How we got here: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the beginning of an official impeachment inquiry against President Trump on Sept. 24, 2019. Here’s what has happened since then.
What’s happening now: Lawmakers are conducting an inquiry, which could lead to impeachment. An impeachment would mean the U.S. House thinks the president is no longer fit to serve and should be removed from office. Here’s a guide to how impeachment works.
Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly says he told President Donald Trump during his final days on the job not to hire a “yes man” to succeed him, warning the president that he risked impeachment if he did so.
Kelly, in an interview with the Washington Examiner Saturday, seemed to pin responsibility for the most serious political crisis of Trump’s presidency on acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
“I said, whatever you do — and we were still in the process of trying to find someone to take my place — I said whatever you do, don’t hire a ‘yes man,’ someone who won’t tell you the truth — don’t do that. Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached,” Kelly told the Washington Examiner at the Sea Island Summit, a political conference hosted by the paper.
Kelly resigned as chief of staff in December 2018 after clashing with national security officials as well as First Lady Melania Trump. The retired Marine Corps general and former Homeland Security Secretary succeeded Reince Priebus, the former head of the Republican Party who spent less than a year in the position. Kelly sought to bring order to a chaotic administration, limiting access to Trump and disciplining staffers who sought to circumvent his authority.
Kelly expressed regrets about leaving, saying he believes that Trump would not be facing impeachment if he had stayed.
“That was almost 11 months ago, and I have an awful lot of, to say the least, second thoughts about leaving,” Kelly told the Washington Examiner. “It pains me to see what’s going on because I believe if I was still there or someone like me was there, he would not be kind of, all over the place.”
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump for allegedly abusing his power as president to solicit the help of a foreign country to influence the upcoming 2020 presidential election. The inquiry stems from a July phone call in which Trump pressed the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, one of the top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, and his son Hunter.
Mulvaney, who succeeded Kelly as chief of staff, was involved in putting a hold on almost $400 million in security assistance to Ukraine before Trump’s July call, which has raised concern that the White House was trying to leverage Kyiv into investigating the Bidens by offering a quid pro quo.
In a press conference last week Mulvaney added fuel to the fire when he said the money was put on hold in connection with “an ongoing investigation into the 2016 election” and the unsubstantiated theory that a hacked Democratic National Committee server is in Ukraine. The implication is that Kyiv might somehow be involved in the hack. The intelligence community and Robert Mueller’s investigation concluded that Russia hacked the server as part of its campaign to bolster Trump’s bid for the White House in 2016.
“Get over it — there’s going to be political influence in foreign policy,” Mulvaney said during the press conference. The acting chief of staff later tried to walk back his remarks, flatly denying that there was a quid pro quo.
Kelly said the president needs someone to set boundaries.
“Someone has got to be a guide that tells you [the president] that you either have the authority or you don’t, or Mr. President, don’t do it,” Kelly told the Washington Examiner. “But don’t hire someone that will just nod and say, ‘That’s a great idea Mr. President.’ Because you will be impeached.”
The White House has denied Kelly’s account of events.
“John Kelly never said that, he never said anything like that. If he would have said that I would have thrown him out of the office. He just wants to come back into the action like everybody else does,” Trump said in a statement.
“I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President,” said White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham.
By Saturday morning, an estimated 20,000-30,000 had been able to return to their homes, Lester said. Areas within the fire’s perimeter remained under evacuation orders, and over 1,300 firefighters remained on the scene. Two evacuation centers for fleeing residents had been established at nearby schools, as well as a separate location for animals.
President Trump insists there was no quid pro quo with Ukraine — but the phrase was not always synonymous with a shakedown.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
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Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump insists there was no quid pro quo with Ukraine — but the phrase was not always synonymous with a shakedown.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
A bit of Latin has been on the lips of many lately: quid pro quo.
The phrase has been broadly invoked in the House impeachment inquiry into President Trump and his interactions with the leader of Ukraine.
Trump and many of his allies deny there was a quid pro quo — they say that Trump did not withhold military aid to Ukraine as part of an exchange for investigations that could help Trump politically in the 2020 campaign. (Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted that link in a press briefing last week but then later walked back his comments.)
U.S. diplomat William Taylor’s recent testimony to congressional investigators supports allegations that Trump withheld military assistance as part of a parallel — and informal — Ukraine policy.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said that proving quid pro quo is not a requirement for impeachment, but the phrase has stuck.
