If any of President Donald Trump’s closest advisers had marketable reputations prior to joining up with his administration, those are long out the window. This Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders took to stumping relentlessly for the president’s position on the final report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. She declared the president intended to try and block any more info from getting out via declaring executive privilege over the entire document and asserted that it’s ridiculous that Congressional Democrats want more details of the multi-year, massive investigation into possible foreign corruption of a U.S. presidency in the first place.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House about Congressional Democrats, Sanders railed:
‘They’re asking for information they know they can’t have. The attorney general is actually upholding the law. Chairman Nadler — take a minute to let that sink in — Chairman Nadler is asking the attorney general of the United States to break the law and commit a crime by releasing information he knows he has no legal authority to have. It’s truly outrageous and absurd what the chairman is doing and he should be embarrassed by his behavior.’
Watch:
.@PressSec “Chairman Nadler is asking the Attorney General of the United States to break the law and commit a crime by releasing information that he knows he has no legal authority to have. It’s truly outrageous and absurd…” pic.twitter.com/IIRPXdrAid
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 8, 2019
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) issued a subpoena for the full, unredacted version of the Mueller report in light of issues like the lingering question of how guilty of criminally prosecutable obstruction of justice the president really is. He has acknowledged the unique nature of what he’s pursuing, and rather than pursuing some unhinged free-for-all like Sanders suggests, he’s even said that he wishes Attorney General William Barr would cooperate with him in seeking judicial permission to release otherwise protected material. For his efforts to deal with the scandal in a way acknowledging the still open-ended issues, Nadler has been met with nothing but stonewalling from the White House.
There’s a clear explanation for the massive discrepancy — that cloud of guilt still hanging over the president. In her statement asserting the administration’s declaration of executive privilege over the entire document, Sanders lied about its contents, proclaiming it to herald no collusion, conspiracy, or obstruction on the president’s part.
Statement on Executive Privilege pic.twitter.com/6ujCZDnMC0
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) May 8, 2019
In reality, the report only rules that there was no criminally prosecutable conspiracy between the Trump team and Russia while acknowledging the many links between the two entities. As mentioned, it also leaves open the question of whether the president committed obstruction of justice not for a lack of intent but instead over standing Justice Department precedent against indicting a sitting president.
In response to Nadler pressing onward with his concern over these issues, Sanders declared him to be doing nothing but “pandering to the press and pleasing his radical left constituency.” Apparently we’re not supposed to be concerned about foreign intrusions into U.S. democracy, then — the Trump team surely doesn’t seem to be, ignoring the evidence. In his recent first conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin following the Mueller report’s release, Trump didn’t apparently even try to press him over the meddling, instead just basking in the “no collusion” argument.
Featured Image via screenshot
