Hope Hicks testimony, looks like another bullshit session.

[spanone]

If trumps gets away with this he is waaaay above the law.

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Hold her in contempt, get it in front of judge

[Gothmog]

2. Hope has better be willing to pay some legal fees to keep trump happy

She will be held in contempt of congress and will have to go to court to defend these claims of executive privilege. This will not be cheap

[Dennis Donovan]

4. Lieu tweet: Excited I got Hope Hicks to answer one question about her tenure at the White House.

Link to tweet

Ted Lieu ✔ @tedlieu

Excited I got Hope Hicks to answer one question about her tenure at the White House. I asked if on her first day, "was it a sunny day or a cloudy day?" You'll need to wait for the transcript to see her answer b/c @GOP is mad I'm live tweeting the absurdity of absolute immunity.

Laurence Tribe ✔ @tribelaw
This claim of “immunity” is laughable. No such immunity exists. Not even close. https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-counsel-hope-hicks-is-immune-from-questions-about-her-time-in-trump-administration?via=desktop&social=Reddit …

12:13 PM - Jun 19, 2019

Her supposed "counsel" should be charged with contempt of congress...

[MontanaMama]

5. I expected nothing less than a shit show.

MF45 is indeed above the law if he isn't held accountable. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, it's just the truth.

[muntrv]

7. Hey Pelosi! Still not enough evidence?

[samplegirl]

9. I never expected

any different! We are in deep shit!

[duforsure]

10. It's only a matter of time

For her and many others for what they've done, and she'll be another one I'll celebrate her when she's sent to prison. These people will soon realize justice will prevail, and they'll pay dearly for their own actions.

[msongs]

11. trump appeasers love behind closed doors lying nt

[spanone]

12. I wish they'd never agreed to this....closed door and we got nothing. It's embarrassing.

[StarfishSaver]

13. It was a smart move by the Judiciary Committee

If they got her behind closed doors and she gave them good information, that would have been a win.

Instead, they agreed to her terms for testifying and not only did she not give them good information, she gave them nothing, pretty much refusing to testify at all.

Now they're in a much better position to get a court to hold her in contempt - something they would have had difficulty doing had they tried to force her to testify publicly and she refused. Had they done that, she could have said, "But your honor. I'm willing to testify on the record and under oath, but I just don't want to do it in public." I don't think a court would have forced her to testify publicly under such conditions and any attempt to hold her in contempt for not doing so would have failed - since, after all, she said she was willing to testify, just not in public.

But by refusing to testify even in private, she's made clear that she's defying the committee on the president's behalf and that's a different thing altogether.

That said, why are you embarrassed?

[spanone]

14. Bet your ass I'm embarrassed

[StarfishSaver]

15. Why?

[Gothmog]

16. John Dean explains the big mistake Hope Hicks made by stonewalling Congress

Link to tweet

“Privilege is not being asserted here. Instead, the White House says that Hicks has absolute immunity regarding the time that she spent at 1600 Pennsylvania. Does absolute immunity even exist? And if so, can you explain to me the difference between the two?” CNN host Brooke Baldwin asked Dean.

“There is no such thing as absolute immunity for anybody to appear before Congress,” he replied. “When the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Nixon case, they absolutely said that there was no absolute privilege, rather it had to be weighed in each instance as to the needs for those who are asking for the information and the person who’s resisting giving the information.”

“Absolute privileges are very rare in the law. And they’re always this balancing process. This total immunity is part of the so-called executive theory of unitary executive theory that will theoretically make the person immune to Congress. And that just doesn’t play in our system.”

[Gothmog]

17. Hope Hicks' latest obstruction just gave Democrats a major weapon:

Link to tweet

“Perhaps surprisingly, there’s no controlling legal authority defining the breadth of what aides can testify to,” Carlson wrote. “With all its limitations — in private, surrounded by lawyers, with a dry transcript to come days later — Hicks’ appearance gave Democrats, with no time to waste, a promising case to take to court to challenge the White House’s definition of immunity.”

Hicks refused to answer even the most basic questions about her service in the White House, which ended early last year, and House Democrats could use that to challenge her claims to immunity.

“Even under the broadest interpretation, immunity doesn’t extend to where you sit at work,” Carlson wrote. “(House Judiciary chairman Jerry) Nadler predicted after Hicks left, ‘We will destroy them in court.'”