Why Whitaker is panic-stricken
Jennifer Rubin on Whitaker’s delaying tactics:
“This is outrageous,” said constitutional scholar Larry Tribe. “Whitaker seems to think he is entitled to dictate the terms on which he is invited to testify. He is not. It is anti-constitutional for a member of the Article II branch, not to mention an unconfirmed acting officer whose initial appointment was of dubious legality, to insist that he will not appear to give testimony properly sought by the Article I branch, acting through a duly constituted committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, unless that Article I committee first sacrifice one of its statutory and constitutional prerogatives.”
In other words they’re allowed to subpoena him, and he doesn’t get to refuse to testify unless they promise promise promise not to subpoena him. That’s not how any of this works.
We don’t know why precisely Whitaker is panic-stricken over the prospect of testifying. He might be so unqualified and ignorant that he fears public humiliation. He might have engaged in improper collaboration with Trump in trying to slow down the investigation or ferret out information helpful to Trump or Trump cronies. We simply do not know.
But we do know the whole thing is sleazy af.
“There are obviously questions Matt Whitaker is terrified to answer, and so DOJ is grasping for excuses to avoid appearing,” said former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller. “I think they’ve wanted to push this appearance until after Barr is [installed] all along, and now they’re setting up a court fight that could delay it for months, when they must hope anything he says will be old news.” He added: “It is terrible behavior by the Justice Department and an ominous sign of how the Trump administration intends to treat legitimate Congressional oversight.”
In other words, Trump and Whitaker have corrupted an unknown number of lawyers, who took an oath to the Constitution and who operate under professional ethics rules, to thwart the legitimate interests of Congress and more important, the American people.
It’s a dirty business. Speaking of dirty business…a reporter asked Princess Ivanka if she isn’t worried about all of this.
EXCLUSIVE: Ivanka Trump has "zero concern" about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. https://t.co/4raDLDD6Xh pic.twitter.com/R18v6BW7gW
— ABC News (@ABC) February 8, 2019
Watch her placidly lie, every hair in place. Ice cold criminal.
Everyone associated with this administration is openly, brazenly a BALD-FACED LIAR AND PIECE OF SHIT. Isn’t it remarkable? We’ve become a shithole country.
Perhaps she is lying.
Or perhaps she is just an empty vessel.
This hasn’t been the case with all the other unqualified, ignorant Trump appointees. A bit of public humiliation would be a welcome change.
Well, the reporter did couch it in terms of “…are you concerned about anyone in your life that you love…”
Maybe she’s just icier and colder than you thought.
Just sayin.
Ophelia, in the text of your first link, is the portmanteau of ‘deal’ and ‘lying’ deliberate?
No; typo.
Jennifer Rubin wondered,
I buy this comment on another Washington Post article:
I don’t have that commenter’s connections, but I agree with their framework to see what’s going on. When Sessions recused himself, he probably briefed out of what he saw inside the investigation. As Whitaker has not recused himself, he probably remains briefed in to what he sees inside the investigation. Even if the investigation has no dirt on Whitaker, I assume he has no experience handling the boundary between inside and outside an investigation at this level. (I mean, I assume most of his experience is with information that’s Law Enforcement Sensitive (LES) that you can lock in a desk drawer overnight, and when I say inside, I mean this investigation probably includes TS/SCI which is a completely different level.)
To make an analogy, it’s like on the inside, people tell him, “Nobody talks about Fight Club”, and on the outside, people tell him, “We all know you’re in Fight Club, so tell us all about Fight Club.” CIA chiefs for example have years of career experience handling this boundary. Whitaker is probably so green he didn’t know this was a thing. Sessions knew enough to know this is a thing.
I’m optimistic about the prediction I quoted above:
I hope that Trump serves time. Trump and his behaviour, and the Republicans’ complicity in it, need to be punished, so they don’t choose somebody as corrupt (and stupid) ever again.
I hope things work out so that there is no Pence pardon, cuz sure as shit, if he can, he will. I’m guessing that Pence has been, perhaps, smart enough to sit back, stay out of the way, and keep himself clean, so when Trump goes down, he doesn’t go down with him? He was dumb enough to join the Trump team, though, so that’s not a sign of great sagacity (though he might have agreed to be VP thinking that Trump would quickly blow up, flame out and be impeached, thereby having the presidency handed to him on a silver platter without having had to raise funding, run a campaign, win primaries and win an election, so there is that, too. Schemes amongst schemers. Just how much paranoia does one need to entain anyway?).
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944/2301589499859498/?type=3&theater
I think Pence’s motivations are pretty simple. He’s a polished enough politician to become governor, and to be considered a serviceable VP option, but he isn’t a particularly charismatic dude and probably wouldn’t have a shot at the presidency any other way. (Probably the same could be said about Hillary’s VP pick, Tim Kaine — note that although he did fine on the ticket in 2016, nobody’s ever mentioned him as a 2020 possibility despite the wide-open field.) At one point Pence had been discussed as a potential 2016 contender, but he blew that with the “religious freedom” bill he signed as governor that led to boycotts of his state.
I believe Pence was term-limited as governor, so his only other option was to run for Senate. My guess is that, like a lot of people, he figured Trump was doomed in the general election, and so worst case scenario, he could use the VP nomination to raise his national profile, and maybe position himself to be the leader of the Trump base in 2020 as a sort of “Trump without the baggage.”