The comment came in a filing with federal court that argues Democrats still need testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn.
The House is open to the prospect of impeaching President Donald Trump a second time, lawyers for the Judiciary Committee said Monday.
House Counsel Douglas Letter said in a filing in federal court that a second impeachment could be necessary if the House uncovers new evidence that Trump attempted to obstruct investigations of his conduct. Letter made the argument as part of an inquiry by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals into whether Democrats still need testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn after the votes last week to charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
“If McGahn’s testimony produces new evidence supporting the conclusion that President Trump committed impeachable offenses that are not covered by the Articles approved by the House, the Committee will proceed accordingly — including, if necessary, by considering whether to recommend new articles of impeachment,” Letter wrote.
It’s the first impeachment-related filing by the House since lawmakers voted, mostly along party lines, to impeach Trump over allegations stemming from efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his Democratic rivals. It comes just hours after the Justice Department argued that the impeachment votes undercut lawmakers’ ongoing court case demanding testimony from McGahn, who was special counsel Robert Mueller’s central witness.
In a brief filed early Monday morning, DOJ lawyers acknowledge that the House’s approval of two articles of impeachment — focused on Trump’s alleged effort to withhold aid from Ukraine and his blockade of the House inquiry — do not render moot the legal fight over McGahn.
However, the Justice Department attorneys said the House Judiciary Committee’s decision to move forward with impeachment means there’s no longer urgency to resolve the House’s case. That bolsters the Trump administration’s argument that the courts should simply butt out of the legal showdown, the DOJ filing says.
“The reasons for refraining are even more compelling now that what the Committee asserted — whether rightly or wrongly — as the primary justification for its decision to sue no longer exists,” the DOJ lawyers wrote, without elaborating on that claim.
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The House is open to the prospect of impeaching President Donald Trump — again https://t.co/DAmalwFLF6
— POLITICO (@politico) December 24, 2019
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