Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said that Trump is aggressively trying to obstruct the Russia investigation by muzzling witnesses.
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Rep. Swalwell said on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, “Yesterday we saw in our committee I believe the most aggressive effort by the white house to obstruct our effort to get the truth. Steve Bannon claimed that the White House is asserting three privileges. One, that he cannot talk about anything that occurred during the transition. That has never been upheld or asserted before. Two, that he can’t talk about anything during his time with the executive branch. Now, there are some privileges that exist there, but they took it as far to mean if he had a drink at a bar and talked to a friend about anything in the world, we couldn’t ask him about that. And then third, the most stunning assertion was that even once Steve Bannon left the white house in August of 2017, any conversations he had with the president that he was asked about that he could not relay what he had said. And so it’s quite concerning, we’re a nation — we have a rule of law and the White House is seeking to muzzle witnesses.”
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It is absurd that the White House tried to claim that Bannon’s conversations with Trump were privileged after he left the administration. The White House is trying to stretch the definition of executive privilege to cover any conversation that anyone had with Trump at any time. The White House is worried about Trump’s conversations because Trump’s inability to shut up means that it is a given that he said something to someone that was self-incriminating.
Innocent people don’t try to shut down investigations. Donald Trump is hiding something, and he is running out of time. If Democrats take back the House a real investigation is coming, which means that teetering Trump presidency is living on borrowed time.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
