I agree, pleading the fifth would be politically disastrous. Better for Administration witnesses to refuse to show up than to plead the fifth over and over again in televised hearings.
“I don’t understand. Can you clarify what you’re asking?”
“Your question is premised on information I don’t have, so I can’t answer.”
“I need a moment to consult with my fill-in-the-blank (advisor/attorney/colleagues).”
“Can you show me the underlying evidence you have that serves as a basis for your question?”
ETA: Remember, the mechanism for enforcing these subpoenas is the same DOJ these flamethrowers are seeking to gut by limiting their funding.
ETA ETA: < smacking forehead > And how could I forget the most useful response of all?
“No.”
“Do you want to play a game of Questions?”
Or more likely
“Was there an actual question you wanted me to answer buried in that 20 minute rant you just gave?”
Actually I’m rethinking things, and after the success of the Jan 6th commission, I’m no longer sure that it will be the usual rants and witness badgering that constitutes the traditional congressional hearing.
If they follow the example of the Jan 6th commission and do most of the interviews behind closed doors, only using the hearings to present their findings to the public, and calling friendly witnesses to support a well packaged narrative. In that case no Democrat will actually be called to testify in public, although they might be called to testify privately so that misleading sound bites could be extracted to be presented to the public. If they actually perform well and make statements that don’t support the narrative their testimony will be cornfielded never to see the light of day.
The traditional method is best for individual congressmen who want to grandstand, while the alternative is best for actually damaging Biden politically. So I’m really not sure which way that they will go. All I know it that the panel will contain no Democratic congress members.
Ten Quatloos they go for the grandstanding. And if one of the Freedom Caucus is in charge, make that 1000 Quatloos. I have strong doubts there will ever be another J6-style Congressional investigation.
That would make the accusations of politically-motivated witch hunt† be much more plausible.
†They may use a different term, since Trump has used “witch hunt” for so many investigations that are not witch hunts, it’s lost a lot of meaning.
Yeah, you’re right, I forgot who we were dealing with. If the was the Senate and McConnell was in charge it might be possible to thatthe hearings would be a well organized kangaroo court with slick production values and engraved guilty verdict suitable for framing ordered months in advance. But McCarthy couldn’t organize a potluck at a culinary school, so it’s just going to be a free for all.
Every Republican Accusation Is A Confession.
The strange thing is that nobody has to hunt for anything. It’s all out there. It’s televised and recorded. The world has seen their crimes again, and again and again broadcast right to their TV.
There is no hunt, just a bunch of guilty people.
The problem is that DT could murder someone on 5th avenue, on live TV, call it ‘fake news’ and there would be a substantial subset of people that would believe the media lied just to mean to him.
Understood, and his entire public/business/‘political’ ventures are an example of it. Decent people need to draw the line though. It should have been drawn a long time ago.
And to heck with his supporters. Damn the torpedoes and all that. We are this >.< close to losing our country because nearly half of the people have fallen for a really, really stupid con-man.
The first step is to have traitors shown justice. Trump should have been in prison within a week of 1/6.
It’s shameful and embarrassing. I used to be proud of our country.
Yeah, the above should have gone in the Pit. Don’t care. I’ll stop now.