Impeachability Probabilities...But What About McGahn?

WhoNeedsPlumbersWhenAllThePipesHaveAlreadyBeenViolentlyRippedOutOfThe
BasementVille


A couple of weeks ago, I somewhat naively suggested that former White House Counsel Don McGahn might turn out to be Mister Trump's little Johnny Dean.

And last week the USian House Judiciary Committee pretty much made the same claim in its court filing that is seeking to have its subpeona enforced to have Mr. McGahn testify before it:

...McGahn is the Judiciary Committee’s most important fact witness in its consideration of whether to recommend articles of impeachment and its related investigation of misconduct by the President, including acts of obstruction of justice described in the Special Counsel’s Report...


All of which had me thinking I'd hit the conventional wisdom jackpot until I read yet another fine post from Marcy Wheeler that brought me up short:

...(The Judiciary Committee's) claim suggests that the House Judiciary Committee has a very limited understanding of its own inquiry and perhaps an overestimation of how good a witness McGahn will be.

I say the latter for two reasons. First, in the early days of the Russian investigation, McGahn overstepped the role of a White House Counsel. For example, even after his office recognized they could not talk to Jeff Sessions about the Russian investigation or risk obstruction, McGahn followed Trump’s orders to pressure Dana Boente on the investigation.

Plus, as the Mueller Report acknowledges, the NYT story that triggered one of the key events in the report — where Trump asked McGahn to publicly rebut a claim that he had asked McGahn to fire Mueller, which led him to threaten to resign — was inaccurate in its claim that McGahn had functionally threatened to resign (which was clear in real time)...

Look, I get it.

McGahn was, and likely still is a wee bit of a rat, despite Mr. Trump's bizarre protestations to the contrary.

However, don't forget that Mr. Dean was too before he decided to come clean and clear himself of Mistah Nixon's, not to mention history's, taint.

Still....

Might have to a have a re-think about all this, which will require a degree of paying attention that I just might not have the bandwith for at the moment, what with the new term looming just over the horizon.

Luckily, Ms. Wheeler throws out a couple of names that should shorten the search/read times:

...Jay Sekulow. Sekulow has done a number of things that don’t qualify for attorney client privilege, such as his conversations directly with Michael Cohen to write a false statement hiding the President’s ties to Russia. That goes directly to Trump’s sworn lies...

{snip}

...John Kelly. He was at DHS for the beginning of Trump’s abusive immigration policies. He knows details of Trump’s security clearance abuses (and might actually give a damn about them). He should know details of the P(residential) R(ecords) A(ct) violations (and if not, should be accountable for why not). And he knows details of Kushner’s privatized foreign policy (and probably tried to control it). Kelly was a minor witness for Robert Mueller, but should be a key witness to any impeachment inquiry...

OK?


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