“In Latin it just simply means something for something,” says Ben Zimmer, language columnist for The Wall Street Journal. But, he notes, “I think that the political situation can’t help but inform the way that we’re going to understand this particular phrase, even though it’s been in the language for oh, about 500 years.”
An exchange — not necessarily an equal one
Zimmer says the first recorded use of the phrase quid pro quo in English meant something totally different.
“In the 16th century, very often if you’ve got a drug from an apothecary, what you would be getting might not be exactly what you asked for,” he says.
L’Etude du Procureur, The Lawyers Office, Plate III from the series The Trades, ca 1632-1633, etching by Abraham Bosse, France, 17th century.
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L’Etude du Procureur, The Lawyers Office, Plate III from the series The Trades, ca 1632-1633, etching by Abraham Bosse, France, 17th century.
De Agostini Picture Library/De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images
Instead of the quid you asked for, you got the quo. It sounds harmless enough, but Zimmer says it could lead to problems.
“Very often the drugs that were swapped out would lead to someone getting something that didn’t work as well or could even be harmful. And so, this was a practice that people were scared of,” he says.
That’s where the idea of an exchange started. Fast-forward another century, and lawyers start using quid pro quo a lot.
“Lawyers love using Latin, and that was true way back in the 16th and 17th century, when quid pro quo started getting picked up to refer to an exchange of one thing for another — and again, that in a legalistic context could be very neutral. It’s simply one thing for another,” he says.
“But this more negative connotation has always carried through — that there is perhaps some sort of corrupt intents on at least one side of this mutual relationship, perhaps the motives are not so pure.”
What about a favor?
If a quid pro quo by definition is something for something else, then what about the word “favor”? In his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, President Trump asked him for a “favor.” Trump insists there was no pressure.
Webster’s defines “favor” as a “gracious kindness.” There’s no mention of expecting something in return. But that is not always how it plays out in real life.
“There’s a quid pro quo built into every relationship — every conversation. We talk in a certain way because we expect some response,” says Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University. “I want you to like me, and so then you might be friends. Or we are friends, I want to stay friends.”
People don’t usually attach strings to the favors they do for family, Tannen says. But the further people get outside that circle, the more complicated the favor becomes, even between peers. At times, people may not even realize their own expectations for reciprocity.
It gets infinitely messier when there’s a power dynamic at play. It’s natural, Zimmer says, “when we are in this type of transactional relationship to think, ‘Am I really getting the something of equal value here or am I being taken advantage of?’ “
Tannen adds that how the trade-off is articulated — or how it is not — is key. “That’s what I think we’re dealing with often in public situations where people are caught on tape, say, making what we all know is a demand but not in so many words, so they can say, ‘Oh no, that’s not what I meant.’ ”
There is inherent drama in the quid pro quo. It’s about relationships, it’s about trust and power, spoken and unspoken expectations. The idea is everywhere in popular culture, and now, because of the Ukraine scandal, quid pro quo is everywhere in our politics.
Zimmer says gone are the days when it could be descriptive, or morally neutral.
“Now it’s more like a shakedown. It’s more like: You have to do this for me or else.”
Marc Rivers and Steve Tripoli produced and edited this story for broadcast. Heidi Glenn adapted it for the Web.
It wasn’t clear if the unspecified matter would derail hopes of reopening classrooms Monday. But while talks did continue, the chances of landing a tentative deal on Saturday to end the walkout, which has lasted 10 days, including seven school days, appeared to be waning.
The bishops are backing the proposal from Pope Francis, as well as pushing to allow women to be ordained as deacons.
Pope Francis, rounding out his synod of Amazonian clergy, announced Saturday that he would be reopening a commission to study the history of women as deacons in the early days of the Catholic Church.
After calls by women for greater decision-making roles in the Church, the pope made the announcement at the end of his three-week assembly discussing issues facing the Amazon region, solutions to a shortage of priests, environmental protection and the role of women.
