You dont need the Senate to Call Witnesses

[Rilgin]

The house continues to have constitutional investigative powers and oversight totally independant of the Senate Impeachment farce

If the Senate fails to call witnesses, the House should hold a press conference that very day saying the oversight committees will call the same witnesses to testify in open session. The Senate and McConnell can not say anything since its not in the Senate.

Now it wont be impeachment testimony but it will be public and Democratic pundits can say that even though the Senate refuses to obey its constitutional duty, the American People will still receive the information about their government that we deserve.

[NCLefty]

1. Open another impeachment inquiry and have public hearings.

[Rilgin]

2. Yes Exactlly

Although you don't even need to call it an Impeachment Hearing which avoids any possible defense or attacks of double jeopardy. But I would be fine with sending additional impeachment articles or new ones on the basis of further evidence. However, more important it puts the Senate in a bad light and does allow the public to hear evidence.

We know from today that the Senate will be a farce without more evidence and a large part of the Republican strategy is to avoid the public knowing trumps corruption. Even if you cant remove cause of the Senate make up you can at least do your duty to the public.

[BigmanPigman]

3. And the documents too!

If we could get documents to show to the public I would feel better about the outcome.

[empedocles]

4. The documents out to the various researchers, bloggers, various media, and public

[brooklynite]

5. And when the WH witnesses don't show up?

[Rilgin]

6. You go to the courts.

Obviously this should not be necessary. The senate should do its job. However, its clear that they wont so it is up to the House to get the information to the public. And yes Trump and his minions wont cooperate and you will have to go to the courts and there will be delay but the alternative is no witnesses. And yes, the courts may rule against you and not force the witnesses to appear. However, what exactly is your alternate suggestion. I am completely open or do you think somehow the Senate will call these witnesses and put the documents before the public?

[BumRushDaShow]

7. The House is STILL waiting for the courts to decide the McGahn subpoena

that was issued last April (2019).

I think the strategy here was to highlight what some witnesses (notably Bolton) claimed to be willing to do for the Senate that they weren't willing to do for the House barring a decision on the McGahn case. The House had also subpoenaed Charles Kupperman (Deputy NSA) in November and then withdrew it in December after Kupperman sued and had his case assigned to D.C. District Court judge Richard Leon (Shrub appointee), which would have dragged the process out even more, after which Leon later dismissed the Kupperman suit when the subpoena was withdrawn.

Much of Schiff's remarks yesterday were to describe the dilemma posed to Democrats with respect to their strategy and timing for acting quickly to document and stave off what were crimes-in-progress... And it was noted that if they were forced to wait for the courts, then it could have taken years - given the appeals and then potential remands at each level, back to lower courts, delaying it even more. The point being that the impeachment process was not designed to be something that the courts should have had to have been expected to handle. Otherwise it would have been explicitly described in the Constitution as the role of the Judiciary.

[Rilgin]

9. Walk and Chew gum at same time

I thought the Democratic Managers have a good strategy and did well in the Senate. Everything you say I agree with but THEN WHAT.

The Senate is almost definitely going to reject witnesses and documents. If they surprise us and allow witnesses and documents, what I wrote will be moot because the Senate will be doing its job. If the Senate does not inform the Public, the House still can. That is my point. I am proud of what the House did and I did not say anything about their strategy yesterday but a suggestion for the future.

I guess you are happy with the Managers doing a great job of showing Republican hypocrisy ONLY. I am happy with them doing that and then also informing the Public and there is a path to doing that even though it is not the best past and the court system will take time.

And I will ask what is your proposed strategy when the Senate closes debate and votes down removal. Do you think that should be the end of it?

[BumRushDaShow]

10. Keep this is mind

You have quite a bit going on "under the radar" - https://www.lawfareblog.com/trump-litigation-round



And note that the pardon power has no effect on state charges and NY State AG (and other state AGs) is working furiously on criminal and civil cases against this President. Their cases aren't as "sexy" to the media but they are ongoing from all sorts of angles.

[Rilgin]

11. Thank you for pointing that out as well

Your point is well taken and I am mostly optimistic that the obstruction will not ultimately succeed. My thoughts were mostly motivated by not being totally discouraged by Senate inaction on witnesses. As you have pointed out there are other actions going on other than this potential sham trial in the Senate.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. This is one of the sad examples of the oft-used term

"elections have consequences". Had we kept the Senate after 2014, a whole different trajectory would have been realized.

We had to deal with 8 years of being out of power in the House where we endured endless "Benghazi!!!111!!!", "Fast and Furious!!111!!" and "But her emails!!!111!!!". So if it weren't for the 2018 blue wave, we wouldn't have been able to put that crap to bed and wouldn't have even been able to broach the subject of impeachment (regardless of Senate outcome).

(and the Impeachment will forever be on his record)

[Happy Hoosier]

8. The House needs to be pressing this in parallel

I know Schiff and Nadler are busy, but we have other competent folks who can press forward on this issue.