US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1430

On May 07 2019 02:07 Danglars wrote:
The hearing was pure show. They crafted ground rules they knew he would not agree to in order to get him to decline. Come willingly, so our subordinates can grill you and create sound bites? At least if Hirono wants to smear instead of question, she has to put her own face behind it and not send some underling to undertake it.

Holder at least withheld documents to the point where even Democrats signed on to hold him in contempt. You don't give guns away that kill Americans and stonewall the investigation without consequences.

On May 07 2019 02:07 Danglars wrote:
The hearing was pure show. They crafted ground rules they knew he would not agree to in order to get him to decline. Come willingly, so our subordinates can grill you and create sound bites? At least if Hirono wants to smear instead of question, she has to put her own face behind it and not send some underling to undertake it.

Holder at least withheld documents to the point where even Democrats signed on to hold him in contempt. You don't give guns away that kill Americans and stonewall the investigation without consequences.

On May 07 2019 02:29 Plansix wrote:

You don't stand up the House of Representatives and not provide them with the information they want without consequences. The Trump administration has said they are fighting every effort the House makes towards oversight, including requests to produce documents from his taxes and businesses. Oversight over the executive branch is a basic function of congress and the executive branch doesn't get to decide what oversight entails.

You might not like it, but this is how it works. Congress has the right to investigate the president’s businesses while he is in office. They have the right to have staff lawyers question the AG on his conclusions in the report. Congress created the justice department and AG’s office, so the AG can answer questions from the staff lawyers.

First off, all congress does is play politics. That is literally the game of the game. One does not get elected to the House or Senate to not play politics.

In 1989, Barr, then assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, determined that the F.B.I could legally seize criminal suspects in foreign countries without consent from their governments. In doing so, Barr changed the department’s position — in a 1980 legal opinion, the government said that such kidnappings were unlawful.

It was a controversial opinion, especially given its key implication at the time — that the United States could abduct Gen. Manuel Noriega of Panama, who had seized power that spring. In response, Congress called Barr to testify. “Kidnapping a suspect would make the U.S. into an international outlaw,” Representative Don Edwards of California said during the hearing, as he outlined the consequences for America’s reputation if federal authorities had free rein to kidnap. Congress also asked Barr to release his memorandum to the public, but he refused. Instead, he wrote a 13-page summary that he claimed contained its “principal” arguments and conclusions, something that should sound familiar to contemporary observers.

Except it didn’t. In 1991, Congress obtained a copy of the full memo. It contained several points not present in the summary, including the contention that the president of the United States could ignore the United Nations’ prohibition of state-sponsored kidnapping.

Barr misled Congress and the public through omission. But by then he was already on his way to confirmation as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, where he would recommend pardons for key figures in the Iran-contra scandal, which stymied a yearslong investigation into executive-branch lawbreaking that implicated the sitting president.

On May 07 2019 02:46 Danglars wrote:

You yourself just defended the behavior with

That opinion is pretty final as an excuse, and I have no reason to go further unless you really don't believe it.

The House may subpoena Barr's testimony on his interviews with Mueller regarding obstruction and the summary. The current iteration was bad fan service. I am no longer surprised when people embrace the most transparent propaganda moves the Democrats pull. The appropriate followup is to request Trump's EPA head answer questions from high school climate activists.

On May 07 2019 03:20 NewSunshine wrote:

If you don't want your opponents playing politics, don't make it into a political game. Your rhetoric has grown pretty transparent. Crying "they're just playing politics" rings pretty hollow when Trump hired an AG with little integrity for the sole purpose of running point defense for him. You don't get to dish stuff out and complain when people shoot back.