Move rapidly

Dems move rapidly on impeachment with first Judiciary Committee hearing

Democrats are also giving Trump the option to let White House lawyers participate.

By KYLE CHENEY, ANDREW DESIDERIO and HEATHER CAYGLE

The House Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing next week on the impeachment of President Donald Trump, as Democrats move quickly to the next stage of a process that is likely to lead to the third-ever presidential impeachment before the end of the year.

The hearing, scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 4, will feature a panel of constitutional experts and focus on the definition of an impeachable offense and the “procedural application of the impeachment process,” according to committee aides.

Republicans held a similar hearing at the outset of proceedings against President Bill Clinton in 1998, and Democrats say the move is a necessary prerequisite to drafting articles of impeachment.

“The impeachment inquiry is entering into a new phase,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “Our first task is to explore the framework put in place to respond to serious allegations of impeachable misconduct like those against President Trump.”

Most notably, the hearing will give Trump and his legal team the option to participate. The president and his allies have blasted Democrats over their impeachment inquiry, saying it has failed to include meaningful due process for the president.

Nadler sent a letter to Trump on Tuesday notifying him of his lawyers’ opportunity to attend and giving the president a deadline of Dec. 1 to inform him of whether his attorneys plan to participate.

Nadler also wrote that the committee plans to use the hearing to “analyze” the evidence gathered by the House Intelligence Committee, which wrapped up a series of public hearings last week that focused on allegations Trump pressured Ukraine’s government to investigate his political rivals.

“At base, the president has a choice to make: he can take this opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process,” Nadler added. “I hope that he chooses to participate in the inquiry, directly or through counsel, as other presidents have done before him.”

The hearing will be titled, “The Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald J. Trump: Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment.” The witnesses, who have yet to be announced, will face questions from lawmakers about technical aspects of the impeachment process, including what constitutes a high crime or misdemeanor as defined in the Constitution.

A Judiciary Committee official declined to discuss any additional hearings the panel might hold as it prepares to draft formal articles of impeachment. But lawmakers have privately been discussing a hearing schedule that would ensure the House could wrap up the impeachment inquiry by the end of the year — a priority for senior Democrats.

The Judiciary Committee is expected to hold at least one more hearing allowing Democrats to present their case against Trump, which could come the second week of December. Trump’s lawyers will also have an opportunity to respond, although it is unclear if the president will participate.

The panel could approve articles of impeachment the second week of December, allowing the full House to vote the following week, just before Congress leaves for the holiday break, according to lawmakers and aides.

Democrats insist they have yet to begin formally drafting articles of impeachment, saying publicly they want to finish the investigation before deciding whether to move forward.

But a debate is already raging within the caucus about what articles they should draft and which of Trump’s alleged misdeeds should be included.

Most Democrats expect the committee will draft an article on “abuse of power” by Trump, the most politically potent allegation that has emerged from the Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Trump’s pressure campaign toward Ukraine. Another is expected to be for “obstruction of Congress,” a charge intended to detail efforts by Trump to stonewall the Ukraine investigations, and which may become a vehicle to accuse him of attempting to block several other congressional probes.

Some Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have argued in favor of including additional charges, including on everything from special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings on obstruction of justice to claims that Trump has used his office for self-enrichment.

Other Democrats have pushed back, saying the Ukraine scandal is the only one that has been able to move public opinion in favor of impeaching Trump and that it is a clear, easy-to-understand narrative that has galvanized the country.

Polls suggest about half of voters now favor impeachment — a sharp increase from the aftermath of the Mueller report. But public opinion also appears to have changed little after two weeks of public hearings on the Ukraine saga.

A potential compromise that has been floated is delving into non-Ukraine accusations in a separate Judiciary Committee report, while keeping the articles of impeachment singularly focused on Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation into his political rivals and withhold critical support until Zelensky did so.

It’s unclear if that would be enough to appease Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and others within the caucus who believe Trump should be forced to answer for other misconduct.