Francis originally opened a commission to study the possibility of women in the role in 2016, but the commission ended its work without a consensus on the topic. A gathering of 181 bishops voted on 120 recommendations presented to the pope. The recommendation to re-examine female deacons passed the two-thirds vote threshold, 137 in favor and 30 opposed, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Pope Francis waves during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2019. (Fabio Frustcai/ANSA via AP)
Deacons are ordained ministers of the church and can fulfill some, but not all, of the roles a priest may fill. In today’s church, they must be men, but unlike priests, they are allowed to marry. Deacons do not celebrate Mass, but they can give the homily, teach in the name of the Church, baptize and conduct weddings, wakes and funeral services.
“We still have not grasped the significance of women in the Church. Their role must go well beyond questions of function,” Francis said, according to Reuters. Francis, however, has said the “door is closed” to the question of women in the role of the priesthood.
Conservatives have argued against the potential of women in the diaconate, saying it is too closely linked to the priesthood which is explicitly reserved for men. The history of women in the role has been debated by scholars. Some say female deacons only ministered to other women, and some say women were fully ordained to perform rites the way male deacons did
In this photo taken on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019, members of Amazon indigenous populations prepare for a a Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession from St. Angelo Castle to the Vatican. In foreground is a wooden statue portraying a naked pregnant woman. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
A gathering of bishops Saturday also recommended that Francos loosen the celibacy requirement for priests in South America’s Amazon region to address the severe priest shortage. The Roman Catholic Church ordaining married men to the priesthood would break a precedent over 1,000 years old. Of the assembly, 128 members voted in favor of this measure and 41 were opposed.
On Friday at the synod, Francis asked Amazonian bishops and local tribal leaders for forgiveness after indigenous statues were stolen from a Vatican-area church and thrown into a river. The pope insisted the wood-carved statues of naked pregnant women, known as Pachamama, were not a symbol of idolatry as conservatives had claimed, but rather were symbols of life, fertility and Mother Earth.
The Trump administration has attempted to block a key witness from testifying in the impeachment inquiry by claiming “constitutional immunity.” And that witness — former deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman — has asked a judge to rule whether his testimony can proceed as planned.
Kupperman made the request in a lawsuit filed Friday; he was set to testify before lawmakers on Monday, after being subpoenaed. The House Democrats leading the impeachment inquiry have been calling key witnesses related to President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine at at a rapid clip, and the Trump administration has tried — and largely failed — to derail these testimonies.
The administration had not previously invoked constitutional immunity, and the decision in Kupperman’s lawsuit could be precedent-setting at a moment in which officials are increasingly caught between directives from the executive and legislative branches that at are, as Kupperman’s lawyer said in a statement, “competing and irreconcilable.”
“Plaintiff obviously cannot satisfy the competing demands of both the legislative and executive branches, and he is aware of no controlling judicial authority definitively establishing which branch’s command should prevail,” the suit reads.
The White House has said it will not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. Kupperman has said White House lawyers told him not to comply with the subpoena. Thus far, these executive branch efforts to slow the pace of investigation have been unsuccessful; one session was postponed after the US ambassador to the EU hesitated to come before Congress under pressure from the president. That ambassador eventually testified; other officials have ignored the White House’s wishes.
Kupperman’s suit could bring new clarity to the question of what government officials should do when given competing instructions from Congress and the White House. Should the judge rule Kupperman is protected by constitutional immunity, the Trump administration would have a powerful new way to shield officials from congressional subpoenas; however, should the opposite ruling be handed down, lawmakers could become more forceful in compelling testimony and could have more supporting evidence for the argument Trump is trying to obstruct Congress.
The claim of constitutional immunity itself goes a step beyond that of “executive privilege,” a concept Trump has used in previous attempts to bar some high-ranking officials from giving testimony. Executive privilege can excuse people from discussing specific occurrences within the White House. But constitutional immunity can excuse those same people from having to testify at all.
The lawsuit comes at a critical time for the impeachment inquiry. Many witnesses have already appeared before Congress, and have painted a fuller picture of Trump’s desire to have Ukraine investigate the family of former Vice President Joe Biden. But in the days to come, lawmakers hope to interview a number of officials who they believe can provide even more information. Trump, on the other hand, could use a win following a Friday decision in Washington, DC district court that rejected the Republican argument that the impeachment inquiry is invalid because the House has yet to issue a formal resolution about it.
Not only was the inquiry ruled valid, but Judge Beryl Howell ordered the administration to provide the House Judiciary Committee material from the Mueller report investigation that had previously been kept secret.
