The latest on the Trump impeachment inquiry

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not answer a question from KMUW Radio about whether he believed diplomat Bill Taylor was lying in his testimony when he described quid pro quo. 

“I’m not going to comment on things from the inquiry. I came to Kansas today to talk about an important project, a project where we’re growing human capital,” he said Thursday.

Pompeo also deflected when asked about the White House statement suggesting Taylor and other diplomats were “unelected radical bureaucrats.” He accused the reporter of being “fixated” on the probe. 

Democrats are discussing the scope and scale of potential articles of impeachment into President Trump, lawmakers and aides tell CNN.

The explosive testimony House lawmakers have obtained in their month-old impeachment inquiry is only one aspect of the impeachment work taking place, they say. The discussion about the parameters of the articles of impeachment — the crux of any vote to indict Trump — has also begun among members.

“People are beginning to think of what it would look like,” said Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and member of Democratic leadership. Cicilline made clear in an interview with CNN that the talks are preliminary, but both staff and members have discussed the broad shape of what the articles may look like. 

Lawmakers and aides told CNN that the work is in its early stages, and ultimately is contingent on the report filed by the committees conducting the investigation. The early work also stands to form the backbone of a complicated decision looming over House Democratic leaders — how broadly to go after the President.

Lawmakers and aides tell CNN that the focus — at the moment — is on the investigation itself with the House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees taking the lead in almost-daily interviews with witnesses they hope can shed light on why nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine was withheld and whether Trump used his office to garner political favors from the new government there. But for members not part of those investigations, there is plenty of speculation about how to approach the next phase of the process: drafting the formal Articles of Impeachment.

Keep reading here.

Lawmakers will hold more closed-door depositions next week as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

According to a source familiar, here is the latest deposition schedule:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not say whether he agreed with Rudy Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine in an interview with a Kansas radio station Thursday, according to a transcript released by the State Department.

“Do you support the work that Rudy Giuliani was doing in Ukraine?” Stephen Bisaha of KMUW Radio asked the top US diplomat in Wichita.

Pompeo did not answer, instead launching into a description of the State Department’s “singular mission on Ukraine” — to support newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s efforts to combat corruption and to help Ukraine combat Russian aggression.

“So was Mr. Giuliani’s efforts aligned, then, with the State Department?” the reporter pressed. 

Pompeo again did not answer.

CNN’s Athena Jones covers all the drama surrounding yesterday’s political stunt by Republicans in the latest episode of “The Daily DC: Impeachment Watch” podcast.

Jones also looks at whether the aggressive strategy will pay off or ostracize voters.

She is joined by Harry Enten, a senior writer and analyst for CNN Politics, and CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig. 

What happened yesterday: Roughly two-dozen House Republicans barged into a deposition and demanded they be allowed to see the closed-door proceedings where members of three committees planned to interview Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura Cooper as part of the impeachment probe into President Trump.

Listen to the podcast here. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham and other congressional Republicans have slammed House Democrats for conducting their impeachment inquiry with depositions behind closed doors, but Republicans also used closed-door depositions during their impeachment inquiry of former President Bill Clinton two decades ago.

Then-Rep. Lindsey Graham, at a November 1998 press conference one day after special prosecutor Ken Starr publicly testified before the House Judiciary Committee, praised the Judiciary panel’s plans to hold depositions before conducting public hearings. Graham was a key Republican on the Judiciary Committee and was one of the House impeachment managers during the Senate trial that followed.

Asked by a reporter in 1998 if he thought there would be hearings with “some of the principals,” Graham said: “The depositions, I think, will determine whether or not we go forward with hearings. I think it’s a very smart thing to do, to depose these people and find out what they’ve got to say and not drag this thing out unnecessarily. And it’s going to end by the end of the year.”

Why this matters: Graham’s comments could provide fodder for Democrats seeking to undercut Republican attacks that the impeachment inquiry should not be conducting depositions behind closed doors, but doing everything in public.

