House Democrats to investigate Trump

House Democrats will request documents from more than 60 people this week as they step up investigations into allegations of obstruction of justice and abuse of power in the administration of US president Donald Trump.

Background 

The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they comprise the legislature of the United States.

The composition of the House is established by Article One of the United States Constitution. The House is composed of Representatives who sit in congressional districts that are allocated to each of the 50 states on a basis of population as measured by the U.S. Census, with each district entitled to one representative. The total number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435.

The House is charged with the passage of federal legislation, known as bills, which, after concurrence by the Senate, are sent to the President for consideration. In addition to this basic power, the House has certain exclusive powers, among them the power to initiate all bills related to revenue; the impeachment of federal officers, who are sent to trial before the Senate; and, in cases wherein no candidate receives a majority of electors for President, the duty falls upon the House to elect one of the top three recipients of electors for that office, with one vote given to each state for that purpose.

The presiding officer is the Speaker of the House, who is elected by the members thereof (and is therefore traditionally the leader of the controlling party). The Speaker and other floor leaders are chosen by the Democratic Caucus or the Republican Conference, depending on whichever party has more voting members.

Analysis 

Jerry Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the House judiciary committee, said the panel would request documents from individuals in the White House and justice department, as well as from Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son, and Trump Organisation chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg.

Documents may also be requested from John Kelly, former White House chief of staff, and Don McGahn, the former White House counsel. 

Mr Nadler also said congress should be allowed to see evidence gathered by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating the role played by Russia in the 2016 election, even if his investigation finds no collusion between Mr Trump and Russia. 

“We’d want to see the evidence behind that and see the validity of that,” said Mr Nadler. 

William Barr, the newly confirmed attorney-general, has said that while Mr Mueller’s report must remain confidential according to justice department rules, he would aim to provide Congress and the public with as much information as possible about the special counsel’s findings.

“This investigation goes far beyond collusion,” said Mr Nadler. “We’ve seen all the democratic norms that we depend on for democratic government attacked by the administration.”

“We’ve seen attacks on the freedom of the press, the press called the enemy of the people, we’ve seen attacks on the Department of Justice, attacks on the FBI, attacks on judges,” he said.

Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House intelligence committee, said last week that he would go to court to make Mr Mueller’s final report public if necessary. Mr Schiff said he thought emails from Russian intermediaries offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton constituted “direct evidence” of collusion between Mr Trump and Russia. “They offer that dirt. There is an acceptance of that offer in writing from the president’s son Don Jr. and there are overt acts in furtherance of that,” he said.

The increased pressure on Mr Trump follows a week in which Michael Cohen, his longtime lawyer and fixer, called the US president a “racist”, “cheat” and “conman”, publicly accusing him of seeking business deals in Russia during the 2016 election. 

The president tweeted: “After more than two years of Presidential Harassment, the only things that have been proven is that Democrats and other broke the law.”

“I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start — And only because I won the Election!”

Assessment 

Our assessment is that the decision of the House Democrats to investigate President Trump just a few weeks before Special Prosecutor Mueller’s report is made public was a strategic move to corner the President on both fronts. We believe that if the Democrats can get enough votes in the Senate, before or after the Mueller report is released, the impeachment of Donald Trump is a plausible outcome. 

Image Courtesy: Martin Falbisoner creator QS:P170,Q30147473 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Capitol_at_Dusk_2.jpg), „Capitol at Dusk 2“, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode