Just heard interesting point about Impeachment on Hardball

[pdsimdars]

What opening up impeachment does is make it so that grand jury material is opened up for congress. They can then simply ask for the grand jury material from the court and they will have it, it is open to them.

[wasupaloopa]

1. They can do that now. It has always been the case that

Congress can ask a judge to allow them access to Grand Jury material if it is in the greater public interest.

They can do it today if they want to.

[StarfishSaver]

2. That's not true

An impeachment inquiry won't allow Congress to obtain grand jury materials just by asking for them.

This can be done only by court order and Congress is not automatically entitled to them. And while a court can order the release of grand jury materials to an impeachment inquiry, it can also order their release to proceedings other than and preliminary to an impeachment inquiry, such as oversight hearings.

And, even then, a judge is not required to order a release of these materials to any proceeding, be it an impeachment hearing or something else.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. There should be some kind of passive, soft impeachment process that could pass

Pelosi's preponderance need for prudence.