Richard Neal, chair of House Ways and Means has authority over the IRS and Trump’s finances.
The Impeachment of el Donald might as well be a Netflix series with many subplots.
As the process moves to the GOP dominated Senate, another set of characters .. The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to enter the plot. along with the New York State prosecutor and the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Letitia James, NY Attorney General
The Supremes are scheduled to meet privately today and could decide whether to allow Trump to continue the concealment of his financial records from Congress and the New York state prosecutor. The court could refuse to hear Trump’s refusal enabling enforcement of the lower court ruling in favor of Congress and New York. Or, in service to el Donald, the court could agree to hear the case, putting it on the docket for next Spring .. what fun during the Senate impeachment trial!
“These are some very huge issues in terms of the scope of the subpoena power of the House and the subpoena power of the states,” said Tara Leigh Grove, a constitutional law professor at William & Mary Law School. She said she “can’t imagine” the justices rejecting the appeals and letting the lower court rulings be the final word.
These are two separate events. Though it does demonstrate the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee can do what he should when the President resorts to the courts. It is likely the Supremes will add this to their agenda as the issue has never been decided at the court, and involves separation of power.
We will be seeing a number of Democratic House members who have been prosecutors vote for impeachment knowing they as a prosecutor could never bring this to trial. In fact to do so in most states would at minimum be an ethical violation. If the Prosecutor knows they cannot persuade a jury or the trier of fact to convict, that it is a miscarriage of justice, to bring charges to a court.
You all know and I know the Senate is not going to convict let alone remove Trump. Now there is a slim chance the House will not pass Articles of Impeachment, but other than that the question is whether the Senate has a fast or slow process. If McConnell wanted he could call the Senate into session and proceed with the trial on Christmas Eve and hold a vote to dismiss on Christmas properly rebuking House Democrats. He could do that and should at minimum shorten the Senators holidays. He simply may not want to yank the tails of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate as it will not change the outcome to wait until after the New Year. If the President were a true threat though I hope the Senate trial would begin immediately on reaching the Senate.
The SC will address only the issue of the subpoenas. Courts have zero jurisdiction over impeachment, which is not a legal proceeding, and isn’t conducted under the rules to which prosecutors are subject. (If the normal ethical rules of state bars did apply, both Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham might find their law licenses in jeopardy, as both have already violated the “juror’s oath” they will be required to take when the Senate trial begins.) It’s immaterial what the GOP-controlled Senate might do; the House has a duty to impeach this president for misusing taxpayer money to coerce a foreign government into aiding his re-election campaign and then obstructing Congress’ investigation of this. The GOP has the Senate votes to protect Trump from consequences for his behavior, but doing so comes with a high price. If Senate Republicans refuse to discipline Trump for that conduct, then Rolling Stone was right when it said we are witnessing “the complete moral collapse of the Republican Party.” It would be an act of supreme hypocrisy by the party that impeached Bill Clinton for lying about having sex with an intern. More damaging, the GOP will never again be able to lay claim to being the “values” party, although its reputation already was pretty much shot in that respect even before Trump came along.