December 9, 2018

Future Judiciary Committee Chair Just Said Prosecutors Outlined “Impeachable Offenses” Against Trump

Meanwhile, another top Democrat suggested the president may be looking at future jail time.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

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The incoming Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee made his point loud and clear on Sunday: If the allegations that President Donald Trump directed illegal hush-money payments to women during his campaign are true, it would be an “impeachable offense.”

“Certainly they’d be impeachable offenses,” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The comments came just days after new court filings detail how Trump is connected to payments to two women, made by his former lawyer Michael Cohen. 

But Nadler also cautioned that Congress might decide that such crimes were not necessarily important enough to justify impeachment. “Even though they were committed before the president became president, they were committed in the service of fraudulently obtaining the office,” Nadler said. But, he added, “You don’t necessarily launch an impeachment against the President because he committed an impeachable offense.”

 

Meanwhile, on another Sunday show, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the likely next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said there was a reasonable possibility that Trump could face jail time if he loses the 2020 presidential election. On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Schiff said that the next president may have to decide whether to pardon Trump. “There’s a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him,” Schiff said. “He may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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