Let me start this post with a thank-you note to all those resisters to the republican President Donald Trump’s authoritarian governing style, from the left to the right who have been actively pushing for the House to start an impeachment investigation against President Trump, by campaigning for this step via social media websites including Twitter; making phone calls, sending letters, emails and faxes to US congressional members on a regular basis.

It’s up to all of us resisters to continue to be unified in the one goal of making sure that President Trump does not win reelection in 2020. We want him and his sycophant GOP lawmakers to lose by super huge margins. I, for one plan to join up with an existing campaign to register new voters.

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It’s happened. I’m betting that the republican President Donald Trump’s victory dance after the former FBI’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified on 7/24/2019 before 2 House oversight committees about his findings as per his 3/22/2019 final report regarding the FBI’s 22 months long Trump-Russia probe, followed by the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s move to not allow 2 elections’ security bills to be voted on by Senate members, helped the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to finally be moved to where she gave her stamp of approval for the House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler to commence an impeachment investigation. Enough is enough.

With the House taking on the mantel of a judicial function vs, its typical role of a legislative body, its power via the US court’s systems to collect evidence and to compel the testimony of key witnesses, is at its zenith, where the courts are bound to be more expeditious, accommodating regarding requests made by House oversight committees.

See: Read the Judiciary Committee’s application.

Here’s the rest of the story…

On July 26, 2019, Nicholas Fandos and Charlie Savage of the New York Times penned the following report, “Impeachment Investigation Is Underway, Judiciary Committee Says” (“In a court filing, House Democrats said they need access to secret grand jury evidence because they are weighing whether to recommend impeaching President Trump.”)

Excerpts:

“The House Judiciary Committee on Friday (7/26/2019) asked a federal judge to unseal grand jury secrets related to Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, using the court filing to declare that lawmakers have already in effect launched an impeachment investigation of President Trump.”

“In a legal maneuver that carries significant political overtones, the committee told a judge that it needs access to the grand jury evidence collected by Mr. Mueller as special counsel — such as witness testimony — because it is “investigating whether to recommend articles of impeachment” against the president.”

“Because Department of Justice policies will not allow prosecution of a sitting president, the United States House of Representatives is the only institution of the federal government that can now hold President Trump accountable for these actions,” the filing told the judge, Beryl A. Howell, who supervised Mr. Mueller’s grand jury.”

“Referring to the part of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to impeach and remove a president, the filing continued: “To do so, the House must have access to all the relevant facts and consider whether to exercise all its full Article I powers, including a constitutional power of the utmost gravity — approval of articles of impeachment.”

“With the filing, the committee’s chairman, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, was attempting to sidestep the debate raging inside the Democratic Party over whether the full House should hold a vote to formally declare that it is opening an impeachment inquiry. In effect, he declared, that inquiry has already begun.”

“Too much has been made of the phrase ‘an impeachment inquiry,’” Mr. Nadler said at a news conference. “We’re doing what our court filing says we are doing, what I said we are doing, and that is we are using our full Article I powers to investigate the conduct of the president and to consider what remedies there are. Among other things we will consider, obviously, is whether to recommend articles of impeachment.”

“Other members of the committee were more forward.”

“We’re now crossing a threshold with this filing, and we are now officially entering into an examination of whether or not to recommend articles of impeachment,” Representative Veronica Escobar, Democrat of Texas, declared.”

“Democrats hope that Judge Howell will agree that their request for the grand jury material falls into the same legal category as a Nixon-era precedent under which the committee gained access to Watergate evidence. But there is a difference that could matter: In 1974, the full House had voted to declare an impeachment inquiry opened.”

“The new filing comes two days after Mr. Mueller testified before Congress for the first time about the findings of his 22-month investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump. Republicans — and some Democrats — said Mr. Mueller’s lackluster appearance had all but ended the impeachment threat, and they were not convinced the committee’s actions on Friday had changed that.”

“Democrats want to convince their base they’re still wedded to impeachment even after this week’s hearing, but a baseless legal claim is an odd way to show that,” said Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. He predicted that the legal maneuver would fail.”

“But Democrats who control the panel called Mr. Mueller’s testimony an “inflection point” and are now seeking to add more evidence about what they believe to be serious wrongdoing by Mr. Trump.”

“Mr. Nadler said the committee would continue the investigation during the House’s six-week summer recess, calling additional witnesses and filing a lawsuit as soon as next week to force Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel, to testify unless he agrees to come voluntarily. Mr. McGahn’s account of presidential behavior sits at the center of Mr. Mueller’s report.”

“The 448-page document showed that the Trump campaign welcomed illegal assistance from the Russians in 2016 and expected to benefit from it, but investigators didn’t establish that Mr. Trump had conspired with them in the illegal hacking and dumping of Democratic emails.”

“It also explored several episodes in which Mr. Trump tried to impede the investigation. But the special counsel decided not to render judgment about whether Mr. Trump should be charged with obstruction of justice, citing a Justice Department view that sitting presidents are temporarily immune from indictment while they are in office.”

Link to entire report: nytimes.com/  Impeachment Investigation is Underway, Judiciary Committee Says…