Despite the White House’s efforts, witness testimonies continue
Despite the White House’s attempts to stop its employees from participating in the inquiry, depositions continue apace. Proceedings were briefly postponed this week to mark the passing of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who had been chair of the House Oversight Committee. They resumed on Saturday with Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, who will testify behind closed doors.
Next week, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, director for European affairs at the National Security Council, and Kathryn Wheelbarger, acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, are both expected to appear.
And Tim Morrison, senior director for Europe and Russia at the National Security Council, is scheduled to discuss who may have been listening in on the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that led to the whistleblower complaint that led to the impeachment inquiry.
Morrison was referred to several times during explosive testimony last week by Bill Taylor, the acting US ambassador to Ukraine, who suggested that Trump attempted to engage in a quid pro quo exchange of military aid for a foreign investigation into the affairs of the Biden family.
As Vox’s Alex Ward wrote, it was the most damning account to date on whether Trump attempted to withhold $391 million in military aid to Ukraine for his own political and personal gain:
The ambassador reportedlysaid that Trump made the aid contingent on the new Ukrainian government publicly announcing it would reopen an anti-corruption probe into Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that Hunter Biden, Joe’s son, once sat on the board of.
Taylor said Trump also wanted Kyiv to investigate a long-debunked 2016 election conspiracy theory: that a Democratic National Committee server was whisked away to Ukraine to hide the fact that the country interfered in that vote, not Russia.
It’s not out of the ordinary for the US to dangle incentives to get what it wants from another country. The problem, as Taylor’s testimony makes clear, is that Trump used his power to get Ukraine to help his reelection efforts by hurting his political rival.
The procession of testimonies from a range of current and former officials could soon include John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. Bolton was relieved of his duties last month. Now a private citizen, Bolton would not be constrained by the White House’s efforts to limit witness testimony unless the constitutional immunity the administration claimed over Kupperman — also a former official — is found to be valid.
And as Vox’s Andrew Prokop wrote this week, “Given his high-level White House access, his unimpeachable Republican credentials, and his falling-out with Trump, Bolton’s testimony could be explosive.”
Pacific Gas & Electric has raised its estimate of the number of people in Northern California who will have to go without electricity Saturday night in the hope of preventing high winds from downing live power lines and sparking fires.
PG&E plans to preemptively cut-off power to some 940,000 customers in 36 counties, officials tweeted Saturday morning. That’s up 90,000 from the company’s previous estimate.
Power will stop flowing to some customers as early as 2 p.m., with hot, dry, windy conditions expected to effect service throughout the weekend, officials said.
Saturday’s announcement comes after the Kincade fire in Sonoma County grew overnight to 25,000 acres while firefighters struggled to get more control over the blaze before strong winds kicked up Saturday afternoon. Officials also expanded the evacuation zone in that county to include 50,000 more residents.
PG&E, which has 5.4 million electric customers and provides power to 16 million Californians, said earlier it was prepared to shut off power to more than 2 million people in the region over the weekend amid forecasts for one of the worst periods of fire weather.
“This system will likely be the strongest event of the year from a wind perspective,” the utility said on its website. “Federal forecast agencies are in alignment that this will be a high-risk weather event.”
In a mandatory report sent to the California Public Utilities Commission, the company said one of its workers noticed that the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection had taped off the area. PG&E said Cal Fire also pointed out a “broken jumper on the same tower.”
PG&E had been shutting off power to residents to avoid fires sparked by electric lines.
Downed power lines have been linked to disastrous, deadly wild fires in California in recent years.
Investigators blamed a downed PG&E line for the Camp fire last November, which burned more than 153,000 acres, destroyed 19,000 buildings and killed 85 people in and around the town of Paradise.
Meanwhile, local police agencies and governments in the East Bay began sending strings of texts warning residents early Saturday when they would lose power. Each warning gave a different time. By Saturday, residents had been told their power would be out by 10 p.m. Saturday, then 8 p.m, 7 p.m. and finally 5 p.m. The times changed with each update in wind forecasts.
Moraga Hardware & Lumber told a local television station that it had been expecting to receive a new shipment of lanterns and batteries Saturday morning. The news spread on online neighborhood forums. Before 8 a.m., lines had formed at the store. Customers gladly paid $53.51 for a small battery-operated lantern and an 8 pack of “D” batteries.
