HERE'S THE DEAL
IMPEACHMENT EDITION

Hello everyone, 

We hope that you had a relaxing last week and good Thanksgiving.  Our gratitude goes to *you.* Thank you for reading our newsletter (and sending such wonderful, helpful email).  The Impeachment Brief and the news cycle took some time off. But we are back in full force.

The House Judiciary Committee has begun its part of the impeachment process, which could lead to articles of impeachment as soon as the next few weeks. What has happened? Watch our video summary, or keep reading.

Constitutional scholars disagree over Trump impeachment

The House Judiciary Committee held its first formal impeachment hearing yesterday, triggering what could be the final step before voting on articles of impeachment.

• The hearing, which was at times wonky and at times tense, focused on the legal ground for impeachment. 

• Democrats called three witnesses, law professors from Harvard, Stanford and the University of North Carolina.  Republicans were allowed one witness, a law professor from George Washington University.

• The Democratic witnesses testified that President Trump’s actions are impeachable offenses, showing he abused the power of his office for personal political gain by pressing for investigations of the Biden family and asking a foreign power to intervene to help him. 

• The Republican witness strongly disagreed, saying that evidence is “wafer-thin” that the president himself demanded investigations in return for aid money and other things Ukraine wanted. He argued that Democrats are rushing the process and have not yet proven their case.

• The two sides disagreed over whether the president’s conduct could be considered “bribery,” specific grounds for impeachment in the Constitution.

• The two sides agreed that impeachable offenses do not necessarily need to be statutory crimes since there was no criminal code when the Constitution was written.

House Intelligence Committee releases new call records

• In its report on impeachment (see more below), the House Intelligence Committee revealed new phone records that show Rudy Giuliani called the White House repeatedly in the two days before the firing of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovich. 

• The records also show Giuliani’s phone connected with a number identified only as “-1”. Democrats are asking if that is associated with Trump.

• This is significant because it could indicate the president’s motivation for firing Yovanovich as well as whether Giuliani was part of an irregular chain of foreign policy.

• In addition, the call records show that Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, made contact with Giuliani and Lev Parnas, a Giuliani associate who has since been indicted for conspiracy and funneling foreign dollars into U.S. campaigns. Nunes has said he does not remember any phone calls with Parnas.

House Intelligence Democrats find Trump abused power

• Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee voted Tuesday night to approve a 300-page (including footnotes) report that found, “that President Trump, personally and acting through agents within and outside of the U.S. government, solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection.”

• All Democrats on the committee voted to recommend the report. Republicans on the committee attempted to amend the document but failed, and then voted against it.

• Democrats say they will present the report before the Judiciary Committee in the coming days.

House Republicans issue their own report, attempting to exonerate the president

• Republicans on three committees released a sort of prebuttal to Democrats’ report on Monday, concluding the evidence does not prove that Trump pressured the Ukrainian president, nor that he attached aid or other desired items to a request for political investigations..

• The 110-report also raised Republican questions about the role of Ukrainian officials and whether they tried to influence the 2016 election.  The U.S. intelligence community found that the Ukrainian government did not attempt to manipulate the election, but the Republican report focuses questions about the actions of individual Ukrainian officials.

Court tells banks to hand over some Trump records

• A three-judge panel ruled that Deutsche Bank and Capitol One must hand over financial records for President Trump and his immediate family to House investigators.

• The 2-1 ruling concluded that the oversight interest of House members outweighed concerns that any investigation could be distracting or problematic for the president.

• The president is expected to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

SCOTUS gives the president until today in taxes case

• The Supreme Court has given President Trump’s legal team until today to file a petition and appeal a separate lower court ruling that would give lawmakers access to his past tax records.