Slick moves by Pelosi and Schiff’s Lawfare team. Today the contracted legal staff within House Intelligence Committee have produced a House “Impeachment Inquiry” resolution to be voted on tomorrow. The resolution (full pdf below) contains the rules constructed by Shiff’s Lawfare staff, for public HPSCI hearings.

The House impeachment resolution blocks President Trump’s lawyers from participating in the House process until the hand-off to the Judiciary Committee for article assembly.

Within the House resolution is a process to transfer the evidence from the three investigative committee chairs: Schiff, Engel and Maloney, to Jerry Nadler at Judiciary. [The process within Judicary will be assembling the ‘articles of impeachment’.]

What Pelosi/Schiff et al have assembled is a format for a highly controlled public spectacle prior to a predetermined transfer of evidence to Jerry Nadler (Judicary). With the intent to construct a pantomime for public absorption in mind, the rules are written for maximum narrative construction. [ex. Lawfare lawyers will question witnesses]

The rules within the resolution outline the guidance for at least one public hearing from the HPSCI prior to transfer to Judiciary. The Oversight Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee and Intelligence Committee are assembling publicly under the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) for that/those public hearing(s).

Key points from rules:

The Executive Branch will not be permitted to participate in the open HPSCI hearing.

President Trump lawyers will not be permitted to question witnesses in the open HPSCI hearing.

Ranking member of HPSCI (Nunes) may have subpoena power subject to pre-approval by Chairman Adam Schiff. Requests must be made in writing. Chair is not mandated to approve.

Ranking member of HPSCI (Nunes) may have ability to request witnesses subject to pre-approval by Chairman Adam Schiff. Requests must be made in writing. Chair is not mandated to approve.

Schiff (Chairman) and Nunes (Ranking member) will each have 90 minutes (aggregate) to question any witness brought before the committee. All other committee members will have 5 minutes each, per witness. [Remember this is a member assembly of 3 committees]

The Chairman can allow contracted legal staff (Lawfare) to question witnesses, as part of his 90-minutes of available questioning.

The Chair is authorized, though not required, to make depositions public.

Upon completion of the hearing(s), the HPSCI chairman shall write a **report to the Judiciary (Nadler) with instructions of findings. The chair may include dissent from the minority opinion therein.

[**Note: IMHO this report has already been written. That was the purpose for the basement hearings. All of this public testimony is for public consumption to support the premise of a constitutional impeachment proceedings. It’s a farce.]

The resolution then provides a process for the HPSCI report to transfer all of the assembled tri-committee material to the House Judiciary Committee where Jerry Nadler will take over.

The next part of the resolution is the House approving of the transfer process, and setting up rules for the Judiciary Committee phase. The Judiciary Committee (HJC) then shifts to official Impeachment Hearings, prior to articles of impeachment being assembled.

The HJC Ranking member (Doug Collins) shall have subpoena power subject to approval by the HJC Chair, Jerry Nadler.

The HJC ranking member shall have the ability to request witness testimony, subject to approval by the HJC Chair, Jerry Nadler.

The HJC will allow participation by President Trump’s counsel.

Within the rules, the existence of judicial enforcement authority -punishment for refusing to provide documents and witnesses by subpoena- is assumed. Based on the construction of this resolution, and with Judge Howell’s court decision still standing, this presumption by the House appears structurally solid.

Here’s the full pdf of the rules:

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“The resolution provides rules for the format of open hearings in the House Intelligence Committee, including staff-led questioning of witnesses, and it authorizes the public release of deposition transcripts. “The evidence we have already collected paints the picture of a President who abused his power by using multiple levers of government to press a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 election. Following in the footsteps of previous impeachment inquiries, the next phase will move from closed depositions to open hearings where the American people will learn firsthand about the President’s misconduct.” (LINK)

Lawfare lawyers Barry Berke and Norm Eisen, leading participants in the construction of the impeachment rules, October 29, 2019, entering the SCIF with Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler

Note: Rep. Carolyn Maloney, has replaced Elijah Cummings as the Acting Chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform.