Senate Republicans Embarrassed Themselves in the Sally Yates Hearings 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,

YATES: I remember my confirmation hearing, in an exchange that I had with you and your colleagues, where you specifically asked me, if the president asked me to do something that was unlawful or unconstitutional…would I say no. And I looked at this, I made a determination that I believed that it was unlawful…and I said no. That’s what I promised you that I would do. And that’s what I did.

CRUZ: A final, very brief question. In over 200 years of the Department of Justice’s history, are you aware of any instance in which the Department of Justice has formally approved the legality of a policy, and then, three days later, the Attorney General has directed the Department not to follow that policy, and to defy that policy?

YATES: I’m not, but I’m also not aware of a situation where the Office of Legal Counsel was advised not to tell the Attorney General about it until after it was over.

The funnest thing about this debacle—not in the “ha-ha” way, but in the “need to spend several minutes screaming in a soundproofed closet” way—is that all four of these lawmakers are lawyers, which means that, in theory, they know perfectly well the answers to the insultingly pedantic and utterly irrelevant questions they’re asking. Wasting Sally Yates’ time and theirs like this instead of asking hard questions about Russia—again, the entire purpose of the hearing—was an appalling abdication of their duties.

Senate Republicans Embarrassed Themselves in the Sally Yates Hearings | GQ

hmmmm

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