This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/us/politics/mcgahn-subpoena-house-impeachment.html

The article has changed 9 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
McGahn Skips Hearing, Defying Subpoena, and Democrats’ Anger Swells Democratic Calls for Impeachment Inquiry Grow as Leaders Instead Vow to Toughen Tactics
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel, defied a House subpoena on Tuesday under order of the White House, stoking outraged Democrats to contemplate anew punitive measures, including opening an impeachment inquiry, to try to enforce Congress’s oversight powers. WASHINGTON — New divides opened among House Democrats on Tuesday over how to uphold Congress’s oversight powers in the face of President Trump’s stonewalling, with a sizable bloc of progressive lawmakers pushing for the first time over their leaders’ objections to start an impeachment inquiry.
The House Judiciary Committee convened the hearing on President Trump’s attempts to obstruct the Russia investigation anyway, though without the man Democrats had hoped could serve as a star eyewitness as they seek to build a case before the public. Democrats were at odds about how to fight the latest defiance of a House subpoena, this time by the former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II, who skipped a scheduled hearing on Tuesday about Mr. Trump’s attempts to obstruct the Russia investigation.
Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the panel’s chairman, opened the brief session with a stern warning both to Mr. McGahn and Mr. Trump. The House, he said, would move quickly to bring Mr. McGahn to court, citing him for contempt of Congress if he does not relent. Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, promised to hold Mr. McGahn in contempt of Congress and warned Mr. Trump and other potential witnesses to expect new hardball tactics. Democratic lawmakers and aides said they could include new subpoenas, possible rules changes allowing the House to fine people held in contempt, and threats to Mr. Trump’s legislative priorities as leverage for compliance.
“This committee will hear Mr. McGahn’s testimony, even if we have to go to court to secure it,” Mr. Nadler said, staring down at an empty chair for Mr. McGahn. “We will not allow the president to stop this investigation, and nothing in these unjustified and unjustifiable legal attacks will stop us from pressing forward with our work on behalf of the American people,” Mr. Nadler said during a brief hearing of an emotionally raw Judiciary Committee. “We will hold this president accountable, one way or the other.”
He said the president’s attempts to impede the Russia investigation, witnessed by Mr. McGahn and shared with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, “constitutes a crime.” The Democrats’ divisions spring from a shared fear that Mr. Trump is succeeding not just in evading congressional accountability himself but in permanently rewriting the rules of engagement between the legislative and executive branches, freeing future presidents from one of the Constitution’s most potent checks on their power.
“We will not allow the president to stop this investigation, and nothing in these unjustified and unjustifiable legal attacks will stop us from pressing forward with our work on behalf of the American people,” Mr. Nadler said. “We will hold this president accountable, one way or the other.” “We can focus on McGahn. We can focus on Barr. We can focus on Michael Cohen. We can call the roll,” Representative Val B. Demings, a Florida Democrat on the Judiciary Committee who supports impeachment, said in an interview. “But the problem here is the president of the United States.”
But it is far from clear if that will be enough to quell Democratic anger at the stonewalling by Mr. Trump and his administration, who in the month since the release of Mr. Mueller’s report, have shut down virtually every request and subpoena from House lawmakers investigating the president. In the case of Mr. McGahn, the president ordered him not to appear, citing a Justice Department legal opinion that the Constitution gives close personal aides to a president “absolute immunity” from congressional subpoenas trying to compel them to testify about their official work. Their concerns that Mr. Trump might be permanently weakening Congress’s powers prompted prominent progressive lawmakers on and off the Judiciary Committee to declare in private meetings and public statements in the past 24 hours that they saw no choice but to initiate an impeachment inquiry.
A group of influential and outspoken Judiciary Committee Democrats were expected to go public with new calls for the panel to open a formal impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump. An investigation of that nature would streamline disparate House inquiries and lend greater powers to the committee in its fight against the executive branch, their reasoning goes. The new supporters of impeachment included Representative Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin and a co-chairman of the influential Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, Democrat of Pennsylvania and the vice chairwoman of the Judiciary Committee.
Representative Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin and a co-chair of the progressive caucus, added weight outside the committee, saying Tuesday morning the time had come to open an impeachment inquiry. They argued that such an investigation would streamline disparate House inquiries and empower the committees in their push to conduct oversight of the executive branch. And they expressed hope it would show the public that the fight over documents and witnesses is not just another Washington partisan squabble, but a showdown with historic implications.
