House Judiciary Committee passes impeachment rules to expand scope of inquiry

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., leads his panel to approve guidelines for impeachment investigation hearings on President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

“Some call this process an impeachment inquiry, some call it an impeachment investigation — there’s no legal difference between these terms and I no longer care to argue about their nomenclature.”

— Rep. Jerry Nadler, (D) Chairman – Judiciary Committee

The House Judiciary Committee has approved an apparent impeachment inquiry into President Trump. On Thursday, the panel passed a resolution in a 24-to-17 vote.
The resolution gave the committee power to deem meetings as impeachment hearings,which provides them the ability to question witnesses after members conclude hearings among other procedural functions.
Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler tried to clarify the confusion surrounding the intentions of the meeting and claimed terminology regarding impeachment inquiry is insignificant.
Ranking member Doug Collins blasted Nadler, saying he intended to use the pointless meeting to appeal to Democrat colleagues and to fool the general public into believing there is progress with an impeachment inquiry.
Collins also had this to say:

“I’ve wanted for a long time to be able to say this: welcome to fantasy island because we’re here…it may all look good. The unfortunate part is when the screen goes down, you just see a simple procedure issue…that doesn’t deal with impeachment, that doesn’t do anything else. It just simply gives another press release for whatever were doing now.”

The first committee hearing that will utilize the resolution is set for September 17th. Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has been called to testify.