Today both Minority House Leader Kevin McCarthy and Representative Michael McCaul draw attention to Speaker Pelosi’s manipulation of House rules specifically intended to achieve articles of impeachment without Republican representation.

In a blatant display of committee manipulation, today the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Chairman Adam Schiff, worked around committee jurisdiction rules and took a deposition from Kurt Volker, the former State Department Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations.

Not only was the jurisdiction of the House Foreign Affairs Committee usurped, but Chairman Schiff also limited republican members to having only one staffer present during the testimony. [Read McCaul Letter Here] This blatant manipulation of House rules was made without Speaker Pelosi holding a House vote to initiate an impeachment inquiry.

The House Rules that Pelosi changed in 2018 were designed to exploit the Trump-Russia impeachment via obstruction goal. Those same changed rules are now being used in the Trump-Ukraine effort. The committees’ need to gather impeachment evidence without the pesky interference by House republicans. This was always the purpose for changing the rules.

A formal vote to initiate an “impeachment inquiry” is not technically required; however, there has always been a full house vote until now. The reason not to have a House vote is simple: if the formal process was followed the minority (republicans) would have enforceable rights within it.

Without a vote to initiate an impeachment inquiry, the articles of impeachment can be drawn up in committee without any participation by the minority; and without any input from the executive branch. This was always the plan visible in Pelosi’s House rules.

Thankfully key Republican leadership have now realized Pelosi’s decree of an “Official Impeachment Inquiry” is a feature, not a political flaw. They are beginning to push-back, at least call-out publicly, their lack of input around the rushed committee investigations.

House minority Leader Kevin McCarthy writes: “I have written to Speaker Pelosi to halt the impeachment inquiry until we can receive public answers to the following questions. Given the enormity of the question at hand—impeaching a duly elected president—the American public deserves fairness and transparency.”

Once the committees’ have assembled their evidence, assuming the public becomes aware of the partisan construct, Pelosi will likely initiate the full House vote to proceed with the assembly of articles of impeachment. However, the committees’ will have already done the investigative work without republican involvement, so the full House vote will essentially be a moot point.

You are detained and questioned extensively. You answer all the questions. At the conclusion of your inquisition you are read your rights. Your attorney shows up; questioning stops. A week later you are indicted and the material evidence against you is your statements. This is what Pelosi/Lawfare are constructing. It doesn’t matter that the trial judge will throw it out, what matters is the indictment.

This is why there is such a massive narrative push by Pelosi, committee leaders and their media allies right now… they need to assemble evidence while republicans remain locked out of the process and committee staff (hired Lawfare) construct the articles. The goal is impeachment. They achieve that goal via a majority House vote on any individual article.

The ‘Resistance‘ and ‘Deep State‘ facilitators (writ large) are all-in on this impeachment effort. Impeachment as an offense is their best defense to anything being investigated by U.S. Attorney John Durham, Attorney General Bill Barr and DOJ-IG Michael Horowitz. This entire group is also racing the clock.

The ‘whistle-blower’ complaint is only a vehicle; a president can be technically impeached by hearsay, innuendo and anonymous complaints – it is simply a House vote. However, a president cannot be removed (Senate) under that impeachment case construct.

The primary goal is only impeachment from the House.

Their secondary hope is that outcome assists the 2020 removal from office.

An official familiar with the testimony of State Dept. official Kurt Volker describes the testimony as a “setback” for Schiff’s impeachment efforts. So far, Volker’s testimony “does nothing to advance Chairman Schiff’s theory of the case,” the official says. — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 3, 2019

Hearing from two sources with knowledge of the Volker deposition that Schiff at one point took over questioning from his counsel. One source described that as "unusual" given that staff was supposed to lead, and indicates Dems are "nervous" about how it's going. — Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) October 3, 2019

Understand what the Speaker is saying here. It’s yet another example of the Democrats accidentally revealing their true intentions behind impeachment. This is a thinly veiled attempt to overturn the 2016 election—and prevent Trump from being re-elected in 2020. https://t.co/16AvbhZc4n — Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) October 3, 2019