“The president and his associates are engaging in a campaign of obstruction and lawlessness that undermines the rule of law and does not reflect the actions of someone who is ‘exonerated’ as innocent,” he said. “Congress has patiently tried to work within traditional means to get to the bottom of this extraordinary situation,” Ms. Scanlon said. “The time has come to start an impeachment inquiry because the American people deserve to know the truth and to have the opportunity to judge the gravity of the evidence and charges leveled against the president.”
Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a Judiciary Committee member, said in an interview Monday night that he, too, was leaning in that direction. Neither side is getting help from House Republicans, who despite the abdication of Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, who came out in favor of impeachment over the weekend, remain opposed to any additional investigation.
“If they continue to pull the plug on congressional investigations and thumb their noses at congressional power, they leave us very few choices,” he said. “Here we go again — the theater is open,” said Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, at the outset of Tuesday’s hearing. He proceeded to blast Mr. Nadler for abusing his subpoena power to make unreasonable demands of the White House and witnesses to “get a headline.” Mr. Trump has made similar arguments, saying Democrats are merely trying for a “do-over” after Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, could not show he committed a crime.
On Monday night, Mr. Raskin was one of a handful of Judiciary Committee members who pitched the idea to Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a closed-door meeting of House leadership. He was joined by Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, a more senior member of the committee, and Representative Joe Neguse of Colorado, a more junior one. They count other members of the committee as supporters. Democrats continue to hold out hopes, albeit diminishing ones, that they can secure testimony from Mr. Mueller himself. Talks between the special counsel’s staff and House Democrats continued to grind along this week, according to two people familiar with the conversations. Mr. Mueller’s team is questioning the timing and format of possible testimony, including how much of any hearing would take place in public rather than behind closed doors, they said.
After Ms. Pelosi lamented to members of her leadership team that the battles with the president were overshadowing Democrats’ legislative agenda, Mr. Raskin argued that opening an impeachment inquiry could help solve the problem by centralizing fights with the White House over documents, according to three people in the room for the exchange, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting. The slow pace of the talks goes appears to go beyond logistics: House aides involved in the report say they have gotten the sense that Mr. Mueller, and some of his aides, would rather let his written report speak for itself than push him into the partisan fray.
Mr. Nadler himself presented that argument Monday evening in a smaller meeting he had with only Democrats’ senior-most leaders, arguing that an open inquiry could potentially spur the courts to more quickly process legal cases brought by the House to enforce their subpoenas. Press officers for the Justice Department and the special counsel’s office declined to comment.
The new push comes days after a House Republican, Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, became the first lawmaker of his party to endorse impeachment. All other elected Republicans, though, remain opposed to impeachment and Democrats’ continued investigations. Impeachment advocates are also increasingly butting heads with their own leader, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who holds the ultimate decision-making power over her caucus’s strategy and has consistently warned against the divisiveness of impeachment. Several members of the California Democrat’s own leadership team confronted her in private on Monday night with arguments in favor of beginning an inquiry, only to be gently swatted down with calls to stay the current course.
“Here we go again — the theater is open,” said Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, at the outset of Tuesday’s hearing. He proceeded to blast Mr. Nadler for abusing his subpoena power to make unreasonable demands of the White House and witnesses to “get a headline.” “Candidly, I don’t probably think there’s any Democrat who probably wouldn’t in their gut say, ‘He’s done some things that probably justify impeachment,’” Ms. Pelosi’s top deputy, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, said on Tuesday. “Having said that — this is the important thing — I think the majority of Democrats continue to believe that we need to continue to pursue the avenue that we’ve been on, in trying to elicit information, testimony, review the Mueller report, review other items. If the facts lead us to broader action, so be it.”
Ms. Pelosi, who has long tried to move her caucus away from impeachment, was cool to opening an impeachment inquiry right away. She asked Mr. Raskin if he was suggesting the four other investigative committees just close up their work, the people said, and pointed out that Democrats had won an early court victory on Monday in a dispute over a House subpoena for Trump financial records. Democrats, she said, had a process in place and should let it play out. But in a sign that Ms. Pelosi senses her caucus growing restless, she called a Wednesday morning meeting to update them on the status and strategy behind the House’s investigations. And people involved in the investigations say that the speaker approved an escalation of tactics short of impeachment to try to turn the tables.
