Public hearings are not over

Now that House Democrats have wrapped up public hearings on President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign to get Ukraine to launch politically advantageous investigations, there are plans to hold at least one public impeachment hearing on Trump’s misdeeds as alleged in the special counsel’s report.

  Politico

Good, I was afraid I'd suffer withdrawal effects.

It’s a gathering that could fuel articles of impeachment beyond those tied to the Ukraine controversy.

I hope so.

Democrats say they have new Mueller-related fodder after Roger Stone’s recent trial raised questions about whether Trump provided false statements to the special counsel’s team. And the hearing could even feature a star witness — former White House counsel Don McGahn.

I'm all in for that.

A judge is set to rule in the coming days on whether McGahn must comply with a House subpoena.

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“This is something that’s unbelievably serious and it’s happening right now, very fast,” House counsel Doug Letter, who consults closely with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, told a federal appeals court during a hearing in the Mueller evidence case.

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Democratic leaders never took the 2016 Russia investigation off the table as an impeachment springboard, even as attention shifted to the Ukraine scandal.

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The former special counsel and his final report are mentioned a dozen times in the House resolution approved last month kick-starting the current public hearing process. Democrats noted in the resolution that Mueller “documented evidence strongly indicating that President Trump engaged in a course of conduct designed to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation, including any investigation into the president’s conduct.”

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At Stone’s trial, which concluded Nov. 15 with a conviction of the longtime Trump associate for lying to Congress and witness tampering, new evidence and testimony showed Trump and his campaign aides knew more about WikiLeaks’ plans during the 2016 presidential race then they have let on.

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Democrats have been arguing in court that they deserve access to Mueller’s underlying evidence in order to determine whether Trump did actually lie.

I still don't understand how they're going to make a case when Trump's answers were, "I don't recall." But I do think they need to get all the Mueller documents, and maybe this is how they do it.

In a court filing on Tuesday, Letter stressed the urgent schedule, writing that the Judiciary Committee plans to have its own round of impeachment hearings after the public Ukraine hearings conclude.

[...]

It appears Democrats will get the speedy decision they want. U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson this week promised a ruling by Monday on the McGahn lawsuit.

But even if McGahn is ordered to testify, that ruling could be put on hold until any appeals are sorted out. And a source close to McGahn said the ex-Trump aide won’t agree to testify until that process is worked out, possibly delaying things yet again.

The lawsuit seeking Mueller’s evidence faces a long timeline, too. While Democrats won a lower court ruling in the case, a hearing is scheduled for Jan. 3 to consider whether that ruling should stand. Trump’s Justice Department, should it lose there, can also try to appeal to a full panel of judges to review the case.

In the end, both cases could end up at the Supreme Court, putting a final resolution outside Democrats’ preferred impeachment window.Ultimately, the Judiciary panel — which spent the bulk of its time in 2019 examining Mueller’s work — will vote on any eventual articles of impeachment. Any upcoming hearings on the committee, which is led by Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), likely would follow the same model the Intelligence Committee used in its Ukraine hearings and feature questioning by staff counsel.

Manhattan’s top attorney [Cyrus Vance Jr.] on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to stay out of a fight over President Donald Trump’s tax returns.Trump’s attorneys argued that Vance should be denied in his historic bid for a sitting president’s records as part of a state-based criminal investigation.

In a 44-page response, Vance countered that there’s nothing monumental about his subpoena to get the president’s tax returns when the Supreme Court has already ruled unanimously in two seminal cases that presidents can be subject to both a subpoena and civil lawsuits while still in office.

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Vance was referring to the Supreme Court’s 1974 decision requiring President Richard Nixon to turn over secret White House tapes during the Watergate impeachment investigation and a separate 1997 opinion that President Bill Clinton couldn’t put off a civil lawsuit until his term was over.

The Manhattan DA also urged the justices to reject Trump’s petition because “there is no real public interest at stake here at all.”

“This case instead involves Petitioner’s private interest in seeking his own and others’ immunity from an ordinary investigation of financial improprieties independent of official duties,” Vance added. “That is not the kind of interest that warrants this Court’s intervention, particularly in the absence of any genuine controversy over the legal question presented.”

  Politico

Will corrupt justice Kavanaugh be enough to get this in front of the court? Only four justices need to agree to take it on.

Their decision on whether even to take the case will have immediate ramifications. If they reject the petition, the order from the U.S. 2nd Circuit of Appeals will come into force and the New York grand jury will gain access to the president’s financial records.

The New York case also isn’t the only one tied to Trump’s financial records that’s now before the Supreme Court. A key House committee on Thursday filed its own 44-page opposition brief to the justices urging them to reject the president’s request for an emergency stay blocking their access to a broad set of his documents.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.