EVEN MORE UPDATES: Pelosi Schedules Impeachment Inquiry Vote For Thursday

Right now there's not enough information to properly assess this move. I'm gonna go out on a bit of a limb and say that this is probably window dressing, forced because the Dems are feeling the pressure of public opinion against their Impeachment Theater. My guess is that this vote will largely attempt to legitimate the current process as it is, with a few cosmetic changes. As such it might:

1) Allow for the release of transcripts and a few other measures, moves that they will call "transparency" for PR purposes, but

2) They will continue to conduct the "inquiry" as essentially a Kangaroo Court that denies due process to the President and denies any significant role to GOP Representatives.

We'll probably find out soon.

UPDATE 1: The statement by Pelosi claims that the President will be provided "due process rights." In other words, those due process rights have been denied up till now. What those rights will consist of remains to be seen. For example, will the President be provided with the identity of his primary accuser, the "whistleblower"? Will the President be allowed to call witnesses? Will counsel for the President be allowed to cross examine?

UPDATE 2: Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears to confirm that this is all a game, that the "due process" is "going forward," and Trump or the GOP Representatives won't be allowed to recall past witnesses for public cross examination.

“It’s been 34 days since Nancy Pelosi unilaterally declared her impeachment inquiry. Today’s backtracking is an admission that this process has been botched from the start. We will not legitimize the Schiff/Pelosi sham impeachment,” McCarthy said.

UPDATE 3: William McGurn at the WSJ points out two things that are relevant to what's going on with Impeachment Theater.

First, Pelosi has still not threatened to go to court to enforce the "subpoenas" in the "inquiry." Clearly, she fears a ruling that the "inquiry" is not an authorized proceeding. If Pelosi were truly determined to get to the truth she would need to use the subpoena power, but that would drag the hearings out all through the primary season at a minimum. That could well be a dagger at the heart of Dem election hopes--such as they may be.

Second, while the ruling by Judge Beryl Howell that the House is entitled to portions of Team Mueller's grand jury information may seem like a victory for Pelosi and the Dems, it also carries a significant threat. That ruling is being appealed by DoJ, and it invites higher courts--potentially, and even probably--right up to the SCOTUS, to consider the argument that the entire Impeachment Theater inquiry is illicit, lacks constitutional status. This is the argument that House Republicans are making and that DoJ is also entitled to make: The Constitution gives power to initiate impeachment proceedings to the House of Representatives as a whole--not to the Speaker. While a vote to initiate proceedings isn't mentioned in the Constitution, voting is the means by which any legislature acts. Therefore, the presumption should be that the House must vote to begin impeachment proceedings. No vote, no authority, and it's all a game with no cognizable standing--neither the Senate nor any court would be required to pay any attention to Impeachment Theater.

While Pelosi's vote may appear to be a remedy for that argument, it isn't. To remedy that argument the Dems would need to start the inquiry all over again in order to afford standard due process rights. But this vote only purports to authorize what's already going on, without any vote on initiating impeachment proceedings. The problem remains.

UPDATE 4: Here's a really good video of Laura Ingraham interviewing John Yoo and Alan Dershowitz on the events of yesterday. I earlier posted a snatch from the video the Ukrainian spy in the White House, but this is the full interview and it features these two top notch law professors going into Constitutional issues on impeachment. Laura, of course, is no slouch herself on these matters, so it's well worth watching for 7-8 minutes:

UPDATE 5: And here's a good article, not too long, by a guy who's been teaching law at Yale since 1981. In it he describes the stakes--will the US Constitution be tossed overboard and the US government transformed into a sort of EU West?

How James Comey’s Revenge Is Changing Our Constitution
The battle over who runs the federal government.

Who will run the government? The elected representatives of We The People--including the president--or the bureaucracy?