House Democrats extended an official invite Tuesday to President Trump to participate in the impeachment process, offering his team a chance to be part of a hearing next week on the Constitution’s meaning of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler announced the Dec. 4 hearing and told Mr. Trump to let him know if he wants to have representation.
“Our first task is to explore the framework put in place to respond to serious allegations of impeachable misconduct like those against President Trump,” Mr. Nadler said.
He said the hearing will begin to broach whether Mr. Trump’s actions warrant impeachment.
He promised a “fair” process.
The hearing will be the first official impeachment proceeding in the Judiciary Committee, which is the one actually tasked with drawing up articles of impeachment.
The last two weeks of hearings have taken place in the intelligence committee, and were billed as fact-finding on whether the president illegally delayed aid to Ukraine to try to get that government to conduct investigations of Mr. Trump’s political opponents.
Mr. Trump was denied a chance to question witnesses or challenge evidence in those hearings, in a move the GOP said violated past practice.
Democrats countered that his chance to play a role was always to come in the Judiciary.
Mr. Nadler’s announcement comes even before the intelligence committee finalizes it’s report on what it learned from its hearings.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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