Talks of Impeachment Now Alive Again
LEMON: All right. We some breaking news to tell you about here on CNN. I want to bring in CNN's Manu Raju with the breaking news. He's going to tell us where an impeachment probe in the House of Representatives, where that stands now. You have the news, Manu, what can you tell us?</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The House judiciary committee is expected to take on Wednesday its first formal step to essentially make it clear the procedures for moving forward with an impeachment probe. Now, we have heard the chairman of the committee, Jerry Nadler, make clear in recent weeks both in court filings and in public statements that they are conducting formal impeachment proceedings. But what does that look like? That's been a big question going forward. Now we are learning that they're drafting a resolution detailing exactly how that investigation will look like. What they're saying is that among other things in this resolution, I am told by multiple sources familiar with the matter that the chairman will be authorized to call full committee and subcommittee hearings in connection with impeachment deliberations. Also, it would allow the committee to have hearings, allow staff attorneys to question witnesses at hearings. That's something that is not typically allowed to be done. Members of the committees are typically the ones who ask the questions, but this will allow staff attorneys to question witnesses. We'll also see some language in there saying how the president's attorney can respond to questions in writing, also discussing how grand jury -- secret grand jury information can be handled by the committee in a classified setting. Now, what I'm told, Don, is that this will essentially mirror the precedent set by the 1974 Nixon impeachment proceeding under the House judiciary committee. They are essentially going to be following a similar process, but they expect a very full fall schedule starting with mid-September hearings with Corey Lewandowski, the former Trump campaign manager who is mentioned in the Mueller report in connection with the suggestions allegedly to thwart the Mueller probe. We could see other matters that could come to a head including questions over potential emolument violations under the Constitution, questions about whether the president is enriching himself, and also some questions about whether the president did such dangled pardons to officials to break immigration laws. Among of those are some of the matters that we could see these procedures really play out, but expect on Wednesday --</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>RAJU: -- this first formal vote by this committee to make it clear what an impeachment probe actually looks like, Don.</s>LEMON: All right. Manu, I want you to stand by. If you're just tuning in, again, this is the breaking news here on CNN. A House panel to make formal steps on impeachment probe starting next week. Manu said look for that to happen on Wednesday. The House judiciary committee is prepared to vote next week on a resolution laying out the procedures for its investigation now that is actively considering moving to impeach President Donald Trump, a major step towards formalizing its sweeping probe. That's according to multiple sources familiar with the effort. Manu, I have a couple questions for you here. It's saying that this -- sources are telling CNN that this resolution is expected to spell out that Chairman Jerry Nadler has the authority to call hearings to either the full committee or subcommittee levels in connection with its impeachment deliberation. So, what is this? Is this a look at how impeachment proceedings would work?</s>RAJU: Yes.</s>LEMON: Before they actually get to the process and into the nitty- gritty?</s>RAJU: Yes. It will actually be as part of their information gathering, evidence gathering before they actually recommend articles of impeachment. What they're essentially saying here, Don, is that Jerry Nadler will have the authority going forward to say, hey, we want to look into potential campaign finance violations involving this president as it relates to those hush money payments that occurred in 2016. That's going to be in connection to this impeachment probe. They'll call a hearing saying this is tied to impeachment -- this is tied to this impeachment deliberation. Also they could say, for instance, that the president -- his efforts to pitch his Miami golf resort as a location for the G7 summit in 2020, that could be a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which essentially limits foreign influence on a president -- tries to limits the president's ability to enrich himself in office. They could say that is also part of the impeachment probe. They're trying to make it very clear the things they're doing in the committee, tie it all back to impeachment, and then ultimately make the decision, Don, that they could vote -- actually the next step after these hearings would be to decide whether to vote to actually impeach the president.</s>LEMON: OK.</s>RAJU: And that would occur on the committee level and then the full House would have to vote, Don.</s>LEMON: Yes. All right, Manu, I want you to stand by because I want to bring in the group of folks that we have assembled to talk about it. Brian Stelter, Susan Glasser, and Charlie Dent. Charlie Dent, I'm going to bring you in. Thoughts on the breaking news, what you've just heard.