NewsNational News

Actions

House committee unveils impeachment resolution text

Posted at 12:35 PM, Oct 29, 2019
and last updated 2019-10-29 15:35:39-04

The House Rules Committee released on Tuesday the resolution that the House will vote on later this week to formalize the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

The full House is expected to vote on the resolution on Thursday.

The text of the resolution lays out how the House Intelligence Committee will conduct public hearings and how the House Judiciary Committee "shall report to the House of Representatives such resolutions, articles of impeachment, or other recommendations as it deems proper."

For the public hearings, the resolution includes language allowing the chairman and ranking member -- in this case, the top-ranking Republican -- of the Intelligence Committee to question witnesses for up to 90 minutes, and it also allows them to give that time to committee aides to conduct questioning.

The resolution also states that the minority may request witnesses to be called and issue subpoenas — but those subpoenas can only be issued "with the concurrence of the chair," meaning that Democrats would have to sign off on any Republican-led subpoenas.

The resolution says that the House Intelligence Committee will write a report "setting forth its findings and any recommendations" and that the report will be transmitted to the Judiciary Committee and be made public.

A summary of the resolution posted by the House Rules Committee, which will debate and approve the measure on Wednesday, says that the resolution allows the President's counsel an opportunity to participate in the proceedings. The summary says the President's lawyers will have an opportunity to present their case, attend hearings and respond to evidence and raise an objection to testimony given.

But the committee says that "If the President unlawfully refuses to cooperate with congressional requests," then the chairman has discretion to deny requests from the President's lawyers.