Court Ruling on Trump Impeachment May Defuse Constitutional Crisis

In an important development, a federal district court in Washington, D.C. has pointed the way to a possible resolution of the standoff between President Donald Trump and the House of Representatives over the legitimacy of the impeachment inquiry. The court’s ruling signals that at least part of the judiciary is prepared to help resolve the emerging constitutional crisis — by deciding in favor of Congress and against the president.

The court was not directly addressing Trump’s refusal to cooperate with the House inquiry, but rather the House Judiciary Committee’s request for otherwise-secret grand jury testimony generated as part of Robert Mueller’s investigation. Yet in an unwise attempt to block the Judiciary Committee from getting that testimony, the Department of Justice argued that a House committee can’t conduct an impeachment inquiry without a resolution passed by the whole House. That’s the same argument that Trump’s White House counsel has deployed to insist that the entire impeachment inquiry is unconstitutional — and that as a result, Trump doesn’t have to cooperate.