Ob¡âstruc¡âtion | \ Éb-ËstrÉk-shÉn
Definition of obstruction
1a : the state of being obstructed especially :
- A condition of being clogged or blocked .or
- An intestinal obstruction. or
- Donnie Trump
Lying liars lying every time they open their lying mouths.
I like the questions though. Are you saying you had conversations with the White House on the question but you canât talk about it? 
Well, they are blockheads.
Kobach is a first class jackass.
âWitness Counsel: Well, to clarify, the question was about the campaign.â
Thatâs when I tell witnessâs counsel that heâs not fucking testifying over and over and over again every time he speaks up to give the witness hints about how to answer and that Iâll move to strike his color commentary as inappropriate and intended to lead the witnessâŚfollowed by something (in this example) like âlet the record show that the deponent was asked a follow up question specifically regarding Mr. Trump and answered in the affirmative.â
Nooo ⌠here we go again:
No, Tierney, the White House did not âblockâ Kobach from answering Congressâ questions. They sent letters to Kobach demanding that he not answer, but they actually have no mechanism to âblockâ him. It was Kobach who decided not to answer these questions.
I am sorry to be a pain about this, and really respect your work. But this is important, so we need to get this right. Here at TPM, and elsewhere. The private citizens who are refusing to provide answers to Congress are making a decision to do so. They have agency. They are not being prevented from testifying by some magic force field emanating from the White House.
OT, but on Joshâs Ginsburg post:
â(the last line here seems very carefully honed)â
Indeed. Occamâs Razorâs got nothing on Ginsburgâs Dagger.
Kobach needs to be held in contempt, arrested and imprisoned. This abuse of the law by the Trump regime and its crooked lawyer Barr has to stop.
Every. Single. Day. Pick a day, any day, and any other administration would be enmeshed scandal. And the GOP has nothing to say. Not a word.
That is getting to be a very long line. I hope we have enough room.
If Democrats had any balls they would beef up their Sargent of Arms staff, and arrest all of the people who refuse to answer questions, holding them in the Capitol jail until they do answer the questions. They would issue arrest warrants for the AG and Treasury Secretary for refusing to show up when subpoenaed, along with all of the lesser administration toadies who refuse to show up when subpoenaed, including Mueller. Until they assert their authority they have no authority. Kobach should be cited for perjury, and arrested and turned over to the Justice Department. Iâm really disappointed in the disrespect the Democrats have for themselves. While they are at this, they should tell the Executive Branch that they will get no budget approved until they show the respect appropriate for Congress, then refuse to pass any budget that provides money for the Executive Branch.
Are you positive about there not being some magical force field? Iâll grant you that it doesnât emanate from the WH per se, but from the orange being that presently resides there. A man of 72 years that has walked away unscathed by divorces, bankruptcies, and vapid children must have some magical force field surrounding him.
first off, why did the âquestionerâ allow the claim of âprivilegeâ to stand?
So I think you need to divide the question up, Department of Commerce, where I guess the White House is not asserting its privilege, and then White House, where the White House is asserting its privilege, because basically itâs a compound question unless you divide it
at that point, Kobach and his lawyer should have been instructed that there is no privilege â that insofar as this was a voluntary interview, Kobach could refuse to answer, but that Trump had no privilege claims in the interview. And then Koback should have been told that if he didnât answer the question, he would be subpoenaedâŚ
That being saidâŚ
This is just a precursor to the Lewandowski claim of privilege that is coming.
Interesting given Kobach was traveling the many states as non government worker to sell his theories, is he really off limits?
What does that even mean? They claim privilege, you move on with the rest fo the questioning and then after, you go to court and seek to compel them to answer on the basis of the privilege assertion being bogus. You donât have to get into a big argument over it and waste time during the âinterviewâ or âdepoâ or whatever. Thatâs just how it works. Donât like it? Tough.
Mostly, people just donât want to have anything to do with him. Unfortunately, now he holds the most powerful office in our country (although he may have sub-let it out to Putin), and his actions are not so easily ignored.
$5 and my left nut bet that KKKobach is as absofrigginlutely stupid as he seems. I bet his wife pours water on his feet when putting him to bed at night because he has the brains of a house plant.
The only thing saving our society is the ones currently in charge could only be more stupid if they were bigger.
I would say that your definition of âunscathedâ is pretty unique, given what we know of the profoundly self-destructive behavior of the individual in question. I would say that the divorces, bankruptcies and vapid children are all strong signs of the level of scathedicity he suffers.
by not objecting to the claim â and in fact honoring the claim, you create a presumption that the claim is valid.
Since this is an excerpt, it may well be that the questioner stated, the first time âprivilegeâ was brought up, that the privilege did not exist, and that any further invocation of privilege would be construed as Kobach refusing to answer the question, or similar stipulatons.
But even a bad lawyer knows that you donât let a false assertion of privilege go completely unchallenged.