Democrats frustrated by Hope Hicks's silence

[anatta]

House Democrats were left shaking their heads on Wednesday after former White House communications director Hope Hicks appeared on Capitol Hill, but continued the White House’s ongoing stonewalling by declining to answer most questions during a day-long, closed-door interview before the House Judiciary Committee.


According to Morgan Chalfant and Olivia Beavers, Democrats were fuming after the White House blocked Hicks from answering any questions related to her time in the administration. A White House lawyer accompanying Hicks’ argued that she was immune from testifying on her time in the White House, something lawmakers immediately disputed. Nevertheless, Hicks did not answer White House related questions, including, where her office was in the West Wing, according to lawmakers.

I’ve been watching obstruction of justice in action,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) told reporters. “You have their White House serving ‘absolute immunity,’ which is not a thing — it doesn’t exist.”

The move is a blow to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee who thought they had won a major fight to even get her to comply with a subpoena and appear on Capitol Hill, as she was the first material witness to testify before the panel. The latest move from Hicks continues the stonewalling from the administration, as Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn have both declined to cooperate with subpoenas.

Additionally, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) has been unable to strike a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller for him to appear on Capitol Hill after Mueller said in public remarks that his 448 page report would be his testimony.


Hicks’s lack of testimony also gives more ammo to lawmakers who support opening impeachment proceedings against President Trump. 65 Democrats back opening an impeachment inquiry, a number that continues to grow by the week as Democrats grow more frustrated with the president. However, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) continues to stand in the way of any effort toward impeachment, including on Wednesday after Hicks blocked and parried Democratic attempts for her testimony.


“I don’t think you should have an inquiry unless you’re ready to impeach,” Pelosi said, according to The Washington Post, adding that you need the Senate GOP to convict also.

Republicans panned the hearing, arguing they learned nothing from Hicks that they hadn’t already learned from Mueller’s report.


Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, congressional leaders, top appropriators and senior White House officials were unable to strike a spending and debt limit deal Wednesday after a meeting in Pelosi’s office earlier in the day, with Democrats laying the blame squarely on presidential interference for the lack of an accord.
https://thehill.com/homenews/morning...morning-report

[anatta]

[ThatOwlWoman]

So the (D)s are Hopeless?

Sorry. It just had to be said. lol

[Althea]

So the (D)s are Hopeless?

Sorry. It just had to be said. lol

Without seeing the OP, it's evident that Nadler et al are simply going through the motions in order to get the courts to rule on trump's obstruction. Sure...the plan is working perfectly for the Republican terrorists. McTurtle blocked any Obama court appointments, and now the courts are stacked in trump's favor.

I believe he's (as is typical) overplaying his hand in the belief that 'his' courts will break from the Constitution, and allow him to be king.

Congressional Dems are not 'frustrated'. They're playing trump's game as he tries to run out the clock.

What his advisers aren't telling him, is that the court rulings against him are all going to come at the peak of the '20 election.

[ThatOwlWoman]

Without seeing the OP, it's evident that Nadler et al are simply going through the motions in order to get the courts to rule on trump's obstruction. Sure...the plan is working perfectly for the Republican terrorists. McTurtle blocked any Obama court appointments, and now the courts are stacked in trump's favor.

I believe he's (as is typical) overplaying his hand in the belief that 'his' courts will break from the Constitution, and allow him to be king.

Congressional Dems are not 'frustrated'. They're playing trump's game as he tries to run out the clock.

What his advisers aren't telling him, is that the court rulings against him are all going to come at the peak of the '20 election.

I like this take on the situation. Like many narcissists, the Toadstool believes that he is smarter than everyone else. Just ask him. But as always, he's playing Candy Land while everyone else is playing three-D chess.

[Minister of Truth]

How does Hope Hicks' lack of testimony give lawbreakers more ammo to use against Douchebag Donald in impeachment proceedings? Sounds like Dem retardville logic.

[anatta]

Hope Hicks fiasco shows how dangerous a risk Democrats are taking
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.6de3f68f268b
White House counsel had argued that Hicks is “absolutely immune” from answering questions from Congress, claiming that this “protects the core functions of the presidency.”

It’s true that the long-standing position of presidential administrations has been that close advisers have “absolute immunity” to congressional subpoenas to preserve presidential prerogatives. But in this case, the legal theory is being used as part of a comprehensive strategy of total resistance to oversight on just about every conceivable front.

What’s more, Hicks is a former adviser. The White House also asserted immunity when Trump leaned on former White House counsel Donald McGahn — who witnessed extensive potential criminal obstruction of justice — to defy a congressional subpoena and refuse to testify. McGahn agreed.

But here’s the question: How long will that take?

Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told me that Democrats might have a strong case on both McGahn and Hicks, because both “are no longer in the executive branch."

“But it’s going to take months, if not a year or two, to get a conclusive judicial resolution, especially if that includes going all the way to the Supreme Court,” Vladeck added.

And this underscores what a big risk Democrats are taking in counting on conventional oversight, as opposed to an impeachment inquiry, to hold Trump accountable.

Democrats are taking a big risk

Multiple legal experts have insisted that an impeachment inquiry might strengthen Democrats’ hands in these court battles. As Michael Stern, a former counsel to the House of Representatives, has argued, although Democrats currently have a good case to compel testimony, it would be even more “absurd” for the courts to rule that former White House aides “are somehow immune from testifying in an impeachment proceeding as fact witnesses to alleged high crimes and misdemeanors.”

What happens if months go by as these court battles are waged — as it now looks like will happen with both Hicks and McGahn — and then Democrats end up losing some of them?

Maybe that’s not likely. But it could happen. And if it does, at that point, Democrats will undoubtedly say that it’s too late to launch an impeachment inquiry, because the election is looming.

But that would also mean it’s too late to use an inquiry to at least try to maximize Democratic leverage in these oversight battles. In this scenario, we will never know whether that would have worked, and oversight will have been neutered.

Stonewalling such as Hicks’s may build more pressure on Democrats to initiate an inquiry. Even moderates, such as Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), now support one, as do nearly 70 House members. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) appears adamantly opposed.

this “extreme challenge of moving forward with traditional oversight” also highlights the risks Democrats are taking in refraining from an impeachment inquiry. Those risks look heightened after this Hope Hicks fiasco.

[Althea]

I like this take on the situation. Like many narcissists, the Toadstool believes that he is smarter than everyone else. Just ask him. But as always, he's playing Candy Land while everyone else is playing three-D chess.

Yes. What's amusing, in a sad kind of way, is that he's always so clueless in his responses to any matter. Just like his 30% base.

He's channeling Jon Lovitz as the pathological liar on SNL

[Getin the ring]

I like this take on the situation. Like many narcissists, the Toadstool believes that he is smarter than everyone else. Just ask him. But as always, he's playing Candy Land while everyone else is playing three-D chess.

yea, let us know how that works out for you

How does Hope Hicks' lack of testimony give lawbreakers more ammo to use against Douchebag Donald in impeachment proceedings? Sounds like Dem retardville logic.

I know right?

I'm beginning to think the entire Democrat party is retarded, you'd think there would be a voice of reason somewhere among them.

And it's rubbing off on their base, listen to the nut**bags on the forum
We may have to have a purge soon to save the country

[PostmodernProphet]

Hicks’s lack of testimony also gives more ammo to lawmakers who support opening impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

of course, because as we have seen, having no evidence is proof of his obvious crimes.............

[PostmodernProphet]

I think its about time to start calling it unpeachment.....