The planned shutdown sparked plenty of grumbling about PG&E, but it was tempered by the knowledge that residents in Sonoma County and in Santa Clarita to the south were losing their homes, not just their electricity.
Acting US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Phil Reeker has arrived at the U.S. Capitol. Reeker is meeting behind closed doors to testify before the House committees on Saturday as part of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. (Oct. 26) AP, AP
After Harris initially dropped out, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a leading voice on criminal justice reform in the Senate, tweeted, “I saw what happened today. And I, for one, will be there tomorrow. I have some things I think they need to hear from me — directly.”
Trump had slammed the California Democrat as a “badly failing presidential candidate” after she said she would not attend the event, adding that he’s done “more than Kamala will EVER be able to do for African Americans!”
“My whole life I’ve fought for justice and for the people — something you’d know nothing about. The only part of criminal justice you can claim credit for is the ‘criminal’ part,” Harris hit back.
My whole life I’ve fought for justice and for the people — something you’d know nothing about. The only part of criminal justice you can claim credit for is the “criminal” part. https://t.co/ykIoNI3Y0D
The response comes a day after Trump was honored at Benedict for his efforts to pass the First Step Act last year, a bill that sought to revamp the criminal justice system. Harris was set to speak at the historically black college’s Second Step Presidential Justice Forum on Saturday, but withdrew from the event after the school named Trump the winner of the Bipartisan Justice Award.
“As the only candidate who attended an [historically black college or university], I know the importance that these spaces hold for young Black Americans,” Harris said in a statement Friday.
“Today, when it became clear Donald Trump would receive an award after decades of celebrating mass incarceration, pushing the death penalty for innocent Black Americans, rolling back police accountability measures and racist behavior that puts people’s lives at risk … I cannot in good faith be complicit in papering over his record.”
Trump has been accused of racism since his time as a real estate mogul when was accused of not renting property to black residents in the private sector and just this week faced bipartisan rebukes for likening the House’s impeachment investigation to a “lynching.”
Rather than participate in Benedict College’s event, Harris will host students from around Columbia, S.C., for a criminal justice roundtable.
The strong winds in the forecast will pose a high risk of sparks, which would lead to potentially rapidly spreading wildfires, Pacific Gas & Electric said in a statement Friday. Approximately 850,000 customers, comprising millions of people across Northern and Central California, could be without power through the weekend as PG&E stood ready to cut power to the regions most at risk from the blaze. As of Saturday morning, only about 850 customers in Sonoma County did not have power due to the fire, or because of precautionary shut-offs, PG&E spokeswoman Suzanne Hosn said.
The woman convicted of being a covert Russian agent returned to her homeland on Saturday, deported by the United States after serving a prison sentence. Maria Butina was released Friday from a low-security facility in Florida.
Butina is a gun rights activist who sought to infiltrate conservative U.S. political groups and promote Russia’s agenda around the time that Donald Trump rose to power. She had been in custody since her arrest in July 2018.
Convicted Russian agent Maria Butina, who was released from a Florida prison and then deported by U.S. immigration officials, meets with journalists upon the arrival at Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow, Russia on October 26, 2019.
TATYANA MAKEYEVA / REUTERS
Upon her arrival at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport after arriving on an Aeroflot flight from Miami, Butina was carrying a bouquet of flowers and rested her head on the shoulder of her father, Valery, who had come from their Siberian hometown of Barnaul to meet her.
“I am very, very, very happy to be back home. I am very grateful to everyone who supported me – all the Russian citizens who helped and wrote me letters and donated money for my defense,” she said.
“Russians never surrender,” Butina told reporters. In a subsequent interview with RT, Butina said: “What happened to me definitely shows that America is losing its justice system.”
The former American University graduate student pleaded guilty last December to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent for Russia. She admitted that she and a former Russian lawmaker worked to leverage contacts in the National Rifle Association to pursue back channels to American conservatives.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, who also met Butina at the airport, said the 30-year-old is a victim of entrenched anti-Russian attitudes.
“This is what, unfortunately, the previous U.S. administration started – trying to destroy the bilateral relationship,” Maria Zakharova said. Since the election of President Donald Trump, Russian officials have consistently blamed troubled relations on so-called “Russophobia” carried over from the administration of President Barack Obama.
“She really did no harm to anybody. She’s just a girl, she’s just a young woman. She tried to invest her youth, if you wish, her gift, her talent, into people-to-people contacts,” Zakharova said.
