The next chairman of the all-powerful Rules Committee will likely be Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Democrat from Miami, who will wield tremendous influence over a possible impeachment of President Donald Trump.
The irony is that the lawmaker has a unique distinction: he’s the only federal judge ever to be impeached and removed from office, only later to serve in Congress, which he has done for 13 terms.
Hastings, 82, is an African-American and member of the Congressional Black Caucus, a group that has been vociferous in its criticisms of the president.
In 1981, then-U.S. District Judge Hastings was charged with taking a $150,000 bribe in return for giving a defendant a more lenient sentence. Eight years later, having been impeached by the House, he was removed by the Senate. In 1992, he was elected to Congress representing a largely Black district.
The Rules Committee, which played a key role in Bill Clinton’s impeachment, will make Hastings a key player in any showdown between the House and President Trump.
“The Rules Committee lays out the procedure for everything Congress deals with,” attorney Larry Casey, formerly a senior congressional staffer and expert on congressional history, told Newsmax.
“So if any of this talk of impeaching President Trump or [Supreme Court Justice Brett] Kavanaugh takes off, the impeachment proceedings in the House will have to start with a Rules Committee chairman who was himself impeached,” he said.
Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., could conceivably pass over the controversial Hastings and orchestrate the election of another Democrat as Rules chairman. As speaker in 2006, she passed over Hastings to chair the House Intelligence Committee in favor of the more junior Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.
But, Capitol Hill sources tell Newsmax that passing over Hastings for the Rules chair is highly unlikely.
They note that Pelosi needs the support of the Congressional Black Caucus to be elected and remain as speaker.
His tumultuous history aside, Hastings has had other brushes with controversy since coming to Congress. In 2011, Winsome Packer, a staffer of the Helsinki Commission, which Hastings chaired at the time, charged the Floridian with sexual harassment and was ultimately awarded $220,000.
At a dinner earlier this year, he cracked a controversial joke about President Trump, saying, “A crisis is if Donald Trump falls into the Potomac River and can’t swim,” while “a catastrophe is anybody saves his a**”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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