The New York Times - 19.09.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 N A

The 45th PresidentThe Agenda

WASHINGTON — The photo-
graph has all the trappings of a
Renaissance painting — crowded
with characters, action and emo-
tion — only this one is set in a con-
gressional hearing room and fea-
tures figures frequently found on
C-Span.
It captures a small moment in a
big event: The first hearing by the
House Judiciary Committee offi-
cially called to determine whether
to impeach President Trump. But
to look at the frame, captured on
Tuesday by Doug Mills, a New
York Times photographer, is to un-
derstand something deeper about
the forces at play as the House
grapples with the prospect of try-
ing to remove Mr. Trump.
We decided to give it a close
reading.

1

Chairman Jerrold Nadler,
Democrat of New York
Mr. Nadler, a long-serving
progressive from Manhattan, is
literally in the middle of the im-
peachment debate — not just be-
tween the Republicans and Demo-
crats seen here, but between com-
peting factions of his own party.
Mr. Nadler and most of his fellow
Democrats on the committee have
become increasingly outspoken
about their support for “vindicat-
ing the Constitution” through an
impeachment vote, but moderates
in the party remain deeply skepti-
cal, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi has
publicly downplayed the effort.
The photograph documents a
tense scene during the panel’s
questioning of Corey
Lewandowski, Mr. Trump’s for-
mer campaign manager, who
Democrats believe may hold a key
to proving that the president ob-
structed justice. At issue is
whether House rules allow a con-
sultant working for the Demo-
crats to directly question Mr.
Lewandowski.
As Mr. Nadler leans back his
chair, an intense debate unfolds
around him even after he over-
ruled Republicans’ objection to a
prominent defense lawyer ques-
tioning Mr. Lewandowski, and
then quickly dispatched with their
attempts to shut down the hear-
ing.
His broader goal is to try to me-
thodically fight back opposition to
build a case for the public that Mr.
Trump obstructed justice, abused
his power and profited from his of-
fice. As he sees it, Tuesday’s hear-
ing, like others before it, may have
been chaotic and given the wit-
ness a platform to blast Demo-
crats, but it also allowed his com-
mittee to demonstrate before
rolling television cameras that Mr.
Trump had tried to obstruct the
special counsel investigation, and
is now working to thwart the com-
mittee’s own.

2

Doug Collins, Republican
of Georgia
Hunched over, thrusting a
small sheaf of papers across the
frame, Mr. Collins has initiated
this particular fight, grinding the
proceedings to a halt. In his hand
is a copy of the contract for Barry
H. Berke, an experienced white-

collar defense lawyer, to serve as a

consultant to the committee. Mr.

Collins, a fast-talking conserva-

tive, is arguing that Mr. Berke is

not a full committee employee,

and therefore ineligible to ques-

tion witnesses under the rules.

In this case, as in most other

conflicts Republicans provoke

over terms and rules, they want to

portray Mr. Nadler and Demo-

crats as running roughshod over

congressional norms in a political

campaign hellbent on destroying

Mr. Trump. If they can help mud-

dle the case Democrats are trying

to build, all the better.

“Under the circumstances of

the current so-called impeach-

ment inquiry, it would constitute

an unprecedented privatization of

impeachment,” Mr. Collins said of

Mr. Berke’s participation. He add-

ed, “If it’s win at all costs, Mr.

Chairman, then we have a prob-

lem.”

3

Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of

California

Ms. Lofgren is a crucial

member of the committee’s brain

trust. She served as a Democratic

staff member for the panel during

the impeachment investigation of

President Richard M. Nixon and

was a member herself when the

committee voted to recommend

impeaching President Bill Clin-

ton.

This time, though, she has made

no secret of her reservations

about Democrats’ case and the

wisdom of pursuing an impeach-

ment strictly along partisan lines.

She also serves as the head of

the House Administration Com-

mittee, and, as such, is stepping in

as something of an arbiter to this

rules dispute. As far as her com-

mittee is concerned, she said, it is

well within the rules for Mr. Berke

to ask questions.