Pressed in another private meeting if she was making a political calculation in tamping down impeachment talk, Ms. Pelosi insisted the answer was no, according to one of the people. Mr. McGahn may become a test case. He skipped the Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday under order of the White House, leaving an empty chair where Democrats had hoped he could serve as a star eyewitness as they seek to build a public case of wrongdoing. The president ordered him on Monday not to appear, citing a Justice Department legal opinion that the Constitution gives senior presidential aides “absolute immunity” from congressional subpoenas compelling them to testify about their official work.
In addition to fighting those claims in court, Democrats indicated that they would swiftly move to hold Mr. McGahn in contempt, perhaps taking the case straight to the House floor rather than waiting for a committee vote. They are newly considering altering House rules to allow for so-called inherent contempt penalties, like fines, people familiar with internal discussions said.
The Judiciary Committee has already voted to recommend that the full House hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt for his defiance of another subpoena asking for Mr. Mueller’s full report and underlying evidence. Democratic leaders had been stalling on bringing the contempt citation to the floor of the full House, but have not indicated they will accelerate a vote when they return in June from the Memorial Day recess.
Ms. Pelosi is said to be newly open to pulling Mr. Trump’s policy priorities into the fray, too. Thus far, she had refused to touch some of Congress’s traditional leverage buttons, like government appropriations bills.
The new arrows in Democrats’ quiver came after lawmakers pushing for impeachment pressed her in a pair of private meetings Monday night
After Ms. Pelosi lamented to members of her leadership team that the battles with the president were overshadowing Democrats’ legislative agenda, Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, argued that opening an impeachment inquiry could help solve the problem by centralizing fights with the White House over documents, according to three people in the room for the exchange, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
Ms. Pelosi, who has long tried to move her caucus away from impeachment, was cool to opening such an inquiry right away. She asked Mr. Raskin whether he was suggesting the four other investigative committees just close up their work, the people said, and pointed out that Democrats had won an early court victory on Monday in a dispute over a House subpoena for Trump financial records.
Pressed in another meeting by Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, whether she was making a political calculation in tamping down impeachment talk, Ms. Pelosi insisted the answer was no, according to one of the people.
“This isn’t about politics at all,” she said. “It’s about patriotism. It’s about the strength we need to have to see things through.”“This isn’t about politics at all,” she said. “It’s about patriotism. It’s about the strength we need to have to see things through.”
Speaking with reporters late Monday night after talking with leadership, Mr. Nadler appeared to still be on Ms. Pelosi’s side, at least for now, trumpeting the court victory and speaking about the processes already in motion. But he had made clear to Judiciary Committee members and party leaders that they need to immediately begin taking more aggressive steps short of impeachment. Ms. Pelosi has numerous allies, even on the overwhelmingly liberal Judiciary Committee. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas, said she was not ready for an impeachment inquiry. “Our job is to educate before we activate,” she told reporters.
The Judiciary Committee has already voted to recommend that the full House hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt for his defiance of another subpoena asking for Mr. Mueller’s full report and underlying evidence. But the House has yet to take up the contempt citation, and with Congress leaving town this week for the Memorial Day holiday, it is unlikely to consider it until June, delaying an eventual court case to try to pry free the material. And Representative Lucy McBath, a Georgia freshman who is one of the lone Judiciary Committee members from a swing district, said she was trying to remind her colleagues of the political realities of an ideological diverse caucus and voters who sent them there.
A contempt recommendation against Mr. McGahn could also take time. In a three-page letter to Mr. McGahn late Monday, Mr. Nadler argued that the Justice Department’s legal opinion would not hold up in court and did not, for that matter, preclude Mr. McGahn from appearing before the committee. “For people like me that are in the kinds of districts that I am in, impeachment is not something that a lot of people in my district want to talk about,” she said. “But at the same time I am tasked with being on this committee to make sure that no one is above the law.”
He also reiterated his view — which legal experts have endorsed — that the president’s claim of executive privilege over the full Mueller report and underlying evidence is likely to crumple in court.