And now the House gets down to business

Nancy leaving the SOTU. The queen of all she surveys.

Image from NYT

[A] defiant Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that the House would not be cowed by the president’s “all-out threat” to drop its investigations of his administration.

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The Intelligence Committee held its first formal meeting of the year and promptly laid out a five-point investigation that was far broader in scope than previously expected.

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The House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday launched a broad inquiry into the potential influence that Russia and other foreign powers may be exercising over President Trump.

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On Thursday, Democrats will begin their quest to secure the president’s long-suppressed tax returns. Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, warned the acting attorney general, Matthew G. Whitaker, on Wednesday that he could not avoid Democratic questioning. And a House Appropriations subcommittee chairwoman began an inquiry into administration rule-bending during the 35-day government shutdown.

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“It’s our congressional responsibility, and if we didn’t do it, we would be delinquent in that,” Ms. Pelosi said of the House’s oversight role, just hours after Mr. Trump used his State of the Union address to warn that “ridiculous partisan investigations” threatened the nation’s economic health and the prospects of bipartisan legislating.

That, Ms. Pelosi said, “was a threat; it was an all-out threat.”

  NYT

And Nancy doesn't scare easily.

President Trump dismissed the inquiry, saying he had “never heard of” the Intelligence Committee chairman, Adam B. Schiff of California, even though he has previously taunted Mr. Schiff with a vulgarism.

“He’s just a political hack. He’s trying to build a name for himself,” the president said, adding, “It’s called presidential harassment. And it’s unfortunate. And it really does hurt our country.”

He never heard of the guy he called "Little Adam Schitt"?

[In response, Schiff] said the expanded Russia investigation would be done in collaboration with other committees, presumably including the Financial Services Committee, which is pursuing potential money laundering in the Trump Organization.

“Our job involves making sure the policy of the United States is being driven by the national interest, not by any financial entanglement, financial leverage or other form of compromise,” Mr. Schiff said in a news conference.

Intelligence Committee Republicans, who have already begun to accuse the Democrats of politically motivated overreach, did not sign on to the investigation. In a separate statement, they called on Democrats to subpoena unnamed witnesses they recommended.

Like they refused to do when the Democrats asked for witnesses to be subpoenaed?

Perhaps most personally for the president, a Ways and Means oversight subcommittee will hold its first hearing on Thursday to start building a public rationale to pursue Mr. Trump’s tax returns.

An obscure provision in the federal tax code gives the chairman of the committee unilateral powers to request from the Treasury Department tax information on any filer, including the president.

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“We will not be bullied by the president of the United States,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “The days of the House operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration are over.”

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Earlier, in a closed-door meeting with House Democrats, Ms. Pelosi had privately lambasted the president.

“He was a guest in our House chamber, and we treated him with more respect than he treated us,” she said, according to a Democratic aide in the room who was not authorized to discuss the private session publicly.

Credit where credit is due. House Dems seem like they're going to actually do their jobs.