The closed-door depositions are just one of several lines of attack Republicans have leveled, as they’re also critical of Democrats for not voting to authorize the impeachment inquiry, the President’s counsel not being allowed to participate and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff’s handling of the investigation.

Following a lunch at the White House, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham says he’s not sure what will ultimately happen in the House-led impeachment investigation.

Graham said President Trump feels like “from the time he’s become President he’s been hounded about things he didn’t do.”

“He feels like it never ends and that when it comes to Donald Trump nobody really cares if he has a fair day in court but a handful of Republicans,” the South Carolina lawmaker said.

Graham and a group of GOP senators were invited for lunch at the White House today, and he said Trump, “was in a good mood.”

“He appreciated the lunch. He would like the process to be exposed for being basically unfair. He keeps telling us he did nothing wrong. He keeps telling me that the phone call was perfect. I’m saying, Mr. President, the phone call was okay with me, he feels like it never stops,” Graham said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a resolution today condemning the process of the House impeachment inquiry.

The resolution, co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, calls on the House to hold a vote to initiate the inquiry, so House Republicans can participate in proceedings and President Trump can call witnesses, Graham tweeted.

CNN’s Lauren Fox pressed Graham on whether he is confident that the Hill and the White House are on the same page when it comes to impeachment messaging and whether the Hill is leading the messaging strategy.

Graham responded, “I talked to chief of staff Mulvaney, I think they’re working on getting a messaging team together.”

One thing to note: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry last month.

Sen. Lindsey Graham called the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump “dangerous to the future of the presidency” during a press conference today on Capitol Hill.

Graham used a series of slides to compare the Trump impeachment inquiry to how the inquiry into President Clinton was conducted.

Graham called the Trump inquiry a “secret proceeding” and “a rogue action.”

Graham buttressed his claims with a series of tweets laying out the Graham-McConnell resolution which calls for the House to vote to initiate a formal impeachment inquiry.

Some context: Democrats plan on holding public hearings with some witnesses who have been deposed as part of their plan to provide some transparency to the inquiry.  

It is possible, sources say, that public hearings could begin in mid-November. It is also possible, they could slip until after Thanksgiving.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said today that acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged the White House needs help with impeachment messaging. 

Graham, who just returned from a meeting at the White House, was asked if he expressed concerns about their inability to message on impeachment. 

President Trump hosted several Republican senators at the White House today for lunch, a person familiar told CNN.

Here’s who was at the lunch:

The White House is urging all federal agencies to cancel their subscriptions to the New York Times and the Washington Post, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said today. 

This follows President Trump’s recent indication that the White House would “terminate” its existing subscriptions with the two newspapers, which have been the frequent target of the administration’s criticism through Trump’s candidacy and presidency.

They’re fake,” the President added. “You take a look at the New York Times and you take a look at the kind of reporting they do, it was all — it turned out to be all wrong.”

Grisham said in a statement that “not renewing subscriptions across all federal agencies will be a significant cost saving for taxpayers — hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Trump isn’t the first president to boycott a newspaper in the People’s House. President John F. Kennedy canceled White House subscriptions to the New York Herald Tribune over perceived bias.

The New York Times and the Washington Post declined to comment.

Here are the latest developments in the House impeachment inquiry into President Trump:

Bill Taylor, the top U.S. Diplomat to Ukraine, leaves Capitol Hill on October 22, 2019 in Washington, DC. Taylor testified to the house committees regarding the impeachment inquiry looking into President Donald Trumps relationship with Ukraine.

Republican sources claim diplomat Bill Taylor’s testimony was a game changer and is “reverberating” up on Capitol Hill.

And according to one GOP source, Taylor’s testimony “points to quid pro quo.”

More context: Taylor testified Tuesday that he had been told President Trump would withhold military aid to the country until it publicly declared investigations would be launched that could help his reelection chances — including into former Vice President Joe Biden, according to a copy of Taylor’s opening statement obtained by CNN.

