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Adam Schiff's perfect shutdown of Trump's 'executive privilege' claims is mandatory viewing
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/24/1913820/-Adam-Schiff-s-perfect-shutdown-of-Trump-s-executive-privilege-claims-is-mandatory-viewing#read-moreAdam Schiff’s perfect shutdown of Trump’s ‘executive privilege’ claims is mandatory viewing
Walter Einenkel
Daily Kos Staff
Friday January 24, 2020 · 3:56 PM EST
VIDEO AT LINK~
Rep. Adam Schiff took time away from wiping the floor of the U.S. Senate with Donald Trump’s weak-sauce arguments, to go in front of cameras outside of the Senate to … wipe the floor with the president’s weak-sauce arguments. Speaking alongside the other House Impeachment managers, Rep. Schiff wanted to disabuse the Republican-media narrative that the reason there are zero witnesses being allowed into the Senate’s trial is because of some kind of legitimate claim on Trump’s behalf of executive privilege. Calling it a “camouflage” and explaining that the Chief Justice has already been empowered to make those determinations in the trial, Schiff very adeptly and succinctly debunks what will likely be a large part of the upcoming Trump defense.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF: I do want to address one issue that the president's team has been pushing out, not in the senate chamber but evidently everywhere else. And that is their last refuge. The last refuge of the Republican—not the Republican—of the president's team’s effort to conceal the evidence from the American people, and that is this claim of executive privilege. Now, we urged at the beginning of the trial that any witness issues be resolved at the beginning of the trial. The president's team wished to push that off, as did Senator McConnell, so that later in the process they could say, “well, if we were to entertain those questions now that would simply take too long.” That's nonsense. This is not a trial for a speeding ticket or shoplifting.
This is an impeachment trial involving the president of the United States. These witnesses have important firsthand testimony to offer. The House wishes to call them in the name of the American people and the American people overwhelmingly want to hear what they have to say. Now unlike in the House where the president could play rope-a-dope in the courts for years—that is not an option for the president's team here—and it gives no refuge to people who want to hide behind executive privilege to avoid the truth coming out. We have a very capable justice sitting in that Senate chamber empowered by the Senate rules to decide issues of evidence and privilege. And so if any of these witnesses have a colorful claim that they wish to make, or the president on their behalf, we have a justice who is able to make those determinations, and we trust that the chief justice can do so.
The Senate will always have the opportunity to overrule the justice, but what they fear, what the president’s team fears, is that the justice will, in fact, apply executive privilege to that very narrow category where it may apply. And here that category may be nowhere at all. Because you cannot use executive privilege to hide wrongdoing or criminality or impeachable misconduct. And that is exactly the purpose for which they seek to use it.
And finally, they have withheld hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of documents for which there is no colorable claim of privilege. Several of the witnesses that we seek to call have no even colorable claim of privilege. This is merely the latest camouflage and merely the latest effort to obstruct the Congress in its investigation and now to obstruct the Senate in the trial.
This is an impeachment trial involving the president of the United States. These witnesses have important firsthand testimony to offer. The House wishes to call them in the name of the American people and the American people overwhelmingly want to hear what they have to say. Now unlike in the House where the president could play rope-a-dope in the courts for years—that is not an option for the president's team here—and it gives no refuge to people who want to hide behind executive privilege to avoid the truth coming out. We have a very capable justice sitting in that Senate chamber empowered by the Senate rules to decide issues of evidence and privilege. And so if any of these witnesses have a colorful claim that they wish to make, or the president on their behalf, we have a justice who is able to make those determinations, and we trust that the chief justice can do so.
The Senate will always have the opportunity to overrule the justice, but what they fear, what the president’s team fears, is that the justice will, in fact, apply executive privilege to that very narrow category where it may apply. And here that category may be nowhere at all. Because you cannot use executive privilege to hide wrongdoing or criminality or impeachable misconduct. And that is exactly the purpose for which they seek to use it.
And finally, they have withheld hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of documents for which there is no colorable claim of privilege. Several of the witnesses that we seek to call have no even colorable claim of privilege. This is merely the latest camouflage and merely the latest effort to obstruct the Congress in its investigation and now to obstruct the Senate in the trial.
That’s a fact. Rep. Schiff continues to just land devastating body blow after body blow.
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