4 reporters break down the DOJ criminal probe and more impeachment bombshells


Steve Scalise

Melanie Zanona, congressional reporter: The GOP raid on the secure facility where interviews with impeachment witnesses have been taking place. It was quite the scene — I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years covering Congress. The sergeant at arms even had to be called in at one point to defuse the situation and perform a security sweep because Republicans were violating the strict no cell phone use rules.

Josh Gerstein, legal affairs contributor: Probably what I got to witness first-hand, which was a defense lawyer for one of Rudy Giuliani’s associates, Lev Parnas, tell a federal judge that some of the evidence the government has collected in the straw-donor and foreign-donations case may not be usable because Parnas and Giuliani were working for the president of the United States. Giuliani hasn’t been charged, of course, but when he was the swashbuckling top federal prosecutor in New York in the 1980s could anyone have predicted that his activities would be intimately connected to a case being prosecuted by that same office?

Which criminal probe are you watching closest?

Nahal : I’ve been fascinated by Rudy Giuliani for many years, so I’m eyeing with interest the various criminal probes into his actions. I’m not an expert on the Bard, but there has to be a Shakespeare play that captures the arc of Giuliani’s life and career. He will probably say it’s “Much Ado About Nothing.”

Natasha: The Giuliani investigation just got a lot more interesting, in light of new reporting from our colleague Darren Samuelsohn about the Justice Department’s Criminal Division jumping into the fray. The other one to watch, of course, is the continuing probe out of the Southern District of New York into Giuliani’s two associates, Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were indicted on campaign finance charges earlier this month. Both men have pleaded not guilty.

Melanie: We now know the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation — into itself. DOJ has transitioned from an administrative review into the origins of its Russia probe — which Trump has repeatedly decried as a “hoax” despite mounds of evidence to the contrary — to a criminal inquiry with subpoena and grand jury power. The news raised eyebrows in D.C., with some Democrats worried that the the department is acting like Trump’s political attack dog instead of an independent law enforcement agency.

Josh: Like other Justice Department reporters, I’m fascinated by this new criminal investigation and what the grounds — or the predicate as they call it here — for launching it. No one seems to have nailed that down yet. Some possibilities: the inspector general investigation stumbled across evidence that someone was illegally leaking to the press about the Trump-Russia probe; the IG thinks someone lied to them, to Congress or to the courts; or someone may have been conducting some surveillance or other investigate tactic that may have been illegal. I guess it’s remotely possible that the alleged crime has to do with the decision to launch the Trump-Russia inquiry in the first place or anti-Trump bias on the part of officials involved, but it’s hard to see how that itself can be torqued into a criminal case.

How do you think the 2nd Circuit will respond to Trump’s argument that he could shoot someone on 5th Ave?

Nahal: I believe it will say that at the very least such an action would open the president to being investigated. I’m not sure about prosecuted, at least not while he’s in office.

Melanie: That was a shocking argument to many observers — and likely to the judges as well. Essentially, Trump’s lawyers are saying the president is above the law (although they did acknowledge that Trump could be criminally prosecuted once he leaves office).

Josh: It’s a headline-grabber to be sure, but I’m not sure it’s a question that the court has to answer directly in order to address the issue before them about turning over Trump’s tax returns to the Manhattan D.A. A real weak point in the Trump legal team’s argument is that they seem to be contending Trump has the right to keep any evidence about him away from investigators even if they want to use it to charge others. Even if a president does have some immunity, does that extend to all of his family members and business associates? I can’t see any court adopting that stance.

What do you think of the Republican hearing crashing strategy we saw this week?

Nahal: As a strategy it actually seemed pretty smart to me. At this stage, they have very little they can say on the substance of the impeachment inquiry’s findings. So they want to muddy the picture the public has of the process but claiming, often misleadingly, that it is unfair. They managed to do that, as well as changing the headlines for a few hours. They also showed the GOP base that they remain loyal to Trump.

Natasha: A stunt more than a strategy, and transparently so given how many Republicans currently have access to the closed-door depositions by virtue of their membership on the relevant committees — including ones who participated in the crash of the SCIF on Wednesday.


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