</s>DENT: Well, it's pretty clear that Jerry Nadler is trying to lay down a predicate for potential articles of impeachment. And given the president's referral, referral of business to his properties or trying to refer business to his properties, as Manu said, this raises issues of the emolument's clause, self-dealing. There are problems. Now, as a political matter, I'm not yet convinced that Nancy Pelosi or those Democrats in swing districts thing impeachment is a good idea. There may be a lot of merit to what Nadler is doing, but as a political matter, I'm not so sure this is where Nancy Pelosi and many of those district democrats want to go right now.</s>LEMON: Susan Glasser?</s>GLASSER: Well, look, I think what is happening is that Congressman Nadler has made it increasingly clear in recent months since the delivery of the Mueller report that, you know, he was going to be pursuing the investigations, call it an impeachment inquiry or not. So, in effect, what Manu is reporting right now is the codification of what was already under way in ways that set more clear parameters about it. It doesn't lock the House in or even the House judiciary committee in to actually moving forward with impeachment. What it does is to set the terms and rules and conditions under which this investigation would proceed. So, I don't think it's a final determination of a political decision in how they're going to move, but what it says is that they're going to keep that option open. I'm sure that it's going to make President Trump furious because it means that, you know, there's no clearing of him despite his many, many efforts to claim complete and utter vindication. It's something that he's very likely to head into this election season with this threat hanging over him and, in fact, by setting a structure around impeachment, you're in effect making it a permanent political reality for the president even if Democrats haven't resolved their own internal fight over whether it's good for them or not.</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>GLASSER: To move forward.</s>LEMON: Follow up on that, Brian, because, you know, if just this part of the proceedings, right, will be the news.</s>STELTER: Yes, absolutely.</s>LEMON: This is --</s>STELTER: It is significant to Americans all around to hear that there is another step in this direction. CNN is adding new details about this right now. But what this is going to look like next week, what it looks like to formalize an impeachment probe because it has seemed up until now the Democrats are investigating, but to what end? It is clear most Democrats want to see this president impeached, but there is this fear about the political ramifications of such a move. Nancy Pelosi just said a couple weeks ago that she does not think there is public support for impeachment. Well, what are Democrats doing to gain public support? What are they doing? Pelosi not necessarily doing a lot. Maybe that's going to start to change now. I think historians will look at the Trump presidency and say every week there are news stories that are about impeachable conduct, but it's all about politics. It's all about the Democrats and what they want to press.</s>LEMON: And timing as well, Charlie Dent. What do you make of the timing?</s>DENT: Of the timing? Well, I think the timing probably isn't that bad. I mean, just given what happened this week, given the self- dealing, Nadler is smart, I think, to drop it. Now, that said, if I were Nadler, you know, he probably has -- he probably has those articles of impeachment already written. They're drafted. He's just waiting for the go-ahead from up high from the speaker to move forward, and I just don't see that permission slip coming. I don't see it coming anytime soon because the American public is simply isn't there on impeachment.</s>STELTER: But who is trying to persuade the American public to support it? That's my point. Who is out there in the Democratic Party loudly leading this charge? I don't see anybody leading this charge right now. Nobody with a loud voice like Trump has.</s>LEMON: Go ahead, Susan.</s>GLASSER: If you go back and look at the Watergate precedent, in fact it was the impeachment inquiry and the investigation itself that created the narrative and created and built a story for the American people to engage. And it really -- it's fascinating to look at that history in the context of where we are right now and to see how Peter Rodino from right where I grew up in New Jersey took that committee and basically turned it on as a way of getting the American people to understand the story of Watergate that up until that time they had tuned out. And it involved actually having real people and a real investigation too. And up until now, that's something I have to say that Congress has really lost a lot of investigative capacity even that was there when Congressman Dent first came into office. I mean, you know, there used to be legendary investigators on Capitol Hill. They weren't just sending political letters to people. They had people who could actually turn up new information and new facts and get witnesses who could build a story in the way that great investigative reporters can. And I haven't seen any of that really coming out of this Congress. What we talk about as a congressional investigation is basically like a political letter that is tweeted out the second that somebody writes a news story.</s>LEMON: Yes. That's got to be the last word. Susan Glasser, thank you for helping us with the breaking news. Charlie Dent, Brian Stelter. Manu, thank you as well. I appreciate it. If you look at your screen, the House panel to take up formal steps on impeachment probe next week. We'll continue on right after the break.