Charles Kupperman, who worked as deputy national security adviser until September and currently shares a lawyer with former National security Adviser John Bolton, will not testify Monday as originally planned. He is instead waiting on a judge to decide whether he has to comply with the House subpoena.
Using an admirable legal system in order to ultimately destroy it, because anything which delays or halts Trump’s removal hastens that day.
Kupperman and his lawyers don’t understand Kupperman’s oath. It wasn’t to Trump or to Congress. It was to the Constitution. Most courts don’t give advisory opinions, but if this one does, I suspect he will be told to show up. The Constitution says the Congress has both oversight and impeachment authority. Executive Privilege is not a blanket privilege, but is limited and even it falls away when there is evidence of Presidential criminality.
Based on nothing but momentum, I do believe a judge will compel Kupperman’s appearance and testimony.
I hope I’m right.
Kupperman sounds like a hostile witness…doubting the validity of the House rules which was set in 2015 by none other than the RepubliCONS!
BTW, Kupperman should brush up on what happened to the Watergate Seven…just saying!
Addendum:
In the context of a criminal case, it held that the privilege cannot trump the need to disclose information essential to reaching a just verdict. If executive privilege applied in the impeachment context it could not block disclosure of information essential to the impeachment inquiry. The Supreme Court rejected the notion that executive privilege is an absolute privilege in United States v. Nixon. The case for allowing the executive branch to withhold essential information is even weaker in the impeachment context than in the criminal trial context. Executive privilege cannot prevent disclosure of information essential to resolving the inquiry into whether the House should impeach the President and the Senate should remove him from office.
In what reality is defying a legally issued subpoena legal? His lawyer doesn’t know that?
Could be.
What we want is a march to Congress of those who actually serve the United States and honor the Constitution, eventually negating the value of Quislings.
I don’t disagree, but that admirable legal system could step up the pace a bit on serious cases like this. If it can be used as a stalling tactic like this it is only because they allow it with their glacial pace. Cases of import to the entire nation need to get priority or the courts will always be a go to whether there is a case with merit or not. Its just a way for the powerful to run out the clock or bankrupt an opponent through endless legal costs.
Perhaps our next president can install a bunch more judges from the Supreme Court down to help with the load.
I could not agree more.
ETA The actual title of this article implies that a court can decide if Trump can be Impeached at all
Just now at Washington Post… he’s a no-show.
But… Sondland showed up to go over his previous testimony, maybe make some “corrections”…
…because yet AGAIN, we are shown that testifying about what a grifting, lying crook is occupying the WH is ‘bad’ for national security.
So, we’re going to find out if Executive Privilege includes covering up High Crimes & Misdemeanors ?
Why has the GOP become the party of treason?
Courts rarely try to interfere with congressional subpoenas. It’s a separation of powers thing. Mostly the problem is Congress’s limited power to compel compliance, which is either ineffective or time-consuming.
Congress’s Contempt Power and the Enforcement of Congressional Subpoenas: Law, History, Practice, and Procedure
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34097.pdf
I was pretty sure Bolton would not testify.
He’s still a conservative Republican.
Sure, he will take a few pot shots at Trump and his flying monkeys, but he won’t help bring a Republican president down.
Like I said before, Bolton will only stick the shiv far enough to draw a little blood.
When will that judgment be handed down? When might Kupperman be able to testify, if the ruling is in the Committee’s favor?
Well, it could set the petulant child off on a tantrum, and you never know what he might do then to damage, not only national security, but domestic well-being and institutions of our democratic republic.
In McGrain v. Daugherty (1927), the Supreme Court wrote in its opinion:
“A legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the
absence of information respecting the conditions which the
legislation is intended to affect or change; and where the
legislative body does not itself possess the requisite
information–which not infrequently is true–recourse must be had
to others who possess it. Experience has taught that mere requests
for such information often are unavailing, and also that
information which is volunteered is not always accurate or
complete; so some means of compulsion are essential to obtain that
which is needed. All this was true before and when the Constitution
was framed and adopted. In that period the power of inquiry–with
enforcing process–was regarded and employed as a necessary and
appropriate attribute of the power to legislate–indeed, was
treated as inhering in it. Thus there is ample warrant for
thinking, as we do, that the constitutional provisions which commit
the legislative function to the two houses are intended to include
this attribute to the end that the function may be effectively
exercised.”
If there’s ambiguity in the court’s ruling. it’s well hidden.
The why is obscure, but the answer is probably money.
As for how, it began with Reagan, first with the hostage crisis in Iran and then with Iran-Contra and the wholesale pardoning of the malefactors. It’s pretty much all been downhill for the Republicans since then.