364
UPDATE: Much of the links not used yet-reconsider how much to add later
This is reason #872 or so why we need a Democratic Congress Yesterday the House Intelligence Committee interviewed Corey Lewandowski. He like many previous Trump associates refused to answer many vitally important questions. There’s no basis for this refusal but we’ve seen the other Trump associates do the same-Jeff Sessions, Jared Kushner, Hope Hicks, Steve Bannon, et. al-where they essentially assert a nonexistent privilege not to answer.
Interestingly, the only such Trump associate the GOP agreed to charge with contempt for refusing to answer Congress was Steve Bannon. The fact that he’s totally on the outs with Trump and the Right wing after he blabbed to author Michael Wolff surely had nothing do with it, nothing at all I tell you…
Ranking House Intel member Adam Schiff-the man who should be running this investigation-but for this we need a Democratic Congress-has pointed out the interesting Bannon exception.
But with Lewandowski it was back to normal GOP protocol which is to allow the Trump associates to defy Congress with zero consequences.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) called on the majority to issue a subpoena on the former Trump campaign manager, stating it is unacceptable for a witness to refuse to answer particular questions that are relevant to their Russia probe. He warned the panel continues to set a “broader precedent” of noncompliance that could hobble future congressional investigations.
“Witnesses do not get to pick and choose when it comes to very relevant testimony to our investigation,” Schiff told reporters after the meeting ended.
He said Lewandowski refused to answer a series of questions about key events, including Donald Trump Jr.‘s initial misleading statement about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer and the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, as well as any conversations he may have had with the president about the potential firing of special counsel Robert Mueller.
“They didn’t believe it was relevant and we emphasized it repeatedly that was not their determination to make,” Schiff said in part.
“And of course, whether the administration knowingly made false statements about meetings with Russians is very relevant to our investigation, whether their actions taken to impede the investigation, obstruct the investigation is also very relevant so it was a meritless objection.”
Lewandowski, who left the committee’s closed spaces after roughly three hours — a short period compared to his last interview and appearances by other witnesses — said he answered “every question you can [imagine].”
“One thing is unequivocal: no collusion, no cooperation, no coordination,” he added.
Lewandowski infuriated Democrats during his initial appearance before the committee in January by stating that he was not prepared to answer questions that related to anything after he left the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016.
Schiff said Lewandowski answered a “whole set of other questions concerning his time after the campaign,” unlike the previous interview in January, when he told the committee he was “not prepared” to provide answers about his time after he left the campaign in June of 2016.
“I just spent 12 hours of my life I’ll never get back, think about that,” Schiff said.
When asked whether he had communications with the White House before the interview, Lewandowski said, “No.”
UPDATE: While Lewandowski clearly perjured himself-about not having communications with the Russia House and other matters-before Congress he was more fulsome in talking to Mueller as the Report documents.
Of course now that the Dems are running the House it’s arguably that they-while doing more than the GOP, who did nothing-aren’t being aggressive enough.
It's not that they're doing nothing, it's that they're applying a normal, rote formula of oversight to extraordinary abuses when they could take more aggressive steps right away. https://t.co/JW3Bmfa65y
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) May 17, 2019
End of UPDATE
But it’s even worse than this. Not only is the GOP NOT demanding answers from Lewandowski they are declaring this probe over. According to Peter King, all relevant questions are answered. He actually said THAT.
“To me, I don’t see anything else that’s out there that hasn’t been explored,” King told CNN
He literally can think of NOTHING else?! The Mueller probe is going to last at least the rest of this year. Is King claiming that Mueller will discover nothing in the next 10 months that King isn’t already aware of?
Even in the public source realm, there are new bombshells about Kushner, Hope Hicks, Manafort, Michael Cohen, every day. Yet King claims to have seen everything.
UPDATE 2.0: To be sure I focused on Peter King here when I wrote this piece in early March partly because I had run against him during the 2018 Dem primary-as documented in Chapter A I got out around this time, however. Still whoever runs against King in 2020 ought to point out the way he’s abdicated his Congressional role of oversight for partisan advantage.
End of UPDATE 2.0
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/12/politics/house-republicans-russia-conclusions/index.html
My prediction: Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee will look even more stupid when more and more people get indicted.
Special Counsel Mueller didn't get Flynn and Papadopoulos and Nader to flip for no reason. https://t.co/GCzYGvWdZ0
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 12, 2018
As Schiff says, the GOP decided it would just rather not know
1 Manafort
2. Flynn’
3. Papdopoulos
4. Rick Gates
5. Ralph Nader
All who were convicted
Limited response:
- Hope Hicks
- Corey Lewandowski
- Donald Jr
- 4. Steve Bannon
Congressman Joaquin Castro: a ‘hear no evil see no evil’ investigation.
‘Did you commit arson?
‘No.’
‘Ok there was no arson.’
Dem recourse
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/03/13/the-republican-cover-up-for-trump-just-got-much-worse/?utm_term=.6f0f93a349bb