On the difference between Congress and the Judiciary.
(In the context of impeachment)

Impeachment: Impeachment is the way to remove high officers of the Administration and the Judiciary by the Congress as part of the system of checks and balances among the three branches. In truth, in this day and age, two other factors complicate the functioning of the government. That includes the political parties and the mass media, both dominated by the influence of money in the hands of plutocrats and oligarchs.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Constitution, informed by the writings of the founding fathers, does not define "high crimes and misdemeanors" with any specificity. That has been left to the House and to providence. Certainly various crimes would apply, but the purpose impeachment is to insure that the Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the USA itself are preserved, as well as our effectiveness as a member of the international community of nations under international law.

The Rules: Congress and the Judiciary are two of the three independent branches of our government. Each follows its own systems of rules. In the Judiciary, the system, has two stages for crimes. They are a Grand Jury (GJ) to determine if there was a crime, and a Trial Jury (TJ) to determine guilt or innocence. The rules for due process is different for each type of jury.

Grand Jury: In a Grand Jury, the proceedings are secret, so as to protect the innocent from public exposure to false claims which could tarnish or destroy their reputation and even livelihood. The GJ must examine all the claims and reports, in order to determine the facts and eliminate claims and reports that are false. The GJ must determine if the substantiated facts provide sufficient cause that a crime has been committed, that there is sufficient evidence that an individual committed the act, and that evidence suggests that there is a reasonable chance that a conviction could be had in a Trial Jury (TJ). If so, the GJ will issue an indictment to bind the accused over to trial.

Trial Jury: A Trial Jury consists of a number of "peers" of the accused who are vetted by process to insure they begin with no pro or con bias -- in order to insure any judgment they make is impartial and is based solely on the evidence and arguments presented by the prosecution and the defense.

Hearsay: Hearsay is treated differently in a GJ and a TJ. Hearsay is allowed in the GJ, but not in the TJ. In the GJ the proceedings are secret, so any hearsay that proves not to be true gets eliminated. However, the hearsay provides a links in a chain going back to the original witness. If John says (hearsay) Mary said she saw something, then Mary will be called to the GJ to provide direct evidence, and John's "hearsay" is eliminated from the "facts" as no longer relevant. A chain of hearsay that leads nowhere or to a false statement gets eliminated. A chain of hearsay that leads to a direct witness, can be pruned down to the factual trunk. In the TJ, only the direct evidence of the first-hand witness will be allowed; the path of hearsay to finding that witness (and evidence) is irrelevant.

Congress: How do the GJ, TJ and hearsay relate to Congress, you ask? Recall that these two branches of the government, as stated in the Constitution, are responsible for their own rules. The Judiciary is based on the history of law going back as far as 700 BCE, much of which was codified in the Magna Carta in 1215 as the rights of individuals and came down to us as Common Law - cited in our founding documents. Congress, however, is tasked by The Constitution to determine it's own rules suitable for performing the duties allocated to it by that fundamental document. Every two years, the house votes to establish the rules that will be maintained for that two-year session, as does the Senate. Typically, most of the rules of each remain from congress to congress, but some changes are made for each congress, and the House and Senate each take an oath to abide by their respective. Needless to say, politics determine many things that go into the change.

Impeachment: When it comes to impeachment, the comparison with the Judiciary is often mistaken for a direct analog in which the House is the GJ and the Senate is the TJ. That comparison can not be assumed to directly apply all the rules of the law that determine the due process of the Judiciary. The "due process" of the congress is determined by the rules of the congress, not by the rules and traditions of the Judiciary. However, both must satisfy the people's sense of justice and fairness (as marred by politics). Congresspersons are answerable to the voting public and to those who provide funds for election campaigns.

While GJ's are secret, and only the indictment are recorded in public (less various redacted parts), the House in principle must "judiciously" publish its proceedings to the public. The House (GJ) must, however, preserve sufficient secrecy that targets and perpetrators are not tipped-off to destroy evidence. The present inculcation has chosen to have initial closed sessions followed by public sessions in the committees so as to present clear evidence for its requirement to keep the people informed. There is also the need to consider national security as well as not to "tip-off" other targets still under scrutiny.

Politics: When Republicans keep talking about "due process", they are evoking your understand of Judicial due process, and that is NOT THE SAME as Congressional due process. Their argument is illogical because it is a "red herring", and therefore invalid. Congressional due process relies on the rules of the House and Senate, which are esoteric, change every two years, more when the majority party takes over, and are little known by the general public. Everybody, required to serve on juries, has more or less understanding of Judiciary due process, but few have a corresponding understanding of Congressional due process, complicated by the facts that Congressional due process changes some every two years and much of it is esoteric to the operation of the two legislative bodies.

Articles of Impeachment from the House to the Senate are the equivalent of an indictment filed with the court. Removal from office is equivalent to a verdict of guilty as charged and sentenced. Remember, the House, like the GJ, determines the facts, defines the high crimes and misdemeanors, and indicts the target of the high officers charged with Articles of Impeachment (indictment) and delivers it to the Senate (TJ) (files the Indictment with the court). None of this is free from politics. The Senators of the "TJ" can NOT be vetted for impartiality, as they are fixed by who is in office at the time.

At this time, the facts are still in the process of being extracted by the House (GJ), with the public exposure of open committee meetings roughly equivalent to a leaky GJ.

Plutocrats, Oligarchs, media, Oh My!
Politicians, Lobbies, and money, Oh My!
And you thought "Lions and Tigers, and Bears" were dangerous..