The Impeachment Inquiry
I.Introduction
The House of Representatives conducted a fair, thorough, and transparent impeachment inquiry under extraordinary circumstances. For the first time in modern history, committees of the House acted as original factfinders in a Presidential impeachment. Unlike in the previous impeachment inquiries into Presidents Richard M. Nixon and William J. Clinton, the House did not significantly rely on evidence obtained from other investigative bodies. Rather, committees of the House gathered evidence themselves. They did so fairly and efficiently, despite President Trump's concerted efforts to obstruct their work.
From September through November of this year, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), together with the Committees on Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs (collectively, "the Investigating Committees"), collected evidence that President Trump abused his office in soliciting and inducing foreign interference in the 2020 United States Presidential election. Despite the President's efforts to obstruct the Congressional investigation that followed, the Investigating Committees questioned seventeen current and former Trump Administration officials. In addition, although Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials continue to defy subpoenas for documents at President Trump's direction, the Investigating Committees obtained from certain witnesses hundreds of text messages in their personal possession that corroborated their testimony, as well as reproductions of contemporaneous emails exchanged as the President's offenses were unfolding. Minority Members and their counsel participated equally in witness questioning, and the Investigating Committees released public transcripts of every deposition and interview, as well as significant documentary evidence upon which they relied. HPSCI then transmitted that evidence to the Judiciary Committee, together with a nearly 300-page public report documenting the Investigating Committees' findings, and a 123-page report containing the Minority's views.
The Judiciary Committee, consistent with House precedent, afforded ample opportunities for President Trump and his attorneys to participate as it considered articles of impeachment. Those opportunities were offered not as a matter of right, but as privileges typically afforded to Presidents pursuant to House practice. Article I of the Constitution vests the House with full discretion to structure impeachment proceedings, assigning to it both the "sole Power of Impeachment" and the authority to "determine the Rules of its Proceedings." [1] The purpose of such proceedings is not to conduct a full trial of offenses; it is "to gather evidence to determine whether the president may have committed an impeachable offense" and whether he ought to stand trial for that offense in the Senate.[2] In accordance with that purpose and House practice, President Trump was offered procedural privileges that were
- ↑ U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 5; § 5, cl. 2.
- ↑ Directing Certain Committees to Continue Their Ongoing Investigations as Part of the Existing House of Representatives Inquiry Into Whether Sufficient Grounds Exist for the House of Representatives to Exercise its Constitutional Power to Impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America, and for Other Purposes, H. Rep. No. 116-266 at 4 (2019) (hereinafter "Rules Committee Report"); see also Staff of H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 116th Cong., Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment 39 (Comm. Print 2019) (hereinafter "Constitutional Grounds for Impeachment (2019)").
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