How the House destroyed its own case for the Trump impeachment | TheHill - The Hill

“Situation quiet. The captain has been put away for the night.” Those words from the movie “The Caine Mutiny” came to mind on Friday when House leaders announced that Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiOvernight Health Care: Trump officials want Supreme Court to delay ObamaCare case | Medicaid expansion linked to decline in opioid deaths | Drug price outrage threatens to be liability for GOP Impeachment trial weighs on 2020 Democrats Voters see slightly more GOP partisanship on impeachment: Poll MORE would not move until next week in submitting the impeachment of President TrumpDonald John TrumpIran says it 'unintentionally' shot down Ukrainian plane Puerto Rico hit with another major earthquake as aftershocks continue Trump empathizes with Queen Elizabeth II after Harry and Meghan's royal exit MORE to a Senate trial. While various Democrats have publicly grumbled about the delay, going into its fourth week, without any sign of success in forcing the Senate to call witnesses, Pelosi continued a strategy that could jeopardize not just any trial but the rules governing impeachment. Indeed, she may force the Senate into a couple of unprecedented but well deserved rulings.

From the outset, the ploy of Pelosi withholding the House impeachment articles was as implausible as it was hypocritical. There was no reason why Majority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellOvernight Health Care: Trump officials want Supreme Court to delay ObamaCare case | Medicaid expansion linked to decline in opioid deaths | Drug price outrage threatens to be liability for GOP Voters see slightly more GOP partisanship on impeachment: Poll Collins says she's working with other GOP senators to allow impeachment witnesses MORE would make concessions to get an impeachment that he loathed. More importantly, just a couple days earlier, House leaders insisted that some of us were wrong to encourage them to wait on an impeachment vote to create a more complete record. Pelosi previously insisted that House committees could not pursue direct witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton because there was no time to delay in getting this impeachment to the Senate. She then waited a month and counting to send the articles on to the Senate.

The delay now seems largely driven by a desire to preserve Pelosi’s image as a master strategist despite a blunder of the first order. Recently, Sen. Diane Feinstein expressed the frustration of many in saying: “The longer it goes on, the less urgent it becomes. So if it’s serious and urgent, send them over. If it isn’t, don’t send it over.” She and others were quickly pressured to “correct” their earlier statements by stating the exact opposite and praising the brilliant strategy of Speaker Pelosi.

ADVERTISEMENT

Perhaps the most pathetic was House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, who correctly stated that “at the end of the day, just like we control it in the House, Mitch McConnell controls it in the Senate . . . it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. I think it is time to send the impeachment to the Senate and let Mitch McConnell be responsible for the fairness of the trial. He ultimately is.” It took only a couple hours for Pelosi to get Smith to say that he “misspoke” and to praise Pelosi for her inspired strategy.

Now, what started as a demand for a guarantee of Senate witnesses has been downgraded to a demand to “know the rules” – waiting for the Senate to take a vote that it telegraphed weeks ago. In the alternative, sympathetic media figures have insisted that Pelosi succeeded in “forcing a discussion” of witnesses despite the fact that we had the same discussion in the Clinton trial without the House withholding the impeachment.

The fact is that Pelosi played into McConnell's hands by first rushing this impeachment forward with an incomplete record and now giving him the excuse to summarily change the rules, or even to dismiss the articles. Waiting for the House to submit a list of House managers was always a courtesy extended by Senate rules -- not a requirement of the Constitution. By inappropriately withholding the impeachment (and breaking with tradition), Pelosi gave McConnell ample reason to exercise the “nuclear option” and change the rules on both majority voting as well as the longstanding rule for the start of trials. That is a high price to pay for vanity.

It could get even worse. I previously discussed that the Senate now had an excuse to simply say that a trial will start next week and either the House will appear with a team of managers or the case will be summarily dismissed. McConnell is now moving toward a summary vote, in light of the failure of the House to comply with its obligations. That is what happens when prosecutors defy a court and fail to appear for a trial: It's called “dismissal for want of prosecution.”

The Senate also is presented with two threshold problems that could create lasting damage to this process. First, as I previously discussed, the obstruction of Congress count raises a troubling position that a president can be impeached for going to the courts rather than turning over evidence, even when the Congress has set a ridiculously brief period for an investigation. The Senate could summarily reject that article as making the request for judicial review into a high crime and misdemeanor while allowing little time for deliberation. Second, if the Senate agrees to the Democratic demand for witnesses, it invites future rush impeachments where the House sends over woefully incomplete, inadequate cases and demands witnesses that it never -- over months -- bothered to subpoena, let alone compel to appear.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Senate is, therefore, caught in a tough position of enabling the House in such slipshod impeachments or refusing to hear witnesses who, unlike the witnesses called by the House, could have direct evidence to share on the underlying allegation. One possibility is that, as in a real court, it could allow witnesses but give the House a set schedule for the trial. If the House wants to belatedly go to court to try to enforce a subpoena, the Senate will hear the testimony of witnesses like Bolton when that expedited litigation is complete. However, it will not extend the trial schedule.

Trials are usually a fraction of the time of an investigation -- but few investigations are as hurried or heedless as was the House investigation. The House wasted four months after the whistleblower complaint without issuing a subpoena to Bolton or Rudy Giuliani or others. It still has not done so. Had it sought to compel such subpoenas, it would have had rulings from courts by now. Indeed, it took only three months for the appeal over the Watergate tapes to be ruled upon by the Supreme Court in President Nixon's case.

The Senate could set a generous period for the trial of three weeks. That is in addition to the four weeks that the House has wasted on Pelosi’s ill-conceived ploy. If the House is ready to present these witnesses in that time, they can be heard. However, if those witnesses are not ready to testify due to ongoing litigation, they will not be called and the Senate will proceed to its verdict. In that way, future Houses are on notice that it is in their interest to complete their records before sending an impeachment to the Senate.

It would send a message for future impeachments, as author Herman Wouk wrote in "The Caine Mutiny": “Remember this, if you can -- there is nothing, nothing more precious than time. You probably feel you have a measureless supply of it, but you haven't. Wasted hours destroy your life just as surely at the beginning as at the end -- only in the end it becomes more obvious.” And it is now obvious.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law for George Washington University and served as the last lead counsel during a Senate impeachment trial. He testified as a witness expert in the House Judiciary Committee hearing during the impeachment inquiry of President Trump.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"House" - Google News
January 11, 2020 at 10:00PM
https://ift.tt/3a0K4qr

How the House destroyed its own case for the Trump impeachment | TheHill - The Hill
"House" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2q5ay8k
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Bagikan Berita Ini