Your questions, answered

Litigation takes time — perhaps more time than House Democrats realistically have. 

First, House Democrats would have to file suit in federal district court (the lowest, trial-level federal court). It likely would take months to get a ruling at this level. For example, the House Judiciary Committee filed suit to enforce a subpoena on former White House counsel Don McGahn in early August 2019 and the district court has not yet ruled, over two months later.  

After the district court rules, the losing side then has the right to appeal the case to the federal court of appeals. It likely would take at least a few months to complete briefing and argument and to receive a ruling, even if the process were expedited. Then, after the court of appeals rules, the losing party can seek review in the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court does not have to take any particular case, and in fact only takes a very small percentage of them. If the Supreme Court declines the case, it would take at least a few weeks to issue the declination; if the Supreme Court takes the case, it likely would take several months to brief and argue the case, and to receive a final ruling.

There is a mechanism through which House Democrats could seek to expedite the process by effectively skipping the middle layer of review (the court of appeals). Under a Supreme Court rule, a party can apply to bring a case direct from the district court to the Supreme Court “only upon a showing that the case is of such imperative public importance as to justify deviation from normal appellate practice and to require immediate determination in this Court.” The Supreme Court rarely grants such expedited review, but it did so in the famous 1974 US v. Richard Nixon case where the Court ordered the White House to comply with a subpoena from a special prosecutor and produce the incriminating White House tapes.

Your questions, answered

On the face of the Constitution, there is no way for a president or other federal official to appeal an impeachment and conviction. Article I of the Constitution gives the House “sole power of impeachment” and the Senate “sole power to try all impeachments,” and makes no mention of any right of appeal. In fact, the Constitution specifies only one role for the Judiciary Branch in the impeachment process: the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides over a Senate trial.  

Nonetheless, President Trump has suggested by tweet that he might contest an impeachment in the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court already has ruled that it has no role in reviewing impeachments. In a 1993 case Nixon v. United States, federal judge Walter Nixon appealed his impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate to the Supreme Court. The Court firmly rejected Nixon’s case, ruling that the Constitution commits impeachment and removal solely to Congress and that the Court plays no role in reviewing impeachment proceedings. 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brushed off a question about whether the impeachment inquiry had damaged his image and leadership at the State Department, suggesting it was “noise” and again accused Congress of unprofessional behavior.

Pompeo also said that the impeachment inquiry had not changed his consideration of a Senate run, saying he is still focused on his “mission set” at the State Department.

Pompeo refused to answer questions about whether he relayed Ukraine ambassador Bill Taylor’s concerns about the withholding of Ukraine military assistance to the President. Asked what he did with the cable Taylor testified he sent on Aug. 29, Pompeo said, “I’m not going to talk about [the] inquiry this morning.”

“So did you relay his concerns to the president?” Pompeo was asked.

“Look, I came here today to talk about workforce development. I came here today to talk about the great things that are going on here in Kansas,” he responded. “This inquiry will proceed. Congress will perform its oversight function, the State Department will continue to do all of the things that were required to do under the law and the Constitution.”

The US secretary of state, noting that they are “not allowed to have State Department officials in the hearing room,” claimed he gets “notes from people in Kansas all the time saying it’s not right, they think it’s unfair too.”

“I think the American people understand that. I hope that they’ll proceed in a way that is transparent and fair. And then the inquiry will wrap up,” he said.

Asked whether the State Department would comply with a Wednesday court order on turning over communications with Rudy Giuliani within 30 days, Pompeo claimed he hadn’t seen the ruling.

“I saw a headline. I haven’t seen the ruling. But I can assure the American people that their State Department always complies with everything we’re required to do under the law. There’s no reason to think we would do any different there,” he said.  

