His sole argument supports Trump! "The House of Representatives" is not a single member. Even the selection of "their Speaker" is by a vote of the whole house, not a single representative, or even a single party. This is not ambiguous. All "House of Representative" decisions are by a majority or super majority of all members present.
That was also my reaction. Nancy Pelosi is just one member of Congress, even if she's been elected Speaker, and she can't unilaterally declare an impeachment inquiry with the power to subpoena documents and witnesses from the Executive Branch. Oh sure, she can try, but the President can just ignore her. If the Democrats go to court to enforce their subpoenas, the courts (especially the Supreme Court) will most likely say that it's a dispute between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch, and not something for the Judicial Branch to get involved in.
Of course the real battle isn't a legal one, it's a public relations one. House Democrats are desperate to find a charge which will justify impeachment, and they're hoping that they can use Trump's ignoring the subpoenas as the excuse. That's not a bad play on the surface, since it can be made to sound like "obstruction of justice" to many voters.
But Trump's riposte is more powerful. He can keep insisting that the House first formally vote for an impeachment inquiry before he'll respond to any subpoenas: He's not obstructing anything as long as there is no official action to obstruct. Every time the House issues a new demand for documents, Trump will just demand that they vote first. It's a stalemate that only Trump can win, since the only way to break it is for the House to finally vote to impeach him, which is precisely what Trump has been demanding.
Trump essentially controls the clock with this maneuver. He can drag the game out for as long as he likes, or speed it up if that looks more advantageous. And Mitch McConnell similarly controls the clock if the impeachment ever gets to the Senate. Mitch can drag things out or speed things up, however he prefers.
1. Before all 435 members of the House can take up the issue of impeachment, a small group known as the House Judiciary Committee must assess and vote on the articles of impeachment. These articles of impeachment must address any allegedly impeachable offenses committed by the president.
2. Once the articles of impeachment are drafted, the 40 members of the House Judiciary Committee would vote on whether or not bring them to the full House of Representatives.
For the articles of impeachment to successfully pass through the House Judiciary Committee, a simple majority vote is sufficient. That means that 21 of the 40 members of the committee would need to vote in favor of passing the articles of impeachment to the rest of the House.
3. Once the articles make it out of the Judiciary Committee, the 435 members of the House of Representatives can debate the merits of the articles of impeachment. Just like in the Judiciary Committee, lawmakers need only achieve a simple majority in order to successfully impeach the president and move this whole thing to the Senate. If 218 representatives vote in favor of even one of the articles of impeachment, the president would be impeached. However, it’s worth noting that impeachment does not necessarily ensure the president’s removal from office.
4. For a president to be removed from office following impeachment, the Senate must organize an impeachment trial. That means that by the time the impeachment process brings the president before the Senate in order to defend himself, the “impeachment” portion of the proceedings is complete. In an impeachment trial, the Senate serves as the court, judge, and jury, while specially appointed members of the House — typically handpicked from the Judiciary Committee — serve as prosecutors against the president. The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, currently John Roberts, presides over the trial.
5. Unlike in the House of Representatives, a Senate vote to remove the president from office requires more than a simple majority. Instead, two-thirds of the Senate’s 100 members — so at least 67 senators — must vote in favor of the president’s removal from office.
https://www.elitedaily.com/news/politics/number-members-congress-need-impeach-president/1958544
The sole power for impeachment is the house of representatives, not a majority of pre-selelected individuals thereof!
Nancy is not Queen of the country empowered to create sub committees of the house with that sole power to be used as the sole voice for the entire house, especially when it comes to matters that the Constitution deems to be the purview of the singular whole house. The Constitution specifically does not mention allowing selected sub committees within the house to create law or to impeach.
Force the vote and do not cooperate.
Besides it is doubtful that the upper bicameral chamber of the US Senate will actually accept as an official impeachment anything that has not been voted on by the whole house. There’s no reason for turtle too accept that any small group of house sub committee members to pass something as an impeachment off officially when the Constitution says the house has to pass said items of impeachment to the senate (not a sub-committee) and will not allow for minor house sub-committee within to act as the sole voice of the whole house or present their limited consensus as official impeachment articles.
Once they do pass it in the whole house (or shall I say if they do) it will require a super majority in the senate actually to achieve a conviction.
The good thing is this will almost destroy the democrats capacity to retain control of the house in the coming election.0
Constitutionally the House of Representatives can not be made equivalent to a partisan sub-committee within the House of Representatives.
That is how the Supreme Court will rule: 7 the 2 or 7 to 1 if Ginsburg is dead.
We should expect that her death is imminent which may be part of the current major driving force behind the goal to impeach.
They know she is going to croak and they want to use the accusations to claim he is unfit to present any further members to the Supreme Court to permanentlyreplace the old liberal democrat guard.