Butina’s case was highly criticized in Russia and the foreign ministry underlined the position by using her face as the avatar on its Facebook page. That was changed to the Russian double-eagle symbol after her return.
Butina violated U.S. law because she did not report her efforts to the Justice Department, which requires the registration of lobbyists and others in the U.S. who do the bidding of foreign governments. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison but received credit for time already served.
Her lawyers said Friday that she was not a spy and that the case had nothing to do with espionage or election interference. They cast the crime as more technical than substantive.
The Butina case captivated public attention in the U.S. because it unfolded around the same time as special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, even though the two probes were entirely separate.
It also led to scrutiny of the political dealings of the powerful NRA.
Hillary Clinton on Thursday said President Donald Trump, the man who beat her in the 2016 election, posed a “clear and present danger” to the future of the country. Clinton was speaking at an event in Washington, DC. (Sept. 27) AP, AP
In the 243-year history of the republic, just four U.S. presidents have faced impeachment inquiries. In a bizarre plot twist that reads like bad fiction, Clinton – a former first lady, senator, secretary of State and almost-president – is connected to three of them.
“You cannot make my life up. Really,” Clinton joked recently with television host Stephen Colbert about her strange ties to the impeachment cases against the 37th, 42nd and 45th presidents.
Clinton was still known as Hillary Rodham when, fresh out of Yale Law School, she was hired by the House Judiciary Committee to work on the impeachment case against Nixon during the Watergate scandal. The memo they produced is an official government document and is still relevant today in large part because it helps define what is considered an impeachable offense.
Two decades later, Clinton was America’s first lady, literally standing by her man, President Bill Clinton, in the White House Rose Garden, nodding her head in agreement as he decried “the poisonous venom of excessive partisanship” following his impeachment in 1998.
Two decades after that, Hillary Clinton would run for president herself and win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College – and the presidency – to Trump, who is now facing an impeachment inquiry amid accusations that he pressured a foreign power to investigate a political adversary, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Clinton’s office declined to comment for this article.
But Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri and the author of a book on presidential impeachment, described Clinton’s connection to impeachment proceedings against three presidents as “an odd coincidence” and “a testament to Hillary Clinton’s longevity as part of the national political life.”
“She’s a part of (the impeachment story),” Bowman said, “but that’s because she has been a part of the national story for so long.”
Before Watergate in the early 1970s – a scandal that would eventually end Nixon’s presidency – no American president had faced impeachment since Andrew Johnson a century earlier.
Amid Watergate, with impeachment no longer a constitutional relic but a real possibility, the House Judiciary Committee tapped Clinton and a bipartisan team of young staffers to research the history of impeachment and explore possible grounds for impeaching Nixon.
“The staff and members of the House understood that considering the impeachment of a president is a very big thing, and they wanted to make sure they understood the history and the law,” said Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor and expert on impeachment.
Clinton and others on the bipartisan team produced a 64-page memo detailing the origins of impeachment dating to the British Parliament more than 400 years ago and the constitutional grounds that would be needed to impeach an American president.
Among their conclusions: Criminal conduct is not needed to satisfy the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” one of the thresholds the U.S. Constitution spells out for impeachment of a public officeholder.
The 1974 memo “is a tremendous piece of work,” Bowman said. “I don’t know how much contribution Secretary Clinton had to that work, but given its length, I think it really covers the ground nicely. And I very much agree with almost all of its conclusions, particularly its conclusion about the kinds of things that are impeachable.”
The memo, an official government document, served as something akin to a road map for lawmakers as they embarked on the impeachment of Nixon. Over the course of four days in late July 1974, the House Judiciary Committee debated five articles of impeachment against Nixon and eventually approved three, accusing him of obstruction of justice, abuse of power and contempt of Congress.
A week later, Nixon resigned before the full House voted on the articles of impeachment.
The memo that Clinton and her colleagues wrote was largely forgotten until 1998, when Bill Clinton’s presidency was put in jeopardy by his extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
House Republicans dusted off and pored over the document as they began to contemplate articles of impeachment against the husband of an author of the memo.
