Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are signaling they are done holding hearings.
While Chairman Jerry Nadler has not said so officially, that is the expectation among the members.
That means next steps likely are: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have to give approval to articles of impeachment that Nadler and his staff are drafting. What those articles look like are a closely guarded secret in the Capitol, and the exact timing is uncertain. Only a handful of people know.
When will the committee vote on the articles? Under the rules, Nadler has to give just 24 hours notice before the committee votes. That committee session — known as a markup — could take more than one day, according to committee sources.
At the moment, there are no special Democratic caucus meetings dedicated to talking about the articles. That could change. However there are plenty of opportunities for members to discuss next steps.
What happening tonight: Pelosi meets tonight with her leadership team and a larger group of members in the steering committee, as she does weekly.
The rest of the week: The Democrats’ weekly caucus meeting is at 9 a.m. ET tomorrow. Pelosi has invited the full caucus to a meeting on Wednesday at 9 a.m. ET, according to two sources. She has another meeting on Thursday at 9 a.m. ET with the whip team.
Today’s hearing is Democrats’ last chance before they consider articles of impeachment to make their case to the public that President Trump should be impeached.
So far, they have used the hearing to weave the hours of witness testimony to illustrate their narrative that the President abused his office.
Meanwhile, Republicans have charged that Democrats are rushing to impeach Trump in order to beat him in the 2020 election.
Today’s hearing is likely to be just the opening act of a week’s worth of major Judiciary Committee activity on impeachment, as Democrats are expected to bring forward articles of impeachment that will be debated and voted on in the committee later this week.
House GOP counsel Steve Castor was seen arriving for today’s hearing carrying materials in a grocery bag.
Many on the internet noticed Castor’s alternative briefcase — including the grocery store that makes the bag, The Fresh Market, a specialty retailer based in North Carolina.
The Fresh Market tweeted this afternoon “we are the official briefcase maker of Steve Castor.”
“You can fill your briefcase up with files or yummy food (our preference),” the tweet said.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, sought to discredit the House Democrats’ counsel, Daniel Goldman, by displaying an old tweet he had sent to President Trump.
Gaetz started his line of questioning by asking Goldman if he was partisan. Goldman said he was not.
The Florida Republican then asked Goldman if he has made political donations. Goldman said he thinks it’s important to support candidates for office, but he didn’t say how much he has given.
Gaetz eventually moved to the question regarding Goldman’s tweet. The congressman asked if Goldman had ever tweeted at the President.
Goldman responded, “I have made a number of tweets in my private capacity before I came to this job when I was working in the media, yes.”
Gaetz displayed Goldman’s 2018 tweet on a large white poster board, and asked if he regretted sending it. Goldman said he would let Gaetz decide if it was partisan or not.
Here’s the tweet:
Watch here:
After GOP members complained that the House dropped a tranche of 8,000 documents on the committee over the weekend, Rep. Eric Swalwell asked House Democrats’ counsel Daniel Goldman if he would “welcome” receiving thousands of documents from the White House in the impeachment inquiry.
‘It would be a wonderful problem to have,” Goldman said.
Swalwell followed up, asking Goldman: “How many have they given you?”
“Zero,” he said.
During the hearing, Rep. Louie Gohmert claimed that Democrats “toss(ed) treason out in a report, like it’s no big deal” saying that it was “so absurd.”
After Gohmert’s allotted time, Democratic council Daniel Goldman pushed back and argued that, “treason is not in our report.”
Facts First: Gohmert’s claim is misleading. While the Democrat report does not accuse the President of treason, it does mention it in certain contexts.
The word “treason” is mentioned four times in the Democratic report. Three of them are in reference to something the President said, and none of them include accusations against the President. The first mention of the word “treason” is in the definition of impeachable offenses: “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
The second and third are paraphrases of quotes by President Trump, when he suggested “the whistleblower and those who provided information to the whistleblower… could face the death penalty for treason.”
The final mention of the word “treason” is from an exact quote where Trump made the suggestion: “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right?”
Republican Rep. Ken Buck asked the GOP’s counsel Steve Castor if to his knowledge he knew if EU ambassador Gordon Sondland had any contact with Democrats on the committee before he amended the statements made during his closed-door deposition.
Castor said he had “no idea.”
However, Buck continued to speculate that this may have happened, and Democrats could have influenced Sondland’s testimony.
After Buck concluded, House Democrats’ counsel Daniel Goldman chimed in, saying, “I would like just to comment to Mr. Buck that the majority staff and no one had any contact with Ambassador Sondland after his deposition.”
Watch here:
Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, slammed the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, calling it a “kangaroo court.”
The Texas lawmaker criticized Democrats for allowing their counsel, Barry Berke, to question the witnesses after Berke had testified before the committee this morning.
“It’s not about due process, this is about a kangaroo system, and let me tell you, those that think you’ve done something special here, you have set the bar so low, I’m afraid it’s irreparable,” Gohmert said.
He also blasted the witness process, saying the committee has yet to hear from fact witnesses:
Reminder: Democratic lawmakers have issued subpoenas to several current and former White House officials, but most of them have skipped out on scheduled depositions. The Justice Department has said attempts by impeachment investigators to compel testimony from executive branch witnesses about President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine are “legally invalid” unless they allow for the witnesses to bring a government lawyer.
Asked if the articles of impeachment should include evidence from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, Rep. Karen Bass, a Democratic member on the House Judiciary Committee, said she believes the articles will detail his “pattern of behavior,” which could encompass his efforts to allegedly undercut the Mueller probe.
More on this: In an interview Sunday with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler would not commit to including the evidence of obstruction of justice outlined in Mueller’s report as part of the articles of impeachment.
