Jerry Nadler: Bumbling or brilliant?

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Jerry Nadler, the veteran House Democrat who is leading the Judiciary Committee’s impeachment-like inquiry into President Trump and his administration, has deeply angered Republicans, attracted anonymous barbs from fellow Democrats but has largely earned the respect and praise from his own party in its quest to investigate the president.

“Nader is doing a spectacular job,” Rep. David N. Cicilline, D-R.I., a member of the Judiciary Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “Our chairman is aggressively pursuing witnesses and documents and working with all the members of the committee.”

Nadler, Cicilline said, “is providing extraordinary leadership.”

Not everyone agrees. Unnamed critics on the Democratic side have complained Nadler, D-N.Y., is bumbling at the helm of the Judiciary Committee, allowing a slew of critical witnesses to blow off subpoenas without reprimand and not moving strategically to get an impeachment inquiry started before the 2020 election.

They also fault him for failing to secure the testimony of Attorney General William Barr and special counsel Robert Mueller.

Republicans on the panel aren’t happy either.

They believe Nadler has had difficulties establishing a leadership role as chairman, a position he assumed in January, and they say he has lost control over the Democrats on the committee.

They point to increasing pressure from progressive Democrats seeking impeachment, and say Nadler’s desire to accommodate them has led to chaos on the panel.

Prominent progressive Democrats have been stepping up calls for impeachment.

“If now isn’t the time … what is the bar, what is the line that we’re waiting to be crossed for an impeachment inquiry, and so far, it doesn’t seem like there is one,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told CNN last week.

More than half of the Judiciary Committee’s two dozen Democrats, including Cicilline, now support immediately opening an impeachment inquiry which has ramped up pressure on Nadler, the GOP contends.

“He’s got tremendous challenges because the Democratic base wants to impeach this president,” longtime Judiciary Committee member Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, told the Washington Examiner. “I like Jerry on a personal level, but I think he’s struggling somewhat.”

The panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., has urged Nadler to establish better control over the committee proceedings, which at times have devolved into theatrics and name calling aimed at the Trump administration.

When Barr refused to show up for a last month hearing, for example, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., dug into a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken on the dais, across from the empty witness chair.

Republicans also accused Nadler of holding a sham hearing on the Mueller report last week that featured Watergate figure and convicted felon John Dean, who was President Nixon’s former White House counsel.

“You are functionally here as a prop because they can’t impeach President Trump because 70 percent of Democrats want something that 60 percent of Americans don’t,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said to Dean. “So, they are in this no-win situation, and you sit before us here with no knowledge of a single fact on the Mueller report on a hearing entitled ‘Lessons From the Mueller Report.’”

Nadler declined to comment when asked in the Capitol about his approach.

Democrats on the panel have thwarted rules against personal attacks against the president, Collins wrote to Nadler last week. Committee Democrats have called Trump “a pathetic person,” who “turned the government of the United States into a moneymaking operation,” for example.

“He’s set up his members to be in position to just make personal attacks against the president,” one GOP aide lamented.

Collins’ letter to Nadler chastised him for failing to rein in Trump-hating Democrats on the committee.

“This signals a concerning departure from the norms that have governed dignified debate in the House since its early days,” Collins wrote. “Members who continuously assault the Rules should be reprimanded. The rules of decorum exist for a reason; it is unbecoming for Members of the Committee on the Judiciary Committee to make personal attacks against the President’s character.”

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he believes the pressure on Nadler from the pro-impeachment base is taking a toll and leading Nadler to trample the Republican minority’s rights on the committee.

At Barr’s no-show hearing, for example, Nadler refused to allow Republicans on the panel to speak, cutting off their microphones.

“He was always about fairness and justice and people being heard and doing the right thing under the rules,” Gohmert told the Washington Examiner. “Frankly, I’m quite surprised at the way he’s run the committee.”

Despite the criticism, Nadler is racking up new victories in the Democrats’ quest to investigate Trump.

Nadler turned 72 on Thursday and had more than a birthday to celebrate.

A long-sought witness, former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, informed Nadler she would appear before the Judiciary Committee for a closed-door, transcribed hearing on June 19.

Nadler had been pursuing Hicks’ testimony for weeks and had attracted criticism from unnamed critics who believed his patience with reluctant administration witnesses has sent a signal to the Trump’s team that it can ignore the Judiciary and other panel subpoenas.

But his patience has paid off with Hicks and others in the Trump administration.

Earlier last week, the Justice Department suddenly agreed to provide some of the underlying documents Nadler and Democrats had been seeking from the redacted version of the Mueller report, which examined alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russians.

The concession from DOJ followed Nadler’s weekslong effort get Barr to release the unredacted report and came just before a House vote to hold Barr in civil contempt, which sent the matter to federal court.

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., a member of the Judiciary panel who has declared support for impeachment, called the DOJ agreement “a good victory,” for the committee. Lieu said the strategy put forward by House Democrats to wait on impeachment and pursue material in court is working to hold the Trump administration accountable, even if it’s not an impeachment inquiry.

Two recent court cases ruled in favor of Democrats seeking Trump’s taxes and financial records, Lieu noted.

“We won some court cases, the [Justice] Department just caved on giving us the underlying documents,” he said. “We’re trying.”

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., a veteran progressive lawmaker who wants to impeach Trump, nonetheless sided with Nadler’s tactics, she told the Washington Examiner.

“He’s using every tool he has to get to the truth,” Lee said.

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