black briefcase with a carrying handle at the top, and inside was one indictment and one sealed report. special report jaworski s deputies handed over a second briefcase it was locked and over stuffed according to the account in the new york times and the whole thing took some 13 minutes. inside the second briefcase were transcripts of testimony, subpoenaed documents, white house tapes and other items of grand jury evidence along with what is now known as the road map, and the house judiciary committee was considering impeached richard nixon, they wanted that grand jury material. sounds a little familiar and i can tell you a month later, march 18th, 1974, all the material went to the house, the grand jury stuff because this third branch of government, the judiciary was backing up another branch of government, the congress in its coequal
who helped write that report, saw it as a road map because several sections made the case that the evidence showed the president committed crimes in office. to use the language of the mueller report, as you know, joyce, substantial evidence in five or more case of obstruction. so is it better to have a road map if congress wants to do something about it? you know, it s better to have both, and i think congress is now entitled to have both. what we re talking about here is the grand jury material that was redacted in the mueller report. prosecutors call that sixy for shorthand, that s the rule that governs disclosure of grand jury material, and that rule says that it can be released either preliminary to or in connection with a judicial proceeding. an impeachment is a judicial proceeding, so today the judiciary committee has clarified that they re involved in a process that s preliminary to that judicial material. they re entitled to get that material.
this prize internal polling data with the russian operative, and perhaps why, because you see there, we know what was alluded to. it is redacted. the reason it was redacted is because of grand jury material. now, in the court filing today, the house judiciary committee argues there are several episodes that have this kind of information redacted and the committee needs it. they need it because the doj will not allow prosecution of a sitting president and they explained the house is the only institution of the federal government that can now hold president trump accountable for these actions. they also point to the planned questioning of former white house counselling don mcgahn, the star witness of the mueller report cited over 150 times. house judiciary making the case if there is grand jury testimony of the president s knowledge of these events and how his campaign approached all of it, that would shed light on what the president might have been trying to cover up with his repeated a
you had mueller holding the line. is there something in the grand jury material that moves things, do you think? i suspect there s good information there. a lot of people kept saying in advance of the mueller hearing that they were looking for the movie version of the report, and it s clear mueller doesn t win any academy awards for best dramatic actor, but what happens here is the report is maybe a sleeper documentary in that academy awards hunt, and the grand jury material, prosecutors don t go into grand jury with the witness unless there s something important that they need to pin down, something important that they want to preserve, so not getting that full flavor means congress may be lacking some of the best evidence, the most sensitive information. if i were in congress, i would be demanding this material too. i expect it will be productive. we re almost out of time, but ben, to joyce s point, rarely do you see great method actors appearing under subpoena. i mean, there wer
with making war or taxes, which are two other things, by the way, the founders put mostly in congress s hands. so you have the democrats brief today stating clearly the house must have access to all the relevant facts and considered whether to exercise full article one powers including a constitutional power of the up most gravity. approval of articles of impeachment. there s that word, and in this new filing, the committee argues here basically for the first time it is entitled to the grand jury materials under this very specific exception to grand jury secrecy. the committee seeks to use them preliminarily or in connection with a judicial proceeding, the committee investigating whether to recommend articles of impeachment and this why argument explains congress has a stronger hand when demanding information when it has a committee that seeks to use that very information linked to a