Hi, and welcome back to Trump Watch! Impeachment finally happened. That means I'm going on break, and so is this newsletter for the next week. We'll be back in the New Year, barring a Y2K situation. Keep me posted on the news over the holiday at [email protected] and follow me at @jacq_thomsen on Twitter in the meantime.

Judges Thomas Griffith and Neomi Rao of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Impeachment Sends Everyone Scrambling—Even Judges

The effect of the House's historic impeachment of President Donald Trump is already being felt in the courts.

Just moments after the impeachment vote was held, a pair of panels in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued orders asking attorneys for the House and Justice Department to explain the impact it will have on cases seeking Mueller grand jury materials and testimony from ex-White House counsel Don McGahn.

Specifically, the judges asked for supplemental briefings on "whether the articles of impeachment render this case moot and whether expedited consideration remains necessary."

The panel overseeing the fight for the Mueller grand jury information asked the House to say "whether it is still seeking the grand-jury materials at issue in this case in furtherance of its impeachment inquiry." And the McGahn panel asked the House if it still wants to compel McGahn's testimony and "whether it seeks to compel such testimony in furtherance of its impeachment inquiry or as a matter of legislative oversight."

To borrow a recent line from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, "the judiciary is a reactive institution."

The late-night orders on impeachment come on the heels of an order from the Mueller grand jury panel asking if the House has standing to sue for the materials, raising questions about whether the court could decide to step out of the case entirely. Two members on the panel, Judges Neomi Rao and Thomas Griffith, have already raised the issue in previous oral arguments in the case.

Before the House even passed the articles of impeachment, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was presented with a lawsuit over the upcoming Senate trial.

Washington, D.C., lawyer Martin McMahon filed a complaint against several Republican senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, demanding that McConnell be replaced by an "impartial senator" in overseeing the trial. Both McConnell and Graham have said that they don't view themselves as impartial jurors.

"Under those circumstances, the American public will not be able to assess whether their president 'is a crook,' or a victim simply because floor manager McConnell 'has seen enough' and mandated the end of the trial," the lawsuit reads.

McMahon told me that he recognized that a judge could toss out the suit over the political question doctrine, which prevents courts from getting involved in inherently political matters.

But he said the "contemptuous" attitudes of Graham and McConnell partially spurred him to file the complaint, alongside his desire for a fair trial that could include as much evidence of Trump's alleged wrongdoing as possible.

"Americans deserve, under the Ninth Amendment, a right to have their claims heard," said McMahon, who donated to former Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich's 2016 presidential campaign. "I'm paying for all this stuff, and I want to see the results."

Even if the case doesn't last long in court, it echoes concerns raised by Democrats in both the House and Senate.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she wants to see the Senate rules for the proceeding before selecting impeachment managers, who are the House members who will effectively serve as prosecutors in the trial, and transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

"We will make our decision as to when we will send it, when we see what is happening on the Senate side, but that is a decision that we will make jointly," Pelosi said at a press conference after the impeachment vote, adding that McConnell and White House counsel Pat Cipollone are "in cahoots."

But McConnell railed against the process during a floor speech the morning after the vote, accusing Senate Democrats of trying to "re-do House Democrats' homework for them" by requesting witnesses and new documents be presented during the trial.

"Every such demand simply confirms that House Democrats have rushed forward with a case that is much too weak," McConnell said.

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What We're Reading

>> 'Enemy to the Rule of Law': House Impeaches Trump, and Senate Braces for Trial: "The U.S. House on Wednesday took the historic step of impeaching President Donald Trump, setting the stage for a Senate trial that is widely predicted to acquit the president. House Democrats overwhelmingly voted in favor of the articles of impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, with a couple Democrats defecting to join Republicans in rejecting the measures. Trump is the third president to ever be impeached, following Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. President Richard Nixon resigned when impeachment and removal from office seemed inevitable." [National Law Journal]

>> 5th Circuit Declares ACA's Individual Mandate Unconstitutional, Punts on Scrapping Entire Law: "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Wednesday ruled that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate is unconstitutional, but sent the matter back down to a district court to determine whether that provision can be removed from the rest of the Obama-era healthcare law….[California Attorney General Xavier] Becerra said Wednesday he will 'move swiftly' to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the decision, potentially reigniting the political debate over healthcare as the 2020 election season heats up." [National Law Journal]

>> Judge Amy Berman Jackson's Had a Front Row Seat for Mueller Cases: "In sentencing [Rick] Gates to three years of probation—with 45 days of 'intermittent' prison time that could be largely spent over weekends—Jackson broadly endorsed the Russia investigation, just a week after the Justice Department's inspector general declared the FBI was justified in opening the probe….Jackson's courtroom in downtown Washington, on the second floor of the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse, served as the venue for Mueller-related prosecutions of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman; the case against Roger Stone, the Trump ally and political consultant; and the trial of Gregory Craig, a former Obama White House counsel." [National Law Journal]

>> Manhattan DA's Charges Against Paul Manafort Dismissed on Double Jeopardy Grounds: "State criminal charges against Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, were dismissed by a Manhattan Supreme Court justice Wednesday morning….The charges, which were announced just after Manafort was sentenced to a total of 7½ years in prison on federal charges, were widely seen as an attempt by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. to pursue a case against Manafort in case Trump issued a pardon for his federal charges. No such pardon has been issued." [New York Law Journal]

>> Court Orders F.B.I. to Fix National Security Wiretaps After Damning Report: "In an extraordinary public order, the presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Rosemary M. Collyer, gave the F.B.I. a Jan. 10 deadline to come up with a proposal. It was the first public response from the court to the scathing findings released last week by the Justice Department's independent inspector general about the wiretapping of the former Trump adviser, Carter Page, as part of the Russia investigation. 'The frequency with which representations made by F.B.I. personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other F.B.I. applications is reliable,' Judge Collyer wrote." [The New York Times]

>> Judge grants government proceeds from Edward Snowden's book: "The government is entitled to any money former National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden makes from his memoir and paid speeches because he disclosed classified information without approval, a federal judge ruled Tuesday….In a brief opinion in federal court in Alexandria, Judge Liam O'Grady ruled in the government's favor. 'The contractual language of the Secrecy Agreements is unambiguous,' he wrote. 'Snowden accepted employment and benefits conditioned upon prepublication review obligations.'" [The Washington Post]

Thanks for reading Trump Watch. We'll be back after the holidays.