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This is important. This is the same argument Trump's personal lawyers made yesterday: that Congress can't do "law enforcement." Why are they saying this? To deny Congress access to Mueller's grand jury's EVIDENCE (not his report), which they need to impeach.
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FedRCrimPro 6(e) says that grand jury information may be shared in connection with "judicial proceedings." Under the decision Judge Sirica made in Watergate and upheld by the DC circuit, Congressional inv'ns (esp impeachment inquiries) ARE such "judicial proceedings."
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(It's actually a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist.)
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And though a DC Circuit 3-judge panel recently ruled in McKeever v. Barr that judges don't have "inherent authority" to give GJ info to Congress in the public interest, they grudgingly acknowledged that Sirica's "pre-impeachment invn = judicial proceeding" remains correct.
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McKeever's ruling re: inherent authority is pending a request for rehearing en banc, so it may get reversed -- but then it almost certainly will go to SCOTUS, where it may be upheld and where there'll certainly be significant delay. But the Sirica formulation remains good law.
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Which means: Congress' best shot at getting what it needs to impeach is to retain the current caselaw saying that its investigations = "judicial proceedings."
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But Congress isn't the judicial BRANCH. So Trump's arguing across-the-board that ALL "judicial"-type Congressional investigations violate separation of powers. And he'll take one of these cases to SCOTUS, again to delay (+ maybe get Sirica's four-decade-old ruling reversed).
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IOW, we can scoff, but they aren't stupid. They're attacking well-settled law, both to delay and because with this precedent-ignoring Court (see Breyer's warning: npr.org/2019/05/14/723…), the fans of a unitary executive may well win a ruling emasculating Congress forever.
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