GOP senator called out by colleague over 'stunning breach' of duty
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) went after his Republican colleague and Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), for carrying water for President Donald Trump's nominee to the federal appeals court, which Democrats allege is corrupt.
Whitehouse spoke to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on "Deadline: White House" Monday, where the two lamented that the nominee, Emil Bove, would likely be confirmed by the GOP-led Senate.
"Senator, there's an echo in the sound of alarm that you are sounding publicly in the non-fazed expression — is the best, most generous word I can use to describe Senator Grassley's face," said Wallace. "Someone who used to care about the character of the judiciary, albeit from a very, very conservative ideological standpoint, but someone who maybe a decade ago might have been moved by corroborating evidence like what you're describing. And I hear an echo to the warning Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson offered about losing our democracy."
She went on to ask about the caliber of people Trump is offering for the bench and the Republicans who are willing to confirm such people.
Whitehouse remarked that at the start of the hearing, Grassley made up an arbitrary rule "we had to respect the deliberative process privilege and attorney-client privilege, [and] other executive privileges with respect to this nominee. In point of fact, Congress has never recognized those as limitations on our oversight. So that was kind of a stunning breach of what has always been Congress's position."
He also noted that it handed Bove an "open invitation to the witness to not answer questions." From that point onward, Whitehouse said Bove "was like a mob witness," saying "I don't recall" after each question.
When Whitehouse asked Bove about whether he told Justice Department employees that they may have to tell the courts to "f--- off," the answer, again, was "I don't recall.
"Oh, come on," said Whitehouse in disbelief.
Wallace called it "insane."
"The fact that the institution of the Senate Judiciary Committee has gotten to a point where it's no longer expecting witnesses to tell the truth — it's not even expecting them to actually assert the privilege, just hand-waving about how something might be inappropriate to say," Whitehouse closed. "There are actually rules for how you assert privileges. And Chairman Grassley didn't even require the assertion, let alone the rules."
In the past, Grassley has been friendly to whistleblowers, but the Democrats remarked during the hearing that the chairman refused to bring the former DOJ attorney in to testify under oath.
See the interview below or at the link here.
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