“People paid a lot of attention to it – partly because it was substantive and partly because of the irony,” said Gerhardt, who himself cited the memo when he testified before a House committee contemplating Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
Then-Rep. Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican who was one of the most vocal proponents of impeaching Bill Clinton, even used the memo to taunt the president’s wife.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed addressed to “Dear Mrs. Clinton,” Barr wrote that when he first raised the notion of impeaching her husband, “little did I realize your scholarly work 23 years ago would provide clear historical and legal basis and precedent for my proposition.”
“I presume – but I must ask whether – you stand by your research and analysis today,” Barr wrote before concluding with a caustic zinger: “Thank you, Mrs. Clinton, for giving Congress a road map for beginning our inquiry.”
On Dec. 19, 1998, Bill Clinton became the second American president to be impeached when the House, voting mostly along party lines, approved two articles of impeachment accusing him of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice. The Senate acquitted him of both charges the following January.
Hillary Clinton would go on to be elected U.S. senator from New York, serve as secretary of State under Barack Obama and lose her own bid for the presidency to Trump, who is now the subject of an impeachment inquiry led by House Democrats.
And once again, Clinton figures into the impeachment discussions.
‘Break glass for emergency’ moment
Drawing on her own experience, Clinton has said in recent interviews that House Democrats had no choice but to open an impeachment inquiry against Trump following a whistleblower’s claims that Trump pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden and Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
Clinton “has incredible insight to the impeachment process both personally and professionally,” said author Amie Parnes, who has written a pair of books on Clinton’s two unsuccessful campaigns for president.
“She’s seen what goes into an (impeachment) inquiry and also on the flip side, in her husband’s case, how it can weigh on the president facing impeachment and, even in her case, how it impacts the president’s family,” Parnes said. “And I think that’s why you’ve seen her really wrestle with the implications of impeachment even against someone like her former opponent President Trump.”
A couple of months ago, Parnes said, Clinton talked about how impeachment shouldn’t be used for “trivial political” purposes.
“But I think, as with many Democrats, her views solidified with the whistleblower on the Ukraine call,” Parnes said. “I think for her this was a ‘break glass for emergency’ moment, even if some say she’s almost too close to it.”
Clinton’s impeachment memo has held up well over the years and could again serve as an important resource for lawmakers as they contemplate whether to file formal impeachment charges against Trump, Gerhardt said.
“I don’t think they are going to have to go back and reinvent the wheel,” he said. “This (memo) is sort of a good foundation, and my guess is the staffers have read it and it will be helpful to the current members.”
The prospect that Clinton’s memo could help bring down the man who dashed her own presidential ambitions is “the ultimate irony for Secretary Clinton,” Parnes said, “and in some ways, the ultimate vindication for her.”
“If she only knew then what she knows now.”
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Clinton, accompanied by, from left, son-in-law Marc Mezvinsky, daughter Chelsea Clinton, husband Bill Clinton, vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, gives her concession speech in New York on Nov. 9, 2016. Matt Rourke, AP
The outcome could also guide whether Bolton, who has not been subpoenaed, will face House investigators as part of the impeachment inquiry. Bolton and Kupperman, both represented by attorney Charles Cooper, are important witnesses for Democrats on Capitol Hill. Unlike some of the witnesses who have appeared in the inquiry so far, both have long records as Republican advisers — and both had access to private deliberations at the White House involving the president’s communications about Ukraine. Democrats on the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees have expressed keen interest in having both men testify.
Charles Kupperman, who served as President Trump’s deputy national security adviser, was subpoenaed by House Democrats on Monday to testify in their investigation into the president’s dealings with Ukraine. However, the White House declared Friday that Trump had invoked “constitutional immunity” to bar Kupperman from appearing on Capitol Hill.
“Plaintiff obviously cannot satisfy the competing demands of both the legislative and executive branches, and he is aware of no controlling judicial authority definitively establishing which branch’s command should prevail,” the suit to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia reads.
Constitutional immunity extends beyond the powers of executive privilege, which the White House has used to block testimony from several other current and former officials. While executive privilege frees a person from being forced to divulge any dealings with the White House to investigators, constitutional immunity means individuals cannot be forced to testify before Congress at all, and do not even have to appear at hearings.
“The president … has asserted that plaintiff, as a close personal adviser to the president, is immune from congressional process, and has instructed plaintiff not to appear and testify in response to the House’s subpoena,” the lawsuit reads.
