Donald Trump and his administration’s house of cards suffered another blow, this time dealt by U.S. Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the District of Columbia.
As the supervising federal judge to the Grand Jury that probed into the 2016 Russian interference over presidential election, the District of Columbia judge wrote “
“In carrying out the weighty constitutional duty of determining whether impeachment of the president is warranted, Congress does not have to redo the nearly two years of investigative work carried out by Special Counsel Mueller; nor put the Congress at risk of being misled by witnesses, whose testimonies to the special counsel and to the grand jury may have varied from what was provided as information to the House Judiciary Committee.”
Lawyers for the justice department argued that the impeachment inquiry panel already has sufficient evidence, including copies of witness testimonies given to the FBI in connection with Mueller’s investigation. The DoJ lawyers further asserted that the House Judiciary Committee did not provide adequate explanation on how the full-text of the Mueller Report will help in an impeachment inquiry, which under the law, is not a judicial proceeding.
Judge Howell did not agree; explicitly saying that the “DoJ is wrong.” As it is, only the DoJ’s department ruling is being pointed out as existing law that is barring the sharing of the materials with Congress, That being the case, she has ordered the Justice Department to share the full context of the Mueller Report with Congress, for further deliberation in the ongoing impeachment inquiry of incumbent U.S. president, Donald Trump.
The Other Significance of the District of Columbia Judge’s Ruling Over the Mueller Report
In citing the importance of the full, unredacted version of the Mueller Report to the ongoing inquiry against Donald Trump, Judge Howell’s statements uphold the propriety and constitutionality of the impeachment investigations launched by House Speaker Pelosi, and currently being conducted by Democratic House Representative Adam Schiff, as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
It also wears away the Republican Representatives’ assertion that the impeachment investigation is a sham because Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not represent the entire Congress; whilst publicly calling Adam Schiff’s impeachment probe panel as a “kangaroo court.”
In not being able to defend Trump against mounting evidence of his self-confessed and openly-committed abuse of authority, this most recent pronouncement coming from the Chief Judge of the District of Columbia, erodes the flimsy argument put forward by loyal House Trumpers. Nonetheless, and as is always the case, Trump will order the DoJ to make an appeal to a higher court.
