Senators try to quiet Harris, but she doesn't back down

[riversedge]

Source: CNN





By Jeremy Herb, CNN

Updated 4:51 PM ET, Wed June 7, 2017

Story highlights

Sen. Kamala Harris grilled deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at a hearing Wednesday
The exchange prompted Republican senators to stop interrupting

(CNN)Senate intelligence committee Chairman Richard Burr shut down a line of questioning from California Sen. Kamala Harris at Wednesday's high-profile hearing, admonishing her and other Democrats to stop cutting off witnesses.

The move rankled some on Twitter who argued the North Carolina Republican was singling out Harris, one of three women on the intelligence panel, during Wednesday's contentious hearing.


Harris was pressing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein over whether he would sign a letter to give Special Counsel Robert Mueller full independence from the Justice Department in his probe, which would have the same effect as a letter issued for then-Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in the investigation into the 2003 leaking of then-covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.

RELATED: Kamala Harris rips up the script

"Senator, I'm very sensitive about time and I'd like to have a very lengthy conversation and explain that all to you," Rosenstein told Harris.
"Can you give me a 'yes or no' answer?" Harris responded.

"It's not a short answer, senator," Rosenstein said...........................

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/07/politics/kamala-harris-senate-intelligence-hearing/index.html?sr=twpol060717kamala-harris-senate-intelligence-hearing0945PMVODtopLink&linkId=38465739

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There is a video clip at the link.

Bravo to both of these women.

Link to tweet

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Kamala is sincerely at a disadvantage there. She is a patriot and a law abiding citizen

who respects the law and country and constitution.

Republicans are the opposite, all of them.

[Lyricalinklines]

7. I believe THEY are the issue!

I'm sure we are in agreement.

I do see a difference when the focus is on their actions and not excusing them because she's at disadvantage.

They are lying. They are covering up for each other. We can see that and yet having no absolute "smoking gun" we fall into habit of existing their actions.

Diligence in this will turn the tide, so to speak. It will focus attention on their actions.

Otherwise, we're simply enabling them with our speech.

[Eliot Rosewater]

19. I was doing sarcasm; patriots, i.e. liberals, are at a disadvantage in that these

modern day repubs will destroy this country if we let them, while we are telling ourselves "well I know they are assholes but they wouldnt do that"

Whatever "that" it like privatizing ATC, national parks, destroying Medicare and SS, they are going to do all that.

[Cha]

2. Mahalo, rivers!

[DK504]

3. Did the douchebag want to man-splain those hard things like traitors and shit.

Wanna be Skeleton seems to have forgotten she was AG of California. What an asshole.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. And note that they let Angus rip the panel a new one

but Burr walked the hell all over Kamala.

She persisted. Her ending comment - "So I guess that is a no?"

[ancianita]

5. Rosenstein answered her well. She was confrontational, in my view, and ignorant of how

high level FBI investigations are historically not subject to the politics she insists are a potential derailment of it all.

Rosenstein explained why the hierarchal structure of his and Mueller's positions won't be used as a political tool.

[still_one]

8. Was Elizabeth Warren also confrontational when she started reading Coretta Scott King's letter

regarding Sessions, and McConnel thought it was inappropriate because she was impugning the character of , and silenced her?

[ancianita]

12. Not at all. Can you see the difference in the contexts?

[still_one]

13. I think it can be argued for both. Each Senator was allocated a specific amount of time, and each

one had their allotted time taken away because those in control didn't agree with their presentations.

In Warren's case they felt it "unfairly tarnished Session's reputation", and in the Harris case they felt she was "rude to the person being questioned"

I would argue that both cases represented the double standard that republicans seem to wield about against women who don't "tow the line."

I think we are all aware of the 11-hour harassment that Hillary went through by republicans in Congress on Benghazi, and there sure wasn't any concern regarding their "rudeness" toward her.

There is a pattern of behavior here. In fact, subsequent aggressive questions by male Democrats who followed did not get reprimand, or their time taken away for questioning.

Today there will be questioning of Comey by Congress, and I suspect there will be rudeness toward Comey by some republicans that exceed what Senator Harris did, and if that occurs then we will get a front row see to the double standard I am referring to

[ancianita]

14. I'm fully with you about the double standard behind the wrongful admonition. I'm dealing with

the content of Harris' misunderstanding, as Rosenstein did.

The stupidity of the chair's reprimand simply compounded any public confusion about the purpose of Harris' questioning -- contentious without needing to be -- because she assumed that the structure of the FBI is as political -- and Mueller's position thereby as vulnerable -- as are the structures and positions she's worked in.

Pointing out the default sexism revealed by the chair's treatment of Harris over King is fine, but it's not as important as the point debated about the structural stability of the Independent Investigator Mueller in relation to his bosses.

My takeaway: rudeness can't take precedence over the content of an investigation. Attention only to style and tone clouds the clarity of the content.

Today, everyone watching will be more aware that a chair's moderating any member's speech is inappropriate and unprofessional, and so yesterday's point about Harris is well taken.

But yesterday's points on double standards must not be the guiding frame for understanding today's exchange between Comey and any questioners.

I'm over that. I'm trying to see how clearly Comey lays out the obstruction of justice evidence.

[still_one]

15. To be cynical, this is more about political theater, and less about getting at the truth

I understand your point regarding Harris, and the specifics relating to pushing so hard that it defeats the purpose of what she was trying to do.

[ancianita]

16. Crap, now Graham tries to force THE legal interpretation ahead of Mueller, saying no obstruction.

I hate that party-over-country political bullshit. I wouldn't have expected it from Graham, which means, probably, that McCain probably thinks the same thing.

Stupidity will never be an excuse for a president.

Not to be cynical or vindictive, but if stupidity wasn't an excuse over a blowjob impeachment, it sure as hell isn't any excuse about Agent Orange's multiple attempts to "talk" law enforcement out of doing their job.

[still_one]

17. Nothing surprises me anymore ancianita. However, Mr. Graham is not the person who

determines what constitutes obstructions

[ancianita]

20. Right. But LG gets the ball rolling on RW media momentum to push for a "no obstruct" decision.

We know how we'll have to fight the whole series of arguments that they use from this point forward.

It's put out there to solidify the base believing what it wants beyond all evidence.

[vkkv]

6. Go Kamala! We Californians are proud of you!

"Kamala" is also the name of the courtesan who taught Siddhartha the art of love in the Herman Hesse book.. a name to remember!

[still_one]

9. Yes we are proud of her

[stuffmatters]

11. Harris was the ultimate pro.. Can't say the same of interference running Rs, McCain&Burr.

She even described how the witness was going to evade answering before he, in fact, did!

[NBachers]

10. Notice that John McCain was first to jump right in there and silence her, too.

[yellowcanine]

18. "Yet she persisted."