This archive report was first published on 19 September 2019.
As the House Judiciary Committee weighs the possibility of impeaching President Trump, a complex web of alliances and rivalries is unfolding behind the scenes.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats' leader, has maintained a skeptical stance on impeachment, saying in March that it was 'just not worth it.' While she has not ruled it out entirely, she argues that the House has not yet built a strong enough case and must stay its current course of investigating and fighting the president in court.
Despite her reservations, Pelosi has signed off on each of the Judiciary Committee's actions, including its decision to hold public hearings on the matter. However, she has pointedly declined to use the phrase 'impeachment investigation,' and has taken a thinly veiled swipe at the committee and its staff for pushing too aggressively on the process.
On Tuesday, the committee held a hearing with Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager who was called to testify about the president's attempts to enlist him in mid-2017 to curtail the Russia investigation. Lewandowski, a pugnacious loyalist of Trump's, dodged questions based on orders from the White House and declared that the president had never asked him to do anything illegal.
