When he testifies before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees next Wednesday, the main focus of the hearings will be to highlight “shocking evidence of criminal misconduct” by President Donald Trump, according to an explosive new report from NBC News:
“‘It is not that that there will be a big, dramatic new revelation necessarily, we’re not expecting that,” a Democratic staffer on the Judiciary Committee said Thursday in a briefing ahead of the hearings. ‘What’s important is there is truly shocking evidence of criminal misconduct by the president — not once but again and again and again — that would result in any other American being criminally charged in a multiple count indictment.'”
CNN confirms that the hearings will be to establish criminal conduct on the part of the president. That could lead to increasing calls for an impeachment inquiry to determine if Trump’s actions rise to the bar of “high crimes and misdemeanors” as set forth in the U.S. Constitution:
“As part of their strategy, Democrats plan to hone in on five areas of the Mueller report where they think the President clearly obstructed justice, including his efforts to fire the special counsel and to tamper with witnesses like his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, the aides said.“Democrats also plan to press Mueller on the contacts with Russia and WikiLeaks detailed in the report, in the hopes that Mueller’s testimony can combat the President’s constant of ‘no collusion.'”
- Trump’s repeatedly directing then-White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller.
- Trump telling McGahn to deny that he had been ordered to fire Mueller.
- Trump asking former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to send a message to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions urging him to limit the investigation in a way that would exclude the president.
- Trump telling Lewandowski to let Sessions know that he was fired if he didn’t agree to meet with Lewandowski.
- Potential witness tampering by the president in regard to both Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.
If Mueller testifies that Trump engaged in any or all of those actions, that would constitute impeachable offenses by the president.
Next Wednesday could be a very consequential one for Donald Trump. It might even wind up be the beginning of the end of his presidency.