Democrats Set Course for Impeachment as Trump Stays on Sidelines

(Bloomberg) -- The House this week begins the solemn task of deciding whether to bring impeachment articles against President Donald Trump, faced with a sharply divided American public, a compressed timetable and doubts about how and if the White House will participate.

The next round of public hearings gives Democrats a crucial opportunity to synthesize weeks of witness testimony and other evidence into a narrative that convinces the U.S. public that Trump's actions merit impeachment. As the case moves to the Judiciary Committee, it's also is another chance for Republicans to defend the president and paint the Democratic-led inquiry as an entirely partisan enterprise.

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone on Sunday rejected Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler‘s invitation for Trump and his legal team to take part in Wednesday's hearing, criticizing the committee for demanding a response before witnesses have been announced or a schedule set for other hearings. He said the entire process has been unfair to the president, but he left open the possibility that Trump would be represented at future sessions.

“An invitation to an academic discussion with law professors does not begin to provide the president with any semblance of a fair process. Accordingly, under the current circumstances, we do not intend to participate in your Wednesday hearing,” Cipollone wrote. “Nevertheless, if you are serious about conducting a fair process going forward, and in order to protect the rights and privileges of the president, we may consider participating in future Judiciary Committee proceedings if you afford the administration the ability to do so meaningfully.”

By Wednesday, Judiciary panel members are expected to have in hand a report from the Intelligence Committee on the question of whether the president attempted to coerce Ukraine into announcing investigations that would benefit him politically. The Judiciary Committee on Monday will finalize the witness list for Wednesday's hearing, which will feature constitutional experts suggested by both parties to discuss the foundation for impeachment.

Trump tweeted several times Monday to criticize the impeachment process, including the way witnesses will be chosen.

Only three times in history has the House of Representatives gotten to this stage in presidential impeachment proceedings. No president has ever been convicted by the Senate and removed from office. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before articles against him were put before the full House.

“Unlike some of the other proceedings, we got the best evidence at the very beginning,” Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren, a member of the Judiciary Committee who was involved in two prior impeachment proceedings, said Sunday on CNN. “The ‘do me a favor, though,' phone call laid out really a this-for-that, improper scenario” of aid to Ukraine being held up for Trump's personal political gain.

Impeachment Report

The most recent case was the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998, when the Republican-led Judiciary Committee held a total of four hearings before advancing articles against the Democrat to the House floor. Clinton was impeached in the House for lying to a grand jury and obstruction, but he was acquitted in the Senate.

Democrats who now control the House are in a self-imposed sprint to finish their impeachment efforts against Trump by the end of the year. The Judiciary hearings are a last chance for Democrats to shift public opinion, which polls show is close to evenly divided and has largely been frozen in place since the impeachment inquiry was announced.

According to a House resolution adopted in October with only Democratic votes, Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff must send the Judiciary Committee a formal report of his panel's findings and recommendations, and the first draft is expected to be circulated among committee members on Monday. Intelligence Committee Republicans are expected to write their report for the minority to present their interpretation of the facts.

Officials familiar with both committees say Nadler will likely receive Schiff's report before Wednesday's hearing, which will discuss the constitutional basis for impeachment and whether Trump's actions meet that threshold.

It will also be up to Nadler's panel to translate evidence gathered by the Intelligence Committee into articles of impeachment that could attract any bipartisan support. House Republicans have been remarkably united in their opposition to the process, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said it is “inconceivable” that the GOP-led Senate would vote by a two-thirds margin to remove Trump from office.

Calling Witnesses

The earlier fact-finding phase of the impeachment inquiry led by Schiff and his committee has been dismissed by Trump and Republicans as a “sham” and unfair, in part because the president's team wasn't allowed to call or cross-examine witnesses until the process reached the Judiciary Committee.

In his Sunday letter to Nadler, Cipollone criticized the timing of the hearing, noting that it will take place while Trump is in London for a NATO meeting. Cipollone said the Republican-led Judiciary Committee during the Clinton impeachment scheduled a similar hearing on a date suggested by the president's legal team.

Cipollone also criticized the process for issuing subpoenas, contrasting the power afforded to Nadler as chairman, compared to the options available for the ranking Republican, Doug Collins of Georgia.

If Trump's lawyers do participate in future hearings, they will be able to cross-examine witnesses, request their own witnesses and seek to submit new evidence. If they don't, Judiciary Republicans will be in the room to ask questions of witnesses. Under current impeachment rules, Collins can suggest witnesses -- although a committee vote could overrule his requests -- and he said on Sunday that he wants to call Schiff to question him about his motives and actions in the impeachment inquiry.

“It's easy to hide behind a report,” Collins said of Schiff on “Fox News Sunday.” “But it's going to be another thing to actually get up and have to answer questions about what his staff knew, how he knew, what he knows about the whistle-blower, or his interactions he's had with Ukraine, the other things that he's had over time in this process.”

However, the panel's Democratic majority would have to agree to calling Schiff, and that's not likely to happen.

Back-Channel Diplomacy

In the phase led by the Intelligence Committee, witnesses testified that Trump and senior administration officials pressured Ukrainian leaders to announce investigations of Joe Biden and the 2016 election in exchange for a White House meeting and security assistance. In two weeks of public hearings, 12 career diplomats, civil servants and political appointees also detailed the back-channel diplomacy led by Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, which undermined long-held U.S. foreign policy objectives.

Impeachment investigators are planning at least three articles of impeachment, including charges of bribery, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, according to officials familiar with the Intelligence Committee's deliberations.

Schiff's report to the Judiciary Committee could include additional articles of impeachment. Other House committees can also send material from their non-Ukraine related investigations of Trump to the Judiciary panel to be considered in the impeachment hearings.

The Judiciary Committee has the option to call new witnesses and schedule more hearings before determining whether to proceed with advancing articles of impeachment to the House floor.

Whether the House moves on impeachment -- or a measure short of that -- is a question that could be brought up during Wednesday's hearing. There are legal disagreements over whether Congress could pass a simple resolution of censure against Trump as a formal way to put disapproval against the president on record but stop short of impeachment.

Schiff has said the work by his panel will continue, and he won't rule out calling more witnesses and pursuing more avenues of investigation.

To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton, Joe Sobczyk

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