Impeachment
On Monday the Judiciary Committee held a hearing were democratic and republican lawyers made the case for and against impeachment, setting up a committee debate for later this week on articles.
Here is a more descriptive take on what happened Monday: “Procedural skirmishes dominated the first several hours of today’s hearing, but they pale in comparison to the stakes of the broader impeachment inquiry. As Democrats have moved from the dramatic accounts offered in the Intelligence Committee to the far drier presentations in the Judiciary Committee, they seemed to have conceded that the moment for persuading the public on the case for impeachment has largely passed—at least in the House.”
On Tuesday the House released a draft of two articles of impeachment, one for abuse of power over the Ukraine scheme and one for obstruction of congress.
Lawfare’s initial analysis says the House Democrats made political concession by keeping the scope narrow and therefore did not go far enough: “By focusing narrowly on Ukraine, the House risks forfeiting the ability to tell the full story of Trump’s efforts to leverage the power of the presidency to target his political opponents.”
Reporting by the New York Times details internal Democrat deliberations about whether to include an article of impeachment over obstruction of justice the Mueller uncovered: “The final decision, agreed to by all six committee leaders, came down to this: The vast majority of Democrats agree that the allegations of wrongdoing toward Ukraine are overwhelming and pressing as well as a continuing threat to the nation. The same could not be said of attempts by Mr. Trump to interfere with Mr. Mueller’s work.”
The House Judiciary committee began debating the articles Wednesday evening, with markup of the amendments beginning on Thursday, lasting 14 hours until 11pm. At that point, Chairman Nadler said the vote would happen on Friday morning to allow members to “search their consciences” before making a decision.
The final vote happened Friday morning, with both articles passing on a straight party line vote.
Russia News
Also on Monday the Justice Department Inspector General released his long awaited report on the FBI’s behavior during the 2016 election: “We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced” officials’ decision to open the investigation, the report said. Nor did he find that the Steele dossier had a part in opening the investigation.
Here is a key quote from the IG report: “We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced Priestap’s decision to open Crossfire Hurricane. The evidence also showed that FBI officials responsible for and involved in the case opening decisions were unanimous in their belief that, together with the July 2016 release by WikiLeaks of hacked DNC emails, the Papadopoulos statement described in the FFG information reflected the Russian government’s potential next step to interfere with the 2016 U.S. elections. These FBI officials were similarly unanimous in their belief that the FFG information represented a threat to national security that warranted further investigation by the FBI. Witnesses told us that they did not recall observing during these discussions any instances or indications of improper motivations or political bias on the part of the participants, including Strzok. … We . . . concluded that the FBI had sufficient predication to open full counterintelligence investigations of Papadopoulos, Page, Flynn, and Manafort in August 2016.”
And then Wittes’s take: “Note an interesting feature of this passage. The investigation was not an investigation of the Trump campaign. It was four investigations of individuals—Carter Page, George Papadoupolos, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn—associated with the campaign but about whom there was specific reason for concern. In other words, investigators were not spying on the Trump campaign. They had concerns about specific people and their relationship with Russia, just as the FBI has always said.”
Comey: “On Monday, we learned from a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, that the allegation of a criminal conspiracy was nonsense. There was no illegal wiretapping, there were no informants inserted into the campaign, there was no “spying” on the Trump campaign…. Those of us who knew that truth had to remain silent while a torrent of smears and falsehoods flowed from the White House, from some congressional committee chairmen, the attorney general and Fox News personalities. “
After the IG report, Barr criticized the IG and FBI director Wray.
Immigration News
According to a report by the Texas Tribune: “Newly obtained government documents show how the Trump administration’s now-blocked policy to separate all migrant children from parents led social workers to frantically begin tracking thousands of children seized at the southern border and compile reports on cases of trauma. …Reports of traumatized children were forwarded to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties… the office failed to assist children whose suffering was documented in hundreds of similar complaints the office received last year.”
The article also reports that separations, though rare, were happening earlier than is generally known. An email dated September 2016: “The best thing that could happen is for the OFO to stop the practice of family separation,” a child refugee field specialist added to the top of an email containing instructions for reunifying families that he sent to colleagues on Sept. 20, 2016.
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