House Democrats are preparing to take 1 more step toward impeaching Trump

The House Judiciary Committee will vote Thursday on new procedures designed to expedite an ongoing investigation that could result in articles of impeachment being filed against President Trump. Thursday's resolution, if passed, will allow Chairman Jarrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) to designate special impeachment-repeated hearings in which committee lawyers can question witnesses for an extra hour, the committee could accept secret evidence in closed-doors hearings, and Trump and the White House can respond to the evidence in writing.

"The procedures change has precedent from previous impeachment probes and will more clearly define where the committee stands on its investigation," NPR News reports. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is still publicly opposed to impeachment, arguing that the public isn't there yet, but aides say she support's Nadler's de facto impeachment inquiry. Judiciary Committee Democrats, meanwhile, are shifting the focus of their investigation from just obstruction of justice, as outlined in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report, to corruption more generally.

"There are so many things to look at," committee member Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Monday night. "Personally, I have been trying to focus on the things that were outlined by the authors of our Constitution, and it was things like misuse of pardons, bribery or corruption in an election, being under the sway of a foreign government, profiting off your public position."

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"People generally understand the kind of corruption he's being accused of now better than they do arcane terms like obstruction of justice," Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) told Politico. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) agreed: "People understand what it means for the president to be spending millions of dollars in federal government tax dollars at his own business properties."