Several GOP senators dismissed Ukraine ambassador Bill Taylor’s testimony where he said that he had been told President Trump wanted to withhold Ukraine aid in exchange for Ukraine announcing investigations — with the No. 2 GOP senator, John Thune, walking back the concerns he raised yesterday. He said Taylor’s testimony is second-hand information.

Sen. John Kennedy, from Louisiana, said that he needed to see the cross-examination of Taylor so he wouldn’t take his comments at face value. 

Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas, said that the President is being denied due process and needed to hear the other part of Taylor’s testimony.

And others — like Sen. Tim Scott, from South Carolina, and Sen. Mike Lee, of Utah — refused to answer questions.

Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters today that he is offering a resolution, which Sen. Mitch McConnell is co-sponsoring, that would condemn the House’s impeachment inquiry process.

Graham said he is no longer planning to write a letter with 53 senators attacking the inquiry as he previously announced.

Graham says the resolution will urge the House to adopt the same procedures regarding impeachment that were available to President Clinton and Nixon allowing them to call witnesses and defend themselves. 

The Republican senator from South Carolina has scheduled a press conference to discuss the resolution at 3 p.m. ET.  

President Trump has just thanked House Republicans “for being tough, smart, and understanding in detail the greatest Witch Hunt in American History.”

Roughly two-dozen House Republicans on Wednesday stormed a closed-door deposition in secure House Intelligence Committee spaces to rail against the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry, a political stunt ratcheting up the GOP complaints about the process that delayed Wednesday’s scheduled deposition for five hours.

Here’s Trump’s tweet:

Democrats plan on holding public hearings with some witnesses who have been deposed as part of their plan to provide some transparency to the inquiry.  

It is possible, sources say, that public hearings could begin in mid-November. It is also possible, they could slip until after Thanksgiving.

Multiple House Democratic sources say the exact timeline is unknown because witnesses have provided more leads for them to track down and other witnesses have been difficult to schedule.

It’s also possible that former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, President Trump’s former top Russia adviser Fiona Hill, top US diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor and Gordon Sondland, the US Ambassador to the European Union, could be among the witnesses to testify in open session.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Sen. Lindsey Graham said to CNN’s Many Raju this morning that he rejects Ukraine ambassador Bill Taylor’s testimony that he had been told that the President had withheld military aid for Ukraine in exchange for publicly announcing investigations that could help him politically. 

Graham called it “hearsay” because Taylor only talked to Sondland about his conversation with President Trump.

Taylor’s testimony needs to be “tested,” Graham said

Here is Graham’s full exchange with CNN:

CNN: Hey Senator, are you okay with what has came out of the Bill Taylor testimony—that the President apparently had directed the military aid to be withheld in exchange for a public declaration investigations that could help politically?

GRAHAM: Did he talk to the President?

CNN: He talked to Ambassador Sondland who talked to the President.

GRAHAM: Oh, that’s hearsay.

CNN: You don’t think he’s trustworthy?

GRAHAM: No, here’s what I cant get over, if Rudy Giuliani has a 15-page statement saying he did nothing wrong wouldn’t you want to know more? Would you accept that statement? I’ve got nothing against Bill Taylor, it’s the process. You’re asking me do I believe something based on a statement that hasn’t been tested. I can not tell you how disgusted I am with this process. House failed to have an impeachment inquiry of over 100 vote. I think they’ve got 95 votes for a formal inquiry, so that was rejected. They’ve come up with a process in intel where you do things behind the closed doors. You give me 15 pages of testimony that has never been subject to cross examination and wont be to comment on it? Forget that.

CNN: Do you think he is a “Never Trumper” like President Trump said?

GRAHAM: I have no idea.

Democrats are planning on holding public hearings with some witnesses who have been deposed as part of their plan to provide some transparency to the inquiry.  

As CNN reported a few days ago, we are currently in the first phase of the impeachment inquiry: the closed-door depositions, which are taking longer than expected.

What happens next?