Nadler said he was confident in Democrats’ “solid” case for impeachment, expressing optimism about the matter as the party moves closer to drafting articles. He thinks his party’s case “if presented to a jury would be a guilty verdict in about three minutes flat.”
Asked by Chairman Jerry Nadler to explain what happened with the phone records obtained by the House Intelligence Committee, House Democrats’ counsel Daniel Goldman described the process as ” a usual investigative practice.”
Goldman noted that they only obtained “metadata” that showed that calls or text messages had been exchanged and they hadn’t seen the contents of any of these exchanges.
Earlier in the hearing, Republican Rep. Doug Collins accused Goldman of playing a “matching game” with call records in reference to information the House intel report on the impeachment inquiry.
In the report, the House intel committee showed that communications had transpired between President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani’s now-indicted associate Lev Parnas, journalist John Solomon, and Republican Rep. Devin Nunes. Goldman said that the communications between this group happened around the time of key events that the committee was looking into in its investigation.
Asked by Nadler if everything you did was basically standard operating procedure for a well-run investigation, Goldman said, “Every investigation in 10 years I did, probably we got call records.”
Watch here:
Lawmakers are taking a 15-minute recess.
A motion by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee for a 30-minute recess just failed.
Republican lawmakers tried to get the break before committee members moved into their questions. Their demand for a break led to a roll call vote, which delayed the second half of the hearing.
The motion eventually failed.
Each member on the committee will now have 5 minutes to question the witnesses.
Watch moment here:
GOP counsel Steve Castor said that when it came to their report, the House Intelligence Committee relied “big time” on the testimony of EU ambassador Gordon Sondland. Castor said Sondland is referenced in the report more than 600 times.
On Sondland, Castor added, “He’s a bit of an enigma.”
Castor said Sondland was “pretty certain” in his initial deposition that the security assistance for Ukraine wasn’t linked to a quid pro quo. Sondland later amended his testimony and testified publicly that “it was no secret” that a quid pro quo came at “express direction of the President.”
Rep. Doug Collins called out House Democrats’ counsel Daniel Goldman after the attorney referenced $1 million donation by US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland to President Trump during his testimony — which Collins called a “very snide comment.”
Collins then claimed Goldman and Barry Berke, an attorney for the House Democrats questioning witnesses at today’s hearing, donate to the Democratic party.
Goldman shot back, “Are you trying to say that — what are you trying to say? What is the implication here? I didn’t give anything close to a million dollars remotely.”
At that point, Rep. Matt Gaetz, another Republican on the committee, jumped in, “the implication is we want Schiff in that chair, not you,” in reference to Rep. Adam Schiff who Republicans have lobbied to come testify before the judiciary committee.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler banged his gavel and cut Gaetz off, saying, “The gentleman has been warned before. He cannot simply yell out and disrupt the committee.”
Watch here:
Rep. Doug Collins, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, started the GOP’s 45-minutes of questions by blasting the Democrats and asking about the whereabouts of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.
Collins defended President Trump, saying he’s known Democrats have been after impeachment.
“There is nothing the Democrats have not been concerned about for two and a half years, since November 2016,” he said before launching into his questions.
Collins went on to ask, “Where’s Adam? Where’s Adam? It’s his report. Mr. [Daniel] Goldman, you’re a great attorney but you don’t wear a pen.”
More on this: Republican members of the committee have requested to hear testimony from Schiff. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler denied their request earlier today.
In a fiery exchange between House Democrats’ counsel Barry Berke during his witness questioning of the GOP’s counsel Steve Castor, the Democrats attorney keyed in on portions of testimony from Jennifer Williams, an aide for Vice President Mike Pence, that were omitted from the minority report that Castor helped write.
In the Republicans’ report released after Williams and others testified publicly several weeks ago, they wrote that, according to her testimony, Williams said she found the July 25 call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “unusual” but noted she didn’t report any concerns to her boss.
Berke asked Castor why they left out Williams’ testimony that Trump calling for an investigation into the Bidens “struck me as political in nature” since the former vice president is a “political opponent” of Trump.
“If you tell me that I did, yes or no, I can’t tell you as I’m sitting here right now,” Castor responded to the question about leaving the information out of the report.
Berke shot back: “I’m telling you that you did.”
“Okay,” Castor said.
Watch the moment:
Staff counsel for the Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee will each get 45 minutes to question the witnesses, Republican counsel Steve Castor and House Democrats’ counsel Daniel Goldman.
Republican members of the committee raised concerns that the Democrats’ counsel Barry Berke was asking questions on their behalf because he had testified earlier in the hearing.
House Republican Counsel Steve Castor closed out his sworn statement by talking about additional evidence not yet fully investigated that could be potentially important to the inquiry.
“There are additional phone records that have not yet been released, and our members remain concerned about the prospect of more phone records being released,” Castor said.
He said he believes there’s been “a lot of hyperbole, a lot of hysteria” about the impeachment inquiry over the past three months that “can be traced back to the anonymous whistleblower complaint.”
“I believe the whistleblower reframed a lot of the facts at issue and caused witnesses in the inquiry to recast their views,” Castor said. “And it’s unfortunate that we haven’t been able to interview the whistleblower.”
Watch:
Asked whether there should be separate articles drafted for the President’s obstruction of Congress during the Mueller probe, Rep. Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat who is on the Judiciary committee, told reporters there is an “ongoing pattern of this administration to obstruct the efforts to get to the truth.”
Deutch added: “I think that pattern of obstruction is something that has to be part of however we go forward.”
Deutch also said he believes the Republican’s counsel Steve Castor already made the case for obstruction by “effectively admitting” what the President did.
“Today, what was the defense we heard to the obstruction of Congress?” he said. “It’s not the President’s fault for absolutely refusing to cooperate in any way? It’s somehow Congress’s fault because we didn’t threaten contempt for every single person who refused to come?”
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