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Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted on Wednesday to greenlight subpoenas and depositions as part of an investigation into the FBI’s Russia probe and the Obama administration. 

The 8-6 party line vote authorizes Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the chairman of the committee, to issue a combination of subpoenas and set up closed-door depositions with approximately 40 individuals. 

The votes come less than two months before the November election, injecting fresh acrimony into the Wednesday committee meeting where Johnson accused Democrats of a “coordinated spear” against his probes. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the panel, accused Republicans of a “partisan fishing expedition.” 

“I’m disappointed that our committee is once again meeting to discuss the authorization of subpoenas instead … of the serious challenges facing Americans,” Peters said. “Your own public comments … state that your desire to reinvestigate these matters demonstrates the alarming partisan nature of this investigation which is designed to influence the presidential election.” 

The votes give Johnson the power to set up depositions with dozens of officials he previously got authorization to subpoena in June.

But those subpoenas ran into a snag in August, when Peters accused Johnson of violating the committee’s rules by trying to set up the interview without support from Peters or a majority of the committee to formally issue the deposition notice.  

Johnson blasted Peters on Wednesday accusing him of forcing the votes to authorize the depositions “based on an absurd interpretation of committee rules.” 

But Wednesday’s vote also authorizes subpoenas of new individuals including former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Justice Department official Bruce Ohr. 

read more:

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/516665-gop-votes-to-authorize-subpoenas-depositions-in-obama-era-probe

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    • I beg to disagree, although some of the Federalist Papers may seem to support that flawed assertion. The Founders intentionally created a perennial and permanent friction between the three branches and gave each one the tools to counter abuses by the others; it's called "checks and balances". If they were not co-equal, then the dominant branch would have taken complete control of all federal government power long ago, given the propensity for power to corrupt and absolute power to corrupt absolutely.

    • Not true. They set up conflict known as checks and balances, but not one ruling as supreme. The two houses counterbalance each other. The President can veto or write E.O. The courts are not to be over anyone, but to serve as a hearing house, for that judicial opinion to be either ignored and possibly justices impeached (if they violate the constitution) or then Congress steps in and writes law. I never said there were no checks and balances. You misinterpreted what I wrote. And now you are making assumptions. Where did you get the idea that one branch was supreme from my statements that the courts are the least of the three? I pointed out the opposite, that the houses work together to write law, to counterbalance each other, and in that structure, they are equal, although the Senate is considered the more deliberate body. I wrote that the President executes the law that Congress eventually writes and authorizes. And that the courts do not write law. Read what I wrote. And that flawed assertion came from our founders.

    • We agree to disagree, as well on the COS

      We need a change of morality back to faith, right and wrong, shame, repentance, rather than more laws of men from men who are unscrupulous, have no shame and can't read simple words.

    • Thank you.

    • Rick...

      There is no effective tension between the Courts, Congress, or Executive... How can there be, when the court can define the law as they see fit? It is either the Court's way or the highway.  The Marxist Democrats don't need the Congress to pass new laws.  Gridlock is their pal, it keeps the conservatives at bay and in the Courts. 

      Instead, the Left is using the courts to do what Congress would not do.  Their Black Robed Wizards can magically find anything they need, bubbling up and oozing out from the Constitution and reheems of decades-old law. They can miraculously discover intent, in the law, that no other lawyer or Court before knew existed. And, with the simple stroke of their pens and an act of wizardry,  they create law by fiat.

    • Exactly Jea9...

      The US Constitution does not claim that the three branches of government are co-equal... that is a Marxist narrative created to usurp Congress and the Executive Branch's power to create and interpret the law to unelected Men in Black.  In effect establishing Stari Decisis as settled law has given us a bevy of Monarchs acting as the SCOTUS.   

      Our founders specifically created the Judicial Branch without access to the PURSE or CORPORAL POWER... to keep what has happened from occurring.  The power attributed to the Judicial Branch resulted from the ABDICATION of Congress and the Executive of their powers, assigning them by default to the Judiciary. It is time to strip those usurped powers from the Judiciary, by restraining their JURISDICTION TO THE CASE IN LAW BEFORE THE COURT.

      Cases in law before the Courts must not have universal jurisdiction or application. The Court's judgment must not extend beyond the specific 'case in law' before the Court.  Congress may amend the Federal Judiciary Act to reign in the Courts Jurisdiction and the application of its findings to the case in law before them and no others.

    • One might also consider that when Trump attempted to secure our borders, he was only "faithfully executing" law(s), under his Article 2 duty and responsibility, that had been duly passed by Congress

    • I must respectfully disagree, again. The Founders created an intentional tension between the three co-equal branches that we see manifested almost constantly when disagreement on any particular issue exists. Immigration is not a great example since the Constitution itself places such matters in the exclusive purview of the Congress. And apparently you forgot about the veto override provision of Article 1, Section 7. But I do agree with you that the SCOTUS and subordinate courts have been overstepping their constitutional authority for nearly all of our history, and it has become intolerable in recent decades. That's another reason why the Convention of States is proposing appropriate limitations to stop this unconstitutional overreach.

    • So you are saying that not one is ruling as supreme, even though the courts have overruled Trump's legal right to keep any group of people from entering America for any purpose as he deems appropriate and for any length of time? HIs 1st E.O. on immigration was stalled, essentially overruled, while I see there is no jursidction over immigration at all in Article III. 

      Not co-equal. He is the final arbiter of what laws get passed by viture of whether he signs or doesn't sign. Not co-equal logically, either.

    • Using simple logic, if each of the three branches have powers granted by the Constitution which can affect, attenuate or even negate the powers or actions of the others, and yet, not one of them is ruling as supreme, then by logical deduction they can be said to be "co-equal" branches. I would submit that as precisely what the Founders intended. Hamilton's statement in Federalist 78 was an opinion, and perhaps some wishful thinking, but as recent history cllearly suggests, the SCOTUS, and the circuit courts under its direction, have become way more powerful than the Founders ever intended. The SCOTUS as supreme in the federal judiciary has strayed mightily from its original intended purpose of settling disputes between States, and between the States and the federal government. Therefore it is contingent on the people, either through their elected representatives in Congress, who seem singularly unwilling or unable to act, or directly through a Convention of States, to enact appropriate constitutional amendment(s) to return the co-equal balance of power to original intent.  http://conventionofstates.com/?ref=49564

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