After setting aside the impeachment of Samuel B. Kent, Congress can now move onto to the investigation of another federal judge.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 30-0 on Wednesday to grant immunity to eight witnesses in the impeachment inquiry of Judge G. Thomas Porteous, alleged to have lied on bankruptcy financial disclosure forms.

Committee members said the immunity orders for eight witnesses were necessary since some of them had invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote later today on a resolution that is intended to halt Senate proceedings against an impeached federal judge.

Last month, the House passed four articles of impeachment against Samuel B. Kent, a Texas federal district judge who is serving a 33-month jail sentence on a charge stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct. The Senate quickly began the process of holding a trial.

Kent had hoped to hold onto his judgeship until next June, in order to receive his salary and benefits. But after the Senate began the trial process, Kent resigned his seat.

The brief House resolution instructs its impeachment managers to tell the Senate that the House "does not desire further to urge the articles of impeachment" against Kent.

A House Judiciary Committee task force has recommended articles of impeachment against Texas federal district judge Samuel B. Kent. The committee is scheduled to vote on the articles on Wednesday.

The task force voted 10-0 Tuesday, in a rare show of bipartisan harmony among committee members, to recommend four articles of impeachment. Kent was convicted of obstruction of justice earlier this year for lying about unwanted sexual contact with two female subordinates.

"These acts of sexual assault and obstruction of justice are, as the judge who sentenced Mr. Kent to incarceration stated, 'a stain on the justice system itself,'" said California Democrat Adam B. Schiff, who led the task force. "Were the House of Representatives to sit idly by and allow Mr. Kent to continue to hold the office of U.S. District Judge while sitting in prison, and after committing such high crimes and misdemeanors, it would be a stain on the Congress as well."

Rep. Jerrold Nadler and the New York Times' editorial board have come out in favor of impeaching Jay Bybee for his role in preparing some of the Bush administration's interrogation memos.

But actually removing Bybee from his seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit remains a remote possibility, predict experts who study judicial impeachment.

Only 13 federal judges have been impeached by the House in American history and only seven of them were convicted in the Senate and removed, according to the Federal Judicial Center.

Federal Judge Jay S. Bybee is facing pressure from members of Congress to resign or face possible impeachment for his role in the preparation of one of the interrogation memos released last week.

Bybee, who has been on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit since 2003, signed one of the four memos released last week in his previous capacity of head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

He also signed another controversial August 2002 memo setting a high bar for what constitutes torture.

"If the White House and Mr. Bybee told the truth at the time of his nomination, he never would have been confirmed," Patrick J. Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday, according to CNN . "So actually, the honorable and decent thing for him to do now would be to resign. If he's an honorable and decent man, he will."