Word: starrs
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...House, where, according to the Constitution, any impeachment process must begin and where all 435 seats will be contested in November. Which is why Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spent part of the past four months trying to work out a process for dealing with a report from Starr that maximizes the potential political benefits for Republicans while shielding them from charges of excessive partisanship...
Never mind how many incriminating facts Starr may have amassed or how sound the prosecutor's legal reasoning may be; once the case arrives on Capitol Hill, politics, not the law, becomes paramount. Congress is not a grand jury. Approval ratings are as important as tape recordings, sound bites as powerful as subpoenas...
...fairness. Though Gingrich once flirted with the idea of setting up a special committee to receive what is likely to be the first impeachment report ever filed by an independent prosecutor, he was beaten back by Hyde and other Republicans who insisted that "regular order" be followed. With Starr now likely to finish his investigation in the run-up to November's midterm elections, Hyde will be forced to make a series of politically loaded decisions. "We're going to have to look at the calendar and do some deep thinking," he said last week...
...process will probably begin with a phone call from Starr to Gingrich with the news that a report is on its way. Since Congress is scheduled to be in town for just four more weeks between now and November, actual impeachment proceedings almost certainly couldn't happen this year. But if Starr has a report to deliver, the House will be forced to deal with it. "We can't just sit on it until January," says a senior House Republican. And so, within days of Starr's notification, the Speaker will bring a resolution to the House floor limiting access...
What would happen next is unclear. Members of the Republican leadership, like Boehner, have suggested that Hyde could hold "informational hearings," bringing forward a full parade of witnesses, in order to make Starr's findings public without having to proceed directly to an impeachment inquiry. But Hyde said last week that "I don't know what the hell an informational hearing is." And others close to the process predicted that the committee was more likely to release a sanitized summary of Starr's report...