Kupperman “is faced with irreconcilable commands by the legislative and executive branches of the government and, accordingly, seeks a declaratory judgment from this court as to whether he is lawfully obliged to comply with a subpoena issued by the House defendants demanding his testimony … or he is lawfully obliged to abide by the assertion of immunity from congressional process made by the president,” it continues.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing, calling a July call with Zelensky — in which he repeatedly pushed him to launch a probe into Biden — “perfect,” and denying that the halted military aid was tied to his request to investigate Biden.
However, William Taylor, who serves as the chargé d’affaires for Ukraine, testified Tuesday that he believed there was a quid pro quo.
“During our call on September 8, Ambassador Sondland tried to explain to me that President Trump is a businessman,” Taylor told congressional investigators during his nearly 10-hour appearance behind closed doors, referring to Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland. “When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before singing the check.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge on Friday ordered the Justice Department to give the House secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, handing a victory to Democrats as they gather evidence for the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.
In a ruling that also affirmed the legality of the impeachment inquiry itself, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ordered the department to turn over the materials by Oct. 30. A Justice Department spokeswoman said it was reviewing the decision. The administration can appeal.
The ruling in favor of the House Judiciary Committee comes as Democrats gather closed-door testimony from current and former government officials about the Trump administration’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden and the Democrats. The Mueller materials could reveal previously hidden details to lawmakers about Trump’s actions during the 2016 election and become part of the impeachment push.
The material covered by Howell’s order consists of redacted grand jury material mentioned in Mueller’s report. The Justice Department says the grand jury information is the only piece of the document that key lawmakers have not had access to.
Democrats believe the still-redacted information could shed new light on key episodes of the investigation, including discussions Trump is reported to have had with associates about the release of stolen emails during the campaign and conversations about a 2016 Trump Tower meeting at which Trump’s oldest son expected to receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
In a 75-page ruling accompanying the order, Howell slashed through many of the administration’s arguments for withholding materials from Congress, including that there was need for continued secrecy. The judge said the materials could inform lawmakers as they decide what witnesses to call for an impeachment inquiry and what additional lines of investigation should be pursued.
“The reality is that DOJ and the White House have been openly stonewalling the House’s efforts to get information by subpoena and by agreement, and the White House has flatly stated that the Administration will not cooperate with congressional requests for information,” Howell wrote.
While the Justice Department said it could not provide grand jury material under existing law, “DOJ is wrong,” she wrote. And though the White House and its Republican allies argued impeachment is illegitimate without a formal vote, she wrote: “A House resolution has never, in fact, been required.”
The judge also rejected the Justice Department’s argument that impeachment does not qualify as a “judicial proceeding.” That distinction matters because, though grand jury testimony is ordinarily secret, one exemption that allows it to be legally disclosed is in connection with a judicial proceeding.
“To the extent the House’s role in the impeachment context is to investigate misconduct by the President and ascertain whether that conduct amounts to an impeachable offense warranting removal from office, the House performs a function somewhat akin to a grand jury,” the judge wrote.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he was pleased by the ruling.
“The court’s thoughtful ruling recognizes that our impeachment inquiry fully comports with the Constitution and thoroughly rejects the spurious White House claims to the contrary,” Nadler said in a statement. “This grand jury information that the Administration has tried to block the House from seeing will be critical to our work.”
Justice Department lawyers argued against providing the materials at a hearing earlier this month. They pointed out that House Democrats already had significant evidence from Mueller’s investigation, including copies of summaries of FBI witness interviews. But the judge said that information is no substitute for the actual testimony.
“To insure most effectively against being misled, HJC must have access to all essential pieces of testimony by witnesses, including testimony given under oath to the grand jury,” Howell said, referring to the House Judiciary Committee.
“Additionally, for purposes of assessing and following up on the Mueller Report’s conclusions, the full Report is needed: the grand jury material may offer unique insights, insights not contained in the rest of the Report, congressional testimony” or FBI reports, she added.
Many of the key witnesses in the Trump orbit, including former White House counsel Don McGahn, submitted to voluntary interviews before Mueller’s team rather than appear before the grand jury, making it unclear how much significant new information tied to the president is contained in the grand jury transcripts.
The department also argued that the House panel could not show how the material would help in the committee’s investigations of Trump.
The Mueller report found insufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. It also examined multiple episodes in which Trump sought to thwart the investigation and pointedly determined that he could not be exonerated on obstruction of justice allegations.
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