Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Lawfare allies can change House rules (they did). Pelosi and Lawfare can also change House impeachment rules (they did). Pelosi/Lawfare can change committee rules (they did); and in doing so they can remove House republicans from the entire process… Which They Did. However, what Lawfare and Pelosi cannot change is The U.S. Constitution, which they are desperate to confront.
Speaker Pelosi’s ‘Lawfare House rules‘ and/or ‘Lawfare impeachment rules‘ cannot supersede the constitutional separation of powers.
Nancy Pelosi cannot decree an “official impeachment inquiry”, and as a consequence nullify a constitutional firewall between the Legislative Branch and Executive Branch.
~ Speaker Pelosi and House Attorney Douglas Letter ~
All of that said, there is a distinct difference between a congressional subpoena intended to compel generic testimony, and a congressional subpoena intended to compel impeachment testimony.
Attempting to compel testimony that crosses through the separation of powers; and goes even further in an attempt to penetrate the firewall around executive privilege; requires the House -or a committee therein- to carry “Judicial Authority“.
“Judicial Authority” is not absolute authority, but rather a legal reference and framework that forms the basis for an impeachment ‘compulsion demand‘ (or subpoena) by the House. Judicial Authority is the House saying they have a legal basis to make a demand.
The reason judicial authority is necessary, is because creating Judicial authority, via the Legislative Branch full chamber vote, gives the Executive Branch access to appeal any legislative demand via the Judicial Branch (federal courts).
Repeat for emphasis:
…The reason judicial authority is constitutionally required, is because creating Judicial authority, gives the Executive Branch a process to appeal any legislative demand via the Judicial Branch (federal courts)….
Absent the creation of judicial authority the House has not created a penalty for non-compliance. However, absent a penalty for non-compliance the Executive Branch has no process to engage an appellate review by federal courts. This is the purposeful trick within the Pelosi/Lawfare road-map.
Speaker Pelosi’s current Lawfare-inspired road-map (House and committee rule changes therein) attempts to construct a path to impeachment that avoids asserting House “judicial authority”; because they fear losses from a Judicial Branch ruling. Those who constructed the road-map are also concerned about outright blocks by the courts in their proceedings.
This process issue was argued by Lawfare member Douglas Letter today during a hearing on the topic of the House Judiciary Committee gaining access to Weissmann/Mueller’s grand jury evidence. [Expanded Here]
Here’s the bottom line: “Judicial Authority”, granted by a full House vote, gives the House of Representatives more authority in their impeachment construct. However, “judicial authority” also grants the Executive Branch a path to appeal via the Judicial Branch.
Because the Lawfare/Pelosi roadmap intends to subvert judicial authority, it is destined by design to end up running head-first into a constitutional problem; specifically separation of power and executive privilege. That predictable constitutional issue will end up with arguments to The Supreme Court. THATis why the Democrats have been working for months to delegitimize the Supreme Court.
Please let me repeat for emphasis. The Lawfare impeachment road-map is designed to conflict with the constitution. It is a necessary -and unavoidable- feature of the plan, not a flaw. Pelosi and the Lawfare group know they are creating a constitutional crisis; that is why the background attacks against the Supreme Court were started months ago.
Understanding this, here’s the White House response:
White House Letter - Impeac... by The Conservative Treehouse on Scribd