Democratic Senator Scorches Sessions: ‘You Are Obstructing This Investigation by Not Answering Questions’

‘Your Silence… Speaks Volumes’ Democrat Says to Sessions

Attorney General Jeff Sessions continued Trump administration officials’ policy of refusing to answer questions when testifying before the Senate while not invoking executive privilege but reserving the right of the President to invoke it at a later date.

Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich late Tuesday afternoon, apparently tired of Sessions’ obfuscation and refusal to answer questions, scorched the Attorney General, reminding him he had raised his right hand and told the Committee he would tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

“And now you’re not answering questions. You’re impeding this investigation,” the Democratic freshman senator from New Mexico told Sessions. “So, my understanding of the legal standard is, you either answer the question – that’s the best outcome. You say, ‘This is classified. Can’t answer it here. I’ll answer it in closed session.’ That’s bucket number two. Bucket number three is, ‘I’m invoking executive privilege.’ There is no ‘appropriateness bucket.’ It is not a legal standard,” Heinrich blasted.

Sen. Heinrich then demanded Sessions tell him what these “long standing DOJ rules” Sessions alluded to, that ban him from answering questions “without invoking executive privilege.”

Sessions, who feigned outrage and indignation several times earlier in this hearing, said, “I’m protecting the president’s constitutional right by not giving it away before he has a chance to view it.”

“It is my judgment that it would be inappropriate for me to answer any or reveal any private conversations with the president when he has not had the opportunity to review the questions,” Sessions claimed.

“You are obstructing that congressional investigation by not answering that question,” Heinrich made clear. “Your silence… speaks volumes,” he concluded.

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Sessions refused to commit to testifying in the future in closed session to answer these or other questions.

Last week several Trump administration officials refused to answer many questions before the Senate Intelligence Committee under the same “policy,” which is neither formal nor publicly available in writing, that they would not answer questions in the event the president wishes to invoke executive privilege in the future. That led the Republican Chairman to admonish them at the end of the hearing, stating they had better be prepared to testify fully the next time they appear before his committee.

UPDATE: 4:57 PM EDT –
ACLU weighs in:

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