With guest host Kimberly Adams.
This week, former White House counsel Don McGahn defied a subpoena to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. He was supposed to discuss President Donald Trump’s efforts to thwart the Russia investigation. House Democrats aren’t happy.
AP reports:
A growing number of rank-and-file House Democrats, incensed by former counsel Don McGahn’s empty chair in the Judiciary Committee hearing room, are confronting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and pushing her and other leaders to act. Their impatience is running up against the speaker’s preference for a more methodical approach, including already-unfolding court battles.
Pelosi summoned some of them — still a small fraction of the House Democratic caucus — to a meeting of investigators Wednesday to assess strategy.
Some other Democratic leaders, while backing Pelosi, signaled that a march to impeachment may at some point become inevitable.
“We are confronting what might be the largest, broadest cover-up in American history,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters. If a House inquiry “leads to other avenues including impeachment,” the Maryland Democrat said, “so be it.”
We discussed the likelihood that Congress will impeach the president earlier this week. Our panel varied on whether impeachment proceedings should begin, but author Bruce Gibney asked, “What does it say that every president in the last 80 years has found a way to abuse his power?”
Meanwhile, we may be close to seeing the president’s financial records after rulings from two federal judges and a bill approved by New York state lawmakers.
We’re also following the latest on abortion legislation around the country. This week, nationwide protests followed a spate of anti-abortion laws in states like Alabama and Missouri. Meanwhile, Nevada’s assembly — the nation’s first all-female legislature — passed a bill that lifts restrictions on the procedure.
“It’s really time we place abortion back into the lens where it’s supposed to be: healthcare,” Dr. Colleen McNicholas told us earlier this week. “It’s time for us to discuss it in that framework.”
Will these restrictive abortion laws go to the Supreme Court?
Finally, CBS first reported that a ten-year old migrant girl from El Salvador died in custody at the U.S.-Mexico border last year. She was the first of six children to die soon after being released or while detained.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) accused the Trump administration of covering up her death.
“I have not seen any indication that the Trump administration disclosed the death of this young girl to the public or even to Congress,” he told CBS. “And if that’s the case, they covered up her death for eight months, even though we were actively asking the question about whether any child had died or been seriously injured. We began asking that question last fall.”
We cover all this and more.
Text by Kathryn Fink.
GUESTS
Lisa Desjardins, Correspondent, PBS NewsHour; @LisaDNews
Edward Luce, Chief U.S. columnist and commentator, Financial Times; his latest book is “The Retreat of Western Liberalism”; @EdwardGLuce
Anita Kumar, White House correspondent and associate editor, Politico; @anitakumar01
For more, visit https://the1a.org.
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