where layover requirements related to filing cloture in the presence of a filibuster can eat up significant time). In addition to saving time, avoiding individual floor votes on resolutions authorizing civil enforcement of subpoenas also allows more vulnerable House Democrats to avoid being tagged as “repeatedly voting to harass the president” or whatever other criticisms might be levied against them in the 2020 campaign.

At the end of the day, civil enforcement in response to noncompliance with a House subpoena still has the potential to be a long, slow slog through the courts. The Miers litigation, for example, took roughly 19 months to resolve. But the House’s decision to make it easier for committees to pursue litigation represents another step in Democrats’ efforts to use their powers to investigate the executive branch without—yet—moving to a full impeachment inquiry."

Acknowledging what I said, the courts will decide this matter so Trump refusing to honor documents and subpoena's by anything less than a full vote by the House is up for review by courts and is not a settled matter which works in favor of Trump. You can't logically charge you are right and he is wrong if it hasn't been decided by a court. Philbin made a compelling argument which I predict will be accepted by 51 or more Republicans and a motion to dismiss Article 2 of Impeachment will be dismissed.

[HedonistForever]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

the house never issued a formal impeachment inquiry for the the committee?

That is the defenses argument as to why Trump would not turn over documents and honor subpoena's. This was not a case of EP as some Democrats are arguing, that assertion has not been made yet and won't unless witnesses in the Executive branch ( Bolton, Mulvaney ) are agreed to.