How Fiona Hill's attorneys fought the White House's attempts to limit her testimony

[Mike 03]

From The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell

When the White House counsel contacted Fiona Hill's lawyers on Sunday and raised Executive Privilege to limit her from discussing many communications she had not only with the president and White House officials but other foreign diplomats her lawyers responded this way:

(paraphrasing):

We do not believe the White House's legal reasoning. Information that has already come into the public sphere can no longer be considered privileged. Also, Executive Privilege disappears when there is reason to believe there was government misconduct.

Fiona Hill's lawyers then asked the White House to respond with legal arguments...

But there was dead silence from the White House counsel.

Fiona Hill testified without any interference.

This is the playbook for how our witnesses should circumvent false claims of Executive Privilege.

[calimary]

1. Excellent point.

[blaze]

2. Happy to K&R nt

[ancianita]

3. Exactly why I love Lawrence -- showing the public the law "forest" over MF45's legal "trees."

[Harker]

8. It's merely rubbery shrubbery. n/t

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. Good for her

It sounds like anybody claiming EP to refuse to testify is likely being complicit.

[gab13by13]

5. It's the playbook for honest witnesses.

[dalton99a]

6. Lee Wolosky's Oct. 13, 2019 letter to the White House

[bucolic_frolic]

10. Between oversight and suspected misconduct

there's not a lot of room for executive privilege to operate.

I would add that anything the government does in a democracy is at the behest of taxpayers and the common good, the commonwealth, the end product of the social contract that is representative government. The public has paid the bills and has the right to know. Executive privilege is a delusion.

[RVN VET71]

12. Hitting lawyers where it hurts:

With the law and with legal precedents -- and with a very incisive quotation from a President who had, as I recall, much more dramatic and significant dealings with Mexico than the current Russian-backed incumbent of the White House.

[2naSalit]

7. K&R

[DeminPennswoods]

9. Like all bullies, they completely fold

when confronted.

It's hilarious when Hill's lawyers asked for a legal response, they were met by cricket chirping silence.

[blaze]

11. Sounds like they did the same with Kent

As I posted in another thread:

Link to tweet

"NEWS: The State Department and White House tried to block George Kent from appearing -- so the House Intel Committee subpoenaed him, according to a source working on the impeachment inquiry. He is complying with the subpoena.

This is Yovanovitch all over again."

[Nitram]

13. Oh, snap!

[Cha]

14. Wow.. Easy Peasy.. just know the

LAW!