12/14/23

Good morning! It’s Thursday, December 14th.

More Good Today Day.

Which is just a day to put more good into the world. Which is nice.

And now, the news.

House Approves Impeachment Inquiry

-via AP News

Three big stories today! Let’s start with the House’s witch hunt, I mean impeachment inquiry which was approved by a party line vote on Wednesday.

Here’s what this means: the Republican-led House has been trying to impeach Biden from the jump. And in order to do that, back in September Kevin McCarthy, in a move meant to help him keep his job (lol) launched the impeachment inquiry in the House without a vote. Because they didn’t have the votes to do so.

Because even leading up to September, no one found any crimes from the President. But they’ve built their whole brand on saying “don’t worry about the crimes Trump has been found actually guilty of, look at this guy Biden. We just imagine he’s bad,” McCarthy let them do their little impeachment inquiry-lite. Which, again, found nothing.

But that won’t stop them! On Wednesday, Speaker Johnson allowed the full House to take a vote on formalizing that impeachment inquiry. And like I said, it passed along a party line vote.

Now, to be clear, this kind of doesn’t change anything. I mean, it’s not good. It’s not a good moment for politics when you’ve decided to open an impeachment inquiry without even stating what crime you’re looking into, simply as retribution for twice impeaching Trump for actual crimes. But all this does is formalize what the House has already been doing.

So on the one hand, this just formalizing something already happening.

On the other hand, this is a further step towards the authoritarianism that Trump and Trump followers, like Speaker Johnson, want to rush us into.

Both hands are bad!

Every single one of these House reps as on the ballot next year – we can, and should, vote them out.

The impeachment inquiry was in the news in two different ways today – the House vote was just the first one. The second is that Hunter Biden was subpoenaed to sit for a closed-door deposition, and was meant to have that sit down on Wednesday.

Now as a reminder, the House subpoenas are like – polite asks. And we know that because many of the House reps who should be in jail and certainly not able to hold office because of their factual role in the January 6th insurrection, they were served by the House January 6th committee and refused to comply. If someone doesn’t comply, the House then asks the DOJ to compel them to show up. So they’re basically polite asks.

Hunter Biden received that same polite ask and, on Wednesday, he did show up to Washington DC. And outside of the Capital he said he was happy to answer questions – in a public setting.

"I am here to testify at a public hearing today, to answer any of the committees' legitimate questions. I am here." In the short speech he also admitted that he’s made mistakes in his personal life, "but to suggest it's grounds for an impeachment inquiry is absurd."

To which the Republicans responded with them saying they’ll look into contempt charges.

Trump’s Federal Case on Pause

-via NBC News (Trump) and Washington Post (Jan 6 and SCOTUS)

And some very serious, and vaguely complicated, news about Trump’s federal election stealing crimes case.

On Wednesday, Judge Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal case, hit pause on the case. All pending deadlines and court dates are currently on hold.

Here’s what happened: earlier this month the judge ruled that Trump did not have presidential immunity regarding the way he tried to steal the 2020 election, because he was acting as a candidate, not a president, at the time.

Trump immediately applied for an appeal of that ruling.

Then Jack Smith asked both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the Supreme Court to hear that appeal as ASAP as possible, while Trump’s legal team was like “hey man, why the rush?”

Because, I’ve said it before but it’s important (and a little nerve-wracking) to remember it right now: all delays help Trump. Because of the election.

And now, as both courts ruminate, Trump’s case is on hold.

Meanwhile, also on Wednesday, the Supreme Court did say it would take up a different January 6th related case. In this case they will take a look at an appeals court ruling which said the government could prosecute Jan. 6 rioters under a federal law that makes it a crime to obstruct or impede an official proceeding — aka Congress’ certification of the 2020 election. Many defendants already have been sentenced under that law.

If the Supreme Court rules that those rioters can’t be charged under that law, it also means it’s possible one of the charges against Trump could go away.

We watched it happen. We watched what happened on January 6th. We watched him tell those supporters that he would go with them. He told them to fight like hell otherwise they wouldn’t have a country anymore. We watched people with weapons attack our capitol. We watched as they ran the confederate flag through the building. We heard them chant for the murder of the Vice President while they hunted for House Reps like AOC and Nancy Pelosi.

We watched it happen.

The idea that any of these people might not get the full book thrown at them. The idea that Trump gets to run for president again. The idea that the House Reps who took part in that insurrection now get to lead an impeachment inquiry into their political enemy simply as retribution… it makes me sick.

It should make everyone sick.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

If you feel as up to your ears in anger as I do about what the elected and up-for-election Republicans are trying to do, please – go to www.raisingvoters.org and make sure you’re registered to vote. It’s going to take all of us and everything we’ve got.

More Good Today… not a bad idea.

I’m proud of you.