House Democrats Seeking Materials To Start New Articles of Impeachment Against Trump
House Democrats asked the Supreme Court this week for the redacted grand jury material from former special counsel Robert Muller’s Russia probe as part of an “ongoing” impeachment investigation against President Donald Trump.
“The [House Judiciary] Committee’s investigation did not cease with the conclusion of the impeachment trial,” House general counsel Douglas Letter wrote in a court filing Monday.
“The withheld material remains central to the Committee’s ongoing investigation into the President’s conduct. If this material reveals new evidence supporting the conclusion that President Donald 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.”
The court filing came after the Department of Justice filed an emergency request for the Supreme Court to block a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the federal government must release Mueller’s grand jury materials, Fox News reported.
Letter said “any further delay in receiving the materials” could cause the committee and the public to “suffer significant, irreparable harm by impairing the House’s efforts to determine whether the President committed certain impeachable offenses.”
The House had reportedly requested the information over a year ago, and Letter feared that if the Supreme Court grants the department’s request to take up the case, the release of the records would be further delayed, according to CNN.
“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,” he wrote.
The investigation, according to Letter, has further developed in light of recent events, like the release of documents pertaining to the prosecution of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case.
“The Committee’s impeachment investigation related to obstruction of justice pertaining to the Russia investigation is ongoing,” he wrote.
“The Committee is investigating the possible exercise of improper political influence over recent decisions made in the Roger Stone and Michael Flynn prosecutions, both of which were initiated by the Special Counsel.”
Mueller’s probe secured convictions of Trump allies like former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Roger Stone.
The redacted final report released by Attorney General William Barr in April 2019 found that “there was no evidence of the Trump campaign collusion with the Russian government’s hacking,” NPR reported.
In recent days, a list has been released naming the Obama administration officials who made unmasking requests during the period after the 2016 election but before Trump took office and who thus likely learned of Flynn’s identity through those requests.
Unmasking is the intelligence term used for those instances in which American citizens speaking to foreign nationals who are under surveillance have their identities revealed via an official request.
Due to the presence on that list of former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and comments from the attorney currently representing Flynn, Obama’s name has now become linked to the effort to target Flynn.
California Rep. Devin Nunes said that he will be pursuing multiple criminal referrals for the people on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in response to how the Justice Department handled the Trump-Russia investigation.
“We’re doing a large criminal referral on the Mueller dossier team that put together a fraudulent report — that knew there was no collusion the day that Mueller walked in the door,” the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee told Fox Nation “Witch Hunt” host Gregg Jarrett last week.
“They set an obstruction of justice trap. There’s no doubt in my mind that we will make a conspiracy referral there.”
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