4

Barry H. Berke, a lawyer

for the committee

Mr. Berke is the subject of

the particular fight playing out

here. A partner at the New York

firm Kramer Levin with strong

connections to Democrats (he

once represented Mayor Bill de

Blasio of New York in a federal in-

vestigation into the mayor’s cam-

paign fund-raising), Mr. Berke

was hired by Mr. Nadler last win-

ter to help the committee shape its

investigative work. Up until Tues-

day, he had labored mostly behind

the scenes. The stage was set for

him to take a more prominent role

last week when the committee ap-

proved new procedures govern-

ing its impeachment investigation

including allowing for staff law-

yers to question witnesses di-

rectly after lawmakers have had

their turns.

Mr. Berke’s rapid-fire cross-ex-

amination of Mr. Lewandowski,

when it finally commenced, drew

widespread praise and high-

lighted just how choppy and un-

productive the typical questioning

by lawmakers in hearings like

these can be. Most notably, Mr.

Berke was able to force the hear-

ing’s sharp-tongued witness to ad-

mit he had been less than truthful

about his involvement with the

special counsel in national televi-

sion interviews.

“I have no obligation not to be

dishonest to the media because

they are as dishonest as anybody

else,” Mr. Lewandowski said.

5

Committee staff

A very small army of profes-

sional staff members stand

behind elected officials in any con-

gressional proceeding. In this

case, a mix of Democratic and Re-

publican aides who specialize in

investigations and committee

rules are advising the lawmakers

on the finer points of their debate.

Pressed against their chests or

tightly rolled in their hands are le-

gal papers and procedural docu-

ments that undergird the commit-

tee’s work. When they aren’t em-

broiled in mid-hearing flare-ups

like this one, they help craft strat-

egy, write speeches, draft scripts

for questioning witnesses and at-

tempt to keep the business of the

committee on track.

NOT PICTURED (BUT IN CHARGE)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi

As the Democrats’ leader, Ms.

Pelosi overshadows the entire de-

bate, quietly approving every

move Mr. Nadler has made even

as she tends to the tricky politics

of impeachment in a party that is

deeply divided over the issue. As

the Judiciary Committee has in-

tensified its talk of impeaching the

president, Ms. Pelosi has main-

tained the skeptical stance she

adopted months ago when she

said doing so was “just not worth

it.” Though she has not ruled it out

entirely, she argues the House has

not yet built a strong enough case,

and must stay its current course

of investigating and fighting the

president in court.

The tensions between Ms.

Pelosi, Mr. Nadler and the Judicia-

ry Committee have increasingly

spilled into public since Congress

returned from summer recess last

week. Though she has signed off

on each of the panel’s actions, she

has pointedly declined to use the

phrase “impeachment investiga-

tion,” and in one private meeting

last week, first reported by Poli-

tico, she took a thinly veiled swipe

at the committee and its staff for

pushing too aggressively on the

process given that some Demo-

crats are not yet sold on it, accord-

ing to people familiar with her re-

marks. Supporters of impeach-

ment fear she is trying to sow con-

fusion to justify not going down

that road.

NOT PICTURED (BUT ON THE STAND)

Corey Lewandowski

Try as Democrats might, they

struggled at points on Tuesday to

keep the focus on their witness

and the story he had to tell about

Mr. Trump’s attempts to enlist him

in mid-2017 to drastically curtail

the Russia investigation. Mr.

Lewandowski, a pugnacious loy-

alist of Mr. Trump’s who is consid-

ering a Senate run in New Hamp-

shire, was never going to make it

easy. He dodged questions based

on orders from the White House,

taunted Democrats in the hearing

room and, even as he confirmed

key details about possible ob-

struction of justice, declared the

president had never asked him to

do a “anything illegal.”

Though Mr. Lewandowski is the

first fact witness to show up for

public testimony before the Judi-

ciary panel, his blockade was part

of a larger White House effort to

stonewall the committee’s work. It

has repeatedly intervened to di-

rect former officials at the center

of the case not to testify and slow-

walked the production of docu-

ments, making it far more difficult

for Democrats to create the kind

of vivid hearings that could gener-

ate more public interest.

