Democrats tell Supreme Court they need Mueller grand jury material to consider new articles of impeachment

Comment by Jim Campbell

May 18th 2020

“Play it again Sam.”

When you have no workable plan, it’s simple, fall back on impeachment.

Our country and the Trump Administration have been through enough.

Since this story is breaking now, the United States Supreme Court hasn’t said it will hear the case.

This of course will go nowhere in the U.S. Senate and President Trump could veto it again if did.

Then again President Trump would like to be the only president impeached twice during his administrations.

The Washington Examiner

By Jerry Dunleavy

May 18, 2020

Douglas Letter, the Democratic committee’s top lawyer, filed a 33-page motion on Monday opposing a Justice Department effort that seeks to have the nation’s highest court block the release of the documents.

Democrats insist they need the information quickly because the House Judiciary Committee’s “impeachment investigation related to obstruction of justice pertaining to the Russia investigation is ongoing.”

“The Mueller Report grand-jury material remains central to the Committee’s ongoing inquiry into the President’s conduct,” the Democrats wrote.

“If this material reveals new evidence supporting the conclusion that President Trump committed impeachable offenses that are not covered by the Articles adopted by the House, the Committee will proceed accordingly — including, if necessary, by considering whether to recommend new articles of impeachment.”

Mueller’s 448-page report, released in April 2019, said the Russians interfered in 2016 in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” but “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”

The special counsel also laid out 10 possible instances of Trump obstructing justice but did not reach a conclusion.

Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded Trump had not obstructed justice.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the Justice Department’s request to stay its ruling affirming a lower court order that it hand over the Mueller grand jury information last month.

The appeals court ruled in a 2-1 vote in March to uphold U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell’s October 2019 ruling that House investigators should be given access.

Now, DOJ lawyers want the Supreme Court to take up the case. The Supreme Court temporarily paused the lower court order as the justices consider whether to take up the matter.

Much of the debate stems from the question of whether this year’s Senate impeachment trial constituted a “judicial proceeding.”

The Justice Department said it did not, while Democrats insisted it did. The courts so far agree with the House.

“Reading the term to go beyond its plain meaning raises significant separation of powers concerns by rendering key portions” of the rules governing grand jury material “inoperative or unconstitutional in application,” DOJ lawyers said.

They additionally warned of the “potential for harassment of the Executive Branch.”

The Justice Department said there was “good cause” for the Supreme Court to take up the case and worried it might be required to turn over the grand jury information before the high court weighs in, thus “irreversibly breaching the secrecy of those materials.”

The Trump administration has also argued that “any impeachment inquiry appears to be dormant.”

“While DOJ’s appeal was pending, the House adopted two Articles of Impeachment against President Trump for abuse of power in connection with a scheme to coerce Ukraine to investigate his political rival, and his obstruction of Congress,” the Democrats told the high court.

“The President was acquitted after a trial on those Articles in the Senate.”

Democrats oppose intervention by the Supreme Court.

“The Committee first requested this information from DOJ more than a year ago.

The district court issued its disclosure order more than six months ago.

If DOJ’s request for a stay is granted, DOJ need not file its certiorari petition until August 2020, and therefore this Court likely would not determine whether to grant or deny that petition until at least October 2020,” Democrats told the court.

“This substantial delay will seriously endanger the Committee’s ability to complete its impeachment investigation during the current Congress — which ends not long thereafter on January 3, 2021.”

The Democrats noted that “the current House concludes in less than eight months” and argued, “the public interest would be harmed irreparably if DOJ runs out the clock on the impeachment process.”

[Seriously?] This is why we pay these assholes?

https://www.whatfinger.com/

THE END