Since the beginning of the new Congress on January 3rd, the one thing preventing the now-majority Democrats from holding votes on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has been the fact that Republicans refused to name their members of that committee — preventing any official actions from being taken while the committee was not fully seated. The GOP had hoped to forestall investigations and votes for as long as possible, and simply refusing to name committee members seemed to work, at least for a while.
That was never going to last, however, and now House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has finally made the GOP’s appointments to the HPSCI — with, of course, Trump toady Devin Nunes remaining as the ranking member — and that means that the panel can finally get down to business.
But more importantly, it means that they can now vote on measures like releasing testimony transcripts, investigation results, and whether or not to subpoena witnesses to testify once more who have previously come before the committee — back when it was under Republican control, and the major interest was in proceeding as quickly as possible.
The new chair of the Intel Committee, Adam Schiff, has already indicated they intend to release testimony transcripts:
STATEMENT: Schiff Statement on Mueller Indictment of Roger Stone
”The first order of business for the Committee will be to release all remaining transcripts to the Special Counsel’s Office, and we will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead.”https://t.co/sTiPFtv0lY pic.twitter.com/3RxnqxwgMF
— House Intelligence Committee (@HouseIntel) January 25, 2019
But Stone’s isn’t the only one set for release.
The fact that Donald Trump Junior’s testimony before Congress from last year is rife with perjury is now well known. And whatever charges Robert Mueller may have in store for the President’s son regarding the Trump Tower meeting notwithstanding, he can be arrested essentially as soon as charges can be filed for perjury.
February 5th is the first day that the full Intel Committee will be able to hold a vote. When they do, and the Democrats win — they are now the majority, after all — those transcripts could be released the same day. That means that Robert Mueller could take those transcripts to the grand jury and obtain indictments, which could take a full day. And that means we could see the FBI knocking on Junior’s door, like they did Roger Stone’s, a week from today.
None of this is formally announced, of course — neither Democrats on the committee nor agents of the special counsel would be dumb enough to tip their hand. We’re just saying you should maybe watch the news for Don Jr’s name around next Thursday.
Featured image via screen capture
