3/21/2023

10 Responses to “John Cornyn Brings Down the . . . Well, It’s Not a Hammer. What Is That Thing Anyway?”

1. Can’t blame Cornyn for wanting to move on, let the Trump chips fall where they may

   steveg (27fc0d) — 3/21/2023 @ 5:17 pm

   
   

2. What is that thing? Let’s ask Lorena Bobbitt.

   Kevin M (1ea396) — 3/21/2023 @ 6:29 pm

   
   

3. Cornyn is just trying to maintain a Republican coalition. It’s like Biden maintaining a Democrat coalition by refusing to forswear packing the court.

   norcal (7b2be1) — 3/21/2023 @ 7:14 pm

   
   

4. “Once this precedent is set, things get broken down,” said Tom Davis, a former Republican House member from Virginia who cited the erosion of the Senate filibuster as one example of how quickly norms can evaporate.
   “In modern times, Congress has stayed away from bringing local officials in for testimony,” he said.
   “But then you get a district attorney, out of nowhere, indicting a former president,” he said. “That’s also unprecedented.”

   no, there’s plenty of precedent:

   JF (713df4) — 3/21/2023 @ 8:32 pm

   
   

5. well, let’s fix that

   no, there’s plenty of precedent: _insert sh!thole country here_

   JF (713df4) — 3/21/2023 @ 8:34 pm

   
   

6. Every single one of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients continues to walk free.

   By now the message is clear

   Colonel Haiku (24fbb7) — 3/21/2023 @ 8:42 pm

   
   

7. I thought this is what they ran on. Investigate democrats.

   asset (4255d8) — 3/21/2023 @ 8:43 pm

   
   

8. I think what Cornyn is worried about is that the people will realize that the Republicans in Congress cannot do anything except make speeches and send letters.

   (Which letters, BTW, are not protected by the Speech and Debate Clause, see e.g. Hutchinson v Proxmire.)

   nk (3ccca9) — 3/22/2023 @ 5:55 am

   
   

9. The odds of an indictment are going down by the minute according to Sean Hannity. Trump lawyer Robert Costello testified on Monday (at rummp’s request and he carried with him a signed waiver of attorney-client privilege) and disputed some of the underlying facts.

   To wit:

   Michael Cohen told him back in April 2018, when he (MC) was contemplating suicide, that Trump did not know about the payment in advance, and did not agree it was for the purposes of the campaign and he brought a lot of emails and/or texts with him. Michael Cohen had specifically said Trump authorized it for the purposes of the campaign, evidently to bring this under the law.

   Costello said he told Michael Cohen that one way (he could save himself from jail) was to have something on Trump, but Michael Cohen said he couldn’t think of anything — except that there was some money missing from the Inaugural fund.

   Costello: Did Trump know about it?

   Michael Cohen: No, and he probably still (2018) doesn’t know.

   There have been other Trump-friendly witnesses.

   Michael Cohen was there Monday as a possible rebuttal witness to Robert Costello but was not called back.

   The grand jury was supposed to meet today and hear yet another witness but the session was cancelled with the possibility of meeting tomorrow.

   Fox News reports that there is disagreement in the DA’s office what to do

   What remains to be explained is why did Michael Cohen do this? He told Costello he paid in an unusual way in order to hide it from his own wife, and from Melania, but it is probably not that he was involved in surprising Trump with the assignations in 2006, since he is only supposed to have gone to work for him in 2007. Or was he involved?

   Trump is, of course, denying too much. I think it is still his sated position that he never had a tryst with Stormy Daniels, so he can’t testify..

   Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 3/22/2023 @ 1:14 pm

   
   

10. https://www.axios.com/2023/03/23/manhattan-bragg-dubeck-letter-house-republicans

    : In a letter to Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Administration Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), Bragg’s general counsel Leslie Dubeck said the GOP request is “an unprecedent inquiry into a pending local prosecution.”

    The House GOP’s request to Bragg “only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene,” she wrote. “Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry.”

    The rest is mostly obvious points:

    1. The letter seeks “non-public information about a pending criminal investigation, which is confidential under state law.”

    2. The requests are an “unlawful incursion into New York’s sovereignty” under the 10th Amendment, which is understood to prevent congressional inquiries into matters delegated to the states.

    3. Congress is “not the appropriate branch” to review a pending criminal case. Instead, Dubeck wrote, the courts are the “proper forum” for a challenge.

    4. Requests for information about the use of federal funding are “an insufficient basis to justify these unconstitutional requests.”

    Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 3/23/2023 @ 2:39 pm