Senators demanded answers. Bondi refused to give them.

Bondi told Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) she would not discuss conversations she had with Trump about Comey’s indictment.

Bondi and Trump met for dinner at the White House the night before the indictment. Bondi also redirected questions about the Epstein investigation into scrutiny toward Democrats.

Bondi asked Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) if he had questioned her predecessor, Merrick Garland, on Epstein. She also brought up Democratic ties to LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, an alleged Epstein associate. Between the lines: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also asked Bondi who ordered her to flag Epstein records related to President Trump.

“I’m not going to discuss anything about that with you, senator,” Bondi said. Durbin responded: “Eventually you’re going to have to answer for your conduct in this. You won’t do it today, but eventually you will.”

  • tal@olio.cafeEnglish
    13·
    5 days ago

    Well…it depends.

    First, I don’t know if she was under oath.

    Second, there is executive privilege. That doesn’t mean that she can apply it in this case (or that she was even trying), but it’s not a blanket “Congress can demand all communications, period”.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege

    Executive privilege is the right of the president of the United States and other members of the executive branch to maintain confidential communications under certain circumstances within the executive branch and to resist some subpoenas and other oversight by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of particular information or personnel relating to those confidential communications. The right comes into effect when revealing the information would impair governmental functions. Neither executive privilege nor the oversight power of Congress is explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution.[1] However, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that executive privilege and congressional oversight each are a consequence of the doctrine of the separation of powers, derived from the supremacy of each branch in its area of constitutional activity.[2]

    That being said, Congress is expected to perform oversight of the Executive Branch, and you don’t get to just invoke executive privilege every time they require you to provide information, either. I imagine that one could wind up with court cases and more case law finding the limits of the privilege if it comes up, especially if — as I assume will most-likely be the case — the Democrats take the House in the midterm elections and then start promptly use control of the House to start sticking their nose into everything Trump’s been doing.