{"id":177758,"date":"2019-06-19T22:17:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T03:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/06\/19\/once-again-i-was-too-optimistic\/"},"modified":"2019-06-19T22:17:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T03:17:00","slug":"once-again-i-was-too-optimistic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/06\/19\/once-again-i-was-too-optimistic\/","title":{"rendered":"Once Again I Was Too Optimistic"},"content":{"rendered":"
I early expressed some hopefulness about the prospect of Hope Hicks testifying before Congress.<\/div>\n

Well, she showed up, and refused to answer any questions<\/a>:<\/p>\n

House Democrats erupted Wednesday at the White House\u2019s repeated interference in their nearly eight-hour interview with Hope Hicks, a longtime confidante of President Donald Trump who was a central witness in special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s obstruction of justice investigation. <\/p>\n

Several House Judiciary Committee members exiting the closed-door interview said a White House lawyer present for her testimony repeatedly claimed Hicks had blanket immunity from discussing her tenure as a top aide to the president, including during the presidential transition period. Democrats said she wouldn\u2019t answer questions as basic as where she sat in the West Wing or whether she told the truth to Mueller.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cShe made clear she wouldn\u2019t answer a single question about her time unless the White House counsel told her it was OK,\u201d an exasperated Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) said in an interview. \u201cShe couldn\u2019t even characterize her testimony to the special counsel.\u201d <\/p>\n

Deutch added that the White House was not formally asserting executive privilege to block Hicks from answering certain questions; rather, the lawyer was referring to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone\u2019s Tuesday letter claiming that Hicks was \u201cabsolutely immune\u201d from discussing her tenure in the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) dismissed the White House\u2019s immunity claims and said his committee would \u201cdestroy\u201d those assertions in court if he chose to file a lawsuit to enforce the panel\u2019s subpoena that was issued to Hicks earlier this year. <\/p>\n

Lieu said the White House lawyers were \u201cmaking crap up\u201d to block Hicks from testifying. He said she answered some questions about her time on the Trump campaign that provided new information, but Lieu and multiple other lawmakers declined to characterize her comments. A transcript of the interview could be released within 48 hours, aides said.<\/p>\n

Jayapal said lawyers even objected to Hicks discussing episodes that occurred after she left the White House \u2014 and that Hicks went along with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is making a choice to follow along with all the claims of absolute immunity,\u201d Jayapal said, adding: \u201cBasically, she can say her name.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nadler has not yet gone to court? <\/p>\n

It really remarkable just how hard the Democrats are playing to lose.<\/p>\n

Ignoring the whole, “Shirking your Constitutional duties,” thing, the politics is horrible.<\/p>\n

If the Democrats are unwilling to fight for the truth from the Trump, voters will not take promises that the Democrats are going to fight for them seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I early expressed some hopefulness about the prospect of Hope Hicks testifying before Congress. Well, she showed up, and refused to answer any questions: House Democrats erupted Wednesday at the White House\u2019s repeated interference in their nearly eight-hour interview with Hope Hicks, a longtime confidante of President Donald Trump who was a central witness in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[447,368,585,573,374,454],"class_list":["post-177758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-congress","tag-corruption","tag-cowardice","tag-donald-trump","tag-politics","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177758\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}