I would like to recommend the hours between 3 p.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern time on April 3 as the News Cycle of the Year. In those eight hours, we learned that the institutions of the government have decided to open a second front. To wit:

1) House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal of the Commonwealth (God save it!) decided he needs to see the last six years of the president*'s tax returns. From The New York Times:

Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts, hand-delivered a two-page letter laying out the request to Charles P. Rettig, the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, ending months of speculation about when he would do so and almost certainly prompting a legal challenge from the Trump administration. Responding to questions from reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump suggested that he would fight the request because, he said, he was being audited. “I guess when you have a name, you are audited, but until such time as I’m not under audit I would not be inclined to do that,” he said.



If the president* meddles in this process, or attempts to make the IRS act unlawfully, that's an impeachable offense.



2) The House Judiciary Committee voted to subpoena the full report produced by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. From NPR:



The committee also authorized subpoenas for figures in the Trump orbit, including former White House counsel Don McGahn; McGahn's former chief of staff Ann Donaldson; former adviser Steve Bannon; former spokesperson Hope Hicks; and former chief of staff Reince Priebus. "We are dealing now, not with the president's private affairs, but with a sustained attack on the integrity of the republic by the president and his closest advisers," said Democratic Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York. "This committee requires the full report and the underlying materials because it is our job, not the attorney general's, to determine whether or not President Trump has abused his office."



If the president* defies these subpoenas, that's an impeachable offense.



3) The security clearance shenanigans continue to pile up. From the Washington Post:

Kushner was identified only as “Senior White House Official 1” in committee documents released this week describing the testimony of Tricia Newbold, a whistleblower in the White House’s personnel security office who said she and another career employee determined that Kushner had too many “significant disqualifying factors” to receive a clearance. Their decision was overruled by Carl Kline, the career official who then headed the office, according to Newbold’s interview with committee staff.

If the president* intervened on Kushner's behalf for reasons of his own, or Kushner's, pecuniary benefit, that's an impeachable offense.

Trump speaks at the inaugural meeting of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council. Chip Somodevilla Getty Images

4) Mueller's staff is clearly fed up with Attorney General William Barr and his four-page press release designed to okey-doke the public about the alleged "exoneration" of the president. First, from the NYT:

Mr. Barr has said he will move quickly to release the nearly 400-page report but needs time to scrub out confidential information. The special counsel’s investigators had already written multiple summaries of the report, and some team members believe that Mr. Barr should have included more of their material in the four-page letter he wrote on March 24 laying out their main conclusions, according to government officials familiar with the investigation. Mr. Barr only briefly cited the special counsel’s work in his letter.

And, from the Post:

But members of Mueller’s team have complained to close associates that the evidence they gathered on obstruction was alarming and significant. “It was much more acute than Barr suggested,” said one person, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the subject’s sensitivity. Some members of the office were particularly disappointed that Barr did not release summary information the special counsel team had prepared, according to two people familiar with their reactions...

Some members of Mueller’s team appear caught off guard by how thoroughly the president has used Barr’s letter to claim total victory, as the limited information about their work has been weaponized in the country’s highly polarized political environment, according to people familiar with their responses.

Don't know why anybody would get "caught off-guard" by this president*'s mendacity any more, but OK. And if the president* is working with Barr in any fashion to finagle this report, that's an impeachable offense.

And the hits kept on coming Thursday. From the Post:

The vote was 247 to 175, with one member simply voting “present,” and fell largely along party lines, reflecting how Democrats and Republicans remain divided over how to address Saudi Arabia’s efforts to challenge Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran. It illustrates, too, how lawmakers are split over addressing Trump’s embrace of Saudi leaders after the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a crime for which members of both parties believe Saudi crown price Mohammed bin Salman bears responsibility. The resolution passed in the Senate last month with the support of seven Republicans. Thursday’s vote in the House marks the first time both chambers of Congress have voted to invoke the war-powers resolution to end U.S. military engagement in a foreign conflict.

It's almost as though the system is daring the president* to abuse his powers so egregiously that Congress will have no choice but to begin the process of ending his presidency*. Political self-respect seems to be making a comeback.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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