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I disagree with Sundance on this one, and posted on his thread to explain why.

Sundance appears to be saying that if Judiciary issued these subpoenas they would be valid.

That also means they would be valid without a vote of the whole House.

My contention is that NO Committee has been delegated impeachment powers. The House has not exercised any impeachment power until the House votes to do so. The House could, with a vote, delegate the impeachment power (and its associated subpoena power) to one or more Committees.

Supporting my point of view, besides the “obvious” flaw that Judiciary can issue valid impeachment-related subpoenas w/o a House vote, is House Rules, which appears in a combination of three documents.

Standing Rules of the House, from the 114th Congress, form Committees and delegate jurisdiction. All of the delegated jurisdiction is for legislative and oversight functions. The string “impeach” (which appears in the word “impeachment”) does not appear in the Standing Rules. No Committee has impeachment jurisdiction under the Standing Rules.

There are also Rules passed by the House in the 115th and 116th (current) Congresses. Those modify subpoena issuing authority, etc. but do not modify any Committee jurisdiction. The string “impeach” does not appear in either of these.

The Impeachment power stands separate from the power to legislate. The legislation power is in Article I, section 1 of the US Constitution. The House power to impeach is in Article I, Section 2. It, acting pursuant to its power to impeach, is totally separate from its power to legislate. The House holds this power, and has not delegated it to any Committee. It has to pass a House Resolution to delegate its impeachment investigation power.

It makes sense that this delegation is not made as a “standing” matter, and indeed, historically, Judiciary is not the only Committee that has undertaken impeachment investigation. It could very well happen that the officer to be impeached is in the wheelhouse of some other Committee. Yes, to Judiciary when the target is a judge - and maybe when the target is president. But the target is not always president or judge.

I agree. Regarding Ratcliffe’s statements, it’s actually much simpler than he describes. This “inquiry” is being run by Schiff and the HPSCI because the HPSCI can hold closed hearings and hide testimony and evidence under national security classification guidelines, whether the information being discussed is classified or not and thus can be withheld from the public, as in the case of the Volker hearing. Schiff and the Dems on the committee can prevent Republicans from even questioning witnesses, which they have done, and Schiff, as he has done in the past, can leak select, potentially questionable statements and evidence to tools in the media, which is precisely what he has done with the Volker testimony. The fact that Schiff, like Pelosi, is compromised by his own connections to Ukraine (they have one another by the “short hairs”) is only icing on the cake.