As of Friday, a majority of House Democrats — 118 out of 235 — have now announced their support for an inquiry into the possibility of impeaching President Donald Trump.
But as attorney Evan Davis notes in an op-ed for The Hill, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), has already begun the impeachment inquiry.
It’s begun
News of the inquiry’s commencement comes by way of a memorandum submitted by the Judiciary Committee to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, July 26. To add further weight, it is signed by the House of Representatives’ general counsel.
The memorandum itself is a document written to the court in support of an application to get access to withheld information from the two investigations conducted by Robert Mueller.
The committee is specifically looking for access to redactions of grand jury material in the Mueller report, to grand jury materials referenced in the report, and to any grand jury testimony or material related to criminal acts by anyone associated with Trump’s campaign or administration; to the president’s knowledge of Russian interference in the 2016 election; or to the direct or indirect links between the president’s associates and Russia.
Rule 6(e)
In case there is still any doubt as to why the redacted information is desired, the Judiciary Committee invoked Rule 6(e). “The Committee seeks Rule 6(e) materials to further its ongoing investigation and assessment of whether to recommend articles of impeachment,” they wrote.
Under Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, a judge is allowed to grant access to the desired materials if they are sought in preparation for, or use in, a judicial proceeding. Of course, a key question is whether the impeachment of a president is a judicial proceeding.
What now?
The committee argues that it is, citing a key case from the Watergate scandal, in which a judge did grant access to such grand jury materials.
But Davis, who served on the committee’s impeachment inquiry staff in the 1970s, points to one, perhaps, important difference in that here the full House of Representatives has “not voted on a resolution calling on the Judiciary Committee to investigate and recommend whether sufficient grounds exist to impeach.”
Whether or not this difference is significant enough to deny the request will be up to the D.C. court.
Nonetheless, House Democrats are getting what they wanted — impeachment is officially underway.
Nadler told NBC last Friday that the inquiry was “in effect” already happening, despite a lack of a concrete decision from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Whether you call that an inquiry, or whatever you want to call that, that’s what we’ve been doing,” he said.
No comments: