US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7213

On March 29 2017 00:49 Gorsameth wrote:

He became chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in January 2015 so no.

On March 29 2017 01:12 LegalLord wrote:
Ineptitude among Congressmen is not just common but the norm. There is a reason no sane person approves of Congress these days.

On March 29 2017 01:19 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
So it was the White House that ordered Nunes to cancel the hearings.

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/846751317355872257

https://twitter.com/ericgeller/status/846725410033471489

On March 29 2017 01:10 Mohdoo wrote:
Are there ever times when canceling a hearing is like...positive, not just negligible? There are clearly times when it is negative, as with Nunes canceling this shit. But I am more so wondering if there is a situation where this would be the proper thing to do for some legal blah blah reason thing. From my ignorant perspective, canceling the hearing is an enormous red flag and a blatant misuse of authority.

On March 29 2017 01:26 Doodsmack wrote:


Technically I don't think it's been shown that the WH ordered Nunes to cancel, but the WH told Yates she needs consent to testify about certain things.

Lawyers for President Donald Trump tried to prevent former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on links between Trump campaign staff and Russian officials, according to correspondence first obtained by The Washington Post.

In a series of letters last week, Yates’ lawyer, David O’Neil, accused the Trump Justice Department of trying to silence Yates by asserting that “all information Ms. Yates received or actions she took in her capacity as Deputy Attorney General and acting Attorney General are client confidences that she may not disclose absent written consent of the department.”

Yates served as deputy attorney general in the Obama administration and then as acting attorney general in the first few weeks of the Trump administration. Trump fired her on Jan. 31, after she refused to enforce the president’s original executive order banning immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries.

O’Neil went on to write that he and his client disagreed with the idea that her testimony required permission. “We believe that the department’s position in this regard is overbroad, incorrect, and inconsistent with the department’s historical approach to the congressional testimony of current and former officials,’’ he wrote.

“In particular, we believe that Ms. Yates should not be obligated to refuse to provide non-classified facts about the department’s notification to the White House of concerns about the conduct of a senior official,” he wrote. “Requiring Ms. Yates to refuse to provide such information is particularly untenable given that multiple senior administration officials have publicly described the same events.’’

O’Neil emphasized that Yates would not reveal any classified information in the Intelligence Committee hearing.

On Friday, the Justice Department wrote back to say that any approval concerning testimony about communications with the White House needed to come not from the department but straight from the White House. O’Neil then wrote to White House Counsel Don McGahn, told him what the Justice Department had said, and informed him that Yates planned to testify Tuesday, March 28, as originally scheduled.

Within hours after that letter was sent on Friday, Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) canceled the scheduled hearing, which also would have included testimony from top intelligence officials. On Tuesday, the White House denied that it had taken any action to prevent Yates from testifying.

“The Washington Post story is entirely false,” said White House press secretary Sean Spicer in a statement. “The White House has taken no action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying and the Department of Justice specifically told her that it would not stop her and to suggest otherwise is completely irresponsible.”

On March 29 2017 02:09 xDaunt wrote:
Since when did the proposition that only the client has the right to waive the attorney-client privilege become controversial? Isn't that basically the basis for the executive privilege being claimed here?

On March 29 2017 02:09 xDaunt wrote:
Since when did the proposition that only the client has the right to waive the attorney-client privilege become controversial? Isn't that basically the basis for the executive privilege being claimed here?

On March 29 2017 01:26 LightSpectra wrote:


If you do a poll of "Do you think Congress is doing a good job?" then the answer is always abysmally low (10-30% region). On the other hand if you do a poll of "Do you think YOUR representatives in Congress are doing a good job?", the mean approval rating usually fluctuates somewhere between 40-60%.

On March 29 2017 02:16 Gorsameth wrote:

Is the President a client of the Attorney General? I thought the WH had its own set of attorneys and that the Attorney General represents the People.

On March 29 2017 01:57 zlefin wrote:

I can't think of any where it would be a positive thing to do; certainly plenty of cases where it'd be negligible/routine.