The House Judiciary Committee announced Thursday the next step in its impeachment proceedings, with a notice for a Monday hearing coming shortly after Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s public approval for the committee moving towards drafting articles of impeachment against President Trump.
Per TPM : "In a tweet thread, Trump, in language resembling a royal decree, claimed Democrats had “gone crazy” and urged them to “impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate.”
I bet we’ll get a lot of Republicans saying that Schiff should be testifying at this…and woe is them if he actually does, because he’ll finally be released to tell his colleagues what he thinks about them and their “evidence” that Trump didn’t do anything wrong. We can only hope that Nunes testifies, because he’ll get asked, under oath, about his phone calls to Giuliani…it will be interesting to see him sue another member of Congress.
Poor Castor…this is meant to be a presentation of evidence, but the Republicans have nothing but innuendo and complaints about process to present. This hearing will lay out the foundation of the case against Trump, and be a nice summary of the evidence of what happened in Ukraine. If the Democrats do it smartly (and so far they have been doing well), it will make a clear, concise case of the events, and why they are impeachable; compared to whatever the Republicans throw against the wall it should make an impression on people.
I don’t think they claim that he didn’t do anything wrong so much as that It wasn’t criminal, the investigation was unfair/invalid, only people who hate Trump are concerned about any of this, it’s a witch hunt, etc. It’s amazing that in a 9 hour hearing, not one Republican addresses the facts in evidence or even their existence. Dance, dance, dance.
So will Mondays hearing be public or behind closed doors?
Public.
All I want for Christmas is impeachment.
O/T but I am sure this will be another great news site 
Does the world really need (or want) another contrived news site?
So, more GOP fantasy stories? I personally don’t think any journalist should announce his/her political leanings. They should just print the facts. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…
Once again Nadler (can I call him “fat jerry”) is way out of his depth. First mistake was not putting a well known republican on as one of his three witnesses (Charles Fried would have been my pick). Second, which he just did was not making it clear right up front that Trump was invited to ask questions and present any exclupatory evidence.
Calling a hearing on Thursday for the following Monday, and not making it Clear that Trump is invited just looks bad. Looks really bad.
And given that the response to Trump is “well if you did not do it, show us the evidence” fat Jerry is just playing into Trump’s hands.
Why can’t Adam Schiff be in charge of this entire thing? Or someone smart like Eric Swawell? Why do we have to put up with this clown’s tactical stupidity and inability to control his own committee.
Only good thing I can say about Nadler is that he is not as stupid as Richard Neal (“well lets not push getting Trump’s taxes”).
I’ve been as critical as anyone of Nadler’s handling of the Mueller report, fingers crossed with impeachment…
…but using a pejorative is a sure sign of a troll.
The rules suggest that, in general, Nadler can decide which.
I think it is clear that I am not a troll. Unfortunately I think that Trump’s nickname for Nadler does appear to fit some. I can certainly see someone believing that one should not use Trump’s nicknames, but I will credit Trump that at times they do seem to fit. I for one would really, really like to see “fired up Joe” not “sleepy joe”, and I would like to see “quick incisive Jerry” as well…
The house can take testimony behind closed doors, but I don’t think they could have reports like this delivered behind closed doors as it does not involve confidential matters. I think the rules would require an open hearing. They can have a closed meeting for bill mark ups/drafting, but this is a hearing. In any event, the entire purpose of these hearings is to get the evidence to the public, so they will be public.
They don’t.
As I said, in general, Nadler gets to decide.
Will he choose to have a closed-door hearing on Monday? I certainly hope not.
I heard snippets of some of the hearings yesterday, and I think some of the dems did a great job but I didn’t hear any pushback on the republican bad faith/lying complaints about the process (I caught the last idiot repub who spouted the usual lies - "no due process, prez gets no witnesses, etc). Did any dems say that this is exactly the process set by the republicans when they controlled the House? It didn’t come up on the various news clips I saw, either.
On a side note, I really wish Nadler wouldn’t wear his belt up around his sternum.
I think the “debate” is already over. There will be a one day airing of the Intel. Committee reports, followed by a recess Monday Nite. Then the staffers will draft the Articles per Pelosi’s, Schiff’s and Nadler’s directives. They will be circulated for all members of the Juduciary Comm. for review and comment. After a couple days to “agree” on a markup, the Committee will vote up or down on each Article. They will all pass out of Committee and onto the House Floor for a vote. Again no debate - just a vote. The Articles will pass on the House on the last day of the 2019 sessions on a party line vote.
It was made clear that trump and/ or lawyers were welcome to attend and ask questions. They have declined to do so calling the whole process a hoax.
There is no way it is a closed hearing. Not going to happen. And if Nader was that stupid, someone with more sense (Nancy) would countermand any effort to hold a closed hearing. The republicans would go back to their “its a star-chamber” lie if anything was not public.
The point the democrats need to get across - while it may seem silly but its a fact that many don’t know, most folks are low information voters - is that Trump has had every effort to provide evidence showing his innocence, instead he has kept people from testifying who intereacted with him. Why is he stonewalling? Because their testimony would be further evidence of his guilt.
I really wish that someone would have put up a big chart of the “adverse inference” instruction and questioned Turley with it. The California version (CACI 204) says:
You may consider whether one party intentionally concealed or
destroyed evidence. If you decide that a party did so, you may decide
that the evidence would have been unfavorable to that party.
or the "better evidence instuction (CACI 203):
You may consider the ability of each party to provide evidence. If a
party provided weaker evidence when it could have provided stronger
evidence, you may distrust the weaker evidence.
These are bedrock legal principles and they should have been used to challenge Turley and the republican lies that the democrats are not allowing Trump to put forward his evidence.