Anatomy of Photo: Light, Perspective and the Prospect of Impeachment

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

By NICHOLAS FANDOS

WASHINGTON — The De-
fense Department has spent at
least $184,000 at the Trump Turn-
berry resort in Scotland since
2017, as it sent several dozen
crews from flights making a refu-
eling stopover to the resort hotel,
the Pentagon said in a letter sent
to congressional investigators.
The spending figure from the
Defense Department came after
the House Oversight and Reform

Committee asked in June about a
surge in Air Force flights stopping
for refueling at the Glasgow Prest-
wick Airport in Scotland. Flight
crews and passengers from some
of those flights spent the night at
the Trump Turnberry resort,
about 25 miles away.
Between August 2017 and July
2019, the Defense Department
records show $124,579 was spent
at Trump Turnberry, or an aver-
age cost of $189.04 per overnight
stay. That suggests a total of about
660 individual rooms were paid
for at the hotel during that period.
The Defense Department also
reported that there was an addi-
tional $59,729 in travel charges as-
sociated with the Trump Turn-
berry that could not be tied to ac-
tual travel vouchers. The letter
did not detail how the additional

money was spent, but suggested it

could have been on “meals eaten

at restaurants while on official

travel.”

The total spending of more than

$184,000 is way up compared to

the prior two years, when depart-

ment records show that a total of

$64,380 was spent through gov-

ernment travel charge cards at

Trump Turnberry.

Last week, the Air Force re-

ported that crews had stayed at

Turnberry Resort about 6 percent

of the time its flights had made

overnight stays linked to stops at

the Prestwick airport since 2015.

That works out to about 40 in-

stances when crews were taken

there in cars or aboard a bus,

when the layovers included a

large number of passengers.

Representative Elijah E. Cum-

mings, Democrat of Maryland, the

committee chairman, wrote back

to the Pentagon on Wednesday

expressing frustration with the

Pentagon’s response. He noted,

for example, that the Defense De-

partment did not specifically say

how many total rooms were

booked at Trump Turnberry.

“Unfortunately, the depart-

ment’s response has been woe-

fully inadequate,” Mr. Cumming

said, in a letter that was also

signed by Representative Jamie

Raskin, Democrat of Maryland

and the chairman of the panel’s

civil rights and civil liberties sub-

committee. “The department

failed to produce any underlying

invoices or travel records relating

to spending at Trump Turnberry

or Prestwick Airport,” the letter

added. “It is unclear why the de-

partment has taken so long to

produce such rudimentary and

deficient information.”

The stays at the hotel have

drawn criticism by Democrats in

Congress given that Mr. Trump’s

family owns the hotel and is po-

tentially profiting from spending

by the Pentagon.

The number of United States

military flights stopping for refu-

eling and crew rest at Glasgow

Prestwick Airport has jumped

since Mr. Trump became presi-

dent, with the Pentagon spending

nearly $17 million at the airport

since January 2017 on refueling

and other services. The Defense

Department, in a letter signed by

James N. Stewart, the assistant

secretary of defense for man-

power and reserve affairs, said

the shift to the Prestwick airport

had taken place because it was

ideally located on the air route be-

tween the Middle East and other

locations in Europe and it was

open every day and around the

clock.

The spending at the Trump ho-

tel, he said, was below the amount

allowed per day under Defense

Department standards. The Turn-

berry was chosen during at least

one March 2019 Air Force stop-

over at Prestwick, he said, be-

cause “it was the closest available

lodging with the government ho-

tel rate.”

The State Department has sep-

arately spent tens of thousands of

dollars since 2017 at Trump Turn-

berry, associated with a visit last

year by Mr. Trump to the resort

and most likely tied to visits by his

son Eric Trump, who travels with

Secret Service protection, to the

resort, which he helps manage for

the family.

Senator Gary Peters, Democrat

of Michigan, introduced legisla-

tion with 33 Democrats and one

independent as co-sponsors in the

last week that would ban federal

spending at properties owned by

the president, vice president or

any member of the cabinet.

Pentagon Spent $184,

In 2 Years at Trump Hotel

By ERIC LIPTON

The Trump Turnberry Hotel and Golf Course in Scotland, which is about 25 miles away from Glasgow Prestwick Airport.

MARY TURNER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Stopover for the Air

Force that’s part of the

family business.

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