WASHINGTON (CN) — Attorneys representing both sides of the aisle will present evidence, but no witnesses, when the House Judiciary Committee holds its next hearing in the impeachment inquiry Monday.
News of the hearing arrived Thursday morning, a scant hour after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a surprise announcement of her own in which she directed chairmen of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees to get the article-drafting process underway.
According to the rules authorizing the inquiry passed in October, attorneys for both the Democratic and Republican parties will have a chance during the 9 a.m. hearing Monday to give written statements explaining the scope of evidence they wish to put forward for articles, as well as a “detailed presentation” of that evidence “other than the testimony of the witnesses.”
This point of order over witnesses is likely to be a subject of contention for Republican lawmakers. It could also give them a chance to obstruct proceedings on Monday.
During the House Judiciary Committee’s inaugural impeachment hearing on Wednesday — as legal scholars discussed the constitutional framework to impeach and potentially remove Trump based on his engagement with Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelensky — Representative Doug Collins, the Republican ranking member, voiced frustration over the GOP’s inability to call witnesses.
Just a few of the figures Republicans seek to question are House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and the whistleblower whose complaint about Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky triggered the underlying inquiry.
Monday’s hearing is not going to be a rehash of public testimony that unfolded in the House Intelligence Committee last month. Instead, the hearing is more like a discovery phase of a trial. This hearing will also give the House Judiciary Committee time to lay out how President Trump or his attorneys will be involved – if at all – going forward.
It is very unlikely Trump will participate in Monday’s hearing. The White House has until Friday to determine its role at this stage in the inquiry.
The three articles that are mostly likely to be drafted are abuse of power, obstruction of Congress and obstruction of Justice.
Democrats indicated during Wednesday’s hearing that these articles would be the foundation for impeachment, as they pored over Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, Biden’s son Hunter and Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy firm where Hunter once sat on the board.
Coupled with his leveraging of military aid to Ukraine and his refusal to cooperate with congressional requests and subpoenas for testimony and documents related to the assistance hold, the push by the president to have a foreign ally investigate his political opponent is expected to be neatly folded into the articles of impeachment when finally written.