House Judiciary Committee Holds Its First Impeachment Hearing

Jack Phillips
By Jack Phillips
December 4, 2019Politics
share

The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear from four constitutional scholars in its first hearing in its impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.

The hearing comes as the House Intelligence Committee issued a 300-page report Tuesday accusing Trump of abusing his power and obstructing justice. The report was approved, along party lines, by the Intelligence Committee late on Tuesday evening, with 13 Democrats voting in favor and nine Republicans voting against it.

It has been scheduled for 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) is the head of the Judiciary while Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) is the ranking member.

The hearing is titled, “The Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald J. Trump: Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment,” and it will include comments from Jonathan Turley, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University Law School; Noah Feldman, a professor at Harvard Law School and director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law; Michael Gerhardt, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law; and Pamela Karlan, a professor of public interest law at Stanford Law School, according to the Judiciary Committee (pdf).

“This report chronicles a scheme by the president of the United States to coerce an ally, Ukraine, that is at war with an adversary, Russia, into doing the president’s political dirty work,” House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told reporters on Tuesday.

Democrats claimed that the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—where Trump asked his counterpart to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden’s dealings in the Eastern European county—were part of a quid pro quo effort. They have claimed Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine for the investigations, which Trump and Zelensky have denied.

The Democrats’ 300-page report was dismissed by the White House.

“At the end of a one-sided sham process, Chairman Schiff and the Democrats utterly failed to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. “This report reflects nothing more than their frustrations. Chairman Schiff’s report reads like the ramblings of a basement blogger straining to prove something when there is evidence of nothing.”

Republicans came up with their own report, rejecting the Democratic majority’s assertions.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee and Nadler, on Sunday informing them that the White House won’t take part in the hearing.

“As for the hearing scheduled for Dec. 4, we cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the president a fair process through additional hearings,” Cipollone told the committee.

From The Epoch Times

ntd newsletter icon
Sign up for NTD Daily
What you need to know, summarized in one email.
Stay informed with accurate news you can trust.
By registering for the newsletter, you agree to the Privacy Policy.
Comments