The House Judiciary Committee is set to take up the next phase of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
The committee has scheduled the next hearing for December 4. Democrats told The Daily Beast that the plan is to keep the proceedings as “dull as possible.”
Unlike past hearings, the first hearing will not include a fact witness but rather a panel of legal experts to explain “the application of the constitutional framework of high crimes and misdemeanors,” The Daily Beast reported.
A Democratic aide said that the witnesses will be “some of the most extremely eminent legal authorities, who will talk about the nature of impeachment, high crimes and misdemeanors, and applying that constitutional law to the facts and the evidence that exist.”
Dems expect to keep it short:
The next phase is expected to be “brief,” according to the report.
“There’s an understanding that leadership would like for the process to go as quickly as possible through that committee,” a House Democratic aide said, “because it is crazy.”
Articles of impeachment are expected to reach the House floor by the end of the year.
Democrats have already stated that they do not plan to fight in court over subpoenas blocked by the Trump administration.
“It’ll take entirely too long,” said a Democratic aide, “and risk the political support Democrats have.”
Nadler invites Trump:
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler invited Trump and his lawyers to “participate” in the upcoming hearings.
"I am hopeful that you and your counsel will opt to participate in the Committee's hearing, consistent with the rules of decorum and with the solemn nature before us," he said in a letter to the president.
"Our first task is to explore the framework put in place to respond to serious allegations of impeachable misconduct like those against President Trump," Nadler said, adding that Trump "has a choice to make: he can take this opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process. I hope that he chooses to participate in the inquiry, directly or through counsel, as other Presidents have done before him."
