“I don’t recall”; “executive privilege”; in other words, the cover-up continues. Watch the spineless Republicans go ahead and confirm this man. Why not?
" refused to answer, saying it would not be appropriate for him to comment on communications that may have happened between Trump and Sessions."
He says he will be independent, and then grabs onto the loyalty club…
Senators, see the many conflicts???
I don’t know this guy, but if he’s a Session’s acolyte, that can’t be good for the Civil division.
Breaking News: The White House and Trump Administration Declared a Toxic Waste Dump
Not a Sessions acolyte.
He’s been at Justice for nearly two decades.
His spilling the beans, he added, “would take away the right of the President to invoke privilege if he ever needed to.”
So he’s invoking executive privilege on behalf of the pResident, in advance, on his own. Interesting how that works.
This will be a 51*-49 vote to confirm, because All the best people.™
*or 50-49 if McCain doesn’t show.
P.S.
Fuck You, Sid McCrashcup!
“Communications with senior advisers to the President are in fact covered by executive privilege,” he argued. His spilling the beans, he added, “would take away the right of the President to invoke privilege if he ever needed to.”
This has been a source of confusion for me for months. All these people refusing to answer questions, seemingly on the grounds that privilege is sort of a default state they can claim without the “president” ever invoking it, and also they need to protect his right to invoke it should he ever need to. If it’s a default state, as they seem to be claiming, why would he ever need to invoke it?
Regardless of your personal politics, the fact that Sessions and his CoS both recused is a level of ethics not displayed anywhere else in this regime of misrule. Moreover, friends, if you were in the same position as they, being grilled by blowhards from either party grandstanding for a clip they can play in a campaign - at your expense - you would likely respond the same way.
If the dems want to make headway (or at least stop getting blown backwards) they had better actually win something. It is the only remedy. Of course, 30 years of neglect and political malpractice have put them at significant disadvantage.
Bears repeating.
From what I’ve read about this guy, he seems a decent, rational individual. I was somewhat surprised about this appointment, but I guess the bench of incompetent lick-spittles is not as deep as expected, and sometimes you just have to fall back and pick qualified individuals. Besides, he has many years of experience defending the government and executive branch against law suits, and if there’s any one area that the Trump Show recognizes they may need actual ability, it’s in defense of their bs policies.
Of course, he’s also apparently a proponent of policy consistency, regardless of politics. So he may not be able to deal with the cognitive whiplash of changing DOJs position on almost every suit started during the Obama era.
It’s pretty funny, I agree.
As you know, the notion of “executive privilege” is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. It got its name in the Eisenhower years but it’s something that presidents from Washington to Obama have sought to define and use. There are subtle and legitimate reasons — very few, in my opinion — but in any case Nixon swamped the field with his grossly outlandish misbehavior.
What’s happening now in the Trump era is an extension, sure, but it’s an extension granted to Trump not by the courts but by a scared and servile Republican majority in Congress. Let’s hope it’s temporary.
The executive who claims executive privilege does need to invoke it, in a declaration or affidavit that spells out the grounds for the claim of privilege with specificity. At least, that’s what the case law has said every time I’ve had to litigate the issue. The doctrine that a subordinate has the right to claim executive privilege by proxy, on his own initiative, just in case the executive should desire to invoke it some day, is a new one for me.
Thanks. That’s what I thought, based on memories of Nixon.
If it’s true that Sessions regards the job of AG as the crowning glory (so to speak) of his career, inglorious though it has been thus far, I can see why he would try to appoint halfway competent people to jobs like this. It would be too much to claim that he’s evolved into a vertebrate life-form, but of late he has seemed to avoid being a complete toady.
He later added: “If I were ever ordered to do something I felt was unethical or unlawful, I would resign my position.”
But that don’t mean I wouldnt do something unethical or unlawful all on my ownesome, like pretending I never heard Comey ask my boss never to leave him alone with Donald Trump ever again.
Did Jody Hunt do that?
hunt, sessions, comey. lie detectors at 30 paces. liars to be dropped through the hole into the shark tank. let’s up the ante.
In her turn questioning Hunt, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) zeroed in on Comey’s claim that he asked Sessions, in the presence of Hunt, to never again leave him alone with President Trump, who he worried was trying to co-opt him.
“At the time of the conversation, Director Comey did not mention the subject of the conversation he had had with the President,” Hunt said. “He just said it was a one-on-one conversation, but nothing about the subject.”
Shorter version:
Q:Did you hear Comey ask Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump?
A: Comey did not mention the subject of his conversation with Trump.
Is it just me or does that not remotely approach answering the question? Was there no follow up?
The question had nothing to do with the subject of the conversation, or even the fact that there was a conversation. It was about a request regarding what people are in a room at the same time.