The White House yesterday rejected Jerry Nadler’s invitation to his so-called Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearing this week where he apparently intends to have lawyers there commenting on the constitutionality of impeachment or something:
DC EXAMINER – White House Counsel Pat Cipollone derided the “baseless and highly partisan” Democratic impeachment investigation in a five-page letter Sunday evening, claiming the Democrat-led effort “violates all past historical precedent, basic due process rights, and fundamental fairness.”
The Trump lawyer zeroed in on Nadler’s upcoming hearing, which is set to focus on the “historical and constitutional basis of impeachment” but remains largely shrouded in mystery. Cipollone claimed Nadler “no doubt purposely” scheduled this hearing when President Trump would be overseas at the NATO Leaders Meeting in London.
“We understand from rumors and press reports (though not from any notice provided in your letter or in the official notice of the hearing) that the hearing will consist of an academic discussion by law professors. We understand this to mean that your initial hearing will include no fact witnesses at all,” Cipollone wrote, adding, “We cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the President a fair process through additional hearings. More importantly, 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 argued that weeks of closed-door and public testimony conducted by Chairman Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee showed Trump had done nothing wrong, and that there was no reason for Nadler to continue the investigation in his committee.
“Despite the fundamental unfairness of those hearings, the facts that emerged even from Chairman Schiff’s carefully controlled and blatantly unfair process served only to further confirm that the President has done nothing wrong and that there is no basis for continuing your inquiry,” Cipollone wrote. “Inviting the Administration now to participate in an after-the-fact constitutional law seminar-with yet-to-be-named witnesses-only demonstrates further the countless procedural deficiencies that have infected this inquiry from its inception and shows the lack of seriousness with which you are undertaking these proceedings. An academic discussion cannot retroactively fix an irretrievably broken process.”
It’s a great point that Cipollone makes about Nadler scheduling his hearing while Trump is overseas at NATO. They no doubt seek to embarrass him as much as they can in front of the world.
I said last week that this Nadler hearing smelled a lot like Schiff’s unfair intel hearings on impeachment, as the House still hasn’t even voted on whether to pursue official impeachment. I think Democrats just want to keep up the momentum of bad headlines because they know Schiff didn’t win the argument and that people are turning on impeachment.
Trump tweeted a few minutes ago regarding Wednesday’s hearing:
The Do Nothing Democrats get 3 Constitutional lawyers for their Impeachment hoax (they will need them!), the Republicans get one. Oh, that sounds fair!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2019