The Committee News page provides a brief summary of recent events related to congressional committees. It also provides links to committee pages, hearings, and other resources.
The House Judiciary Committee is holding its first impeachment hearing on Wednesday, with four law professors testifying about the legal parameters of a case against President Trump. It’s a critical moment in the impeachment investigation, and it adds to growing momentum behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s calls to begin the process of articles of impeachment against Trump.
NBC’s Scott Wong, Ryan Noble and Kyle Stewart report from Washington.
A new panel of Democratic lawmakers is investigating whether President Donald Trump or his aides broke the law by using political litmus tests to hire staff at the top levels of national security and intelligence agencies. The panel aims to investigate a broad range of alleged offenses, including lying about electoral votes, leaking classified information and inciting an insurrection against the United States government.
The panel was established by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and is co-chaired by Reps. Elijah Cummings and Jason Chaffetz. It’s a rare example of bipartisan cooperation between the parties in Congress.
A committee is a group of people subordinate to an assembly or other form of organization, which explores matters more fully than would be possible in the whole assembly or organization. The term “committee” comes from the Latin for “to divide.”
Inquiry hearings allow committees to review written and oral evidence on a specific subject matter. They usually result in the publication of a report. Non-inquiry sessions are brief packages of work that will not necessarily result in a report.
For the most up-to-date information about committee activities, be sure to visit each committee’s page, where you’ll find upcoming hearing schedules, transcripts of previous hearings, and other committee-related materials.
Due to technical limitations, most out-of-town committee hearings and all “desk meetings” held on the Senate floor can’t be broadcast live. However, audio recordings of these events will be posted on the committee’s page as soon as possible afterward.
The chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee is one of the most prestigious, high-impact and sought-after positions on Capitol Hill. The committee handles $1.4 trillion in federal agency budgets and spreads that work across its subcommittees, making it among the highest impact and most competitive positions in the entire Senate. Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin has agreed to relinquish his leadership role on the committee’s appropriations subcommittees in order to ensure he can fully participate in the nomination and confirmation of new department heads. His decision is expected to help expedite the confirmation of key leadership posts and will strengthen Democratic control of the committee. This will be a significant change from the way the committee has operated in the past.