After these depositions, Democrats plan to hold public hearings with some of the witnesses they have interviewed. Then the committees will release a public report that could be used as a basis for articles of impeachment voted on by the House Judiciary Committee.

When will public hearings start?

It is possible, sources say, that public hearings could begin in mid-November. It is also possible, they could slip until after Thanksgiving. Multiple House Democratic sources say the exact timeline is unknown because witnesses have provided more leads for them to track down and other witnesses have been difficult to schedule. 

Who will testify?

It’s possible that Marie Yovanovitch, Fiona Hill, Bill Taylor and Gordon Sondland could be among the witnesses to testify in open session.

So far, Adam Schiff is not saying.

But, as CNN reported, it’s quite possible final votes on impeachment could slip to the end of the year.

President Donald Trump has been trying to avert impeachment, tweeting furiously to influence public opinion and predicting that any legal battle could go all the way up to the US Supreme Court.

But when it comes to the last word on an actual House impeachment and Senate trial, the justices have previously said it will not be theirs. Under the Constitution, the two chambers of Congress have the ultimate power to determine whether a President is removed from office.

Important disputes over Trump documents for various investigations, in Washington and New York, are certainly being heard by federal judges and likely to land before the nine justices. A paradigm of the Supreme Court impact on a president was United States v. Nixon, the 1974 case that forced President Richard Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes. He eventually resigned rather than face impeachment.

President Trump has predicted that any legal battle could go all the way up to the US Supreme Court.

But a different Nixon case stands for the proposition that an actual House of Representatives impeachment or Senate trial would not be settled by the justices.

In the 1993 case of Nixon v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled impeachment “nonjusticiable,” that is, a political question. Under the Constitution, Congress bears the responsibility and control for a presidential impeachment.

The determination involved not the former president but US District Court Judge Walter Nixon of Mississippi, who had been impeached and convicted in 1989. He subsequently challenged the Senate procedures used.

Today, as members of the US House continue hearing witnesses related to Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, that Supreme Court decision could become more salient. A new CNN poll found that half of Americans now say Trump should be impeached and removed from office.

For more on this story, click here.

A group of Republican lawmakers Wednesday morning stormed into the House room where Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura Cooper was scheduled to testify in the impeachment inquiry to protest the way Democrats are leading the impeachment process.

Here’s everything we know about the storming stunt:

President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense has come to this.

His Republican shock troops storm secure hearing rooms, he blasts Republican doubters as “human scum” and his aides slam diplomats who testify about his alleged abuses of power as “radical bureaucrats” at war with the Constitution.

Yet neither Trump nor his White House has come up with a strong counterargument to the potential smoking-gun testimony of the US top diplomat in Ukraine, which is still reverberating through Washington.

 Donald Trump speaks in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday night.

A day of inflammatory behavior by the President and his allies on Wednesday actually hinted at the depth of Trump’s troubles on Capitol Hill and in courtrooms beyond instead of its apparent purpose in distracting from it.

In a remarkable moment Wednesday morning, around two dozen Republican lawmakers stormed a secure hearing room that was due to hear a deposition by a senior Pentagon official on the Ukraine scandal.

Top US diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor’s deposition on Tuesday added to a pile of damning testimony alleging that Trump used presidential power to pressure a foreign government to try to sway the 2020 election, which Republicans and the White House are struggling to refute with facts and arguments of their own.

And it led to a rare sign of concern in the Republican ranks on which Trump will rely to save him in any Senate impeachment trial – from senior GOP Sen. John Thune.

“The picture coming out of it, based on the reporting that we’ve seen, I would say is not a good one,” said the South Dakotan, though like many of his colleagues he faulted the so-far closed Democratic investigative process.

The President did what he often does when an unappealing political reality threatens: He simply invented a more advantageous one, launching misleading attacks on the conduct of the inquiry and picking new fights.

“The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum!” he tweeted.

Read more of Stephen Collinson’s analysis here.