In a “House of Cards”-worthy drama, a political one-two punch is set to roil the nation’s capital this week.
On Monday, a hotly anticipated watchdog report on the FBI investigation into President Trump’s 2016 campaign collides with a House Judiciary Committee hearing that will advance Democrats’ push to impeach him.
The panel will hear a presentation from a Democratic staff lawyer on the impeachment report written by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and the House Intelligence Committee’s majority.
Another staff attorney, an aide to Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), will explain a report outlining the Democrats’ take on their impeachment case’s constitutional basis.
That report, published Saturday in the wake of last week’s testimony from four legal scholars, echoes their claim that Trump has set himself up as a king.
“Impeachment is the Constitution’s final answer to a President who mistakes himself for a monarch,” the committee states.
The line follows the logic of professor Pamela Karlan of Stanford Law School, whose quip about Trump’s 13-year-old son — “while the president can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron” — set off furious backlash from the White House.
The committee report also gives House members license to base their impeachment vote on inferences about Trump’s intentions at the time of his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, rather than any hard evidence of misconduct.
“The question is … whether the President’s real reasons, the ones in his mind at the time, were legitimate,” it states.
But another report, this one coming from the Department of Justice, could steal the spotlight from the Democrats’ impeachment push.
The “historic” FISA report set for release Monday will detail “perhaps the biggest scandal in the history of our country,” Trump predicted in November.
The 500-plus-page tome from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz probes surveillance warrants that targeted Trump campaign aide Carter Page — granted under the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law meant to be used against terrorists and spies.
Horowitz’s conclusions should shed light on the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation and the Special Counsel probe, led by Robert Mueller, that hobbled Trump’s first two years in office.
Mueller found no evidence that Trump or any American colluded with Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election — and, after 12 months of FBI surveillance, Page was not charged with any crime.
If Horowitz finds that Obama Administration appointees broke rules meant to shield Americans from illicit government snooping, his findings could lead to criminal prosecutions for fired FBI chief James Comey, his former deputy Andrew McCabe, “FBI lovers” Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and others.
Horowitz has already sent at least two referrals to John Durham, a federal prosecutor who has opened a criminal probe into the FBI’s Trump investigation, according to reports.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the IG report,” Trump told reporters Saturday. “And I look forward very much to seeing what happens with the Durham report, maybe even more importantly. Because it’s a horrible thing that took place, and it should never happen to another president.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), the Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, has demanded a “minority day” hearing to present witnesses in Trump’s defense — asserting that such a session was promised under House impeachment rules adopted in September.
That could stymie Democrats’ plans to introduce articles of impeachment this week, as The Hill reported Thursday, and could endanger their self-imposed Christmas deadline for an impeachment vote.
House members have been ordered to remain in Washington until Dec. 20 before leaving for Congress’ holiday recess.
And Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, could set off another bombshell.
The former New York City mayor traveled to Ukraine to gather evidence in support of Trump’s request that Zelensky investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, Biden’s son Hunter and Ukraine’s role in the 2016 presidential election.
Giuliani “is going to make a report, I think to the attorney general and to Congress,” Trump said Saturday. “He has not told me what he found, but … I hear he has found plenty.”
